National
Two new lawsuits target DOMA
GLAD, ACLU argue no ‘legitimate reason’ for statute
LGBT rights groups are continuing efforts to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act with two new federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the statute.
On Tuesday, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and the American Civil Liberties Union filed two separate lawsuits against Section 3 of DOMA, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.
Mary Bonauto, GLAD’s civil rights project director, said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters that the federal government has no valid reason to engage in the regulation of marriage.
“We think there’s no legitimate reason whatsoever for the federal government to take one group of people who are already married and treat them differently from every other married couple,” she said.
Bonauto added that the authority to determine who can marry in the United States has traditionally been left to the states and said DOMA is the only federal law in U.S. history “that puts the federal government in the marriage business.”
The cases contend that DOMA violates the equal protection rights of same-sex couples under the U.S. Constitution.
James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and AIDS project, said DOMA is unconstitutional because the U.S. government “defers to state’s determination of whether a couple is married in every single context except when the couple is a same-sex married couple.”
“In that case, the federal government pretends that the couple isn’t married, but instead are strangers one to the other,” Esseks said. “That’s discrimination, and it violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee.”
The GLAD lawsuit, known as Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management, is pending before the U.S. District Court of Connecticut and was filed on behalf of five married same-sex couples and a widower who reside in Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Each of the plaintiffs was denied the federal benefits of marriage in one respect or another, such as Social Security or the right to care for a spouse under the Family Medical Leave Act.
Joanne Pedersen, 57 and a Waterford, Conn., resident, said she’s participating in the lawsuit because although she’s a retiree of the Department of Naval Intelligence, DOMA prohibits her from insuring her spouse and partner of 12 years, who has a chronic lung condition.
“The naval community treated Ann just like other spouses, except when it came to sharing my benefits,” Pedersen said. “We both have some serious health challenges, and Ann has chronic health issues that make working stressful and draining for her. But Ann can’t hope to retire because DOMA prevents us from sharing health benefits.”
The ACLU lawsuit, known as Windsor v. United States, is pending before the U.S. District Court of Southern District of New York and was filed on behalf of a New York resident who had to pay $350,000 in federal estate taxes to receive her spouse’s inheritance.
Edith Windsor was partnered with Thea Spyer for 44 years before Spyer died last year after a battle with multiple sclerosis. The two married in Canada in 2007 and their marriage was recognized by the state of New York.
“After Thea died, the fact that the federal government refused to recognize our marriage was devastating,” Windsor said in a statement. “In the midst of my grief at the loss of the love of my life, I had to deal with my own government saying that we weren’t a family.”
Now that the organizations have filed the suits, the U.S. government has 60 days to respond. The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to the Blade’s request for comment, but has previously defended DOMA against other lawsuits.
Esseks noted the Justice Department has a few months to answer. With regard to the ACLU lawsuit, he said “it’s too early to talk in any meaningful way” about the timeline for the case.
For the GLAD lawsuit, Bonauto said she hopes the case would be resolved at the district court level within 12 to 15 months. She said she doesn’t think the litigation would go to the U.S. Supreme Court before 2013.
The two new lawsuits come on the heels of other rulings by the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in July determining that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro made the decisions in case of Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, which was also filed by GLAD, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Following the district court’s decision to rule that part of DOMA is unconstitutional, the U.S. government appealed the cases to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, where the litigation is pending.
Bonauto said the additional GLAD lawsuit is necessary to continue to educate people about the “harms imposed by DOMA.” Additionally, she noted many of the plaintiffs in the Pedersen live in Vermont and Connecticut, which is in the Second Circuit, and wouldn’t be affected by a ruling in the First Circuit as a result of the Gill case.
“We are in a different federal judicial circuit here, so we have a chance to press once again the basic claim that DOMA is legally unconstitutional in terms of having a double-standard imposed only on gay and lesbian married couples,” Bonauto said.
If both the Gill and the Commonwealth cases reach the Supreme Court at the same time as justices take up the Pedersen case, Bonauto said she thinks the newer lawsuits could be combined with the older ones.
The filing of the lawsuits has inspired different reactions among advocacy groups that work on marriage. In a statement to the Blade, Maggie Gallagher, chair of the National Organization for Marriage, chided LGBT groups for continuing to challenge DOMA in the wake of Election Day results.
