The Philadelphia Gay News and LGBTQ+ leaders across Pennsylvania endorsed Joe Khan in his bid for Pennsylvania Attorney General.
Joe Khan was endorsed in the Democratic primary by the Philadelphia Gay News, the oldest, continuously publishing publication uplifting the LGBTQ+ community in the country. The editorial noted Khan’s work to vote out the Moms for Liberty extremists who took over the Central Bucks School District and his refusal to defend unconstitutional policies that target the LGBTQ+ community. “There were all of these attempts to try and make people feel like gay and trans members of our community were somehow ‘other’ and therefore it was OK to pick on them and have discriminatory policies,” Khan said. “So if I see laws like that as attorney general, am I going to defend them when they fly in the face of not only the U.S. Constitution but in [the face] of Pennsylvania’s constitution? Hell no.”
Khan’s campaign also announced the endorsements from prominent LGBTQ+ leaders from counties across Pennsylvania including Allentown City Councilmember Candida Affa (Lehigh), State Representative Ismail Smith-Wade-El (Lancaster), former Director of LGBT Affairs Nellie Fitzpatrick (Philadelphia), Dublin Borough President Tim Hayes (Bucks), former County Commissioner Donna Iannone (Sullivan), Chair of the PA Dems LGBTQ Caucus Sean Meloy (Allegheny), Millersburg Borough Tax Collector Alexander Reber (Dauphin), County Councilmember Jimmy Sabatino (Luzerne), former State Rep. Brian Sims (Philadelphia), former Doylestown Mayor Ron Strouse (Bucks), former Newtown Township Supervisor Bob Szwajkos (Bucks), and former Mayoral Liaison Lauren Vidas (Philadelphia).
“Whenever our community has come under attack, Joe has stood up for us, from prosecuting hate crimes to taking on the Moms for Liberty extremists who targeted our LGBTQ+ youth in the Central Bucks School District,” said Meloy, who previously served as Director of LGBT Engagement for the Democratic National Committee. “He will be an Attorney General we can trust to keep us safe.”
The son of a Muslim immigrant and Catholic nurse who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, Khan and his two sons, Sam and Nathan, live in the Central Bucks School District (where they worked to vote extremists off of their school board last year). For ten years, he served in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which includes Philadelphia and its suburbs, the Lehigh Valley, and Berks and Lancaster counties. He began his career in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where he specialized in prosecuting child abuse, sexual assault, hate crimes, and domestic violence. He is currently a partner at Curtin and Heefner in Bucks County.