National
Justice Dept. brief against DOMA lauded as ‘watershed moment’
Administration says law ‘unconstitutionally discriminates’
LGBT rights supporters are heralding a recently filed legal brief against the Defense of Marriage Act — the first of its kind against the anti-gay law from the Obama administration — as a landmark document that will aid in bringing about the end of DOMA.
Filed on July 1 by the Justice Department, the 31-page brief argues that Section 3 of DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional because laws related to sexual orientation under precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court should be subject to heightened scrutiny, or must be shown to advance a significant government interest to stay on the books.
“Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act … unconstitutionally discriminates,” the brief states. “It treats married same-sex couples who are legally married under their states’ laws differently than similarly situated opposite-sex couples, denying them the status, recognition and significant federal benefits otherwise available to married persons.”
The Justice Department contends LGBT people are a suspect class, or a group likely subject to differential treatment, because they’ve been subject to a history of discrimination, they exhibit immutable characteristics, and they’re minorities with limited political power. Additionally, the brief contends sexual orientation bears no relation to a person’s ability to contribute to society.
The brief argues that Congress enacted DOMA in 1996 out of motivation “in substantial part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships” and states Congress advanced no other material interest in passing the law.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the brief represents “a watershed moment” in the LGBT rights movement.
“Now the federal government has taken that historic stand a step further and put real meat on the bones of why there is no basis for DOMA to stand,” Solmonese said. “This step represents real leadership from the Obama administration and further hastens the day in which we will leave this odious law in the dustbin of history.”
Notably, the brief recalls the U.S. government’s role in discriminating against LGBT people in its description of the ways in which LGBT people have received different treatment over the course of history. The Justice Department recalls that former President Eisenhower signed an executive order adding “sexual perversion” as grounds for dismissal for federal employees.
“The federal government enforced Executive Order 10450 zealously, engaging various agencies in intrusive investigatory techniques to purge gays and lesbians from the civilian workforce,” the brief states. “The State Department, for example, charged ‘”skilled” investigators’ with ‘interrogating every potential male applicant to discover if they had any effeminate tendencies or mannerisms,’ used polygraphs on individuals accused of homosexuality who denied it, and sent inspectors to ‘every embassy, consulate and mission’ to uncover homosexuality.'”
The brief was filed in the case of Golinski v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Plaintiff Karen Golinski, a lesbian federal court employee, sought medical coverage for her spouse, but the U.S. government denied this coverage because of DOMA. The Justice Department asks the federal court not to dismiss this claim.
Tara Borelli, a Lambda Legal staff attorney who’s representing Golinski in the litigation, said the “very forthright way” that the brief looks at the history of discrimination against LGBT people from the U.S. government — as well as state and local governments — is particularly striking.
“It is a very honest look at the painful way that the government has discriminated against gay people and the toll that’s taken on our community,” Borelli said.
The Justice Department also responds to an earlier brief that the House, which was filed in defense of the law under the direction of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The brief was written by private attorney Paul Clement, whom Boehner hired to litigate on behalf of DOMA in the lawsuits against the anti-gay law.
At one point, the brief disputes the House’s claim that marriage should be left between one man and one woman because that union is the best situation for child-rearing.
“There is no sound basis for concluding that same-sex couples who have committed to marriages recognized by state law are anything other than fully capable of responsible parenting and child-rearing,” the brief states. “To the contrary, many leading medical, psychological and social welfare organizations have issued policies opposing restrictions on lesbian and gay parenting based on their conclusions, supported by numerous studies, that children raised by gay and parents are as likely to be well-adjusted as children raised by heterosexual parents.”
John Aravosis, the gay editor of AMERICAblog who drew attention to the anti-gay rhetoric in the first brief in supporting DOMA that came out of the Obama administration in 2009, said the language in the most recent Justice Department brief “looked pretty amazing.” Still, he criticized the administration for filing it late on a Friday night before a holiday weekend.
“Why didn’t the president announce the existence of this brief two days earlier when meeting with the community’s leaders in the White House to celebrate the Stonewall anniversary?” Aravosis said. “The brief appears to be quite historic, so why attempt to hide it? It’s hard not to conclude that this brief was intentionally buried by the administration in order to minimize mainstream media coverage.”
The Obama administration notified plaintiffs in a document June 3 that it intended to file a brief against DOMA in the Golinski case. Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the decision to litigate against DOMA is consistent with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement on Feb. 23 that the Obama administration determined that the anti-gay law is unconstitutional.
