National
LGBT contingent to join weekend immigration rally
Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform legislation are planning to rally this weekend
Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform legislation are planning to rally this weekend in support of the bill — and drum up support for a proposed component that would help same-sex couples.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators — perhaps even up to 100,000 — are expected to gather Sunday at 2 p.m. on the National Mall to call for passing immigration reform this year. Reform Immigration for America, a coalition of immigration reform organizations, is staging the event.
Within this larger protest, a contingent of about 200 protesters is set to advocate for LGBT inclusion in immigration reform, and in particular, a provision to help same-sex bi-national couples.
Because same-sex couples don’t have federal marriage rights that are available to straight couples, LGBT people in same-sex relationships with a foreign national cannot marry their partner to allow them to stay in the U.S.
Under current immigration law, an estimated 36,000 same-sex bi-national couples are kept apart or are in danger of separation. Standalone legislation in Congress known as the Uniting American Families Act would allow LGBT people to sponsor their partners for permanent residency.
Advocates of UAFA are trying to include the legislation as a provision in comprehensive reform — and are taking part in the rally to ensure their presence is visible within the larger immigration movement.
Steve Ralls, spokesperson for Immigration Equality, a group advocating for UAFA, said the rally will be “a visible reminder” to Congress and the Obama administration on keeping their pledge to tackle immigration reform in 2010.
“In fact, I would say that it has already been effective,” Ralls said. “The president last week called key senators to the White House and began holding meetings about how to address this issue, and I have no doubt that the march on the Mall helped to spur those meetings along.”
Among those participating in the rally is Laurie Larson, a 56-year-old Arlington, Va., resident, who’s marching on behalf of two friends who were torn apart.
Joe and Steve, former D.C. residents, lived in the District for 10 years together until Joe was laid off from his position as a structural engineer in 2009. Joe and Steve asked to be identified only by their first names. Because of the nature of his visa, Joe was able to stay in the United States for only six months after he lost his job. The couple is now separated, but planning a move to Canada so they can stay together.
Larson, who’s straight, said she’s taking part in the rally — after having participated in a LGBT rally for immigration reform in October — because she thinks the situation is “totally ludicrous.”
“It’s incumbent upon us to keep the issue in front of people,” she said. “We’ll continue to keep the issue in front of Congress and our representatives and the public at large. To me, it’s really one of the last civil rights issues of the 21st century.”
Also participating in the rally is Emmanuel Garcia, the Chicago-based host of “Homofrecuencia,” the only Spanish language LGBT radio show in the United States. He’s bringing about 100 LGBT people on a bus to participate in the D.C. protest.
For Garcia, who’s gay, participating in the march is not just about drawing attention to UAFA, but showing that LGBT immigrants are among those who are part of the immigration movement.
“We’re focused on a more complex conversation on immigration reform,” he said. “We also understand that there are a lot of LGBTs who would benefit from immigration reform under this bill without the Uniting American Families Act included.”
Garcia said passage of immigration reform would allow LGBT immigrants — even without the passage of UAFA — to remain in the U.S. if they don’t have a partner to sponsor them for residency.
“We have people who have come out as gay, lesbian and bisexual who are also coming out as undocumented,” he said. “Some of those stories relate to both experiences — what it’s like to come out as LGBT, what it’s like to come out in a society that doesn’t accept that doesn’t want to give a certain group rights because they don’t feel they deserve them.”
As advocates come to rally on the National Mall, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are developing comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the U.S. Senate. Earlier this month, both senators met with Obama at the White House to discuss moving forward with the legislation.
But whether these senators will include UAFA in their legislation is unknown. Neither Schumer nor Graham’s office responded to DC Agenda’s requests to comment on the inclusion of UAFA in their bill.
Still, Ralls said he’s “optimistic” that the comprehensive legislation will include a provision for bi-national same-sex couples.
Ralls said Schumer noted during congressional testimony last year that he thought it was appropriate for immigration reform to include a UAFA-like provision. Ralls also noted that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the sponsor for the standalone version of UAFA in the Senate.
“Our hope and expectation is that with two champions as strong and influential as that, that we have a very good shot of being included,” Ralls said.
It’s also unclear when Schumer and Graham will make their bill public — and when they do, if enough time remains in the legislative calendar to pass immigration reform this year. With limited time remaining before lawmakers break to campaign for mid-term elections, other major issues such as financial reform and climate change legislation could take precedence over immigration.
