National
Pelosi wants ‘Don’t Ask’ vote this year
Announcement comes as activists plan Sunday protest at White House
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to hold a House vote this year on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ (DC Agenda photo by Michael Key)
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is planning to hold a vote this year on repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” according to her office.
“It is the Speaker’s intention that a vote will be taken this year on [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] in the House,” Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesperson, told the Washington Blade in a statement this week.
The announcement is welcome news for repeal advocates because Pelosi has yet to send legislation to the floor that lacked sufficient support for passage.
Michael Cole, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, praised Pelosi for planning the vote.
“As we’ve been saying for a long time now, the time to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law is this year, and it’s a positive sign to hear congressional leaders affirm that,” Cole said.
Still, he noted that further work is necessary to make repeal happen.
“We need pressure on the Congress, we need pressure on the White House, we need pressure across the board, and as we get into this critical period, signs like that are promising,” he said.
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he learned last week in a meeting with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer that the House was planning the vote.
“I’m delighted that [Pelosi] reaffirmed to hold the vote this year,” he said.
Sarvis said the planned vote is helpful because it “underscores to the White House the seriousness of purpose” and the importance of moving key votes in the House and Senate during upcoming weeks.
“The hour for the president as well as for the leadership to become engaged is now,” he said. “The reality is — particularly in the Senate Armed Services Committee — we are still short of some critical votes. We don’t have the votes today. We’re on the brink of getting them, and we need help from leadership on the Hill and from the president himself.”
As plans for the House vote emerged, pressure continued to build on President Obama to make a greater effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this year. Activists were planning a White House protest Sunday to draw more attention to the issue.
Heading the event are the grassroots groups Queer Rising and GetEqual. The latter organization was responsible for civil disobedience protests in recent months, including arrests on two occasions of LGBT former service members who chained themselves to the White House gates in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Alan Bounville, a member of Queer Rising and East Coast organizer for GetEqual, said the focus of Sunday’s protest would be to press Obama to send to Congress language repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as part of his budget recommendations for the defense authorization bill.
“We want the president to transmit to the Senate Armed Services Committee the language that’s put into the [Department of Defense] budget to repeal this ridiculous law immediately,” he said. “We want that to happen right now; we want him to do that this moment.”
Activists are urging Obama to send such language to Congress soon because the defense committees are expected to hold markups next month for defense authorization legislation. The Senate Armed Services Committee, which advocates have been pushing to take up the issue of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is scheduled to hold its markup on May 26.
“So [the protest is] really just part of the growing swell of grassroots pressure that’s being placed on the president to take leadership on this issue because we know this window is closing for this to happen this year,” Bounville said.
The protest is set to take place Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. at Lafayette Park. Bounville noted that the number of people who participate could be in the hundreds or more. Organizers are still working on the messaging for the protest, Bounville said, including what he called a “visual component” that “may or may not happen that would also provide a stark visual image at the actual rally.”
The list of speakers planning to take part in the protest is still being finalized, but Bounville said among those taking part would be U.S. Army Lt. Dan Choi, an Iraq war veteran who was among those who chained himself to the White House fence in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“There’s a list of speakers that are taking the stage and just really sharing their stories, repeating this demand over and over and over,” Bounville said. “We’ll be doing a lot of chanting and just really connecting the people not just to this issue, but also to the fact we’re really fighting for full federal equality.”
Bounville was non-committal about whether civil disobedience would be a component of Sunday’s protest. He said he had “no idea” whether anyone would break the law at the event.
“I have no idea and usually those types of things would be kept under wraps anyway,” he said. “So that’s definitely something we wouldn’t know until we’re actually out there.”
But at least one lawmaker was skeptical about the impact of the Sunday protest. Gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), when asked about the effectiveness of the White House protest, replied, “You think President Obama is going to cave because people are demonstrating in front of the White House? No.”
“If presidents were going to change because people demonstrate, then what happens when people demonstrate in the opposite direction?” he said. “Do you count the number of demonstrators? I continue to be frustrated by people trying to take the easy way out — the way that gives them an emotional release — instead of calling senators and calling representatives.”
