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#White house press release orlando gay bar shooting series
He was joined by other LGBTQ members of his administration, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who warned of "an especially dangerous political strategy" arising in some states that are pushing a series of new laws to restrict transgender rights.īuttigieg, the first openly gay cabinet secretary confirmed by the Senate, accused politicians behind those laws of trying to gain a political advantage "by picking on transgender kids."
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The House approved its own version of the bill on May 12.Īt the Pride event in the White House East Room, Biden celebrated the progress that has been made on LGBTQ rights but warned that the fight is far from over. Legislation to establish the memorial passed the Senate on June 9, three days before the fifth anniversary of the attack. Patrons at the nightclub said Mateen had hung out at the bar for years. The Pulse gunman, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at the club before he was killed in a shootout with police. The attack on the club in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, was the nation’s deadliest mass shooting until a gunman killed 60 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas a year later. More: 'Keep dancing Orlando': Five years later, Pulse nightclub shooting survivors seek to embody strength of LGBTQ community The memorial won’t be a unit of the National Park System. The new law dictates that no federal funds can be used to establish the memorial, but county and state governments, as well as various corporations, have donated millions of dollars to the project.
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The project is estimated to cost $45 million. Plans call for a reflecting pool, an open-air museum and an education center with gardens and a public plaza. The Pulse nightclub law is part of an effort to build a permanent memorial at the site in honor of the 49 people gunned down five years ago by a man armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle. He also rescinded the Trump administration's ban on openly transgender servicemembers from serving in the military. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to make sure that statutes covering sex discrimination also bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The onePulse Foundation, the nonprofit group behind the push for a memorial, said in a statement the national designation means “that our federal government recognizes the depth of the tragedy of Pulse” and sends a message that “we will always outlove hate.”īiden, whom many advocates regard as the most LGBTQ-friendly president ever, has taken several steps to protect the rights of gay and transgender people since taking office in January. Bree Fram, one of the highest-ranking openly transgender members of the military, and youth transgender advocates Stella Keating and Ashton Mota of the GenderCool Project. David Cicilline, D-R.I., also attended the signing. "And in their memory, and for the countless others forever scarred, is why I sign this today."įirst lady Jill Biden and Congressional Equality Caucus members, including Sen. The president said those killed were "family members, parents, friends, veterans, students, young, Black, Asian, Latino – all fellow Americans." At the bill signing, Biden said the Pulse memorial represents a "monument to the loss that occurred" and "an absolute determination that we're going to deal with this every single solitary day, and make sure that we're not in a position to see this happen again."