Opinions
August in Rehoboth Beach
Enjoying a slower pace after hectic convention week
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — It’s August and Rehoboth Beach is slow and lazy. For most of us that is just how it should be and after a hectic week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia I came to relax for a couple of weeks.
The weather has been generally good, making for fun happy hours at Aqua Grill with its hot waiters and reasonably priced drinks (reasonable at least compared to drink prices at some other local bars). The only complaint and recommendation many have voiced to Aqua Grill’s owner is to have the handsome waiters shirtless more often as they have been in past years. They don’t seem to mind and customers love it.
Even with their New York drink prices, Pamala Stanley continues to pack them in for her performances at the Blue Moon. The restaurant is fantastic and Lion Gardener can lay claim to being one of the best chefs at the beach — if not the best. Meg Gardener is doing a great job running the restaurant and rumor has it their catering business is going full-steam ahead. Many of us are looking forward to the restaurant they will open across the street in the old Seafood Shack. The building has been gutted and they hope to open it before the end of the year. I hear it will be called AXIS. Guess they didn’t like my suggestions of Half Moon or Lesser Moon. We all look forward to its opening.
Surprisingly, some business owners here are complaining of a slow summer. It was hard to tell when trying to go to half- priced pasta night at Lupo Italian Kitchen and being told we had a 45-minute wait at 8 p.m.
Last Thursday at cheap steak night at Café Azafran we were able to get a table for two in the main room as walk-ins, which is the first time that happened this summer. By 9:15 there were empty tables. Thursday night at Azafran is great fun with a filet mignon and salad for $22 and a glass of wine for $5. The best part is being entertained by the bartender — the talented, beautiful, chanteuse Holly Lane with John Flynn on the keyboard.
Sunday night was the bachelor auction at Aqua Grill. It was a benefit for CAMP Rehoboth and raised a record $29,000. Bachelors included generous waiters and bartenders from nearly every local bar. Aqua participants included Matt, Eric, Louie, Remus and bar manager Josh. Matt set a record, raising $7,000 combining two bidders and Eric got one bidder to ante up $6,300. Those two hot boys put on quite a show.
This Saturday, Aug. 13 is the election for the Rehoboth Beach Commission. Everyone eligible should vote for Rick Perry. The commission under Mayor Sam Cooper has actually hurt the reputation of Rehoboth with its nonsensical policies on everything from swimming pools to sound levels. Negative publicity on those issues went nationwide. Then the mayor suggested no liquor should be sold at new restaurants/bars after 11 p.m., but thankfully that proposal died a quick death.
Perry is an attorney and homeowner in town, with a background in government, public policy and finance. He would make a great addition to the commission, joining Paul Kuhns who was elected last year. They would bring common sense back to the commission. Many of us who have spent time in Rehoboth for years hope Kuhns will run for mayor in 2017 when Cooper’s term ends.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBT rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Opinions
Project 2025: A threat to LGBTQ elders and inclusive America
We must fight for a diverse country that protects all its citizens
In recent months, Project 2025, a conservative roadmap for a potential second Trump administration, has gained significant attention. While its proponents claim it will bring efficiency and reform to governmental operations, a more in-depth read of the document reveals a disturbing agenda that threatens the progress made across various sectors in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, with particularly harmful implications for LGBTQ+ elders.
Project 2025 proposes a radical overhaul of federal agencies, with a specific focus on dismantling DEI programs. The plan views these initiatives as forms of “affirmative discrimination” and seeks to replace them with what it perceives as merit-based practices. This stance ignores the real-world benefits of DEI programs in creating more inclusive and equitable workplaces, particularly for marginalized communities like LGBTQ+ elders.
The proposal goes beyond merely eliminating DEI initiatives. It advocates for stripping workplace protections related to sexual orientation and gender identity from federal rules. This regressive move would leave LGBTQ+ individuals, especially older adults, vulnerable to discrimination in employment, healthcare, and housing – areas where they already face significant challenges.
