National
Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?
GOP frontrunner supports ‘equal rights in employment’
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has previously endorsed ENDA (Blade file photo by MIchael Key)
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s recently stated support for “equal rights in employment” for gays is raising questions about whether he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — as well as the extent to which he would back other LGBT rights issues.
The current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination said he backs employment protections last week during an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan as he noted gay appointments made during his time as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.
Asked which gay rights he favors, Romney replied, “Well, equal rights in employment, equal rights in — for instance, as the governor, I had members of my team that were gay, I appointed a couple of judges, who, apparently, I find later, were gay.”
Romney didn’t say whether he thinks these protections should be instituted through legislation or some other manner.
A Romney campaign spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on whether the remarks mean that the the candidate supports ENDA, pending legislation that would bar job discrimination in most situations for LGBT Americans in the public and private workforce.
Romney’s support for employment rights — through ENDA or otherwise — is unusual for Republican presidential candidates early on during the primary season. Candidates usually veer hard right to win support among social conservatives who participate in Republican primaries. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, for example, have said they would reinstitute “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” if elected.
Still, support for ENDA from Romney would be consistent with a previously articulated position he held in 1994 when he was running against the late Sen. Edward Kennedy for his seat representing Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.
In a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney recalled earlier conversations he’s had with the group and said he would be a co-sponsor of ENDA and would seek to expand the provisions in the legislation.
Additionally, Romney pledged to “make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern” and said Kennedy, who was known as a champion of LGBT rights in the Senate, would be unable to make that promise to the LGBT community.
“We have discussed a number of important issues such as the Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which I have agreed to co-sponsor, and if possible broaden to include housing and credit, and the bill to create a federal panel to find ways to reduce gay and lesbian youth suicide, which I also support,” Romney wrote.
It should be noted that the version of ENDA that was pending before Congress at the time offered protections based only on sexual orientation and didn’t include language protecting transgender people in employment.
Romney also said the then-recently enacted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law was the compromise that was a step in the right direction and “the first in a number of steps” that will ultimately lead to open service in the U.S. military.
According to a 1994 article from Bay Windows, Romney also articulated support for ENDA during a public meeting of the Massachusetts Log Cabin Club with his then-Republican opponent, John Lakian. The meeting between Republican candidates and the gay group was hailed as a milestone for LGBT rights in Massachusetts.
“I will fight against discrimination of any kind throughout our system,” Romney was quoted as saying. “I don’t know exactly where you legislate and where you don’t legislate or how you make that work and where you don’t. But I am not limiting my support of equal rights for all people just to [U.S. Rep.] Barney Frank’s legislation in the area of employment. I would be happy to continue the fight in other areas such as credit and housing.”
Romney reportedly touted that Bain & Company, a Boston-based management consulting firm whose board he chaired, had explicit directions regarding equal employment opportunity in hiring and promotions.
But Kara Suffredini, executive director of MassEquality, said the support that Romney expressed for ENDA in 1994 doesn’t square with his later actions as governor and predicted he wouldn’t keep his promise to support the legislation.
“That’s all the same stuff that he said when he ran for governor in 2002, and then once he was governor, I mean, do a Google search, and you’ll find out how quickly he positioned himself as anti-LGBT in order to benefit his own political career,” she said.
Suffredini predicted that Romney would be “pretty bad” for the LGBT community as a whole as president because of the inconsistency with which he addressed LGBT issues as governor.
“I would say based on his record as governor here that the only thing consistent about Romney’s relationship with the LGBT community is how inconsistent he is,” Suffredini said.
Suffredini said during his campaign as governor, Romney pledged to sign a civil rights bill for the LGBT community. However upon taking office, she said he took several anti-gay actions, such as abolishing a governor’s commission on LGBT youth, which the legislature later reinstated; rescinding an executive order prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation; and discouraging the Massachusetts Department of Public Health from releasing data on public health disparities.
Romney also struck a markedly different tone on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on Monday during the Republican presidential debate compared to what he expressed in his 1994 letter to Log Cabin.
“I believe it should have been kept in place until conflict was over,” Romney said, invoking an argument that opponents of repeal employed when legislation that would end the military’s gay ban was pending before Congress.
Romney’s position on ENDA could become a more prominent issue as he advances through the Republican primaries.
