‘Snowflake,’ ‘bigot,’: Spending hearing erupts over funding for LGBTQ projects

A House hearing on funding for transportation and housing descended into yelling and name-calling Tuesday as Republicans and Democrats went after one another over a proposal related to funding for LGBTQ projects.

The hearing featured several impassioned back-and-forths between lawmakers as Democrats leveled accusations of bigotry against Republicans for an amendment they say would strip funding for projects that would benefit LGBTQ Americans. 

In one of the hearing’s most tense moments, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) clashed after the Republican targeted projects he claimed promote “hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery referrals” and “groomed young children.”

He also took aim at funding for “LGBTQ senior housing” and said the “answer to discrimination is not more discrimination in this.”

Pocan retorted soon after: “You know, there’s a saying, ‘How do you show you’re a bigot without saying you’re a bigot?’ I’m just saying, there’s a saying.”

Harris called for Pocan’s words to be stricken shortly after. But the exchange didn’t stop there.

“I know it’s a little warm outside, and a snowflake can melt, but this is a little bit ridiculous,” Pocan said to some laughs, before then saying he would take down his earlier comments “because I think it’s self-evident.”

Harris then reiterated his request that Pocan’s words be struck, before Pocan countered, “I said I would take down my words. Perhaps his eyes are so tired from reading so many websites that his ears can’t hear.”

The back and forth continued until the hearing broke into another recess, after which Pocan asked for some of his earlier comments to be taken down.

The moment came a little while after Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, asked for her words accusing conservatives of being legislative “terrorists” to be withdrawn following pushback from Harris.

DeLauro named several community projects that she said are “being summarily dismissed” under the amendment, which was ultimately adopted along partisan lines. They include, the congresswoman said, for the LGBT Center of Greater Reading in Pennsylvania, funding to expand housing for LGBTQ seniors, and the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia.

In a Tuesday statement, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who sought funding for the Philadelphia center, fired back at Republicans over the legislation.

“Well, just today with no notice, the Republican majority filed an amendment that out of over 3,800 projects from members of Congress, 3,800 that have been approved, they are now voting to strip funding from the only three projects that have LGBTQ in the organization’s name,” Boyle said. “This is outrageous.”

During the hearing, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) took aim at what he described as “political theater” while dismissing criticisms from Democrats.

“Appropriation also should be appropriate. This has nothing to do with discrimination over a class of citizens or people or race; it has to do with an ideology and whether or not the taxpayers should have to pay for it,” he said. 

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said later in the hearing that the projects in question “were all deemed, by both parties, eligible under statutory law and under the rules of the guidance that our friends in the majority presented at the beginning of the process.”

“So, someone thought that they were deserving or at least, were eligible under the law and the rules,” he said. “So these three projects were now singled out, out of 2,680 as suddenly not ones that we want to do.”