National
Will Dems embrace marriage in platform?
Renewed debate over LGBT issues as parties prepare for 2012 conventions
Im sure that the Democratic Party platform will be very good if not great on LGBT issues,' said Michael Mitchell, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Fla., and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., are 13 months away, but many are already wondering how the two parties will address LGBT issues in their 2012 platforms.
“The platform from 2008 was a pretty good platform, as are most of the platforms of state Democratic parties around the country,” said Michael Mitchell, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats. “So the vast majority of them are very LGBT inclusive, the vast majority of them talk about everything from the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ all the way up to and including marriage in some places. Certainly they vary state to state, given how strong LGBT people are organized in the Democratic Party there.”
Mitchell continued, “So I have no doubt given the people who were involved in 2008 will continue to be involved now, the new crop of people we have coming in. The work that we’re doing at National Stonewall — or rather that we will be doing, as we haven’t started working in earnest on a platform — I’m sure that the platform will be very good if not great on LGBT issues.”
Mitchell sees opportunities to address new LGBT issues in the platform, as several of the 2008 planks have been achieved, including passage of a federal hate crimes law and repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“Our issues have shifted since 2008, so obviously we had the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and that’s great … but there are other issues around that implementation that we have to start digging into,” Mitchell continued. “I think it’s certainly better than what the other party is up to.”
The 2008 Republican Party platform denounced same-sex marriage, as well as non-discrimination statutes barring bias on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in areas like employment, public accommodations and adoption.
Some moderate Republicans hope that the party will soften its anti-gay rhetoric next year, as public opinion on LGBT issues has shifted.
The DNC’s 2008 platform included a call to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” increase funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and care, pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act and assure that federal funds would not be used to “proselytize or discriminate” in “faith-based” programs. The language also explicitly promised to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and alluded to support for non-discrimination laws in employment.
Most strikingly, the platform stated, “We support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections. We will enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment non-discrimination act. We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and all attempts to use this issue to divide us.”
But some LGBT Democrats are looking for more in 2012.
Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, wants to see the Democratic Party take a bold stance on issues dear to the LGBT community, including marriage equality.
“I feel it’s important for the Democratic Party to have a strong pro-LGBT platform,” he said. “The platform is very important. It reflects what we stand for. The 2008 platform is not going to be good enough for 2012.
“As we watch the Republican field develop, it seems the GOP platform will be a total disaster,” Socarides said, referring to the 2012 field of GOP presidential candidates.
Members of both parties, however, see 2012 as an opportunity to make headway.
“Log Cabin Republicans plan to actively participate in the process to revise the party’s platform,” said Christian Berle, deputy executive director of Log Cabin Republicans. “We recognize there will be a lot of work to be done to strengthen the importance of reaching out to LGBT Americans as a part of strengthening the party,”
Log Cabin’s chairman emeritus, Bob Kabel, sits on the Republican National Committee, Berle noted. Kabel — Log Cabin’s first national chairman — is the only openly gay member of the RNC, and the first openly gay chairman of a state-level Republican Committee, as the chairman of the District of Columbia Republican Committee.
“Log Cabin Republicans have long had delegates of ours to the conventions and will work with other organizations to help us recruit more openly gay candidates,” Berle said.
Mitchell hopes to bring leaders from across the LGBT community directly to the DNC to communicate goals and ideas to the decision makers.
“I would hope that we are the point organization for other LGBT organizations who are looking to get included in the platform and that we can help guide people to the right folks. That’s the role I really see us as playing.”
Though both parties have a long wait to decide their platforms, Michael Czin, a regional press secretary at the Democratic National Committee, said that as soon as the state parties are ready, the process will begin moving forward.
“The process to draft the 2012 platform hasn’t started yet, but next year there will be a robust and inclusive process within the Democratic Party to draft the 2012 platform,” Czin told the Blade. “The process, just like in previous years will be representative of the many voices that comprise the Democratic Party.”
The platform is forged by the Platform Committee, a diverse group that consists of party delegates from all over the country, representing many constituency groups within the party.
Mitchell said that Stonewall would be able to wield some influence over the process of crafting the platform, especially if prominent LGBT Democrats are involved at high levels during its creation.
