National
HISTORIC: Supreme Court hears arguments on DOMA
Issues of standing, discrimination against gays dominate hearing
Attorney Roberta Kaplan said DOMA violates equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution for not just Windsor, but all married gay couples. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Questioning at the Supreme Court during oral arguments on Wednesday was just as intense as the previous day as justices grilled attorneys on standing and federalism issues related to the Defense of Marriage Act.
The prospects of the court striking down the 1996 law seem strong as no justices expressed any particular love for DOMA, but it’s possible the court may not reach consideration of the constitutionality of the law because of standing and jurisdiction issues.
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee, expressed concern over DOMA because benefits — including Social Security survivor benefits and access to family medical leave — and withheld from married same-sex couples under the law.
Under DOMA, Ginsburg said one might ask the question “What kind of marriage is this?” and compared the law to a statute that creates “full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”
Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee who’s considered a swing vote in the case, made a lot of inquiries on DOMA, but at one point may have tipped his hand when he talked about the “real risk” of encroaching on state power to define marriage.
At issue in the case is Section 3 of DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage. As a result of that 1996 law, Edith Windsor had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes in 2009 upon the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer.
The courtroom was just as packed for the DOMA arguments as it was for the Prop 8 arguments. Among those in attendance were Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, Senior Adviser to President Obama Valerie Jarrett and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Roberta Kaplan, a New York-based private attorney working in coordination with the American Civil Liberties Union, said DOMA violates equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution for not just Windsor, but all married gay couples.
“Because of DOMA, many thousands of people who are legally married under the laws of nine sovereign states and the District of Columbia are being treated as unmarried by the federal government solely because they are gay,” Kaplan said.
Arguing on behalf of DOMA was Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush who was hired by House Republicans to defend the law after the Obama administration declined to do so in February 2011.
Clement said DOMA helps create uniformity for the federal government as the democratic process is underway deciding the issue of marriage.
“I do think for purposes of the federalism issue, it really matters that all DOMA does is take this term where it appears in federal law and define it for purposes of federal law,” he said. “It would obviously be a radically different case if Congress had, in 1996, decided to try to stop states from defining marriage in a particular way or dictate how they would decide it in that way.”
At one point, Associate Justice Elena Kagan brought up the House report from the passage of DOMA, quoting where it said Congress approved the law to “express moral disapproval of homosexuality.”
Clement responded by saying legislators having an “improper motive” shouldn’t be enough for the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA.
“And if that’s enough to invalidate the statute, then you should invalidate the statute,” Clement said. “But that has never been your approach, especially under rational basis or even rational basis-plus, if that is what you are suggesting.”
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who’s taken up litigation against DOMA on behalf of the Obama administration, also argued against DOMA on the basis of equal protection.
“What Section 3 does is exclude from an array of federal benefits lawfully married couples,” Verrilli said. “That means that the spouse of a soldier killed in the line of duty cannot receive the dignity and solace of an official notification of next of kin.”
Further, he said DOMA should be subject to heightened scrutiny, or a greater assumption it’s unconstitutional, because of the “terrible discrimination” faced by gay people throughout history.
Verrilli also disputed Clement’s argument that DOMA helps ensure uniformity for the U.S. government, saying “if anything, it makes federal administration more difficult.”
Standing was so much of an issue as part of the DOMA case that justices allotted extended time and the first half of the oral arguments to consider the issue.
There are two questions: whether House Republican-led Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has standing to defend DOMA in court, and whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear the case because the U.S. government appealed even though it got what it wanted when the district ruled against the anti-gay law.
Vicki Jackson, a Harvard law professor hired by the court to answer these questions, made her case for why BLAG doesn’t have standing and the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to decide the issue.
Jackson said the U.S. government lacks standing to appeal because it has not asked the court to overturn lower courts’ decisions, it has asked to affirm them.
“The government has not asked this court to overturn the rulings below so it doesn’t have to pay the $365,000,” Jackson said. “It has asked this court to affirm. And the case or controversy requirement that we’re talking about are nested in an adversarial system where we rely on the parties to state their injuries and make their claims for relief.”
She also expressed doubts about BLAG’s standing, saying separation of powers “will not be meaningful” if Congress stays out of defense of a statute unless it thinks the executive branch is doing its job badly.
Clement maintained BLAG has standing because the House has an interest in preserving a law if the executive branch determines it won’t defend the measure in court.
