National
Gay Wis. lawmaker hopes to win Baldwin’s seat
Pocan pledges active role in LGBT rights fight
U.S. House candidate Mark Pocan (Blade photo by Michael Key)
It’ll be a tough act for Mark Pocan to follow.
The gay lawmaker in the Wisconsin State Assembly is seeking the seat being vacated at the end of this year by lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who’s leaving the U.S. House to pursue a run for the U.S. Senate.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, Pocan, 47, said he wants to represent Wisconsin’s second congressional district to build on the work he’s done during his seven terms in the Wisconsin Assembly and to bring a progressive voice to Congress.
“I’ve always said there’s only one other job I would want,” Pocan said. “Our county executive recently left, and she said, ‘Do you want to run for that?’ She spent six months talking about manure digesters, and that wasn’t something I really thought was that exciting, but legislative work is something I really enjoy. It’s something that I think can have some of the same results at the state level at the federal level.”
The political careers of Baldwin and Pocan have been intertwined. Both served in the early 1990s as members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors. When Baldwin left the State Assembly in 1998 to pursue a run for Congress, Pocan ran to fill her seat.
Among his priorities, Pocan said, is “fighting the proper fight” for progressives on issues related to jobs and the economy. Having run a specialty printing firm for 23 years, Pocan said companies need access to capital to grow and jump start the economy.
“It’s funny to hear Republicans talk about job creators, and they get all excited when the say the words, ‘job creators,’ but their answer to everything is a new tax break for the wealthy,” Pocan said. “I think, when I look at, I know that what small businesses who are my customers need is access to capital, so they grow their business. So, I think I can very credibly provide a small business perspective, but matched with progressive values.”
If elected, Pocan would join other openly gay Democrats in the U.S. House and possibly keep that number at four after Baldwin leaves. Gay Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I.) are incumbents seeking re-election.
Denis Dison, spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, said Pocan has what it takes to join the ranks of the other openly gay lawmakers in Congress fighting for LGBT rights. The organization has already endorsed him.
“Mark is a vocal and respected fighter for progressive values, and that’s what people can expect from him as a member of Congress,” Dison said. “In the same tradition as Congresswoman Baldwin, Mark won’t be shy about speaking out for what he believes in, and he’ll be an effective champion for LGBT equality.”
Pocan is married to Phil Frank, 34, who works as operations manager at the print shop that they both own. The couple has been together nine years, and were married five years ago in Toronto, although the state doesn’t recognize their marriage due to a constitutional amendment ratified by Wisconsin voters in 2006.
Pocan said he “absolutely” wants to follow Baldwin’s lead when it comes to fighting for LGBT rights. It’ll be a tall order: Baldwin was the first non-incumbent openly gay person elected to Congress and is a lead coordinator for pro-LGBT initiatives in Congress.
Drawing on his work in the Wisconsin Assembly, Pocan asserted he has the ability to take the lead on LGBT issues in Congress. As a state lawmaker, he played a key role in pushing through domestic partner benefits for state employees and, as part of the state budget, a domestic partner registry enabling same-sex couples in the state to have 43 of the rights and protections of marriage. Both measures went though the Joint Committee on Finance, where Pocan serves as a member.
“Those are two pretty significant measures for our state that are we rather behind on, that we were able to get done through my committee and through my leadership in the last session once the Democrats took control,” Pocan said.
Asked which pro-LGBT measures he’d like to pursue at the federal level, Pocan said he “wants to work with the community” to determine which measures are the highest priority.
“It’s working with the community groups in deciding what we need to move at the right time,” Pocan said. “Because clearly, in some congresses, you’re not going to able to move bills, you’re going to be fighting any bad legislation that could happen.”
Pocan said he supports repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage, as well as passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Uniting American Families Act.
Recalling the recent backlash against the conservative, anti-labor policies of Gov. Scott Walker (R) — who’s facing potential recall — and the fight against the same-sex marriage ban in 2006, Pocan said the LGBT movement is an intrinsic part of the progressive movement as a whole. Earlier this year, Democrats led recall efforts against six Republican state senators and unseated two.
