The dating life of Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), one of seven openly gay members of Congress, became the focal point Wednesday night in a debate that got ugly with a personal attack from a Republican challenger who’s facing an ethics investigation.
Matt Mowers, who’s challenging Pappas to represent New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district in Congress, levied the attack in a debate already fiery over the federal government’s response to the coronavirus.
“With all due respect, you’ve been dating a corporate lobbyist who actually was lobbying on behalf of Amazon at a time when you went to cast 10 separate votes on Amazon’s behalf on bills they lobbied you on,” Mowers charged.
Pappas, in response, said the accusation was “not true” and in turn said Mowers has been “paid by pharmaceutical companies and D.C. special interests after you left the Trump administration.”
In fact, Mowers has been a consultant for at least two pharmaceutical companies. After filing an illegible financial disclosure form for his candidacy, Mowers was accused of trying to hide that work from New Hampshire voters, which led to a complaint now before the U.S. House Ethics Committee.
But Mowers wouldn’t let up in his attack, saying Pappas is “doing the bidding for a bunch of corporate special interest groups in D.C.”
“You are dating a corporate lobbyist,” Mowers said. “The fact of that matter is you never disclosed it.”
As the debate participants began talking over each other, Mowers made the false claim Pappas was required to disclose his dating life to the public.
“In fact, there’s actually rules and regulations,” Mowers said. You have to disclose that, especially gifts from lobbyists to the House Ethics Committee, something you’ve never done.”
Pappas, who continued to say the charge was “outrageous” and “not true,” said his opponent is “somebody who worked for the Trump administration.”
“I have read your financial disclosure, Matt,” Pappas said. “You get paid by big drug companies, you get paid by D.C. lobbying firms, you’re representing their interests, not the interests of the people of New Hampshire.”
Pappas hinted the criticism was a veiled attack on his sexual orientation, concluding, “To go after me personally is really disgusting, and there is no place for them on this debate stage.”
Following the debate, Pappas issued a statement calling Mowers’ attack on his dating life “despicable” and said it “crossed a line.”
“Members of the LGBTQ+ community have always been held to a different standard when running for office and Mr. Mowers’s baseless attacks perpetuate those same harmful lines of attack,” Pappas said. “New Hampshire voters saw gutter politics at their worst tonight, but true Granite Staters know that hate has no place in our state.”
An LGBT+ Republican group has endorsed 12 politicians who have long track records of opposing LGBT+ rights.
The Log Cabin Republicans, which describes itself as “the nation’s original and largest organisation representing LGBT conservatives and straight allies”, has endorsed 34 candidates from across the United States ahead of the upcoming election.×
Writing on Twitter on October 20, the Log Cabin Republicans shared its list of endorsements, and said the group was throwing its weight behind candidates who would “advocate for limiting the size of government, strengthening personal freedom, and ensuring equality under the law for all Americans”.
The Log Cabin Republicans’ begin by endorsing Donald Trump for the presidency and Mike Pence for the vice-presidency – despite the fact that both have doggedly rolled back LGBT+ rights during their time in office.
And Trump and Pence are not the only anti-LGBT+ politicians on the Log Cabin Republicans’ endorsement list, according to LGBTQ Nation.
The Log Cabin Republicans have endorsed a number of politicians who have significant track-records of supporting anti-LGBT+ measures, including Michelle Steel, Anna Paulina Luna, Fred Upton, Nicole Maliotakis, Nancy Mace, Dan Crenshaw, Clarence Burgess Owens, Madison Cawthorn, Matt Mowers, John Paul Moran and George Devolder-Santos.
Campus Pride commemorates LGBTQ History Month and National Coming Out Day by releasing its 2020 BEST OF THE BEST LGBTQ-Friendly listing of colleges and universities.
The announcement features forty campuses from six regions of the country who are deeply committed to LGBTQ students and who rate the highest for LGBTQ-inclusion in policy, program and practice.
“On behalf of Campus Pride, I want to commend all the campuses featured among the 2020 ‘BEST OF THE BEST’ LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities for their exemplary commitment and work to make their campuses safer and more welcoming,” said Tom Elliott, Campus Pride Board Chair. “In times like these, we need to commit to creating safe and welcoming spaces for all students.”
