Local
1 year later, Kameny’s ashes still not buried
Dispute over burial site remains unresolved
Pioneering gay rights activist, Frank Kameny died on Oct. 11, 2011, which happens to be National Coming Out Day. (Washington Blade photo by Doug Hinckle)
One year after gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny’s death in his Washington home at the age of 86, LGBT advocates said they would remember his legacy as they celebrate National Coming Out Day this week.
Kameny died of natural causes on Oct. 11, 2011, the day LGBT advocates have designated as National Coming Out Day.
His friends and admirers, while saddened by his loss, said it was befitting that Kameny departed on a day commemorating an action he may have been among the first to take part in in the late 1950s — a proud and open declaration that one is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
“His accomplishments for our community are immeasurable,” said veteran D.C. gay activist Paul Kuntzler
Kuntzler spoke to the Blade about Kameny during a candidate endorsement forum Tuesday night sponsored by the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, an LGBT organization that Kuntzler and Kameny helped found in January 1976.
But Kuntzler and others who worked with Kameny said they remain troubled that an ongoing dispute between Timothy Clark, the heir and personal representative to Kameny’s estate, and the D.C. gay charitable group Helping Our Brothers and Sisters (HOBS) has resulted in the indefinite postponement of the burial of Kameny’s ashes.
A headstone once marked the the spot where advocates intended gay activist Frank Kameny to be buried, but legal action has halted the interment and the headstone has been removed. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
In August, an official with D.C.’s historic Congressional Cemetery, where Kameny’s ashes were to be buried, said an urn bearing the ashes remained in a storage vault at the cemetery’s headquarters near Capitol Hill while the estate dispute dragged on.
When asked if the ashes were still in storage at the cemetery, Congressional Cemetery President Paul Williams told the Blade on Wednesday, “There has been no substantial change in the case. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Both sides acknowledge that the dispute is over a disagreement about how to transfer the ownership of the cemetery plot from HOBS, which bought it earlier this year, to the Kameny estate, which is under the control of Clark.
HOBS executive director Marvin Carter has said HOBS is willing to sell the plot to the estate at the price the group paid for it earlier this year. The estate, through one of its attorneys, Glen Ackerman, has said HOBS bought the plot through donations from members of the LGBT community who knew and admired Kameny and that HOBS should transfer the title to the plot to the estate.
Earlier this year, Ackerman said Clark was troubled that some of Kameny’s longtime friends worked with HOBS to buy the plot and make arrangements for the burial without consulting Clark, who has legal authority over the ashes. Ackerman said then that Clark was concerned that HOBS might seek to bury others in the plot along with Kameny’s ashes since the plot can accommodate at least two coffins and three urns.
HOBS has said it has no intention of burying anyone else in the plot.
“The estate of Franklin Kameny is currently in negotiations in an effort to settle outstanding matters related to the estate,” Ackerman said in a statement released on Tuesday. “We cannot comment on these negotiations or the status of the various matters as doing so may compromise the progress that has been made thus far,” he said. “All involved are hopeful that resolution may be reached in the near future.”
“HOBS is working diligently and in good faith to resolve all issues concerning the plot at Congressional Cemetery and the final burial of Frank’s ashes at the Cemetery in a manner and under circumstances that will protect and advance Frank’s reputation in and contributions to the LGBT community,” Carter said in a statement issued to the Blade.
Records in the D.C. Superior Court’s civil division, where the Kameny estate case remains pending, show that at least one creditor filed suit against the estate on Aug. 7 to challenge a decision by the estate to reject the creditor’s request for repayment of a $12,000 loan and $3,075 of accrued interest on the loan for a total of $15,075.
The suit says the loan was made by D.C. gay activist and longtime Kameny friend Craig Howell in two increments in 2003 and 2004, according to Mindy Daniels, Howell’s attorney.
Court papers filed by the estate challenge the legal authority of Howell’s claim for the loan repayment on several grounds, saying, among other things, that Howell waived a requirement that Kameny make interest payments on the loan prior to Kameny’s death.
The Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT political group that organizes Coming Out Day activities, included a remembrance of Kameny on its website this week.
