Local
Jeff Coudriet dies at 48
Long-time D.C. gay activist succumbs to lung cancer
Jeff Coudriet, a local gay rights leader who worked as a congressional staff member before serving in various positions with the D.C. government, died Saturday in Washington following a year-long struggle with lung cancer. He was 48.
Coudriet is credited with playing a key role in efforts to repeal D.C.’s sodomy law and to pass the city’s first domestic partners law during his tenure as president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance from 1992 to 1995.
Following his stint as GLAA president, Coudriet served as president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group.
Coudriet was a native of Endicott, N.Y. He graduated from New York’s Cornell University before joining the Washington staff of Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) from 1993 to 1999. He later served on the staff of D.C. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6), where, among other things, he helped Ambrose draft sweeping legislation to overhaul the city’s liquor law.
In 1996, the city’s Democratic Party leaders appointed Coudriet to represent the District on the Electoral College in connection with that year’s presidential election.
He joined the staff of D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) in 2001 and served there until 2004, when he left to take a position with the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. Coudriet returned to Evans’ staff in 2007 to become clerk of the Council’s Committee on Finance and Revenue, which Evans chairs.
He remained on Evans’ staff until the time of his death.
“It is impossible to put into words the contributions Jeff made to our city and its residents,” Evans said. “My staff and I share the grief and extend our condolences to Jeff’s family and friends, and deeply mourn his passing.”
D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) said he was deeply sadened upon learning of Coudriet’s passing.
“He was a true public servant who dedicated his career to improving the lives of District residents,” Brown said. “Jeff will be sorely missed, and his absence from the halls of the Wilson Building will be felt by many.”
News of Coudriet’s death stunned many of the city’s LGBT and civil rights activists, who worked closely with him on LGBT and other city-related issues for more than 20 years.
“Jeff’s insider knowledge of the District finances was invaluable to Shaw on many occasions, when funding needed to be identified for important projects,” said Alex Padro, a gay activist and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner representing the city’s Shaw neighborhood.
In messages posted on a memorial site that Coudriet’s brother set up on Coudriet’s Facebook page, many of his friends and those who worked with him on various issues said he was known as a helpful and considerate person with a wry sense of humor. Others said he was always respectful when expressing disagreement with them on government and political issues.
“While he led the gay Democrats, I led the gay Republicans in town,” said Carl Schmid, former president of the D.C. Log Cabin Republicans group.
“Party differences never got in the way of a true gentleman because we were always fighting for the same goal,” Schmid said. “I wish so many others were like him. He will be greatly missed.”
Bob Dardano, a Stein Club member who worked with Coudriet on LGBT issues in the 1990s, said of Coudriet, “He was a passionate advocate of his beliefs and did it all with professionalism and a sense of humor.”
Coudriet, a long-time smoker, was diagnosed last spring about a year after he’d quit smoking. He was candid about his treatments and progress on his Facebook page and, for a time, was doing well.
A memorial service fhas been scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 11 a.m. at Foundry United Methodist Church (1500 16th St., N.W.) in Washington, D.C. All are welcome. A funeral service will also be held on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, 701 West Main St., in Endicott, New York.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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