National
Expensive year for gay donors
Baldwin Senate race, Obama re-election, ballot measures to compete for funds
An expected race for the U.S. Senate next year by lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) will likely intensify an unprecedented demand for fundraising within the LGBT community for the 2012 elections on the national, state and local levels, according to LGBT advocacy groups.
Political observers in Wisconsin say Baldwin has emerged as the leading Democratic contender to compete for a Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl, who announced that he won’t run for another term next year.
With Baldwin said to have a decent chance of becoming the nation’s first openly gay senator, LGBT rights groups from throughout the country are gearing up to raise funds for her campaign, even though she isn’t expected to officially announce her candidacy until later this summer.
Fundraising among LGBT donors for a Baldwin Senate campaign will come at a time when those same donors are being called on to give money to the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama and to the campaigns of LGBT and LGBT-supportive candidates running for Congress, state legislatures, and city and town government posts.
LGBT donors are also expected to be tapped for contributions to campaigns opposing state ballot measures seeking to ban same-sex marriage or to legalize the right of gay couples to marry in as many as five states in 2012.
Chuck Wolfe, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which raises money for LGBT candidates, said the cost of a Baldwin Senate race would likely rise to between $15 million and $20 million.
“So if our community can be a significant player in that race, and we hope it will be, that will mean a significant investment,” he said. “And I would expect to see the LGBT community play an important role in that race.”
Campaign finance records show that Baldwin has already amassed more than $1 million for her House re-election race, which she’s expected to use for a Senate race. Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisc.), who reportedly is considering challenging Baldwin for the Senate nomination in a Democratic primary, has raised far less money than Baldwin, and reported $478,000 cash on hand last week.
Nearly all observers say Baldwin would only back down from a Senate race if former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold enters the race. Feingold, a champion of progressive causes for Wisconsin Democrats, lost his re-election bid last year to Republican Ron Johnson. He has hinted that he’s not likely to run for the seat being vacated by Kohl.
Wolfe said he expects nearly 200 qualified LGBT candidates will be running in the 2012 election on the federal, state and local levels, a development that will prompt the Victory Fund to activate its network of LGBT donors nationwide.
“We’ll continue to see more candidates running for higher levels of office, which, of course, means higher levels of investment,” he said.
Andy Tobias, treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, said the DNC and Obama for America, the president’s re-election campaign, will be doing all of their fundraising – including fundraising within the LGBT community – through a joint committee called Obama Victory Fund 2012.
Tobias, who’s gay, said all of the other races seeking support from the LGBT community are important and he hopes others capable of making contributions will try to support them all.
But he said only the race for president “will determine who gets to shape the Supreme Court going forward, which will be the final word on our equality.”
Added Tobias, “And only one race will determine whether the entire federal government sees us basically as allies deserving of support or citizens who’ve already gained too much equality that needs to be rolled back. We simply have to keep the White House.”
According to Tobias, the Obama Victory Fund effort is aimed at registering and turning out “a huge number of progressive-leaning donors” through 60 field offices and more such offices to come. Thus he said this effort would help all of the other LGBT-related races by bringing supportive voters to the polls.
“So in my view, all of us should support the national effort in a very big way, even as we support other races,” he said.
Among those agreeing with Tobias’s assessment is gay philanthropist Bruce Bastian of Utah, who has made large contributions to Democratic candidates and LGBT advocacy groups and causes for nearly a decade.
“I am not well versed on all of the races or ballot measures,” Bastian told the Blade this week. “That said, I believe the most important goal for the LGBT community in 2012 should be to re-elect President Obama. Why? Just look at the alternatives!”
The Human Rights Campaign has already endorsed Obama’s re-election bid and is expected to continue its past practice of contributing campaign funds to LGBT-supportive candidates through its political action committee.
The HRC PAC contributed just over $800,000 to candidates in 2010 and just under $1.1 million to candidates in 2008, according to HRC’s vice president for communications, Fred Sainz.
“The 2012 election year provides our community with a number of opportunities, including the successful re-election of our president, and a number of vulnerabilities,” Sainz said. “Unfortunately, the one ingredient that all of them share is the need for financial resources to be successful,” he said. “We will continue to monitor the landscape, work closely with our partners on these various contents and will make smart and realistic investments at the appropriate time.”
Evan Wolfson, executive director of the marriage equality advocacy group Freedom to Marry, said the appropriate time to address the expected marriage-related ballot measures is now.
He is calling on LGBT contributors to help raise money for the defeat of a ballot measure in Minnesota, where marriage equality opponents are asking voters to approve a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union only between and man and a woman.
In Oregon and Maine, LGBT rights groups are taking steps to place on the ballot initiatives calling for overturning existing same-sex marriage bans. The proposed ballot measure would also put in place laws to give same-sex couples the legal right to marry.
Ballot measures seeking to ban same-sex marriage are also a possibility in Maryland and North Carolina in 2012. A ballot measure in Maryland is only expected to take place if the state legislature votes to legalize same-sex marriage, a development that LGBT advocacy groups and supportive lawmakers say is a possibility.
“It’s unfortunately too early to be sure if we’re going to have enough money but it’s not too early to be doing the work,” said Wolfson, in discussing the effort for winning marriage equality rights in Maine and Oregon and defeat marriage bans in the other states.
“So we really need to step up and invest in the early persuasion and organizing that are the key to winning,” Wolfson said. “I strongly encourage funders, large and small, to make the best use of the money and time — the most crucial element beginning now so we can move hearts and minds in advance of the end game. That’s how we win.”
The two co-founders of eQualityGiving.org, an LGBT political donors group, said they plan to follow the same process for advising and guiding LGBT donors in 2012 as they have in past election years.
Juan and Ken Ahonen-Jover, a Miami-based couple, said their organization sets specific criteria related to the level of support a candidate must express on LGBT issues before the group places that candidate on its list as a possible recipient for contributions from LGBT donors.
“We want them to support all of the criteria,” said Juan Ahonen-Jover. “We base our recommendations on their positions on our issues,” he said.
He said the group doesn’t keep track of how much money its members give to candidates but he believes donors affiliated with the group contribute a sizable amount of money to congressional and state legislative candidates throughout the country.
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.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
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.)
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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