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EXCLUSIVE: Pelosi reflects on long career, LGBTQ advocacy

Former Speaker credits activists who fought for AIDS funding, marriage equality

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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (Photo courtesy of the Office of Nancy Pelosi)

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sat down with the Washington Blade in her office Tuesday evening for an exclusive interview just weeks after formally stepping down from leadership, having led her party in the House for 20 years, including as Speaker. 

Pelosi reflected on the role she has played in landmark legislative achievements, including milestones in the fight for LGBTQ rights. She also addressed some current events that have earned significant attention from political observers and the beltway press. 

So much of the historic progress over the past few decades in advancements toward the legal, social, and political equality of LGBTQ Americans, including those living with HIV/AIDS, was facilitated directly or otherwise supported by Pelosiā€™s leadership in Congress, but she was quick to credit the tireless work of individual activists and LGBTQ, civil rights, and HIV/AIDS advocacy groups.

ā€œI attribute the success with [fighting] HIV/AIDS and everything that came after,ā€ from legislation on hate crimes to marriage equality, ā€œto the outside mobilizationā€ of these activists and organizations, she told the Blade.

Despite positioning herself as an advocate for LGBTQ rights well before that position was popular, Pelosi said she is unaware of any instances where she may have suffered political consequences as a result. Regardless, she said, ā€œI donā€™t care.ā€  

The more she has been criticized for championing LGBTQ rights in Congress, ā€œthe more proud I amā€ of that work, Pelosi added. 

Pelosi has always been a strident LGBTQ ally, guided by her commitment to justice, love, and fairness as ordained by the teachings of her Catholic faith. These ideals are in perfect alignment, she said, as opposed to the position held by many opponents of LGBTQ rights who nevertheless claim to believe we are all created in Godā€™s image. 

During an interview with Larry King, when serving as the San Francisco Democratic National Convention host committee chairwoman in 1984, Pelosi said the late television host remarked: ā€œI just don’t understand how a Catholic girl who grew up in Baltimore, Maryland is such a champion for gay rights.ā€

ā€œYouā€™ve answered your own question,ā€ Pelosi told him, referring to his mention of her Catholicism. ā€œIt is our faith that tells us that we’re all God’s children, and we must respect the dignity and worth of every person.ā€

Pelosiā€™s time in Congress began with the AIDS crisis, and she has kept up the fight ever since 

After committing herself and the Congress to the fight against HIV/AIDS during her first speech from the floor of the House in 1987, Pelosi said some of her colleagues asked whether she thought it wise for her feelings on the subject to be ā€œthe first thing that people know about youā€ as a newly elected member.

They questioned her decision not because they harbored any stigma, but rather for concern over how ā€œothers might view my service here,ā€ Pelosi said. The battle against HIV/AIDS, she told them, ā€œis why I came here.ā€

ā€œIt was every single day,ā€ she said. 

Alongside the ā€œbig money for research, treatment, and preventionā€ were other significant legislative accomplishments, such as ā€œwhen we] were able to get Medicaid to treat HIV [patients] as Medicaid-eligibleā€ rather than requiring them to wait until their disease had progressed to full-blown AIDS to qualify for coverage, said Pelosi, who authored the legislation.

ā€œThat was a very big deal for two reasons,ā€ she said. First, because it saved lives by allowing low-income Americans living with HIV to begin treatment before the condition becomes life-threatening, and second, because ā€œit was the recognition that we had this responsibility to intervene early.ā€

Other milestones in which Pelosi had a hand include the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS program, President Bushā€™s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) initiative, the Affordable Care Act (which contains significant benefits for Americans living with HIV/AIDS), and funding for the Ending the Epidemic initiative. 

The last appropriations bill passed under Pelosiā€™s tenure as Democratic leader in December contained an additional $100 million boost to HIV/AIDS programs. 

These and other hard-won victories over the years ā€“ from the biomedical progress made possible by investment in research to foreign aid packages that have saved countless lives overseas ā€“ have often come despite staunch opposition from lawmakers, particularly congressional Republicans.

For instance, the late former Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina opposed federal funding for HIV/AIDS research because he considered it tantamount to the governmentā€™s endorsement of ā€œthe homosexual lifestyleā€ responsible for the spread of the disease in the U.S.

nancy pelosi, gay news, Washington Blade
Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks at the NGLCC National Dinner in 2018. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

Asked how she might compare anti-LGBTQ members like Helms with whom she worked in the past to those serving today, Pelosi said the most salient difference is the homophobic and transphobic attitudes among lawmakers in previous decades were in many cases borne out of ignorance. 

Pelosi said that while the prejudice was ā€œhorrible [back] thenā€ and she was ā€œimpatientā€ with lawmakers in the House who exhibited attitudes similar to those expressed by Helms, at that time people who held those views were often ā€œjust not up to date on what was happening in the world.ā€ 

(Pelosi noted that, for his part, Helms seemed to soften his stance on matters concerning HIV/AIDS. She suspects U2 frontman Bono may have successfully appealed to Helms as a parent, but ā€œI donā€™t know exactly.ā€)

By contrast, todayā€™s lawmakers, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, ā€œmust have a growing awareness of [LGBTQ] people in their own communities, maybe in their own families,ā€ Pelosi said. ā€œTheyā€™re really in a different world,ā€ which means, they ā€œhave made a decision that they’re going to be anti-LGBTQ,ā€ she said, adding that hate and prejudice today is most often directed at the trans community. ā€œItā€™s completely unacceptable.ā€ 

Asked to share her thoughts on the many scandals that have unfolded over the past couple of months concerning gay freshman GOP Rep. George Santos of New York, Pelosi pointed out that while the congressman has dominated headlines recently, other members of the House Republican caucus who have weaponized homophobia and transphobia to a far greater extent than he are much more dangerous. 

But first, Pelosi said that House Democrats would never do what the Republican leadership has done by tolerating the embattled freshman congressman to protect their slim majority control of the chamber.

Santos is ā€œalmost a joke; heā€™s become a punch line,ā€ Pelosi said. ā€œHe’s outrageous, and there’s no way he should be allowed to serveā€ given the extent to which the congressman has failed to exhibit the ā€œdignityā€ required of members who are privileged to serve in the House of Representatives.

At the same time, ā€œthere are people over there who are more seriously dangerous to the freedoms in our country than himā€ Pelosi said. She pointed to the hate mongering and fear mongering in which many of Santosā€™s Republican colleagues have engaged, including ā€œthe things that that they say about trans families and, just, the injustice of it all.ā€ 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi visits the site of the Pulse massacre in 2016.

The aim of these far-right lawmakers extends far beyond undermining the rights of LGBTQ people, of course. Pelosi noted that, ā€œyou have to remember, with all of these things, whether weā€™re talking about womenā€™s right to choose ā€“ weā€™ve always expanded freedoms. And now with this Supreme Court, theyā€™re narrowing freedoms with womenā€™s right to chooseā€ by the revocation of constitutional protections for abortion via last yearā€™s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womenā€™s Health Organization. 

Breaking the ā€˜marble ceilingā€™

Rep. Nancy Pelosi is presented with a rainbow-jeweled gavel at an LGBTQ staffer event on Capitol Hill in 2012. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

During a lecture last year hosted at the University of California, Berkeley, Barbara Boxer, who formerly represented California in the House and then in the Senate, commented on the historic significance of Pelosiā€™s election to become the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2006. ā€œThe fact that a woman could get into the leadership like this, to win the trust of all these men, itā€™s more extraordinary than you can imagine,ā€ Boxer said. 

Boxer has also been a trailblazer for women in politics. She was the first woman to chair the Marin County Board of Supervisors, and after her election to serve in the upper chamber alongside Californiaā€™s senior Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the two became the first pair of women to represent any state in the U.S. Senate.

Asked how she managed to secure the votes from, particularly, the older men in her caucus without compromising her values, Pelosi told the Blade, ā€œI just did what I believedā€ rather than coming to Congress to ā€œchange other peopleā€™s behavior.ā€ 

She said that many of her male colleagues ā€œhad to get over their own negative attitudesā€ concerning the prospect of electing a woman to lead their party in the House, but ā€œI wasnā€™t going to wait until then.ā€

At the same time, Pelosi acknowledged that ā€œit took courage to vote for a woman as speaker,ā€ noting that when she was sworn in back in 2007, she took the opportunity to thank the men who had supported her speakership. (She was elected unanimously on the first ballot.)

Pelosi said that prior to her speakership, she had always believed that the prospect of Americans electing a woman president was likelier to happen in her lifetime than members of Congress ā€“ who tend to be older men ā€“ voting for a woman speaker.

