National
Anti-gay groups speak out in Prop 8, DOMA briefs
‘Gov’t should not put its seal of approval on that unholy union’
The Family Research Council, headed by Tony Perkins, filed briefs in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Anti-gay groups — ranging from the Family Research Council to the Westboro Baptish Church — filed friend-of-the-court briefs before the Supreme Court this week asking justices to uphold California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.
The briefs filed on Tuesday assert the same arguments seen repeatedly in opposition to a fundamental right to same-sex marriage, such as the inability of gay couples to procreate and the argument that being gay isn’t an immutable characteristic.
The Family Research Council, one the more prominent anti-gay groups opposed to same-sex marriage, filed briefs in both the Prop 8 and DOMA cases. In the Prop 8 brief, the group argues that the California ban on same-sex marriage isn’t discriminatory, among other reasons, because it enables any person to marry — so long as the other person is of the opposite sex.
“Proposition 8 treats men and women the same,” the brief states. “Both may marry someone of the opposite sex; neither may marry someone of the same sex.”
As Right Wing Watch points out, Family Research Council makes arguments on the political power of gays and lesbians that are contradictory. In the Prop 8 brief, the group notes that 30 states have amendments defining marriage as one man, one woman while arguing that “there is no ‘emerging awareness’ that the right to marry extends to same-sex couples.”
But in the DOMA brief, the group notes that three states voted in favor of marriage equality and Minnesota rejected an anti-gay marriage amendment to argue gay people aren’t a “politically powerless” group that need protection from discrimination.
“So when voters reject gay rights at the ballot box, they are reflecting public opinion,” concludes Right Wing Watch blogger Miranda Blue. “But when they vote in favor of gay rights, they have been ‘enlisted’ to the cause by powerful gay rights lobbyists.”
William Duncan, director of the Marriage Law Foundation, filed a brief on behalf of the National Organization for Marriage in the DOMA case, but identifies himself as a “scholar of history and related disciplines” in the Prop 8 case.
“When the People of California adopted Proposition 8, they acted to retain in their law an understanding of marriage that, until very recently, was recognized universally and without exception throughout time and across cultures,” Duncan said. “That conception of the institution of marriage has consistently been understood to advance crucial social interests in procreation, understood as the bearing and rearing of children.”
Duncan cites in his arguments a series of philosophers who’ve had an impact on American thinking, including Noah Webster and David Hume. The brief also cites a 1690 piece of writing from British philosopher John Locke, who said marriage “has no necessary form or function beyond this ‘chief end’ of procreation.”
Another brief in the Prop 8 case was filed by a coalition of black pastors, including the Coalition of African-American Pastors USA and the Frederick Douglass Foundation. That brief argues at length that the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia striking down bans on interracial marriage shouldn’t be applied to gay couples.
“Loving can be distinguished from the current dispute over same-sex marriage,” the brief states. “Laws against miscegenation were designed to segregate the races, reinforcing the socially disadvantaged position of African-Americans. … By contrast, the traditional definition of marriage calls for mixing of the genders — integration not segregation — and therefore cannot be understood as an attempt to disadvantage either gender.”
During a news conference in September, Rev. William Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, admitted that he has limited financial ties to NOM. Owens said the group provides him and his wife a salary of $20,000 a year.
Notably, the brief isn’t signed by black pastors. The attorneys who signed the brief are Lynn Wardle, a law professor at Brigham Young University, and Stephen Kent Ehat, an attorney who does business as the Utah-based California Research Inc., and is a graduate of BYU law school.
Yet another brief was filed by three gay individuals who believe same-sex couples shouldn’t have the right to marry. They are David Benkof, ex-owner of the gay press syndicate Q Syndicate and now a resident of Israel; Robert Oscar Lopez, a bisexual award-winning writer who’s written comedies about same-sex couples raising children; and Doug Mainwaring, a gay writer who rethought the capability of same-sex unions to raise children after realizing the importance to his teenage sons of their mother’s presence in their lives. The brief is signed by Herbert Grey, a private attorney based in Beaverton, Ore.
“We, and they, believe gay people should be free to love and live as they choose but we also recognize that society has a right to express a rational preference for the kind of unions necessary to the survival of the whole society, and to the well-being of children,” the brief states. “Some gay, lesbian and bisexual people will benefit from this preference as they may marry a person of the opposite-sex.”
The brief by the Westboro Baptist Church, a virulently anti-gay Kansas-based organization known for picketing the funerals of service members with signs reading, “God Hates Fags,” makes arguments characteristic of its organization in briefs both for the Prop 8 case and DOMA case.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
“This nation has gone astray, letting fornication, adultery, abortion-for-convenience-on-demand, divorce, remarriage and sodomy become the norm,” the church says in its DOMA brief. “Homosexuality is destructive in every way, to the individual and to the nation. Government should not put its seal of approval on that unholy union by issuing a marriage license. Government’s interest is in doing the opposite, for the good of the people and the nation.”
The brief is signed by Margie Phelps, daughter of church founder Fred Phelps, who has represented the church in a lawsuit against it before the Supreme Court.
Mary Bonauto, civil rights director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said the “anti-gay machine is alive and well,” but noted that each of the briefs takes a different approach to supporting Prop 8 and DOMA.
“As you would expect, some of the briefs were based a particular religious view,” Bonauto said. “Others claimed they were secular but simply reasoned based on certain religious principles. Others raised the religious freedom argument that it is a burden for objecting members of the public to have to deal with the existence of married gay people.”
Bonauto added, “Overall, none of these briefs raise a new issue and several are helpful to us.”
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD
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.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor
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.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.
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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