> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lookoutnews.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Before Congress and the Governor’s Race, Andy Biggs Had Sharon Slater - URL: https://www.lookoutnews.org/andy-biggs-and-sharon-slater-family-watch-international-have-an-anti-lgbtq-shared-history/ - Published: 2026-11-02T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-02T15:10:03.000Z - Description: From a 2002 endorsement to a 2026 campaign donation, the Republican nominee for governor and the Family Watch International founder have championed removing civil rights for LGBTQ+ people. - Author: Lorenzo Gomez (he/him) - Tags: ELECTIONS, POLITICS, #donate_box_1 PARTNERSHIP ![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2026/11/NT.jpeg) This story was done in partnership with the Phoenix New Times Long before he was Arizona’s Republican nominee for governor, Andy Biggs was a Gilbert attorney with a[ one-page campaign website](https://web.archive.org/web/20020926025939/http://www.biggs2002.com/) covered in American-flag clip art. It was 2002, he was running for the state House, and beneath his smiling black-and-white headshot were three words: “Freedom,” “Families” and “Integrity.” Further down, past a one-line blurb from then-U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, was a more consequential endorsement. It came from Sharon Slater, a little-known local nonprofit leader. “Andy Biggs has traveled throughout the world working to preserve and protect the family,” wrote Slater, then the president of United Families International, also based in Gilbert. “I do not believe there is anyone in the state of Arizona more prepared to speak out and defend the family in public policy than Andy Biggs.” [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2025/02/MEMBER-AD--1000-x-143-px-.png)](https://lookoutphx.ac-page.com/membership?ref=lookoutnews.org) In the 24 years since, both have grown far more powerful. Biggs became one of Arizona's — and perhaps the nation's — most visible conservative politicians, rising to state Senate president and then to Congress. Slater expanded her global ambitions through her own organization, Family Watch International, helping shape some of the most restrictive anti-LGBTQ+ policies in the world. Along the way, they have championed the same cause: eroding civil rights under the banner of family values. And their worlds have never drifted far apart. Biggs served as a founding board member of Slater's Global Helping to Advance Women and Children. The two appeared together at a Gilbert "Patriotism Over Socialism" event in 2019, and a year later Slater joined Biggs' "Women for Biggs" coalition during his reelection campaign. That same year, Biggs spoke at Family Watch International's policy forum in Phoenix. > Last week, I was honored to address the Family Watch International's Family Policy Forum. I am grateful for the over 100 United Nations delegates from around the world in attendance, who all work tirelessly to strengthen families and protect the best interests of children. #AZ05 https://t.co/mnCW6Ngla3 > > — Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) [January 28, 2020](https://x.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ/status/1222298478593880065?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=lookoutnews.org) Now, Biggs is the Republican nominee for governor, a campaign Slater and her husband have [backed with a $3,000 donation](https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/andy-biggs-2677930810/?ref=lookoutnews.org). He has said he wants Arizona to be ["the Florida of the West,"](https://biggsforarizona.com/news/congressman-andy-biggs-officially-enters-2026-arizona-governors-race/?ref=lookoutnews.org) a model he has mostly pitched on taxes and elections. On LGBTQ+ rights, the agenda he has promised would take the state there, too. [Biggs has said](https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/congressman-andy-biggs-promises-to-sign-vetoed-bills-in-first-week-if-elected-governor?%5Fbhlid=922e126ec7b515db628819c1ff7788a021f7943a&ref=lookoutnews.org) he'd sign the bills Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed, dozens of which would roll back protections for LGBTQ+ Arizonans and line up with goals Slater has pursued for decades: barring school staff from using a student's preferred pronouns without parental permission, requiring sex education to promote adoption and removing gender-related terms from state law. "Here's the guy trying to make it so that any business could discriminate against gay people or trans people for any claim of religious belief," said Jeanne Woodbury, a partner with the progressive lobbying firm Creosote Partners. "Those are things he will pursue in the future without the stopgap (of a veto)." Neither the Biggs campaign nor Family Watch International and Sharon Slater responded to *Phoenix New Times* and *LOOKOUT*’s requests for comment. ### **A clear “adversary”** Biggs entered Slater's orbit years before he entered politics. In 1993, the 35-year-old Gilbert lawyer won $10 million in the American