National
Donnelly continues crusade against ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal
CPAC speaker wants more hearings before ban is lifted
Elaine Donnelly (Blade photo by Michael Key)
A leading opponent of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal is continuing her effort to prevent gays from serving openly in the U.S. military and is calling for extended discussion before the military’s gay ban is lifted.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, on Thursday called for more congressional hearings on allowing gays to serve openly in the military and time to question Pentagon officials before repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” takes effect.
“Our position is Congress should tell the Pentagon, ‘Not so fast!'” she said. “They need to ask questions, they need to have hearings. We need to keep in mind what is the most important thing. … Certainly, the military is too important to be used for social engineering, political payoffs. Diversity is important, yes, but not as a primary goal.”
Donnelly urged for greater deliberation before enacting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal during a panel titled “How Political Correctness Is Harming America’s Military” at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference in D.C.
In 20o8, Donnelly gained notoriety as an opponent of gays in the military when she testified during a House hearing on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” After her testimony, when she decried the possible spread of “HIV positivity” in the military and the “forced intimacy” of straight troops serving with gays, Donnelly was widely criticized and lampooned by the media.
During her CPAC panel appearance, Donnelly denounced the law allowing for repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that President Obama signed in December, which she said was “rushed through recklessly” in the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress.
“It’s supposed to be a non-discrimination policy,” she said. “But instead of calling it ‘Not “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”‘ … let’s give it a name. We call it the ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Law for the Military’ — ‘LGBT Law’ for short. We have to start thinking about it in terms of what it would do.”
The repeal provides for an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” only after the president, the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify the U.S. military is ready for repeal. But Donnelly said this language was a “meaningless” provision in the law.
“There’s going to be a lot of problems,” she said. “The Congress has yet to have hearings on the House side on this, so our position is this: don’t you think we should ask some questions first?”
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said the debate over ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has gone on for 17 years and noted House and Senate committees had several hearings in the last Congress.
“No more discussion is needed on this issue,” Sainz said. “And I think Republicans and Democrats, not just Democrats, but Republicans and Democrats, concluded that that was the case when they voted to go ahead and pass this legislation last year. At some point, you just have to call the question, and that’s exactly what happened.”
During the panel, Donnelly said she and other opponents of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal assembled a 25-page list of questions that “not should be asked, but must be asked” to evaluate the mesaure passed last year.
Among the questions, Donnelly said, is which of the findings in the 1993 law are not valid — how will the armed forces “train people to be less senstive to sexual privacy and modesty.”
Donnelly also raised concerns about “zero tolerance” for service members who object to serving alongside openly gay people.
“What about when you have a problem and say, “This needs to changed,'” Donnelly said. “And someone says, ‘What’s the matter with you? Is there something wrong with your attitude? Are you prejudiced? We’ll get you more training — more LGBT training.'”
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said what Donnelly referred to as “zero tolerance” is actually unprofessional behavior in the U.S. military.
“You see a lot, in my experience, from people who oppose this policy change and others, the desire to express their beliefs in an inappropriate and unprofessional manner, and then they get upset when they’re not permitted to engage in that type of behavior,” Nicholson said.
Donnelly also said the controversies found in teaching about same-sex couples in civilian schools would mean the military would likewise have similar problems and would need to implement a “school of choice” system.
“We know how controversial it is to have LGBT training in civilian schools,” Donnelly said. “Just imagine what that’s going to be in the Department of Defense schools where there really is no choice. Will we not need ‘school of choice’ in the Department of Defense? Yes, we will.”
Nicholson said Donnelly’s assertion is a example of someone “talking about the military who has never spent one single day in uniform.”
“There aren’t multiple ideologically based training schools for anything in the military, whether that be for occupations or the leadership academies and things like that,” he said.
Also, Donnelly said military chaplains would have to “endorse homosexuality” if they had to be ministers for openly gay people in the military.
“It was said during hearings in the Senate, ‘Well, we’re going to lose a lot of chaplains,’ so one of the questions is ‘How many chaplains are we going to lose?'” she said.
Sainz identified Donnelly’s assertion about chaplains as among “the half-truths or complete falsehoods” that she’s been repeating in her opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“No one’s being asked to endorse homosexuality,” Sainz said. “It’s kind of a bizarro statement. They are not being asked to put their religious beliefs aside.”
In addition to denouncing the repeal law, Donnelly also took issue with the Pentagon’s report on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Taking a line from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an opponent of repeal in the Senate, Donnelly said the survey that went out to service members as part of the report didn’t ask the right question.
“The survey that was done, the RAND Corp. had a lot to do with it, and a company called Westat or something,” Donnelly said. “They had all these questions and they never once asked the question: ‘Do you favor retention or repeal of the law?'”
One of the questions on the survey asks service members if “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed and they are working with someone who says he or she is gay, how would it affect their unit’s ability to work together to get the job done. About 70 percent of responders said it would have a positive, mixed or no effect.
Nicholson said Donnelly didn’t like the questions that were part of the survey because they didn’t result in responses that would have worked in her favor.
