SOCIAL ISSUES
At a time when reasonable people in New Hampshire recognize that the most pressing problems we are facing are housing, child care, the health care workforce and climate change, the majority party at the State House is focused on none of those things. Their top priorities are bills that discriminate against the LGBTQ community, particularly LGBTQ youth, and further aim to dismantle the public school system.
There were 30 bills targeting the LGBTQ community proposed earlier this year, and while most have been killed or sent to study, some very concerning proposals remain. The debate alone around these bills has no doubt had an impact on LGBTQ kids, although that is hard to measure unless we look at suicide statistics.
If that sounds a bit dark, it’s because it is.
However, the proponents of these anti-LGBTQ bills dismiss that potential result and instead attribute any increase in depression and suicidal ideation among teens to mental instability stemming from gender dysphoria.
Proponents of the current “parental rights” bill, SB 341, requiring mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents, are similarly dismissive of the forced outing of LGBTQ youth and the harm it could cause to kids and their families. Even the state’s One Trusted Adult program, established in 2022 and which has been successful, is discounted.
The fact is that a large percentage of the teenagers who are turned away at shelters for lack of beds have been kicked out of their homes when their gender orientation was not accepted. Not every family is a loving, accepting family, as some lawmakers imagine it to be the norm.
It is hard not to see parallels with the debate 12 years ago regarding marriage equality. Three years earlier, New Hampshire had enacted the Marriage Equality Act of 2009, but the 2012 Legislature sought to repeal it when the Legislature switched back to Republican control. The narrative included this critical point and winning argument: Legislative bodies repeal laws only when they have proven not to work, when they become outdated, or when they have been shown to cause harm. None of those reasons applied to the Marriage Equality Act.
In 2024, legislators are seeking to roll back the 2018 antidiscrimination law, which protects gender identity, with HB 396. This bill will permit schools and businesses to discriminate against the transgender community in places including bathrooms, sports facilities, mental health hospitals, treatment centers and any facility where someone is involuntarily committed. While several members of the current Legislature were solidly in support of the 2018 antidiscrimination law, there are worries now that they could reverse their position.
We need to emphasize again that laws are repealed when they don’t work, and there has been no evidence showing that the 2018 antidiscrimination law has failed. Legislators in New Hampshire have a tradition of respecting the work of their peers and predecessors. Undoing the hard work of a previous Legislature just to satisfy a minority is insulting to our citizen legislators, who spend hundreds of hours hearing, deliberating, debating and voting on every bill put before them.
Finally, in an opinion piece published in the Boston Globe in February 2012, during the Marriage Equality repeal fight, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson wrote: “In a democracy, all citizens are treated equally. Denying rights to same-sex couples is just as wrong as denying rights to citizens because of gender, race, religious choice, or disability, even if for religious reasons. In other parts of the world, basic human rights are not guaranteed, but in this country we strive to make them so, and to steadfastly protect the rights of minorities. Anything less is contrary to all the religious values I know of and cherish.”
This is just as true today and just as important. We are a democracy, and that means all citizens are treated the same — not discriminated against, targeted or left out. Our legislators should consider that as a simple truth and start addressing policies and issues their constituents care about.
Rep. Alicia Gregg lives in Nashua and represents Ward 7.