Family Sweepstakes, a win memorialized in a grainy TV ad alongside Ed McMahon and Dick Clark. He bought a nicer home, a set of luggage and, eventually, started a political career. He also joined UFI as a policy adviser and used the winnings to travel to international conferences on the group's behalf, he told The Arizona Republic. Biggs won a state House seat in the 2002 election. He championed legislation that directly targeted LGBTQ+ people’s civil rights, such as bills that temporarily banned same-sex marriage, eliminated domestic partner benefits and made it harder for same-sex couples to adopt. > “He likes to present a public image of being a friendly guy. I don't think he's changed as a lawmaker.” > —Jeanne Woodbury > Partner at public relations firm Creosote Partners When he became Senate president in 2013, he gained the power to decide which bills lived and died. "He made his stance very clear to the LGBT community that he was going to be an adversary," said Steve Gallardo, a Democrat who served alongside Biggs and is now a Maricopa County supervisor. Gallardo, who[ came out as gay](https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/senator-steve-gallardo-comes-out-im-gay-im-a-latino-and-im-a-state-senator-6639901/?ref=lookoutnews.org) during the 2014 fight over a bill allowing businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ+ people on religious grounds, said Biggs made clear in weekly leadership meetings that pro-LGBTQ+ bills would not get hearings. Gallardo’s own proposals for discrimination protections, adoption access and same-sex marriage were routed straight to the rules committee. "They were put there to die," he said. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2026/11/AP26199182118289.jpg) Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who is running for Arizona governor, speaks at a campaign event, Friday, July 17, 2026, in Gilbert, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) [Biggs voted for the 2014 religious-refusal bill](https://legiscan.com/AZ/votes/SB1062/2014?ref=lookoutnews.org). It was extreme enough that Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed SB 1070, one of the country's most notorious anti-immigration laws, vetoed it. In Congress, [where he has served since 2017](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr3492rh/pdf/BILLS-119hr3492rh.pdf?ref=lookoutnews.org), Biggs voted against both versions of the Equality Act and the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, and has increasingly trained his focus on transgender people. He co-sponsored legislation to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors and, in 2025, introduced his own bill that would bar federal money for gender-transition procedures. ### **Two paths aligned** Slater, a stay-at-home mom who became an activist after what she has described as a political awakening in the late 1990s, was named the president of UFI in the early 2000s as she began laying the groundwork for her own organization. In 2000, she incorporated Global Helping to Advance Women and Children as UFI's Arizona chapter, with Biggs among its first directors. In 2008, the state chapter would become known as Family Watch International. > "There's not a lot of discourse on LGBTQ+ rights or even trans rights abroad, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It's a lot easier for \[Sharon Slater\] to peddle the same stuff over there without any sort of pushback." > —Emerson Hodges, research analyst at Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center has since [designated both UFI and FWI as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups](https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/family-watch-international/?ref=lookoutnews.org), citing FWI's promotion of claims that homosexuality is a "mental disorder derived from childhood trauma" and that conversion therapy can "effectively eliminate same-sex attraction." Much of Slater's work has played out in Africa, where she forged ties with activists in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda in the early 2000s and campaigned against sex education. Her group [has been accused of assisting](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/18/africa/anti-lgbtq-laws-uganda-kenya-ghana/?ref=lookoutnews.org) Uganda's 2023 passage of the infamous "Kill the Gays" bill. The law imposes harsher penalties, including a death sentence, for people convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” "There's not a lot of discourse on LGBTQ+ rights or even trans rights abroad, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa," said Emerson Hodges, a research analyst at SPLC. "It's a lot easier for her to peddle the same stuff over there without any sort of pushback." [ ![Illustration for the LOOKOUT story on Sharon Slater's work in Nigeria](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2026/11/GOMEZ_ANDERSONILLO--3-.jpg) Slater in Africa Biggs Has Ties to an Activist Who Fights Against Civil Rights in Africa Through her Arizona-based nonprofit, Sharon Slater pushed to block sex education and gender protections