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Bi-national gay couples file lawsuit targeting DOMA

Case follows administration’s refusal to hold green cards in abeyance

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A new lawsuit was filed Monday challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act — this time on the grounds that it discriminates against married bi-national same-sex couples seeking to remain together in the United States.

Immigration Equality, an LGBT advocacy group, filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on behalf of five gay couples. The law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP joined the organization in filing the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, known as Blesch v. Holder, targets the inability of these spouses to secure residency in the United States through the marriage-based green card application process.

Americans in opposite-sex marriages can sponsor their foreign spouses for residency in the United States, but that option isn’t available to same-sex couples because of DOMA. These couples are at risk of separation if the foreign national is undocumented or if a temporary visa obtained for work or some other purposes expires.

“Because of DOMA, the federal government does not recognize the marriages of same-sex couples and, therefore, denies them the immigration rights afforded to other married couples,” the complaint states. “As a result, these couples live their lives at constant risk of separation.”

The five couples represented in the lawsuit are Edwin Blesch and his South African spouse, Tim Smulian, who reside in Orient, N.Y.; Frances Herbert and her Japanese-born spouse, Takako Ueda, who reside in Dummerston, Vt.; Heather Morgan and her Spanish-born spouse, Maria del Mar Verdugo, who live in New York City; Santiago Ortiz and his Venezuelan-born spouse, Pablo Garcia, who live in Elmhurst, N.Y.; and Kelli Ryan and her British-born spouse, Lucy Truman, who reside in Sandy Hook, Conn.

The complaint details the stories of each of the couples involved in the lawsuit. For Blesch and Smulian, the complaint notes that Blesch has been living with HIV since 1987. For 11 years, the couple spent six months in the United States and six month abroad to stay together.

However, according to the complaint, complications from HIV therapy as well as other health problems have begun taking a toll on Blesch’s health. As a result, he’s no longer able to spend six months in South Africa because it would be too far from his doctors. The couple has been spending much of their time in Canada, but Blesch’s Medicare doesn’t cover him in that country and he’s forced to return twice to the United States for care.

“Tim, heartbroken, could not accompany Edwin to his doctors (as he always does), fearful he would be denied entry to the United States during those six-month periods,” the lawsuit states.

Immigration Equality’s lawsuit is one of about a dozen pending lawsuits challenging DOMA. This week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals was set to hear oral arguments for two cases, marking the first time an appellate court has held a hearing on DOMA.

Executive director of Immigration Equality Rachel Tiven (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, said her lawsuit was a necessary addition to existing cases because no pending lawsuit focuses on bi-national couples.

“We worked closely in partnership with GLAD, Lambda, ACLU to determine what would make sense to protect the rights of people for whom their DOMA problem is immigration benefits, and really came to the conclusion that the time is now,” Tiven said.

Lavi Soloway, co-founder of Stop the Deportations and an immigration attorney at Masliah & Soloway, said the lawsuit will help draw attention to the plight of gay bi-national couples. He has no involvement with the lawsuit.

Still, Soloway expressed skepticism that the case would have any impact on the law because he thinks other DOMA lawsuits will reach the Supreme Court sooner.

“Certainly, bi-national couples experience Section 3 of DOMA in a way that is hard to compare to any other situation, but the reality is that this lawsuit will move through the federal judicial system for years and is unlikely to produce any immediate change,” Soloway said.

But the Immigration Equality case isn’t the first lawsuit to challenge DOMA on the basis that it’s unfair to bi-national same-sex couples. In September, a federal judge threw out a case filed by Handi Lui, an Indonesian native who was denied a marriage-based green card application.

Tiven said her organization’s lawsuit will be more successful than other immigration-related DOMA cases because it was filed in a different circuit that is governed by different case law.

“We filed in the Second Circuit because we believe that a DOMA challenge based on immigration need will succeed here and because all of the states in the second circuit are marriage equality states,” Tiven said.

The Obama administration announced last year it would no longer defend DOMA in court, and since then — following a vote of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — the House general counsel has taken up defense of the law.

In the Immigration Equality case, the Justice Department is similarly expected to decline to defend DOMA, and the attorneys of House Speaker John Boehner are expected to come to the defense of the anti-gay law.

Immigration Equality has called on the Obama administration to hold the marriage-based green cards of bi-national same-sex couples in abeyance — so they cannot be denied — until Congress or the courts act to repeal DOMA. Each time the organization has made the call, the administration has said it would continue to enforce DOMA as long as it remains on the books.

One of the couples involved in the lawsuit, Ryan and Truman, have asked the administration to make this change. In November, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote the Department of Homeland Security to ask officials to place on hold the couple’s green card application.

According to The Advocate, LGBT groups met with White House officials to January to discuss the possibility of putting the green cards in abeyance. But administration officials reportedly told LGBT rights supporters such action wouldn’t be taken.Case

Tiven said Immigration Equality filed the lawsuit because the administration’s decision left the organization no other option.

“We’ve been really working … for a year now to ask them to hold the green card applications for couples who are affected by DOMA and, after a lot of back and forth, they ultimately said ‘no,'” Tiven said. “So we really were left with no choice but to sue.”

Soloway said the administration has no reason not to take action to place the green cards in abeyance to protect bi-national same-sex couples.

“It is not a legally required position, it is a political choice,” Soloway said. “If they want to protect all LGBT families, then they could craft policy that would secure married bi-national couples in the interim period.”

While the administration hasn’t taken action to hold the marriage-based green card applications in abeyance, it has said it would include bi-national same-sex couples as part of an effort to take low priority cases out of the deportation pipeline by granting them prosecutorial discretion.

The criteria for being taken out of the deportation pipeline include a person’s ties and contributions to the community and family relationships, and administration officials have said these criteria are inclusive of LGBT families and same-sex couples.

But Soloway said these protections for bi-national same-sex couples are insufficient because, beyond speaking to media, the administration has never explicitly said this change covers LGBT families.

“We should not be fooled,” Soloway said. “There’s no expressed protection being provided under the prosecutorial discretion policy to lesbian and gay bi-national couples. It has worked in certain cases, but it’s far from consistent and it depends on individual ICE prosecutors understanding how to apply the guidelines.”

Moreover, Tiven said none of the couples in the lawsuit have received notification they would be taken out of the deportation pipeline as a result of this initiative.

According to Immigration Equality, Blesch and Smulian have one year of deferred action for a deportation hearing, while Herbert and Takako are applying for such action. Ryan and Truman as well as Morgan and del Mar Verdugo are able to stay together in the United States because of work visas.

“It doesn’t let them make any advance plans,” Tiven said. “In the [Morgan and del Mar Verdugo’s] case, they talked about having children, but have postponed that because they just don’t know what could happen.”

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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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