National
Fired gay employee sues Library of Congress
Lawsuit says boss cited anti-gay biblical passages before terminating staffer

A gay man has charged in a lawsuit filed on Friday that he was fired in April from his job at the Library of Congress after being harassed and humiliated for more than a year by a supervisor who repeatedly quoted biblical passages condemning homosexuality.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charges that management analyst Peter TerVeer, 30, suffered employment discrimination based on his gender, gender stereotyping and his religious beliefs in violation of Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The lawsuit charges that his supervisor John Mech and library official Nicholas Christopher, Mech’s immediate supervisor, further violated Title VII by retaliating against TerVeer when he attempted to challenge their actions in an internal library complaint.
“Mech imposed his sex stereotypes and fundamentalist religious beliefs on homosexuality upon the plaintiff, resulting in a hostile working environment,” the lawsuit alleges.
In addition, the suit charges the library with violating TerVeer’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection; violating an internal Library of Congress policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and religious beliefs; and violating the Library of Congress Act, a federal law that calls for the library to consider decisions related to employees “solely” on an employee’s “fitness” for his or her job duties.
Library of Congress spokesperson Gale Osterberg said the library has no immediate comment on the lawsuit. She said the library’s official response would come in the form of a legal brief filed in court that addresses each of the allegations made in the lawsuit. Under court rules, the Library of Congress has 60 days to file its response from the time TerVeer’s attorneys serve the library with an official copy of the lawsuit.
In April, when TerVeer and his attorney disclosed that TerVeer had filed a complaint against Mech and other officials with the library’s Equal Employment Opportunity office, which adjudicates employment discrimination cases, Osterberg said TerVeer’s case was a personnel matter and the library never comments on personnel matters pertaining to an individual employee.
She told the Blade at that time that under library rules, neither Mach, an accountant and lead auditor for the library’s Office of the Inspector General, where TerVeer worked, nor any other library employee familiar with TerVeer’s case, would be permitted to comment on the case.
When asked about a Library of Congress internal policy adopted in the 1990s that bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, Osterberg said only that, “We adhere to Title VII, period.”
She was referring to the provision in the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex, and other criteria but not on sexual orientation.
Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU’s Washington, D.C. office, said TerVeer’s lawsuit’s claim that Mech and other Library of Congress officials violated Title VII by discriminating against TerVeer based on his sex and religious beliefs could make him eligible for relief under Title VII.
Spitzer noted that a U.S. District Court judge in D.C. ruled in 2008 that the Library of Congress illegally discriminated against a transgender woman on grounds of sex discrimination. Spitzer’s ACLU office represented the transgender woman, Diane Schroer, in the case along with the ACLU’s LGBT Rights Project.
The ACLU called the judge’s action “a groundbreaking decision that found that discriminating against someone for changing genders is sex discrimination under federal law.”
Spitzer said TerVeer’s case could potentially result in expanding the scope of Title VII, the federal civil rights statute, to cover gay people if the court issues a favorable decision on TerVeer’s lawsuit.
But Spitzer noted that unless the case is appealed by the library and an appeals court upholds the lower court decision, the favorable ruling would only apply to TerVeer.
Schroer was a retired and highly decorated Army colonel assigned to the Army Airborne Rangers before she applied for a Library of Congress job as a terrorism research analyst. The library hired her before reversing its decision and turning her down for the job when it learned she was transitioning from a man to a woman.
In its ruling against the library, the court ordered the library to pay Schroer nearly $500,000 in compensation for the discrimination it found the library to have committed. Schroer chose not to take the job there.
TerVeer is being represented for his lawsuit by attorneys Christopher Brown and Glen Ackerman of Ackerman Brown, PLLC; and Thomas Simeone of Simeone & Miller. (Ackerman Brown, PLLC also represents the Washington Blade in legal matters.)
The lawsuit says that when TerVeer began his job in February 2008 as a management auditor in the auditing division of the Library of Congress Office of the Inspector General, his work was well received and he soon received promotions.
The lawsuit says Mech and TerVeer had a cordial, professional relationship until Mach discovered TerVeer was gay in August 2009.
“Mech facilitated an introduction to his single daughter, Katie Mech, and the two became ‘friends’ on the social networking website Facebook in January 2009,” the lawsuit says.
