LGBT Dance Party Protest To Target Mike Pence's DC Area Home

CHEVY CHASE, MD — Among all the inauguration events and balls planned around Washington, D.C., this week, an LGBT dance party planned for Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s front yard in Chevy Chase likely doesn’t have his blessing. Members of WERK for Peace have planned what they call a Queer Dance Party at Mike Pence's House for Wednesday night.

Public demonstrations against some of Pence’s political positions are inevitable in the urban area, where his views against marriage equality, for conversion therapy of gays and lesbians, and anti-abortion stances will come under fire.

The group created in response to the massacre last year at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, asks supporters to meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Friendship Heights Metro station. From there, the protesters will carpool or dance their way to Pence’s home. A Facebook invitation to the gathering says, “We plan on leaving behind [biodegradable] glitter and rainbow paraphinalia [sic] that he can NEVER forget. … Tell Daddy Pence: homo/transphobia is not tolerated in our country!”

The incoming vice-president and former Indiana governor introduced himself to national voters as a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order, but said he was just a small town boy from southern Indiana who had a front-row seat to the American dream.

While he was in Congress, Pence fought against marriage equality and said being gay was a choice that could signal societal collapse, reports Business Insider.

When he was selected as Donald Trump’s running mate, the Democratic National Committee, via Twitter, called Pence "Another Trump," pointing out the Indiana governor's "anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-education" record.

In March 2015, Pence signed Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, which allows business owners to refuse service to LGBT customers if that compromises their religious beliefs, Huffington Post reports. Within a month, the Indiana state legislature amended the law after national criticism and threatened boycotts alarmed business owners across the state; the change said the law could not be used to discriminate against customers based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

And in May 2016, Pence criticized the Obama administration’s guideline to public schools that allows transgender students to use the bathroom that match with their gender identity.

Wednesday’s dance protest won’t be the first public sign of disagreement with Pence’s viewpoint. Last month, his neighbors in the upscale DC suburb hung rainbow flags from the fronts of their houses two days after Pence attended a performance of “Hamilton” that made headlines.

Pence is living in the neighborhood until he moves into the Naval Observatory, the traditional quarters of the vice-president and family.

The rainbow flags displayed by at least six houses were a “respectful message showing, in my case, my disagreement with some of his thinking,” resident Ilse Heintzen told WJLA.

The first widespread trolling of Pence by his opponents took off in March 2016 when an Indiana woman created the Facebook page Periods for Pence in retaliation for his signature on a law imposing new limits on abortion, which requires miscarried fetuses to be "interred or cremated by a facility having possession of the remains," regardless of the age of the fetus. The anonymous organizer objected, noting women might not know if they had miscarried in the early weeks of pregnancy, so she urged women to call the governor’s office with updates about their menstrual periods, birth control, the aches and pains of the cycle and more biological facts of life.

On Facebook you can find excerpts of phone conversations with Pence’s beleaguered and exasperated aides taking the onslaught of phone calls. National Public Radio curated many of the posts in a story that was one of the first national looks at the governor’s ideology.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons