National
New Post owner gave $2.5 million for marriage initiative
Amazon CEO says paper’s current leadership team to stay
Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeffrey Bezos this week purchased the Washington Post; he and his wife are prominent supporters of same-sex marriage.
The Washington Post’s new owner, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeffrey Bezos, gave $2.5 million last year in support of a ballot measure to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington State.
The contribution made jointly by Bezos and his wife, which is believed to be the highest ever single contribution for the cause of marriage equality, was viewed with interest this week by LGBT activists following the surprise announcement on Monday that Bezos is buying the Post for $250 million.
Most political and media observers are predicting the type of news coverage the Post has provided under the leadership of the Katherine Graham family and its liberal-progressive leaning editorial positions will continue under Bezos – at least for the near future.
The Post in recent years has expanded its news coverage of LGBT issues and has expressed strong support for LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage, on its editorial page.
In separate statements, the Post and Bezos made it clear that the Seattle-based Amazon Company won’t play any role in the purchase or operation of the Post.
“Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days,” the Post reported. “The Post Co. will get a new, still-undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without the Post,” according to the Post story.
Records from the U.S. Federal Election Commission show that Bezos has given only $83,000 to federal candidates running for public office since 2001. Most of his contributions have been to progressive Democrats, such as his two current home state senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats; Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).
However, FEC records show he has also contributed money to the campaigns of a few moderate Republicans, including former Sen. Slade Gordon (R-Wash.) and former Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.).
During his tenure as CEO of Amazon.com, the Human Rights Campaign has given Amazon overall high marks in the LGBT rights group’s Corporate Equality Index, which rates Fortune 500 U.S. corporations on their policies related to LGBT employees. In its recently released corporate index for 2012, HRC gave Amazon a rating of 90 out of a possible score of 100.
According to HRC’s write-up accompanying Amazon’s rating, the company includes sexual orientation and gender identity in its employee non-discrimination policy and provides health benefits to employees’ same-sex partners. Amazon also includes the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity in its diversity training program for employees and managers.
Rod Hearne, a board member of the statewide LGBT advocacy group Equal Rights Washington, said that while Amazon is well known as an LGBT-friendly employer, the company and Bezos have taken a low profile on controversial political issues. Bezos made an exception to that posture a few years ago, Hearne said, when he made a large donation to the campaign opposing a ballot measure to put in place a state income tax for large businesses.
Hearn said Bezos and his wife’s mega donation to the marriage equality initiative last year came in response to a request from an out lesbian who was a retired employee and who had worked with Bezos shortly after Amazon’s founding.
“She had sent Bezos a short, heartfelt email asking for a donation in the $100,000 range,” Hearn told the Blade. “He responded quickly with a short note saying that he’d discussed it with his wife, that the issue was important to them, and they were in for $2.5 million,” said Hearn. “Everyone was blown away because they had never taken such a bold, public stance on an issue like marriage equality.”
Hearn, who says he’s friends with several LGBT Amazon employees, doubts that Bezos will exert “heavy-handed editorial control” over the Post.
“I don’t think Bezos is buying it out of charity, but he’s perfectly comfortable sustaining short-term operating losses while building out a broad customer base for a long-term payoff,” Hearn said. “While I doubt Bezos will be pushing a particular editorial agenda, I think the editors will not get any pushback at all from their new publisher when it comes to support for LGBT civil rights and marriage equality.”
Democratic National Committee Treasurer Andrew Tobias, who’s gay, said the FEC records show that Bezos has not been a very large contributor to candidates running for public office.
“But his marriage contribution seems to tell us all we need to know on this topic,” Tobias said.
Like many of the nation’s large daily newspapers, the Post has struggled in recent years as the circulation of its print edition has declined. Information released by the Post on Monday showed that the Post pulled in $582 million in revenue last year but incurred an operating loss of $53.7 million.
Bezos, whose personal net worth is said to be about $25.2 billion, can afford to own a paper that loses money, but he is likely to take steps to make the Post profitable, industry analysts said this week.
