National
Experts debate impact of Obama’s marriage support
Examining social, political and legal implications of announcement

President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality last week has been heralded as a milestone that inspired and exhilaratedĀ LGBT people throughout the country. Now, the practical implications of his words are being analyzed and debated by supporters.
LGBT advocates and political observers have different views on the social, political and legal ramifications of the announcement as they agreed that Obama becoming the first president to support marriage equality was historic in nature.
Richard Socarides, a gay New York attorney who advised former President Clinton on LGBT issues, said the cultural implications of Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage are substantial because it marks “a very positive” turning point on LGBT rights.
“I think having the president on record in favor of this goal is very important, and I think it will help shape the discussion that we’re having as a country about this, and I think it’ll help it in a very positive direction,” Socarides said.
Jeff Krehely, vice president for LGBT programs at theĀ Center for American Progress, said the social implications of Obama’s announcement are huge because the endorsement triggered conversations and additional support for marriage equality that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.
“That has a huge impact on the country on the issue, and the lives of gay people, too, who hear something that is very clear and very reassuring and very welcomed,” Krehely said.
Krehely noted Obama’s announcement inspired other noteworthy people ā ranging from Democratic leaders like Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to celebrities like Will Smith and Jay-Z ā to voice their support for marriage equality.
“The president’s leadership matters, and we’re seeing that now in the number of people from a wide variety of backgrounds who are now also coming out with their support of marriage,” Krehely said. “I think more than anything, it has completely mainstreamed the issue.”
Questions remain about how Obama’s endorsement will impact states that are deciding the issue. In as many as four states this fall ā Minnesota, Maine, Washington and Maryland ā residents will vote on ballot initiatives related to same-sex marriage.
Krehely said Obama’s endorsement should have a positive impact.
“I think the president’s leadership on the issue has definitely mainstreamed it, and created a conversation in a lot of quarters that might not be having this conversation, and, I think, at the end of the day, that’s very good for the state fights and for DOMA repeal in Congress as well,” Krehely said.
During the interview in which he announced his support for same-sex marriage, Obama maintained the issue should be left to the states, saying, “I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, what’s recognized as a marriage.”
The Obama campaign has previously weighed in against anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives in states like North Carolina and Minnesota. That took place even before the announcement in favor of same-sex marriage because Obama’s previous position was that he was opposed to discriminatory efforts directed at gay couples.
Should the LGBT community expect more Obama involvement in state battles? Will the president’s support for marriage equality mean he’ll speak out for the pro-marriage equality side in Maine, Maryland and Washington State?
These questions aren’t restricted to ballot initiatives, but also future legislative fights on same-sex marriage. In a state like Illinois, which could advance same-sex marriage legislation next year, would the voice of a president who represented the state in the U.S. Senate be helpful?
Krehely said it should be up to state organizations running the campaigns to determine if they want Obama’s voice and reach out to the White House if they deem that helpful, but said it may not be beneficial in some circumstances ifĀ they don’t want the president to “parachute” into the fray.
“I think, smartly, the White House could be hugely helpful in those state fights, and they weighed in on a number of the ballot campaigns even before his announcement, so I’m assuming that their appetite for doing that kind of state level work remains, if it’s not growing stronger,” Krehely said.
Socarides said the president should focus on winning the election ā as well as picking up Democratic seats in Congress.
“It’s going to fall to us and to organizations in those states to wage successful campaigns in each of those places,” Socarides said. “I suspect that what the president has already done will be helpful, and there may be things he can do along the way, but winning those battles is primarily going to be our responsibility.”
Last week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to say whether Obama would speak out on legislative and ballot fights over same-sex marriage when asked by a reporter during a press gaggle abroad Air Force One.
“Iām not going to speculate about what he may say or statements he might issue,” Carney said. “He has on occasion made his position known on actions by individual states, most recently in North Carolina, and Iām sure that continues to be the case. That will continue to be the case.”
Another lingering political question is whether Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage will benefit or jeopardize his chances for re-election when he goes up against presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage.
Backing marriage rights for gay couples may energize progressive and LGBT voters, but it remains to be seen how it will play out in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said he thinks the election will overwhelmingly be decided by the economy, but acknowledged some voters will factor same-sex marriage into their decision.
“Overall, I think the ‘red’ states got redder and the ‘blue’ states got bluer,” Sabato said. “Many Democrats are more committed to Obama as a result, and many Republican evangelical voters, who were unexcited about Romney before this, are now 100 percent committed to him ā if only to oust Obama.”
In part because of the marriage issue, Sabato said some states that were once considered battlegrounds ā Missouri, North Carolina and Indiana ā are now quite likely in Romney’s column, but the decision might help Obama in the battleground states of New Hampshire and Colorado.
But Sabato said he’s basing his calculations on evangelical populations in those states and the money that Obama will likely raise from his announcement in favor of same-sex marriage will benefit him in the election.
“Perhaps Obama’s decision helps him raise many millions more, which are then used for TV ads to persuade swing state voters on the economy,” Sabato said. “The calculus is more complicated than it seems.”
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday, Obama’s support for marriage equality is helping him and hurting him in equal measure ā much like the country’s nearly even split for and against same-sex marriage. Thirty-one percent of Americans have a higher opinion of Obama because of his support while 30 percent view him less favorably, according to the poll.
Socarides said the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage will on the whole be positive because it fits well within Obama’s campaign theme of moving the country “forward.”
“He is a forward looking leader who, although deliberative, is willing to stake out policy positions that are forward leaning,” Socarides said. “I think to do otherwise would have really not been helpful. I think that you cannot position yourself as a forward-thinking leader when you have an extremely muddled position on one of the most important policy issues of the day.”
The impact of Obama’s endorsement will also likely be felt in the legal arena. The Justice Department stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act against challenges in court last year, and Obama said last week that his support of same-sex marriage was his personal view without talking too much about legal implications.
Some legal observers believe Obama’s announcement in favor of same-sex marriage could lead the administration to intervene on behalf of federal marriage equality lawsuits ā particularly if that litigation reaches the Supreme Court.
The most high-profile of these cases in support of same-sex marriage is the Perry v. Brown lawsuit challenging California’s Proposition 8 that is pending before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Socarides expressed confidence that the Obama administration would intervene in a marriage equality case that reaches the Supreme Court, saying if the president supports same-sex marriage, it stands to reason marriage rights for gay couples are constitutionally protected.
“I’m optimistic that despite the president’s statement that he thinks the issue will be played out on the state level for a while, given everything that’s come before this, especially the Justice Department’s position in the DOMA cases, that the government will come into these cases at some point and being willing to assert a federal constitutional right to marriage equality,” Socarides said.
By this time next year, Socarides predicted the federal government would be on record in court that it believes the U.S. Constitution guarantees marriage equality and that the government will file friend-of-the-court briefs in those cases.
Douglas NeJaime, who’s gay and a law professor at Loyola Law School, said the Obama administration weighing in on a Supreme Court case wouldn’t necessarily have much impact.
“One could imagine that if a same-sex marriage case like Perry makes it up to the Supreme Court that the administration could weigh in,” NeJaime said. “That would be important, but there’s no reason that that would necessarily happen, nor that it would be particularly influential.”
NeJaime also said Obama’s support for same-sex marriage “has a huge rhetoric” that could influence the arguments of attorneys in court.
“It disables the anti same-sex marriage lawyers to some extent because they’ve been able to use what the president has said as a way to bolster the reasonableness of their position, and now that seems less plausible,” NeJaime said.
State Department
Transgender, nonbinary people file lawsuit against passport executive order
State Department banned from issuing passports with ‘X’ gender markers

