National
HISTORIC: Oral arguments heard in DOMA challenge
First time appeals court has considered case to overturn anti-gay law
BOSTON — Oral arguments in a landmark legal proceeding challenging the Defense of Marriage Act unfolded Wednesday, marking the first time an appeals court has heard a challenge to the anti-gay federal law.
Lawyers squared off over the constitutionality of DOMA, amid discussion about whether the law fails a rational basis standard of scrutiny or interferes with a state’s rights under the Tenth Amendment.
Stuart Delery, who’s gay and the Justice Department’s acting assistant attorney general for the civil division, surprised many when he said the Obama administration wouldn’t defend DOMA on any basis, including under rational basis review.
Last year, the Obama administration said it would no longer defend DOMA in court, on the basis that President Obama had determined that the anti-gay law fails heightened scrutiny because it discriminates against gay couples.
Asked by Judge Juan Torruella whether the administration has a position on the rational basis test for the law, Delery replied, “We don’t.”
Delery’s position is significant because U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro in 2010 ruled in favor of plaintiffs on the basis that DOMA didn’t pass the rational basis standard review, or a rational means to a legitimate governmental end. Judges on the First Circuit will have to decide whether to affirm or overrule this decision.
Two cases challenging the constitutionality of DOMA are before the First Circuit: Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, filed by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Department of Health & Human Services, filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.
The three-judge panel hearing the cases is made up of Chief Judge Sandra Lynch as well as Torruella and Judge Michael Boudin. Lynch was appointed by a Democrat, former President Bill Clinton, while Torruella was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan and Boudin was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush.
Despite the administration’s position on rational basis review stated during the hearing, Delery said heightened scrutiny, or examining the law on the assumption that it’s discriminatory toward a group of people, is the appropriate way to handle DOMA because Congress passed DOMA in 1996 out of animus toward gay people.
Delery maintained that the name “DOMA” itself indicates that the anti-gay law was intended to discriminate against LGBT families.
“It was a defense against something, and that something was same-sex couples,” Delery said.
But the administration wasn’t willing to accept all arguments against DOMA. Delery said the administration doesn’t share the view that DOMA is unconstitutional on the basis that it interferes with a state’s Tenth Amendment right to regulate marriage, saying “that’s where we disagree” with the lawsuit.
Delery said Congress has the authority to define federal programs — even those related to marriage, where states traditionally have had jurisdiction on who can and cannot marry.
Defending DOMA in court was Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general. After the Obama administration declared it would no longer defend DOMA, House Speaker John Boehner hired Clement to advocate for DOMA on behalf of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which voted along party lines to take up defense of the law.
Kicking off the arguments, Clement said the Obama administration is free to change its opinion on whether DOMA would pass a rational basis test, but nonetheless the administration has previously argued in a legal brief that DOMA shouldn’t be struck down on this standard.
“It’s certainly open to the president and the attorney general to change their position, and to say that heightened scrutiny should apply, but that doesn’t make their prior submission go away, and it doesn’t make the arguments in their about why there are rational bases — in addition to some that we’ve covered in our brief — to support the statute,” Clement said.
Clement offered many reasons why DOMA should be upheld — among them was an assertion that opposite-sex marriages advance governmental interests because they can produce “unplanned offspring” unlike same-sex couples.
Additionally, Clement said DOMA isn’t an attempt to “override a state’s definition” of marriage, but merely allows the federal government to “preserve the status quo” as states began legalizing same-sex marriages in 1996 to keep benefits from federal programs, like Social Security, flowing only to opposite-sex married couples as they had in the past.
But Delery blasted the notion that procreation is a necessary component for any marriage — whether the union is opposite-sex or same-sex — saying straight couples can marry even if they don’t want and can’t have children.
“On the flip side, there are many children — hundreds of thousands, I think is the best estimate — who are being raised by same-sex parents in this country, and DOMA has the effect of denying those children the stability and protection that many of the federal benefits that we’re talking about in these cases would provide,” Delery said.
Significant discussion related to heightened scrutiny was focused on the case of Cook v. Gates, a challenge to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in which the First Circuit ruled that sexual orientation shouldn’t be considered a suspect class. Clement argued that the First Circuit is bound by this precedent not to apply heightened scrutiny to laws affecting gay people. But attorneys opposed to DOMA said this case shouldn’t be applied to the anti-gay law because courts traditionally grant the military a high level of deference.
Mary Bonauto, GLAD’s civil rights project director, represented her organization during the hearing and said the law violates equal protection under the Constitution regardless of whether heightened scrutiny or rational basis review is applied to the anti-gay law.
“To this day, the federal government defers to state marital determinations where marital status is a factor for federal protections,” Bonauto said. “But for DOMA, same-sex couples who began marrying here eight years ago like our plaintiffs would have been included in those federal laws, but DOMA’s precise point was to prevent that conclusion and created an across the board exclusion.”
Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General Maura Healey argued on behalf of Massachusetts, saying that DOMA violates the state’s right under the Tenth Amendment to regulate marriage. She said an end to DOMA would return the federal government to “what it always has done” by recognizing state authority on which couples should be able to marry.
In her conclusion, Healey drew on the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and its implications for gay troops as a reason why the court should overturn DOMA.
“I’ll take you to our state veterans cemeteries because here the operations of DOMA really revives the concept of separate but equal,” Healy said. “In this day and age, when gay people can now go serve in the military, fight for our country and even die, unlike other married service members, they can’t be buried with their spouse on state land in our veterans cemetery. Instead, Massachusetts is essentially required to build on the next hillside over a cemetery for those veterans. We think that’s wrong.”
