National

Gay advocates assail Obama’s Justice Department

Claim administration misrepresented views in ‘Don’t Ask’ brief

Published

16 years ago

March 31, 2010

Experts on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are lambasting the Justice Department, claiming the administration misrepresented their views in a legal brief aimed at thwarting a court challenge to the ban on open service.

Nathaniel Frank, a senior fellow at the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the Obama administration mischaracterized his views on the impact that open service would have on privacy issues.

“The way they portrayed me is preposterous and I’m not sure that any person in good faith hearing what I had to say could conclude what the [Department of Justice] concluded in their [request for] summary judgment,” he said. “I specifically said having a concern about privacy is not irrational, but using that privacy concern as an argument for the need to ban gays is irrational.”

Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, similarly claimed the Justice Department misrepresented what he said in depositions about privacy arguments, and even went so far as to say the Obama administration lawyers weren’t being truthful.

“They completely misrepresented my statement in the deposition,” Belkin said. “They were not being truthful about my statement because they said that I claimed that there is a rational basis for the privacy arguments, and I claimed no such thing.”

In a request for summary judgment released earlier this week, the Justice Department names Frank and Belkin as among the experts on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” who gave depositions in the case of Log Cabin v. United States. The lawsuit seeks to overturn the ban on the basis that it infringes upon the First Amendment rights of LGBT service members.

Both Frank and Belkin were questioned during deposition about whether privacy concerns for service members constituted a rational basis for the enactment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993.

The brief says Frank “acknowledged” during his deposition that “privacy concerns such as those on which Congress relied were not irrational.” But Frank disputed this characterization, pointing to his remarks during deposition.

According to an excerpt of the deposition obtained by DC Agenda, Frank was asked about privacy issues in the context of whether former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell’s statement in 1993 that service members “are required to live in communal settings that force intimacy and provide little privacy” was based on professional military judgment.

Frank replied that Powell — whose position has since evolved to endorse the Pentagon’s process for repealing the law — may have had concerns with privacy as a general matter based on professional judgment, but said Powell’s statement doesn’t “constitute an argument for keeping out open homosexuals.”

“Because what he says here is that service members are required to serve with very little privacy, so it doesn’t make any sense to me to conclude from that that there is a justification to exclude open homosexuals since he’s just acknowledged that part of being in the military means sacrificing privacy,” Frank said in his deposition.

It’s for this reason that Frank is now saying the Justice Department misrepresented his views in the brief against the lawsuit.

“So I really said the opposite of what the DOJ motion claims,” he said. “I made very clear that I would not call those feelings [about privacy] irrational, but nor would I call it rational to use that feeling as a legitimate basis for excluding a whole group of people. And that’s all there in the record.”

Belkin similarly cried foul, claiming the Justice Department mischaracterized his deposition in the brief. The administration says that Belkin testified that “the privacy basis is rational in circumstances such as combat where private accommodations are not possible.”

“Dr. Belkin studied the experience of the Israeli military and found that heterosexual concern about privacy necessitated, in certain instances, separate accommodations or work arrangements for heterosexual service members,” says the brief. “Dr. Belkin also acknowledged similar findings with respect to Congress’ concern regarding sexual tension within the military.”

According to the brief, Belkin also “pointedly admitted” people in the military have sex with each other, and some service members have “sex with other members of the same sex.”

But Belkin said the Justice Department’s account of his deposition and his alleged acknowledgement of a rational basis for privacy concerns was completely off the mark.

“People who defend ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ for almost 20 years have been confusing up with down and left with right,” he said. “If the Obama administration lawyers think that my remarks in any way constitute an acknowledgement of the rational basis for the privacy rationale, then they need a new legal team.”

Belkin said the Justice Department neglected to mention major points about his deposition. He said he brought up men having sex with other men because he believes straight men would be having sex with men in the military regardless of the ban.

“Think for a minute about prisons,” he said. “It’s not exactly the same, but the point is not that gays are responsible for gay sex, but a lot of people have same-sex sex in the military and the privacy rationale does not take that into account. The privacy rationale is premised on the assumption that it’s only gays who having sex, so you have to get rid of the gays if you want to get rid of that kind of thing.”

Belkin also said the Justice Department misconstrued his take on there being a rational basis for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because some straight service members are uncomfortable around gay service members.

“It’s absolutely true that some heterosexual service members are uncomfortable in front of gay service members, but that in no way constitutes a rational basis for the privacy rationale because gays and lesbians are already serving with straight service members — and the conditions in the barracks and the showers are not going to change after the repeal of the ban,” he said.

