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Obama campaign ducks question on marriage in Dem platform

DNC convention chair backs marriage equality plank

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Obama campaign chief Jim Messina (photo public domain)

The Obama camp continues to have no answers on whether President Obama will complete his evolution to endorse marriage equality and support including it in the Democratic Party platform.

During a Wednesday conference call with reporters on the state of the presidential race, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina dodged a question from CNN’s Jessica Yellin on whether Obama will come to support marriage equality before the Democratic National Convention and a plank expressing that support in the party platform.

“There’s a process,” Messina said. “There’s not even a delegate platform committee yet. There’s a process to go through this discussion and the DNC will go through that, and we will have a platform.”

Earlier in the day, DNC convention chair and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reportedly said he backs the idea of including marriage equality in the Democratic Party platform.

“I think it’s basic to who we are,” Villaraigosa was quoted as saying in Politico. “I believe in family values, and I believe that we all ought to be able to have a family and marry if you want to. I don’t think the government should be in that business of denying people the fundamental right to marry.”

Last week, 22 U.S. senators responded to requests from the Washington Blade saying they want a plank endorsing of same-sex marriage in the Democratic platform.

The platform committee is set to discuss and agree upon language in the Democratic Party platform when it gathers for the convention Sept. 3 in Charlotte, N.C. Officials with Democratic National Committee have declined to comment on whether the platform will include marriage equality.

Obama still hasn’t endorsed marriage equality nearly 17 months after he first said he could “evolve” to support it during an interview with progressive bloggers in response to a question from AMERICAblog’s Joe Sudbay.

It’s not the first time the Obama campaign has been asked whether marriage equality will be included in the Democratic Party platform. Last month on ABC News’ “This Week,” Obama campaign adviser and former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he doesn’t know if same-sex marriage will be in the platform, adding he hasn’t spoken to the president recently on the issue.

Messina continued that Obama’s stands “in sharp contrast to the other side” and said the president has achieved significant accomplishments for the LGBT community, such as repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The three Republican presidential candidates who’ve won any states in the primaries — Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich — all back a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage throughout the country. Obama voted against the amendment as a U.S. senator.

Santorum has said he’d reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” while Gingrich has said he’d order an “extensive review” of going back to the policy. Romney said he has no plans to return to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

A transcript of the exchange between the reporter and Messina follows:

CNN: …In a Politico breakfast this morning, the DNC convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa said he thinks gay marriage should be part of the party platform. How do you at all feel about this, and does that put the president in an uncomfortable position? Do you think his position might evolve further on this before the convention?

Jim Messina: …Look, we’re the big tent party here. POTUS has a great record on fighting for fundamental fairness for all Americans — “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” [repeal] and many other accomplishments we are very, very proud of.

There’s a process. There’s not even a delegate platform committee yet. There’s a process to go through this discussion and the DNC will go through that, and we will have a platform.

But our record stands in sharp contrast to the other side. What the other side has said is they want a constitutional amendment on anti-marriage, they want to put back into place “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and a bunch of other regressive policies. So they couldn’t be any more contrasted with our record.

And so, there will be a process for that and we will go through that process.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Judge temporarily blocks executive orders targeting LGBTQ, HIV groups

Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in federal court

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President Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A federal judge on Monday blocked the enforcement of three of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that would have threatened to defund nonprofit organizations providing health care and services for LGBTQ people and those living with HIV.

The preliminary injunction was awarded by Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in a case, San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, filed by Lambda Legal and eight other organizations.

Implementation of the executive orders — two aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion along with one targeting the transgender community — will be halted pending the outcome of the litigation challenging them.

“This is a critical win — not only for the nine organizations we represent, but for LGBTQ communities and people living with HIV across the country,” said Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project director and senior counsel on the case. 

“The court blocked anti-equity and anti-LGBTQ executive orders that seek to erase transgender people from public life, dismantle DEI efforts, and silence nonprofits delivering life-saving services,” Abrigo said. “Today’s ruling acknowledges the immense harm these policies inflict on these organizations and the people they serve and stops Trump’s orders in their tracks.”

Tigar wrote, in his 52-page decision, “While the Executive requires some degree of freedom to implement its political agenda, it is still bound by the constitution.”

“And even in the context of federal subsidies, it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous,” he said.

Without the preliminary injunction, the judge wrote, “Plaintiffs face the imminent loss of federal funding critical to their ability to provide lifesaving healthcare and support services to marginalized LGBTQ populations,” a loss that “not only threatens the survival of critical programs but also forces plaintiffs to choose between their constitutional rights and their continued existence.”

The organizations in the lawsuit are located in California (San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLBT Historical Society, and San Francisco Community Health Center), Arizona (Prisma Community Care), New York (The NYC LGBT Community Center), Pennsylvania (Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center), Maryland (Baltimore Safe Haven), and Wisconsin (FORGE).

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U.S. Supreme Court

Activists rally for Andry Hernández Romero in front of Supreme Court

Gay asylum seeker ‘forcibly deported’ to El Salvador, described as political prisoner

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Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski, on right, speaks in support of her client, Andry Hernández Romero, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 6, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

More than 200 people gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday and demanded the Trump-Vance administration return to the U.S. a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who it “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador.

Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based organization that represents Andry Hernández Romero, is among those who spoke alongside U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Human Rights Campaign Campaigns and Communications Vice President Jonathan Lovitz. Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark, Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett, and Tim Miller are among those who also participated in the rally.

“Andry is a son, a brother. He’s an actor, a makeup artist,” said Toczylowski. “He is a gay man who fled Venezuela because it was not safe for him to live there as his authentic self.”

