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Va. lawmakers Roem, Ebbin, Henson headline Out for Harris launch party

Event held at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington

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Virginia State Sen. Danica Roem (D) speaks at the Out for Harris Coalition Launch Party at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant in Arlington, VA Thursday. (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

ARLINGTON — LGBTQ Democratic Virginia state legislators Danica Roem, Adam Ebbin, and Rozia Henson headlined an Out for Harris coalition launch party on Thursday at Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant in Arlington, Va.

Following remarks by Freddie Lutz, owner and namesake of the landmark 23-year-old LGBTQ establishment, the speakers highlighted Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s extensive track records of advancing LGBTQ rights while also stressing the urgency of get-out-the-vote efforts with just a few weeks remaining before early ballots will be cast in Virginia.

The lawmakers also shared reflections on their time as LGBTQ officeholders who each has made history with their elected positions: Roem, as the country’s first transgender state legislator, Ebbin, as the first LGBTQ representative in the Virginia house of Delegates, and Henson, as the Virginia General Assembly’s first gay Black man.

“A historic first is first but not the last,” Roem said, adding that these wins often come with challenges, too — as Ebbin, her colleague in the state senate, experienced in the time between his groundbreaking election in 2003 and the LGBTQ representation seen in the state house today, with a total of nine out lawmakers now comprising Virginia’s LGBTQ legislative caucus.

“When you put yourself out there, you wonder at what point the reinforcements are going to arrive,” she said, adding, with a smirk, “or if the closeted members who you’re serving with would just come out already.”

Roem then shared her own coming out journey, starting with her coming of age in Northern Virginia. Freddie’s was the only spot that welcomed LGBTQ young people in the ’90s and 2000s, she said, and “the first place that I felt safe to be out in public as her.”

Later, in 2004, Roem explained how she was venturing out with her hair swept across her face because, at the time, she thought, “I don’t want to be recognized; I don’t want anyone to know.” Meanwhile, Roem said, “across the country, there was a newly elected district attorney” who learned the mayor of San Francisco had blessed same-sex marriage and volunteered herself to help however she could.

Kamala Harris officiated some of the first gay and lesbian weddings, “putting herself right out there,” Roem said — stressing that John Kerry and John Edwards, the Democratic Party’s 2004 presidential ticket, were opposed to same-sex marriage, as was the rest of the party.

However, she said, “For those folks in elected office who put themselves out there, people like Kamala Harris did it 20 years ago, not because it was politically popular. Prop 8 would pass four years later. Not because it was convenient, but because it was right.”

After she became a state legislator, Roem first met Harris, then a U.S. senator, at a Human Rights Campaign event, and “she tells me, hey, just remember, keep shoulders down, chin up, and remember you are exactly where you’re meant to be.”

“Five years later,” Roem said, “I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, because I’m here with y’all at Freddie’s, and this face is not being hidden by my hair unless I am head-banging” to heavy metal music “because I am not going back.”

We are not going back,” she added, “and we sure as hell are not going back to a time when the Trump administration was kicking transgender military members out of the service, banning trans troops who displayed more courage and sense of self of service than their then- commander-in-chief ever has or ever could.”

“And now, on the ballot this fall, we have friends,” Roem said. “We aren’t where we were 20 years ago, where we’re having to vote strategically; we have our allies on the ballot for president and vice president this fall, with Vice President Harris and with Governor Walz.”

Ebbin began his remarks by acknowledging the “large number of LGBTQ appointees in the administration” who were in attendance in their personal capacity. “I want to thank them for their work every day,” he said.

“When I first ran for office 21 years ago, we were not nearly as visible, we were not nearly as organized, and above all, we didn’t have leaders who always had our backs,” Ebbin said. “There were no other LGBT people in the General Assembly building when I got there, and now, with the help of Delegate Henson, we have a nine-member LGBTQ caucus.”

“You can understand why, as a Virginian, I feel passionately about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” he said. “They will carry our pro-LGBT Virginia values not just across the country, but all the way to the White House.”

During Ebbin’s remarks, an audience member interrupted with questions about the U.S. Senate Democrats who voted for the National Defense Authorization Act despite the funding package’s inclusion of anti-LGBTQ riders, and the Kids Online Safety Act, legislation sponsored by U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

He replied, “I’m in the Virginia Senate. I’m going to not do questions right now,” offering to talk after he stepped off the stage. The heckler persisted, raising that $30 billion was allocated for weapons, likely a reference to the supply of arms to Ukraine, when Ebbin said, “I’m not in the U.S. Senate.”

