by Gerogia Mclellan

This might come as a surprise to many of you, but I will be voting for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. What? A gay woman isn’t a Donald Trump supporter? But Trump is so passionate and he speaks his mind. He also never degrades women and his running mate isn’t homophobic. So I can see how my decision to vote the other way might surprise you (did you all get the sarcasm?).

I have good reasons as to why I support Clinton over Trump. For starters, Trump is so misogynistic it physically pains me to see females blindly supporting him. Trump has been quoted numerous times saying or supporting degrading comments about women. Things like, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” or “A person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.” Are these things we should allow our mothers, sisters or daughters to hear?

Let me also bring up the three times Trump has been accused of rape. One of the incidents includes a 13-year-old girl. Yes, all of the lawsuits filed were dropped and comments from his ex-wife, Ivana Trump, were later rectified to claim she felt “violated” instead of raped. However, the fact these cases even exist is concerning.

Time and time again, Trump has shown the world just how he sees women, how he has treated them and how he will almost certainly keep treating them in the future. You cannot defend his comments and past actions as “locker room talk.” It’s called rape culture and people like him are a part of the problem.

So as a woman with a little

respect for other women, I cannot vote for Trump. Now as far as the gay part goes, I’m not really concerned with Trump, but rather his running mate, Mike Pence.

Pence, the Governor of Indiana, has passed discriminatory laws, thinly veiled as “religious liberty,” against the LGBT community. He signed Senate Bill 101, which “prohibits state or local governments from substantially burdening a person’s ability to exercise their religion.” This bill essentially allows Indiana businesses to deny service to LGBT people because it is their religious liberty in doing so.

This bill was clearly homophobic, but Pence argued it wasn’t about discrimination, but rather liberty for the clearly oppressed Christians. Pence also was a big proponent of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage back in 2006 and in 2013 he signed a bill that would jail same-sex couples in Indiana who applied for a marriage license.

Pence is hands down one of the biggest threats to the LGBT community. I have friends voting for Trump and I don’t think they realize the discrimination that comes with it, whether that is discrimination toward women, immigrants or LGBT people.

I don’t even know if some members of the LGBT community understand that. I know a gay man voting for Trump and I scratch my head and try to figure out why. At the Trump rally in Grand Junction last week, there was a sign reading “LGBT for Trump.” Does this person not read a lot or do they just hate their own community?

How can I possibly vote for a man who thinks I belong in prison for wanting to get married? A vote for Trump/Pence is a vote against the LGBT community and if I supported that I would be voting against myself.

Now I understand that Trump is still the favored candidate for many Americans and I respect that decision. Many of my close friends support him, though I wish they didn’t. The thing is that I will never respect Trump and I cannot vote for a misogynistic homophobe. Clinton might not be the perfect candidate and she has certainly made mistakes in the past, but she gets my vote and come election day, I hope she gets yours too. Long live “nasty women!”