News
Clinton’s VP pick Kaine reliable on LGBT rights
Running mate called ‘solidly pro-LGBT equality’ after evolution
Hillary Clinton has selected Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) as her running mate. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Hillary Clinton has selected as her running mate a U.S. senator from Virginia who’s been a largely reliable voice in support of LGBT rights.
As first reported by The New York Times, Clinton announced late Friday her choice is Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who’s also former chair of the Democratic National Committee and former Virginia governor. A Spanish speaker, Kaine is set to make his joint campaign appearance with Clinton on Saturday in Miami.
Since his tenure as Virginia governor between 2006 and 2010, Kaine has taken action on behalf of LGBT rights. Upon taking office, Kaine signed an executive order barring anti-gay discrimination in the state workplace (the direction didn’t contain explicit protections on the basis of gender identity). His Republican successor, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell reversed the order, but Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, reinstated it and added protections for gender identity.
Upon election to the U.S. Senate in 2012, Kaine generally hasn’t been at the forefront of initiatives advancing LGBT rights, but has rose to the occasion as needed. In the Human Rights Campaign’s most recent congressional scorecard, Kaine scored a “90” out of possible “100,” losing points for not co-sponsoring the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act.
Kaine is an original co-sponsor of comprehensive LGBT non-discrimination legislation known as the Equality Act. The senator also cast votes in favor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and an amendment along the lines of the Student Non-Discrimination Act. However, he isn’t a co-sponsor of the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, which seeks to ban widely discredited “ex-gay” therapy nationwide by classifying it as fraud.
Kaine has signed amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and state bans prohibiting same-sex marriage. More recently, Kaine signed a brief urging the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals to find sexual orientation discrimination is prohibited under current law.
In 2010, Kaine, as chair of the Democratic National Committee, took part in a three-and-a-half minute video to answer on questions on LGBT rights, outlining accomplishments already made under the Obama administration.
“We have a long way to go, but we’re already making progress for LGBT individuals,” Kaine says. “President Obama and congressional Democrats have already begun to address barriers to equality for LGBT Americans by guaranteeing these families the right to visit and make medical decisions for a partner in America’s hospitals, by enacting hate crimes legislation to protect LGBT Americans — to name just two significant accomplishments.”
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, drew a stark contrast between Kaine and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, whom Donald Trump has selected as his running mate.
“While Donald Trump doubled down on discrimination by picking Mike Pence, Hillary Clinton has bolstered her campaign’s historic commitment to LGBTQ equality by choosing Tim Kaine,” Griffin said. “Having proven time and time again that they have the experience, determination, and leadership needed to move equality forward for all Americans, we are confident Clinton and Kaine will tear down the walls of discrimination that hold all of us back.”
But Kaine, like many Americans, including President Obama and Clinton, appears to have gone through an evolution on LGBT rights. When running to become Virginia governor in 2006, Kaine said he didn’t support adoption by gay couples, but reversed his position by 2011.
Kaine was also initially opposed to same-sex marriage. Although he now supports marriage equality, it’s hard to say exactly when he changed his mind. In 2012, he sought to find a middle ground, not yet clearly supporting same-sex marriage, but backing some kind of relationship recognition.
“The underlying issue is, should committed couples have the same legal rights and responsibilities, and the answer to that is an unequivocal yes,” Kaine said, according to The Washington Post.
In 2013, when many U.S. senators declared their newfound support for same-sex marriage, Kaine joined them in declaring his support for marriage equality.
“I believe all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be guaranteed the full rights to the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage under the Constitution,” Kaine said at the time. “I hope the Supreme Court will affirm that principle.”
Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, said Kaine is “now solidly pro-LGBT equality” after undergoing the same kind ‘evolution’ on LGBT rights as the nation as a whole.
“With her selection of Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton has highlighted the stark differences between her ticket and her opponent’s,” Zbur said. “In contrast to the extremes of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homo- and transphobia on display this week at the Republican National Convention, Kaine presents an alternative: a pragmatist who works across ideologies and across the aisle to get things done.”