For nearly two decades, Campus Pride has advocated and supported college and university campuses to improve LGBTQ campus life and change institutional policies, programs and practices. The Campus Pride Index (CPI), provides an invaluable bench marking tool to assess LGBTQ-inclusion efforts from academics, to student life, to housing, to recruitment and retention activities.
There are nearly 400 colleges who have “come out” on the index and hundreds of thousands who utilize the public search to find LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities annually.
This year Campus Pride chose to put a spotlight on the regional diversity of the list by highlighting colleges and universities by region. Campus Pride works with over 1400 colleges and universities annually to improve the quality of campus life for LGBTQ people and to create safer, more inclusive campus communities. Sixty percent of their work is dedicated to working with colleges in the South, Midwest and campuses within more rural communities.
The 2020 BEST OF THE BEST College & University listing is based on the data provided annually through the CPI related to policies, programs and practice. The research is analyzed by the Campus Pride research team using the proven CPI LGBTQ-Friendly factors and knowledge of the LGBTQ higher education landscape.
“Every student deserves to go to a college that is inclusive and a safe space – to learn, live and grow,” said Shane Windmeyer, Executive Director, Campus Pride. “This October is LGBTQ History Month and National Coming Out Day was October 11. Let us commit ourselves to LGBTQ inclusion, coming out and supporting LGBTQ youth in living full, authentic lives.”
For the full list of LGBTQ-Friendly colleges visit www.CampusPride.org/2020BESTOFTHEBEST
An out lesbian has been picked to serve as the acting mayor of Anchorage, Alaska after her straight male predecessor resigned over a sex scandal.
Austin Quinn-Davidson made history with her appointment as the city’s new acting mayor, after a vote by the city assembly on Friday (October 16) picked her for the role.
The politician, who has served on the Anchorage assembly since 2018, will take over after the resignation of Ethan Berkowitz, who quit after admitting to an a “consensual, inappropriate messaging relationship” with a local TV anchor.
Her appointment as the city’s first woman and first gay mayor was backed by assembly chair Felix Rivera, who is also gay and had been tipped to take over the role himself beforehand.
Rivera, who is Latino and would have been the first person of colour to serve in the role, praised Quinn-Davidson as a “compassionate and dedicated public servant”, and assured those disappointed by the city’s record of all-white office holders: “Don’t you worry. It will happen sooner or later. If I were a betting person, I’d bet on sooner.”
He lauded the incoming acting mayor as an “an excellent communicator who sincerely cares about what you have to say, and will listen to all parts of our community”.
Quinn-Davidson will have a lot of work in her in-tray, with COVID-19 cases rising in the city and its economy faltering.
“I think the most important role of a mayor right now is to inspire trust in government, and to make people feel at ease during a time that is pretty tumultuous.
“I think revitalizing the economy and ensuring that small businesses can survive and that people can get back to work is key. Of course, that interplays with public health and safety, and those two are so aligned, we need to work together on both.”
The hard-won progress on LGBT+ rights in schools could be at stake as a new report finds homophobic and transphobic language is ubiquitous in educational establishments.
The new study by GLSEN, a national LGBT+ education advocacy group, found that just under 99 per cent of LGBT+ students in the US have heard offensive remarks about their sexuality or gender identity.×
Comments such as “that’s so gay” are still regularly thrown around playgrounds and campus cafeterias, which almost 92 per cent of queer students said made them feel “distressed”.
Almost 97 per cent of respondents stated that they had heard the phrase “no homo” at school, while more than 95 per cent reported hearing homophobic terms such as “dyke” and “faggot”.
About 69 per cent said they had experienced verbal harassment because of their sexual orientation, while just under 57 per cent said they had also been called names or threatened because of their gender expression.
A further eleven per cent said they had been physically assaulted, or “punched, kicked (or) injured with a weapon” because of their sexuality, the report noted.
The troubling results came from a survey of 16,700 LGBT+ students aged 13 to 21 in all 50 US states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and Guam.
“This is a very significant wake-up call about how the progress we’ve won is directly under attack,” said Eliza Byard, the executive director of GLSEN, formerly the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.
“Where we are now is so different from where we were 20, 25 years ago in terms of how better things are. On the other hand, where we are is clearly still unacceptable,” she told Reuters.
Unfortunately the high prevalence of LGBT+ abuse isn’t isolated to schools: a recent Kantar survey across 14 countries and 24 industries showed that a quarter of LGBT+ people experience bullying in the workplace, and more than half suffer from “consistent high stress, anxiety and mental health problems” at work.
