Watch: Trump's Gay Pitbull Attacks Press, But Why Doesn't He Address LGBTQ Issues?

Last Tuesday the press had an opportunity to grill Richard Grenell, Donald Trump's biggest gay booster, at a press event. Grenell, though, was having none of it.

The press briefing was to talk about peace agreement that the Trump administration had made between Serbia and Kosovo. Grenell had been appointed by Trump to be the US special envoy during the talks.

But when the questions began, a reporter pressed Grenell about another initiative he had been involved in. "New York Post reporter Steven Nelson started to ask about Grenell's involvement in U.S. efforts to get other nations to decriminalize homosexuality," reported Medialite.

"Yeah, I'm going to just talk about Kosovo and Serbia," Grenell snapped back. "I don't know if you could find it on a map, but this is atrocious. I have to tell you guys, you might be too young to understand what this issue is about. Maybe the older journalists should step up and to say this is a big deal. This is a big issue.

"I'm astounded at what happens in Washington, D.C. and especially in this room. I've got to tell you, get substantive. Maybe it's too complicated of an issue for you all, but – "

Nelson responded that this was the first time reporters had to speak to Grenell, who made headlines recently by calling Trump "the most pro-gay president in American history," and they had "a lot of questions to address."

But Grenell responded with an attack on the media. "Okay, but today is about Kosovo and Serbia. Let's take a little time and to talk about this 21 year issue, Peter. I mean, 21 years here. We're getting the same questions that are all politics. I don't – you guys don't understand what's happening outside of Washington, D.C. People aren't listening to you anymore. It's really a crisis in journalism and I think it's because people are too young to understand issues like Kosovo and Serbia."

Watch the exchange here.

Grenell was recently appointed the Trump campaign's senior adviser on LGBTQ+ outreach and spoke at the Republican National Convention, though he did not address any gay issues in his speech. Instead, as the Guardian reported, he focused "his speech on the president's 'America first' foreign policy."

In a video for the Log Cabin Republicans he "makes the provocative claim that Trump – whose administration is often criticized by gay rights advocates as anti-gay – is actually the most pro-gay president in U.S. history. But the core of the video is actually a lengthy attack on Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, as anti-gay," reported the Washington Post.

"The video is a stew of misleading timelines, out-of-context quotes and claims easily debunked." The video appears to be missing from the LCR's website and Facebook page. But can be seen in the Tweet below:

But perhaps there's a deeper reason for Grenell's silence on LGBTQ issues in his recent public appearances. Recently he joined the conservative political organization the American Center for Law & Justice, where he will serve as Special Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy. The ACLJ was formed in 1990 by conservative homophobe Pat Robertson and is helmed by Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's more visible attorneys. Sekulow has been part of the organization since it began, having "found his gravy train" when Robertson put him in charge of the group in 1990, as Right Wing Watch reported in 2019.

Would Grenell's silence have anything to do with the Trump's administration's purported support of the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide? Grenell was behind the initiative that was announced in February, 2019. At that time Grenell took aim at Iran for its repressive LGBTQ policies. Alluding to a man executed in that country, he wrote: "This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And it sadly won't be the last time."

Grenell added: "Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death."

Right Wing Watch observed that Grenell's new employer has had a long history of anti-LGBTQ initiatives, including Grenell's recent one, as they wrote in 2017:

"Sekulow and the ACLJ have been active in the U.S. and overseas in opposing legal equality for LGBTQ people. Sekulow has said that the state has a 'compelling interest to ban the act of homosexuality' and the ACLJ argued on behalf of state laws criminalizing gay sex that were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2003. Sekulow said the Supreme Court overturning the Defense of Marriage Act meant that 'we're now living in a monarchy.'

"The ACLJ and its international affiliates engage in anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice culture wars in the U.S., Africa, Europe and Russia. In Africa, it worked to shape constitutional language in Zimbabwe, where it has fought to maintain criminalization of homosexuality, and Kenya, where it lobbied to eliminate an exemption to an abortion ban to save a woman's life. Both the European Center for Law and Justice and the Slavic Center for Law and Justice supported Russia's notorious anti-gay 'propaganda' law, which has been used against journalists and gay rights activists."

Watch Richard Grenell at the 2020 Republican National Convention: