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RFK Jr.’s views on HIV, LGBTQ health raise concerns

Gay Colo. Gov. Polis explains his support for controversial nominee

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. appears on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2024. (Screen capture via YouTube)

After President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last week, his views on HIV and other health issues impacting the LGBTQ community have raised concerns about how he would lead the agency if his nomination is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The controversial environmental lawyer has promoted untrue, dangerous, and conspiratorial claims about science and medicine, most notably misinformation about lifesaving vaccines, including the debunked idea that they are linked to autism diagnoses in children.

During an interview last year, RFK Jr. said endocrine disrupting chemicals in drinking water are responsible for homosexuality and gender dysphoria among young people, a claim that is unsupported by scientific evidence.

He has also falsely claimed that HIV does not cause AIDS — arguing that the culprit is, rather, the “gay lifestyle,” including the recreational use of amyl nitrate (poppers) by men who have sex with men — and proposed that U.S. health officials take a “break” from studying infectious diseases, which may raise questions about the future of HHS’s Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy under his leadership.

Additionally, RFK Jr. has challenged health care interventions for transgender minors that are considered safe and medically necessary by mainstream scientific and medical organizations, earning support from conservative groups like the American Principles Project, which opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, and voting rights legislation.

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay, drew backlash after posting on X in support of RFK Jr.’s nomination on Thursday, writing, “He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA.”

Polis touted RFK Jr.’s promises to “cap drug prices so that companies can’t charge Americans substantially more than Europeans pay,” to “get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture,” and to eliminate departments that are ineffectual or beholden to corporate interests.

At the same time, the governor acknowledged the candidate’s anti-vaccine advocacy, writing that he hopes RFK Jr. would oppose bans as well as mandates. In May, Polis posted on X, “Not sure how bringing back Measles and bringing back Polio makes anyone more healthy…”

In a statement to the Washington Blade, Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama addressed concerns over RFK Jr.’s controversial and unproven claims about health matters that are important to the LGBTQ community:

“Governor Polis has not changed his previously stated concerns regarding some of  RFK Jr’s positions. The governor is opposed to RFK’s positions on a host of issues, including vaccines, banning fluoridation, policies and messaging that would have negative consequences for our LGBTQ community, and misinformation about HIV/AIDS, and Governor Polis will hold him accountable for statements or actions in these areas.

“However, he would appreciate seeing action on pesticides and efforts to lower prescription drug costs and if Trump is going to nominate someone like him then let them also take on soda, processed food, pesticides, and heavy metals contamination, and other powerful special interests.

“But he definitely does not endorse actions that would lead to measles outbreaks and opposes unscientific propaganda that undermines confidence in the lifesaving impact of vaccines.”

Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf also shared a statement with the Blade:

“Beyond the Twitter back and forth, what’s important here is that we’re not naive to the impact of this nomination on the American people. This country deserves a Secretary of HHS who understands the devastating impact of the HIV epidemic and will work in good faith with the community to bring about its end.

“The country deserves a leader who believes in the value of vaccines and will stand by the overwhelming medical consensus that supports access to medically necessary care for transgender young people. There’s no value in normalizing RFK Jr.’s dangerous rhetoric. The American people deserve serious leadership and have every right to demand it.”

Post-COVID Democratic coalition favors expertise

In his column for The New York Times on Sunday, headlined “Jared Polis Wants to Win Back the Hippies,” journalist Ezra Klein writes that Polis “is a dissenter from the trends that swept through Democratic governance during the pandemic.”

For instance, “He was unusual among Democratic governors for the emphasis he put on both personal responsibility and personal liberty. Colorado opened early, sparking a tourism boom, and Polis tried to rely more on information than compulsion.”

And RFK Jr., Klein notes, ran for president in 2024 — at least, initially — as a Democrat.

“The crunchy, anti-vaxx, anti-corporate politics he represents used to have a home in the Democratic Party” before “the pandemic polarized Americans around trust in scientific and public health institutions, and comfort with public health mandates,” leaving behind “little room for people with Kennedy’s politics in the Democratic coalition.”

Klein argues the post-pandemic realignment is also evidenced by the fact that Elon Musk’s shift to the right appeared to start with his objection to COVID restrictions and lockdowns, and by the popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump on the eve of the election but first broke with the Democrats over his vaccine skepticism.

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Congress

Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office

Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections

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Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Democratic members reintroduce the Equality Act, April 29 2025 (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.

The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.

Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).

Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.

Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.

“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”

Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.

“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”

“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”

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Politics

George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case

Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’

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Former U.S. Rep. George Santos (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. 

“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”

The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.

His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.

Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.

The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.

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Congress

Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker

Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation

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Andry Hernández Romero (photo credit: Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.

The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”

Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.

“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.

The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”

“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”

The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador in 2023. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Embassy of El Salvador’s Facebook page)

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.

“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.

Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.

Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.

“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”

President Donald Trump greets Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14, 2025. (Public domain photo)

Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.

“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”

The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.

“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.

The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.

“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”

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