Lawmakers have stripped a $1 million earmark for a LGBTQ+ community center in Philadelphia from the funding package Congress is expected to clear this week.
Sen. John Fetterman's (D-Pa.) office, in a letter to appropriators, requested the funding be cut from the bill. But he said Wednesday that his staff had made the decision to pull the funding without his input, and implied that a conservative social media account, which accused the center of hosting sex parties, had played a part in the decision.
“I wasn't part of that decision. It wasn't my personal decision to do that,” he said in an interview. “I never realized that the Libs of TikTok should determine our priorities and what we're going to support,” referencing a notorious conservative account.
Libs of TikTok posted March 5 that the funding would help a center that promoted a forthcoming event for those interested in “BDSM, kink and fetish” and singled out Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Fetterman for supporting the funds.
The executive director of the LGBTQ+ center said the funding was withdrawn “as a result of lies and distortions” by “political extremists.”
“These extremists falsely stated that sexual behavior is allowed in rental programs of the Center, which is inaccurate and against our Center’s code of conduct,” Chris Bartlett, who heads the William Way LGBT Community Center, said in a statement.
House Republicans were also successful in blocking other LGBTQ+ earmarks from the final funding bills, including a $970,000 project Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) initially got approved last summer for an LGBTQ+ housing program in her southeastern Pennsylvania district. GOP lawmakers also stripped out $850,000 for affordable housing units for LGBTQ+ seniors in Boston that Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) initially got approved.
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