Doug NeJaime, a gay law professor at Loyola Law School, said the Golinski brief marks the “fullest elaboration of the administration’s new position” on DOMA that Holder announced to Congress in a February letter.
“We had the Holder letter and now we have a whole brief sort of spitting out the arguments that Attorney General Holder made in that letter,” NeJaime said. “It’s a really substantial brief explaining why sexual orientation should get heightened equal protection, and it fits all of the main arguments that gay rights lawyers have been hitting and that are necessary for the court to find that there’s what the administration argues are a quasi-suspect classification.”
NeJaime added he expects similar briefs in other pending lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of DOMA: Gill v. OPM, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Department of Health & Human Services, Pedersen v. OPM and Windsor v. United States.
Observers say the Justice Department’s decision to take an active role in attacking DOMA in these lawsuits would make the courts more apt to declare the law unconstitutional.
Borelli said the brief from the Justice Department should prompt the courts to “look with even deeper suspicion” at DOMA.
“It should help hasten DOMA’s demise because it’s very powerful that the federal government admits that gay discrimination under the law is simply not suitable,” she said.
Similarly, NeJaime said the brief from the Obama administration gives the argument against the anti-gay law “a more objective and non-advocacy type flavor.”
“It’s not just the adversarial parties before the court, it’s actually the government now saying this is the proper way to analyze this, so I think it carries a lot of weight,” NeJaime said.
But whether the administration’s brief would mean a quicker end to DOMA remains in question. Advocates previously said they expect DOMA litigation to come to the Supreme Court in 2013.
NeJaime added the Obama administration’s position on DOMA may in fact mean the process for striking down DOMA could take longer.
“If anything it may have the effect of delaying the litigation because now we have the House involved as well, and so it actually makes the litigation a little more complicated, but I do think it’s something that favors the courts striking down and eventually getting this up to the Supreme Court,” NeJaime said.
National
Victory Institute to honor Biden at D.C. conference
Former president to receive award on Friday
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute on Friday will honor former President Joe Biden at its annual International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference in D.C.
Biden will receive the Chris Abele Impact Award in recognition of what the Victory Institute described as “his historic role in championing LGBTQ+ rights and for his leadership in achieving the most LGBTQ+ inclusive administration in U.S. history.” Biden will be the award’s third recipient.
“President Biden has shown unwavering commitment to ensuring LGBTQ+ people can participate fully and openly in our democracy,” said Victory Institute President Evan Low in a press release. “From appointing a record number of LGBTQ+ leaders to reversing harmful policies and expanding civil rights protections, his administration set a new and necessary standard for what inclusive governance looks like.”
“And now, we’re seeing LGBTQ+ elected officials lead the way on everyday issues that are important to most Americans like groceries, housing, and lowering the costs of healthcare,” he added. “This award honors not only his achievements, but also the real impact these changes have had on LGBTQ+ Americans across the country.”
The conference will take place Dec. 4-6 at the JW Marriott Hotel in Downtown Washington, where more than 700 elected LGBTQ+ political leaders and human rights advocates are expected to attend.
Notable officials slated to participate include Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey; Maine Gov. Janet Mills; Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel; Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez; Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes; U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.); Maine House of Representatives Speaker Ryan Fecteau; Mississippi state Sen. Fabian Nelson; San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones; San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria; West Hollywood (Calif.) Mayor Chelsea Byers and Providence (R.I.) Mayor Brett Smiley.
Transgender Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, former U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Eric Nelson, and Robert Biedroń, a gay member of the European Parliament from Poland, are slated to attend. Earlene Budd, a longtime trans activist in D.C., and D.C. Councilman Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) are also expected to participate.
Michael K. Lavers contributed to this story.
National
Faith leaders denounce anti-transgender attacks
‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you.’
This past Trans Awareness Week, 10 heads of diverse religious traditions issued a statement proclaiming that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people are worthy of love, support, and protection. Led by Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, representatives from the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Presbyterian Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), The Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and Reconstructing Judaism called out the violent and systemic persecution of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and queer people–proclaiming that their faith and their humanity urged them to affirm that trans, intersex, and quere people are “sacred” and “holy.”
Their statement comes at a critical time. Over the past three months, Trump and his Cabinet’s anti-trans rhetoric has only intensified, with a report released late September by journalist Ken Klippenstein in which national security officers leaked that the FBI is planning to classify trans people as “extremists.” By classifying trans people as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists,” far-right groups would have more “political (and media) cover,” as Abby Monteil reports for them, for anti-trans violence and legislation.
