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Could Pentagon’s ‘Don’t Ask’ review hinder repeal?

Petraeus suggests outcome ‘could go in either direction’

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(DC Agenda Photo by Michael Key)

As the top U.S. commander overseeing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan expressed support Tuesday for reconsidering “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” he noted the Pentagon study currently underway could offer a positive or negative take on open service.

Following his initial remarks on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, made the remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee on the possible outcome of the study.

Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) asked Petraeus to confirm he said earlier in Levin’s office that the study could show repeal’s “likely effects could go in either direction.”

“I believe you told me — either negative or positive, the study could show,” Levin said.

Petraeus affirmed that he made those remarks, saying, “It could. It could. Yes, sir.”

Asked by DC Agenda to clarify this view of the study, Levin replied, “Yeah, in terms like the impact on recruitment, readiness — it could have a positive or negative — and that’s what he confirmed here.”

Petraeus didn’t talk to reporters after the hearing.

If the parameters of the study are to determine whether repeal would have a positive or negative impact — as opposed to examining the best way to implement repeal — it would be inconsistent with how Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined the review in congressional testimony last month. At the time, Gates said the study would focus on implementing repeal and not whether it would be beneficial or harmful to the military.

“The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it,” he said. “We received our orders from the commander-in-chief and we are moving out accordingly.”

The nature of the study as described by Petraeus and Levin also raises questions about why President Obama, who campaigned on repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” would authorize a review that could complicate repeal efforts.

But Kevin Nix, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he’s “confident” the working group will follow the directive outlined by Gates “to figure out how best to implement open service.”

“The Senate repeal bill gives the military plenty of additional time — well into 2011 — to look at how to transition while Congress moves to end the law in 2010,” Nix said.

Nathaniel Frank, author of “Unfriendly Fire” and research fellow for the Palm Center, a think-tank on gays in the military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the problem with the working group is that it could succumb to what he called “political expediency.”

Frank said “mounds of research” have already answered questions about the impact on open service in the military. If the group does its job well, Frank noted, the findings will be consistent with this research and discover “there will be no negative impact or that any impact will be negligible and manageable.”

“But if the group falls prey to political pressure to exaggerate the risks to readiness, that will be used by obstructionists to derail reform in Congress, and ultimately full repeal is up to Congress,” Frank said.

Although the study was outlined as a way to implement repeal, Frank said what Gates actually put in place was a “political process,” and Obama’s willingness to set it up “does raise concerns about a repeat of the failures of 1993.”

Whatever the focus of the study, Petraeus backed the review Tuesday during the hearing as the best way to approach “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” while saying the time has come to “consider a change.”

“I believe the time has come to consider a change to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ but I think it should be done in a thoughtful and deliberative manner,” he said. “And that should include the conduct of the review that Secretary Gates had directed that would consider the views of the force by changing the policy.”

Petraeus initially asked for eight minutes to give a statement on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in response to a question from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but Levin denied him that opportunity, saying giving the general eight minutes would violate the rules by going over the time McCain was allotted for questioning.

Levin said another senator could devote their entire question-and-answer time for Petraeus so he could offer his longer statement, although no committee panel volunteered their time. At the end of the hearing, Levin said he would welcome the longer statement from Petraeus if he wanted to submit it as part of the record.

In response to Petraeus’ remarks, Nix said SLDN is awaiting the general’s eight-minute answer before weighing in on Petraeus’ position.

“We agree that open service is more than a sound byte,” Nix said. “The bottom line is our service members are professionals and they know how to bring about the change to open service.”

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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