National
Lesbian couple on origins of Calif. marriage fight
Tyler, Olson filed first lawsuit to challenge ban in 2004
Diane Olson and Robin Tyler were in D.C. for last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments in the Prop 8 case. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
For lesbian activists Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, who have been a couple for more than 19 years, last week’s Supreme Court hearing on California’s Proposition 8 had a special meaning.
In February 2004, Tyler and Olson were among the first two couples to file a lawsuit challenging the California law prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying. The lawsuit led to the California Supreme Court’s decision in 2008 declaring that same-sex marriages must be recognized under the state’s constitution.
The two were among the 18,000 same-sex couples to marry in California before marriage equality opponents placed Prop 8 on the ballot that same year. Upon its approval by voters in November 2008, recognition of all subsequent same-sex nuptials ended. Marriage equality activists, however, responded by filing another lawsuit challenging Prop 8, which took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As Tyler and Olson sat in the Supreme Court chambers on March 26 watching the attorneys argue for and against whether Prop 8 should be declared unconstitutional, each said they couldn’t help but recall how it all started for them 12 years earlier in Beverly Hills, where Olson was raised.
“What happened is starting in 2001 Diane and I would go…to the Beverly Hills courthouse every year to try to get a marriage license,” Tyler said. “And of course they turned us down.”
Added Tyler, “The first year we almost got arrested because MCC brought a cake and they said we couldn’t serve a cake on the sidewalk.” She was referring to the LGBT supportive Metropolitan Community Church, a longtime advocate for marriage equality.
Tyler, an out lesbian comic and entertainer since the 1970s, served as an organizer for the 1979 LGBT march on Washington and two subsequent LGBT marches on Washington in 1987 and 1993. At all three marches, Tyler helped organize same-sex marriage rallies outside the IRS headquarters in downtown D.C., in which hundreds of same-sex couples participated in marriage ceremonies they considered symbolic but that had no legal recognition.
With that as a backdrop, Tyler said the proverbial ‘last straw’ happened to her and Olson in 2004 shortly before she and Olson planned their annual ritual of going to the Beverly Hills courthouse to request a marriage license on or around Valentine’s Day. At the time, the two had been a couple for 10 years.
Gloria Allred (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“I was going to be 65,” she said. “So I called the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. I’ve been in the union for years because I was a comic. And I say, you know, I can purchase domestic partnership insurance for Diane,” Tyler recalled.
“But when I retired they said no you are not. And I said why not?” Tyler told the Blade. “And they said because you’re not married. And I said we can’t get married. And the woman said to me, ‘That’s just the way it is, hon.’ And she hung up on me.”
Tyler said she immediately called Gloria Allred, a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer based in Los Angeles, whose clients have been among some of the most famous Hollywood figures. Tyler said she and Allred had been friends for a long time.
“And the next morning she called and said you know what? I’m going to take the case. I’m going to sue for your right to get married to Diane and I’m going to do it pro bono,” Tyler said.
At Allred’s suggestion, Tyler and Olson agreed to invite Rev. Troy Perry, head of the MCC churches, and his husband, Philip De Blieck, who he married in Canada, to be a party to the suit.
Since Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday in 2004, Tyler said the two couples and Allred decided to go to the Beverly Hills courthouse that year on Feb. 12.
“They handed us this little thing like they did every year – you know, you can’t get married because marriage is a between a man and a woman,” said Tyler. “Gloria was with us and we walked outside and had a huge press conference, and Gloria announced our right to marry.”
Allred said she informed the media that the lawsuit would challenge a state family code that banned same-gender marriage.
In a development that surprised them and their supporters in L.A., then San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom that same week began performing same-sex marriages in City Hall in defiance of the state law banning such marriages. The first couple that Newsom himself married was veteran lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who were in their 80s.
“Someone called me and said Del and Phyllis, who were friends of ours, are getting married,” Tyler said. “I said what? And we turned on the television and there is Gavin Newsom Marrying Del and Phyllis.”
