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LGBT retirement community opens in rural Maryland & more
LGBT retirement community opens in rural Maryland
A businessman from Dallas has opened Maryland’s first LGBT retirement community about 25 miles west of Baltimore.
The Stonewall Retirement Community, a resort-style residence for LGBT seniors anchored by a 12,000-square-foot structure atop a five-acre lot, is located in Howard County’s farming town of Woodbine. The facility can accommodate up to 14 singles or couples.
Scott Streit, Stonewall Retirement Community’s owner, said he’s targeting “the post-Stonewall and pre-‘Will & Grace’” generation with the venture.
The house features an outdoor pool that will be heated for year-round use, an eight-person hot tub, two barbeques, two laundry facilities, three kitchens, and a theater room with more than 500 DVDs. Other amenities include three large decks, wireless Internet and private baths with Jacuzzis.
Residency costs vary, depending on single or double occupancy and the desired setup. Prices start with a 650-square-foot, single-occupancy room with a small kitchen at $2,000 per month. At the top end is Stonewall’s 1,000-square-foot, double-occupancy room with a full kitchen and laundry at $3,750 per month, which includes two meals daily in the dining facility and a shopping service.
A complete cost model breakdown and amenity list is available on Stonewall’s web site, stonewallretirement.com.
Streit said it’s his hope that the shared lifestyle and activities among residents will bring a sense of community. Events keyed to New Year’s Day, Pride celebrations and Halloween, among others, are planned.
STEVE CHARING/BALTIMORE OUTLoud
D.C. man convicted of anti-gay hate crime
A jury has found a D.C. man guilty of bias-related assault and threats against a 67-year-old gay man, who authorities say was the subject of “an almost daily barrage of name-calling and harassment.”
Police said Anthony Wright targeted the elderly man along the 1200 block of Eaton Road, S.E., between June and August. At trial, police testified that Wright committed the assault and made threats to do bodily harm solely because of the victim’s sexual orientation.
Under the city’s hate crimes law, the maximum penalty Wright faces is 1.5 times greater than that of a similar set of offenses not listed as bias-related. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, this means Wright could receive up to 270 days in jail for each of the two crimes.
A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office notes that Wright’s name-calling against the victim “went on unabated for more than two years” before his actions turned violent on June 6. The statement says at that point, Wright punched the victim as he was sitting outside his apartment building. After that assault, police arrested Wright. He was released later that day.
“Upon his release, Wright returned back to the apartment building and proclaimed to the people standing outside, including the victim, that ‘they don’t lock you up for hitting faggots,’” says the statement. It says Wright continued his verbal harassment for another two months before threatening to stab him, a development that prompted police to arrest Wright for the second offense of bias-related threats.
Wright was found guilty April 28. D.C. Superior Court Judge Anthony Epstein was scheduled to sentence Wright on Wednesday, after Blade deadline.
LOU CHIBBARO JR.
New bus route ties D.C. to Delaware beaches
The gay men behind the DC2NY bus line will debut a new route over Memorial Day weekend tying D.C. to Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach.
Richard Green, DC2NY’s chief executive officer, said the new route will continue weekend trips between Delaware and Washington through Labor Day weekend. Ticket prices are $39 each way or $70 for a round trip. Departure times vary; a schedule will be posted soon at dc2ny.com.
“We’ve determined there’s enough interest that we’re going to do the entire summer season,” he said.
Previously, Rehobus shuttled customers between D.C. and Rehoboth Beach. That service, which began in 2007 and charged riders about $40 each way, ended after the 2008 summer travel season.
Since that venture ended, Green said “enough people have been asking for this service” that DC2NY decided to explore the market.
“Whether we make money or not, we want to do it this year as a service to the community,” he said. “We’re hoping to at least break even, but we’re committed to doing it this year to really give it a chance.”
JOSHUA LYNSEN
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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