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Gay marriage opponents push D.C. DOMA 

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Less than three weeks after the D.C. City Council approved legislation in May to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, 33 members of the House of Representatives co-sponsored a bill to ban gay marriage in the District.

As of Tuesday, when the City Council gave final approval of legislation allowing same-sex marriages to be performed in the city, the number of co-sponsors of the House marriage ban bill, known as the D.C. Defense of Marriage Act, had climbed to 61.

“I think it’s very safe to say that something like this won’t pass as a freestanding bill, and it’s not likely to pass at all,” said an aide to House Democratic leaders, who asked not to be identified.

But the aide and other Capitol Hill observers said opponents of same-sex marriage in Congress might try to attach the D.C. DOMA bill to an appropriations measure next year, forcing a vote on gay marriage as the 2010 congressional elections approach.

The one-sentence measure, H.R. 2608, says, “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that in the District of Columbia, for all legal purposes, ‘marriage’ means the union of one man and one woman.”

A similar bill has yet to be introduced in the Senate.

The same-sex marriage bill approved this week by the D.C. Council, the Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009, is expected to be signed by Mayor Adrian Fenty within the next 10 days. It will then be sent to Capitol Hill to undergo a required 30 legislative day review by Congress.

Capitol Hill observers were speculating this week whether congressional opponents of same-sex marriage would introduce a disapproval resolution to kill the D.C. gay marriage bill or whether they would instead continue to push fZor more co-sponsors of the D.C. DOMA bill.

Since its introduction in May by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Dan Boren (D-Okla.), the D.C. DOMA was assigned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service & District of Columbia. Democrats hold a 7-4 majority on the subcommittee, and its chair, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), has supported same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, also is a member of the subcommittee.

Pelosi has said she would oppose any effort by Congress to interfere with a same-sex marriage bill approved by D.C.’s elected home rule government.

The subcommittee’s highest-ranking Republican, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), is an outspoken opponent of gay marriage and one of the co-sponsors of the D.C. DOMA bill.

“At this time, the subcommittee doesn’t have any plans for a hearing or mark-up on H.R. 2608,” said Bruce Fernandez, Lynch’s press spokesperson.

Alisia Essig, press spokesperson for Chaffetz, declined to say whether Chaffetz or other co-sponsors of the D.C. DOMA bill were planning to introduce a separate disapproval resolution seeking to kill the marriage bill approved by the Council this week.

Some congressional observers speculated that Chaffetz and other gay marriage opponents would likely stick with the D.C. DOMA bill because that measure would completely ban same-sex marriage and its recognition in the District. A disapproval resolution aimed at the marriage bill approved this week by the City Council would not remove from the books the law passed by the Council in May recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries. That measure became law in July after it cleared its congressional review without an attempt to overturn it.

The D.C. DOMA bill is not the first measure introduced in Congress to ban gay marriage in the District. The late Rep. Joann Davis (R-Va.) introduced a similar bill in the early 2000s, when Republicans controlled Congress. The failure of Davis and her allies to pass the measure under a GOP-controlled Congress has prompted gay activists to predict that Democrats would succeed in blocking its passage now.

Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, said he is not surprised that 61 House members have co-sponsored the D.C. DOMA bill.

“We know we have some enemies on the right,” he said. “The Republican caucuses in the House and Senate are extremely right wing. They love to target us. So it’s no surprise that they have 50 or 60” people supporting the bill.

Of the 61 co-sponsors, 57 are Republicans and four, including Boren, are Democrats. The co-sponsor list includes one member each from Virginia and Maryland: Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.).

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State Department

Transgender, nonbinary people file lawsuit against passport executive order

State Department banned from issuing passports with ‘X’ gender markers

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(Bigstock photo)

Seven transgender and nonbinary people on Feb. 7 filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

Ashton Orr, Zaya Perysian, Sawyer Soe, Chastain Anderson, Drew Hall, Bella Boe, and Reid Solomon-Lane are the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the private law firm Covington & Burling LPP filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The lawsuit names Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants.

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.

Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.

The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.

Trump signed the executive order that overturned it shortly after he took office on Jan. 20. Rubio later directed State Department personnel to “suspend any application requesting an ‘X’ sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.”  

“This guidance applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications,” reads Rubio’s memo. “Guidance on existing passports containing an ‘X’ sex marker will come via other channels.”

The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order is an “abrupt, discriminatory, and dangerous reversal of settled United States passport policy.” It also concludes the new policy is “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and, as to some, their transgender status,” reads the lawsuit. “It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”

Solomon-Lane, who lives in North Adams, Mass., with his spouse and their three children, in an ACLU press release says he has “lived virtually my entire adult life as a man” and “everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man.”

“I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease,” he said. “Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease.”

“If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety,” added Solomon-Lane.

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Federal Government

Education Department moves to end support for trans students

Mental health services among programs that are in jeopardy

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The U.S. Department of Education headquarters in D.C. (Photo courtesy of the GSA/Education Department)

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”

The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.

Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.

In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.

According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.

While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.

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State Department

Protesters demand US fully restore PEPFAR funding

Activists blocked intersection outside State Department on Thursday

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HIV/AIDS activists block an intersection outside the State Department on Feb. 6, 2025. They were demanding the Trump-Vance administration to fully restore PEPFAR funding. (Photo courtesy of Housing Works)

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.

The activists — members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group — blocked an intersection for an hour. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell told the Washington Blade that police did not make any arrests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.

The Blade on Wednesday reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding.

“PEPFAR is a program that has saved 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King in a press release. “The recent freeze on its funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments. We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.” 

“We demand Secretary Rubio immediately reverse his deadly, illegal stop-work order, which has already disrupted life-saving HIV services worldwide,” added Russell. “Any waiver process is too little, too late.”

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