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Looking back: Gay mentions during State of the Union
Clinton, Bush and Obama addressed gays during speeches before Congress


Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama each mentioned issues relevant to the LGBT community during their State of the Union addresses. (Photos public domain)
The State of the Union address is considered a pivotal speech for U.S. presidents in shaping their agenda for the year ahead, and the last three haven’t shied from including LGBT people in their proposed policies.
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama each made references to policy items affecting LGBT people. Clinton was the first, Bush’s proposed policies were entirely negative and Obama has incorporated LGBT people into his speeches consistently.
The Washington Blade has complied a list of mentions of LGBT issues in State of the Union speeches, all of which were made in recent times. The list doesn’t include mentions of HIV-related items, although Clinton, Bush and Obama each called on Congress to appropriate funds to combat the disease in their speeches.
1999 — Clinton calls for hate crimes, ENDA passage
President Clinton made a reference to two pieces of landmark legislation during his 1999 State of the Union, calling on Congress to pass hate crimes protections legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
“Discrimination or violence because of race or religion, ancestry or gender, disability or sexual orientation, is wrong, and it ought to be illegal,” Clinton said. “Therefore, I ask Congress to make the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act the law of the land.”
After the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard near Laramie, Wyo., in 1996, Clinton had endorsed legislation to make violent crimes based on anti-gay animus part of federal law. Clinton was also known as a supporter of ENDA, a bill that in its current version would bar workplace discrimination against LGBT people.
2000 – Clinton makes first explicit reference of ‘gay’
The next year, Clinton tried again to encourage Congress to pass hate crimes protection legislation and ENDA, saying for the first time during a State of the Union address the word “gay.”
Clinton made the appeal to pass both pieces of legislation when talking about incidents of hate crimes against minorities throughout the country.
“We saw a young man murdered in Wyoming just because he was gay,” Clinton said. “Last year we saw the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children just because of who they were. This is not the American way, and we must draw the line. I ask you to draw that line by passing without delay the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.”
After Clinton’s call, hate crimes legislation received a floor vote in 2000 as part of an amendment to the major Pentagon budget legislation. No attempt was made to pass ENDA on the floor that year.
Congress passed hate crimes legislation nine years later under President Obama; ENDA continues to languish in Congress and no explicit federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers are in place.
2004 — Bush calls for anti-gay constitutional amendment
Preparing for his re-election campaign, President George W. Bush made a reference in his 2004 State of the Union speech affecting gay people, but in a negative way.
In the year after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized marriage equality, Bush used his speech to call for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, saying “a strong America must also value the institution of marriage.”
“Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives,” Bush said. “On an issue of such great consequence, the people’s voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.”
Following his call for a Federal Marriage Amendment, both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress vote on the measure, but the measure failed in both chambers.
Bush’s call for the amendment so invoked the ire of then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was present in the audience, that he elected on his own to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in San Francisco City Hall. His actions were later rescinded by the California Supreme Court.
2005 — Bush renews call for federal marriage amendment
Fresh off his re-election win after campaigning on a Federal Marriage Amendment and the passage of 11 state constitutional anti-gay marriage amendments, Bush renewed his call for a Federal Marriage Amendment.
“Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be redefined by activist judges,” Bush said. “For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.”
Although Congress had additional Republican majorities since the previous votes in 2004, the measure failed yet again in both the House and the Senate.
2006 — Bush isn’t done with the FMA
Despite the previous failures of the Federal Marriage Amendment, Bush continued to express concerns about the advancement of same-sex marriage in his 2006 State of the Union address.
“Yet many Americans, especially parents, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture and the health of our most basic institutions,” Bush said. “They’re concerned about unethical conduct by public officials and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage.”
That would be the last time Bush would express concerns about same-sex marriage during a State of the Union address. On Election Day in 2006, Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, giving them control of the floor.
2009 — Obama omits gays from first speech
Although he would later be known for building a record on LGBT rights, President Obama made no explicit reference to LGBT issues during a speech before a joint session of Congress during his first year in office. All his future speeches would make some reference to gay-related issues.
The omission is in line with the perception that Obama was reluctant to tackle LGBT issues, which had proved thorny for President Clinton during his first year in office.
Because the speech was at the start of his first term, the address also technically wasn’t a State of the Union address, but a speech before a joint session of Congress.
2010 — Obama pledges to work to repeal “Don’t Ask’
Obama’s first mention of any gay issue during a State of the Union address was in 2010 in which he pledged to move forward with the process of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are,” Obama said.
Amid increasing pressure for Obama to act on ending the ban on openly gay service members, LGBT advocates widely praised the words — even those critical of him for not taking executive action to stop the discharges.