Congress
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
Protesters interrupted Secretary of State Marco Rubio during hearing
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested 10 HIV/AIDS activists who protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, the Treatment Action Group, and ACT UP held signs and chanted “Rubio’s Cuts Kill People with AIDS, PEPFAR Saves Lives!” before officers removed them from Dirksen Senate Office Building room where the hearing took place.
A media advisory the Washington Blade received before the protest noted “mounting evidence of Rubio’s attempts to sabotage PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. bilateral AIDS program) and vital global health programs.” The press release specifically highlighted three specific points:
• Eliminating Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lifesaving PEPFAR programs, which currently support approximately 12 million people on HIV treatment across 51 countries. Instead, Rubio intends to dismantle CDC’s current PEPFAR role and stamp out their global footprint in disease outbreak and surveillance for pandemics beyond HIV. Experts including eight former CDC Directors under Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against this effort to dismantle PEPFAR. Recent PEPFAR data showed sharp decreases in the numbers of people newly tested, diagnosed, and treated for HIV, but these data would have been even worse if not for CDC’s PEPFAR programs.
• Withholding $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated FY25 funding, including $330 million to combat HIV, $250 million to fight malaria, $320 million for maternal and child health programs, and nearly $650 million in global health security programs.
• Negotiating secret bilateral deals blackmailing African governments by demanding access to critical mineral wealth as a condition of access to HIV treatment and prevention funding.
The groups have staged several protests against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates.
The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought a few weeks later said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
The White House in January expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. Advocacy groups insist the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.
“Congress must stop Secretary Rubio before he dismantles PEPFAR,” said Treatment Action Group’s Kendall Martinez-Wright. “Rubio continues to defy the will of Congress and the American people who want this program restored and repaired. Under his leadership he is diverting funding and trying to eliminate the essential role of technical experts in global HIV and global health, while program performance is flailing.”
District of Columbia
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Event organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, Queers for Janeese
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George spoke to a crowd of LGBTQ supporters on June 1 at a meet & greet event held at JR.’s on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.
The event, organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, which has endorsed Lewis George for mayor, with support from a group called Queers for Janeese, was followed by a “get out the vote” canvassing endeavor in which several of those attending the meet & greet visited the homes of nearby residents known to be Lewis George supporters.
The purpose of the canvassing was to remind Lewis George supporters to return their mail-in ballots or go to the polls on June 16 to elect Lewis George as the city’s next mayor, according to Matthew Kavanagh, one of the leaders of Queers for Janeese who attended the meet & greet event at JR.’s.
Local political observers consider Lewis George, a Ward 4 D.C. Council member, and former At-Large D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, to be the two leading candidates in this year’s race for mayor. The two are among seven mayoral candidates competing in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George told those attending the meet & greet, which was held on the JR.’s outdoor patio, that she has a long record of advocating for and initiating city polices and laws in support of the LGBTQ community. She said large corporate donors were backing her opponents and urged her LGBTQ supporters to help raise funds for her in the remaining days of the campaign.
Among those attending the meet & greet was gay longtime Dupont Circle civic activist Randy Downs who last November opened a nearby eatery called Protest Pizza. “I am queer and I am a Janeese supporter,” Downs told the Blade.
Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, who also spoke at the meet & greet event, said his group would organize events in support of Lewis George in the remaining days of the campaign. Among them, he said, was an LGBTQ bar crawl in which supporters of Lewis George, including the candidate herself, would visit LGBTQ bars to promote her candidacy.
Virginians for Marriage Equality on Monday launched a campaign in support of repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman, former state Sen. Adam Ebbin, former state Del. Mark Sickles, and American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer are among those who spoke at the launch that took place in Richmond. State Del. Kirk McPike (D-Alexandria), who co-chairs the campaign, also participated.
“This amendment is about making clear that the government has no business deciding which marriages or which families are worthy of recognition,” said Bauer. “The ACLU of Virginia has been fighting for Virginians’ right to marry who they love since the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the ban on interracial marriage. Now we are proud to carry that legacy forward by standing with our coalition partners in the fight to pass this amendment and finally enshrine the right to marriage equality in the commonwealth’s constitution.”
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in February signed a bill that finalized the referendum’s language.
The referendum will take place on Nov. 3.
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Campaign to support Va. marriage amendment repeal launched
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