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Santorum drops out of 2012 race

Advocates happy to see anti-gay candidate go

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has dropped his bid for the White House(photo via Iowapolitics.com via wikimedia)

Rick Santorum announced on Tuesday he would no longer pursue the Republican nomination for the White House, ending the campaign of one of the most anti-gay candidates seeking the presidency.

During a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., the former U.S. senator announced he decided to suspend his campaign after taking a break to care for his three-year-old daughter who was hospitalized over the weekend.

“We made a decision to get into this race at our kitchen table against all the odds, and we made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race, for us, is over for me, and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting,” Santorum said.

The departing candidate took no questions after he gave his exit speech, nor did he endorse another candidate.

Santorum, who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2006, won 11 states and earned 285 delegates, the second highest of all the presidential candidates behind Mitt Romney.

The candidate’s exit comes before the primary took place in his home state of Pennsylvania on April 24. Polls showed Santorum was narrowly ahead in the race. According to a Rasmussen poll published on Thursday, 42 percent of likely voters are supporting Santorum, while 38 percent of likely voters support Romney.

Many observers had already declared the primary season over. Romney appeared to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination after winning three primaries in Wisconsin, D.C. and Maryland. Romney had also amassed 661 delegates, which is more than the other Republican candidates combined.

Dan Pinello, who’s gay and a government professor at City University of New York, said he doesn’t think Santorum’s departure “seriously affects the race” and the candidate exited because his money dried up.

“Romney was spending $2 million in the Pennsylvania primary alone, and Santorum had nothing to fight back with,” Pinello said. “Plus, all the endorsements of party insiders were going to Romney. Better to bow out than be humiliated in your own home state.”

In the past couple weeks, Romney secured endorsements from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — both seen as rising stars within the Republican Party.

Santorum had taken many anti-gay positions over the course of his campaign and backed a Federal Marriage Amendment barring same-sex marriage throughout the country.

Last year, Santorum was among the GOP hopefuls who signed a pledge from the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage committing himself to backing a Federal Marriage Amendment, defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, and establishing a commission on “religious liberty” to investigate the alleged harassment of same-sex marriage opponents.

Santorum also said he would reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” if elected to the White House, pledging in a public forum to the anti-gay Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins in March to reverse repeal of the military’s gay ban.

“I don’t believe [open service is] in the best interest of our men and women in uniform,” Santorum said. “That doesn’t mean that people who are gay and lesbian can’t serve, it’s just that they can serve in the context of what, I think, everybody in the military does — keep their own private matters to themselves and serve this country accordingly.”

When “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was in effect from 1994 to 2011, an estimated 14,346 service members were expelled from the military. Many of those troops were expelled even though they made no declaration about their sexual orientation.

FRC’s Perkins praised Santorum upon his exit from the race, saying he carried a “message of faith, family and freedom” over the course of the campaign.

“Millions of voters flocked to Rick not because he was a Republican, but because he passionately articulated the connection between America’s financial greatness and its moral and cultural wholeness,” Perkins said. “He realizes that real problem-solving starts with an understanding that the economy and the family are indivisible.”

Perkins and other evangelicals were among the nearly 170 anti-gay leaders who rallied behind Santorum in January at a conference in Brenham, Texas, to discuss the GOP primary race and top policy goals for a Republican administration.

Santorum became notorious for vocalizing his opposition to same-sex marriage throughout his campaign.

On the day Washington State legalized same-sex marriage on Feb. 13, Santorum traveled to the state and derided the news in a speech, urging opponents of the law to bring the law to a referendum before voters in November.

“There are ebbs and flows in every battle, and this is not the final word,” Santorum said before supporters in Olympia, Wash.

In the past year of campaigning, Santorum went as far as saying “our country will fail” as a result of same-sex marriage and raised eyebrows in August when he said same-sex marriage is like “saying this glass of water is a glass of beer.”

In January, Santorum drew fire for vocalizing his opposition to same-sex marriage when campaigning in the libertarian state of New Hampshire, which has legalized same-sex marriage.

“Marriage is a privilege,” Santorum said. “It is not a right. It is privilege given by society, held up by society, for purposes that it provides some societal good, and I would make the argument, some extraordinary societal good.”

Prior to his final campaign appearance in New Hampshire on Jan. 10, protesters from the Occupy movement jeered Santorum, chanting “Bi-got! Bi-got! Bi-got!”

After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 8 ruled against California’s Proposition 8, Santorum railed against the decision.

“The Ninth Circuit decision yesterday said that marriage, if you believe in traditional marriage, between a man and a woman and exclusively that, you are in fact, the only reason you could possibly believe that, is because you are a bigot,” Santorum said. “Your belief of marriage between a man and a woman is purely irrational based on hatred and bigotry.”

It’s this kind of anti-gay rhetoric that made LGBT advocates happy to see Santorum exit the race.

Jerame Davis, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said the anti-gay positions that Santorum staked out during his campaign made him “a stain on the Republican Party,” but predicted the candidate wouldn’t vanish from public view now that he’s departed the race.

“It was always clear that Santorum was not going to be the GOP nominee, but unfortunately we haven’t seen the last of him,” Davis said. “His brand of ultra-conservatism and rank piety appealed to a particular slice of the Republican electorate.”

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, had a more positive spin on Santorum’s departure, saying the end of his anti-gay rhetoric would enable the GOP to appeal to a broader constituency as Election Day draws closer.

“The departure of Rick Santorum’s divisive social politics from the race puts moderate, independent and younger conservative voters in play,” Cooper said. “The time is now for the Republican Party to capitalize by presenting an inclusive, united front focused on economic growth, exploration of natural resources and defending national interests abroad.”

Advocates said Santorum’s exit reinforces the notion that LGBT people should be prepared for Romney to become the Republican presidential nominee — whether they support his candidacy or not.

Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, said Romney had already sealed the nomination even before Santorum dropped out of the race. LaSalvia has personally endorsed Romney’s candidacy.

“Rick Santorum has recognized the political reality that most in the party have acknowledged for weeks now – Mitt Romney will be the nominee of the Republican Party,” LaSalvia said.

Michael Cole-Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said Santorum’s exit means the LGBT community needs only to focus on Romney’s anti-gay positions.

“We now go from two leading candidates that would take LGBT rights completely backward in this country to one candidate who’d do the same,” Cole-Schwartz said. “While we might not be faced with Sen. Santorum’s extreme rhetoric anymore, we’re left with Gov. Romney whose anti-LGBT positions aren’t substantively much different.”

Romney has signed the same anti-gay pledge from NOM and has criticized Obama for dropping the government’s defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court. Still, the GOP frontrunner has said he doesn’t think the political wherewithal will be present in Congress to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment, and he has no plans to return to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Santorum’s departure means that only two Republican candidates other than Romney remain in the race: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But Paul hasn’t won any states in the primaries, and Gingrich’s campaign has all but run out of gas.

Obama appears to be leading Romney as the primary season comes to an end. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll published Tuesday, registered voters favored Obama by 51 percent, while 44 percent were behind Romney.

NOTE: This post has been updated.

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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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