National
Aggressive Obama meets passive Romney in foreign policy debate
No mention of LGBT human rights abuses abroad
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Obama squared off in a foreign policy debate (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney sparred over foreign policy Monday evening in their final debate and, as in the previous debates, neither candidate made a direct reference to LGBT issues.
During the debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., Obama took an aggressive posture, challenging Romney for switching his positions on issues, while Romney appeared passive and agreed with Obama on several key points. Both candidates made explicit references to protecting the rights of women overseas. Romney brought up promoting “gender equity” in the Middle East when talking about U.S. strategy in the Arab world, and Obama said “protecting religious minorities and women” should be a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.
Other references to social issues were more general. At one point, Obama mocked Romney for his social policies without naming any position on social issues in particular, saying, “Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.”
Later, Romney said protecting “human rights” overseas was essential — but didn’t enumerate any groups for which the human rights should be protected.
Jeff Krehely, vice president of LGBT research at the Center for American Progress, said prior to the debate any discussion of LGBT issues would likely have exposed Romney’s ignorance of LGBT human rights abuses overseas.
“It’s pretty clear that Gov. Romney would be an abysmal president for LGBT Americans, since he’s made a political calculation to abandon any support for affirmative LGBT federal rights at home,” Krehely said. “But it would be good for voters to know whether he’s even aware that being gay is actually a punishable crime in many countries, and if he would continue to implement existing U.S. State Department policies that are helping to change that. If he’s not willing to do so, it’s a pretty clear indication of how far right he has drifted and just how badly he wants to be president.”
Turmoil in Syria, where an estimated 30,000 people have been killed under the Assad regime, was a contentious point during the debate. Romney faulted the Obama administration for not taking a leadership role in ousting the dictator, but Obama said the United States organized “Friends of Syria” and is mobilizing humanitarian support. When moderator Bob Scheiffer asked Romney what more he would do in the country, he didn’t commit to any different policy and said he doesn’t think military involvement is appropriate at this time.
Romney also faulted Obama for not placing enough emphasis on the U.S. partnership with Israel and said other countries in the Middle East noticed that Obama didn’t visit Israel when making a trip to the region during an early part of his administration. But Obama recalled that he visited Israel as a candidate and toured the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem “to remind myself of the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.”
The candidates also discussed the appropriate size for the U.S. military. Romney criticized Obama by saying our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1916 and the Air Force is older and smaller than any time since its founding in 1947. Obama responded by saying the military has evolved over time and “we also have fewer horses and bayonets.” The “horses and bayonets” line immediately became an Internet sensation.
Throughout the debate, Romney emphasized the threat of Iran becoming a nuclear power and often spoke about the need to protect U.S. interests abroad by building a strong economy at home. Notably, Romney beyond his opening statement avoided the recent controversy over terrorist attacks at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the deaths of four Americans — including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens — despite his earlier attacks on Obama on that issue.
The general consensus of the debate was Obama came out on top. Following the debate, a CBS News poll of debate viewers found that 53 percent believed Obama won compared to 23 percent who gave victory to Romney and 24 percent who said it was a tie.
Many observers said Romney appeared to agree with Obama on much of his foreign policy, including on the issue of drone strikes in Afghanistan when Romney said he supports that move “entirely.” The Washington Post’s Chris Cilliiza wrote Romney, “struggled to differentiate how his foreign policy would offer a break with what Obama has pursued over the past four years.”
Jerame Davis, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said Obama “won tonight’s debate.”
“Mitt Romney is not ready for the world stage, he is not qualified to lead our country, and he has proven time and again he will say anything to get elected,” Davis said. “Americans should not be fooled by a slick sales pitch from an empty suit. President Obama has the stature, temperament, knowledge and vision to be the leader of the free world. Mitt Romney does not.”
Richard Grenell, who’s gay and briefly served as foreign policy spokesperson for the Romney campaign, said the debate revealed the Democratic messaging that Romney isn’t yet prepared to lead the country is false.
“It’s clear the Obama narrative that Gov. Romney is too extreme and naïve on foreign policy issues has imploded,” Grenell said. “They’ve wasted six months and millions of dollars on a message that fell apart tonight. The Obama team has quickly pivoted to start a new narrative that Romney is agreeing with President Obama on foreign affairs. The Obama team is panicking because they sense that the president isn’t going to get re-elected.”
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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