National
Obama makes history at start of second term
In first, president includes gay references in address
President Obama made history by including gays and lesbians in his 2013 inaugural address in two references. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Marking the official start of his second term, President Obama on Monday included for the first-time ever explicit references to the LGBT community in a presidential inaugural speech — a powerful statement because of the symbolic nature of the widely watched speech as a reflection of the American spirit.
Following his swearing-in by Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts, Obama delivered the speech, which included many nods to his progressive base, including mentions of climate change, immigration reform in addition to a reaffirmation of the president’s earlier stated support for marriage equality.
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said.
Obama made another reference to the LGBT community when he included a mention of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, which are seen as the start of the modern LGBT rights movement.
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth,” Obama said.
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
An estimated crowd of at least 500,000 filled the National Mall to hear Obama’s speech. Spectators were bundled in coats and hats as they braved the cold winter temperatures. Still, the weather was more forgiving than during Obama’s 2009 inauguration in which bitter cold chilled those in attendance to the bone.
One LGBT advocate in attendance was Brenda “Sue” Fulton, a lesbian who serves on the board of the LGBT military group OutServe-SLDN. The newly married graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point said she was quite moved by Obama’s LGBT inclusion in the speech.
“When he went on to talk about marriage equality for ‘our gay brothers and sisters,’ four lovely young men in front of us cheered at the top of their lungs,” Fulton said. “I admit that I teared up. We’ve come so far this past four years; I can see all those young people in military uniforms on the platform and all around, and know that not only are some of them gay, but the others know it, and support them.”
Mentions of the LGBT community were part of a larger message in which Obama chose to set the tone for his second term by recalling past challenges the nation has overcome and issuing a call to come together to face the challenges of the present day.
“But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action,” Obama said. “Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”
No previous president has mentioned LGBT people during an inaugural address. In 2009, Obama didn’t mention the LGBT community despite promising a commitment to LGBT rights over the course of his first presidential campaign. Instead, Obama at the time made a reference to civil rights in general, saying the nation has “tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation” and “as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself.”
John Aravosis, editor of AMERICAblog, said he was “impressed” with the way Obama reaffirmed support for the LGBT community and said it could have an impact on the gay-related cases to come before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“In addition to mentioning marriage equality, an African-American president put Stonewall alongside Selma in one of the most important speeches of his presidency,” Aravosis said. “I think that’s hugely significant culturally and politically, and possibly legally as well – the Supreme Court was sitting right there, and they look to the culture and politics when considering decisions on major social issues, like the upcoming marriage cases. This didn’t hurt.”
But LGBT-inclusiveness at the celebration wasn’t just limited to mentions in the widely anticipated speech. Those who attended on the inaugural platform as Obama was sworn into office and delivered his speech included high-profile members of the LGBT community such as Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin and Rev. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop consecrated in the Episcopal Church.
“Today, the POTUS moved beyond merely mentioning the existence of our community, to express his commitment to our full citizenship and respect for our love,” Robinson said. “There is no way to overstate the importance of his words and witness to our lives and our love. No, we haven’t ‘arrived,’ but we sure have come a long way down this road! Amazing!”
Other speakers at the event made were gay-affirming in one way or another. The pastor who delivered the closing benediction for the service, Rev. Luis Leon, an Episcopal priest with the D.C.-based St. John’s Church, called for a blessing on all people — including whether they be “gay or straight” — in his closing remarks.
Rev. Luis Leon (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“With the blessing of your blessing we will see that we are created in your image, whether brown, black or white, male or female, first generation or immigrant American, or daughter of the American Revolution, gay or straight, rich or poor,” said León.
Leon, who also delivered the benediction at former President George W. Bush’s inaugural in 2005, was a replacement for Pastor Louie Giglio of the Georgia-based Passion City Church, who withdrew from the role after the blog ThinkProgress revealed that he delivered a virulently anti-gay sermon in the 1990s. In contrast, Leon was one of the religious figures who helped in the 2009 push to legalize same-sex marriage in D.C.
Gay inclusion during the festivities also came in the form of the openly gay inaugural poet — the nationally acclaimed Richard Blanco — who recited a poem titled, “One Today,” which highlights unity despite differences among individuals in America.
“All of us as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the ‘I have a dream’ we keep dreaming, or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today, and forever,” Blanco read.
In a statement, HRC’s Griffin commended Obama for the LGBT-inclusion in his speech and emphasized the importance of sending such a message in an inaugural address. HRC didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment on whether the organization helped Obama with the LGBT portions of the speech.
“By lifting up the lives of LGBT families for the very first time in an inaugural address, President Obama sent a clear message to LGBT young people from the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountains that this country’s leaders will fight for them until equality is the law of the land,” Griffin said. “As the merits of marriage equality come up for debate from state houses to the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court, and a broad majority of Americans are standing up for liberty and fairness, the President’s unequivocal support for equality is a clarion call that all Americans should receive with celebration.”
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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