Frank said he was willing to bet most of those participating in the protest have not lobbied their lawmakers “in a significant way.”
“By which, I mean, call them and getting other people to call them,” he said.
In response, Bounville said Frank and others shouldn’t disparage acts of civil disobedience because people are putting themselves on the line for these efforts.
“That’s disgusting,” he said. “When they say things that really condemn non-violent direct action, they’re completely out of touch, not just with this movement, but with the social movement in general.”
Bounville said he didn’t think “letter writing and phone calling and $2,500 a plate dinners” have influenced lawmakers to move toward repeal, and what’s working “is the groundswell of grassroots support.”
“So if there were any civil disobedience at this rally, if it’s well executed, I think that would be a wonderful thing for the movement,” he said.
While skeptical about the impact of Sunday’s protest, Frank said the White House isn’t being “supportive the way they should be” in moving forward with repeal this year.
Still, Frank said the recent regulatory changes limiting third-party outings and raising the rank of officers conducting and initiating reviews “made a tremendous difference.”
“I give them a lot of credit for moving as they did, but I can’t give them full credit and I’m disappointed,” he said.
Bounville is also urging national LGBT organizations to take part in the Sunday protest and said a lack of participation would mean those groups aren’t serious about the urgency of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“If these organizations really feel a sense of urgency of these issues, they will support rallies like this that the community is planning,” he said. “It’s a rally that has competent speakers eloquently speaking on this issue, and if they’re not going to support that, then they’re really not supporting the movement, period.”
Bounville said SLDN and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force would be among the organizations “looking at what they can do right now to help promote this event,” but the situation with HRC is different.
“HRC has been to this point unresponsive, which is interesting because the other organizations have responded,” he said Monday. “Joe Solmonese and HRC have not responded, which is not surprising. He’s forcing HRC to become irrelevant very fast.”
Cole denied that HRC hadn’t responded to the organizers’ request to participate. He said HRC started talks Monday about getting Jarrod Chlapowksi, HRC’s military consultant, involved in the event.
“He is interested in doing so and HRC is interested in having him appear,” Cole said. “Right now, Jarrod is in direct communication with the event organizers to work out the details and find out more about the event, but we look forward to his participation.”
Sarvis said SLDN is supportive of the protest, but was waiting to hear more details. He said he had a meeting scheduled April 23 with Kip Williams, a co-chair of GetEqual, but the discussion didn’t take place because Williams left town before the scheduled time.
“We’re having conversations about what it’s going to look like and who’s participating and what’s the scope of the protest,” Sarvis said. “But, yes, it’s certainly something that we’re going to be supporting … and we’ll be helping to get out information on it and other means.”
Noting Obama called for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal as part of his State of the Union address, Sarvis said the challenge before repeal advocates is ensuring the president is following through and engaged with Congress to eliminate the statute this year.
“Clearly, if he gets on the phone and asks for votes in the two committees, that’s going to make a difference,” Sarvis said. “He’s working the phones on financial services reform. He did that on health care. We need that same kind of engagement in repealing that statute.”
Sarvis said protests such as the one occurring Sunday are effective in influencing President Obama to move forward with repeal this year, but noted that there are different approaches to petitioning the president.
“We have clients who are sending letters to the president this week individually; we’re up on Capitol Hill face-to-face with members and their staffs,” Sarvis said. “There’s a place for others to do their thing, whether it’s at the White House or Lafayette Park.”
Recalling a similar protest before the White House that SLDN organized in June to mark the then-265 service members who were discharged during Obama’s term, Sarvis said his organization has taken part in grassroots activism before.
“Petitioning the president at the White House is not a new thing for SLDN,” Sarvis said. “That’s something that SLDN organized almost 11 months ago, so obviously I think it’s helpful.”
In addition to the White House protest, Bounville noted that activists were planning actions targeting members of Congress regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He said his organization sent fliers to senators with differing positions on the issue — Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) — with the message, “You’re next!”
