National
Gay Fla. lawmaker seeks to advance LGBT issues
Joe Saunders represents portions of Orange County in Tallahassee
Florida state Rep. Joe Saunders (D-Orlando). (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
ORLANDO, Fla.—Gay Florida state Rep. Joe Saunders (D-Orlando) was a sophomore at the University of Central Florida in 2003 when two friends with whom he attended an off-campus party were attacked because of their sexual orientation. The police arrested the assailants, but Saunders said the immediate response at UCF “wasn’t as reactive as I felt like it needed to be.”
He wrote his first press release on the day after the attack, and later stood on a box outside the UCF student union with a sign in support of LGBT rights. The university eventually added LGBT-specific language to its non-discrimination policy. It also began offering domestic partner benefits to its employees.
“It was an outrageous moment,” Saunders, who was Equality Florida’s state field director before his election, told the Washington Blade during an interview at his Orlando office. “The police came. The triage moment happened, but the educational moment, the advocacy moment wasn’t generated. I just felt like I wanted to do something and help the broader UCF community understand that this thing had even happened, that in 2003 people were still being attacked because they were gay. I just thought that was crazy and that kind of anchored me and kind of set me on a path of advocacy that eventually got me to work with Equality Florida and turned me into kind of a political creature.”
Saunders and state Rep. Dave Richardson (D-Miami Beach) made history last year as the first openly gay candidates elected to the state legislature.
His partner Donald Rupe, who teaches in nearby Kissimmee in Osceola County, joined him on the floor of the state House of Representatives in Tallahassee on Nov. 20 during his official swearing in.
“Before that moment, nobody like me had stood on the floor of the House with a partner like mine and taken that oath, and i think that was really powerful,” Saunders, 29, said. “Certainly folks within the LGBT community understood how important that was.”
Saunders represents a large swath of northeast Orange County that includes UCF, Valencia College and Naval Support Activity Orlando. More than 30 percent of House District 49’s population is Latino, with a large Puerto Rican community in the city’s Union Park neighborhood.
He told the Blade he plans to sponsor a bill — the Competitive Workforce Act — that would add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to Florida’s non-discrimination and civil rights laws. Saunders also described a measure that would create a statewide domestic partnership registry as “a big deal” during the 2013 legislative session that will begin next month.
“We will find support for both of those bills,” he said. “How much support I think is certainly a question that kind of depends on how hard we all work, but there’s something different. It’s a different time to be doing work around LGBT equality.”
Saunders spoke with the Blade the day after Gov. Rick Scott unveiled his proposed $73.4 billion state budget that includes a projected surplus.
The governor hopes to earmark some of those additional funds to public education and health and human services projects, but his proposed 2013-2014 budget would cut funding to county health clinics. It would also not provide additional funding for mental health and substance abuse programs.
The Florida AIDS Drug Assistance Program in 2010 instituted a waiting list for those with HIV seeking access to anti-retrovirals because of statewide budget cuts during the recession.
The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors noted nobody with the virus was on the waiting list as of Dec. 12, but Saunders stressed an online sales tax is one way to raise revenue to avoid future cuts.
“The HIV/AIDS community needs to be really vigilant about watching where those surplus funds go,” he said. “We obviously need to be thoughtful about the impact that health and human services will have on the HIV/AIDS community.”
Saunders conceded that the GOP-controlled legislature in Tallahassee “is a problem” when it comes to advancing LGBT-specific issues, but he said he remains optimistic.
“The Democrats really are a minority of voices and one of the things we have to break through is the stranglehold that the far right has on social policy anchored in the Republican Party, but there are a lot of young legislators this year,” he said. “I’ve already started talking with a bunch of them from the Republican Party who are just sort of — they don’t understand why we are even making a big deal about these issues anymore. To them, they’re almost there on marriage equality. When one-on-one with the door closed, there are some legislators who are ready to say privately I’d be with you on marriage. So when we start talking about a basic non-discrimination law or we talk about a domestic partnership policy, there’s work to do to even get those people into the process, but I don’t think it’s going to be as hard as some of us think it might be.”
He also spoke of the impact President Obama’s re-election – and his second inaugural address – would have on pro-LGBT efforts in Tallahassee. Saunders further recalled then-President George W. Bush’s support of a proposed federal constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman during his 2004 re-election campaign.
