Chris Lange, FISM News
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President Joe Biden appeared to signal a willingness to impose a nationwide transgender law in a recent interview.
Biden criticized Florida’s law banning transgender medical procedures on minor children as “cruel” and “close to sinful” during an interview with actor Kal Penn, a clip of which was released on Monday.
“What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, ‘close to sinful.’ I mean, it’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Biden told Penn, who is one of several “Daily Show” guest hosts temporarily filling in for the role vacated by Noah Trevor last year.
“And the way we do it is we make sure we pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable,” the president said.
Florida passed a law banning what LGBTQ advocates euphemistically refer to as “gender-affirming health care” for minors who experience gender dysphoria. The Florida Board of Medicine voted in October to ban sex change surgeries and hormone therapy for children under 18, citing harmful and often irreversible effects of such interventions that can include chemical castration and the removal of healthy sex organs and tissue.
Biden said in October that no state should have the right to ban such procedures during an interview with Dylan Mulvaney, a man who identifies as a woman. Mulvaney achieved social media stardom for adopting a stereotyped “hyper-feminine” persona, as The Daily Caller put it.
Asked by Mulvaney if he believed that states should have the authority to ban gender-affirming medical interventions, Biden replied: “I don’t think any state or anybody should have the right to do that, as a moral question and a legal question.
“I just think it’s wrong,” the president continued. “I feel very, very strongly that you should have every single solitary right, including, including use of your gender identity bathroom in public,” Biden tossed in for good measure.
During the Daily Show interview, Penn asked the 80-year-old commander-in-chief about the evolution of his position on “marriage equality,” after which the “Harold & Kumar” star and former Obama White House staffer noted that he has been engaged to his partner, Josh, for five years.
Biden described an “epiphany” he had during his senior year of high school. The president said that, while on an outing with his father, he witnessed two men kissing for the first time. Biden said that he looked at his dad, who declared: “Joey, it’s simple — they love each other.”
The President added: “It’s just that simple. It doesn’t matter whether it’s same-sex or a heterosexual couple. You should be able to be married. What is the problem?”
Biden urged Penn to “get married. Do it now. Don’t wait.”
Despite the alleged “epiphany” when he was just 18, Biden voted in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which officially defined marriage as between one man and one woman federally in 1996, when the then-Senator was 53 years old.
This report was partially informed by Daily Caller and Yahoo!Entertainment reports.