National
Super Tuesday could bring more confusion to GOP race
High stakes as 437 delegates up for grabs next week
The winding road of the Republican presidential primary race continues next week as GOP voters in 10 states weigh in on who should be their standard-bearer heading into November.
A strong showing by any GOP candidate on Super Tuesday — when 437 delegates are up for grabs — could push someone from the race.
If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who regained his position as front-runner after wins in Arizona and Michigan this week, does well in the contests, it could mean the end of the game for one or more of his remaining opponents: former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
The states holding contests on Super Tuesday are: Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
Super Tuesday comes on the heels of another important contest on Saturday: the Washington State caucuses, where 43 delegates are in play. On Tuesday, Wyoming will also begin its caucuses, but that process will continue throughout the week and the results won’t be known until Saturday.
But it appears that Super Tuesday will not be a cakewalk for Romney, after he only eked out a three-point win over Santorum in his home state of Michigan.
Dan Pinello, who’s gay and a government professor at the City University of New York, said he thinks the outcome of the contests will be “muddled” and won’t leave a clear Republican front-runner in their aftermath.
“It’s going to be a mix of wins by various candidates,” Pinello said. “I don’t think the field is going to be any clearer after Tuesday than it is before, quite frankly. I anticipate that all four candidates will also continue regardless of what happens on Tuesday.”
Hastings Wyman, who’s also gay and editor of the Southern Political Report, said Santorum may continue to show strength in several southern states.
“I think he has a good shot in Oklahoma, possibly in Tennessee, possibly in Georgia,” Wyman said. “The only one I would give him a good shot in is probably Oklahoma.”
In Ohio, Santorum could show that his campaign continues to have life. According to a poll published Tuesday by the University of Cincinnati, Santorum leads Romney by 11 percentage points among Republican primary voters.
Wyman said the race in Georgia is important for Gingrich because if he doesn’t win there, which is his home state, it will likely be the end of his campaign.
“It’s very hard to predict what he’ll do, but I think it’ll be very hard from him to stay in if he doesn’t carry Georgia,” Wyman said. “He’s working very hard down there. He’s touring the state, he’s speaking to these mega churches, he’s treating it like Romney was treating Michigan.”
Gingrich seems poised to capture the state. A poll published Monday by Survey USA found him leading there with 39 percent of support among Republican voters. Santorum follows at 24 percent, while Romney comes in at 23 percent.
The contest in Virginia will also be of special interest because it’s awarding a large number of delegates, 46, and because only two candidates will be on the ballot: Romney and Paul.
Wyman said Republicans unhappy with Romney may vote for Paul in an effort to prolong the Republican primary season and prevent Romney from claiming the nomination. Virginia has an open primary, which means Democrats can come to the polls.
“It would not surprise me if a lot of the people who vote for Santorum or Gingrich would get out the vote for Paul just to slow down Romney,” Wyman said.
David Lampo, a gay Republican activist from Alexandria, Va., said he’s voting for Paul in the primary not as a protest vote, but because of the candidate’s libertarian views.
“I’m a longtime libertarian, so of course he appeals to me,” Lampo said. “Not the greatest messenger, but he has reintroduced libertarianism to millions of Americans, particularly a whole new generation of young voters. And he even runs competitively with President Obama in many polls.”
As a U.S. House member, Paul was among the Republicans who voted for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and against a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but the candidate has also been a strong supporter of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Lampo said Paul has been “a bit uneven” on LGBT issues, but “shines” compared to the other Republican presidential candidates.
CUNY’s Pinello said Paul may have “a few good showings” in Super Tuesday, but expressed doubt the candidate would be able to prevail in any states next week.
“I don’t know that he’ll win any states, but he will have good enough showings to argue that his effort isn’t necessarily doomed, at least from his perspective,” Pinello said. “His supporters are so gung-ho that it doesn’t really make a difference that he hasn’t won any states outright.”