“One year ago, the LGBT community lost equality pioneer Frank Kameny, a man whose tireless activism blazed a trail for the entire LGBT community,” the HRC web posting says. “This National Coming Out Day, we remember Frank Kameny by honoring his legacy as a forerunner of the modern LGBT rights movement.”
Kameny, a D.C. resident since the 1950s, is credited with playing a key role in laying the foundation for the modern gay rights movement beginning in the early 1960s, nearly a decade before the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village.
He began his fight for LGBT equality in 1957 after being fired for being gay from his job as an astronomer at the U.S. Army Map Service. After losing administrative and lower court appeals, Kameny took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he wrote his own petition urging the high court to hear the case in 1961.
The Supreme Court denied his petition and left standing a lower court ruling upholding his firing. But LGBT advocates and historians have said Kameny’s petition, or brief, filed with the high court represented the first known time anyone submitted an unapologetic and legally reasoned argument before a court of law in support of equal rights for gay people in the United States.
A short time later, Kameny co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, the city’s first gay rights organization. Although Mattachine Society groups had formed in other cities beginning in the 1950s, the D.C. group under Kameny’s leadership took on a far more assertive posture in pushing for gay equality, laying the groundwork for the post-Stonewall Riots LGBT rights movement in the years ahead, according to author David Carter, who is currently writing a Kameny biography.
District of Columbia
Gay ANC commissioner sues D.C. over police ‘failure’ to pay reward money
Lawsuit says information led to conviction in murder, armed robbery cases
Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Tom Donohue on Aug. 11 filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court charging that D.C. police acted improperly and violated a local law by not paying him $30,000 in reward money for his role in helping police identify and arrest — and obtain the subsequent conviction — of one man charged with murder and another man charged with armed robbery in separate cases.
Although the lawsuit alleges improper action by D.C. police in carrying out the city’s Crime Solvers reward program, it names as defendants the District of Columbia and the Office of the Attorney General for D.C., which, among other things, defends the city against lawsuits.
Donohue, who is a member of the city’s ANC Rainbow Caucus consisting of LGBTQ elected ANC members, held a news conference outside the D.C. Superior Court building on Aug. 11 to talk about the lawsuit before entering the courthouse to officially file it.
The lawsuit states that Donohue “provided key video evidence that led to the arrest and conviction” of a man initially charged with first degree murder for allegedly running over a bicyclist with his car after the two got into an argument.
The lawsuit states that police had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the defendant in that case, but police “arbitrarily slashed the payment to $5,000 without prior notice or policy justification.”
Court records show that D.C. resident Eric Beasley was charged with first degree murder for killing David Farewell, 45, by hitting him with his car on Sept. 4, 2020, on the 2100 block of Young Street, S.E. The records show the evidence for the case was based in large part on video camera footage of the incident obtained by police. Donohoe has said he provided that video camera evidence.
The records show that during Beasley’s October 2023 trial a jury was unable to reach the required unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial.
According to the records, Beasley later agreed to an offer by prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced in September 2024 to eight years in prison, a development that angered the victim’s family members who called it a “slap on the wrist,” according to a Fox 5 News report.
Donohue’s lawsuit says the second case in which he provided police with pivotal information involved a series of armed robberies known as the Fairlawn Serial Armed Robbery Spree that occurred in the Fairlawn neighborhood in Southeast D.C. in 2023 near where Donohue lives.
The lawsuit says evidence consisting of video surveillance footage provided by Donohue to police enabled police to determine they initially wrongfully arrested an 18-year-old male for the robberies. “Using Plaintiff’s security video, MPD identified, arrested, and convicted the actual robber, David Crocker, who was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison,” the lawsuit states.
It says one of the detectives investigating the case recommended a $10,000 reward for Donohue’s help in the case based on the police Crime Solvers reward program. The detective’s recommendation was approved by then-Assistant D.C. Police Chief Kyle Ramey on Aug. 4, 2025, according to the lawsuit.
But it adds, “Nevertheless, MPD improperly withheld payment.”
