National
Calif. federal court rules against DOMA
Anti-gay law declared unconstitutional in Golinski case
A federal district court in California has declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in a case involving a lesbian federal employee seeking benefits for her spouse.
In a decision made public on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled against DOMA in the case of Golinski v. United States on the basis that the anti-gay law “unconstitutionally discriminates against married same-sex couples.”
“In this matter, the Court finds that DOMA, as applied to Ms. Golinski, violates her right to equal protection of the law under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution by, without substantial justification or rational basis, refusing to recognize her lawful marriage to prevent provision of health insurance coverage to her spouse,” White writes.
As part of the decision, White issued a “permanent injunction” preventing the U.S. government from interfering with the enrollment of Golinski’s wife in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Tara Borelli, staff attorney in Lambda Legal’s Western Regional Office in Los Angeles, praised the court for its decision.
“The court agreed with us that sexual orientation discrimination by the government should receive heightened scrutiny under the constitution,” Borelli said. “It then concluded that DOMA could not meet that standard, and that there was not even a rational justification to deny Karen Golinski the same spousal health care benefits that her heterosexual co-workers receive.”
Lambda, along with Morrison & Foerster LLP, filed the case in 2008 on behalf of Karen Golinski, who was denied spousal health benefits by her employer, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Golinski has been partners with Amy Cunninghis for more than 20 years, and the two were legally married in 2008 under California law before Proposition 8 took away marriage rights for gay couples in the state.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski ruled that it violates the Ninth Circuit’s non-discrimination policies to deny Golinski the same benefits for her spouse that the spouses of straight court employees have. But the Office of Personnel Management maintained it couldn’t grant Golinski spousal benefits because of DOMA.
The case evolved into a lawsuit over DOMA. After the Obama administration declared DOMA unconstitutional in February 2011, the Justice Department filed a brief in the Golinksi case against the anti-gay law. In April, Lambda filed an amended complaint in the case directly challenging the constitutionality of DOMA.
But the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group also filed briefs in the case in defense of DOMA. The group took up defense of the law in the administration’s stead at the direction of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) after voting on a party-line basis to defend the statute.
In a statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who also represents San Francisco and Golinski in Congress, called the ruling “a victory for the liberty, civil rights, and equality of LGBT Americans and, indeed, all Americans.”
“By declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, we can right a wrong of our past; we can move closer to ending a fundamental unfairness in our nation; and we can look forward to the day when we discard this discriminatory law in the dustbin of history,” Pelosi said. “With this decision, our country has taken a step forward for marriage equality – a step toward a time when all of America’s families enjoy the blessings of equal protection under the law.”
Pelosi also took a dig at the BLAG for taking up defense of DOMA in the administration’s stead, saying the majority of Democrats don’t want to defend DOMA in court.
“In rejecting the arguments of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, the court’s ruling also reaffirmed a core belief of the majority of House Democrats: that the House is not united in this case; that the BLAG lawyers do not speak for Congress; and that BLAG’s intervention remains a waste of taxpayer resources,” Pelosi said. “The court made it clear that there is no legitimate federal interest in denying married gay and lesbian couples the legal security, rights, and responsibilities guaranteed to all married couples under state law.”
A Boehner didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment on the ruling or whether BLAG would appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit within the 60 day deadline.
Tom Warnke, a Lambda spokesperson, said his organization expects BLAG to appeal the case. As for timing for when Golinski would be able to receive benefits, he said his organization hopes “to know more about the question regarding access to benefits soon.”
The ruling is the first court decision made on DOMA since the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the law in court. A White House spokesperson didn’t respond to a request to comment on the ruling. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
But White, who was appointed to the bench in 2002 by former President George W. Bush, isn’t the first judge to rule against DOMA. In July 2010, Judge Joseph Tauro of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts ruled in the cases of Gill v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Department of Health & Human Services that DOMA is unconstitutional. Those cases are currently on appeal before the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a statement, Golinksi thanked the court for ruling in her favor and against the Defense of Marriage Act.
“I am profoundly grateful for the thought and consideration that Judge White gave to my case,” Golinski said. “His decision acknowledges that DOMA violates the Constitution and that my marriage to Amy is equal to those marriages of my heterosexual colleagues. This decision is a huge step toward equality.”
Doug NeJaime, who’s gay and a law professor at Loyola Law School, said the decision is “very comprehensive” because it examines of the governmental interests of DOMA under both a heightened scrutiny and a lower rational basis standard of review.
“This is a smart course for the district court to take in looking down the road to potential Ninth Circuit review, especially in light of the rational-basis holding that the Ninth Circuit panel issued in [the Prop 8 case],” NeJaime said. “The heightened scrutiny portion of the decision, though, clearly evidences the impact of the Obama administration’s position on DOMA, in which Attorney General Holder set out the arguments for heightened scrutiny for sexual-orientation-based classifications.”
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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