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11th hour anti-gay attacks against Cicilline?

R.I. GOP opponent stresses family, support for ‘Don’t Ask’

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A gay politician seeking to represent Rhode Island in Congress is enduring what could be thinly veiled attacks on his sexual orientation as Election Day approaches.

David Cicilline, the gay mayor of Providence, R.I., is vying to represent the state’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House. The seat is being vacated by retiring Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.).

Cicilline, a Democrat, is running against Republican John Loughlin, a member of the Rhode Island State House and an Army veteran.

With Rhode Island’s unemployment rate currently at 11.5 percent — fifth highest in the nation — both candidates have been emphasizing job creation during the campaign.

But in the final weeks of the campaign, Loughlin has made several statements that could be considered digs at Cicilline based on his sexual orientation.

In a “Voice of the Candidate” clip that aired on a local NBC affiliate in Rhode Island, Loughlin repeatedly mentions that he is a father and a husband — possibly a reference to the fact that Cicilline is gay and single.

“I’ve been married for 23 years to my wife, Susan, and we have two daughters,” Loughlin says. “I know about the struggles of working families in Rhode Island because I’m part of one. I’ve had to worry about how to pay for dance lessons, summer camp and all the extras that come from raising children.’

Similar language about Loughlin’s family is included in one of the campaign’s recent radio ads promoting the candidate.

“John Loughlin is a husband, a father, a small businessman,” says a voiceover in the ad as somber trumpets play in the background.

Additionally, in a debate last week with Cicilline, Loughlin notably emphasized his support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The Republican candidate said the law “has served the military well” and he would “like to see it continue.”

Loughlin continued that the U.S. armed forces shouldn’t be a place to “celebrate” anyone’s sexual orientation and that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” simply means “you cannot celebrate your sexuality while you are on active duty.”

“Mayor, I was there, I know, I served and I have seen it — you have not,” Loughlin said. “We are not interested in celebrating anyone’s sexuality; we are about doing the job.”

Eric Hyers, campaign manager for the Cicilline campaign, declined to comment on whether Loughlin’s statements amounted to anti-gay attacks and emphasized the Cicilline campaign is focused on bread-and-butter issues.

“David and his campaign are 100 percent focused on how to get Rhode Islanders back to work, how to make sure that we don’t privatize Social Security,” Hyers said. “We’re making sure that we fight to end tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas.”

Loughlin’s campaign didn’t respond to the Blade’s request for comment on whether the Republican candidate’s statements were intended as anti-gay attacks against Cicilline.

One political observer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said “grasping at something” like a candidate’s sexual orientation is not uncommon in races where an opponent is behind.

“They think that if they grasp at David’s sexual orientation, that they might catch fire,” the observer said. “Could you try to interpret what Loughlin is doing as baiting? Probably. But I don’t think anybody’s really sensing that given how out David is.”

Last week, Politico included the race to represent Rhode Island’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House as among its “99 Seats in Play” for the election. Cook Political Report last month changed the status of the race from “likely Democrat” to “leans Democrat.”

David Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report, said Cicilline is waging “as good a race as he can” against Loughlin, but said socially conservative Democrats outside of Providence could side with the GOP candidates in the wake of the campaign attacks launched against the Providence mayor.

“Loughlin is gaining traction by pointing to Cicilline’s mayoral record,” Wasserman said. “Big city mayors often have a hard time turning an election into a referendum on their opponents when they have such a lengthy record to defend themselves.”

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, identified the Providence mayor as the “favorite” in the Rhode Island race and said the outcome of the contest would be “likely” Democratic. Even so, Sabato acknowledged that, “Republicans claim that the race has closed fast.”

But Hyers dismissed talk that Cicilline is in danger of losing the election, even as he acknowledged that the 2010 elections are “a tough environment for Democrats.”

“Fortunately for us, we’ve been running this campaign like we’re tied ever since it began,” Hyers said. “We’re taking nothing for granted we’ve seen what happens when Democrats take their foot off the gas. We’re not going to let that happen; we’re going that voters know everything there is to know about these two candidates.”

Cicilline is running in a Democratic stronghold and is credited for being a powerhouse fundraiser. He has raised nearly $1.7 million so far in his campaign while, in comparison, Loughlin has raised $618,000.

A poll made public earlier this month by NBC 10-Quest Research in Rhode Island also indicates that Cicilline is heading to victory. The poll found that Cicilline is leading Loughlin by 47 percent to 36 percent among likely voters.

Hyers said he thinks Cicilline’s prospects for winning are solid and said credible polls have the Providence mayor with a “solid lead — often times in double digits.”

“We have a phenomenal grassroots operation, a great ground game that’s started to turn out the voters … and the response at the doors is overwhelming,” Hyers said.

Compared to other non-incumbent openly gay congressional candidates, Cicilline is widely seen as having the best chance of winning on Election Day.

Steve Pougnet, the mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., is running in California’s 45th congressional district to unseat Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.).

At the other end of the country, Ed Potosnak, a former staffer for Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and a public school teacher, is running in New Jersey’s 7th congressional against Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.).

