GLAAD and Georgia Equality, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, are condemning GOP primary winner Marjorie Taylor Greene for racist and anti-LGBTQ views, as well as her embrace of dangerous conspiracies.
Greene defeated John Cowan in the Republican primary runoff on Tuesday, after moving to the district following a previous failed run for Congress.
Georgia Equality and the Southern Poverty Law Center have been tracking Greene’s anti-LGBTQ and racist history since she launched her political career in 2019.
Here’s some of what they and others found to help inform your coverage of Greene’s general election campaign:
Posting on Facebook about a Drag Queen Story Time event at an Alpharetta library: “Trans does not mean gender change, it just means a gender refusal and gender pretending. Truth is truth, it is not a choice!!!”
Recording a 90-minute video at the story time event, where Greene staged a confrontation with library staff and called the event “an attack on our children” while calling the host, who performs as Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker, an “abomination”
Recording and posting multiple Facebook videos about an “Islamic invasion” after two Muslims won office and describing Black Americans as “slaves” to the Democratic party, comparing Black Lives Matter activists to neo-Nazis and denying there are racial disparities in the U.S.: “Guess what? Slavery is over,” Greene says in a video. “Black people have equal rights.”
Theorizing that the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history in Las Vegas in 2017 was a plot against the Second Amendment and calling a Parkland school shooting survivor “Little Hitler”
Greene has also embraced the far-right beliefs of “QAnon,” the pro-Trump conspiracy theory movement identified by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorism threat. Its followers are tied to two murders, a kidnapping, vandalism of a church and a heavily armed standoff near the Hoover Dam.
Of QAnon and the sprawling, unproven and unbalanced online conspiracies promoted by the anonymous “Q,” Greene said, “Q is a patriot” and that she hoped the chatter was educating Pres. Trump. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Greene said in a YouTube video.
While Greene’s views are extreme, divisive and uninformed, party leaders and other candidates for office are lining up to support her:
Pres. Trump praised Greene as a “future Republican star”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and House Freedom Caucus leader Rep. Jim Jordan have backed Greene and other Freedom Caucus members maintained their endorsement after the racist videos were revealed
Georgia Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins both called to congratulate Greene, offering no criticism of her racist language and beliefs
Republican TV analyst Amanda Carpenter suggested party leaders should not seat Greene in Congress if she wins the general election. While that may not be possible, GOP leaders say there’s no plan to limit her visibility or power. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’soffice says Greene would be welcomed into the GOP conference and given seats on congressional committees.
About Georgia Equality: Celebrating its 25th year, Georgia Equality is the state’s largest advocacy organization working to advance fairness, safety and opportunity for Georgia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender communities and our allies. For more information, please visit www.GeorgiaEquality.org or connect with Georgia Equality on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Kamala Harris’ chief of staff has been named as Karine Jean-Pierre, a proud Black lesbian and political heavyweight.
Jean-Pierre is a Haitian-American political campaigner, activist and lecturer who has worked on presidential campaigns for John Edwards, Martin O’Malley and former US president Barack Obama.
The political powerhouse was announced as the chief of staff to the vice presidential candidate yesterday (August 11) just hours before it was announced that Harris was officially on the ticket. She becomes the first Black person to serve as chief of staff to a vice presidential candidate.
Confirming the news on Twitter, Jean-Pierre said she was “incredibly proud” to be working to elect Biden and Harris.
“Let’s go!” she added.
Kamala Harris’ chief of staff Karine Jean-Pierre is a powerful LGBT+ advocate.
Karine Jean-Pierre has long been a vocal advocate for LGBT+ rights and equality.ADVERTISING
She is well-known as a political pundit thanks to appearances on NBC News and MSNBC.
Jean-Pierre served as national public affairs officer for progressive policy advocacy group MoveOn, and briefly went viral in June 2019 when, during a campaign event, she protected Kamala Harris from a stage invader.
In 2011 she spoke about her experiences working in politics as an openly gay woman.
Shortly after she left her position in the Obama administration, she told The Advocate: “What’s been wonderful is that I was not the only; I was one of many.
“President Obama didn’t hire LGBT staffers, he hired experienced individuals who happen to be LGBT.
“Serving and working for president Obama where you can be openly gay has been an amazing honour.
