National
White House rejects gay judicial nominee
Supporters urged Schumer to fight for attorney accused of anti-Christian remarks

The White House has rejected the recommended nomination of a New York attorney who would have become the first openly gay man to sit on the federal bench, because of comments he reportedly made about the Pledge of Allegiance and Christmas that were deemed anti-Christian.
In February, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) recommended the nomination of Daniel Alter to serve as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Presidents traditionally follow the guidance of senators from the state where there’s a vacancy for judicial nominations.
But informed sources told the Washington Blade that the White House rejected Alter’s nomination because of remarks he reportedly made regarding a case challenging inclusion of the phrase āunder Godā in the Pledge of Allegiance. In addition, the White House reportedly objected to remarks that Alter made suggesting that merchants not wish shoppers āMerry Christmasā during the holidays.
In a 2005 article published by Cybercast News Service, Alter is quoted as saying that a general holiday greeting is more appropriate and inclusive for retailers as opposed to saying āMerry Christmas.ā
āIt seems both from a business … and a community perspective, that if merchandisers were going to do that … they would try to wish those in the community who may not share in celebrating Christmas a happy holiday as well,ā Alter is quoted as saying.
“Our diversity has made us great and will continue to make us great and [‘Merry Christmas’] undermines both the holiday spirit as well as the message I think Americans should be sending to each other,” Alter reportedly continued.
The 2005 quotes were apparently reprinted in a 2008 CNS article that is stored in the archives on the organization’s website.
Additionally, in a 2004 article published in The New Republic, Alter is quoted as saying the U.S. Supreme Court case Elk Grove United School District v. Newdow āwas a good case at the wrong time.ā The case challenged use of the āunder Godā phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
The article reported Alter was ārelievedā the Supreme Court decision āleft open a window for future challenges.ā The Anti-Defamation League had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Newdow case.
āWhen the right case does come along,ā Alter reportedly said, āWe’re there.ā
Alter was previously an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and specialized in First Amendment and terrorism issues. He also served as national director of the civil rights division of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that works to fight anti-Semitism.
The comments he reportedly made came in his capacity as an official with the Anti-Defamation League. The White House decision to reject Alter disappointed his supporters, who rallied around him and urged Schumer to advance his nomination anyway.
Schumer announced his recommended nomination of Alter during a Human Rights Campaign dinner in New York City and emphasized that his selection would make him the first openly gay male judge on the federal bench.
In a February statement, Schumer said he recommended Alter because heās āa brilliant attorney who possesses the knowledge, balanced views and temperament required of a federal judge.ā
āHis outstanding leadership skills, his commitment to justice, and his extensive experience make him an exceptional choice for a position on the federal bench,ā Schumer said. āIām proud to nominate Daniel Alter. Period. But I am equally proud to nominate him because he is a history-maker who will be the first openly gay male judge in American history.ā
But based on those reported statements, the White House and Schumer determined that Alter wouldn’t be able to reach the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster of his nomination. Itās unclear when the decision to reject Alter was made.
Schumer’s office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. A White House spokesperson declined to comment. Alter also declined to comment for this story.
Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League, said the apparent decision to reject Alter’s nomination based on reported comments he made on behalf of the organization is ājust plain unfair and unjust.ā
āAny statements he made in the course of his job with ADL were just that ā he was representing the views of our organization,ā she said. āIt’s dismaying if in fact that led to the derailing of his nomination.ā
Lauter said Alter doesnāt recall speaking to The New Republic for the 2004 article and that Alter was misquoted in the 2005 CNS article.
āIt was an inaccurate report and ADL should have insisted the record be corrected at the time,ā Lauter said.
Lauter clarified that the Anti-Defamation League has never objected to retailers wishing customers āMerry Christmas.ā
āBut the bottom line is even if he made the comment, which he didn’t, it shouldn’t have disqualified him from service as a judge,ā she said.
The decision to refuse the Alter nomination likely came sometime before July, when his supporters urged Schumer to go to bat for his recommended nominee.