“The leader of the Republican Party of this country was going around, basically saying that there was something so wrong with LGBT relationships that we needed a federal constitutional amendment to protect ourselves from it,” he said. “A week ago the president of the country talked about Stonewall — and maybe more importantly he equated the movement to protect LGBT people and give our families every opportunity that everybody else does. He equated it to the same struggle that African Americans have gone through and women did when they were fighting for the right to vote at Seneca Falls, he talked about Selma, he talked about immigrant communities and the fight to make sure that those communities have access to opportunity. I think that the conversation is changing because people are understanding that while the struggle is different, the experience is different to be LGBT, at its core it’s a community that’s been denied opportunity and I think fundamentally Americans and Floridians sort of get that shouldn’t happen.”
Saunders further acknowledged there is “a culture shift” occurring “even within the Republican Party” on LGBT-specific issues.
“There are some members in this legislature that are sort of done with the wedge issues that come from this,” he said. “They’re losing votes every year because they won’t let go of this idea that gay people shouldn’t be recognized in non-discrimination policies. So hopefully that takes us somewhere.”
National
LGBTQ asylum seeker ‘forcibly removed’ from US, sent to El Salvador
Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Venezuelan national
An immigrant rights group that represents an LGBTQ asylum seeker from Venezuela says the Trump-Vance administration on March 15 “forcibly removed” him from the U.S. and sent him to El Salvador.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center Litigation and Advocacy Director Alvaro M. Huerta during a telephone interview with the Washington Blade on Tuesday said officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection alleged his organization’s client was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based gang, because of his tattoos and no other information.
“It’s very flimsy,” said Huerta. “These are the types of tattoos that any artist in New York City or Los Angeles would have. It’s nothing that makes him a gang member.”
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
“I proclaim that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA (Tren de Aragua), are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies,” said Trump in a proclamation that announced his invocation of the 18th century law.
The asylum seeker — who the Immigrant Defenders Law Center has not identified by name because he is “in danger” — is among the hundreds of Venezuelans who the U.S. sent to El Salvador on March 15.
Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily blocked the deportations. The AP notes the flights were already in the air when Boasberg issued his ruling.
Huerta said U.S. officials on Monday confirmed the asylum seeker is “indeed in El Salvador.” He told the Blade it remains unclear whether the asylum seeker is in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
‘We couldn’t find him’
Huerta said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center client fled Venezuela and asked for asylum in the U.S.
The asylum seeker, according to Huerta, passed a “credible fear interview” that determines whether an asylum claim is valid. Huerta said U.S. officials detained the asylum seeker last year when he returned to the country from the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
Huerta told the Blade the asylum seeker was supposed to appear before an immigration judge on March 13.
“We couldn’t find him,” said Huerta.
He noted speculation over whether Trump was about to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center “started getting concerned that maybe he was caught up in this situation.”
“He’s an LGBT individual who is an artist in Venezuela,” said Huerta.
Neither ICE nor CBP have responded to the Blade’s request for comment.
Huerta said it is “hard to say” whether the asylum seeker has any legal recourse.
“He still has an ongoing case in immigration court here,” said Huerta, noting the asylum seeker’s attorney was in court on Monday, and has another hearing in two weeks. “Presumably they should have to allow him to appear, at least virtually, for court because he still has these cases.”
Huerta noted the U.S. since Trump took office has deported hundreds of migrants to Panama; officials in the Central American country have released dozens of them from detention. Migrants sent to the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have returned to detention facilities in the U.S.
“Something where the government, kind of unliterally, can just say that someone is a gang member based on tattoos, without any offer of proof, without having to go to court to say that and then take them externally to what effectively a prison state (El Salvador), it certainly is completely just different than what we’ve seen,” Huerta told the Blade.
Huerta also spoke about the Trump-Vance administration’s overall immigration policy.
“The Trump administration knows exactly what they’re doing when it comes to scapegoating immigrants, scapegoating asylees,” he said. “They have a population that, in many ways, is politically powerless, but in many other ways, is politically powerful because they have other folks standing behind them as well, but they’re an easy punching bag.”
“They can use this specter of we’re just deporting criminals, even though they’re the ones who are saying that they’re criminal, they’re not necessarily proving that,” added Huerta. “They feel like they can really take that fight and run with it, and they’re testing the bounds of what they can get away with inside and outside of the courtroom.”
