National
Pro-LGBT Republican endorses Romney
Ros-Lehtinen co-sponsor of DOMA repeal
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) (Official U.S. Congressional Portrait)
A Republican U.S. House member known for holding the most pro-LGBT views in her caucus has endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in his bid for president.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who also serves as chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, announced her support for Romney in a statement on Tuesday that also criticized President Obama.
“The policies of the past three years have put America’s standing in the world at risk,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “It is time we had a president who understands that our country must lead. Mitt Romney believes that America is an exceptional nation and has a strategy to restore our country’s greatness.”
On the Romney economic plan, which, among other things, would cut the corporate income tax to 25 percent, Ros-Lehtinen said, “The Romney jobs plan will create jobs and opportunity for all especially in South Florida where we are passionate in the pursuit of the American dream.”
Ros-Lehtinen’s endorsement of Romney is noteworthy to the LGBT community because she’s among the most pro-LGBT Republicans in Congress. In September, she became the first Republican to co-sponsor legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act — much to the consternation of social conservatives.
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She’s also an original co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Domestic Partnership & Benefits Obligations Act. Last year, she was among five Republicans to vote for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal in May even before the Pentagon report was published.
Ros-Lehtinen endorsed Romney along with Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and his brother former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who also represented a district in Florida before he retired early this year. All three were also designated as Romney’s foreign policy advisers and made part of his Latin American Working Group.
The three Floridians are Cuban-Americans and come from a state with a large population of people of Cuban descent. The endorsement could be a boost to Romney in winning a state primary that is seen as critical for securing the Republican nomination.
In a statement, Romney thanked Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers for supporting his campaign.
“I am proud to be working with Ileana, Mario, and Lincoln,” Romney said. “They’re conservative leaders who will help me articulate my vision to make America more prosperous at home and respected throughout the world.”
Romney, seen as the establishment candidate among GOP presidential hopefuls, has distinguished himself among other Republicans pursuing the White House for saying he’s open to the idea of LGBT rights.
Last week, he told the Nashua Telegraph, “I favor gay rights,” and said he doesn’t “believe in discriminating in employment or opportunity for gay individuals.” Still, Romney said he doesn’t support same-sex marriage.
His comments recall a letter his signed as a U.S. Senate candidate in 1994 pledging to co-sponsor ENDA and to be a better advocate on LGBT rights than the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
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But in August, he was among the presidential candidates who signed a pledge to back a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and to defend DOMA in court.
Also last week, the Romney campaign distributed a flier in Iowa emphasizing his social conservative values — including his opposition to same-sex marriage.
“As governor, Mitt Romney fought against gay marriage in Massachusetts,” the mailer reads. “He supports a federal amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman.”
Ros-Lehtinen’s endorsement of Romney inspired mixed reactions among LGBT groups — largely depending on the political affiliation of the organizations.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, said Ros-Lehtinen’s endorsement doesn’t reflect the views of his organization, although he’s pleased Romney welcomed her support.
“Log Cabin Republicans does not issue endorsements until the RNC convention, but we are pleased to see Gov. Romney welcomed the endorsement of Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a strong conservative advocate for the gay community,” Cooper said.
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said he isn’t surprised that a Republican lawmaker — pro-LGBT or otherwise — would back a pro-LGBT candidate.
“Her endorsement of a Republican presidential candidate was not a surprise,” Sainz said. “Rep. Ros-Lehtinen has proven that you can totally square being a Republican and wholeheartedly support LGBT issues.”
But Jerame Davis, interim executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, took a dig at the multiple positions that Romney has held on LGBT issues in response to the Ros-Lehtinen endorsement.
“It’s hard to say what Rep. Ros-Lehtinen’s endorsement of Mitt Romney says about her relationship with the LGBT community,” Davis said. “Which Mitt Romney did she endorse? Was it the Mitt Romney who just last week signed the National Organization for Marriage’s draconian anti-equality pledge? Or was it the Mitt Romney who claimed in 1994 that he’d be a better advocate for LGBT equality than the late Sen. Ted Kennedy?”
Davis concluded, “So many choices — I’m sure she picked the one that was closest to her own views.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
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Calendar: May 16-22
