National
Federal funds used to support anti-gay efforts in Iowa
$2.2 million aided group’s marriage campaign
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to directly respond Monday to a recent media report revealing that $2.2 million in federal money that had gone to an Iowa group aided in its efforts to undo marriage equality in the state.
In response to a question from the Washington Blade, Carney said he was unaware of the Associated Press report about the issue and declined to say whether the Obama administration has a problem with federal resources being used for that purpose.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” Carney said. “I’ll have to take that question.”
Carney also demurred when asked about the idea of President Obama issuing an executive order that would bar the use of federal funds for discriminatory efforts against LGBT Americans as a means to address the issue.
“I don’t have any — I mean, you’re asking a hypothetical about an executive order that doesn’t exist,” Carney said.
MORE IN THE BLADE: DEMOCRATIC WIN PRESERVES MARRIAGE RIGHTS IN IOWA
Last week, AP reported that $2.2 million in a federal grant received by the group — now known as the FAMiLY LEADER — between 2006 and 2010 for marriage counseling purposes also helped pay some operational expenses while the organization was leading a campaign against same-sex marriage. The information was found through grant documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The grant money reportedly helped the group — then known as the Iowa Family Policy Center — provide marriage counseling and education for hundreds of state residents. But the grant money also contributed to the salaries of five employees, rent, telephone, Internet and other expenses while the group was fighting same-sex marriage in Iowa.
The AP also quotes an anonymous University of Iowa researcher who was a consultant on the grant as saying the group declined to provide same-sex couples education and counseling with the funds.
After the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, the FAMiLY LEADER was vocal in opposition to gay nuptials. The group wanted to block the ruling from taking effect and called on the state legislature to amend Iowa’s constitution to bar same-sex marriage.
The group supported last year in the Republican race for governor Bob Vander Plaats, who vowed to sign an executive order to overturn the marriage ruling. After losing to current Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad in the GOP primary, Vander Plaats led the campaign in 2010 that successfully ousted via referendum three of the justices who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.
The FAMiLY LEADER didn’t immediately respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the AP reporting or whether the organization believes efforts against same-sex marriage were an appropriate use of the grant. According to AP, the Department of Health & Human Services officials approved the grant budget, and there’s no indication the costs violated federal guidelines.
The information that $2.2 million in federal money went to the FAMiLY LEADER isn’t new. Reporter Andy Kopsa of the Washington Independent reported in April that the group received this money through the U.S. Healthy Marriage Demonstration Fund as part of a total of more than $3 million in grants.
But the AP report confirms that these funds aided efforts against same-sex marriage in Iowa and offers details on initiatives and employees working on that campaign who received money as a result of this grant.
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, criticized the use of federal money to rescind marriage rights in Iowa.
“This appears to be an outrageous abuse of taxpayer money, in which funding intended to help support married couples was diverted into an attack on married couples, discrimination against some married couples, and a partisan political agenda that is anything but charitable,” Wolfson said.
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, deferred further comment from the Obama administration on the AP report to HHS.
Richard Sorian, assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS, said the FAMiLY LEADER received its five-year grant in 2006 under a 2005 law signed by former President George W. Bush. But after the President Obama took office in 2009, Sorian said the organization declined the fifth year of its grant — citing “restraints” under the Obama administration — without identifying any restraint in particular.
“The key fact is they’re no longer a grantee and they pulled out of program after we began to review each grantee,” Sorian said. “It wasn’t just that grantee, all grantees were on an active-basis review to make sure that they were doing what they had asked for funds to do.”
Because the organization is no longer a grantee, Sorian said the administration is unable to investigate the FAMiLY LEADER for its use of federal funds.
Still, Sorian said the FAMiLY LEADER’s use of federal funds for its work against same-sex marriage wouldn’t have been appropriate. To receive the grant, Sorian said the FAMiLY LEADER had to propose what it would do with federal funds and how much money it wanted for each activity. But Sorian said campaigning against same-sex marriage wasn’t listed as among its proposals, so federal funds “could not be used for that purpose.”
The AP report isn’t the only media outlet indicating that federal funds could be used to harm or discriminate against LGBT Americans.
In July, Bachmann & Associates, the Minnesota Christian-faith clinic co-owned by Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and operated by her husband, Marcus Bachmann, was revealed to have engaged in widely discredited ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy. The clinic received $137,000 in Medicaid funds since 2005, although it’s unclear if this money paid for reparative therapy.
The Washington Independent also reported in February that Project SOS, a Jacksonville, Miss., based abstinence education program has received more than $6.5 million in federal funds since 2002. Several watchdog organizations have cited the group for spreading false information about HIV/AIDS. Additionally, Project SOS is a supporter of Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, a supporter of legislation that would institute the death penalty in the country for homosexual acts.
In response to such reporting, some LGBT advocates have called for an executive order specifically prohibiting the use of federal funds to discriminate against LGBT Americans.
Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters, said the AP report from last week demonstrates the need for such a directive.
“We have sought for some time now an executive order specifically baring the use of federal funds for anti-gay purposes and this report again makes perfectly clear why it’s needed,” Socarides said.
Responding to a request for comment on such an order, Inouye said, “The president continues to examine steps the federal government can take to help secure equal rights for LGBT Americans. While I can’t speak to this specific proposal, we’ve already taken steps such as extending benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of federal employees and ensuring equal access to [Department of Housing & Urban Development] programs, and we hope to continue making progress.”
NOTE: This article has been updated.
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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