The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on Frank and Belkin’s assertions that they were mischaracterized in the brief.

Frank also took issue with the Justice Department’s repeated references to experts on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with the use of quotation marks.

For example, the brief says in a footnote that “LCR’s ‘experts’ ultimately seek to challenge the wisdom of the DADT policy, a challenge that is irrelevant under rational basis review.”

Frank said the repeated reference to experts in quotation marks is “highly unusual” for the Justice Department and “may have gone too far.”

“That’s a favorite tactic of the religious right to polish their anti-intellectual credentials, and make it seem like there’s no such things as a homosexual, so they’ll put homosexual in quotes,” he said.

The Obama administration defense of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” statute against the challenge from Log Cabin is causing consternation among advocacy groups seeking to repeal the law.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said “we took a step backward” with the Justice Department brief in the move to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and that the brief “relies on arguments that were debunked and discredited in 1993, and even more so now.”

Solmonese also called on the administration to “show leadership, move the debate forward, and work with Congress to get repeal done” this year.

“While the Pentagon undertakes its review of how to implement repeal, Congress can and must move forward in repealing DADT in the same bill that put it into law more than 17 years ago — the defense authorization act,” he said. “And the president can and must provide the leadership necessary to get the law passed this year.”

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, expressed similar disappointment in a statement responding to the brief.

“SLDN understands the Justice Department’s role in defending the constitutionality of federal laws, even ones with which its leaders do not agree,” Sarvis said. “However, there continues to be a big and unnecessary disconnect between what DOJ files in court and what the president says on Capitol Hill and to his top [Department of Defense] leadership team.”

Sarvis said he wants the White House to make clear to Congress that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a priority this year for President Obama and for the president to include repeal language in budget language headed to Capitol Hill in the coming weeks.

“The president’s defense budget repeal language should mirror the words in his State of the Union speech to Congress and the American people,” Sarvis said.

In a statement, Tracy Schmaler, spokesperson for the Justice Department, said the administration is defending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as “it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged.”

“The department does not pick and choose which federal laws it will defend based on any one administration’s policy preferences,” she said.

Schmaler said Obama disagrees with the underlying judgments Congress used to pass “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and noted that the president “believes and has repeatedly affirmed that [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] is a bad policy that harms our national security and undermines our military effectiveness.”

“The president and his administration are working with the military leadership and Congress to repeal this discriminatory [law],” she said.

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

National

HRC condemns DoE removal of LGBTQ bullying data from federal survey

Organization cites rise in homophobic, transphobic policies, worse mental health outcomes

Published

3 days ago

August 7, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

Department of Education. (Public domain photo)

The Human Rights Campaign is slamming the White House — and the Department of Education — following their removal of some LGBTQ bullying data from federal data collection.

The Civil Rights Data Collection is a mandated survey of all public school districts that collects figures on a wide variety of statistics about students — including demographics that include race, ethnicity, sex, disability status, and English learner status; course-level enrollment data, such as how many students are enrolled in advanced placement or honors classes; and school climate information, such as rates of bullying, harassment, suspensions, and expulsions.

That data collection has been ongoing since 1968 — nearly six decades — but now has a major change in what questions are being asked, or not asked, that advocates are largely attributing to the Trump-Vance administration’s culture war fight on LGBTQ children in the country.

Changes to the 2025-2026 survey questions — approved by the Office of Budget and Management in July — eliminated a space for schools to report how many students identify as nonbinary, how often those students are victims of harassment and bullying, and whether school districts have policies prohibiting gender identity-based incidents.

K-12 Dive, a publication that focuses its reporting on news related to K-12 education, first published a list of these data collection changes from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026.

These questions, as well as others that included LGBTQ student topics on treatment in schools, were added to the CRDC under the Biden-Harris administration. By including these questions, policymakers hoped this would lead to increased investigations into discrimination complaints, initiate compliance reviews, and provide policy guidance to districts, according to Education Department documents.

The CRDC also eliminated the mention of “gender identity” from the definition of rape and sexual assault. The prior collection of data (before the Trump-Vance administration changed it) defined rape as something that could be done to “all students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Now, the new data collection questions say, “All students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation can be victims of rape,” removing “gender identity” from the new definition.

By removing and changing definitions, this could have a real-world impact on some of the school’s most vulnerable students. According to CRDC data from 2021-2022, more than 1,800 school districts reported enrolling one or more nonbinary students.

Additional data also shows that the changes to data collection is harming public school students. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee released a report in April finding that the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to all but close the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has left students facing discrimination and harassment throughout the country without the federal recourse they are entitled to under federal law.