ā€œI thought the American people were more ready than the Congressā€ to break the ā€œmarble ceiling,ā€ she said. 

Considering the parallel special counsel investigations into alleged mishandling of classified documents by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Pelosi has perhaps unwittingly strengthened the case for America to elect a woman president by virtue of her unblemished record as a steward of sensitive, top-secret information. 

ā€œI have 30 years of experience in intelligence. I have been on the [House Intelligence] Committee, the top Democrat on the Committee, ex officio on the Committee, a speaker and [Democratic] leader [in the House],ā€ Pelosi said. 

She distinguished the rules by which she and other members of Congress are governed, which prohibit the removal or relocation of classified documents, from the policies that the Commander in Chief must follow, which are comparably more permissive. 

Regardless, Pelosi said, ā€œthe documents are to be respected,ā€ along with the rules and procedures for how they should be handled. 

There are also important distinctions to note between the allegations against Trump and Biden, Pelosi said. ā€œWhen you see the former president obstructing access to the documents, and you see this president saying, ā€˜I’ve instructed my lawyers to look for whatever is there and make them available to the Justice Department,ā€™ that’s two different things,ā€ she said. 

Additionally, Pelosi said, from the information that has been made available so far, it seems that Trump was in possession of a greater volume of documents whose contents were more sensitive than those at issue in Bidenā€™s case. 

Pelosiā€™s LGBTQ fans celebrate her accomplishments 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi hugs activist Mike Almy at the certification of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal in the U.S. House on Dec. 21, 2010. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

In November, the Human Rights Campaign, Americaā€™s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, issued a statement following Pelosiā€™s announcement of her plans to step down from Democratic leadership but continue to represent her constituents in Californiaā€™s 11th Congressional District in the House. 

ā€œSpeaker Pelosi has been the tip of the spear on watershed advancements for the LGBTQ+ community,ā€ HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement, pointing to her 1987 speech on the AIDS crisis and ā€œforceful advocacy for marriage equality long before its mainstream popularity,ā€ both before she was elected as speaker. 

The Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of same-sex marriages, was signed into law in 1996 with overwhelming support from both parties in both chambers of Congress; 342 members of the House voted for the proposal, with Pelosi joining only 64 other House Democrats, one independent, and one Republican in her opposition. 

ā€œDuring [Pelosiā€™s] tenure as Speaker,ā€ HRC noted, ā€œthe House of Representatives passed an historic hate crimes law [the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act], repealed the discriminatory ā€˜Donā€™t Ask, Donā€™t Tellā€™ law, led the fight to enact the Affordable Care Act, and vocally opposed bans on transgender members serving in our nationā€™s military.ā€ 

Pelosiā€™s leadership was bookended with Congressā€™s passage late last year of the Respect for Marriage Act, which is credited as the greatest legislative victory for LGBTQ Americans since the 2010 repeal of ā€œDonā€™t Ask, Donā€™t Tell.ā€  

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stands with Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) at the enrollment for the Respect for Marriage Act in the U.S. House on Dec. 8, 2022. (Photo courtesy of the Office of Nancy Pelosi)

Outside the U.S. Capitol building, Pelosi has also been celebrated by the LGBTQ community for signaling her support through, for example, her participation in some of the earliest meetings of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, her meeting with the survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre, and her appearance at a host of LGBTQ events over the years.  

Of course, at the same time, Pelosi has been a constant target of attacks from the right, which in the past few years have become increasingly violent. During the siege of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, her office was ransacked by insurrectionists who shouted violent threats against her. A couple of weeks later, unearthed social media posts by far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) revealed she had signaled support for executing Pelosi along with other prominent House Democrats. And last October, the speakerā€™s husband Paul Pelosi suffered critical injuries after he was attacked by a man wielding a hammer who had broken into the coupleā€™s San Francisco home. 

Pelosi told CNN last week that her husband is ā€œdoing OK,ā€ but expects it will ā€œtake a little while for him to be back to normal.ā€

Among her fans in progressive circles, Pelosi ā€“ who has been a towering figure in American politics since the Bush administration ā€“ has become something of a cultural icon, as well. For instance, the image of her clapping after Trumpā€™s State of the Union speech in 2019 has been emblazoned on coffee mugs.