Both gay candidates are running under the Democratic banner in traditionally “red” districts against GOP incumbents at a time when major Republican gains are expected in Congress.

Sabato said Bono Mack is the “clear favorite” in the race against Pougnet, although he acknowledged California’s 45th congressional district is “in one of the weaker districts for a Republican this year.”

“Steve Pougnet would need a strong top-of-the-ticket coattail from [Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Jerry Brown and [U.S. Sen.] Barbara Boxer to win, and that is unlikely in this district,” Sabato added.

Despite these challenges, the political observer speaking on condition of anonymity said Pougnet has run an “equally good race” as Cicilline and has likewise been a fundraising powerhouse.

According to Federal Election Reports, Pougnet has been keeping up with Bono Mack, which is unusual because she’s an incumbent. Pougnet has raised nearly $1.7 million in the campaign while Bono Mack has raised $2.2 million.

“If you look at the last financial filings, you’ll be shocked at how similar they are in how much money they’ve raised,” the observer said.

Still, Pougnet has a tougher race than Cicilline because the Palm Springs mayor is challenging an incumbent.

“As time has shown, over and over again, running against an incumbent is that much more challenging, especially someone who’s been there as long as she has,” the observer said.

Potosnak’s race is seen as the toughest for an out gay candidate this year. Sabato said he has “no indication” he could put the Republican incumbent in “any electoral trouble.”

“We list that one as safe [Republican],” Sabato said. “This is not the year to upset secure Republican incumbents.”

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court declines to hear case over drag show at Texas university

Students argue First Amendment protects performance

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The U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 30, 2022. ((Photo by Fred Schilling of the U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a First Amendment case over a public university president’s refusal to allow an LGBTQ student group to host a drag show on campus.

The group’s application was denied without the justices providing their reasoning or issuing dissenting opinions, as is custom for such requests for emergency review.

When plaintiffs sought to organize the drag performance to raise money for suicide prevention in March 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled the event, citing the Bible and other religious texts.

The students sued, arguing the move constituted prior restraint and viewpoint-based discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment. Wendler had called drag shows “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” adding that “a harmless drag show” was “not possible.”

The notoriously conservative Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who former President Donald Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled against the plaintiffs in September, writing that “it is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”

Kacsmaryk further argued that the High Court’s precedent-setting opinions protecting stage performances and establishing that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend” was inconsistent with constitutional interpretation based on “text, history and tradition.”

Plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is by far the most conservative of the nation’s 12 appellate circuit courts. They sought emergency review by the Supreme Court because the 5th Circuit refused to fast-track their case, so arguments were scheduled to begin after the date of their drag show.

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Federal Government

EXCLUSIVE: USAID LGBTQ coordinator visits Uganda

Jay Gilliam met with activists, community members from Feb. 19-27

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U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam (Photo courtesy of USAID)

U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam last month traveled to Uganda.

Gilliam was in the country from Feb. 19-27. He visited Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and the nearby city of Jinja.

Gilliam met with LGBTQ activists who discussed the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law with a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” that President Yoweri Museveni signed last May. Gilliam also sat down with USAID staffers.

Gilliam on Wednesday during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade did not identify the specific activists and organizations with whom he met “out of protection.” 

“I really wanted to meet with community members and understand the impacts on them,” he said.

Consensual same-sex sexual relations in Uganda were already criminalized before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Gilliam told the Blade he spoke with a person who said authorities arrested them at a community meeting for mental health and psychosocial support “under false pretenses of engaging in same-sex relations and caught in a video that purportedly showed him.” 

The person, according to Gilliam, said authorities outed them and drove them around the town in which they were arrested in order to humiliate them. Gilliam told the Blade that prisoners and guards beat them, subjected them to so-called anal exams and denied them access to antiretroviral drugs.

“They were told that you are not even a human being. From here on you are no longer living, just dead,” recalled Gilliam.

“I just can’t imagine how difficult it is for someone to be able to live through something like that and being released and having ongoing needs for personal security, having to be relocated and getting support for that and lots of other personal issues and trauma,” added Gilliam.

Gilliam said activists shared stories of landlords and hotel owners evicting LGBTQ people and advocacy groups from their properties. Gilliam told the Blade they “purport that they don’t want to run afoul of” the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“These evictions really exacerbate the needs from the community in terms of relocation and temporary shelter and just the trauma of being kicked out of your home, being kicked out of your village and having to find a place to stay at a moment’s notice, knowing that you’re also trying to escape harm and harassment from neighbors and community members,” he said.

Gilliam also noted the Anti-Homosexuality Act has impacted community members in different ways.

Reported cases of violence and eviction, for example, are higher among gay men and transgender women. Gilliam noted lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans men face intimate partner violence, are forced into marriages, endure corrective rape and lose custody of their children when they are outed. He said these community members are also unable to inherit land, cannot control their own finances and face employment discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  

US sanctioned Ugandan officials over Anti-Homosexuality Act

The U.S imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials shortly after Museveni signed the law. The World Bank Group later announced the suspension of new loans to Uganda.