A group of LGBTQ Latino activists from across the country who participated in a virtual roundtable on Wednesday said the election results are a matter of “survival.” for their respective communities.
“As a trans person, these elections are critical for our survival,” said Maria Roman-Taylorson, vice president and chief operation officer of the TransLatin@ Coalition who is based in Los Angeles. “It’s not only the presidency, but our health is on the ballot. us living authentically is on the ballot.”
Roman-Taylorson spoke alongside National Center for Transgender Equality Deputy Executive Director Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen and URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity Executive Director Kimberly Inez McGuire during the panel that the Latino Institute, the Latino Equality Alliance, the Hispanic Federation, the Washington Blade and Los Angeles Blade sponsored.
Hispanic Federation Director of North Carolina and Mid-South Operations Daniel Valdez and Louie Ortiz-Fonseca, founder of Gran Varones, a project that documents issues through Black and Latino LGBTQ lenses, also participated in the round table.
Tony Lima, chief operating officer of Arianna’s Center, a South Florida-based organization that advocates on behalf of trans Latina women, was the moderator. Richard Zaldivar, founder and executive director of The Wall Las Memorias Project in Los Angeles, spoke at the end of the roundtable.
“The election in November will be the most important election of our lifetime, in the history of our nation,” said Zaldivar. “Either we can live with this authoritarian leadership of this president or we can raise our voice and objections to his bigotry, racism and defeat this dance with fascism that we are experiencing today.”
Lima, who is based in Miami, echoed Zaldivar.
“The queer and trans Latinx vote is the most important thing as Latinx people that we could be talking about right now,” said Lima. “We are at a moment where our lives absolutely depend on this coming election.”
Heng-Lehtinen, whose mother is former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), among other things said President Trump “is really systematically trying to chip away at all of the health care access that we (trans people) have.” Roman-Taylorson in her remarks noted the White House reinstated the ban on openly trans servicemembers.
“Our lives are on the line here,” said Heng-Lehtinen.
Florida and North Carolina among the states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential election. The panelists stressed state and local races are equally as important.
McGuire noted state legislatures in recent years have sought to restrict access to abortion, implement anti-LGBTQ sex education curricula and pass religious freedom bills and other measures that discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“We all want justice at home, which means if you are queer, if you are trans, if you are an immigrant, you should not have to feel like your home is a hostile place,” said McGuire.
Valdez agreed.
“We have seen our Latinx and immigrant communities vilified, our trans and queer communities used as scapegoats to win elections,” he said. “We have the opportunity to change that in this upcoming election to let them know that kind of divisiveness is not going to work.”
“We also need to send a clear message to our elected officials that our country cannot roll back civil right protections to our queer community, to our immigrant communities,” added Valdez. “That message starts on Nov. 3.”
This election cycle is taking place against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. and has highlighted long-standing economic disparities. The nationwide protest movement against police brutality that began in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and the epidemic of violence against trans women in Puerto Rico and throughout the country are two of the other issues the panelists discussed.
“If there’s anything that 2020 has taught me, it is that we are the ones who are legitimately and literally going to swim out into the ocean to save ourselves. And that requires communication,” said Ortiz-Fonseca. “It’s going to require us to have deeper and more intentional conversations with our community as opposed to us just talking to them and demanding that they do something.”
Mike Pompeo has defended his decision to address an overtly anti-LGBT+ group which reportedly led to an internal protest among “appalled” state department employees.
On October 3, the secretary of state delivered a keynote speech at a fundraising gala for the Florida Family Policy Council, an extreme anti-LGBT+ Christian organisation that advocates for conversion therapy and the repeal of same-sex marriage.×
Concerns were first raised by members of Pompeo’s advance team, who flagged the group to their supervisors after they discovered anti-gay flyers when scoping out the site of the event, the Miami Herald reported.
Several other state department employees also raised complaints after learning that the group’s website offers LGBT+ people “help leaving the gay lifestyle”.
Lisa Kenna, executive secretary at the state department, was alerted to the concerns and attempted to mitigate fallout from the event.
Pompeo ultimately gave a virtual address for the fundraising gala, which filled a ballroom with roughly 700 guests, but one source described several aides as “appalled” it still took place despite their concerns.
