Newly sworn-in after his victory over Andrew Gillum in the Florida gubernatorial race, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on Wednesday an executive order ensuring non-discrimination in state employment and state contracting — but the directive notably excludes LGBT people.
The order DeSantis signed, Executive Order No. 19-10, is titled “Reaffirming Commitment to Diversity in Government.” Although the directive prohibits discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, color, religion, national origin, martial status and disability, it says nothing about sexual orientation or gender identity.
Joe Saunders, senior political director for Equality Florida, slammed DeSantis in a statement for the exclusion.
“Equality Florida is deeply disappointed to see that LGBTQ employees and contractors have been left out of the governor’s executive order,” Saunders said.
The omission recalls the failure of former Florida Gov. Rick Scott to issue an executive order against anti-LGBT discrimination. After the Pulse nightclub shooting that left 49 dead and 53 wounded, Equality Florida issued the call for Scott to take that action. (Scott is now serving as a U.S. senator representing Florida.)
DeSantis’ order stands in contrast to recent actions from other governors. Newly seated Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, both Democrats, signed LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination orders this week as among their first acts in office.
At the end of last year before leaving office, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, both Republicans, took similar action against anti-LGBT discrimination in state employment.
Criticizing the new Florida governor, Saunders drew on the contrast between DeSantis and other governors and compared the LGBT exclusion to Scott’s.
“It’s hard to believe that Gov. DeSantis and his staff are not aware of the LGBTQ community’s call for these protections following the Pulse tragedy and therefore it is hard to interpret this as anything less than a purposeful omission,” Saunders said. “As governors across the country establish these critical protections for LGBTQ families, this order draws a stark contrast. We look forward to a dialogue with Gov. DeSantis about why LGBTQ employees have been omitted from this critical policy and how he plans to make sure that all Floridians, regardless of who they are or who they love, can be protected from discrimination.”
DeSantis’ office didn’t respond Wednesday to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on why LGBT people were excluded from the order.
Weeks after Chad Griffin announced he will step down as president of the Human Rights Campaign, names are circulating in LGBTQ circles as possible replacements, including women and people of color, as the search for the next person to lead the nation’s largest LGBTQ group continues.
The Human Rights Campaign — which has annual revenue of about $45.6 million — continues to be the flagship organization in the fight for LGBTQ rights. As such, whomever is selected to lead it will play a crucial role in defending the LGBTQ community against the Trump administration’s attacks, pushing for the Equality Act in Congress and promoting a pro-LGBTQ presidential candidate in the 2020 election.
Individuals in the movement who spoke to the Washington Blade said a woman or a person or color would be a good choice to lead the Human Rights Campaign to ensure the next pick doesn’t amount to a succession of white men. The last two presidents, both Griffin and Joe Solmonese, oversaw huge advances in LGBT rights, but a general perception among observers is that picking another gay white man for that role may miss an opportunity to reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community.
Lane Hudson, a gay D.C.-based Democratic activist, said the Human Rights Campaign “hit a home run” with Griffin, but selecting as the next president a woman or person of color “would be a welcome addition of diversity” and could take the organization to the next level.
“The next president of HRC should recognize that an aggressive approach on all levels is what our movement needs,” Hudson said. “Over the next two years, we need to support an LGBT agenda in the House and also in state legislatures where we can win progress. This will show LGBT voters the importance of voting up and down the ballot and will lay the groundwork for further success in the 2020 campaign.”
Among the individuals identified as possible contenders for the job is Kate Kendell, who recently stepped down as head of the National Center for Lesbian Rights after leading the San Francisco-based organization for 22 years. Also commonly mentioned is Nadine Smith, who has served as executive director of Equality Florida since its inception in 1997.
Kendell, however, expressed no desire to lead the Human Rights Campaign in response to an inquiry from the Blade.
“I’m very flattered but will not be pursuing this as my next role,” Kendell said.
Smith said she’s aware her “name has come up from different quarters,” calling it a recognition of her work and “the critical role of state-level organizing.”
“Whenever I’m approached about other roles in this movement, the question I always ask myself is this: What is the highest and best use of my time, experience, and talent?” Smith said. “My answer has consistently kept me at Equality Florida where we have been doing groundbreaking work and have developed game-changing strategies that have been replicated in other states. I continue to believe that investing deeply in state-level work remains essential and that Florida has an outsized influence on the state and national battle for LGBT equality.”
Smith led Equality Florida at the time of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which left 49 dead and 53 wounded, using her position to press her state to enact LGBT non-discrimination protections and stronger gun control regulations. Although the state continues to have no explicit statewide LGBTQ protections, the state in the aftermath of the Parkland High School shooting did exact additional gun control measures.
The next Human Rights Campaign president, Smith said, will have to rise to the challenge of an “ominous” political landscape, but also take advantage of “huge possibilities for changing, demanding and building the world we all had a right to be born into.”
“I don’t know the timeline for HRC’s process but this is an unprecedented and dangerous moment in our country and we need our national organizations thinking about deep grassroots mobilization and leadership development, stronger progressive partnerships, and greater support and engagement of emerging leaders and overlooked voices,” Smith said.
Griffin is set to leave the organization this year on a high note after the success of the “blue” Democratic wave in the 2018 congressional mid-term elections. Under his leadership, the Human Rights Campaign contributed to this effort with a $26 million #TurnOut campaign to vote that sought to motivate the estimated 10 million Americans who identify as LGBTQ and 52 million Americans who support pro-LGBTQ policies to vote in the election.
Chris Sgro, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said the executive search committee seeking Griffin’s replacement will continue its work “over the next several months.”
“Today, HRC is the strongest it’s ever been, thanks to our organizational leadership, incredible staff and three million dedicated members working to accelerate the pace of progress toward full LGBTQ equality,” Sgro said. “To ensure that we continue to build on our momentum, the HRC Boards of Directors have formed an executive search committee — comprised of diverse members of our boards — to lead a comprehensive and thorough search that will take place over the next several months. “
Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president for external affairs at the Center for American Progress, said she hasn’t heard speculation about who might replace Griffin, but said continuity is a key priority for the organization as well as choosing a leader who’ll “build on the progress that Chad and the staff and the board have driven on a range of LGBTQ-related issues.”
