Pennsylvania Republican touts LGBTQ+ support while GOP allies use Pride photos to attack his opponent

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s latest appeal to LGBTQ+ voters came with a rainbow-colored endorsement sign and a promise to protect every American’s dignity. On a Republican campaign website targeting his Democratic opponent, Pride photographs appeared among the anti-LGBTQ+ materials available for political attacks.The juxtaposition is drawing criticism from Bob Harvie, the Bucks County commissioner challenging Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District, and raising questions about what the Republican’s advertised support for LGBTQ+ rights means when his political allies use the community as campaign ammunition.In a Thursday post on X, Fitzpatrick celebrated American Unity Fund’s endorsement, sharing its praise for his support of nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender Americans. The accompanying graphic showed him with supporters holding a rainbow-colored sign.Related: The Republicans who voted against making gender-affirming care a crime and the Dems who voted for it “Honored to once again earn the endorsement of the incredible team at American Unity Fund,” Fitzpatrick wrote, adding that he would “always fight to defend and protect the rights, dignity, and freedom of every American.”The National Republican Congressional Committee’s Democrat Facts page targeting Harvie presents a different message. Its downloadable photographs include Harvie at Pride-related events, among them a group holding a Pride flag. A video link accuses him of using opioid settlement money for “trans sex parties for kids.”Harvie called on Fitzpatrick to reject the tactics.“The truth is he is not ‘independent’ – instead, he is engaging in the same cruel attacks that he and his MAGA allies use to distract from their failure to lower costs,” Harvie said in a statement to The Advocate.“I am calling on Brian Fitzpatrick to immediately denounce these disgusting tactics and to remove this website that puts our LGBTQ+ community members at ris