They add that afterward, Mike Pompeo highlighted his appearance in his latest “Miles with Mike” message to department employees.
A state department spokesperson downplayed internal dissension overthe secretary’s appearance at the event, but did not address the group’s views or answer questions on whether the secretary supports conversion therapy.
GLAAD launched “Drive the Vote,” a 4-part video series featuring interviews with LGBTQ voters across four battleground states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The series, created in partnership with leading global digital media company BuzzFeed, will launch on GLAAD’s YouTube and social media accounts, as well as on BuzzFeed’s Facebook, IGTV, and Twitter.
The series follows Mathew Lasky, GLAAD’s Director of Communications, as he drives across the country to talk with LGBTQ voters about the upcoming election, why they’re voting, and what issues matter most to them. The interviews were conducted according to COVID-19 safety guidelines, socially distanced, and with appropriate mask use. The series features interviews with Connie Ticho in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Letha Pugh in Columbus, Ohio; Jon Hoadley in Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Camden Hargrove in Menomonie, Wisconsin.
The first video in the series, released today, features GLAAD’s Mathew Lasky speaking with a young, non-binary voter, Connie Ticho, in their hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania. The first episode was produced in partnership with Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown. Check it on BuzzFeed’s Facebook below:
“Drive the Vote” is part of GLAAD’s get out the vote campaign. Viewers are invited to visit glaad.org/action to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, check their voter registration status, and more.
Each day, GLAAD will release state-specific voting information on each state profiled in the series. The series was created in partnership with Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Stonewall Columbus, and Black, Out & Proud in Columbus, Ohio; Equality Michigan and OutFront Kalamazoo in Michigan; and the OutReach LGBT Community Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
“With LGBTQ issues largely left out of the political discourse around the upcoming elections, and completely absent from any of the presidential or vice presidential debates, it was important to GLAAD to speak with LGBTQ voters personally to hear what issues are most important to them this election season,” said Mathew Lasky, GLAAD’s Director of Communications and the host of Drive the Vote. “Together with BuzzFeed, we will amplify these stories from real LGBTQ people across America to remind the nation that LGBTQ issues simply can’t be ignored in 2020.”
“At BuzzFeed, we’re committed to representing our massive and diverse audience, celebrating their identities, and covering the issues that matter to them,” said Wyatt Harms, BuzzFeed LGBTQ’s Lead. “Through this partnership, we can help bring an LGBTQ lens to the upcoming election and deliver on our mission to make inclusive Queer media. We’re proud to use our platform to distribute GLAAD’s important work and amplify the voices of LGBTQ voters across the country.”
LGBTQ issues have been largely absent from the 2020 election cycle, with no mention in any nationally televised election events since the presidential candidates were nominated in August. The Trump administration has targeted LGBTQ Americans at least 180 times in policy and rhetoric since taking office in 2017. GLAAD continues to add pressure on news media to include LGBTQ issues as a part of their election coverage.
GLAAD is currently engaged in a 100 Days of Action campaign to educate LGBTQ people about what’s at stake during the 2020 election and to increase LGBTQ turnout at the polls in November. GLAAD’s recently released ‘State of LGBTQ Voters’ poll found that LGBTQ voters are highly motivated and prepared to vote. The poll also found overwhelming support from LGBTQ voters for Vice President Joe Biden (76%) in a head-to-head matchup against President Trump (17%).
GLAAD has also been activating supporters and followers, including the GLAAD Campus Ambassadors and alumni of the GLAAD Media Institute. As part of the campaign, GLAAD last month launched its Digital Doorknocking initiative, which is a grassroots effort to get GLAAD’s followers the tools to reach out to family and friends. By signing up, GLAAD’s followers gain access to exclusive graphics, videos, research and resources to share with friends, family, and fellow advocates between now and the election. Continue to invite your contacts to participate by signing up at glaad.org/knock.
For over three decades, Stephanie Byers taught music and band at the largest public high school in Kansas. After seeing how decisions made by state lawmakers affected her students, she decided to trade retirement for politics.
“They saw a bottom line, a number that needs to be worked with, and didn’t think about what that means when a student is staring at a textbook that is being held together by duct tape because it outlived its usefulness and the district didn’t have the money to replace textbooks,” said Byers, who is running to be the next representative of Kansas House District 86, which includes much of Wichita.
