Local

D.C. court rejects ballot measure on gay marriage

Judges divided on city charter issue

Published

16 years ago

July 15, 2010

The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled 5-4 Thursday that the city acted within the law when it refused to allow a minister to place a voter initiative on the ballot seeking to overturn the city’s same-sex marriage law.

The court’s nine judges unanimously agreed with the D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics that a ballot measure to overturn the D.C. Marriage Equality Act, if approved by voters, would constitute discrimination prohibited by the city’s Human Rights Act.

But four of the judges, including Chief Judge Eric Washington, dissented from the majority, saying the law banning ballot measures that would result in discrimination prohibited by the Human Rights Act is invalid because the City Council passed it in violation of the congressionally approved D.C. Home Rule Charter. Associate Judge John Fisher wrote the dissenting opinion.

The majority decision, written by Associate Judge Phyllis Thompson, says the Council acted within the scope of the Home Rule Charter and a subsequent charter amendment, which it says gave the Council sufficient discretion to restrict ballot measures from taking away rights protected under the Human Rights Act.

In issuing its decision, the appeals court upheld an earlier ruling by a D.C. Superior Court judge, who also held that the election board acted within the law in denying Bishop Harry Jackson’s petition to file papers to place the Marriage Equality Act on the ballot as a voter initiative.

Jackson, pastor of a church in Beltsville, Md., recruited several D.C. same-sex marriage opponents to join him as plaintiffs in the case, Jackson v. D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics.

Jackson has said he would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if his side lost at the appeals court level.

Legal experts have said it’s possible — but unlikely — that the Supreme Court would agree to take the case because it is based on a local issue of whether the D.C. Home Rule Charter and a subsequent amendment to the charter allows ballot measures to be held that would result in discrimination. The case would not be on the issue of same-sex marriage itself or whether the U.S. Constitution requires states to accept same-sex marriage, as other pending lawsuits in state courts have asserted.

“The court’s ruling today is a significant victory for justice, the rule of law and the protection of all D.C. residents against discrimination,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “It’s time for the National Organization for Marriage to realize equality is here to stay no matter how much money they want to throw at turning back the clock.”

Solmonese was referring to efforts by the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay group, to use its sizable financial resources to support Jackson’s campaign to overturn the D.C. Marriage Equality Act.

Solmonese added, “The D.C. Council made a wise decision decades ago that no initiative should be permitted to strip away any individual’s civil rights. The court unanimously found that the proposed anti-marriage initiative would have the effect of causing discrimination, and in doing so, stood up for the entire D.C. community.”

Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the D.C.-based National Black Church Initiative and one of the plaintiffs who joined Jackson in seeking to overturn the same-sex marriage law through an initiative, said opponents of the law will continue their fight.

“Today the court has told the 500,000 residents of the District of Columbia that we have no right to vote on their own laws,” Evans said in a statement. “This is wrong. We should have a right to vote on issues challenging the fabric of our lives here in D.C. Like I’ve said in the past, we will continue to fight — taking this all the way to the Supreme Court. We will not give up easily.”

In the majority decision, Thompson said the claim by Jackson and those who joined him in challenging the city’s decision to ban a marriage ballot measure rested on the technical question of whether the City Council had the authority to pass implementing legislation to restrict voter initiatives or referenda.

“Appellants’ challenge focuses on the validity of Council legislation that requires the [election] board to refuse to accept any proposed initiative that would authorize, or have the effect of authorizing, discrimination prohibited by the Human Rights Act,” Thompson said in the decision.

“Specifically, appellants contend that, in establishing that requirement, the Council overstepped its authority and acted in contravention of the District of Columbia Charter. Alternatively, appellants contend that the proposed initiative would not authorize or have the effect of authorizing prohibited discrimination.

“We disagree with both contentions, and we therefore affirm the Superior Court’s rulings that the Council acted lawfully in imposing the Human Rights Act safeguard and that the [election] board correctly determined that the safeguard required it to reject the proposed initiative.”

D.C. City Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who chairs the committee that guided the same-sex marriage law through the Council, called the appeals court decision a major victory for the city and the law’s supporters.

“It’s significant that all of the judges agree that Bishop Jackson’s initiative would be discriminatory,” Mendelson said.

Jackson could not be immediately reached for comment.

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Cameroon

Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now

Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality

Published

1 hour ago

March 13, 2026

Baltimore Banner

Competitive gamer Ludovic Mbock, left, with his sister, Diane Sohna. (Photo courtesy of Diane Sohna)

By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.

The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.

“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

District of Columbia

Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position

Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director

Published

23 hours ago

March 12, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The Wilson Building (Bigstock photo by Leonid Andronov)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.

The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.

“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.

The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.

Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.

“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.

District of Columbia

Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary

Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event

Published

2 days ago

March 11, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Mayor Bowser is expected to attend the Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th gala. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50^th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.

A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8^th St., N.W. in D.C.

“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.

Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.

Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.

He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.

Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.

Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.

“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”

The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.

Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.

Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th