'Craven and politically motivated': Youngkin allies remove gay resources from state health dept. website

07 July 2023

Until late May, the Virginia Health Department's website included links to some resources for gay youths, including Q Chat Space and Queer Stuff. But according to reporting from the Washington Post and The Hill on July 6, those resources were removed following an "inquiry" from a well-known right-wing website: Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire.

The Washington Post's Jenna Portnoy reports that on May 31, members of Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's administration received an "inquiry" from the Daily Wire — and "within hours," a "dozen" gay resources were "removed from the (Virginia) Health Department website at the direction of a cabinet-level agency, according to e-mails obtained under the state's open records law."

"The presence of the materials — and their subsequent disappearance on May 31 — generated two headlines and a flurry of online reaction from conservative readers of the outlet, co-founded by right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro," Portnoy explains. "The decision elicited concern from (Health) Department leaders who had not been consulted and began e-mailing their higher-ups asking why this had happened — again."

According to Portnoy, members of the Youngkin Administration have, on at least three occasions, "removed information from the website without consulting its own subject-matter experts, records show, stripping public health resources on abortions, sexual health and pregnancy, among other issues."

Macaulay Porter, Virginia's press secretary, is defending the removal of those gay resources as a matter of "parents' rights" — which is the type of argument the far-right Moms for Liberty makes. But Narissa Rahaman, executive director of pro-gay rights group Equality Virginia, is slamming the move as "craven and politically motivated."

Rahaman told the Post, "This is part of a pattern with this administration, where it's more important to appeal to an anti-LGBTQ+ political base rather than serve LGBTQ+ Virginians in any capacity."

The Hill's Julia Shapero notes that Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Shelton "told colleagues" that "she was directed to" remove the Queer Kid Stuff link by the Virginia Health Department.

Read the Washington Post's full report at this link (subscription required)

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