National
Supreme Court takes up Prop 8, DOMA cases
Justices to settle two major issues on same-sex marriage


The U.S. Supreme Court took up litigation challenging DOMA and Prop 8 (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Ending months of anticipation, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled on Friday it would take up litigation challenging California’s Proposition 8 and one case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act.
Justices decided to take up the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which seeks to overturn the state constitutional amendment California voters passed in 2008 that took away marriage rights for same-sex couples.
They also decided to take up Windsor v. United States, litigation challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. That lawsuit was filed by Edith Windsor, a New York widow who was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes in 2009 upon the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer.
The court made the news in an orders list published Friday following a conference the justices held on the same day. Four justices must vote affirmatively to grant a writ of certiorari in any particular case, but that vote isn’t public information.
Windsor, 83, expressed excitement in a statement that her lawsuit would be the one to challenge DOMA at the Supreme Court. Her lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union along with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and other groups.
“When Thea and I met nearly 50 years ago, we never could have dreamed that the story of our life together would be before the Supreme Court as an example of why gay married couples should be treated equally, and not like second-class citizens,” Windsor said. “While Thea is no longer alive, I know how proud she would have been to see this day. The truth is, I never expected any less from my country.”
This news that the court will take up the Perry case is disappointing to many who had hoped justices would decline to hear the litigation and allow a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down the measure to stand.
John Eastman, chair of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, said the decision of the Supreme Court to take up the Prop 8 lawsuit suggests justices are poised to reverse decisions from lower courts against the same-sex marriage ban.
“We believe it is a strong signal that the Court will reverse the lower courts and uphold Proposition 8,” Eastman said. “That is the right outcome based on the law and based on the principle that voters hold the ultimate power over basic policy judgments and their decisions are entitled to respect.”
Still, LGBT advocates expressed excitement that the Supreme Court has decided to take up the Prop 8 case and has the opportunity to rule against California’s same-sex marriage ban once and for all.
Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin – who also co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the organization behind the Prop 8 lawsuit – said the decision marks another “milestone” day for same-sex couples.
“The passage of Proposition 8 caused heartbreak for so many Americans, but today’s announcement gives hope that we will see a landmark Supreme Court ruling for marriage this term,” Griffin said. “As the Court has ruled 14 times in the past, marriage is a fundamental right and I believe they will side with liberty, freedom and equality, moving us toward a more perfect union as they have done in the past.”
The decision means litigation will continue at the Supreme Court and the court will rule on them by the middle of next year. Justices can affirm a Ninth Circuit decision striking down Prop 8 or uphold the anti-gay measure as constitutional. For DOMA, the court could either uphold the federal recognition of same-sex marriage, or strike it down and allow federal benefits to flow to same-sex couples.
No news was made on three other DOMA cases before the Supreme Court: the consolidated case of Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. Department of Health & Human Services; Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management and Golinski v. United States. If justices declined to hear the cases at the Friday conference, it would be announced in another orders list set for publication on Monday.
Doug NeJaime, who’s gay and a professor at Loyola Law School, said justices may have elected to take up the Windsor case — the only DOMA lawsuit in which a federal appeals court ruled against DOMA by applying heightened scrutiny — to apply that same standard to Prop 8.
“If sexual orientation classifications merit heightened scrutiny, as the Second Circuit held, all laws that discriminate against lesbians and gay men – including state marriage prohibitions like Prop. 8 – would be suspect,” NeJaime said.
But NeJaime added taking up both Windsor and Perry may also mean justices see “a material distinction” between a federal law denying recognition to same-sex marriage and a state law preventing same-sex couples from marrying. That could mean the court will split the difference in its rulings, finding DOMA unconstitutional but upholding Prop 8.
In addition to announcing it would take up the litigation, the Supreme Court also asks parties involved in both cases to brief and argue certain questions.
For the Prop 8 case, the parties must answer whether proponents of the same-sex marriage ban have standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to defend the same-sex marriage ban in court. Whether anti-gay groups, such as Protect Marriage, have standing to defend the law in court has been a long-standing issue in the case. California Gov. Jerry Brown and California Attorney General Kamala Harris have refused to defend the law in court, leaving anti-gay groups left as the one’s responsible to defend the law.
For the DOMA cases, the court asks parties to answer two questions. The first is whether the executive branch agreement with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear the case. In February 2011, the Obama administration announced that DOMA is unconstitutional and it would no longer defend the law in court.
The second question related to DOMA is whether the House Republican-led Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has standing to defend the law. After the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend DOMA, House Republicans under the leadership of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) decided to take up defense of the law in the administration’s stead.
The Supreme Court has continually put off making a decision on whether to take up the Prop 8 and DOMA litigation. The cases were first docketed for the conference on Sept. 24, but made no decision at that time. The cases were then docketed for the Nov. 20 conference, but then rescheduled for Nov. 30. No decision was made at that later date. For the recent conference on Nov. 30, it was speculated justices put off making a decision because they needed to more time to decide which combination of the four DOMA cases it wanted to take up.
The next step in the process is for the petitioner — or the party that made an appeal to the Supreme Court — to file opening briefs. Generally, the deadline to do this is 45 days after the court has decided to take up a case. Opposing parties have 30 days to respond, and the petitioner has another 30 days to respond to that. Others parties during this time may also file friend-of-the-court briefs before the court.
Oral arguments will be scheduled by the clerk’s office and likely be announced next week. They’re expected to take place in late Winter or Spring of next year. The court must render a decision before its term ends in June.
No news was also made in another LGBT-related case before the Supreme Court related to Arizona domestic partner benefits. Gov. Jan Brewer appealed to court an injunction barring her from enforcing a law taking away benefits Arizona state employees with same-sex partners. As with the other DOMA cases, if justices have declined to hear the case at the Friday conference, their decision would be announced in another orders list on Monday.
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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