Even if Romney builds off his wins in Michigan and Arizona by sweeping the contests on Super Tuesday, whether Santorum or Gingrich will drop out immediately remains unclear.
Wyman said the Romney alternatives may see if they can win a brokered convention when Republicans gather in Tampa later this year to anoint their nominee.
In that case, delegates wouldn’t be able to settle on a nominee during the ballot round and would have to negotiate through political horse-trading to settle on a candidate.
“If they can all stay in and keep their delegates at least on the first ballot — I think most states require that — then they might possibly be able to keep Romney from winning on the first ballot and maybe create some opportunity for somebody else,” Wyman said.
Pinello said the prospects of a brokered convention in Tampa are diminished now that Romney has pulled off a win — albeit a narrow one — in his home state of Michigan this week, but such an outcome could still be possible.
“If the current polling data nationally show that Obama has a lead, although not large, but nonetheless a lead, over all four of the current Republican candidates,” Pinello said. “So the party leadership across the nation that may be wishing for a Jeb Bush or a Chris Christie or someone else be their champion and save the day, but I don’t think that’s likely at all.”
Whether the GOP candidates will draw on anti-gay rhetoric to win support from Republican voters prior to Super Tuesday also remains to be seen.
Wyman said “you might see some” campaigning directed against the LGBT community in the Super Tuesday states as the candidates jockey for support among conservative voters.
“They’ve all been pretty stalwart in their opposition to anything gay,” Wyman said. “Every now and then one of them will act a little bit liberal and say, ‘I don’t believe in discrimination,’ but they do. Ultimately, they side with the religious right on most gay issues.”
Pinello expressed doubt that Romney would draw on anti-gay attacks, saying the candidate would instead opt to focus on economic issues, but couldn’t say the same about Santorum.
“He had that confrontation before the New Hampshire with college students over same-sex marriage,” Pinello said. “A lot of commentators said that had been a mistake by him in terms of allowing the issue to drift away from economic issues, but he doesn’t seem concerned by that. He’s happy to be the stalwart on social issues.”
Pinello said if the candidates want to talk about social issues, the would be more inclined hot button topics other than LGBT rights, such as a abortion and the Obama administration’s rule providing contraception to women.
The candidates’ positions on LGBT issues are already well-known. Each of the Republican candidates who’ve won primaries — Romney, Santorum and Gingrich — has signed a pledge from the National Organization for Marriage vowing to back a Federal Marriage Amendment, defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court and establish a commission on “religious liberty” to investigate the harassment of same-sex marriage supporters.
Santorum has gone further by saying he’d restore “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” if elected president, and Gingrich has said he’d order an “extensive review” of going back to the policy.
As candidates campaign in Tennessee, they may want to weigh in on state pending legislation commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would prohibit discussion about homosexuality in schools from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Chris Sanders, chair of the Nashville Committee for the Tennessee Equality Project, said polls are showing Santorum has strength in Tennessee and his views are in synch with what’s happening in the legislature.
“Given the fact that he has been so explicitly anti-equality, it’s just another index that we’ve got a lot of work to do in Tennessee,” Sanders said.
Sanders dismissed the idea that Santorum or other candidates would explicitly mention state legislative issues, such as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” but said “the anti-equality candidates will find very hospitable ground for themselves here.”
The Washington State caucuses on Saturday could also draw anti-gay sentiments from the candidates because Gov. Chris Gregoire earlier this month signed marriage equality into law, and anti-gay forces are at work to collect the 120,577 signatures needed by June 6 to put the law before voters in November.
Santorum made his opposition to the marriage law a cornerstone of his campaign in Washington State. On the same day the marriage law was signed, Santorum held a campaign rally in the state, saying Gregoire’s signature “isn’t the last word” on marriage as he called on supporters to bring the measure to the polls.
For his part, Gingrich took a softer approach to Washington — as well as the expected legalization of same-sex marriage in Maryland — by saying last week these states were going about it “the right way” by using the legislative process instead of the courts, even though he personally opposes same-sex marriage.
