Neighbors living next door to the home near Aspen, CO, where Mike Pence and his wife have been spending their holiday vacation have a message for the vice president.
The daughters of a couple that lives in the home next door to where the Pences are staying posted a rainbow–colored banner this week declaring, “Make America Gay Again.” The banner was posted on a pillar at the end of the driveways of both homes, The Aspen Times reported.
Initially, Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo mistakenly attributed the hanging of the banner to a man who lives at the home, the Times noted, but the sheriff’s description of an interaction between that man and one of the sheriff’s deputies is charming:
“He was real sheepish and thought he might be confronted by the Secret Service or deputies who’d tell him he couldn’t do it,” DiSalvo said. “When they said, ‘We’re not here to control your free speech rights,’ they came out with chili and began feeding them.”
Yes, the couple actually brought chili and corn muffins to sheriff’s deputies and Secret Service agents guarding the vice president.
“They’ve been really nice to us,” DiSalvo told the newspaper, referring to Pence’s neighbors.
What hasn’t been nice is Pence’s track record of discriminating against members of the LGBTQ community. Pence reportedly is such a homophobe that even President Donald Trump has made comments about it.
A profile in The New Yorker last October described a meeting between Trump and a legal scholar that turned to the topic of gay rights. Referring to Pence, Trump said, “Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!”
As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Pence, who claims to be a Christian, supported a 2006 amendment that would have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, The Hill reported. He said that legalizing same–sex marriage would cause a “societal collapse.”
According to The Aspen Times, Pence also “opposed a law prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace” and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
In another attack on the community this week, the Trump administration fired the remaining members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. As Splinter’s Emma Roller reported, “it’s hard not to see Vice President Mike Pence’s fingerprints on this decision.”