Wyoming Equality may seek defamation lawsuit against Wyoming Freedom Caucus
By Noah Zahn
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via Wyoming News Exchange
CHEYENNE — Wyoming Equality announced Tuesday it has brought in legal counsel to challenge what it believes to be defamatory social media posts by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and state Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, chairman of the WYFC.
In a Facebook post Friday, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus called Wyoming Equality “a radical leftwing organization that shills for surgical abuse of children, porn in libraries, and worse.”
According to its website, Wyoming Equality is a nonprofit that “strives to achieve equity for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, and queer Wyomingites by building broad and inclusive communities, shifting the hearts and minds of our neighbors, and achieving policy victories.”
No legal action has been taken yet, and Wyoming Equality Executive Director Sara Burlingame told the WTE she will wait to see what the organization’s attorney advises.
In the initial Facebook post, the WYFC said the state of Wyoming has awarded $750,000 in taxpayer-funded grants to Wyoming Equality in the past five years. Bear said he has submitted a records request to the Wyoming Department of Health to learn more about how Wyoming Equality has been spending these funds.
He cited a bingo drag show fundraiser held in Laramie earlier this year hosted by Wyoming AIDS Assistance, a nonprofit that supports men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS, that received around $3,000 in federal funds channeled through the Wyoming Department of Health.
In April, the WTE reported that Stefan Johansson, director of WDH, said that his agency saw the event as an opportunity to use federal funding for HIV/AIDS and other STI disease prevention efforts.
Bear said he hopes the records request will shed more light on how Wyoming Equality is using the funds it receives from publicly funded grants.
“We question whether a drag show is a good use of tax dollars to accomplish that,” Bear said. “So, we’re interested to know exactly what this organization is using those dollars for, at least what they’re proposing used for in their grant applications.”
Wyoming Equality is a separate and unrelated nonprofit from Wyoming AIDS Assistance, the nonprofit that hosted the drag show in April. It has been fundraising for over 15 years and has raised around $200,000 to date, according to its website.
In a statement released Tuesday, Burlingame said, “The Wyoming Constitution guarantees us healthcare privacy and protection from Big Government. We have never supported gender affirming surgery for minors, just as we have never supported Big Government solutions for Wyoming families. We remain committed to Wyoming families continuing to make healthcare decisions for themselves and their children without being hectored by an increasingly hysterical party that has set itself up to be moral arbiters.”
In response, Bear said, “I’m not surprised that they would use ‘lawfare’ while using taxpayer dollars to squelch (the) First Amendment.”
Bear said that he does not believe any of his or the WYFC’s posts are defamatory and noted that while he is not actively seeking any legal action in response, “there’s firms out there that would love to make an example of organizations that try to use lawfare to take away people’s constitutional, God-given rights. But you know, it’ll depend on who joins us in that lawsuit. There are lots of people who would like to, if that were to take place.”
This story was published on September 11, 2024.