“I think they will have incredibly talented and diverse applicants,” she said. “I think they will have, I’m sure a difficult choice choosing from the pool that they get.”
Stachelberg, who worked as a political adviser for the Human Rights Campaign for 11 years before moving to the Center for American Progress, said the Equality Act would be “something that a next president will focus on” as well as the 2020 election.
“I think that the HRC president will focus on electing a pro-LGBT president in 2020, defeating this current president and vice president and this administration that have made very clear its LGBT animus through executive orders and policies, through the people in positions and the legislative policies that it supports and those that it blocks,” Stachelberg said. “So they’ve made their case, and I think the next president of the Human Rights Campaign will work tirelessly in 2020 to elect a pro-LGBT president in many ways, just the way that Chad and the staff and board did in the 2018 election.”
Newly seated governors in Michigan and Wisconsin signed on Monday executive orders against anti-LGBT discrimination as among the first acts in their new roles.
In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order ED 2019-9, which bars discrimination against LGBT people in state employment, public services and state contracting.
Masen Davis, CEO of Freedom for All Americans, commented Whitmer in a statement for order saying it “provides important protections for LGBTQ Michiganders and their families.”
“Employees of Michigan’s executive branch and state contractors are now protected on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, as is any person accessing programs, services, or activities the state government offers to the public,” Davis said.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order against anti-LGBT discrimination in state employment and state contracting. Evers signed the order on his first day in office.
Wendy Strout, Wisconsin state director for the Human Rights Campaign, had similar high praise for Evers for signing the order.
“Discrimination in any form is wrong, and through his actions today — signing his first executive order since taking office — Gov. Evers continues to demonstrate that he will fight day in and day out to uphold the Wisconsin values of fairness, justice and equality,” Strout said.
Michigan is one of 31 states that lack any explicit state law barring anti-LGBT discrimination, although last year the Michigan Civil Rights Commission affirm it would interpret the Eliot-Larsen Act, which bars sex discrimination in Michigan, to cases of anti-LGBT discrimination.
Wisconsin, on the other hand, was the first state to enact a law against sexual-orientation discrimination, but has never followed up with a similar anti-discrimination law barring transgender discrimination. Lawmakers have introduced legislation would ban anti-trans discrimination that is pending before the state legislature.
Whitmer’s order expands a similar order former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed last month with days remaining in office. However, the order Evers doesn’t have the same precursor in Wisconsin. Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed no similar order against anti-LGBT discrimination.
Incoming Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has also said she’d sign an executive order against anti-LGBT upon taking office. Her inauguration is Jan. 14.
A federal appeals court has sided with President Trump on his attempt to ban transgender people from the military, marking the first court victory for the administration on the anti-trans policy as litigation against it moves through the courts.
In a five-page decision, a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly barring the Trump administration from banning transgender service members.
Although the D.C. Circuit has lifted one preliminary injunction against the transgender military ban, three more orders against the policy remain in effect. Transgender people will be able to continue to serve in the U.S. armed forces as litigation moves forward in the courts.
The unsigned ruling was a per curiam decision, which means it was unanimous. The three-judge panel consisted of U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Williams, a Reagan appointee; U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush appointee; and U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee.
The opinion indicates Wilkins and Griffiths plan to issue a longer opinion at some time in the future and Williams plans a concurring opinion.
The order might also not be the D.C. Circuit’s final word on the transgender military ban. The opinion itself notes “today’s decision is not a final determination on the merits,” but a decision on a whether a preliminary injunction should remain in place as litigation continues.
Cited as the D.C. Circuit’s reason for lifting the order is the plan issued by former Defense Secretary James Mattis seeking to implement Trump’s 2017 tweet and subsequent order against allowing transgender people to serve “in any capacity” in the military.
The court concludes Kollar-Kotelly “made an erroneous finding that the Mattis Plan was not a new policy” because she ignored certain nuances about the plan.
“The government took substantial steps to cure the procedural deficiencies the court identified in the enjoined 2017 Presidential Memorandum,” the order says. “These included the creation of a panel of military and medical experts, the consideration of new evidence gleaned from the implementation of the policy on the service of transgender individuals instituted by then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (‘the Carter Policy’), and a reassessment of the priorities of the group that produced the Carter Policy.”
The Mattis plan allows transgender people to continue to serve in the military if they “have been stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex” and do not seek transition-related case, such as gender reassignment surgery, are not diagnosed with gender dysphoria or came out as transgender during the period of open service under former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during the Obama administration.
Although transgender advocates have made the case gender dysphoria is a defining characteristic of being transgender and thus the policy amounts to a full-fledged ban, the court disputes that notion.
“We can find nothing in the record to support this definition of being transgender, as all of the reports supporting both the Carter Policy and the Mattis Plan defined transgender persons as ‘identifying’ with a gender other than their biological sex,” the order says. “Indeed, those reports repeatedly state that not all transgender persons seek to transition to their preferred gender or have gender dysphoria.”
The order also cites legal precedent requiring courts to give deferences to the military on whether individuals are eligible for combat.“We must recognize that the Mattis Plan plausibly relies upon the ‘considered professional judgment’ of ‘appropriate military officials,’ and appears to permit some transgender individuals to serve in the military consistent with established military mental health, physical health and sex-based standards,” the order says.
The ruling was handed down in the case of Doe v. Trump, the case against the transgender military ban filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement the ruling is “a devastating slap in the face to transgender service members who have proved their fitness to serve and their dedication to this country.”
“We will keep fighting this cruel and irrational policy, which serves no purpose other than to weaken the military and punish transgender service members for their patriotism and service,” Minter said.
Minter told the Blade the legal team is considering asking the D.C. Circuit for an en banc rehearing, adding, “This is not a final decision on the merits, and we are very confident of our ability to make our case in the district court as the case proceeds.”
Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project for GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders, said in a statement the opinion is “based on the absurd idea that forcing transgender people to suppress who they are in order to serve is not a ban.”
