National
‘New Yorkers have been betrayed’
The defeat of same-sex marriage legislation in the New York State Senate last week was a devastating blow to gay rights supporters, leaving many to wonder how the bill could fail after its advocates had expressed confidence in the measure’s passage.
The New York State Senate on Dec. 2 voted 24-38 against the legalization of same-sex marriage, a lopsided margin that raised questions for those who were watching the bill’s progress.
State Sen. Tom Duane, who’s gay, was the prime sponsor of the Senate marriage legislation. He had media outlets he was “optimistic” about the proposal’s chances before senators killed the bill.
Duane, who didn’t respond to DC Agenda’s request for an interview, issued a statement saying he felt “betrayed” following the vote.
“Promises made were not honored,” he said. “The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and all fair-minded New Yorkers have been betrayed. I am enraged, deeply disappointed and profoundly saddened by the vote today.”
Groups advocating for passage of the marriage bill included Empire State Pride Agenda and Gill Action Fund. Those organizations didn’t respond to DC Agenda’s request for comment.
Dan Pinello, a gay government professor at the City University of New York, said the Senate was unable to pass the marriage bill because the Democratic Party, which narrowly controls the Senate, 32-30, is “in disarray, basically — not only on this particular policy issue, but more generally.”
“There are a number of factions within the Democratic caucus in the Senate that makes cohesiveness in that caucus extremely difficult, unlike the Republican caucus, which is much more united in its position,” he said. “I think the vote [Dec. 2] reflected that.”
Marty Rouse, the Human Rights Campaign’s national field director, also said he thinks the marriage bill failed because of the politically tenuous situation in the Senate. He noted that Democrats briefly lost control of the chamber in a coup earlier this year before regaining leadership.
“It’s difficult to pass legislation when you have a change in Senate leadership, a new and tenuous Senate majority,” he said. “There is a lot of politics in play in passing any sort of legislation.”
Rouse said the marriage bill failed not because of the merits of the legislation, but because of political issues in the Senate.
“This has much more to do about politics and very little, if anything, to do about the merits of the marriage bill itself,” he said.
The legislation failed in the Senate even though the bill had strong support in the Assembly, which approved the measure for a third time Dec. 2, 88-51. Gov. David Paterson (D) also was a strong advocate for the marriage bill.
Pinello said the legislation failed in the Senate — but passed in the Assembly — because senators “are out of touch with their constituents.”
He said polling data shows a majority of Long Island residents favor same-sex marriage and noted that three-quarters of that region’s Senate delegation voted against the marriage bill.
Eight Democratic senators voted against the marriage bill Wednesday. All Republican senators voted against it.
Jeff Cook, a legislative adviser for the Log Cabin Republicans who had lobbied GOP lawmakers on the bill, said there was no Republican backing because the dissent among Democrats meant GOP support wouldn’t have made a difference.
Before the vote, Cook had said he was expecting Republican votes in favor of the legislation.
“Sadly, we didn’t lose on the merits, but we lost because of politicians’ lack of political courage to do the right thing,” he said. “Seeing insufficient support on the Democratic side, key Republicans communicated that they were unwilling to follow their conscience and take a tough political vote if they couldn’t make the difference on a losing bill.”
Pinello said Republican Assembly member Dede Scozzafava’s recent failed bid for Congress also had an effect on GOP senators. Scozzafava, who has voted in favor of same-sex marriage three times, ran for Congress in a special election this year, but withdrew her candidacy after a third-party conservative candidate challenged her because of her position on marriage, among other issues.
“I think there was some fallout as a result of that on the Senate Republican side,” Pinello said. “I can’t believe that the Republican caucus is so uniformly opposed to marriage equality that not even one or more would have favored it.”
Although the bill was voted down, Pinello said having the vote last week was appropriate because “to keep putting it off is just unacceptable as a political matter.”
“So, now that their votes are recorded, activists can try to target those people — especially in the Democratic Party, but also Republicans — who voted against marriage equality, in next year’s legislative election cycle,” he said.
Asked whether the bill should have come to the floor, Rouse replied, “I’m not going to second guess the decisions that were made.”
But the failed attempt means supporters of same-sex marriage will have to wait before marriage rights for gay couples become available in New York.
Rouse said there is no reason why supporters shouldn’t work to bring the bill up again in the “very near future,” and said it’s possible for Senate leadership to find a way to have another vote within a few weeks.
Another 14 months would be the longest it would take to bring the marriage bill to the floor of the Senate again, Rouse said.
“If we have to have this bill come up after the elections, clearly the 2010 election and who’s running again for office … all of that will be important,” he said. “Supporters of marriage equality and opponents of marriage equality will be focusing like a laser beam on the primary and general elections in 2010.”
Pinello, however, said that 2013 might be a more realistic time for same-sex marriage to pass in New York.
He said after Senate districts are redrawn following the 2010 Census, there would be an opportunity to elect more supporters of same-sex marriage to the Senate in the 2012 elections.
With Democrats in control of both chambers of the New York Legislature, Senate districts could be redrawn in ways that are more favorable to Democrats, meaning more supporters of gay nuptials could be elected to the Senate in 2012 to take office in 2013 and vote for marriage legislation.
“I think it’s possible that there won’t be a favorable vote in the New York State Senate until 2013 on the issue of marriage equality — four years from now,” he said.
Still, Rouse said he was optimistic and he didn’t think there’s “anyone involved in politics in New York State that doesn’t think there is … support for this bill becoming law in the near future.”
He noted that State Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. was the only lawmaker to speak out against the marriage bill on the Senate floor and no Republicans voiced opposition during debate.
“That tells me there is support for this bill waiting for the right time for this bill to come up,” he said. “And so, for me, it’s not a matter of if this is going to become law, it’s a matter of when this bill is going to become law, and for various reasons, unfortunately, early this week was not the right time.”
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
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.
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