Lauren Boebert celebrates passage of her amendment banning support for LGBTQ+ federal employees

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) celebrated the passage of her amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill that bans the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from educating its leadership about LGBTQ+ employees in order to make LGBTQ+ employees feel safer in the workplace.

Her amendment – Boebert Amendment No. 146 to the Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Act – is described on her congressional website as preventing “Biden’s rogue bureaucrats” from using “woke courses, books and study guides” that “defy Congressional intent and mandate leftist indoctrination.”

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Far-right House Republicans are now using the budget process for anti-LGBTQ+ attacks

Radicals keep bringing amendments to defund anything LGBTQ+, and the rest of the party goes along to avoid rocking the boat.

Her site lists the names of topics used in such materials that she found particularly objectionable: “Pride Leadership: Strategies for LGBTQ+ Leaders to be the King or Queen of Their Jungle,” “The Queer Advantage: Conversations with LGBTQ+ Leaders on the Power of Identity,” “Out and Proud: Approaching LGBT Issues in the Workplace,” and “Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace: Transgender and Gender-Diverse Discrimination.”

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The amendment passed by just three votes in the House. One Republican – Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) – voted against it. It is unlikely that the Senate version of the bill will include a similar measure or that her amendment will survive reconciliation, considering its razor-thin support in the House.

“8 of my amendments to the Agriculture Appropriations bill have successfully passed the House!” she tweeted happily after they were accepted by the Republican-controlled chamber. Six of the other amendments deal with specific agricultural or food supply issues. The other reduces the salary of Deputy Under Secretary of the Food and Nutrition Service of the Department of Agriculture Stacy Dean to $1 because Boebert believes Dean is allowing too many people to access federal food benefits. Boebert is one of several far-right Republicans using the tactic of ordering a Biden appointee’s salary set to $1 in retaliation for policy disagreements.

She said that most of her amendments received “strong bipartisan support.” It’s unclear if she was including the anti-LGBTQ+ amendment, which one Democrat voted for.

“In a clear indication that so-called moderate Republicans are now completely controlled by their extreme fringes, they are now passing such blatantly homophobic legislation that mandates federal employees be discriminated against in the workplace,” a DCCC spokesperson told the Blade. “Their focus on these hateful policies while ignoring middle-class families struggling with rising costs is why they will lose their majority in Congress next year.”

House Republicans have been adding anti-LGBTQ+ amendments to large spending bills this year, hoping that bipartisan support for funding necessary government programs will allow them to slip some attacks on LGBTQ+ equality through.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) got anti-LGBTQ+ amendments to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill passed in July, banning the agency from talking about LGBTQ+ people on its social media account.

“My amendment is an important one, because we need to stop talking about the way people sexually identify with taxpayer dollars,” Greene claimed at the time. “The FAA website and Twitter account frequently post LGBTQ content that should have no place in our aviation administration.”

House Republicans also got amendments attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – which funds the military – banning the military’s health care plan from paying for gender-affirming care for people in the military and their families and banning the military from purchasing any book that has “pornographic materials” or “espouses radical gender ideology.”

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) criticized the amendments, saying at the time, “Whether you’re talking about women, whether you’re talking about trans people, whether you’re talking about people of color — this bill says that we’re going to make it more difficult for you to get a fair shake in the military. We are opposed to this bill because it is our firm belief that it will undermine our ability to meet the national security objectives of this country.”

Update: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Fitzpatrick as a Democrat and said he voted for Boebert’s amendment. We regret the error.