A Democrat who ran unopposed in the primaries, Byers will face off against Republican Cyndi Howerton, a businesswoman, in the November election. While Kansas is largely a conservative state, Byers is a strong contender in Wichita, a progressive enclave that has historically swung left.
If elected, Byers has vowed to fight for increased funding for education and Medicaid expansion in Kansas, one of at least 12 states that have not expanded the program under the Affordable Care Act. She has also made civil rights protections a pillar of her campaign in a state where, according to advocacy group Freedom for All Americans, “there are currently no explicit, comprehensive statewide non-discrimination protections” for LGBTQ people.
When Byers came out as transgender six years ago, she was largely embraced by her students and colleagues, an experience that pushed her to become a trailblazer for trans educators in her school district.
“I realized that when I came out as a teacher that I was blazing the pathway,” she said. “A lot of public educators that are trans may not necessarily come forward and come out during their careers, because the fact that there’s the fear of prejudice is going to be there.”
As Republican-backed anti-transgender legislation — including much designed to keep trans students out of public restrooms and off sports teams — proliferated in statehouses across the country, including in Kansas, Byers met with school officials and spoke at community events to educate the public about gender identity.
Last October, she spoke out on behalf of trans educators and students at an American Civil Liberties Union rally outside of the Supreme Court, which at the time was hearing arguments in cases that would determine whether employers had a right to terminate workers because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2018, a year before she retired, Byers was named both state Educator of the Year by GLSEN Kansas and national Educator of the Year by GLSEN, the national LGBTQ youth advocacy organization with chapters across the country.
If Byers wins her election on Nov. 3, she will be the first out transgender lawmaker from Kansas. She is one in a “rainbow wave” of at least 574 LGBTQ candidates who will be on the ballot next month, according to a new report by Victory Fund, a group that trains, supports and advocates for LGBTQ candidates. Byers said politicians who are transgender are seen as novelties, and that’s something she hopes to change.
“It’s a part of who we are. It’s part of our identity, but it’s not the only thing. There’s so many other things we are passionate about as well,” she said. “It’s just a matter of normalizing that enough that it’s no longer a thing, and … it’s just a matter of what can we do to serve the communities that elected us?”
The candidate, who grew up in neighboring Oklahoma, is a wife, parent of two adult sons and a grandparent of nine children. She’s a member of the Native American Chickasaw Nation and has deep roots in the working class. She said her father, a longtime U.S. Postal Service worker, and her mother, who served as national vice president to the American Postal Workers Union Auxiliary, showed her the struggles that working-class families face.
“I’m a parent, I’m the grandparent, and I know the challenges that families face at this time,” Byers said, “and that’s who I want to be a voice for — for those families that need somebody who stands up for them.”
For the past two years, residents in the small Rocky Mountain town of Heber City, Utah, have seen their main street bedecked with rainbow banners in celebration of Pride Month in June.
However, after the City Council voted for a controversial ordinance regulating banners, LGBTQ advocates said they fear the colorful displays will be a thing of the past.
“It feels like a slap in the face,” said Allison Phillips Belnap, 47, a local real estate attorney who raised $3,553 through a GoFundMe campaign to purchase and install the banners on city lampposts.
The new ordinance, passed in August, requires banner applications be reviewed by the city manager, with appeals submitted to the council for review. Any event or message promoted on the signage must be sponsored by Heber City, Wasatch County or the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce, and events must be both nonpolitical and nonprofit. Due to the ongoing debate within the community over whether Pride banners are “political” speech, and since the new ordinance bans political banners, it’s unclear whether city officials will approve them next June.
Heber City Mayor Kelleen Potter, the mother of two LGBTQ teens, opposed the ordinance.
“It has pretty much eliminated the option of private citizens funding banners and requesting them to be hung on Main Street, unless they are able to get sponsorship from the city, the county or the chamber, and that sponsorship means some financial sponsorship,” she said.
Prior to the ordinance, residents could apply to display banners on city lampposts for a fee of a few hundred dollars, so long as banners were noncommercial, according to Potter. Banners were approved by the public works department, and if public works had concerns about an application, they sent it to Potter for approval. Typically, banners advertise holidays and local events, such as Veterans Days and Heber Valley’s sheepdog competition, Potter said. No one questioned the process until June 2019, when residents saw their downtown adorned in rainbow banners for the first time.