“I think at least they’re doing it the right way, which is going through voters, giving them a chance to vote and not having a handful of judges arbitrarily impose their will,” Gingrich said.
The candidate’s statement contradicts his support for a Federal Marriage Amendment, which, if passed, would abrogate all laws allowing same-sex marriage, including those passed by state legislatures.
Romney has yet to address specifically the legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington, but Pinello doubted the candidate will talk about the issue ahead of Saturday.
“He is really trying to focus on economic issues, single-mindedly,” Pinello said. “I don’t think he would initiate any conversation. He can’t necessarily avoid a question that might come up if one were posed, but I’m sure it will be a short answer, and then he’d jump back to some economic issue.”
Kansas
ACLU sues Kansas over law invalidating trans residents’ IDs
A new Kansas bill requires transgender residents to have their driver’s licenses reflect their sex assigned at birth, invalidating current licenses.
Transgender people across Kansas received letters in the mail on Wednesday demanding the immediate surrender of their driver’s licenses following passage of one of the harshest transgender bathroom bans in the nation. Now the American Civil Liberties Union is filing a lawsuit to block the ban and protect transgender residents from what advocates describe as “sweeping” and “punitive” consequences.
Independent journalist Erin Reed broke the story Wednesday after lawmakers approved House Substitute for Senate Bill 244. In her reporting, Reed included a photo of the letter sent to transgender Kansans, requiring them to obtain a driver’s license that reflects their sex assigned at birth rather than the gender with which they identify.
According to the reporting, transgender Kansans must surrender their driver’s licenses and that their current credentials — regardless of expiration date — will be considered invalid upon the law’s publication. The move effectively nullifies previously issued identification documents, creating immediate uncertainty for those impacted.
House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 also stipulates that any transgender person caught driving without a valid license could face a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. That potential penalty adds a criminal dimension to what began as an administrative action. It also compounds the legal risks for transgender Kansans, as the state already requires county jails to house inmates according to sex assigned at birth — a policy that advocates say can place transgender detainees at heightened risk.
Beyond identification issues, SB 244 not only bans transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity in government buildings — including libraries, courthouses, state parks, hospitals, and interstate rest stops — with the possibility for criminal penalties, but also allows for what critics have described as a “bathroom bounty hunter” provision. The measure permits anyone who encounters a transgender person in a restroom — including potentially in private businesses — to sue them for large sums of money, dramatically expanding the scope of enforcement beyond government authorities.
The lawsuit challenging SB 244 was filed today in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of anonymous plaintiffs Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP. The complaint argues that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
Additionally, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a temporary restraining order on behalf of the anonymous plaintiffs, arguing that the order — followed by a temporary injunction — is necessary to prevent the “irreparable harm” that would result from SB 244.
State Rep. Abi Boatman, a Wichita Democrat and the only transgender member of the Kansas Legislature, told the Kansas City Star on Wednesday that “persecution is the point.”
“This legislation is a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans,” said Monica Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas. “It undermines our state’s strong constitutional protections against government overreach and persecution.”
“SB 244 is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia,” said Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police. Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
“SB 244 presents a state-sanctioned attack on transgender people aimed at silencing, dehumanizing, and alienating Kansans whose gender identity does not conform to the state legislature’s preferences,” said Heather St. Clair, a Ballard Spahr litigator working on the case. “Ballard Spahr is committed to standing with the ACLU and the plaintiffs in fighting on behalf of transgender Kansans for a remedy against the injustices presented by SB 244, and is dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights jeopardized by this new law.”
National
After layoffs at Advocate, parent company acquires ‘Them’ from Conde Nast
Top editorial staff let go last week
Former staff members at the Advocate and Out magazines revealed that parent company Equalpride laid off a number of employees late last week.