Accordingly, five activists held a sit-in protest Monday at McCain’s district office in Phoenix, Ariz., to protest the senator’s opposition to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The fallout of the protest wasn’t immediately clear and McCain’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“From a non-violent direct action standpoint, yeah, we have reached out to those targets,” Bounville said.
Still, Bounville said the No. 1 focal point for the upcoming protest is Obama because he’s failed to follow through on his promise to be a “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community.
“I’m going to continue to pressure him,” Bounville said. “I’m going to continue to exhaust myself because I’m not exhausted on this. He will continue to lose political capital at an accelerated rate, probably faster than he would have if we weren’t engaged at this end of the movement.”
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
National
Inside the lonely world of MAGA gay men
Pushback against community members who support Trump is not unusual
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 18.
This story was written in partnership with Gay Times Magazine.
By EMMA PAIDRA | When Evan decided it was time to tell his boyfriend that he voted for Trump, he couldn’t get the words out. “I was stuttering for 20 minutes straight on the phone,” he told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Once he finally worked up the courage, he was met with pushback: “He made fun of me. … He called me a racist and a white supremacist,” says Evan, a 21-year-old math major who lives in Long Island, N.Y.
That pushback isn’t unusual: According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 83 percent of queer men typically vote Democrat. One key reason gay men swing left in 2026 is because of the Trump administration and MAGA-aligned politicians’ track record on LGBTQ issues. Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research, removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument and shut down the LGBTQ-specific option on the 988 youth suicide hotline.
Because of this, many of the fewer than one in five LGBTQ men who cast their ballot for Trump in 2024 face judgment for their political affiliation.
“People think that I hate myself for being gay, and that I’m a gay traitor. … I wish there were more gay conservatives or moderates,” says Evan, who requested to use a pseudonym due to fears over retaliation for his political views.
Navigating dating and relationships as a gay Trumper
Nick Duncan, 43, can relate to Evan’s fears about being an open Trump supporter: “I mostly get hatred. I’ve never lost a conservative friend because I’m gay, but I’ve lost all of my gay friends because I’m conservative,” says Duncan, a hospitality executive who lives in Miami. “I’ve divorced myself from what I refer to as the Alphabet Mafia.”
Duncan says he feels so unwelcome by the LGBTQ community that he’s hesitant to attend certain queer events. “Nowadays, I would never go to a Pride event,” Duncan told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I don’t feel that I would be safe.”
Despite these concerns, Duncan doesn’t hide his political views when looking for love. “I’m in a long-term relationship now, and when I have been on the dating market, I’m very open and upfront about [my political views]. So I think it just weeds out most people who would have an issue.”
For Evan, political differences have been a source of tension in his relationship even before he told his boyfriend who he voted for. “When I first met him, he asked me if I liked Trump. … He was kind of scaring me. So I said, ‘I don’t know,’” Evan recalls. “He said, ‘Good answer, because if you said yes, I couldn’t even talk to you.’”
Since revealing his conservative identity, Evan has had multiple arguments with his boyfriend about politics. “This guy, who I’ve been dating for almost a year, he’s way too far left. … The first proof is he thinks there’s more than two genders,” says Evan. “I tried telling him there were only two genders, and he got mad at me.”
Though Evan believes there are only two genders, research suggests that gender is a spectrum allowing for multiple gender identities.
Proud gay Trump supporters
According to a 2025 report from Pew Research Center, 71 percent of LGBTQ adults view the Republican Party as unfriendly towards LGBTQ Americans. Duncan thinks these critiques are unreasonable: “The Republican Party is not nearly as anti-gay as [leftists] believe,” he says. “The Trump administration has plenty of openly gay people in the administration, and Trump actually supported gay marriage before it was cool.”
Gay members of the Trump administration include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as Tony Fabrizio, a pollster and strategist. Additionally, Trump did tell the Advocate in a 2000 interview that though “the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman,” he thinks amending the Civil Rights Act to grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans is “only fair.”
