Local
Conservative Va. church takes aim at Pride event
Bible Holiness launches ‘Stop Elkton Pride’ Facebook page
Rob Johnson is the vice president of an LGBT group in the Shenandoah Valley that has suddenly been receiving a lot of attention.
“It’s just been a whirlwind over the past 24, 48 hours,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s group, the Shenandoah Valley Gay and Lesbian Association, and LGBT employee groups at Merck Pharmaceuticals and MillerCoors near Elkton, Va., have become the target of the Bible Holiness Church and its pastor, Matt Homer. Homer argues that the Pride event the Merck group plans for Oct. 9 does not reflect Elkton’s values.
Though the SVGLA, nor MillerCoors is directly connected to the Festival, both groups have come under fire for expressing their support.
“I don’t know how we would come to an agreement on it,” Homer told the Blade, “We’re not against gay and lesbian people, but also they say it’s a civil rights issue, and that would lead to a marriage issue.”
Johnson said the festival is an opportunity to raise awareness about LGBT issues, not marriage.
“We’ve never said anything about gay marriage in this entire thing,” Johnson said. “No one has mentioned it but him. I think he’s using that as an inflammatory statement to get the community fired up.”
“Basically we’re just looking to get a story out there, trying to garner up some support for the people of this area,” Johnson told the Blade.
Johnson says that the area was once a more difficult place to be out, but that progress is being made.
“A lot of the people here in this area are still closeted to some degree, it’s a lot more open than it was 10 years ago, but a lot of people are afraid to speak out. There are a few that are very vocal — like myself — but a lot of them really aren’t.”
To Johnson, Pride is about not being ashamed of who you are.
“People of the LGBT community as well as their straight friends and family come together in a show of support,” Johnson said. “Just a feeling of togetherness.”
Johnson says that he has had to scale back his involvement in the Shenandoah Valley group because of the controversy.
Though Homer insists the church does not wish to discriminate against gay and lesbian people, his faith forces him to take exception with this group’s planned gathering.
“We believe that the Bible teaches against homosexuality,” Homer told the Blade. “If they were having an event to promote adultery, we would be protesting that as well.”
Last week, Homer urged members of his church to mobilize and use online tools to raise awareness about the group’s position. Homer enlisted the assistance of a parish member, Josh Shifflett, to set up a page on “ipetitions.com” and a “Stop Elkton Pride Day” Facebook Page, which has attracted 277 fans.
“We’ve collaborated on what we could do to raise awareness of the issue,” Homer said. “I didn’t have a Facebook page in my name so we collaborated to raise awareness about the event.”
“As a board member of Shenandoah Valley Gay and Lesbian Association five years in a row, we did a Pride right here in Harrisonburg, right here in the center of the valley, and have never had any problems,” Johnson said.
He says the trouble only started when a group of employees at Merck decided to have a smaller scale Pride event in their own local community after visiting the Pride in Harrisonburg.
“The Facebook phenomenon has really helped, though,” Johnson said, referring to the social networking site that both sides have taken to in order to raise awareness for their cause.
“A lot of people have really jumped on board with their comments and everything,” Johnson said. “They try to comment on the “Stop Elkton Pride” page that the church put up, they’re trying to be cordial and diplomatic about it, not being hateful, as I instructed a lot of them to do. Their comments are remaining on that page for two or three minutes before being deleted off and those people being blocked.”
Pastor Homer claims the only comments deleted have been graphic in nature, contain profanity or are defamatory.
“People haven’t been deleted from the site just for conducting civil conversation,” Homer said.
“The church is censoring everything,” Johnson said of the Facebook fracas. “I put up a page in opposition to the ‘Stop Elkton Pride Page.’ In the description I state, except in the case of profanity, all comments will be left in plain view because I feel that that encourages a dialogue.”
“[Pharmaceutical] company Merck and Miller, probably the two largest local manufacturers in our area, are collaborating with the local Shenandoah Valley Gay and Lesbian Association,” Homer said. “They’re putting on the first annual Elkton Pride day. Well actually the event isn’t in Elkton, it’s on private property outside of Elkton.”
In fact, the alcohol-free event does have an Elkton address, according to the Facebook page, and Johnson confirmed that — while the event is outside of the town limits — the mailing address is still considered Elkton, but the pastor still insists the event does not reflect Elkton values.
“They’re inviting local businesses and inviting children and stuff like that so we felt we have the right to post our objection to it based on our values system,” Homer said. “We’re exercising our rights giving reasons why we disagree with it.”
