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Maine’s same-sex marriage law takes effect

Two Portland men became the first gay couple to marry in the state

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Gay News, Washington Blade, Gay Marriage, Maine

Gay News, Washington Blade, Gay Marriage, Maine

Steven Bridges and Michael Snell exchanged vows inside Portland City Hall shortly after midnight on Dec. 29. (Photo by Kurt Graser/Knack Factory)

Two men from Portland on Saturday became the first gay couple to legally marry in Maine once the state’s same-sex marriage law took effect.

Michael Snell, 53, and Steven Bridges, 42, exchanged vows inside Portland City Hall shortly after midnight as Snell’s two daughters, Mayor Michael Brennan and several reporters watched. Hundreds of people who had gathered outside in sub-freezing temperatures cheered the men as they left the building — they even sang the Beetles song “All You Need Is Love” as Snell and Bridges and the more than dozen other same-sex couples who either exchanged vows or obtained marriage licenses walked down the stairs.

“It means equality,” Snell told documentarians with the Knack Factory moments after he and Bridges exchanged vows. “It means that our relationship, our marriage is equal to everybody else’s.”

The Portland City Clerk’s office remained open to any same-sex couple who wanted to apply for a marriage license or tie the knot until 3 a.m. The town clerk’s office in nearby Falmouth also opened at midnight for gays and lesbians who had already made appointments to get married.

The Portland-Press Herald reported South Portland City Clerk Susan Mooney issued marriage licenses to eight same-sex couples once her office — three of them tied the knot there — opened at 8 a.m. The Brunswick Town Clerk’s office also issued marriage licenses to gays and lesbians this morning.

Chris Kast and Byron Bartlett were among the same-sex couples who married at Portland City Hall after the law took effect.

They had a commitment ceremony two and a half years ago, but Kast told the Washington Blade earlier today their choice to get married after midnight was “a matter of fact decision on our part” to “go do it and be part of what was an amazing evening.”

“It felt incredible,” he said. “The energy was just all positive and joyful. It was amazing.”

Maine’s same-sex marriage law took effect after voters on Election Day approved it by a 52-48 percent margin. They repealed an identical statute in 2009 that then-Gov. John Baldacci signed earlier that year.

Same-sex marriage referenda in Maryland and Washington also passed on Nov. 6. Minnesotans on Election Day struck down a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

“All the politics is done; now it’s just about actual couples and the people who have been together wanting to make it official,” Matt McTighe, campaign manager of Mainers United for Marriage, the group that supported the same-sex marriage referendum, told the Blade. He was among those who gathered outside Portland City Hall to celebrate the state’s first legal gay nuptials. “The energy was amazing. It was just nothing but happiness — take the best parts of every wedding you’ve ever been too and multiply it by a hundred and that’s what it was like for these people.”

Sue Estler and Paula Johnson, who have been together for 24 years, married in their Orono home on Saturday. The couple plans to have a larger celebration next summer, but Estler told the Blade just before she and Johnson exchanged vows they decided to marry on the first day same-sex couples in Maine can legally do so because “we’ve waited so long.”

“It’s historic in Maine,” she said. “We’ve had so many ups and downs and so forth. Our commitment has been long-term, and this formalizes it.”

Donna Galluzzo, who married her partner of three years, Lisa Gorney, at Portland City Hall earlier on Saturday, echoed Estler.

“We had a feeling the vote was going to pass this year,” Galluzzo told the Blade. “After the vote happened and once it was all signed into law and knew what day City Hall was going to open, we looked at each other and said ‘let’s do it.’ It was a historic day and was important for us to be a part of history.”

Kast agreed, describing the scene outside Portland City Hall after he and Bartlett exchanged vows as “surreal.”

“It has taken us so long to get here, to get to a place where everybody’s the same,” Kast said. “It was such a struggle and how no one should have to do that, no one should have to fight, no one should have to give money or knock on doors just to have the legal right to marry the person with whom they choose to spend the rest of their life with. But that aside, it was flippin’ amazing. It really was.”

Gay News, Washington Blade, Gay Marriage, Maine

Donna Galluzzo and Lisa Gorney marry outside Portland City Hall on Dec. 29. (Photo by Chloe Crettien)

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Federal Government

RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth

‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.

The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.

“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”

While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.

The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”

Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.

“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”

GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”

Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.

“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.

“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”

“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.” 

Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.

“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”




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The White House

Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador

Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

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U.N. headquarters in New York (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.

Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”

“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.

Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy

Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

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Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.

The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”

Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.

“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.

Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.

The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.

Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”

Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.

“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”

“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.

Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.

Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.

The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.

Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.

A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order.  The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.

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