A day after they appeared along Main Street, residents filled a city council meeting to voice divided opinions over them. While many were thrilled, others saw the rainbow banners as government-sanctioned “political speech,” according to Potter. She said city officials began receiving phone calls and emails from people who wanted to know if they could hypothetically apply to install flags with anti-abortion or anti-pornography messages, or with Ku Klux Klan or Nazi symbols, though no one actually applied to install such banners. Still, the inquiries sparked debate among city officials over whether an ordinance was needed to regulate them.
“No one ever gave me a specific example besides those that we could dismiss easily as hate speech,” said Potter, who had approved the Pride banners the past two years.
‘Are we the silent majority?’
Home to about 16,000 people, Heber City is a microcosm of how small towns across America are adjusting to evolving attitudes around gender and sexuality.
Last year, Mayor Wally Scott of Reading, Pennsylvania, canceled a Pride flag ceremony, calling the flag a political symbol. After criticism, he reversed his decision, and the rainbow flag flew over the city last June.
This past June, debate swarmed in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a town of about 42,000, after the town’s first Pride flag was relocated to what many residents considered a less visible location. That same month, officials in Foster City, California, a town of about 34,000, refused a request to raise a Pride flag outside the city’s municipal building in celebration of Pride Month. Councilman Sam Hindi told the Bay Area Reporter that doing so would open the door for hate groups to fly banners in the city.
Just last month, after some residents in Minot, North Dakota, voiced anger over a rainbow flag that was temporarily hoisted outside city hall, a lesbian council member came out publicly in fierce defense of the flag. Her speech was captured in a now-viral video posted online. Minot has since banned flags other than the American flag until it decides on an official policy.
Throughout Utah, rainbow flags are becoming common and increasingly controversial. Last year, Project Rainbow, a small Salt Lake City-based nonprofit, rented out rainbow flags for $14 that Utahans could stake in their lawns for the duration of their city’s Pride festivities. The group staked about 1,400 flags, and raised about $20,000, which it donated to local LGBTQ centers. The flags were not all well-received: The group received backlash on social media from people accusing it of “forcing their beliefs” on local communities, according to the group’s founder, Lucas Horns. Horns estimated that about 10 percent of last year’s flags were stolen or vandalized.
This month, for National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, the group staked 3,000 Pride flags.
“It does seem like there was an uptick in stolen flags and particularly vandalized flags,” Horns said in an email to NBC News. “A number of people found their flags torn or written on or even lit on fire, which I think speaks to a more emboldened hatred. But with that said, more people signed up for flags than ever before and were more excited about showing love and support to the LGBTQ community than ever.”
When Pride banners were installed along Main Street in Heber City this past June, there was less controversy than there had been the year prior, according to Mayor Potter. Still, residents took to the town’s local “Ask (Heber, Utah)” Facebook group to debate them. One mother expressed frustration over having to explain the meaning of the rainbows to her young children.
“As a Christian, our family believes that marriage is between a man and a woman. I’d like to think that there are other people in this valley who feel the same way. Are we the silent majority? If you still believe in Christian values, please speak up,” the woman wrote.
In August, after the second wave of backlash, the City Council voted to pass the banner ordinance. City Council Member Ryan Stack took to the “Ask (Heber, Utah)” Facebook group to explain why he voted in favor of the measure.
“By playing favorites and choosing only those banners it wants to see, a governing body engages in illegal viewpoint discrimination,” he wrote. “I supported removing the element of discretion by allowing only government speech on the banners. Yes — this prohibits private banners on Main Street. But it also protects the City in the stronger way to insulate it from potential legal claims when it comes to decisions regarding banner display.”
Heber City Council Member Mike Johnston, who also voted for the ordinance, told NBC News that it does not ban Pride banners, but is rather a way to keep out potentially hateful and divisive messages.
“If we decide — and I hope we will — that Pride is something we want to support, then we will do that as a city council, as elected officials, who are elected to make the decisions and take the heat,” Johnston said. “I think we’re big girls and big boys, and we can make those decisions, but it’s tough when you let anybody in the public submit banners to put up, and basically, they’re making a free speech statement that, ‘You have to let me do that, because that’s what you do, you let everybody do it, so you have to let me do it.’”
Political speech or symbol of inclusion?
Phillips Belnap claimed Heber City council members passed the ordinance to appease a religious minority who opposed the banners. She said the ordinance will likely prevent her from installing them next year, since it will require her to organize an event, such as a Pride festival, with financial sponsorship from the city, county or chamber of commerce.