Romney remains the front-runner in the Republican presidential field among potential participants in the early primaries. According to recent polls from Public Policy Polling, Romney leads by six points in Iowa, 23 in New Hampshire, nine in South Carolina and 15 in Nevada.
Further, Romney could be the Republican presidential candidate who has the strongest chance against President Obama in 2012. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll published last week, Romney leads Obama in a head-to-head contest by a margin of 49-46.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, said his organization would hold Romney to his promises on ENDA should he win the Republican nomination and go on to challenge President Obama in 2012.
“Gov. Romney recently stated on CNN he opposes discrimination and supports equal rights in employment,” Cooper said. “We hope he would stand by his pledge from 17 years ago to prevent discrimination in the workplace and support ENDA.”
While Romney’s position on most LGBT issues may have changed over the years, on one issue he has maintained consistent opposition: same-sex marriage.
During his interview on CNN last week, Romney reiterated his previously stated opposition to same-sex marriage.
“What happened was that the gay community changed as to what they wanted,” Romney said during the CNN interview. “When I ran for governor, one of the big issues was marriage, gay marriage. My opponent said she would sign a bill in favor of gay marriage. I said I would not, that I opposed same-sex marriage. At the same time, I would advance the — if you will — the efforts not to discriminate against people who are gay.”
According to Bay WIndows, Romney stated his opposition to same-sex marriage at the Log Cabin forum 17 years ago when he was seeking the Republican nomination in the U.S Senate race.
“I stand with Gov. [Bill] Weld on that,” he was quoted as saying, “and say that in my view it is not appropriate to authorize legally same-sex marriages and I will continue to endorse that view.”
In 2003, After the Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage rights for gay couples, Romney backed various state measures that would have rolled back marriage rights for gay couples in the Bay State. Romney also voiced support for a U.S. constitutional amendment known as the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would ban same-sex marriages throughout the country.
Additionally, Romney renewed enforcement of a 1913 law preventing out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts to prevent gay couples from coming into the Bay State to wed. The law has since been repealed by the state Legislature.
Suffredini recalled that as governor, Romney “positioned himself as a national leader” during this time when the first state in the nation was attempting to advance marriage rights for gay couples.
“He did everything he could here to prevent marriage equality — even going so far as to resurrect what we call here the 1913 law, basically an anti-miscegnation law, which hadn’t been enforced in decades,” Suffredini said. “He resurrected it specifically in his words to prevent the spread of same-sex marriage to other states, and what it did was it prevented gays and lesbians from other states from coming here and marrying.”
Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of communications, said Romney’s frequent position changes on LGBT issues make it difficult to predict how friendly to the LGBT community he’d be as president.
“It’s hard to know which Mitt Romney will show up,” Sainz said. “He’s gone back and forth more on issues of equality than a revolving door at a hotel and appears willing to say whatever the audience in front of him will want to hear.”
Still, some remain hopeful that Romney will continue his support for ENDA. Sainz said the decision for Republican candidates on whether or not to support ENDA should be easy.
“It should be a no-brainer for Republican presidential candidates to support legislation that allows all Americans to work and support their families,” Sainz said.
National
Multi-billion-dollar 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to continue until 2090
Eligibility for same-sex partner survivors remains unclear
As part of its commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally operated program, released information during the past week showing it has awarded more than $18 billion to over 77,000 9/11 victims and their families since 2011.
Officials with what’s now referred to as the VCF point out that it was created to provide compensation to individuals or to a court-approved personal representative of a deceased individual who were present at one of the three sites where the hijacked jetliners crashed.
Among those supported under the program are thousands of rescue workers, clean-up crews, and residents living near the World Trade Center Twin Towers destruction site who became ill, many of whom later died, by being exposed to the toxic fumes created by the fire and falling debris.
“Twenty-five years since that day, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund has served tens of thousands of victims and their families, and we continue to receive over 750 new claims each month — a clear indication of the ongoing importance of our mission,” said Allison Turkel, VCF’s leader, who holds the title of Special Master.
In a Sept. 2 briefing for the news media in advance of the 9/11 anniversary commemoration, Turkel pointed out that the VCF operation was upgraded and expanded by separate laws passed by Congress in 2011 and 2019, with the 2019 law signed by President Trump providing full funding to “pay all eligible claims and extended the filing deadline to Oct. 1, 2090.”
