National
Gay Republican seeks to unseat Mass. congressman
Boston Globe poll shows Richard Tisei is ahead of incumbent Congressman John Tierney
Richard Tisei may become the first non-incumbent openly gay Republican elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. (photo courtesy of Tisei)
BOSTON – Massachusetts congressional candidate Richard Tisei remains confident that he will become the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress next month.
“I feel pretty comfortable and pretty confident at this point,” Tisei told the Washington Blade during an Oct. 4 interview near Copley Square. A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center conducted on behalf of the Boston Globe late last month shows that the former 2010 lieutenant gubernatorial candidate is ahead of incumbent Congressman John Tierney by a 37-31 percent margin.
Thirty percent of respondents said they remain undecided, but the survey further indicates that Tierney’s wife and brothers-in-law’s involvement in an illegal gambling ring has adversely impacted his re-election campaign. “A lot of people in the district are ready for a change and they are looking for a different type of congressman than we have right now. I’ve gotten a great reception from folks.”
Tisei, a former Massachusetts Senate minority leader who co-owns a real estate brokerage company in suburban Lynnfield, announced his candidacy against Tierney last November. He would represent Massachusetts’ Sixth Congressional District that includes portions of Middlesex and Essex Counties north of Boston if elected.
Tierney and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee continue to compare Tisei to a Tea Partier in an attack ad currently airing on local television stations. He quickly brushed aside the comparison.
“I’m the only gay, pro-choice Republican who wouldn’t sign the [Grover] Norquist pledge being called an extremist anywhere in the country,” said Tisei. “It’s funny because people who know me find it laughable. I don’t think he’s realized how much he’s damaged his own credibility. Rather than talking about what he’s done over a 16-year period. Trying to paint me as some type of Right Wing extremist is just so off-the-wall that it damages his own credibility.”
He further noted that the economy and jobs are among the top issues on voters’ minds.
“Most of the jobs are created by small business owners who employ 10 or less people and those are the people who don’t feel comfortable or confident hiring anybody right now because there’s so much uncertainty emulating from the government,” said Tisei. “We have a dysfunctional government so nobody knows when the next tax increase is going to be, the next regulation that comes out or how they’re going to be affected. I think a lot of people are just holding back right now hence the reason our economy really hasn’t jump started.”
Tisei would be the first non-incumbent openly gay Republican elected to the House of Representatives. Both former Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe and former U.S. Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) came out after being elected.
GOP establishment continues to back Tisei
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who volunteered for Tisei’s first state representative campaign in 1984, was among the first prominent Republicans to endorse his campaign. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio,) House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and the National Republican Congressional Committee have all backed Tisei’s candidacy in spite of their continued support of the Defense of Marriage Act.
“A good number of representatives here in Massachusetts support gay marriage right now and have seen that it’s not the end of the world. And both Democrats and Republicans and the body politic as a whole has evolved,” said Tisei in response to the Blade’s question about how he could spur Capitol Hill Republicans to no longer support DOMA if elected. He further noted he was among the first Massachusetts officials to applaud the state Supreme Judicial Court’s landmark 2003 ruling that struck down the commonwealth’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples.
“Being in Washington, being a member of the caucus, I can help be a catalyst or help bring that process along. I realize that the party as a whole has been a tougher nut to crack, but there are a lot of people within the party who want to see a chance to take place or they want different voices within the party and if an issue like DOMA comes up, somebody like me on the Republican side can stand up and say you know what, this is about fairness, it’s about treating people equally under the law and really appeal to the American ideals to make the argument. If I’m in a position to do that, I think I can change a lot of hearts and minds.”
Tisei, who has also been endorsed by the Victory Fund, further referenced this GOP support to dismiss retiring Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank’s claims last month that he would be “no use to us in Congress.”
“Barney’s a smart guy, but hearing that argument is so convoluted and most of the people I know within the gay community were baffled by it,” said Tisei. “It’s a bit far-fetched for him to make the argument that he did. I think most normal, rational people can understand that we’ll never have true equality in the country unless you have advocates on both sides of the aisle who are willing to stand up and say, you know what, everybody should be treated fairly.”
Romney “knows how the economy works”
Tisei spoke with the Blade hours after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama squared off in the first presidential debate in Denver.
He noted that he disagreed with Romney on marriage rights for same-sex couples, abortion, stem cell research and other issues. Tisei stressed he feels Romney “knows his stuff as far as what it takes to get companies to create jobs.”
“On economic issues, I think he knows how the economy works,” he said. “I’ve sat with him over the years in a lot of different meeting when he was the governor here and he really does have the knowledge of how the free enterprise system works. Last night he shows he has a depth. People probably see that he could be a good steward of the economy and help jump start the economy.”
Tisei predicted that Brown will ultimately defeat challenger Elizabeth Warren, but he said it will be “a really close election.” He also opposes a federal judge’s decision last month that ordered a taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for convicted murderer Michelle Kosilek.
“Governor Patrick has come out against this, which should automatically tell people that just how off the charts that decision was,” said Tisei, who sponsored a bill while in the state Senate that would have added gender identity and expression to the commonwealth’s anti-discrimination law. Patrick signed the measure last November. “You’re talking about somebody who murdered another human being. I just don’t think that the state should be doing that.”
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.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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