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YEAR IN REVIEW: D.C. marriage law makes history

A look at the top 10 local stories of the year

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The year 2010 saw same-sex couples legally marry for the first time in D.C. Angelisa Young and Sinjhoyla Townsend were among the first to wed. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

 

#1 Same-sex couples marry in D.C.

A long line of same-sex couples snaked its way through a corridor at the D.C. Superior Courtā€™s Marriage Bureau on March 3, the first day the couples could apply for a marriage license under the cityā€™s Religious Freedom and Marriage Equality Amendment Act.

The Act was approved by the City Council and signed by Mayor Adrian Fenty in December 2009, making D.C. the sixth jurisdiction in the country to legalize same-sex marriage. The weddings began in March following the completion of a required congressional review of the law.

Under the watchful eye of nearly two-dozen television cameras and news photographers, two lesbian couples and a gay male couple were among the first same-sex couples to wedā€”in ceremonies held at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters.

ā€œToday was like a dream for me,ā€ said Angelisa Young, 47, minutes after her wedding to Sinjhoyla Townsend, 41, her partner of 12 years.

ā€œI always felt like it would come true. But itā€™s here now, and itā€™s really real,ā€ she said. ā€œWe want to thank everyone who made this possible.ā€

Opponents of same-sex marriage, led by Maryland minister Harry Jackson, lost a series of court challenges seeking to force the city to hold a voter referendum on whether the law should be overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide in January whether accept or reject Jacksonā€™s final appeal on the question of whether the city should be forced to hold the referendum.

#2 Fenty loses to Gray

Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his re-election bid to City Council chair Vincent Gray in the cityā€™s Sept. 14 Democratic primary.Ā Although the two candidates each have a strong record of support on LGBT issues, including support for the same-sex marriage law, Gray received the strong backing of most LGBT organizations and activists.

Like other constituency groups, a number of LGBT leaders said Fenty appeared to have lost touch with the needs and concerns of the LGBT community. They noted that he declined to speak out, for example, on the growing number of anti-LGBT hate crimes and rarely attended LGBT events or meetings.

But election returns showed that Fenty beat Gray in nearly all voter precincts where large numbers of gays live such as Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Logan Circle and Capitol Hill. Areas where high concentrations of black gays live voted overwhelmingly for Gray, highlighting the city-wide racial divide in the election, with blacks voting mostly for Gray and whites voting mostly for Fenty.

#3 Principal Brian Betts murdered

The murder in April of highly acclaimed D.C. middle school principal Brian Betts, who was gay, by a 19-year-old man he met though an Internet chat line for men interested in sex with men drew extensive media attention.

Three of the four youths charged in the case ā€” three 19 and one 18 at the time of the incident ā€” have pleaded guilty through plea bargain offers by prosecutors in Montgomery County, Md., where Betts was shot to death in his house on April 15. Nineteen-year-old Alante Saunders, who admitted he shot Betts accidentally during a robbery, was sentenced to 40 years in jail.

Saunders acknowledged to police that he hatched a plan to meet someone on the chat line for the purpose of robbing them, a disclosure that created alarm in the gay community over potential danger of meeting sex partners online.

Two attorneys representing Bettsā€™ family have called on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether Saunders should be charged under the Matthew Shepard federal hate crimes law.

ā€œBrian was a gay man and we believe an investigation should be opened under that law to determine whether a hate crime has or has not been committed,ā€ said attorney Gloria Allred.

#4 Md. elects 7 out gays; Beyer loses race

Seven openly gay candidates ā€“ four incumbents and three newcomers ā€“ were elected to the Maryland Legislature in November, boosting chances that the legislature will pass a same-sex marriage law in 2011.

Meanwhile, Dana Beyer, a retired eye surgeon and political activist, lost her bid to become the first transgender person elected to the Maryland Legislature. Beyer ran for a seat in the House of Delegates from a district in Montgomery County.

Among the winners were gay incumbents Richard Madeleno, a member of the State Senate; and lesbian House of Delegates members Anne Kaiser, Heather Mizeur and Maggie McIntosh. Among the challengers to win was Mary Washington, who captured a seat in the House of Delegates from Baltimore, becoming the first black lesbian to be elected to the Maryland Legislature and just the second black lesbian to win a seat in a state legislature in the U.S.

