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Chief condemns anti-gay police flier & more

Published

16 years ago

July 22, 2010

Chief condemns anti-gay police flier

Following calls by LGBT activists for a public response, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier issued a statement this week condemning the distribution of anti-gay fliers inside a police station by one or more unidentified officers.

Lanier said the department’s Internal Affairs unit was investigating the matter.

The fliers include a photo of two male detectives assigned to the department’s Major Crash Investigation Unit. The detectives are shown in the photo displaying gang hand signals, which resemble sign language used by the deaf. They are dressed in civilian clothes and appear to be standing in a police station office doorway.

“Celebrating D.C.’s First Deaf Mute Gay Marriage,” says a title above the photo. The flier goes on to describe the two detectives as “newlyweds using sign language to express their everlasting love and commitment for each other,” and says the men are “pictured as they enter the honeymoon suite prepared for hours of naked sweaty man love.”

Kristopher Baumann, chair of the labor committee of the Fraternal Order of Police, which serves as a police union, said the detectives pictured in the flier consider it highly offense. Baumann noted that someone distributed the same flier in May and department officials “took no action.”

A police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the two detectives shown in the flier are straight but supportive of their gay and lesbian colleagues on the force.

The source said it’s known that a lieutenant at the crash unit took the photo, but it could not be determined if the lieutenant created the fliers. According to the source, police officials initially appeared more concerned that the media learned about the incident than the incident itself.

Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence issued a statement last week calling the fliers a slur against the LGBT and deaf communities. The group’s co-chairs, Kelly Pickard and Joe Montoni, expressed concern that Lanier had not yet issued a public statement about the incident five days after the Washington Examiner broke a story July 13 about the flier.

In her June 19 statement, Lanier said the flier contained comments that were “both offensive and unacceptable.” She noted that she initially held off on issuing a statement because she “did not want to give attention or credence to such an unacceptable act.”

“The Metropolitan Police Department prides itself in having a diverse police department that provides above the board police services to all residents and visitors of the District of Columbia,” she said. “I am clear to all my members that I will not stand for any type of discrimination; therefore, individual acts, such as the creation and distribution of these fliers, are reprehensible and only serve to damage the fine efforts that our members strive to achieve in establishing respect and trust in the community.”

Baumann said department insiders have pointed to at least two other incidents in which anti-gay literature was placed inside police stations in recent years by members of the force. One was a Jehovah’s Witness religious pamphlet called “Homosexuality: How Can I Avoid It?”

He said authorities never determined who was responsible for placing the literature in areas of the police buildings not open to the public.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Gray criticized over Thorpe endorsement

D.C. City Council Chairman and mayoral candidate Vincent Gray (D-At Large) drew criticism this week for accepting the endorsement of a controversial Shaw neighborhood activist who has used anti-gay slurs to denounce people with whom he disagrees.

Leroy Thorpe, who has used the word “faggot” to attack gay and straight rivals during his tenure as an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member, endorsed Gray during a neighborhood block party July 17. Gray attended the event.

“Previously, Mr. Thorpe has said the most vile things about gay Americans and decent hardworking members of the D.C. Police force,” said Toni Williams, a supporter of Mayor Adrian Fenty, in an e-mail to local media. “Mr. Thorpe’s rants and hatred extend to Latinos, whites, and women.

“Why would Chairman Vincent Gray associate himself with such a divisive figure in the Shaw Neighborhood? Gray demonstrates that he truly did not learn from the PFOX incident that plagued Adrian Fenty,” Williams said, referring to an award the mayor’s office mistakenly gave the head of the anti-gay Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, also known as PFOX.

Traci Hughes, a spokesperson for the Gray campaign, addressed Thorpe’s endorsement in an e-mail to the Blade.

“The fact that he is supporting Chairman Gray in no way suggests the two agree on anything more than this: Chairman Gray is the best person to put an end to cronyism and restore integrity and sound fiscal management to the mayor’s office,” Hughes said. “We are happy to have Mr. Thorpe’s unsolicited support and his vote on September 14th.”

Gay activist Peter Rosenstein, a Gray campaign adviser, called Young’s criticism unfair, and said that Gray’s long record of support for LGBT rights shows he neither supports nor condones any inappropriate statements Thorpe may have made in the past.

Rosenstein noted that another controversial neighborhood figure, Sinclair Skinner, distributed anti-gay posters attacking gay D.C. City Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) in 2006 at the same time Skinner endorsed and campaigned for Fenty.

“When Thorpe or Skinner endorse candidates, they endorse the views of those candidates, not the other way around,” Rosenstein said. “I can assure anyone that asks that Leroy Thorpe will have zero impact on Vince Gray’s ongoing commitment to the LGBT community, my community.”

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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

Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality

Published

19 hours 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

2 days 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

3 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