Debate over the federal Transportation Department budget became extremely personal this week, as House Republicans denied earmarked funds for LGBTQ+ community centers and programs.
In a House Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday, July 18, Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole introduced an amendment to a 2024 funding bill striking out previously allocated funds for three LGBTQ+ organizations in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Cole’s last-minute amendment also prohibits government money from being spent on Pride flags or taking “discriminatory action” against those who oppose marriage equality.
The affected LGBTQ+ community centers are Philadelphia’s William Way Community Center, which according to the Philadelphia Inquirer would have received $1.8 million for facility expansion and services for LGBTQ+ seniors; the LGBT Center of Greater Reading in Pennsylvania, which was set to receive $970,000 for transitional housing; and Massachusetts’ LGBTQ Senior Housing Inc., which had been approved for an $850,000 earmark for a new low-income housing development in Boston. The amendment passed through the committee on a party-line vote, while another vote to restore the three impacted earmarks failed, per Politico.
“This is outrageous,” said Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Brendan Boyle, who applied for funding for the William Way Center, in a video posted to Twitter. “This is one of the most obvious and disgusting examples of bigotry that I have seen in my career and in my life.”
According to Boyle, of the 3,800 programs and organizations that were approved for earmarks in the bill, just these three were targeted by Republicans — conspicuously, the only groups with “LGBT” in their names. As one Illinois representative pointed out, their requested funds compromised just 0.1 percent of the total budget.
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During debate over Cole’s amendment, openly gay Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan delivered a furious rebuttal, calling the removal of earmarks “insane” and “bigoted” and accusing Republicans of fomenting anti-LGBTQ+ hatred through their legislative agenda.
“This amendment brings this committee to an absolute new low,” Pocan told his colleagues. “It is an embarrassment that it is before us.”
“[D]id I share with you when I used to get the article, when I first ran for office, where they wrote ‘dead faggot’ over your face and sent it to you in the mail? Or the time when I wasn’t out yet, left a gay bar, and two people followed me, they beat me with a baseball bat until I was bloodied and unconscious and called me a faggot?” an impassioned Pocan continued. “This is what you guys do by introducing amendments like this.”
Unfortunately, this week’s dust-up is just the latest in a series of such attacks. Time and time again, congressional Republicans have weaponized budget negotiations against LGBTQ+ communities, particularly those who live in poverty and have specialized healthcare needs. Last week, GOP representatives voted to slash billions of dollars in funding for HIV/AIDS programs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.
“If House Republicans had it their way, there would be another AIDS epidemic in America,” said Paul Kawata, executive director of the HIV/AIDS nonprofit NMAC, in a statement issued July 14. “We need to be clear: these proposed cuts would lead to unnecessary death and suffering. They must be stopped.”
This year so far, lawmakers in state and local governments across the U.S. have introduced nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills.
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