And Obama’s words during the speech were prophetic. After a 10-month study at the Pentagon and long struggle of moving legislation through the Congress to repeal the 1993 law, Obama signed legislation at the end of the year repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
2011 — Obama pledges to finish the job on ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal
A month after having signed the repeal into law, Obama made another reference to the ban on open service by pledging to certify “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by the end of the year.
“Our troops come from every corner of this country,” Obama said. “They’re black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And yes, we know that some of them are gay. Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love.”
Although President Obama signed repeal legislation in the previous month, the ban would only be lifted after he, the defense secretary and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certified the military was ready for repeal.
With no timetable included in the repeal legislation for when certification would have to take place, Obama’s words allayed concerns the process would go on indefinitely with no formal lifting of the ban on open service.
But Obama immediately giving those reassurances called on colleges to allow military recruiters on campuses. Many had barred there presence because they perceived the ban on open service as discriminatory.
“And with that change, I call on all our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and ROTC,” Obama said. “It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation.”
Those words drew concern from transgender advocates because although the ban on openly gay service was lifted, the ban on openly trans service was — and remains — still in place.
2012 — Obama includes gays in shout-out to U.S. troops
As part of a general effort to tout “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal heading into his re-election campaign, Obama in his 2012 State of the Union listed gay troops as among those serving in the armed forces.
“When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Asian, Latino, Native American; conservative, liberal; rich, poor; gay, straight,” Obama said.
By this time, certification for open service in the U.S. military had already taken place months ago in September and gay service members were serving openly without fear of discharge.
But that was the only explicit LGBT mention during the State of the Union address, prompting advocates at the time to express disappointment he went no further.
2013 — Obama touts benefits for gay troops
Obama won praise from advocates for his 2013 State of the Union speech by making two references to the gay community, one overt and the other less explicit.
The most overt reference was an appeal to the nation to agree that gay service members are entitled to the same spousal benefits as straight troops.
“We will ensure equal treatment for all servicemembers and equal benefits for their families, gay and straight,” Obama said.
Just weeks earlier under significant pressure from LGBT advocates, the Pentagon pledged to move forward with partner benefits for gay troops available under the law and would have them in place later in the year.
But he also made an implicit gay reference early on in the speech by saying he wants the economy to work for Americans regardless of “who you love” — an apparent reference to gay people that some took as a veiled reference to ENDA.
“It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country: the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, no matter what you look like or who you love,” Obama said.
2014 — What will happen?
It remains to be seen whether Obama will make any LGBT references in his 2014 State of the Union address on Tuesday. LGBT advocates are calling on him to ask Congress to pass ENDA, pledge to sign an executive order barring LGBT discrimination among federal contractors and explicitly use the word “transgender.”
Colombia
Claudia López running for president of Colombia
Former Bogotá mayor married to Sen. Angélica Lozano

Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López has announced she is running for president of Colombia.
“We begin today and we will win in a year,” she said in a social media post on June 3.
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López, 55, was a student protest movement leader, journalist, and political scientist before she entered politics. López returned to Colombia in 2013 after she earned her PhD in political science at Columbia University.
López in a speech she gave last December after the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored her at its annual International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C. noted Juan Francisco “Kiko” Gomez, a former governor of La Guajíra, a department in northern Colombia, threatened to assassinate her because she wrote about his ties to criminal gangs.
A Bogotá judge in 2017 convicted Gómez of ordering members of a paramilitary group to kill former Barrancas Mayor Yandra Brito, her husband, and bodyguard and sentenced him to 55 years in prison.
López in 2014 returned to Colombia, and ran for the country’s Senate as a member of the center-left Green Alliance party after she recovered from breast cancer. López won after a 10-week campaign that cost $80,000.
López in 2018 was her party’s candidate to succeed then-President Juan Manuel Santos when he left office. López in 2019 became the first woman and first lesbian elected mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital and the country’s largest city.
López took office on Jan. 1, 2020, less than a month after she married her wife, Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano. (López was not out when she was elected to the Senate.) López’s mayorship ended on Dec. 31, 2023. She was a 2024 Harvard University Advance Leadership Initiative fellow.
The first-round of Colombia’s presidential election will take place on May 31, 2026.
The country’s 1991 constitution prevents current President Gustavo Petro from seeking re-election.
López declared her candidacy four days before a gunman shot Sen. Miguel Uribe, a member of the opposition Democratic Center party who is seen as a probable presidential candidate, in the head during a rally in Bogotá’s Fontibón neighborhood.
She quickly condemned the shooting. López during an interview with the Washington Blade after the Victory Institute honored her called for an end to polarization in Colombia.
“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she said.
López would be Colombia’s first female president if she wins. López would also become the third openly lesbian woman elected head of government — Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was Iceland’s prime minister from 2009-2013 and Ana Brnabić was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024.
