Hillary Clinton celebrates bringing LGBT people together in concession speech after Trump victory
Hillary Clinton has celebrated moves forward for LGBT people in her concession speech after losing the Presidential election to Donald Trump.
Speaking on Wednesday afternoon, Clinton thanked her supporters, and again congratulated Trump for his victory.
Appearing teary-eyed in front of her audience after being relatively quiet following Tuesday night’s result, she said: “I hope he will be a successful president for all Americans.
“This is not the outcome we wanted or worked so hard for and I’m sorry we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country.
“But I feel pride and gratitude for this wonderful campaign that we built together. This vast, diverse, creative, unruly, energised campaign.”
She added that she felt that her campaign had brought together people, including LGBT+ people, and noted that hers was a vision of togetherness.
“We’ve spent a year and a half bringing together millions of people from every corner of our country to say with one voice that we believe the American Dream is big enough for everyone. For people of all races and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people and people with disabilities. For everyone,” she adds.
The US Presidential election was last night called for Trump, who won a shock victory over rival Clinton.
Secretary Clinton had held a narrow lead in polls ahead of the vote, but Mr Trump built up a lead in the electoral college system by taking swing states of Florida and North Carolina.
Trump had pledged to sign the ‘First Amendment Defence Act’ to permit religious homophobic discrimination, promised to “consider” appointing ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices to repeal equal marriage, and come out in favour of North Carolina’s anti-trans law – while running mate Mike Pence confirmed a plan to dismantle Barack Obama’s protections for LGBT people.
The Republican Platform passed earlier this year contained some of the most anti-LGBT provisions in decades, opposing a ban on ‘gay cure’ therapy and attacking same-sex adoption and parenting.
A hardline evangelical, the Governor of Indiana stirred up international outrage last year when he signed Indiana’s controversial ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’, which gave businesses the right to discriminate against gay people on the grounds of religion.
Governor Pence previously suggested that HIV prevention funding be drained in order to fund state-sponsored ‘gay cure’ therapy, and earlier this year appeared unable to answer when asked whether it should be legal to fire people because of their sexuality.
An investigation last month found that Pence approved extreme anti-LGBT articles when he was the head of the Indiana Policy Review journal in the 1990s.
