Local
Maryland Senate poised to vote on marriage bill
Supporters confident of final passage this week after delay
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Faith and Property, a conservative Catholic organization, protests the marriage bill at the Md. Capitol Feb. 17. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Maryland Senate is poised to vote on a bill to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples this week, after a committee approved the bill in a 7-4 vote on Tuesday.
A second reading of the bill was delayed Wednesday by one day at the request of opponents. The delay was anticipated and is allowed by Senate rules to give opponents time to plot their strategy. Debate is expected to take place on Thursday, according to Sen. Roger Manno (D-Mont. Co.).
Last year the Senate passed the marriage bill 25-21 before it was scuttled in the House. Same-sex marriage supporters expect passage again this year. Senate President Mike Miller said on Wednesday that he believes there are sufficient votes for passage.
Kevin Nix, communications director of Marylanders for Marriage Equality — the coalition of LGBT rights groups that led the lobbying effort on the bill — said he expects the Civil Marriage Protection Act to be sent to Gov. Martin O’Malley for his signature by the end of this week.
According to legislative rules, though a House bill being voted on by the House of Delegates is only eligible for amendments on the second reading, if the Senate takes up a House bill, the bill is up for amendments on both the second and third readings, prior to a final vote. This means that opponents of the law have an additional opportunity to attach hostile amendments, though several sources told the Blade they doubt this will occur.
O’Malley has pledged to sign the bill should it pass the Senate as expected.
On Friday, the Civil Marriage Protection Act passed the House of Delegates 72-63, after an emotional day that included the surprise addition of support from Del. Tiffany Alston, who disappointed LGBT supporters with her unexpected rejection of the bill in March 2011. Alston proposed a friendly amendment to the bill that was accepted by the legislature in an overwhelming vote.
Once signed, the law will not go into effect until January of 2013, but first most likely will have to withstand a ballot referendum challenging the law.
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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