“I think she’s just upset that the purpose was not to conduct a referendum on military policy among members of the force because she thinks she would have won that referendum,” he said.
Joining Donnelly during the panel discussion was Ilario Pantano, a Marine sniper who served in the Iraq war, who used his discussion time to argue that the United States is a Christian nation and that China is building up its defenses “because they fear Jesus Christ.”
Pantano also said he concurred with Donnelly’s sentiments and noted that former Rep. Patrick Murphy, who championed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal in the U.S. House, received what he said was $90,000 from the liberal MoveOn.org and $40,000 from the Human Rights Campaign in the 2010 election.
“If people talk ultimately about issues of fairness, why are they needing to spend tens of millions of dollars to lobby the Democratic Party if it’s truly about efficacy and the good of the people who’ve been in the armed forces,” Pantano said.
In response, Sainz said HRC’s contributions to Murphy’s campaign are “hardly remarkable” because the Pennsylvania lawmaker was a friend and deserved re-election. Sainz added right-wing groups are donating money to anti-gay lawmakers who oppose “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
Sainz also said Pantano was being “wildly inaccurate” on the money he says HRC spent on the Murphy campaign. According to the Federal Election Commission website, HRC contributed slightly more than $9,000 to Murphy’s campaign in the 2010 election.
Donnelly also attempted to raise fears about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal law by saying it could open the door to allow openly transgender people in the military. Currently, transgender people aren’t allowed to serve in the armed forces because of regulations.
“Right now, they’re saying no transgenders,” Donnelly said. “They’ve thrown the ‘T’s’ under the bus. But the president has celebrated ‘LGBT Equality Month’ twice in the month of June. So why not? Why not? What is the rationale for excluding them?”
Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Transgender Center for Equality, said Donnelly was raising the issue of transgender people in the U.S. military to draw attention to “her last shrill efforts to try to stop “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal,” but added she’s right that trans people shouldn’t be excluded.
“There is no more reason to exclude trans people from service than there is to exclude women, or anybody, African Americans or gay people,” Keisling said. “It’s just all based on old stereotypes that people like Elaine Donnelly use to advance their own causes.”
Keisling noted that the national study on trans people made public last week found that 20 percent of them were veterans, which she said was double the national average.
National
LGBTQ asylum seeker ‘forcibly removed’ from US, sent to El Salvador
Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Venezuelan national
An immigrant rights group that represents an LGBTQ asylum seeker from Venezuela says the Trump-Vance administration on March 15 “forcibly removed” him from the U.S. and sent him to El Salvador.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center Litigation and Advocacy Director Alvaro M. Huerta during a telephone interview with the Washington Blade on Tuesday said officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection alleged his organization’s client was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based gang, because of his tattoos and no other information.
“It’s very flimsy,” said Huerta. “These are the types of tattoos that any artist in New York City or Los Angeles would have. It’s nothing that makes him a gang member.”
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
“I proclaim that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA (Tren de Aragua), are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies,” said Trump in a proclamation that announced his invocation of the 18th century law.
The asylum seeker — who the Immigrant Defenders Law Center has not identified by name because he is “in danger” — is among the hundreds of Venezuelans who the U.S. sent to El Salvador on March 15.
Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily blocked the deportations. The AP notes the flights were already in the air when Boasberg issued his ruling.
Huerta said U.S. officials on Monday confirmed the asylum seeker is “indeed in El Salvador.” He told the Blade it remains unclear whether the asylum seeker is in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
‘We couldn’t find him’
Huerta said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center client fled Venezuela and asked for asylum in the U.S.
The asylum seeker, according to Huerta, passed a “credible fear interview” that determines whether an asylum claim is valid. Huerta said U.S. officials detained the asylum seeker last year when he returned to the country from the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
Huerta told the Blade the asylum seeker was supposed to appear before an immigration judge on March 13.
“We couldn’t find him,” said Huerta.
He noted speculation over whether Trump was about to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center “started getting concerned that maybe he was caught up in this situation.”
“He’s an LGBT individual who is an artist in Venezuela,” said Huerta.
Neither ICE nor CBP have responded to the Blade’s request for comment.
Huerta said it is “hard to say” whether the asylum seeker has any legal recourse.
“He still has an ongoing case in immigration court here,” said Huerta, noting the asylum seeker’s attorney was in court on Monday, and has another hearing in two weeks. “Presumably they should have to allow him to appear, at least virtually, for court because he still has these cases.”
Huerta noted the U.S. since Trump took office has deported hundreds of migrants to Panama; officials in the Central American country have released dozens of them from detention. Migrants sent to the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have returned to detention facilities in the U.S.
“Something where the government, kind of unliterally, can just say that someone is a gang member based on tattoos, without any offer of proof, without having to go to court to say that and then take them externally to what effectively a prison state (El Salvador), it certainly is completely just different than what we’ve seen,” Huerta told the Blade.
Huerta also spoke about the Trump-Vance administration’s overall immigration policy.
