Politics
Gay N.H. lawmaker seeks to become first out candidate elected to state Senate
David Pierce in 2009 testified in support of New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage bill
Gay N.H. state Senate candidate David Pierce (Photo courtesy of David Pierce)
HANOVER, N.H.—A New Hampshire lawmaker seeking to become the first gay state senator who ran as an out candidate said education, the economy and health care remain the top issues going into Election Day.
“I talk about the hypothetical student who works like hell to do the best she can: straight As, extracurricular activities, really good SAT scores or whatever, but then [colleges] see that she’s from a place that doesn’t have accreditation [from the] College Admissions Council and they can’t give her full consideration,” state Rep. David Pierce told the Washington Blade during an interview earlier this month as he referenced the possibility that Claremont’s struggling Stevens High School could lose its accreditation. “That’s just criminal. And so that’s got to change.”
Pierce, who has represented House District 9 that includes Dartmouth College since 2006, would represent the newly redistricted 5th Senate District that includes the cities of Lebanon and Claremont and Hanover and six other towns along the Connecticut River and in the state’s Upper Valley region if elected on Nov. 6.
He criticized the state’s Republican-controlled legislature for cutting the University of New Hampshire’s budget by nearly 50 percent last year.
“UNH students graduate with the highest debt load of in-state students of any students in the country,” he said. “UNH students pay the highest in-state tuition rate of any students in the country. And you’re destabilizing the family — middle class families — if they can’t send their kids to schools. If they can get them to school, it’s a huge chunk of their monthly income towards education. If they can’t send them to [get an] education, I talk about how we’re dooming our kids to be the ones to sell cigarettes and alcohol to Massachusetts because that’s how we’re going to raise revenue. And you can’t attract businesses to New Hampshire unless you have an educated and skilled workforce.”
Pierce further criticized GOP lawmakers for cutting the state’s budget by 11 percent in 201.
“Whether you agree or disagree that government should be spending money in a state’s economy is a philosophical argument that we can have, but the point is that it does happen and the state does contribute X percent to the state’s [Gross Domestic Product] GDP,” he said. “When you cut 11 percent of that contribution, you’re not expanding the economy. You’re shrinking it. This legislature came in with the promise to focus like a laser on rebuilding the economy and creating jobs. And the major policy they’ve passed in the budget shrinks the economy. That’s why you’ve seen the unemployment rate ticking up in New Hampshire.”
Pierce also accused New Hampshire Republicans of falling “right in line with the national Republican party about declaring a war on women’s health.” He criticized House Speaker Bill O’Brien and other GOP leaders for attaching an anti-choice bill that previously failed to a measure that would have given tax credits to high tech companies. Pierce also criticized GOP lawmakers for spearheading the passage of a bill in May that repealed a law mandating insurance coverage of contraceptives.
“What that means of course is fewer women, fewer families have access to contraception,” he said.
Pierce spoke to the Blade on the same day he and his partner of 20 years, Dr. Robert Duff, celebrated their 20th anniversary. The couple who live in Etna with their two young daughters Emma and Grace had their first date at the now closed Au Pied de Cochon restaurant in Georgetown on Oct. 5, 1992.
Pierce highlighted the couple’s children during in his 2009 speech in support of New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage bill just before the House narrowly approved it. He also spoke about his own struggle to come to terms with his sexual orientation as a child growing up in a religious family in Texas.
“I remember being that scared 12-year-old little boy coming to grips with the fact that I’m different than everybody else,” said Pierce, pointing out that he had even thought about potentially taking his own life. “Fortunately I didn’t do that, but I grew up very scared of who I was and what it meant for my life. And then to see myself giving the floor speech — the anchor floor speech — for marriage equality and seeing it pass was one of the most significant moments of my life. I would love for me to be able to go back and talk to that 12-year-old scared little kid and say ‘It’s going to be okay. You’re going to come through this in fact you’re going to do great things with this.’”
“I had such an overbearing headache because everything was so clinched because I thought I knew what was coming,” he said, recalling how he felt as he entered the chamber. “I thought that the floor speeches were going to be disgusting and immoral and acidic and so I was prepared for it, but scared to death as to what was going to happen. And then it slowly — we were taking one procedural vote after another — and it just became clear. There was one vote in particular that was the tipping point. It was a vote on the prime sponsor’s amendment to his own bill. If that had passed then the entire measure would have passed. If it failed, then the whole measure would have failed and the interim measure failed by 22 votes. They continued trying to resurrect it and all this other stuff, but every vote was getting further and further and further and further away from the repeal.”
