Headlines from the Granite State
Queen City Pride
In January, the founders of Manchester’s Queen City Pride completed the process of creating a nonprofit organization to serve their area’s vibrant LGBTQ community. They also appointed an eight-person board of directors to provide oversight, governance and accountability.
Over the last two years, the group has grown into something neither of the founders could have envisioned—a 3,000-person festival along the Merrimack River with over 60 vendors, 5 food trucks, 10 youth activities and over 50 local sponsors. Better known to most as Pride Festival 2021.
Queen City Pride’s “annual festivals demonstrated that a social and celebratory group focusing on the LGBT community was sorely needed,” organizers said in a press release.
“We also wanted to legitimize ourselves in the community and to our community sponsors, for the work we do with the LGBTQ community. This growth will allow us to better follow through on our mission, while also continuing to work with other groups in the area to continue striving for equity in the queer or minority community.”
‘Honey Punch and Pals’ protest
File this one under bizarre but disturbing stories: On January 12, LGBTQ Nation reported on “a group of sad white men,” members of the Nationalist Social Club, marching in protest from Maine to New Hampshire against Portsmouth’s Seacoast Repertory Theatre production of “Honey Punch and Pals,” performed virtually (due to pandemic precautions). The show featured a drag-queen, dressed as a 1950s housewife, reading stories to puppets.
The show’s codirector Brandon James told LGBTQ Nation he expected a small group of religious-right protestors and was surprised to see instead “a militant line of aggression.”
“I stood inside our lobby in our theater and watched these men hurling hate outside the theater,” he said. “And I had to ask myself and look inside: ‘What are we going to do? What are we, as humans, going to do? What are we, as an organization, going to do?’ The answer is not [to] stay silent. We’re not going to close up our shutters, and we’re not going to roll over and let these men repeat history.”
Bill to ban ‘gay/trans panic defense’
On January 6, the Granite State House of Representatives voted 223-118 to ban the “gay/trans panic defense,” where defendants accused of committing violent crimes use the victim’s gender identity or sexual orientation as a defense.
If the bill moves to the Senate and the governor signs it, New Hampshire would join Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island as New England states with laws against the gay/trans panic defense, according to the Movement Advance Project (MAP).
Pappas-Bentley engagement
Congressman Chris Pappas, who in 2018 became the first openly gay person to represent New Hampshire in the US House of Representatives, announced his engagement to his boyfriend Vann Bentley.
“We said yes!,” Pappas posted on Twitter on December 19. “Vann and I are thrilled to share the news of our engagement and look forward to a lifetime of happiness and togetherness.”
Remembering Desmond Tutu
Among the worldwide tributes to the late Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu, who died in late 2021, come the recollections of the Right Rev. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the United States’ first gay Episcopal bishop. Tutu, Robinson recalls, came to his defense when the church excluded Robinson from a global gathering because Robinson was gay.
“It was quite surreal because I was taking grief from literally around the world,” Robinson told NBC. “There was probably at that time, and maybe still, no one better known around the world than Desmond Tutu. It was an astounding gesture of generosity and kindness.”
“Now, with gay marriage, it’s hard to remember how controversial this was, and for him to stand with me at the very time I was being excluded … it completely floored me,” said Robinson.
In the forward to Robinson’s book, Tutu also apologized for the “cruelty and injustice” the LGBTQ community had suffered at the hands of fellow Anglicans, noted the NBC report.
HRC Municipal Equality Index
New England earned leading scores once again on the Human Rights Campaign’s 10th annual Municipal Equality Index.
In the Granite State, Durham scored 96, Manchester 86, Keene 69, Concord and Dover 68, Portsmouth 67, Derry 60, Nashua 52, and Plymouth 44.
The index measures LGBTQ inclusivity in municipal laws, policies and services for LGBTQ people in cities and some other communities with a strong LGBTQ presence across the US. Scores are based on 49 different criteria from employment, housing, credit, education, public services, transgender health care and anti-conversion therapy laws.
More: hrc.org