Lesbian Bonnie Cullison and gay candidate Luke Clippinger each won seats in the House of Delegates. All seven are Democrats.

#5 Not guilty verdict in Wone case

Three gay men charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and evidence tampering in connection with the 2006 murder of D.C. attorney Robert Wone were found not guilty of the charges in June following a sensational trial.

In a development that stunned courtroom spectators and Woneā€™s family members, D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz said it was ā€œvery probableā€ that defendants Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward engaged in a massive cover-up of the murder and know the identity of Woneā€™s killer, as asserted by prosecutors.

But she said the government failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the men committed the offenses with which they were charged, forcing her to issue a not-guilty verdict in the non-jury trial. The defendants waived their right to a jury trial.

They are now scheduled to for a second trial in a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit that Woneā€™s wife and family members filed against them, which is expected to begin in the spring.

They have claimed an unknown intruder killed Wone after entering their upscale townhouse near Dupont Circle, where Wone was spending the night after working late in his nearby office. Wone, whose wife said he was straight, had been longtime friends with the three defendants.

Police and prosecutors argued there was no evidence of a break-in at the house and an autopsy showed Wone appeared to have been immobilized ā€“ possibly by a paralytic drug ā€“ before being stabbed three times in the chest.

#6 Md. recognizes out-of-state gay marriages

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler issued a long-awaited legal opinion in February saying same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries most likely would have full legal standing in Maryland.

But in his 53-page opinion, Gansler said the Maryland Court of Appeals would have the final say in the matter if opponents of same-sex marriage decide to contest the legal standing of married same-sex couples living in or visiting the state.

Ganslerā€™s opinion was hailed by LGBT activists and gay couples, who said they planned to marry in D.C. beginning in March, when the Districtā€™s same-sex marriage law took effect. But outraged opponents of same-sex marriage vowed to contest the Gansler opinion, and some called on the state legislature to impeach him over the issue.

Nearly a year after Gansler issued his opinion, it remained unclear whether same-sex married couples in the state have encountered problems with state agencies in receiving the same marriage-related benefits afforded opposite-sex married couples.

#7 GLOV calls for attention to hate crimes

The D.C. group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) says 2010 marked yet another year in which LGBT people were the victims in more than 70 percent of the total number of hate crimes reported in the District.

The LGBT community became alarmed earlier in the year when D.C. police issued an alert about nearly a half-dozen anti-gay assaults occurring near gay bars in the Dupont Circle and Logan Circle areas. In one case, a group of teenage males and females assaulted a gay man walking on P Street near Dupont Circle while shouting anti-gay names.

With teenagers and young adults emerging as the perpetrators in most of the anti-LGBT hate crimes, GLOV and other activists groups have called on the cityā€™s public school system to increase diversity awareness programs foster better understanding of LGBT people.

#8 Trans woman claims assault by D.C. cop

Transgender activists have said D.C. police may have violated policies for addressing the transgender community in a Dec. 1 incident in which a transgender woman said she was assaulted by an off-duty police officer.

Chloe Alexander Moore, 25, was arrested on a charge of assault for spraying a chemical repellent into the face of Officer Raphael Radon. Radon was dressed in civilian clothes and, according to Moore, assaulted her after calling her names, leading her to believe she was in imminent danger. She said she squirted Radon with pepper spray in self-defense and did not know he was a police officer.

Two police sources told the Blade that a detective and sergeant who responded to the scene and interviewed witnesses initially determined that Radon started the altercation and he rather than Moore appeared to have committed an assault.

But police and court records show the two were overruled by a captain, who was not on the scene but was consulted by phone.

#9 Washington Blade re-launches

The Washington Blade resumed publishing as a local, independently owned newspaper in April after a November 2009 bankruptcy filing by its parent company, Window Media, forced it to shut down after 40 years of service as an LGBT publication.

Blade staff members, with the help of local advertisers and community supporters, launched the D.C. Agenda newspaper to fill in for the Blade immediately after the Blade shutdown. Following months of preparation, publisher Lynne Brown, editor Kevin Naff, and sales executive Brian Pitts formed a new company that bought the Bladeā€™s name and remaining assets from the bankruptcy court.