The Biden-Harris administration last October issued a business advisory that said the Anti-Homosexuality Act “further increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.” The White House has also removed Uganda from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. and has issued a business advisory for the country over the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 4, 2023, announced sanctions against current and former Ugandan officials who committed human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups. Media reports this week indicate the U.S. denied MP Sarah Achieng Opendi a visa that would have allowed her to travel to New York in order to attend the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Museveni, for his part, has criticized the U.S. and other Western countries’ response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Gilliam noted authorities have arrested and charged Ugandans under the law. 

Two men on motorcycles on Jan. 3 stabbed Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, outside his home while he was going to work. The incident took place months after Museveni attended Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast at which U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke and defended the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The State Department condemned the attack that Kabuye blamed on politicians and religious leaders who are stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda. Gilliam did not meet with Ugandan government officials while he was in the country.

“We in the U.S. government have already made it clear our stance with government officials on how we feel about the AHA, as well as broader human rights concerns in country,” said Gilliam. “That’s been communicated from the very highest levels.”

The Uganda’s Constitutional Court last Dec. 18 heard arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the Anti-Homosexuality Act. It is unclear when a ruling in the case will take place, but Gilliam said LGBTQ Ugandans with whom he met described the law “as just one moment.” 

“Obviously there is lots of work that has been done, that continues to be done to respond to this moment,” he told the Blade. “They know that there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to continue to really address a lot of the root causes and to really back humanity to the community.” 

Gilliam further noted it will “take some years to recover from the damage of 2023 and the AHA (Anti-Homosexuality Act) there.” He added activists are “already laying down the groundwork for what that work looks like” in terms of finding MPs, religious leaders, human rights activists and family members who may become allies.

“Those types of allyships are going to be key to building back the community and to continue the resiliency of the movement,” said Gilliam.

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Texas

Pornhub blocks Texas accessing site over age verification law

Court battle forced statute to take effect

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Washingtonporn Blade graphic

Aylo (formerly MindGeek) the largest global adult online entertainment conglomerate, owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, has restricted access to its platforms including its flagship Pornhub in Texas after a court battle forces the state’s age verification law to take effect.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton had appealed a U.S. District Court decision that enjoined him from enforcing House Bill 1181. Paxton and others argued that purveyors of obscene materials online needed to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from pornography. 

A week ago the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially vacated the original injunction, ruling that the age verification requirements are constitutional. 

“Applying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography,” the three judge panel of the 5th Circuit explained. “Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.”

While the court vacated the injunction against the age-verification requirement of the statute, it upheld the lower court’s injunction against a separate section of the law that would require pornography websites to display a health warning on their landing page and all advertisements. 

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

The Houston Chronicle reported people who go to the site are now greeted with a long message from the company railing against the legal change as “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.” The company calls for age verification by the makers of devices that let people on the internet, instead of individual websites.

Age verification legislation was enacted in several states in 2023 in addition to Texas, including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.

The new laws require users to provide digital confirmation via a certified approved third party vendor like London-based digital identity company Yoti. The other possibility would be a state approved digital ID such as the California DMV’s Wallet app, which contains a mobile driver’s license.

Users accessing Pornhub from within Louisiana are presented with a different webpage that directs them to verify their age with the state’s digital ID system, known as LA Wallet. The law passed in 2022 subjects adult websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driver’s licenses or other methods.

The Associated Press reported this past October that an adult entertainment group’s lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans.

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

Potential or existing Pornhub users in North Carolina and Montana are directed to a video that features adult film star Cherie DeVille, who recites a message also written under the video.

“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

“Mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply,” the statement continues. “As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.”

“Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in [the aforementioned locales]” the message ends with.

The company previously blocked Utah on May 7, 2023. CNN reported at the time:

Affected users are shown a message expressing opposition to Senate Bill 287, the Utah law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that creates liability for porn sites that make their content available to people below the age of 18.

“As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the message said. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

Courthouse News reported that after Virginia’s bill was passed in June, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, criticized the state for not creating a system for age verification, and instead leaving it up to websites to manage the process, citing security risks.  

“We passed a bill during this session to protect children from online porn. However the executive branch had an obligation to create a system for age verification,” Lucas said on X, formerly Twitter. “We will continue our work to keep pornography out of the hands of minors … but we will also work to ensure that this Governor’s error does not put the privacy of Virginians at further risk.”

Beyond the U.S. in the European Union, Pornhub and two more of the world’s biggest porn websites face new requirements in the European Union that include verifying the ages of users, under the EU’s Digital Services Act.

According to a December 20 report from the Associated Press, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat have now been classed as “very large online platforms” subject to more stringent controls under the Digital Services Act because they each have 45 million average monthly users, according to the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch.

They are the first porn sites to be targeted by the sweeping Digital Services Act, which imposes tough obligations to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, the Associated Press reported last month.

In addition to the adult entertainment websites, any violations are punishable by fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban on operating in the EU. Some 19 online platforms and search engines have already been identified for stricter scrutiny under the DSA, including TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more.

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