“[Stonewall Democrats] have close relationships with the folks who I expect will end up being players,” Mitchell said. “The folks who were all involved the last time around. … We have a lot of those relationships already existing, and I’m sure we’ll be building relationships to figure out the best way to make the platform as LGBT inclusive as possible for both the LGBT community and our families.”
Berle sees a trend of Republican candidates taking less hard-right stances on LGBT issues.
“I think the candidacy of Gov. Jon Huntsman opens a great number of doors for LGBT Republicans to get behind a candidate,” Berle told the Blade. “He has the same position on marriage equality that the president does with his support for civil unions, that is striking a tenor with a wide array of gay and lesbian Americans, not only Republicans but Democrats and independents as well. You have an openly gay candidate in Fred Karger and you have Gov. Gary Johnson and Rep. Ron Paul, whose libertarian positions line up with the views of many LGBT Americans.”
But not everyone sees platform language as relevant to the race, as candidates don’t always tow the party line.
“Party platforms are interesting creatures these days,” said Dana Beyer, executive director of Gender Rights Maryland. “There’s a real dichotomy in my mind. I can’t remember the last time I cared, as a voter, what the platform actually said. Maybe the early 70’s, but it was so long ago I don’t recall.”
She continued, “However, as an activist, and a Democratic candidate, I’m very aware that the platform speaks volumes about the party’s values and priorities. And while it is still a long haul from the enunciation of those values in a platform to their integration into the life of the party’s members, and particularly its leaders, you must start somewhere, and that somewhere is the party platform.”
Chris Barron, board chair of GOProud, played down the importance of platform language.
“Political party platforms are not worth the paper that they’re printed on,” said Barron. “No one in the country reads them, nor should anyone in the country read them. They have absolutely no impact whatsoever. What I care about? I care about the policies that the nominee of each party is going to put forward. That’s what [GOProud will] be focused on.”
Log Cabin’s Berle agrees the presidential nominee holds more sway than the platform committee in the end.
“In terms of the platform — and the convention itself — it will be driven largely through whoever is the Republican nominee, so there are a varying number of candidates who would have different positions in regard to redressing those issues,” Berle said.
Berle speculated that if one of the candidates who has committed to supporting a federal marriage amendment wins the nomination, it will remain part of the platform. However, there are other areas where LGBT Republicans can gain ground, he said.
“It would be a consistent effort of ours to address and debate and hopefully remove the language in support of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy as a part of the platform, particularly because ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in August of 2012 will not exist as a policy,” Berle said. “And it will not exist as a policy because of the support of Republican United States Senators such as Susan Collins and Scott Brown.”
Berle noted that there could be opportunities at the convention level that would expand rights for LGBT Americans, such as support for tax parity legislation that removes the penalty on companies and individuals that cover domestic partners through their health care policies.
When speculating about whether or not the Republican Party would finally nominate a candidate that would speak against anti-LGBT voices in the party, GOProud’s Barron said the party already had in John McCain.
“John McCain went to the floor of the Senate and spoke out eloquently against the Federal Marriage Amendment back when that voice actually mattered,” Barron said. “When there were centrist Democrats who were hiding from this issue, John McCain went to the floor and talked about how it is antithetical to everything that the Republican Party was founded on.”
McCain, however, frustrated his pro-LGBT friends in the Republican Party in 2010 when he became the most outspoken voice fighting the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the Senate. The repeal eventually passed, despite the senator’s protests and filibuster threat.
“I’m confident that we’re going to have a nominee that gay conservatives can work with,” Barron said. “It’s very early in the process, but at the end of the day we’re going to have somebody that gay conservatives can support.”
New York
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
‘Our flag represents dignity and human rights’
A Pride flag was raised at the site of the Stonewall National Monument days after a National Park Service directive banned flying the flag at the birthplace of the LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S.
The flag-raising was led by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and supported by other elected officials.
“The community should rejoice. We have prevailed,” Hoylman-Sigal said shortly after the flag was hoisted. “Our flag represents dignity and human rights.”
The flag now sits in Christopher Street Park, feet away from the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969 a police raid of the gay bar sparked outrage and led to a rising of LGBTQ people pushing back on NYPD brutality and unjust treatment.
