National
Ballot victories on marriage could impact Supreme Court
Justices move decision on taking up cases to Nov. 30
The U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether it’ll take marriage cases in Nov. 30. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Legal experts agree the Election Day victories for same-sex marriage in four states will have an impact on the Supreme Court as it weighs challenges to California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act — although just how the outcome of those ballot questions will influence justices remains under debate.
Following election results in which voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington legalized same-sex marriage and Minnesota rejected a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court determined a new date — Nov. 30 — for deciding whether to take up the cases as opposed to deliberating them during its Nov. 20 conference. That means an official announcement on whether the court will take up the litigation will be made by Dec. 3.
In addition to the case challenging Prop 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, four cases challenging DOMA are pending before the court: Windsor v. United States, the consolidated case of Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Department of Health & Human Services, Golinksi v. Office of Personnel Management and Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management.
Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal, said the legalization of same-sex marriage at the ballot in three more states makes the court more likely to take up the constitutionality of DOMA — and for the court to strike it down — because now additional states will be impacted by the federal ban on the recognition of same-sex marriage.
“I believe that they have to do that because of the rules of the First Circuit and the Second Circuit,” Davidson said. “If the court doesn’t take up DOMA, those decisions will go into effect at the federal level and the federal government would have to start honoring marriages entered into New York and New England, but not elsewhere, and that’s not really a tenable situation.”
But the impact the results will have on the Prop 8 case seems murkier. Some experts say it could prompt the court to allow a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the measure to stand and others say it prompt to justices to take up the case to uphold the measure.
Doug NeJaime, a law professor at Loyola Law School, said the election results may prompt the Supreme Court to decline the Prop 8 challenge because they’ll want to wait to hear a marriage case after more states have decided the issue.
“I think the court could think we’re going to let this keep happening, we’re eventually going to get a case like this and we’d rather take it after more states have voted for same-sex marriage,” NeJaime said.
John Eastman, chair of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, said he doesn’t think the four wins for same-sex marriage will be favorable to Prop 8 opponents because they pale in comparison to 32 previous victories in favor of marriage as one man, one woman.
“What we’ve now got is three states in other direction, which are still the outliers,” Eastman said. “At least under what Justice Kennedy has said before. That’s not the kind of overwhelming trend that would suggest he might weigh in differently. You might also say that the fact that a couple of states have gone the other direction shows that there is a political process option to work this thing out.”
The court’s decision on whether to take up the Prop 8 case is particularly significant because if justices declined to do so, same-sex couples would be able to marry again in California almost immediately just as soon as the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issues a mandate saying its earlier ruling striking down the amendment is now in effect.
In addition to the marriage cases, the Supreme Court has also rescheduled for Nov. 30 a discussion on whether it will take up another LGBT-related case: Brewer v. Diaz. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) appealed to justices a federal district court injunction prohibiting her from enforcing a law that took away domestic partner benefits from state employees.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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