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LGBT Community “Uneasy” After Trump, Pence Win

BLOOMSBURG — Donald Trump’s running mate, Vice President-elect Mike Pence is known as a devout conservative Christian, who has said he does not supp...

BLOOMSBURG -- Donald Trump's running mate, Vice President-elect Mike Pence is known as a devout conservative Christian, who has said he does not support same-sex marriages and does support allowing businesses to deny service to gays on religious beliefs.

Now, many people in the LGBT community are wondering how the new administration could impact them.

Malik Muhammad and Gretchen Osterman are faculty at Bloomsburg University and run the LGBTQA Resource Center on campus.

Not only do they provide education and information for the gay community, they provide a safe space for students.

“Come and just hang out,” said Muhammad. “You know a lot of times on college campuses students that identify within the queer community don't have a space to kind of declare their own and this is what we kind of provide for them.”

After last night’s historic presidential election, Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence will now usher in a new administration in the next year.

That's made many in the LGBT community uneasy as Pence, a staunch Christian conservative, is not in support of same-sex marriage.

Both Pence and Trump support the First Amendment Defense Act which would allow businesses and organizations to deny service to gays on religious grounds.

“This comes down to a basic human rights issue,” said Muhammad. “And to take away those rights and to try to alienate us in a way that pence and potentially trump are trying to do it's just totally disheartening.”

“There's some many happy marriages that have come out in the last few years,” said Osterman. “People that are close to me that have made decisions to become partners forever.”

With Trump is vowing to repeal all that the Obama administration has put in place, Muhammad and Osterman say they only hope he doesn't attempt to undo the progress the gay community has made over the last eight years.

“Of course my hope is not, that they would respect the supreme court ruling, that if they attempted that process, that our community and many other communities would have an outcry,” said Osterman.

According to the LGBT Resource Center, November is Transgender Awareness Month.

The center has events planned throughout the month.

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