News

ENDA’s religious exemption still concerning as vote nears

Brown says religious exemption should be same for LGBT workers as other categories

Published

12 years ago

November 3, 2013

Sen. Sherrod Brown believes the religious exemption in employment discrimination law should be the same for LGBT workers as with other categories (D-Ohio) (Photo public domain).

Shortly after filing cloture on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) held a 30-minute conference call with Nevada LGBT leaders late Thursday in anticipation of the bill coming to the Senate floor this week.

Among those on the call was Derek Washington, lead organizer for the LGBT group GetEQUAL Nevada, who said he raised with Reid concerns about ENDA’s religious exemption.

That language would provide leeway for religious institutions, like churches or religious schools, to discriminate against LGBT workers in non-ministerial positions even if ENDA were to become law. It’s broader than similar exemptions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for categories of race, gender, religion and national origin.

“I mentioned to him that it was something that just was not palatable,” Washington said. “I asked him what he felt about it, and he felt that the main thing to do was get the vote taken care of, and then deal with it later. As often times happens, you don’t get something perfect the first time around, you go back and fix it later, so that was basically his take on it.”

That account was corroborated by Faiz Shakir, a Reid spokesperson, who said the Democratic leader understands the concerns, but wants to get the bill passed first, then go back and address the exemptions.

“Sen. Reid’s first priority is to pass the strongest possible legislation which can garner 60 votes,” Shakir said. “He believes the current legislation meets that test.”

Washington was unfazed by Reid’s response that the religious exemption won’t see change before passage, insisting the Nevada Democrat is one of the greatest champions for the LGBT community, noting, among other things, he was the first elected official to endorse the National Equality March in 2009.

“I think it would a shame to write a story about any of this without mentioning that that man is a hero to us, and I don’t think people get that,” Washington said.

That symbolizes the situation with narrowing the broad religious exemption in ENDA before the Senate approves the bill. Despite concerns that it’s too expansive, the idea of limiting it at this time — such as the amendment process — isn’t getting a lot of traction either from LGBT advocates or lawmakers.

Instead, those with concerns over ENDA’s religious exemption have more modest aspirations: Get LGBT friendly lawmakers in the Senate to speak out against the language on the Senate floor.

Ian Thompson, legislative representative for the American Civil Liberties Union, is among those saying he’s not seeking an amendment to religious exemption on the Senate floor, but wants the provision addressed in some way.

“By doing that, it’s certainly our hope more and more pro-equality members of Congress and their staff will come to understand the potential harm of the current exemption, and I think we’ll see growing support for narrowing it moving forward,” Thompson said.

Thompson added he’s “definitely hopeful” that senators will speak out against the exemption of the floor, but declined to name any prospects for who would articulate concerns.

Heather Cronk, co-director of GetEQUAL, said her organization “didn’t anticipate” being able to change the religious exemption, but is looking for senators to speak out against the language.

“What we were hoping for for — which hasn’t happened yet because the senators haven’t gone to the floor yet — is for some of the more progressive senators to speak out from the floor against the religious exemption,” Cronk said. “So, we’ll wait and see what happens on the floor to see if we get those statements.”

GetEQUAL has petitioned four senators with a reputation for being champions of progressive values — Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) — to speak out against the religious exemption. As of Sunday, the petition has just under 6,000 signatures.

It remains to be seen whether any senator will speak out in favor of limiting the religious exemption when ENDA comes to the Senate floor this week. Of these four senators, the only office who responded to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on the extent of the religious exemption was that of Brown.

Meghan Dubyak, a Brown spokesperson, said the senator’s focus is passing is ENDA, although he shares the belief the religious exemption for LGBT discrimination should be the same it is for other categories.

“Sen. Brown’s top priority is overcoming a likely filibuster and ensuring passage of ENDA,” Dubyak said. “He believes the religious exemption in ENDA should be consistent with the federal law that currently protects people against discrimination.”

In July, Gillibrand said during a Third Way event that said she’d go even further and amend ENDA to remove the religious exemption. However, her staffers have apparently backtracked from that statement as they’re now mum on the issue.

For its part, the White House is staying out the argument over the religious exemption. Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, reiterated in an email weeks ago President Obama supports ENDA, but is leaving the details to Congress.

“We look forward to lawmakers moving forward on this bill that upholds America’s core values of fairness and equality,” Inouye said. “While we defer to Congress on the specifics of the legislation, we believe lawmakers will be able to find a balance that protects LGBT workers and religious liberty.”

Since the introduction of ENDA this year, the ACLU has called for narrowing the religious exemption along with groups like GetEQUAL, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.

On the other hand, groups working on like Freedom to Work, the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for American Progress have endorsed the current exemption in ENDA.

Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, co-wrote the religious exemption currently found in ENDA while working as a House staffer in 2007. Neither he nor HRC responded to multiple requests to comment for this article.

Winnie Stachelberg, vice president of external affairs for the Center for American Progress, said the religious exemption is necessary to enable bipartisan support to move the bill forward.

“The current religious language reflects a bipartisan compromise that represents a pragmatic balance between ensuring that LGBT workers have the protections they need and organizations,” Stachelberg said. “While the religious exemption is broader than other civil rights statutes it will ensure that LGBT workers have the protections they need.”