in Nigeria. Nigerians describe life under the laws that followed. By Victory Effiom, with additional reporting by Morgan Fischer4-minute read Read the story → ](https://www.lookoutnews.org/biggs-ties-to-sharon-slater-activist-who-fights-against-civil-rights-in-africa/) Slater didn’t limit her influence overseas. During Biggs’ second term in the state House, Slater, who was still the UFI president, backed a citizen-led ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage in Arizona, as well as any type of civil union. The East Valley-based organization joined a network of conservative organizations to form the Protect Marriage Arizona Coalition to pass Proposition 107 in 2006\. The measure asked voters to approve an amendment to Arizona’s constitution defining “marriage” as a “union between one man and one woman” and prohibiting civil unions and domestic partnerships. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2026/11/Slater-1_-2014-09-12-FamilyWatchUNEvent-24.jpg) Sharon Slater at the U.N. Family Rights Conference in 2014\. Slater moderated a panel on parental rights and gave a presentation on sexual education. (U.N. Family Rights Conference) Ahead of the 2006 general election, the organization spent nearly $56,000 on printing, postage, stationery and administrative costs to support the coalition’s effort to pass the same-sex marriage ban. In the secretary of state’s publicity pamphlet for the 2006 general election, Slater wrote that Proposition 107 will assure that “marriage is defined by the voice of the people and not a few activist judges.” She wrote the proposition “will not invalidate anyone’s civil rights. Marriage is about bringing men and women together, not about civil rights.” Voters didn’t buy that. It narrowly failed, with 48% of voters supporting the measure. Just two years later, the coalition tried again. Instead of gathering signatures, the Legislature [passed Proposition 102, a watered-down version](https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/48leg/2R/laws/scr1042.pdf?ref=lookoutnews.org) of the failed 2006 marriage amendment. The measure aimed to define marriage as between one man and one woman in the state constitution, but stopped short of banning civil unions outright. Biggs cast an extremely quick “aye” vote on the House floor before state Republican Sen. Jack Harper defeated a filibuster and placed the amendment on the ballot on the last day of the session. UFI jumped right back into campaigning to ban same-sex marriage in Arizona. Biggs’ wife, Cindy Biggs, signed onto a statement paid for by UFI in the secretary of state’s publicity pamphlet for the 2008 election. The pamphlet listed Cindy Biggs as the organization’s secretary and treasurer. Voters passed the measure, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down six years later in *Obergefell v. Hodges*. After that, activists said, Slater largely stepped back from the Capitol. Biggs kept going. In 2010, he cosponsored a bill favoring married couples in adoptions, which would have disadvantaged same-sex couples who couldn't legally marry in Arizona. In 2012, he backed legislation, in step with Slater's campaign against comprehensive sex education, that would require schools to present childbirth and adoption as preferred options to abortion. Nine years after exerting her influence in Arizona ballot measures, Slater resurfaced to found the Protect Arizona Children Coalition. The group aimed to fight comprehensive sex education in Tucson schools and at the Legislature, a campaign Hodges called a "Trojan horse" for anti-LGBTQ+ policy. # Want to Share Insider Information? ## Help keep power accountable. LOOKOUT relies on tips from readers to get our news out. Click on the button below to submit a secure email to our team. Any information you send will be kept confidential in accordance with our ethics guidelines. [Email a Tip ](mailto:editor@lookoutnews.org) ### **The “Florida of the West”** On Oct. 20, [Biggs told ABC15](https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/congressman-andy-biggs-promises-to-sign-vetoed-bills-in-first-week-if-elected-governor?%5Fbhlid=922e126ec7b515db628819c1ff7788a021f7943a&ref=lookoutnews.org) how he would spend his first week as governor. First on the agenda: signing the bills Hobbs vetoed. “I would have already spent 60 days working with the Legislature to get dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of bills lined up,” Biggs said. “I’ll be sitting in my office with the lieutenant governor and we’ll be signing all these bills — bills that Katie Hobbs has vetoed.” Among the 541 bills Hobbs has vetoed, *LOOKOUT* and *Phoenix New Times* identified nearly 100 bills that would affect marginalized communities. They include measures limiting transgender students' access to bathrooms, penalizing parents for taking their children to drag story hours, requiring medical providers to offer detransition services and restricting sex designation changes on birth certificates. LOOKOUT · Under his signature 98 civil-rights bills Vetoed Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed them between 