LGBTQ+ older adults are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of proposed changes in Project 2025’s anti-DEI stance. This population already faces unique challenges, including higher rates of social isolation, poverty, and health disparities compared to their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts. The removal of protections and DEI initiatives could exacerbate these issues significantly, leading to increased discrimination in healthcare settings and potentially poorer health outcomes. Furthermore, the elimination of programs promoting inclusivity and social interaction could deepen the isolation experienced by LGBTQ+ elders, who are more likely to live alone and have fewer avenues of family support.
The economic and housing implications of Project 2025’s stance are equally concerning for LGBTQ+ older adults. With fewer workplace protections, they may face increased employment discrimination, potentially worsening their already precarious economic situations. This reduction in economic security could have far-reaching effects on their quality of life and ability to access necessary resources. Additionally, the potential reduction in support for LGBTQ+-inclusive housing initiatives could make it substantially more difficult for elders to find safe, affordable, and LGBTQ+-friendly housing options, further compounding the challenges they face in their daily lives.
The potential negative impact of Project 2025 extends far beyond LGBTQ+ elders, threatening to create a less tolerant and less inclusive society overall. By attempting to erase the progress made in recognizing and addressing structural inequalities, Project 2025 risks turning back the clock on civil rights and social justice initiatives. This regression could have profound implications for marginalized communities across the board, undoing decades of hard-fought progress in creating a more equitable society.
As we face this looming threat to LGBTQ+ elders and DEI initiatives, it’s crucial that we take decisive action. This includes raising awareness by educating others about the potential impacts of Project 2025 on vulnerable populations, advocating by supporting organizations fighting to defend LGBTQ+ rights and DEI initiatives, and exercising our right to vote to ensure that our elected officials support policies that protect marginalized communities. Additionally, we must continue to promote inclusivity in our workplaces and communities by championing DEI efforts and creating welcoming spaces for all. By taking these steps, we can work together to counteract the potential harm of Project 2025 and maintain the progress we’ve made toward a more just and equitable society.
Project 2025 represents a significant threat to the progress we’ve made in creating a more conscientious society. Its anti-DEI stance would disproportionately harm LGBTQ+ elders, a group already facing numerous challenges. We must stand against these regressive proposals and continue to fight for a diverse, inclusive America that values and protects all its citizens, regardless of age, sexual orientation or gender identity.
Kylie Madhav is Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion of SAGE.
Opinions
Progressive LGBTQ community should not throw conservative siblings under the bus
Queer people are not just Democrats
I have been an LGBTQ activist for almost 10 years, but I’ve never really felt like I’m a part of the LGBTQ community.
I remember how I was thinking about it when the idea of this article came to my mind: I was at a sex-positive queer event in a local library, at a book launch about neurodiversity and inclusion. It should be “my” topic: I’m a transgender autistic person after all. The event was amazing, wasn’t it? It was.
Only why did I feel so lonely, so out of place?
The folks around me felt like a community; most of them were so obviously gender non-conforming, obviously queer, and obviously leftists. They shared the same aesthetic, the same culture. But I was silently scrolling through my social media feeds, reading about the Chechen liberation movement’s history, weapons, and political news and my mind wandered. I was thinking about how I told my Chechen Salafi friend that I wanted to have a big family with eight kids and live in a village when I was a 4-year-old.
At four, I already knew that I’m not a girl, even if I didn’t have words for describing my condition. I have never heard about other trans* people. I was a trans* child without knowing it.
Then I became a trans* teenager in denial: A messy one, depressed, Christian fundamentalist teenager who compulsively read everything about the Cold War. An anti-leftist teenager who shared Henry Kissinger’s views on international politics and Ayn Rand’s view on the economy.
In my teenage years, I saw other trans* folks, but only on a TV screen. In mass culture, the trans* community is all about cross-dressing and drag queen parties in the worst case, and about being part of leftist social movement in the best. So, I couldn’t be trans*, couldn’t I? One of the reasons why it was so difficult for me to accept myself as a trans* was that I believed that if you are trans*, you should instinctively accept mainstream LGBTQ subculture.
