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HRC endorses Obama for Election 2012

Announcement met with criticism from right and left leaning LGBT advocates

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Barack Obama (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Human Rights Campaign announced on Thursday that it has officially thrown its support behind President Obama in his bid for a second term at the White House.

In a statement, HRC President Joe Solmonese said his organization endorsed Obama because of what the president accomplished for the LGBT community during his nearly two-and-a-half years in office.

“President Obama has improved the lives of LGBT Americans more than any president in history,” Solmonese. “In 2008 we were promised change and profound change is what we got. More remains to be done and ensuring that President Obama is able to continue the forward momentum toward equality for another term is an absolute priority of the Human Rights Campaign.”

The achievements for the LGBT community that HRC highlighted in its endorsement statement are pressing for passage and signing legislation to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”; pressing for passage and signing a hate crimes protections law; determining that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and refusing to defend the anti-gay law in court; and requiring hospitals across the country to permit hospital visitation rights to same-sex couples.

Alec Gerlach, spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said the HRC endorsement demonstrates the support that Obama has offered the LGBT community.

“That the Human Rights Campaign offered such an early endorsement is a clear sign that the president has fought for LGBT rights across the country and in our nation’s military,” Gerlach said. “We will work closely within the LGBT community in the months to come to ensure that we are united in the cause to re-elect the president and to ensure equality for gay and transgendered Americans. The president believes that DOMA is discriminatory and unfair, and because the fight for equality affects us all he will not support it.”

HRC’s endorsement for Obama shouldn’t come as a surprise because the organization has been working closely with the White House in the implementation of pro-LGBT initiatives since the start of the administration. HRC endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign and has endorsed only Democratic presidential candidates in previous elections.

But the extent to which HRC will back Obama in 2012 election with financial support remains uncertain.

Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, said decisions on financial contributions or other support that his organization will make to Obama haven’t yet been made.

“Today is about the endorsement,” Sainz said. “If and when there are other reflections of our support — those are determinations that will be made later.”

Criticism of the timing of HRC’s endorsement has already emerged among LGBT activists with both left-leaning and conservative ideology.

John Aravosis, the gay editor of AMERICAblog, said HRC should have waited until Obama took more action on behalf of the LGBT community — such as announce support for marriage rights for gay couples — before endorsing the president.

“Why not hold out for him to endorse marriage equality?” Aravosis said. “Or ask him to sign an executive order on [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act] for federal contractors? The man hasn’t even finished repealing [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’], and forget about ENDA and DOMA, and HRC is already saying ‘Mission Accomplish’? You don’t just give the president something for nothing. You negotiate these kind [of] endorsements.”

Sainz said HRC will continue to press for more pro-LGBT actions from Obama even in the wake of making an endorsement.

“We continue to work towards all of those very important priorities,” Sainz said. “The alternative to not having President Obama in the White House is just not an acceptable option.”

Aravosis said he thinks HRC will purport to have received promises from the Obama administration in exchange for offering support, but should be challenging the president rather than standing behind him.

“While I’m sure HRC will claim they got lots of juicy promises in exchange for the endorsement, everyone else learned a long time ago that the president is unlikely to keep his promises unless you get in his face, and HRC will never get in his face,” Aravosis said. “So the promises are meaningless, and thus the president got HRC’s endorsement for nothing, and now won’t have to do anything for the next two years to truly earn that endorsement. I’m sure it nails down the president for the next HRC dinner, but that really shouldn’t be the goal here.”

HRC didn’t respond on short notice to a request to comment on whether the organization secured any additional promises from Obama in exchange for the endorsement.

LGBT conservative groups also criticized HRC for making an endorsement before a Republican presidential nominee has been chosen — or even before all the likely candidates on the Republican side have announced their intent to run for the White House.

Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, said the HRC is ending what he called its “charade of bi-partisanship” by endorsing Obama at this point in the election cycle.

“LGBT people who are interested in putting policy before partisanship now know that HRC is little more than a puppet of the Democratic National Committee and an organization that has one goal — to elect more Democrats,” LaSalvia said.

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, also said HRC is offering its support too early by endorsing Obama with Election 2012 more than a year away.

“By prostrating themselves before Barack Obama eighteen months before the 2012 election, the Human Rights Campaign has effectively told the president that he doesn’t have to do anything more to earn gay and lesbian votes,” Cooper said. “Given his lackluster record in the fight for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal, LGBT Americans were counting on HRC to hold the president’s feet to the fire on his other campaign promises, not to become a branch of his re-election campaign.”

Cooper further criticized HRC by saying the endorsement sends “the wrong message” to potential Republican presidential nominees who may want to reach out to the LGBT community.

“There are several possible candidates who deserve to be fairly judged on their own merits, and the dialogue on equality issues for the 2012 campaign has barely begun,” Cooper said. “This decision makes it clear that Joe Solmonese’s greatest priority is an invitation to drinks at a Democratic White House, not securing votes for ENDA, DOMA repeal or tax equity. Such a pre-emptive endorsement is a mistake and will undermine equality efforts.”

In response to criticism for LGBT conservative groups, Sainz said HRC made the endorsement because Obama is far and away above any potential candidate the Republican Party may choose in the 2012 election.

“The records of other candidates seeking the presidency should be a wake-up call to all fair-minded Americans,” Sainz said. “As the fight for equality moves forward, President Obama is marching with us while the alternative would stop us in our tracks.”

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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