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ARTICLE
ARTICLEIt's a miracle when America can go 24 hours without President Trump doing or saying something wildly offensive.
Alas, today is not that day. For World AIDS Day on Friday, President Trump blatantly failed to address the LGBTQ community in his official White House Statement on the disease.
SEE ALSO: The best Maxine Waters moments of 2017"Today, on World AIDS Day, we honor those who have lost their lives to AIDS, we celebrate the remarkable progress we have made in combatting this disease, and we reaffirm our ongoing commitment to end AIDS as a public health threat," Trump said in a statement.
The LGBTQ community has historically suffered disproportionately from HIV. Advocacy groups across the board were outraged that Trump purposefully chose to neglect the group:
"Not only did the White House statement on World AIDS Day fail to mention the population in which two-thirds of HIV cases in the US occur — gay and bisexual men — it also failed to point out the disproportionate impact in communities of color, for gay and bisexual men of color, particularly young men of color, or for transgender women," Scott Schoets, Project Director at Lambda Legal, said in a statement.
.@realDonaldTrump issued a proclamation for #WorldAIDSDay, failing to mention high-risk communities, including #LGBTQ people and people of color. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also cancelled planned remarks about World AIDS Day. https://t.co/0BAN2gDcZm
— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) December 1, 2017
Critics have accused the president of engaging in an ongoing campaign to erase LGBTQ people from government. In January, the White House took down the LGBT rights page from the White House web site. In February, Trump reversed an Obama-era executive order protecting trans students in schools. One month later, the U.S. Census announced that it wouldn't be counting LGBT people in the census, making it all the more difficult for them to receive federal dollars and services in the future.
Then in August, Trump tweeted that he was banning transgender people from the military, which, uh, didn't go so well.
Here's something very gay for you that may make up for this all-too-depressing post.
It's important to let others know where you stand #babadook #Pennywise #CoupleGoals #HappyHalloween2017 pic.twitter.com/arFeJNwGto
— Tony Ochre (@tonyochre) October 31, 2017