Attorney General Pam Bondi held a news conference on Sept 27 2016
That’s how Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s latest pick to be his attorney general in a second Trump administration, described her support for the LGBTQ+ community in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Copper in 2016 as “Different color rainbow hands,” referring to an illustration of clasped hands posted on her Florida Attorney General website following the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.
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Her history with the LGBTQ+ community in the state tells a different story.
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Bondi, 59 — who hopes to be confirmed as the nation’s top law enforcement official in the wake of fellow Floridian Matt Gaetz’s abrupt withdrawal from consideration on Thursday — is on the record as a staunch opponent of marriage equality.
At the height of the marriage equality battle in the courts leading to the landmark Obergefell v Hodges decision by the Supreme Court in 2015, Bondi was a vocal opponent of same-sex unions.
In 2014, Bondi filed a response asking a federal judge to throw out a marriage equality case in Florida, arguing that recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states would result in what she called “significant public harm.”
Bondi’s declaration was part of a protracted, and ultimately unsuccessful, legal fight to preserve Florida’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Her office incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs as she continued to fight same-sex marriage in the state, even after bans in nearly 20 states had been struck down, according to CNN.
A court filing from Bondi asserted that an injunction to block the ban in her state, effectively allowing same-sex marriage, “would irreparably harm the State of Florida.”
Bondi persisted with a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Florida’s gay marriage prohibition.
Equality Florida described Bondi’s response at the time as “deplorable.”
“The only Florida families suffering harm are the LGBT families who continue to be discriminated against. Pam Bondi is on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of Florida public opinion, which shows 57% of Floridians now favor marriage equality,” Nadine Smith, CEO of the advocacy organization, wrote at the time.
Unlike Bondi, “Attorneys General in states across the country have upheld their duty to the U.S. Constitution by refusing to defend a law that so clearly violates basic rights,” Smith added.
After the Pulse shooting in June of 2016, the longtime Trump supporter tried to rewrite history and hold herself up as a staunch defender of LGBTQ+ rights. Bondi endorsed Trump for president the same year.
Shortly after the massacre, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Bondi, “Do you really think you are a champion of the gay community?” He shared that a large portion of the LGBTQ+ community in Orlando had told him she was “being a hypocrite.”
Bondi claimed she was seeking to uphold the state constitution.
“That’s what I was defending,” she said. “It had nothing to do — I’ve never said I don’t like gay people. That’s ridiculous.”
Asking about her opposition to marriage equality, Cooper continued, “Are you saying you do not believe it would do harm to Florida?”
“Of course not, of course not,” Bondi replied. “Gay people – no, I’ve never said that. Those words have never come out of my mouth.”
But they had.
Bondi comes to her nomination for U.S. attorney general with close ties to Trumpworld.
As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi sat on the fence when a multi-state lawsuit was filed against Trump University, brought on behalf of students who claimed they’d been cheated. Following a $25,000 donation from a Trump-funded nonprofit, Bondi’s office declined to join the suit.
After leaving her Florida attorney general post, Bondi joined Trump’s first impeachment trial team and was later recruited to the MAGA-affiliated nonprofit America First Policy Institute, chaired by Trump’s pick for secretary of education, Linda McMahon.
Like Trump’s first attorney general nominee Gaetz, McMahon is facing legal troubles after an indictment in October, alleging she was complicit in the sexual abuse of teenage “ring boys” at the WWE during her tenure.
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