“It felt incredible to be a part of an administration that priorities LGBT issues,” she added.
My daughter is going to ask me, ‘What were you doing?’
Jean-Pierre shares a daughter, Soleil, with her partner, CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux. She has credited Soleil with keeping her in politics after the disappointment of Donald Trump’s 2016 election win.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do after Hilary lost,” she told Shondaland.
“At that time, my daughter was two and the only president she knew was Obama, she’s even met him a few times. But when she’s 12, or whenever she learns about the president and wonders how this man got elected, she’s going to ask me, ‘What were you doing at the time?’
“And I want her to know that I fought and worked for an organisation that mobilised hundreds and thousands of people to do calls to actions and to get involved. I want her to know that I didn’t say silent.”
Harris ‘honoured’ to join Biden’s ticket as the vice-presidential candidate.
Harris was confirmed as Biden’s running mate yesterday following months of speculation about who would round out the Democratic ticket.
The decision makes Harris the first Black woman and the first Asian-American to run on a major party’s presidential ticket, despite the fact that she and Biden were briefly fierce rivals for the Democratic nomination.
“I have the great honour to announce that I’ve picked Kamala Harris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted Tuesday (August 11).
He went on to note that Harris had worked closely with his late son, Beau, during her stint as California’s attorney general.
“I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse,” he continued.
“I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”
Harris tweeted: “Joe Biden can unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he’ll build an America that lives up to our ideals.
“I’m honoured to join him as our party’s nominee for vice president, and do what it takes to make him our commander-in-chief.”
The Human Rights Campaign was one of many groups to congratulate Harris, tweeting: “This fall, we have the opportunity to vote for the most historic, pro-equality ticket in history.”
A grandfather who came out as gay at 90 has told other older people who are in the closet that it’s “never too late” to be their authentic selves.
Kenneth Felts kept his sexuality hidden all his life, but that changed when memories of his first love flooded back as he sat down to write a memoir earlier this year.
He went on to come out to his lesbian daughter before revealing his sexuality to the world.
Now, he is urging other older LGBT+ people to consider coming out of the closet.
“I know I’m in an unusual position and I just came out just like that,” Felts told USA Today.
“I hadn’t even planned on it or no, nothing, but I would think that if a person is contemplating coming out, they first need to check on what support systems are available to them.”
Gay grandfather Kenneth Felts discovered the LGBT+ community is full of love.
He said he has been heartened by the wave of love and support he was met with when he came out as gay, and told other older queer people that they should expect the same.
“It’s amazing how much love there is out in the community,” he said.
“And they’re going to share it with you. They’re going to pour it on you by the bucket full.
“And so I think other people will kind of have the same experience that they might be surprised just how many people support them.”
He concluded: “It’s never too late to come out.”
I got memo after memo telling me how they are supporting me and they love me.
Kenneth Felts also opened up about the moment he and his old flame Phillip “hit it off real good” when they were working together.
The pair started “going out for coffee” and then stated dating, before they moved in together.
The couple lived in bliss for nine or 10 months, but the relationship crumbled one Sunday morning when they visited a church.
Felts’ “Christian values” came back to him and he began to wonder if what he was doing was really OK.
Their relationship lasted just one more month, before Felts decided to live as a straight man.
“And I left and have actually been kind of looking for Phillip ever since then.”
His first love Phillip had already passed away by the time Kenneth tracked him down.
Heartbreakingly, Felts’ search for Phillip ended in tragedy last month when he finally tracked him down, only to discover that he had already passed away.
He told Newsweek in July that a woman who lived on the East Coast contacted him in an effort to track down his first love.
“But she discovered a week or so ago that he had passed away around two years ago. So it’s very difficult and very painful,” Felts said at the time.
“To me, he died less than two weeks ago. I posted what I felt was an obituary for him online and people have been overwhelmingly supportive, saying how sorry they are that I missed seeing him.
“But it still hurts.”
The heartbroken 90-year-old added: “In all the relationships I’ve had since Phillip, nothing has ever measured up to him, and I don’t anticipate that anything ever will.”
He said he is “more concerned” with the “quiet aspects of a relationship” such as holding hands and “being close”.
“I’d like to have a boyfriend; companionship and somebody there when the days get longer,” he wrote.
