Local
Gay GOP donor helped fund ‘Hide/Seek’ exhibit
N.Y. businessman wants controversial crucifix video restored to Portrait Gallery
Editor’s note: a Blade review of the exhibit is here.
A gay Republican businessman from New York who led the fundraising campaign to underwrite the National Portrait Gallery’s gay exhibit “Hide/Seek” has added his voice to those calling on the gallery to reinstate a controversial video by the late gay artist David Wojnarowicz.
Donald Capoccia, a real estate developer who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001 to serve on the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, and his partner, Tommie Pegues, sent a letter this week to the head of the Smithsonian Institution requesting that the video be “returned to the exhibition floor, without fail, and as soon as possible.”
The role of Capoccia and other gay donors who helped fund the exhibit has been overshadowed by a series of events beginning Dec. 1, when National Portrait Gallery director Martin Sullivan removed the Wojnarowicz video from the exhibit.
Sullivan said he acted in response to complaints by the Catholic League and Republican members of Congress that an 11-second segment of the video, which showed ants crawling over a crucifix, was offensive and an anti-Christian slur.
“I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious,” Sullivan said in a statement. “In fact, the artist’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the intention of the museum to offend. We have removed the video.”
News of Sullivan’s decision, which surfaced on World AIDS Day, prompted an outcry among gay and AIDS activists and leaders of the arts community, who denounced the action as a form of censorship.
Sullivan told the New York Times he was sympathetic to the activists and artists who decried the decision to pull the video. He said his decision, which he said had the support of the leaders of the Smithsonian Institution, was aimed at quelling a “distraction” from the overall exhibit, which features important works from leading gay and lesbian artists.
The National Portrait Gallery is an arm of the Smithsonian Institution, which, among other things, operates the federally funded museums in the nation’s capital.
Among those who criticized the video and the exhibit itself were Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who will become Speaker of the House in January, and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who will become majority leader at the same time, when Republicans assume control of the House.
Rep. James Moran (D-Va.), whose district includes the Northern Virginia suburbs just outside D.C., said Boehner and Cantor along with other Republicans were exploiting an exhibit, in which just 11 seconds of a single video was offensive to some, for political gain.
Cantor said his concern was that the Smithsonian Institution, of which the National Portrait Gallery is a part, was using government funds to pay for an exhibit that was highly offensive to many Americans.
Cantor and other critics of the exhibit dismissed assertions by Smithsonian officials that private donors picked up the cost of the exhibit, saying taxpayer funds are used for the upkeep of the building and to pay the salaries of Portrait Gallery employees who operate the exhibit.
The National Portrait Gallery has called the exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” the nation’s first major museum exhibition to “focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture.”
LGBT activists involved in the arts have said the exhibit also shows how gay artists, through their varied works, have grappled with anti-gay bias and prejudice against different forms of gender expression over the past century.
Phillip Clark, chair of the board of D.C.’s Rainbow History Project, called David Wojnarowicz, a gay man who died of AIDS in 1992, an important figure in the LGBT arts community. Clark noted that Wojnarowicz used ants in his video and still photography works as a symbol for depicting human suffering and injustice.
“The image of the Christ figure attacked by ants in ‘A Fire in My Belly’ [the name of the Wojnarowicz video pulled from the exhibit], far from being sacrilegious, is actually a commentary on the destructiveness of society toward AIDS patients in the 1980s,” Clark said.
D.C. gay rights advocate Charles Francis, who recruited former President Gerald Ford to become a board member of a national gay GOP group, the Republican Unity Coalition, before Francis left the Republican Party in 2004, called on the LGBT community to remain supportive of the Smithsonian.
Francis, who joined Capoccia in contributing money to the Hide/Seek exhibit, said he disagrees with the decision by the Portrait Gallery to remove the Wojnarowicz video. But he said the gallery and the Smithsonian as a whole have been supportive of LGBT-related projects in recent years.
“The Smithsonian is doing a great job step by step in expanding and including LGBT Americans in the stories they tell, in the collections they show,” he said. “I think it’s time for the gay community to rally around the Smithsonian.”
PHOTO: “Self-Portrait — Robert Mapplethorpe,” a 1975 Polaroid print, one of the images in the Hide/Seek exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Image courtesy of the Estate of Robert Mapplethorpe, New York City.
State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D-Chesterfield) will face John Reid in the race to become Virginia’s next lieutenant governor.
