News
Gay, bi lawmakers criticized for joining GOP on Obamacare vote
Sinema, Maloney sought to delay individual mandate
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney are incurring the wrath of gay activists for voting with House Republicans. (Photo of Sinema courtesy the Sinema campaign; Washington Blade photo of Maloney by Michael Key).
Two Democratic members of Congress — one gay and one bisexual — are incurring the wrath of LGBT activists for voting with House Republicans to delay certain portions of Obamacare in exchange for keeping the government in operation.
Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) were among nine Democrats on Monday who voted for a Republican-led resolution that provided funds for the government for fiscal year 2014, but included a provision delaying the individual mandate and requiring members of Congress and their staffs to pay the full cost of insurance without the government subsidy.
Additionally, Maloney voted for another measure that includes the above policy items in addition to calling for a conference committee with the Senate, which would likely mean some give on health care reform.
Both Maloney and Sinema also joined Republicans on Sunday to vote for repeal of the tax on medical devices as part of Obamacare.
Each House proposal was rejected by the Senate, which has insisted on a bill that only continues funding for the government, leading to the stalemate that caused the government shutdown on Tuesday.
Michael Rogers, a D.C.-based LGBT rights advocate, said the vote means Sinema and Maloney are Democrats in name only.
“I am a progressive so I wish Sinema and Maloney were more concerned about the American people than with their reelection,” Rogers said. “When Democrats stand for Democratic principles we win. If these two people won as out LGBT people, surely they would not have been tossed out sticking with their caucus. It is sellouts like Sinema and Maloney who, as DINOs, are more than willing to cave in to the crazy demands of the right.”
Michaelangelo Signorile, a gay New York activist and radio host on SiriusXM, took to Twitter to express his indignation.
Gay ConservaDems took $$ from progressives, Sinema and Maloney, voted #shutdown. Make sure they meet fate of Christine Quinn @DenisDison
— Michelangelo Signorile (@MSignorile) October 1, 2013
John Aravosis, who’s gay and editor of AMERICAblog, also had harsh words for the two lawmakers, who ran as openly gay/bi candidates and took donations from the LGBT community.
“I think it’s abominable,” Aravosis said. “No Democrat, let alone a gay or bisexual one, should be working to undercut health care protections for Americans, let alone helping John Boehner do anything.”
The other openly gay lawmakers in the U.S. House — Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), David Cicciline (D-R.I.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) — didn’t join Maloney or Sinema in these votes.
Maloney and Sinema voted against the most drastic proposal from House Republicans to attach a one-year delay of health care reform to the spending bill for fiscal year 2014.
In a statement, Maloney defended his vote for delaying the individual mandate by pointing to the administration.
“I strongly support the president’s decision to give employers more time to comply with the law, and I believe that we should give families the same flexibility we’re giving to our small businesses,” Maloney said.
Maloney also explained his support for eliminating health care subsidies for government employees by saying the playing field for public and private workers should be equal.
“Families and businesses in the Hudson Valley are not getting special subsidies from Obamacare and neither should members of Congress or the White House,” Maloney said.
In a separate statement, Sinema defended her votes by saying they ensure individuals can sign up for health care plans without “being punished” for failing to purchase adequate healthcare coverage.
“It’s now been proven that too many states are not ready to implement the marketplaces,” Sinema said. “It’s not fair to punish people who don’t have the information they need to make informed decisions. Arizona’s hard-working families need transparency and certainty about this healthcare law and its implementation. A one-year delay of the individual mandate will ensure that Arizonans get that certainty.”
Sinema also said health care subsidies for government employees shouldn’t happen with a government shutdown in effect.
“Additionally, I supported tonight’s amendment because members of Congress should not ask the government to pay for their healthcare while Americans at home suffer during government shutdown,” Sinema said.
Neither the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) nor the Democratic National Committee responded to the Blade’s request for comment on Sinema and Maloney joining House Republicans. Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, is on furlough and unable to respond to media requests.
