National
Stark introduces adoption anti-discrimination bill
Calif. lawmaker wants Obama to endorse measure ‘wholeheartedly’
Reps. Pete Stark (left) and Jim McGovern on Tuesday introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act (Blade photo by Michael Key)
A U.S. House member from California on Tuesday introduced legislation that would bar discrimination against LGBT people in adoption cases while calling on President Obama to endorse the bill “wholeheartedly.”
During a news conference, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), the sponsor of the legislation, known as the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, said he wants the White House to support his bill fully in response to a question from the Washington Blade on what he’d like to see from the administration on the issue.
“I’d like to see the administration support our position more definitively,” Stark said. “I’ve had some troubles often determining where the administration is on issues, and I think it’s time that President Obama steps up to the bar and makes this — supports it wholeheartedly.”
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Obama believes that adoption rights should be afforded to all Americans and supports the goals of the legislation, but stopped short of offering an explicit endorsement of Stark’s bill. The lack of outright support is unlike the president’s position on other pro-LGBT initiatives, such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“The president has long believed that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation,” Inouye said. “He recognizes that adoptive families come in many forms, and that we must do all we can to break down barriers to ensure that all qualified caregivers have the ability to serve as adoptive families. While we have not reviewed this specific legislation, we share its goals to expand adoption rights and move the dialogue forward on this issue.”
The Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which has 33 original co-sponsors, would restrict federal funds for states that allow discrimination in adoption or foster care placement based on the sexual orientation, marital status or gender identity of potential parents — as well as LGBT children seeking homes. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is expected to introduce companion legislation in June in the Senate.
Some states recently have taken steps to inhibit potential LGBT parents from adopting. Last month, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed legislation that would give primary consideration in adoptive placement to opposite-sex married couples. Additionally, Virginia’s State Board of Social Services recently rejected adding protections against discrimination in adoption cases on the basis of sexual orientation as well as other statuses.
At the news conference, Stark billed the legislation as a means to ensure children living in the foster care system have access to a greater number of adoptive families — including households with single parents or same-sex parents.
“What’s in the child’s best interest is what the bill is trying to promote,” Stark said. “There is no information that shows that children raised by a single parent or gay or lesbian parent households have any more or less problems than all other children.”
According to Stark’s office, the U.S. government spends more than $7 billion each year on a foster care system against potential single and LGBT parents and allows around 25,000 children age out annually. More than 500,000 children are in foster care and 120,000 of them available for adoption.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), an original co-sponsor for the bill, said the Every Child Deserves a Family Act is necessary to eliminate discrimination against potential LGBT parents and to iron out the differences in adoption policy throughout the country.
“Automatically disqualifying LGBT parents from adoption just because of sexual orientation is wrong,” McGovern said. “It makes no sense, especially when so many children are in foster care waiting to be adopted. The current patchwork of unfair state laws and policies … is denying multiple kids to permanent safe and stable homes.”
The issue of LGBT adoption has already emerged as an issue for a Republican who could be considering a run in the 2012 presidential campaign. According to Think Progress, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who’s widely expected to be eyeing a White House bid, said in a speech Monday before the FAMiLY Leader in Iowa that adoption is a “privilege” to which LGBT people aren’t entitled.
“A lesbian woman walked up to me and said, ‘Why are you denying me my right?’” Santorum said. “I said, ‘Well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege. It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.”
During the news conference, Stark blasted Santorum for his anti-gay comments and said the former senator’s opinion is no longer relevant because he was voted out in 2006.
“Rick who?” Stark said. “There was a guy in Congress years ago named Santorum, but I think he left. He lost, but [has been] following that path ever since. I think that’s nonsense.”
Organizations that work on LGBT advocacy and child welfare — including the Family Equality Council and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays — praised Stark for introducing the legislation as means to end discrimination and allow more children to find homes.
Linda Spears, vice president of policy and public affairs for the Child Welfare League of America, said passage of the Every Child Deserves a Family Act would help ensure children who are waiting in foster care can find homes.
“We must recognize that statutory frameworks are absolutely essential in order to get this job done,” Spears said. “We cannot have policies in which kids are systemically disadvantaged by state law and by state policy. We cannot have policies that disadvantage and allow children to linger in foster care, those who categorically exclude certain families and put other kids in legal limbo because second parents are not allowed to adopt.”
Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, similarly said the legislation is needed to counter what she called “despicable” attempts at the state level aimed at impairing the right to adopt for LGBT people.
