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Jim Kolbe dies at 80

Former Ariz. congressman first openly gay Republican House member

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4 years ago

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Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) speaks at a press conference on Feb. 28, 2013 for the filing of an amicus brief supporting the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Former Republican Congressman James (Jim) Thomas Kolbe, who represented Southern Arizona in Congress for 22 years, died Saturday of a stroke at the age of 80 his husband Hector Alfonso confirmed to Arizona media outlets.

“He belongs to so many people,” his husband said through tears on Saturday. “He gave his life for this city. He loved Tucson, he loved Arizona.”

Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey ordered flags at all state buildings be lowered to half-staff until sunset Sunday in honor of the former congressman. In a series of tweets the Arizona governor lauded Kolbe’s record of public service.

Kolbe was the first openly serving gay Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives having served from 1985 to 2007.  During his 22-year tenure he served as chair of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs of the House Appropriations Committee.

Former congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

In 1996, Kolbe held a press conference and outed himself after his vote for the Defense of Marriage Act. This, according to political journalist Jake Tapper, was owed to the fact that Kolbe was under the impression he was about to be outed by a gay publication.

Addressing a gathering of Log Cabin Republicans and other gay Republicans in 1997, he said he didn’t want to be a poster child for the gay movement.

“Being gay was not — and is not today — my defining persona,” Kolbe said during his first speech as an openly gay GOP lawmaker. He also sat on the national advisory board of the Log Cabin Republicans.

In 2013, however, Kolbe was a signatory to an amicus brief in support of overturning California’s Proposition 8.

In a private ceremony in 2013, after being together for eight years, Kolbe and Alfonso were married.

Alfonso, a Panamanian native who came to the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship to pursue studies in special education, had been a teacher for two decades. The couple’s nuptials were held at a private event at the Cosmos Club on Massachusetts Avenue.

“Two decades ago, I could not have imagined such an event as this would be possible,” Kolbe told the Washington Blade in an interview in May 2013. “A decade ago I could not imagine that I would find someone I could be so compatible with that I would want to spend the rest of my life with that person. So, this is a very joyous day for both of us.”

The couple had to endure a year-long separation when Alfonso returned to Panama while immigration issues were being sorted out, although he was granted U.S. residency, also known as a green card.

Kolbe also battled his friend and fellow Republican, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who opposed the repeal of the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which barred military service by gay and lesbian Americans. He repeatedly co-sponsored a bill to scrap the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy at odds with others in his party over the issue.

After he left Congress he continued to be active in Republican politics in 2012 endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in his race for the presidency against then incumbent President Barack Obama.

In an interview with the Blade at the time, Kolbe responded to the anti-gay language in the draft version of the Republican Party platform. In addition to endorsing a Federal Marriage Amendment, the platform criticized the Obama administration for dropping defense of DOMA in court and judges for “re-defining marriage” in favor of gay couples.

Kolbe predicted the 2012 Republican platform will be the last one to include such language.

“That’ll be the last time that will be in the Republican Party platform,” Kolbe said. “It won’t be there four years from now. It’s got its last gasp. I don’t believe it’ll be there four years from now; I wish it weren’t there now, but I don’t believe it will be four years from now.”

The issue over the rights of same-sex couples to marry ended with Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644, the landmark civil rights case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Just this week prior to his death, the Respect for Marriage Act passed the Senate by a vote of 61-36.

That legislation requires the federal government to recognize a marriage between two individuals if the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed and guarantee that valid marriages between two individuals are given full faith and credit, regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity or national origin. It is expected to pass the House again this week after which it heads to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Early in his career, Kolbe in 1976 ran for a seat in the Arizona Senate in the Tucson-Pima County district and defeated a one-term Democrat. In mid-1982, he resigned from the state Senate to run in the newly created Arizona’s 5th U.S. congressional district, but lost to Democrat Jim McNulty.

He ran again in 1984 winning the seat that he went to hold for over two decades.

According to his biography Kolbe was born in Evanston, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, but when he was five, his family moved to a ranch in rural Santa Cruz County, Arizona. It was there he attended Patagonia Elementary School and Patagonia Union High School, but graduated from the U.S. Capitol Page School in 1960 after serving for three years as a Senate Page for Arizona Republican U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater.

He matriculated first at Northwestern University and then at Stanford University earning a master’s degree in economics. During the Vietnam era from 1965 to 1969, he served in the U.S. Navy, including a tour in Vietnam as a member of the Navy’s “Swift Boat” force. 

After military service Kolbe served as a special assistant to Republican Illinois Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie. He then moved back to Arizona settling in Tucson where he worked in business.

Accolades for the former congressman included many from Arizona political and business fields of endeavor.

“Pima County and southern Arizona could always count on Jim Kolbe,” Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bronson said in a statement.

Matt Gress, who was recently elected to the Arizona Legislature, called Kolbe a political pioneer.

“Today, because of Jim Kolbe, being a member of the LGBT community and serving in elected office has become irrelevant,” he said in a statement.

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Congress

Chris Van Hollen says the Democratic Party needs change. Is he the one to lead it?

Senator is backing anti-establishment Democrats across the country

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5 days ago

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August 26, 2026

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By LEE O. SANDERLIN | The Democratic Party is having something of an identity crisis — losing to President Donald Trump twice in three elections will do that.

Should the party embrace anti-establishment figures who espouse progressive policy ideas like Medicare for all and rhetoric about unrigging the economy for the 1 percent? Or should Democrats try to appeal to moderates who want to return to semi-normalcy in a time of political upheaval?

