National
Nearly 300 mayors join same-sex marriage campaign
Mayors for the Freedom to Marry launched last year.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Mayors from across the country on Friday attended a reception during the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual D.C. meeting to commemorate the first anniversary of a campaign that features city executives who support marriage rights for same-sex couples.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, lesbian Houston Mayor Annise Parker, gay Gainesville (Fla.) Mayor Craig Lowe and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn are among those who attended the reception at the Capital Hilton in downtown Washington. Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, who is the former mayor of Stamford in his state’s Fairfield County, and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who sparked controversy last year when he refused to join the campaign, also made brief appearances.
“This has been an exceptionally monumental year for this cause — the cause of the freedom to marry,” Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry, said. He noted 294 mayors from 42 states have joined the campaign since his organization formally launched it last January. “One thing I’ve learned that instead of going to Capitol Hill, if you really want to get something done you go to a mayor. You all were a crucial part of the historic wins this year.”
Solomon specifically thanked Villaraigosa, who chaired the 2012 Democratic National Convention, and Nutter for their efforts in support of the addition of a same-sex marriage plank to the party’s platform. He also praised Parker’s decision to join the campaign in spite of backlash she received from socially conservative pastors and others in her city who sharply criticized her public support for marriage rights for same-sex couples.
“If you’re out from L.A. and represent Hollywood and you have to come with the experiences that I come with, it’s a lot different than when you live somewhere where maybe not everybody is quite on board,” Villaraigosa said. “She [Parker] was steadfast in her commitment to this issue.”
Parker further discussed the controversy.
“Talking about marriage strikes a visceral cord in people and it changes the entire debate,” she said. “That is precisely why we have to have that conversation. Domestic partner benefits and the ability to recognize the relationship through complicated legal processes is not the same thing as marriage, which is an institution that we all recognize, that we understand in our hearts and in our minds that speaks across generations… we deserve full equality.”
The reception took place less than three months after voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington approved same-sex marriage referenda and Minnesotans rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned nuptials for gays and lesbians.
The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday is scheduled to vote on a same-sex marriage bill. Lawmakers in Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey and Hawaii are expected to consider the issue in the coming weeks and months.
The U.S. Supreme Court in March will hear oral arguments in cases challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage in the Golden State in 2008. The justices are expected to issue their rulings in June.
“America would be a stronger place if folks were able to love who they want to love, be who they want to be with, ” Nutter said.
Des Moines (Iowa) Mayor Frank Cownie recalled the 2009 court ruling that struck down his state’s ban on nuptials for gays and lesbians. He described the recall of three Iowa Supreme Court justices who issued the decision as “shameful,” but stressed the fight for marriage rights for same-sex couples continues.
“It’s about equal rights,” Cownie said, noting gays and lesbians flocked to Iowa to tie the knot after the ruling took effect. “Here we are in the Heartland; conservative, really white Iowa and we had some judges that had the guts to stand up in front of everybody and say this ain’t right. Everybody has equal rights and you can’t separate those rights based on anybody’s decision on who they love and who they want to marry. So let’s keep up the right. We’ll keep it going in Iowa.”
St. Paul (Minn.) Mayor Chris Coleman noted to the Washington Blade during the reception that Richard Carlbom, campaign manager for Minnesotans United for All Families, which led the effort against his state’s proposed constitutional amendment, is a former staffer. He said he remains proud that Minnesota is the first state to reject a proposal that “would discriminate against way too many of our citizens.”
“No mayor in this country should allow their residents — their constituents — to be discriminated against,” Coleman said. “This is a seminal moment in this country where the tide has turned and I don’t think there’s any turning back on this one.”
Mayors for the Freedom to Marry (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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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