“The House’s single most important prerogative, which is to pass legislation and have that legislation, if it’s going to be repealed, only be repealed through a process where the House gets to fully participate,” Clement said.
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, expressed skepticism that BLAG has standing to defend DOMA in court.
“But the appointment of BLAG is strange to me because it’s not in the statute, it’s in the House rules,” Sotomayor said.
Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinavasan argued the court has jurisdiction to defend DOMA, pointing to court precedent created under INS v. Chadha, an immigration-related case that came before the court in 1982. Srinavasan also said the U.S. government still suffers aggreivement, which allows it to appeal the case.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia expressed displeasure with the Justice Department’s decision to stop defending the law and creating a situation where it’s appealing a case that was decided in its favor.
“I’m wondering if we’re living in this new world where the attorney general can simply decide, yeah, it’s unconstitutional, but it’s not so unconstitutional that I’m not willing to enforce it, if we’re in this new world, I don’t want these cases like this to come before this court all the time,” Scalia said.
It’s difficult to say if the court will rule on the basis of standing because justices challenged the views on whichever attorney was speaking — whether they arguing in favor of standing or not. A ruling on this basis would likely more limited on its impact on gay couples as opposed to a nationwide ruling striking down DOMA.
National
Demonstrators disrupt OMB director hearing over PEPFAR
Capitol Police arrested five protesters
A group of protesters interrupted Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during his testimony before Congress on Wednesday.
Vought was at the Cannon House Office Building to give testimony to the House Budget Committee.
Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) began the hearing by touting what he described as economic accomplishments of the Trump-Vance administration’s economic accomplishments. Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) disputed those claims in his opening statement.
Boyle went on to admonish Vought for not attending a committee hearing in the previous year.
Vought, the “Project 2025” architect, was invited to speak after Arrington and Boyle made their statements.
Shortly after Vought began reading his statement, Housing Works CEO Charles King stood up in the gallery and began shouting, “PEPFAR saves lives: spend the money!”
The U.S. Capitol Police moved quickly to escort King from the room. Other activists began chanting with King as they unfolded signs bearing a picture of Vought’s face and statements such as, “Vought’s cuts kill people with AIDS,” and “Protect PEPFAR from Vought.”
The group of HIV/AIDS activists included independent activists, former U.S. Agency for International Development and PEPFAR staff, members of Health GAP, Housing Works, and the Treatment Action Group. Six activists were escorted from the hearing and the U.S. Capitol Police detained five of them.
The HIV/AIDS treatment activists protested at the hearing in response to the dismantling of global health programs, including PEPFAR, a federally-funded program credited with saving millions of lives from HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Russell Vought is directly responsible for illegally withholding Congressionally appropriated funds for PEPFAR and related global health initiative,” King said in a statement provided to the Washington Blade. “These funding disruptions have already contributed to preventable deaths and threaten to reverse decades of progress in the fight against HIV worldwide. Enough is enough. Congress must ensure Vought stops this deadly sabotage.”
National
HIV/AIDS group NMAC is ‘destabilized’ and in financial crisis: sources
Organization disputes allegations of mismanagement by new CEO
A statement sent to the Washington Blade by an anonymous source claiming to be a current staff member at NMAC, formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council, alleges that the prominent HIV/AIDS advocacy organization is facing “a rapid and systemic collapse of leadership, governance, and ethical standards.”
The three-page detailed statement sent on April 4 by someone identifying himself only as “John Doe” includes multiple specific allegations that NMAC CEO Harold Phillips, who began his position in October 2025, “has destabilized the organization at every level,” including hiring nine new high-level appointees with salaries of $220,000 each who are performing “duplicative and unjustifiable roles.”
The Blade was able to corroborate some of the allegations by talking to two other knowledgable sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. Those sources said they had received the John Doe statement and believed many, if not most, of its allegations were accurate.
With a total staff of about 30 to 35 employees, the John Doe statement claims the high salaries of the nine new staff members have added to financial problems NMAC has been facing in recent years. It says that at least two NMAC staffers who raised concerns about Phillips’s actions were terminated on grounds of insubordination.
One of the two anonymous sources who spoke to the Blade said one of the dismissed staff members was considering filing a lawsuit against NMAC in response to the firing.
“An external firm was recently brought in to assess the organizational health,” the John Doe statement to the Blade says. “The findings were staggering — more than 50% of staff reported they are actively seeking employment elsewhere,” it says.
The Blade sent the John Doe statement to NMAC this week and asked for a response to the allegations.
