National
Cain drops out of presidential race
Gay groups on right and left say candidate had to go
Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Faced with accusations of an extramarital affair and a past of sexual misconduct, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain announced Saturday he is suspending his campaign for the White House as LGBT groups on the right and left say he needed to move aside.
The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO made the announcement at his Atlanta campaign headquarters amid media reports that was reassessing whether to stay in the race.
“As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul-searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign,” Cain said. “I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family.”
Cain said becoming president for him was “Plan A,” and under “Plan B,” he will continue to be “a voice for the people” and articulate policy ideas on his new website, TheCainSolutions.com.
According to Slate political correspondent John Dickerson, by suspending his presidential bid as opposed to ending it, Cain is eligible for federal matching funds for his campaign.
The pizza magnate exited the race after Ginger White, an Atlanta businesswoman, announced in a TV interview this week that she had engaged in a 13-year affair with Cain. In October, Politico reported that at least two women had accused him of sexual misconduct while head of the National Restaurant Association in 1990s. Cain has denied any wrongdoing.
For a time in October, Cain had enjoyed front-runner status in the GOP presidential race, but he fell to the bottom of the pack after the initial reporting of allegations of sexual misconduct. Now former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has claimed the title of front-runner, although former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney remains the best funded Republican in the race.
Cain was best known in this campaign for what he called his “9-9-9” plan for tax reform, which would replace the current tax code with a 9 percent personal income tax, a 9 percent business transactions tax, and a 9 percent federal sales tax.
Gay Republican groups had praised Cain’s ability to initiate discussion on tax reform with his plan, but shared the sentiment that the time was now for him to move aside.
Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, said he was sorry to see Cain leave because of his emphasis on economic issues.
“Herman Cain’s laser focus on jobs, the economy, the size of government, and all the issues most important to all of us was good for the debate,” LaSalvia said. “I’m sorry to see him out of the race, but it was clear that his campaign could not go on.”
Christian Berle, deputy executive director for National Log Cabin Republicans, said Cain’s decision to leave the race enables Republicans to find the best candidate to beat President Obama.
“Herman Cain’s decision to step aside allows the primary process to move forward and enables the Republican field to continue its focus on the issues voters care about — jobs and the economy,” Berle said. “A Republican in the White House is going to get our economy and our nation moving in the right direction.”
On LGBT issues, Cain was initially distinct among other Republican candidates because he declined to support a Federal Marriage Amendment that would ban same-sex marriage throughout the country and said the matter should be left to the states.
Also, unlike Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) or former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Cain said he has no problem with open gays in the military and wouldn’t seek to reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
But Cain apparently later shifted his position on the Federal Marriage Amendment when he said marriage “should be protected at the federal level also” and he would back legislation defining it as one man, one woman.
In a January radio interview, Cain also said he’d veto the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The candidate also came under fire in October for saying that he believes homosexuality is a choice and science hasn’t proven otherwise.
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said Cain’s exit from the race is appropriate from someone who chose to side with anti-gay forces.
“It never ceases to surprise me how those who throw LGBT people under the bus are often the ones run over by the same bus,” Sainz said. “Often confused on his own positions, Cain eventually chose to side with anti-LGBT forces. The fact his run ends because of his own moral failings is ironic but unfortunately altogether too common among this field of Republican presidential candidates.”
Jerame Davis, interim executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said Cain demonstrated over the course of his campaign he “just doesn’t have the policy chops” to lead the country.
“Now, with these revelations about his past that make Newt Gingrich look like a model husband, he has little choice but to switch to ‘Plan B,'” Davis said. “It’s too bad ‘Plan B’ is just a rehash of ‘Plan A’ without the presidential aspirations.”
One lingering question is where Cain’s support in the Republican presidential race will go now that he’s made an exit — or if the former candidate will endorse another Republican in the race.
Dan Pinello, a gay political science professor at the City University of New York, said Cain’s exit will have “minimal effect on the presidential election” because he didn’t have the strength in the polls he once enjoyed.
According to a poll published Thursday by Rasmussen Reports, Cain had support from just 8 percent of likely voters in the Republican primary.
Still, Pinello predicted that what little support Cain had would shift to Gingrich as social conservatives continue to push against handing Romney the Republican banner in 2012.
“As a result, the Gingrich-Romney match-up will be more competitive than it would have been had Cain remained in the game,” Pinello said. “Thus, what so far has been a Republican free-for-all will quickly transform into a two-person slugfest for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.”
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
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.”
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D.C. LGBTQ bars ‘hanging in there’ amid tough economy
Japan’s first female prime minister reluctant to advance LGBTQ rights
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PHOTOS: Whitman-Walker Gala
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Harford school board appeals state’s book ban decision to circuit court
Calendar: November 14-20
