National
Legal challenge to ‘Don’t Ask’ goes to court
Two-week trial to feature discharged service members
Another avenue for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will open up next week with the start of a trial over the constitutionality of the ban preventing openly gay, lesbian and bisexual people from serving in the U.S. armed forces.
On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California will begin to hear testimony in what’s expected to be a two-week long trial in the case of Log Cabin v. United States. Presiding over the trial will be U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips.
The case challenges the constitutionality of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on the basis that it violates the due process and freedom of speech rights of openly LGBT service members.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said his organization is pursuing the lawsuit — initially filed in 2004 — as part of an effort to “conduct multiple operations to achieve victory” in ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as with a military campaign.
“We are lobbying Republican members of Congress, have an active court case going to trial next week and are consulting with the Department of Defense,” he said.
The case is reaching its trial at the same time legislation is advancing through Congress that could put an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Phillips agreed last week to hold the trial. The lawsuit is proceeding despite multiple requests to stay the case from the Obama administration, which is defending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in court.
Representing Log Cabin during the trial is Dan Woods, an attorney for White & Case LLP. He said his plan involves presenting a variety of evidence.
“It is evident from the evidence we’re going to put on that it is applied selectively, it is applied more in times of peace than in times of war,” Woods said. “It is quite clearly the case that most other countries with militaries comparable to ours allow homosexuals to serve and have no problems with lifting bans on homosexuals serving.”
Woods said seven expert witnesses at the trial will offer different perspectives on the harm that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has caused.
Among those who are set to testify are Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a think-tank on gays in the military, and Nathaniel Frank, a former senior fellow at the Palm Center who’s now the senior strategist at the LGBT Movement Advancement Project. Both declined to comment for this article.
Woods also said five service members discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will offer testimony during the trial.
“The thrust of their testimony is not that they individually were unfairly discharged, but that their discharges had nothing to do with their performance or nothing to do with the so-called purposes of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” he said.
Among the former service members slated to testify is Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemebers United and a gay former linguist for the U.S. Army who was discharged in 2002 under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Nicholson, who’s named as one of the parties in the lawsuit, said the trial has been thus far “unusually successful” and noted that the administration’s attempts “to derail the case have so far failed.”
“Because of my public role as a party to this case, my testimony will likely focus on the factors that make me eligible to bring a cause of action challenging this law, including how this law has harmed me personally,” he said.
Also set to offer testimony during the trial is Mike Almy, a gay former Air Force communications officer who was discharged in 2006 and testified before the Senate on the issue.
Almy said Log Cabin had asked him to be a witness during the trial, but noted that he didn’t want to comment on the specifics of the case before the trial begins.
“I’m honored to help tear down this law that has ruined tens of thousands of careers and weakened our national security,” he said. “It is past time our nation catch up with the dozens of other nations that have lifted their bans on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.”
Woods said other evidence that the plaintiffs will submit includes statements from President Obama saying the law weakens national security.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Freeborne will represent the Obama administration in court. Woods said he was told the administration won’t present any witnesses during the trial or any evidence other than the congressional testimony leading to the enactment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993.
A spokesperson from the Justice Department deferred to the administration’s earlier filings in the case in response to a Blade inquiry about how the administration will defend “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in court.
Woods said he’s “optimistic” that the plaintiffs in the case “will do well and win” the lawsuit. He noted Phillips determined that the heightened scrutiny from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Witt v. Air Force in 2008 would apply in the case.
Woods said the application of this precedent will “have a major impact” on the case because the government would have to show it’s advancing an important interest with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Additionally, he said the administration would have to prove the intrusion of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on LGBT people furthers that interest and is necessary for that interest.
“I don’t think the government can prove that and I think we can show that the government cannot meet that standard by the evidence we intend to put on,” he said.
Despite his optimism, Woods said he couldn’t offer a timeline for how long the case would need to proceed. He noted that Phillips will need to take “a little while” to write up her ruling following the completion of the trial.
“If we do win, we’re going to ask to declare this law unconstitutional and to enjoin the government from enforcing it ever again,” Woods said.
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
Comings & Goings
‘Hidden in Plain Sight:’ The story of Odessa Madre
‘Governments that attack LGBTQ+ rights learn from each other’
Horror genre has evolved into space to explore queer identity
Annie Andrews denounces trans athletes after Trump targets her
Bet Mishpachah participates in D.C. Oct. 7 commemoration ceremony
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
ICC unseals arrest warrants for Taliban officials accused of persecuting LGBTQ people, women
Physician: addiction doesn’t always look the way you think it does
Calendar: October 9-15
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District of Columbia5 days agoBet Mishpachah participates in D.C. Oct. 7 commemoration ceremony
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National5 days ago
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
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Afghanistan4 days ago
ICC unseals arrest warrants for Taliban officials accused of persecuting LGBTQ people, women
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District of Columbia4 days ago
Physician: addiction doesn’t always look the way you think it does