NMAC spokesperson Jennifer Moore Phillips, who serves as chief strategy officer and who is not related to Harold Phillips, sent the Blade a short statement calling the John Doe allegations “false and purposefully misleading,” but which did not comment on each of the specific allegations.
“A recent anonymous letter containing unfounded allegations about NMAC makes claims that are simply false and purposefully misleading,” the NMAC statement says. “Evidenced by our new strategic plan and recent successful Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit in Chicago, NMAC’s new leadership is laser focused on delivering on our mission serving the HIV community with renewed energy and vision,” the statement concludes.
The Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit referred to in the statement, which took place in Chicago April 8-10 of this year, is one of the two largest HIV/AIDS related conferences that NMAC organizes each year. Jennifer Phillips said more than 1,400 people attended the event.
The largest NMAC event, the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS, the most recent of which was held in D.C. Sept. 4-7, drew more than 2,400 participants and was hailed by AIDS activists as a highly successful gathering of a diverse group of experts seeking to push for the end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
One of the keynote speakers at that conference was Paul Kawata, who served as executive director and CEO of NMAC for 36 years and who delivered his farewell address at the conference following the announcement that he would retire on Oct. 7, 2025.
Many of the conference speakers praised Kawata, who became NMAC’s leader two years after its founding in 1987, as the leading force behind its growth and evolution into one of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations with a special outreach to people of color.
It was at that time that Harold Phillips, who served as director of the White House Office of AIDS Policy under then-President Joe Biden and who later joined NMAC as deputy director before the NMAC board named him Kawata’s successor as CEO, emerged as NMAC’s next leader.
“The Board has exuberantly elected Harold Phillips as our new CEO,” said Lance Toma, chair of the NMAC Board of Directors at the time Phillips’s appointment was announced. “In this unprecedented moment, there is no one more strategically positioned and experienced to lead our movement through what we know will be some of the most tumultuous and complicated times ahead,” the statement said.
The John Doe statement raising questions about Phillips’s actions and leadership says NMAC staff members formally appealed to the board of directors to intervene.
“The Board has remained silent, while Harold arrogantly told the staff that ‘the board has my back,’” the statement says.
The Blade has also attempted to reach out to Kawata by email for comment on how he feels NMAC is doing six months after his retirement. As of April 14, Kawata had not responded to the Blade’s inquiry.
According to the John Doe statement, NMAC officials have recently “sought external financial rescue,” including a visit by an NMAC official to California to request assistance from the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. “Without such intervention, layoffs seem imminent,” the statement says.
“This is not a functioning nonprofit,” the John Doe statement concludes. “It is an organization in crisis – bleeding resources, hemorrhaging staff, and operating without transparency, accountability, or governance,” it says, adding, “The communities NMAC serves, the donors who fund its mission, and the public at large deserve to know what is happening behind closed doors.”
By contrast, the NMAC website describes the organization as a highly functioning nonprofit continuing to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS.
“Launched in 1987 during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States, NMAC is a national HIV organization that offers capacity building, leadership development, policy education, and public engagement to end the HIV epidemic among communities most impacted in the United States,” a statement on the NMAC website says.
“In 2026, we mark 45 years of the HIV movement,” the statement adds. “NMAC continues to pivot to center the needs of people of color impacted by HIV by responding to political challenges that threaten federal funding and programs that have provided an essential survival safety net,” it says. “Simultaneously, as HIV treatment allows people to age with HIV, our whole-person approach extends to achieving optimal quality of life beyond attaining viral suppression.”
In its most recent action, NMAC issued a detailed press release on April 14 criticizing President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget provisions that call for cutting more than $1.5 billion in HIV prevention, substance use, housing and other programs. The release provides details on how the cuts would negatively impact important HIV prevention programs and urges Congress to reject the proposed cuts.
Federal Government
Inside the LGBTQ records of Todd Blanche and Markwayne Mullin
Two men are acting attorney general, DHS secretary
President Donald Trump became famous for his use of the phrase “You’re fired!” while hosting the reality TV show “The Apprentice” in the early 2000s. However, during his time in the Oval Office, he has attempted to distance himself from that image.
Despite those efforts, the phrase once again comes to mind as Trump has fired two high-level female Cabinet members within the past month: Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem.
Their replacements — Todd Blanche at the Justice Department and Markwayne Mullin at the Department of Homeland Security — bring records that, while different in depth, both reflect limited support for LGBTQ protections and, in some cases, direct opposition.