ā€œWhat is so funny about it,ā€ Pelosi said, is rather than ā€œthat work [over] all these years as a legislator,ā€ on matters including the ā€œAffordable Care Act, millions of people getting health care, what we did over the years with HIV/AIDS in terms of legislation, this or that,ā€ people instead have made much ado over her manner of clapping after Trumpā€™s speech. And while the move was widely seen as antagonistic, Pelosi insisted, ā€œit was not intended to be a negative thing.ā€ 

Regardless, she said, ā€œitā€™s nice to have some fun about it, because youā€™re putting up with the criticism all the time ā€“ on issues, whether itā€™s about LGBTQ, or being a woman, or being from San Francisco, or whatever it is.ā€ 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi talks with Blade reporter Christopher Kane on Tuesday, Jan. 24. (Photo courtesy of the Office of Nancy Pelosi)
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Congress

Sens. Butler, Smith introduce Pride in Mental Health Act to aid at-risk LGBTQ youth

Bill is backed by Democrats in both chambers

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U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) speaks at the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference on Nov. 30, 2023. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Sens. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) introduced the Pride in Mental Health Act on Thursday, legislation that would strengthen resources in mental health and crisis intervention for at-risk LGBTQ youth.

ā€œAccessing mental health care and support has become increasingly difficult in nearly every state in the country,ā€Ā said Butler, who is the first Black LGBTQ senator. ā€œBarriers get even more difficult if you are a young person who lacks a supportive community or is fearful of being outed, harassed, or threatened.”

“I am introducing the Pride in Mental Health Act to help equip LGBTQ+ youth with the resources to get the affirming and often life-saving care they need,” she said.

ā€œMental health care is health care,” said Smith. “And for some LGBTQ+ youth, receiving access to the mental health care they need can mean the difference between living in safety and dignity, and suffering alone through discrimination, bullying, and even violence.ā€Ā 

The Minnesota senator added that data shows LGBTQ students are experiencing “an epidemic” of “anxiety, depression and other serious mental health conditions.”

For example, a 2023 study by The Trevor Project found that 54 percent of LGBTQ youth reported symptoms of depression, compared to 35 percent of their heterosexual counterparts.

Joining the senators as cosponsors are Democratic U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Bob Casey (Penn.), Peter Welch (Vt.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Cory Booker (N.J.), and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.). Baldwin was the first LGBTQ woman elected to the House in 1999 and the first LGBTQ woman elected to the Senate in 2013.

Leading the House version of the bill are LGBTQ Democratic U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids (Kan.), Eric Sorensen (Ill.), and Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), along with 163 other House members.

Organizations that have backed the Pride in Mental Health Act include the Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Education Association (NEA), National Center for Transgender Equality, Seattle Indian Health Board, PFLAG National, The Trevor Project, American Psychological Association, Whitman-Walker Institute, InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Mental Health America, and Center for Law and Social Policy.

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Congress

Before TikTok, the U.S. took action over national security concerns with Grindr

House voted to pass TikTok ban on Wednesday

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Grindr's IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (Screen capture: YouTube/NYSE)

In a bipartisan vote of 352-65 on Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives cleared a bill that would force a divestiture of TikTok by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or ban the video sharing platform’s use in the U.S.

While the legislation faces an uncertain path to passage in the U.S. Senate, Wednesday’s vote provided additional evidence of the extent to which lawmakers are concerned about U.S. national security risks that could stem from TikTok.

More specifically, as recent years have seen relations between the U.S. and China become more fraught than they have been since the two countries first established diplomatic ties in 1979, questions have been raised about the access government leaders in Beijing might have to data from America’s 150 million TikTok users who are active on the platform each month.

Concerns have also been raised about whether and how the platform’s content moderation policies, algorithmic recommendation engine or other features might be manipulated to advance Chinese interests ā€” including, potentially, by sowing political strife in the U.S. or manipulating or undermining American elections.

Many of these claims are speculative, lacking the type of evidence that might be required if they were presented in a court of law. Nevertheless, for purposes of forcing a divestiture through an act of Congress or a decision by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, they are sufficient.

CFIUS is a nine-member interagency panel that adjudicates questions of whether business transactions between foreign buyers and U.S. targets may raise national security concerns. Since 2020, the committee has investigated TikTok because the platform was created by ByteDance’s 2017 purchase of U.S. startup Musical.ly.