National
Kennedy Center official slams Harvey Fierstein’s ban claim as ‘total lie’
Grenell invites iconic gay actor to perform ‘Hairspray’
Richard Grenell, who was appointed president and interim executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by President Trump, pushed back against Harvey Fierstein’s claim of being banned from the Kennedy Center, calling it “a total lie” in a new X post.
On Wednesday, gay icon and Tony Award-winning actor Harvey Fierstein posted on Instagram, claiming to have been “banned from THE KENNEDY CENTER.” In the post, Fierstein shared a picture of himself walking in the 1979 Christopher Street Liberation Day parade alongside LGBTQ rights activist Marsha P. Johnson. In the caption, he alleged that Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center was the reason for his ban, calling it an attack on free speech and a threat to democracy.
The Blade emailed the Kennedy Center’s public relations team, seeking confirmation of Fierstein’s claim and an official statement from the cultural center. More than an hour later, in a separate email that did not directly address the original request, Brendan Padgett, the Kennedy Center’s director of Public Relations, responded with a link to a post on his boss Grenell’s X account.
“Making sure you saw this,” Padgett’s email read, followed by a link to Grenell’s post.
“Hey, @HarveyFierstein This is a total lie,” Grenell wrote in the post. “Whoever told you this (because you obviously didn’t do your own research) should be fired from your team for purposefully making you look foolish.”
Grenell’s post, uploaded the morning after Fierstein’s initial claim, included screenshots of Fierstein’s Instagram post. Grenell went on to assert that, like Fierstein, he had been a fighter “for equality for decades,” citing his position as the first openly gay member of a U.S. president’s Cabinet as proof. (Grenell was never confirmed by the Senate; the first openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet official is Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary of Transportation.)
“You aren’t banned,” Grenell continued. “In fact, come do Hairspray or La Cage here at the Kennedy Center. This is your personal invite. Let’s meet—if, however, you can handle diverse opinions and want to be inclusive of everyone, that is.”
The Washington Blade reached out to both Harvey Fierstein and Brendan Padgett for comment on the ongoing situation. Padgett responded, stating, “No comment aside from the Kennedy Center President’s post.” Fierstein has yet to respond.
National
Trump administration considering closing HIV prevention agency: reports
Sources say funding cuts possible for CDC
The Department of Health and Human Services is considering closing the HIV Prevention Division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and transferring some of its programs to a different agency, according to a report by the New York Times.
The Times and Politico cited government sources who spoke on condition of not being identified as saying plans under consideration from the administration also call for possible funding cuts in the domestic HIV prevention program following funding cuts already put in place for foreign U.S. HIV programs.
“It’s not 100 percent going to happen, but 100 percent being discussed,” the Times quoted one of the sources as saying.
News of the possible shutdown of the HIV Prevention Division and possible cuts in HIV prevention funds prompted 13 of the nation’s leading LGBTQ, HIV, and health organizations to release a joint statement on March19 condemning what they said could result in a “devastating effect” on the nation’s progress in fighting AIDS.
Among the organizations signing on to the joint statement were D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, which opposes funding cuts or curtailment in domestic AIDS programs, points out in a separate statement that it was President Trump during his first term in office who put in place the HIV Epidemic Initiative, which calls for ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by 2030.
That initiative, which Trump announced in his 2019 State of the Union address, is credited with having reduced new HIV infections nationwide by 30 percent in adolescents and young adults, and by about 10 percent in most other groups, according to the Times report on possible plans to scale back the program.
In a statement released to Politico, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said, “HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking a careful look at all divisions to see where there is overlap that could be streamlined to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure the federal government.”
“No final decision on streamlining CDC’s HIV Prevention Division has been made,” Nixon said in his statement.
“An effort to defund HIV prevention by this administration would set us back decades, cost innocent people their lives and cost taxpayers millions,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, in a March 19 statement.
“The LGBTQ+ community still carries the scars of the government negligence and mass death of the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” Robinson said. “We should be doubling down on our investment to end the HIV epidemic once and for all, not regressing to the days of funeral services and a virus running rampant,” she said.
“We are deeply concerned by the Trump administration’s reckless moves to defund and de-prioritize HIV prevention,” the statement released by the 13 organizations says. “These abrupt and incomprehensible possible cuts threaten to reverse decades of progress, exposing our nation to a resurgence of a preventable disease with devastating and avoidable human and financial costs,” the statement says.
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