“After Tuesday’s election, in which gay marriage lost big, it’s pretty clear gay marriage advocates have failed to win the majority of Americans and so are turning once again to courts to impose views and values they’ve failed to persuade their friends, neighbors and fellow citizens to support,” she said.
But Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the litigation provides further evidence that DOMA is “not simply an abstract insult to the dignity of same-sex couples and their families — although it is indeed a deeply offensive law.”
“DOMA causes real harm to people like Joanne Pedersen, Ann Meitzen and Edie Windsor, denying them economic security, health coverage and other critical federal rights and benefits that other married couples take for granted,” Solmonese said.
One legal expert praised the GLAD and ACLU lawsuits for their potential in striking down DOMA. Nan Hunter, a lesbian and law professor at Georgetown University, said forecasting the outcome of any particular lawsuit is difficult, but said the way DOMA is challenged in these cases is “quite promising.”
“It allows the courts to rule on a law that changed the status quo by singling out only gays and reversing — only for that one group — the federal government position of recognizing all marriages that were valid under state law,” she said.
Hunter said the litigation strategy is similar to what was presented in Romer v. Evans, a 1996 case before the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a Colorado ban on making gays a protected class in the state. Hunter recalled that in the Romer case, the high court “invalidated a state provision that singled out gays for having to meet a higher barrier in order to enact a civil rights law.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the name of James Esseks. The Blade regrets the error.
Federal Government
Trump budget targets ‘gender extremism’
Proposed spending package would target ‘leftist’ political ideologies
The White House submitted its 2027 budget request to Congress last month, outlining a push for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to “proactively” target what it describes as “extremism” related to gender — raising concerns about the potential for law enforcement to target LGBTQ people.
The Trump-Vance administration’s 2027 budget request, submitted to Congress on April 4, proposes a dramatic increase in national security and law enforcement spending, while reducing foreign aid and restructuring multiple domestic security programs. In total, the administration is requesting $2.16 trillion in discretionary budget authority (including mandatory resources), a 15.3 percent increase over the 2026 proposal.
Central to the proposal is the creation of a new “NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center,” a direct follow-up to the September 2025 National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). The directive instructs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies to combat what the administration defines as “political violence in America,” effectively reshaping the Joint Terrorism Task Force network to focus on “leftist” political ideologies, according to reporting by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein.
The American Civil Liberties Union has characterized NSPM-7 as a way for President Donald Trump to intimidate his political enemies.
In a press release following the memorandum, Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said, “President Trump has launched yet another effort to investigate and intimidate his critics,” and had described the move as an “intimidation tactic against those standing up for human rights and civil liberties.”
The proposed mission center would include personnel from 10 federal agencies tasked with targeting “domestic terrorists” associated with a wide range of ideologies. Among them is what the administration labels “extremism” related to gender, alongside categories such as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “support for the overthrow of the U.S. government.” The document also cites “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views” on family, religion, and morality — language LGBTQ advocates have increasingly warned could be used to frame queer and transgender rights movements as ideological threats.
The mission center is one component of a proposed $166 million increase in the FBI’s counterterrorism budget.
In total, the FBI would receive $12.5 billion for salaries and expenses under the proposal, a $1.9 billion increase. Planned investments include unmanned aerial systems operations and counter-drone capabilities, counterterrorism efforts, and security preparations for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The budget also cites 67,000 FBI arrests since Jan. 20, 2026, which it describes as a 197 percent increase from the prior year.
When Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, it also enacted 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5), which defines domestic terrorism as activities involving acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal laws and are intended to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy through violence. That statutory definition has not changed.
However, federal agencies have historically categorized domestic terrorism threats into groups such as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism, and other threats, including those tied to bias based on religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
The language in the budget suggests a shift in how those categories are interpreted and applied — particularly by explicitly linking “extremism” to gender and to perceived opposition to “traditional” views — without any corresponding change to federal law. Only Congress has the power to change the definition of domestic terrorism by passing legislation.
