National
DNC 2012: Obama makes his case for second term
Multiple nods to LGBT community during acceptance speech

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Obama made his case to voters Thursday on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in a speech that contained references to LGBT rights.
Obama formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president and encouraged voters to give him another term, but cautioned the road ahead wouldn’t be easy.
“I’m asking you to rally around a set of goals for your country — goals in manufacturing, energy, education, national security, and the deficit; a real, achievable plan that will lead to new jobs, more opportunity, and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation,” Obama said. “That’s what we can do in the next four years, and that’s why I’m running for a second term as president of the United States.”
Nearly 6,000 delegates waived American flags and held up blue signs reading, “Forward,” the slogan for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. Chants of “Fired up! Ready to go!” came before and after the speech.
At one point, Obama rapidly ticked off several national security achievements of his administration, which ended with roaring applause.
“Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq,” Obama said. “We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We’ve blunted the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.”
Obama also criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for not articulating a clear plan for how he’d achieve economic growth, saying the GOP didn’t have much to say on how it would put the country on a better track.
“And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last 30 years,” Obama said. “Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!”
Obama unveiled ambitious policies that he pledged to work toward if elected to a second term in office. Among his goals were creating 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016, reducing new oil imports to half their current level by 2020, cutting the growth of college tuition by half over the next 10 years and reducing the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.
Attendees gathered to see the president in the Time Warner Cable Arena, where they had gone for the previous days of the convention. The original plan was for Obama to speak at the Bank of America Stadium before a larger audience, but that was cancelled because of predictions of inclement weather. The skies ended up being clear on the night Obama delivered his address and many who hoped to see the president were turned away because of lack of capacity.
At three points during his address, Obama made references to LGBT people and struggles they face.
The first mention came when Obama praised Americans for being a people who don’t blame minority groups — including gays — for the trouble afflicting the country.
“We don’t think government can solve all our problems,” Obama said. “But we don’t think that government is the source of all our problems – any more than are welfare recipients, or corporations, or unions, or immigrants, or gays, or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles.”
Obama also criticized “Washington politicians” who would prohibit the right of people to marry. Romney supports a Federal Marriage Amendment.
“If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves,” Obama said.
Finally, Obama hit on legislative repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home; why selfless soldiers won’t be kicked out of the military because of who they are or who they love; why thousands of families have finally been able to say to the loved ones who served us so bravely, “Welcome home,” Obama said.
Gay delegates who attended the convention said they were thrilled with Obama’s speech and it made them more committed to making sure he wins re-election this fall.
Jason Rae, a gay 25-year-old delegate and political consultant from Wisconsin, said Obama laid out “a bold vision” for what he wants to accomplish over the next four years. In 2004, Rae became the youngest person ever elected to the Democratic National Committee at age 17.
“He briefly touched on a number of issues, including LGBT issues, but spent the time he had necessarily laying out a stark contrast between an Obama presidency and a Romney presidency,” Rae said. “During the entire convention, LGBT issues — ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and marriage equality — were frequent points of his accomplishments. No where did this convention hide his unwavering support for our community.”
Richard Socarides, a gay delegate from New York City and former adviser on gay issues for President Clinton, called the speech “a great finishing touch to our convention” and said Democrats have realized support for LGBT rights is good for them politically.
“It was a very strong speech and I love the embrace gay Americans are now receiving from the Democrats,” Socarides said. “We have told them equality is good policy and good politics and now I think they finally believe us.”
But the head of one gay conservative group who came to the Democratic convention was unimpressed with Obama’s remarks.
Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, issued a statement following the address saying Obama failed to realize economic concerns are a priority for gays and not LGBT rights. GOProud has endorsed Romney.
“For many gay Americans this election is about survival,” LaSalvia said. “It’s about finding a job, about putting food on the table, about putting gas in their car — it’s about the basics. The Democrats had three days to talk about these issues and instead they decided to focus on divisive social issues.”
Vice President Joseph Biden preceded Obama with his own speech accepting the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nomination. Biden praised Obama for accomplishments such as restoring the automotive industry and bringing bin Laden to justice, but also fulfilled his role as a presidential candidate’s attack dog by going after Romney.
“I found it fascinating last week when Gov. Romney said that as president he’d take a jobs tour,” Biden said. “Well with all his support for outsourcing, it’s going to have to be a foreign trip. Look, President Obama knows that creating jobs in America, keeping jobs in America, and bringing jobs back to America is what being president is all about.”
Biden, who publicly endorsed same-sex marriage just days ahead of Obama, didn’t explicitly mention LGBT issues during his remarks, but offered a line that may have been a veiled reference to the LGBT community, saying Obama sees a future “where no one, no one is forced to live in the shadows of intolerance.”
Following the president’s speech, the Catholic Church’s Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan performed the convocation. Dolan is known for his opposition to same-sex marriage, although no boos or objections were heard when the he went onstage.
“Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” Dolan said. “Empower us with your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jason Rae was from Minnesota. The Blade regrets the error.
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

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.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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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