CNN aired a Friday segment featuring a lesbian couple that worried that President-elect Donald Trump might ban gays from getting married and adopting children.
The “CNN Newsroom with Pamela Brown” highlighted writer Shelby Wax’s op-ed for Vogue, where she shared fears that Trump would block her wedding and ability to have children in his second term. Anchor Pamela Brown noted Trump’s support for gay marriage and people, but that did not reassure Wax. (RELATED: Biden Admin Funding Theatrical Productions To Teach Africans About LGBTQ Rights)
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“Shelby, you write about how Trump’s victory has spurred you and others in the LGBTQ+ community to get married now, rather than wait. That is happening,” Brown said. “Tell us more about those conversations and what you’re doing in your own life in response.”
“First off, thank you so much for having us on, Pamela. It‘s very exciting. So I think as I said, the morning after the election, I woke up and it was just this feeling of fear, but also this need to take action. I think those in the queer community, we follow Supreme Court cases, all these things very closely,” Wax said. “And I remember when Roe v. Wade was overturned. Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion that he wanted to look at Obergefell v Hodges next, which gives the right to queer folks around this country to get legally married. And so for us, we thought, okay, we are already planning to get married. Why not just shore up our legal rights a little further? Let’s make things official.”
The writer explained that she and her fiancé, Olivia Rosen, who CNN also featured in the segment, will have a small wedding before the president-elect’s inauguration, but are also still planning to have a large wedding in 2025 under Trump’s tenure. She said “other queer engaged people” she knows “are doing the exact same thing.”
Brown asked Rosen what her “biggest fear” is for Trump’s second term.
“Yeah I mean, I think, to me marriage is a human right and I think that’s at stake right now,” Rosen said. “And it’s something that we should be proactive about.”
She expressed gratitude to live in New York, but expressed fear about traveling to other states.
“I worry, you know when Shelby and I are traveling or I have a work trip and something happens, God forbid, you know, will I be able to visit my wife in the hospital? And I think it’s a legitimate concern, and it’s something that we’re really fighting for, and we’re fighting for others as well,” Rosen added.
“Especially if things go back to the states,” Wax chimed in.
Brown noted that Trump named “married gay man” Scott Bessent to serve as his treasury secretary. She also said that Trump has received backing from gay organizations and that Mar-a-Lago has hosted gay weddings.
“Does any of that provide solace to you, Shelby?” Brown asked.
“Not necessarily. I think if we look back to Trump’s last term, we can see actions he took that, you know, now, under his term, people could stop making cakes for gay couples for their weddings and that would be a legal right of theirs,” Wax said. “They took trans people out of the military. I think there’s so many things in his actions that we have seen that have been scary in the past, and so at this point, we’re just trying to be pragmatic and logistical and think about what can we do to protect our own family.”
The writer asserted she and Rosen are “a normal American couple” that only wants “to be happy and live the American dream” and ensure their “rights are protected.”
Wax’s op-ed also expressed fear about adopting children.
“Would I ever be allowed to have children with my fiancée via IUI or IVF? Will I even be allowed to adopt a child? If we do have a child, would we both be able to be their legal parents?” she wrote. “If we cross state lines, would our marriage not be recognized? Would I not be able to visit my future wife in the hospital if she gets hurt or sick? Will my family be recognized as a family by my country?”
Trump has repeatedly asserted that he does not support a national abortion ban, despite supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The president-elect said in 2016, shortly after beginning his first term in office, that he was “fine” with the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in 2015.
“As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology, believe me,” he said while accepting his 2016 nomination at the Republican National Convention.
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