Those let go included Advocate editor-in-chief Alex Cooper, Pride.com editor-in-chief Rachel Shatto, brand partnerships manager Erin Manley, community editor Marie-Adélina de la Ferriére, and Out magazine staff writers Moises Mendez and Bernardo Sim, according to a report in Hollywood Reporter.
Cooper, who joined the company in 2021, posted to social media that, “Few people have had the privilege of leading this legendary LGBTQ+ news outlet, and I’m deeply honored to have been one of them. To my team: thank you for the last four years. You’ve been the best. For those also affected today, please let me know how I can support you.”
The Advocate’s PR firm when reached by the Blade said it no longer represents the company. Emails to the Advocate went unanswered.
Equalpride on Friday announced it acquired “Them,” a digital LGBTQ outlet founded in 2017 by Conde Nast.
“Equalpride exists to elevate, celebrate and protect LGBTQ+ storytelling at scale,” Equalpride CEO Mark Berryhill said according to Hollywood Reporter. “By combining the strengths of our brands with this respected digital platform, we’re creating a unified ecosystem that delivers even more impact for our audiences, advertisers, and community partners.”
It’s not clear if “Them” staff would take over editorial responsibilities for the Advocate and Out.
Federal Government
Two very different views of the State of the Union
As Trump delivered his SOTU address inside the Capitol, Democratic lawmakers gathered outside in protest, condemning the administration’s harmful policies.
As President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address inside the U.S. Capitol — touting his achievements and targeting political enemies — progressive members of Congress gathered just outside in protest.
Their message was blunt: For many Americans, particularly LGBTQ people, the country is not better off.
Each year, as required by Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the president must “give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.” The annual address is meant to outline accomplishments and preview the year ahead. This year, Trump delivered the longest State of the Union in U.S. history, clocking in at one hour and 48 minutes. He spoke about immigration, his “law and order” domestic agenda, his “peace through strength” foreign policy doctrine, and what he framed as the left’s ‘culture wars’ — especially those involving transgender youth and Christian values.
But one year into what he has called the “Trump 2.0” era, the picture painted outside the Capitol stood in stark contrast to the one described inside.
Transgender youth
In one of the most pointed moments of his speech, Trump spotlighted Sage Blair, using her story to portray gender-affirming care as coercive and dangerous. Framing the issue as one of parental rights and government overreach, he told lawmakers and viewers:
“In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother, Michelle. In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Before long, a confused Sage ran away from home.
“After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all-boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time. But today, all of that is behind them because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full ride scholarship to Liberty University.
“Sage and Michelle, please stand up. And thank you for your great bravery and who can believe that we’re even speaking about things like this. Fifteen years ago, if somebody was up here and said that, they’d say, what’s wrong with him? But now we have to say it because it’s going on all over, numerous states, without even telling the parents.
“But surely, we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who would believe that we’ve been talking about that? We must ban it and we must ban it immediately. Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. I’m telling you, they’re crazy.”
The story, presented as encapsulation of a national crisis, became the foundation for Trump’s renewed call to ban gender-affirming care. LGBTQ advocates — and those familiar with Blair’s story — argue that the situation was far more complex than described and that using a single anecdote to justify sweeping federal restrictions places transgender people, particularly youth, at greater risk.
Equality Virginia said the president’s remarks were part of a broader effort to strip transgender Americans of access to care. In a statement to the Blade, the group said:
“Tonight, the president is choosing to double down on efforts to disrupt access to evidence-based, lifesaving care.
“Rather than allowing families and doctors to navigate deeply personal medical decisions free from federal interference — or allowing schools to respond with nuance and compassion without putting marginalized children at risk — the president is instead advocating for reckless, one-size-fits-all political control.
“At a time when Virginians are worried about rising costs, economic uncertainty, and aggressive immigration enforcement actions disrupting communities and families, attacking transgender young people is a blatant political distraction from the real challenges facing our nation. Virginia families and health care providers do not need Donald Trump telling them what care they do or do not need.”
For many in the LGBTQ community, the rhetoric inside the chamber echoed actions already taken by the administration.
