Local
D.C. judge rejects ballot measure on gay marriage
Opponents of same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia lost their second court challenge in less than a year Thursday when a Superior Court judge ruled that a voter initiative seeking to ban such marriages cannot be placed on the ballot.
Judge Judith Macaluso ruled that the D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics acted properly in November when it rejected a proposed initiative calling for banning same-sex marriages in the city.
The election board said seeking a gay marriage ban was an impermissible subject for a ballot measure because it would violate the city’s Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.
“Today’s decision affirms the District’s effort to make our city open and inclusive,” said D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who signed a same-sex marriage bill last month shortly after the City Council approved it.
City officials and Capitol Hill observes believe the bill will become law the first week in March, when it’s expected to clear a required congressional review of 30 legislative days.
“Thanks to the Superior Court, this historic legislation is now one crucial step closer to being implemented,“ said D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, who filed the city’s court brief opposing the ballot initiative.
“Many District residents have waited decades for full marriage rights,” he said. “Their wait will soon be over.”
The case on which Macaluso ruled, Harry Jackson Jr. v. District of Columbia Board of Elections & Ethics, is named for Bishop Harry Jackson, the Beltsville, Md., minister who is leading efforts to ban same-sex marriage in D.C.
Another Superior Court judge ruled against Jackson last year when he filed papers with the election board for a voter referendum to overturn a separate law that authorized the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.
Similar to Thursday’s ruling, the earlier ruling upheld an election board decision rejecting Jackson’s proposed referendum on grounds that it would violate the city’s Human Rights Act.
Among those who signed on as co-plaintiffs with Jackson in the case decided Thursday were Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the city’s former congressional delegate; Ward 5 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Robert King; and Rev. Anthony Evans, a D.C. minister.
Attorneys representing Jackson and the other plaintiffs argued in court papers that the right of citizens to propose initiatives and referenda was established as an amendment to the congressionally approved D.C. City Charter. They noted that the restriction used by the city to disqualify initiatives and referenda that would violate the city’s Human Rights Act was established by a regular law passed by the City Council aimed at implementing the City Charter amendment.
According to Jackson and his attorneys, the Council’s restriction on an initiative or referendum seeking to ban same-sex marriage violates the City Charter, which created the initiative and referenda process without such a restriction.
In her ruling Thursday, Macaluso said the City Charter Amendment in question was passed by the City Council before being ratified by Congress. She said it gave the Council full authority to carry out the initiative and referenda process through implementing legislation.
“The most reasonable interpretation of events is that [the] Council … knew what it intended when it directed itself ‘to adopt such acts as are necessary to carry out the purpose of this [charter amendment ]’and that this intention included protection of minorities from the possibility of discriminatory initiatives,” Macaluso says in her ruling.
“Judge Macaluso applied the law impartially in this case, recognizing the D.C. Council’s right to define the initiative process consistent with the D.C. Charter,” said Tom Williamson, one of a team of attorneys who represented same-sex couples in a friend of the court brief supporting the city’s position in the case.
“The decision upholds the Council’s right to broadly protect human rights for all District residents,” said Williamson, who is with the D.C. law firm Covington & Burling, which is providing pro bono legal counsel to the same-sex couples.
Jackson and his fellow plaintiffs in the case could not be immediately reached for comment. They have said in the past that they would likely appeal a decision against them by Macaluso.
But some legal experts, including Williamson, have said Jackson most likely would not be able to appeal the case beyond the D.C. Court of Appeals to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, because it doesn’t involve a federal constitutional issue.
Thirty-seven Republican members of the House of Representatives and two GOP U.S. senators had filed a separate friend of the court, or amicus, brief backing Jackson’s position in the case.
The GOP lawmakers are expected to take steps through congressional action later this year to overturn the city’s same-sex marriage bill after it becomes law in March. Same-sex marriage supporters, including national LGBT groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, have said they are hopeful that the Democratic controlled Congress will kill any attempt to overturn the marriage law.
“This second, back-to-back ruling by the D.C. Superior Court is an overwhelming victory for fairness, the rule of law and the protection of all D.C. residents against discrimination,” said Joe Solmonese, HRC’s president. “D.C. has the right to govern itself and make its own laws without the interference of 39 Republican members of Congress more interested in scoring cheap political points than in the everyday lives of D.C. residents.”
District of Columbia
D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs moving to new location
LGBTQ community center also set to leave Reeves Center
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which is currently located at the city’s Reeves Center municipal building at 14th and U Street, N.W., was scheduled to move during the week of Dec. 9 to a new location at 899 North Capitol St., N.E., according to Japer Bowles, the office’s director.
Bowles said the LGBTQ Affairs office will be located on the seventh floor of the privately owned office building in which the city has rented space for several other city agencies, including the D.C. Department of Health.
The move comes about amid longstanding plans to demolish the Reeves Center and replace it with a redevelopment project that will include a mix of housing, office space, a hotel, and retail stores along with a public plaza and a 200-seat amphitheater.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, which has been located in the Reeves Center for about 10 years, also expects to be moving out of the building in the spring of 2025, said Kimberley Bush, the LGBTQ center’s executive director.
Bush said the LGBTQ center looks forward to moving into its new, larger space in a building at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W. in the city’s Shaw neighborhood, which is located one block away from the Shaw-Howard University Metro station.
The LGBTQ center entered a joint lease to rent space in the Wiltberger Street building with the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most of D.C.’s LGBTQ Pride events, including the upcoming World Pride 2025 events set to take place in D.C. May 17-June 8.
In response to a request by Bowser, the D.C. Council earlier this year approved $1 million in funding for fiscal year 2025 to support the build-out and construction of the LGBTQ Center’s space in the Wiltberger Street’s converted warehouse building.