The panel has no set time to make a ruling in the cases, but advocates are hoping for a speedy decision. Once a decision is reached, it can be appealed either to the full First Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Federal Government
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
Bill described as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Members of Congress, advocates, and people from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest proposed federal legislation that voting rights activists have deemed “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for the proposed legislation to include a section that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In addition to changing voter registration requirements, the bill would limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not have — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
A 2021 investigation by the Associated Press found that fewer than 475 people voted illegally or improperly, a tiny fraction of the estimated 160 million Americans who voted in the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event.
“It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls. And they don’t even require you to be told,” the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate told protesters and reporters outside the Capitol. “If this law passes — and it won’t — you’re gonna show up in November … and they’ll say… sorry, you’re no longer on the voting rolls.”
He, like many other speakers, emphasized the bill in the context of American history, pointing to what he described as its racist roots and its impact on Black and brown Americans.
“I have called this act, over and over again, Jim Crow 2.0 … because they know it’s the truth.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was one of the lawmakers leading opposition to the legislation and spoke at the rally.
“It’s not just voting rights that are on the line — our democracy is on the line,” the California lawmaker said. “It’s not a voter I.D. bill. It’s a bait and switch bill.”
He added historical context, noting the significance of voting rights legislation passed more than 60 years ago. In 1965, Alabama civil rights activists marched to protest barriers to voter registration. Alabama state troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, using tear gas, clubs, and whips against more than 500 — mostly Black — protesters.
“61 years ago — not to the day — but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act,” Padilla said. “61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority wants to take us backwards. We’re not gonna let that happen.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) also spoke, emphasizing that he views the effort as a Republican-led and Trump-backed attempt to restrict voting access, particularly among Black, brown, and predominantly Democratic communities.
“President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors that ‘The SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years,’” Luján said. “The first time I think Donald Trump’s been honest … This voter suppression bill is only that. Taking away vote by mail? I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump or where vote by mail is popular have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense, because their constituents are going to push back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) also spoke.
“Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare, people don’t know how they’re gonna be able to afford energy,” she said, providing context for the broader political moment. “We’re in the middle of a war that they can’t even get straight while we’re in it and don’t have a way to get out of it. And we are now faced with defending our democracy?”
She then showed the crowd something that she said has been with her throughout her political journey in Washington.
“I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016, and I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as United States senator. And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6 and all I could think to do was pray … This document allowed my great great great grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote. We took this and turned it into a scarf. It is the returns of qualified voters and reconstruction code from 1867. This is my proof of what we’ve been through. This is also our inspiration.”
“I got to travel between the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times. And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren’t in it, while we don’t know why we’re in it, I do know we were made for it … So I came today to tell you that, um, just like the leader said, that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0. I call it Jim Crow 2.NO.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., also spoke, highlighting the impact of the bill’s proposed provisions affecting trans people.
“This bill is not about saving America. This bill is about stealing an election. This bill is about suppressing voters,” Robinson said. “This bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families … It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.”
The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11 but has not yet been considered in the U.S. Senate.
Idaho
Idaho advances bill to restrict bathroom access for transgender residents
HB 752 passed in state House of Representatives on Monday
The Idaho House of Representatives passed House Bill 752 on Monday, a measure that would make it a crime for a person to use a bathroom other than the one designated for their “biological sex.”
The story was first reported by the Idaho Capitol Sun after the bill cleared the House.
House Bill 752 would make it a criminal offense — either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the number of prior offenses — for individuals who “knowingly and willfully” enter a bathroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex.
The bill would apply to public buildings, including government-owned spaces, and places of “public accommodation,” a category that includes private businesses.
According to the bill’s text, it would “prohibit a person from entering a restroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex; provide a penalty; provide exceptions; define terms; and declare an emergency and provide an effective date.”
A first offense would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison. A second or subsequent offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The bill passed in a 54–15 vote on Monday. Six Republicans broke with their party’s majority to join nine Democrats in opposing the measure.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Cornel Rasor, a Republican from Sagle near the Washington-Idaho border, told House lawmakers that the legislation is intended to protect women and girls.
“It prevents discomfort and voyeurism escalation and assaults, while preserving single-user options and narrow exceptions so no one is denied access for emergency aid,” Rasor said.
State Rep. Chris Mathias, a Democrat from Boise, disagreed, arguing that the legislation would unfairly target transgender Idahoans.
“The truth of the matter is — and I know a lot of people don’t want to say it — but forcing people who don’t look like the sex they were assigned at birth, or transgender folks, to use other people’s bathrooms is going to put a lot of people in danger,” Mathias said.
The Idaho American Civil Liberties Union made a statement about the bill following its passage.
“Idaho lawmakers continue pushing these harmful, invasive bathroom laws, yet cannot present credible evidence that transgender people using gender-aligned bathrooms threaten public safety,” the Idaho ACLU said. “The bill does nothing to address real criminal acts, such as sexual assault or voyeurism, and disregards concerns from law enforcement about the burden enforcement would place on local resources.”
In addition to human rights advocates, who have spoken out against similar bills advancing in state legislatures across the country, Idaho law enforcement groups have also opposed the measure. They argue that the way the legislation is written would “pose significant practical enforcement challenges,” noting that officers are tasked with maintaining public safety — not conducting gender checks or policing bathroom access.
During a committee hearing last week, law enforcement representatives and several trans Idahoans testified that the bill would make many residents less safe.
“Officers responding to a complaint would be placed in the difficult position of determining an individual’s biological sex in order to enforce the statute,” Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell wrote. “In many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate.”
The Idaho Sheriffs’ Association requested that lawmakers amend the bill to require that individuals be given an opportunity to leave a bathroom immediately before facing potential prosecution.
The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate for consideration. To become law, it must pass both chambers and avoid a veto from the governor.
A separate bathroom bill, House Bill 607, which would be enforced through civil lawsuits, passed the House last month but has not yet received a committee hearing in the Senate.
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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