Ebbin continued, “before any state in the union legalized gay marriage, San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris took the bold step of officiating LGBT weddings back in early 2004 — and keep in mind, this was at a time when here in Virginia, we’re fighting off some horrific” legislation including efforts to ban adoption by same-sex parents and the formation of gay-straight alliance clubs in schools, which were ultimately defeated.

“Over Kamala Harris’s entire career, she’s been a national leader for LGBTQ rights,” Ebbin said. “She marched in Pride parades not just in San Francisco, but as a U.S. senator and as vice president of the United States, several times, and that is powerful.”

“And then when we turn to her running mate, in 1999, Tim Walz was a teacher and a football coach at Mankato West High School, and he stepped up to advise the Gay Straight Alliance to protect gay kids from being bullied,” Ebbin said.

Walz was “there for high school kids in a red rural place, and in 2006, when he stepped up to run for Congress, he was advised not to pick a position on gay marriage, but he stepped up and he did,” he said. “He was there for us. Then on the flip side, we look at Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who’ve not only shown us who they are but they’ve written a whole playbook, Project 2025, which is one of the most anti-LGBTQ agendas ever published.”

Ebbin added, “as Maya Angelou reminded us, “the Republican ticket is telling us exactly who they are. So, we should believe them and make sure our friends and neighbors believe them.”

The state senator was also heckled by pro-Palestine protesters who were kicked out for the disruption.

Henson began his brief remarks by telling the audience, “my job here is just to make sure we emphasize the importance of you organizing together, getting in your community, hosting teas, hosting events just like this, in order to make sure we get Kamala Harris to the White House.”

“Without you all setting the expectations and doing the groundwork, I probably would not have been the first openly gay Black state representative,” he said.

Henson thanked Ebbin for his mentorship and friendship, and for his leadership as the first out member of the Virginia General Assembly in its 400-year history. Introducing the state senator, Henson added that but for his help and guidance, “marriage equality would not be in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

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Congress

Gerry Connolly dies at 75 after battle with esophageal cancer

Va. congressman fought for LGBTQ rights

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U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) speaks at a Barack Obama rally on Oct. 19, 2012. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia died on Wednesday, according to a statement from his family.

The 75-year-old lawmaker, who served in Congress since 2009, announced last month that he will not seek reelection and would step down from his role as the top Democrat on the powerful U.S. House Oversight Committee because his esophageal cancer had returned.

“We were fortunate to share Gerry with Northern Virginia for nearly 40 years because that was his joy, his purpose, and his passion,” his family said in their statement. “His absence will leave a hole in our hearts, but we are proud that his life’s work will endure for future generations.”

“He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless. He always stood up for what is right and just,” they said.

Connolly was memorialized in statements from colleagues and friends including House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), former President Joe Biden, and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).

Several highlighted Connolly’s fierce advocacy on behalf of federal workers, who are well represented in his northern Virginia congressional district.

The congressman also supported LGBTQ rights throughout his life and career.

When running for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1994, he fought the removal of Washington Blade newspapers from libraries. When running in 2008 for the U.S. house seat vacated by Tom Davis, a Republican, Connolly campaigned against the amendment to Virginia’s constitution banning same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state.

In Congress, he supported the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, the Biden-Harris administration’s rescission of the anti-trans military ban, and the designation within the State Department of a special LGBTQ rights envoy. The congressman also was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act and co-sponsored legislation to repeal parts of the Defense of Marriage Act.


 

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Congress

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances

Judiciary Committee markup slated for Wednesday morning

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)’s “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would criminalize guideline-directed gender affirming health care for minors, will advance to markup in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.

Doctors and providers who administer medical treatments for gender dysphoria to patients younger than 18, including hormones and puberty blockers, would be subject to Class 3 felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison if the legislation is enacted.

LGBTQ advocates warn conservative lawmakers want to go after families who travel out of state to obtain medical care for their transgender kids that is banned or restricted in the places where they reside, using legislation like Greene’s to expand federal jurisdiction over these decisions. They also point to the medically inaccurate way in which the bill characterizes evidence-based interventions delineated in standards of care for trans and gender diverse youth as “mutilation” or “chemical castration.”

Days into his second term, President Donald Trump signed “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” an executive order declaring that the U.S. would not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit” medical treatments and interventions intended for this purpose.

