Local
Fenty leads Gray by 6 points in Blade poll
Small sample hints at gay vote in D.C. mayor’s race
Mayor Adrian Fenty leads his primary opponent D.C. City Council Chair Vincent Gray in an unscientific straw poll of LGBT voters the Blade conducted during Capital Pride. (Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Participants in an unscientific straw poll conducted by the Washington Blade at the Capital Pride street festival June 13 said they would vote for D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty over his chief rival, City Council Chairman Vincent Gray, 40.7 percent to 33.8 percent.
The poll shows Fenty with a 6.9 percent lead among the 145 mostly LGBT festival attendees that participated in the poll.
But nearly 25 percent of the straw poll participants indicated they had yet to decide who would get their vote for mayor in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary. Because the overwhelming majority of D.C. voters are registered Democrats, the primary almost always predicts the winner in the November general election.
Mayoral contender Leo Alexander, a former TV news anchor who supports bringing the city’s same-sex marriage law before voters in a ballot initiative, received support from less than 1 percent of the straw poll respondents. Eight other, lesser-known mayoral candidates received no votes in the straw poll.
In the hotly contested race for City Council chairman, respondents in the Blade straw poll indicated they would vote for at-large City Council member Kwame Brown over his main rival, former Ward 5 Council member Vincent Orange, 37.2 percent to 8.3 percent. Slightly more than 43 percent said they were undecided in that contest.
Two lesser-known candidates in the race, Dorothy Douglas and Calvin Gurley, received 1.3 percent and 0.7 percent respectively.
Orange came out against legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in the District when he ran for mayor in 2006, and denounced his mayoral rivals, including Fenty, who supported gay marriage. He said this year that he’s changed his mind on the matter and now supports the same-sex marriage bill that the Council passed and Fenty signed.
In the race for at-large Council member, incumbent Phil Mendelson outscored gay challenger Clark Ray, 45.1 percent to 13.9 percent, among straw poll respondents. About 35 percent said they were undecided in the race. At-large candidate Donna Jean Alston received 2.8 percent of the straw poll vote, with candidates Kelvin Robinson and Will Ross receiving no votes.
The 145 respondents in the Blade’s D.C. election straw poll comprised a far smaller number than those who participated in a separate Blade presidential approval rating poll also conducted at the Capital Pride street festival.
The 145 respondents are too few to make the straw poll a statistically valid sample of the LGBT D.C. residents who attended the Capital Pride festival. But Blade editor Kevin Naff said the straw poll provides the only available glimpse so far into where LGBT voters stand in the race for mayor and City Council chair and the contest for an at-large Council seat in which an openly gay candidate is considered to have a shot at winning.
No city polls conducted to date, including those by the Washington Post, have included information about the LGBT vote, which is considered influential in D.C. elections.
A total of 560 people completed the Obama approval poll, which asked respondents to disclose whether they approve or disapprove of President Barack Obama’s handling of LGBT issues as well as all matters. The Blade is planning to release the results of that poll later this month.
The greater participation in the presidential approval poll suggests that a significantly larger percentage of people attending the Capital Pride street festival were from jurisdictions outside D.C., such as the Virginia and Maryland suburbs and other mid-Atlantic states.
Blade staff members invited Capital Pride attendees to participate in the poll as the attendees walked past the Blade booth at the festival. All attendees could complete the presidential approval poll, but only attendees additionally identifying themselves as D.C. residents were allowed to participate in the D.C. election poll.
Among the 145 respondents in the Blade D.C. election straw poll, about 73 percent identified as being gay male, 13 percent were lesbian, about 5 percent were bisexual, 0.7 percent were transgender, 1.4 percent identified as queer, about 8 percent were straight, and 0.7 percent identified as other.
By race and ethnicity, about 77 percent of respondents identified as white, 17 percent were black, about 7 percent were Latino, 1.4 percent were Asian-Pacific Islander, and 2.7 percent identified as other.
In a breakdown by age, about 21 percent of respondents identified as being between 17 and 29; about 52 percent were between 30 and 49; about 24 percent were between 50 and 64; and 0.38 percent were 65 or older.
