Republicans on House Appropriations Subcommittee accused of anti-LGBTQ bigotry
Republican members of the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) filed en bloc amendment on Tuesday striking three Community Project Funding requests from a spending package containing a total of 2,680.
Speaking to the Washington Blade minutes before markup was set to resume, the Subcommittee’s Ranking Member, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), pledged to file an amendment restoring funding for the three projects: LGBTQ Secure Housing Inc., Gay Community Center of Philadelphia, and The LGBT Center of Greater Reading. “The only three they pulled out were projects for the LGBTQ community,” Quigley said. “So, you know, it’s not hard to draw conclusions with that,” in fact, “it’s hard to draw any other conclusion.” Quigley added, “You’ve gotta ask yourself, how did they find these three?” Quigley added, “one could speculate — reasonably — that somebody in leadership said, ‘we have members that won’t vote for the base bill if it has projects for the gay community.'” Having served on the Appropriations Committee for the better part of a decade, Quigley told the Blade he has “never seen anything like” Tuesday’s move by his Republican colleagues. “If you’re going to do this sort of thing, which I would argue is is prejudiced,” the congressman asked, “why would you do it so publicly?” Rep.
Grace Meng (D-Queens) drew attention to two additional Community Project Fundings that would ultimately go to benefit LGBTQ individuals—however those are not being targeted for removal.
If instead of these three projects, Republicans had struck funding from “the NAACP or the Urban League, [they] would — rightfully so — be called racist bigots,” U.S.