Allred said some have confused the role that Newsom and litigants like Tyler and Olson played in the marriage equality battle.
“The most important thing was that we were challenging the law, which prohibited them from being able to enjoy the right to marry each other,” Allred said. “What happened in San Francisco was slightly different. The mayor started marrying couples without getting a judicial declaration that the family code prohibiting such marriages was unconstitutional.”
Marriage equality opponents quickly obtained a court order halting San Francisco from performing same-sex marriages. Opponents next persuaded the court to invalidate all of those marriages on grounds that they had no legal standing.
Many of the couples whose marriages were invalidated joined the San Francisco County Attorney in filing their own lawsuits challenging the state’s same-sex marriage ban. The court later merged those suits with the suit filed by Tyler, Olson, Perry, DeBlieck and others.
After four years of litigation, the California Supreme Court ruled in early 2008 that the state’s same-sex marriage ban violated the California Constitution and that same-sex marriages must be recognized in the state.
Due to their role as the first to file suit over the marriage question, Tyler and Olson were given permission to be the first same-sex couple to marry in L.A. County – one day ahead of everyone else.
Tyler and Olson acknowledge that the joy of their wedding was dampened later in the year when Prop 8 passed, even though the state Supreme Court ruled their marriage and those of the 18,000 other same-sex couples who married prior to the approval of Prop 8 would remain valid.
But the two said their wedding on the steps of the Beverly Hills courthouse was a special moment for them and their friends and supporters.
“And I want to tell you the mayor of Beverly Hills offered us City Hall, which would have been my dream,” Tyler said. “But we decided to marry in front of the courthouse because that’s the same courthouse that had turned us down all those years,” she said.
“And this time when we walked in with Gloria to get our marriage license the woman behind the counter that gave us the license started to cry,” said Tyler. “She said I’ve wanted to give this to you ever since you started to come in.
“And we walked out and we had no idea that the press would be there from all over the world,” Tyler continued. “And a policeman came up to me and said I was the cop that almost arrested you in 2001 for serving cake, and I’m proud to be at your wedding. So it had come full circle for us when we got married.”
Nine years later, as Tyler, Olson and Allred watched with great interest as the Supreme Court justices asked sharp questions in Washington to the lawyers arguing for and against Prop 8, Tyler said the comments by some of the justices cause her great discomfort.
“I was so full of emotion and so angry having to sit in the Supreme Court and hearing them refer to us as an experiment and to compare us to cell phones and the Internet,” she said, referring to comments by Justice Samuel Alito.
In remarks she said he hadn’t planned to make before the C-SPAN TV cameras on the plaza outside the Supreme Court, Tyler said she expressed her outrage over the remarks by some of the justices.
“I said we’re a civil rights movement. We’re not an experiment. And we’re going to win,” she told the Blade. “How dare they…,” she added, before cutting short her own comment.
New York
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
‘Our flag represents dignity and human rights’
A Pride flag was raised at the site of the Stonewall National Monument days after a National Park Service directive banned flying the flag at the birthplace of the LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S.
The flag-raising was led by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and supported by other elected officials.
“The community should rejoice. We have prevailed,” Hoylman-Sigal said shortly after the flag was hoisted. “Our flag represents dignity and human rights.”
The flag now sits in Christopher Street Park, feet away from the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969 a police raid of the gay bar sparked outrage and led to a rising of LGBTQ people pushing back on NYPD brutality and unjust treatment.
Elected officials brought a new flagpole with them, using plastic zip ties to attach it to the existing pole.
In 2016, President Barack Obama declared the site a national monument.
One day before the planned re-raising of the Pride flag, the National Park Service installed only an American flag on the flagpole, which days prior had flown a rainbow flag bearing the NPS logo.
The directive removing the flag was put forward by Trump-appointed National Park Service Acting Director Jessica Bowron.
This comes one day after more than 20 LGBTQ organizations from across the country co-signed a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and General Services Administrator Ed Forst, demanding the flag be restored to the monument.