(Video by Michael K. Lavers)

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”

President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” The Trump-Vance administration subsequently “forcibly removed” Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans to El Salvador.

Toczylowski said she believes Hernández remains at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. Toczylowski also disputed claims that Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member.

“Andry fled persecution in Venezuela and came to the U.S. to seek protection. He has no criminal history. He is not a member of the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet because of his crown tattoos, we believe at this moment that he sits in a torture prison, a gulag, in El Salvador,” said Toczylowski. “I say we believe because we have not had any proof of life for him since the day he was put on a U.S. government-funded plane and forcibly disappeared to El Salvador.”

“Andry is not alone,” she added.

Takano noted the federal government sent his parents, grandparents, and other Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II under the Alien Enemies Act. The gay California Democrat also described Hernández as “a political prisoner, denied basic rights under a law that should have stayed in the past.”

“He is not a case number,” said Takano. “He is a person.”

Hernández had been pursuing his asylum case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

A hearing had been scheduled to take place on May 30, but an immigration judge the day before dismissed his case. Immigrant Defenders Law Center has said it will appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.

“We will not stop fighting for Andry, and I know neither will you,” said Toczylowski.

Friday’s rally took place hours after Attorney General Pam Bondi said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador, had returned to the U.S. Abrego will face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.

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National

A husband’s story: Michael Carroll reflects on life with Edmund White

Iconic author died this week; ‘no sunnier human in the world’

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Michael Carroll spoke to the Blade after the death his husband Edmund White this week. (Photo by Michael Carroll)

Unlike most gay men of my generation, I’ve only been to Fire Island twice. Even so, the memory of my first visit has never left me. The scenery was lovely, and the boys were sublime — but what stood out wasn’t the beach or the parties. It was a quiet afternoon spent sipping gin and tonics in a mid-century modern cottage tucked away from the sand and sun.

Despite Fire Island’s reputation for hedonism, our meeting was more accident than escapade. Michael Carroll — a Facebook friend I’d chatted with but never met — mentioned that he and his husband, Ed, would be there that weekend, too. We agreed to meet for a drink. On a whim, I checked his profile and froze. Ed was author Edmund White.

I packed a signed copy of Carroll’s “Little Reef” and a dog-eared hardback of “A Boy’s Own Story,” its spine nearly broken from rereads. I was excited to meet both men and talk about writing, even briefly.

Yesterday, I woke to the news that Ed had passed away. Ironically, my first thought was of Michael.

This week, tributes to Edmund White are everywhere — rightly celebrating his towering legacy as a novelist, essayist, and cultural icon. I’ve read all of his books, and I could never do justice to the scope of a career that defined and chronicled queer life for more than half a century. I’ll leave that to better-prepared journalists.

But in those many memorials, I’ve noticed something missing. When Michael Carroll is mentioned, it’s usually just a passing reference: “White’s partner of thirty years, twenty-five years his junior.” And yet, in the brief time I spent with this couple on Fire Island, it was clear to me that Michael was more than a footnote — he was Ed’s anchor, editor, companion, and champion. He was the one who knew his husband best.

They met in 1995 after Michael wrote Ed a fan letter to tell him he was coming to Paris. “He’d lost the great love of his life a year before,” Michael told me. “In one way, I filled a space. Understand, I worshiped this man and still do.”

When I asked whether there was a version of Ed only he knew, Michael answered without hesitation: “No sunnier human in the world, obvious to us and to people who’ve only just or never met him. No dark side. Psychology had helped erase that, I think, or buffed it smooth.”

Despite the age difference and divergent career arcs, their relationship was intellectually and emotionally symbiotic. “He made me want to be elegant and brainy; I didn’t quite reach that, so it led me to a slightly pastel minimalism,” Michael said. “He made me question my received ideas. He set me free to have sex with whoever I wanted. He vouchsafed my moods when they didn’t wobble off axis. Ultimately, I encouraged him to write more minimalistically, keep up the emotional complexity, and sleep with anyone he wanted to — partly because I wanted to do that too.”

Fully open, it was a committed relationship that defied conventional categories. Ed once described it as “probably like an 18th-century marriage in France.” Michael elaborated: “It means marriage with strong emotion — or at least a tolerance for one another — but no sex; sex with others. I think.”

That freedom, though, was always anchored in deep devotion and care — and a mutual understanding that went far beyond art, philosophy, or sex. “He believed in freedom and desire,” Michael said, “and the two’s relationship.”

When I asked what all the essays and articles hadn’t yet captured, Michael paused. “Maybe that his writing was tightly knotted, but that his true personality was vulnerable, and that he had the defense mechanisms of cheer and optimism to conceal that vulnerability. But it was in his eyes.”

The moment that captured who Ed was to him came at the end. “When he was dying, his second-to-last sentence (garbled then repeated) was, ‘Don’t forget to pay Merci,’ the cleaning lady coming the next day. We had had a rough day, and I was popping off like a coach or dad about getting angry at his weakness and pushing through it. He took it almost like a pack mule.” 

Edmund White’s work shaped generations — it gave us language for desire, shame, wit, and liberation. But what lingers just as powerfully is the extraordinary life Ed lived with a man who saw him not only as a literary giant but as a real person: sunny, complex, vulnerable, generous.

In the end, Ed’s final words to his husband weren’t about his books or his legacy. They were about care, decency, and love. “You’re good,” he told Michael—a benediction, a farewell, maybe even a thank-you.

And now, as the world celebrates the prolific writer and cultural icon Edmund White, it feels just as important to remember the man and the person who knew him best. Not just the story but the characters who stayed to see it through to the end.

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