National
Chicago’s Cardinal George: gays ‘invited obvious comparison’ with K.K.K.
Growing calls for resignation may lead to rare backtracking on LGBT issues by historically anti-gay leader
Cardinal George fears a parade route that takes revelers past Our Lady of Mt. Carmel church near Boystown will 'morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan.' (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
On Tuesday, the Archdiocese of Chicago released a statement on behalf of the Cardinal in response to the uproar over several comments from the Cardinal over the past several weeks that compared revelers in the 2012 Chicago Pride parade with the Ku Klux Klan.
Last week, the Cardinal seemed to be backing away from the statement, but Tuesday’s statement stoked the coals of controversy anew.
“The Chicago Gay Pride Parade has been organized and attended for many years without interfering with the worship of God in a Catholic church,” the statement, which sought to clarify the Cardinal’s statements, began. “When the 2012 Parade organizers announced a time and route change this year, it was apparent that the Parade would interfere with divine worship in a Catholic parish on the new route.”
However, the next few sentences in the statement are causing more organizations to line up behind those LGBT groups that have already began calling on the Cardinal to resign.
“When the pastor’s request for reconsideration of the plans was ignored, the organizers invited an obvious comparison to other groups who have historically attempted to stifle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church,” the statement continued. “One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940’s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus. It is not a precedent anyone should want to emulate.”
The Cardinal was already under fire for the initial Ku Klux Klan statement, last week.
“You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism,” the Cardinal said on a Chicago Fox affiliate last week.
“Part of the issue here is that [Cardinal] George still needs to take responsibility for his comments, and apologize,” said Anthony Martinez, Executive Director of Illinois LGBT group, the Civil Rights Agenda. “Until that happens, I don’t see that the community of Catholics here in Illinois may be able to heal. This is sort of an open wound now, and the fact that he’s only reiterating his stance is disheartening to say the least. Especially for LGBT Catholics.”
On whether or not relations were now souring between the LGBT community and the previously welcoming Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish, Martinez hopes that reconciliation is possible.
“He was the one who initiated these calls,” Martinez said of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel’s pastor Father Thomas Srenn’s calls for the parade start time to be changed so that Sunday morning services would not conflict. “Of course the hierarchy of the Church often decides how a priest should approach these issues. In the past he has been very supportive of the LGBT community, and they have a whole LGBT section of their parish that are in fellowship with each other, so I would venture to say that the church is still supportive. Hopefully the priest is still supportive of these issues, however these last few weeks its definitely not clear to me that he is.”
Last week, Tracy Baim, the editor of Chicago’s LGBT newspaper, The Windy City Times, took the unprecedented step to call for the Cardinal’s resignation.
“In comparing the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan — in his remarks about the potential disruption and inconvenience of the new Pride Parade route and start time — Cardinal George has gone too far, and he should graciously apologize, and step down from his post,” Baim wrote in the editorial. “Other religious facilities have long endured the Pride Parade passing their doors on Pride Sunday, with no “anti-religious” problems reported in four decades. In fact, religious groups, including gay Catholics, have been a part of Pride almost since it first began. Ironically, the KKK did march against the Pride Parade in its early years, and many spiritual people helped counter their presence.”
The continuous refusal by the Archdiocese to disavow the comments, for for the Cardinal to apologized have sparked rage in the LGBT community in Chicago, as well as with their allies in the region and around the nation. The Cardinal, on the other hand, has only stood by his own statements.
“If you organize a parade that looks like parades we’ve had in our past because it stops us from worshiping God, well then that’s the comparison,” he told a Chicago NBC affiliate this week.
“I’ve sort of held off calling for his resignation, but after the statement yesterday he’s showing that he’s completely disassociated the laypeople within the Catholic church,” Martinez told NBC in response Wednesday.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, who took the Chicago Fox affiliate to task over re-airing the original comments on Christmas day, report that nearly 75% of Catholics are supportive of equal protections for LGBT people.
“In fact, there are a vast number of gay and transgender people who are devout Catholics,” the statement from GLAAD reads. “The LGBT movement is in no way anti-Catholic.”
The the letter reinforced the comparisons between the LGBT community and the Ku Klux Klan, the tone of the Cardinal’s statement, however, did shift abruptly to the conciliatory in the second paragraph.
“It is terribly wrong and sinful that gays and lesbians have been harassed and subjected to psychological and even physical harm,” it said. “These tragedies can be addressed, however, without disturbing the organized and orderly public worship of God in a country that claims to be free. I am grateful that all parties concerned resolved this problem by moving the Parade’s start time so as not to conflict with the celebration of Mass that Sunday.”
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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