Portsmouth, Pappas raise welcoming Pride flag as LGBTQ+ community is targeted nationally

PORTSMOUTH — Dignitaries took to Market Square Thursday to commemorate the start of Pride Month in June, honoring the LGBTQ+ community and the 1969 Stonewall riots, and raising a rainbow flag to embrace diversity and acceptance.

Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern raised up a Pride flag as a crowd of LGBTQ+ advocates, elected officials and community members assembled, many dressed in vibrant colored clothing to welcome in Pride Month.

U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-New Hampshire and state Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, D-Portsmouth, were among those in attendance.

Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern addresses a crowd during a Pride Month flag raising Thursday, June 1, 2023.
Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern addresses a crowd during a Pride Month flag raising Thursday, June 1, 2023.

Pappas serves as co-chairperson of the Congressional Equality Caucus. The congressman, along with other members of the Equality Caucus, introduced the Respect for Marriage Act last summer, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in December.

“We’re better off when people can live their truth, when they can be themselves. The diversity that the LGBTQ+ community brings to New Hampshire is something that enriches the fabric of our communities all across this state,” Pappas said.

Pappas and McEachern lauded Portsmouth as the “City of the Open Door.”

“Our door is always open and that is our secret sauce,” the mayor said. “That’s why we’re such a great city is because we have so many people making it a great city.”

New Hampshire state Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, D-Portsmouth waves to a crowd gathered for a Pride flag raising in Portsmouth Thursday, June 1, 2023. At left is Portsmouth Assistant Mayor Joanna Kelley.
New Hampshire state Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, D-Portsmouth waves to a crowd gathered for a Pride flag raising in Portsmouth Thursday, June 1, 2023. At left is Portsmouth Assistant Mayor Joanna Kelley.

LGBTQ+ community has been targeted in 2023

Pride Month begins as attacks on the LGBTQ+ community have occurred in plain sight at home and across the nation, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has become more prevalent.

This winter, a barrage of hateful, antisemitic, racist graffiti was unleashed on numerous downtown Portsmouth area businesses, houses of worship, including Temple Israel, and homes, as well as a pedestrian walking bridge. Several of the businesses targeted in the upsetting display have been outspoken in their support for the LGBTQ+ community, whether through hanging Pride flags or supportive messages on their premises’, or through donating to LGBTQ+ organizations.

Stemming from that incident, in late April, the New Hampshire attorney general announced charges against a Portsmouth teenager for 22 counts of violating the state's Civil Rights Act.

“We are living in a time where we are seeing hate on the rise in our country and discrimination on the rise,” Pappas said. “That plays out at the community level, which we’ve seen here in Portsmouth. But I think the reaction to that has also been pretty profound. People know that there's no place for discrimination in Portsmouth or in New Hampshire. We’ve just got to continue to call it out wherever it is.”

Rep. Chris Pappas, D-New Hampshire, speaks during a LGBTQ+ Pride rainbow flag raising event in Portsmouth's Market Square Thursday, June 1, 2023.
Rep. Chris Pappas, D-New Hampshire, speaks during a LGBTQ+ Pride rainbow flag raising event in Portsmouth's Market Square Thursday, June 1, 2023.

The American Civil Liberties Union is keeping tabs on close to 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in states throughout the country, proposals targeting civil rights, schools and education, health care, free speech, expression and more.

Four of the bills the ACLU has watched were proposed in New Hampshire, including Senate Bill 272, controversial legislation blocked by the state’s House of Representatives this spring. Critics argued the “parental rights” bill, which would have required teachers to inform parents if their kids identified as a different gender at school, was harmful to the welfare of LGBTQ+ youth. The bill was indefinitely postponed, barring it from being considered by lawmakers through the end of 2024.

Suicide prevention is needed, report states

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit founded in 1998 focused on suicide prevention in LGBTQ+ youth, surveyed over 28,000 LGBTQ+ young people across the United States for its annual survey on LGBTQ+ youth mental health. The organization’s 2023 report, after speaking with respondents between the ages of 13 and 24 years old, found that 41% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, with young transgender and nonbinary people, as well as people of color, reporting so at higher rates.

Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern raises the LGBTQ+ Pride rainbow flag in Market Square June 1, 2023.
Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern raises the LGBTQ+ Pride rainbow flag in Market Square June 1, 2023.

Among other findings, the Trevor Project reported less than 40% of respondents found their home to be LGBTQ+-affirming, in addition to the majority of respondents stating they have been verbally harassed at school because students suspected they are LGBTQ+.

“Nearly 2 in 3 LGBTQ young people said that hearing about potential state or local laws banning people from discussing LGBTQ people at school made their mental health a lot worse," the 2023 report states.

Pappas said he won’t quit advocating for Congress to pass the Equality Act, which would provide federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ citizens and their families.

“During this Pride Month, let’s make sure that we are all proud to embrace each other, to celebrate our diversity and to continue that fight,” he said.

Remembering Charlie Howard

Following the flag raising, the congressman and mayor walked with Tom Kaufhold, founder of the Seacoast LGBT History Project, and his young grandson over to Commercial Alley.

The four ventured to a stone bench dedicated in honor of Charlie Howard, a young man from Portsmouth who was killed because he was gay. In summer 1984, in Bangor, Maine, Howard, who was bullied throughout his time in the Portsmouth school system, was thrown off a bridge by three teenage boys.

Created in 2015, the Seacoast LGBT History Project, previously honored the young man with a separate bench at Portsmouth High School and a headstone marker at Orchard Grove Cemetery in Kittery, where Howard is buried.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH raises Pride flag to show LGBTQ+ support