National
Still no White House comment on Prop 8 lawsuit
Deadline for DOJ to take action is Feb. 28
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney continues to have no comment on the Prop 8 case (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney continues to stay mum on whether the Obama administration will participate before the Feb. 28 deadline in pending litigation before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8.
Asked on Tuesday by NBC News’ Peter Alexander if the White House would “publicly advocate” against Proposition 8 — as well as the right for same-sex couples to have federal benefits precluded under the Defense of Marriage Act — Carney deferred comment to the Justice Department while reiterating the Obama’s previous action against DOMA.
“For comment on specific Supreme Court cases, I would point you to the Department of Justice,” Carney said. “On the issue of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, the administration’s position on this is well known, and has been. And that’s the President has determined that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional and that his administration will no longer defend equal protection challenges against it in the courts, and the DOJ has participated in the DOMA cases consistent with that position and asked the Supreme Court to resolve the question. So that is the DOMA issue.”
Carney had fewer words in regards in the lawsuit against Prop 8, saying, “On Prop 8, the administration is not a party to that case, and I have nothing for you on that.” Pressed for more information by NBC News, Carney reiterated he has no information.
In 2011, the Obama administration stood down from defending DOMA in court. Since that time, the Justice Department has filed legal briefs against the law and sent Justice Department attorneys to litigate against the statute in oral arguments before various federal courts.
The same isn’t true for Prop 8. While President Obama came out for marriage equality last year — and during his 2008 presidential campaign called Prop 8 “unnecessary” — the administration hasn’t yet taken a position on the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage, or whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond on Tuesday to the Washington Blade’s request for an update whether the Obama administration will participate in the Prop 8 litigation. Like the White House, the Justice Department has previously stated the administration isn’t a party to the case and is withholding comment.
Rick Jacobs, chair of the California progressive grassroots group known as the Courage Campaign, renewed on Tuesday his call for the Obama administration to speak out against the constitutionality of Prop 8. His group has launched an online petition calling for action, which the organization says has more than 15,000 signatures.
“The time has come for the President to put the weight of his Administration behind the Supreme Court’s consideration of Prop 8,” Jacobs said. “The Justices and the nation need to hear from the Executive Branch that it supports the rulings of the district and appellate courts, stating clearly that President Obama and his Administration officially oppose Prop 8.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court announced it would hear oral arguments in the Prop 8 lawsuit, known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, on March 26, and for DOMA lawsuit, known as Windsor v. United States, on March 27. Under the rules of the court, as pointed out by Prop 8 Trial Tracker, the deadline for the Obama administration to submit a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court against Prop 8 is Feb. 28.
Other LGBT groups — ranging from the Human Rights Campaign to Lambda Legal — have called on the Obama administration to take part in the lawsuit by filing a friend-of-the-court brief against the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and to assert a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry. Ted Olson, one of the co-counsels in the Prop 8 case, said intervention from the Obama administration would have “great effect” in the lawsuit.
Carney has repeatedly declined to comment on the Prop 8 case. He refused comment when asked by the Washington Blade about it in September, and again days after the Supreme Court in December agreed to take up the constitutionality of the same-sex marriage ban.
In an interview last month with “Time” Magazine, Obama withheld comment on the Prop 8 case, saying “And I think the Prop 8 case, because the briefs are still being written, I should probably be careful about making any specific comments on it.”
The transcript between NBC News and Carney follows:
NBC News: We hear within the last year that the President says he supports gay marriage. He said at that time that that issue would be worked out at the local level. But given the fact that the Supreme Court has now said that it will hear arguments just two months from now in March, should we expect the President to publicly advocate against Proposition 8, and would he also advocate for same-sex couples to have the right to federal benefits?
Jay Carney: Well, let’s be clear about a couple of things. For comment on specific Supreme Court cases, I would point you to the Department of Justice. On the issue of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, the administration’s position on this is well known, and has been. And that’s the President has determined that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional and that his administration will no longer defend equal protection challenges against it in the courts, and the DOJ has participated in the DOMA cases consistent with that position and asked the Supreme Court to resolve the question. So that is the DOMA issue. On Prop 8, the administration is not a party to that case, and I have nothing for you on that.
NBC News: Whether he would seek out —
Carney: Again, I have nothing for you on that.
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill that reopens the federal government.
Six Democrats — U.S. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Adam Gray (D-Calif.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) — voted for the funding bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two Republicans — Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Greg Steube (R-Fla.) — opposed it.
The 43-day shutdown is over after eight Democratic senators gave in to Republicans’ push to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act. According to CNBC, the average ACA recipient could see premiums more than double in 2026, and about one in 10 enrollees could lose a premium tax credit altogether.
These eight senators — U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — sided with Republicans to pass legislation reopening the government for a set number of days. They emphasized that their primary goal was to reopen the government, with discussions about ACA tax credits to continue afterward.
None of the senators who supported the deal are up for reelection.
King said on Sunday night that the Senate deal represents “a victory” because it gives Democrats “an opportunity” to extend ACA tax credits, now that Senate Republican leaders have agreed to hold a vote on the issue in December. (The House has not made any similar commitment.)
The government’s reopening also brought a win for Democrats’ other priorities: Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn in after a record-breaking delay in swearing in, eventually becoming the 218th signer of a discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
This story is being updated as more information becomes available.
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