Elected officials brought a new flagpole with them, using plastic zip ties to attach it to the existing pole.
In 2016, President Barack Obama declared the site a national monument.
One day before the planned re-raising of the Pride flag, the National Park Service installed only an American flag on the flagpole, which days prior had flown a rainbow flag bearing the NPS logo.
The directive removing the flag was put forward by Trump-appointed National Park Service Acting Director Jessica Bowron.
This comes one day after more than 20 LGBTQ organizations from across the country co-signed a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and General Services Administrator Ed Forst, demanding the flag be restored to the monument.
“It is our understanding that the policy provides limited exceptions for non-agency flags that provide historical context or play a role in historic reenactments. Simply put, we urge you to grant this flag an exception and raise it once again, immediately,” the letter read. “It also serves as an important reminder to the 30+ million LGBTQ+ Americans, who continue to face disproportionate threats to our lives and our liberty, that the sites and symbols that tell our stories are worth honoring … However, given recent removals of the site’s references to transgender and bisexual people — people who irrefutably played a pivotal role in this history — it is clear that this is not about the preservation of the historical record.”
The letter finished with a message of resilience the LGBTQ community is known for: “The history and the legacy of Stonewall must live on. Our community cannot simply be erased with the removal of a flag. We will continue to stand up and fight to ensure that LGBTQ+ history should not only be protected — it should be celebrated as a milestone in American resilience and progress.”
When asked about the directive, the NPS responded with this statement:
“Current Department of the Interior policy provides that the National Park Service may only fly the U.S. flag, Department of the Interior flags, and the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action flag on flagpoles and public display points. The policy allows limited exceptions, permitting non-agency flags when they serve an official purpose. These include historical context or reenactments, current military branch flags, flags of federally recognized tribal nations affiliated with a park, flags at sites co-managed with other federal, state, or municipal partners, flags required for international park designations, and flags displayed under agreements with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for Naturalization ceremonies.”
An Interior Department spokesperson on Thursday called the move to return the flag to the monument a “political stunt.”
“Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing,” a department spokesperson said when reached for comment.
The clash comes amid broader efforts by the Trump-Vance administration to minimize LGBTQ history and political power. The White House has spent much of President Donald Trump’s second presidency restricting transgender rights — stopping gender-affirming care for transgender youth, issuing an executive order stating the federal government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and blocking Medicaid and Medicare from being used for gender-affirming care.
State Department
FOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
Council for Global Equality, Physicians for Human Rights seeking data, documents
The Council for Global Equality and Physicians for Human Rights have filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department for PEPFAR-related data and documents.
The groups, which Democracy Forward represents, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR. UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima last March said PEPFAR has saved 26 million lives around the world.
The Trump-Vance administration in January 2025 froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of gaps in U.S. funding. HIV/AIDS activists have also sharply criticized the Trump-Vance administration over reported plans it will not fully fund PEPFAR in the current fiscal year.
The lawsuit notes the Council for Global Equality and Physicians for Human Rights have “filed several FOIA requests” with the State Department for PEPFAR-related data and documents. The groups filed their most recent request on Jan. 30.
“On Jan. 30, 2026, plaintiffs, through counsel, sent State a letter asking it to commit to prompt production of the requested records,” reads the lawsuit. “State responded that the request was being processed but did not commit to any timeline for production.”
“Plaintiffs have received no subsequent communication from State regarding this FOIA request,” it notes.
“Transparency and inclusion have been hallmarks of PEPFAR’s success in the last decade,” said Beirne Roose-Snyder, a senior policy fellow at the Council for Global Equality, in a press release that announced the lawsuit. “This unprecedented withholding of data, and concurrent ideological misdirection of foreign assistance to exclude LGBTQI+ people and others who need inclusive programming, has potentially devastating and asymmetrical impacts on already marginalized communities.”
“This data is vital to understanding who’s getting access to care and who’s being left behind,” added Roose-Snyder.
“We filed this lawsuit to seek transparency: the administration’s PEPFAR data blackout withholds information the public, health providers, and affected communities need to track the HIV epidemic and prevent avoidable illness and death, obscuring the true human cost of these policy decisions,” said Physicians for Human Rights Research, Legal, and Advocacy Director Payal Shah.