“It ignores the reality of transgender people’s lives, with devastating consequences and rests on a complete failure to understand who transgender people are,” Levi said. “It is also destabilizing to the military to so dramatically reverse a policy that has been in place for over 2 years that senior military officials acknowledge has operated with no problems.”
Asked for a reaction from the Trump administration to the D.C. Circuit decision, Kelly Laco, a Justice Department spokesperson, replied, “DOJ is pleased. Thanks!”
The D.C. Circuit issues the order less than a month after hearing oral arguments on whether to dissolve Kollar-Kotelly injunction against the transgender military ban. At the time, the three-judge panel didn’t give a clear signal on which way they’d rule on the issue.
The order is handed down as the Justice Department has two requests pending before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking intervention in three transgender military cases, including Doe v. Trump. The other two cases are Karnoski v. Trump and Stockman v. Trump, which are pending before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
One request calls on the Supreme Court to take the rare step of granting review of the cases on an interlocutory basis to allow enough time for justices to issue final decision on the policy before the end of the year. The other seeks a stay on the preliminary injunctions against the policy, which would essentially allow the Trump administration to bar transgender service members as litigation moves forward.
Minter said the D.C. Circuit decision moots the Justice Department’s request for cert before judgment and a stay in the Doe v. Trump case, but doesn’t directly affect the Trump administration’s requests before the Supreme Court in other cases.
With respect to those cases, Minter said the D.C. Circuit decision “may weigh against the court granting cert” because the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to consolidate all of them.
“It does not directly affect the government’s motion for stays of the injunctions in Karnoski and Stockman, though it certainly raises the stakes of that request, since the injunction in Doe has now been dissolved by the D.C. Circuit,” Minter added.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) will become the most senior openly gay member of the U.S. House as Democrats take the majority this week, but he’s more excited about the growing ranks of openly LGB people who will serve in Congress alongside him and finally being able to move long-awaited legislation to ban anti-LGBT discrimination.
Asked by the Blade during an interview in his office Dec. 20 about his new distinction as the most senior out gay member of the House with outgoing Rep. Jared Polis leaving to become governor of Colorado, Cicilline said he’s “very proud” the chamber will have a net gain of two out LGB members in the 116th Congress and talked about the Equality Act.
“It’s a great privilege to be a part of that group,” Cicilline said. “I think this year will be an opportunity for us to finally move forward on the Equality Act, which I think is the single most important piece of legislation to our community in terms of, once and for all, prohibiting discrimination against members of the LGBT community as a matter of federal law. And so, I’m honored to be the senior most member and really excited about the new colleagues that are joining this caucus.”
(Although Cicilline is now the most senior openly gay person in the House, he’s not the most senior openly gay person in Congress. That distinction belongs to Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin who was first elected to the House in 1998, but moved to the Senate and won re-election last year.)
The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act to ban anti-LGBT discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, jury service, education, federal programs and credit.
The bill also seeks to update federal law to include sex in the list of protected classes in public accommodation in addition to expanding the definition of public accommodations to include retail stores, banks, transportation services and health care services. Further, the Equality Act would establish that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — a 1994 law aimed at protecting religious liberty — can’t be used to enable anti-LGBT discrimination.
Although the ongoing government shutdown will likely be the first priority for the Democratic majority, Nancy Pelosi said advancing the Equality Act would be a personal goal and the legislation will receive a bill number between 2 and 10.
And the lawmaker who’ll spearhead that legislation is Cicilline, who introduced the comprehensive non-discrimination measure in the previous two Congresses with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). For the first time, Democrats will introduce the Equality Act while controlling at least one chamber of Congress, which presents an opportunity for a floor vote on the legislation.
Cicilline said the timing for introduction for the Equality Act in the 116th Congress is yet to be determined, although it’ll definitely coincide with Merkley’s introduction of the legislation in the Senate. The Rhode Island Democrat said conversations with Democratic leadership on the timing for the legislation haven’t yet taken place “other than knowing we’re moving forward on it.”
“I know that the incoming speaker had made public statements about our intention to make the Equality Act a priority, which I’m delighted to hear,” Cicilline said.
Cicilline said he expects committees with jurisdiction over the Equality Act — such as the Judiciary Committee and the Education & the Workforce Committee — to hold hearings on the legislation before moving forward in accordance with regular order before the floor vote.
The next iteration of the Equality Act will have “pretty much” the same language as its previous iterations, Cicilline said. He added every time he reintroduces a piece of legislation “it’s another occasion to kind of look at the bill and see if there’s anything to change.”
“So we’ll go through that process, but it’ll be essentially the same bill,” Cicilline added.
Asked whether he had anything in mind that would make the Equality Act not the same in the 116th Congress, Cicilline replied, “No.”
In the previous Congress, all members of the Democratic caucus were co-sponsors of the legislation, except for two lawmakers: Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), whom LGBT groups sought (unsuccessfully) to oust during the Democratic primary last year for not backing LGBT rights, and Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio).
Cicilline said he expects the same level of support in the Democratic caucus as it takes the majority in the 116th Congress.
“I’ve talked to a number of my new colleagues about the Equality Act, a number of them have already contacted me about wanting to be co-sponsor, so I expect will have the same kind of overwhelming Democratic support,” Cicilline said. “Hopefully, every Democrat will be a co-sponsor.”
Republicans however, are a different story. Only two Republicans co-sponsored the Equality Act in the last Congress. One of them is Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), known for being the most pro-LGBT House Republican, who retired after 24 years in Congress. The other Republican co-sponsor, Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Va.), was voted out of office in the Democratic “blue” wave.
Cicilline said he’s had conversations on the Republican side of the aisle about the Equality Act and is “going to continue those because I want to do everything I had to make it bipartisan.
“I think it’ll be really important to have some of our Republican colleagues, but I don’t have any yet that are committed to it,” Cicilline added.
Asked whether there were any Republican possibilities he could name, Cicilline demurred.
“If I name them, they become less possible,” Cicilline said. “I’m going to explore with as many Republican colleagues as I can and get them on board.”