If anything, the movement in the Senate on ENDA’s religious exemption this week may be more toward expanding it even further.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), seen as a potential supporter of ENDA, has said he’s behind the basic premise of the legislation, but has concerns about restrictions on religious liberties and wants to strengthen the bill to ensure they’re protected.

Prior to the committee vote on ENDA in July, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had prepared an amendment that would replace the bill’s religious exemption with more comprehensive language for religious employers. It was never brought up before the committee. Paul’s office didn’t respond to a request to comment on whether the senator would introduce the amendment on the Senate floor.

Concerns over the existing religious exemption were ramped up last month when Tippi McCullough, formerly a teacher for 15 years at Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock, Ark., was forced to resign after the school learned she had married her same-sex partner in New Mexico. Because the school is a religious institution, it would not be subject to liability under ENDA.

Thompson said the consequences of passing ENDA with its current exemption in place are hard to predict, but said it would be “a dramatic, and from our view, and very troubling expansion of an exemption like this in our federal civil rights law.”

“I think that it wouldn’t be too into the future before we saw instances of employment discrimination occurring against workers who should be protected from employment discrimination and may find out that because the scope of the existing religious exemption that they may not be,” Thompson said.

LGBT advocates who oppose the religious exemption chose their words carefully about whether they want to see ENDA passed this year with the current language — as opposed to letting it die in Congress so that it could be passed with a narrow exemption at a later time.

Thompson said the ACLU has been a “longtime champion of ENDA” because of the protections in the bill “are critically important and long overdue.”

“We’ve endorsed it, so that’s a position that we’ve taken,” Thompson said. “We have consistently, also though, raised concerns about the scope of the religious exemption and said that that is should be appropriately narrowed ultimately before it ends up on the president’s desk, and that’s our view, but at the same time because of the protections that it would afford to LGBT people are so important and so needed, we also support the bill.”

Cronk said GetEQUAL neither supports nor opposes the bill and believes “any time that that pro-LGBT legislation comes up in Congress, we want that legislation to move forward.”

“Our organizers didn’t feel good about organizing in support of the bill because there wasn’t that change to the religious exemption and because the grassroots network we work with feel the impact of that everyday,” Cronk said. “They work in hospitals in the closet, or they teach at schools where they’re in the closet, and they have a really clear sense about who would be left behind by this legislation, and didn’t feel that was in line with our vision.”

District of Columbia

New interim D.C. police chief played lead role in security for WorldPride

Capital Pride says Jeffery Carroll had ‘good working relationship’ with organizers

Published

2 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

New interim D.C. Police Chief Jeffery Carroll (Screen capture via FOX 5 Washington DC/YouTube)

Jeffery Carroll, who was named by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Dec. 17 as the city’s Interim Chief of Police, played a lead role in working with local LGBTQ community leaders in addressing public safety issues related to WorldPride 2025, which took place in D.C. last May and June

“We had a good working relationship with him, and he did his job in relation to how best the events would go around safety and security,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance.

Bos said Carroll has met with Capital Pride officials in past years to address security issues related to the city’s annual Capital Pride parade and festival and has been supportive of those events.

At the time Bowser named him Interim Chief, Carroll had been serving since 2023 as Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations, overseeing the day-to-day operation of four of the department’s bureaus. He first joined the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in 2002 and advanced to multiple leadership positions across various divisions and bureaus, according to a statement released by the mayor’s office.

“I know Chief Carroll is the right person to build on the momentum of the past two years so that we can continue driving down crime across the city,” Bowser said in a statement released on the day she announced his appointment as Interim Chief.

“He has led through some of our city’s most significant public safety challenges of the past decade, he is familiar with D.C. residents and well respected and trusted by members of the Metropolitan Police Department as well as our federal and regional public safety partners,” Bowser said.

“We have the best police department in the nation, and I am confident that Chief Carroll will meet this moment for the department and the city,” Bowser added.

But Bowser has so far declined to say if she plans to nominate Carroll to become the permanent police chief, which requires the approval of the D.C. City Council. Bowser, who announced she is not running for re-election, will remain in office as mayor until January 2027.

Carroll is replacing outgoing Chief Pamela Smith, who announced she was resigning after two years of service as chief to spend more time with her family. She has been credited with overseeing the department at a time when violent crime and homicides declined to an eight-year low.

She has also expressed support for the LGBTQ community and joined LGBTQ officers in marching in the WorldPride parade last year.

But Smith has also come under criticism by members of Congress, who have accused the department of manipulating crime data allegedly showing lower reported crime numbers than actually occurred. The allegations came from the Republican-controlled U.S. House Oversight Committee and the U.S. Justice Department

Bowser has questioned the accuracy of the allegations and said she has asked the city’s Inspector General to look into the allegations.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the D.C. police Office of Public Affairs did not immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade about the status of the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit. Sources familiar with the department have said a decline in the number of officers currently working at the department, said to be at a 50-year low, has resulted in a decline in the number of officers assigned to all of the liaison units, including the LGBT unit.