“It is our understanding that the policy provides limited exceptions for non-agency flags that provide historical context or play a role in historic reenactments. Simply put, we urge you to grant this flag an exception and raise it once again, immediately,” the letter read. “It also serves as an important reminder to the 30+ million LGBTQ+ Americans, who continue to face disproportionate threats to our lives and our liberty, that the sites and symbols that tell our stories are worth honoring … However, given recent removals of the site’s references to transgender and bisexual people — people who irrefutably played a pivotal role in this history — it is clear that this is not about the preservation of the historical record.”
The letter finished with a message of resilience the LGBTQ community is known for: “The history and the legacy of Stonewall must live on. Our community cannot simply be erased with the removal of a flag. We will continue to stand up and fight to ensure that LGBTQ+ history should not only be protected — it should be celebrated as a milestone in American resilience and progress.”
When asked about the directive, the NPS responded with this statement:
“Current Department of the Interior policy provides that the National Park Service may only fly the U.S. flag, Department of the Interior flags, and the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action flag on flagpoles and public display points. The policy allows limited exceptions, permitting non-agency flags when they serve an official purpose. These include historical context or reenactments, current military branch flags, flags of federally recognized tribal nations affiliated with a park, flags at sites co-managed with other federal, state, or municipal partners, flags required for international park designations, and flags displayed under agreements with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for Naturalization ceremonies.”
An Interior Department spokesperson on Thursday called the move to return the flag to the monument a “political stunt.”
“Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing,” a department spokesperson said when reached for comment.
The clash comes amid broader efforts by the Trump-Vance administration to minimize LGBTQ history and political power. The White House has spent much of President Donald Trump’s second presidency restricting transgender rights — stopping gender-affirming care for transgender youth, issuing an executive order stating the federal government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and blocking Medicaid and Medicare from being used for gender-affirming care.
State Department
FOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
Council for Global Equality, Physicians for Human Rights seeking data, documents
The Council for Global Equality and Physicians for Human Rights have filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department for PEPFAR-related data and documents.
The groups, which Democracy Forward represents, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR. UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima last March said PEPFAR has saved 26 million lives around the world.
The Trump-Vance administration in January 2025 froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of gaps in U.S. funding. HIV/AIDS activists have also sharply criticized the Trump-Vance administration over reported plans it will not fully fund PEPFAR in the current fiscal year.
The lawsuit notes the Council for Global Equality and Physicians for Human Rights have “filed several FOIA requests” with the State Department for PEPFAR-related data and documents. The groups filed their most recent request on Jan. 30.
“On Jan. 30, 2026, plaintiffs, through counsel, sent State a letter asking it to commit to prompt production of the requested records,” reads the lawsuit. “State responded that the request was being processed but did not commit to any timeline for production.”
“Plaintiffs have received no subsequent communication from State regarding this FOIA request,” it notes.
“Transparency and inclusion have been hallmarks of PEPFAR’s success in the last decade,” said Beirne Roose-Snyder, a senior policy fellow at the Council for Global Equality, in a press release that announced the lawsuit. “This unprecedented withholding of data, and concurrent ideological misdirection of foreign assistance to exclude LGBTQI+ people and others who need inclusive programming, has potentially devastating and asymmetrical impacts on already marginalized communities.”
“This data is vital to understanding who’s getting access to care and who’s being left behind,” added Roose-Snyder.
“We filed this lawsuit to seek transparency: the administration’s PEPFAR data blackout withholds information the public, health providers, and affected communities need to track the HIV epidemic and prevent avoidable illness and death, obscuring the true human cost of these policy decisions,” said Physicians for Human Rights Research, Legal, and Advocacy Director Payal Shah.
The State Department has yet to respond to the Blade’s request for comment on the lawsuit.
New York
N.Y. lawmaker vows ‘Pride flag will fly again’ at Stonewall Monument
After a Jan. 21 policy shift, Pride flags were banned at national parks, prompting backlash from Bottcher and LGBTQ advocates.
