National
24 hours of New York marriage equality
Marriage equality has been in effect for over 24 hours in New York state, and hundreds of couples have already taken advantage

On Sunday, New York state joined five other states and the district of Columbia in treating same-sex couples as equal to opposite-sex couples in state civil marriage.
Despite several protests organized by groups like the National Organization for Marriage and the Westboro Baptist Church, hundreds of couples married in the state of New York in the first 24 hours, 659 couples in New York City alone, according to the marriage equality advocacy group, On Top Magazine. The city had announced that they would allow 764 marriages to occur on Sunday after over 2600 same-sex couples had applied for marriage licences in advance of the July 24 start date. Many cities throughout the state had judges on hand to waive the 24 hour waiting period after applying for a licence to allow couples to marry immediately.
With these first marriages, New York becomes the most populous state to offer marriage equally to same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The bill was able to pass a Republican-controlled Senate thanks to the inclusion of very specific language in the legislation, carefully spelling out broad religious exemptions serving to ease the fears of religious institutions and organizations worried they could be sued or punished for refusing to recognize the marriages if the unions are not recognized by their particular institution. In most states, these exemptions are implied, but the additional care applied in the state Senate to defining these exemptions quelled the fears of some undecided lawmakers worried about fallout from religious groups. The bill passed the Senate June 24, 33-29 and was signed by the Governor just before midnight. Four Republicans supported the bill, and only one Democrat opposed.
Even some couples in the District, where same-sex marriage has been legal for over a year, plan to travel to wed in New York, where friends and family may be waiting to celebrate with them.
In locations throughout the state, same-sex couples vied for the title of “first” to be married in the state, exchanging vows at 12:01 a.m. in most cases.
Phyllis Siegal, 76, and Connie Kopelov, 84, — who have been together for 23 years — were the first couple married in New York City at 9:02 a.m. in Manhattan. Phyllis exchanged vows with Connie, who was in a wheelchair during the ceremony, but stood to address reporters with the help of a walker.
“These are two independent people who are joining together because they can see and they can feel how much better their lives will be,” city clerk Michael McSweeney said as the couple exchanged vows. “We are grateful that they are allowing us to share this truly momentous ceremony with them.”
Meanwhile, Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd of Buffalo were the first couple married at Niagara Falls, and mayor Paul Dyster — who is looking to reclaim the city’s spot as world’s ‘Honeymoon Capital,’ according to an Associated Press report — officiated the ceremony that was timed to be completed one second after midnight. The couple exchanged vows on Luna Island with the American Horseshoe falls as a backdrop to their wedding. 46 couples were married Monday at the falls, as they were lit up in rainbow, giving new meaning to the city’s nickname, “The Rainbow City.”
In Albany, another 10 couples married just after the stroke of midnight, joining Kitty Lambert and Chereyle Rudd and others in the early morning celebrations across the state.
Though just in their early twenties, Dee Smith and Kate Wrede could not wait another day to marry. They were among the first same-sex couples in the state married in their middle of the night ceremony at the North Hempstead Town Hall in Manhasset.
According to the New York Post, the other first couples in New York City’s four other boroughs are Michael Faurey, 63, and Bobby Amagna, 65 in Brooklyn, after 20 years together, Greg Levine and Shane Serkiz were the first to marry in Queens, Carmen Hernandez and Doris DeArmas became the first same-sex couple to legally marry in the Bronx, and Bedelia Sanchez and Lavern Rivera — a New Jersey couple — were the first same-sex couple to legally marry on Staten Island.
On Sunday evening, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officiated the nuptials of two close advisers, his chief policy adviser, John Feinblatt, and his now-spouse, the city’s consumer affairs commissioner Jonathan Mintz, at Gracie Mansion, the Mayor of New York’s official residence.
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

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.
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.