“When we had the fight for collective bargaining, our main political organization, Fair Wisconsin, and many people came with rainbow flags to show support from collective bargaining. I think it’s the collective fight that we have against people who want to take away rights — it’s just growing and becoming more sophisticated and more powerful.”
Pocan urged President Obama to take further action on LGBT rights. An endorsement of marriage equality, Pocan said, is among the steps he wants to see from Obama — as well as other members of Congress — and said an “education process” is necessary to enable Obama to “evolve” as he said he could do.
“When you talk to the president and other members of Congress, let them see what a same-sex couple looks like who are happy married after five years and defying most of the odds of heterosexual couples at that point,” Pocan said. “It’s a matter of getting public officials sometimes to lead like they’re supposed to and making them as a comfortable as possible so they can do the right thing.”
Additionally, Pocan said he “absolutely” wants to see Obama take action to address workplace discrimination against LGBT people. The candidate said he backs the idea of Obama issuing an executive order prohibiting federal dollars from going to contractors and suppliers that don’t have non-discrimnation policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“We’ve looked at this in our state, too, where sometimes you just work the system the best you can,” Pocan said. “You can’t say you’re going to wait necessarily for the political winds that brought in the Tea Party and others to suddenly acquiesce to civil rights. So we need to have the president take a leadership role. I think he’s done a lot of positive things for the community, but there’s a lot more he can do, and I think we need to make it so that there’s a strong environment so that he can get those things accomplished.”
Such an executive order has been seen as an interim solution until Congress can pass ENDA, although the Obama administration hasn’t said whether it will issue the directive.
Wisconsin’s 2nd congressional district — which includes Madison, sometimes referred to as the most gay-friendly district in the country — is a Democratic stronghold, so most observers expect Pocan to have no trouble winning the seat in the general election.
But Pocan won’t have smooth sailing in getting to Congress. In the Democratic primary likely to take place Aug. 14, Pocan is facing at least two Democratic opponents: State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, who’s been serving in the legislature since 2008, and David Worzala, who was elected three times to the Dane County Board of Supervisors and serves as Dane County Treasurer.
“For us, the primary is the general, so there’s that kind of emphasis on the primary,” Pocan said. “We have to convince the voters that I’ve been a proven fighter for progressive values, got 18 years to look at my record. You know where I’m at, I’m not suddenly going to change, sell out to the Tea Party or something like that. I can best use the skills I’ve built, the accomplishments I’ve had in the legislature and bring that to a federal level.”
Baldwin hasn’t made an endorsement in the House race. Phillip Walzak, a Baldwin campaign spokesperson, said Baldwin thinks either Pocan or Roys would be good candidates to succeed her in representing the second district.
“Tammy has worked closely with Mark over the years, and Tammy thinks both Mark Pocan and Kelda Helen Roys are great candidates for her House seat,” Walzak said.
In terms of fundraising, Pocan is ahead of his Democratic opponents. According to the most recent Federal Election Commission reports, Pocan has raised $123,000 this election cycle and has about the same amount in cash on hand. Comparatively, Roys has raised $70,000 and has $67,000 in cash on hand, while Worzala has raised $55,o00 and has $52,000 in cash on hand.
But Pocan said he has something else to offer the Democratic Party if he’s chosen as the standard-bearer heading into the general election: a track record of helping other Democrats win election. During his time in the Assembly, Pocan said he’s worked on the campaign committee to help elect Democrats to the state legislature.
“Two cycles ago, when we took the majority for the first time in 14 years, I was in charge of that operation,” Pocan said. “I think that that’s something hopefully I can also bring to Congress. Having a very safe district like the 2nd district means whoever wins the primary will very likely be the next member of Congress. I think there’s an obligation to seat like that to help elect other Democrats.”