Iowa students are turning to Instagram to call out teachers and peers for the routine homophobia, racism, misogyny and sexual harassment they experience everyday at school.
Submitting their stories anonymously via three Instagram accounts – dedicated to exposing anti-LGBT+ hate, racism and misogyny respectively – students have painted a damning picture of what it’s like to be a minority in the Iowa City community school district.
Their accounts reveal racist and homophobic slurs being used with abandon, students being shunned for their sexuality and rampant anti-LGBT+ bullying going unchecked by school authorities.
“Everyday I walk into school feeling like an outcast,” one writes. “I just wish students and at least teachers would see me as a normal human… But no, I can’t get through at least one week without being called a faggot or queer.”
“I had to deal with a lot of violent, homophobic bullying at Northwest Junior High,” says another. “When I was there none of the administration seemed to do anything about that despite witnessing it happen to me and other students.
“[The principal] is completely incompetent when it comes to protecting the kids that are the most vulnerable.”
Another writes simply: “Once, I wore my flag to school, and was told to burn it to the ground. That hurt.”
Black students reported being shown images of lynchings, hearing the N-word and having to endure classmates using Blackface. Multiple girls reported being sexualised, sexually harassed and even raped.
City High freshman Rachel Johnson started the @lgbtaticcsd account after seeing the stories of racism and sexual harassment in the school district on @blackaticcsd and @girlsaticcsd.
Since the account opened on July 22, Johnson and her friends have posted more than 100 stories from LGBT+ students across the district.
The submissions identify a variety of discrimination and bullying LGBT+ students face, but two patterns in particular stood out to her.
“One was just how many people talked about constantly hearing the F-slur and hearing ‘gay’ used as an insult,” Johnson told the Daily Iowan. “Just so many people talked about that and how it was just a normalised thing.”
The other trend she noticed was the name of particular teachers that recurred in multiple stories.
The posts have now gained so much traction they’ve caught the attention of teachers and administrators.
“It just makes your heart hurt for students that have either experienced those things or witnessed those things in our school community,” interim superintendent Matt Degner said.
“That’s definitely not what we want to be about, or the type of or the time of experience and climate we want to have for our students … As a human being and as an educator, I just feel bad and feel that we have a lot of work to do, and we have a lot of improvements to make so that students don’t have that experience in our schools.”
Queer Black American men suffer disproportionate levels of police discrimination, which in turn may contribute to increased risks of HIV, depression and anxiety, a study has found.
Research by Rutgers University, published in Social Science & Medicine, asked over 1,100 queer Black men to self-report any incidents of police discrimination, arrests and incarceration.
Between 2017 and 2018, some 43 per cent reported suffering discrimination at the hands of police and other law enforcement.
The results reinforced the notion that injustice is systemic and cyclical, with prior incarceration linked to later police and law enforcement discrimination, which in turn was linked to further arrest.
Lead study author Devin English, assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, said that despite the evidence suggesting queer Black men in the US may face “some of the highest rates of policing and incarceration in the world… research examining the health impacts of the US carceral system rarely focuses on their experiences”.
“This study helps to address this gap,” he added.
Scott Greenberg, executive director of the LGBTQ Freedom Fund, was unsurprised by the research. He told PinkNews: “With Black people five times more likely to be imprisoned in the US and sexual minorities three-fold more likely to be incarcerated, Black LGBTQ people occupy a reconstitutive crossing of inequity in the criminal legal system.
“One startling demographic disparity aggravates the other, in vicious cycles of poverty and discrimination — in school, employment, policing, family, and society at large.”
Police discrimination may contribute to high levels of HIV among Black queer men.
Respondents were also quizzed on their metal health and sexual behaviour, including their willingness to take PrEP.
Researchers found that those who had suffered high levels of police discrimination were also likely to be at higher risk of HIV and psychological distress, and were more reluctant to take PrEP than their peers.
Those who had been incarcerated or recently arrested were also vulnerable to a higher HIV risk and were less willing to take PrEP.
The study’s authors suggest that police discrimination and incarceration may lead to “a conscious, and potentially adaptive, avoidance of institutions” with a history of discriminating against queer Black men.
