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Carney announces Obama’s support for DOMA repeal legislation

W.H. spox says president endorses Respect for Marriage Act

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White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced on Tuesday President Obama supports legislation pending before Congress that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday announced that President Obama supports legislation pending before Congress that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

“I can tell you that the president has long called for legislative repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which continues to have a real impact on the lives of real people families, friends and neighbors,” Carney said. “He is proud to support the Respect for Marriage Act introduced by Sen. Feinstein and Congressman Nadler, which would take DOMA off the books once and for all. This legislation would uphold the principle that the federal government should not deny gay and lesbian the same rights and legal protections as straight couples.”

President Obama has previously said he supports legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but has yet to come out in support of the Respect for Marriage Act, which is the specific measure pending before Congress that would repeal the law.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold the first-ever congressional hearing on repeal of DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

LGBT rights advocates praised the endorsement from the White House on Wednesday as a milestone that would lead to legislative repeal of the 1996 anti-gay law.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, was among those thanking President Obama for announcing support for the Respect for Marriage Act.

“He has repeatedly expressed his desire to see the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act repealed and his Justice Department has taken the historic step of ending its defense of that odious law in court,” Solmonese said. “By supporting this legislation, the President continues to demonstrate his commitment to ending federal discrimination against tens of thousands of lawfully married same-sex couples.”

Rick Jacobs, co-founder and chair of the Courage Campaign, a progressive grassroots organization working to build support for DOMA repeal legislation, also hailed the endorsement.

“We are delighted that today, on the eve of a historic Senate Judiciary Committeehearing, President Obama endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act,” Jacobs said. “It is rare that a White House endorses a bill that has yet to pass first in either the Senate or the House. President Obama’s decision to do so underscores the urgency with which the Defense of Marriage Act must be repealed. His support makes clear to all Americans that the Defense of Marriage Act has no place in our society.”

Jacobs said he received from a call on Tuesday morning from Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the president, indicating that Carney would announce at the upcoming news conference Obama’s support for the legislation.

Winnie Stachelberg, senior vice president of external affairs at the Center for American Progress, also praised the Obama for supporting the Respect for Marriage Act while decrying the discrimination that DOMA imposes on same-sex couples.

“DOMA is a flagrantly discriminatory law that serves no good, rational, or useful purpose,” Stachelberg said. “It denies rights to gay couples and their families simply because of their sexual orientation. Passage of the RMA would represent a huge leap forward on the path toward full equality for same-sex couples in the United States. The administration’s support of the RMA is important and greatly welcomed.”

Praise for the endorsement also came from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who set the hearing on DOMA repeal and is a co-sponsor of the legislation.

“The president understands that this civil rights issue affects thousands of American families,” Leahy said. “In these difficult economic times, we should do all we can to remove barriers to fairness and security. I have scheduled a hearing to examine the legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and welcome this announcement on the eve of that hearing.”

Also during the news conference, Carney said he has no updates for when certification of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal would occur. Late last month during a Pride reception at the White House, Obama said certification would happen in a course “weeks, not months,” but a more specific time for certification has yet to be announced.

Asked whether Obama has spoken to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Carney replied, “I don’t know that the president has had those conversations either with Secretary Panetta, or his predecessor, or with Adm. Mullen. What the president said remains the case and our expectation, but I don’t have any more information for you on that.”

Under the law signed in December, certification will only take place after 60 days pass following certification from the president, the defense secretary and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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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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The White House

Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality

President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates

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President Donald Trump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 13, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the White House's X page)

Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.

Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.

“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”

Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”

“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.

The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)

A beach in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Oct. 3, 2024. Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in the country that President Donald Trump visited last week. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.

The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”

Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.

Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.

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