But the Equality Act also faces concerns among civil rights supporters. Many civil rights groups, including the Leadership Council on Civil & Human Rights, have said they support the goals of the Equality Act, but have stopped short of a full endorsement of the bill.
Fudge, who was considering a leadership challenge to Pelosi after Democrats won their majority, has expressed concerns about opening the Civil Rights Act to amendments on the House floor, where the landmark legislation could be watered down.
“What I opposed was including the Equality Act in the current Civil Rights Act,” Fudge said in a statement. “The Civil Rights Act is over 50 years old and isn’t even adequate to protect the people currently in it. I want us to do a new and modern civil rights bill that protects the LGBTQ community and updates protections for this era. I do not believe it is appropriate to open and relitigate the current Civil Rights Act.”
Cicilline said the Leadership Council on Civil & Human Rights made “a very strong statement of support of equality for our community” in regards to the Equality Act. As for Fudge’s concerns, Cicilline said he understands them, but doesn’t share them.
“I understand the argument advanced by Congresswoman Fudge,” Cicilline said. “I disagree with it. I think that we can’t have full equality by having a separate but equal civil rights bill.”
Cicilline said barring discrimination against LGBT people by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has significant benefits that a different bill couldn’t accomplish. Among these benefits is applying more than 50 years of jurisprudence of the landmark law to anti-LGBT discrimination.
“Really the only way to do it is to include it in the existing civil rights architecture, so you have the benefit of all that jurisprudence whenever exemptions exist, whenever other kinds of tests need to be applied,” Cicilline said. “There’s significant jurisprudence on it, and so it saves kind of litigating all these things again. So, I think there’s real value legally and real value in terms of making a strong statement that we need for equality.”
Cicilline pointed out that every other member of the Congressional Black Caucus was a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, including civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), whom Cicilline said was “one of the early champions of the bill, and he’s a respected leader in that community.”
After the Equality Act passes the House, the game changes. Instead of a new Democratic majority, the U.S. Senate under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has an expanded Republican majority. Moreover, President Trump would need to sign any legislation for it to become law.
But Cicilline denied passage of the Equality Act in the House is the end of the story. In fact, he called it the “beginning of the story” because the campaign to pressure Republicans to support LGBT rights will begin.
“We will work hard to get it passed in the Senate,” Cicilline said. “I think this is one where it’s very critical for outside groups to play a role in identifying who are the key senators who are at least willing to consider supporting the Equality Act and that they hear from constituents in their districts from the LGBT community and allies about the importance of this, and we begin a real campaign to persuade them to do it.”
Referencing polls showing the American public opposes discrimination against LGBT people, Cicilline said the issue “is one where the American people are way ahead of us overwhelmingly.”
“I think part of our challenge is to catch up to where the American people are,” Cicilline said. “They understand fundamentally that discrimination is wrong. It’s antithetical to the fabric that is this country. And when you give them the examples of the kind of discrimination we’re talking about they’re opposed to it. So I think this is about kind of Congress basically catching up to where the rest of the country is and making certain that qualified people cannot be fired from their jobs, cannot be kicked out of housing.”
Cicilline also wouldn’t rule out Trump supporting the Equality Act, recalling an interview Trump gave in 2000 to The Advocate in which he said he likes the idea of adding sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Trump hasn’t said whether he still holds that position.
“It’s hard to know that he’ll continue to maintain that position, especially when you think of the ways the administration has behaved, but if we bill pass the bill soon, that’s our next effort,” Cicilline said.
The third branch of the U.S. government may also have a chance to weigh in on anti-LGBT discrimination. Two petitions are pending before the Supreme Court calling on justices to affirm anti-gay discrimination amounts to sex discrimination under current law, and another petition seeks clarification on whether anti-trans discrimination is sex discrimination.
For decades, courts have more or less consistently found anti-trans discrimination is sex discrimination. Court rulings finding anti-gay discrimination is sex discrimination are a relatively new development, but a growing number of them are reaching that conclusion.
In the event the Supreme Court decides to take up these cases, Cicilline said either way justices would come down, it wouldn’t change the need for the Equality Act.
“It’s one tiny piece of this bill,” Cicilline said. “So it would answer that question, but if it was answered and said it is covered that would be great because we have some partial coverage, partial protection against discrimination for one part of the community but it doesn’t solve the problem and it would still, I think, wouldn’t in any way undermine the necessity of passing and enacting the Equality Act. If they rule against it, then it just affirms the emergency of passing the Equality Act. So, I don’t know that it has a big impact.”
The Equality Act isn’t the only LGBT issue Cicilline has spearheaded. Last year, when the nation was horrified over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that separated asylum-seekers from their children, Cicilline pointed out the LGBTQ youth in immigration detention facilities have no legal protections.
Cicilline said “there may, in fact, be some implications of the Equality Act” in the context of immigration detention in terms of if there were educational facilities or it was considered a public accommodation.
“They did not have in place any protocols or systems,” Cicilline said. “They acknowledged that when issues arise related to the sexual orientation or gender identity of youth they deal with it on a case-by-case basis, whatever that means. But it was clear there aren’t established protocols that protect this vulnerable population. This is one of many, many shortcoming in the current immigration detention proceedings.”
The treatment of LGBT youth in immigration detention facilities, Cicilline said, will be the subject of congressional oversight with the House under Democratic control.
“I think you’ll see a lot of oversight hearings on this when we take the majority in January,” Cicilline said.
That isn’t the only LGBT issue facing expected congressional oversight for Cicilline, who identified other areas he predicts will come under scrutiny.
“The same things that exist in the immigration system context exist in the criminal justice system, so protections are in place for the people in our community who are incarcerated,” Cicilline said. “There’s lots of work that needs to be done in terms of protecting students, particularly with Betsy DeVos’ rollback of some key protections.”
One LGBT issue that has reemerged is reports of anti-gay human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of gay people in concentration camps, in the Russian semi-autonomous Republic of Chechnya. Last month, the State Department promoted a report from the Organization for Security for Cooperation in Europe corroborating those reports and finding Russia “appears to support the perpetrators rather than the victims.”
