National
National news in brief
Civil unions bill in Colo., amendment push in N.C. and more
Colo. senator introduces civil unions bill
DENVER — A Colorado state senator introduced a civil unions bill on Feb. 14. “Civil unions will allow committed couples to share in the responsibilities and protections in Colorado law that most families take for granted,” Sen. Pat Steadman said in a press release. He said he considered the less-than-equal argument many gays make against civil unions but said everyday matters like medical care and inheritance are too vital to ignore, according to reports from the Colorado Independent. Coloradans voted in 2006 to ban same-sex marriage but polls show deep support in the state for civil unions.
San Francisco mural draws controversy
SAN FRANCISCO — A proposed mural on San Francisco’s Polk Street in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood has drawn controversy, a California NBC affiliate reported. Artists who unveiled a sketch of the mural were met with backlash at a community meeting last month. Attendees didn’t like the quality of the art and content that alluded to the neighborhood’s gay history. The artists said the Lower Polk Neighborhood Association hired them to paint a gay history mural. Before the ’70s, when the Castro emerged as the city’s gay area, Polk Street was the center of gay life. Some who objected say the era is too rife with well-documented incidents of police harassment and brutality to warrant a nostalgic mural.
Anti-gay marriage amendment filed in N.C.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina state senator this week filed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The text of the proposed amendment, which has not yet been filed in the House, would ban any recognition of any “domestic legal union” other than a marriage between an opposite-sex couple, Q Notes, a Charlotte-based LGBT newspaper reported. If approved by the legislature, the amendment would appear on the November 2012 ballot. Three-fifths of both the House and Senate must approve the amendment before it can appear on the ballot; the governor has no veto authority on amendments. Republican state Sen. James Forrester of Gaston County filed the amendment. The state has laws against same-sex marriage but not a constitutional amendment.
Alaska regents vote to ban anti-gay bias
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The University of Alaska Board of Regents voted last week to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, with its president saying the state may have been the only one in the nation not to have sexual orientation specifically listed as a protection in a public university policy, the Associated Press reported this week. The proposal, approved 8-2, adds sexual orientation to university policy that bans discrimination.
Gays barred from Creation Museum ‘date night’
PETERSBURG, Ky. — A “date night” event at the Kentucky-based Creation Museum was disrupted earlier this month when a male couple was denied admission, the Associated Press reported. A friend of one of the men who was barred entry, told the AP no one in their group was gay but Joe Sonka, the man who was not allowed in, had blogged in January that a “flamboyantly” gay couple should attend the tour and told security guards he was waiting for his “date” who was male. Mark Looy, chief communications officer for the Creation Museum, said it was clear from promotional material that the event was for straight couples only and said it presented the “biblical view of marriage.”
Facebook adds two relationship status options
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook recently began offering users new ways to describe their romantic situation by adding “in a civil union” and “in a domestic partnership” to its official list of relationship statuses, according to reports from many news outlets this week. In the past, Facebook’s 600 million users were offered choices including “single,” “in a relationship” and “it’s complicated.” The decision to include the options came after Facebook negotiated with users and rights advocacy groups, a company rep told the San Francisco Chronicle. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is openly gay. The option is available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and France.
Kansas student op-ed draws controversy
WICHITA, Kan. — Gay rights advocates in Kansas are calling for Wichita school leaders to “undo the damage and hurt” caused by a student newspaper column that they say promotes violence against gays, according to a report from the Wichita Eagle, a regional paper. The opinion column, published Feb. 11 in the editorial section of the Messenger, East High School’s student newspaper, says same-sex relationships “just are not normal” and “should be frowned upon.” Its author, an East High student, also cited a Bible verse that says men who lie with other men have “committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.” District officials, the newspaper’s faculty adviser and student editors say the column constitutes free speech and is protected by the First Amendment and the Kansas Student Publications Act. Jessica Thomas, a senior at East High and one of the newspaper’s three editors, said she and her colleagues “knew the column could possibly be controversial.” “We don’t necessarily agree or disagree. It’s one person’s personal opinion,” she said. Kansas law “very tightly restricts” teachers’ or school administrators’ ability to interfere with what students want to publish, Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington, told the Eagle. The Kansas Student Publications Act says “material shall not be suppressed solely because it involves political or controversial subject matter.” A journalism teacher said it met the criteria for free speech. But Michael Jones, an editor for the national website Change.org, wrote in a blog post last week that the East High column “suggested it would be moral to execute an entire population of students.”
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.
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