News

Despite shutdown, activists continue to engage on ENDA

Advocates say they’re meeting with lawmakers on LGBT bill during budget crisis

Published

13 years ago

October 9, 2013

Chris Johnson

Advocates say work on ENDA continues despite the government shutdown. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Despite the ongoing stalemate in Congress in the second week of a government shutdown, advocates say they’re undaunted in their efforts to pass pro-LGBT legislation.

LGBT rights supporters say they remain engaged on a high-priority bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and assert plans for a vote in the Senate this fall remain unchanged.

Christian Berle, legislative director for Freedom to Work, said he doesn’t expect the shutdown to have any impact on the timing of an ENDA vote.

“We’ve always believed the most likely window for a Senate vote on ENDA was between the last week of October and Thanksgiving, and we think we’re still on track for that timing,” Berle said.

Even as Congress focuses on finding an agreement to restore funds to keep the government in operation and raise the nation’s debt limit, advocates say they met last week with lawmakers to build support for ENDA.

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said the shutdown “will not shut us up” on issues like ENDA as well as immigration reform.

“It’s always the right time for rights and protections: that’s why we were on the Hill last week pushing for ENDA with the members and their staff who remain at their desks during the shutdown,” Carey said. “Just because some members of Congress don’t want to do their jobs, doesn’t mean that we should stop doing ours.”

Similarly, Berle said last week Freedom to Work “had a very productive discussion” with an undeclared Republican senator who was eager to learn about the bill.

“While senators are focused, on both sides of the aisle, on resolving the government shutdown, they can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Berle said. “We have been actively engaging with our allies on the Hill, while continuing to lobby the swing votes.”

Berle declined to name the undeclared senator with whom he spoke, but said the lawmaker is “actively considering” support for the bill.

Although LGBT advocates are saying the trajectory for ENDA is unchanged, lawmakers close to ENDA are silent during the government shutdown.

Emails to the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore), ENDA’s chief sponsor; and Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) were returned with automatic replies that the offices were closed.

A Senate senior Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he hasn’t heard about ENDA discussions and “everything’s on hold” besides budget and debt negotiations. Still, he didn’t dispute that advocates are engaged on the legislation.

“That’s probably credible, but they also have to put on airs, or put up a face like they’re still doing the work on it,” the aide said. “But, honestly, we’re not going to get to anything until the week of Halloween. We won’t get to anything other than debt ceiling and government funding until Halloween week, so everything is on hold until we address those two things.”

Americans for Workplace Opportunity, the $2 million campaign whose steering committee consists of 11 groups seeking to pass ENDA, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on the status of its ENDA lobbying during the government shutdown. The campaign was scheduled to have a citizens lobby day on Capitol Hill to push for ENDA passage on Oct. 3.

As gridlock continues, it’s reasonable to question whether legislation that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT workers could reach the president’s desk during the current Congress.

Berle insisted the situation is different for ENDA when asked if the current impasse reflects poorly on the chances for passage of the LGBT bill.

“ENDA is not a partisan issue, unlike the budget and government funding, senators on both sides of the aisle are in ongoing discussion about the need for employment protections,” Berle said. “We are confident that ENDA will have the 60 votes necessary for cloture. We’re ready to pass these fundamental workplace protections.”

Berle added that there is time to push for ENDA in the House, where passage will be more difficult.

“Fortunately there are still 15 months in the current Congress to pass ENDA,” Berle said. “Freedom to Work is actively engaging not only with Senate offices, but are picking up Republican supporters in the House to help press the case for consideration and building a majority in the House of Representatives to make federal workplace protections for LGBT workers a reality.”

A shutdown for marriage equality lawsuits?

The shutdown could also have an impact on another route LGBT advocates are using to pursue LGBT rights: the federal judiciary. The website for the U.S. courts, as reported by ThinkProgress, at the time of the shutdown said the court would remain open for about 10 business days, but on or around Oct. 15, the judiciary will reassess the situation.

Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal, said it’s unclear at this time whether the shutdown will lead to a nationwide closure or impact the 35 marriage equality cases he counts pending before the judiciary.

“Federal courts will be operating at least until mid-October and thereafter, it will vary by courthouse, as each federal district and circuit makes its own independent budget decisions,” Davidson said. “Furloughs of nonessential federal judicial staff is likely to lead to postponements of pending hearings in many parts of the country, but I have not heard of any of the immediately upcoming hearings in marriage cases being delayed.”

The case for which a closure of the federal judiciary could have the most immediate impact is DeBoer v. Snyder, the federal lawsuit seeking marriage equality in Michigan. Oral arguments are set for Oct. 16, just about the time the federal judiciary will make a reassessment.

