Elected officials including congressmember Pat Ryan, state senator Michelle Hinchey county executive Jen Metzger, county auditor March Gallagher and Kingston mayor Steve Noble gathered at the LGBTQ+ headquarters on Wall Street in Kingston on June 18 to present a united front in the face of increasing attacks on that community’s rights.
Ryan, who initiated the event, drew attention to the Equality Act, civil-rights legislation he and other Democrats reintroduced into congressional deliberations. The bill provides consistent and explicit anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people across key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit and education.
Aiming to protect all Americans from discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, the bill aims to provide a shield against “sex-based stereotypes.” The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community have frequently experienced simple ventures into public life such as eating at a restaurant or attending live entertainment easy targets for abuse.
“We have to call to the better angels of our neighbors here,” said Ryan, “and our fellow Americans across the country and remind them that these are the values we all hold. If we articulate them and are confident, not cowering in the face of these attacks, but strongly pushing back and saying: … This is who we are as a country. This is who we are as a people.”
In order to commemorate the gay liberation protests known as the Stonewall Uprising, the month of June was first proclaimed the national celebration of Pride Month under president Bill Clinton in 1999. Pride Month was officially expanded to include the entire LGBT community in 2011.
“On one hand, this month, Pride Month, we’re celebrating the joy that comes with one’s freedom to be who they are and to live freely and openly,” said executive director of the LGBTQ+ community center in Kingston Richard Heyl de Ortiz. “And then on the other hand, at times these moments come which feel like a tsunami which seeks to erase LGBTQ-plus individuals and force our community back into the closet.” Dividing people for political purposes is nothing new.
“Throughout our American history, this has been done over and over again, where you divide people so you allow for those in power to get away with things that they could not,” said Heyl de Ortiz, “financially or otherwise, because they’ve split up the majority of the population. I think that’s what we’re seeing now.”
The key concept to understand, explained state senator Michelle Hinchey, was how politicians use wedge issues for political gain.
“Wedge issues truly do divide people. Anything that is big, negative, splashy is what’s going to get the headlines,” explained Hinchey. “The second part of it is, if you distract with a big wedge issue, you can make big changes and systemic changes to government over here, and people won’t pay enough attention to that because they’re distracted with the shiny wedge social-issue topic over there.”
Which questions are more important: whether a transgender person born a biological male should use a woman’s bathroom or whether agents of the federal government have the right to abduct people off the streets whenever and wherever they want.
Is it more important whether 83,000 jobs are going to be cut from the Office of Veterans Affairs or whether a young woman has too much testosterone to enter a high-school swimming competition against other young women?
From a position of patriotism, what happens in bathrooms and swimming pools is less a problem for our system of government than what happens when unidentified thugs are allowed to disappear human beings into vans.
Ryan, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, sees president Donald Trump’s political strategy as two-pronged.
“Trump is using those attacks as a division tactic to allow his billionaire cronies and others to advance their interests, to advance his corruption, to advance his cryptocurrency schemes and his Qatari jets and everything else,” Ryan said. “But we also have to be clear. Terming what is being done to people’s rights in these battles against the LGBTQ community and immigrant communities as a distraction sort of implies that there’s not harm being done. But there is real harm being done.”
Congressional Democrats are on board with the Equality Act, but without Republicans willing to cross the aisle the bill will remain aspirational.
“We’ll at least get three,” Ryan said, “and I hope 30 or 40 or maybe 200- plus Republicans find the courage to sign on to this and finally pass it.”
Unable to attend the press conference because of schedule conflicts, county legislature chair Peter Criswell, himself a member of the LGBTQ+ community, offered a statement.
“Here in Ulster County, we’ve taken meaningful steps to protect the dignity and rights of all people, including strengthening our Human Rights Law to explicitly include gender expression,” wrote Criswell. “But local action isn’t enough. We need the full weight of federal law to ensure that no one anywhere in this country faces discrimination because of who they are or who they love. I fully support congressman Pat Ryan’s call to reintroduce the Equality Act and urge Congress to act with urgency. Equality must be the law of the land.”
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