Queer Black men are the group most at risk of acquiring HIV in the US. In 2018, they made up 26 per cent of all new HIV diagnoses and 37 per cent of new diagnoses among queer men. Black Americans make up 13 per cent of the US population.
Previous studies have suggested queer Black men are less likely to be on PrEP due to a mistrust of medical establishments, racism on the part of the prescribing physician, internalised and externalised stigma and ineffectivemessaging among other factors.
As Matthew Hodson, executive director of the UK-based Aidsmap, told PinkNews, it is these many and layered forms of discrimination that is perpetuating the epidemic of HIV among Black queer men, who are “at the intersection of two communities with high HIV rates”.
“Experience of mistreatment in healthcare services, racism, homophobia and a number of structural inequalities all intersect to deter black men who have sex with men from seeking out PrEP as a means of preventing HIV infection,” Hodson said.
“Although the US was the first country to introduce PrEP, take up among Black and Hispanic queer men has always lagged behind that of white men. A recent projection estimated that half of all US Black men who have sex with men were likely to acquire HIV in their lifetime, compared to one in four Hispanic men and nine per cent of white gay or bisexual men.”
He added: “The racial patterns of PrEP use we see in the US are also reflected in other western countries, including the UK, France, and Australia.”
Lisa Bowleg, professor of psychology at The George Washington University and co-author on the study, said the new findings “rightly directs attention to the structural intersectional discrimination that negatively affects Black sexual minority men’s health”.
“Despite experiencing a disproportionate burden of violence and discrimination at the hands of the police, and extremely high carceral rates, Black queer men are largely invisible in discourse on anti-Black policing and incarceration,” added co-author Joseph Carter, doctoral student of health psychology at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center.
“Our study provides empirical support for the intersectional health impacts of police and carceral discrimination that have been systemically perpetrated onto Black queer men.”
As the hearse carrying John Lewis’ body drove through Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood on Wednesday, it made a lengthy and symbolic stop at a rainbow crosswalk as dozens of people gathered on the sidewalk to watch the procession pass.
“It feels very appropriate that that stop was prolonged for John Lewis’ legacy,” Victoria Kirby York of the National LGBTQ Task Forcetold NBC News. “I believe his vocal leadership and support in championing LGBTQ equality — even prior to it becoming a cool thing for people to hop on the bandwagon for — was critical in being able to shift public opinion across the country.”
York added: “He was about civil rights, equality and liberation for everybody. Period. Full stop.”
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., speaks at a news conference in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 2006, to oppose a proposal for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage.Scott J. Ferrell / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images file
The stop by Lewis’ motorcade — lasting nearly a minute — was an acknowledgement of his vocal advocacy over the years for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans.
An early advocate
Lewis, who represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District from 1987 until his death on July 17, did not wait until it was politically safe to stand up for LGBTQ rights.
In 1996, when 65 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, Lewis delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor decrying the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA — federal legislation that sought to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman — as a “mean” and “cruel” bill.
“This bill is a slap in the face of the Declaration of Independence. It denies gay men and women the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Marriage is a basic human right,” he said. “You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriage and I quote: ‘Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married.’”
DOMA, considered a political compromise at the time, easily passed both the House and Senate and was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in September 1996. It was the law of the land until 2013, when United States v. Windsor chipped away at the heart of the legislation. Same-sex marriage would not be legal across the U.S. until 2015, when the Supreme Court handed down its Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
York said Lewis’ early support for LGBTQ rights was unsurprising, given his activism in the preceding decades.
“When you’ve stared death in the face solely because of the color of your skin, it gives you a different view of justice,” York said, referring to Lewis’ multiple near-death experiences fighting for civil rights, including during the infamous “Bloody Sunday” protest on Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. “He put his body on the line to create the world that we all thought was impossible.”
“John Lewis’ moral compass overruled whatever the stigma of the day was,” she added. “Equality for black people means equality for Black LGBTQ people, and equality for Black LGBTQ people means equality for all LGBTQ people, and I think that was a clear through-line for him.”
A decades-long ally
Lewis would continue to be on the forefront of nearly every major congressional proposal to advance LGBTQ rights.
On Lewis’ congressional website, there is a page dedicated to LGBTQ issues, which prominently features a powerful quote from Lewis.