Rod Hansen, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, said he doesn’t expect oral arguments in the case will be affected by the shutdown.

“There is no way of being sure, but I doubt very much that it will be postponed,” Hansen said.

But Davidson said the shutdown is already having an effect on other parts of the federal court system that are important to LGBT people.

“Immigration courts have postponed hearings in matters not involving someone in detention, meaning delays for many individuals seeking asylum or binational married couples seeking green cards for the foreign spouse,” Davidson said. “Discrimination proceedings before the EEOC are being postponed, which is having a negative impact on several cases we are currently handling on behalf of LGBT and HIV-positive workers.”

House-passed NIH bill would fund AIDS research

As Congress hashes out the way forward, the House continues to pass bills to fund the government through a piecemeal approach without approving legislation that would restore operations to the government as a whole.

Among these bills is a measure to continue funds for the National Institutes for Health. As the Blade reported last week, the lack of funds for this agency has implications for HIV/AIDS because the shutdown put a freeze on new medical research related to the disease.

The White House has threatened to veto the legislation, saying a piecemeal approach to fund the government isn’t appropriate, and Reid indicated a lack of interest in bringing up the bill in the Senate, saying, “What right do they have to pick and choose what parts of government can be funded?”

Laura Durso, director of LGBT research at the Center for American Progress, rejected the idea of funding the government through a piecemeal approach and said her organization doesn’t support the bill.

“While this piecemeal approach to funding the government is not a sensible strategy, restoring funding to the National Institutes of Health will mean that coordination and execution of life-saving research will continue under agencies such as the Office of AIDS Research and the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases,” Durso said.

Chris Collins, director of policy for amfAR, said the government shutdown magnifies a larger problem of inadequate government funds for AIDS research and is keeping American scientists away from an international HIV vaccine conference taking place this week in Barcelona, Spain.

“The government shutdown is frustrating AIDS research in multiple ways,” Collins said. “It has already kept scores of U.S. government scientists away from an HIV vaccine conference this week. This, on top of a continued loss of purchasing power of NIH funding over the years, will slow down new discoveries in the fight against AIDS and other diseases.”

Meanwhile, LGBT people are among the estimated hundreds of thousands of federal workers who remain on furlough during the shutdown.

Just like during the shutdown 17 years ago, these workers seem headed to receiving compensation for the time they’ve been unable to work. On Saturday, the House passed a measure to restore their pay, but only after the funding for the government as a whole is restored.

President Obama endorsed the idea of providing these workers with pay for the time they were furloughed, saying, “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recalled most civilian Pentagon furloughed employees back to work on the basis of Obama signing the Pay Our Military Act to continue funding for the armed services.

Capt. Valerie Palacios, spokesperson for the LGBT employee affinity group at the Pentagon known as DOD Pride, said her fellow LGBT employees look forward to getting back to their jobs.

“DOD civilians, LGBT or otherwise, are proud to go back to work to support the military, but we, along with military personnel and the defense industrial base, remain severely hampered in our ability to do work critical to National Security by the lack of funding to support key programs,” Palacios said. “We all look forward to the day when we can get back to this critical work. Our nation’s safety depends on it.”

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District of Columbia

Bet Mishpachah participates in D.C. Oct. 7 commemoration ceremony

Wednesday marked three years since Hamas attacked Israel

Published

9 hours ago

October 8, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey speaks at an Oct. 7 commemoration ceremony at Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. on Oct. 7, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Joshua Maxey)

Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey on Wednesday was among those who spoke at a ceremony in D.C. that marked the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington hosted the ceremony that took place at the Washington Hebrew Congregation in Northwest D.C. Bet Mishpachah is the city’s LGBTQ synagogue.

“It was a deeply moving evening, especially hearing the stories of people who knew those who were murdered and those who survived and experiencing music that gave a voice to grief and hope,” Maxey told the Washington Blade.

Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival near Re’im, a kibbutz that is a couple miles from the Gaza Strip, when it launched its surprise attack on Israel. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 74,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7.

The International Criminal Court in 2024 issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar; Mohamed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the head of Hamas’s military wing known as the Qassam Brigades; and Ismail Haniyeh, chair of the Hamas Political Bureau, after it accused them of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.

The Israeli government has strongly denied it has committed genocide in Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike on a compound in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, on July 13, 2024, killed killed Deif, one of the alleged Oct. 7 masterminds. Israel less than three weeks later assassinated Haniyah in Tehran, the Iranian capital. Israel Defense Forces soldiers on Oct. 16, 2024, killed Sinwar in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.

