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.
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill that reopens the federal government.
Six Democrats — U.S. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Adam Gray (D-Calif.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) — voted for the funding bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two Republicans — Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Greg Steube (R-Fla.) — opposed it.
The 43-day shutdown is over after eight Democratic senators gave in to Republicans’ push to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act. According to CNBC, the average ACA recipient could see premiums more than double in 2026, and about one in 10 enrollees could lose a premium tax credit altogether.
These eight senators — U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — sided with Republicans to pass legislation reopening the government for a set number of days. They emphasized that their primary goal was to reopen the government, with discussions about ACA tax credits to continue afterward.
None of the senators who supported the deal are up for reelection.
King said on Sunday night that the Senate deal represents “a victory” because it gives Democrats “an opportunity” to extend ACA tax credits, now that Senate Republican leaders have agreed to hold a vote on the issue in December. (The House has not made any similar commitment.)
The government’s reopening also brought a win for Democrats’ other priorities: Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn in after a record-breaking delay in swearing in, eventually becoming the 218th signer of a discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
This story is being updated as more information becomes available.
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