It says that in August 2009 TerVeer missed noticing that Facebook changed its privacy settings, enabling Facebook friends to see certain postings on his site that previously could not be seen by people other than those he allowed to see them. One of the postings was a page linked to a group that supports gay fathers and advocates for ending discrimination against gay parents.
When Katie Mech apparently saw the “gay” link on TerVeer’s Facebook page she wrote him a message saying, “Don’t tell me you’re weird like that,” the lawsuit says. It says TerVeer responded offline by confirming that he was gay but noting that he was not “weird,” the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, from that time going forward John Mach dramatically changed his attitude toward TerVeer in a negative way, leading TerVeer to believe Katie Mach told her father he was gay.
“Now, at the beginning of almost every work-related conversation, Mech would engage in a religious lecture to the point where it became clear that Mech was targeting TerVeer by imposing his conservative Catholic beliefs on TerVeer throughout the workday,” the lawsuit says. “TerVeer proclaims a Christian faith, but one that is accepting of his sexual orientation,” says the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says that on June 21, 2010 Mech called TerVeer into an unscheduled meeting and delivered a stern lecture to “educate” TerVeer on “hell” and the sin of homosexuality.
Mech began reciting Bible verses to TerVeer, the lawsuit says, telling him, “I hope you repent because the Bible is very clear about what God does to homosexuals.” The lawsuit says Mech went on to quote the biblical passage of Leviticus that says, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman…they must be put to death.”
TerVeer charges in the lawsuit that Mech, with help from Mech’s supervisor, Nicholas Christopher, “continued to manufacture a negative paper trail” to downgrade TerVeer’s work performance ratings. The lawsuit says this was an effort to justify Mech’s alleged goal of orchestrating TerVeer’s termination from his job.
“TerVeer was subjected to a hostile work environment and continued harassment from Mech based upon religious affiliation, sex stereotyping, and sexual orientation,” the lawsuit says. Christopher, Mech, and other supervisors failed to inform TerVeer of his right to file a discrimination claim and retaliated against TerVeer because he sought to and ultimately did file a discrimination claim, the suit says.
“The work environment became too hostile for TerVeer to continue working under Mech or Christopher’s supervision, and his requests for transfer were denied,” the lawsuit says. “TerVeer was constructively terminated on April 6, 2012 because he was unable to return to a workplace where he had to confront constant discriminatory treatment from Mech and Christopher.”
The suit calls for injunctive relief, including reinstatement and an “order restraining defendant from engaging in further discriminatory conduct…”
It calls for back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, including for emotional distress, and reimbursement for attorneys’ fees and other court related costs. The suit doesn’t seek a specific dollar amount for damages and compensation and other costs, saying the amounts would be determined at trial.
National
Baldwin, Pocan named on alleged Minn. shooter’s target lists
Suspected gunman was taken into custody Sunday

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrats of Wisconsin, were named on lists of targets belonging to the man suspected of killing Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and of injuring Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.
The Hoffmans sustained multiple gunshot wounds and are reportedly in serious but stable condition.
Vance Boelter, the suspect, was apprehended on Sunday in connection with the shootings, which occurred on Saturday. He faces federal murder and stalking charges as well as state-level murder and attempted murder charges.
“Senator Baldwin was informed by law enforcement that she was included on the alleged shooter’s list of names,” Baldwin’s Communications Director Eli Rosen told Channel3000.com. “She is grateful for law enforcement’s swift action to keep the community safe and remains focused on the things that matter most here: honoring the legacy and life of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, praying for the other victims who are fighting for their lives, and condemning this abhorrent, senseless political violence.”
“I recently heard that my name was in one of the Minnesota shooting suspect’s notebooks and I’m appreciative that law enforcement apprehended the suspect,” Pocan said in a statement to Channel3000.com. “I will not back down in the face of terror, however, we as elected officials, must do better to lower the temperature. That said, my schedule remains unchanged.”
The news outlet reported on Monday that Baldwin’s name appeared on a list of 70 targets, while Pocan’s name was found on additional documents. The senator and congressman are both openly LGBTQ.
Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman (Ohio), Hillary Schotlen (Mich.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), and Joaquin Castro (Texas) also confirmed that their names appeared in notebooks recovered from Boelter’s vehicle.