Cicilline said the report “confirmed what we suspected from the beginning” and found an earlier Russian investigation that found no abuse “was not legitimate.”
“We have attempted in a variety of different ways to raise that issue both by introducing and passing a resolution in Congress condemning that action as well as leading a letter to the president and secretary of state urging him to raise this issue with — abuse of LGBT people in Chechnya — with the Russian officials,” Cicilline said. “So this confirms what we have attempted to do and sadly is just another example of people from our community suffering violence and discrimination and brutality and really unforgiveable circumstances.”
The Trump administration has sanctioned Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov under the Magnitsky Act and supported the OSCE report, but Trump himself has said nothing about the abuses, unlike other world leaders such as Justin Trudeau, Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel.
Asked what the Trump administration or new House majority should do, Cicilline said “we just have to continue to press for human rights,” raising the possibility of legislation and sanctions.
“I think there’s some legislative stuff we can do,” Cicilline said. “I think we should continue to bring attention to these issues, continue to express condemnation when appropriate with sanctions, etc. So I think there’s a whole range of options available to us, but raising our voices and making sure that America continues to be a country that speaks out against violence against the LGBT community is really important.”
Asked what would need to happen to trigger sanctions, Cicilline said “we have current mechanisms,” but other proposals are in the works through the legislative process.
With a Democratic majority taking control of the House, Cicilline said the distinction between Democrats and Republicans on LGBT rights will exemplify the new tone in Washington.
“I think the contrast is really stark and, I think people have a right to expect that the Democrats who take the House back that LGBT equality and protecting the LGBT community from discrimination will be an important priority for us and, I think, the community should be excited about having at least one chamber that fundamentally respects who we are and is committed to fighting for our equality,” Cicilline said.
Although the House is just one chamber of Congress and Trump still occupies the White House, Cicilline said the distinction between Democrats and Republicans on LGBT rights will shine a light for the American public in time for the 2020 election.
“So this is a big change and we’re either going to get the Equality Act passed in the Senate after it passes the House and have equality, or we’re not,” Cicilline said. “And we’re going to be able to demonstrate who stopped our fight for equality, and those people will be on the ballot in two years.”
Cicilline added, “Our community will work to elect people who do support equality, so this is an important one, but the work isn’t done, so we got a lot of work ahead of us. Fights for equality are never easy, even though they seem obvious to us.”
A group of 29 Senate Democrats led by Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) is calling on the U.S Office of Personnel Management to restore to its website guidance ensuring fair treatment of transgender federal employees, which was deleted during the week of Thanksgiving.
“We request that you immediately make the guidance available online, so the managers, supervisors and employees are equipped with accurate information and fully understand their responsibilities in the federal workforce,” the letter says.
Among the 29 senators who signed the letter are Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), the only out lesbian in the U.S. Senate, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is leading Democrats in calling on OPM to restore trans employee guidance. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
As Think Progress reported last month at the time the guidance was deleted, the information was put in place during the Obama administration and spelled out the definition of terms for transgender identities and exceptions for respecting transgender employees. The guidance ensured transgender people could dress according to their gender identity, be addressed by their preferred gender pronouns and use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
But the Trump administration deleted that guidance from the OPM website the week of Thanksgiving. What replaces it is a 404 notice indicating “Page Not Found” on the OPM website.
An executive order signed by President Obama in 2014 barring discrimination against transgender employees — as well as workplace discrimination both on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity among federal contractors — remains in effect. Additionally, OPM recognized June as Pride month in a blog post asserting the importance of a federal workforce that is “aware, accepting, inclusive and respectful of our diversity.”
The senators urge OPM to “continue this commitment by making the original guidance supporting transgender employees available online in order to promote safe and positive workplace conditions across the federal government.” The letter also calls on Weichert to provide information on further actions she’ll take “to ensure the privacy and rights of transgender federal employees.”
New comprehensive legislation introduced in the U.S. House Thursday seeks to enshrine into law U.S. policy against anti-LGBT human rights abuses overseas and the process by which LGBT people facing persecution can seek asylum in the United States.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) introduced the legislation, known as the Greater Leadership Overseas for the Benefit of Equality, or GLOBE Act, on the heels of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a historic U.N. document affirming basic human rights for people across the globe.
Titus in a statement billed the legislation as an attempt to codify into law Obama administration policies against anti-LGBT human rights abuses at a time when “LGBTI individuals continue to face violence, hatred and discrimination around the globe” amid perceived inaction from the Trump administration.
“We in Congress will not stand idly by as the administration fails to acknowledge and respond to the plight of vulnerable populations, including LGBTI people,” Titus said. “The GLOBE Act builds on the accomplishments of the Obama administration and the work of various members, groups and coalitions to establish a broad set of directives to reinstate our leadership in advancing equality.”
The findings of the legislation document continued anti-LGBT human rights abuses overseas, including laws criminalizing homosexuality in Uganda, Nigeria and Egypt and laws in at least eight countries punishing being gay with the death penalty. The bill also notes authorities in the Russian semi-autonomous Republic of Chechnya last year were reportedly complicit in the round-up, torture and murders of men perceived as gay.
Meanwhile, President Trump infamously told the U.N. General Assembly in September the United States will “honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs and traditions,” which critics have interpreted to mean the country has abandoned its role in advocating for international human rights. Trump has also said nothing about the reported anti-gay human rights abuses in Chechnya, although an international report is expected next week on the atrocities.
The GLOBE Act breaks down its approach to combating anti-LGBT violence overseas in several ways for both documentation and response and is hailed as a “vision bill” that would provide a comprehensive roadmap for U.S. policy.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, said the GLOBE Act is “a fitting tribute to International Human Rights Day and to the 70th anniversary of U.S. leadership in support of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
“It affirms that countries that persecute their LGBTI citizens share neither our values nor the commitment to democratic principles that is in our country’s strategic interests,” Bromley said. “We applaud this effort and urge bipartisan support for this bill.”
First, with respect to documentation, the bill would codify the recording of anti-LGBT abuses in the annual State Department report on human rights in countries overseas. The GLOBE Act would also require the secretary of state, with the USAID administrator, to produce an annual strategic review of anti-gay criminalization laws.