The purchase enabled the new company to resume using the Bladeā€™s name. The company ā€“ Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia ā€” has since launched a non-profit foundation to raise money to digitize the Bladeā€™s print archives, making all back issues dating back to 1969 available to the public online.

The existing electronic archives, which covered back issues beginning in the late 1990s, were destroyed shortly before or after the bankruptcy filing when Window Media failed to pay a web hosting company the monthly fees required to maintain and store the archives on a rented computer server.

#10 MTVā€™s ā€˜Real Worldā€™ showcases D.C.

D.C.ā€™s gay community joined in the suspense and merriment in early 2010 when MTVā€™s reality series ā€œReal Worldā€ premiered its ā€œReal World: D.C.ā€ episodes, which were filmed in the District in 2009.

Much of the filming took place in a Dupont Circle mansion, where the cast resided while they visited Washingtonā€™s historic sites as well as many nightlife venues. Cast member Mike Manning, who is bisexual, was filmed in some of the cityā€™s gay bars and clubs and was followed by an MTV video crew when he attended the Oct. 2009 Human Rights Campaign dinner, in which President Obama was the keynote speaker.

MTV crews filmed another cast member at the Washington Bladeā€™s then offices in the National Press Building as she worked as a Blade photographer.

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District of Columbia

D.C. mayorĀ honors 10th anniversary of Team Rayceen Productions

LGBTQ entertainment, advocacy organization praised for ā€˜vital workā€™

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Rayceen Pendarvis co-founded Team Rayceen Productions. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser today issued an official proclamation declaring Monday, March 18, 2024, as Team Rayceen Day in honor of the local LGBTQ entertainment and advocacy organization Team Rayceen Productions named after its co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis.

ā€œWhereas Rayceen, along with Team Rayceen Productions co-founder, Zar, have spent 10 years advocating for the Black LGBTQI+ community using various forms including in-person events, social media, and YouTube,ā€ the proclamation states.

The proclamation adds that through its YouTube Channel, Team Rayceen Productions created a platform for ā€œBlack LGBTQIA+ individuals to discuss various topics including spotlighting nonprofit organizations and small businesses, voter registration and participation, the state of LGBTQIA+ rights and resources in D.C, gender equality and equity, and the amplification of opportunities to bring the community together.ā€

It also praises Team Rayceen Productions for its partnership with the Mayorā€™s Office of LGBTQ Affairs in helping to produce ā€œexciting events like the District of Pride talent showcase held each June and the iconic 17th Street High Heel Race celebrated in October.ā€

ā€œWhereas I thank Team Rayceen Productions for its vital and necessary work and am #DCProud to wish you all the best as you continue to support Black LGBTQIA+ residents across all 8 Wards,ā€ the proclamation continues.

ā€œNow, therefore, I, the Mayor of Washington, D.C., do hereby proclaim March 18, 2024, as TEAM RAYCEEN DAY in Washington, D.C. and do commit this observance to all Washingtonians,ā€ it concludes.

ā€œWe thank Mayor Bowser for this special proclamation, which highlights where it all began, with the Black LGBTQIA+ community of Washington, D.C,ā€ Team Rayceen Productions says in a statement. ā€œStarting with The Ask Rayceen Show, Reel Affirmation, and events with D.C. Public Library to Art All Night, Silver Pride by Whitman-Walker, and events with the Mayorā€™s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, we are #dcproud of what we have accomplished in the Nationā€™s Capital,ā€ the statement says. 

“For TEAM RAYCEEN DAY, we thank the diverse group of individuals who have made everything we have done possible by volunteering their time and talents over the past decade ā€“ as online co-hosts, event staff, performers, DJs, photographers, and more,ā€ says the statement.

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D.C. jury finds AARP Services illegally fired gay man

Former employee awarded $2.1 million in damages

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Richard A. Deus, Jr.

A D.C. Superior Court jury on March 15 handed down a verdict finding that the D.C.-based AARP Services, Inc., an arm of the AARP that interacts with businesses supportive of the nationā€™s seniors, illegally fired a gay manager because of his sexual orientation.