The Williams Institute, a think tank that collects data and conducts research on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, has data indicating the true number of nonbinary and transgender children is much higher — they estimate that for children ages 13 to 17, nearly 724,000 identify as nonbinary or trans.

This is in line with a slew of policies pushed by the Trump-Vance administration since their federal takeover. Within his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This directive attempts to make the federal definition of gender unchangeable, determined by sex assigned at birth alone.

Within his first month of his second term, Trump issued Executive Order 14187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order directs federal agencies to restrict gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries — for individuals under the age of 19.

He also pushed multiple anti-trans executive orders, including Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” and Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” targeting trans athletes and military members, respectively.

These policies have a real-world impact on trans people.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to crisis and suicide prevention for LGBTQ people under 25, reported that, for the seventh year in a row, LGBTQ youth are at higher risk for suicide as a result of mistreatment and stigmatization.

Trevor Project data showed that nearly 60 percent of LGBTQ young people ages 13-17 said they were bullied in the past year, and that 36 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the last year. The data shows a bigger discrepancy for trans youth, with that number hovering around 40 percent considering suicide.

HRC President Kelley Robinson issued a statement following the approval of the new data collection questions that leaves LGBTQ students’ bullying statistics under — if not completely unreported.

“If there was even a shadow of a doubt, this latest move by the Trump administration makes it abundantly clear they do not care about the safety of LGBTQ+ students, and trans students in particular,” Robinson said. “These are adults who should be protecting our kids. And instead, they are making sure bullying and harassment are not tracked. If they are not tracked, bullying and harassment cannot be prevented or stopped — which is exactly what the Trump administration wants. Parents deserve to know their kids are safe at school, and every single young person deserves dignity and safety at school. Anything less is plain evil.”

HRC has a “Welcoming Schools” initiative that they say is the “most comprehensive” bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation. The program includes LGBTQ and gender-inclusive resources for schools, help navigating special education and disability resources for LGBTQ-identifying students, and other tools to help schools become more inclusive.

This program has been in effect for nearly two decades and, according to HRC, reaches nearly 750,000 students.

The Washington Blade reached out to both the Department of Education and Office of Management and Budget for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Michigan

Progressives score victory as El-Sayed wins Mich. Senate primary

Democratic newcomer will face Rogers in November

Published

5 days ago

August 5, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (Screen capture via MS NOW/YouTube)

Michigan held its primary on Tuesday, allowing the two major political parties to select their nominees to go head-to-head for the state’s U.S. Senate seat.

NBC News called the Democratic race early, giving the victory to physician Abdul El-Sayed over incumbent U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in an extremely close primary. El-Sayed won 48.5 percent of the primary vote, with Stevens trailing by just one percentage point at 47.5 percent.

Both candidates have campagined on supporting the LGBTQ community through different avenues— for El-Sayed he focused on his past promoting HIV and PrEP funding and research. Stevens focused on her legislative history working to support transgender rights in the state.

This is a major win for progressive Democrats, who have been bearing the brunt of political attacks from President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and centrist Democrats.

El-Sayed, a former health director in Detroit, ran his campaign largely on making life in the Great Lakes State more affordable amid rising costs. His policies include promoting “Medicare for All,” pushing health policy that targets the regressive efforts of the Trump-Vance administration that rolls back funding for both Women and LGBTQ people, minimizing the growing amount of money in politics, and he was very vocal in his criticism of Stevens for supporting aid to Israel. He was endorsed by two major progressives — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Stevens, the four-term congresswoman, is much closer to establishment Democrats on policy than El-Sayed.

During her time in the federal government, she has consistently supported the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She has also emphasized supporting local manufacturing and lowering housing costs in the state.

She was named to Advocates for Trans Equality’s 118th Congressional Champions list for her pro-trans policies and was endorsed by establishment heavy hitters Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The contentious race boiled down not only to Michigan affairs but also extended to international conflicts — namely Palestine. (South Africa has filed a case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague that accuses Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip after Oct. 7.) This primary also acted as one of the first major races that pushed back against AIPAC, a lobbying group that works to promote pro-Israel candidates in U.S. elections. The group has been involved in domestic politics since 1954.

AIPAC devoted a massive amount of money to this race.

The Associated Press reported that the pro-Israel lobbying group spent more than $30 million on ads against El-Sayed because of his vocal denunciation of Israel and his continued criticism of its policies towards Palestine.

Michigan has a large Muslim and Arab American population, which could, in part, explain how El-Sayed was able to win.