With respect to response, the bill would also codify the U.S. LGBT international envoy position at the State Department, which has been vacant since Randy Berry, now U.S. ambassador to Nepal, left the position. The GLOBE Act would also establish an interagency group to respond to urgent threats directed at LGBT people, a process started during the Obama administration within the National Security Council.
The GLOBE Act would also codify the Global Equality Fund in the State Department and the LGBTI Global Development Partnership at USAID to assist human rights defenders overseas. The bill would also codify non-discrimination in service delivery for all programs and services funded by U.S. assistance through any foreign affairs agency, contractor or subcontractor.
The bill would also require the president to submit to Congress a list of foreign individuals responsible for or complicit in anti-LGBT human rights abuses. Individuals on the list would be ineligible for U.S. visas, making them ineligible for entry to the United States and subject to removal. Additionally, the bill expresses the sense of Congress individuals on the list should be considered for sanctions designations.
The GLOBE Act would require PEPFAR, a federal program that provides retroviral drugs globally to combat HIV/AIDS, to monitor those non-discrimination provisions as well as criminal sanctions overseas for the use of PEPFAR-funded communities, such as condoms. The bill would also overturn the Global Gag Rule and the Anti-Prostitution Pledge, widely criticized on U.S. assistance overseas implemented by the Trump administration.
Under the rubric of immigration reform, the legislation would codify LGBT people as a group eligible for asylum and refugee determinations under the Immigration & Nationality Act. The bill repeals a one-year filing deadline for all asylum cases and mandates equal treatment in all U.S. immigration proceedings for immigrants with unmarried same-sex partners who come from countries where same-sex marriage isn’t legal.
The bill also expresses the sense of Congress the United States should engage with international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Bank, to protect international LGBT rights, and prioritize efforts within the State Department to ensure foreign governments don’t impede assignment of LGBT U.S. citizens serving abroad and support visa requests for their partners.
David Stacy, government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign, said the positions articulated in the GLOBE Act stand in contrast to the silence from the Trump administration.
“While Donald Trump and Mike Pence remain recklessly silent on anti-LGBTQ atrocities around the globe, it’s crucial that the United States Congress fill the void and make clear LGBTQ rights are human rights,” Stacy said. “Congress must send a powerful message that the United States will continue to be a global leader in advancing the human rights of all people — including LGBTQ people.”
Introduced at the close of the 115th Congress, the legislation has six co-sponsors who are all Democrats: Reps. Eliot Engel (N.Y.), David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Alan Lowenthal (Calif.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Nita Lowey (N.Y.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.).
Noel Clay, a State Department spokesperson, said the department has a policy of not commenting on pending legislation when asked about the GLOBE Act, but added the U.S. government is committed to defending LGBT human rights abroad.
“More broadly speaking, the United States continues to stand up and speak out to protect and defend the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of people everywhere – including LGBTI persons,” Clay said. “Advancing universal human rights is in our national interest, and as Secretary [Mike] Pompeo has said, LGBTI persons deserve the same respect, freedoms and protections as everyone else.”
Governor-elect Jared Polis (D-Colo.) speaks at the 2018 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference on Dec. 6. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Outgoing Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) claimed a significant victory for the LGBT community on Election Day by becoming the first openly gay person elected governor in the United States.
Today, he remains focused on the work ahead — and decidedly modest about his LGBT milestone.
In an interview with the Washington Blade at the 2018 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference just prior to his flight back to Colorado, the governor-elect said the distinction he earned doesn’t make a difference in his job or approach to governing.
“It doesn’t make a difference in the job in that I have to now hire or recruit our 19 Cabinet members,” Polis said. “I’m in the process of interviewing great people to help run the state of Colorado and make it even better. We’re getting ready to deliver on our plans to save people money and extend kindergarten to full day and move toward more renewable energy.”
The national media, Polis said, are more interested in covering his achievement for the LGBT community than the local media in Colorado, which he said he was similar to when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2008 and was the first non-incumbent gay male elected to Congress.
Even though he said he’ll be a governor “for all Coloradans,” Polis said legislation that would advance LGBT rights is on his agenda once he becomes governor and a new legislature — this time with Democrats in control of both chambers — is seated.
“We, of course, have strong laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in Colorado, we certainly want to make the step to make sure we’re inclusive for everybody regardless of their race, or gender, or orientation and where they come from,” Polis said.
Those advancements, Polis said, are “particularly important in the age of Trump with some of the divisive language that’s used against our community and other communities by the president.”
Two initiatives Polis identified were legislation that would ban widely discredited “ex-gay” conversion therapy for youth in Colorado and legislation that would ease the process by which transgender people can change the gender marker on their birth certificates. Other states have made progress on those initiatives and enacted them into law, often on a bipartisan basis.
Polis said Colorado has already made progress on the birth certificate issue, but “yes we want to of course make that easier” and a new law would ensure “parents can’t force their children into unscientific, torturous conversion therapy.”
“We have to get them through the legislature,” Polis said. “So again, our legislature starts in early January and they finish in May. All of these measures have strong support from members of the legislature. Hopefully, they’ll reach my desk soon.”
One key piece of unfinished business at the federal level for Polis was the Equality Act, legislation that would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to bar discrimination explicitly at the federal level on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Things have changed now that Democrats are poised to take control of the House and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calling it a personal priority.
“I think the Equality Act will have more support than ever before,” Polis said. I was honored to have been there at the inception of the Equality Act, working with [Rep.] David Cicilline to incorporate much of our worker protection act, including other forms of protection. It’s bipartisan. It is bicameral. Hopefully, it’ll be among some of the first bills that Speaker Pelosi brings to the floor of the House of Representatives.”
But the House is just one chamber of Congress. The legislation would face an uphill climb in the Senate, which now has an expanded Republican majority, and likely hostility from President Trump (even though Trump said in 2000 he likes the idea of adding sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act.)
“I would encourage Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow an open vote on the Equality Act after it passes the House so that it can advance to the desk of the president,” Polis said.