LGBTQ advocacy organizations in New York and nationwide have reported that during the time shortly after the 9/11 attacks same-sex surviving partners of 9/11 victims learned they were ineligible for compensation benefits because their same-sex relationships were not legally recognized.
Nicole Nava, a VCF spokesperson, told the Washington Blade she would inquire into whether same-sex couple surviving partners were being supported under the VCF program in more recent years.
She said under long established VCF procedures, all applicants for benefit claims regarding a deceased person, whether same-sex or opposite sex, must be appointed as a Personal Representative of the deceased person by a state court. For D.C. residents, the probate division of the D.C. Superior Court appoints a Personal Representative.
“Claims for deceased victims (regardless of the cause of death) may be submitted only by the Personal Representative,” a statement on the VCF website says. “Each state has laws that define the process for appointment of the Personal Representative and the specific authority granted to that Personal Representative,” it says.
The Washington Blade couldn’t immediately determine the criteria for being approved as a Personal Representative by the D.C. Superior Court and various state courts, including whether a same-sex survivor partner would be eligible for such an appointment.
A spokesperson for the District of Columbia LGBTQ+ Bar Association, which includes many local attorneys who specialize in a wide range of specialized legal issues, couldn’t immediately be reached to find out if one or more of their members might be able to determine the same-sex partner eligibility for Personal Representative status.
In her news media briefing, VCF Special Master Turkel said detailed information about how best to file a claim for 9/11 victim compensation is available on the VCF website.
“Twenty-five years since the events of September 11th , 2001, we know it has become increasingly challenging for claimants to find documents needed to prove their presence at an eligible location, which is one of the key requirements to be eligible for compensation,” she said.
She was referring to the requirement that 9/11 surviving victims seeking a claim for support for injuries or illnesses related to the 9/11 attacks must prove they were present at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon site, or the Shanksville, Pa. site where the hijacked jetliners crashed. Those requirements are separate from the less clearly defined criteria for same-sex couple victim survivor eligibility.
“Our team is committed to ensuring no claimant feels lost or overwhelmed when submitting a claim,” Turkel said at the briefing. “We have a great helpline with real live people who can answer or refer any questions that come in,” she added. “They engage in over 4,000 calls a month on average. We encourage folks to call 1-855-1555 with any questions.”
The VCF website, which has additional detailed information, can be accessed at www.vcf.gov.
National
Remembering the LGBTQ heroes of 9/11 terrorist attacks
25 years later, ‘the heartbreak remains strong’
Many in the LGBTQ community in the D.C. area and throughout the country were expected to join friends, co-workers, and family members this week in commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and on the Pentagon just outside D.C. as well as the jetliner hijacking that ended in a fatal crash in an open field in Shanksville, Pa.
A total of 2,996 people died in the 9/11 attacks, including 19 terrorists who hijacked four jetliners whose passengers included Americans and citizens of many other countries.
Activists involved with local and national LGBTQ advocacy organizations recall witnessing a coming together of LGBTQ people and their co-workers, neighbors, and family members to support one another during a time of unimaginable horror and grief.
Among those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks was American Airlines co-pilot David Charlebois, an out gay man and member of the Gay Pilots Association, who was on American Airlines Flight 77, which the terrorists crashed into the Pentagon.
Also among the terrorist victims in the 9/11 attacks was gay public relations executive and rugby enthusiast Mark Bingham of San Francisco, who was among several passengers of the hijacked United Airlines jet who reportedly stormed the cockpit to regain control of the jetliner before one of the hijackers crashed the jet into the countryside in rural Pennsylvania.
The jet had taken off from Newark, N.J. with its destination being San Francisco. Investigators learned the hijackers turned the plane around and were heading to Washington, D.C., with plans to crash it into the White House or the U.S. Capitol.
The passengers, including Bingham, who stormed the cockpit and were among the 44 passengers and crew who lost their lives in the crash are credited by investigators and family members and friends with saving the lives of hundreds of others if the hijackers succeeded in crashing into the White House or Capitol.
Among the other LGBTQ people known to have lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks was Father Mychal Judge, 68, a gay Franciscan priest who served as a Catholic chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Judge rushed to the scene of the World Trade Center shortly before the Twin Towers collapsed. He was fatally struck by debris falling from the south tower while giving last rites to a fallen firefighter, the Catholic publication reported.
