National
Rare peek behind closed doors of secret gay donor confab
Md. governor, looking for donations, offends high-profile contributors
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told a group of 200 LGBT donors that he supports civil unions over marriage rights for same-sex couples. (Photo courtesy of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's office)
A controversial appearance by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley prompted participants in a closed-door conference of wealthy LGBT political donors, held May 15-16 in Chicago, to breach a strict a confidentiality policy after he told the gathering he favors civil unions over same-sex marriage.
O’Malley was one of at least four U.S. governors invited to address the annual Political OutGiving conference, a highly confidential event for a network of more than 200 big-stakes LGBT contributors to political campaigns.
The network is operated by the Denver-based Gill Action Fund, which was founded in 2006 by gay entrepreneur and multimillionaire Tim Gill
Members of the network are warned that violating the confidentiality policy could result in their expulsion.
But several participants, speaking on condition that they not be identified, ignored the warnings and informed the Washington Blade about an exchange between O’Malley and Julie Goodridge, the lesbian plaintiff in the Massachusetts lawsuit that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage in that state.
Goodridge reportedly interrupted O’Malley and told him that he appeared to be talking about civil unions the way people did in the early 2000s, multiple sources attending the event said.
“It’s 2010,” the sources quoted Goodridge as saying. It’s totally unacceptable to be pushing civil unions in a state like Maryland at this time when full marriage equality is gaining momentum among voters, sources paraphrased Goodridge as saying.
At least three people present during the exchange said the audience applauded Goodridge for her comments to O’Malley.
They said O’Malley, who expressed support for LGBT rights, replied that voters in his state aren’t ready for gay marriage. A recent Washington Post poll found for the first time that more Marylanders now support same-sex marriage than oppose it.
Joanne Kron, a spokesperson for Gill Action Fund, said in an e-mail that the group would not comment on the Goodridge-O’Malley exchange because “we don’t discuss the Political OutGiving conference, which is a private event.”
“Political OutGiving is a focused, bipartisan state-based strategy that concentrates on delivering resources from dedicated and generous donors to select campaigns in a limited number of states,” Kron said in her e-mail.
“Political OutGiving started in 2006 when hundreds of donors contributed around $3 million to targeted campaigns aimed at protecting or increasing the number of pro-LGBT supporters in state legislatures,” she said. “Political OutGiving similarly engaged in elections in 2008 and will be involved in campaigns in 2010.”
Goodridge did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment on her interaction with O’Malley.
Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesperson for O’Malley’s re-election campaign, said O’Malley flew to Chicago to attend the OutGiving conference on May 15, after presenting the winning trophy at Baltimore’s annual Preakness horse racing event.
“The governor’s position has been clear on this issue and consistent — that he does support civil unions and that he felt we could have reached a consensus within the Maryland General Assembly to move the issue of civil unions forward,” Abbruzzese said.
“He has not supported gay marriage in the past,” he said, adding that while O’Malley doesn’t believe enough support exists to pass a same-sex marriage bill, he feels the legislature “could move and pass legislation on civil unions.”
But O’Malley once favored same-sex marriage. He privately told LGBT supporters in 2006 and 2007 in e-mails and during meetings that he supported civil marriage rights for gay couples, before the state’s high court ruled against such rights. He once told a Baltimore TV station that he backed civil marriage rights for gays.
Sources familiar with the OutGiving conference, which was held in Chicago’s upscale Peninsula Hotel, said O’Malley was joined at the event by Democratic governors Chet Culver of Iowa, John Lynch of New Hampshire, and Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania.
Also attending were Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish of New Mexico, who is running for governor, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.).
Attendees said a session in which O’Malley, Denish and other panelists participated was moderated by gay journalist Jonathan Capehart, who is an editorial writer for the Washington Post. Capehart could not immediately be reached for comment. Sources familiar with the event said Capehart, like most other participants in the event, agreed to keep his role and the meeting itself off the record.
Due to OutGiving’s confidentiality policy it could not be determined whether the Gill Action Fund, which operates the donor network, would give its support to O’Malley, who is being challenged this year by Republican former Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
O’Malley defeated Ehrlich in 2006, and political insiders are predicting a close race between the two rivals this year.
Morgan Meneses-Sheets, executive director of Equality Maryland, a non-partisan statewide LGBT group, said that while the group is disappointed in O’Malley’s support for civil unions over same-sex marriage, she noted that he has repeatedly pledged to sign a same-sex marriage bill should it reach his desk.
By contrast, Meneses-Sheets points to Ehrlich’s decision to veto during his tenure as Maryland governor a limited domestic partnership bill that called for giving hospital visitation right to same-sex partners and medical decision-making authority for an incapacitated partner. She noted that Ehrlich has expressed opposition to same-sex marriage and, unlike O’Malley, could be expected to veto a marriage bill passed by the legislature.
Meneses-Sheets said that although pushing a same-sex marriage equality bill through the legislature next year will be a “challenge,” she and her Equality Maryland colleagues are hopeful that the remaining members of the State Senate who have blocked advancement of a marriage equality bill will be defeated in the November election.
“We have a plan in place and we’re working on all of the pieces it will take to get a win,” she said. “This is not a pie in the sky.”
Other LGBT activists in the state have expressed concern that O’Malley’s pledge to sign a marriage bill rings hollow because he refuses to use his political influence to push wavering lawmakers to back a marriage measure. Some activists say they doubt the November election, in which all members of the legislature come up before the voters, will result in enough new supporters to pass a marriage bill.