“These efforts are divisive, there are despicable, and they push a political agenda at the expense who some of those children who are most vulnerable — the thousands of kids who are living in foster care, [excluding them] from loving, permanent homes,” Chrisler said.
Amy Coleman, a Massachusetts foster care alum (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Amy Coleman, a Massachusetts foster care alum who was adopted at age 16 by lesbian parents, pressed for legislation allowing full adoption rights for LGBT families by recalling the story of her own adoption.
“My moms have been loving, wonderful parents and will continue to be loving, wonderful parents,” Coleman said. “I just felt it was important to come down and share that so that other foster kids know that there are homes out there for them that might not be traditional, but are definitely wanting to take them in, so they don’t have to spend their rest of their time in foster care wondering if there is someone who can, or will, adopt them.”
Moving the legislation will be challenging in the Republican-controlled House, where the bill will likely be assigned to the House Ways & Means Committee. The office of the committee chair, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), didn’t respond on short notice to the Blade’s request to comment on the measure.
Stark said he hasn’t spoken with Camp about the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, but added the adoption issue could come before the House Ways & Means Committee in some capacity.
“I suppose that we’ll have a hearing on this at some point — one way or the other,” Stark said. “The press will require it or the Republicans will in opposition to it. The hearings may not be favorable, but there may very well be hearings on it.”
As of Tuesday, the legislation had no Republican co-sponsors, although Stark suggested that the bill may gain GOP support because he’s spoken to a Republican lawmaker who has indicated interest. Stark didn’t identify the U.S. House member.
The list of original co-sponsors for the legislation notably lacks the names of Democratic lawmakers who usually sign on to pro-LGBT legislation — including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as well as gay Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I.).
Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesperson, said the Democratic leader will sign on as co-sponsor.
Harry Gural, a Frank spokesperson, said his boss wasn’t asked to support the Every Child Deserves a Family Act.
“Congressman Frank considers co-sponsoring a bill when he is asked by the member introducing the bill, when one of that member’s staff makes a request via our staff, or when he gets a request from a constituent,” Gural said. “In this case, none of those took place.”
Jessica Kershaw, a Cicilline spokesperson, said the legislation is on her boss’ radar and he’s reviewing it.
Despite the lack of outright support from the White House, one LGBT rights organization maintained the Obama administration is already working to address adoption discrimination through administrative means.
Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of communications, said the Department of Health & Human Services is “doing a substantial amount of work” as part of HRC’s “All Children All Families” initiative, an agency by agency approach to preventing LGBT discrimination in adoption cases, which aims for the same results as Stark’s legislation.
“At the same time, HRC is working with the HHS to provide greater incentives to states, tribes and territories which receive federal funds to establish more inclusive practices,” Sainz said. “The Informational Memorandum on LGBT youth and families which went out two weeks ago, and was largely a result of our advocacy, is a good example of that ongoing work.”
Sainz was referring to an April 6 memo from HHS encouraging child welfare agencies to serve better the needs of LGBT youth in the foster care system. The memo states agencies should avail themselves of federal funds for training staff on serving LGBT children and called LGBT potential parents an untapped resource for providing homes for LGBT youth.
Federal Government
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
Bill described as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Members of Congress, advocates, and people from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest proposed federal legislation that voting rights activists have deemed “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for the proposed legislation to include a section that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In addition to changing voter registration requirements, the bill would limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not have — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
A 2021 investigation by the Associated Press found that fewer than 475 people voted illegally or improperly, a tiny fraction of the estimated 160 million Americans who voted in the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event.
“It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls. And they don’t even require you to be told,” the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate told protesters and reporters outside the Capitol. “If this law passes — and it won’t — you’re gonna show up in November … and they’ll say… sorry, you’re no longer on the voting rolls.”
He, like many other speakers, emphasized the bill in the context of American history, pointing to what he described as its racist roots and its impact on Black and brown Americans.
“I have called this act, over and over again, Jim Crow 2.0 … because they know it’s the truth.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was one of the lawmakers leading opposition to the legislation and spoke at the rally.
“It’s not just voting rights that are on the line — our democracy is on the line,” the California lawmaker said. “It’s not a voter I.D. bill. It’s a bait and switch bill.”
He added historical context, noting the significance of voting rights legislation passed more than 60 years ago. In 1965, Alabama civil rights activists marched to protest barriers to voter registration. Alabama state troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, using tear gas, clubs, and whips against more than 500 — mostly Black — protesters.