Just 119 of the 145 respondents answered a question asking them to identify the ward in which they live. By ward, the breakdown was 20 from Ward 1; 36 from Ward 2; 12 from Ward 3; 10 from Ward 4; 14 from Ward 5; 23 from Ward 6; three from Ward 7; and one from Ward 8.
The small representation of respondents from Wards 7 and 8 suggests that Gray might have received more support in the Blade poll had more people from those two wards participated in the poll. Other public opinion polls have shown Gray leading Fenty by a wide margin in wards 7 and 8, and gay activists living in the two wards have said they believe gays in the two wards also back Gray by a significant margin.
But with some political pundits predicting voters will be nearly evenly divided citywide between Fenty and Gray as the September primary approaches, the gay vote could be a key factor in the outcome of the election.
Although Gray won the endorsement last month of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group, many believe LGBT voters are closely divided over the mayoral contest. A significant number of LGBT activists have yet to take sides in the mayoral race, a development backed up by the Blade poll showing that 24.8 percent of respondents are undecided in the race.
The Blade poll finding that Ray, a gay Democratic activist and former D.C. Department of Parks & Recreation Director, is trailing Mendelson by more than 30 points could mean any of several factors are at play.
Mendelson supporters have predicted LGBT voters will back Mendelson because of his strong support for LGBT rights, including his leadership in shepherding the gay marriage bill through the Council last year in his role as chair of the committee with jurisdiction over the bill.
Ray’s poor showing in the Blade poll could also be due to his lack of name recognition compared to Mendelson, who has sat on the Council for nearly 12 years.
Gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein, a campaign adviser for Ray, said the sample was too small to be an accurate predictor in the election.
Rosenstein said the only aspect of the poll that could be a factor is its high number of undecided voters in the mayoral and at-large Council races.
“That’s not a good sign for an incumbent like Mendelson, who has been in office for 12 years,” he said.
Gay activist Bob Summersgill, a Mendelson supporter, said that while the number of participants in the Blade poll is small, its composition of mostly white gay men is a demographic for which Ray should have made a stronger showing as a gay candidate.
“Phil beat Ray three to one in what should be Clark Ray’s best demographic,” Summersgill said. “And Ray even lost to undecided, two to one. I think that’s pretty significant and shows the lack of name recognition and lack of seriousness which the community is generally giving him.”
Yet Summersgill and Jeffrey Richardson, president of the Stein Club, noted that the large number of respondents to the Blade poll saying they were undecided in the Council chair and at-large Council races also indicates those two races have received far less media coverage and voter attention than the widely publicized mayoral race between Fenty and Gray.
“The reality is Phil Mendelson is the incumbent with higher name recognition,” Richardson said. “And even though Clark Ray was a director of the Department of Parks & Recreation, because Phil is the incumbent and has done so much legislatively and has been vocal on so many different issues, even marriage equality, people know and recognize what he has done.
“So Clark Ray has a lot of ground to gain in trying to overcome the name-recognition battle,” Richardson said. “But in regards to where people really would be with one over the other, I’m not so certain.”
The Stein Club is scheduled to hold its endorsement meeting and vote on the at-large Council and Council chair races on Monday at Town nightclub in D.C.
Gay Democratic activist Lane Hudson, a volunteer in Gray’s mayoral campaign, said the Blade poll shows strong potential for Gray, even though it reveals him to be trailing Fenty among the sample of Pride festival goers.
“I think the results show that there’s a wide opening for Vince Gray to win a significant majority of the LGBT vote if he can show that he is empathetic to the issues that are important to our community, such as a strong response from the mayor’s office on hate crimes, a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, and LGBT youth and schools,” Hudson said.
Hudson and other Gray supporters have said Fenty’s record is weak on those issues.
“It’s significant because those are people who are not necessarily the most active. If you look at the most active in our community — the Stein Club — Vince got 63 percent,” he said. “So as the gay community learns more about candidates in the race, I think Vince Gray’s numbers will go up significantly.”
Deacon Maccubbin, former owner of D.C.’s Lambda Rising bookstore and a Fenty supporter, said he wasn’t surprised at the Blade poll’s finding that a large number of respondents are undecided in the mayoral race.
