Local
Supreme Court rejects D.C. marriage challenge
Action ends effort to force ballot measure
(Blade photo by Michael Key)
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order today denying a request by a local minister to consider a case seeking to force the District of Columbia to allow voters to decide whether to repeal the city’s same-sex marriage law.
The order, which did not include any statement or opinion, ends the effort by Bishop Harry Jackson and other local opponents of same-sex marriage to go through the courts to impose a ballot measure calling for overturning the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009, which legalized same-sex marriage in the District.
None of the Supreme Court’s nine justices issued a dissent in their unanimous determination not to take the case.
“We are pleased that the Supreme Court turned down Bishop Jackson’s request for review of the Court of Appeals decision on marriage equality,” said Peter Rosenstein, president of the Campaign for All D.C. Families, the local group that campaigned for passage of the marriage equality law.
“This confirms our belief that what the D.C. Council did is both legal and just,” he said. “Equality will not be denied.”
Rosenstein was referring to a decision last October by the D.C. Court of Appeals that upheld an earlier ruling by the city’s Board of Elections and Ethics to reject a voter initiative proposed by Jackson and other same-sex marriage opponents calling for repealing the marriage equality law.
In the case known as Jackson v. the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, Jackson sought to force the city to hold a voter initiative that, if approved, would repeal the same-sex marriage law and replace it with a new law defining marriage in the District as a union only between a man and a woman.
The Court of Appeals decision stated that D.C. City Council acted within its authority under the city’s congressionally mandated Home Rule Charter when it imposed certain restrictions more than 30 years ago on the types of initiatives and referenda that could be placed on the ballot.
Among the restrictions adopted then was a ban on ballot measures that, if approved by voters, violate the non-discrimination provisions of the D.C. Human Rights Act. The act, among other things, bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Jackson and a team of lawyers representing him argued that Council violated the Home Rule Charter by adopting the ballot measure restrictions.
The Supreme Court today rejected Jackson’s request for a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, which asked the court to hear the case to enable Jackson to appeal the ruling of the D.C. Court of Appeals. By denying that request, the Supreme Court allowed the Court of Appeals decision to permanently remain in effect.
“Today’s action by the Supreme Court makes abundantly clear that D.C.’s human rights protections are strong enough to withstand the hateful efforts by outside anti-LGBT groups to put people’s basic civil rights on the ballot,” said Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign.
“For almost two years, the National Organization for Marriage and the Alliance Defense Fund, along with Bishop Harry Jackson, have fought a losing battle to shamelessly harm gay and lesbian couples in D.C. who seek nothing more than to share in the rights and responsibilities of marriage,” Solmonese said.
According to the Supreme Court’s public docket, the nine justices deliberated over whether to hear the Jackson case in a private conference held last Friday. Under longstanding court rules, the justices usually announce a decision on whether to accept or reject a case on the next business day following such a conference.
With the Supreme Court denying Jackson’s court challenge to the same-sex marriage law, marriage equality opponents are expected to take their fight back to Congress by resuming earlier requests for Congress to either overturn the D.C. marriage law or to impose a new law forcing the city hold a ballot measure to allow voters to decide the issue.
D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), who chairs the committee that shepherded the same-sex marriage law through the Council in 2009, said city voters have demonstrated through the city’s 2010 primary and general election that the marriage law was not a pressing issue for them.
He noted that despite promises by same-sex marriage opponents to work for the defeat of all Council members who voted for the marriage law, just a few candidates opposing the law surfaced in the elections and all of them lost by lopsided margins.
“They’ve lost in the courts, they lost overwhelmingly in the Council 12 to 1 [when the marriage bill came up for a vote in December 2009], and they lost at the ballot box,” he said. “Now they’ve lost their last chance, their last gasp in the judicial system.”
Jackson couldn’t be immediately reach for comment.
Rev. Anthony Evans, a D.C. minister who is working with Jackson to overturn the D.C. same-sex marriage law, called the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the Jackson case “a travesty of justice.”
“This law was forced down the church’s throat and what the Supreme Court has set up is the greatest civil war between the church and the gay community,” Evans said. “And let me just state for the record, we don’t want that fight. We love our gay brothers and sisters. But if the Supreme Court is not going to acknowledge the fact that we have a right as religious people to have a say-so in the framework of religious ethics for our culture and society, then we reject the Supreme Court on this issue.”