Hours after news broke that the National Park Service would no longer allow Pride flags to fly at the Stonewall National Monument — the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the United States — the Washington Blade spoke with New York State Sen. Erik Bottcher, who represents the area surrounding the Stonewall Inn and the national monument.
During the interview, Bottcher, who is gay, spoke about the policy change and outlined steps he plans to take in the coming days to push for its reversal.
“This is another act of erasure,” Bottcher told the Blade. “It’s a cowardly attempt to rewrite history and to intimidate our community. This is Stonewall — it’s where we fought back, where we ignited a global movement for equality — and we refuse to go back. We’re not going to accept these acts of erasure.”
The Stonewall Inn became a flashpoint in 1969 after NYPD officers raided the bar, part of a longstanding pattern of police harassment of LGBTQ spaces. The raid sparked days of protest and resistance along Christopher Street, now widely recognized as the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
While the events are often referred to as the “Stonewall Riots,” many activists and historians prefer the term “Stonewall Uprising,” emphasizing that the resistance was a response to systemic oppression rather than senseless violence. LGBTQ patrons and community members fought back — shouting “Gay Power!” and “Liberate Christopher Street!” — as crowds grew and frustration with police abuse boiled over.
Since the uprising, LGBTQ people and allies have gathered annually in June to commemorate Stonewall and to celebrate Pride, honoring the movement that placed LGBTQ voices at the center of the fight for equality.
In June 2016, then President Barack Obama officially designated the space as the Stonewall National Monument, making it the United States’s first national monument designated for an LGBTQ historic site.
Now, nearly 10 years later, President Trump’s appointed NPS acting director Jessica Bowron changed policy on Jan. 21 regarding which flags are allowed to be flown in national parks. Many, including Bottcher, say this is part of a larger targeted and deliberate attempt by the administration to erase LGBTQ history.
“It’s clear they’re making a conscious decision to erase the symbols of our community from a monument to our community’s struggle,” he said. “This is a calculated and premeditated decision, and it could be — and should be — reversed.”
“Let’s be clear,” Bottcher added, “they wish we didn’t exist … But we’re not going anywhere. We refuse to go back into the shadows.”
When asked why it is critical to challenge the policy, Bottcher emphasized the importance of visibility in preserving LGBTQ history.
“This is why it’s so important that we not let this stand,” he said. “Visibility is critical. When people see us, learn about us, and get to know us, that’s how we break down prejudice and stereotypes. We cannot allow them to push us back into the shadows.”
Other LGBTQ leaders and elected officials were quick to condemn the removal of the Pride flag, which had flown since the site’s official designation as a national monument.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the decision “outrageous.”
“I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani said in a statement. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change or silence that history.”
“Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to live up to it,” he added. “I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbors — without exception.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also condemned the move.
“The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed immediately,” Schumer said in a statement to The Advocate. “Stonewall is a landmark because it is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and symbols of that legacy belong there by both history and principle.”
Cathy Renna, communications director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said the flag’s removal will not erase the movement it represents.
“They can take down a flag, but they can’t take down our history,” Renna said. “Stonewall is sacred ground rooted in resistance, liberation, and the legacy of trans and queer trailblazers who changed the course of history.”
Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf echoed that sentiment.
“Bad news for the Trump administration: these colors don’t run,” Wolf said. “The Stonewall Inn and Visitors Center are privately owned, their flags are still flying high, and that community is just as queer today as it was yesterday.”
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, said the removal was aimed squarely at LGBTQ visibility.
“The Pride flag was removed from Stonewall for one reason: to further erase queer and trans people from public life,” Hack said. “Stonewall marks the moment when queer and trans people fought back and demanded dignity. Our history is not theirs to erase.”
Bottcher closed with a promise to his constituents — and to the broader LGBTQ community — that the Pride flag’s removal would not be permanent.
“We will not be erased. We will not be silenced,” he said. “And the Pride flag will fly again at the birthplace of our movement.”
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