National
Dem leading in Iowa Senate special election: poll
Mathis has 52-46 lead over Golding
A new poll finds a Democratic candidate running for Iowa State Senate has an six-point lead in a special election that could impact marriage equality in the Hawkeye State.
The numbers published Monday by Public Policy Polling reveal Democrat Liz Mathis leads Republican Cindy Golding by a margin of 52-46. In an election set for Tuesday, Mathis, a former news anchor for an Iowa TV station, and Golding, a businessperson, are competing to represent Iowa’s 18th district in the Iowa State Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow 25-24 majority.
The outcome of the election could have an impact on Iowa marriage equality because a Republican win would create a tie in a leadership and could take control of the chamber away from Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, who’s vowed that a state constitutional amendment overturning marriage equality won’t come up as long as he remains leader of the chamber.
The plan for Senate leadership if the special election results in a tie remains in question. During a previous tie in 2005 and 2006, Democrats and Republicans alternatively shared power in the Senate and a rule was put in place ensuring no legislation could come up without consent of both parties. But Republican Leader Paul McKinley has reportedly said he won’t agree to such a rule this time around.
Same-sex marriage in Iowa was instituted in 2009 by order of the state Supreme Court. In February, the Republican-controlled Iowa House passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, or even marriage-like unions. If Democrats lose control of the Senate, a vote could held in that chamber and move the amendment closer to ratification. The amendment would have to be approved twice by the State Legislature in different sessions before heading to voters.
According to PPP, Mathis’ lead suggests she’s “just a stronger candidate” than Golding because responders were split evenly, 44-44, on whether they’d rather have Democrats or Republicans controlling the State Senate. The poll finds Mathis is taking 16 percent of the vote away from Golding.
Additionally, although media reports have framed this election as being marriage equality, the polls suggest voters in the district don’t see it that way. A majority plan on voting for Mathis even though a plurality, 46 percent, say same-sex marriage should be illegal while 42 percent back marriage rights for gay couples. Only 11 percent of responders identified marriage as the most important factor for them, while other says it’s something else.
According to PPP, dissatisfaction with Republican Gov. Terry Branstad may be driving voters in the district to support the Democratic candidate. The poll found that 39 percent of voters approve of him, while 42 percent disapprove.
Dean Debnam, president of public policy polling, said the race is still close enough that it could “go either way” as he acknowledged Mathis currently holds the lead.
“It looks like Democrats will probably hold onto control of the Iowa State Senate and if that is the case it will be a reflection of dissatisfaction with Gov. Branstad,” Debnam said.
Troy Price, executive director of One Iowa, said the poll makes him “cautiously optimistic,” but maintained the only poll that matters is “the one that comes in tomorrow night” after the election.
“I think this poll shows that in spite of the best efforts by the National Organization for Marriage, the Family Research Council, and the Family Leader, marriage equality and other social issues are not the deciding issues in the eyes of most voters,” Price said. “Rather, people want a candidate that will help bring our state together and meet our common challenges, like growing our economy and creating good jobs. That is what people are looking for in their next senator, and it appears that many voters have decided who that person is.”
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill that reopens the federal government.
Six Democrats — U.S. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Adam Gray (D-Calif.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) — voted for the funding bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two Republicans — Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Greg Steube (R-Fla.) — opposed it.
The 43-day shutdown is over after eight Democratic senators gave in to Republicans’ push to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act. According to CNBC, the average ACA recipient could see premiums more than double in 2026, and about one in 10 enrollees could lose a premium tax credit altogether.
These eight senators — U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — sided with Republicans to pass legislation reopening the government for a set number of days. They emphasized that their primary goal was to reopen the government, with discussions about ACA tax credits to continue afterward.
None of the senators who supported the deal are up for reelection.
King said on Sunday night that the Senate deal represents “a victory” because it gives Democrats “an opportunity” to extend ACA tax credits, now that Senate Republican leaders have agreed to hold a vote on the issue in December. (The House has not made any similar commitment.)
The government’s reopening also brought a win for Democrats’ other priorities: Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn in after a record-breaking delay in swearing in, eventually becoming the 218th signer of a discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
This story is being updated as more information becomes available.
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