2023 and 2026\. Andy Biggs has said that as governor he would sign all the bills she vetoed. Here is what a day in Arizona would look like for five people if those bills had become law, as Biggs proposed. A vetoed bill is dead. Each of these would have to pass the Legislature again before a governor could sign it. The people below are composites, not real individuals. Each moment in their day is tied to a vetoed bill, linked to its record on LegiScan. [Trans teen, Phoenix](#lk-riley) [Immigrant family, Yuma](#lk-ortiz) [Mom on SNAP, Tucson](#lk-dana) [Unhoused, Phoenix](#lk-james) [Student voter, Tempe](#lk-maya) Tap a person to open their day. ### Riley, 16 Trans girl · high school junior · Phoenix vetoed bills affect them Riley came out to her friends as trans two years ago. Most of her teachers already use her name, and she is socially transitioning. She doesn't have support at home, so she has been trying to learn more about gender identity at the library and online. Here's what a week might look like if Biggs were to sign all the bills Hobbs vetoed, as he has said he would. 1. Monday, 7:50 a.m. · Homeroom Her homeroom teacher, who has called her Riley all year, takes roll with her old name. Three vetoed bills would require a parent's permission before a teacher could use a name or pronouns that don't match a student's sex, and the newest would require parental consent for any social transition at school. Riley's parents won't give it. 2. 10:15 a.m. · Between classes Two bills would restrict school bathrooms and changing rooms by sex and create a right to sue over who uses them. Riley decides not to use the bathroom at all. If she has to go, she walks to the single-occupancy bathroom in the nurse's office, 10 minutes from her homeroom. 3. 1:30 p.m. · After gym Another bill would bar her from the girls' locker room showers. To use a private shower instead, she'd have to ask the school in writing and hand over her original birth certificate, which still lists her as male. She doesn't, so after gym she stays in her sweaty clothes for the rest of the day. 4. 3:15 p.m. · School library One bill would make it a crime to give minors some sexually explicit materials without a parent's consent. Another would bar school libraries from spending public money on dues to professional library associations. Unsure where the line falls, her school's librarian has pulled several LGBTQ+ titles from the shelves, including the memoir about a trans teenager Riley was hoping to read. She decides to look online. 5. Thursday, 4:00 p.m. · Counselor's office Riley talks to a counselor after school. Her parents would gain access to her medical records, including confidential services, and state law would add mental-health decisions to parents' legal authority over minors. Her parents could read her counselor's notes and decide whether she keeps going. 6. Thursday, 5:00 p.m. · Her doctor Riley hoped that one day her parents would agree to let her see a doctor about transition care. Arizona already bans gender surgery for minors. Four more bills would bar doctors from providing any gender transition procedure to anyone under 18, bar them from even referring her elsewhere, and open them to new lawsuits. Even with her parents' consent, she'd have to wait until she turns 18. 7. On paper Riley had planned to change the sex on her birth certificate when she turns 18\. That would be restricted. Two more bills would rewrite state law to replace "gender" with "sex." bills. *One signature.* ### The Ortiz family Mixed-status household · Yuma vetoed bills affect them Luis works in the lettuce fields and volunteers with his church. His wife, Ana, is undocumented. She was deported once, years ago, and came back to be with her family. Their two kids were born at Yuma Regional. 1. Thursday, payday · The money-transfer counter Every two weeks, Ana sends part of her paycheck to her mother in Sonora. The transfer company would need documentary proof that she isn't undocumented before sending it, and a bank couldn't open an account for her using the kind of ID she carries. She goes home with the cash in her purse. 2. Friday, 6:10 a.m. · A traffic stop on the way to work Whenever Luis or Ana drive, they are on high alert, terrified of what a traffic stop could mean. Today, they're pulled over for driving in the left lane too long. It would be a state crime for someone who had been deported to be found in Arizona, and local police could arrest them for it. Ana is arrested. 3. Friday, 9:00 a.m. · County jail At booking, the jail shares Ana's information with ICE, and her arrest goes into expanded state reporting on people believed to lack legal status. Three more bills would require state and local officials, and their contractors, to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. 