News
Baldwin makes history with Wisconsin Senate victory
First openly gay member of the Senate
Lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin has won her race for the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin in a historic first for the LGBT community. She becomes the first openly gay person to serve in the Senate.
With 77 percent of precincts reporting, Baldwin was leading former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, 51-46 percent.
“I am honored, and humbled, and grateful,” Baldwin said in election night remarks. ” And I am ready to get to work. Ready to stand with President Barack Obama. Ready to fight for Wisconsin’s middle class!”
Early polls showed Thompson with a slight lead over Baldwin shortly after Thompson won the GOP nomination in a primary in August. By the middle of September, polls showed Baldwin in the lead, but the size of her lead narrowed by late October, with some pollsters saying the two candidates were in a statistical tie going into Tuesday’s election.
Baldwin’s quest to become the nation’s first openly gay U.S. senator captured the attention of the LGBT people across the country, many of whom contributed money to Baldwin’s campaign.
She also received backing from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other Democratic leaning groups, including labor unions and environmental organizations.
In 1998, Baldwin became the first openly gay non-incumbent to win election to the U.S. House when she won her race for Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District in which the state capital of Madison is located.
In her seven terms in Congress, Baldwin became known as one of the strongest advocates of LGBT rights in the House as well as one of the strongest champions of progressive causes and policies.
Thompson, whose supporters describe him as a moderate, served as governor of Wisconsin between 1987 and 2001. He served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. He became a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 but dropped out of the race before the start of the primaries.
Thompson has said he personally opposes same-sex marriage and supports the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage under federal law as a union only between a man and a woman. But he has said he doesn’t favor a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality and favors leaving same-sex marriage decisions to the states.
He has said he opposes workplace discrimination based on someone’s sexual orientation but has not said whether he would support federal legislation to ban anti-LGBT discrimination in the workplace.
Although Wisconsin members of the gay Republican group Log Cabin Republicans are supporting Thompson, the national Log Cabin organization, which endorsed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for president, didn’t endorse Thompson.
“We endorsed candidates that engaged with us and asked for our endorsement,” said Log Cabin president R. Clarke Cooper, who noted that the group endorsed just four U.S. Senate candidates this year.
The outcome of Tuesday’s Senate election in Wisconsin marked the end of a bruising campaign, which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says may have broken a national record for the most negative TV ads of any U.S. Senate campaign in the state and possibly in the nation.
The Journal Sentinel reports that both Baldwin and Thompson appear to have lashed out at each other with equal force, with some independent observers saying some of the ads from both sides included misleading information.
None of the Thompson attack ads appear to have singled out Baldwin based on her sexual orientation.
However, in at least one instance, a Thompson campaign official sent an email to the news media in early September, one day before Baldwin spoke before the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., highlighting Baldwin’s appearance at an LGBT Pride festival in Madison several years earlier.
The email, sent by Thompson campaign staffer Brian Nemoir, included an attached YouTube video showing Baldwin waiving her arms while dancing on a stage with the popular Wisconsin rock band V05. Some of the band members were dressed in Wonder Woman costumes as the band played the theme song for the Wonder Woman TV series.
Nemoir stated in his email that Baldwin was scheduled to discuss “heartland values” in her Democratic Convention speech.
“Clearly, there’s no one better positioned to talk ‘heartland values’ than Tammy,” he said in the email.
Baldwin supporters called the email a form of gay baiting, saying it was an attempt to question Baldwin’s values because she appeared at an LGBT Pride event. A Thompson campaign spokesperson said Nemoir was acting as an individual and not on behalf of the campaign when he sent the email and video.
While the Thompson campaign’s negative TV ads steered clear of Baldwin’s sexual orientation, they sought to portray her as an ultra liberal politician out of touch with the needs of the state and the country.
One ad pointed to Baldwin’s longstanding support for a single payer health insurance system, quoting her as saying several years ago that the single payer system she supported is a “government takeover of medicine.” Another ad noted that Baldwin voted four times against economic sanctions for Iran, criticizing her judgment on a key foreign policy issue.
U.S. Senate Candidate Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Baldwin responded to the health insurance attack by saying she voted for and continues to support the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s health insurance reform measure that Congress passed two years ago. She said her support for a single payer system was “moot” since the Obama measure is about to be implemented.
She said she voted against sanctions for Iran at a time when she was hopeful that dissident groups in Iran would overturn Iran’s government and establish a true democratic system. She said she began voting for sanctions after determining that the opposition forces didn’t have the strength to change the government.