The election of more Democrats, Pocan said, would be key to advancing LGBT rights and other issues important to the progressive movement.
“Hopefully I can do that sort of thing and help in Congress because unless I help elect more Democrats, it’s not likely that I’ll pass the very things, the values I have and my district has,” Pocan said.
National
Anti-LGBTQ Franklin Graham to give invocation at Trump’s inauguration
Evangelical leader also delivered address in 2017
Anti-LGBTQ evangelist Franklin Graham will deliver the invocation for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Jan. 20, according to a copy of the program that was circulated on X.
Graham, who serves as president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, the evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization, and of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which was named for his late father, offered the opening prayer for Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.
As documented by GLAAD, the Asheville, N.C.,-based evangelist has attacked the LGBTQ community throughout his life and career.
He supported the draconian laws in Russia targeting “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” that have been used to suppress media that presents “LGBTQ identities and relationships in a positive or normalizing light.”
Praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for taking “a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of the gay and lesbian agenda,” Graham also bemoaned that “America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue.”
Graham’s anti-LGBTQ advocacy on matters of domestic policy in the U.S. has included opposing Pride events, which he compared to celebrations of “lying, adultery, or murder,” and curricula on LGBTQ history in public schools, telling a radio host in 2019 that educators have no right to “teach our children something that is an affront to God.”
When his home state rolled back rules prohibiting gender diverse people from using public restrooms consistent with their identities, he tweeted that “people of NC will be exposed to pedophiles and sexually perverted men in women’s public restrooms.”
Graham has repeatedly smeared LGBTQ people as predatory and said the community seeks to “recruit” children into being gay, lesbian, or transgender.
He has also consistently opposed same-sex marriage, claiming that former President Barack Obama, by embracing marriage equality, had “shaken his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage,” adding, “it grieves me that our president would now affirm same-sex marriage, though I believe it grieves God even more.”
Graham also supports the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy, which he likened to “conversion to Christianity.”
When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced his bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, Graham tweeted that “Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman — not two men, not two women.”
Graham embraced Trump well before he was taken seriously in Republican politics, telling ABC in 2011 that the New York real estate tycoon was his preferred candidate.
Particularly during the incoming president’s first campaign as the GOP nominee and during his first term, the evangelical leader’s support was seen as strategically important to bringing conservative Christians into the fold despite their misgivings about Trump, who was better known as a philandering womanizer than a devout religious leader.
National
Homophobe Anita Bryant dies at 84
Anita Bryant, the singer and orange juice pitch woman who gained notoriety for a homophobic campaign against gay rights in the 1970s, died on Dec. 16 after a battle with cancer, according to a statement released by her family. She was 84.
Bryant was a former Miss Oklahoma, a Grammy-nominated singer, author, and recipient of the USO Silver Medallion for Service, according to her family’s statement. Bryant, a fundamentalist Christian, performed at the White House and the Super Bowl, among other highlights of her singing career.
Bryant incurred the ire of the LGBTQ community after she fought successfully to overturn a Dade County, Fla., ordinance that would have protected gay people from discrimination. Her “Save Our Children” campaign led gay bars to boycott Florida orange juice. In 1977, while promoting her campaign in Iowa, Tom Higgins, a gay rights activist, threw a pie in her face, an iconic moment caught by photographers.
Bryant’s homophobic legacy lives on with Florida politicians like Gov. Ron DeSantis rolling back LGBTQ protections and enshrining discrimination in state law.
National
New Meta guidelines include carveout to allow anti-LGBTQ speech on Facebook, Instagram
Zuckerberg cozying up to Trump ahead of second term
New content moderation policies governing hate speech on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads that were enacted by parent company Meta on Wednesday contain a carveout that allows users to call LGBTQ people mentally ill.
According to the guidelines, which otherwise prohibit use of such insults on the online platforms, “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”
Meta also removed rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease while withdrawing policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and references to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”
In a video on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s co-founder, chairman, and CEO, said the platforms’ “restrictions on topics like immigration and gender” were now “out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far,” he added.
