The countdown to November 5 is officially underway as both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to come out on the other side of their campaigns victorious.
Former President turned convicted felon Donald Trump and his previous Vice President, Mike Pence, had a public falling out after Pence refused to challenge the electoral college votes after Trump made the false claim then President-elect Joe Biden stole the election.
Now with just a few weeks before the Republican National Convention and being convicted of 34 felonies, the former president finds himself in need of a “safe pick” for vice president.
According to reporting from CBS News, Trump has sent vetting paperwork to four potential vice president picks: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Each of these candidates are staunch conservatives and have records to reflect such. Qnotes has looked into each candidate reported to have received vetting papers from the Trump Campaign and how they each stand on LGBTQ+ rights and equality.
Here’s what we found.
Marco Rubio
The Florida U.S. Senator has been called out multiple times by LGBTQ+ advocates and organizations for anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and stances.
In 2022, the Human Rights Campaign released a statement saying Rubio received a “score of 0 out of 100” for a HRC Congressional Scorecard for the 117th Congress, which scored members of Congress based on a range of indicators regarding their support for the LGBTQ+ support.
“Sen. Marco Rubio is one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ politicians in America and a threat to every LGBTQ+ person in Florida,”said then Human Rights Campaign National Campaign Director Geoff Wetrosky. “He has a dismal voting record, supports restrictive abortions laws, and opposes marriage equality and nondiscrimination protections. And, on more than one occasion, Rubio has used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that makes clear he doesn’t care about LGBTQ+ people and our families.”
Rubio faced criticism for calling the Respect for Marriage Act a “stupid waste of time,” and then he went on to vote against the act, which passed bipartisanly.
“I believe the definition of the institution of marriage should be between one man and one woman,” Rubio said in an interview on CBS. In the same interview he said, “I don’t believe same-sex marriage is a Constitutional right…. I also don’t believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for the vast and enormous majority of people. In fact…I believe that sexual preference is something that people are born with.”
According to the GLAAD Accountability Project, Rubio also has targeted drag, falsely claiming it exposed children to “sexually charged content.” He has also opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would make it illegal to discriminate in hiring or firing employees based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Most recently, Rubio came out against the Biden administration’s new guidance around Title IX protections, which were expanded to include trans and gender-nonconforming students in public schools.
“Equally disturbing is the likelihood that your department will weaponize Title IX to force a radical gender ideology in K-12 classrooms,” Rubio wrote in a letter addressed to the Secretary of Education. The letter also misgendered trans students.
Doug Burgum
Doug Burgum is the 33rd Governor of North Dakota, and according to reporting from MSNBC, he’s known as the poster child of small-town America.
He founded Great Plains Software in 1981 and then sold it to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion. Burgum was elected in 2016 as Governor, and many North Dakotans believed he was a better alternative than a career politician, but LGBTQ+ advocates claim he is as fickle as the corrupt politicians North Dakotans fear.
In July 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burgum made headlines for going against his party when hundreds of state Republican legislators proposed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
According to reporting from ABC News at the time, the GOP-led state legislature voted in favor of several dozen resolutions claiming to reinforce the state’s “conservative morals and values on marriage,” which it defined as a union between one man and one woman.
Burgum denounced the controversial proposal — which stated “LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large” — in a public address, calling it homophobic and divisive.
“As I’ve long said, all North Dakotans deserve to be treated equally and live free of discrimination,” Burgum said in a statement. “There’s no place for the hurtful and divisive rhetoric in the NDGOP resolutions.”
Burgum also vetoed a bill that would make it illegal to use a child’s preferred pronouns in schools, citing the proposed law would violate free speech.
“The First Amendment already prohibits compelled speech and protects teachers from speaking contrary to their beliefs,” he said.
In recent months, however, it appears Burgum has shifted in his beliefs. Just last year, the North Dakota GOP advanced 10 anti-LGBTQ+ laws, a record according to the Human Rights Campaign. Burgum signed HB 1254, which criminalizes medical care for trans youth and HB 1522, which bars policies on pronouns and requires separate accommodations for trans people.
Kristin Nelson, an advocate for queer youth in North Dakota, wrote in a op-ed for MSNBC that Burgum has disappointed LGBTQ+ people and allies in North Dakota.
“He slid from an independent governor exercising rational acceptance of queer people to a culture war champion aligned against them in just two short years, and it is pretty disconcerting to see a leader affected by misinformation in this way,” Nelson wrote. “Simply put, children and families in North Dakota have been let down by Burgum.”
Tim Scott
Scott is a U.S. Senator hailing from South Carolina, and if selected and Trump is victorious, he would become the first Black man to be sitting Vice President.
Despite being a marginalized individual himself, Scott has a record of supporting policy and legislation targeting other disenfranchised groups, including the LGBTQ+ community.
According to the GLAAD Accountability Project, the senator voted against the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and “considers homosexuality a morally wrong choice, like adultery.”
Reporting from conservative news outlet Fox News said Scott had “pushed a bill to ‘combat indoctrination in schools’ by cutting off federal funds from public elementary and middle schools whose staff addresses a student by a different pronoun or name without parental consent.”
Newsweek has also reported Scott “supports ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” and “opposes same-sex marriage,” all of which stems from what the senator has labeled “timeless principles.”
J.D. Vance
A U.S. Senator from Ohio, Vance has been a loud voice in the anti-LGBTQ+ movement, and his GLAAD Accountability Project file shows just that.
He was first elected to his seat in 2020 and has been vocal in his opposition to LGBTQ+ equality. One of the first things he did in office was attack Supreme Court justices from his own party for ruling LGBTQ+ employees should be protected from job discrimination in Bostock v. Clayton County. Vance tweeted: “The conservative legal movement has accomplished two things: libertarian political economy (enforced by judges) and betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists.” The post has since been removed.
Vance also went on infamous conservative conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon’s podcast, where he claimed it didn’t matter “what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
He also has consistently spread misinformation on his social media platforms, including posting “I’ll stop calling people “groomers” when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”
Vance also introduced the so-called “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which if passed, carries a Class C felony penalty for healthcare providers who give trans minors gender-affirming treatments.
“Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,” said Senator Vance.
The act also seeks to ban all taxpayer funding for gender-affirming care (citing specifically the Affordable Care Act), prohibit institutions of higher education from providing instruction on gender-affirming care and would deem individuals who are not citizens of the United States who have performed gender-affirming care on a minor ineligible to receive visas or admittance to the country.