‘Moneyed gay people making things happen’
Although Gill Action’s Political OutGiving has been the subject of media coverage, including coverage in the LGBT press, the exchange between Goodridge and O’Malley appears to have triggered for the first time discussion and questions among members of the donor network about the need for the secrecy imposed by Gill Action’s leaders.
In response to the Blade’s inquiries about the Chicago conference, Gill Action Fund’s executive director, Patrick Guerriero, and its deputy executive director, Bill Smith, sent a joint e-mail to network donors on Tuesday urging them not to speak with the media.
“Doing really important work often attracts the media and we’ve been informed that a reporter is buzzing about the 2010 Political OutGiving conference,” the two said in their e-mail.
“As you know, the event is private and participant attendance is confidential,” Guerriero and Smith said.
Smith, who heads the Gill Action Fund’s Washington office, is a former aide to Bush administration official Karl Rove. Smith told the Advocate in a 2008 interview that pragmatic and sometimes hard-hitting tactics employed by Rove can be used by Gill Action for the advancement of LGBT equality.
“We’re not afraid to learn from anyone across the political spectrum who’s doing really smart work, be it EMILY’s List or GOPAC,” Smith told the Advocate.
EMILY’s List is a Democratic, liberal leaning group pushing for women’s rights that’s credited with helping elect Democrats to Congress. GOPAC is a Republican political action committee said to be responsible for helping Republicans win control of Congress during the 1990s.
Guerriero is a former Republican state legislator from Massachusetts and former president of the national gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans.
Guerriero and Smith have said in the past that Gill Action Fund assesses candidates running for public office to determine whether they should be supported or opposed. It then sends its recommendations to its “top secret” donor list, according to one source familiar with the group.
The donors then make individual contributions to the recommended candidates. The system makes it difficult to measure which candidates are benefiting from the gay network.
Although the names of contributors must be reported to the Federal Election Commission, which makes its reports available for public inspection, reviewing FEC records would be useless for identifying OutGiving donors because Gill Action Fund never releases their names.
“The fact that it’s being kept out of the public eye — that’s bad news,” said New York gay rights attorney and activist Bill Dobbs. “It’s too much wheeling and dealing behind closed doors.”
One of the OutGiving donors who spoke to the Blade on condition of anonymity disagreed with the strict confidentiality policy.
“I think part of it is they don’t want to run the risk that there would be stories that these rich gay people get together and push their agenda and it’s the moneyed gay people that are making things happen,” the donor said.
But the donor said the donations were helping the LGBT rights movement in the long run by sending more supportive lawmakers to Congress and the state legislatures.
Sources who attended the Political OutGiving conference said that in addition to the donors, a number of prominent officials with other LGBT rights groups attended the event. Among them were Evan Wolfson, executive director of the same-sex marriage advocacy group Freedom to Marry; Steve Elmendorf, a gay former congressional staffer and Washington political consultant; Mary Breslauer, a Boston-based consultant for the Human Rights Campaign; Chuck Wolfe and Robin Brand, director and deputy director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; and Matt Foreman, former National Gay & Lesbian Task Force director and a current official with the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which awards grants to LGBT organizations and causes.
The White House
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Country’s anti-LGBTQ record a reported barrier
Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for “special missions,” is making it known that he is interested in the Russian ambassadorship.
According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Grenell has “floated” his interest in the role to coworkers, but issues surrounding the former German ambassador’s sexuality have made securing the position more difficult.
“He had an interest in the job — or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues. But Putin’s regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ, so I’m sure they didn’t take that thought too seriously,” one source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail. “That would never happen anyway.”
Grenell has long been one of Trump’s closest allies and was the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position. He was ousted last month as acting director of the Kennedy Center, a position he had held since Trump reestablished the board to be composed of his political supporters in 2025.
In addition to leading the nation’s cultural arts center, Grenell previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was also a State Department spokesperson to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor.
Russia has a longstanding history of being anti-LGBTQ.
In 2013, the country passed a law banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In December 2022, Putin signed legislation expanding the ban, making it illegal to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal” for people of any age, widening censorship across media and public life.
The Russian courts have also supported the restriction of LGBTQ identity in the country. In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” allowing authorities to criminalize advocacy and potentially prosecute individuals for expressions of LGBTQ+ identity or support.
In addition to LGBTQ rights issues, the war between Russia and Ukraine has become a global concern. Ukraine, which was part of the former Soviet Union, includes the territory known as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The annexation remains a major point of international dispute over sovereignty. Since 2022, Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine has escalated the conflict, drawing global attention and sanctions while straining U.S.-Russia relations.
The U.S. has spent $188 billion in total related to the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Russian ambassadorship seems to be a difficult role to fill, according to additional information presented by the Daily Mail. With Trump already being seen as relatively positive by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with close ties to members of his Cabinet and family — like son-in-law Jared Kushner — the ambassadorship is complicated and viewed as less critical than in previous administrations.
“There is no rush to fill that role because it has now been deemed unnecessary,” another source told the U.K.-based publication.
Bob Foresman, a seasoned businessman with decades-long ties to the Kremlin, was reportedly once the frontrunner, according to the Daily Mail. Foresman served as vice chair of UBS Investment Bank and Deputy Chairman of Renaissance Capital between 2006 and 2009, and earlier led investment banking for Russia at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1997 to 2000.
“This is a pattern, especially in the Trump administration — special envoys big–footing the ambassadors,” a source told the Daily Mail. “It is shocking that we are already in April and we don’t have an ambassador to one of the most important countries in the world.”
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Log Cabin Republicans to honor Scott Presler
Cuba bajo presión y sin respuestas
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