“But I have seen movement toward Fenty and I think he’ll do fine,” he said. “I think the gay vote is going to go the same way the city vote goes.
“I think that between the two candidates, there’s not a whole lot of difference on gay-specific issues and consequently Adrian Fenty has come through and done what he promised he was going to do. And as a result, I think he’s earned the support of the community.”
District of Columbia
Adams Morgan queer bar broken into and vandalized
Sinners and Saints targeted Thursday night
On Thursday night, Sinners and Saints, a popular queer bar in Adams Morgan and the only QTBIPOC (queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and people of color) bar in D.C., was broken into and vandalized with homophobic slurs, according to a recent Instagram post from the establishment.
“Last night, our bar — the only QTBIPOC bar in DC — was broken into and hate-crimed during DC Black Pride, a time meant for celebration, resilience, and joy — and on the eve of WorldPride 2025. We are heartbroken, but we are not broken,” the post read.
The statement was accompanied by a slideshow showing the damage: the front iron gate door and its glass counterpart shattered, glass strewn across the floor, and the word “FAGGOT” scrawled in black ink on the wall.
“This space exists to protect and celebrate queer and trans BIPOC communities, and this attack only strengthens our resolve,” the post continued. “We will NOT be silenced. We will NOT be intimidated. We will NOT back down.”
“To those who tried to harm us: hate fuels our defiance. To our community: we see you, we love you, and we will continue fighting for you. Sinners and Saints is resistance. We will rebuild. We will STAY OPEN. And we will keep our doors — and hearts — wide open for all who need refuge.”
They ended the message with a call to action: “Stand with us. Share this. Show up. We keep us safe.”
“What happened was truly disheartening, but we won’t be silenced,” co-owner Fazeel Ashraf told the Washington Blade. “QTBIPOC spaces are so important in this current political climate. I’d love to do a phone interview with one of my fellow partners.”
Despite the heartbreak surrounding the break-in and what Ashraf described as “a hate crime,” the LGBTQ community quickly rallied in the comments, offering support and assistance.
“Please let us know how we can help!” wrote Nik Battaglia. “I’m a handy queer with handy queer friends — I can fix shit, paint shit, and am happy to stand guard outside.”
Even national figures chimed in.
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Laganja Estranja commented, “Incredible response! I believe in you. Sending so much love and strength.”
The Blade reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department regarding the break-in but has not received a response.
To view the damage, and some of the LGBTQ community’s supportive statements, visit the Sinners and Saints’s Instagram page.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Raffi Freedman-Gurspan on being appointed Associate Director, Federal Funding & Infrastructure Office, at the Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration & Finance. Freedman-Gurspan will be returning to her hometown of Boston and joining Gov. Maura Healey’s Administration. Freedman-Gurspan served in both the Obama and Biden administrations as well as worked in LGBTQ and redistricting advocacy during her 11 years in D.C.
Freedman-Gurspan was the first openly transgender person on the White House staff when she worked for President Obama. She most recently served at the U.S. Department of Transportation in former Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s office, as Deputy Director of Public Engagement. Previously she worked with the National Redistricting Action Fund/The All On The Line Campaign, as Deputy States Director. She worked for the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) as Director of External Relations. In the Obama White House, she worked in the Office of Public Engagement, as Senior Associate Director. She was the White House Liaison to the LGBTQ community responsible for management of all public inquiries on matters regarding LGBTQ people, including recommending public responses to senior leadership, assisting in drafting administration talking points, and coordinating stakeholder engagement with the White House offices. She worked with the White House, Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), as Outreach and Recruitment Director.
Prior to that she was on the staff of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, House of Representatives Office of State Rep. Carl Sciortino, as legislative director, and worked for the City of Somerville, Health Department, Office of Commissions, Somerville, Mass., as LGBTQ Liaison.
Freedman-Gurspan served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Presidentially Appointed Council; and as a member, and Board Member, Boston University, College of Arts and Sciences, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Norwegian, concentration in Nordic Studies, from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
District of Columbia
Murdered Israeli embassy officials were supporters of D.C.’s LGBTQ synagogue
Bet Mishpachah calls fatal shooting outside Capital Jewish Museum ‘devastating’
The two Israeli embassy officials who were shot to death outside D.C.’s Capital Jewish Museum Wednesday evening, May 21, were strong supporters of Bet Mishpachah, D.C.’s LGBTQ supportive synagogue, according to a statement it released.