Supporters of the same-sex marriage law have noted that large numbers of local religious leaders from all denominations, including black churches, came out in support of the law. Many have begun peforming same-sex marriages.
Evans, an official with the D.C.-based National Black Church Initiative, said local same-sex marriage opponents have began discussions with “our Republican friends” in Congress to take steps to challenge the D.C. marriage law. He declined to disclose further details but said he and others opposed to the marriage law lobbied GOP leaders on the Hill to strip congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) of her voting privileges on the House floor.
Since Republicans took control of the House earlier this month, GOP leaders revoked Norton’s limited floor voting privileges that Democrats gave her when they took control of the House in 2007. House GOP leaders also revoked the limited voting privileges for delegates representing U.S. territories and Puerto Rico.
“[O]ur first action was to make sure that Eleanor didn’t get a vote as punishment for her wholehearted support for same-sex marriage in this city and also for her to ignore the black religious community,” Evans said. “There is a consequence to her actions. That was one of them.”
Norton, reached at her office late Wednesday, disputed Evans’ claim that same-sex marriage opponents played any role in her loss of House voting privileges.
Norton was referring to House Republican leaders’ decision to strip her of voting privileges when they gained control of the House in 1995. Democrats restored her voting privileges when they regained control of the House in 2007.
“But in any case, shame on any resident who wants the District of Columbia not to have a vote,” she said.
Norton said she expected some members of Congress to attempt to overturn the city’s same-sex marriage law through legislation, although she was hopeful that Democrats and moderate Republicans would join forces to defeat such legislation.
“I can tell you that I’ve had a good conversation with an important Republican who’s not interested,” she said, referring to efforts to overturn the D.C. marriage law. “That doesn’t mean that won’t happen. But there are Republicans here who would not like to get all mixed up with social issues.”
District of Columbia
GLAA releases ratings for 18 candidates running for D.C. mayor, Council, AG
Mayoral contender Janeese Lewis Geroge among those receiving highest score
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a Democrat, is among just four candidates to receive the highest rating score of +10 from GLAA D.C. who are competing in the city’s June 16 primary election.
GLAA, formally known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has rated candidates for public office in D.C. since the 1970s. It rated 18 of the 36 candidates on this year’s primary ballot for mayor, D.C. Council, and D.C. attorney general based on its policy of only rating candidates who return a GLAA questionnaire asking for their positions on a wide range of issues, most of which are not LGBTQ-specific.
Among the candidates who did not return the questionnaire and thus did not receive a rating, according to GLAA, was Democratic mayoral contender Kenyan McDuffie, who along with Lewis George, is considered by political observers to be one of the two leading mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary.
GLAA President Benjamin Brooks said that when the McDuffie campaign learned that GLAA announced it had released its candidate ratings and McDuffie was not rated because a questionnaire from him was not received a McDuffie campaign worker contacted GLAA. Brooks said the campaign worker told him they didn’t initially believe they received the questionnaire but they discovered this week that it landed in the spam folder of the campaign’s email account.
Brooks told the Washington Blade he informed the campaign worker it was too late for GLAA to issue a rating for McDuffie since the submission deadline for all candidates had passed. But he said GLAA will allow McDuffie to submit a completed questionnaire that it will post on its website along with the questionnaire responses of the other candidates who submitted them to GLAA.
Lewis George and McDuffie, who each have long records of support for the LGBTQ community, are among a total of eight candidates running for mayor on the June 16 primary ballot: seven Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate. In addition to Lewis George, GLAA rated just two other mayoral candidates. Rini Sampath, a Democrat who self identifies as queer, received a +6.5 rating, and Ernest E. Johnson, also a Democrat, received a +4.5 rating
Under the GLAA rating system, candidate ratings range from a +10, the highest score, to a -10, the lowest possible score. In its ratings for the June 16 primary, the lowest score issued was +4.5. GLAA said in a statement that each of the 18 candidates it rated expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues in their questionnaire responses, indicating that the overall rating scores reflect the candidates’ positions on mostly non-LGBTQ-specific issues.
