National
Homophobe Anita Bryant dies at 84
Anita Bryant, the singer and orange juice pitch woman who gained notoriety for a homophobic campaign against gay rights in the 1970s, died on Dec. 16 after a battle with cancer, according to a statement released by her family. She was 84.
Bryant was a former Miss Oklahoma, a Grammy-nominated singer, author, and recipient of the USO Silver Medallion for Service, according to her familyās statement. Bryant, a fundamentalist Christian, performed at the White House and the Super Bowl, among other highlights of her singing career.
Bryant incurred the ire of the LGBTQ community after she fought successfully to overturn a Dade County, Fla., ordinance that would have protected gay people from discrimination. Her āSave Our Childrenā campaign led gay bars to boycott Florida orange juice. In 1977, while promoting her campaign in Iowa, Tom Higgins, a gay rights activist, threw a pie in her face, an iconic moment caught by photographers.Ā
Bryantās homophobic legacy lives on with Florida politicians like Gov. Ron DeSantis rolling back LGBTQ protections and enshrining discrimination in state law.
U.S. Federal Courts
Appeals court hears case challenging Florida’s trans healthcare ban
District court judge concluded the law was discriminatory, unconstitutional
Parties in Doe v. Ladapo, a case challenging Florida’s ban on healthcare for transgender youth and restrictions on the medical interventions available to trans adults, presented oral arguments on Wednesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta.
The case was appealed by defendants representing the Sunshine State following a decision in June 2024 by Judge Robert Hinkle of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, who found “the law and rules unconstitutional and unenforceable on equal protection grounds,” according to a press release from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is involved in the litigation on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The district court additionally found the Florida healthcare ban unconstitutional on the grounds that it was “motivated by purposeful discrimination against transgender people,” though the ban and restrictions will remain in effect pending a decision by the appellate court.
Joining NCLR in the lawsuit are attorneys from GLAD Law, the Human Rights Campaign, Southern Legal Counsel, and the law firms Lowenstein Sandler and Jenner and Block.
“As a mother who simply wants to protect and love my child for who she is, I pray that the Eleventh Circuit will affirm the district courtās thoughtful and powerful order, restoring access to critical healthcare for all transgender Floridians,” plaintiff Jane Doe said. “No one should have to go through what my family has experienced.ā
“As a transgender adult just trying to live my life and care for my family, it is so demeaning that the state of Florida thinks itās their place to dictate my healthcare decisions,” said plaintiff Lucien Hamel.
“Members of the legislature have referred to the high quality healthcare I have received, which has allowed me to live authentically as myself, as āmutilationā and āan abominationā and have called the providers of this care āevil,ā” Hamel added. “We hope the appellate court sees these rules and laws for what truly are: cruel.ā
āTransgender adults donāt need state officials looking over their shoulders, and families of transgender youth donāt need the government dictating how to raise their children,ā said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. āThe district court heard the evidence and found that these restrictions are based on bias, not science. The court of appeals should affirm that judgment.ā
Noting Hinkle’s conclusion that the ban and restrictions were “motivated by animus, not science or evidence,” Simone Chris, who leads Southern Legal Counsel’s Transgender Rights Initiative, said, āThe state has loudly and proudly enacted bans on transgender people accessing healthcare, using bathrooms, transgender teachers using their pronouns and titles, and a slough of other actions making it nearly impossible for transgender individuals to live in this state.”
Lowenstein Sandler Partner Thomas Redburn said, āThe defendants have offered nothing on appeal that could serve as a valid basis for overturning that finding” by the district court.
āNot only does this dangerous law take away parentsā freedom to make responsible medical decisions for their child, it inserts the government into private health care matters that should be between adults and their providers,” said Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law.
State Department
LGBTQ rights abroad not discussed during Marco Rubio confirmation hearing
Senate expected to confirm Fla. Republican as next secretary of state
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Wednesday did not speak about LGBTQ rights abroad during his confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of state.
The Florida Republican in his opening statement to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee noted President-elect Donald Trump “returns to office with an unmistakable mandate from the voters.”
“They want a strong America, a strong America engaged in the world, but guided by a clear objective to promote peace abroad and security and prosperity here at home,” said Rubio.
“The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear,” he added. “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”
Trump nominated Rubio a week after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded she lost the presidential election.
Rubio in 2022Ā defendedĀ Florida’s āDonāt Say Gayā law that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed. The Florida Republican that year also voted against the Respect for Marriage Act that passed with bipartisan support.
