News
Despite calls, anti-gay RNC member won’t resign post
Priebus had called for Agema to step down ‘for the good of the party’
Dave Agema won’t resign for anti-gay comments despite calls from Reince Priebus.
A member of the Republican National Committee who’s taken heat for expressing anti-gay views indicated Friday he won’t resign from his post, despite calls from the head of his party to step down.
Dave Agema, a former Michigan state lawmaker, said in a statement on his website that he intends to continue his role representing Michigan on the Republican National Committee in the face of “a few strident advocates for homosexual marriage.”
“I have learned much over the last several weeks and will use the lessons learned to improve on my abilities to further the best interests of all people of Michigan, through my role as a proud member of the Republican National Committee,” Agema said. “I have received great response at packed audiences, drawing voters to the GOP. I fully intend to honor the trust and fulfill the responsibilities to those in the Michigan Republican Party that elected me.”
Agema refuses to resign just hours after the RNC announced Reince Priebus and Michigan Republican Party Chair Bobby Schostak have called on him to relinquish his post “for the good of the party.” The RNC didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment on Agema’s refusal to step down.
The embattled Republican faced criticism for anti-gay remarks, saying via Facebook that Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law is “common sense” and posting an article saying gay people are sexually promiscuous, rife with diseases and responsible for half responsible for the majority of murders in the country.
But Agema’s comments aren’t limited to anti-gay views. Agema also posted an old online attack piece questioning whether Muslims have contributed anything positive to American society.
Prior to Priebus’ call for Agema’s resignation, he faced criticism from gay Republicans and high-profile Michigan Republicans, most notably Betsy Devos, a former Michigan Republican Party chair and significant party donor. Reps. Candace Miller (R-Mich.), Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Dave Camp (R-Mich) also called on him to step down.
Faced with this controversy, Agema is absent during the RNC winter meeting currently underway and has sent in his place former RNC member Chuck Yob.
Gregory Angelo, executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, has also called on Agema and called his defiance “truly pathetic.”
“If Mr. Agema’s views are as popular as he believes them to be, I would ask him to provide one — just one — individual who is willing to speak up in his defense,” Angelo said. “To date there have been zero.”
Renewing his request for Agema to resign, Angelo said if the Michigan Republican is so concerned about his leadership responsibilities “he should know that those responsibilities require him to resign and to resign immediately, for the best of the Party.”
In his statement, Agema professes that he could have handled the situation better, but blames others for stirring controversy.
“My personal beliefs and public statements expressing them as a public figure, has been attacked by a few strident advocates for homosexual marriage seeking to change Republican, Michigan and America’s mores and laws,” Agema said. “Despite our American heritage of the right to speak freely — or perhaps because of it, my personal views on the sanctity of marriage have led to loud and heated statements among some, on all sides of this issue.”
In regards to the anti-Muslim comments, Agema apologizes for the posting the online piece and expresses regret it was reposted as his words. He makes no similar apology for the anti-gay comments.
“I stand with peaceful Muslims who share my concern with radicalism and look forward to continuing to work with people of all faiths that uphold American values,” Agema said.
Additionally, Agema swears he’ll continue to use his position to defend Christians and others whom he said are victimized by the Obama administration.
“As an American who has spent his entire life remaining faithful to his religion, his family, and his country, I have been unwilling to compromise my principles, traditional values or support for the Word of God,” Agema said.
Dennis Lennox, a Republican precinct delegate in Grand Traverse County in Michigan, said the RNC must show Agema the exit if he refuses to step down.
“This is an unprecedented and extraordinary situation that can only be resolved by the removal of Dave Agema from the Republican National Committee,” Lennox said. “The Republican Party cannot afford to allow him to remain in his position even in his disgraced state. He must be defrocked or our party and our candidates and officeholders will be forced to continue discussing his hateful, bigoted and deeply offensive statements that have no place in our party.”
Sources familiar with the RNC say no mechanism is in place in the rules to remove a rogue committee member. But, as Lennox observed, “There’s nothing that doesn’t allow it.”
Congress
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
Protesters interrupted Secretary of State Marco Rubio during hearing
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested 10 HIV/AIDS activists who protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, the Treatment Action Group, and ACT UP held signs and chanted “Rubio’s Cuts Kill People with AIDS, PEPFAR Saves Lives!” before officers removed them from Dirksen Senate Office Building room where the hearing took place.
