News
United Nations unveils global LGBT rights campaign
Singer Ricky Martin among those who support effort
Ricky Martin is among those who supports a new U.N. campaign in support of LGBT rights (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The year-long effort, which the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights unveiled during a press conference in Cape Town, South Africa, seeks to raise awareness of anti-LGBT violence and discrimination and encourage what it describes as “greater respect for the rights of LGBT people.”
The “Free & Equal” campaign will stress what a press release described as the “need for both legal reforms and public education to counter homophobia and transphobia.” The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights will also produce a number of videos that are similar to the one it released in May to mark the annual International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and gay South African Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron, who lives with HIV, joined U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay at the Cape Town press conference.
“Changing attitudes is never easy. But it has happened on other issues and it is happening already in many parts of the world on this one,” Pillay said. “It begins with often difficult conversations. And that is what we want to do with this campaign. ‘Free & Equal’ will inspire millions of conversations among people around the world and across the ideological spectrum.”
The U.N. in 2011 adopted a resolution in support of LGBT rights.
South Africa is among the 11 countries in which gays and lesbians can legally marry, but more than 70 countries continue to criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts.
An increasing number of LGBT rights advocates have called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and Russian vodka in response to recently enacted laws that ban so-called gay propaganda and same-sex couples from other countries from adopting Russian children. Four Dutch LGBT advocates returned to the Netherlands earlier this week after authorities in the Russian city of Murmansk arrested them under the country’s anti-gay propaganda law after they interviewed a teenager for a documentary on gay life in Russia.
The reported murder of a cross-dressing teenager near the Jamaican resort city of Montego Bay earlier this week sparked outrage among LGBT rights advocates in the Caribbean nation. The U.S. State Department and Human Rights Watch are among the groups that condemned the killing of prominent Cameroonian LGBT rights advocate Eric Ohena Lembembe who was found dead inside his home in the country’s capital on July 15.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe earlier this month sparked controversy when he said during a campaign rally ahead of his country’s July 31 elections that authorities should arrest gays and lesbians who don’t conceive children.
“The [U.N.’s] Universal Declaration of Human Rights promises a world in which everyone is born free and equal in dignity and rights — no exceptions, no one left behind,” Pillay said. “Yet it’s still a hollow promise for many millions of LGBT people forced to confront hatred, intolerance, violence and discrimination on a daily basis.”
Singers Ricky Martin and Daniela Mercury and Bollywood actress Celina Jaitly are among those who have pledged to support the campaign.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will visit Hungary next week.
An announcement the White House released on Thursday said the Vances will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from April 7-8.
JD Vance “will hold bilateral meetings with” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The announcement further indicates the vice president “will also deliver remarks on the rich partnership between the United States and Hungary.”
The Vances will travel to Hungary less than a week before the country’s parliamentary elections take place on April 12.
Orbán, who has been in office since 2010, and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Associated Press notes polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party.
President Donald Trump removed Attorney General Pam Bondi from her post Thursday, following growing criticism over how she and the Department of Justice handled a range of issues, including matters related to sex offender and Trump ally Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump announced Bondi’s removal on Truth Social, where he also said Todd Blanche will serve as acting head of the Justice Department.
“Pam Bondi is a great American patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my attorney general over the past year,” Trump wrote on the platform. “Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown on crime across our country, with murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900.”
Trump was seen as recently as Wednesday with the now-former attorney general at a Supreme Court hearing on citizenship.
The decision contrasts with Trump’s previous public praise of Bondi, the 87th U.S. attorney general and former 37th attorney general of Florida, who served in that role from 2011-2019 before joining the Trump-Vance administration. He has frequently lauded her loyalty and said he speaks with her often. Bondi was also one of president’s defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial.
Privately, however, Trump had grown frustrated that Bondi was not “moving quickly enough” to prosecute critics and political adversaries he wanted to face criminal charges, according to multiple sources. The New York Times reported that her inability to charge former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James with any crimes is a large factor in the president’s choice to fire her from the government’s primary law enforcement agency.
The move comes as Trump has sought to minimize public turmoil within his administration, avoiding the perception of a revolving-door Cabinet that defined his first term.
Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York who unsuccessfully ran for governor, has emerged as a leading contender to lead the Justice Department. He has been one of Trump’s most reliable allies.
“He’s our secret weapon,” Trump said of Zeldin in February during a White House event promoting the coal industry, adding, “He’s getting those approvals done in record-setting time.”
Bondi has also growing faced scrutiny from Congress.
The House Oversight Committee recently subpoenaed her to testify about the department’s handling of certain files, where she declined to answer key questions during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing in February.
The Tampa native has a long history of opposing LGBTQ rights through her roles in government. As Florida attorney general, she fought against the legalization of same-sex marriage, arguing it would cause “serious public harm,” pushing forward a legal battle that cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars. She also asked the Florida Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that found the state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
More recently, Bondi established a “Title IX Special Investigations Team” within the Justice Department focused on restricting transgender women and girls from participating in women’s and girls’ sports teams and accessing facilities aligned with their gender identity. She also told Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to turn over the medical records of anyone under 19 who received gender-affirming care.
Her removal follows Trump’s decision last month to oust another controversial female Cabinet figure, Kristi Noem.
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
JD Vance to travel to Hungary next week
Pam Bondi ousted as attorney general
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