Politics

FACT CHECK: Did Joe Biden Say ‘Bible Believing Christians’ Violate LGBTQ Rights ‘By Simply Existing’?

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An image shared on Facebook claims former Vice President Joe Biden said that “Bible believing Christians” violate LGBTQ rights “by simply existing.”

Verdict: False

While Biden, who identifies as Catholic, once said “religious condemnation” is something that members of the LGBTQ community face, he did not suggest Christians violate their rights “by simply existing.” There is no record of Biden making such a comment.

Fact Check:

The image being shared looks like a screen grab of a news article, with its headline reading, “Joe Biden Says Bible Believing Christians Violate LGBTQ Rights By Simply Existing.” The article goes on to state that “according to Joe Biden, the American Bible believing Christian who takes the Bible literally, is violating the ‘rights’ of the LGBT by trusting in God’s word.”

Through a reverse image search, the Daily Caller News Foundation discovered that the screen grab comes from a 2015 article published by the website Now The End Begins, a self-described “Christian end times news publisher.” That article cites a brief statement that Biden put out in May 2015 to commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Nowhere in the three-paragraph statement does Biden suggest that all Christians violate LGBTQ rights by “simply existing” or “trusting in God’s word.” In fact, Biden does not even specifically mention Christians in the statement. The only reference to religion comes in the second paragraph, where Biden states, “In too many places LGBT community members face violence with impunity, mistreatment by police, the denial of healthcare, or religious condemnation and social isolation.”

The DCNF also didn’t find any instances of Biden suggesting such a thing in credible media reports or on his social media pages.

Biden’s positions on LGBTQ issues have evolved over his political career. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that blocked federal recognition of same-sex marriage, though he has since become an outspoken proponent of LGBTQ rights. In 2012, he became the highest-ranking Democrat to initially endorse same-sex marriage, The New York Times reported.