Earlier this month, the Pride flag was removed from the Stonewall National Monument under a National Park Service directive that came from the top. Community members returned to the site, raised the flag again, and filed suit, arguing the removal violated federal law. To advocates, the move was symbolic — a signal that even the legacy of LGBTQ resistance was not immune.
Immigration and fear
Immigration dominated both events as well.
Inside the chamber, Trump boasted about the hundreds of thousands of immigrants detained in makeshift facilities. Outside, Democratic lawmakers described those same facilities as concentration camps and detailed what they characterized as the human toll of the administration’s enforcement policies.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), speaking to the crowd, painted a grim picture of communities living in fear:
“People are vanishing into thin air. Quiet mornings are punctuated by jarring violence. Students are assaulted by ICE agents sitting outside the high school, hard working residents are torn from their vehicles in front of their children. Families, hopelessly search for signs of their loved ones who have stopped answering their phones, stop replying to text… This is un-American, it is illegal, it is unconstitutional, and the people are going to rise up and fight for Gladys Vega and all of those poor people who today need to know that the people’s State of the Union is the beginning of a long fight that is going to result in the end of Republican control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the United States of America in 2026.”
Speakers emphasized that LGBTQ immigrants are often especially vulnerable — fleeing persecution abroad only to face detention and uncertainty in the United States. For them, the immigration crackdown and the attacks on transgender health care are not separate battles but intertwined fronts in a broader cultural and political war.
Queer leadership
After delivering remarks alongside Robert Garcia, Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, took the stage and transformed the freezing crowd’s anger into resolve.
Garcia later told the Blade that visibility matters in moments like this — especially when LGBTQ rights are under direct attack.
“We should be crystal clear about right now what is happening in our country,” Garcia said. “We have a president who is leading the single largest government cover up in modern history, we have the single largest sex trafficking ring in modern history right now being covered up by Donald Trump and Pam Bondi In the Department of Justice. Why are we protecting powerful, wealthy men who have abused and raped women and children in this country? Why is our government protecting these men at this very moment? In my place at the Capitol is a woman named Annie farmer. Annie and her sister Maria, both endured horrific abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. As we move forward in this investigation, always center the survivors; we are going to get justice for the survivors. And Donald Trump may call this investigation a hoax. He may try to deflect our work, but our message to him is very clear that our investigation is just getting started, and we will we will get justice for these survivors.”
He told the Blade afterwards that having queer leaders front and center is itself an act of resistance.
“I obviously was very honored to speak with Kelley,” the California representative said. Kelley is doing a great job…it’s important that there are queer voices, trans voices, gay voices, in protest, and I think she’s a great example of that. It’s important to remind the country that the rights of our community continue to be attacked, and then we’ve got to stand up. Got to stand up for this as well.”
Robinson echoed that call, urging LGBTQ Americans — especially young people — not to lose hope despite the administration’s escalating rhetoric.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people that are standing up for you every single day that will not relent and will not give an inch until every member of our community is protected, especially our kids, especially our trans and queer kids. I just hope that the power of millions of voices drowns out that one loud one, because that’s really what I want folks to see at HRC. We’ve got 3.6 million members that are mobilizing to support our community every single day, 75 million equality voters, people that decide who they’re going to vote for based on issues related to our community. Our job is to make sure that all those people stand up so that those kids can see us and hear our voices, because we’re going to be what stands in the way.”
A boycott — and a warning
The list of Democratic lawmakers who boycotted the State of the Union included Sens. Ruben Gallego, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff, Tina Smith, and Chris Van Hollen, along with dozens of House members.
For those gathered outside — and for viewers watching the livestream hosted by MoveOn — the counter-programming was not merely symbolic. It was a warning.
While the president spoke of strength and success inside the chamber, LGBTQ Americans — particularly transgender youth — were once again cast as political targets. And outside the Capitol, lawmakers and advocates made clear that the fight over their rights is far from over.
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