4. Friday, 5:00 p.m. · The police station Officers ask Luis about the church group chat he uses to coordinate rides for migrants Border Patrol has released in Yuma. Using a phone or app to help smuggle someone, with intent to hide them from police, would be a class 2 felony, which carries a standard sentence of five years in prison. Luis isn't hiding anyone, but critics warned the bill could sweep in volunteers like him. 5. Saturday · The emergency room Luis and Ana's son breaks his arm. Hospitals would have to collect and report patients' immigration status, so the emergency room intake asks for his. Because the kids were born in Yuma, Luis is relieved. If it had been Ana who needed care, they had already talked about not going to the ER at all. 6. Monday · The benefits office With Ana's paycheck gone, Luis applies for food assistance for the kids, who are citizens. The state would change how it verifies lawful presence for state and local public benefits. bills. *One signature.* ### Dana, 34 Single mom of two · SNAP and AHCCCS · Tucson vetoed bills affect them For three years, Dana worked 32 hours a week at the pharmacy counter of a local grocery store, earning $18.50 an hour, and did food deliveries at night for about $200 more a week. It was just enough for rent on a two-bedroom home in Midtown Tucson and her kids' extracurriculars. This fall the store closed its pharmacy. While she looks for another job, deliveries are her only income. Food assistance and AHCCCS help cover the rest for her and her kids, who are 9 and 12. 1. First of the month · SNAP renewal When she worked 32 hours a week, Dana was exempt from SNAP's work rules. Delivery pay of about $200 a week falls under the federal cutoff of $217.50, so she no longer is. Three bills would require recipients like her to enroll in a state employment and training program. Her kids are too old for the exemption for parents of children under 6\. She has to fit program hours around deliveries and job interviews, and falling short could cost her benefits. 2. The paperwork Verification requirements for SNAP and cash assistance would expand. Her delivery pay changes week to week, so every check means gathering app statements and bank records. 3. Saturday · The grocery store At checkout, Dana puts back the soda her son wanted for his birthday party. The state would ask federal officials for permission to drop soda from what SNAP can buy. 4. Tuesday · A letter from AHCCCS Dana gets a notice asking for more documents to keep herself and her kids covered. Medicaid eligibility checks would expand, and presumptive-eligibility rules, which let people get covered while their application is processed, would tighten. 5. Wednesday night · City hall At a Tucson City Council meeting, Dana hears a council member float a pilot program to give struggling families monthly cash for a year. It can't go anywhere. Cities and towns would be barred from running guaranteed-income programs. bills. *One signature.* ### James, 58 Unhoused · downtown Phoenix vetoed bills affect them James lost his apartment after a hospital stay. He fell while riding one of the rental scooters downtown and fractured his skull. As a contract gig worker, he fell behind on rent and was evicted. He is now deep in medical debt and can't drive, so delivery and ride-share gigs are off the table. He has been outside for 14 months. 1. 7:00 a.m. · The sidewalk James sleeps under a tarp tied to a fence on a downtown sidewalk. Putting up a tent, tarp or box to live in on a public sidewalk or street would be banned, punished with a civil citation like a traffic ticket. He's been cited before and can't pay. He packs up the tarp and heads out to find money for the day. 2. Noon · A median on a busy road The medians along the busiest roads, where the most traffic passes, are where James makes the most asking drivers for money. Congregating or soliciting on medians, highway ramps and some intersections would be banned. The first time, an officer gives a warning. The second time brings a civil citation. A third could mean a misdemeanor charge. James decides to risk it. 3. 5:00 p.m. · Outside the shelter Fourteen months outside in Phoenix's heat have pushed James into depression, and he has started using drugs to cope. He goes to his local shelter. Under a "drug-free homeless zone" bill, shelter staff could face criminal charges for knowingly allowing drugs in the zone, and anyone there to pass drugs along would face an extra year in prison. Staff, worried about the risk, turn him away. He leaves to find somewhere else out of the heat. 4. 11:00 p.m. · An empty house James finds an empty house that looks abandoned. But the owner is watching it on a security camera. The owner could sign a sworn statement and have police remove him right away, without going to court. Another bill would extend property owners' right to use force against trespassers beyond their home, to other land they own. bills. *One signature.* ### Maya, 19 ASU sophomore from California · votes in Tempe vetoed bills affect them Maya moved to Tempe for school and wants to vote where she lives now. 1. August · Registering Maya registers to vote using her dorm address. She lists her parents' house in California for mail, since she'll move dorms every year. Two bills would bar the county recorder from sending a voter registration card to an out-of-state mailing address. Another would define residency for voter registration as 181 days of physical presence in Arizona, unless the recorder accepts other proof she plans to stay. She has been in Tempe a few weeks. 