The juryā€™s verdict, which it said was based on a ā€œpreponderance of evidence,ā€ came six years after Richard A. ā€˜Rickā€™ Deus Jr., who worked for AARP and AARP Services for 11 years, filed a lawsuit against his former employer in May 2018. The lawsuit charges that AARP Services violated the D.C. Human Rights Act by firing him after falsely accusing him of accepting gifts for travel from businesses affiliated with AARP that violated AARP employee ethics policies.

His lawsuit says he was fired in February 2018. At that time, he held the title of director of program management at AARP Services.

The lawsuit says AARP Services cited the alleged travel violations as the reason for its decision to fire him. The lawsuit named AARP Services and its then chief executive officer, Lawrence Flanagan, as the two defendants responsible for Deusā€™s firing.

But the juryā€™s verdict only named AARP Services as being at fault in the firing. It did not find Flanagan at fault and did not hold him responsible for damages, even though Flanagan testified at the trial that he made the final decision to terminate Deus on grounds that Deus violated the travel policy.

The jury also chose not to hold AARP Services responsible for paying punitive damages to Deus, whose lawsuit called for $5 million in compensatory damages and an additional $5 million in punitive damages.

In its verdict, according to online court records, the jury awarded Deus $1,612,916.18 in compensatory damages and $578,351 in damages for emotional distress that AARP Services is required to pay Deus. The court records show the jury awarded Deus another $1,118.89 to be paid by AARP Services for its alleged breach of contract with him in its decision to fire him.

An attorney representing AARP Services immediately following the verdict filed a motion requesting that Superior Court Judge Shana Frost Matini, who presided over the trial, issue a ā€œdirected verdictā€ overturning the juryā€™s verdict. 

Such a motion is often filed by individuals or organizations on the losing side of a lawsuit, but such requests are rarely approved. Matini said she would schedule a hearing to consider the motion in May.

ā€œIā€™m thrilled that the jury found that I was treated differently from my co-workers and discriminatorily fired,ā€ Deus told the Washington Blade after the jury handed down its verdict. ā€œThatā€™s clearly what they found, and they awarded emotional pain and suffering,ā€ he said. ā€œBut overall, Iā€™m elated. Itā€™s been six years of my life that Iā€™ve been fighting and telling people that I was treated differently than anybody else and today I got my vindication.ā€

Laura Segal, AARPā€™s Senior Vice President for External Affairs, told the Blade in a statement, ā€œAARP is pleased with the juryā€™s verdict that Lawrence Flanagan lawfully terminated Richard Deusā€™s employment.ā€ She added, ā€œAARP Services, Inc. (ASI) disagrees with the remainder of the verdict and is exploring all options for further legal review. We remain committed to an inclusive culture and warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.ā€

Attorneys representing AARP Services argued at the trial and presented witnesses denying Dues was fired because of his sexual orientation. They asserted that AARP Services had and still has gay and lesbian employees and managers and that the company has a longstanding policy of prohibiting  discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or marital status.

Deusā€™s lawsuit accused AARP Services of targeting Deus for discrimination based on his marriage to another man as well as for his sexual orientation. The jury did not find that AARP Services engaged in discrimination against Deus based on his marital status.

Flanagan was among the lead defense witnesses who testified at the nine-day-long trial. He testified that he has worked for many years with gay colleagues, has a gay relative who he admires, and would never have allowed his staff to engage in discrimination while he served as AARP Services CEO.

He noted in his testimony that his decision to fire Deus was based, in part, on the recommendation of AARP Servicesā€™ human resources or personnel director, Michael Loizzi, who is an openly gay man. Loizzi, who also testified at the trial, said that as a gay man he would never have called for Deus or anyone else to be fired because of their sexual orientation. He stated in his testimony that he recommended to Flanagan that Deus be fired because Deus violated AARP Services travel policy and lied to his supervisor about the details of the travel to get his supervisorā€™s approval under false pretenses.

Deus, during his own testimony, strongly disputed claims that he obtained permission for his travel by providing false information to his supervisor. His lawsuit states that both his supervisor and AARP Servicesā€™ legal counsel cleared him for the two trips that he has been accused of taking in violation of policy.

His lawsuit identifies heterosexual AARP and AARP Services employees who have taken business trips like the two taken by Deus that allegedly violated travel policy who were not fired or disciplined. A few faced disciplinary actions but were allowed to retain their jobs, the lawsuit says.

