Politics
Obama vs. Biden: No easy task comparing the two on LGBTQ records
One president moved with caution, the other with speed
More than seven months into his administration, President Biden has quickly gained a reputation for being a champion for the LGBTQ community — but don’t ask whether that LGBTQ record is superior to his predecessor Barack Obama’s without expecting a fight.
Among the LGBTQ initiatives marking Biden’s tenure within a few months: Undoing the transgender military ban; ordering federal agencies to implement a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against anti-LGBTQ discrimination to the fullest extent possible; and integrating LGBTQ human rights into his foreign policy vision. When Obama was in office, policies along those lines for the LGBTQ community were more spanned out and took an entire eight years to implement.
Take, for example, transgender military service. Biden through an executive order within the first week of his administration reversed Trump’s policy-by-tweet banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. armed forces “in any capacity.” During the time of President Obama, who took office when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for openly gay service members was still law of the land, it took until the last six months before the end of his second term to lift older regulations similarly against transgender service.
Matt Hill, a White House spokesperson, wasn’t shy about ticking off each of these achievements when asked about the comparison between Obama and Biden on LGBTQ issues, but didn’t discount the work of the earlier president.
“President Biden is proud of the work accomplished alongside President Obama to advance LGBTQ+ equality from championing marriage equality, enabling LGBTQ+ Americans to serve openly in the military, combatting and preventing discrimination and more,” Hill said. “The Obama-Biden administration made historic progress for LGBTQ+ people at home and abroad, and the Biden-Harris administration is proud to continue making historic progress in the march toward full equality.”
If the chorus from the Lily Allen song “Not Fair” is coming to you in terms of comparing Biden to Obama on LGBTQ issues, that response would be justified. Trying to reach a definite conclusion about who was better is complicated simply because of different times.
Obama came into office when LGBTQ rights were unpopular compared to today and no president ever before had billed themselves fully as an ally the LGBTQ community. Not long ago, President George W. Bush scored political points and possibly won re-election as the war in Iraq turned into a fiasco by making a U.S. constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage a centerpiece of his campaign.
Mara Keisling, who as former executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality advocated for LGBTQ issues in both the Obama and Biden administrations, said “it is that way” Biden’s achievements have been more rapid and Obama’s more spread out over eight years, but added comparing the two is “apples and oranges.”
“We were in a very different place in 2009,” Keisling said. “There had never been a federal government administration that did trans policy before, and so they had to go about it more slowly or they had to figure out how to do it. Second, there weren’t there weren’t a lot of experienced advocates in the LGBT movement. There were really very few people who had done any administrative advocacy in 2009, and now we’re starting this administration with 50 or 60 experienced advocates who got right to it.”
Keisling said the preceding Trump administration, with all its anti-LGBTQ rollbacks, was ironically helpful in getting Biden started because “Donald Trump accidentally left the whole blueprint for what to do, which is just fix a lot of the things he broke.”
The difference in times is key to understanding why to bother comparing Obama and Biden on LGBTQ issues in the first place when they’re both generally regarded of supporters of LGBTQ people. It’s more a way to reflect on changing times, recognizing moving quickly on LGBTQ issues was more difficult 12 years ago than it is now.
Nonetheless, despite the Obama years being a different epoch, LGBTQ rights advocates at the start of his administration were outright hostile to Obama for not moving more quickly to push the nation forward, particularly on holding out on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal until two years in office. An initial legal brief defending the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in court, which compared same-sex relationships to underage and ancestral marriages, had LGBTQ people up in arms against a president they worked hard to elect.
The gay blogosphere, in its heyday at the end of the 2000s, skewered White House press secretaries Robert Gibbs and Jay Carney for inartful answers on Obama’s commitment to LGBTQ issues. Liberal bloggers such as John Aravosis at AMERICAblog, Pam Spaulding at Pam’s House Blend and Andy Towle at Towleroad had anti-Obama content alongside posts against Republicans.
Aravosis, in response to an email inquiry from the Blade, said making comparisons of Obama and Biden at this point in their presidencies is difficult given the different nature of the times.
“It’s always hard to compare 2008 and 2021,” Aravosis said. “They were different eras, with different demands. The three big issues for Obama were ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ DOMA and marriage equality. And we got him on board all three of those, with a little cajoling — DADT they delayed action on, DOMA they were defending in court, and marriage took until 2012 to get Obama on board. But eventually he did, on all those issues.”
Aravosis conceded at this time Biden comparatively has made “a ton of small to medium accomplishments early on,” and cited the confirmation of Pete Buttigieg as the first openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary as one of “a few big ones.”
Even during the Obama years, Biden was credited with moving Obama forward, famously speaking out in favor of same-sex couples getting married on “Meet the Press” as Obama’s “evolution” on the issue was still taking place. Obama would come out for marriage equality days later. Biden had also spoken out in favor of an LGBTQ non-discrimination order in the workplace for federal contractors before Obama made that happen.
Keisling said even though some of Obama’s early caution and missteps had angered LGBTQ advocates at the time, such as excluding transgender people from a 2009 presidential memorandum seeking to expand partner benefits for same-sex couples, they ended up proving beneficial.