I have changed a lot since then, and became an open LGBTQ activist, but when I read about Jessica Watkins, a transgender hardcore Donald Trump supporter who was arrested after the Washington riot on Jan. 6, I felt like she is the person I needed to hear about when I was younger.
I’m so not like her.
Watkins is an Afghanistan war veteran and a member of the far-right group Oath Keepers, and I’ve always, even in my childhood, hated the far-right, and have never supported the American invasion of Afghanistan. I do not think that I would like Trump populism and anti-intellectualism, even in my youth. But as a young transgender person, I desperately needed to see some proof that I could be trans* without falling into some social movement, that it is possible to be a transgender without having to fit into a long list of criteria from the mainstream LGBTQ community, and that transgender people could be different, just like everyone else.
This is why I felt outraged when some American LGBTQ people in social media supported a transphobic decision to put Jessica Watkins in a male prison.
On the eve of the 2024 presidential election, the situation worsened. The American LGBTQ community is taking a dangerous turn on excluding their politically “unreliable” siblings, and by doing it, helping anti-queer bigots to push their agenda of dehumanization of queer people in general.
Queer as a doctrine
Many homophobes believe the LGBTQ movement had some kind of ideology beside promoting equal rights. This myth existed for decades. In the Western conspiracy theories, homosexuality, and transgenderism are considered to be connected to leftist political schools of thought. During the McCarthyism era, LGBTQ people were discriminated against and sometimes even incarcerated partly because they were considered to be potential Soviet spies. It is a peculiar idea, because at the same time homosexual people in the Soviet Union were considered to be Western sympathizers. Or maybe it is less weird as it looks — people are often prone to be seen as a threat to someone who belongs to a minority they do not understand.
This is why many modern-day conservatives believe that if a child came out as queer, it means that this child was groomed by “cultural Marxism.”
But there is something else. The media — both progressive and conservatives — are to blame for this misconception.
The most common image of a queer person in the media is an image of a politically left, secular, eco-friendly, pro-choice person who likes to speak about their sexual kinks, has bright colored hair, and votes for Democrats. But if you would think twice, you would realize that all those things have nothing to do with being gay, bisexual, or trans*. It’s just some trends in LGBTQ community.
Some gay people are conservatives: Get over it
There are actually a lot of Republican LGBTQ. Some of them are quite prominent, like Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany who was also the first acting director of National Intelligence during the Trump presidency, which made him the first openly gay Cabinet-level official. He is quite a controversial figure for an LGBTQ community because of his anti-trans* sentiments and for criticizing the Equality Act, but it doesn’t make him less “gayish.”
Gay conservatives often have a complicated relationship with their sexuality, struggle to accept themselves. Former Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock had a long history of fighting inner homophobia before he managed to come out as a gay man, but it is more likely going to change for Zoomer and Alpha generations.
The list of modern-day LGBTQ Republicans is quite big, and there are even groups like Log Cabin Republicans, or The Rainbow Pro-life Alliance.
LGBTQ Donald Trump supporters host their own MAGA events, “Trump UNITY,” and basically have their own “LGBTQ culture,” separated from a mainstream LGBTQ movement for quite clear reasons.
Of course, not all LGBTQ Republicans are pro-Trump, and even not all LGBTQ conservatives are Republicans.
The fact that LGBTQ conservatives exist nowerdays is nothing unusual or new. Even in the 70’s when being LGBTQ was something far away from the acceptable norm, there were some openly right-wing queers and queer rights supporters in America. Actually there is a big difference between being socially conservative authoritarian who sometimes even economically-left, and economically conservative libertarians, because those movements often hate each other.
American economic conservatives, libertarian-right politicians and thinkers, like Ralph Raico, speak up for LGBTQ rights, and this is the reason why some LGBTQ became libertarian-right.
As for a social conservative authoritarian right, there were gay people even among members of an openly Nazi organization, National Socialism League.
The times are changing, and there will be more conservative people, including Republicans, who would accept themselves like gay, trans* or bi.
