News
HISTORIC: Supreme Court strikes down DOMA, Prop 8
DOMA violates equal protection; Prop 8 supporters lack standing
Gay marriage advocates rallying at the Supreme Court earlier this year during oral arguments for two major cases. The court struck down two anti-gay laws today, opening the door for expanded rights for same-sex couples in many jurisdictions. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
In a historic development, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions on Wednesday that advanced marriage rights for gay couples and will almost certainly reshape the national debate on the issue.
In one 5-4 ruling, the court determined that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it violates due process and equal protection for same-sex couples under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That decision means the U.S. government must begin recognizing same-sex marriages for a broad range of benefits, including those related to federal taxes and immigration law.
Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion and was joined by Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,” Kennedy said. “By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”
The dissenting justices were Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. In his opinion, Roberts says Congress acted constitutionally in passing DOMA and took issue with the authority the court granted itself in overturning the anti-gay statute.
Writing his dissent, Scalia said the decision of the court robs the American public of its ability to decide the issue of same-sex marriage through the democratic process.
“Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many,” Scalia writes. “But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better.”
In another 5-4 decision, the court determined anti-gay forces don’t have standing to defend California’s Proposition 8. That decision leaves in place a district court injunction that prohibits the state of California from enforcing its ban on same-sex marriage. Gay couples will be able to marry in the state once the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lift its stay.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the court and was joined by Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan. Kennedy wrote the dissenting opinion and was joined by Thomas, Alito and Sotomayor.
“The Article III requirement that a party invoking the jurisdiction of a federal court seek relief for a personal, particularized injury serves vital interests going to the role of the Judiciary in our system of separated powers,” Roberts writes. “States cannot alter that role simply by issuing to private parties who otherwise lack standing a ticket to the federal courthouse.”
The court’s ruling in the case against Prop 8, known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, is specific only to California — meaning the justices didn’t grant the expansive ruling that supporters of marriage equality had sought to bring marriage equality to all 50 states.
Shortly after HRC President Chad Griffin walked out of the court with plaintiffs in the marriage cases, he received a call from President Obama who was aboard Air Force One. Obama congratulated Griffin for the victories as reporters and onlookers watched.
The decisions were handed down 10 years to the day that the Supreme Court announced its landmark decision in the 2003 case of Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws throughout the country.
The challenge to DOMA, known as United States v. Windsor, was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others in 2011 on behalf of lesbian New York widow Edith Windsor. Upon the death of her spouse Thea Spyer in 2009, Windsor had to pay the U.S. government $363,000 in estate taxes because of DOMA — a penalty that she wouldn’t have faced if she were married to a man.
The decision striking down DOMA affirms the initial rulings against the federal anti-gay law last year by U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones and the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Obama administration helped in securing the ruling against DOMA. After it stopped defending DOMA in 2011, the U.S. Justice Department began filing briefs against the law and sent attorneys to litigate against it during oral arguments. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued against DOMA before the Supreme Court, saying the law doesn’t hold up under the standard heightened scrutiny, or a greater assumption it’s unconstitutional.
But the Supreme Court didn’t get to the issue of heightened scrutiny in the DOMA case because it found the law was unconstitutional under the less stringent standard of rational basis review.
The case against Prop 8 was filed by the California-based American Foundation for Equal Rights in 2009 on behalf of two plaintiff couples — a lesbian couple, Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier, and a gay male couple, Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo — who were unable to marry because of the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
The attorneys representing them were Theodore Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general during the Bush administration, and David Boies, a so-called “dream team” of attorneys who represented opposite sides in the 2000 case Bush v. Gore.
Because the state officials — California Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris — refused to defend Prop 8 in court, anti-gay groups that put Prop 8 on the ballot in 2008 such as ProtectMarriage.com took up the responsibility of defending the measure. The California Supreme Court certified the groups had standing under state law and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed they had standing.
But the high court determined that these groups — even though attorney Charles Cooper spoke on behalf on them in oral arguments — don’t have standing because they lack any legal injury in the wake of the lower court’s determination that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.
The Obama administration had also assisted in efforts to secure a ruling against California’s Proposition 8. The Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in February saying the ban was unconstitutional and Verrilli argued in court against Prop 8, suggesting all eight states with domestic partnerships should be required to grant marriage rights to gay couples.
The issue of standing also came up in the DOMA case for two reasons. One, the court had questioned whether the U.S. Justice Department could have appealed the district court ruling to the Second Circuit because the initial ruling against DOMA was what the Obama administration wanted. Two, the court questioned whether the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, a five-member Republican-majority panel within the U.S. House, had standing to take up defense of DOMA in the administration’s stead.
But the court determined an active controversy remains in the case because the U.S. government still hasn’t refunded Windsor the $363,000 she paid in estate taxes. Once the court determined it has jurisdiction based on the Obama administration’s appeal of the lawsuit, it didn’t get to the issue of whether BLAG has standing.