According to the event’s Facebook page, “There will be free food, children’s activities, music, information booths and more!”
“There’s going to be children at this event,” Johnson said. “These children are children of LGBT people in the community.”
“It’s a nice family get-together,” Johnson continued. “They just don’t want anything being mentioned that pertains to the LGBT community in a positive light whatsoever.”
When asked whether the church has tried reaching out to the organizers to see if there can be any common ground found, Homer said they have.
“We have reached out,” Homer said, but he says the only response they received was a generic statement from Merck.
Johnson said he was unaware of the pastor reaching out to anyone involved in planning the celebration.
“They’ve been demanding that it be canceled,” Johnson said. “Just flat out.”
Delaware
Delaware fines Rehoboth bar $15,000 for discriminating against trans woman
Hideout told patron she had to use men’s room due to gender marker on driver’s license
The Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission voted to fine Hideout Arcade Bar & Grille $15,000 last month due to a discrimination complaint filed by a trans woman over her use of the bathroom.
Katie Sorber, a transgender woman, said that on April 5, 2023, she was stopped by employees and told she could only use the men’s bathroom due to the “male” gender marker on her driver’s license. This occurred after Sorber presented her ID upon entering the bar and ordering a drink.
Sorber took to Facebook to complain about her experience at the bar after she was told to use the men’s bathroom.
On April 12, 2023, Sorber returned to the Hideout but was barred from entering due to her post on social media.
Following Sorber’s post, Bryan Derrickson, the owner of Hideout Arcade Bar & Grille, allegedly began enforcing a policy in which patrons had to use the bathroom that corresponded to the gender marker on their ID.
Derrickson was ordered to pay $10,000 to Sorber, $5,000 to the Special Administration Fund, as well as conduct anti-discrimination training with employees, remove the ban on Sorber from the establishment, and revise the bar’s bathroom policy.
The commission ruled that the bar and Derrickson had wrongfully discriminated against Sorber on the basis of her gender.
Derrickson’s explanations for the denial included safety concerns, a third-party patron complaint, and a reference to the health code. The panel found this to be inconsistent and lacking factual support upon cross-examination.
The case was evaluated under the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law, which explicitly prohibits discrimination and retaliation in places of public accommodation based on gender identity.
This was the second time that the bar has been fined for discriminating against a transgender woman. The bar received a $2,000 penalty in September of last year for denying a transgender woman entry in 2023.
Half of the fine went to Kathy Carpenter Brown, the trans woman who experienced the discrimination. Brown is the founder of TransLiance, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group in Delaware.
District of Columbia
Push to elect more LGBTQ ANC members yields results
31 of 43 known LGBTQ ANC members elected in 2024 seeking re-election
A 2026 list of candidates released by the D.C. Board of Elections shows that 31 of the 43 known LGBTQ candidates who won election in 2024 as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners have filed the required petition signatures to be placed on the ballot this year to run for re-election.
The Washington Blade reported in 2024 that 43 known LGBTQ candidates won election to ANC seats that year in the November election
In a related development, the president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political group, said the group this year has recruited at least 39 LGBTQ candidates to run for Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats in the city’s Nov. 3 general election.
The group’s president, Stevie McCarty, an incumbent ANC member in the city’s Shaw neighborhood who is running for re-election, said the 39 candidates and possibly more responded to the group’s Queering ANCs campaign launched on July 7 that includes a website with detailed instructions for how best to run for an ANC seat.
“Since launching in early July, the site has drawn more than 20,000 views, and 39 candidates have used it to actually run,” McCarty said in a statement. He said he wasn’t sure if all the 39 candidates wanted to be identified as LGBTQ, and he was reviewing the list of incumbent LGBTQ ANC members who won election in 2024 to determine if any of the 39 candidates recruited were among those incumbents. He said he was not ready to release the names of the 39 candidates he said his group recruited to run for an ANC seat.
If none of the 39 candidates recruited by Capital Stonewall Democrats are among the 31 known LGBTQ ANC incumbents running for re-election, it would mean at least 70 LGBTQ ANC candidates will be on the city’s November election ballot.
McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats will send candidate questionnaires to the known LGBTQ ANC candidates as part of its process for endorsing candidates in the November election. He said he expects the group to help campaign for and provide financial support for the ANC candidates it endorses.
The D.C. local government is believed to be unique among U.S. cities in currently having 46 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions consisting of 345 single member districts in neighborhoods throughout the city in which unpaid Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners are elected for two-year terms.
