Politics
HRC warns of the danger of a second Trump term
Kelley Robinson says we must ‘take him at his word’
“We have to take him at his word,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson told the Washington Blade Wednesday morning during a discussion about how LGBTQ Americans would be impacted if former President Donald Trump is reelected next year.
“They’re saying exactly what his plans are, out loud: Not only is he talking about a federal ban on gender affirming care, he’s talking about federal ‘don’t say gay or trans’ bills; he’s reigniting his work to stack the courts and federal agencies with anti-LGBTQ+ extremists,” she said. “I think we have to listen carefully to what he says.”
Robinson said this includes Trump’s remarks to Sean Hannity during an Iowa town hall last week in which he denied, to the Fox News host, the charge that he would return to the White House as a dictator, “except for day one.”
Trump is testing the waters to gauge Americans’ appetite for extremism, Robinson said. “This is dangerous, I think, when it comes to our issues — but also when it comes to the broader experiment of democracy,” she said, adding, “That is not a joking matter any way, shape or form to have someone in office that is willing to abuse their power for their own personal gain.”
If reelected, he would pose a fundamental threat to the safety and security of LGBTQ people, Robinson said, as evidenced, for example, by his actions during his first term in office and the officials with whom he would surround himself in a second term.
“This is the guy that supported an insurrection on the United States Capitol and is now facing 91 indictments; this is the guy that in Charlottesville, when there was a racist riot taking place, said that there were good people on both sides; this is the guy that has unabashedly supported the kind of violence — and actually, to be honest with you, unleashed so much of it on our community, due to his violent rhetoric and the rhetoric of his supporters and the people around him,” she said.
“He has unearthed an openness around bias, hate, and discrimination that we haven’t seen in a generation; he’s unearthed folks that are willing to go to Target with an AR-15 because they disagree with a T-shirt; he’s unearthed folks that are willing to call into places and threaten the lives of the people there; he’s unearthed folks who are showing up with guns to drag shows and to libraries because of some brunch and some books,” she said.
Robinson continued, “Because the other thing you’ve got to be clear about is, sure, Donald Trump is a scary, scary person to think of having as president of the United States once again, and the people that he surrounds himself with are equally terrifying.” Names like “Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller; folks that have a history of supporting the the very types of violence that you’re talking about are front of the line.”
“I can’t underscore how dangerous the administration he is contemplating could be,” she said.
Robinson also outlined some of the threats posed by Trump’s potential reelection to the work of government and to the federal judiciary.
Much of this would be perhaps an extension of his efforts during the first term to gut “these federal agencies then put in place extremists at the helm of them to either do nothing and dismantle their ability to be effective in supporting the people of this nation, or to actually do active harm,” she said.
Meanwhile, “he was able to stack the Supreme Court with basically anti-democracy justices that are starting to carry out their will,” Robinson said. “We saw the Dobbs decision come out of the court that he created, [which] overturned Roe v. Wade. We saw the 303 Creative decision that created a legal loophole for discrimination against LGBTQ+ community. We saw them come after affirmative action and student debt relief. They are showing us what they are planning to do.”
Robinson added, “You don’t have to look much further than the words of these very justices,” noting conservative Justice Clarence Thomas’s stated interest in revisiting the court’s protections for same-sex marriage and revocation of sodomy laws. “This is very serious,” she said.
The importance of strengthening democracy
Robinson highlighted multiple ways in which the collective power of the pro-equality majority can — and must — be leveraged in the face of these challenges, and repeatedly stressed the underlying need to strengthen American democracy moving forward.
She pointed to gerrymandered district maps that have awarded disproportionate power to far-right extremists in state legislatures, who are responsible for passing legislation targeting vulnerable communities like trans youth.
“The landscape ahead is rough, because we’ve got to do work to course-correct what’s happening at the state level,” Robinson said, while also doing “work to course-correct what’s happening in the federal government by ensuring that we keep a pro-equality majority.”
“We’ve also got to be thinking about the judiciary branch in a meaningful way,” she added.
Robinson stressed that “The people are on our side. Fundamentally, there are more folks that support human rights, common progressive values than there are that do not.”
“Every day, 2,200 LGBTQ+ Americans are turning 18,” Robinson said. “We’re living in a country where we are going to be a huge voting bloc, a huge constituency, politically — and at the same time, where the practices of a representative democracy might be impaired to the point where our numbers no longer influence our political power,” so, “We have to fix that to actually ensure that this is a representative democracy.”
In some ways, it seems anti-LGBTQ conservative Christian organizations are more powerful than ever. The Alliance Defending Freedom, for example, has close ties with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and backed cases like Dobbs and 303 Creative that delivered major victories for the religious right.
Robinson argued that while these groups “still hold an immense amount of institutional power,” which, for sure, presents major challenges, “when you look at our collective power, they are, in fact, on the decline.”
For example, she said, “the number and proportion of evangelical voters is actually declining, year over year” while “our collective power is increasing, which I think is what’s creating this very crisis that we’re in — you’re up against folks who have held power in this country for the last 400 years.”
