National
Sullivan, Gallagher trade barbs on marriage at forum

Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage (DC Agenda photo by Michael Key)
A forum intended to address whether LGBT people have a place in the conservative movement quickly gave way to discussion on the validity of same-sex marriage as a conservative value.
Gay conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan and Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, presented opposite sides of the argument Wednesday during a Cato Institute forum in Washington, D.C.
Sullivan said he’s touted same-sex marriage as a conservative value since the publication of his 1995 book “Virtually Normal,” and noted that he remains “in favor of marriage rights rather than civil partnerships.”
“I believe that gay people are members, integral members, of our families, and we deserve not to be cast out or segregated from them as we grow old,” he said.
When gays realize their sexual orientation, Sullivan said, they suffer considerable psychological pain when they subsequently realize they won’t be able to marry.
“We were told as kids when we figured out we were gay and we knew that could never happen to us,” he said. “The psychic wound and pain that it inflicts — and still inflicts everyday on our children — destroys the psyche, warps the soul, destroys the soul.”
But Gallagher rejected the notion that same-sex marriage could be considered a conservative value, citing majority opposition to gay nuptials in national polling.
“Somewhere between 55 to 60 percent — even if they support gay rights — think this marriage thing is something else, gay marriage is not right,” she said.
Gallagher also decried that people in the United States who believe marriage should only be between one man and one woman are accused of being bigots.
“People are waking up in a American where suddenly their deepest core moral convictions — they’re being told are immoral and should be the legal equivalent of racism,” she said. “It’s pretty striking and people are pretty scared.”
Arguing that not all gays are in support of same-sex marriage, Gallagher said she knows openly gay people who’ve worked for NOM and believe that same-sex couples shouldn’t have marriage rights. When pressed by Sullivan to names these individuals — arguing they couldn’t be outed if they’re openly gay — Gallagher declined.
Also in her argument against same-sex marriage, Gallagher lamented the Catholic Church’s recent decision to close its foster services in D.C. now that marriage rights for gay couples will soon be available in the district.
In response, Sullivan noted that divorce has always been available in D.C., and the Catholic Church had run a foster agency in the district even though divorce runs contrary to Catholic beliefs.
But the primary focus on the forum — titled “Is There a Place for Gay People in Conservatism and Conservative Politics?” — was whether gays belong in the conservative movement, particularly if they’re concerned about the advancement of LGBT rights.
Nick Herbert, a gay member of British Parliament and the country’s Conservative Party, said his party has made considerable headway in reaching out to LGBT people, even going so far as to apologize for the party’s past hostility toward them.
Herbert said the Conservative Party has adopted acceptance of gays because of the tenet of democracy that all people are created equal.
“Conservatives should always believe that everyone should have an equal chance in life, regardless of any other factors, and that they should not be discriminated against,” he said.
Herbert said a successful political party should be open to everyone and reflect the country it aspires to govern. He noted that if the Conservative Party secures a majority in the House of Commons by one just seat in the upcoming election, the party would likely have more openly gay ministers serving in government than the Labor Party.
Herbert said although he’s a conservative, he supports hate crimes legislation in his country and he rejects legislation that would prohibit same-sex couples from adopting. He also noted that Conservative Party leader David Cameron endorsed civil partnerships as relationship recognition for same-sex couples.
“Gay people are not the property of the left, or of any party,” he said. “They will vote for the political party which best sits with their views, so long as that party does not make itself taboo.”
But Gallagher expressed skepticism about whether gays could be involved in the American conservative movement if they’re seeking new laws that would require religious people to tolerate gays.
Gallagher also said she didn’t think the British model for conservatism would fit well in the United States and that she didn’t know many American conservatives who would like their movement to be more like the movement in the United Kingdom.
“With all due respect, I’m not here to say what a British conservative should believe, but it seems to me that America remains a unique place for the protection of liberty, or classical liberalism, which I share,” she said.
But Sullivan maintained that gays in American can identify as conservatives, even though he said the Republican Party doesn’t embraced conservatism.
“I do not see the connection between being gay and whether you are in favor of the Iraq war,” he said. “I simply do not see a connection between being gay and whether you believe in a carbon tax rather than cap-and-trade.”
Sullivan decried how the Republican Party in recent years had taken upon itself to demonize LGBT people to win elections — particularly in 2004 when former President George W. Bush endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment.
At the forum’s end, Sullivan gave a few barbed responses to questions from the audience. The moderator asked Sullivan, who endorsed President Obama in the 2008 in the election, how conservatives can support the president even though Obama supports government expansion.
Sullivan said he wouldn’t answer because it has no relevance to topic of the forum.
“That’s an utterly irrelevant question to this conversation,” he said. “I won’t answer it. I’m happy to answer it at some other level, but it’s so utterly unrelated to the subject we’re talking about, I think it’s a preposterous question.”
Additionally, Sullivan rebuked an accusation from audience member Jamie Kirchick, a writer for The New Republic, who said Sullivan doesn’t “speak for gay conservatives.”
Kirchick noted the significant number of gays who said in exit polls they voted for Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 election.
Sullivan said was very clear in his book “The Conservative Soul” in how he adheres to conservatism and that he’s been studying the works of conservative intellectuals for some time.
“I think a know a little bit more about it than Jamie Kirchick, to be honest, and I do not believe the conservative movement as it now exists in America has a place for a conservative like me,” Sullivan said. “But I do refuse to give up the term conservative because it’s something that I believe in.”
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant

A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
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.
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