National
Cato legal analyst: DOMA is dead
Former GOP head, same-sex marriage advocate assess high court arguments in ‘Windsor’ case
The Cato Institute (Photo by Matt Bisanz via Wikimedia)
A senior fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that supports LGBT equality, said comments by U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday lead him to believe the high court will strike down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act known as DOMA.
Cato Institute senior fellow Ilya Shapiro, who attended Wednesday’s oral arguments at the high court, said the court’s four liberal justices would likely invoke the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause as grounds for overturning DOMA’s Section 3, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.
Shapiro said comments made by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is considered the court’s swing vote on DOMA, indicate Kennedy would vote to strike down DOMA based on grounds that it violates “federalism” or states’ rights protections under the constitution.
Assuming Kennedy joins liberal leaning Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in voting to declare Section 3 of DOMA as unconstitutional, the five would become a majority on the nine-member court needed to strike down that provision of DOMA, according to Shapiro.
“Assuming they get past the jurisdictional arguments it seems like DOMA Section 3 is not long for this world,” he said.
Shapiro gave his assessment on the justices’ views on DOMA at a Cato Institute forum Wednesday afternoon called Law, Politics, and Same-Sex Marriage.
Others panelists speaking at the forum included Walter Olson, a Cato Institute fellow, who served as moderator; Evan Wolfson, executive director of the same-sex marriage advocacy group Freedom to Marry; and Ken Mehlman, a York City businessman and former chair of the Republican National Committee.
Wolfson attended Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on DOMA as well as the arguments before the court one day earlier on California’s Proposition 8 case, which legal experts say could potentially lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage in all fifty states.
He told the forum that making predictions about how the court will rule on a case based on the justices’ statements and questions during oral arguments is highly speculative.
“I think you really need to take every prediction you hear and read and see tweeted and re-tweeted very, very skeptically,” Wolfson said. “The justices are going to go back and delve through a mountain of briefs in both cases, a huge amount of evidence and argument.”
While the outcome of both the Prop 8 and DOMA cases is uncertain, there are things marriage equality advocates know “very, very clearly,” Wolfson said.
“One thing we know is that while the justices are doing their homework in going through the process, the best single way we can maximize winning the freedom to marry and even getting the justices encouraged to do the right thing as they deliberate now in the court is to do what we’ve been doing, which is to continue winning in more states and to continue winning over more hearts and minds,” he said.
“There are as many as four states that are going to be considering or have begun considering freedom to marry legislation and could pass those bills into law before the court hands down its decision likely at the end of June,” Wolfson said. “So the single biggest thing we can do to maximize the chances of winning are to pass those marriage bills and to continue growing the extraordinary ‘who’s who’ of Americans that have stepped up the last many weeks and months in supporting the freedom to marry.”
Ken Mehlman (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Mehlman, who’s gay and who has emerged as an outspoken same-sex marriage advocate in recent years, said that aside from using sound legal arguments, marriage equality advocates have made important advances by putting a human face on the same-sex couples who want the right to marry.
“In my judgment, what has so galvanized the public is our stories,” he said. “These are real stories about real people and they make a gigantic difference.”
He said the numerous “friend-of-the-court” or amicus briefs filed in support of the marriage equality side by a wide range of organizations also shows how the breadth of support for same-sex marriage has greatly expanded.
The Cato Institute is among the groups that have filed an amicus brief in support of striking down DOMA.
“It’s not just that it is a large number,” he said of the groups and individuals filing amicus briefs. “It’s the cross section of society. It’s military leaders. It’s religious leaders. It’s business leaders. It’s Republicans and conservatives. It’s leaders of excellent think tanks — all making the case from their perspective and why it makes sense,” Mehlman said.
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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