Todd Blanche
Acting attorney general
Little has been found regarding Todd Blanche’s LGBTQ history prior to his role as acting head of the Department of Justice. Unlike those who have worked within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division or served as state attorneys general, he has not developed a public-facing legal ideology on LGBTQ issues.
Blanche attended American University for his undergraduate studies — like fellow Trump attorney Michael Cohen — where he met his future wife, Kristin, who was studying at nearby Catholic University in D.C.
He began his legal career as an intern at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which eventually became a full-time position. He later worked as a paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York while attending Brooklyn Law School at night. Blanche graduated cum laude in 2003. He and his wife later married and had two children.
Blanche left the U.S. attorney’s office in 2014, taking a job in the Manhattan office of the law firm WilmerHale. In September 2017, he moved to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
In his personal capacity, he represented several figures associated with Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, including Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, businessman Igor Fruman, and attorney Boris Epshteyn.
In 2024, Blanche switched from Democrat to Republican, aligning himself with Trump’s political orbit. He later served as Trump’s personal defense attorney in the New York State case that led to Trump’s 2024 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to bisexual adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Now the highest-ranking official at the Justice Department, Blanche has played a central role in overseeing the department and has been involved in leadership decisions tied to several controversial actions affecting LGBTQ people.
In a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James, Blanche declared that the Justice Department “will not sit idly by while you attempt to use your office to force harmful procedures on our most vulnerable population,” if legal action were taken against NYU Langone. The hospital had “permanently” ended a program earlier that month after the Trump-Vance administration threatened to pull all federal funding if it continued prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to minors.
Blanche wrote that “the Justice Department believes the law is clear, and anti-discrimination laws cannot be used to force NYU Langone to perform sex-rejecting procedures on children.”
“As just one example, your office’s position would require a hospital to prescribe certain medications for certain diagnoses, regardless of the hospital’s or its doctors’ independent medical determination about the propriety of such treatment,” he said.
Blanche also echoed his predecessor’s public stance on limiting LGBTQ-related protections at the federal level, aligning with Bondi’s sentiments in June 2025 regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision that restricted LGBTQ history lessions in schools and limits lower federal courts from issuing nationwide injunctions — rulings that have often blocked Trump administration policies.
Calling it “another great decision that came down today,” Blanche argued that the ruling “restores parents’ rights to decide their child’s education,” adding: “It seems like a basic idea, but it took the Supreme Court to set the record straight, and we thank them for that. And now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct.”
In December 2025, a Justice Department memo stated that, “effective immediately,” prisons and jails would no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to protect LGBTQ people from harassment, abuse, and rape under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The law, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, requires that incarcerated people be screened for their risk of sexual assault, including consideration of LGBTQ status, and applies to all correctional facilities.
Additionally, when the Justice Department, under Blanche’s deputy leadership and at Trump’s behest, attempted to force Children’s National Hospital in D.C. to turn over medical records related to gender-affirming care, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin ruled that the effort “appears to have no purpose other than to intimidate and harass.”
Blanche is also described as having a “strong belief in executive authority.”
Markwayne Mullin
Secretary of Homeland Security
While Blanche’s record is defined more by recent actions than a long paper trail, Markwayne Mullin brings a more established history on LGBTQ issues from his time in Congress.
The head of the Department of Homeland Security has served in Congress since 2013, in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. He has been actively engaged in shaping restrictions and aligns with broader cultural rhetoric that frames anti-LGBTQ speech as protected expression.
In May 2016, Mullin criticized the Department of Education and the Justice Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students, arguing that trans girls should not use girls’ restrooms in public schools.
By January 2021, Mullin and then-Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard had introduced a bill to prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports.
Mullin was not recorded as voting on the final passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriage.
In 2023, Mullin received a rating of just 6 percent from the Human Rights Campaign.
While serving in the Senate and as a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Mullin has been a vocal critic of policies aimed at expanding LGBTQ inclusion in federal programs. He has participated in broader Republican efforts questioning equity-based implementation of the Older Americans Act, including guidance related to sexual orientation and gender identity in aging services, arguing such policies could have unintended consequences.
Mullin also makes history as the first Native American — and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation — to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
He was among the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results despite no evidence of widespread fraud, and was present in the House on Jan. 6.
The Washington Blade reached out to DHS and the DOJ for comment on the two cabinet choices’ records on LGBTQ rights. DHS responded, telling the Blade, “Secretary Mullin’s record at the Department of Homeland Security will be one of protecting ALL Americans,” while the DOJ has yet to respond.
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