The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorsed the openly gay/bi candidates and called for donations from LGBT people for the candidates, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Human Rights Campaign also endorsed both candidates and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sinema and Maloney have been active on LGBT-specific issues since their election to Congress. They voted for an LGBT-inclusive version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization and signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.
Dana Beyer, a Chevy Chase, Md.,-based transgender activist, said the LGBT community shouldn’t judge Sinema and Maloney too harshly for their votes because “these late night political machinations are generally theater” and don’t say anything about the lawmakers’ overall voting records.
“This issue isn’t about the LGBT community; it’s about America,” Beyer said. “They should be judged on a much broader set of criteria and values than this one vote, and I hope people take the context into account.”
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
The White House
As house Democrats release Epstein photos, Garcia continues to demand DOJ transparency
Blade this week sat down with gay House Oversight Committee ranking member
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s email and computer records, including images highlighting the relationship between President Donald Trump and the convicted sex offender.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was found guilty of procuring a child for prostitution and sex trafficking, serving a 13-month prison sentence in 2008. At the time of his death in prison under mysterious circumstances, he was facing charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors.
Among those pictured in Epstein’s digital files are Trump, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, actor and director Woody Allen, economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
One photo shows Trump alongside Epstein and a woman at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York in 1997. American media outlets have published the image, while Getty Images identified the woman as model Ingrid Seynhaeve.
Oversight Committee Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and plan to release additional images to the public in the coming days and weeks, emphasizing their commitment to protecting survivors’ identities.
With just a week left for the Justice Department to publish all files related to Epstein following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the Justice Department to release most records connected to Epstein investigations, the Washington Blade sat down with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Oversight Committee to discuss the current push the release of more documents.
Garcia highlighted the committee’s commitment to transparency and accountability.
“We’ve said anything that we get we’re going to put out. We don’t care who is in the files … if you’ve harmed women and girls, then we’ve got to hold you accountable.”
He noted ongoing questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein, given their long history and the apparent break in friendship once Trump assumed public office.
“There’s been a lot of questions about … Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. They were best friends for 10 years … met women there and girls.”
Prior to Trump’s presidency, it was widely reported that the two were friends who visited each other’s properties regularly. Additional reporting shows they socialized frequently throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, attending parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and Epstein’s residences. Flight logs from an associate’s trial indicate Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times, and Epstein claimed Trump first had sex with his future wife, Melania Knauss, aboard the jet.
“We’ve provided evidence … [that leads to] questions about what the relationship was like between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.”
Garcia stressed the need for answers regarding the White House’s role in withholding information, questioning the sudden change in attitude toward releasing the files given Trump’s campaign promises.
“Why is the White House trying to cover this up? So if he’s not covering for himself … he’s covering up for his rich friends,” Garcia said. “Why the cover up? Who are you hiding for? I think that’s the question.”
He confirmed that Trump is definitively in the Epstein files, though the extent remains unknown, but will be uncovered soon.
“We know that Trump’s in them. Yeah, he’s been told. We know that Trump’s in them in some way. As far as the extent of it … we don’t know.”
Garcia emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or personal connections.
“All these powerful men that are walking around right now … after abusing, in some cases, 14‑ and 15‑year‑old girls, they have to be held accountable,” he said. “There has to be justice for those survivors and the American public deserves the truth about who was involved in that.”
He added that while he is the ranking member, he will ensure the oversight committee will use all available political tools, including subpoenas — potentially even for the president.
“We want to subpoena anyone that we can … everyone’s kind of on the table.”
He also emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or relationship with the president.
“For me, they’re about justice and doing the right thing,” Garcia said. “This is about women who … were girls and children when they were being abused, trafficked, in some cases, raped. And these women deserve justice.”
“The survivors are strong.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a statement regarding the release the photos, echoing previous comments from Republicans on the timing and framing of the photos by the Oversight Committee.
“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” Jackson said.
“The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends,”
In a press release on Friday, Garcia called for immediate DOJ action:
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends. These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
(Photo courtesy of the U.S. House Oversight Committee)
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
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