Pierce’s opponent, state Rep. Joe Osgood, has pointed out the fact the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund has endorsed his campaign in e-mails to supporters and during interviews with local media outlets.
“I want to talk about the economy and jobs, how we get the economy going again, how we can guarantee the fundamental right to an education and recognize that health care is a right and ensure access to preventative services, non-discrimination for women, equal pay for equal work,” said Pierce as he pointed to his response to a reporter’s question about Osgood highlighting the Victory Fund’s endorsement and his sexual orientation. “The things that the voters care about are the same things that I care about.”
Beyond politics, however, Pierce stressed his state Senate candidacy remains personal.
“It’s just an incredible journey; I feel incredibly blessed to have had these opportunities,” he said. “Another part of that that really impacts me spiritually is that that scared little 12-year-old kid who is today living in Durham, N.H., or Windham, N.H., can see that it’s okay. And that’s a big part of why I do it because I don’t want kids today going through what I had to go through.”
He added his election to the state Senate as an openly gay man would say “a lot about New Hampshire.”
“It says a lot about the live free or die attitude of New Hampshire,” said Pierce. “It’s nobody business. And where is it written that we should be able to control how people live their lives and make the most personal choices in their lives? And so to the extent that my candidacy and my service in the Senate will represent that, I think that’s wonderful.”
Politics
After Biden signs TikTok ban its CEO vows federal court battle
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” CEO said
President Joe Biden signed an appropriations bill into law on Wednesday that provides multi-billion dollar funding and military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan after months of delay and Congressional infighting.
A separate bill Biden signed within the aid package contained a bipartisan provision that will ban the popular social media app TikTok from the United States if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell off the American subsidiary.
Reacting, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said Wednesday that the Culver City, Calif.-based company would go to court to try to remain online in the U.S.
In a video posted on the company’s social media accounts, Chew denounced the potential ban: “Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban of TikTok and a ban on you and your voice,” Chew said. “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere. We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail,” he added.
Our response to the TikTok Ban Bill in the US: https://t.co/LpoE67sxHo
— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) April 24, 2024
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre adamantly denied during a press briefing on Wednesday that the bill constitutes a ban, reiterating the administration’s hope that TikTok will be purchased by a third-party buyer and referencing media reports about the many firms that are interested.
Chew has repeatedly testified in both the House and Senate regarding ByteDance’s ability to mine personal data of its 170 million plus American subscribers, maintaining that user data is secure and not shared with either ByteDance nor agencies of the Chinese government. The testimony failed to assuage lawmakers’ doubts.
In an email, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who doesn’t support a blanket ban of the app, told the Washington Blade:
“As the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, I have long worked to safeguard Americans’ freedoms and security both at home and abroad. The Chinese Communist Party’s ability to exploit private user data and to manipulate public opinion through TikTok present serious national security concerns. For that reason, I believe that divestiture presents the best option to preserve access to the platform, while ameliorating these risks. I do not support a ban on TikTok while there are other less restrictive means available, and this legislation will give the administration the leverage and authority to require divestiture.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) told the Blade: “Senator Padilla believes we can support speech and creativity while also protecting data privacy and security. TikTok’s relationship to the Chinese Communist Party poses significant data privacy concerns. He will continue working with the Biden-Harris administration and his colleagues in Congress to safeguard Americans’ data privacy and foster continued innovation.”
The law, which gives ByteDance 270 days to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets, expires with a January 19, 2025 deadline for a sale. The date is one day before Biden’s term is set to expire, although he could extend the deadline by three months if he determines ByteDance is making progress or the transaction faces uncertainty in a federal court.
Former President Donald Trump’s executive order in 2020, which sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, a unit of Beijing-based Tencent, in the U.S., was blocked by federal courts.
TikTok has previously fought efforts to ban its widely popular app by the state of Montana last year, in a case that saw a federal judge in Helena block that state ban, citing free-speech grounds.
The South China Morning Post reported this week that the four-year battle over TikTok is a significant front in a war over the internet and technology between Washington and Beijing. Last week, Apple said China had ordered it to remove Meta Platforms’s WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China over Chinese national security concerns.
A spokesperson for the ACLU told the Blade in a statement that “banning or requiring divestiture of TikTok would set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms.”
LGBTQ TikToker users are alarmed, fearing that a ban will represent the disruption of networks of support and activism. However, queer social media influencers who operate on multiple platforms expressed some doubts as to long term impact.
