Jennifer Lawrence lashed out at Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence during an awards ceremony in New York on Saturday evening for his support of conversion therapy and his opposition to gay marriage.
The movie star, who attended the 2024 GLAAD Media Awards to introduce and honor her “favorite musician and close friend Orville Peck,” took the stage to express her love for the gay community.
“I love seeing so many people who can add to their field while still having a base of power,” Lawrence said.
Speaking candidly about how she once fell in love with a gay man “whom she tried to convert for years,” Lawrence saw an opportunity to attack Pence after he claimed “I know conversion therapy doesn’t work.”
“Did you hear me, Mike Pence? “I said conversion therapy isn’t real, even though I know you think it worked for you,” she said.
Jennifer Lawrence took a swipe at Trump’s former vice president during the GLAAD Media Awards in New York on Saturday evening
Lawrence took a jab at Pence, claiming that “conversion therapy doesn’t work.” In 2000, Pence publicly advocated for programs that provide help to people who want to change their sexual behavior
‘He’s in New York tonight. He receives a Kid’s Choice Award for weirdest d***.’
In accepting the award, Peck said he was a singer-songwriter in a genre that wasn’t always the most open to the LGBTQ community.
“I’m one of many here who have felt left out or held back because of who we are,” Peck said, adding that queer people still manage to “turn tragedy into art, humor and culture.”
Pence, a former governor of Indiana who has been married to his wife Karen since 1985, has been criticized by LGBTQ activists for more than two decades for supporting conversion therapy and opposing gay marriage.
Pence also reportedly supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as governor of Indiana, which was criticized as anti-LGBTQ legislation.
In 2000, Pence publicly advocated for programs that provide help to people who want to change their sexual behavior – which many saw as an encouragement for conversion therapy.
He called on Congress to “support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after the completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars are no longer given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behavior that are spreading the HIV virus.” virus facilitates.
“Resources should be focused on institutions that provide assistance to those who want to change their sexual behavior,” he added.
Nearly two decades later, the former vice president opposed gay marriage and supported a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Pence, pictured with his wife Karen, also opposed the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that banned soldiers from openly identifying as gay.
Additionally, he opposed a law that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people in the workplace.
Pence also opposed the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy that banned soldiers from openly identifying as gay.
More recently, as part of his 2024 presidential bid, Pence said that as president he would again ban transgender Americans from serving in the military, as was the policy when he was vice president under Donald Trump: “…with transgender personnel, I believe, erodes unit cohesion in a very unique way.”
The politician has been criticized on several occasions for his controversial positions, including an incident in which US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg condemned Pence’s discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
“If I were gay, it was a choice made far, far above my pay grade. And that’s what I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand,” he said at a 2019 LGBTQ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch.
‘I don’t know what’s in his heart. “If you hold public office and promote homophobic policies, at some level it doesn’t matter whether you do it out of political calculation or out of genuine conviction.”
“The problem is it hurts other people,” Buttigieg added.
Last year the Campaign for human rights denounced Pence’s 2024 bid for the White House, stating: “Mike Pence’s vision for the country is dangerously out of step with average American’s views on freedom and equality, and his potential presidency would have devastating consequences for the safety of the LGBTQ+ community and the ability of our people to live as full members of society.”
Following Lawrence’s comments, there is no scientific evidence to support the practice of conversion therapy, which attempts to psychologically or spiritually change the sexual orientation of LGBTQ people.
The practice has also been widely discredited by medical and mental health organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, which say conversion therapy can be dangerous.
Proponents of the harmful practice claim it can “fix” a person’s same-sex attraction and turn someone “straight.”
Medical associations have said the idea of conversion therapy has chipped away at the idea that homosexuality is a disorder, an idea “that has been rejected by all major mental health professions.”