In his ruling, Kennedy writes the continuation of litigation in the absence of a federal ruling on DOMA would cause uncertainty.
“[T]he costs, uncertainties, and alleged harm and injuries likely would continue for a time measured in years before the issue is resolved,” Kennedy writes in the ruling. “In these unusual and urgent circumstances, the very term ‘prudential’ counsels that it is a proper exercise of the Court’s responsibility to take jurisdiction.”
District of Columbia
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Alleged years of verbal harassment, slurs, intimidation
The D.C. government on Feb. 5 agreed to pay $500,000 to a gay D.C. Department of Corrections officer as a settlement to a lawsuit the officer filed in 2021 alleging he was subjected to years of discrimination at his job because of his sexual orientation, according to a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The statement says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sgt. Deon Jones by the ACLU of D.C. and the law firm WilmerHale, alleged that the Department of Corrections, including supervisors and co-workers, “subjected Sgt. Jones to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Daniel Gleick, a spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the mayor’s office would have no comment on the lawsuit settlement. The Washington Blade couldn’t immediately reach a spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents the city against lawsuits.
Bowser and her high-level D.C. government appointees, including Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have spoken out against LGBTQ-related discrimination.
“Jones, now a 28-year veteran of the Department and nearing retirement, faced years of verbal abuse and harassment from coworkers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment,” the ACLU’s statement says.
“The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone,” it says.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones says in the ACLU statement. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered – and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences,” he said.
He added, “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
The settlement agreement, a link to which the ACLU provided in its statement announcing the settlement, states that plaintiff Jones agrees, among other things, that “neither the Parties’ agreement, nor the District’s offer to settle the case, shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to Plaintiff or any other person, or that Plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this.
“But actions speak louder than words,” he told the Blade. “The fact that they are paying our client a half million dollars for the pervasive and really brutal harassment that he suffered on the basis of his identity for years is much more telling than their disclaimer itself,” he said.
The settlement agreement also says Jones would be required, as a condition for accepting the agreement, to resign permanently from his job at the Department of Corrections. Michelman said Jones has been on leave from work for a period of time, but he did not know how long. Jones couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“This is really something that makes sense on both sides,” Michelman said of the resignation requirements. “The environment had become so toxic the way he had been treated on multiple levels made it difficult to see how he could return to work there.”
Virginia
Spanberger signs bill that paves way for marriage amendment repeal referendum
Proposal passed in two successive General Assembly sessions
Virginians this year will vote on whether to repeal a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Friday signed state Del. Laura Jane Cohen (D-Fairfax County)’s House Bill 612, which finalized the referendum’s language.
The ballot question that voters will consider on Election Day is below:
Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to: (i) remove the ban on same-sex marriage; (ii) affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race; and (iii) require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law?
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
A resolution to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment passed in the General Assembly in 2025. Lawmakers once again approved it last month.
“20 years after Virginia added a ban on same-sex marriage to our Constitution, we finally have the chance to right that wrong,” wrote Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman on Friday in a message to her group’s supporters.
Virginians this year will also consider proposed constitutional amendments that would guarantee reproductive rights and restore voting rights to convicted felons who have completed their sentences.
District of Columbia
D.C. non-profits find creative ways to aid the unhoused amid funding cuts
City’s poor economic mobility makes it easier to slip into homelessness
Homelessness is unlikely to disappear entirely, but it can be minimized and controlled.
That principle guides Everyone Home Executive Director Karen Cunningham’s approach to homeless support and prevention in D.C.
“There’s always going to be some amount of people who have a crisis,” Cunningham said. “The goal is that if they become homeless, [it’s] rare, brief and non-recurring. And in order for that to be the case, we need to have steady investments in programs that we know work over time.”
Making those investments has proven to be an unprecedented challenge, however. Cunningham said non-profits and other organizations like Everyone Home are grappling with government funding cuts or stalls that threaten the work they do to support D.C.’s homeless population.
Despite a 9% decrease in homelessness from 2024 to 2025, advocates worry that stagnant funding will make that progress hard to sustain. Furthermore, D.C. has the worst unemployment rate in the country at 6.7% as of December. The city’s poor economic mobility makes it easier for people to slip into homelessness and harder to break free of it.
There’s a way forward, Cunningham said, but it’s going to take a lot of perseverance and creative solutions from those willing to stay in the fight.
Fighting through setbacks
Reduced funding from the city government has shifted the way Everyone Home operates.
In D.C.’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, homeless services and prevention programs saw stalled growth or financial reductions. Even just a few years ago, Cunningham said Everyone Home received a large influx of vouchers to help people who needed long-term supportive housing. The vouchers allowed the non-profit to break people free of the homeless cycle and secure stable housing.
However, those vouchers are scarce these days. Cunningham said the city is investing less in multi-year programs and more in programs that offer preventative and upfront support.
