Ayanna Pressley: “I oppose this legislation for the draconian cuts and dangerous provisions included in it, but also for the critical…”

“I oppose this legislation for the draconian cuts and dangerous provisions included in it, but also for the critical funding priorities that were excluded. With this appropriations bill, Republicans callously stripped community project funding for The Pryde, an affordable LGBTQ+ senior housing development in the Massachusetts Seventh. It would seem for my colleagues across the aisle that the word ``freedom'' is selectively applied. It does not apply to my bodily autonomy. It does not apply to intellectual freedom for women, African Americans, or our LGBTQ siblings when it comes to our books, and it does not apply to the freedom to love whom you love. This project satisfies the committee's requirements and would meet a critical need in my district at a time when mortgages are skyrocketing and one-third of LGBTQ seniors are living in poverty, and many are forced to recloset themselves in order to age in community in their twilight years. Unconscionable. Republicans are choosing homophobia over housing, profits over people, cruelty over compassion. Their actions to target, attack, and dehumanize our LGBTQ siblings are nothing more than a show of contempt. While The Pryde has a pathway for other Federal funding, this act of policy violence contributes to the physical violence that far too many LGBTQ folks experience.…”