Seven transgender and nonbinary people on Feb. 7 filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
Ashton Orr, Zaya Perysian, Sawyer Soe, Chastain Anderson, Drew Hall, Bella Boe, and Reid Solomon-Lane are the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the private law firm Covington & Burling LPP filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The lawsuit names Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an āXā gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed the executive order that overturned it shortly after he took office on Jan. 20. Rubio later directed State Department personnel to āsuspend any application requesting an āXā sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.ā
āThis guidance applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications,” reads Rubio’s memo. “Guidance on existing passports containing an āXā sex marker will come via other channels.ā
The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order is an “abrupt, discriminatory, and dangerous reversal of settled United States passport policy.” It also concludes the new policy is “unlawful and unconstitutional.”
“It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and, as to some, their transgender status,” reads the lawsuit. “It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”
Solomon-Lane, who lives in North Adams, Mass., with his spouse and their three children, in an ACLU press release says he has “lived virtually my entire adult life as a man” and “everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man.”
āI thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease,” he said. “Now, as a married father of three, Trumpās executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease.”
“If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my familyās safety,ā added Solomon-Lane.
Federal Government
Education Department moves to end support for trans students
Mental health services among programs that are in jeopardy

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they āfail to affirm the reality of biological sex.ā
The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.
Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.
In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, āDefending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.ā
For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.
According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that āThe deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology ā whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms ā negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”
A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”
NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.
While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.
State Department
Protesters demand US fully restore PEPFAR funding
Activists blocked intersection outside State Department on Thursday

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
The activists ā members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group ā blocked an intersection for an hour. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell told the Washington Blade that police did not make any arrests.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other ālife-saving humanitarian assistanceā programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Blade on Wednesday reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding.
āPEPFAR is a program that has saved 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King in a press release. “The recent freeze on its funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments. We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.”
āWe demand Secretary Rubio immediately reverse his deadly, illegal stop-work order, which has already disrupted life-saving HIV services worldwide,” added Russell. “Any waiver process is too little, too late.”
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