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Santorum sweeps Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado

Anti-gay candidate shows signs of life as Romney falters

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum showed his campaign still has life by sweeping Tuesday’s GOP contests in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado.

In Minnesota, Santorum captured 45 percent of the vote, with Rep. Ron Paul in second at 27 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a distant third with 17 percent. In Missouri, Santorum won 55 percent of the vote to Romney’s 25 percent. In the Colorado caucuses, Santorum beat Romney by five points.

In his victory speech in Missouri, Santorum declared, “Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” and took a dig at Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.

“Your votes today were not just heard loud and wide across the state of Missouri and Minnesota, but they were heard loud and louder all across this country, and particularly in a place that I suspect may be in Massachusetts they were heard particularly loud tonight,” Santorum said.

He added that he is not the conservative alternative to Romney, but the “conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

Jerame Davis, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said Santorum’s wins are evidence the “non-Romney wing” of the GOP is still the dominant force in the party and “yet more proof that Republicans can’t stand Mitt Romney.”

“Conservative Republicans may love Rick Santorum’s unwavering sanctimony and seething anti-intellectualism, but his narrow, regressive brand of politics will turn off independents and even many moderate Republicans,” Davis said.

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, dismissed Santorum’s wins because he said the candidate can’t unify the Republican Party.

“As former RNC chairman Gov. Haley Barbour has observed, ‘purity is the enemy of victory,'” Cooper said “The ability to secure the vote of the general electorate is necessary to succeeding as the Republican nominee. The divisive Rick Santorum is not capable of winning a general election and will not be the Republican nominee.”

The wins for Santorum in Minnesota and Missouri are largely symbolic. Missouri isn’t awarding any delegates at the Republican National Convention. Minnesota and Colorado will award their delegates at a later date.

Still, Santorum’s victory is sure to be a thorn in the side of frontrunner Romney, who last week seemed poised to claim the Republican nomination after his victory in the Nevada caucuses. Observers say Tuesday’s results raise questions about whether Romney can close the deal and win the Republican nomination.

GOProud Executive Director Jimmy LaSalvia, who endorsed Romney, declined to comment on the Santorum wins.

Stonewall’s Davis expressed amusement about the prospects of gay conservatives having to rally around Santorum as the Republican presidential candidate.

“He’ll never be the nominee, but it would definitely be fun to watch gay conservatives contort themselves to find a way to support a Santorum candidacy, wouldn’t it?”

Santorum incorporated anti-gay rhetoric in his Missouri campaign.

Last week, a gay man in Fulton, Missouri, asked Santorum why he thinks gays should face discrimination and not have either marriage or adoption rights.

“Who are you, or any individual to tell me that I don’t have the same rights as anybody else in this country and to put me in a group that I’m discriminated against in the workplace … and in other situations?” the man asked, drawing applause from the audience.

Santorum initially told the questioner he “shouldn’t be discriminated against” and is “entitled to equal treatment under the law.” But Santorum continued that the questioner isn’t entitled to “special treatment under the law,” eliciting even greater applause from those in attendance at the event.

Pressed further by the questioner, Santorum added he shouldn’t have access to marriage because the institution is a “privilege” that only should be offered to couples whose unions “benefit” society.

“Constructions of a relationship that is honored in society — marriage — that’s not a right,” Santorum said. “It’s something that has existed since the beginning of human history, men and women coming together, marrying, every society and civilization that has existed since the history of man, Christian and not, have recognized this institution as an institution where men and women come together for the purposes of forming a natural relationship as God made it to be.”

Santorum said marriage exists for the “purposes of having children and continuing that civilization.”

“Two people who may like each other or may love each other who are same-sex, is that a special relationship?” Santorum said. “Yes it is, but it is not the same relationship that benefits society like a marriage between a man and a woman.”

The results for the next contest will be announced Saturday, when Maine will finish its weeklong caucus. Observers have said Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who has yet to win a contest, may pull off a win in the state.

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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