U.S. Federal Courts
Meeting the moment: Democracy Forward takes prominent role in fighting Trump regime
Group is involved in cases including some before the Supreme Court that concern LGBTQ rights

Just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide a handful of cases with potentially huge implications for LGBTQ rights in America, the Washington Blade spoke with the president of a group that is involved in several of those legal battles and others that have taken center stage in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Since 2021, Skye Perryman has served as president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a legal services and impact litigation group distinguished in part by its focus, “in our organizational hiring, and in our growth, and in our organizational culture,” on “having as many highly talented lawyers full-time, on our staff, as we possibly can.”
The moment requires it. Since the start of the new administration, demand for legal representation has skyrocketed as people and communities, from government workers to university administrators and LGBTQ populations, have been targeted.
Additionally, following his return to the White House Trump has launched an unprecedented assault against lawyers and law firms, which has discouraged attorneys from representing clients and causes that might put them at odds with the administration or with the president himself.
As queer Russian-American journalist and author M. Gessen said recently, “the judiciary is the hardest thing to restore once it has been destroyed. It’s a very, very complicated universe — of courts and lawyers and cultural norms and educational institutions and law firms as institutions that are distinct from individual lawyers — and he’s attacking every one of those elements.”
“We’ve grown substantially in order to be able to meet this moment, which is why we’re able to be in court,” Perryman told the Blade, “because we have lawyers on our staff,” about 50 full-time attorneys right now, which means “we’re not as dependent on pro bono legal services.”
Trump’s attacks on the rule of law have been complicated by the surrender of firms that have struck deals with the president to spare themselves from executive orders that present existential threats to their survival but which others have chosen to fight in court.
Perryman said that as a result of these settlements, “there are less legal services available at a time when the major tool that the American people have right now to defend their rights against their government is the ability to initiate litigation.”
In back-to-back rulings in late March followed by a decision early last month, Judges John Bates, Richard Leon, and Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down Trump’s executive orders against the firms Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Perkins Coie, ruling them unconstitutional. (Perryman is an alum of WilmerHale and of Covington & Burling, another top firm that is fighting an order targeting them.)
Nevertheless, “there has been an exponential increase in demand for our work as an organization, for our lawyers, because there has been a reduction in legal services provided by many firms in the private bar,” Perryman said.
She hedged that many firms have continued “doing pro-democracy work” since the start of Trump’s second term, but added there still “has been an overall significant gap in the legal services the private bar has been providing.”
Asked whether she has seen evidence that this has impacted litigation against Trump’s anti-trans executive orders and policies, Perryman declined to address specifics. “What we’ve seen more broadly is just firms not wanting to take on causes that would put them in the crosshairs of the administration,” she said, but noted that “of course, this is an administration that’s already shown that it’s very focused on rolling back the rights of the LGBTQ community.”
Pushing back against attacks on the rule of law
“There’s not a question in these courts’ minds about the constitutionality of what the administration is doing,” Perryman said. “You see very strong language that unequivocally makes it clear that a variety of our constitutional amendments and provisions are threatened and violated with respect to a president that is seeking to retaliate and to engage in these direct attacks on lawyers and law firms.”
Moreover, “These judges have all spent time in their opinions talking about the corrosive effects [of] law firms that have settled their matters, the fact that the administration appears to be have been able to resolve its concerns about a law firm merely if they’re willing to settle,” she said. “They really call that out as a pretext.”
Perryman added that the judges who have ruled in favor of plaintiffs challenging the Trump administration represent a variety of ideological backgrounds, or were nominated for their positions by presidents from both parties, which “really shows that these attacks and the response and our Constitution’s response to these attacks is something that transcends politics and transcends the general way that we look at politics in this country.”
“In the United States, the president cannot retaliate against people just because he doesn’t like who their clients were, and he can’t deprive people of legal representation,” Perryman said. “And I think that you see those themes come through very clearly in the opinions.”
Major victories and what’s on the docket now
“In many instances, we’ve co counseled and developed cases alongside Lambda and other groups specifically and exclusively focused on LGBTQ rights,” Perryman said, referring to Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ focused organization that does a lot of impact litigation.
“Democracy Forward’s expertise is very broad, and we do a lot of work with respect to the federal government and federal agencies and how those agencies work for people,” she added.
Perryman pointed to the successful legal challenge led by Democracy Forward against the Office of Management and Budget’s Jan. 28 memo ordering a nationwide hold on disbursements of federal grants and loans. The order came pursuant to Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI and the trans community, so LGBTQ nonprofits were disproportionately impacted among the groups receiving public funds.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Democracy Forward’s plaintiffs including SAGE, which provides a variety of critical services for LGBTQ elders, resulted in a preliminary injunction issued by Judge Loren AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which remains in place, protecting organizations that she noted would otherwise have faced “economically catastrophic—and in some circumstances, fatal” consequences.
