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.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Judge temporarily blocks executive orders targeting LGBTQ, HIV groups
Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in federal court
A federal judge on Monday blocked the enforcement of three of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that would have threatened to defund nonprofit organizations providing health care and services for LGBTQ people and those living with HIV.
The preliminary injunction was awarded by Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in a case, San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, filed by Lambda Legal and eight other organizations.
Implementation of the executive orders — two aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion along with one targeting the transgender community — will be halted pending the outcome of the litigation challenging them.
“This is a critical win — not only for the nine organizations we represent, but for LGBTQ communities and people living with HIV across the country,” said Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project director and senior counsel on the case.
“The court blocked anti-equity and anti-LGBTQ executive orders that seek to erase transgender people from public life, dismantle DEI efforts, and silence nonprofits delivering life-saving services,” Abrigo said. “Today’s ruling acknowledges the immense harm these policies inflict on these organizations and the people they serve and stops Trump’s orders in their tracks.”
Tigar wrote, in his 52-page decision, “While the Executive requires some degree of freedom to implement its political agenda, it is still bound by the constitution.”
“And even in the context of federal subsidies, it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous,” he said.
Without the preliminary injunction, the judge wrote, “Plaintiffs face the imminent loss of federal funding critical to their ability to provide lifesaving healthcare and support services to marginalized LGBTQ populations,” a loss that “not only threatens the survival of critical programs but also forces plaintiffs to choose between their constitutional rights and their continued existence.”
The organizations in the lawsuit are located in California (San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLBT Historical Society, and San Francisco Community Health Center), Arizona (Prisma Community Care), New York (The NYC LGBT Community Center), Pennsylvania (Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center), Maryland (Baltimore Safe Haven), and Wisconsin (FORGE).
U.S. Supreme Court
Activists rally for Andry Hernández Romero in front of Supreme Court
Gay asylum seeker ‘forcibly deported’ to El Salvador, described as political prisoner
More than 200 people gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday and demanded the Trump-Vance administration return to the U.S. a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who it “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador.
Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based organization that represents Andry Hernández Romero, is among those who spoke alongside U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Human Rights Campaign Campaigns and Communications Vice President Jonathan Lovitz. Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark, Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett, and Tim Miller are among those who also participated in the rally.
“Andry is a son, a brother. He’s an actor, a makeup artist,” said Toczylowski. “He is a gay man who fled Venezuela because it was not safe for him to live there as his authentic self.”
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” The Trump-Vance administration subsequently “forcibly removed” Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans to El Salvador.
Toczylowski said she believes Hernández remains at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. Toczylowski also disputed claims that Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member.
“Andry fled persecution in Venezuela and came to the U.S. to seek protection. He has no criminal history. He is not a member of the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet because of his crown tattoos, we believe at this moment that he sits in a torture prison, a gulag, in El Salvador,” said Toczylowski. “I say we believe because we have not had any proof of life for him since the day he was put on a U.S. government-funded plane and forcibly disappeared to El Salvador.”
“Andry is not alone,” she added.
Takano noted the federal government sent his parents, grandparents, and other Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II under the Alien Enemies Act. The gay California Democrat also described Hernández as “a political prisoner, denied basic rights under a law that should have stayed in the past.”
“He is not a case number,” said Takano. “He is a person.”
Hernández had been pursuing his asylum case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
A hearing had been scheduled to take place on May 30, but an immigration judge the day before dismissed his case. Immigrant Defenders Law Center has said it will appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.
“We will not stop fighting for Andry, and I know neither will you,” said Toczylowski.
Friday’s rally took place hours after Attorney General Pam Bondi said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador, had returned to the U.S. Abrego will face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.
National
A husband’s story: Michael Carroll reflects on life with Edmund White
Iconic author died this week; ‘no sunnier human in the world’
Unlike most gay men of my generation, I’ve only been to Fire Island twice. Even so, the memory of my first visit has never left me. The scenery was lovely, and the boys were sublime — but what stood out wasn’t the beach or the parties. It was a quiet afternoon spent sipping gin and tonics in a mid-century modern cottage tucked away from the sand and sun.
