National
Democratic win preserves marriage rights in Iowa
Mathis claims victory in State Senate special election
A Democratic candidate won a special election on Tuesday for a seat in the Iowa State Senate — a victory that will preserve marriage rights in the state.
Liz Mathis, a former TV news anchor, won her bid to represent Iowa’s 18th District in the State Senate against Republican Cindy Golding, a businessperson. According to the Iowa Independent, Mathis claimed the seat by taking 55.8 percent of the vote compared to 43.5 percent won by Golding.
“I pledge to the voters of this district: I will go to the Capitol and fight for you every day. I will be your voice in the state Senate,” Mathis said after her win Tuesday night, according to the Des Moines Register.
Democrats held a narrow 25-24 majority in the State Senate. A Republican win would have resulted in a tie in the leadership vote and thrown control of the chamber into question.
The race was of interest to LGBT advocates because Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D) has said a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage — instituted in Iowa by court order in 2009 — won’t come up as long he’s in control of the chamber. With him out of power, the Senate could have voted on a measure that the Republican-controlled House approved in February banning both same-sex marriage and marriage-like unions.
Golding said she would have voted in favor of the measure, which would have brought marriage rights for gay couples up to a vote before the electorate, while Mathis said she supports the court decision instituting marriage rights for same-sex couples.
Troy Price, executive director of One Iowa, called Mathis’ win “a great victory for Iowans” in a statement.
“Voters in this district clearly rejected the mean-spirited and misleading attacks of our opposition that we saw right up until the polls closed on Election Day,” Price said. “Instead, voters elected the candidate they felt would best move our state forward.”
On the day of the election, a robocall was sent to voters saying Mathis “endorses homosexual marriage.” The call continued, “Homosexual marriage obviously involves homosexual sex. So, before you support Liz Mathis, call her … and ask her which homosexual sex acts she endorses.” Golding said her campaign had nothing to do with the robocalls.
Price continued that although the election is over, the “battle is far from over” to preserve marriage rights in the Hawkeye State.
“Now, the focus turns to the coming legislative session where we fully expect the opponents of equality to redouble their efforts to take away the rights of loving, committed gay and lesbian couples,” Price said. “One Iowa will be there to stand up for marriage equality at every turn, and we are excited to work with the fair-minded Senate majority to ensure that freedom and equality remains in the heart of the heartland.”
In the wake of the election, national LGBT groups praised Mathis’ win and said her victory means voters were able to reject anti-gay attacks and elect a fair-minded candidate.
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, called the election of the Democratic candidate “a tremendous victory for the state of Iowa.”
“The voters rebuffed the anti-gay attacks that sought to make undoing the freedom to marry a critical factor in the race, and instead elected a candidate who supports the freedom to marry for all Iowa families,” Wolfson said.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, also praised the win in a statement.
“The marriage issue is settled, voters clearly care about issues directly affecting their everyday lives,” Solmonese said. “Today’s election serves as a message that it’s time to get on with the people’s business.”
Both anti-gay and pro-LGBT national groups had a role in producing the election results. On the anti-gay side, the National Organization for Marriage launched an independent expenditure campaign in favor of Golding and distributed mailers highlighting both candidates’ positions on marriage. Golding also accepted an endorsement from the anti-gay Family Research Council.
According to a statement, HRC endorsed Mathis and placed five full-time field organizers in the district during the final weeks of the campaign. These organizers performed campaign duties for the state Democratic Party and mobilized residents in the district to volunteer and vote in the special election.
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill that reopens the federal government.
Six Democrats — U.S. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Adam Gray (D-Calif.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) — voted for the funding bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two Republicans — Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Greg Steube (R-Fla.) — opposed it.
The 43-day shutdown is over after eight Democratic senators gave in to Republicans’ push to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act. According to CNBC, the average ACA recipient could see premiums more than double in 2026, and about one in 10 enrollees could lose a premium tax credit altogether.
These eight senators — U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — sided with Republicans to pass legislation reopening the government for a set number of days. They emphasized that their primary goal was to reopen the government, with discussions about ACA tax credits to continue afterward.
None of the senators who supported the deal are up for reelection.
King said on Sunday night that the Senate deal represents “a victory” because it gives Democrats “an opportunity” to extend ACA tax credits, now that Senate Republican leaders have agreed to hold a vote on the issue in December. (The House has not made any similar commitment.)
The government’s reopening also brought a win for Democrats’ other priorities: Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn in after a record-breaking delay in swearing in, eventually becoming the 218th signer of a discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
This story is being updated as more information becomes available.
PHOTOS: Cheers to Out Sports!
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy paved the way for today’s transgender rights revolution
Chilean presidential election outcome to determine future of LGBTQ rights in country
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
Could lower rates, lagging condo sales lure buyers to the table?
Pro-trans candidates triumph despite millions in transphobic ads
Democratic Socialism won’t win the whole country
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Federal government reopens
