Local
Equality Maryland rejects $500,000 donation
Board says conditions unacceptable
Equality Maryland’s board of directors turned down an offer by an anonymous donor to give the financially struggling group $500,000 in exchange for the board giving up its voting privilege and becoming an advisory body, with a new board to be selected by the donor.
Darrell Carrington, an Equality Maryland board member who knows the identity of the donor and acted as the donor’s representative, said he resigned from the board on Monday following the board’s decision to turn down the offer.
He said he recused himself from voting on the offer, among other things, because the donor wanted him to be part of a new board selected by the donor to help save the organization, which faces the prospect of having to lay off all of but one of its employees by July 1.
“It’s a gay man out of Montgomery County. I can’t identity him any more than that,” said Carrington, when asked to reveal something about the mystery donor.
“The reason why he made the offer is because he’s been following Equality Maryland for years,” Carrington said. “And of course he wants to see the organization survive.”
Added Carrington, “In any corporate type of structure, or even a non-profit, if someone’s coming in with money to lift the organization they need to be able to call the shots. And that was something that was not going to work for them,” he said of the board.
Patrick Wojahn, one of five remaining Equality Maryland board members, said Carrington also withheld the donor’s identity from the board. According to Wojahn, Carrington disclosed the name of another individual working with the donor who was to join the donor and Carrington to become a new three-member board that would take control of the group under the terms of the offer.
“There were a number of strings tied to the deal, which basically made us uncomfortable with it,” Wojahn said. “And we decided that if we are going to turn over the organization to some people who really didn’t have any ties to the LGBT community that we needed to have more of a conversation with the community first.”
Carrington, who is straight, works as a political consultant and lobbyist before the Maryland Legislature on issues other than LGBT rights. However, activists familiar with Equality Maryland say he worked hard for a same-sex marriage bill that died in the legislature earlier this year.
Since meeting with LGBT activists and Equality Maryland members over the past few weeks, the board has been told repeatedly that “people want more accountability and more transparency” from the group, Wojahn said.
“To basically turn over the organization to these folks who really didn’t have any ties to the community without further dialogue within the community about what that would mean, we thought that would not be fair to the membership of the organization,” he said.
Carrington said he and others who have worked with the organization doubt it will be able to survive much longer. “It’s essentially out of money,” he said.
“We don’t believe the organization is going to fold,” said Wojahn. “We’re looking forward. We’ve already been doing fundraising. We’re working on a plan to expand the board, to rebuild the organization, and we feel that we can work with the community to rebuild.”
Yet he said that unless contributions begin to flow to a substantial degree, the board will be forced to follow through with its earlier stated plan to lay off all but one employee by the end of this month due to an inability to meet the payroll.
Asked if the board would reconsider the offer by the anonymous donor after discussing the proposal with the group’s membership, Wojahn said, “I don’t know. They wanted an answer fairly quickly about whether or not we would take their offer. So I don’t know if it would still be available.”
Carrington told the Blade on Tuesday that the donor would consider making the offer available if the board should change its mind, but he said the terms would remain the same.
“The offer is we’ll put the money up but the current board has to be ex-officio,” he said. “They cannot have any voting rights or responsibilities.”
Added Carrington, “I’m a little disappointed, with the amount of work I have done over the years for marriage equality, for them not to understand that I would not put together a team that would try to destroy what we’ve built. I think the financial commitment should speak volumes to the level of commitment that everyone has to saving Equality Maryland,” he said.
“I have to question them when they say they are the custodians of the organization for the state of Maryland,” added Carrington. “My question is who are you the custodians of if you have to close your doors by the end of July? I just don’t know if they’re seeing the big picture here.”
In addition to Wojahn, the other board members remaining with Equality Maryland include Lisa Polyak, Rosemary Nicolosi, David Lublin and Mark Yost.
The group’s board chair, Charles Butler, resigned after stating in a Blade interview that the former executive director, Morgan Meneses-Sheets, was responsible for much of the group’s financial problems. Meneses-Sheets disputed his allegation, saying Butler and the board were responsible for the money problems. Butler said this week that he resigned from the board for personal reasons unrelated to the organization.
He said he and his husband were beginning the process of adopting a child and because of that, along with the demands of his job, he no longer had the time to devote to serving on the board.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
District of Columbia
Owner of D.C. gay bar Green Lantern John Colameco dies at 79
Beloved businessman preferred to stay ‘behind the scenes’
John Colameco, owner of the popular D.C. gay bar Green Lantern, has died, according to a March 7 announcement posted on the bar’s website and Instagram account. The announcement didn’t provide a date of his passing or a cause of death.
Green Lantern manager Howard Hicks said Colameco was 79 at the time of his passing.
“It is with great sadness that Green Lantern announces the death of our beloved owner, John Colameco,” the announcement says. “Most of our patrons might have heard John’s name, but might not have known his face,” it says.
“He was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of guy who avoided the limelight,” the announcement continues. “He preferred to stay in the back of the house with staff and team ensuring everything was running smoothly so that everyone out front was having a good time.”
The announcement adds, “As a veteran and businessman, John wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ + community, but he was one of the best damn allies our community has ever had.”
It says he “long provided spaces for the queer community to come together” since the 1990s when he owned and operated a popular restaurant on 17th Street, N.W. called Peppers.
According to the announcement, Colameco and his then business partner Greg Zehnacker opened the Green Lantern in 2001 in an alley off of 14th Street, N.W., between Thomas Circle and L Street, N.W.
The announcement points out that the Green Lantern first opened in the same location in the early 1990s before it later closed when the original owners decided to purchase and open other bars, one of which was the gay bar Fireplace near Dupont Circle. Colameco and Zehnacker were able to reopen the bar with the Green Lantern name.
“When Greg died unexpectedly in February 2014, John remained steadfastly committed to carrying on their vision and ensuring that Green Lantern remained part of the fabric of D.C.’s queer community,” the announcement says.
“Over the years, through Green Lantern, John has provided support to many community organizations, most notably Stonewall Sports, the Gay Men’s chorus of Washington, and ONYX Mid-Atlantic with Green Lantern serving as a gathering hub for their activities,” it states.
The announcement adds that Colameco’s family was planning a memorial for him in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“His Green Lantern family will celebrate his life by operating the bar as usual and we encourage you to stop by and join us,” it says. “Community coming together and having a good time – it’s exactly what John would want.”
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