National
Romney touts work against marriage equality as Mass. guv
‘We fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage’


Mitt Romney speaking before attendees at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney touted his work against marriage equality as Massachusetts governor and pledged to continue his opposition to same-sex marriage as president in a speech Friday before a conservative conference in D.C.
Speaking before attendees at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference, Romney said the Massachusetts state supreme court “inexplicably” found a right to same-sex marriage in 2003. The candidate suggested finding such right would be contrary to the intentions of Founder John Adams, the author of the state constitution.
Romney said he pushed for a stay in that decision and called for an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage, which he said lost “by only one vote in the legislature.”
The candidate also touted his resurrection of a 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts. That law was later repealed under Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick.
“I successfully prohibited out-of-state couples from coming to our state to get married, and then going home,” Romney said. “On my watch, we fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage.”
Kara Suffredini, executive director of MassEquality, said Romney is distorting what happened by saying the marriage amendment lost “by only one vote” because a supermajority of lawmakers in the legislature voted to preserve marriage equality and against bringing marriage to the ballot.
It takes the votes of two consecutive legislatures to place a citizen-initiated measure on the ballot. The Romney-backed marriage amendment passed the first time around in January 2007, but failed the second time later that year.
In June 2007, 151 legislators opposed the amendment and 45 supported it, while four legislators were absent or abstained from voting, falling more than one vote short of the 50 votes required to advance the measure to the November 2008 ballot.
“Abstentions don’t count as a ‘yes’; I think it’s fair to say [Romney is] misstating the facts,” Suffredini said. “Opponents of marriage equality and their public face, Gov. Romney, failed to garner even 25 percent support among lawmakers to send a constitutional amendment to repeal marriage equality to the ballot.”
Romney’s remarks generated significance from the applause that packed the hall at the Marriott Woodley Park hotel. The candidate then said he’d continue this opposition to same-sex marriage, pledging to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court and back a Federal Marriage Amendment.
“When I am president, I will defend the Defense of Marriage Act and I will fight for an amendment to our Constitution that defines marriage as relationship between a man and a woman,” Romney said, eliciting even greater applause.
The candidate is among the GOP candidates who’s signed a pledge from the National Organization for Marriage committing himself to defend DOMA in court, support a U.S. constitutional amendment banning marriage equality and establish a commission on “religious liberty” to investigate harassment of same-sex marriage opponents.
Romney added during his speech that he would rollback regulations that President Obama put in place that he said attack religious liberty. While he didn’t mention any LGBT initiative, such measures could include the order mandating hospitals grant visitation rights to same-sex couples.
Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, said his organization is “deeply disappointed” in Romney’s speech.
“Instead of simply saying that he opposed gay marriage, Romney instead chose to play to the ugliest and most divisive impulses in this country,” LaSalvia said. “If he thinks this is the way to appeal to Tea Party conservatives who have reservations about his candidacy, he is dead wrong.”
LaSalvia, who’s personally endorsed Romney, accused the candidate of giving in to a culture war, which he said is the tactic of progressive activists.
“The left wants a culture war, because they can’t defend this president’s record of failure on the economy,” LaSalvia said. “Conservatives shouldn’t give them the fight they want – and that’s exactly what Mitt Romney did today.”
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, said he spoke with Romney after the speech when the candidate came down from the stage to shake hands with people in the front row of the audience.
“I told Gov. Romney that he ‘gave a solid speech with [the] exception of defending DOMA,'” Cooper said. “He responded ‘I know we disagree on this.’ My response before parting was a reminder that “we will continue to to work to defeat DOMA.”
Watch the video here (via Think Progress)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuDCPhJZwpY&feature=player_embedded
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.