“The values of the Post do not need changing,” Bezos said in a statement published on the Post website Monday afternoon. “There will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years,” he said in his statement. “That’s essential and would have happened with or without new ownership.”
He added that he will remain in Seattle as Amazon’s CEO and won’t be running the Post on a day-to-day basis.
“Besides that, the Post already has an excellent leadership team that knows much more about the news business than I do, and I’m extremely grateful to them for agreeing to stay on.”
Curtis Tate, president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association’s Washington, D.C. chapter, said many of NLGJA’s friends and members work at the Post.
“Changes in ownership can create a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty, as journalists across the country know all too well,” he said. “However, we hope that the new ownership will allow the paper’s great journalism traditions to continue. Our Post colleagues should be proud of what they have accomplished, and we wish them nothing but the best.”
National
LGBTQ Catholic groups slam Trump over pope criticism
‘Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate’
LGBTQ Catholic groups have sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Leo on April 13 told reporters while traveling to Algeria that he had “no fear of the Trump administration” after the president described him as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” in response to his opposition to the Iran war. (Trump on the same day posted to Truth Social an image that appeared to show him as Jesus Christ. He removed it on April 13 amid backlash from religious leaders.)
Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, during a Fox News Channel interview on the same day said “in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” Vance on April 14 once again discussed Leo during an appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Ga., saying he should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Díaz; and Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are among those who have criticized Trump over his comments. The president, for his part, has said he will not apologize to Leo.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” said Leo on Thursday at a cathedral in Bamenda, Cameroon.
Francis DeBernardo is the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization. He told the Washington Blade on Thursday that Trump’s comments about Leo “are one more example of the ridiculous hubris of this leader (Trump) whose entire record shows that he is nothing more than a middle-school bully.”
“LGBTQ+ adults were often bullied as children, and they have learned the lesson that bullies act when they feel frightened or threatened,” said DeBernardo. “But secular power does not threaten the Vicar of Christ, and Pope Leo’s response illustrates this truth perfectly.”
DeBernardo added Trump “is obviously frightened that Pope Leo, an American, has more power and influence than the president on the world stage.”
“Like most Trumpian bullying, this strategy will backfire,” DeBernardo told the Blade. “Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate. Trump’s actions are not an example of his power, but of his impotence.”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an LGBTQ Catholic organization, echoed DeBernardo.
“He [Trump] has demonstrated throughout both presidencies that he doesn’t understand the basic concepts of any faith system that is founded on the dignity of human beings, the importance of common good,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade on Thursday during a telephone interview. “It’s just appalling.”
Duddy-Burke praised Leo and the American cardinals who have publicly criticized Trump.
“The pope’s popularity — given how much more respect Pope Leo has than the man sitting in the White House — is a blow to his ego,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade. “That seems to be a sore sport for him.”
“It’s such an imperialistic world view,” she added.
Leo ‘is the real peacemaker’
The College of Cardinals last May elected Leo to succeed Pope Francis after his death.
Leo, who was born in Chicago, is the first American pope. He was the bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023.
Francis made him a cardinal in 2023.
Juan Carlos Cruz — a gay Chilean man and clergy sex abuse survivor who Francis appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — has traveled to Ukraine several times with Dominican Sister Lucía Caram since Russia launched its war against the country in 2022. Cruz on Thursday responded to Trump’s criticism of Leo in a text message he sent to the Blade from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“I am in Ukraine under many attacks,” said Cruz. “Trump is an asshole and has zero right to criticize the Pope who is the real peacemaker.”
Tennessee
Charlie Kirk Act advances in Tenn.
Bill would limit protests, protects speakers opposing ‘transgender’ identities
The Tennessee legislature has passed Senate Bill 1741 / House Bill 1476, dubbed the “Charlie Kirk Act,” which, if signed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee, would reshape how public colleges and universities regulate speech on campus.
The measure targets all public higher education institutions and requires them to adopt a “free expression” policy modeled on the University of Chicago’s framework. That framework emphasizes that universities should not shield students from controversial or offensive ideas and requires state schools to formally embrace institutional neutrality — meaning they do not publicly take a stance on political or social issues.