Greene, who has introduced the bill in years past, noted the president’s endorsement of her bill during his address to the joint session of Congress in March when he said “I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”

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Congress

Pappas in Senate race focuses on costs, health care, and personal freedoms

Gay NH congressman hopes to succeed retiring US Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

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U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) launches his U.S. Senate campaign with a kick-off event at his family's restaurant in Manchester, N.H., on April 3, 2025 (Photo courtesy of Chris Pappas for Senate)

U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) recently sat down with the Washington Blade for an exclusive interview following the official launch of his bid for New Hampshire’s open U.S. Senate seat, which is expected to be among the most closely watched contests of the 2026 midterm election cycle. 

The congressman, who is serving his fourth term as the representative for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, expects next year’s race will be “very high profile” and “challenging.” The New York Times, meanwhile, anticipates “an expensive and dogged affair.” 

Senate elections tend to attract a disproportionate share of attention and resources especially in recent years as control over the chamber has tended to change hands more often and with smaller margins, but Pappas’s race is expected to be a bellwether for Democrats as they work to mount a comeback after last year’s electoral defeat. 

At the same time, Pappas is gearing up for the battle over the Republican led reconciliation spending bill, with Democratic lawmakers exercising what little leverage they may have in the minority to fight against “disastrous cuts to Medicaid” while “finding other ways to protect what’s important to the people that we represent.” 

Lawmakers on Sunday night gave the go-ahead for the GOP’s tax and spending package, but negotiations continue into this week as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) works to appease conservative hardliners and swing district Republicans. 

Granite Staters are “really concerned” about negotiations in Washington over spending, but also with the exigencies created by President Donald Trump over the past 100+ days of his second term, which have cropped up repeatedly during the town hall-style events in New Hampshire that Pappas has headlined over the spring. 

“That’s part of the reason why things are so challenging here in Washington,” the congressman said. “Oftentimes you’re pulled in 10 different directions on any given day based on what this administration is trying to do, based on what Republicans in Congress are trying to do.” 

“We’ve got to figure out how we can shed light on what’s happening, try to confront the damage, and use whatever tools we have to fight back,” he said, while remaining “focused on those things that matter most, whether that’s people losing their health insurance, cuts to programs like Social Security, and people’s access to their benefits.” 

The US Senate election

“I’ve got a strong foundation of support” for the Senate race, Pappas told the Blade, noting “I’ve run four campaigns for the House in half the state of New Hampshire” whose congressional map is cleaved into halves with the congressman’s constituents in the eastern portion of the state while freshman Democratic Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander represents the 2nd District. 

Following the announcement in March that New Hampshire’s senior U.S. senator, Jeanne Shaheen (D), would not be seeking reelection next year, “I spent the first couple weeks,” Pappas said, “talking directly with folks all across New Hampshire to see what was on their minds, and increasingly, I was hearing from people that they wanted me to jump into the race.” 

The sentiment was shared by Shaheen and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation — Goodlander and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) — who quickly endorsed Pappas’s bid. Speculation that the state’s popular former governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, might mount a formidable challenge for the seat ended with his announcement last month that he would not enter the race. 

Even if Pappas is on the glidepath for the Senate, which is difficult to handicap so far in advance of November 2026, the election is expected to draw substantial attention and resources. 

According to the Cook Political Report, of the Senate seats that will be up for grabs in the midterms, nine are held by incumbent Democrats and 19 by incumbent Republicans who are expected to easily win reelection, which leaves just five races whose outcomes are less certain and which therefore are likely to earn most of the attention and resources next year: The blue-leaning open seat in New Hampshire, an open seat in Michigan that is currently deemed a toss-up, the seat in Georgia held by incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, which is also considered a toss-up, and the red-leaning seats held by incumbent GOP U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

While the maps present long-shot odds of Democrats regaining control of the upper chamber even though Republicans had reclaimed the Senate majority last year by flipping just four seats for a modest margin of 53-47, races like Pappas’s are expected to be testing grounds for the minority party’s major campaigns midway through Trump’s second term. 

New Hampshire has long been a political battleground where elections tend to be close and voters tend to split the ticket. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, only three U.S. states are less politically partisan: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. The determination is based on data collated from the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, where voters in both of the Granite State’s two congressional districts favored Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Donald Trump while supporting the Republican gubernatorial nominees, Chris Sununu and Kelly Ayotte. 

Shaheen has “really built a brand that’s based on serving people and delivering for the constituents of New Hampshire,” Pappas said. “So that’s the kind of work that I want to carry on — but recognizing, in this time, that we really have to stand up and fight and be a part of our response to what this administration is doing.”