2. September · A campus registration table Maya wants to be politically involved this election season, but she can't afford to volunteer many hours. A voter-registration group had been paying students like her a bonus for each form they collected. Paying anyone based on the number of registrations collected would be banned. The group drops the bonuses, and Maya can't afford to keep doing it. 3. Election Day Maya registered with her California driver's license and didn't have her birth certificate at school, so she is one of Arizona's "federal-only" voters, able to vote in federal races but not state and local ones. One bill would apply Arizona's own voter qualifications, including proof of citizenship, to federal elections, which could leave her without a ballot at all. Another would end Election Day drop-off of early ballots at polling places, so she'd have to take hers to a county recorder's office. 4. Two years later · The primary Maya waits for her early ballot. It never shows. The 90-day notice the county sends to early voters went to her old dorm and came back undeliverable. Under a vetoed bill, that alone would move her to inactive status and drop her from the early voting list. 5. After the polls close Maya votes in person instead. Afterward, the county would publish cast-vote records, the ballot-by-ballot record of every choice. Critics said that in small precincts, that could make it possible to work out how individual people voted. bills. *One signature.* ### of 98 bills in five lives The rest reach pregnant women, schools, state hiring, protesters and more. Every bill Hobbs vetoed on our list is below. See all 98 vetoed bills Method: LOOKOUT compiled civil-rights-related bills Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed from 2023 through 2026\. Descriptions summarize each bill as passed by the Legislature. Some of these proposals overlap with existing law. Arizona voters approved Proposition 314 in 2024, which includes a border-crossing crime similar to SB 1231; its enforcement depends on the outcome of a federal case over a similar Texas law. State law already bans gender surgery for minors. Several moments in these scenarios describe how people could respond to the bills; the bills themselves are described from their legislative summaries. LOOKOUT · lookoutnews.org State Rep. Lisa Fink has backed many of them, including a bill to legally define gender by “biological sex”. She is also president of Slater's Protect Arizona Children Coalition, and she stumped for Biggs at a Gilbert rally ahead of the July primary. As for Slater’s future in a Biggs governorship? "She's going to continue to be behind the scenes. That's where she's the most effective," Hodges said of Slater's potential role in a Biggs administration. "They're going to continue to keep a distance, but I do think they are deeply connected." Since stepping onto the campaign trail last year, Biggs has been relatively quiet on his once very public disapproval of LGBTQ+ rights. Earlier this year, he even scrubbed his gubernatorial campaign website of abortion-related policies, [according to The Copper Courie](https://coppercourier.com/news/reproductive-rights/andy-biggs-repro-record/?ref=lookoutnews.org)r, despite his long history of supporting such measures like the Life at Conception Act in 2025, which extended constitutional protections at the time of conception. Woodbury, the lobbyist with Creosote, said Biggs’ quieter tone on civil rights issues is politically pragmatic — not a sign of a changed heart. “He likes to present a public image of being a friendly guy,” Woodbury said. “I don't think he's changed as a lawmaker.” During his 2020 bid for reelection to Congress, [Biggs wrote in a self-completed questionnaire](https://ivoterguide.com/candidate/2215/race/5104/election/794?ref=lookoutnews.org) that he passionately agreed religious liberty was at stake in the U.S. He disagreed that sexual orientation, gender identity and expression should be considered protected classes under nondiscrimination laws and wrote that “separation of church and state is not mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.” Gallardo, the county supervisor for Maricopa County, believes next week’s results could very well decide the future of LGBTQ+ protections in the state: “If Congressman Biggs were elected governor of Arizona, I believe that the progress that we have made as a state when it comes to equality and inclusion, I think, would go backward.” *Additional research by Victory Effiom, reporting from Nigeria.* ## Before you go... At **LOOKOUT**, we believe in the power of community-supported journalism. You're at the heart of that community, and your support helps us deliver the news and information the LGBTQ+ community needs to thrive. ### Two ways to support LOOKOUT: [Become a Member Get exclusive benefits. ](https://www.lookoutnews.org/?form=donate) [Make a Donation Make an immediate impact. ](https://www.lookoutnews.org/?form=one-time)