She said this reality has forced Everyone Home to stop operating its Family Rapid Rehab program, which helps families leave shelters and transition into permanent housing. Current funds couldn’t withstand the size of the program and Cunningham said very few organizations can still afford to run similar programs.
The Family Homelessness Prevention program, however, is thriving and expanding at Everyone Home due to its short-term nature. It provides families with 90-day support services to help them get back on track and secure stable finances and housing.
Everyone Home also offers a drop-in day center, where they provide people with emergency clothing, laundry, and meals, and has a street outreach team to support those who are chronically homeless and offer services to them.
Inconsistencies in financial support have created challenges in providing the necessary resources to those struggling. It’s led non-profits like Everyone Home to get creative with their solutions to ensuring no one has recurring or long spouts of homelessness.
“It’s really a sustained investment in these programs and services that can allow us to chip away, because if you put all these resources in and then take your foot off the gas, there’s always people entering the system,” Cunningham said. “And so we have to always be moving people out into housing.”
Getting people in and out of the homeless system isn’t easy due to D.C.’s struggle with providing accessible and affordable housing, D.C. Policy Center executive director Yesim Sayin said in a Nov. 16 Washington Blade article.
Sayin said that D.C.’s construction tailors to middle or upper class people who live in the city because work brought them there, but it excludes families and D.C. natives who may be on the verge of homelessness and have less geographic mobility.
Building more and building smarter ensures D.C.’s low-income population aren’t left behind and at risk of becoming homeless, Sayin said.
That risk is a common one in D.C. given its low economic mobility. Residents have less room to financially grow given the city’s high cost of living, making vulnerable communities more prone to homelessness.
With funding cuts for long-term programs, preventative programs have proven to be vital in supporting the homeless population. When someone becomes homeless, it can have a snowball effect on their life. They aren’t just losing a house –– they may lose their job, access to reliable transportation and food for their family.
Cunningham said resources like the Family Homelessness Prevention program allows people to grow and stabilize before losing crucial life resources.
“Helping people keep what they have and to try to grow that as much as possible is really important where there aren’t a lot of opportunities…for people to increase their income,” Cunningham said.
Through all the funding cuts and reduced services, D.C.’s homeless support organizations are still finding a path forward –– a path that many residents and families rely on to survive.
Pushing forward
Local non-profits and organizations like Everyone Home are the backbone of homeless support when all other systems fail.
When the White House issued an executive order directing agencies to remove homeless encampments on federal land, Coalition For The Homeless provided ongoing shelter to those impacted.
“We were asked by our funders to open two shelters at the time of the encampment policy announcement,” Lucho Vásquez, executive director of Coalition For The Homeless, said. “We opened the shelters on the same day of the request and have been housing 100 more people who are unhoused each night since August.”
This was achieved even after Coalition faced “severe cuts in funding for supportive and security services,” according to Vásquez. Staff members have taken on additional responsibilities to make up for the loss in security coverage and supportive services with no increase in pay, but Vásquez said they’re still trying to fill gaps left by the cuts.
Coalition offers free transitional housing, single room occupancy units and affordable apartments to people who were unhoused.
Coalition For The Homeless isn’t the only non-profit that’s had to step up its services amid dwindling resources. Thrive D.C. provides hot meals, showers, and winter clothes, which is especially important during the winter months.
Pathways to Housing D.C. offers housing services for people regardless of their situation or condition. Its “Housing First” teams house people directly from the streets, and then evaluate their mental and physical health, employment, addiction status, and education challenges to try to integrate them back into the community.
Covenant House is a homeless shelter for youth ages 18-24. They provide resources and shelter for youth “while empowering young people in their journey to independence and stability,” its website reads. Through its variety of programs, Friendship Place ended or prevented homelessness, found employment and provided life-changing services for more than 5,400 people.
These groups have made a huge local difference with little resources, but Cunningham said there are more ways for people to support those experiencing homelessness if they’re strapped for time or money. Aside from donating and volunteering, she said even simply showing compassion toward people who are struggling can go a long way.
Cunningham said compassion is something that’s been lost in the mainstream, with politicians and news anchors regularly directing hostile rhetoric toward homeless populations. But now more than ever, she said caring and understanding for fellow community members is key to moving forward and lifting those in need up.
“People sometimes feel invisible or that there’s a sense of hostility,” Cunningham said. “I think all of us can at least do that piece of recognizing people’s humanity.”
(This article is part of a national initiative exploring how geography, policy, and local conditions influence access to opportunity. Find more stories at economicopportunitylab.com.)
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Spanberger signs bill that paves way for marriage amendment repeal referendum
Blade, Pride House LA announce 2028 Olympics partnership
D.C. non-profits find creative ways to aid the unhoused amid funding cuts
Celebrate Black History Month
D.C. Council urged to improve ‘weakened’ PrEP insurance bill
LGBTQ Minnesotans speak out amid ICE crackdowns
Dan Cox files for governor, seeking rematch with Moore
Hashmi speaks at Equality Virginia Lobby Day
