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Veteran gay Dem to head LGBT caucus at convention

Stafford to attend 10th party confab

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Rick Stafford (photo courtesy of Stafford)

When nearly 500 LGBT delegates attending the Democratic National Convention hold their first caucus meeting in Charlotte, N.C., next Tuesday, veteran gay Democratic activist Rick Stafford of Minnesota will pound the gavel to call the meeting to order.

Stafford, 60, has been credited with playing a lead role in lobbying, cajoling, and nudging the Democratic Party to take a strong stand on LGBT rights and to change its delegate selection rules and policies to reach out to minorities, especially LGBT people, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of LGBT delegates.

“This will be my tenth convention,” he told the Blade. “I was out for nine of them.”

He said he kept his sexual orientation confidential during his first Democratic Convention in Miami in 1972, when the Democrats nominated George McGovern for president. He had been selected to attend as a page at a time when he lived in a small town in rural Minnesota.

“There were just a few openly gay delegates,” he said. “You could fit them all in a phone booth.”

Since that time, Stafford has played an increasingly prominent role in Democratic Party politics, both locally and nationally, according to party activists who know him.

With the exception of the 1976 convention, which nominated Jimmy Carter and his vice presidential running mate Walter Mondale of Minnesota, Stafford said he has attended every Democratic Convention since then.

In 1992, Minnesota Democrats elected Stafford as chair of the state party, making him the first out gay person to win election to chair either of the two major parties in a state.

Since the 1990s Stafford has served at various times as a member of the Democratic National Committee. He currently chairs the DNC’s LGBT Americans Caucus.

Gay Democratic activist Kurt Vorndran of D.C., who has worked with Stafford on LGBT party related issues since the 1980s, said Stafford worked “relentlessly” both behind the scenes and through official DNC channels to push the party into requiring the state parties to set goals for recruiting LGBT people, along with other minorities, to become delegates to the Democratic conventions.

“He has served as a member of the party and convention rules committees,” Vorndran said. “He made sure the rule had outreach policies for the LGBT community. Thanks to his hard work and the work of others, for the first time, every single state may have at least one gay or LGBT delegate.”

Stafford said one of the most memorable conventions he attended was in 1984 in San Francisco, when fellow Minnesotan Walter Mondale was nominated for president and selected U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-N.Y.) as the nation’s first female vice presidential candidate for a major political party.

Working with then gay Democratic activist Tom Chorton of D.C., who became the leader of the nation’s first national gay Democratic Party organization, Stafford said he used his Minnesota connections to arrange meetings and phone conversations shortly before the start of the convention with high-level Mondale campaign officials, including Joan Mondale, the candidate’s wife.

As a result of those efforts, according to Stafford, the Mondale campaign put out the word to the convention platform committee that the campaign would support proposed language in the platform calling for federal legislation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“This led to the first formal recognition of gays by the party,” Stafford said.

With the exception of what he calls a few setbacks and “bumps in the road” the strength of the party’s platform on LGBT issues and the presence of LGBT people increased in every Democratic convention since that time, Stafford said.

Asked what the main objective for the convention’s LGBT caucus will be at the 2012 convention in Charlotte, Stafford said it will be to pull out all the stops to facilitate the re-election of Barack Obama as president.

“The goal is to celebrate what this administration has given us and our community,” he said.

“And just look at the things we’ll be celebrating. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the Ryan White HIV Treatment Extension Act and a national AIDS strategy, the lifting of the HIV entry ban, the federal housing programs that ban discrimination on sexual orientation and gender identity throughout the federal government.”

He fired off many other actions he considers “highly significant” LGBT-related accomplishments by the Obama administration, including the large number of LGBT people appointed to high-level administration jobs.

Stafford said that as a staunch adherent of the Democratic Party’s liberal-progressive wing, he sometimes finds himself playing the role of pragmatist. He said that role has already surfaced this week, when he counseled LGBT delegates not to engage in a floor protest against the controversial appearance at the convention of Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and former GOP Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is backing Obama’s re-election bid. Dolan is scheduled to give the closing prayer at both the GOP and Democratic conventions.