“We are especially devastated by the loss of our dear colleague and friend of Bet Mishpachah, Sarah Milgram, and her soon to be fiancé, Yaron Lischinsky,” the LGBTQ synagogue said in a May 22 statement.
“Sarah was the liaison between Bet Mishpachah and the Israeli Embassy, working closely with our staff and clergy,” the statement says. “Her warmth, professionalism, and deep commitment to building bridges within the Jewish community made her not only a trusted partner but a beloved part of our extended congregational family,” according to the statement.
A statement also released on May 22 by the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia says Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, 30, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder along with other weapons related charges in connection with the shooting deaths of Milgram and Lischinsky.
Officials with the D.C. police and the FBI, which has joined D.C. police in continuing to investigate the case, have said Rodriquez arrived in D.C. from Chicago one day prior to the shooting and appears to have targeted an event taking place at the Capital Jewish Museum for violence at the time it was hosting an event called “Young Diplomats Reception,” in which Israeli Embassy officials were in attendance.
Police and FBI officials have said Rodriguez allegedly shot Milgrim and Lischinsky after they left the Capital Jewish Museum at the conclusion of the event. The museum is located at 575 3rd Street, N.W.
“Surveillance footage reportedly shows Rodriquez walking past the victims before turning and firing multiple rounds,” the U.S. Attorney’s statement says. “After the victims fell, he allegedly continued firing at close range, including as one attempted to crawl away,” it says, adding, “Investigators recovered a 9 mm handgun and 21 spent shell casings at the scene.”
Police have said Rodriguez walked into the Capital Jewish Museum after the shooting and was detained by security guards until D.C. police arrived. Witnesses said he began to shout, “free, free Palestine” before police took him into custody.
“Make no mistake, this attack was targeted, antisemitic violence,” said Steven Jenson, an FBI assistant director working on the investigation. “The FBI will continue to pursue all leads and use all available resources to investigate this heinous murder,” he said in the statement.
The fatal shooting took place five days after the Capital Jewish Museum opened a special exhibition called “LGBT Jews in the Federal City” on May 16. “This landmark exhibition explores a turbulent century of celebrations, activism, and change in the nation’s capital by D.C.’s LGBTQ+ Jewish community,” the museum said in a statement announcing the exhibition.
Photos and documents related to Bet Mishpachah make up a prominent part of the exhibition.
During a May 22 press conference organized by the U.S. Attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, to provide an update on the investigation into the two murders, Pirro and FBI official Jensen referred to the two murders as a hate crime and terrorist act.
In response to a question from the Washington Blade asking if investigators were looking into whether the LGBTQ exhibition at the Capital Jewish Museum might have played some role in Gonzales’s motive for targeting the museum, Pirro responded to the question.
“So, we are looking into absolutely everything,” she said. “There is so much information we’re looking at. And I must tell you, coming from New York, I’ve never seen the cooperation and coordination that I’m seeing here. It was immediate. It was instant. It was coordinated. And my hat’s off to this area. We’re going to clean it up, thank you,” she said in ending the press conference.
Josh Maxey, Bet Mishpachah’s executive director, said he and Israeli Embassy official Milgram became friends during their two-and-a-half-year interaction working on joint events between the embassy and Bet Mishpachah.
“This became a wonderful two and a half years journey of putting events together, of hosting events together, doing different programs for the community,” Maxey told the Blade. Among the activities the two worked on, he said, was the embassy’s annual LGBTQ Pride event.
Maxie said his own grieving over the death of Milgram and her boyfriend Lischinsky was heightened by the fact that he spoke with her by phone on the day of the shooting shortly before she arrived at the Jewish Museum over plans about this year’s LGBTQ Pride events.
“Sarah really championed us to be included in Israeli events,” Maxey said. “And so, I am just devastated that this true embodiment of an ally was so viciously and violently taken away from us.”
Adams Morgan queer bar broken into and vandalized
‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Calendar: May 23-29
Comings & Goings
New doc chronicles gay hero’s journey from rape to forgiveness
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