When contacted by the Washington Blade for comment on Donohue’s lawsuit allegations, a D.C. police spokesperson said “MPD does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
Gabriel Shoglow-Rubenstein, who serves as press secretary for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which will be defending the city against the Donohue lawsuit, said he would look into obtaining a possible comment but said the office has a similar longstanding policy of not commenting on pending litigation.
“This action arises from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department’s arbitrary, bad-faith, and legally unsupportable failure to honor its public reward promises and administrative obligations to Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.
It says the MPD violated the city’s Freedom of Information Act or FOIA law by not responding to Donohue’s request for information and documents related to the decision not to pay him the full reward money.
“MPD’s reduction of Plaintiff’s homicide reward from $25,000 to $5,000, and its withholding of his approved $10,00 robbery reward, were undertaken completely devoid of written standards, making such decisions inherently arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of administrative discretion,” it says.
It calls for Donohue to be awarded $30,000 in compensatory damages consisting of the $20,000 “unpaid balance” for the homicide case reward and $10,000 for the robbery case reward. It also calls for reimbursement for “reasonable” litigation costs and attorney’s fees. Donohue told the Washington Blade that at this time he is representing himself without an attorney.
Donohue told the Blade that the refusal by D.C. police to pay him the full reward money also limited his plans to donate some of that money to the family of murder victim David Farewell to help pay for a burial stone. He said that due to the family’s limited resources Farewell is buried in an unmarked grave
Delaware
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
The Collective to feature gift shop, queer museum, more
During Pride month this year, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective (DSGC) announced plans for The Collective, which will become Delaware’s first LGBTQIA+ visitor center and Wilmington’s first dedicated LGBTQIA+ space in nearly 40 years.
“We’ve been talking about the concept of a brick-and-mortar space for a long time,” said Noah Duckett, co-founder of DSGC.
A licensed clinical social worker, Duckett co-founded DSGC with his mother, Julissa Coriano, in 2018. DSGC is an independent nonprofit organization that provides vital clinical and educational support, social programming and direct-need support to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Some of the programs DSGC offers include a free clothing closet for the trans community, meal support for people recovering from gender-affirming surgery, connections to pro bono legal services, a biannual Pride Market featuring over 100 LGBTQIA+-owned small businesses, and more.
“Our vision for The Collective is a place where our community can come to learn, create, work and be inspired,” said Coriano.
The Collective will feature a visitor center and gift shop highlighting LGBTQIA+-owned businesses in Delaware.
“I think that this is something that’s going to benefit our community so much,” said Duckett.
Some of the LGBTQIA+-owned businesses that DSGC has already partnered with include Stress Induced Art Attack, Moonbeam Art Collaborative, Voce Coffee, Groovy Gemini Co., Scout Cafe, Macaron Social and Huxley and Hiro.
“Specifically in Wilmington, we haven’t had an LGBTQIA+-dedicated space in almost 40 years,” said Duckett.
The Griffin Community Center, which operated from 1986 to 1990, was Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ community center. The Griffin was founded by Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James C. Welch and provided a range of community services during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, including AIDS hotlines, organizational offices and meeting space. The center ultimately closed because of a lack of financial support.
Duckett said DSGC hopes The Collective will carry on The Griffin’s legacy while building a sustainable space for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I think now more than ever, there’s more and more spaces closing their doors. More and more spaces are losing funding, seeing reduced funding and reduced access, especially LGBTQ+ organizations and communities,” said Duckett.
The Collective will also feature Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ history museum, curated by LGBTQ+ historian Carolanne Deal.
“We don’t have any permanent displays in the state about Delaware’s queer history, and we want people to be able to access that history any day of the year, not just during Pride Month,” said Deal.
With a master’s degree in art history for museum professionals, Deal has more than seven years of experience in curatorial work and hands-on collections care.
“It’s mainly going to be a graphic display with photographs, articles and accessible text that draws people in and creates a story for the community,” said Deal.
Although the museum will not initially have an object collection, Deal said she hopes to add physical archival pieces in the future.
“Delaware has been at the forefront of a lot of queer civil rights, and it’ll be really amazing to have that enshrined in a permanent display that’s not only up for Pride Month,” said Deal.