LGBT activists last year denounced Dolan for taking a lead role in opposing New York State’s same-sex marriage law, which the state legislature passed. Activists in Florida have criticized Crist for not being more supportive on LGBT rights.

“I was a rabble rouser,” said Stafford. “But we knew about timing, when it’s the best time to pick and choose your battles. It’s just sheer stupidity when we’re even thinking about a negative protest when we have so much to celebrate.”

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National

Comings & Goings

Ted Lewis named director of Rainbow Families

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Ted Lewis

The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected]

The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success. 

Congratulations to Ted Lewis M.ED. on being named executive director of Rainbow Families. On their appointment they said, “Right now, when we are facing tremendous opposition to our very existence, is the time to build up our community and our community resources. LGBTQ+ families are innovative, supportive, loving, and resilient and we will need all those tools and more in this moment. My hope as Rainbow Families’ Executive Director is to expand our membership and welcome the vast community resources, expertise, and lived experiences to support new family formation and new parents. I hope to bring education, advocacy and support to LGBTQ+ families, parents, and prospective parents when we are worried about our rights disappearing. I’m also excited to join the joyous and thriving community at Rainbow Families and expand on fun events that bring families together from our weekend camping trip, to picking pumpkins at Cox Farms, and dancing at family parties. It is within a beloved community that we can both prepare for challenges ahead and celebrate our fabulousness together.”

Prior to this, Lewis served as director of Youth Well-Being for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Lewis served as project manager for Project THRIVE, a multi-year campaign with 30+ national organizations committed to the thriving of LGBTQ youth resulting in industry specific resources and professional development on LGBTQ best practices. Lewis was also founder and CEO of Ted Lewis Consulting, advising K-12 school districts, Fortune 500 companies, higher education institutions, and non-profits on LGBTQ inclusive practices. They also served as assistant director for Sexual/Gender Diversity, UNC Charlotte, responsible for LGBTQ student programming as well as Men’s & Women’s programming for the institution. Lewis has presented on numerous panels including: “Othermuvas: How Black LGBTQ+ Chosen Families Provide Support to Black LGBTQ+ Youth” National Mentoring Summit, 2025; “Addressing the Issues of LGBTQ+ Cultural Competency, Parity and Inconsistency” Richmond Bench-Bar Conference, 2019; and “The Unmasking: Race & Reality in Richmond” Richmond Magazine Panel, 2017. Lewis was named in Style Weekly’s 40 Under 40, in 2018; and received the VA Pride Firework Award in 2019.

Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree in English and History, University of Mary Washington; Master of Education, University of South Carolina, and an Education Master Certificate in Women & Gender Studies, University of North Carolina, Charlotte. 

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Federal Government

Garcia writes to HHS Secretary about the dismantling of HIV programs in Trump’s second term

Out congressman was elected top Democrat on House Oversight on June 24

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. appears on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2024. (Screen capture via YouTube)

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter on Thursday to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanding answers about the Trump-Vance administration’s “systematic” elimination of programs to fight HIV in the U.S. and around the world.

Also signed by Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the letter requests information about cuts to federal support for HIV research, including vaccine development efforts, the shuttering of the HIV prevention division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the defunding of programs providing HIV treatment and prevention services since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The lawmakers requested responses by or before the end of July.

“It is shameful that HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and the Trump Administration are working to dismantle our HIV research, care, and prevention programs aimed at eradicating the disease across the world,” Garcia said. “This decision is absolutely reckless and puts millions of lives at risk.  Oversight Democrats refuse to let Secretary Kennedy’s reliance on conspiracy theories and misinformation threaten the health and safety of our public health.” 