But since then, Trump has appointed Supreme Court Justices who have denounced marriage equality and Cabinet members with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Pam Bondi.
Duncan says part of the reason he isn’t worried about Trump’s anti-LGBTQ track record is because he doesn’t view being gay as the most important part of his identity: “The most important part of who I am is as a father.”
Duncan is not alone: A 2020 report from the UCLA Williams Institute School of Law found that Republican lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are more likely to feel connected to other parts of their identities than their sexual orientations.
Evan doesn’t identify with the community at large and does not like to be referred to as “LGBTQ” or “queer.”
“I realized I’m normal. I’m not LGBTQ,” he says. “I’m just gay.”
Evan’s desire to be seen as “normal” rings of Vice President JD Vance’s 2024 comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he said Trump could win the “normal gay” vote. During this same interview, Vance suggested that parents of genderqueer children use their children’s identities as a rejection of having white privilege. Vance received significant backlash for these comments, with the Human Rights Campaign responding to the vice president’s remarks over X.
Some gay Republicans see the GOP as more friendly
For Chris Doane, 56, voting Republican is the only choice that makes sense, as he believes voting for a Democrat goes directly against his interests as a queer man. “Conservatives don’t want to murder gays. They want them saved,” he says. “Muslims vote Democrat, because if the Democrats win, they get to stay [in the U.S.], they get to take power, and they will murder gays brutally with a smile on their face,” says Doane.
Doane’s comments are unfounded and display racist stereotypes peddled by far-right American media: One study from the Brennan Center for Justice compiled data from 1984 to 2020 and found that racial resentment is more prevalent on the right than on the left.
Doane was raised in a conservative family in Bryan, Texas, and isn’t out to his family because he fears that they won’t accept him. For him, voting Republican is part of his heritage. “I was told, ‘Don’t ever let Democrats in control. They’ll ruin our country,’” he says. “That’s pretty much what they did, and that’s why President Trump is working overtime to straighten it all back out.”
Trans rights and gay Republican men
Though Doane and other gay Republicans hold a range of views, a common thread is a hesitancy around trans rights. So, they align more with the Trump administration, which has railed against the trans community with Trump’s policies and rhetoric.
For example, Doane sees being able to transition as a matter of personal freedom but thinks gender-affirming care for trans kids is a step too far.
“When it comes to transgender, I have nothing against that. I just believe that when you make that transition, it should be at a point where your brain is fully developed … and you’re actually going to enjoy that transition,” he says.
He also holds the view that for a trans person to be accepted as their correct gender, they must fully physically transition. “If you’re gonna transgender, transgender all the way. If you’ve still got male parts on you, you don’t belong in the women’s dress room.” However, research suggests otherwise, with a 2025 study indicating that policing bathroom access can lead to mental distress in trans youth.
Duncan has his own doubts.
“I disagree with the integration of gender ideology and radical wokeism into the LGBT community. You are free to live under any delusion you so desire. You’re not free to require me to live under your delusion as well,” he says. “But if somebody wants to live as a man or a woman, however it is, I firmly believe they have the right to do that. I would never get in the way of it.”
Duncan also believes that education about LGBTQ people should be limited in schools. He sees adolescence as a fundamentally confusing time, and believes an education about LGBTQ communities would “add on layers of confusion.” This belief seems to be in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which has banned education on gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida’s classrooms from pre-kindergarten until the end of eighth grade, though there are exceptions for health lessons.
“It’s okay to tell kids that some boys like boys, some girls like girls, some people like both. But it just needs to be kept vague and general,” Duncan says. “However you are is okay. We don’t need to expose children to gay media because if you’re gay, you’re going to know.”
Duncan does not believe heteronormative bias in mainstream media is a problem, though a study published in Equity & Excellence in Education found heteronormative biases in schools may harm queer students. “The vast majority of people are heterosexual, and a functioning society is built on a heteronormative bias,” he says. “It is important to understand that we are the extreme minority and society is not responsible for conforming to us.”
