Jennifer Lawrence took a swipe at Trump's former VP Mike Pence over his support of conversion therapy and opposition to gay marriage at a New York awards ceremony Saturday night.
The film star, who was attending the 2024 GLAAD Media Awards to introduce and honor her 'favorite musician and good friend Orville Peck', took to the stage to express her love for the gay community.
'I love seeing so many humans who can top their field while still being power bottoms,' Lawrence said.
Speaking candidly about how she once fell in love with a gay man 'who she attempted to convert for years' Lawrence found an opportunity to hit out at Pence after claiming '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 on you,' she said.
Jennifer Lawrence took a swipe at Trump's former VP at the GLAAD Media Awards in New York on Saturday night
Lawrence took a jab at Pence, claiming 'conversion therapy doesn't work'. In 2000, Pence publicly advocated for programs offering assistance to people looking to change their sexual behaviors
'He's in New York tonight. He's receiving a Kid's Choice Award for weirdest d***.'
Accepting the award, Peck talked about being a singer-songwriter in a genre that's not always been the most open to the LGBTQ community.
'I'm one of many of us here who have felt excluded or held back because of who we are,' Peck said, adding that queer people nevertheless manage to 'turn tragedy into art, humor and culture.'
Pence, a former Indiana governor, who has been married to his wife Karen since 1985, has been slammed by LGBTQ activists for over two decades for supporting conversion therapy and opposing gay marriage.
Pence also reportedly supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as Indiana's governor, which was criticized as anti-LGBTQ legislation.
In 2000, Pence publicly advocated for programs offering assistance to people looking to change their sexual behaviors – which many saw as encouragement for conversion therapy.
He called for Congress to 'support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus.
'Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior,' he added.
Fast forward almost two decades, the former Vice President opposed same-sex marriage and supported a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Pence, pictured with wife Karen, also opposed the repeal of the 'don't ask, don't tell' military policy that prohibited soldiers from openly identifying as gay
Additionally, he was against a law that would have prohibited discrimination against LGBTQ people in the workplace.
Pence also opposed the repeal of the 'don't ask, don't tell' military policy that prohibited soldiers from openly identifying as gay.
More recently, as part of his 2024 presidential bid, Pence said that as president he would again prohibit transgender Americans from serving in the military, as was the policy when he was vice president under Donald Trump: '…having transgender personnel, I believe, erodes unit cohesion in a very unique way.'
The politician has been slammed for his controversial views on several occasions, including an incident when the United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg condemned Pence's discrimination of the LGBTQ community.
'If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade. And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pence's of the world would understand,' he said at a LGBTQ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch in 2019.
'I don't know what's in his heart. If you're in public office and you advance homophobic policies, on some level it doesn't matter whether you do that out of political calculation or whether you do it out of sincere belief.'
'The problem is, it's hurting other people,' added Buttigieg.
Last year, the Human Rights Campaign denounced Pence's 2024 White House bid stating: 'Mike Pence’s vision for the country is dangerously out of step with the average American’s views on freedom and equality, and his potential presidency would create 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 remarks, there is no scientific evidence to support the practice of conversion therapy—which attempts to change the sexual orientation of LGBTQ people either psychologically or spiritually.
The practice has also been discredited widely by medical and mental health organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, who say conversion therapy can be dangerous.
Supporters of the harmful practice claim it can 'repair' someone's attraction to the same gender and turn someone 'straight'.
Medical associations have said the idea of conversion therapy worked on the idea that homosexuality is a disorder, an idea 'that has been rejected by all the major mental health professions'.