“I don’t think any of us really understood what a momentous thing that was,” Keisling said. “But it was from that memo that they immediately realized that the federal government had to protect trans federal employees.”
In contrast to early consternation under Obama, seven months into the Biden administration nary an objection has been heard from LGBTQ leaders, save for a legal brief claiming a right to defend an exemption to LGBTQ non-discrimination law for religious schools that wasn’t even based on the merits. To the contrary, Biden has been lauded as the greatest supporter of LGBTQ people in the White House as his administration has rolled back Trump’s anti-LGBTQ initiatives, fully embracing LGBTQ people in his first months without the need for public cajoling from voices seeking equality.
One person who has worked both in and outside the White House on LGBTQ issues is Brian Bond, now executive director of PFLAG and the first LGBTQ White House liaison under Obama. Bond, however, would not agree to an interview for this article.
Despite the early consternation, the long view on Obama is different. By the time his administration was over after eight years, the LGBTQ community could look back on hate crimes legislation signed into law, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, marriage equality nationwide and transgender people being more visible and respected.
When the Washington Blade reached out to the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama for a comment on the comparison between Obama and Biden on LGBTQ issues, a spokesperson ticked off many of these achievements.
“We are so proud of President Obama’s record on LGBTQ issues, including repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ending the government’s legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, and signing historic hate crimes legislation, but he’s always said the presidency is a relay race and there’s nobody he’d rather have holding the baton right now than Joe Biden, especially when it comes to matters of equality,” the spokesperson said.
It was based on Obama’s overall record, especially his endorsement of same-sex marriage at a critical time in 2012 when the issue was at the polls in four states, that gay commentator Andrew Sullivan in 2012 dubbed him the “First Gay President” for a high-profile cover article in Newsweek.
Sullivan, who has declared the fight for gay rights now over and has been critical of continued efforts in the LGBTQ movement, said the comparison between Obama and Biden on LGBTQ issues is no contest.
“Neither president is responsible for gay equality. We are,” Sullivan wrote in an email to the Blade. “But there is no comparison. Marriage equality and openly gay troops under Obama dwarf anything Biden has done. The Bostock decision — the biggest advance in history for trans rights — happened under Trump.”
Obama, in an interview published in The Advocate last month, said he would “love my legacy to be overshadowed, because it would mean another president was doing even more to protect LGBTQ rights,” which he said was why he was pleased with Biden’s initiatives.
“Now, we obviously have more work to do,” Obama added. “We need to do even more to guarantee basic rights and protections for every American. My hope is that whatever success we had while I was president proves that progress is possible.”
A continued one-up Obama has over Biden in terms of LGBTQ issues is major legislative achievements. For all the hurdles Biden has already cleared on LGBTQ issues compared to Obama, the Equality Act — the centerpiece of Biden’s campaign promise for LGBTQ people — continues to languish in the U.S. Senate and is all but dead.
By this time in the Obama years, the measure honoring gay teenager Matthew Shepard, who was brutally murdered, was on its way to the White House as an amendment to major defense spending authorization legislation in Congress. The Equality Act, on the other hand, hasn’t even gotten a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Aravosis said the lack of traction for the Equality Act in the Senate is a “similar dilemma” to the one supporters of gay rights faced in 2010 with hurdles in getting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed.
“We were extremely concerned that we’d lose the House in the 2010 midterm elections, so we wanted to get DADT repealed BEFORE that,” Aravosis said. “Same problem today. We need to get the Equality Act passed BEFORE the 2022 midterm elections, lest we lose the House or Senate.”
At the end of the day, however, unlike his criticism for Obama for not moving quickly on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, Aravosis said he doesn’t fault Biden for not getting the Equality Act on his desk.
“With a one-vote margin in the Senate, and the filibuster still in place, I’m not sure how we do that,” Aravosis said. “So, no, I don’t blame Biden for the current vote count being extremely difficult in the Senate.”
Biden last month signed a resolution designating the Orlando, Fla.-based Pulse nightclub, where 49 people were killed in a mass shooting, as a national monument, but that went through Congress unanimously and required no significant political power.
Keisling, when asked if the lack of major legislative achievements on LGBTQ issues detracts from Biden’s record, said the fault lies elsewhere.
“Nothing’s happening in Congress,” Keisling said. “What he has gotten done is kind of amazing — I mean in general not the LGBT stuff, because there really hasn’t been LGBT stuff — because Congress is currently broken. The Senate is broken anyway.”
When the Blade pointed out by this time in his administration Obama was on track to sign hate crimes legislation into law in October 2009 and asked what has changed, Keisling replied, “Talk to me about that in December.”
“I’m more optimistic than you are,” Keisling said. “I know the Blade has tried really hard to express pessimism. But we’re working it, it is still very much alive and there’s actual conversations going on between the right senators. I’m very hopeful still.”
The Human Rights Campaign, which has lobbied on LGBTQ issues in both the Obama and Biden administrations, didn’t respond to a request to comment for this article.
The White House
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Country’s anti-LGBTQ record a reported barrier
Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for “special missions,” is making it known that he is interested in the Russian ambassadorship.