As Neil J. Young, author of “Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Rights,” noted in one of his interviews, “the proliferation of more people who identify as LGBTQ will mean a growth of people who identify as gay Republicans.”
This is not just a Western trend.
Amir Ohana, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party, for example, is the first openly gay Knesset speaker in Israeli history
Hence, even such an openly anti-gay movement as the so-called Islamic State somehow had gay people among their members — of course, those people have never openly said that they are gay because the risk of being executed, but it is known even in the authoritarian apocalyptic Islamist cult there were LGBTQ people. And while “ordinary” ISIS members were sometimes slaughtered for the accusation of being homosexual, high-ranking ISIS fighters like Abu Zayd Al-Jazrawi, a prominent Saudi fighter and commanders, who was accused of same-sex activity, was flogged or received a less serious sentence.
So, LGBTQ conservatives, including conservatives in quite extreme ways, are literally everywhere. Then why didn’t we notice them?
A self-fulfilling prophecy
Let’s put aside cases such as the possibly gay ISIS member, and think closer to home.
The reason why most visible LGBTQ Americans are progressive is not just about actual politics of Democrats and Republicans on queer issues, but partly is a self-fulfilling prophecy: After a gay, bi, or a trans* a young person became estranged to their conservative family, this person allied themselves with the mainstream LGBTQ community, who could reject him if it didn’t share their ideas.
So, LGBTQ youth have to make a choice that cis hetero kids don’t have to even imagine being forced to make. You could be literally anyone and be cis-hetero, but for being accepted as a queer person you are often forced to be part of a subculture.
By denying conservative LGBTQ people the right to be themselves, progressive media and LGBTQ activists made conservative anti-queer conspiracy about “cultural Marxism grooming” look more reliable, despite the fact that Karl Marx wasn’t particularly interested in sexuality and gender identity issues, and have nothing to do with modern minority rights movements.
But for conspiracists, gender identity and sexual orientation are seen not as part of human diversity, but something ideological.
Why do we need to change it?
The LGBTQ community is about gays, bisexuals, and trans* people. It is not about being left or right, Republicans or Democrats. The LGBTQ movement is a human rights movement at its very core; it is about the idea that you should have the same civil rights as anyone else. If we continue to deny politically “inconvenient” LGBTQ people those rights, we basically rob ourselves of a core idea of the LGBTQ movement. I strongly believe that Q-Anons and MAGA supporters in general are guilty of the deaths of some LGBTQ youth, especially trans* kids who died by suicide, because of the influence that Q-Anon’s “grooming” rhetoric has on the Republican mainstream nowadays, bringing back ideas from 80th Satanic panic and anti-queer conspiracy theories.
But if we would deny LGBTQ people who support Donald Trump their rights to be part of the LGBTQ community, we would be no better than the most hardcore MAGA supporters.
Civil rights have to be universal or they don’t work at all.
Even if we are speaking about rapist and a serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who also happened to be a gay man, it’s more than fine to say that he should be locked in prison for the rest of their lives, but in any we have no rights to discriminate against him because of his sexual orientation, or try to erase their homosexual identity to made gay community to look more “decent.”
LGBTQ people are human, and if we deny them a quality to make wrong choices or even different choices, we are denying them part of essential human traits. If we would go into gatekeeping, the core idea of LGBTQ activism lost its meaning.
A September 2024 poll by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found that 95 percent of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. are registered to vote. This startling statistic is in sharp contrast to the general population, where only 69 percent of U.S. citizens over 18 years of age are registered to vote, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Further, the Human Rights Campaign poll found that 93 percent of LGBTQ+ adults are motivated to vote in the November 2024 election.
This poll suggests that sexual minorities, as members of the LGBTQ+ community, represent a significant and powerful voting bloc. A 2022 Gallup poll found that 7.1 percent of the U.S. population identifies with the LGBTQ+ community, with higher shares among younger generations.
