National
Supreme Court won’t review Texas decision against same-sex benefits
Litigation remains ongoing in state court
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t take up a Texas decision against same-sex benefits.
(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Supreme Court announced it has denied certiorari, or refused to take up the petition seeking review of the decision, in an order list Monday reflecting decisions justices made during a conference last week Friday. It takes a vote of four justices to take up a case, but the vote on petitions isn’t made public.
The petition was filed in September by Wallace Jefferson, an attorney at the Austin-based law firm Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend LLP.
Jefferson told the Washington Blade after the announcement the rejection of the petition was based on ongoing review in the state judiciary.
“I believe the Supreme Court deferred review because the Texas Supreme Court remanded the case for further consideration,” Jefferson said. “We anticipate that the Texas courts will fully embrace Obergefell’s holding, just as the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has done.”
Jonathan Mitchell, a Stanford, Calif., based attorney who represents opponents of same-sex benefits, deferred comment to Jonathan Saenz of the anti-LGBT group Texas Values, who hailed the decision in a statement.
“This is an incredible early Christmas present from the U. S. Supreme Court for taxpayers,” Saenz said. “We’re grateful that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed our lawsuit to go forward. Mayor Annise Parker defied the law by providing spousal benefits to same-sex couples at a time when same-sex marriage was illegal in Texas, and we intend hold the city accountable for Parker’s lawless actions and her unauthorized expenditures of taxpayer money.”
To the consternation of gay rights advocates, the Texas Supreme Court in June determined the 2015 Obergefell decision “is not the end” of the same-sex marriage issue and state workers have no established right to obtain benefits, such as health insurance, for their same-sex spouses in the same way as other employees.
“The Supreme Court held in Obergefell that the Constitution requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages to the same extent that they license and recognize opposite-sex marriages, but it did not hold that states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons, and — unlike the Fifth Circuit in De Leon — it did not hold that the Texas DOMAs are unconstitutional,” Justice Jeffrey Boyd wrote in the decision.
The case was filed by Jack Pidgeon and Larry Hicks after former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, a lesbian, instructed her city to provide spousal benefits to city employees in same-sex marriages. Parker cited the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling against the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act as the basis for her decision. Pidgeon and Hicks contended state law, which at the time barred same-sex marriage, prevented Parker from taking that action.
Legal observers found the Texas Supreme Court’s conclusion to be totally off-track with the Obergefell decision.
After all, the Supreme Court made clear in Obergefell the ruling compels states to afford the “constellation of benefits” of marriage to same-sex couples. The Texas decision also came the same week the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Obergefell by overturning an Arkansas Supreme Court decision upholding a state law against placing both lesbian parents’ names on the birth certificates of their children.
Many observers pointed to the makeup of the Texas Supreme Court — justices who are elected, not appointed — as they reason they came to the decision. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican lawmakers urged the court to take the case after justices initially refused and allowed a lower court decision in favor of benefits to stand.
(Side note: One of the justices in the Texas decision was Associate Justice Don Willett, whom President Trump has nominated to a seat on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump also named Willett to his short list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees.
In part because of his decision in the Houston benefits case, LGBT advocates have come out against Willett’s confirmation to the Fifth Circuit. Last month, the LGBT legal group Lambda Legal organized 26 other national, state, and local LGBT groups to express opposition to Willett before the Senate Judiciary Committee.)
The Texas Supreme Court decision fell short of outright denying spousal benefits for married same-sex couples and instead remanded the case to a trial court for reconsideration. The lawsuit remains pending before trial court.
Jefferson said there’s “no telling” when the trial court will reach its determination and the case “will proceed according to the trial court’s scheduling.”
Mark Phariss, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that brought marriage equality to Texas, had filed a friend-of-the-court brief calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Texas decision and expressed disappointment justices wouldn’t take up the case.
“I am very disappointed that the Supreme Court did not grant cert today,” Phariss said. “It means we must continue to fight in the courts in the State of Texas for full marriage equality. Today ‘Equal Justice Under Law’, as promised by the inscription to the front of the Supreme Court building, was not rendered. Ultimately, we will prevail, because history, justice, equality, and fairness are on our side.”
The denial of the petition by the Supreme Court isn’t the first time the federal judiciary has declined to review the Texas benefits decision.
In August, Lambda Legal and the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP filed a lawsuit in a federal court to affirm the Obergefell decision ensures health coverage and other benefits to the same-sex spouses of city employees. Months later in November, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore dismissed the case on the basis that plaintiffs’ claims weren’t ripe for review.
However, Gilmore recognized a constitutional requirement to provide spousal benefits on equal terms based on the Obergefell decision.
“In light of this precedent, which the Texas trial court is required to follow, it seems constitutionally impermissible for the city to deny benefits to the same-sex spouses of its employees,” Gilmore wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced it won’t take up the benefits case on the day before it’s set to hear oral arguments in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in which a Colorado baker is asserting a First Amendment right to deny wedding cakes to same-sex couples.
Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement the denial of certiorari in the Texas is disconcerting, especially on the day before justices are set to consider a major gay rights case.
“With all eyes on tomorrow’s oral arguments in the Masterpiece Cakeshop religious exemptions case, the Supreme Court has just let an alarming ruling by the Texas Supreme Court stand which plainly undercuts the rights of married same-sex couples,” Ellis said. “Today’s abnegation by the nation’s highest court opens the door for an onslaught of challenges to the rights of LGBTQ people at every step.”
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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