ā€œThis case is about the unequal treatment of a gay man when juxtaposed to the treatment of our heterosexual comparators,ā€ Darrell Chambers, Deusā€™s lead attorney, told the Washington Blade after the verdict. ā€œThis is not a case about an organization or a group of people who hate gay people and decided that they were going to fire this man because they hate him,ā€ Chambers said.

ā€œInstead, itā€™s a case where the punishment that they consistently applied to gay employees, re Mr. Deus and Mr. Sanders, was harsher, far harsher than the punishment they applied to heterosexual employees who committed the same or similar acts.ā€

Chambers was referring to former AARP Services employee Jack Sanders, who is gay and who testified on video played at the trial that he was summarily fired on grounds that he allegedly sent pornographic photos or video images to another AARP Services employee, who complained about receiving the pornographic images.

Sanders has said the pornographic images in question were sent to the employee by his ex-boyfriend who wanted to portray Sanders in a negative light. Through telephone and wire transmission records Sanders was able to show that the images in question were sent from a device in Washington, D.C. at a time that Sanders was in Chicago, proving that Sanders could not have been the person who sent the images.

Deusā€™s attorneys brought out at the trial that AARP Services failed to give Sanders a chance to defend himself, prompting him to file his own lawsuit against AARP Services for which a settlement was reached. The terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed. But Deusā€™s attorneys cited Sandersā€™s case as yet another example of how AARP Services has treated gay employees differently from heterosexual employees.

AARP Services attorney Alison Davis argued during the trial that discrimination based on Deusā€™s sexual orientation had nothing at all to do with the decision to fire him. Davis told the jury that the two trips that Deus took that led to his firing, one to New York City and the other to New Orleans to attend the Sugar Bowl football game, were financed in part by companies that do business with AARP in violation of AARP and AARP Services policies for travel. Among other things, she said the Sugar Bowl is considered a championship game that has a value higher than smaller gifts that AARP employees are allowed to accept.

Deus testified that his reason for accepting an invitation to the Sugar Bowl game was to spend time with the new account director at the Allstate insurance company, which paid for the Sugar Bowl game ticket. ā€œIn 2019, we were going to be negotiating a new contract with Allstate and we wanted to establish a good relationship with her before the contract negotiations began,ā€ he told the Blade. ā€œThatā€™s how you do business.ā€

Deus said he was referring to Allstateā€™s business relationship with AARP Services, which he said, similar to its interaction with other businesses, helps AARP provide support and services to the nationā€™s senior citizens.

In her cross examination of Deus on the witness stand, Davis also raised AARP Servicesā€™ claim in contesting the lawsuit that the emotional distress and depression that Deus says he suffered because of his firing could have been caused by issues unrelated to the firing. Davis asked Deus if his emotional distress was caused by stress that Deus has said he experienced years earlier when he came out as gay to his parents, who are ordained ministers, and in his interaction with his sister, who had been diagnosed as being bipolar. 

Deus said that while his coming out to his conservative parents nearly 30 years ago and his sisterā€™s mental health issues were a concern years earlier, he and his parents had long since reconciled over his sexual orientation and his sisterā€™s mental health issues played no role whatsoever in the emotional distress he experienced after being fired by AARP Services.

In her cross examination of Deus on the witness stand, Davis also asked him if his decision to be interviewed by the Washington Blade last year for a Blade story about his lawsuit could have contributed to the difficulty, he said he encountered in finding employment after he was fired by AARP Services. Deus, who testified that he was hired by at least one other company that later laid him off, said he did not believe a Blade story about his lawsuit would have an adverse impact on him.  

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Baltimore

Power Plant Live! opens Club 4, its first LGBTQ bar

Ryan Butler, known by his drag persona Brooklyn Heights, helped launch venue

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Ryan Butler, also known as drag performer Brooklyn Heights, stands in the space at Power Plant Live! that will house Club 4. (Photo by Kaitlin Newman for the Baltimore Banner)

BY JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV | Ryan Butler wanted a place where all members of the LGBTQ community could enjoy drag, drinks and fellowship in a safe space. He found it by the Inner Harbor.

Butler jumped at the opportunity to help open Club 4, the first LGBTQ-themed bar to occupy the popular Power Plant Live! venue.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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