According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Grenell has “floated” his interest in the role to coworkers, but issues surrounding the former German ambassador’s sexuality have made securing the position more difficult.
“He had an interest in the job — or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues. But Putin’s regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ, so I’m sure they didn’t take that thought too seriously,” one source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail. “That would never happen anyway.”
Grenell has long been one of Trump’s closest allies and was the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position. He was ousted last month as acting director of the Kennedy Center, a position he had held since Trump reestablished the board to be composed of his political supporters in 2025.
In addition to leading the nation’s cultural arts center, Grenell previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was also a State Department spokesperson to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor.
Russia has a longstanding history of being anti-LGBTQ.
In 2013, the country passed a law banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In December 2022, Putin signed legislation expanding the ban, making it illegal to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal” for people of any age, widening censorship across media and public life.
The Russian courts have also supported the restriction of LGBTQ identity in the country. In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” allowing authorities to criminalize advocacy and potentially prosecute individuals for expressions of LGBTQ+ identity or support.
In addition to LGBTQ rights issues, the war between Russia and Ukraine has become a global concern. Ukraine, which was part of the former Soviet Union, includes the territory known as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The annexation remains a major point of international dispute over sovereignty. Since 2022, Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine has escalated the conflict, drawing global attention and sanctions while straining U.S.-Russia relations.
The U.S. has spent $188 billion in total related to the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Russian ambassadorship seems to be a difficult role to fill, according to additional information presented by the Daily Mail. With Trump already being seen as relatively positive by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with close ties to members of his Cabinet and family — like son-in-law Jared Kushner — the ambassadorship is complicated and viewed as less critical than in previous administrations.
“There is no rush to fill that role because it has now been deemed unnecessary,” another source told the U.K.-based publication.
Bob Foresman, a seasoned businessman with decades-long ties to the Kremlin, was reportedly once the frontrunner, according to the Daily Mail. Foresman served as vice chair of UBS Investment Bank and Deputy Chairman of Renaissance Capital between 2006 and 2009, and earlier led investment banking for Russia at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1997 to 2000.
“This is a pattern, especially in the Trump administration — special envoys big–footing the ambassadors,” a source told the Daily Mail. “It is shocking that we are already in April and we don’t have an ambassador to one of the most important countries in the world.”
Politics
Log Cabin Republicans to honor Scott Presler
Event to take place at Capitol Hill Club on Friday
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing LGBTQ conservatives and their allies within the Republican Party, is set to honor gay conservative commentator and activist Scott Presler on Friday.
Presler will receive the organization’s 2026 “Game Changer Award” during its Spring Forward Cocktail Reception at the Capitol Hill Club, a private club steps from the U.S. Capitol that regularly hosts Republican political events.
Presler has risen to prominence through a combination of pro-LGBTQ conservative activism, political organizing, and a series of controversial affiliations.
He first gained national attention in 2017 for organizing the “March Against Sharia” rallies across the country. The demonstrations came amid heightened tensions in Portland, Ore., following a deadly attack on a metro train, in which Jeremy Joseph Christian killed two people and injured others after harassing Muslim women for wearing a hijab.
The rallies were organized in partnership with ACT for America, which advocates against what it describes as “the threat of radical Islam” in the U.S. and has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Presler volunteered with the organization for three months.
He has said he was first motivated to “fight Muslim extremism” following the Pulse nightclub massacre, he told NPR, in which a gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS killed 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The site now serves as a memorial to the victims of the attack.
Born May 15, 1988, in Jacksonville, Fla., Presler is the son of a U.S. Navy captain and was raised in both Florida and Fairfax County. He later attended George Mason University, where he earned a degree in criminal justice.
In addition to his anti-Islam activism, Presler has been involved in a number of other high-profile and controversial efforts. He co-founded “Gays for Trump” and attended their 2017 DeploraBall in Maryland for the first inauguration of Trump. According to a 2021 report from Media Matters for America, he also promoted the QAnon conspiracy movement through social media posts in 2018 and 2019.
He has also faced criticism tied to his early political work. According to a 2023 report from Politico Playbook, Presler’s work with the Republican Party of Virginia in 2016 ended after he allegedly engaged in sexual activity in a shared office space and posted explicit images online.
Beyond ideological activism, Presler has also organized community-focused initiatives. In 2019, he led a widely publicized cleanup effort in Baltimore that drew more than 100 volunteers and resulted in approximately 29 tons of trash being removed. The event was a result of criticism from President Donald Trump, calling the area, represented by then-U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) a “rodent infested mess.”
Presler has also been active in election-related organizing, leading a two-day “Stop the Steal” demonstration at the Pennsylvania State Capitol following the 2020 presidential election. He has appeared on the “War Room” podcast hosted by former Trump strategist and well-known right-wing populist conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon.
He has also expressed a controversial stance within the LGBTQ community for supporting then-candidate Trump for President over Hillary Clinton. He told prioritizing Second Amendment rights over certain LGBTQ policy goals, saying he is more supportive of gun rights than efforts to codify same-sex marriage, and adding, “I 100 percent believe in the notion that armed gays don’t get bashed. It is our right to feel safe.”
Presler voiced his support for the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, more commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022.
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
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