“He was a decent, wonderful human being,” said New York gay journalist Andy Humm, who had interviewed Judge for LGBTQ-related stories prior to the 9/11 attacks. “I saw him at many demonstrations for gay and AIDS causes, showing up in his Franciscan monk’s cassock,” Humm told the Washington Blade five years ago at the time of the 9/11 20th anniversary. “And he was equally beloved by the fire department, there at every major fire tragedy in the city, lending moral support to firefighters,” Humm said.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic group that advocates for LGBTQ supportive policies within the church, reported five years ago that his group was supporting an effort to call on the Catholic Church to officially recognize Fr. Judge as a saint by canonizing him. But DeBernardo told the Blade this week that those efforts failed to obtain the needed support from various Catholic entities, including the Franciscan Order of Friars Minors, of which Judge was affiliated, ending efforts to canonize Judge as a saint.
DeBernardo has written a book about Judge’s life and legacy published in 2023 called “Mychal Judge:Take Me Where You Want Me to Go.”
Among the other widely reported LGBTQ victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a gay couple from California, Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa, and their adopted son, David, who were among those who died aboard the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. The Los Angeles Times reported that Brandhorst, an attorney, and Gamboa, the manager of a Santa Monica Gap store, had adopted three-year-old David when he was an infant.
For many LGBTQ residents of New York and the D.C. area, the suffering over the loss of loved ones, including same-sex partners, was heightened a short time later when they learned they were initially ineligible for local and federal programs aimed at providing financial assistance to survivors of the 9/11 attack victims because same-sex couples were not legally recognized.
At the urging of LGBTQ rights organizations, state and local officials in the New York and the D.C. area took steps to address the initial denial of financial support for surviving same-sex partners In programs under their control. Officials with a massive federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, however, said they did not have legal authority to authorize payments to same-sex partners.
The officials, in the administration of then-President George W. Bush, said the best they could do would be to leave it up to local authorities to determine whether state probate laws would recognize a same-sex partner as a family member for eligibility in the federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, many of whom lived in states outside the New York and D.C. area.
Nicole Nava, a spokesperson for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally funded program established to compensate for physical harm or death caused by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including support for surviving family members, said she would inquire into whether same-sex surviving partners were being supported under that program in subsequent years in response to a request from the Washington Blade.
Jenny Pizer, an attorney for the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, which supported LGBTQ partner survivors of victims of the 9/11 attacks, said the information she and her organization had showed that many if not most of the LGBTQ partner survivors were unable to obtain the federal Victim Compensation Fund payment benefits that married heterosexual spouses obtained. She said she didn’t have a definitive answer on whether some LGBTQ surviving partners were compensated.
However, at least one case where an LGBTQ partner was compensated was reported by the Washington Post in a Jan. 22, 2003, news story about Peggy Neff, the lesbian partner of 18 years of Sheila Hein, 51, a civilian employee at the Pentagon, who was killed when the terrorist hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.
The Post reported that the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, under the leadership of its director, Kenneth Feinberg, approved an award of $557,390 for Neff in compensation for the loss of her partner. The Post story quoted a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign as saying, “It is our sincere hope that this signals that other gay families who have suffered the loss of a loved one will be treated similarly.”
The compensation program, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Justice, remains in operation until 2090. The Blade will report on any additional similar awards for LGBTQ surviving partners if Nava provides such information.
Events commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks were scheduled to take place this week at memorial sites honoring the 9/11 victims located outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., at the site of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and the site of the jetliner crash in Shanksville, Pa., which is operated by the U.S. National Park Service.
The U.S. Congress in 2017 and 2021 approved separate bills signed by President Donald Trump during his first term in office and President Joe Biden creating the Global War on Terrorism Memorial and its construction, to be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. that’s scheduled to be completed in 2028.
The memorial, to be located near the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial close to 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., is intended to honor people who served and were lost in the wars and counterterrorism operations that followed the 9/11 attacks, including U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Jay Fisette, who at the time of the 9/11 attacks held the elected position of chair of the Arlington County Board, which serves as the county’s governing body, was among the Arlington officials that came to the Pentagon’s grounds in Arlington to oversee efforts by firefighters to rescue Pentagon workers on the day of the attack.