“The Trump Administration’s reckless decision to gut HIV prevention and research programs is not only scientifically indefensible—it’s morally unconscionable. These cuts jeopardize the health of millions, both at home and abroad, and reverse decades of bipartisan progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” Krishnamoorthi said. “We’re demanding answers because the American people, and the global community, deserve better than politically motivated neglect of public health.”

Echoing warnings from HIV and public health experts, the congressmen in their letter stressed that backsliding in efforts to fight the disease at home and abroad come just as advancements in treatment and prevention have finally put some of the most ambitious goals to end the epidemic within reach.

The letter suggests that Kennedy’s embrace of misinformation about HIV might explain, to some extent, his dismantling of programs to end the epidemic at home and abroad, specifically, pointing to the secretary’s history of challenging the overwhelming and longstanding scientific and medical consensus about the causal relationship between HIV and AIDS.

The congressmen also detailed many of the real-world consequences of health policy concerning HIV in Trump’s second term. For example, they note experts anticipate there will be millions of excess new HIV infections and hundreds of thousands of excess HIV-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa in just one year.

The letter also warns that “President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request for domestic HIV program calls for a $1.5 billion reduction in funding,” which “could lead to more than 143,000 additional HIV cases in the United States within five years and about 127,000 additional deaths from HIV and AIDS-related causes.”

Garcia’s leadership of Oversight Dems will be closely watched

If Democrats recapture a majority of seats in the House next year, Garcia becomes chair of the committee and has access to far more powerful tools to exercise oversight — like the authority to issue subpoenas (unilaterally or by majority vote) compelling witnesses to testify or requiring officials to turn over documents.

Leadership positions, especially coveted spots leading the most powerful committees in Congress, are typically awarded based on seniority. When the House Democratic caucus elected Garcia on June 24, it marked the first first time in more than a century that a second-term member was selected for the role.

During his brief time in Washington, the congressman, who is openly gay and formerly served as mayor of Long Beach, has emerged as arguably one of the strongest communicators in the House Democratic caucus and one of his party’s most vocal critics of the second Trump administration.

Thursday’s letter, which comes less than a month after his election as ranking member, may signal how Garcia will approach fact finding missions and investigations, or where he will focus the committee’s work, under the vastly expanded powers that might be available to him after the midterms.

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National

Trump threatens Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship

Comedian responds with post linking him to Epstein

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Rosie O'Donnell (Screen capture via The Late Late Show/YouTube)

Donald Trump threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship last weekend amid his administration’s pattern of targeting people with whom he has publicly disagreed.

The actress and comedian, known for her roles in major motion pictures like “A League of Their Own” and “Harriet the Spy,” was singled out by the president on his social media app Truth Social, where he called the lesbian entertainer a “Threat to Humanity.”

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump also posted. “[She] should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

In response to the post—which reignites a decade-old feud between the two—O’Donnell shared a collage of photos from her time in Ireland, along with an old photo of Trump with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“The president of the usa has always hated the fact that i see him for who he is – a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself,” the former talk show host posted on Instagram. She continued, “this is why i moved to ireland – he is a dangerous old soulless man with dementia who lacks empathy compassion and basic humanity – i stand in direct opposition [to] all he represents – so do millions of others – u gonna deport all who stand against ur evil tendencies – ur a bad joke who cant form a coherent sentence.”

Trump’s threat is both irregular and constitutionally unsound. The Supreme Court has ruled over multiple decades that stripping someone of their citizenship violates the Constitution—and the 14th Amendment.

Three Supreme Court cases in particular—Trop v. Dulles (1958), Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)—have all affirmed that once legally obtained, citizenship is not something that can simply be revoked, even if the president disagrees with what a person says or does. In Afroyim v. Rusk, the Supreme Court wrote: “In our country the people are sovereign and the Government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship.”

This authoritarian threat echoes Trump’s broader efforts to undermine birthright citizenship, which has been a foundational part of the U.S. Constitution since the ratification of the 14th amendment.

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