The budget document states:
“DT lone offenders will continue to pose significant detection and disruption challenges because of their capacity for independent radicalization to violence, ability to mobilize discretely, and access to firearms. Additionally, in recent years, heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased. Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the U.S. government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
This language echoes earlier actions by the Trump-Vance administration targeting trans people.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
The order establishes a strict binary definition of sex and withdraws federal recognition of trans people.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the order states. “‘Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. ‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’”
Appropriations committees in both chambers are expected to begin hearings in the coming weeks.
Puerto Rico
The ‘X’ returns to court
1st Circuit hears case over legal recognition of nonbinary Puerto Ricans
Eight months ago, I wrote about this issue at a time when it had not yet reached the judicial level it faces today. Back then, the conversation moved through administrative decisions, public debate, and political resistance. It was unresolved, but it had not yet reached this point.
That has now changed.
Lambda Legal appeared before the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston, urging the court to uphold a lower court ruling that requires the government of Puerto Rico to issue birth certificates that accurately reflect the identities of nonbinary individuals. The appeal follows a district court decision that found the denial of such recognition to be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
This marks a turning point. The issue is no longer theoretical. A court has already determined that unequal treatment exists.
The argument presented by the plaintiffs is grounded in Puerto Rico’s own legal framework. Identity birth certificates are not static historical records. They are functional documents used in everyday life. They are required to access employment, education, and essential services. Their purpose is practical, not symbolic.
Within that framework, the exclusion of nonbinary individuals does not stem from a legal limitation. Puerto Rico already allows gender marker corrections on birth certificates for transgender individuals under the precedent established in Arroyo Gonzalez v. Rosselló Nevares. In addition, the current Civil Code recognizes the existence of identity documents that reflect a person’s lived identity beyond the original birth record.
The issue lies in how the law is applied.
Recognition is granted within specific categories, while those who do not identify within that binary structure remain excluded. That exclusion is now at the center of this case.
Lambda Legal’s position is straightforward. Requiring individuals to carry documents that do not reflect who they are forces them into misrepresentation in essential aspects of daily life. This creates practical barriers, exposes them to scrutiny, and places them in a constant state of vulnerability.
The plaintiffs, who were born in Puerto Rico, have made clear that access to accurate identification is not symbolic. It is a basic condition for moving through the world without contradiction imposed by the state.
The fact that this case is now being addressed in the federal court system adds another layer of significance. This is not a pending policy discussion or a legislative proposal. It is a constitutional question. The analysis is not about political preference, but about rights and equal protection under the law.
This case does not exist in isolation.
It unfolds within a broader context in which debates over identity and rights have increasingly been shaped by the growing influence of conservative perspectives in public policy, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico. At the local level, this influence has been reflected in legislative discussions where religious arguments have begun to intersect with decisions that should be grounded in constitutional principles. That intersection creates tension around the separation of church and state and has direct consequences for access to rights.
Recognizing this context is not an attack on faith or religious practice. It is an acknowledgment that when certain perspectives move into the realm of public authority, they can shape outcomes that affect specific communities.
From within Puerto Rico, this is not a distant debate. It is a lived reality. It is present in the difficulty of presenting identification that does not match one’s identity, and in the consequences that follow in workplaces, schools, and government spaces.
The progression of this case introduces the possibility of change within the applicable legal framework. Not because it resolves every tension surrounding the issue, but because it establishes a legal examination of a practice that has long operated under exclusion.
Eight months ago, the conversation centered on ongoing developments. Today, there is already a judicial finding that identifies a violation of rights. What remains is whether that finding will be upheld on appeal.
That process does not guarantee an immediate outcome, but it shifts the ground.
The debate is no longer theoretical.
It is now before the courts.
National
LGBTQ community explores arming up during heated political times
Interest in gun ownership has increased since Donald Trump returned to office
By JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV | As the child of a father who hunted, Vera Snively shied away from firearms, influenced by her mother’s aversion to guns.
Now, the 18-year-old Westminster electrician goes to the shooting range at least once a month. She owns a rifle and a shotgun, and plans to get a handgun when she turns 21.
“I want to be able to defend my community, especially being in political spaces and queer spaces,” said Snively, a trans woman. “It’s just having that extra line of safety, having that extra peace of mind would be important to me.”
Snively is among what some say is a growing number of LGBTQ gun owners across the United States. Gun rights organizations and advocates say interest in gun ownership appears to have increased in that community since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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