Politics
FBI nominee urged court to strike down Prop 8
Comey among 131 Republicans who signed brief against marriage ban


The expected nominee for FBI director James Comey signed a brief against Prop 8. (Photo public domain)
President Obama’s expected nominee as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was among the 131 Republicans who signed a legal brief asking the Supreme Court to strike down California’s Proposition 8.
Jim Comey, who served as deputy attorney general during the Bush administration, signed the brief that was delivered to the court in February.
Other names on the brief included Republican notables such as gay former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. and former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.
Obama is expected to announce the nomination on Friday. Before becoming deputy attorney general, Comey, 52, served for 15 years as a federal prosecutor, including several years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Additionally, he’s served as a member of the Defense Legal Policy Board, a group charged with advising the defense secretary on major defense policy issues.
Gregory Angelo, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, said Comey’s nomination and support for marriage equality demonstrates Republicans can advance while supporting LGBT rights.
“No one should be defined by a single position — especially not the director of the FBI, but clearly Comey’s nomination shows that support for civil marriage for same-sex couples isn’t the career killer ‘so-cons’ say it is,” Angelo said. “It’s also nice to see President Obama looking to yet another Bush administration alum to lead on national security.”
According to the Washington Post, Comey left the Justice Department in 2005 and served as vice president and senior counsel at the defense contractor Lockheed Martin. He has worked at Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut-based hedge fund, and now teaches national security law at Columbia University.
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications at the Human Rights Campaign, spoke highly of Comey and said his nomination represents a change from when the FBI kicked out employees for being gay 60 years ago:
Six decades after J. Edgar Hoover created a “Sex Deviate” program to investigate, red-flag and target gay and lesbian federal employees, today’s nominee for FBI Director not only supports marriage equality, but he’s a Republican to boot. Comey signed onto the groundbreaking GOP amicus brief filed in the Prop 8 case earlier this year.
Not only that, but the FBI he inherits will, next year, begin releasing hate crimes data that, for the very first time, include both sexual orientation and gender identity-based crimes (sexual orientation-only data has been kept since the 1990s). Following the rash of hate-motivated violence and even murder in New York City, this data will only improve the investigation and prosecution of these despicable crimes.
Clearly this is not your grandfather’s FBI. And we can all be glad for that.
Congress
Congress passes ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ with massive cuts to health insurance coverage
Roughly 1.8 million LGBTQ Americans rely on Medicaid

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” heads to President Donald Trump’s desk following the vote by the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, which saw two nays from GOP members and unified opposition from the entire Democratic caucus.
To partially offset the cost of tax breaks that disproportionately favor the wealthy, the bill contains massive cuts to Medicaid and social safety net programs like food assistance for the poor while adding a projected $3.3 billion to the deficit.
Policy wise, the signature legislation of Trump’s second term rolls back clean energy tax credits passed under the Biden-Harris administration while beefing up funding for defense and border security.
Roughly 13 percent of LGBTQ adults in the U.S., about 1.8 million people, rely on Medicaid as their primary health insurer, compared to seven percent of non-LGBTQ adults, according to the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute think tank on sexual orientation and gender identities.
In total, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cuts will cause more than 10 million Americans to lose their coverage under Medicaid and anywhere from three to five million to lose their care under Affordable Care Act marketplace plans.
A number of Republicans in the House and Senate opposed the bill reasoning that they might face political consequences for taking away access to healthcare for, particularly, low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid. Poorer voters flocked to Trump in last year’s presidential election, exit polls show.
A provision that would have blocked the use of federal funds to reimburse medical care for transgender youth was blocked by the Senate Parliamentarian and ultimately struck from the legislation — reportedly after the first trans member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and the first lesbian U.S. senator, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), shored up unified opposition to the proposal among Congressional Democrats.
Congress
Ritchie Torres says he is unlikely to run for NY governor
One poll showed gay Democratic congressman nearly tied with Kathy Hochul

Gay Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York is unlikely to challenge New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in the state’s next gubernatorial race, he said during an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I’m unlikely to run for governor,” he said. ““I feel like the assault that we’ve seen on the social safety net in the Bronx is so unprecedented. It’s so overwhelming that I’m going to keep my focus on Washington, D.C.”
Torres and Hochul were nearly tied in a poll this spring of likely Democratic voters in New York City, fueling speculation that the congressman might run. A Siena College poll, however, found Hochul leading with a wider margin.
Back in D.C., the congressman and his colleagues are unified in their opposition to President Donald Trump’s signature legislation, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which heads back to the House after passing the Senate by one vote this week.
To pay for tax cuts that disproportionately advantage the ultra-wealthy and large corporations, the president and Congressional Republicans have proposed massive cuts to Medicaid and other social programs.
A provision in the Senate version of the bill that would have blocked the use of federal funds to reimburse medical care for transgender youth was blocked by the Senate Parliamentarian and ultimately struck from the legislation, reportedly after pressure from transgender U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and lesbian U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).
Torres on “Morning Joe” said, “The so-called Big Beautiful Bill represents a betrayal of the working people of America and nowhere more so than in the Bronx,” adding, “It’s going to destabilize every health care provider, every hospital.”
Congress
House Democrats oppose Bessent’s removal of SOGI from discrimination complaint forms
Congressional Equality Caucus sharply criticized move

A letter issued last week by a group of House Democrats objects to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s removal of sexual orientation and gender identity as bases for sex discrimination complaints in several Equal Employment Opportunity forms.
Bessent, who is gay, is the highest ranking openly LGBTQ official in American history and the second out Cabinet member next to Pete Buttigieg, who served as transportation secretary during the Biden-Harris administration.
The signatories to the letter include a few out members of Congress, Congressional Equality Caucus chair and co-chairs Mark Takano (Calif.), Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), and Becca Balint (Vt.), along with U.S. Reps. Nikema Williams (Ga.), Hank Johnson (Ga.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas).
The letter explains the “critical role” played by the EEO given the strictures and limits on how federal employees can find recourse for unlawful workplace discrimination — namely, without the ability to file complaints directly with the Employment Opportunity Commission or otherwise engage with the agency unless the complainant “appeal[s] an agency’s decision following the agency’s investigation or request[s] a hearing before an administrative judge.”
“Your attempt to remove ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual orientation’ as bases for sex discrimination complaints in numerous Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) forms will create unnecessary hurdles to employees filing EEO complaints and undermine enforcement of federal employee’s nondiscrimination protections,” the members wrote in their letter.
They further explain the legal basis behind LGBTQ inclusive nondiscrimination protections for federal employees in the EEOC’s decisions in Macy v. Holder (2012) and Baldwin v. Foxx (2015) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).
“It appears that these changes may be an attempt by the department to dissuade employees from reporting gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination,” the lawmakers wrote. “Without forms clearly enumerating gender identity and sexual orientation as forms of sex discrimination, the average employee who experiences these forms of discrimination may see these forms and not realize that the discrimination they experienced was unlawful and something that they can report and seek recourse for.”
“A more alarming view would be that the department no longer plans to fulfill its legal obligations to investigate complaints of gender identity and sexual orientation and ensure its
employees are working in an environment free from these forms of discrimination,” they added.
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