Among other things, the LGBT Liaison Unit has played a role in helping to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community. As of early Wednesday an MPD spokesperson did not respond to a question by the Blade asking how many officers are currently assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit.

Arts & Entertainment

2026 Most Eligible LGBTQ Singles nominations

We are looking for the most eligible LGBTQ singles in the Washington, D.C. region.

Published

3 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Staff reports

We are looking for the most eligible LGBTQ singles in the Washington, D.C. region.

Are you or a friend looking to find a little love in 2026? We are looking for the most eligible LGBTQ singles in the Washington, D.C. region. Nominate you or your friends until January 23rd using the form below or by clicking HERE.

Our most eligible singles will be announced online in February. View our 2025 singles HERE.

Colombia

Gay Venezuelan man who fled to Colombia uncertain about homeland’s future

Heberth Aguirre left Maracaibo in 2018

Published

4 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Heberth Aguirre is a gay man and activist from the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo who has lived in Colombia since 2018. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A gay Venezuelan man who has lived in Colombia since 2018 says he feels uncertain about his country’s future after the U.S. seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“On one hand I can feel content, but on the other hand I feel very concerned,” Heberth Aguirre told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview at a shopping mall in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.

Aguirre, 35, is from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city that is the heart of the country’s oil industry.

He developed cultural and art initiatives for the Zulia State government.

“Little by little, I suddenly became involved in politics because, in a way, you had to be involved,” recalled Aguirre. “It was necessary to be involved because the regime often said so.”

“I basically felt like I was working for the citizens, but with this deeply ingrained rule we had to be on their side, on the side of the Maduro and (former President Hugo) Chávez regime,” he added.

Maduro in 2013 became Venezuela’s president after Chávez died.

“There are things I don’t support about the regime,” Aguirre told the Blade. “There are other things that were nice in theory, but it turned out that they didn’t work when we put them into practice.”

Aguirre noted the Maduro government implemented “a lot of laws.” He also said he and other LGBTQ Venezuelans didn’t “have any kind of guarantee for our lives in general.”

“That also exposed you in a way,” said Aguirre. “You felt somewhat protected by working with them (the government), but it wasn’t entirely true.”

Aguirre, 35, studied graphic design at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo. He said he eventually withdrew after soldiers, members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard, and police officers opened fire on students.

“That happened many times, to the point where I said I couldn’t keep risking my life,” Aguirre told the Blade. “It hurt me to see what was happening, and it hurt me to have lost my place at the university.”

Venezuela’s economic crisis and increased insecurity prompted Aguirre to leave the country in 2018. He entered Colombia at the Simón Bolívar Bridge near the city of Cúcuta in the country’s Norte de Santander Province.

“If you thought differently, they (the Venezuelan government) would come after you or make you disappear, and nobody would do anything about it,” said Aguirre in response to the Blade’s question about why he left Venezuela.

The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

Aguirre spoke with the Blade three days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.

The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday in a Truth Social post said Venezuela’s interim authorities “will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil, to the United States of America.”

“This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as president of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” wrote Trump.

Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Colombian President Gustavo, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s.

Petro has urged Colombians to take to the streets on Wednesday and “defend national sovereignty.” Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.

“Let’s be clear: Trump doesn’t care about the humanitarian aspect,” said Aguirre when the Blade asked him about Trump. “We can’t portray him as Venezuela’s savior.”

Meanwhile, Aguirre said his relatives in Maracaibo remain afraid of what will happen in the wake of Maduro’s ouster.

“My family is honestly keeping quiet,” he said. “They don’t post anything online. They don’t go out to participate in marches or celebrations.”

“Imagine them being at the epicenter, in the eye of the hurricane,” added Aguirre. “They are right in the middle of all the problems, so it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t want to say anything.”

‘I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate’

Aguirre has built a new life in Bogotá.

He founded Mesa Distrital LGBTIQ+ de Jóvenes y Estudiantes, a group that works with migrants from Venezuela and other countries and internally placed Colombians, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aguirre told the Blade he launched the group “with the need to contribute to the general population, not just in Colombia.”

Aguirre met his husband, an American from California, at a Bogotá church in December 2020 during a Christmas event that SDA Kinship Colombia, an LGBTQ group, organized. A Utah judge virtually officiated their wedding on July 12, 2024.

“I love Colombia, I love Bogotá,” said Aguirre. “I love everything I’ve experienced because I feel it has helped me grow.”

He once again stressed he does not know what a post-Maduro Venezuela will look like.

“As a Venezuelan, I experienced the wonders of that country,” said Aguirre. “I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate.”

The Colombian government’s Permiso por Protección Temporal program allows Aguirre and other Venezuelans who have sought refuge in Colombia to live in the country for up to 10 years. Aguirre reiterated his love for Colombia, but he told the Blade that he would like to return to Venezuela and help rebuild the country.

“I wish this would be over in five years, that we could return to our country, that we could go back and even return with more skills acquired abroad,” Aguirre told the Blade. “Many of us received training. Many of us studied a lot. We connected with organizations that formed networks, which enriched us as individuals and as professionals.”

“Returning would be wonderful,” he added. “What we’ve built abroad will almost certainly serve to enrich the country.”