National
HISTORIC: Supreme Court hears arguments on DOMA
Issues of standing, discrimination against gays dominate hearing
Attorney Roberta Kaplan said DOMA violates equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution for not just Windsor, but all married gay couples. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Questioning at the Supreme Court during oral arguments on Wednesday was just as intense as the previous day as justices grilled attorneys on standing and federalism issues related to the Defense of Marriage Act.
The prospects of the court striking down the 1996 law seem strong as no justices expressed any particular love for DOMA, but it’s possible the court may not reach consideration of the constitutionality of the law because of standing and jurisdiction issues.
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee, expressed concern over DOMA because benefits — including Social Security survivor benefits and access to family medical leave — and withheld from married same-sex couples under the law.
Under DOMA, Ginsburg said one might ask the question “What kind of marriage is this?” and compared the law to a statute that creates “full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”
Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee who’s considered a swing vote in the case, made a lot of inquiries on DOMA, but at one point may have tipped his hand when he talked about the “real risk” of encroaching on state power to define marriage.
At issue in the case is Section 3 of DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage. As a result of that 1996 law, Edith Windsor had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes in 2009 upon the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer.
The courtroom was just as packed for the DOMA arguments as it was for the Prop 8 arguments. Among those in attendance were Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, Senior Adviser to President Obama Valerie Jarrett and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Roberta Kaplan, a New York-based private attorney working in coordination with the American Civil Liberties Union, said DOMA violates equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution for not just Windsor, but all married gay couples.
“Because of DOMA, many thousands of people who are legally married under the laws of nine sovereign states and the District of Columbia are being treated as unmarried by the federal government solely because they are gay,” Kaplan said.
Arguing on behalf of DOMA was Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush who was hired by House Republicans to defend the law after the Obama administration declined to do so in February 2011.
Clement said DOMA helps create uniformity for the federal government as the democratic process is underway deciding the issue of marriage.
“I do think for purposes of the federalism issue, it really matters that all DOMA does is take this term where it appears in federal law and define it for purposes of federal law,” he said. “It would obviously be a radically different case if Congress had, in 1996, decided to try to stop states from defining marriage in a particular way or dictate how they would decide it in that way.”
At one point, Associate Justice Elena Kagan brought up the House report from the passage of DOMA, quoting where it said Congress approved the law to “express moral disapproval of homosexuality.”
Clement responded by saying legislators having an “improper motive” shouldn’t be enough for the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA.
“And if that’s enough to invalidate the statute, then you should invalidate the statute,” Clement said. “But that has never been your approach, especially under rational basis or even rational basis-plus, if that is what you are suggesting.”
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who’s taken up litigation against DOMA on behalf of the Obama administration, also argued against DOMA on the basis of equal protection.
“What Section 3 does is exclude from an array of federal benefits lawfully married couples,” Verrilli said. “That means that the spouse of a soldier killed in the line of duty cannot receive the dignity and solace of an official notification of next of kin.”
Further, he said DOMA should be subject to heightened scrutiny, or a greater assumption it’s unconstitutional, because of the “terrible discrimination” faced by gay people throughout history.
Verrilli also disputed Clement’s argument that DOMA helps ensure uniformity for the U.S. government, saying “if anything, it makes federal administration more difficult.”
Standing was so much of an issue as part of the DOMA case that justices allotted extended time and the first half of the oral arguments to consider the issue.
There are two questions: whether House Republican-led Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has standing to defend DOMA in court, and whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear the case because the U.S. government appealed even though it got what it wanted when the district ruled against the anti-gay law.
Vicki Jackson, a Harvard law professor hired by the court to answer these questions, made her case for why BLAG doesn’t have standing and the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to decide the issue.
Jackson said the U.S. government lacks standing to appeal because it has not asked the court to overturn lower courts’ decisions, it has asked to affirm them.
“The government has not asked this court to overturn the rulings below so it doesn’t have to pay the $365,000,” Jackson said. “It has asked this court to affirm. And the case or controversy requirement that we’re talking about are nested in an adversarial system where we rely on the parties to state their injuries and make their claims for relief.”
She also expressed doubts about BLAG’s standing, saying separation of powers “will not be meaningful” if Congress stays out of defense of a statute unless it thinks the executive branch is doing its job badly.
Clement maintained BLAG has standing because the House has an interest in preserving a law if the executive branch determines it won’t defend the measure in court.
“The House’s single most important prerogative, which is to pass legislation and have that legislation, if it’s going to be repealed, only be repealed through a process where the House gets to fully participate,” Clement said.
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, expressed skepticism that BLAG has standing to defend DOMA in court.
“But the appointment of BLAG is strange to me because it’s not in the statute, it’s in the House rules,” Sotomayor said.
Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinavasan argued the court has jurisdiction to defend DOMA, pointing to court precedent created under INS v. Chadha, an immigration-related case that came before the court in 1982. Srinavasan also said the U.S. government still suffers aggreivement, which allows it to appeal the case.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia expressed displeasure with the Justice Department’s decision to stop defending the law and creating a situation where it’s appealing a case that was decided in its favor.
“I’m wondering if we’re living in this new world where the attorney general can simply decide, yeah, it’s unconstitutional, but it’s not so unconstitutional that I’m not willing to enforce it, if we’re in this new world, I don’t want these cases like this to come before this court all the time,” Scalia said.
It’s difficult to say if the court will rule on the basis of standing because justices challenged the views on whichever attorney was speaking — whether they arguing in favor of standing or not. A ruling on this basis would likely more limited on its impact on gay couples as opposed to a nationwide ruling striking down DOMA.
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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