While the news is terrifying, it’s not unprecedented – the fight against trans rights and classification of trans people as violent extremists was included in Project 2025, and in the past several weeks, far-right leaders’ transphobic campaign has expanded: boycotting Netflix to pressure the platform to remove trans characters, leveraging anti-trans attack ads in the Virginia governor’s race and banning professors from acknowledging that trans people exist. In fact last month, two Republican members of Congress called for the institutionalization of trans people.
It seems that the government shutdown was predicated, at least partially, on Trump’s own anti-trans policies that were attached as riders in the appropriations bill.
It’s a dangerous escalation of transphobic violence that the Human Rights Campaign has classified as an epidemic. According to an Everytown for Gun Safety report published in 2020, the number of trans people murdered in the U.S. almost doubled between 2017 and 2021. According to data released by the Gun Safety report from February 2024, 34 percent of gun homicides of trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people remain unsolved.
As Tori Cooper, Director of Community Engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, this violence serves a purpose. “The hate towards transgender and gender expansive community members is fueled by disinformation, rhetoric and ideology that treats our community as political pawns ignoring the fact that we reserve the opportunity to live our lives full without fear of harm or death,” Cooper said.
The faith leaders came out in this statement to affirm that it is their spiritual and human imperative to call out this escalating violence and protect trans, nonbinary, intersex, and queer people. The leaders acknowledge that historically and today, religion is used as a weapon of hate to degrade and deny the human dignity of LGBTQ+ peoples. The Supreme Court is hearing Chiles v. Salazar, a case about the constitutionality of a Colorado ban of conversion therapy for minors, with the majority of conversion therapy practices being faith based. And despite the Supreme Court declining to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of same-sex marriage conferred in Obergefell v. Hodges, efforts to end marriage equality remain ongoing with Katy Faust’s End Obergefell movement.
“During a time when our country is placing their lives under increasingly serious threat,” the statement reads, “there is a disgraceful misconception that all people of faith do not affirm the full spectrum of gender – a great many of us do. Let it be known instead that our beloveds are created in the image of God – Holy and whole.”
The faith leaders argue that commendation of LGBTQ peoples and religiously motivated efforts to deny their dignity and rights is not the belief of all faith communities, and far-right Christian nationalist communities and others who uphold homophobia and seek to exact it writ large in the United States do not speak for all faith leaders.
This is a critical piece of the statement and builds on historical precedence. During the 1980s AIDS crisis, when far-right Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, one of the founders of the Moral Majority, stated that HIV was “God’s punishment” for LGBTQ+ people and indicative of a broader moral decline in America, affirming faith communities came out to affirm the dignity and divinity of queer people. As funeral homes and churches refused to prepare the dead and bury them, some faith communities stepped up to say that these homophobic leaders do not speak on behalf of all people of faith.
In 1985, the United Church of Christ General Synod urged its member congregations to claim and declare themselves “Open and Affirming,” in order to express their welcome and support for LGBTQ+ people, and two years later, the Church of the Brethren issued a statement titled “A Call to Compassion” where conference members urged member congregations to speak out boldly against discrimination, provide direct care to people with HIV/AIDS, and actively educate themselves and others to stop the spread of fear and prejudice surrounding the disease.
Just one year later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Council issued a statement, “AIDS and Church’s Ministry of Caring,” which outlined the ways in which welcoming, ministering to and advocating on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS is critical to their mission. Even the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which earlier this month banned gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals, issued a statement in 1987 calling discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS “unjust and immoral,” and denouncing the label of “innocent” or “guilty” patients.
Thus, the faith leaders’ statement this past week builds on a rich history of faith communities fighting the stigma that far-right faith groups perpetuate about LGBTQ+ people and committing to action. What sets this latest statement apart is its decidedly interfaith heart, which speaks to the history of the Pride Interfaith Service in Washington, DC that was first started by a group of faith leaders and lay people who gathered at the AIDS Memorial quilt.
As the statement reads, “Our scriptures vary, but they share a common conviction. As we make justice our aim we must give voice to those who are silenced. Our shared values, held across many faiths, teach us that we are all children of God and that we must cultivate a discipline of hope, especially in difficult times. As such, we raise our voices in solidarity to unequivocally proclaim the holiness of transgener, nonbinary, and intersex people, as well as the recognition of the entire spectrum of gender identity and expression.”
The statement ended by arguing that they need to call out the violence they are witnessing. Their silence, they argue, would be in compliance and reinforce the idea that homophobic religious leaders and lay people speak on behalf of all people of faith. Their statement is not only words, however, it is a written promise affirming the dignity and holiness of queer people but also to protect them in the face of increasing violence and persecution.