The probe led to negotiations over a deal in which American user data from TikTok would be sold to U.S. based multinational computer technology company Oracle, which would vet and monitor the platform’s algorithms and content moderation practices ā€” but Axios reported on Monday that talks between TikTok and CFIUS have stalled for months.

Parallels to Grindr case

As directed by CFIUS, in 2020, Grindr, the location-based app used primarily by gay and bisexual men and transgender or gender diverse communities, was sold by the Chinese-based Beijing Kunlun Tech to San Vicente Acquisition, a firm that was incorporated in Delaware.

According to Reuters, Kunlun’s failure to notify CFIUS when the company purchased Grindr in 2018 was likely one of the reasons the committee decided to force the divestiture and thereby unwind an acquisition that, by that point, had been consummated for two years.

While CFIUS does not share details about the specific nature of national security risks identified with transactions under its review, reporting at the time suggested concerns with Grindr had to do with the Chinese government’s potential to blackmail Americans, potentially including American officials, with data from the app.

Cooley LLP, an international law firm with attorneys who practice in the CFIUS space, notes that the committee uses a “three-part conceptual framework” to assess national security threats:

  1. What is the threat presented by the foreign personā€™s intent and capabilities to harm U.S. national security?
  2. What aspects of the U.S. business present vulnerabilities to national security?
  3. What would the consequences for U.S. national security be if the foreign person were to exploit the identified vulnerabilities?

The firm writes that “issues that have raised perceived national security risks range from the obvious (e.g., foreign acquisitions of U.S. businesses with federal defense contracts) to the seemingly benign (e.g., foreign minority investments in offshore wind farm projects or online dating apps.)

Cooley additionally notes that CFIUS considers vulnerabilities such as “whether the U.S. business deals in ‘critical technology,’ ‘critical infrastructure’ or ‘sensitive personal data'” and threats such as “the foreign buyerā€™s/investorā€™s track record of complying with U.S. and international laws (e.g., export controls, sanctions and anti-corruption regimes.)”

Some critics argue CFIUS has been overzealous in enforcing investment restrictions against Chinese buyers, but assuming this may be true ā€” and putting aside questions of whether U.S. national security concerns are best served by this approach ā€” China’s foreign direct investment has “declined considerably,” according to another global law firm with a substantial CFIUS practice, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.

The firm notes heightened scrutiny has been applied particularly in cases of “Chinese investment in the U.S. biotechnology industry,” while Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld highlighted CFIUS’s expanded jurisdiction over Chinese investments in U.S. real estate ā€” noting, however, that the committee’s increased authority is “unlikely to satisfy members of Congress and state legislators who want to prohibit investments in agricultural and other land by investors from ‘countries of concern’ such as China.”

Two years after the finalization of Grindr’s divestiture in 2020, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and enjoyed a 400 percent rise in its stock price. Its current value is $1.75 billion.

TikTok is privately owned, but Angelo Zino, a vice president and senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, told CNBC that the platform’s U.S.-only business ā€œcould fetch a valuation north of $60 billionā€ if Congress passes the bill to force its divestiture from ByteDance.

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Congress

AOC’s announcement of new bill quotes a group with history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy

NCOSE still has ties to extremists

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U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) (Screen capture: YouTube/MSNBC)

A press release issued on March 7 by the office of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) included quoted remarks from the CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a group with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy that was previously named Morality in Media.

The release concerns a bipartisan, bicameral bill that was introduced by Ocasio-Cortez to fight the proliferation of non-consensual, sexually explicit “deepfake” media ā€” created by “software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means” ā€” by establishing a federal civil right of action for victims.

ā€œRep. Ocasio-Cortez is leading a bipartisan bill to stop nonconsensual deepfake pornography that centers survivorsā€™ civil right of action,” the congresswoman’s chief of staff, Mike Casca, said in a statement to the Washington Blade on Saturday. “Organizations from left, right, and center support it.ā€

Separately, in a discussion about these topics on X, Casca said, “I disagree that quoting a group in a release is an endorsement of that group, especially at a time when gop support is required to pass anything in the house & the senate, nonetheless ‘partnering’ with them.”

Remarks by NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins that were included in the announcement from Ocasio-Cortez’s office are inoffensive and germane to the legislation. For instance, she said “it is past time that our laws catch up and hold the perpetrators of this abuse accountable,” calling the measure “a critical step forward” in securing “justice for survivors through civil remedies.”