Despite Fire Island’s reputation for hedonism, our meeting was more accident than escapade. Michael Carroll — a Facebook friend I’d chatted with but never met — mentioned that he and his husband, Ed, would be there that weekend, too. We agreed to meet for a drink. On a whim, I checked his profile and froze. Ed was author Edmund White.
I packed a signed copy of Carroll’s “Little Reef” and a dog-eared hardback of “A Boy’s Own Story,” its spine nearly broken from rereads. I was excited to meet both men and talk about writing, even briefly.
Yesterday, I woke to the news that Ed had passed away. Ironically, my first thought was of Michael.
This week, tributes to Edmund White are everywhere — rightly celebrating his towering legacy as a novelist, essayist, and cultural icon. I’ve read all of his books, and I could never do justice to the scope of a career that defined and chronicled queer life for more than half a century. I’ll leave that to better-prepared journalists.
But in those many memorials, I’ve noticed something missing. When Michael Carroll is mentioned, it’s usually just a passing reference: “White’s partner of thirty years, twenty-five years his junior.” And yet, in the brief time I spent with this couple on Fire Island, it was clear to me that Michael was more than a footnote — he was Ed’s anchor, editor, companion, and champion. He was the one who knew his husband best.
They met in 1995 after Michael wrote Ed a fan letter to tell him he was coming to Paris. “He’d lost the great love of his life a year before,” Michael told me. “In one way, I filled a space. Understand, I worshiped this man and still do.”
When I asked whether there was a version of Ed only he knew, Michael answered without hesitation: “No sunnier human in the world, obvious to us and to people who’ve only just or never met him. No dark side. Psychology had helped erase that, I think, or buffed it smooth.”
Despite the age difference and divergent career arcs, their relationship was intellectually and emotionally symbiotic. “He made me want to be elegant and brainy; I didn’t quite reach that, so it led me to a slightly pastel minimalism,” Michael said. “He made me question my received ideas. He set me free to have sex with whoever I wanted. He vouchsafed my moods when they didn’t wobble off axis. Ultimately, I encouraged him to write more minimalistically, keep up the emotional complexity, and sleep with anyone he wanted to — partly because I wanted to do that too.”
Fully open, it was a committed relationship that defied conventional categories. Ed once described it as “probably like an 18th-century marriage in France.” Michael elaborated: “It means marriage with strong emotion — or at least a tolerance for one another — but no sex; sex with others. I think.”
That freedom, though, was always anchored in deep devotion and care — and a mutual understanding that went far beyond art, philosophy, or sex. “He believed in freedom and desire,” Michael said, “and the two’s relationship.”
When I asked what all the essays and articles hadn’t yet captured, Michael paused. “Maybe that his writing was tightly knotted, but that his true personality was vulnerable, and that he had the defense mechanisms of cheer and optimism to conceal that vulnerability. But it was in his eyes.”
The moment that captured who Ed was to him came at the end. “When he was dying, his second-to-last sentence (garbled then repeated) was, ‘Don’t forget to pay Merci,’ the cleaning lady coming the next day. We had had a rough day, and I was popping off like a coach or dad about getting angry at his weakness and pushing through it. He took it almost like a pack mule.”
Edmund White’s work shaped generations — it gave us language for desire, shame, wit, and liberation. But what lingers just as powerfully is the extraordinary life Ed lived with a man who saw him not only as a literary giant but as a real person: sunny, complex, vulnerable, generous.
In the end, Ed’s final words to his husband weren’t about his books or his legacy. They were about care, decency, and love. “You’re good,” he told Michael—a benediction, a farewell, maybe even a thank-you.
And now, as the world celebrates the prolific writer and cultural icon Edmund White, it feels just as important to remember the man and the person who knew him best. Not just the story but the characters who stayed to see it through to the end.
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