National
Gay bishop gives update on acceptance in his denomination
Anglican leader Gene Robinson says U.S. church showing increasing signs of acceptance
In 2003, Gene Robinson became the world’s first openly gay person to be ordained as a bishop in a major Christian denomination.
His elevation to the post of Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New
Hampshire created an international furor within the Episcopal Church
and prompted thousands of clergy and lay people to leave the church in
the U.S.
Robinson, 63, spoke to the Blade following an appearance before D.C.’s
St. Thomas’s Parish, an Episcopal congregation in Dupont Circle in the
process of rebuilding its church destroyed by arson in 1970.
He noted that lesbian Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool’s election as
bishop earlier this year in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
resulted in far less controversy than his election seven years
earlier, indicating a gradual acceptance of gays in church leadership
positions.
Blade: You spoke tonight about the importance of the community
getting involved in the effort to build a new church building for St.
Thomas Parish. Do you have any message for the broader LGBT community
here in Washington about the benefit of this church and what
they might do to help?
Robinson: You know, asking an LGBT person to go back to the church
that has been the source of so much pain and abuse is a little like
asking an abused spouse to go back to her husband. The fact of the
matter is in many places the church is changing. And the church
realizes that for years it got it wrong about LGBT people. And what I
love about St. Thomas’ Parish is that it is really leading the way in
that kind of radically inclusive message. And it doesn’t stop with
LGBT people. It reaches out to really all of God’s children. And so I
would say to the gay community, take another look. The church you left
may be different now. And certainly St. Thomas is modeling I think the
kind of inclusive love that God is all about. And those who would use
the church or use scripture, be it the Hebrew scriptures or the
Christian scriptures, to beat us over the head, they’ve gotten it
wrong and it’s time that we rediscover God’s love in the middle of all
that.
Blade: While you’re here in D.C. can you give a brief update on
where things stand with the Episcopal Church, including your
situation?
Robinson: Well, there’s never been any question about my situation. I
was duly elected and consented to and consecrated. So there’s never
been any question about whether I would continue. What I can say is
over the last seven years I think you have seen the Episcopal Church
make dramatic steps forward. I think they consented to my election in
2003. In 2006 at our national gathering we sort of put things on hold
to figure out if what the rest of the world was saying us us — that we
were crazy and unfaithful in consecrating an openly gay person. We
stopped to consider and listen. But last summer, in 2009, when we
gathered, it was very clear that the Episcopal Church had made up its
mind that, in fact, it was being the church that God was calling it to
be and that we’re going to move forward. And of course in the ensuing
year we’ve seen the election and consecration of another openly
lesbian person at this point in time in Los Angeles. And my sense from
– even the bishops and people who might have liked to see it go a
different way have realized that this is who the Episcopal Church is
going to be and they’re ready to get on with it. And you haven’t seen
near the controversy over the consecration of the second openly gay
bishop as you saw with mine. And I think it just shows how far we’ve
come in seven years.
Blade: Is there some sort of schism taking place?
Robinson: Well you know, if you just read the headlines you would
think that it was virtually a 50-50 split in our church. The fact of
the matter is out of a little better than two million members, only
about a hundred thousand have left. And that’s their count, that’s how
many they claim have left the Episcopal Church.
Blade: Is it the U.S. Episcopal Church you’re talking about?
Robinson: Yeah, the U.S. church. And so we’ve seen the departure of
some 100,000 people who just can’t believe this is God’s will. But for
the most part the U.S. Episcopal Church is alive and well and moving
forward. And as I think you’ll see the same thing worldwide in the
Anglican community. There are many African and Asian Episcopal
dioceses who still don’t understand what we did. But more and more of
them are saying to us, “We don’t understand this. We don’t agree with
it. But you know we have people dropping dead of malaria and AIDS and
of severe abject poverty. We have women and children being abused.
This is so far down our priority list. We’re just going get on with
being the church.” And so I think at the end of the day we’re going to
be just fine, both internally in the Episcopal Church and the
worldwide community. That doesn’t mean there won’t still be
controversy. People will still be uncomfortable. But that’s O.K. It’s
going to take a little while to get used to it.
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.