Primarily focused on opposing pornography, NCOSE has sought to distance itself from the avowed anti-LGBTQ positions that were held by the organization and its leadership in the past, but there is ample reason to doubt the narrative that the group underwent an ideological evolution.

Hawkins authored a statement on behalf of her organization in December 2023 that promised to fight against the sexual exploitation of LGBTQ victims and expressed “deep regret that there were moments in our organizationā€™s history prior to our leadership change in 2011, when remarks were made that were indeed anti-LGBTQ+.”

The statement also noted that “our former namesake, Morality in Media (MIM), was associated with actions that starkly contrast with our current values,” including possible advocacy against Disney’s extension of benefits to employees’ same-sex partners and a press statement “arguing that homosexuality is connected to crime.”

Casting doubt on the sincerity of these statements, along with Hawkins’ proclamation that “we do not tolerate statements and actions by current employees that spread harmful misinformation and hate towards any particular group or individual,” are the following facts:

  • NCOSE’s current general counsel Benjamin Bull previously served as chief counsel of the far-right legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group. The attorney also served as executive director for ADF International.
  • During an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Bull praised a 2013 decision by the Supreme Court of India that re-criminalized LGBTQ sex.
  • Amherst College professor Hadley Arkes, a conservative political scientist with longstanding ties to NCOSE — he was listed as a board member on the group’s 2022 990 form — supports the discredited practice of conversion therapy, which is banned in 20 U.S. states. When delivering public remarks in 2021, he said, “Weā€™ve had many people who, with therapy and conversion, just have come out away from that life.”
  • Arkes also opposes same-sex marriage. During the same event in 2021, he compared the decision by gay and lesbian couples to wed with the choice to shoot heroin. Close to the end of his two-hour lecture, the professor conceded that, ā€œI think Iā€™ve said enough to offend everybody tonight.”
  • Hawkins organized a conference in South Africa in 2022 whose keynote address was delivered by Errol Naidoo, an anti-LGBTQ minister who has blamed abortion and the “homosexual agenda” for”a culture of death” in his country and was quoted in a Nigerian newspaper as saying “I hate gays. It runs against Godā€™s wishes.”
  • Also delivering a presentation during the conference was Sharon Slater, president of Family Watch International. The SPLC lists the organization as an anti-LGBTQ hate group, noting that Slater has claimed LGBTQ people are more prone to disease, more promiscuous, and likelier to engage in pedophilia.
  • Slater has also defended the criminalization of LGBTQ conduct by African countries like Uganda and forged close relationships with proponents of these policies like Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, who supported the law passed last year that imposes prison sentences for homosexuality (and the death penalty, in certain cases).

Along with the bill introduced last week by Ocasio Cortez, the DEFIANCE Act, NCOSE is a major supporter of the Kids Online Safety Act ā€” another bipartisan legislative effort to combat the sexual exploitation of minors along with other harms facilitated by Big Tech and social media companies.

Earlier iterations of KOSA drew opposition from LGBTQ and civil rights groups over concerns that, for instance, the law might suppress affirming or pro-LGBTQ online content or prevent queer youth from accessing online communities.

On Feb. 15, however, a coalition of seven national LGBTQ organizations wrote a letter to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who introduced KOSA along with Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), informing him that they would no longer oppose the bill.

Signed by GLAAD, GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and The Trevor Project, the letter thanked Blumenthal for “hearing our concerns” and “updating the legislation to address potential adverse consequences for LGBTQ+ youth.”

For years, Congress has sought to pass legislation to curb the power of market-dominant tech platform companies and hold these firms accountable for harms they have facilitated. More recently, many lawmakers have agreed on the need for a bipartisan federal privacy law and regulations targeting emerging technologies like artificial intelligence ā€” but so far have failed to pass any.

Support among Republicans and Democrats for bills like KOSA and the DEFIANCE Act were bolstered by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the end of January, where the senators grilled the CEOs of TikTok, Discord, Snap Inc. (Snapchat), X (formerly Twitter), and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram).

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled U.S. House is preparing to vote on a bill that would force the divestiture of TikTok by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or ban the popular video sharing platform in the U.S.

While the measure would have to overcome opposition from Senate Democrats to pass, bipartisan support comes because of the national security risks presented by TikTok along with concerns about the harms suffered by American users ā€” even though the evidence for some of these claims is scant, unclear, or disputed.

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