Ralls said he hopes the senators will introduce their legislation sometime this spring and noted that Schumer has “remained steadfast in his desire to introduce the legislation just as soon as we can.”
Asked whether enough time remains this year for Congress to take on immigration reform, Ralls replied, “The short answer is I hope so.”
“I know that Sen. Schumer is working very hard to build the coalitions in the Senate and to bring people together to make that happen,” he said.
Despite advocates’ push for including a provision for UAFA as part of comprehensive immigration reform, a number of uncertainties and obstacles are in the way. One issue is whether Graham, who has a conservative voting record, would be open to including UAFA. The Human Rights Campaign gave him a score of 0 out of 100 on its most recent congressional scorecard.
But Ralls said he hopes Republicans such as Graham would allow for the inclusion of UAFA in the comprehensive reform because such a provision would strengthen families in the U.S.
“Republican lawmakers are going to take a strong stand in favor of family unification as a priority in the comprehensive bill,” Ralls said. “Lesbian and gay families are a natural fit for family unification issues.”
Ralls added that if Schumer and Graham can work together to create a bill that boasts bipartisan support for other issues — such as creating a path to citizenship for immigrants — UAFA “will not be a make-or-break situation.”
Another uncertainly is the degree to which the White House would support passing UAFA as part of comprehensive reform, particularly if administration officials believe including the provision would complicate passage of the larger bill.
The White House has expressed support for both UAFA and comprehensive immigration reform as individual items, but hasn’t endorsed passing them together as one larger package.
In response to a query on whether Obama would support passing UAFA this year as part of immigration reform, Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement the president’s “commitment to fixing our broken immigration system remains unwavering, and he continues to hope for bipartisan leadership on legislation.”
“He has told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan, he is eager to work with them to get it done and he has assigned Secretary [of Homeland Security Janet] Napolitano to work with stakeholders on that effort,” Inouye said.
Ralls said he thinks it would be “logical” for the White House to endorse UAFA as part of comprehensive reform if the administration favors passage of both legislative items.
“My belief is that they would like to see UAFA passed and that they are committed to comprehensive reform — and it just seems logical to me that the two go well together,” Ralls said. “If we’re going to have a comprehensive bill, it should be truly comprehensive and include lesbian and gay immigrants, too.”
But opposition from the Catholic Church — a strong voice for the Hispanic community seeking immigration reform — could be an obstacle. Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops came out against UAFA and said they couldn’t support immigration reform if a provision for LGBT couples were included in the larger legislation.
Ralls said the Conference of Catholic Bishops is “a sole minority voice,” though, among religious groups that have stated positions on the legislation. He said Methodists, Episcopalians, Unitarians and Jewish groups are among the religious organizations supporting UAFA.
“The list of faith groups who are committed to immigration reform that includes lesbian and gay families is very long and diverse,” Ralls said. “At the end of the day, people of faith should support keeping children with parents and families together and, in my view, it is the Christian thing to do.”
Also lacking among the advocacy groups is unanimity in favor of including UAFA as part of the larger bill.
Reform Immigration for America, an umbrella group for organizations calling for comprehensive reform, hasn’t stated a position on including UAFA in a larger bill. The organization didn’t respond to DC Agenda’s request to comment on its position.
Still, other groups supporting immigration reform have come out in favor of including UAFA in comprehensive reform. The Fair Immigration Movement, a project with the Center for Community Change, endorsed inclusion of UAFA earlier this month.
Marissa Graciosa, director of FIRM, said in a statement that her project supports the inclusion of UAFA to keep couples together.
“There is power in our diversity, but we must honor that diversity,” she said. “And it starts with keeping all families from all backgrounds together. This is why we support the Uniting American Families Act.”
Ralls said Immigration Equality is an active member for Reform Immigration for America and is working to bring organizations within that umbrella group in favor of UAFA inclusion.
In addition to FIRM, Ralls said the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund has noted the importance of including same-sex couples in immigration reform.
“So there are organizations within the immigration movement — both faith groups and immigrant groups that have been very vocal in their support of our inclusion,” he said.
National
Madonna roundup: Reviews, sales, and love for ‘Danceteria’
Pop legend’s new album ‘Confessions II’ earning raves
Madonna isn’t just back, she’s ubiquitous.