But shortly after the Council approved that funding, the D.C. Center and Capital Pride Alliance announced the launch of a fundraising campaign called “Welcome Home – Building Together, Thriving Together” to raise an additional $1.5 million needed to complete the renovation of the new building.
“This endeavor is more than just the construction of a building; it represents a commitment to carve out a generous 7,000 square feet of space devoted to nurturing unity, empowerment, and support across the LGBTQ+ spectrum,” a statement announcing the fundraising campaign says.
District of Columbia
D.C. LGBTQ community to gather for post-election dialogue
Dec. 12 event to address federal workers’ rights, immigration, more
Several leading LGBTQ organizations in D.C. are coming together to make sense of the recent election and to discuss the future of advocacy and resilience as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.
With Republicans in firm control of the federal government after winning majorities in the House and Senate, many are concerned about attacks on the LGBTQ community, including Trump’s pledge to ban trans people from serving in the military. In addition, many LGBTQ federal workers have expressed concerns about being targeted for reassignment or termination, as outlined in Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for Trump’s second term.
In response, D.C.’s LGBTQ community is coming together for an event on Thursday, Dec. 12, 6:30-8 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel (1201 K. St., N.W.) featuring an array of speakers who will address issues, including: anticipated policy shifts; community resilience strategies; legal rights; immigration advocacy; and federal workers’ rights.
The event, titled, “Charting Our Future: LGBTQ+ Advocacy & Resilience in a Changing Landscape” is free; visit washingtonblade.com/future to RSVP.
The event is being hosted by the Washington Blade and includes community partners: the DC LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition, HME Consulting & Advocacy, Eaton DC, DC LGBTQ+ Community Center, Capital Pride Alliance, and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs. Heidi Ellis of the DC LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition will moderate. A list of speakers will be released later this week.
District of Columbia
Casa Ruby receiver files for bankruptcy
Jan. 21 deadline set for creditors, former employees to apply for reimbursement
In a little-noticed development, the Wanda Alston Foundation, which assumed control over the operations of the D.C. LGBTQ community services group Casa Ruby in August 2022 under a court-appointed receivership role, filed a petition on Aug. 27 of this year to place Casa Ruby in bankruptcy.
The petition, filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, says Casa Ruby has estimated liabilities to at least 50 creditors of more than $1 million and estimated assets of between $0 and $50,000.
Nick Harrison, an attorney representing the Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services to homeless LGBTQ youth, said Casa Ruby currently has no known financial assets, including cash.
He said the bankruptcy petition’s estimated assets of up to $50,000 are based on a pending lawsuit that the Alston Foundation filed against eight former Casa Ruby board members and Casa Ruby’s founder and former executive director Ruby Corado in December 2022. The lawsuit accuses the board of violating D.C.’s nonprofit corporation law by failing to exercise oversight over Casa Ruby’s operations that led to its financial collapse and shutdown in 2022.
The lawsuit calls on the court to require Corado and the former board members to pay “restitution, compensatory damages, punitive damages, receivership fees and expenses, court costs, attorneys’ fees, and expenses, and any other relief the court deems necessary and proper.”
A D.C. Superior Court judge on May 1, 2023, dismissed the lawsuit filed by the Alston Foundation against all but one of the former Casa Ruby board members but did not dismiss the case against Corado.
The Alston Foundation has appealed the ruling dismissing the lawsuit, and the case is now pending before the D.C. Court of Appeals.
The lawsuit also alleges that the board failed to adequately oversee the actions of Corado, who pleaded guilty in July of this year to a charge of wire fraud as part of a plea bargain deal offered by prosecutors.
The charge to which Corado pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for D.C. says she allegedly diverted at least $150,000 “in taxpayer-backed emergency COVID relief funds” awarded to Casa Ruby to “private offshore bank accounts for her personal use,” according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Corado, who initially denied the allegations against her, is currently staying with a family member in Rockville, Md., in a home detention arrangement following her arrest by the FBI on March 5 of this year. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 10.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Danya A. Dayson stated that her decision to dismiss the lawsuit against seven of the eight former board members was based on her interpretation of D.C. law. She said she believes the law holds that members of an organization’s board of directors can only be held liable for harming an organization like Casa Ruby if they “intentionally, rather than negligently, inflicted harm on Casa Ruby.”
The judge said she did not dismiss the case against one of the board members because the lawsuit presents evidence that the board member received some financial benefits from Corado.
In a legal brief filed with the appeals court, the Alston Foundation attorneys state that evidence shows the Casa Ruby board members “were deliberately indifferent or ‘willfully blind’ to the alleged wrongful conduct of the nonprofit’s executive director amounting to actual knowledge on their part that inaction would harm the nonprofit, ultimately and forcibly leading to its financial inability to continue operation.”
The former board members have declined requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Harrison, the attorney representing the Alston Foundation in the bankruptcy filing, said anyone who is owed money by Casa Ruby has until Jan. 21 to file a “proof of claim” form with the bankruptcy court to be eligible to be compensated if funds become available.
At the time of Casa Ruby’s shutdown, the organization’s employees were among those who said they were not paid in the months or weeks prior to the shutdown.
Asked what prompted the Alston Foundation to file the bankruptcy petition on behalf of Casa Ruby, Harris said, “Filing the bankruptcy petition ensures that a trustee with the appropriate expertise can wrap up the remaining issues while allowing the Wanda Alston Foundation to stay focused on its core mission.”
U.S. Bankruptcy Court records show that one of the officials in charge of collecting proof of claim forms for those owed money is Mark E. Albert, a court appointed Trustee for the bankruptcy filing. Court records show he can be reached at 202-728-3020.
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