“I fought too long and too hard to end discrimination based on race and color, to not stand up against discrimination against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters,” it reads. He then goes on to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with whom he led the movement for racial equality, saying, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Lewis was a co-sponsor or vocal advocate for over a dozen congressional bills that sought to either expand LGBTQ rights or limit anti-LGBTQ discrimination, including the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) and the Respect for Marriage Act.
The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, noted that Lewis worked closely with Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., during the drafting of the Equality Act — which would modify existing civil rights legislation to add protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity— and was a lead sponsor of the legislation.
Following Lewis’ death, Alphonso David, the Human Rights Campaign’s first Black president, called Lewis “a hero and civil rights icon who pushed our country closer to the promise of a more perfect union.”
“Future generations will learn how he faced down discrimination with courage and defiance, boldly challenging the United States to envision a future where every person, no matter their race, sexual orientation or gender identity, has an equal chance at the American Dream,” David said in a statement.
Lewis appeared at an HRC fundraiser in 2016 and told the crowd of mostly LGBTQ people, “You and I are partners.”
“We are part of an ongoing struggle to redeem the soul of America, to help people in this country and around the world come to grips with one simple truth: We are one people,” he added. “We are one family. We are the human family.”
York said she hopes Lewis’ drive to fight for equality — even if not for a group to which he belonged — will inspire others to do the same.
“He gave full-throated, passionate appeals that all of God’s children be treated equally, and that that included LGBTQ people, and that meant so much to me, both in my career as an advocate and advocating for other marginalized communities that I may not identify with, like the transgender community and intersex community,” she said. “He was a powerful example of how we should be doing advocacy at the margins, and I hope every member of Congress has taken a lesson from him.
A changer of hearts and minds
While Lewis’ LGBTQ advocacy undoubtedly changed hearts and minds across demographic spectrums, York, who is Black, said there was a special significance and power in having a straight, cisgender Black man as such a visible ally.
“I think that all of those identities that he carried helped Black fathers, brothers, nephews all across the country learn how to talk and accept their own children, their own relatives who had been hurt by homophobia and transphobia,” she said, adding that he “gave permission for so many others who were potential allies to be able to step out of their fear” and support LGBTQ equality.
“John Lewis is a man of deep faith — no one could question that,” she added. “So for someone who is a man of deep faith to say that LGBTQ people matter, are equal and deserve protection and dignity, that gave other people the language to be able to say the same thing in their families, in their churches, in their homes. I believe that probably saved countless lives.”
In a sobering survey released this month, The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis prevention organization, found that 2 in 5 LGBTQ youth in the U.S. have “seriously considered” suicide in the past year.
“I do believe that those numbers could have been even higher if it wasn’t for the full-throated advocacy that John Lewis gave, and by him doing that, the permission he gave to others to really show up as the fathers that they wanted to be for their children,” she said.
‘Power of his legacy’
In a posthumous op-ed in The New York Times on Thursday, Lewis wrote: “Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.”
York said this message underscores the “power of his legacy.”
“We all have the capacity to create change,” she said, adding that Lewis “started as a teenager doing work to bring equality for all people, and that’s something that our youth should be excited about.”
“These protests and rallies over the course of this summer are moving this country forward,” she added. “If we can just stay in it together — despite hurt feelings, despite trauma, despite the healing we’ve got to do together, despite our blindness to other people’s experiences — if we remain open to it all, we can create a country we can be proud of for our children and our children’s children.”
York said this coming together of different groups is also part of Lewis’ legacy.
“It hasn’t been about one group over the other,” she said. “It’s been about all of us getting across the bridge together.”
And, if Lewis’ many supporters are successful, that bridge could one day be named after him.
A gay Baltimore intensive care doctor passed away from coronavirus in his husband’s arms after months of battling the pandemic on the front line.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Dr Joseph Costa, 56, was the chief of the critical care division at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
As he was dying in the hospital he worked at on Saturday, 25 July, his husband of 28 years David Hart held him, while around 20 of Costa’s colleagues held a vigil.
Hart said: “Those who cared for Joe were his best friends. A housekeeper who knelt by his bed and shook with grief said: ‘I’m now losing my best friend.’”
He described his husband, who had worked at Mercy Medical Center since 1997, as the bravest man he ever knew.