Although he’s been in Congress since 2002, with key leadership roles throughout his tenure, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, 67, counts himself firmly in the anti-establishment camp.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Congress

House blocks effort to codify transgender servicemember ban into law

Lawmakers approved two anti-trans NDAA amendments

Published

1 month ago

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July 22, 2026

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The Pentagon (Photo by icholakov/Bigstock)

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday rejected an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have codified a ban transgender servicemembers in the military.

The bipartisan vote was 212-217.

The NDAA is for the 2027 fiscal year and sets policies for the Defense Department programs and activities and the national security programs of the Department of Energy.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) proposed the amendment on July 21. It stated that all personnel are required to serve in accordance with their biological sex, citing military readiness and discipline.

Human Rights Campaign Senior Director of Government Affairs Jennifer Pike Bailey stated that she is grateful for the bipartisan vote that rejected President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “dangerous and discriminatory policy that has kicked brave transgender servicemembers out of the military and weakened our national security.”

“Everyone who meets the same rigorous standards should be able to serve their country. We should honor that patriotism, particularly in this moment where we are witnessing brave servicemembers making the ultimate sacrifice for our country, instead of ending their careers and politicizing their existence. We’re grateful that a permanent extension of this ban failed, and we will keep fighting to reverse this senseless policy,” Bailey said.

Mark Takano, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, stated that he and his members put in countless hours of work to kill the amendment.

“When Americans know they or their families are going to be targeted by or not supported by the military, that leads them to avoid signing up to serve or staying in the service — making it harder to keep the ranks of the armed services full and our nation safe. My colleagues in the Equality Caucus and I will continue working to prevent these attacks on our servicemembers and their families from becoming law,” Takano said.

According to the Congressional Equality Caucus, two other bills could potentially be passed that would also target the transgender community, both of which were proposed by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

The first was a bill that would have prohibited gender-related medical care under TRICARE and to prevent TRICARE from covering certain gender-related medical procedures and treatments, which was approved in a vote of 219-208.

The second was a bill that would have prohibited male participation in female sports at DoDEA schools. DoDEA schools are Department of Defense Dependents Schools, which is a network of primary and secondary schools.

The amendment was approved in a vote of 221-203. 

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Congress

Lindsey Graham has passed away. Do LGBTQ people have a right to celebrate his death?

SC senator opposed marriage equality, despite speculation over sexual orientation

Published

2 months ago

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July 16, 2026

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The late-U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in 2022. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Uncloseted Media published this article on July 16.

By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON | On Sunday, the office of Lindsey Graham reported that the Republican senator and Trump ally from South Carolina died “from a brief and sudden illness.” The office said that the preliminary cause of death was a rupture of his aorta due to a hardening of his arteries.

Since then, many folks in the LGBTQ community, including a large number of Uncloseted followers, have — for better or worse — celebrated the senator’s death. When we posted the news on our Instagram page on Sunday, our followers commented:

  • “Maybe he rest in hell”—this one got 194 likes.
  • “She made sure to wait until Pride was over.”
  • “And just like that the world is a better place.”

These responses are fueled by allegations that the senator lived as a closeted gay man while supporting policies that would roll back LGBTQ rights. In 2006, he voted in support of a constitutional amendment that would have restricted marriage to only being between one man and one woman. After gay marriage became legal across the U.S. in 2015, he said “I am a proud defender of traditional marriage.” And in 2022, he told CNN he would oppose the Respect for Marriage Act and later reiterated that states should decide the issue of marriage.

Outside the Washington rumor mill, there wasn’t much evidence that Graham could be gay until 2020, when adult video performer Sean Harding wrote on Twitter that “There is a homophobic republican senator who is no better than Trump who keeps passing legislation that is damaging to the lgbt and minority communities. Every sex worker I know has been hired by this man. Wondering if enough of us spoke out if that could get him out of office?”

Harding followed up with another post, writing “If you’d be willing to stand with me against LG please let me know,” and, “So far I have two individuals who would be willing to go public and support my claims. Anyone else?”

A few days later, another anonymous sex worker came forward and made similar allegations.

But after that, there was silence, with some believing these sex workers were slapped with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). And while at least one lawyer took to Twitter saying that he’d “be more than happy to read the NDAs and look for loopholes. For free!” nobody else came forward.

That is until earlier this week, when author Jesse James Rose posted to her Instagram that Graham had paid her for sex work prior to her gender transition. Rose wrote that “Most of you know him as the homophobic senator from South Carolina but to me he will always be the man who paid a twinky pre-transition college student a fat stack of cash to do unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie.”

This dynamic has created a complicated question for LGBTQ people: Is it appropriate to posthumously celebrate the death of a man who railed against our community and used his position of power to make our lives less equitable and less safe? Is it even more fair to criticize him if he was living a secret queer life?

Or should we go high and give his track record on LGBTQ issues a positive spin now that he’s no longer with us?

In a time where social media feels like a breeding ground for angertainment, I’ll admit that the immediacy of the response to his death at first felt intense.

At the same time, I knew I didn’t want to send thoughts or prayers to a man who tried to rip my rights away.

If the alleged NDAs that Graham handed his sex workers were legitimate, they likely evaporated after his death. So now really may be the first time people can speak their truth and offer an accurate window into the absurd hypocrisy between Graham’s public and private life.

For that, I think it’s fair game to speak candidly about the story he may have worked hard to muzzle while he was here.

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