Andy Beshear calls out Trump's abuse of faith while accepting LGBTQ+ allyship awardhttps://www.advocate.com/politics/national/andy-beshear-trump-award 🔗Christopher Wiggins (20 Apr 2026)
As LGBTQ+ rights face sustained political attack across the country, the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund used its annual National Champagne Brunch in Washington, D.C., on Sunday to celebrate both rising queer leadership and the allies who have stood with them on difficult ground.
One of the afternoon's most prominent honorees was Andy Beshear, Kentucky's Democratic governor and a potential 2028 presidential contender, who received the group's Allyship Award at the Salamander Washington DC. In remarks that wove together faith, politics, and an unsparing critique of anti-LGBTQ+ policymaking, Beshear cast his support for LGBTQ+ rights not as a strategic calculation, but as a moral obligation.
"I never thought I'd get an award for just doing what's right," he told the crowd, insisting that "there should never be a false choice between rejecting discrimination and winning elections."
He also took aim at President Donald Trump, accusing him of weaponizing religion to divide Americans and invoking recent controversies to underscore his point. Beshear criticized Trump's public clash with Pope Leo XIV and mentioned an AI-generated image depicting Trump as Jesus that the president posted to his Truth Social account, arguing that both episodes reflected a broader pattern of exploiting faith for political gain. "He has used it and manipulated it to divide and to discriminate," Beshear said, adding that Trump "tries to sell Bibles" but "ought to actually read one."