They approve of Trump and don’t see him as a threat
While LGBTQ Americans see the Republican party as unfriendly towards queer people, Duncan and Doane aren’t worried about being stripped of their rights. Duncan says the 2015 passage of gay marriage solidified his equal rights. “We have marriage as gay men. I have every right that a straight man does,” he says.
Doane also feels that his rights are secure under Trump 2.0 and approves of the president so far. “I voted for that great, big, beautiful wall because we were being overrun by illegals,” he says. Doane also approves of U.S. interventions in Iran and Venezuela, though he criticizes Trump for “leaving [Venezuela] way too soon.”
Similarly, Duncan is generally approving of Trump’s handling of immigration. “I don’t love what we’re doing as far as deportations, but we had to get some control over the illegal population,” says Duncan. “I wish there was another way, but I can’t think of it.”
Duncan and Doane are certainly in the minority as queer men who approve of Trump, but as far as they’re concerned, Trump is delivering on his promises. “Overall, I’m happy,” says Duncan. “I’m getting pretty much exactly what I voted for.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article stated that Trump told the Advocate in 2000 that legalizing gay marriage was “only fair.” That was incorrect. He told the publication that he thinks amending the Civil Rights Act to grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans is “only fair.”
National
LGBTQ Catholic groups slam Trump over pope criticism
‘Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate’
LGBTQ Catholic groups have sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Leo on April 13 told reporters while traveling to Algeria that he had “no fear of the Trump administration” after the president described him as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” in response to his opposition to the Iran war. (Trump on the same day posted to Truth Social an image that appeared to show him as Jesus Christ. He removed it on April 13 amid backlash from religious leaders.)
Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, during a Fox News Channel interview on the same day said “in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” Vance on April 14 once again discussed Leo during an appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Ga., saying he should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Díaz; and Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are among those who have criticized Trump over his comments. The president, for his part, has said he will not apologize to Leo.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” said Leo on Thursday at a cathedral in Bamenda, Cameroon.
Francis DeBernardo is the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization. He told the Washington Blade on Thursday that Trump’s comments about Leo “are one more example of the ridiculous hubris of this leader (Trump) whose entire record shows that he is nothing more than a middle-school bully.”
“LGBTQ+ adults were often bullied as children, and they have learned the lesson that bullies act when they feel frightened or threatened,” said DeBernardo. “But secular power does not threaten the Vicar of Christ, and Pope Leo’s response illustrates this truth perfectly.”
DeBernardo added Trump “is obviously frightened that Pope Leo, an American, has more power and influence than the president on the world stage.”
“Like most Trumpian bullying, this strategy will backfire,” DeBernardo told the Blade. “Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate. Trump’s actions are not an example of his power, but of his impotence.”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an LGBTQ Catholic organization, echoed DeBernardo.
“He [Trump] has demonstrated throughout both presidencies that he doesn’t understand the basic concepts of any faith system that is founded on the dignity of human beings, the importance of common good,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade on Thursday during a telephone interview. “It’s just appalling.”
Duddy-Burke praised Leo and the American cardinals who have publicly criticized Trump.
“The pope’s popularity — given how much more respect Pope Leo has than the man sitting in the White House — is a blow to his ego,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade. “That seems to be a sore sport for him.”
“It’s such an imperialistic world view,” she added.
Leo ‘is the real peacemaker’
The College of Cardinals last May elected Leo to succeed Pope Francis after his death.
Leo, who was born in Chicago, is the first American pope. He was the bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023.
Francis made him a cardinal in 2023.
Juan Carlos Cruz — a gay Chilean man and clergy sex abuse survivor who Francis appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — has traveled to Ukraine several times with Dominican Sister Lucía Caram since Russia launched its war against the country in 2022. Cruz on Thursday responded to Trump’s criticism of Leo in a text message he sent to the Blade from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“I am in Ukraine under many attacks,” said Cruz. “Trump is an asshole and has zero right to criticize the Pope who is the real peacemaker.”
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