The State Department has yet to respond to the Blade’s request for comment on the lawsuit.
New York
N.Y. lawmaker vows ‘Pride flag will fly again’ at Stonewall Monument
After a Jan. 21 policy shift, Pride flags were banned at national parks, prompting backlash from Bottcher and LGBTQ advocates.
Hours after news broke that the National Park Service would no longer allow Pride flags to fly at the Stonewall National Monument — the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the United States — the Washington Blade spoke with New York State Sen. Erik Bottcher, who represents the area surrounding the Stonewall Inn and the national monument.
During the interview, Bottcher, who is gay, spoke about the policy change and outlined steps he plans to take in the coming days to push for its reversal.
“This is another act of erasure,” Bottcher told the Blade. “It’s a cowardly attempt to rewrite history and to intimidate our community. This is Stonewall — it’s where we fought back, where we ignited a global movement for equality — and we refuse to go back. We’re not going to accept these acts of erasure.”
The Stonewall Inn became a flashpoint in 1969 after NYPD officers raided the bar, part of a longstanding pattern of police harassment of LGBTQ spaces. The raid sparked days of protest and resistance along Christopher Street, now widely recognized as the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
While the events are often referred to as the “Stonewall Riots,” many activists and historians prefer the term “Stonewall Uprising,” emphasizing that the resistance was a response to systemic oppression rather than senseless violence. LGBTQ patrons and community members fought back — shouting “Gay Power!” and “Liberate Christopher Street!” — as crowds grew and frustration with police abuse boiled over.
Since the uprising, LGBTQ people and allies have gathered annually in June to commemorate Stonewall and to celebrate Pride, honoring the movement that placed LGBTQ voices at the center of the fight for equality.
In June 2016, then President Barack Obama officially designated the space as the Stonewall National Monument, making it the United States’s first national monument designated for an LGBTQ historic site.
Now, nearly 10 years later, President Trump’s appointed NPS acting director Jessica Bowron changed policy on Jan. 21 regarding which flags are allowed to be flown in national parks. Many, including Bottcher, say this is part of a larger targeted and deliberate attempt by the administration to erase LGBTQ history.
“It’s clear they’re making a conscious decision to erase the symbols of our community from a monument to our community’s struggle,” he said. “This is a calculated and premeditated decision, and it could be — and should be — reversed.”
“Let’s be clear,” Bottcher added, “they wish we didn’t exist … But we’re not going anywhere. We refuse to go back into the shadows.”
When asked why it is critical to challenge the policy, Bottcher emphasized the importance of visibility in preserving LGBTQ history.
“This is why it’s so important that we not let this stand,” he said. “Visibility is critical. When people see us, learn about us, and get to know us, that’s how we break down prejudice and stereotypes. We cannot allow them to push us back into the shadows.”
Other LGBTQ leaders and elected officials were quick to condemn the removal of the Pride flag, which had flown since the site’s official designation as a national monument.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the decision “outrageous.”
“I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani said in a statement. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change or silence that history.”
“Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to live up to it,” he added. “I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbors — without exception.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also condemned the move.
“The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed immediately,” Schumer said in a statement to The Advocate. “Stonewall is a landmark because it is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and symbols of that legacy belong there by both history and principle.”
Cathy Renna, communications director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said the flag’s removal will not erase the movement it represents.
“They can take down a flag, but they can’t take down our history,” Renna said. “Stonewall is sacred ground rooted in resistance, liberation, and the legacy of trans and queer trailblazers who changed the course of history.”
Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf echoed that sentiment.
“Bad news for the Trump administration: these colors don’t run,” Wolf said. “The Stonewall Inn and Visitors Center are privately owned, their flags are still flying high, and that community is just as queer today as it was yesterday.”
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, said the removal was aimed squarely at LGBTQ visibility.
“The Pride flag was removed from Stonewall for one reason: to further erase queer and trans people from public life,” Hack said. “Stonewall marks the moment when queer and trans people fought back and demanded dignity. Our history is not theirs to erase.”
Bottcher closed with a promise to his constituents — and to the broader LGBTQ community — that the Pride flag’s removal would not be permanent.
“We will not be erased. We will not be silenced,” he said. “And the Pride flag will fly again at the birthplace of our movement.”
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