National
Meet Baldwin’s opponent: Tommy Thompson
Former Wis. guv wins Republican nomination
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (photo public domain)
The build up over whom lesbian U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin will face in the general election came to an end Tuesday night when Wisconsin voters gave the GOP nomination to former Gov. Tommy Thompson.
The Associated Press called the election for Thompson at around 11:30 in the evening. According to WisconsinVote.org — a project of Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television — Thompson had around 34 percent of the vote.
The GOP candidate who came closest was hedge fund manager Eric Hovde, who had 30.9 percent of the vote. Former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann had 22.8 percent while Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald had 12.4 percent.
SEE WHO MAY BE FILLING TAMMY BALDWIN’S HOUSE SEAT NEXT YEAR.
On the same night, Baldwin officially claimed the Democratic nomination in her pursuit of the seat that Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) is vacating at the end of this year, putting her in a position to become the first openly gay person elected to the Senate.
Thompson has a long history of service in public office. He served as Wisconsin’s governor from from 1987 to 2001 and was secretary of health and human services under former President George W. Bush. In 2008, Thompson sought the Republican nomination to run for the White House, but dropped out early in his bid.
Thompson’s victory in the Republican primary is probably the worst outcome for Baldwin because the former governor is popular in his state and was seen as a moderate candidate with the greatest appeal to the mainstream voters. Still, he didn’t have the self-financing capability of Hovde, who funded 92 percent of his campaign with millions of his own money.
In a statement issued on the night of the primary, Baldwin tore into Thompson, saying he’ll “stand with those who already have too much power and influence in Washington.”
“I will fight to do what’s right for the middle class and Thompson will put those at the very top and the big monied special interests in Washington ahead of Wisconsin’s hard working families,” Baldwin said. “I will take on these powerful interests in Washington, and in the Senate, I will stand up for Wisconsin’s middle class, as I always have.”
Among the policies that Baldwin said she’ll push for include a “Made in Wisconsin” manufacturing economy; tax cuts for small business to fuel job creation; ending tax breaks for outsourcing and giving companies tax incentives to create jobs within the United States.
“Tommy Thompson supports the policies of the past,” Baldwin said. “Policies that have failed. Policies from the past that crashed our economy, and got us into our fiscal mess in the first place. He believes we should slash the very investments we need to move our economy forward, in education, innovation, and infrastructure — all while cutting taxes for those at the very top.”
Recent polls have put Baldwin either dead-even with Thompson or him with a single-digit lead. In a CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac poll published last week, Baldwin ties Thompson, 47-47. In a Marquette University poll, Thompson leads Baldwin 48-43.
Still, Baldwin is in good position to take on Thompson in terms of fundraising; she’s nearly trebled the funds the GOP candidate has raised. According to Federal Election Commission reports, Baldwin has $7.1 million in net receipts, $4.7 million in net expenditures and $3.2 million in cash on hand. None of her net receipts are the result of self-financing.
In comparison, Thompson has $2.5 million in net receipts, $2.1 million in net expenditures and $198,000 in cash on hand. Around $133,000, or five percent, of his net receipts are the result of contributions to his own campaign.
The Republican primary fell on the same day that LPAC, the lesbian Super PAC launched by Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts, announced it has endorsed Baldwin and would match every dollar that individuals give to her campaign through the Super PAC up to $50,000. That means the group has a goal of raising $100,000 for Baldwin.
Arguably, Thompson was the least opposed to LGBT rights of the four major Republican candidates in the running. During an interview with Wisconsin’s CBS 58 earlier this year, he said marriage should be left to the states and he backs the Defense of Marriage Act, but stopped short of endorsing a Federal Marriage Amendment for the U.S. Constitution.
“I believe very strongly in the Defense of the Marriage Act,” Thompson said. “Marriage is one man and one woman. I support that. That’s the federal law. I’m a little gun shy of people saying, ‘We got to have constitutional amendments for this or that. I happen to like our Constitution, and, I think, you should not be going around amending constitutions.”
During a 2008 Republican presidential debate, Thompson said “yes” when questioned whether employers should be able fire people if they’re gay, but later said he answered the question incorrectly and doesn’t believe in discrimination. Thompson said he backs Wisconsin’s statewide law against discrimination against gays — enacted in 1982 and the first-ever in the country — but stopped short of saying he’d support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
“I didn’t hear the question properly and I apologize,” Thompson said. “It’s not my position. There should be no discrimination in the workplace and I have never believed that. And, in fact, Wisconsin has one of the first laws, which I supported.”
As secretary of health and human services, Thompson headed Bush’s domestic effort against HIV/AIDS, renewing the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, announcing approval of rapid testing and directing funds to confront the epidemic. But Thompson also worked for a president who touted abstinence-only education and remained silent on gay men and condoms for much of his administration.
On the other hand, as the first non-incumbent openly gay person elected to the U.S. House, Baldwin not only supported, but has taken the lead on pro-LGBT legislation and helped guide it through Congress. Baldwin voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006. In later years, she voted for hate crimes protections legislation, a sexual orientation-only version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
CORRECTION: An initial version of this article incorrectly referred to Tammy Baldwin as the first openly gay person to have a major party nomination in a bid for a U.S. Senate seat. That distinction actually goes to Ed Flanagan of Vermont, whom the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund endorsed in 2000. Flanagan lost his bid to incumbent Jim Jeffords, who was a Republican at the time. The Blade regrets the error.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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Calendar: November 14-20