Under the legislation, publicly funded schools cannot disinvite or cancel invited speakers based on their viewpoints or in response to protests from students or faculty. Student organizations, however — like Turning Point USA, an American nonprofit that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college, and university campuses, founded by Charlie Kirk, and often lack widely represented liberal counterparts — would retain broad authority to bring speakers to campus regardless of controversy.
The law includes broad protections for individuals and organizations expressing religious or ideological beliefs, including opposition to abortion, homosexuality, or transgender identity, regardless of whether those views are rooted in religious or secular beliefs. It further prohibits public institutions from retaliating against faculty for protected speech or scholarly work.
The bill, which has been hailed by supporters as an effort to “preserve campus free speech,” ironically also limits protest activity. Shouting down speakers, blocking sightlines, staging disruptive walkouts, or physically preventing entry to events are now considered “substantial interference” under the legislation, making those who engage in such actions subject to discipline.
Some of those disciplinary consequences include probation, suspension, and even expulsion for students, while faculty who protest in ways deemed to violate the policy could face unpaid suspensions and termination after repeated violations.
Supporters of the bill argue it strengthens free expression on campus. State Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), the bill’s sponsor, said it reinforces a commitment to “civil and robust” debate at public universities.
“The Charlie Kirk Act creates critical safeguards for students and faculty and renews the idea that our higher education institutions should be centers of intellectual debate,” Bulso told Fox 17. “This legislation honors the legacy of Charlie Kirk by promoting thoughtful engagement and defending religious freedom.”
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have raised concerns that the legislation effectively elevates certain ideological viewpoints — particularly those tied to religious objections to LGBTQ identities — while exposing students and faculty to punishment for protest or dissent.
“It’s ironic that this body is talking about free speech when we had professors in Tennessee schools expelled and suspended when they did not mourn the death of Charlie Kirk — when they said that his statements were problematic and that the way he died did not redeem the way he lived,” state Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) told WKRN.
Kirk, the right-wing activist and founder of Turning Point USA, for whom the bill is named, was assassinated in September 2025 at a public event at Utah Valley University. His legacy and rhetoric remain deeply polarizing, particularly among LGBTQ advocates, who have cited his history of anti-LGBTQ statements in opposing his campus appearances.
The bill now heads to Lee’s desk for his signature.
National
Demonstrators disrupt OMB director hearing over PEPFAR
Capitol Police arrested five protesters
A group of protesters interrupted Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during his testimony before Congress on Wednesday.
Vought was at the Cannon House Office Building to give testimony to the House Budget Committee.
Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) began the hearing by touting what he described as economic accomplishments of the Trump-Vance administration’s economic accomplishments. Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) disputed those claims in his opening statement.
Boyle went on to admonish Vought for not attending a committee hearing in the previous year.
Vought, the “Project 2025” architect, was invited to speak after Arrington and Boyle made their statements.
Shortly after Vought began reading his statement, Housing Works CEO Charles King stood up in the gallery and began shouting, “PEPFAR saves lives: spend the money!”
The U.S. Capitol Police moved quickly to escort King from the room. Other activists began chanting with King as they unfolded signs bearing a picture of Vought’s face and statements such as, “Vought’s cuts kill people with AIDS,” and “Protect PEPFAR from Vought.”
The group of HIV/AIDS activists included independent activists, former U.S. Agency for International Development and PEPFAR staff, members of Health GAP, Housing Works, and the Treatment Action Group. Six activists were escorted from the hearing and the U.S. Capitol Police detained five of them.
The HIV/AIDS treatment activists protested at the hearing in response to the dismantling of global health programs, including PEPFAR, a federally-funded program credited with saving millions of lives from HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Russell Vought is directly responsible for illegally withholding Congressionally appropriated funds for PEPFAR and related global health initiative,” King said in a statement provided to the Washington Blade. “These funding disruptions have already contributed to preventable deaths and threaten to reverse decades of progress in the fight against HIV worldwide. Enough is enough. Congress must ensure Vought stops this deadly sabotage.”
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