Congress
51 lawmakers sign letter to Rubio about Andry Hernández Romero
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) spoke about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Forty nine members of Congress and two U.S. senators, all Democrats, signed a letter Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding information about Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT
“We are deeply concerned about the health and wellbeing of Mr. Hernández Romero, who left
Venezuela after experiencing discriminatory treatment because of his sexual orientation and
opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian government,” the lawmakers wrote. They urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him.
After passing a credible fear interview and while awaiting a court hearing in March, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly transported Hernández out of the U.S. without due process or providing evidence that he had committed any crime.
In the months since, pressure has been mounting. This past WorldPride weekend in Washington was kicked off with a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and a fundraiser, both supporting Hernández and attended by high profile figures including members of Congress, like U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was among the four members who wrote to Rubio about Hernández in April. On Friday, he spoke with the Washington Blade before he and his colleagues, many more of them this time, sent the second letter to Rubio.
“There’s a lot of obviously horrible things that are happening with the asylum process and visas and international students and just the whole of our value system as it relates to immigration,” he said, which “obviously, is under attack.”
“Andry’s case, I think, is very unique and different,” the congressman continued. “There is, right now, public support that is building. I think he has captured people’s attention. And it’s growing — this is a movement that is not slowing down. He’s going to be a focal point for Pride this year. I mean, I think people around the world are interested in the story.”
Garcia said he hopes the momentum will translate to progress on requests for proof of life, adding that he was optimistic after meeting with Hernández’s legal team earlier on Friday.
“I mean, the president, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio — any of these folks could could ask to see if just he’s alive,” the congressman said, referring to the secretary of Homeland Security, whom he grilled during a hearing last month. ICE is housed under the DHS.
“People need to remember, the most important part of this that people need to remember, this isn’t just an immigration issue,” Garcia noted. “This is a due process issue. This is an asylum case. We gave him this appointment. The United States government told him to come to his appointment, and then we sent him to another country, not his own, and locked him up with no due process. That’s the issue.”
Garcia said that so far neither he nor his colleagues nor Hernández’s legal team were able to get “any answers from the administration, which is why we’re continuing to advocate, which is why we’re continuing to reach out to Secretary Rubio.”
“A lot more Democrats are now engaged on this issue,” he said. U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both from California, joined Monday’s letter. “The more that we can get folks to understand how critical this is, the better. The momentum matters here. And I think Pride does provide an opportunity to share his story.”
Asked what the next steps might be, Garcia said “we’re letting his legal team really take the lead on strategy,” noting that Hernández’s attorneys have “already engaged with the ACLU” and adding, “It’s very possible that the Supreme Court could take this on.”
In the meantime, the congressman said “part of our job is to make sure that that people don’t forget Andry and that there is awareness about him, and I think there’s a responsibility, particularly during WorldPride, and during Pride, all throughout the month — like, this is a story that people should know. People should know his name and and people should be aware of what’s going on.”
Congress
Wasserman Schultz: Allies must do more to support LGBTQ Jews
A Wider Bridge honored Fla. congresswoman at Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday
Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Thursday said allies need to do more to support LGBTQ Jewish people in the wake of Oct. 7.
“Since Oct. 7, what has been appalling to me is that LGBTQ+ Jewish organizations and efforts to march in parades, to be allies, to give voice to other causes have faced rejection,” said the Florida Democrat at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. after A Wider Bridge honored her at its Pride event.
Wasserman Schultz, a Jewish Democrat who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, added the “silence of our allies … has been disappointing.”
“It makes your heart feel hollow and it makes me feel alone and isolated, which is why making sure that we have spaces that we can organize in every possible way in every sector of our society as Jews is so incredibly important,” she said.
The Israeli government says Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, when it launched a surprise attack on the country. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on that day.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed nearly 55,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7. Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who the Israel Defense Forces killed last October, are among those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.
A Wider Bridge is a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred.”
Thursday’s event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
Police say a man who injured more than a dozen people on June 1 in Boulder, Colo., when he threw Molotov cocktails into a group of demonstrators who were calling for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages was yelling “Free Palestine.” The Associated Press notes that authorities said the man who has been charged in connection with the attack spent more than a year planning it.
Congress
Sen. Schiff proposes resolution urging DOD not to rename U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk
Pentagon reportedly plans to change the name of ship named for gay rights icon
U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Thursday introduced a resolution urging the U.S. Department of Defense not to rename ships that bear the names of civil rights leaders like gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.
The move comes just after reports on Tuesday that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename the U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk, with an announcement deliberately planned for Pride month on June 14.
The vessel, a replenishment oiler, is part of the John Lewis class fleet. The Pentagon is also considering renaming other ships in the fleet including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman, according to CBS News.
“By naming these ships,” Schiff wrote in his resolution, “the United States Navy has appropriately celebrated notable civil rights leaders and their legacy in promoting a more equal and just United States.”
Milk was assassinated in 1978 while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Prior to his election to the Senate last year, Schiff represented California districts in the U.S. House since 2001.
Part one of his resolution “strongly supports the naming of John Lewis-class fleet replacement oilers after the aforementioned civil rights leaders as a fitting tribute to honor their contributions to the advancement of civil rights,” while part two “strongly encourages the Department of Defense not to take any action to change the names.”
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