In a letter dated July 2, 2010, a group of 66 attorneys who worked with Alter at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York wrote that the designation of Alter to the federal bench is āa nomination worth fighting for.ā
āWe urge you to take all possible steps to ensure that Mr. Alter is nominated to the federal bench and promptly considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee,ā the letter states.
Among those who signed the letter is James Comey, who served as deputy attorney general during the Republican administration of former President George W. Bush.
The attorneys wrote that Alter’s ānomination to the federal bench is in jeopardyā because of ādemonstrably false statementsā that reporters made while he was working for the Anti-Defamation League. The missive doesn’t detail why the statements Alter reportedly made to media outlets are ādemonstrably false.ā
āWhile we will let others set forth the factual reasons why these allegations are baseless, we write to state emphatically that the sentiments falsely ascribed to Mr. Alter are inconsistent with everything that we know about him,ā the letter states. āMr. Alter has dedicated his life to tolerance, public service, moderation, and fidelity to law. He is unfailingly kind, respectful, and open-minded. In both deed and character, Mr. Alter is the antithesis of the views that have been misattributed to him.ā
The signers state that they ācannot imagine a more highly qualified nomineeā and that the loss of Alter to the federal judiciary based on āfalse allegationsā would be significant.
āBy temperament, he is well-suited to the bench, possessing every quality one seeks in a judge: respect for all views, dedication to the public, tireless pursuit of the best legal argument, and a determination to reach decisions that will command the respect of all parties,ā the letter states.
Lauter said the Anti-Defamation League sent its own letter to Schumer in July urging the senator to push for Alter’s nomination, but she declined to make the letter public.
āIt was a private letter to the senator just clarifying the record and expressing support ā enthusiastically and without reservation ā for Danny Alter’s nomination,ā she said.
Also lamenting the derailment of Alter’s nomination is Richard Socarides, a gay New York attorney who served as an adviser to President Clinton.
Socarides told the Blade the White House’s rejection of Alter’s nomination was evidence of a broken system.
āI don’t know Daniel Alter personally,ā Socarides said. āI’m told he is highly qualified. We need more people like him in the federal judiciary. I don’t know why his nomination got derailed, but certainly a system in which someone like Alter can’t get confirmed is badly broken.ā
HRC heralded Schumer’s announcement of his recommended nomination of Alter in February, but the organization is mum on his rejection.
At the time of the announcement, Joe Solmonese, HRC’s president, said in a statement that Alter āis eminently qualified for a position on the federal bench.ā
āAmerica is taking a step forward toward equality by evaluating an individual based on his accomplishments and without regard to his sexual orientation,ā Solmonese said. āWe commend Senator Schumer for his historic recommendation, and look forward to the President’s nomination.ā
Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, this week declined to comment on the White House rejection of Alter.
Schumer has since recommended the nomination of another openly gay man, J. Paul Oetken, to become a district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The New York senator made the announcement in a Sept. 23 statement that said Oetken has āthe right combination of skills, experience and dedication to [be] an excellent judge on the court.ā
Oetken served as an attorney in private practice and was an associate counsel for former President Bill Clinton, according to the Schumer statement.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs ā Jill Tran and Peter Poe ā live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an āXā gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order.Ā The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.
Federal Government
HHS to retire 988 crisis lifeline for LGBTQ youth
Trevor Project warns the move will ‘put their lives at risk’

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is planning to retire the national 988 crisis lifeline for LGBTQ youth on Oct. 1, according to a preliminary budget document obtained by the Washington Post.
Introduced during the Biden-Harris administration in 2022, the hotline connects callers with counselors who are trained to work with this population, who are four times likelier to attempt suicide than their cisgender or heterosexual counterparts.
āSuicide prevention is about risk, not identity,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, which provides emergency crisis support for LGBTQ youth and has contracted with HHS to take calls routed through 988.
“Ending the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifelineās LGBTQ+ youth specialized services will not just strip away access from millions of LGBTQ+ kids and teens ā it will put their lives at risk,ā they said in a statement. āThese programs were implemented to address a proven, unprecedented, and ongoing mental health crisis among our nationās young people with strong bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by President Trump himself.ā
“I want to be clear to all LGBTQ+ young people: This news, while upsetting, is not final,” Black said. “And regardless of federal funding shifts, the Trevor Project remains available 24/7 for anyone who needs us, just as we always have.ā
The service for LGBTQ youth has received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since its debut, with an average of 2,100 contacts per day in February.
