National
High hopes for Obama’s second term
LGBT advocates seek continued advances in coming years
President Obama will have two swearing-in ceremonies next week for his inauguration. (Public domain photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, USN)
Amid festivities from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other, President Obama will officially begin his second term on Monday while LGBT advocates have high hopes for the actions he might undertake in the next four years.
There will be two swearing-in ceremonies for Obama. On Sunday, the president will be sworn into office by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Blue Room of the White House, where he’ll place his hand on the Robinson family Bible when he takes the Oath of Office. A public ceremony will take place on Monday at the Capitol Building, where Obama will place his hand on two Bibles: one from President Lincoln, the other from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Following the public ceremony on Monday, Obama will deliver his inauguration speech before an anticipated crowd of 500,000 to 800,000 people on the National Mall. The inaugural parade will begin at 2:30 p.m. and will proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.
The area for non-ticketed viewing is between Fourth Street Northwest and the Washington Monument on the National Mall, which can be entered on Constitution Avenue at 7th, 9th or 12th streets, N.W. and also on Independence Avenue, S.W. at 7th and 12th streets. In addition to the obvious closure of Pennsylvania Avenue, both the Third and 12th Street tunnels will be closed as well as the Memorial Bridge.
Obama begins his second term after noteworthy accomplishments for the LGBT community — including coming out in favor of marriage equality and repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — and expectations remain high for administrative actions to advance LGBT issues in the next few years.
Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said Obama “got off to really rough start” by taking some controversial actions — such as withholding support for marriage equality and issuing a legal brief in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act that was riddled with anti-gay language — but noted an “increasingly productive tone” by the end of the his term.
“If you look at the very early on rough start and then how far the administration and President Obama came within that four years, it is significant,” Carey said. “To go from in the very first months huge missteps around, in particular marriage, to his last year of this term coming out publicly as the first president in support of our marriages, it’s a huge shift.”
Richard Socarides, a gay New York-based advocate, said Obama “delivered in a major way” during his first term on LGBT issues, but will be expected to build on the progress right away at the start of his second term.
“All indications are that the president has the opportunity to very strongly build on a great first term record,” Socarides said. “Obviously, there was some tension along the way, but people feel good about what he was able to accomplish in the first term. But on the eve of the second term, the big issues are going to come up right away.”
Administrative action is seen as the way forward for many LGBT issues because the Republican-controlled House is expected to block any meaningful legislation from passing Congress.
The requests from the LGBT community are already well-established and many of them must be undertaken within a few weeks after Obama is sworn in for his second term. A list of some of the more prominent requests follows:
• the reaffirmation from defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel during his Senate confirmation hearings on Jan. 31 that he’ll support LGBT military families and extend partner benefits and non-discrimination protections upon the taking the helm at the Pentagon;
• the filing of a friend-of-the-court brief by the Justice Department before the Supreme Court prior to the Feb. 28 deadline to assert same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry under the U.S. Constitution as justices consider the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8;
• signing an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation to continue receiving federal awards, a move that would cover between 400,000 and 600,000 LGBT workers;
• the appointment of LGBT officials to prominent positions in the administration, such as Cabinet-level positions or G-20 ambassadorships — particularly with prominent vacancies at the head of the Commerce Department, Labor Department and Department of the Interior;
• holding in abeyance the marriage-based green card applications of married bi-national same-sex couples to ensure these families aren’t separated before the Supreme Court makes a final determination on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.
But Carey cautioned that some of the advances to come may be more low-key internal changes within the administration — such as the inclusion of LGBT questions on the hundreds of federal surveys conducted each year.
“The results for those surveys determine the flow of money and the flow of attention from the federal government to communities around the country,” Carey said. “Currently, our community is basically rendered invisible when it comes to those surveys, which means that our community is not getting the funding for our community-based organizations, for youth services, for any number of services around the country.”
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, responded to calls for continued attention to LGBT issues by noting progress made in the first four years.
“President Obama is proud of the many accomplishments he’s achieved on LGBT equality during his first term, and he looks forward to building on that progress in the months and years to come,” Inouye said.
Already, Obama was faced with a controversy over the choice of an inaugural speaker. In 2009, Pastor Rick Warren of the California-based Saddleback Church was selected to give the inaugural benediction — and remained in place — despite outcry over his support for Prop 8.
This time around, things are different. Pastor Louie Giglio of the Georgia-based Passion City Church said he would “respectfully withdraw” from the same duties after an anti-gay sermon from the 1990s came to light in which he advocated for widely discredited “ex-gay” therapy and urged Christians to stop the “homosexual lifestyle” from being accepted in society.
In his place, the committee has selected Rev. Luis Leon of the D.C.-based St. John’s Church near the White House, to deliver the benediction. His church, which is often attended by Obama, is known for its pro-LGBT atmosphere. According to The Huffington Post, it has had openly gay, non-celibate priests and a gay bishop in addition to announcing this summer that it would bless same-sex partnerships and ordain transgender priests. Leon also gave the inaugural benediction for President George W. Bush in 2005.
Carey said replacing Giglio as the inaugural pastor — as opposed to allowing Warren to stay on in 2009 while including gay Rev. Gene Robinson at another event hosted by HBO — certainly “feels like” a promising shift in terms of the expectations of tone that will be seen from the Obama administration on LGBT issues over the next four years.
“It feels like it, and I hope that tone continues,” Carey said. “For the inaugural committee and the administration to reverse course on someone they had already publicly announced as a key participant of the swearing-in day, I think, was not only a significant victory for our community, but it absolutely showed that this administration has moved in its understanding that prejudice coming from the inaugural swearing-in podium will not be tolerated in this country.”
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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