Costa was an “egalitarian person”, Hart said, who often volunteered to work on holidays so his colleagues could spend time with their children.
The couple had a farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, and Hart said: “Being married to a doctor isn’t easy and you give up a lot.
“When Joe and I were at the farm we always had such a good time. He was a workaholic and he told me I taught him how to relax.”
Hart said his husband’s death makes him even more frustrated to see people not taking the proper precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
There have been more that 3,000 deaths in Maryland due to COVID-19, and Hart added: “I keep thinking, now there is one less ICU doctor to care for pandemic patients in Baltimore.”
“It makes me want to take a bar of soap and write on my car’s rearview window that ‘My husband who saved so many lives died of COVID-19. Wear a mask!’”
Mercy Medical Center released a statement on death of the gay Baltimore doctor from coronavirus, saying Costa was “admired and respected” throughout Baltimore for “his clinical expertise”.
It added: “He was beloved by his patients and their family members – known for his warm and comforting bedside manner as well as his direct and informative communication style.
“When he counselled our patients and families, he did so with great compassion and empathy.
“For all the nurses and staff who worked closely with Joe on the intensive care unit, he was like an older brother that all admired and revered… A life so beautifully lived deserves to be beautifully remembered.
“Planning is underway now for a memorial service and details will be shared as soon as possible. We will grieve together and we will get through this challenging time together.”
Before Edafe Okporo founded New York City’s first and only shelter for asylum-seekers and refugees, he was wandering the streets of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a refugee with nowhere to go. Although he was homeless, Okporo was happy to be in the United States.
“Everything just changed when I stepped my feet into this country,” said Okporo, 30, an LGBTQ activist who fled his homeland, Nigeria, in 2016, “because there is an opportunity to dream of a better future, to have a path here as a gay man.”
Okporo grew up in Warri, a city in southern Nigeria. Not only was he poor growing up, but he also struggled with his sexuality. When high school classmates discovered that Okporo was interested in boys, he said, they outed him to his parents, who made him undergo conversion therapy.
Guest lay in beds provided at the shelter.Zac Hacmon
Later, while attending college in Enugu, Nigeria, he arranged a meeting with a man he had met through a dating website. What he thought was a date, he said, turned out to be a “siege.” Once he was inside the man’s apartment, he said, a group of men jumped out of a closet and held him hostage while they stole money from his bank account.
“That was the first time I realized that it’s not just that my parents were trying to prevent me from being gay,” he said, “but they were trying to protect me from such kind of persecution.”
Many such laws are thought to be rooted in the British Empire: According to a report published in the Cambridge Review of External Affairs in 2014, former British colonies are “much more likely” to criminalize same-sex acts than other countries. Since 1999, however, some parts of northern Nigeria that are governed by Sharia law punish homosexual activity with “caning, imprisonment or death by stoning,” according to Human Rights Watch.
Traumatized by the attack, Okporo spent the rest of college forcing himself to date women. He joined a church and even became a pastor. But after he graduated in 2014 — the same year Nigeria made same-sex relationships punishable by up to 10 years in prison — he decided he could no longer live a lie. He moved to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, where he helped found the International Centre for Advocacy on Right to Health, an LGBTQ rights organization and HIV clinic.
But Okporo’s activism made him a target. One night in 2016, alone in his apartment, he was startled awake by a loud noise. A mob, he said, was ramming down his door. They rushed in, dragged him into the street and beat him unconscious. Some good Samaritans found him, saw his ID card and carried him to the clinic where he worked.
“When I woke up in the clinic, I knew I had to leave Nigeria for me to be safe,” he said.
After fleeing to Dubai and then returning to Nigeria, he obtained a visa to attend the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference, organized by the Victory Institute, in Washington D.C. — a chance to seek asylum in the U.S., where same-sex marriage had recently been legalized and which he pictured as “a very accepting place.”
Clothes at the RDJ Refugee Shelter thrift store.Zac Hacmon
That image, he said, turned out to be different from the reality. Okporo approached an admission officer at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and explained that he was seeking asylum. He said the officer took him to an airport jail cell, where he was forced to sign deportation papers.
“The officer came and he put handcuffs on me,” Okporo said, “and drove me to the detention center in New Jersey.”
