National

Reid holds off on ‘Don’t Ask’ vote until Thursday

Negotiations with Collins remain ongoing

Published

14 years ago

December 8, 2010

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to hold off on moving forward with legislation containing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal until Thursday as negotiations continue to find enough Republican support to proceed.

Jim Manley, a Reid spokesperson, said the decision to hold off on the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill was made to allow for further discussions on the legislation.

“There’s a sense that we’re getting closer to working out an agreement,” Manley said. “Instead of having a vote tonight, we’ve temporarily postponed it until tomorrow as we try and see if we can reach an agreement.”

Reid’s office announced that the defense authorization bill wouldn’t come up for a vote on Wednesday as earlier planned after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — seen as the Republican point person for negotiations on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — told reporters she wouldn’t vote in favor of the motion to proceed on the legislation until Congress first resolves the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.

Manley said Senate Democatic leaders are continuing to talk to Collins and others about working out an agreement to move forward with the defense authorization bill and said the vote “could happen at any time” on Thursday.

In a statement, Collins said she’s “encouraged” that Reid has decided to hold off on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” vote that he had planned for Wednesday.

“I urged him to do this so that we could consider the tax legislation first, which I believe could be on the floor as early as tomorrow and completed quickly,” Collins said. “At that point, I believe we could move immediately to the Defense Authorization bill under a fair agreement, and I would vote to do so.”

In a statement, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said he believes the negotiations to pass “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal have been “productive and are trending positively.”

“Every day for the past week, more and more senators have announced their intention to be on the right side of history and support repeal, but the only measure of success is final passage of the defense bill with [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] repeal intact,” Solmonese said.

In a brief exchange on Capitol Hill, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) told the Washington Blade that he had asked Reid to hold off on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” vote to ensure there was sufficient support in moving forward.

“I’m doing everything I can to convince him not to bring it up until we the agreement on the process because without the agreement on the process, I’m not convinced we got the 60 votes,” Lieberman said. “And that would be it. That would be a tragedy.”

Many Republicans senators — including Collins — have said they want a more open amendment process on the defense authorization bill than what was proposed in September when a previous attempt was made to bring the legislation to the floor.

A Senate Democratic aide told the Blade that Reid intends to allow 10 Republican amendments and 5 Democratic amendments when the legislation comes to the floor.

Kevin Kelley, a Collins spokesperson, said the remaining issue isn’t the number of amendments, but the time alloted for debate for each of the measures.

“She has asked for fair debate on each amendment and the question has been what is fair,” Kelley said. “What I believe they’re talking about now is … basically two hours on each amendment — one hour, Republican, one hour, Democrat — and then, there would be two amendments that would each have two hours of debate.”

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

National

Blade among nominees for GLAAD Media Awards

Paris Olympics story competing for Outstanding Print Article

Published

1 day ago

January 22, 2025

Staff reports

Media watchdog GLAAD announced nominees for its 36th annual GLAAD Media Awards on Wednesday encompassing more than 300 nominees in 33 categories.

The Washington Blade was nominated in the Outstanding Print Article category for, “Paris Olympics: More Queer Athletes, More Medals, More Pride, Less Grindr” by sports editor Dawn Ennis. Additionally, Blade Fellow Henry Carnell was nominated in the Outstanding Online Journalism Article category for “First They Tried to ‘Cure’ Gayness. Now They’re Fixated on ‘Healing’ Trans People,” with Madison Pauly; the story was published by MotherJones.com.

“Congratulations to Dawn and Henry on their nominations,” said Blade Editor Kevin Naff. “These honors reflect the Blade’s more than 55-year commitment to excellence in journalism and we’re proud of their important work.”

“The GLAAD Media Awards were created nearly four decades ago to champion LGBTQ stories amid a deeply hostile and unsafe time for our community. Today, this mission holds true and ever-more important as attacks against LGBTQ people are not only growing, but finding new avenues,” said GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis.

The GLAAD Media Awards ceremony will be held later this year in Los Angeles. For the full list of nominees, visit GLAAD.org.

U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court to consider case against Montgomery County Public Schools

Plaintiffs challenging LGBTQ-specific curriculum policy

Published

1 day ago

January 22, 2025

Staff reports

U.S. Supreme Court (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 17 announced it will consider the case of a group of Montgomery County parents who are challenging a policy that does not allow them to “opt out” their children from classes in which lessons or books on LGBTQ-related topics are taught.

The parents in a federal lawsuit they filed in May 2023 allege the Montgomery County Public Schools policy violates their religious beliefs.

A federal judge in Maryland on Aug. 24, 2023, ruled against the parents. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

“Under the 4th Circuit’s reasoning, parents cannot be heard until after the damage has been done to their children,” reads the Supreme Court filing that CBS News obtained. “But there is no unringing that bell — by then, innocence will be lost and beliefs undermined.”

Federal Government

Trump-Vance administration removes LGBTQ, HIV resources from government websites

President took similar action shortly after his first inauguration in 2017

Published

2 days ago

January 21, 2025

Christopher Kane

President Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Trump-Vance administration has “eliminated nearly all LGBTQ and HIV focused content and resources” from WhiteHouse.gov and “key federal agency” websites, GLAAD announced in a press release Tuesday.

Prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, GLAAD had catalogued more than 50 links to LGBTQ- and HIV-related content on White House web pages and on websites for the State Department and the Departments of Education, Justice, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Labor, along with other agencies like the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

As of Tuesday, GLAAD specifically found that terms like “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “gay,” “transgender,” “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “LGBTQ” are “no longer accessible on WhiteHouse.gov,” while “some LGBTQ-specific pages have been taken down from sites for the Centers for Disease Control, Department of State, and more.”

Among the pages that are no longer accessible on WhiteHouse.gov are an equity report from July 2021, a fact sheet with information on expanding access to HIV prevention and treatment from March 2024, and information about Pride Month.

Among the entries on federal agency websites that are no longer available are 94 entries for “LGBT Rights” that were once published on the State Department’s site and dozens of links to information and resources on “LGBTQI+ Policy” that were once available on the Department of Labor website.

“President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face,” GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said. “Today’s action proves the Trump administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency.”

Ellis added, “Sadly for him, our community is more visible than ever; and this pathetic attempt to diminish and remove us will again prove unsuccessful.”

Shortly after Trump’s first presidential inauguration in 2017, the Trump-Pence administration scrubbed the White House and federal government websites of LGBTQ and HIV related content, provoking backlash from LGBTQ advocates.