National
Judge orders Ohio to recognize gay couple’s marriage
James Obergefell and John Arthur married at a Maryland airport on July 11
A federal judge in Ohio has issued a temporary order requiring the state to recognize a gay couple’s marriage.
A federal judge in Ohio has issued a temporary order requiring the state to recognize the union of a gay couple who legally married in Maryland while one of the spouses in the relationship dies from an incurable disease.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Black placed an order temporarily restraining state officials from enforcing the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage for — and only for — a Cincinnati, Ohio, gay couple suing the state to recognize their marriage.
Black issued the two-page decision on the basis that the couple’s case is likely to succeed because Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban — passed by Ohio voters in 2004 — violates the couple’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution. The judge also said the couple will suffer “irreparable harm” without an injunction.
“On this record, there is insufficient evidence of a legitimate state interest to justify this singling out of same sex married couples given the severe and irreparable harm it imposes on these Plaintiffs,” Black concludes.
The judge takes special note that Ohio recognizes out-of-state marriages for straight couples that can’t be legally performed within the state — such as opposite-sex marriages entered into by first cousins or minors — yet still won’t recognize out-of-state marriages for gay couples.
The couple in case is James Obergefell and John Arthur, who after being together more than 20 years married in Maryland following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.
Arthur suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS,) also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which has no known cure and is fatal. He’s currently a hospice patient.
The couple flew to Maryland on July 11 in a special jet equipped with medical equipment and a medical staff to serve Arthur’s needs. They married in the plane as it sat on the tarmac and returned to Cincinnati the next day. They filed their lawsuit — known as Obergefell et al v. Kasich et at — on Friday.
Black’s order bars Gov. John Kasich and other state officials from enforcing Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage with respect to this couple. Additionally, the order prohibits the local registrar from accepting a death certificate for Arthur if it doesn’t recognize him as married at the time of his death and doesn’t designate Obergefell as his surviving spouse. The order expires on Aug. 5, unless it is extended by the parties and the court.
State officials have the option of appealing the decision to a higher court. Connie Wehrkamp, a Kasich spokesperson, had a little to say about the order after it was issued.
“I can’t comment on the pending litigation except to say that the governor believes marriage is between a man and a woman,” Wehrkamp said.
Nan Hunter, a lesbian law professor at Georgetown University, was optimistic the order would stand on appeal because it’s narrowly crafted.
“I think it is likely to stand,” Hunter said. “The facts are extraordinarily sympathetic, and the judge’s order is quite narrow and limited. This is the kind of case that probably has much greater potential for changing public opinion than for making any rapid changes in Ohio state law.”
Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal, said he expects proceedings in the case to go forward and state defendants to put up a fight to protect the marriage ban, but predicted the couple would succeed.
“I am optimistic that the judge ultimately will issue a final ruling in the couple’s favor,” Davidson said. “I think he is correct that the state has no adequate justification for refusing to respect marriages same-sex couples have validly entered in other states while it, at the same time, respects other marriages that couples cannot enter in Ohio, such as those entered by first cousins or by minors.”
Davidson said what happens with this case if it reaches the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is less clear because it’s is known as being conservative. However, he said the compelling story of the plaintiff couple may convince judges to issue a favorable ruling toward them.
“While the Sixth Circuit historically has been among the most conservative federal courts of appeal in the country, many conservatives are coming to question arguments that have been used to deny same-sex couples the freedom to marry and the speed at which attitudes are changing is dramatic,” Davidson said. “And, were this to be the next case to reach the Supreme Court, I think some of the crucial justices could well be touched by the devotion and commitment of this brave couple.”
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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D.C. LGBTQ bars ‘hanging in there’ amid tough economy
Japan’s first female prime minister reluctant to advance LGBTQ rights
Rep. Grijalva reiterates LGBTQ support at swearing in
PHOTOS: Whitman-Walker Gala
Activist hosts Diwali celebration in D.C.
Harford school board appeals state’s book ban decision to circuit court
Calendar: November 14-20
