National
Gingrich signs NOM’s anti-gay marriage pledge
GOP hopeful enjoys front-runner status while making anti-gay commitments
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has penned his name to an anti-gay marriage pledge committing him to back a U.S. constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage and defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
In a statement Thursday, the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, the group behind the pledge, announced Gingrich had joined other Republican hopefuls in signing the document.
Brian Brown, NOM’s president, crowed over securing the former U.S. House speaker’s name to the pledge.
“We commend Newt Gingrich for signing NOM’s presidential marriage pledge, committing himself to play a leadership role as president to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” Brown said.
By signing the document, Gingrich promises upon election as president to undertake several initiatives against same-sex marriage:
• supporting congressional passage and sending to the states a U.S. constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage throughout the country;
• defending in court the Defense of Marriage of Act, a 1996 law that prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage;
• appointing judges and a U.S. attorney general who “will respect the original meaning” of the U.S. Constitution;
• supporting legislation allowing D.C. residents to vote on whether or not to abrogate the District’s same-sex marriage law;
• and appointing a presidential commission on “religious liberty.”
Other GOP candidates — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum — already penned their names to the pledge when NOM first announced it in August. Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed the document later in August after he entered the presidential race.
Notably, when the other presidential candidates signed their names to the pledge, the purpose of the proposed presidential commission was to “appoint a presidential commission to investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters.” But with the announcement of Gingrich signing his name to the pledge, the pledge has been changed to establishing “a presidential commission on religious liberty.” NOM didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on why the change was made.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement criticized Gingrich for aligning himself with NOM and said signing the document puts the candidate “on the wrong side of history.”
“Newt Gingrich’s signature to the NOM marriage pledge is just the latest indicator of how beholden the GOP presidential candidates are to anti-gay groups,” Solmonese said. “The tenets of the NOM pledge are rooted in hatred against LGBT Americans – by signing it, Gingrich and his fellow candidates are distancing themselves from mainstream opinion and taking an astonishingly extremist stance.”
The Gingrich campaign couldn’t be reached for comment on why he decided to sign the pledge.
Signing the NOM pledge is perhaps Gingrich’s strongest statement against marriage rights for gay couples since his candidacy began, but the former House speaker has long been an opponent of such rights. During his tenure as House speaker in the 1990s, Gingrich helped shepherd DOMA through Congress.
Gingrich has been in favor of a Federal Marriage Amendment since at least last year when U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker struck down California’s Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. At the time Gingrich called on Congress “to reaffirm marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy.” He has also been critical of Obama’s decision to drop the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
Just this week, Gingrich sent a letter to the FAMiLY LEADER, an anti-gay group in Iowa, affirming the mission of the organization and pledging to defend DOMA in court and support a Federal Marriage Amendment. In the same letter, he promises to remain faithful to his wife. He’s admitted to committing adultery before.
The letter was in response to the FAMiLY LEADER’s 14-point document known as “THE MARRIAGE VOW: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMILY.” Bachmann, Santorum and Perry have signed the vow. Gingrich said he supports the group’s mission with his letter, but didn’t actually sign the pledge.
Gingrich had initially declined to sign the document, saying some of the language was problematic. The pledge makes a reference to Sharia law and reportedly initially stated children born into slavery in the 1860s were more likely to be raised by two parents than a black child born today. The slavery reference has since been removed.
During an interview Thursday with the Des Moines Register, Gingrich said he would sign legislation reinstating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He also said he believes being gay is a combination of “genetics and environment,” adding people have a “significant range of choice within a genetic pattern.” Asked whether being straight is a choice, Gingrich said, “Look, people choose to be celibate, people choose many things in life.”
Jerame Davis, interim executive director for the National Stonewall Democrats, said Gingrich committing himself to defend marriage is “about the same as Cookie Monster pledging to protect the cookie jar.”
“He certainly has a lot of experience with marriage with three under his belt now, but that does not make him an expert on the subject,” Davis said. “It’s the height of hypocrisy for someone with his marital history to pledge to deny marriage equality to loving gay and lesbian couples.”
Gingrich makes these anti-gay commitments as he continues to enjoy front-runner status among the candidates seeking the Republican nomination to run for the White House. According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll published Wednesday, Gingrich leads Romney among Republican voters nationwide by 28 percent to 18 percent.
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
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.
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Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
