National
Justice Dept. objects to ‘Don’t Ask’ injunction
Obama administration calls proposal ‘untenable’
The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday issued an objection to a proposed judgment seeking to bar enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on the basis that a military-wide injunction of the statute is “untenable.”
The Obama administration issued the 19-page objection in the wake of the California federal court ruling in the case of Log Cabin Republicans v. United States that found “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is unconstitutional.
Plaintiffs in the case had sought an injunction against the enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as a result of their victory, but the Justice Department this week urged U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips not to issue that order.
Instead, the Justice Department asks the court to limit the injunction to members of the Log Cabin Republicans who serve in the armed forces.
The next step in the process is for Phillips to determine what judgment she will enter in the case. The Obama administration will then have 60 days to make an appeal to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs maintained President Obama is committed to legislatively repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” even though his administration filed the objection.
“This filing in no way diminishes the president’s firm commitment to achieve a legislative repeal of [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] — indeed, it clearly shows why Congress must act to end this misguided policy,” Gibbs said,
But advocates working for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal are expressing indignation over the Obama administration’s objection to the injunction.
Executive director of Servicemembers United, Alex Nicholson (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United and sole named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said Obama is “certainly taking his so-called ‘duty to defend’ this anti-gay military as far as he possibly can.”
“Two blows from the White House in one week is a bit much,” Nicholson said. “First, the president cannot find the time to make any phone calls to senators to help us avoid a crushing loss on Tuesday, although he does manage to find the time to call the WNBA national champions to congratulate them on their victory. Then, the president once again goes much farther than he has to in defense of the discriminatory and unconstitutional ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law.”
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, also chastised Obama for the Justice Department’s objection.
“We are not surprised by this but we are extremely disappointed with the Obama administration,” Cooper said. “Many times on the campaign trail, President Obama said he would support the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Now that it’s time to step up to the plate, he isn’t even in the ballpark.”
The Justice Department offers various reasons for why Log Cabin’s proposed judgment is untenable. One justification that the administration offers is that a military-wide injunction against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would interfere with higher court rulings and foreclose the possibility of litigation in other courts.
“If this court were to enjoin all discharges under [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] throughout the world, it would not only effectively overrule the decisions of numerous other circuits that have upheld [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’], but also preclude consideration of similar challenges by courts in other circuits that have not addressed the issue (not to mention other district judges in the Central District of California) prior to any decision by the Ninth Circuit,” the administration states.
The Justice Department argues that Log Cabin’s proposed judgment would be at odds with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Witt v. Air Force, which allows the opportunity for the U.S. military to prove a gay service member undermines unit cohesion before discharging them.
Additionally, the Justice Department says an injunction would interfere with legislative efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as the Pentagon working group’s efforts to develop a plan to implement repeal.
“Entering an injunction with immediate effect would frustrate the ability of the Department of Defense to develop necessary policies, regulations, and training and guidance to accommodate a change in the [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell] law and policy,” the administration states. “An injunction with immediate effect will put [Defense Department] in the position where it must implement ad hoc potentially inadequate policies at a time when the military is in the midst of active combat operations.”
Dan Woods, an attorney at White & Case representing plaintiffs in the case, said the objections from the Justice Department suggest that it doesn’t realize it’s the losing party in the lawsuit.
“The Justice Department’s objections fail to recognize the implications of the government’s defeat at the trial,” Woods said. “It is as if the South announced that it won the Civil War.”
Woods notes that the court previously dismissed the administration’s requests for a stay in the case on three prior occasions and “nothing has changed to suggest that a stay is now appropriate.”
“What is most troubling is that the government’s request for a stay ignores the harm that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell causes to current and potential members of our Armed Forces,” Woods said. “That is the saddest, most disappointing, and, in light of the president’s position, most hypocritical part of the objections.”
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
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.
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
House passes reconciliation with gender-affirming care funding ban
PHOTOS: D.C. Trans Pride
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