In a statement to the Washington Blade, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said “Everyone should be able to engage and learn online without fear of being targeted or harassed. While we understand the difficulties in enforcing content moderation, we have grave concerns that the changes announced by Meta will put the LGBTQ+ community in danger both online and off.”
“What’s left of Meta’s hateful conduct policy expressly allows users to bully LGBTQ+ people based on their gender identity or sexual orientation and even permits calls for the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from public spaces,” she said. “We can expect increased anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, further suppression of LGBTQ+ content, and drastic chilling effects on LGBTQ+ users’ expression.”
Robinson added, “While we recognize the immense harms and dangers of these new policies, we ALL have a role to play in lifting up our stories, pushing back on misinformation and hate, and supporting each other in online spaces. We need everyone engaged now more than ever. HRC isn’t going anywhere, and we will always be here for you.”
As attacks against LGBTQ and especially transgender Americans have ramped up over the past few years in legislative chambers and courtrooms throughout the country, bias-motivated crimes including acts of violence are also on the rise along with homophobic and transphobic hate speech, misinformation, and conspiracy theories that are spread farther and faster thanks to the massive reach of social media platforms and the policies and practices by which the companies moderate user content and design their algorithms.
However ascendant certain homophobic and transphobic ideas might be on social media and in the broader realm of “political and religious discourse,” homosexuality and gender variance are not considered mental illnesses in the mainstream study or clinical practice of psychiatry.
The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its internationally recognized Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders more than 50 years ago and more than 30 years ago erased “transsexualism” to use “gender identity disorder” instead before switching to “gender dysphoria” in 2013. These changes were meant to clarify the distinction between the patient’s identity as trans and the ego-dystonic distress experienced in many cases when one’s birth sex differs from one’s gender identity.
Research has consistently shown the efficacy of treating gender dysphoria with gender-affirming health interventions — the psychiatric, medical, and surgical care that can bring patients’ brains and bodies into closer alignment with their self-concept while reducing the incidence of severe depression, anxiety, self-harm behavior, and suicide.
Just like slandering LGBTQ people as sick or sexually deviant, the pathologization of homosexuality and gender variance as disordered (or linked to different mental illnesses that are actually listed in the DSM) is not new, but rather a revival of a coarser homophobia and transphobia that until the recent past was largely relegated to a time well before queer people had secured any meaningful progress toward legal, social, and political equality.
Wednesday’s announcement by Meta marked just the latest move that seems meant to ingratiate the tech giant with President-elect Donald Trump and curry favor with his incoming administration, which in turn could smooth tensions with conservative lawmakers who have often been at odds with either Facebook, Instagram, and Zuckerberg — who had enjoyed a close relationship with the Obama White House and over the years has occasionally championed progressive policies like opposing mass deportations.
Public signs of reconciliation with Trump began this summer, when Meta removed restrictions on his Facebook and Instagram accounts that were enacted following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In the months since, the company has continued cozying up to Trump and Republican leaders in Washington, including with Tuesday’s announcement that Meta platforms will no longer use professional fact checking, among other policy changes that mirror those enacted by Elon Musk after he took over Twitter in 2022, changed its name to X, and created conditions that have allowed hate and misinformation to proliferate far more than ever before.
In recent months, Musk, the world’s richest man, has emerged as one of the president-elect’s fiercest allies, spending a reported $277 million to support his presidential campaign and using his platform and influence to champion many of the incoming administration’s policy priorities, including efforts to target the trans community.
Last month, Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook each donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and OpenAI’s Sam Altman each reportedly pledging matching contributions.
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Second Trump administration will put trans youth at further risk
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Vatican approves Italian guidelines for gay priests
Teen gets probation in attack on gay man at 14th & U McDonald’s
Fire set at Arlington gay bar listed as arson
Homophobe Anita Bryant dies at 84
Prominent Cameroonian activist faces terrorism charges
