National
ACLU unveils trio of post-DOMA marriage lawsuits
Plans announced for litigation in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia
Maureen Hennessey (right) with her late spouse Mary Beth is a widow plaintiff in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking marriage equality (Photo courtesy of ACLU Pennsylvania).
For lesbian widow Maureen Hennessey, winning same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania isn’t just about obtaining Social Security and tax benefits, but the dignity of having her relationship with her late partner of 29 years recognized by her state.
“There are some financial changes that legalizing marriage in Pennsylvania would bring about, but even just the whole respect and relationship being validated, that’s the whole part of it,” Hennessey said. “That’s what really would make a difference.”
Hennessey, 53, is one of 11 plaintiff couples in a federal lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union was set to file on Tuesday asking the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to overturn the Keystone State’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage. The complaint can be found here.
Building off the win at the U.S. Supreme Court in the case it filed against the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of lesbian widow Edith Windsor, the ACLU is filing the Pennsylvania lawsuit as part of a group of three new lawsuits that seek to advance marriage equality in different parts of the country.
In addition to the Pennsylvania lawsuit, named Whitewood v. Corbett, the ACLU is also undertaking cases seeking marriage equality in North Carolina and Virginia.
The North Carolina lawsuit is amending the complaint in the case of Fisher-Borne v. Smith, a lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiff couples who previously sought second-parent adoption rights. The ACLU was also set to amend its lawsuit in the North Carolina case on Tuesday, although a copy of the complaint wasn’t immediately available.
Marcie and Chantelle Fisher-Borne (Photo courtesy of the ACLU)
Chantelle Fisher-Borne, a 38-year-old non-profit consultant and one-half of the lead plaintiff couple in the case, said there are many reasons why she wants her union to her partner of 15 years recognized as a marriage in North Carolina, which just last year passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
“Some of them involve benefits such as health insurance, or the same issues we have around the parenting things we have with our children, being able to really have the legal recognition we have in our hearts as a married couple,” Fisher-Borne said. “It provides a kind of safety that most couples and parents want and many have but we don’t.”
In Virginia, the lawsuit is still in its planning phases — no plaintiffs have yet been chosen for the case — although the ACLU anticipates filing it later this summer.
James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT Project, said his organization is filing the lawsuits to add its voice to the seven lawsuits already pending in federal court seeking a nationwide ruling in favor of marriage equality.
“We are adding our voices to those cases in bringing plaintiffs with compelling stories with decades of commitment and the ways in which they’re harmed by not being able to marry,” Esseks said. “And we’re hoping to bring their stories both to the American public and to courts that have a good shot at giving the issues a fair hearing.”
The Pennsylvania lawsuit, which challenges the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on the basis that it violates plaintiffs’ due process and equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, emphasizes the loss of benefits for the couples and their children.
The 52-page complaint in the Pennsylvania case also draws on the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor as legal precedent for why the federal court should strike down state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
“The fact that a discriminatory law is long-standing does not immunize it from constitutional scrutiny,” the complaint states. “And the Supreme Court has made clear that the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give effect to private biases and has expressly rejected moral disapproval of marriage for same-sex couples as a legitimate basis for discriminatory treatment of lesbian and gay couples.”
The plaintiff couples can be broken down into two categories. Six are seeking the right to marry in Pennsylvania, including Deb and Susan Whitewood, who gave their names to the lawsuit. Five other couples — like Hennessey, who lost her spouse Mary Beth McIntyre to lung cancer after having wed in Massachusetts — are looking to have their legal marriages recognized in Pennsylvania.
The couples include lawyers, a truck driver, a doctor, veterans, a stay-at-home mom and retirees. One couple is represented in the lawsuit by their children who are still minors and designated as A.W. and K.W.
Hennessey, who had three children with McIntyre and is expecting a fourth grandchild soon, said she’s particularly seeking Social Security survivor benefits, which are still in question after the DOMA ruling because she lives in state that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.
“I’m 53 years old, and Mary Beth was the primary bread-winner in the family,” Hennessey said. “So, her Social Security would be way higher than mine, unless I win the lottery.”
For Marcie Fisher-Bourne, who works for the American Cancer Society, the need for the legal recognition of her union became particularly salient on the day she gave birth to her daughter five years ago. The couple encountered problems even though they were legally married in D.C.
“When I transferred to the unit for recovery at one in the morning, the nurse looks at Chantelle and says, ‘Why is she here? Where is her paperwork?’ Marcie Fisher-Bourne said. “So when you ask, why will it matter here in North Carolina, to me, that’s a really good example. On that day, on the day that our daughter was born, I would not have had to fish through my emergency suitcase to find health care power of attorney papers so my spouse could be beside me when our first child was born. So, yes, it matters.”
And there’s optimism in the air plaintiffs will able to win marriage equality, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision finding DOMA unconstitutional. Hennessey predicted the lawsuit is “definitely going to succeed.”
“I don’t think it’ll happen overnight, but I know that the legislators in Harrisburg are probably want to drag their feet as much as possible,” she said. “But we’re going to push it forward, and I think that the people, I think that the population is ready to accept same-sex marriages, and I think that it will happen.”
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.
PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
House passes reconciliation with gender-affirming care funding ban
PHOTOS: D.C. Trans Pride
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
