Taylor Swift kicked off Pride Month by taking a stand for LGBTQ rights.
On Saturday, the singer-songwriter published a letter that encouraged Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander to support the Equality Act. The House-approved bill aims to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination in public settings, including schools and the workplace. The Equality Act will now go before the Republican-held Senate. A senior official recently told NBC News the Trump administration opposes the bill's passage.
"I personally reject the President’s stance that his administration, 'supports equal treatment of all,' but that the Equality Act, 'in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights. No," Swift wrote in her letter to Republican Sen. Alexander. "One cannot take the position that one supports a community, while condemning it in the next breath as going against 'conscience' or 'parental rights. That statement implies that there is something morally wrong with being anything other than heterosexual and cisgender, which is an incredibly harmful message to send to a nation full of healthy and loving families with same-sex, nonbinary or transgender parents, sons or daughters."
Swift went on to emphasize the importance of these protections by citing several statistics and studies that indicate widespread support for the measure. She then encouraged her followers to join her in the fight for equal rights by signing her newly launched Change.org petition. The page lists a goal of 75,000 signatures; as of press time, the petition had garnered more than 63,000.
The 29-year-old "ME!" singer remained apolitical throughout her career, prompting a wave of backlash among her fans. But that all changed in fall 2018, when she endorsed endorsed Tennessee Democrats for the midterms.
"In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now," Swift said at the time. "I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country."