The commissions are charged with considering a wide range of policies and programs impacting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, zoning, liquor licenses, and economic development. Although ANCs do not have authority to set or reject policies or actions by city agencies, the agencies are required to give “great weight” to ANC recommendations, according to the law creating the ANCs.
“As an ANC member, I know firsthand how these seats shape our neighborhoods, from housing and public safety to sanitation,” McCarty said in the Capital Stonewall Democrats statement announcing the launch of the Queering ANCs campaign in July. “I’m proud to lead this effort to ensure more LGBTQ+ Washingtonians see themselves as leaders in their communities,” he said.
Some local LGBTQ activists, who asked not to be identified, said they were not aware of a significant boost in new LGBTQ ANC candidates from the Queering ANCs campaign. However, they praised the effort to recruit more LGBTQ ANC candidates and said the campaign could have yielded more candidates if it had started sooner than less than a month before the deadline for becoming a candidate.
McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats will continue to recruit LGBTQ D.C. residents to run as write-in candidates for ANC seats, especially in the 45 single member districts in which no candidate will be on the ballot. The Board of Elections candidate list shows many ANC single member districts that have just one candidate running without an opponent.
Following is a list of 33 known LGBTQ ANC candidates running in D.C.’s November 2026 election and the single member districts and neighborhoods in which they are running. All but two – Vita Rangel and J. Swiderski – are incumbents running for re-election. The Washington Blade will update this list if and when more LGBTQ ANC candidates become known.
1A04 – (Columbia Heights) Jeremy Sherman, he/him
1A10 – (Columbia Heights) Vita Rangel, she/ her [non-incumbent candidate]
1B03 – (Columbia Heights/U Street) J. Swiderski, they/he [non-incumbent candidate]
Jamie S. Sycamore, he/him
1B06 – (Columbia Heights/Meridian Hill) Miguel Trindade Deramo, he/him
1B07 – (U Street) Matthew Holden, he/him
1E01 – (Park View) Brad Howard, he/him
2B02 – (Dupont Circle) Jeffrey Rueckgauer, he/him
2B03 – (Dupont Circle) Vincent Slatt, he/him
2C01 – (Penn Quarter) Michael D. Shankle, he/him
2F05 – (Logan Circle) Christopher Dyer, he/him
2F07 – (Logan Circle) Kevin Cataldo, he/him
2G01 – (Shaw)Parker Griffin, he/him Howard Garrett, he/him
2G02 – (Shaw) Alexander ‘Alex’ Padro, he/him
2G04 – (Shaw) Steven McCarty, he/him
3B06 – (Wesley Heights) S. Robert Rodriquez, he/him
3F05 – (Van Ness/Cleveland Park) Adrian Jesus Iglesias, he/him
4B01 – (Takoma) Doug Payton, he/him
4B10 – (Lamond Riggs) Jinin Berry, she/her
4C06 – (Petworth) Christen Boss Hayes, they/them
4E02 – (16th Street Heights) Vince Micone, he/him
5B04 – (Brookland) Ra Amin, he/him
5B05 – (Brookland) Mónica Martínez López, she/her
5D05 – (Trinidad) Salvador Sauceda-Guzman, he/him
5F06 – (Eckington) Joe Bishop-Henchman, he/him
6B03 – (Capitol Hill) David Sobelsohn, he/him
6B09 – (Capitol Hill/Barney Circle) Karen Hughes, she/her
7C01 – (Deanwood) Brian Glover, he/him
7C03 – (Lincoln Heights) Carlos Richardson, he/him
7C04 (Deanwood) Anthony Lorenzo Green
7C08 – (Capitol View) Brandon M. Scott, he/him
8A01 – (Fairlawn) Tom Donohue, he, him
8B06 – (Garfield Heights) Marcus Thomas Hickman, he/him
Congress
Chris Van Hollen says the Democratic Party needs change. Is he the one to lead it?
Senator is backing anti-establishment Democrats across the country
By LEE O. SANDERLIN | The Democratic Party is having something of an identity crisis — losing to President Donald Trump twice in three elections will do that.
Should the party embrace anti-establishment figures who espouse progressive policy ideas like Medicare for all and rhetoric about unrigging the economy for the 1 percent? Or should Democrats try to appeal to moderates who want to return to semi-normalcy in a time of political upheaval?
Although he’s been in Congress since 2002, with key leadership roles throughout his tenure, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, 67, counts himself firmly in the anti-establishment camp.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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