A Thompson campaign attack ad that drew expressions of outrage from Baldwin’s campaign and its supporters showed video footage of the devastation of the World Trade Center in New York following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and denounced Baldwin for voting against a 2006 House resolution honoring victims of the attacks.
Baldwin said she voted for at least four other 9/11 resolutions honoring victims of the terrorist attacks but voted against the 2006 resolution because it included other provisions on unrelated issues with which she disagreed.
In her own TV ads, Baldwin fired back at Thompson, citing reports by New York firefighters saying the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which Thompson headed at the time of the 9/11 attacks, was slow in responding to firefighters’ calls for assistance for their illnesses believed to be caused by the fumes and contaminated dust that engulfed them while responding to the World Trade Center disaster.
Another Baldwin ad criticized Thompson for profiting from the 9/11 tragedy when he became president of a private medical related company that obtained an $11 million federal government contract to assist victims of the attack. Thompson joined the company after leaving his post as HHS Secretary.
A separate Baldwin ad attacked Thompson for having personal investments in companies that do business with Iran. Thompson said the investments were in stock, which he said he immediately sold when he learned the companies that issued the stock had investments linked to Iran.
“In one of the most phenomenally negative years ever, the Wisconsin Senate race stands out this fall as perhaps the most negative race in the entire country,” the Journal Sentinel quoted Ken Goldstein, a political scientist and observer of Wisconsin politics, as saying.
Netherlands
Rob Jetten becomes first gay Dutch prime minister
38-year-old head of government sworn in on Monday
Rob Jetten on Monday became the Netherland’s first openly gay prime minister.
Jetten’s centrist D66 party won the country’s elections last October, narrowly defeating Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom.
King Willem-Alexander on Monday swore in Jetten, who is also the country’s youngest-ever prime minister. The Associated Press notes Jetten’s coalition government includes the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
“Proud to be able to do this together,” said Jetten in an X post before Willem-Alexander swore him in.
COC Nederland, a Dutch LGBTQ advocacy group, in a statement said Jetten “becoming prime minister shows that your sexual orientation doesn’t have to matter.”
“You can become a construction worker, a doctor, a lawyer, and even prime minister,” said COC Nederland.
The advocacy group noted Jetten has said his government will implement its “Rainbow Agreement” that include calls for strengthening nondiscrimination laws “to better protect transgender and intersex people,” appointing more “discrimination investigators … to address violence against LGBTQ+ people and other minorities,” and introducing measures “to promote acceptance in schools.”
“COC will hold the Cabinet to that promise,” said COC Nederland.
Jetten’s fiancé is Nicolás Keenen, an Argentine field hockey player who competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Jetten is one of two openly gay heads of government: Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora came out in 2023. Gay Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who is the country’s head of state, took office in 2023.
Leo Varadkar, who was Ireland’s prime minister from 2017-2020 and from 2022-2024, and Xavier Bettel, who was Luxembourg’s prime minister from 2013-2023, are gay. Ana Brnabić, who was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024, is a lesbian.
Former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir in 2009 became the world’s first openly lesbian head of government. Former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal are also openly gay.
Colombian presidential candidate Claudia López, who is the former mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital, would become her country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins the country’s presidential election that is taking place later this year.
District of Columbia
D.C. police arrest man for burglary at gay bar Spark Social House
Suspect ID’d from images captured by Spark Social House security cameras
D.C. police on Feb. 18 arrested a 63-year-old man “of no fixed address” for allegedly stealing cash from the registers at the gay bar Spark Social House after unlawfully entering the bar at 2009 14th St., N.W., around 12:04 a.m. after it had closed for business, according to a police incident report.
“Later that day officers canvassing for the suspect located him nearby,” a separate police statement says. “63-year-old Tony Jones of no fixed address was arrested and charged with Burglary II,” the statement says.
The police incident report states that the bar’s owner, Nick Tsusaki, told police investigators that the bar’s security cameras captured the image of a man who has frequently visited the bar and was believed to be homeless.
“Once inside, the defendant was observed via the establishment’s security cameras opening the cash register, removing U.S. currency, and placing the currency into the left front pocket of his jacket,” the report says.
Tsusaki told the Washington Blade that he and Spark’s employees have allowed Jones to enter the bar many times since it opened last year to use the bathroom in a gesture of compassion knowing he was homeless. Tsusaki said he is not aware of Jones ever having purchased anything during his visits.