The Republican side was far less competitive. Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) ran unopposed and clinched the GOP nomination. He has consistently held anti-LGBTQ positions, going as far as voting multiple times for a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, voting against repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and supporting efforts to directly target the attempted expansion of Title IX protections to include trans people.

El-Sayed will face off against Rogers in November for Michigan’s Senate seat — one that could have lasting impacts not only on the state’s politics but also on the Republicans’ narrow Senate majority and Trump’s political agenda.

National

White House orders warning signs at Smithsonian over gender identity exhibits

Administration criticizes National Museum of American History

Published

2 weeks ago

July 29, 2026

Emma LaPointe

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum is expected to install warning signs outside the National Museum of American History warning visitors of supposedly anti-American content. (Photo courtesy of the Office of the Governor of North Dakota)

The Trump administration will install temporary warning signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History after releasing a report accusing the museum of promoting what it calls “radical” gender ideology and other politically biased content.

According to the Executive Order, “For purposes of policy formulation under EO 14253, this review of the National Museum of American History concludes that NMAH, by the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”

Executive Order 14253 refers to what the White House has deemed the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” order. Therefore, the Trump administration has said it will take all available steps to ensure that the issues in the report are addressed and rectified.

Without specifying, the White House has stated that warnings will be posted along NMAH to alert visitors to sections of the museum it has deemed are in violation according to the report.

“The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the National Park Service (NPS) and in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall install temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum, informing visitors of the findings of the Report and of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order,” the Executive Order states.

The warnings were raised in a 162-page report issued by the Domestic Policy Council. The report detailed ways in which the National Museum of American History (NMAH) has “poorly” portrayed American history and insufficiently highlighted the founding story during America 250th celebrations.

The report outlined key findings of the NMAH. One of these findings was the Center for Restorative History within the museum, which has stated its purpose is to “encourage systemic change” by highlighting diverse groups. However, the report states that it highlights every group of Americans except for straight and white Americans.

The Domestic Policy Council accused the museum of engaging in “transgender activism.” According to the report, examples include referring to “biological men” as women or girls, displaying what it describes as sexually suggestive content, and incorporating discussions of gender fluidity, gender identity, and gender nonconformity into the museum’s educational curriculum, “Becoming US.”

The report also criticizes the curriculum for using the term “transgender” when discussing gender-nonconforming people and encouraging individuals to ask a person’s pronouns when meeting them. It further objects to exhibits stating that “transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender female athletes” continue to struggle for and demand equality.

It also condemns what it refers to as explicit content in an exhibition, “Girlhood (It’s Complicated)”, such as chest binders, questioning gender testing in women’s sports, and referring to biological females as “people inhabiting female bodies.”

Additionally, the report accuses the museum of no longer participating in flag-celebrating ceremonies because it was “too busy” preparing for June Pride and WorldPride events. It states, “As Director Hartig explained in a June 2024 presentation, all her attention was focused on flying the Smithsonian Pride Alliance’s ‘intersexual pride flag during June’ in 2023 and 2024.”

On July 9, the American Historical Association issued a statement rejecting the report’s findings.

In regard to the report, it states, “Its anonymous authors overlook a central lesson of the nation’s founding: the United States was forged by finding common purpose amid intense divisions, conflicts, and disagreements.” They argue that only “honest history” can tell the true history of the nation.

House Republicans led a subcommittee hearing that questioned Smithsonian Director Hartig extensively. A main focus of the questions was on the exhibits related to gender identity and whether they were appropriate. In the hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace asked: “When was your gender revealed to you, Dr. Hartig?”

In response to questioning, Hartig stated that the institution is nonpartisan and does not push a specific agenda.

Hartig published a two-page statement ahead of her hearing outlining her thoughts on the situation. In the report, she states that the institution is always open to criticism and will continue to look for ways to improve, but she sees the report as misleading.

“I can attest that the report does not fairly characterize the full body of work at this museum. I am familiar with the depth and breadth of our collections, exhibits, and programming. And while I recognize there is always room for improvement, I also know the beauty, inspiration, and expertise that exists in our museum,” Hartig wrote.

Democrats created their own 16-page report as a rebuttal to the Domestic Policy Council’s report. It argued that the attacks by the current Trump administration are another example of its attempt to rewrite history. Additionally, the report states that no policy changes were included in the Executive Order, as that is beyond the President’s role. “The Report recommends nothing. That is no accident. To recommend an action, the Report would need to identify who is legally empowered to take it, and its own opening chapter concedes the President’s only power is to ‘urge’,” House Democrats wrote.

It is still unclear when the temporary warnings will be installed or what form they will take beyond the requirements outlined in the executive order.