“The Trump administration knows exactly what they’re doing when it comes to scapegoating immigrants, scapegoating asylees,” he said. “They have a population that, in many ways, is politically powerless, but in many other ways, is politically powerful because they have other folks standing behind them as well, but they’re an easy punching bag.”
“They can use this specter of we’re just deporting criminals, even though they’re the ones who are saying that they’re criminal, they’re not necessarily proving that,” added Huerta. “They feel like they can really take that fight and run with it, and they’re testing the bounds of what they can get away with inside and outside of the courtroom.”
National
Kennedy Center official slams Harvey Fierstein’s ban claim as ‘total lie’
Grenell invites iconic gay actor to perform ‘Hairspray’
Richard Grenell, who was appointed president and interim executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by President Trump, pushed back against Harvey Fierstein’s claim of being banned from the Kennedy Center, calling it “a total lie” in a new X post.
On Wednesday, gay icon and Tony Award-winning actor Harvey Fierstein posted on Instagram, claiming to have been “banned from THE KENNEDY CENTER.” In the post, Fierstein shared a picture of himself walking in the 1979 Christopher Street Liberation Day parade alongside LGBTQ rights activist Marsha P. Johnson. In the caption, he alleged that Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center was the reason for his ban, calling it an attack on free speech and a threat to democracy.
The Blade emailed the Kennedy Center’s public relations team, seeking confirmation of Fierstein’s claim and an official statement from the cultural center. More than an hour later, in a separate email that did not directly address the original request, Brendan Padgett, the Kennedy Center’s director of Public Relations, responded with a link to a post on his boss Grenell’s X account.
“Making sure you saw this,” Padgett’s email read, followed by a link to Grenell’s post.
“Hey, @HarveyFierstein This is a total lie,” Grenell wrote in the post. “Whoever told you this (because you obviously didn’t do your own research) should be fired from your team for purposefully making you look foolish.”
Grenell’s post, uploaded the morning after Fierstein’s initial claim, included screenshots of Fierstein’s Instagram post. Grenell went on to assert that, like Fierstein, he had been a fighter “for equality for decades,” citing his position as the first openly gay member of a U.S. president’s Cabinet as proof. (Grenell was never confirmed by the Senate; the first openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet official is Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary of Transportation.)
“You aren’t banned,” Grenell continued. “In fact, come do Hairspray or La Cage here at the Kennedy Center. This is your personal invite. Let’s meet—if, however, you can handle diverse opinions and want to be inclusive of everyone, that is.”
The Washington Blade reached out to both Harvey Fierstein and Brendan Padgett for comment on the ongoing situation. Padgett responded, stating, “No comment aside from the Kennedy Center President’s post.” Fierstein has yet to respond.
National
Trump administration considering closing HIV prevention agency: reports
Sources say funding cuts possible for CDC
The Department of Health and Human Services is considering closing the HIV Prevention Division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and transferring some of its programs to a different agency, according to a report by the New York Times.
The Times and Politico cited government sources who spoke on condition of not being identified as saying plans under consideration from the administration also call for possible funding cuts in the domestic HIV prevention program following funding cuts already put in place for foreign U.S. HIV programs.
“It’s not 100 percent going to happen, but 100 percent being discussed,” the Times quoted one of the sources as saying.
News of the possible shutdown of the HIV Prevention Division and possible cuts in HIV prevention funds prompted 13 of the nation’s leading LGBTQ, HIV, and health organizations to release a joint statement on March19 condemning what they said could result in a “devastating effect” on the nation’s progress in fighting AIDS.
Among the organizations signing on to the joint statement were D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, which opposes funding cuts or curtailment in domestic AIDS programs, points out in a separate statement that it was President Trump during his first term in office who put in place the HIV Epidemic Initiative, which calls for ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by 2030.
That initiative, which Trump announced in his 2019 State of the Union address, is credited with having reduced new HIV infections nationwide by 30 percent in adolescents and young adults, and by about 10 percent in most other groups, according to the Times report on possible plans to scale back the program.
In a statement released to Politico, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said, “HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking a careful look at all divisions to see where there is overlap that could be streamlined to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure the federal government.”
“No final decision on streamlining CDC’s HIV Prevention Division has been made,” Nixon said in his statement.
“An effort to defund HIV prevention by this administration would set us back decades, cost innocent people their lives and cost taxpayers millions,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, in a March 19 statement.
“The LGBTQ+ community still carries the scars of the government negligence and mass death of the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” Robinson said. “We should be doubling down on our investment to end the HIV epidemic once and for all, not regressing to the days of funeral services and a virus running rampant,” she said.
“We are outraged and deeply alarmed by the Trump administration’s reckless moves to defund and de-prioritize HIV prevention,” the statement released by the 13 organizations says. “These abrupt and incomprehensible possible cuts threaten to reverse decades of progress, exposing our nation to a resurgence of a preventable disease with devastating and avoidable human and financial costs,” the statement says.
LGBTQ asylum seeker ‘forcibly removed’ from US, sent to El Salvador
Kennedy Center official slams Harvey Fierstein’s ban claim as ‘total lie’
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