The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would codify marriage equality in state law.

House Bill 1800 passed by a 127-72 vote margin. Twenty-six Republicans voted for the measure.

The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate will now consider the bill that state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia), who is the first openly gay person of color elected to the state’s General Assembly, introduced. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro supports the measure.

“Here in Pennsylvania, we believe in your freedom to marry who you love,” said Shapiro on Wednesday. “Today, the House has stepped up to protect that right.”

BREAKING: The Pennsylvania House just passed @RepKenyatta's bill to codify marriage equality into law in PA — and they did it with broad bipartisan support.

Here in Pennsylvania, we believe in your freedom to marry who you love. Today, the House has stepped up to protect that…

— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) March 25, 2026

Today nearly 99% of us watch wars on television. We see news reports, and watch bombs exploding and people dying, somewhere else. The only people actually involved are those who volunteered to serve in the military, and the national guard. I am sure most of them didn’t join to fight illegal wars like the one the felon in the White House is waging in Iran. But I respect them, and their willingness to serve our country.

But we are in Iran, and the felon is now asking Congress for $200 billion more for this war. We have been spending over a billion dollars a day. Who is paying for this? Right now, no one. We are simply adding it to the national debt, for our children to worry about. I propose a 5 or 10% surtax on every person, to cover the cost of this illegal war. Just have it added to your tax bill. If Congress passed such a surtax, I am sure we would already be out of Iran, as people would rise up to stop this illegal and unnecessary war very quickly. 

I am old enough to remember the Vietnam War, and what we did to try to end it. It took time, but the people spoke. I did not serve, but unlike the felon in the White House, was willing to. I got my draft notice, along with a subway token, and reported to Whitehall street in NYC. It was as the Arlo Guthrie song, “Alice’s Restaurant,” said it would be. I got there at 7 a.m. and at 3 p.m. was told they wouldn’t take me because of my bad knee, sending me home with my 1Y designation. My friends had given me a going away party the night before, and my mom cried. So, it was a little embarrassing when my friends found I was still home. But my mom was happy and cried again.

I had been to anti-war demonstrations in D.C. in front of the DOJ, and got tear gassed. I demonstrated in London, in Russel Square, in front of the American embassy. While so many more were involved in that war because of the draft, we knew then if a 5% surtax had been levied, it would have ended much faster. Seems we never learn. 

Today there is no draft, and no surtax. It is taking a while for people to recognize the felon who opposes any help for people to pay for their healthcare, easily asks for the $200 billion in funds for a totally unnecessary war. He closed USAID, which showed the United States in a positive light, helping people around the world, and that agency’s budget was only $25 billion.  On top of not asking Americans to pay for this illegal war, he is giving tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and corporations, adding more to the national debt. What is the definition of insanity? Today it is clearly having voted for, and still supporting, the felon in the White House. 

To make things worse and give us even less chance to stop his destruction of our democracy, the felon is trying to make it harder to vote. Millions of women who changed their names for marriage will not have a birth certificate with their current name on it, or a passport with their current name, allowing them to vote if the felon has his way. Reality is less than 50% of Americans even have a passport. The fact the Constitution gives states the right to set voting procedures, isn’t deterring the felon and his fascist cohorts, from trying to do it. He is doing it while we are losing American lives, the lives of heroes, who he has fighting a war he would have never signed up to fight himself. He is running it from the gold-leaf painted Oval Office, and from Mar-a-Lago, where he is golfing. He is a racist, sexist, homophobic, POS, working with the war criminal in Israel, causing a renewed spate of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and possibly creating World War III. 

If you care about the future of the United States, you must stand up and speak out. We must defeat every Republican sycophant of his in the midterms — it’s the only way to let the felon know that we will not put up with his shit anymore. His grifting, and that of his family and appointees, must end. We the people, must not let him destroy 250 years of democracy, because he thinks he is a king. We fought a king once before and won. We will defeat him too. We will not let the felon implement the rest of Project 2025 and will take his name off everything he illegally plastered it on. He will be relegated to the trash heap of history, where he belongs, and we will reclaim our democracy for the next 250 years. 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

After the Florida Department of Health made huge cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program in January, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed emergency legislation restoring HIV access to more than 12,000 Floridians.

Two months ago, as the Washington Blade reported, the Sunshine State cut the vast majority of those in ADAP by shifting the income levels required for eligibility — without following standard procedure when changing government policy outside of legislative or executive action.

The bill, signed by DeSantis on Tuesday, passed both chambers of the Florida Legislature unanimously and appropriates $30.9 million in emergency bridge funding through June 30, 2026. It restores Florida’s ADAP income eligibility to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level — the level it was prior to the January cuts. The legislation also requires the FDOH to submit detailed monthly financial reports to legislative leadership beginning April 1.

Under the old policy, eligibility would have been limited to those making no more than 130 percent of the federal poverty level, or $20,345 per year.

“For 10 weeks, 12,000 Floridians living with HIV did not know if they could fill their next prescription. Today, they can,” Esteban Wood, director of advocacy and legislative affairs at AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said in a statement.

The detailed reports now required to be sent to legislative leadership must include all federal revenues and expenditures, including manufacturer rebates; enrollment figures by county and insurance status; prescription utilization by drug class; and any projected funding shortfalls. This is the first time the Legislature has required this level of financial transparency from the program.

DeSantis signed the legislation one day after a Leon County Circuit Court judge denied AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s request for an injunction to block the significant changes the DeSantis administration is making to the program, which it claims faces a $120 million shortfall for calendar year 2026.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a national organization focused on protecting and expanding HIV healthcare access and prevention methods, filed a lawsuit over the change in eligibility, arguing the Florida Department of Health did not follow the laid out path for formally changing policy and was acting outside established procedures.

Typically, altering eligibility for a statewide program requires either legislative action or adherence to a multistep rule-making process, including: publishing a Notice of Proposed Rule; providing a statement of estimated regulatory costs; allowing public comment; holding hearings if requested; responding to challenges; and formally adopting the rule. According to AIDS Healthcare Foundation, none of these steps occurred.

The long-term structure of ADAP will be determined by the 2026–2027 fiscal year state budget, something that lawmakers have until June 30 to finish.