Duckett said DSGC is currently raising funds with the goal of beginning construction this summer and opening by the end of the year.
Duckett told the Blade that fundraising efforts have reached just under $29,000 and that the organization is awaiting several major donations from community partner organizations.
However, he said DSGC continues to be denied many grants tied to federal or state funding because of restrictions on those funds being used for LGBTQ+-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction and renovation of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.ose funds being used for LGBTQ-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.
Rehoboth Beach
HISTORIC: Susan Stewart elected Rehoboth’s first out mayor
Thanks LGBTQ supporters and vows to protect city’s small town charm
Residents of Rehoboth Beach elected City Commissioner Susan Stewart with 61% of the vote on Aug. 8, making her the city’s first openly gay mayor.
Stewart beat fellow commissioners Craig Their and Suzanne Goode in the race, as well as newcomer Jake Raak.
The final mayoral vote results were:
- Susan Stewart: 632
- Craig Their: 203
- Suzanne Goode: 177
- William “Jake” Raak: 23
“I’m very grateful because the LGBTQ+ community not only voted for me, but also supported me,” said Stewart.
Stewart said that she is particularly grateful for the support she received on social media from members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’ve had incredible support,” said Stewart.
Stewart said that her campaign showed her just how much residents of Rehoboth are engaged and care about the city.
“They really want to see what’s best for the community,” said Stewart.
Stewart spoke about the master planning initiative she has been working on as a commissioner, which she plans to continue as mayor.
“We’ve undertaken rewriting the commercial zoning code, and that’s foundational to the next step of the initiative,” said Stewart.
She said that she was proud of the results of charette week that was held last month where residents and business owners had the opportunity to speak with hired urban planners to give feedback for a zoning code update.
Stewart said that Rehoboth is at a tipping point as the city must find a way to balance the growth of the commercial district while improving the quality of life for residents.
“I don’t believe there needs to be tension between the business community and the residential experience,” said Stewart.
“I’m excited about a new master plan because we have a couple hotels coming, and we also have Clear Space Theatre looking for a new home, and we’re working with them,” said Stewart. “We want businesses to stay here.”
Stewart also said that she aims to embrace the concept of a ‘15-minute city,’ making the city much more accessible in terms of transportation in the downtown area for residents.
“The goal is to protect the small town charm and natural beauty of Rehoboth,” said Stewart. “I want to keep the momentum going.”
The Blade asked Stewart about any concerns she might have working with Commissioner Goode, whom she has criticized for sending inappropriate and offensive emails to city staff. Goode finished a distant third in the mayoral race and her husband fell short in his bid for a Commissioner’s seat. In that race, Jeffrey Goode received 239 votes; Patrick Gossett, who’s gay, received 813 votes and Mark Saunders 852. Saunders and Gossett will be sworn in next month.
“I’m really eager to move past this issue with Commissioner Goode,” said Stewart.
She said that she’s heard ‘loud and clear’ from the city that they want to move past this situation as best as they can while Goode remains in her seat as commissioner.
“There are no mechanisms for us to remove a sitting commissioner. Our laws don’t allow it,” said Stewart.
Stewart clarified that she has always focused on Goode’s behavior toward city staff.
“One thing I feel really passionate about is that the city employees have to know that they are heard. They are real people with real jobs, real professional reputations, and they’ve been harmed,” said Stewart.
The Blade also asked if Stewart had made a final decision on whom she plans to nominate to fill her Commissioner seat.
“I’m considering who to appoint and I have not made any final decisions,” said Stewart.
She noted that, as mayor, she only has the power to nominate a candidate and that the board of commissioners will have the final vote on whom to appoint to the board.
Stewart shared that she has received interest from a number of people and finds that to be a good sign.
“I think that’s a great sign because people want to serve. I’m eager to have someone in that seat who’s smart and has the best interests of the city,” said Stewart.
Stewart will be sworn in during the Board of Commissioners meeting on Sept. 18.
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Gay ANC commissioner sues D.C. over police ‘failure’ to pay reward money
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
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