“That litigation is helping the whole country, not just LGBTQ communities,” Perryman said, noting that in this case as in other cases, LGBTQ people and communities are often disproportionately impacted by litigation that, facially or at first blush, may not seem to directly concern their rights or welfare.
Perryman credited SAGE for suing the administration during its early days when the executive orders targeting lawyers and law firms were new and there was not much appetite for challenging the new Trump regime in court. “Everyone was very scared,” she said “and we’re just so proud of our clients.”
Another example, she noted, is Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which is pending a decision by the Supreme Court. The case is “sort of around an executive order that the governor of South Carolina put in place that removes facilities that provide abortion from the Medicaid provider list,” Perryman said.
She continued, “What that effectively does is it cuts off access, for patients that are using Medicaid, to critical services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, services that go far beyond just abortion care. Planned Parenthood, of course, provides so many sexual and reproductive health services, including to the LGBTQ community. And so I think that is a case that is also worth mentioning. We filed a brief there on behalf of current and former senior HHS administrators and others.”
Also before the Supreme Court as the June term nears its conclusion are cases like Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc., which could imperil coverage under the Affordable Care Act for a broad swath of preventative health services and medications beyond PrEP, which is used to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV through sex.
Plaintiffs brought the case to challenge a requirement that insurers and group health plans cover the drug regimen, arguing that the mandate “encourage[s] homosexual behavior, intravenous drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.”
The case has been broadened, however, such that cancer screenings, heart disease medications, medications for infants, and several other preventive care services are in jeopardy, LGBTQ and civil rights organizations have argued.
“In the Braidwood case, we filed a brief representing medical groups that outlines the real harms that could result if the court adopts what is, we believe, quite a baseless position,” Perryman said, “and how those harms could extend to all communities, frankly.”
There are others, Perryman noted. “The administration weaponizing the government against the rights of the American people and against LGBTQ people,” which has led Democracy Forward to challenge the firing of federal employees responsible for DEI, and the termination of Jocelyn Samuels from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where she served as a commissioner and as such enforced anti-discrimination laws in the workplace including rules protecting LGBTQ people.
The organization is also in court fighting the administration’s effort to “prevent federal workers at National Guard facilities from being able to access bathrooms that correspond with their gender and their needs,” Perryman noted.
“Those types of matters that really involve the mechanics of the federal government and how it’s being weaponized against the American people, those are areas where Democracy Forward has had particular expertise and has been a core player,” she said.
The organization is active at the state and local level, too, including on matters that have “significant overlay with the LGBTQ community,” Perryman said. She pointed to lawsuits where, “We’ve sued on the decimation of the library sciences,” on behalf of the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, important litigation given how state-level censorship has disproportionately targeted LGBTQ books, curricula, and speech.
Stronger together
“What I’m looking forward to as we move forward, I mean, this is a hard time, and it’s a hard time for the country,” Perryman said. “We know there’s a lot of fear.”
Reflecting on the resilience of LGBTQ people and communities specifically during Pride month, Perryman said, “what I’m looking forward to at our work at Democracy Forward is how we get to be alongside the people and communities in this country that even though they are afraid, and even though they are scared, they are making the choice to choose courage and to step forward and say, we can build some community together.”
“We see that happening in our work every day with all of these amazing plaintiffs and groups that we are representing,” she added. “While big, storied institutions are not standing up the way they need to, in this time, the American people really are and at Democracy Forward, we get a front row seat to that, which is a real honor.”
“As I think about the months ahead, which will be challenging, I’m just really looking forward to continuing to have a team that’s able to be there for people that in this time are choosing courage,” Perryman said.

Milton, Del., will host its Pride Fest this Saturday with the theme “Small Town, Big Heart.” The town’s population of just over 3,000 is in its sixth year hosting Pride.
The event is hosted by Sussex Pride and Milton Theatre and will take place from 4-8 p.m. in the area surrounding the theater. Admission is pay-what-you-can and proceeds will support the Milton Theatre’s education wing campaign, an initiative dedicated to expanding arts education and creating spaces for the next generation of performers and artists.
The musical act schedule includes Goldstar at 4 p.m., Magnolia Applebottom and Friends at 5:30 p.m., and Mama’s Blacksheep at 6:45 p.m. There will be vendors, food trucks, and a Kids Fest with an inflatable obstacle course.
“In our little corner of the world, LOVE leads the way! Milton Pride 2025 is a celebration for EVERYONE — neighbors, families, allies, and friends — because acceptance, kindness, and community belong to us all,” Milton Theatre’s website reads. “Whether you’re here to cheer, learn, or simply feel the joy … you’re welcome exactly as you are. Let’s come together and celebrate Milton, a SMALL TOWN … with a BIG HEART!”