Reflecting on his time in Congress, Polis identified his role in the Every Student Succeeds Act, legislation that updated the No Child Left Behind Act, as a key achievement as well as his work more generally on the Education & the Workforce Committee. In terms of LGBT rights, Polis pointed to expansion of the LGBT Equality Caucus, the role of the Equality PAC in electing leaders and his introduction of the Student Non-Discrimination Act.
But Polis also expressed disappointment that comprehensive immigration reform didn’t become law along with the Equality Act.
“It would be nice to have the legal fight for equality in the rear view mirror, but we’re not there yet,” Polis said.
Asked if he’d consider himself an LGBT rights champion, Polis replied, “Yeah.”
“I was there at the inception of the Equality Act,” Polis added. “I authorized and introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which will also be unfinished work that I believe Congress will accomplish. It’s a matter of when, not if.”
The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS is set to hold a meeting in March, even though the council still has no members nearly a year after President Trump terminated its remaining advisers without explanation.
The meeting will be open to the public, the notice says, except the sessions will include a closed session on March 14 “for administrative briefings to be presented to the new council members.”
Created in 1995 by President Clinton, PACHA is charged with advising the president on policy and research to promote effective treatment and prevention for HIV — maintaining the goal of finding a cure. The council served as an advisory body during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, but has largely been inactive in the Trump era.
As first reported by the Washington Blade, Trump terminated all remaining members of PACHA in December 2017 via a letter delivered by FedEx. Since that time, the council has been vacant, the administration has announced no new members and its fate has remained unclear.
In June 2017, six advisers on the panel resigned over Trump’s perceived inaction in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Top of the list of concerns was Trump’s refusal to appoint a director for the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, which is a position that remains unfilled to this day.
Kaye Hayes, executive director of PACHA, said in response to a Blade inquiry on how the council can meet without any members HHS is “pleased the first meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS has been scheduled.”
“We do not have a final list of members to share at this time,” Hayes added.
Carl Schmid, deputy director of the AIDS Institute, said he understands the administration is vetting “potential new members going through clearance and ethics for conflicts of interest, etc.”
Following the death of former President George H.W. Bush at age 94, the nation remembers him for his civil tone in contrast to President Trump and for helping bring the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union to a peaceful conclusion — but his legacy on LGBT rights and failure to confront the raging HIV/AIDS epidemic at the time remain a stain on his overall record.
Gay former Rep. Barney Frank, whose 32-year tenure in Congress included the George H.W. Bush administration from 1989 to 1992, told the Washington Blade in an interview Saturday the late former president “was bad” on LGBT rights and “wouldn’t do anything” to advance them.
“I asked him, for example, to rescind the Eisenhower rule that said we couldn’t get security clearances,” Frank said. “He refused to do it. Bill Clinton did a few years later.”
Frank also said Bush refused to roll back military’s ban on gay service members, which was administrative and not statutory in the days before the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law of 1993.
“Bush was simply unsupportive on any issue,” Frank added.
Frank, however, qualified his remarks by saying Bush did a positive thing by appointing former U.S. Associate Justice David Souter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But that appointment, Frank said, was undercut by Bush’s appointment of U.S. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Frank said Thomas — who dissented in every major gay rights decision, including the Obergefell decision in 2015 extending marriage equality nationwide — has been “totally negative.”
One exchange between a reporter and Bush in 1992, the final year of his administration, prominently exemplifies his anti-gay views. According to a clipping from the Los Angeles Times, a reporter from NBC News asked Bush how he would respond to a grandchild who came out as gay. Bush replied he’d “love that child,” he also denigrated being gay.
“I would put my arm around him and I would hope he wouldn’t go out and try to convince people that this was the normal lifestyle, that this was an appropriate lifestyle, that this was the way to be,” Bush reportedly said.
Bush reportedly added, “But I would say, ‘I hope you wouldn’t become an advocate for a lifestyle that in my view is not normal, and propose marriages, same-sex marriages as a normal way of life. I don’t favor that.”
Urvashi Vaid, who served as executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force at the time, said Monday the Bush administration “was not a friendly administration on LGBT issues.”
“I think our standards have really declined,” Vaid said. “Compared to the Trump administration it was better, compared to the Reagan administration, it was neutral, but President Bush continued many of the policies of the Reagan administration around LGBT people.”
Vaid added, “I think that that administration pandered to the right-wing in the Republican Party and did not stand up to it and allowed itself to do a lot of things. The president allowed himself to be led by people who were far-right zealots like Patrick Buchanan.”
In 1992, Buchanan delivered a fiery speech at the Republican National Convention calling for a culture war, mocking Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton for being called pro-gay by “a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement” and urging followers to stand with Bush on the “amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women.”
That year was the first-time the National Log Cabin Republicans made an endorsement decision in the presidential race. The group declined to support Bush because he refused to condemn Buchanan’s anti-gay rhetoric at the GOP convention.
Despite Bush’s anti-gay views, at least two pro-gay laws were enacted during the Bush administration. Among them was the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which required the U.S. Justice Department to collect data on bias-motivated crimes based on a victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity.
The Hate Crimes Statistics Act was the first federal law to recognize and name gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Gay activists were invited to the White House during the signing ceremony on April 23, 1990.
During the event, Bush repudiated discrimination, praised civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and enumerated the inclusion of sexual orientation in the law.
“Bigotry and hate regrettably still exist in this country, and hate breeds violence, threatening the security of our entire society,” Bush said. “We must rid our communities of the poison we call prejudice, bias and discrimination and that’s why I’m signing into law today the a measure to require the attorney general to collect as much information as we can on crimes motivated by religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
The other pro-gay law was the Immigration Act of 1990, which included a repeal of the ban on “homosexuals or sex perverts,” or LGBT people, from entering the United States. That immigration exclusion was present in some capacity in immigration law since 1917, but was explicitly codified in 1952.
In 1990, Bush made an oblique reference to the removal of the LGBT travel ban in a signing statement for the overall bill.