At an Oct. 7, 2001, 9/11 Day of Remembrance and Appreciation ceremony held in Arlington, Fisette expressed the views of many in the community in response to the 9/11 attacks.
“Tonight, our community gather as a family,” he told the gathering. “We gather in sorrow and in disbelief, in remembrance and appreciation,” he said. “But we come here, too, with resolve and pride. We come together as Arlingtonians who love our country, as Americans who love our country,” he said.
“Our enemies may hurt our bodies and destroy our buildings, but they will never defeat our determination to make this a world of peace and a community in which our children grow up safe and secure,” Fissette said.
Although some of the same-sex partners of those killed in the 9/11 attacks faced obstacles in obtaining financial support through the federal 9/11 relief program, Tom Hay, the surviving partner of 14 years of American Airlines pilot David Charlebois was treated with respect and honor by American Airlines officials and colleagues at Charlebois’s funeral mass at D.C.’s St. Matthew Cathedral.
More than a dozen uniformed company pilots and flight attendants attended the mass. And a press release issued by American Airlines mentioned Charlebois’s relationship with Hay and told how Hay stood with Charlebois when Charlebois advocated for equal rights for LGBTQ people in the airline industry through his involvement with the National Gay Pilots Association.
“David was an early member of the NGPA,” the American Airlines statement said. “His contribution helped ensure ongoing progress toward fairness and solidarity.”
Activists in New York have said the 9/11 attacks drew attention to the need for legal protections for same-sex couples, including the need for recognition of same-sex marriage, which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized nationwide in its landmark ruling in 2015.
But LGBTQ advocates in New York pointed to the difficulties LGBTQ surviving partners faced when desperately seeking to find out if a partner had survived at the site of the World Trade Center attack where the Red Cross and other emergency relief agencies set up a station near the site of the attack.
“Literally, gay people had to go there, turn around, go back home, and get some paperwork that spouses didn’t have to get to prove a relationship existed,” said Ross Levi, who at the time served as executive director of the New York LGBTQ advocacy group Empire State Pride Agenda.
“You were nervous and scared and sad and then you had to go through that,” Levi told the Blade in 2011 at the time of the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “And worse yet, other people turned them away, even with the paperwork, saying sorry you’re not a family according to our guidelines.”
Activists said New York City and New York State officials quickly recognized the inequities faced by same-sex partner survivors and took steps to change polices and laws to correct the situation. Among other things, New York’s then-Gov. George Pataki (R) issued an executive order in October 2001 that included surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims of the World Trade Center attacks in receiving full spousal benefits from the state’s Crime Victims Board.
In a separate development, the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, ESPA, the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ advocacy groups created the September 11 Gay & Lesbian Family Fund to provide some support to surviving same-sex partners who were ineligible for help from the federal relief fund program.
“The terrorist attack on September 11th is a tragedy that touched every American, impacting people and families from all walks of life,” Jonathan Lovitz, the Human Rights Campaign’s Senior Vice President for Campaigns and Communications told the Blade in a statement this week.
“As in all moments in American history, LGBTQ+ Americans were there, and feel the impact of this day,” he said. “As we remember the lives lost 25 years later, the heartbreak remains strong and the work to ensure that every person can live safe from violence in this country continues.”
2026 Midterm Elections
Chris Pappas wins NH Democratic Senate primary
Gay congressman running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
New Hampshire Congressman Chris Pappas on Tuesday won the Democratic primary in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in the U.S. Senate.
Pappas defeated Karishma Manzur, who was his primary challenger, by a 61.8-36.1 percent margin.
The gay congressman will face off against former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, who defeated former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in the Republican primary.
“Tonight’s victory sends a clear message that voters are looking for leaders who will fight for their rights, their freedoms, and to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement.
She campaigned for Pappas in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city, on Aug. 30.
“Chris Pappas has delivered results, stood up for equality, and showed up for the people he serves,” said Robinson in her statement. “HRC was proud to mobilize Equality Voters across New Hampshire to help power this win. We don’t have a second to waste between now and November. We look forward to continuing our work with Rep. Pappas as he drives toward victory in November so he can help return a pro-equality majority to the United States Senate.”
A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released on Aug. 26 showed Sununu ahead of Pappas by a 45-43 percent margin if they were to face off in the general election. The margin of error is +/-2.1 percent.
Pappas would become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate if he were to win in November.
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Historiography with heart