From a Times Square takeover to Graham Norton’s couch, the pop legend is busy promoting her new album, “Confessions II,” a sequel to 2005’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” that is earning rave reviews.
“Madonna’s back in peak form with a fresh and honest dance record that’s not only her best in 20 years, but a genuinely vital addition to her canon,” says Pitchfork.
“Facing grief and loss has made Madonna’s music deeper than it’s been in 20 years, but also more alive,” the Guardian proclaims.
“If everyone in the club is a work of art, as ‘Danceteria’ says, then to live loudly is to make an indelible mark,” according to Vulture.
The album features upbeat dance productions along with some melancholic views on death and loss. On the song “Betrayal,” she reflects on the recent death of her stepmother Joan, singing, “You’ll never take my mother’s place … you betrayed me, you enslaved me.”
On “L.E.S. Girl,” she revisits her early days living on the Lower East Side and struggling to pay the rent. “Bizarre” seems to reference her failed 1980s marriage to actor Sean Penn. “Test” is a duet with daughter Lola Leon, in which she sings, “I wish I knew / The pain I’ve caused / My butterfly / Was always being watched.”
But the emotional high point of the album comes on “Fragile,” which she wrote about the death of her brother Christopher. The two were close early in Madonna’s career and he designed sets for early tours, including “Blonde Ambition.” But they had a falling out after her marriage to Guy Ritchie and he wrote a scathing tell-all book about his sister that led to years of estrangement. The two reconciled after Christopher’s cancer diagnosis and shortly before he died in 2024 at age 63. She sings, “Late last night I was fast asleep/You came to me in a dream/You said, ‘Don’t forget about me/Don’t forget to be happy.’”
Death emerges again but in a much more upbeat context in “Danceteria,” an ode to the iconic New York nightclub that has emerged as a gay favorite single and seems destined to be the song of the summer in queer nightlife. She recounts her pre-fame days trying to convince a DJ to play her first single “Everybody” at the club and name checks Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, best friend Debi Mazar, and DJ Mark Kamins on the track.
Streaming numbers and sales are strong for the new album with projected first week sales of 100,000 ensuring a No.1 debut in the U.S.
U.S. Federal Courts
Three overlooked court rulings limited White House anti-trans policies
Supreme Court narrowed trans rights, advocates saw victories in other decisions
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J. continues to dominate headlines about transgender rights, three recent federal court cases produced significant rulings that limited or temporarily blocked Trump-Vance administration policies attacking trans Americans.
Talbott v. USA
Trump issued Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” on Jan. 27, 2025, banning trans people from serving in the military. The following day, GLAD Law and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the ban on behalf of six active-duty service members and two individuals seeking to enlist. The organizations argue the policy violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The plaintiffs sought a nationwide preliminary injunction — a temporary block on enforcement of the executive order while the litigation continued. The district court granted that injunction and later rejected the Trump-Vance administration’s request to dissolve it, temporarily protecting trans service members from being discharged solely because of their gender identity.
That protection, however, was short-lived. In Shilling v. Trump, the Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s injunction, allowing the military to begin enforcing the trans service ban while litigation continued. The U.S. Air Force subsequently required trans service members facing involuntary separation proceedings to appear in uniforms and grooming standards corresponding to their sex assigned at birth and, in some cases, used their deadnames during those proceedings.
Despite that setback, the plaintiffs secured two significant legal victories during Pride month.
On June 1, a federal appeals court blocked the discharge of the trans service members involved in Talbott. Then, on June 30, a federal district court certified the case as a class action on behalf of all currently serving trans service members. That means future rulings in the case will apply not only to the original six plaintiffs but to all active-duty trans military personnel covered by the class.
The case remains ongoing, but class certification significantly strengthens the ability to protect trans service members as the litigation continues. Currently, there are 28 plaintiffs in total, including the two still attempting to enlist.
Z.A. v. Blanche
In Z.A. v. Blanche (formerly Z.A. v. Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an emergency order one day before a federal grand jury subpoena was set to be enforced on July 2. The order blocked the Department of Justice from obtaining confidential medical records belonging to California families whose children receive gender-affirming care.
The ruling relied in part on protections established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the 1996 federal law governing the privacy and security of medical records.
The decision represented a significant check on the administration’s efforts to obtain sensitive patient information, protecting the privacy of trans patients and their families while the legal challenge proceeds.