Okporo would spend five harrowing months in a detention center in Elizabeth. Immigration Equality, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants, connected him with a lawyer who helped him fight deportation in court. After winning his case, he was released from detention, but he had nowhere to go.
His only resource was a phone number advertised on a flyer tacked to the wall of the detention center. The number belonged to First Friends of New Jersey and New York, an organization that supports detained immigrants and asylum-seekers.
A volunteer picked Okporo up and drove him to a YMCA shelter in Newark, New Jersey. He used a computer at the public library to connect with a former colleague from the International Centre for Advocacy on Right to Health, who was living in Queens, New York. She agreed to let him stay with her for three months while he found work, first at a New Jersey-based catering company and then at a nearby HIV clinic.
But Okporo wanted to do more to help asylum-seekers and refugees like himself. He persuaded the leaders of the RDJ Refugee Shelter in Harlem — named after homeless advocate Robert Daniel Jones — to turn the shelter into a full-time transitional refuge for migrants fleeing violence and persecution abroad.
Housed in a former church, the shelter is New York City’s only full-time refuge for asylum-seekers and refugees. The 10-bed shelter has provided temporary housing for more than 80 migrants, said Okporo, the shelter’s director. The shelter also provides legal counseling and job assistance.
The number of refugees in the U.S. is the lowest since 1980, according to the Pew Research Center. The Trump administration last year capped the number of refugees permitted into the U.S. at 18,000, down from 30,000. The administration also enacted a rulelast year that prevented immigrants from claiming asylum in the U.S. if they did not first try to claim it in a country they passed through on their way to the U.S. border.
Late last month, a federal judge ruled that the restriction was illegal. However, a newly proposed rule would allow the Trump administration to deny asylum to immigrants who are considered public health risks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under those restrictions, Okporo said, asylum-seekers would face more barriers coming to the U.S. than ever before.
A bathroom at the shelter.Zac Hacmon
“The pandemic has given the administration an opportunity to really close the door for a lot of the refugees and asylum-seekers who usually expect America to be that place of safety when they think about fleeing their countries,” he said.
Not everyone fleeing homophobic and transphobic violence abroad is from a country that criminalizes homosexuality, he said, noting that a majority of those housed in the RDJ Refugee Shelter who have received asylum are from Honduras and Jamaica. While sex between men is outlawed in Jamaica, same-sex activity is legal in Honduras. Still, LGBTQ migrants, particularly those who are transgender, face widespread persecution in both countries, Okporo said. Many non-LGBTQ migrants, he added, are fleeing war-torn regions.
All too often, LGBTQ asylum-seekers who make the journey across the border end up homeless, he said, because family and friends with permanent residence in the U.S. will not open their doors to them.
“Most of them face a kind of rejection even from their community in New York,” Okporo said. “The shelter provides them that space to be themselves even in New York City.”
Okporo, who has a degree in food science, considers himself lucky. Many asylum-seekers do not have the education or proper documentation to qualify for jobs or shelter, he said. Transgender asylum-seekers and refugees in the process of transitioning are especially vulnerable, he said, because they often lack documentation and frequently experience discrimination and violence in shelters.
“Knowing that New York is one of the most liberal places in the world and people are still subjected to such kind of persecution just makes me wonder where else in the world can LGBTQ migrants be safe,” he said.
Edafe Okporo and Juan, a guest at the shelter for asylum seekers in New York City.Zac Hacmon
Okporo is a finalist for the David Prize, an initiative of the Walentas Family Foundation that awards grants to New Yorkers who are making a difference. Okporo said that if he is selected, he will use the money to expand the RDJ Refugee Shelter, which subsists largely on grants and donations. He would also train faith leaders around New York City to use their churches, mosques and temples as places of refuge for migrants fleeing violence and persecution.
Okporo no longer feels the need to hide who he is.
“I have wanted to be open about my sexuality all my life,” said Okporo, who is unashamed to hold hands with his boyfriend, Nicolas, when they walk the streets together. “There is no way I’m going to hide it.”
In June, for the second year in a row, Okporo shared his story during NYC Pride’s annual LGBTQ celebrations, which this year were virtual. He has also written a book, “Compassion is Worth More: Using Your Civil Power to Create Change.” He said it is important for people to listen to the struggles of LGBTQ migrants, who are unable to vote, and to understand that the fight for civil rights did not end with marriage equality.