“We do need to re-establish some basic checks and balances here in Washington, so that there is oversight and accountability of an administration that’s blowing through all the guardrails and is really estranged from public opinion and from the Constitution,” he said, while continuing “to find ways to meet people where they are, to hear their stories, and to connect the fight here in Washington to people’s lives back home.” 

Responding to the needs of Granite Staters

Specifically, while “people are responding to a lot of different stories,” Pappas highlighted concerns about “cuts to specific programs, the fact that we’ve got 80,000 VA employees that are going to be fired,” and over the direction in which care for veterans is headed under the new administration. 

“The big fight right now is around health care,” he said. “It’s around defending Medicaid coverage, ensuring we’re going to continue to have a Medicaid expansion program in New Hampshire, which is something that I’ve worked with then-Gov. Maggie Hassan to implement, and whether we’re going to have tax fairness and prevent huge tax breaks from going to the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations.”

Asked about cuts to medical research that are impacting research universities across the country, Pappas said the issue has been raised often in discussions with people in his home state.

“The University of New Hampshire does a tremendous amount of research with federal funds,” he noted, “and that’s something that we’ve worked hard through the years to advocate for, and it’s really important for the university to continue to be able to do that work and help us understand the world around us, how it’s changing, and how we can respond to protect public health, for instance, to protect our communities against sea level rise — those are just important priorities.” 

Unlocking “breakthroughs in science and medicine” is important for America’s global competitiveness, the congressman added, whether by “homegrown talent here in the United States or research scientists from around the world that want to come to our country and share their expertise and help the United States move forward.”

“Donald Trump has decided that universities and colleges are a political enemy of his, and he’s trying to punish them, but in doing that, he’s really short changing our economy and the future of the United States,” Pappas said, adding, “most people recognize that, especially people in New Hampshire.” 

The congressman recounted how he was able to work closely with his colleagues in the state’s congressional delegation to leverage public pressure and influence by labor unions to reinstate probationary employees at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard who were let go following drastic cuts to the federal workforce under the Trump-Vance administration. 

“It’s really critical to the future of that facility, which rehabilitates our nuclear submarine fleet and has nearly 7,000 civilian employees,” Pappas said. “So that was one case where we found that we were able to get a lot of local attention and support around an issue, and perhaps that news made it all the way back here to the Defense Department who were concerned about public pressure.”

“We’ve got a lot of long-time employees at that shipyard,” along with “a lot of new people that have been brought on board as a result of an expansion over the last several years,” the congressman noted. “Across the board, people want to know that we’re focused, especially on our families’ bottom line right now,” which is why it was important for him and his colleagues to “go to bat for a facility that’s really important to people’s livelihoods, but also to our overall economy” and for national security. 

Moving forward, Pappas said, they will continue pushing back against “efforts to attack the right to organize and collective bargaining,” because “unions at the shipyard have a great relationship with management, but that could be disrupted by political efforts from this administration to attack labor unions.” 

The economy and protecting personal freedoms

The congressman said that while “we need to try a little bit of everything to try to identify what is going to break through,” at the same time, “I do have the sense that the last election hinged on the economy, that every election really hinges on the economy, and those are the issues that are going to be, I think, most salient to folks next year.” 

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re making progress at addressing inequities in the economy and are lowering costs,” he said. “Right now, the top issues that I hear about in New Hampshire include the high cost of housing, the lack of affordability of child care, the fact that our health care system is still inaccessible, and far too expensive for most people to be able to get the care that they need.” 

“We’re not getting any of that from Republicans right now,” Pappas said, when it comes to the “work we have to do to level the playing field in our economy,” adding, “they talked a big game in the last campaign about lowering costs, but they’re taking no meaningful action to do it, and so we need to be thoughtful about a really forward-thinking agenda that can focus on how we allow people to get ahead and stand in this economy.” 

Asked about whether and to what extent Pappas will focus his messaging on the president’s tariffs, he noted “people are already responding,” especially in “a state like New Hampshire that has a longstanding close relationship with Canada.”

He continued, “88 percent of our small businesses import something. We have a lot of exporting businesses that rely on their markets overseas, including in places like Canada and China, and some of those markets are going away because of the tariffs that have been slapped on U.S. goods that we export.” 