Hamas last October released the remaining hostages in Gaza as part of a ceasefire agreement that President Donald Trump helped broker. Israel has continued to conduct airstrikes and other military operations in Gaza since the official suspension of hostilities took effect.

“For Bet Mishpachah, it was especially meaningful to lift up the names of LGBTQ+ people, those whose identities we know and those whose stories may never be fully known, who were murdered, and to honor the LGBTQ+ survivors whose resilience continues to inspire us,” said Maxey, referring to his participation in Wednesday’s ceremony. “Emily Damari’s story is particularly poignant: while held hostage, she had to hide the fact that she was gay because she feared that revealing her identity to her captors could put her life at even more risk. Yet, she survived.”

“Her story, like so many others, reminds us of the extraordinary courage it takes simply to remain human in the face of hatred,” he added. “May we continue to remember and to mourn, to honor, and to work toward a future rooted in peace and hope.”

National

Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report

Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS

Published

10 hours ago

October 8, 2026

Margaret Hetherman

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud with planning a crime of terrorism.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.

“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”

According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.

The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.

According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”

“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”

This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.

Obituary

U.S. int’l trade negotiator, consultant James Bedore dies at 82

Longtime D.C. resident was prominent supporter of Dignity Washington

Published

15 hours ago

October 8, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

James “Jim” Bedore

James “Jim” Bedore, an international affairs specialist whose career included work for the U.S. Department of State and as a private sector consultant in Europe with a focus on Middle Eastern and African development before his retirement in 2000, died on Sept. 2 at his home in D.C. He was 82.

His sister, Carol Bedore, said the cause of death was lung cancer.

Dignity Washington, the D.C.-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, released a detailed statement on Bedore’s life and career that, among other things, says Dignity Washington “became a huge part of Jim’s social life after his retirement in 2000.”

Carol Bedore said her brother was born and raised in Unionville, Mich., as the sixth of eight kids and the oldest boy in their family. She said he graduated from high school there before going on to “amazing” things in a distinguished career.

The Dignity Washington statement says upon the completion of his “B.A. in History and Economics,” Bedore served in the U.S. Peace Corps in West Africa in the mid-1960s. The statement says after completing his Peace Corps service Bedore taught briefly at Voorhees College, a historically Black college in South Carolina. He next earned a master’s degree from the East-West Center in Honolulu before undertaking advanced graduate work at the London School of Economics, according to the statement.

“During the Vietnam War, he served a two-year assignment in the Mekong Delta with the U.S. Department of State,” the statement continues. “He later worked in the private sector in Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and London, residing in London for fifteen years,” it says, adding, “He served as a Research Fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London) and co-authored a volume on Middle East Industrialization, (Macmillan in 1979).”

The statement says other articles and commentaries that Bedore wrote appeared in several prominent publications, including the journals Foreign Affairs, International Affairs, the Financial Times of London, and the International Herald Tribune. It says he remained active in international affairs after his retirement in 2000, including involvements with ‘think tank” organizations in D.C.

The Dignity Washington statement says Bedore, who lived for many years until the time of his passing in a condominium in D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood, was a dedicated volunteer and organizer of Dignity related events.

“He did what he could to organize practical and social events, including some 14 years cooking and feeding approximately 100 homeless individuals monthly at Christ House,” the statement says, referring to the D.C. Adams Morgan neighborhood organization that provides medical care and other services for homeless people.

“Additionally, he initiated the ‘Moon Over Washington’ pot-luck event on the incredible roof on his condominium building,” it says. “The event continues to be one of Dignity Washington’s signature events to this day.” Among other things, it says Bedore was part of Dignity Washington’s annual LGBTQ Pride parade contingent, and he helped to sew 60 AIDS Memorial Quilts.

The statement says Bedore also “built a good relationship with St. Matthews’s Cathedral and created a gay chapter there, where he collaborated with parents with gay children.”

Dignity Washington President Peter Edwards called Bedore a beloved, dedicated Dignity Washington member. Edwards said the group recently issued its Willick Award to Bedore, which he said, “is a special award that we give to people who have done wonderful things for our community.”

“We will remember Jim for his sharp mind, his humor, his generosity, and his unwavering belief in the power of human connection,” the statement adds. “He lived a life shaped by service, curiosity, and love – and he leaves behind a community forever enriched by his presence,” it concludes.

Edwards said Dignity Washington will hold a Catholic Mass in Bedore’s honor in the coming weeks.

The statement says Bedore was pre-deceased by two life partners, Geoffrey Lawrence of 19 years, and Al Lunde, who the statement says passed away in 1999.

Bedore’s sister, Carol, said Bedore was cremated and his ashes have been returned to the family’s hometown in Michigan where an interment is being planned at the family’s cemetery plot.