“When I came to the U.S., I discovered that some states, they have laws that permit conversion therapy. I was shocked. … In the U.S., I thought that gay marriage had eliminated such kind of struggles,” he said.
“A lot of gay people in America after gay marriage think that it is over,” Okporo added. “It’s not over.”
CORRECTION (July 26, 2020, 11:30 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Okporo’s hometown of Warri. It is a city of more than 500,000 people in southern Nigeria; it is not a village.
The Republican Party in North Dakota has been condemned by a raft of party officials after it published vile and offensive remarks about the LGBT+ community.
In the party’s extended policy platform, they claimed that LGBT+ people “recruit children” and “prey” on women.
The policy document refers to bills that would advance LGBT+ rights as “SOGI bills”, meaning “sexual orientation and gender identity” bills.
It also argues that advancements in LGBT+ rights would impact adversely on the rights of straight and cisgender people – an argument queer people hear far too often — and goes on to make wildly offensive statements about the queer community without citing any evidence to back up their claims.
LGBT+ ‘practices’ are ‘unhealthy and dangerous’, according to the Republican Party in North Dakota.
“The Republican Party of North Dakota recognises that arbitrary discrimination is best sorted out in the free market which is invariably unforgiving in instances of unwarranted discrimination,” the platform says.
It then claims that LGBT+ identities – or “compulsions”, as they’re described – are “developed” rather than being genetic.
“SOGI laws empower those practicing LGBT behaviours to assume positions of mentorships of minors often over objection to parents influencing their emotions and thereby recruiting for their lifestyles,” it adds.
It goes on to say that legislative advancements in LGBT+ rights will be used to “attack religious freedom, free speech and livelihood of others”.
“Many LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large,” it adds.
“Therefore, be it resolved: The Republican Party of North Dakota opposes the passage of legislation which adds sexual orientation and gender identity to our century code as protected classes.”
Many LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large.
The document has been condemned by both Republican and Democrat lawmakers, as well as Republican governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum.
“As I’ve long said, all North Dakotans deserve to be treated equally and live free of discrimination,” he wrote on Twitter Thursday (July 23).
“There’s no place for the hurtful and divisive rhetoric in the NDGOP resolutions. We can respect one another’s freedoms without disrespecting or discriminating against the LGBT members of our state and our party, whom we support.”
North Dakota GOP regrets causing ‘any offence’ – but falls short of apologising.
Corby Kemmer, the executive director of the North Dakota GOP, said in a statement that they regret causing offence.
“We regret any offence this may have caused, and we will be reconsidering this resolution at a future meeting to bring it more in line with what delegates were attempting to communicate,” he said.
Democrat Josh Boschee, a gay man, told InForumsaid the arguments put forward in the resolution are harmful and give the state a bad name.
“Statements like this by the majority party don’t help when it comes to workforce recruitment or retaining the students we educate for 12 to 16 years,” he said.
“We see a lot of people leave the state because of bigotry like that.”
Meanwhile, Republican representative Thomas Beadle, who is running for state treasurer, lashed out at the anti-LGBT+ language on Twitter.
He said the party should be “welcoming to others, not discriminatory against people for how god made them”.
Republican senators Ray Holmberg, Curt Kreun and Scott Meyer said in a letter on Wednesday (July 22) that they stand with the LGBT+ community and would try to change the party.
US representative Kelly Armstrong said the party needs to do “a lot better”and must wipe out “hateful and divisive rhetoric”.
Davie Police Chief Dale Engle told town officials last week that he plans to retire on Sept. 3, the South Florida SunSentinel reported. He has been on paid leave for three months and will continue to be paid until he retires.
Engle was accused of saying Broward Sheriff’s school resource officer Shannon Bennett died because of his lifestyle. On Monday night, Engle told the SunSentinel he didn’t make the remark.
“I maintain my innocence,” he said.
Engle was placed on leave shortly after the state’s Fraternal Order of Police filed a complaint against him.
He said Davie officials didn’t pressure him to retire. Engle said he is leaving on his own with no pressure from the city. His decision to retire was fueled by a toxic backlash his teenage children received on social media after the allegations surfaced, he told the newspaper.