Doe v. Blanche
Doe v. Blanche, which remains ongoing, challenges Trump’s executive order, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. Under policies implementing that order, many trans women in federal custody would be housed in men’s prisons.
A federal district court in D.C. granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a Bureau of Prisons policy that would require incarcerated trans women to be housed in men’s facilities regardless of individualized safety assessments or the risk of sexual assault.
The Bureau of Prisons policy also conflicts with the goals of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), enacted by Congress in 2003 to address sexual abuse in correctional facilities through standards, research, funding, and prevention measures. Federal data has consistently shown that trans people in custody experience sexual assault at dramatically higher rates than the general prison population.
Commentary
When a church fears the rainbow
Puerto Rico pastor objected to Pride symbols outside congregation
There are moments when an incident stops being merely a local story and begins to reveal something much deeper. What happened on June 28 outside One Church, in Comerío, Puerto Rico, belongs in that category.
I do not know who painted the rainbow colors on the asphalt and on a roadside guardrail. I do not know what motivated them, and it is not my place to justify their actions. If someone believes a law was broken, there are authorities and legal mechanisms to address that. That is not the point of this reflection.
The point is the words that followed.
Hours after those colors appeared, Pastor Jorge J. Santiago Reyes went live on social media. He said he felt threatened. He described what happened as a physical attack against his church. He appeared angry and disappointed. He called those who painted the rainbow “cowards” and “charlatans.” He expressed frustration with the support that, according to him, the municipal government of Comerío has shown toward the LGBTQ community, and with those who support posts related to that community. He repeated several times that the people responsible had “crossed the line.” He ended his message by saying, “These charlatans have to be stopped.”
As I listened to his words, I stopped thinking about the paint.
I began thinking about fear.
There is one phrase the pastor repeated again and again: “They crossed the line.” Yet he never explained what that line was. If he was referring to a possible violation of the law, that is for the authorities to determine. If he meant respect for property, there are also procedures to deal with that. But when that line remains undefined and the message begins to associate a rainbow with a threat, the question changes. It is no longer only about a guardrail or a road. It becomes a question about what boundary, in the pastor’s view, was actually crossed.
Paint can be erased.
A brush can cover the asphalt and return a guardrail to its original color.
What does not disappear so easily is the meaning of those colors.
And perhaps that is where the real conflict begins.
It is significant that this happened precisely on June 28, the day when the LGBTQ community remembers a history marked by exclusion, violence, and the struggle for dignity. What represents memory, hope, and the possibility of living without hiding for millions of people was presented by others as a threat.
I do not know why someone painted that rainbow. I do not need to know in order to ask whether those were the words society should expect from a pastor.
A religious leader may feel hurt, frustrated, or angry. What he cannot forget is the responsibility that comes with every public expression. His words do not end when a livestream ends. They move beyond the space of his church, reach people who may never share his faith, and help shape the way others see those who think differently. When a pastor calls other people “charlatans” and “cowards,” says they “have to be stopped,” and turns a rainbow into evidence of an attack, he is no longer speaking only from frustration. He begins to build a discourse that can feed rejection toward a community far larger than the people responsible for that act.
There was another moment in the livestream that caught my attention. The pastor reminded viewers how much he has served Comerío, how much he has accompanied his community, and how much he has worked for it. I have no reason to question that service. I am sure many people can testify to the good he has done.
That is precisely why it was difficult to hear.
Pastoral vocation is not about reminding a town of everything one has done for it when conflict appears. Service does not lose its value when it goes unrecognized; it loses something when it becomes an argument to claim a moral position from which to speak down to others. A person who serves does so because that is the nature of the calling, not because that service grants authority to discredit those who think differently.
As a pastor, that part of the message left me deeply uneasy. Not because I expect ministers of God to be perfect. We are not. But because our words carry weight, we are called to speak with greater responsibility. Some expressions build bridges. Others raise walls. Some words invite encounter. Others end up justifying rejection.
The paint will disappear. A brush will be enough to cover the asphalt and return the guardrail to its original color.
The words will not disappear as easily.
They will remain recorded in a video, shared again and again on social media, and remembered by those who heard them. They will remain long after the last trace of paint has been erased.
When this episode is remembered, it probably will not be because of the rainbow that appeared outside One Church, in Comerío, Puerto Rico.
It will be because of the words a pastor chose to use when speaking about it.
And that difference changes everything.
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