PITTSBURGH – First lady Jill Biden made a surprise visit to Pittsburgh on Saturday to speak at the Pride celebration on the city’s North Side, warning the audience about the stakes of the 2024 LGBTQ rights election.
“Every June, we gather in communities across the country to celebrate how far we have come, to reflect on each act of courage that is still necessary to live an authentic life, and to honor the courage it takes to stand up for what is right.” – added. Biden told this to the crowd, which waved Biden-Harris posters embossed with rainbows.
“But it shouldn’t take courage to be yourself,” she continued. “It shouldn’t take courage to go to school and walk down the hall as someone you know. You don’t have to have the courage to hold someone’s hand on the bus, kiss someone goodbye on the sidewalk, or love the person you love. It shouldn’t be, but in too many places it still is.”
Biden stated that rights and freedoms will be taken away from the LGBTQ community in 2024. “More and more state laws are being passed that target this community,” Biden said. “We had to fend off 50 anti-gay amendments that Republicans tried to cram into the government funding bill.”
Last fall, Republicans in Congress introduced federal government-wide budget bills that would cut health care and weaken protections for same-sex couples; The bills ranged from limiting federal funding for gender-affirming care to prohibiting the exploit of federal funds to fly Pride flags over government buildings.
The U.S. House GOP is focusing on federal LGBTQ and racial equality policies in its spending bills
“And they only served one purpose,” Biden said Saturday. “To spread hatred and fear.”
Biden said presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was found guilty of 34 crimes in a New York courtroom on Thursday, is “dangerous” to the LGBT community. “We can’t let him win. We must get through this moment as if our fundamental rights were at stake, because they are,” she said. “We will secure a future so that people around the world can feel the freedom and pride that we feel here today. I hope you know I love you and your president loves you.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Biden was introduced by Nathaniel Yap, a Pittsburgh resident who serves on Gov. Josh Shapiro’s LGBTQ committee. Yap brought her husband and their two children on stage and said he would vote for President Biden in November to protect LGBTQ families.
“President Biden is the person I trust to make the Supreme Court nominations we need to protect our families and others across the country,” Yap said.
Scattered chants of “free Palestine” could be heard from the audience during Jill Biden’s speech on Saturday, but they were mostly drowned out by louder chants of “four more years” and general applause for Biden during and after her brief remarks.
Before she took the stage, she took photos with dozens of Pride guests for about 15 minutes and stopped at several of the festival’s vendor booths to talk to the owners.
Biden, a community college educator, kicked off her brief Saturday visit to western Pennsylvania with the inauguration of Erie County Community College, where delivered the keynote speech.
She told the alumni audience that “charter school should be free.” President Biden has proposed expanding tuition-free college in its fiscal 2025 budget.
Jill Biden praised Erie students for their achievements at a relatively youthful university; Erie County Community School open in 2021 and she finished first grade students in 2023
“We are very proud of you,” she said. “When people told you this town was too tiny or that it would be too tough to start a modern school, you fought for it anyway because Erie doesn’t do ‘can’t do.’
Pennsylvania is a key battleground state in the 2024 election. Both President Joe Biden and Trump have visited the state multiple times this year. More recently, Biden appeared with Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on Wednesday to launch a campaign for Black voters.
Trump’s last campaign stop in Pennsylvania was an April rally in the Lehigh Valley.
The Trump campaign will open its first office in Philadelphia next week, – reports the Philadelphia Inquirer., but there is no information yet whether the candidate will be present in person. The Biden campaign has 24 offices across the Keystone State, including in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which are heavily Democratic, but also in areas that tend to favor Republican candidates, such as York and Lancaster.
Latest polls Trump with a slight advantage Biden.
Multiple national ratings points including Cook Political Reportcontinue to rate the 2024 presidential race as a “toss” in Pennsylvania, where 19 electoral votes are on the line.
Biden defeated Trump in Pennsylvania just over 80,000 votes in 2020