Voter registration, perhaps in part, stems from social activism. Queer people are no strangers to the fight for human and civil rights. Hard-fought advances have been made by supporting elected officials who recognize and protect the queer community and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. Based on our decades of research on cities and culture and LGBTQ+ studies, we suggest three reasons that the LGBTQ+ community is registered to vote at record levels and motivated to vote.
• The LGBTQ+ community is motivated to participate, engage, and act. Through a long track record of fighting for rights through protest, strategic lobbying and grassroots action, members of the LGBTQ+ community have fought many hard-won battles. Victories for LGBTQ+ people include federal legislation and U.S. Supreme Court actions that have expanded the legal rights of LGBTQ+ citizens in marriage equality, military service, and hate crime protection.
Though many rights have been gained by LGBTQ+ people, the status of these rights remains tenuous and under assault. Still elusive, for example, is equitable access to employer healthcare for same-sex couples and spouses and equal protections in workplaces; distressingly, it still remains legal for businesses to choose not to provide services to members of the LGBTQ+ population, which was re-affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024. This license to discriminate perpetuates oppression against sexual minorities by setting up social boundaries.
• LGBTQ+ rights are threatened with assault, making the 2024 November elections urgent. Project 2025 threatens the societal well-being of individuals who identify as LGBTQ. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community are worried by the bellicose insinuations made in the Project 2025 policy platform published by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 would undoubtedly constitute an unofficial policy agenda if he is re-elected. Project 2025 threatens to strip away equal rights for many minority groups, including the LGBTQ+ population. The plan views sexual minorities and same-sex relationships as inconsistent with conservative family values, and it would seek to abolish, if not overturn, same-sex marriage.
Project 2025 is not only dangerous to those who lean left politically, it is dangerous for everyone as it undermines well-established law, practice, and precedent in our country. It is authored by a group seeking to circumvent the legal structure to set policy in a way that has never been done before in America. To further its radical agenda, Project 2025 proposes constitutional amendments and a revision of the way our government conducts business. Surprisingly, aside from serving as a talking point, Project 2025 remains largely unaddressed by the left, with the current administration taking no concrete action to address it.
• The LGBTQ+ community is motivated to vote in any election because LGBTQ rights are constantly under threat. With Project 2025, the upcoming November election becomes increasingly important to LGBTQ people, because Project 2025 squarely places LGBTQ+ rights under direct attack with the immediate threat of being rescinded or retrenched.
The LGBTQ+ community possesses meaningful experience fighting for equal treatment. For centuries gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer individuals have been scrutinized, harassed, and treated differently by heteronormative society. LGBTQ+ people have learned how to organize, how to band together for safety, and how to motivate communities into action.
If LGBTQ people formed their own political party, it would surely be a successful one. If the LGBTQ+ voting bloc were its own party, it would count an endless string of firsts among the elections of governors, senators, mayors, and scores of others. Democrats love LGBTQ people, because LGBTQ people vote for Democratic candidates more frequently. While some Democratic politicians have helped in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ rights, far too many have stood by silently while rights came under assault. Republicans sometimes surprise the LGBTQ community in providing support for LGBTQ individuals, but too often Republicans are swayed by a larger, wealthier, and more vocal constituency, the religious right. This dichotomy is often portrayed by the media as a simple tug-of-war between LGBTQ people and religious conservatives. However, like many issues, the nuance is less straightforward, and in fact, a fair number of LGBTQ individuals also define themselves as religious. Therefore, the two are not mutually exclusive.
The fact is, LGBTQ individuals are routinely faced with a tough choice between the lesser of two poor choices, with no party willing to actively—and consistently—join the fight for LGBTQ rights. Regardless, the astonishingly high share of LGBTQ adults signaling enthusiasm to vote in our upcoming elections strongly suggests that the fight for civil and human rights is not finished, and that LGBTQ people will not rest until all sexual minorities have achieved full and unquestioned acceptance in society and have been granted undeniable equal rights and protections under the law.
Alex Bitterman is a professor in the Department of Architecture & Design at Alfred State University. Daniel B. Hess is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo.
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