āI worry deeply that we will see more LGBTQ young people reach a crisis state and not have anyone there to help them through that,ā said Janson Wu, director of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project. āI worry that LGBTQ young people will reach out to 988 and not receive a compassionate and welcoming voice on the other end ā and that will only deepen their crisis.ā
Under Trump’s HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the agency’s departments and divisions have experienced drastic cuts, with a planned reduction in force of 20,000 full-time employees. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has been sunset and mental health services consolidated into the newly formed Administration for a Healthy America.
The budget document reveals, per Mother Jones, “further sweeping cuts to HHS, including a 40 percent budget cut to the National Institutes of Health; elimination of funding for Head Start, the early childhood education program for low-income families; and a 44 percent funding cut to the Centers for Disease Control, including all the agencyās chronic disease programs.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court hears oral arguments in LGBTQ education case
Mahmoud v. Taylor plaintiffs argue for right to opt-out of LGBTQ inclusive lessons

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case about whether Montgomery County, Md., public schools violated the First Amendment rights of parents by not providing them an opportunity to opt their children out of reading storybooks that were part of an LGBTQ-inclusive literacy curriculum.
The school district voted in early 2022 to allow books featuring LGBTQ characters in elementary school language arts classes. When the county announced that parents would not be able to excuse their kids from these lessons, they sued on the grounds that their freedom to exercise the teachings of their Muslim, Jewish, and Christian faiths had been infringed.
The lower federal courts declined to compel the district to temporarily provide advance notice and an opportunity to opt-out of the LGBTQ inclusive curricula, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the parents had not shown that exposure to the storybooks compelled them to violate their religion.
āLGBTQ+ stories matter,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement Tuesday. āThey matter so students can see themselves and their families in the books they read ā so they can know theyāre not alone. And they matter for all students who need to learn about the world around them and understand that while we may all be different, we all deserve to be valued and loved.”
She added, “All students lose when we limit what they can learn, what they can read, and what their teachers can say. The Supreme Court should reject this attempt to silence our educators and ban our stories.ā
GLAD Law, NCLR, Family Equality, and COLAGE submitted a 40-page amicus brief on April 9, which argued the storybooks “fit squarely” within the district’s language arts curriculum, the petitioners challenging the materials incorrectly characterized them as “specialized curriculum,” and that their request for a “mandated notice-and-opt-out requirement” threatens “to sweep far more broadly.”
Lambda Legal, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, PFLAG, and the National Womenās Law Center announced their submission of a 31-page amicus brief in a press release on April 11.
āAll students benefit from a school climate that promotes acceptance and respect,ā said Karen Loewy, senior counsel and director of constitutional law practice at Lambda Legal. āEnsuring that students can see themselves in the curriculum and learn about students who are different is critical for creating a positive school environment. This is particularly crucial for LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ family members who already face unique challenges.ā
The organizations’ brief cited extensive social science research pointing to the benefits of LGBTQ-inclusive instruction like “age-appropriate storybooks featuring diverse families and identities” benefits all students regardless of their identities.
Also weighing in with amici briefs on behalf of Montgomery County Public Schools were the National Education Association, the ACLU, and the American Psychological Association.
Those writing in support of the parents challenging the district’s policy included the Center for American Liberty, the Manhattan Institute, Parents Defending Education, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Trump-Vance administration’s U.S. Department of Justice, and a coalition of Republican members of Congress.
-
District of Columbia5 days ago
D.C. police seek help in identifying suspect in anti-gay threats case
-
Virginia2 days ago
Youngkin calls on gay Va. GOP LG candidate to exit race over alleged ‘porn’ scandal
-
Opinions5 days ago
On Pope Francis, Opus Dei and ongoing religious intolerance
-
Commentary4 days ago
A conversation about queers and class