Los Angeles Blade contributor Chris Stanley told the Blade:
“It might affect us slightly, because TikTok is so easy to go viral on. Which obviously means more brand deals, etc. However they also suppress and shadow ban LGBTQ creators frequently. But we will definitely be focusing our energy more on other platforms with this uncertainty going forward. Lucky for us, we aren’t one trick ponies and have multiple other platforms built.”
Brooklyn, N.Y.,-based gay social media creator and influencer Artem Bezrukavenko told the Blade:
“For smart creators it won’t because they have multiple platforms. For people who put all their livelihood yes. Like people who do livestreams,” he said adding: “Personally I’m happy it gets banned or American company will own it so they will be less homophobic to us.”
TikTok’s LGBTQ following has generally positive experiences although there have been widely reported instances of users, notably transgender users, seemingly targeted by the platform’s algorithms and having their accounts banned or repeatedly suspended.
Of greater concern is the staggering rise in anti-LGBTQ violence and threats on the platform prompting LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, in its annual Social Media Safety Index, to give TikTok a failing score on LGBTQ safety.
Additional reporting by Christopher Kane
Politics
Smithsonian staff concerned about future of LGBTQ programming amid GOP scrutiny
Secretary Lonnie Bunch says ‘LGBTQ+ content is welcome’
Staff at the Smithsonian Institution are concerned about the future of LGBTQ programming as several events featuring a drag performer were cancelled or postponed following scrutiny by House Republicans, according to emails reviewed by the Washington Post.
In December, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III appeared before a hearing led by GOP members of the Committee on House Administration, who flagged concerns about the Smithsonian’s involvement in “the Left’s indoctrination of our children.”
Under questioning from U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), Bunch said he was “surprised” to learn the Smithsonian had hosted six drag events over the past three years, telling the lawmakers “It’s not appropriate to expose children” to these performances.
Collaborations with drag artist Pattie Gonia in December, January, and March were subsequently postponed or cancelled, the Post reported on Saturday, adding that a Smithsonian spokesperson blamed “budgetary constraints and other resource issues” and the museums are still developing programming for Pride month in June.
“I, along with all senior leaders, take seriously the concerns expressed by staff and will continue to do so,” Bunch said in a statement to the paper. “As we have reiterated, LGBTQ+ content is welcome at the Smithsonian.”
The secretary sent an email on Friday expressing plans to meet with leaders of the Smithsonian Pride Alliance, one of the two groups that detailed their concerns to him following December’s hearing.
Bunch told the Pride Alliance in January that with his response to Bice’s question, his intention was to “immediately stress that the Smithsonian does not expose children to inappropriate content.”
“A hearing setting does not give you ample time to expand,” he said, adding that with more time he would have spoken “more broadly about the merits and goals of our programming and content development and how we equip parents to make choices about what content their children experience.”
Politics
Survey finds support for Biden among LGBTQ adults persists despite misgivings
Data for Progress previewed the results exclusively with the Blade
A new survey by Data for Progress found LGBTQ adults overwhelmingly favor President Joe Biden and Democrats over his 2024 rival former President Donald Trump and Republicans, but responses to other questions may signal potential headwinds for Biden’s reelection campaign.
The organization shared the findings of its poll, which included 873 respondents from across the country including an oversample of transgender adults, exclusively with the Washington Blade on Thursday.
Despite the clear margin of support for the president, with only 22 percent of respondents reporting that they have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Trump, answers were more mixed when it came to assessments of Biden’s performance over the past four years and his party’s record of protecting queer and trans Americans.
Forty-five percent of respondents said the Biden-Harris administration has performed better than they expected, while 47 percent said the administration’s record has been worse than they anticipated. A greater margin of trans adults in the survey — 52 vs. 37 percent — said their expectations were not met.
Seventy precent of all LGBTQ respondents and 81 percent of those who identify as trans said the Democratic Party should be doing more for queer and trans folks, while just 24 percent of all survey participants and 17 percent of trans participants agreed the party is already doing enough.
With respect to the issues respondents care about the most when deciding between the candidates on their ballots, LGBTQ issues were second only to the economy, eclipsing other considerations like abortion and threats to democracy.
These answers may reflect heightened fear and anxiety among LGBTQ adults as a consequence of the dramatic uptick over the past few years in rhetorical, legislative, and violent bias-motivated attacks against the community, especially targeting queer and trans folks.
The survey found that while LGBTQ adults are highly motivated to vote in November, there are signs of ennui. For example, enthusiasm was substantially lower among those aged 18 to 24 and 25 to 39 compared with adults 40 and older. And a plurality of younger LGBTQ respondents said they believe that neither of the country’s two major political parties care about them.
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