Strange! Kevin McCarthy Kicks Off Pride Month by Saluting Famous Lesbian Author

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made it one of his priorities as president to push through anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in March. He also opposed last year’s landmark bill to enact same-sex marriage protections into law. But in a delightful change of tone, and probably with no idea what he was doing, he kicked off Pride Month on Wednesday with a celebration saluting “one of the country’s most beloved authors,” lesbian Willa Cather.

“As one of America’s greatest novelists, Willa Cather is a fitting addition to this gallery of great Americans,” McCarthy enthused at a dedication ceremony for the statue of Cather at the US Capitol. Cather, a Pulitzer Prize winner who died in 1947, was chosen by Nebraska leaders to be the subject of one of their two statues in Washington representing the state.

“Nebraskans are lucky to call Cather one of their own,” McCarthy told the audience gathered in Statuary Hall, which included congressional leaders and Nebraska’s top elected officials. “But ultimately, her work belongs here. Because she’s American to the core. The authenticity of her, emotion, artistry of her, spoke to the core values ​​of Americans.”

He probably wasn’t referring to Cather’s genuineness and genuineness. relationship of almost 40 years with his partner, Edith Lewis. Same-sex couples obviously couldn’t get married in the early 20th century, but a decades-long romantic relationship between two women, neither of whom were particularly secretive about it, is the closest thing to marriage.

Melissa Homestead, a professor of English and a member of the faculty of gender and women’s studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spent 18 years researching and writing a book specifically about Cather’s relationship with Lewis.

“She and Lewis lived openly together for nearly forty years, jointly renting apartments in Greenwich Village and on Park Avenue,” Homestead. wrote last year at lithub.com, an online literary content hub. “In fact, one of the main arguments of my book is that his domestic partner was not a secret. Still, Lewis often was and sometimes still is made into Cather’s secretary (she wasn’t) rather than being recognized for what she was: a highly paid professional woman with a demanding office job who was also the romantic partner of Cather and her editor.

McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether he knew about this.

His office also did not respond to a request for comment on whether it could appreciate the rich irony of his celebration of Cather’s life and her contributions to American society in the midst of Pride Month and at a time when conservatives, including McCarthy, are feeding particularly cruel and dangerous attacks about the LGBTQ+ community.

In even greater irony, the speaker’s effusive praise of Cather’s portrayals of American pioneers in novels like “Oh, Pioneers!” and “My Antonia” take on additional meaning when applied to Cather herself and her determination to live an authentic life.

“Pioneers have a vision of a better life beyond the immediate world they currently live in,” McCarthy gushed. “Pioneers are people who take risks, who have the courage to challenge the unknown, to reach new goals. Pioneers use independent judgment and come up with new ideas and innovations that often make the world a better place.

However, the California Republican has long been an obstacle to guaranteeing any kind of legal protection and rights for LGBTQ people. He won a zero out of 100 in the Human Rights Campaign’s most recent Congressional Scorecard on supporting LGBTQ+ equality. And when Congress approved the Respect for Marriage Law – to response to some conservative Supreme Court justices hinting that they would like to revise federal marriage equality — With a strong bipartisan vote in December, McCarthy was a no.

If the Supreme Court decides to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 case guaranteeing same-sex couples the right to marry, the effect would be particularly devastating for marriage equality in Nebraska. The state has a constitutional amendment and a law that prohibits same-sex marriage. still in the booksand those would come into effect if Obergefell was taken down.

The Respect Marriage Act would require Nebraska to still recognize marriages that were legally performed in other states, but would not require Nebraska to legalize marriage equality there. An estimate 55,000 Nebraska residents identify as LGBTQ as of 2020, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

McCarthy wasn’t the only anti-LGBTQ Republican at Wednesday’s ceremony celebrating Cather’s life while glossing over the fact that she was a lesbian in a long-term relationship.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who also voted against the Law of Respect for Marriage and that got a 5 out of 100 of the Human Rights Campaign’s most recent report from Congress, spoke about the strong influence Cather’s work has had on her sister-in-law, Nadine, and her paintings.

“Nadine’s art reflects the deep resonance of Cather’s writing for those of us who call Nebraska home,” Fischer told the group. “That resonance, that talent, that imagination that immortalized Cather’s indelible novels is what makes her stand here in the US Capitol as a representation of Nebraska at its best.”

Nebraska Governor James Pillen (right) proudly read aloud some of Cather’s famous quotes.

“Where there is great love, there are always miracles,” Pillen said, repeating it again. He suggests that the quote is one that “Mother Teresa must have taken from Willa Cather.”

In related news, the conservative governor signed into law a few weeks ago banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth and called for such attention “Absolutely Lucifer at his finest.”