NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, put a spotlight on the egregious anti-LGBTQ history of conservative commentator, author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted in 2014 of violating campaign finance laws, and who was pardoned by President Trump today.

D’Souza’s offensive actions and remarks include laying part of the blame for the 9/11 attacks on LGBTQ people, outing his college classmates at Dartmouth, and claiming that President Obama supported marriage equality because of his “pathological hatred for traditional Christianity.” More recently D’Souza callously mocked survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting that left 17 of their fellow students and teachers dead.

“Dinesh D’Souza, who has blamed LGBTQ people in part for the tragic attacks on our nation on 9/11, may reflect the values of President Trump, but he does not reflect the values of this nation,” said Zeke Stokes, Vice President of Programs at GLAAD. There is simply no place in our discourse for this ignorance and hate that we hear all too often being espoused by members of the Trump Administration and its surrogates.”

GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project has documented more than 75 direct attacks on LGBTQ people since President Trump took office.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Dinesh D’Souza’s Extreme Anti-LGBTQ Views

• Insists: “Gay activists hope to legitimize their lifestyle by promoting a view of sexuality that is completely severed from reproduction,” “homosexuality is an ideology,” and that “The real goal of the gay movement is to break down moral resistance to the homosexual lifestyle”
• Said of the gay rights debate: “What some of these gays really want is a law that says what they do is not immoral, not disgusting and they are not going to hell”
• Has declared that “the cultural left is responsible for 9/11,” with Islamic reaction to “the sights of hundreds of homosexuals kissing each other” being central to his argument.
• Has repeatedly attempted to make a connection between Nazis, Hitler, and homosexuality
• Mocked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s impassioned apology to LGBTQ2 people as “high comedy”
• Supporting the right of religious business owners to discriminate, demands that “a gay couple looking for a service can GO ELSEWHERE”
• Insisted California’s high court committed “legal fraud” in siding against the discriminatory and unconstitutional Proposition 8
• While a student at Dartmouth, was known for outing gay classmates
• On the very day of the shooting at a Florida gay club, grossly politicized it like so: “I bet Obama would have preferred that the #FloridaNightclub shooting was perpetrated not by a Muslim but by an angry Christian baker”
• Claimed President Obama supported marriage equality because of his “pathological hatred for traditional Christianity”
• Promoted an Indian program for “curing homosexuality”
• Mocked President Obama for appearing on the cover of Out magazine, seemingly suggesting that he is secretly gay
• Wrote of transgender people: “THE TRANSGENDER ENIGMA: Age, weight & height are objective measures–they aren’t just “in the mind”–so why should gender be any different?”
• Defended Trump walking in on women at the Miss Universe competition because “now fine for men to use women’s bathrooms.”
• Mocked Eric Holder by suggesting he had become transgender
• Apropos to nothing, suggested the San Bernardino shooter was transgender
• Mocked the Anne Frank Center for supporting transgender soldiers.
• Mocked Adam Rippon for not visiting the White House, tweeting: “But he will be there no doubt at the Folsom Street Fair”