“We’re not going to be able to get this council to sponsor a Pride festival or to get the county to sponsor a pride festival,” she said, referring to the ongoing debate over whether the banners are “political.”
She rejected criticism that her banners are political symbols. A lesbian who left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly referred to as the Mormon Church) after multiple suicide attempts, Phillips Belnap said the banners were intended to reduce suicide among local LGBTQ youth.
“We have a large number of people who are closeted and at high risk of suicide, because they feel like coming out is the equivalent of ruining their lives and ruining their family’s lives,” she said.
Heber City resident Jamie Belnap, 41 (no relation to Phillips Belnap), whose 14-year-old son, Luke, is openly gay, said the banners “made us feel great” in a town where few LGBTQ people feel visible.
“Kids who don’t feel comfortable coming out yet, at least they know that our community is working towards being a welcoming place for them and that they’re seen and valued, so I know my son felt that way,” Belnap said.
Deeply conservative Utah has begun to warm on LGBTQ issues. In 2015, the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed “the Utah compromise,” a law that made Utah the only solidly conservative state to pass some protections in housing and employment for LGBTQ people. Two years later, Utah became the first of eight conservative states to repeal a “No Promo Homo” law that prohibited discussing LGBTQ issues in schools. And this past January, it became the 19th state to ban conversion therapy for minors, a controversial practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. It was the most politically conservative state to do so.
One reason for this shift could be a growing tendency among Mormon parents to embrace their LGBTQ children. In recent years, the Mama Dragons, an online support group for Mormon moms of LGBTQ kids, has grown to thousands of members. The group, which Mayor Potter joined after one of her own children came out, has pushed acceptance for LGBTQ youth among families in Utah.
Despite progress, Potter said many LGBTQ teens still feel isolated in Heber City.
“In a self-reported survey, 12 percent of our students at our high school report that they are somewhere in the LGBTQ community — that’s a lot of kids. And one of the top three issues they’ve identified are mental health issues, and so as we all bang our heads against the wall about how to help these kids, this was something that really was helping, because it created a more inclusive and accepting feeling,” she said of the Pride banners.
Three hundred miles southwest of Heber City, a similar controversy flared in the small desert town of St. George, Utah, where rainbow banners fluttered on lampposts along the town’s main thoroughfare last September.
Pride of Southern Utah, a local LGBTQ advocacy group, raised $6,100 to install the banners in St. George, as well as the towns of Cedar City and Hurricane. The banners promoted the group’s annual Pride Week festival, which is typically held in mid-September. After raising the money, the group obtained a permit to have the banners installed.
After they appeared, city officials received at least two informal inquiries from a white supremacist group and another group that wanted to display banners with President Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again,” according to St. George Mayor John Pike. In an email circulated on social media that year, a St. George councilwoman referred to the rainbow Pride banners as “political statements,” unleashing a debate over whether a current ordinance surrounding public signage should be reevaluated. In response to the backlash, St. George put a moratorium on applications for lamppost banners until officials could revisit the city’s existing ordinance.
Because the Covid-19 pandemic forced the annual Pride festival to be canceled, the group has not applied to resurrect the banners this year, according to Pride of Southern Utah Director Stephen Lambert. But Lambert said he is confident that St. George officials will approve the banners in 2021.
On the topic of Heber City, Lambert said he understands the desire for an ordinance but also expressed concern.
“The real damage, I think will be if Heber [City] says, ‘Well, we’re just not going to do it, because we made a law that prevents you from doing this,’” Lambert said. “They need to figure out a way to keep out the riff raff and the negative and the hate, and keep in the people that need it.”
Despite the backlash against Pride banners, Phillips Belnap said the awareness they’ve created has helped encourage many in Heber City’s small LGBTQ community to come together. A local LGBTQ Facebook group that she started now has about 150 people, she said, and the local middle and high school have formed Gay-Straight Alliances clubs.
Jamie Belnap said her son was “very disappointed” by the ordinance but was also not surprised that it passed.
“I think it’s almost worse when the flags go up, and everybody feels seen and everybody feels like, ‘Oh, this is such a movement in the right direction’ … and then you see the backlash,” she said. And then to see the city give in to that backlash, she added, “That’s a pretty strong message — almost more so than if the flags had not been up.”