“I am also pleased to note that this Act facilitates immigration not just in numerical terms, but also in terms of basic entry rights of those beyond our borders,” Bush said. “S. 358 revises the politically related ‘exclusion grounds’ for the first time since their enactment in 1952.”
Frank, however, said Bush deserves no credit for either the Hate Crimes Statistics Act or the repeal of LGBT ban in the Immigration Act of 1990.
The inclusion of the repeal language in the Immigration Act, Frank said, was part of a deal he made with former Sen. Alan Simpson, whom Frank called “one of the last pro-gay Republicans.”
“I was on the immigration subcommittee and I had enough support from other Democrats to say that if they did not agree to include the repeal of the anti-gay stuff, I could defeat the bill,” Frank said. “That deal was originally worked out in ’86. It took a couple years to get the bill through, so Bush did sign that bill, but he didn’t have much choice. Congress had agreed without him that that would happen.”
The Hate Crimes Statistics Act, Frank said, was “actually a compromise” because Democrats in Congress wanted a hate crimes law with teeth, but Bush would only agree to a measure that collected data.
“It didn’t have any teeth,” Frank said. “Frankly, at the time, it wasn’t a big deal, and it wasn’t.”
It wouldn’t be until the Obama administration in 2009 when a broader Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act giving the attorney general authority to investigate and prosecute hate crimes became law.
But Bush faced stronger criticism for continuing the inaction on HIV/AIDS as the epidemic raged during his administration. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 1989 the first year of the Bush administration, there were 21,628 AIDS-related deaths in the United States. That number rose to 24,524 in 1990, 28,569 in 1991 and 32,407 in 1992.
HIV/AIDS was the No. 1 issue facing the LGBT community at the time. The activist group ACT UP held die-ins to encourage the delivery of experimental drugs to people with HIV and held protests at the Food & Drug Administration, the White House and Bush’s summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
One protest in 1991 recorded and currently available on YouTube shows demonstrators holding signs reading, “It’s time for National Plan, George,” and chanting, “Health Care is a Right! We need more than Right to Life!”
Bush was publicly flustered by ACT UP and its tactics. In 1991, Bush called out the group by name in response to a reporter’s questions about its protests of the Catholic Church for opposing condom use. ACT UP’s efforts, Bush said, were “totally counterproductive” and an “excess of free speech,” according to the book “Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS.”
“To the degree that the AIDS question should be treated as a health question, they work even against that because of their outrageous actions,” Bush is quoted as saying. “And you’re talking to somebody who has his own meetings broken up by them — or had two or three of them in the last year. And I condemn the kinds of tactics that are offensive to mainstream Catholics, Protestants and Jews, anybody else. It’s an excess of free speech to use — to resort to some of the tactics these people use.”
In the aftermath of an ACT UP protest in Kennebunkport, Bush urged “behavioral change” to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
“Here’s a disease where you can control its spread by your own personal behavior,” Bush said. “You can’t do that in cancer.”
With regards to spending on HIV/AIDS, Bush dismissed the notion his administration wasn’t spending enough to fight the disease, asserting the U.S. government was “spending $4 billion a year on AIDS research.”
“When you consider that on a per capita basis or compare it to heart disease or cancer, it’s an awful lot,” Bush said. “It’s far more.”
According to the Los Angeles Times at the time, the amount spent on AIDS research then was actually quite smaller and less than $2 billion a year.
Despite anger over the government’s response to HIV/AIDS, in 1990 he was the first president to sign the Ryan White CARE Act, which has provided health coverage for low-income people with HIV/AIDS and reauthorized under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The elder Bush also signed into law an Americans with Disabilities Act that barred discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS.
Vaid, who famously interrupted a speech Bush gave on HIV/AIDS, said those laws were directly the result of activism from groups like ACT UP and wouldn’t have been signed otherwise.
“He was not doing enough as a leader,” Vaid said. “I think that those pressures and protests led by ACT UP all over the country…that pressure is what pushed both members of Congress and the administration to do whatever it did. I can’t say that enough. I think there’s a sense that looking backwards that ‘well, you know, it would have happened, it just was a matter of time.’ It wouldn’t have happened. What we were up against were these really profound negative homophobic attitudes coupled with a right-wing that was…growing in power that these people had got elected through, pandering to that right-wing. And so, those forces were very much what we had to deal with, and that’s why got so little action for so long.”
Larry Kramer, a longtime activist against HIV/AIDS, was succinct in response to a Blade email inquiry on whether Bush deserves credit for signing the Ryan White Care Act into law.
“I will not give him credit for anything,” Kramer said. “He hated us.”
Bush’s legacy on LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS stands in contrast to that of his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, who died earlier this year and was remembered for being a gay ally who fought to dispel AIDS stigma.
As the Washington Blade reported in 1990, Barbara Bush as first lady visited Grandma’s House, a D.C. home for children with AIDS. During the event, Barbara Bush held up an infant with AIDS and hugged a gay man with the disease, Lou Tesconi. Both the child and Tesconi would later succumb to AIDS.
In 1990, Barbara Bush wrote a letter responding to PFLAG co-founder Paulette Goodman, “We cannot tolerate discrimination against any individuals or groups in our country.” The letter is considered the first positive statement in history from the White House on gay people.
Bush’s anti-gay administration was a precursor to the anti-gay administration of his son, George W. Bush. In 2004, Bush made anti-gay positions a cornerstone of his re-election campaign, making a Federal Marriage Amendment that would have barred same-sex marriage nationwide a central plank. The measure came up in Congress in 2004 and 2006, but didn’t have enough support for ratification.
In the aftermath of his presidency, George H.W. Bush like many Americans signaled a change on LGBT rights and made headlines in 2013 when he participated in the Maine wedding of lesbian couple Bonnie Clement and Helen Thorgalsen, who were longtime friends of the Bush family, and served as witness for the ceremony.
Bush, who said during his 1988 campaign he “didn’t want same-sex marriage codified,” wrote later in a 2015 biography he still “believe[s] in traditional marriage,” but has “mellowed” on the issue.
“People should be able to do what they want to do, without discrimination,” Bush wrote. “People have a right to be happy. I guess you could say I have mellowed.”