LGBTQ rights a cornerstone of Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy
President Joe Biden in February 2021Ā signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administrationās overall foreign policy. A few months later he named Jessica Stern, the former executive director of Outright International, a global advocacy group, as special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad.
Ned Price, who was the State Departmentās first openly gay spokesperson, during a May 2021 interview with the Washington Blade noted the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations was one of the administrationās priorities in its efforts to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
Trump during his first administration tapped then-U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who has been tapped as special missions envoy, to lead an initiative that encouraged countries to decriminalize homosexuality. Activists with whom the Blade has previously spoken questioned whether this effort had any tangible results.
Stern in 2022 noted the Biden-Harris administration also supported marriage equality efforts in countries where activists said they were possible through legislation or the judicial process.
Brittney Griner in December 2022 returned to the U.S. after Russia released her in exchange for a convicted arms dealer. The lesbian WNBA star had been serving a nine-year prison sentence in a penal colony after a court earlier that year convicted her on the importation of illegal drugs after Russian customs officials found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscowās Sheremetyevo Airport.
The State Department in 2022 began to issue passports with an āXā gender marker.
The Biden-Harris administration in response to the signing of Ugandaās Anti-Homosexuality Act sanctioned officials and removed the country from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free the U.S. Harris during a 2023 press conference with then-Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, spoke about LGBTQ rights.
Chantale Wong, the U.S. director of the Asian Development Bank, in 2022 became the first openly lesbian woman ambassador. David Pressman, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Hungary, and Scott Miller, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are two of the other American ambassadors who Biden nominated that are gay.
Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2021 appointed former U.S. Ambassador to Malta Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as the State Department’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer.
U.S. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the State Department’s DEI efforts during Rubio’s confirmation hearing.
“The Biden administration often undercut effective foreign policy by inserting ideological and political requirements into the fabric of personnel decisions and policy execution,” said Risch.
“Rather than making hires or promotions based on merit and effectiveness, the department created new diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) requirements that distracted from this mission, undermined morale, and created an unfair and opaque process for promotions and performance evaluations,” he added. “Fealty to progressive politics became the benchmark for success. As we look around the United States that view is diminishing very quickly amongst even large progressive cooperations.”
National
Anti-LGBTQ Franklin Graham to give invocation at Trumpās inauguration
Evangelical leader also delivered address in 2017
Anti-LGBTQ evangelist Franklin Graham will deliver the invocation for President-elect Donald Trumpās inauguration on Monday, Jan. 20, according to a copy of the program that was circulated on X.
Graham, who serves as president and CEO of Samaritanās Purse, the evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization, and of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which was named for his late father, offered the opening prayer for Trumpās first inauguration in 2017.
As documented by GLAAD, the Asheville, N.C.,-based evangelist has attacked the LGBTQ community throughout his life and career.
He supported the draconian laws in Russia targeting āpropaganda of nontraditional sexual relationsā that have been used to suppress media that presents āLGBTQ identities and relationships in a positive or normalizing light.ā
Praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for taking āa stand to protect his nationās children from the damaging effects of the gay and lesbian agenda,ā Graham also bemoaned that āAmericaās own morality has fallen so far that on this issue.ā
Grahamās anti-LGBTQ advocacy on matters of domestic policy in the U.S. has included opposing Pride events, which he compared to celebrations of ālying, adultery, or murder,ā and curricula on LGBTQ history in public schools, telling a radio host in 2019 that educators have no right to āteach our children something that is an affront to God.ā
When his home state rolled back rules prohibiting gender diverse people from using public restrooms consistent with their identities, he tweeted that āpeople of NC will be exposed to pedophiles and sexually perverted men in womenās public restrooms.ā
Graham has repeatedly smeared LGBTQ people as predatory and said the community seeks to ārecruitā children into being gay, lesbian, or transgender.
He has also consistently opposed same-sex marriage, claiming that former President Barack Obama, by embracing marriage equality, had āshaken his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage,ā adding, āit grieves me that our president would now affirm same-sex marriage, though I believe it grieves God even more.ā
Graham also supports the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy, which he likened to āconversion to Christianity.ā
When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced his bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, Graham tweeted that āMayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman ā not two men, not two women.”Ā
Graham embraced Trump well before he was taken seriously in Republican politics, telling ABC in 2011 that the New York real estate tycoon was his preferred candidate.
Particularly during the incoming presidentās first campaign as the GOP nominee and during his first term, the evangelical leaderās support was seen as strategically important to bringing conservative Christians into the fold despite their misgivings about Trump, who was better known as a philandering womanizer than a devout religious leader.
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