National
A preview of tonight’s State of the Union
Will president again mention LGBT issues in annual speech?
UPDATE: A gay rights advocate, speaking on condition of anonymity, said LGBT-specific content in the State of the Union address is not expected. According to the source, Obama’s speech will have “maybe a mention of LGBT,” but no LGBT-specific policy initiatives will be discussed.
Leaders of state LGBT advocacy groups working to advance marriage equality legislation say President Obama can a make a big speech tonight even bigger by throwing his support behind marriage rights for gay couples.
Obama is set to deliver before a joint session of Congress his third State of the Union address at 9 p.m.
As Obama makes the finishing touches to his speech, LGBT advocates in states across the country — most notably in Washington State, Maryland and New Jersey — are preparing for legislative fights to advance marriage rights for gay couples.
Passing same-sex marriage legislation in these states has various challenges. Marriage in Washington State and Maryland could go to referendum after the governors there sign the legislation into law, while New Jersey’s governor has previously said he’d veto any such bill.
State advocacy groups working on same-sex marriage legislation say an announcement from President Obama in support of marriage equality could give them an edge in their fights. The president, who doesn’t support same-sex marriage, said his view could “evolve,” but he hasn’t yet declared support for marriage rights for gay couples.
Josh Friedes, marriage equality director for Equal Rights Washington, said personal conversation is what drives support for same-sex marriage and that a public endorsement from Obama during the State of the Union address would certainly get tongues wagging.
“If the president of the United States were to announce support for marriage equality, his words would serve as a catalyst for millions of conversations,” Friedes said. “And that’s what we need in Washington State as we contemplate the likelihood of a referendum on a marriage bill this fall. Indeed there is probably no person who can better increase the number of conversations than the president.”
The bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington found the needed support among lawmakers this week to reach Gov. Christine Gregoire’s (D) desk, but the possibility of the law being overturned later this year in a voter-initiated referendum still looms.
Friedes added that Obama is respected as “a family man” and his support for marriage equality “could open the hearts of many people to revaluate their own positions.”
“But mostly if the president announces support for marriage equality it’s on us to use the event as an opportunity to share our personal stories,” Friedes said.
Carrie Evans, executive director of Equality Maryland, had similar thoughts on the helpfulness of Obama declaring support for marriage equality during his speech, which is happening the day after Gov. Martin O’Malley introduced same-sex marriage legislation in that state’s legislature.
“If President Obama voices his support for marriage equality in his State of the Union address it will add even more momentum to our efforts in Maryland and help us get the bill over the finish line,” Evans said.
A national group that has been pushing for Obama to endorse same-sex marriage continues to apply pressure as the American public awaits the president’s remarks tonight.
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said the day Obama joins the majority of Americans — who, according to polls, now support same-sex marriage — will be “a meaningful day for families who cherish the love and commitment that make marriage matter.”
“It will also be a really a good day for the president, as he will tap into the political momentum and energy that come to candidates who do the right thing,” Wolfson added.
Whether the president will endorse marriage equality during his speech remains to be seen. As the nation continues to recover from a recession and the unemployment rate remains above 8 percent, Obama will focus his speech on improving the economy.
In a conference call with reporters on Monday, senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama would lay out a blueprint in the speech that includes four pillars to improve the economy: manufacturing, energy, skills for workers and fairness and responsibility.
“We need an American economy where everyone gets a fair shot, where everyone gets a fair shake, and where everybody does their fair share,” a senior administration official said. “And those are the kinds of things that will be reinforced in the State of the Union.”
On Friday, when asked by the Washington Blade whether Obama would announce support same-sex marriage in the speech, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he wouldn’t rule “in or out” the possibility of the president endorsing gay nuptials during the address.
Obama has incorporated LGBT issues in his State of the Union speech in previous instances. In 2010, he pledged to work with Congress and the military to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” In 2011, Obama promised to certify repeal to lift the gay ban from the books before the end of the year — and later fulfilled that pledge.
According to Politico, the Human Rights Campaign has this year “pushed Obama to mention the LGBT community in his list of accomplishments and policy proposals.”
Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, reportedly told Politico, “The inclusion of our community in those laundry lists in any part of the speech helps us tremendously in being thought of as a vital part of the American fabric.”
But Michael Cole-Schwartz, another HRC spokesperson, told the Blade on Monday that he doesn’t “have anything” on the inclusion of LGBT-specific language in this year’s State of the Union address.
At least one workplace rights advocate is pushing Obama to address the lack of federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people in his speech.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said he hopes Obama will take the opportunity to “mention how LGBT Americans have no federal law to protect us from irrational firings and harassment on the job.”
“By delivering this message, the president can help us do some important public education, given that 90 percent of American voters mistakenly think ENDA is already the law of the land,” Almeida said.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is legislation that has stalled in Congress and would prohibit private and public employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Almeida called on Obama to announce during the State of the Union address that he would issue an executive order barring federal dollars from going to contractors that don’t have non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers.
“President Obama has the power to change that by just putting pen to paper, without any need to wait for this dysfunctional Congress to do the right thing,” Almeida said. “Even if he does not announce the ENDA executive order during the State of the Union, I remain hopeful the president will take strong executive action very soon.”
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.
Adams Morgan queer bar broken into and vandalized
‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Calendar: May 23-29
Comings & Goings
New doc chronicles gay hero’s journey from rape to forgiveness
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances
