US

The fly that landed on Mike Pence during vice presidential debate has already done more for LGBT+ rights than he has his entire life

Mike Pence fly LGBT+

A fly rests on the head of US Vice President Mike Pence as he takes notes during the vice presidential debate against US Democratic vice presidential nominee and Senator from California Kamala Harris in Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah on October 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah. (ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty)

The fly that landed on Mike Pence during the vice presidential debate Wednesday (7 October) has begun campaigning for LGBT+ rights on Twitter.

Despite intense pressure from activists for debate moderator Susan Page to grill Mike Pence on LGBT+ rights and his rampant homophobia, the vice presidential debate did not see a single question on the queer community.

Pence, who continually spoke over both Page and senator Kamala Harris, defended Donald Trump’s description of white supremacists as “very fine people” and his disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the unlikely star of the show turned out to be a rogue house fly that spent two full minutes perched on the vice president’s head.

If you were concerned that the fly’s proximity to Pence meant that it valued “religious liberty” over the rights and dignity of the queer community, worry no longer.

“Mike Pence’s Fly” is now on Twitter, and it is a staunch defender of LGBT+ rights.

The fly, who has more than 90,000 followers, is raising money to end conversion therapy via social media, meaning it has already done more for the LGBT+ community than Pence has done during his entire career.

The fly’s fame is even helping to keep Trump out of office for a second term, as Joe Biden’s campaign has started selling a “truth over flies” fly swatter to raise funds.

A fly has a better LGBT+ rights record that US vice president Mike Pence.

In contrast to the fly, Mike Pence has an abysmal record when it comes to LGBT+ rights. 

Throughout his career, the vice president has consistently fought against rights for the LGBT+ community.

He fought to ban same-sex marriage for more than a decade, and insisted that he was “disappointed” when marriage equality was legalised across the US in 2015, and supported the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ rule, which prevented gay, lesbian and bisexual people from serving openly in the military.

He has also publicly supported conversion therapy, opposed hate crime protections, and even doubted the existence of anti-LGBT+ hate crimes.

In 2017 the New Yorker reported that Trump had made fun of his vice president’s extreme religious views during a meeting with a legal scholar.

As the discussion turned to LGBT+ rights, the president motioned to Pence and joked: “Don’t ask that guy – he wants to hang them all!”

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