WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump began his first full day in office attending a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday and got a sermon he may not have been expecting: an appeal to protect immigrants and respect gay rights.
The message drew a sharp response later from Trump, who described the minister as “nasty” and called the service “boring” and “uninspiring.”
A day after declaring in his inauguration speech that there were only two genders in America and signing executive orders to crack down on immigrants, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde pleaded with Trump, from the pulpit, to show mercy on people who were “scared” of what is to come.
“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” Budde said.
On Monday Trump launched a sweeping immigration crackdown, tasking the US military with aiding border security, issuing a broad ban on asylum and taking steps to restrict citizenship for children born on US soil.
Budde made an impassioned case for immigrants.
“The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat-packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they ... may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said.
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