Trump Chief Scientist Nominee: ‘LGBT Behavior Is a Choice They Make,’ Marriage Could Lead to Pedophilia, Polygamy
‘Defies Logic’ to Protect LGBT People
Sam Clovis, President Donald Trump‘s nominee to be the Chief Scientist at the Dept. of Agriculture, believes that the legalization of same-sex marriage can lead to pedophilia and polygamy, LGBT people should not be granted nondiscrimination protections, and being LGBT is not an innate characteristic but a choice. He is wrong on every point.
“Someone who engages in LGBT behavior — I don’t know what the science is on this, I think it’s still out — but as far as we know, LGBT behavior is a choice they make,” Clovis says wrongly, as CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Paul LeBlanc report (video below). “So we’re being asked to provide Constitutional protections for behavior, a choice in behavior as opposed to a primary characteristic.”
Clovis’ arguments are not based in science, and nearly every major medical organization not only around the country but around the world would disagree with his false claims.
“There’s no equivalency there between the civil rights issue associated between those protected classes and the civil rights of someone who engages in a particular behavior,” Clovis adds, in the video from his 2014 Senatorial campaign which he lost to Joni Ernst. “Follow the logic, if you engage in a particular behavior, what also becomes protected? If we protect LGBT behavior, what other behaviors are we going to protect? Are we going to protect pedophilia? Are we going to protect polyamorous marriage relationships? Are we going to protect people who have fetishes? What’s the logical extension of this? It can’t be that we’re going to protect LGBT and then we’ll pull up the ladder. That’s not going to happen, it defies logic. We’re not thinking the consequences of these decisions through.”
Clovis, when questioned, denies his views are “extreme,” but rather, “a logical extension of thought. And if you cannot follow the logic then you’re denying your in denial.”
67-years old, Clovis has failed to win the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate and Iowa State Treasurer, but was picked up by the Trump campaign as a policy advisor. Clovis has also supported Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.
CNN unearthed a good deal more of Clovis’ anti-LGBT beliefs, including that he thinks, as he says in the video, if same-sex couples are allowed to marry ministers and priests will “be accused of hate speech” for reading the Christian bible in church.
He calls same-sex marriage a “deception” by the LGBT community in order to obtain 14th Amendment protections. Clovis tells a young man in a local bakery it would be “dangerous” and “a very slippery slope” if “the people in that lifestyle get those protections.”
In a 2013 blog post Clovis makes similar arguments as he does in the video, but falsely adds that getting rid of traditional marriage is a goal of progressives.
“Dismantling marriage is one of the dual goals of this whole progressive effort,” he writes. “If the gay rights movement can get marriage redefined, then there will be further inroads made to undermine one of the pillars of American strength. Further, as the traditional family is about procreation, education, socialization and religious familiarization, that institution serves as a direct threat to the progressive movement’s aim of ridding society of God and coercing behaviors among those ruled in pursuit of the perfection of man through ‘progress.’ One should not be fooled.”
Clovis also believes that LGBT people deserve no federal nondiscrimination protections – and that religious protections must take priority over protecting LGBT civil rights.
“Homosexuality and personal choices about one’s sexual preferences is not at issue. Businesses today have extended support to life partners in a number of ways. It’s just good business if that is what it takes to get the best person for the job,” added Clovis.”On the other hand, businesses and their owners should be able to make decisions about who is employed if hiring people who do not behave in accordance with some deeply held religious belief system is at issue. Just as the government should not force business owners or enterprises to provide contraceptives or morning-after pills because of religious beliefs, the government should not be in charge of hiring practices, either. Religious freedom, perhaps the most fundamental of all protected freedoms, must be free of government interference.”
LGBT groups are speaking out.
“Unfit & unacceptable,” is how Lambda Legal described Clovis, after the CNN story was published. GLAAD posted this tweet:
That’s not how logic works, Sam Clovis. https://t.co/VEZE6QS634
— GLAAD (@glaad) August 21, 2017
“Few less qualified to be USDA’s top scientist” says HRC president Chad Griffin.
To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.Â
This article has been updated to correctly identify the federal agency as the USDA, not the FDA.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