A media advisory the Washington Blade received before the protest noted “mounting evidence of Rubio’s attempts to sabotage PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. bilateral AIDS program) and vital global health programs.” The press release specifically highlighted three specific points:
• Eliminating Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lifesaving PEPFAR programs, which currently support approximately 12 million people on HIV treatment across 51 countries. Instead, Rubio intends to dismantle CDC’s current PEPFAR role and stamp out their global footprint in disease outbreak and surveillance for pandemics beyond HIV. Experts including eight former CDC Directors under Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against this effort to dismantle PEPFAR. Recent PEPFAR data showed sharp decreases in the numbers of people newly tested, diagnosed, and treated for HIV, but these data would have been even worse if not for CDC’s PEPFAR programs.
• Withholding $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated FY25 funding, including $330 million to combat HIV, $250 million to fight malaria, $320 million for maternal and child health programs, and nearly $650 million in global health security programs.
• Negotiating secret bilateral deals blackmailing African governments by demanding access to critical mineral wealth as a condition of access to HIV treatment and prevention funding.
The groups have staged several protests against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates.
The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought a few weeks later said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
The White House in January expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. Advocacy groups insist the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.
“Congress must stop Secretary Rubio before he dismantles PEPFAR,” said Treatment Action Group’s Kendall Martinez-Wright. “Rubio continues to defy the will of Congress and the American people who want this program restored and repaired. Under his leadership he is diverting funding and trying to eliminate the essential role of technical experts in global HIV and global health, while program performance is flailing.”
District of Columbia
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Event organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, Queers for Janeese
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George spoke to a crowd of LGBTQ supporters on June 1 at a meet & greet event held at JR.’s on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.
The event, organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, which has endorsed Lewis George for mayor, with support from a group called Queers for Janeese, was followed by a “get out the vote” canvassing endeavor in which several of those attending the meet & greet visited the homes of nearby residents known to be Lewis George supporters.
The purpose of the canvassing was to remind Lewis George supporters to return their mail-in ballots or go to the polls on June 16 to elect Lewis George as the city’s next mayor, according to Matthew Kavanagh, one of the leaders of Queers for Janeese who attended the meet & greet event at JR.’s.
Local political observers consider Lewis George, a Ward 4 D.C. Council member, and former At-Large D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, to be the two leading candidates in this year’s race for mayor. The two are among seven mayoral candidates competing in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George told those attending the meet & greet, which was held on the JR.’s outdoor patio, that she has a long record of advocating for and initiating city polices and laws in support of the LGBTQ community. She said large corporate donors were backing her opponents and urged her LGBTQ supporters to help raise funds for her in the remaining days of the campaign.
Among those attending the meet & greet was gay longtime Dupont Circle civic activist Randy Downs who last November opened a nearby eatery called Protest Pizza. “I am queer and I am a Janeese supporter,” Downs told the Blade.
Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, who also spoke at the meet & greet event, said his group would organize events in support of Lewis George in the remaining days of the campaign. Among them, he said, was an LGBTQ bar crawl in which supporters of Lewis George, including the candidate herself, would visit LGBTQ bars to promote her candidacy.
Virginians for Marriage Equality on Monday launched a campaign in support of repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman, former state Sen. Adam Ebbin, former state Del. Mark Sickles, and American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer are among those who spoke at the launch that took place in Richmond. State Del. Kirk McPike (D-Alexandria), who co-chairs the campaign, also participated.
“This amendment is about making clear that the government has no business deciding which marriages or which families are worthy of recognition,” said Bauer. “The ACLU of Virginia has been fighting for Virginians’ right to marry who they love since the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the ban on interracial marriage. Now we are proud to carry that legacy forward by standing with our coalition partners in the fight to pass this amendment and finally enshrine the right to marriage equality in the commonwealth’s constitution.”
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in February signed a bill that finalized the referendum’s language.
The referendum will take place on Nov. 3.
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Campaign to support Va. marriage amendment repeal launched
Why Michelle Visage needs you to get ‘PrEP Wise’
White House Correspondents’ Dinner rescheduled after shooting
Nine Russian LGBTQ groups deemed ‘extremist’ banned
‘The Stranger’ queers an existentialist classic
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Time travelers from the AIDS era
