Senate pulls funding for Philadelphia LGBTQ community center hours before vote

washingtonblade.com:

In remarks at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said he was “horrified” to learn his office had issued a letter on Tuesday that stripped a $1 million earmark for the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, which had been targeted by the anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok.

The move came just before the chamber is set to vote on the appropriations package on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, at the 11th hour my staff was made aware that funding for William Way, which was in the bill because I championed it, would not pass in the FY24 appropriations process,” he said in a follow-up statement from his office. “The choice was either to pull it or watch it get stripped out, attacked by Republicans, and ultimately killed.” Fetterman had secured funding for the community center after House Republicans struck it — along with earmarks for two other LGBTQ centers — from an appropriations bill, in what the Pennsylvania senator called “misguided and bigoted culture war efforts.” While he told Business Insider that he intended to withdraw the letter, the news outlet notes the final earmark requests had already been entered into the congressional record, and Pennsylvania’s senior Democratic U.S.

senator, Bob Casey, had also withdrawn his support for William Way. In a post on X Tuesday, Libs of TikTok wrote that the Senate funding bill “includes $1M of your tax dollars to go towards renovating an LGBTQ Center in PA which boasts rooms to try BDSM and s*x f*tishes and hosts BDSM and s*x k*nk parties.” Casey’s office told Business Insider that while he will “continue to support the LGBTQ community” in Pennsylvania and “believes that consenting adults have the right to do whatever they want in their free time,” ultimately “Senator Casey withdrew his request for federal funding when new information about the third-party use of the facility emerged.” In a statement to the Washington Blade, William Way Center Executive Director Chris Bartlett said