Hashmi won the Democratic primary with 27.49 percent of the vote. She defeated former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, state Sen. Aaron Rouse (D-Virginia Beach), Babur Lateef, Victor Salgado and Alexander Bastani.
“Tonight, Virginians made history,” said Hashmi in a statement. “We didn’t just win a primary, we sent a clear message that we won’t be bullied, broken, or dragged backward by the chaos in Washington.”
Reid, a gay conservative talk show host, in April won the Republican nomination to succeed Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who is running to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The incumbent governor days after Reid secured the nomination called for him to withdraw his candidacy amid reports that a social media account with his username included “pornographic content.” Reid, who would become the first openly gay person elected to statewide office in Virginia if he wins in November, has strongly denied the reports.
Former state Del. Jay Jones defeated Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor in Democratic attorney general primary. Jones will face Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares in November.
Youngkin cannot run for a second, consecutive term.
Former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger will face off against Earle-Sears in November. The winner will make history as the first woman elected governor in the state’s history.
Baltimore
More than 15K people attend Baltimore Trans Pride
Baltimore Safe Haven organized annual event
More than 15,000 people attended Baltimore Safe Haven’s annual Trans Pride on Saturday.
“Last year we had maybe 2,500, and the year before that, we had 5,000,” Renee Lau, administrative assistant for special projects coordinator for Baltimore Safe Haven, said. “In today’s political climate, it’s absolutely amazing.”
Lau said allies and other groups “went into hiding” for about a month or two after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, but then all at once, different organizations started to reach out.
“The community has really come together to support us,” Lau said. “It was a fun, exciting day.”
Baltimore Safe Haven Executive Director Iya Dammons in a press release said the “historic turnout” showed the transgender community’s strength, as well as their unity to fight for justice and equality for all LGBTQ people.
At the event, attendees were seen waving flags and shouting “Trans Lives Matter,” showing their support for the community.
On Friday, before Trans Pride, Baltimore Safe Haven opened their new building to the public, gathering notable attendees like the Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohan, Council Member Antonio Glover, and representatives from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
“(It) was historic in itself because … we’re the only direct service providers for people in the LGBT community,” Lau said.
Providing housing for 18- to 24-year-olds, Lau said the new building also serves as a community hub and has office spaces for workers.
With only a few hiccups of arguments between attendees and fixing street blockades during Trans Pride, Lau said the event showed what the community can do.
“It was amazing that so many people came out and had that much fun. We were all giddy by Sunday morning,” Lau said. “(It gave) Safe Haven exposure and continuity. We are not just an LGBT organization, we are an organization that supports the entire community.”
District of Columbia
Juvenile arrested for anti-gay assault in D.C.
Police say suspect targeted victim in house with Pride flags
D.C. police announced on June 16 that they have arrested a 13-year-old juvenile male on a charge of Assault With Significant Bodily Injury for allegedly throwing a rock through the window of a house in Northeast D.C. and “striking the victim in the face.”
In a statement announcing the arrest, police said the incident took place on Friday, June 6, and “LGBTQ+ flags were displayed at the front of the home.”
A separate D.C. police incident report obtained by the Washington Blade states, “Victim 1 reports he was sitting in his living room at the listed location watching television when a rock came through the front window and struck him about his left eye. Victim 1 suffered a laceration under his left eye.”
The report adds, “Victim 1 states he observed Suspect 1 running away.”
According to the June 16 statement issued by police, “On Sunday, June 15, 2025, officers located the suspect and placed him under arrest. [A] 13-year-old juvenile male of Northeast D.C., was charged with Assault With Significant Bodily Injury (Hate/Bias).”
The statement says the house where the incident occurred is located on the 400 block of 20th Street, N.E.
Similar to statements D.C. police have issued regarding LGBTQ bias-related cases in the past, the statement announcing this case says that while the case is being investigated as being potentially motivated by hate or bias, that designation could be changed at any time during the investigation.
It adds that a hate crime designation by D.C. police may not be prosecuted as a hate crime by prosecutors. Under D.C. law, juvenile cases are prosecuted by the Office of the D.C. Attorney General.
Since court records for cases involving juveniles are sealed from public access, the Blade could not immediately determine whether prosecutors designated the case as a hate crime.
It also could not immediately be determined if the juvenile charged in the case was being held in detention while awaiting trial at juvenile court or whether he was released to a parent or guardian and whether a judge set any conditions for release.
The police statement concludes by saying that the department’s Special Liaison Branch, which includes the LGBT Liaison Unit, is assisting with the investigation.
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