Katrina Pierson has become the face of the Donald Trump campaign on cable news, representing the Republican presidential candidate who has declared that he is "really the friend" of the LGBT community and said “LGBT is starting to like Donald Trump very much lately.”
But Pierson, the official national campaign spokesperson for the Trump campaign, did not express such warm sentiments to gays in 2012.
"Gay is not normal, accept that," she said in a Twitter conversation at the time.
Further, she argued that if a same-sex couple got married in a church, it still would not be marriage, and questioned where the US Constitution addressed marriage equality.
Read the tweets:
@michael_atx You will never for acceptance, but you could win coexistance. Gay is not normal, accept that.
@michael_atx I didn't realize that #marriage was in the U.S. Constitution? Did I miss that page? Federal license? @tedcruz #txsen
@michael_atx Even getting "married" in a church doesn't make it a marriage.
In June of last year, the US Supreme Court found that bans on same-sex couples marrying violated the Constitution — under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment — thereby making marriage equality national policy.
BuzzFeed News asked Pierson how her comments squared with Trump's overtures to LGBT voters.
"It's a long reach to go back to 2012 to try to create a new hit piece and call it relevant," Pierson wrote to BuzzFeed News in an email. "You'll also find that as a grassroots volunteer for multiple campaigns, it's quite common that Twitter is a platform to promote/defend the policies and values of the candidates at the time. Many times, it's about engaging trolls which can lead to humorous and sarcastic banter."
"I'm sure you'll also find that the positions/values of the candidates are not necessarily a sole reflection of the individual promoting or supporting said candidate," she added.
"Therefore, there is nothing to square."