“61 years ago — not to the day — but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act,” Padilla said. “61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority wants to take us backwards. We’re not gonna let that happen.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) also spoke, emphasizing that he views the effort as a Republican-led and Trump-backed attempt to restrict voting access, particularly among Black, brown, and predominantly Democratic communities.
“President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors that ‘The SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years,’” Luján said. “The first time I think Donald Trump’s been honest … This voter suppression bill is only that. Taking away vote by mail? I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump or where vote by mail is popular have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense, because their constituents are going to push back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) also spoke.
“Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare, people don’t know how they’re gonna be able to afford energy,” she said, providing context for the broader political moment. “We’re in the middle of a war that they can’t even get straight while we’re in it and don’t have a way to get out of it. And we are now faced with defending our democracy?”
She then showed the crowd something that she said has been with her throughout her political journey in Washington.
“I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016, and I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as United States senator. And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6 and all I could think to do was pray … This document allowed my great great great grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote. We took this and turned it into a scarf. It is the returns of qualified voters and reconstruction code from 1867. This is my proof of what we’ve been through. This is also our inspiration.”
“I got to travel between the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times. And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren’t in it, while we don’t know why we’re in it, I do know we were made for it … So I came today to tell you that, um, just like the leader said, that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0. I call it Jim Crow 2.NO.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., also spoke, highlighting the impact of the bill’s proposed provisions affecting trans people.
“This bill is not about saving America. This bill is about stealing an election. This bill is about suppressing voters,” Robinson said. “This bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families … It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.”
The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11 but has not yet been considered in the U.S. Senate.
Idaho
Idaho advances bill to restrict bathroom access for transgender residents
HB 752 passed in state House of Representatives on Monday
The Idaho House of Representatives passed House Bill 752 on Monday, a measure that would make it a crime for a person to use a bathroom other than the one designated for their “biological sex.”
The story was first reported by the Idaho Capitol Sun after the bill cleared the House.
House Bill 752 would make it a criminal offense — either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the number of prior offenses — for individuals who “knowingly and willfully” enter a bathroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex.
The bill would apply to public buildings, including government-owned spaces, and places of “public accommodation,” a category that includes private businesses.
According to the bill’s text, it would “prohibit a person from entering a restroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex; provide a penalty; provide exceptions; define terms; and declare an emergency and provide an effective date.”
A first offense would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison. A second or subsequent offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The bill passed in a 54–15 vote on Monday. Six Republicans broke with their party’s majority to join nine Democrats in opposing the measure.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Cornel Rasor, a Republican from Sagle near the Washington-Idaho border, told House lawmakers that the legislation is intended to protect women and girls.
“It prevents discomfort and voyeurism escalation and assaults, while preserving single-user options and narrow exceptions so no one is denied access for emergency aid,” Rasor said.
State Rep. Chris Mathias, a Democrat from Boise, disagreed, arguing that the legislation would unfairly target transgender Idahoans.
“The truth of the matter is — and I know a lot of people don’t want to say it — but forcing people who don’t look like the sex they were assigned at birth, or transgender folks, to use other people’s bathrooms is going to put a lot of people in danger,” Mathias said.
The Idaho American Civil Liberties Union made a statement about the bill following its passage.
“Idaho lawmakers continue pushing these harmful, invasive bathroom laws, yet cannot present credible evidence that transgender people using gender-aligned bathrooms threaten public safety,” the Idaho ACLU said. “The bill does nothing to address real criminal acts, such as sexual assault or voyeurism, and disregards concerns from law enforcement about the burden enforcement would place on local resources.”
In addition to human rights advocates, who have spoken out against similar bills advancing in state legislatures across the country, Idaho law enforcement groups have also opposed the measure. They argue that the way the legislation is written would “pose significant practical enforcement challenges,” noting that officers are tasked with maintaining public safety — not conducting gender checks or policing bathroom access.
During a committee hearing last week, law enforcement representatives and several trans Idahoans testified that the bill would make many residents less safe.
“Officers responding to a complaint would be placed in the difficult position of determining an individual’s biological sex in order to enforce the statute,” Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell wrote. “In many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate.”
The Idaho Sheriffs’ Association requested that lawmakers amend the bill to require that individuals be given an opportunity to leave a bathroom immediately before facing potential prosecution.
The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate for consideration. To become law, it must pass both chambers and avoid a veto from the governor.
A separate bathroom bill, House Bill 607, which would be enforced through civil lawsuits, passed the House last month but has not yet received a committee hearing in the Senate.
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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