Trump’s trade war “has generated so much instability in our economy, it’s really hard for our small businesses to navigate,” Pappas said, with these new “disruptions to supply chains and the threat of increased costs” following a “really tough 5-year period from inflation and workforce shortages to the pandemic that predated that.” 

“This is an issue that I think brings people together across party lines,” Pappas said. “Folks understand that we have trade agreements in place that have been negotiated [and] supported on a bipartisan basis, including” the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, “which was renegotiated during the first Trump administration.” 

The congressman continued, “it only makes sense to move forward in a way where we are focused on how we can make more things in the United States, but also recognize that we can’t make everything and we can’t go it alone, so we need to be working with close partners like Canada, and there’s no there’s no reason for this sort of trade war that only hurts our businesses and our ability to create jobs and have a thriving economy.”

“I also think, with respect to personal freedoms, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, we have to continue to take steps to re-establish Roe v. Wade as the law of the land and defend reproductive freedom,” Pappas said. 

“I’m the only candidate in this race right now, and I think regardless of who the Republican is, we’re going to be fighting for the Women’s Health Protection Act and to make sure that we’re re-establishing the precedent that Roe set for more than half a century, which is broadly supported in New Hampshire,” he said. 

LGBTQ issues

A co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Pappas is the first openly gay member of Congress to represent New Hampshire. If elected, he would be the third out LGBTQ U.S. senator behind U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Laphonza Butler, who served from 2023 to 2024.  

Trump, along with his Republican allies in Congress and appointees serving in his second administration, has undermined rights and protections for LGBTQ people on a variety of fronts, including by dismantling and defunding efforts to fight against HIV. Cuts to basic and clinical science research along with public health programs have been advanced by the president’s budget and the GOP lawmakers’ reconciliation package, as well as through the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Now in the minority, House Democrats “will not be in the room negotiating, as much as we would love to tell the majority exactly how we feel about all these items,” Pappas conceded. At the same time, “to get a budget put in place and appropriations bills passed, you’ll need 60 votes in the Senate, which means you need some sort of bipartisan consensus, at least in that body,” which “could potentially be a difference maker in defending some of these programs that folks care about, that the president has sought to eliminate.”

“Services for people with HIV, access to health care, vital research — those are things that Americans broadly support,” the congressman said. “We’re going to stand up against it, and where there’s harm to people and important priorities, I’ll certainly be speaking out, and I know that members of the Equality Caucus will be taking that very seriously.” 

“Many people in this administration,” Pappas said, “are not traditional Republicans and don’t support the same set of policies that we’ve seen even Republican presidents put in place,” like the PEPFAR initiative led by George W. Bush, “which has changed the trajectory of the treatment of HIV and AIDS around the world.” 

“Now, they are attacking that program and its ability to provide care for people in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world, and it’s been reported that individuals in Africa have died as a result of not getting the treatments that they were counting on through that program,” the congressman noted. 

He continued, “We really have a human responsibility to do whatever we can to meet the needs of people who are susceptible to disease or who have been exposed to it, and the fact that this administration is breaking with that long bipartisan tradition of research, of humanitarianism, I think is incredibly cruel, and it’s not what the United States should stand for.” 

What has been especially frustrating, Pappas said, is the silence from Republicans in Congress including those who “have championed these programs for decades.” 

“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said, except that “people need to be paying attention and we need to do everything possible to speak out and fight back against it” because “we can’t see an interruption in terms of the progress that’s been made in fighting disease and developing new therapies.” 

Public health aside, when asked about how the Democratic Party should approach messaging on issues of transgender rights and gender identity, Pappas stressed that “Americans largely embrace equality” and people want others “to have the same rights and responsibilities.” 

The congressman raised the Equality Act as an example — a bill that would protect Americans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing to employment, which was reintroduced last month with a press conference headlined by Pappas and top Democrats from both chambers of Congress. 

Democrats should not shy away from advancing bills that advance “fairness and equality before the law,” he said, “especially at a time where we know that the LGBTQ community is being targeted by really cynical political attacks.”

“Where I come from, in New Hampshire, we’ve adopted protections for trans individuals in our state’s non discrimination statutes,” Pappas noted, “and so I think when you come from an environment like New Hampshire, you understand that people do respect their neighbors for their differences.” 

He continued, “We’re a live and let live state, and so I think it’s really consistent with who we are to be tolerant and embrace people of different identities and orientations. That’s who we are as Granite Staters. And I think people recognize that in order to have a future where everyone can live a full and productive life, you need to provide people with equality before the law.”

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