National
DOJ calls on Supreme Court to strike down DOMA
Obama administration cites ‘severe harms’ for gay couples
DOJ filed a brief before the Supreme Court arguing DOMA is unconstitutional. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Obama administration on Friday argued that the Defense of Marriage Act should be struck down by the Supreme Court because it “inflicts a vast array of…severe harms” on married same-sex couples.
In a 54-page legal brief, the U.S. Justice Department lays out its case for why it believes Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional — noting the harm the law causes married same-sex couples and the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian people — while arguing that DOMA should be subjected to heightened scrutiny, or a greater assumption it’s unconstitutional.
“The law denies to tens of thousands of same-sex couples who are legally married under state law an array of important federal benefits that are available to legally married opposite-sex couples,” the brief states. “Because this discrimination cannot be justified as substantially furthering any important governmental interest, Section 3 is unconstitutional.”
The brief is signed by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli as well as Stuart Delery, the gay principal deputy attorney general who’s litigated against DOMA in oral arguments in lower courts. The lawsuit before the Supreme Court is known as Windsor v. United States, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The brief enumerates several benefits that are withheld from married same-sex couples under DOMA, such as the denial of certain housing benefits for service members, the lack of Social Security survivor benefits and the inability of gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born same-sex spouses for residency in the United States. It also notes plaintiff and New York widower Edith Windsor was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes upon the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer.
But the Justice Department also makes the case that laws related to sexual orientation should be subjected to heightened scrutiny because gay people have been subjected to a history of discrimination, citing bias in employment and immigration as well as vulnerability to hate crimes and police harassment.
Additionally, the brief contends DOMA merits heightened scrutiny because sexual orientation bears no relation on an individual’s ability to contribute to society and gays are a minority with limited political power.
“Historically, discrimination against gay and lesbian people had nothing to do with ability or performance, but rested instead on the view that they are, for example, sexual deviants, mentally ill, or immoral,” the brief states. “Like gender, race,or religion, sexual orientation bears no inherent relation to a person’s ability to participate in or contribute to society.”
While asserting DOMA fails the test of heightened scrutiny, the Justice Department says it doesn’t challenge the law if a lower standard of rational basis review were applied. However, even under this standard, the brief maintains the law would fail under a more searching form of that review.
“To the extent sexual orientation may be considered to fall short in some dimension, the history of discrimination and the absence of relation to one’s capabilities associated with this particular classification would uniquely qualify it for scrutiny under an approach that calls for a measure of added focus to guard against giving effect to a desire to harm an ‘unpopular group,'” the brief states. “Section 3 would fail to satisfy any such analysis, largely for the reasons it fails heightened scrutiny.”
In addition to the merits brief, the Justice Department filed on the same day another brief addressing jurisdictional questions in the case. That brief responds to questions over whether the executive branch agrees DOMA is unconstitutional and whether the House Republican-led Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has standing to participate. BLAG, following a party-line vote of 3-2, has taken up defense of DOMA in the administration’s stead.
In that 38-page brief, the Justice Department contends the Supreme Court has jurisdiction, but BLAG lacks standing to seek review of lower court decisions striking down DOMA.
“BLAG is an entity located within the Legislative Branch,” the brief states. “The Constitution assigns to that Branch only specifically enumerated ‘legislative powers.’ … Although Congress (and the individual Houses) may create offices to assist with legislative tasks, the authority of such an office may not include the ‘discretionary power to seek judicial relief’ on behalf of the United States.”
Also on Friday, other briefs were filed by the ACLU and BLAG in response to the jurisdictional questions in the case. In its brief, BLAG argues it can participate in the lawsuit, but the Justice Department doesn’t have standing to take part.
LGBT advocates have been calling on the Obama administration to file a similar brief in the lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court challenging California’s Proposition 8. As of Thursday, the White House hasn’t said whether the administration will file a brief, although President Obama said the solicitor general is “looking” at such action. The deadline for the Obama administration to file a brief in the case is Thursday.
In the DOMA case, the next step is for the ACLU to file its brief on the merits, which is expected on Tuesday. Oral arguments in the case are set for March 27 and justices are expected to render a decision before their term ends in June.
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.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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