Other Democrats who were reportedly targeted but whose offices have not yet provided confirmation as of Tuesday afternoon include LGBTQ congresswoman Angie Craig, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Attorney General Keith Ellison, all from Minnesota, along with U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, and U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.
Walz called the shootings a “politically motivated assassination.”
Federal Government
Trump anti-trans EO used to deny health care to Democrats, unmarried vets
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.

New rules would allow doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to deny care to unmarried veterans and Democrats at hospitals across the country, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
According to the Guardian, which was first to report the hospital guidelines on Monday, they apply also to psychologists, dentists, and other providers — allowing for individual staff to refuse care for veterans on the basis of characteristics not covered under federal law, which proscribes discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, and sex.
Doctors can also be barred from working on VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, per documents reviewed by the Guardian. The agency confirmed changes to the rules came in response to Trump’s executive order.
Specifically, per the paper:
Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items — including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” — have been removed from that list.
Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation.”
Experts warn that changes to the guidelines may lead to situations where, for example, doctors may question patients about whether they attended a rally for a political candidate or in support of gay rights, potentially denying care on those bases or because of the reasons given for seeking care, such as cases where the patient may report a rape or sexual assault.
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.
National
New LGBTQ+ Archive to save scrubbed federal resources
Trump’s anti-DEI crusade seeks to erase entire communities

Generally, when someone says, “The internet is forever,” it is not a positive statement.
But for Shae Gardner, policy director at LGBT Tech, it has become a lifeline as she and her team have spent the last couple of months tracking down documents removed from government websites.
After a series of anti-DEI and LGBTQ executive orders, thousands of pages across the federal government have been removed or altered—with LGBTQ topics taking a big hit.
The LGBTQ+ Archive, launched by LGBT Tech last month, aims to restore lost resources about the LGBTQ community into a centralized hub. They have tracked down approximately 1,000 documents—all available as downloadable PDFs and sorted by agency—but know that more are missing. Users can submit missing documents or requests for missing documents.
Archived resources range from the 2023 Equity Action Plans mandated under Biden to HIV resource sheets.
Sid Gazula, LGBT Tech’s Google Policy Fellow said reviewing the documents scrubbed from the Department of Health and Human Services was striking. “You have these important documents related to people’s health. Health isn’t subjective,” he said, “The fact that an executive order could take away all this information was very eye-opening.”
For Gazula it made an already urgent project more urgent. “We, as a community, need access to these resources,” he said, “The archive presents a mechanism to get that access out there.”
The LGBT community has a long history of engaging in archival work, explained K.J. Rawson, professor at Northeastern University and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, in an email. He described archives as “key avenues for preserving and making accessible queer and trans history.”
Since mainstream archives often erase or misrepresent the LGBTQ community, Rawson pointed out that LGBTQ archives “fight against this trend and wrest control back into LGBTQ+ hands,” citing Cait McKinney’s phrase “information activism.”
Gardner feels appreciative of the history of LGBTQ preservation, which guided their work: “I want to make it abundantly clear that we are not the first or only organization doing this sort of preservation work.” She also mentions the Internet Archive, a non-profit library of web pages, which was invaluable during their research.
When the Blade asked about the LGBT Archive, Rawson described it as “crucial!” He elaborated that, “the overt erasure of LGBTQ+ people––but especially trans people––from federal websites has been a hostile move that’s one part of larger efforts to strip us of our humanity and our history.”
Beyond creating a record for the future, the archive is also useful in fighting for LGBTQ representation today. Gardner explained that numerous journalists and advocacy groups have already been using it. Gazula, who is a student, shared that some of their professors said it was an important resource for academic work.
To access it, users have to create an account. Gardner said this is not for marketing. Instead, they want to “put a stop gap between us and malicious actors and attacks on the site” and have a basic understanding of who is using the site. She assures users that the data is backed up on servers globally, but encourages folks to download freely from the archive.
“We decided that we wanted every document and resource on it to be a PDF that they would be able to save it themselves,” said Gardner, “This is not only meant to be very user-friendly, but is also meant to help with those resources being dispersed and being kept.”
“It is the history of our community,” Gardner continued, “we deserve to have continued access to it.”
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