According to Tsusaki, Spark closed for business at around 10:30 p.m. on the night of the incident at which time an employee did not properly lock the front entrance door. He said no employees or customers were present when the security cameras show Jones entering Spark through the front door around 12:04 a.m.
Tsusaki said the security camera images show Jones had been inside Spark for about three hours on the night of the burglary and show him taking cash out of two cash registers. He took a total of $300, Tsusaki said.
When Tsusaki and Spark employees arrived at the bar later in the day and discovered the cash was missing from the registers they immediately called police, Tsusaki told the Blade. Knowing that Jones often hung out along the 2000 block of 14th Street where Spark is located, Tsusaki said he went outside to look for him and saw him across the street and pointed Jones out to police, who then placed him under arrest.
A police arrest affidavit filed in court states that at the time they arrested him police found the stolen cash inside the pocket of the jacket Jones was wearing. It says after taking him into police custody officers found a powdered substance in a Ziploc bag also in Jones’s possession that tested positive for cocaine, resulting in him being charged with cocaine possession in addition to the burglary charge.
D.C. Superior Court records show a judge ordered Jones held in preventive detention at a Feb. 19 presentment hearing. The judge then scheduled a preliminary hearing for the case on Feb. 20, the outcome of which couldn’t immediately be obtained.
District of Columbia
Judge rescinds order against activist in Capital Pride lawsuit
Darren Pasha accused of stalking organization staff, board members, volunteers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb.18 agreed to rescind his earlier ruling declaring local gay activist Darren Pasha in default for failing to attend a virtual court hearing regarding an anti-stalking lawsuit brought against him by the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual Pride events.
The Capital Pride lawsuit, initially filed on Oct. 27, 2025, accuses Pasha of engaging in a year-long “course of conduct” of “harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior” targeting Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
Judge Robert D. Okum nevertheless on Feb. 6 approved a temporary stay-away order requiring Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, volunteers, and board members until the time of a follow-up court hearing scheduled for April 17. He reduced the stay-away distance from 200 yards as requested by Capital Pride.
In his two-page order issued on Feb. 18, Okun stated that Pasha explained that he was involved in a scooter accident in which he was injured and his phone was damaged, preventing him from joining the Feb. 6 court hearing.
“Therefore, the court finds there is a good cause for vacating the default,” Okun states in his order.
At the time he initially approved the default order at the Feb. 6 hearing that Pasha didn’t attend, Okun scheduled an April 17 ex parte proof hearing in which Capital Pride could have requested a ruling in its favor seeking a permanent anti-stalking order against Pasha.
In his Feb. 18 ruling rescinding the default order Okun changed the April 17 ex parte proof hearing to an initial scheduling conference hearing in which a decision on the outcome of the case is not likely to happen.
In addition, he agreed to consider Pasha’s call for a jury trial and gave Capital Pride 14 days to contest that request. The Capital Pride lawsuit initially called for a non-jury trial by judge.
One request by Pasha that Okum denied was a call for him to order Capital Pride to stop its staff or volunteers from posting information about the lawsuit on social media. Pasha has said the D.C.-based online blog called DC Homos, which Pasha claims is operated by someone associated with Capital Pride, has been posting articles portraying him in a negative light and subjecting him to highly negative publicity.
“The defendant has not set forth a sufficient basis for the court to restrict the plaintiff’s social media postings, and the court therefore will deny the defendant’s request in his social media praecipe,” Okun states in his order.
A praecipe is a formal written document requesting action by a court.
Pasha called the order a positive development in his favor. He said he plans to file another motion with more information about what he calls the unfair and defamatory reports about him related to the lawsuit by DC Homos, with a call for the judge to reverse his decision not to order Capital Pride to stop social media postings about the lawsuit.
Pasha points to a video interview on the LGBTQ Team Rayceen broadcast, a link to which he sent to the Washington Blade, in which DC Homos operator Jose Romero acknowledged his association with Capital Pride Alliance.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking whether Romero was a volunteer or employee with Capital Pride.
Pasha also said he believes the latest order has the effect of rescinding the temporary stay away order against him approved by Okun in his earlier ruling, even though Okun makes no mention of the stay away order in his latest ruling. Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison told the Blade the stay away order “remains in full force and effect.”
Harrison said Capital Pride has no further comment on the lawsuit.
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