“When people of faith and conscience stay silent in the face of oppression, we are all made less whole. When people of faith and conscience speak out against that which violates the sacred in its own name, we have the power to stay the hand of sin. Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people are vulnerable today,” the statement concluded.
“Our faiths, our theologies, and our practices of prophetic witness call on us to say with one voice to transgender people among us: ‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you. We support you, and we will protect you.’”
The White House
White House halts World AIDS Day recognition amid HIV funding cuts
Trump-Vance administration under increased criticism over policies
For the first time since the global observance began, the U.S. government did not commemorate World AIDS Day on Monday.
World AIDS Day, first marked in 1988, has long served as an annual reminder of the ongoing effort to end an epidemic that has killed more than 44.1 million people worldwide and continues to disproportionately impact LGBTQ people, communities of color, and those in the American South. Yet the Trump-Vance administration declined to acknowledge the day this year, severing a symbolic but consistent tradition upheld by every president since Ronald Reagan.
The move comes despite the scale of the epidemic today. Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV, according to federal estimates, and about 13 percent — 158,249 people — do not know their status. Globally, the World Health Organization reports 40.8 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2024.
Presidents of both parties have historically used World AIDS Day to highlight progress, remember lives lost, and recommit to reducing disparities in prevention and treatment. Past administrations have also commemorated the day through displays of the AIDS Memorial Quilt — first created in 1987 and later spread across the National Mall and White House lawn. Today, the quilt includes the names of more than 94,000 people lost to AIDS on more than 47,000 panels.
This year’s silence from the White House follows several sweeping foreign aid rollbacks instituted by President Donald Trump after his 2024 inauguration. According to an October report by KFF, the administration enacted a “90-day review of foreign aid; a subsequent ‘stop-work order’ that froze all payments and services for work already underway; the dissolution of USAID, including the reduction of most staff and contractors; and the cancellation of most foreign assistance awards.”
These cuts have created significant funding gaps for nongovernmental organizations around the world — many of which work directly to prevent HIV transmission and expand access to lifesaving treatment.
The State Department dismissed criticism of the administration’s decision not to acknowledge World AIDS Day.
“An awareness day is not a strategy. Under the leadership of President Trump, the State Department is working directly with foreign governments to save lives and increase their responsibility and burden sharing,” deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement CNN first reported. “Earlier this year, we released a global health strategy aimed at streamlining America’s foreign assistance and modernizing our approach to countering infectious diseases.”
The U.S. historically played a central role in the global HIV response. Since 2003, the United States has been the largest financial supporter of HIV/AIDS programs — primarily through President George W. Bush’s PEPFAR initiative, which has invested more than $110 billion into the fight to end the epidemic.
Despite overall declines in transmission, HIV continues to disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, and men who have sex with men. More than half of new HIV diagnoses occur in the South.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative focuses on the 48 counties, D.C., San Juan, Puerto Rico, and seven rural states that accounted for more than half of all new diagnoses in 2016 and 2017.
Advocates say the administration’s withdrawal from World AIDS Day — combined with its cuts to foreign and domestic health programs — risks reversing hard-won gains.
“Though new HIV infections declined 12 percent from 2018 to 2022, progress is uneven with Black people accounting for 38 percent of new diagnoses, Latino people accounting for 32 percent of new diagnoses and more than half (52 percent) of new HIV diagnoses were among people living in the South,” Jarred Keller, senior press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, told the Washington Blade via email. “Cuts to CDC funding have driven HIV prevention resources to historic lows, stripping support from HIV-focused programs.”
Legal and public health experts echoed that concern, saying that there is a possibility to stop HIV/AIDS, but only if efforts are taken gradually over time.
“HIV is a preventable and treatable condition, but only if the research, organization, and effort continue to be a priority to those looking out for the health of Americans and people worldwide,” said Lambda Legal HIV Project Director Jose Abrigo.
Victory Institute to honor Biden at D.C. conference
Colombia anunció la inclusión de las categorías ‘trans’ y ‘no binario’ en los documentos de identidad
Faith leaders denounce anti-transgender attacks
Tokyo court upholds Japan’s same-sex marriage ban
White House halts World AIDS Day recognition amid HIV funding cuts
Comings & Goings
Impulse Group DC to host fundraiser
Calendar: November 28-December 4
India’s Jharkhand state works to improve trans people’s access to health care
