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Gay bi-national couple makes post-DOMA history

Marsh and Popov first gay couple to win approval for marriage-based green card application

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DOMA, Green Card, Marriage, Florida, Gay News, Washington Blade
DOMA, Green Card, Marriage, Florida, Gay News, Washington Blade

The first gay couple to receive an approval for a green card petition, Julian Marsh (right) and Traian Povov. (Photo courtesy The DOMA Project)

For Julian Marsh, being the first U.S. citizen to have a marriage-based green-card application approved for a same-sex spouse is “beyond anything we could ever imagine.”

Marsh and his spouse, Traian Popov, talked about the elation they felt upon learning their I-130 application was accepted on Friday — just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional — in an interview Sunday with the Washington Blade.

“I call that like winning a lottery; it’s like the luck of the draw,” Marsh said. “I’m sure there were other [applications] there that people could have picked up and processed, but, for whatever reason, they picked up ours. I feel real happy they did.”

The DOMA Project, which handled the filing for the Fort Lauderdale couple, is claiming them as the first gay couple to have their marriage-based green card application in the aftermath of the end of DOMA, which prohibited the federal recognition of same-sex couples.

Before the Supreme Court ruled last week the anti-gay law was unconstitutional, DOMA was the sole reason cited by U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services for denying applications submitted by numerous legally married gay couples.

Marsh, an internationally acclaimed DJ, said the green-card approval represents the extent to which times have changed for LGBT people over decades leading to the Supreme Court decision striking down DOMA.

“It has invigorated us, shows us that love can win and we can push boundaries,” Marsh said. “I go back to the days when if you went into a bar, you’d probably have eggs thrown at you. You’d have to go through the back door. … I remember back in the 1970s, that’s where I kind of started, life was not like this at all.”

Popov, a Bulgarian national and doctorate student pursuing a degree in conflict analysis and resolution, said he’s “ecstatic” not just for himself, but the estimated 28,500 gay bi-national couples.

“Because of what we have now, U.S. spouses can petition and eventually get a green card for them if they’re willing to stay in the United States, which is a right that every U.S. citizen should have,” Popov said.

The couple doesn’t have yet have a green card; that process takes about six to nine months after the application is approved.

After meeting in 2011, the couple married in Brooklyn in 2012 and filed for the green card in February with no intention of being the first gay couple to win approval. Marsh and Popov learned via email on June 28 their application was approved, which, coincidentally, was Marsh’s birthday.

USCIS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment over the weekend about the approval or to confirm whether the agency was accepting I-130 green card applications from married bi-national same-sex couples.

Lavi Soloway, co-founder of The DOMA Project and a gay immigration attorney who handled the couple’s case, said in a statement the approval represents the Obama administration’s commitment to recognizing married same-sex couples equally under the law in the aftermath of DOMA.

“This historic first green-card approval confirms that for immigration purposes the Supreme Court ruling striking DOMA will extend recognition to same-sex couples in all 50 states, as long as they have a valid marriage,” Soloway said.

What’s next for the couple? They say they want Florida to enact a change in law that would enable the state to recognize their union. The Sunshine State has a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and marriage-like unions.

“The least we would want right now is Florida to recognize same-sex marriages within the state — even if they don’t allow them here at least recognize them,” Marsh said. “We’re legally married in this country, and we’re legally married in New York. If a straight couple got married and moved here, they’d be legally married. We demand that same right.”

And Marsh criticized U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). In the same day last month, Rubio said he would have walked away from any immigration bill that has language that would have helped gay bi-national couples and said he opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

“What we want to say to Marco Rubio is what are you hiding Marco?” Marsh said. “Why are you being so anti-gay? Look at all the other politicians who are anti-gay! Guess what they turned to be themselves? That’s what we’ve got to say to Marco Rubio: Take a look in the mirror, Marco! I’m not joking.”

Soloway drew a contrast between Rubio’s treatment of his own constituents and the Supreme Court decision bringing relief to Marsh and Popov.

“The Supreme Court ruling affirmed that committed and loving bi-national lesbian and gay couples in Florida and across the country deserve to be treated with respect and equal recognition under the law by the federal government,” Soloway said. “In start contrast to Sen. Rubio’s disparaging tone rejecting the dignity of lesbian and gay Americans, the Supreme Court ruling and the green card approval have brought justice to Julian and Traian.”

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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