The three other candidates who received a +10 GLAA rating are each running as Democrats for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. They include gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo; Aparna Raj, who identifies as bisexual; and LGBTQ ally Rashida Brown. The only other Ward 1 candidate rated by GLAA is LGBTQ ally Terry Lynch, who received a +5.5 rating.
Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker, the Council’s only gay member who is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, received a +7 GLAA rating. The two challengers did not return the questionnaire and were not rated.
“In seven out of 10 of our priorities, every candidate indicated agreement,” GLAA said in its statement to the Washington Blade in referring to the candidates it rated. “Total consensus on core issues signals that whomever is elected to Council and mayor, we should expect to hold our elected officials accountable to our goals of protecting home rule, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender healthcare rights, and eliminating chronic homelessness in the District,” the statement says.
“While candidates agree on the basics, they distinguish themselves in the depth and creativity in their responses, and their record on the issues,” according to the statement, which adds that candidates’ full questionnaire responses and ratings can be accessed on the GLAA website, glaa.org.
Like past election years, GLAA does not rate candidates running for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat or the so-called “shadow” U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seats.
With the exception of one question asking about transgender rights, none of the other nine of the 10 questionnaire questions are LGBTQ-specific. But most of the questions mention that LGBTQ people are impacted by the issues being raised, such as affordable housing, federal government intrusion into D.C. home rule, and access to healthcare and public benefits for low-income residents.
One of the questions asks candidates if they support decriminalization of sex work in D.C. among consenting adults, which GLAA supports. Lewis George is among the candidates who said they do not support sex work decriminalization at this time. The other two mayoral candidates that GLAA rated, Sampath and Johnson, said they support sex work decriminalization.
In the race for D.C. attorney general, GLAA issued a rating for just one of the three candidates running: Republican challenger Manuel Rivera, who received a +4.5 rating. Incumbent Democrat Brian Schwalb and Democratic challenger J.P. Szymkowicz were not rated because they didn’t return the questionnaire.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), who is running unopposed in the primary, received a +6.5 rating. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who is facing three Democratic challengers in the primary and who is a longtime LGBTQ ally, received a +6.5 rating.
In the special election to fill the at-large D.C. Council seat vacated by the resignation of then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat, GLAA has rated two of the three Independent candidates competing for the seat. Elissa Silverman received a +5.75 rating, and Doni Crawford received a +5.6 rating.
Finally, in the At-Large D.C. Council race GLAA issued ratings for five of the 11 candidates running in the primary, each of whom are Democrats. Oye Owolewa received a +9; Lisa Raymond, +7.5; Dwight Davis, +6.5; Dyana N.M. Forester, +6; and Fred Hill, +6.6.
The full list of GLAA-rated candidates and their detailed questionnaire responses can be accessed at glaa.org.
Rehoboth Beach
From the Capitol to the coast: Rep. Sarah McBride shares Rehoboth favorites
As summer kicks off, Congresswoman Sarah McBride shares her favorite Rehoboth spots.
Each year for the past 19 years, the Washington Blade has kicked off the summer season with a quintessential tradition — a party in Rehoboth Beach. The annual celebration is well known among Blade readers as the unofficial start of summer and beach season. (This year’s event is May 15, 5-7 p.m. at Diego’s featuring remarks from Ashley Biden.)
Two weeks ago, the Blade sat down with Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, to discuss her first year in office. While reflecting on key milestones and challenges ahead, she also shared some of her favorite Rehoboth spots and what the beach town means to her.
“I love Rehoboth,” the state’s sole House member told the Blade, beaming from her office in the Longworth House Office Building. “I love Baltimore Avenue, and love going to Aqua and the Pines.”
Both Aqua and the Pines have long served as staples of Rehoboth’s LGBTQ community. From the Saturday night lines stretching down the street off the main drag to the Sunday tea dances, the venues have helped cement Rehoboth as one of the top LGBTQ beach destinations in the United States dating back to at least the 1940s, when LGBTQ federal workers would escape the pressures — and often prying eyes — of Washington for a queer haven along the Delaware coast.
While attitudes and the community itself have evolved over the decades, Rehoboth today can still feel like an extension of D.C. — only with more Speedos and sandy flip-flops. Conversations that begin in Washington about politics and nightlife often continue beachside, shifting from “What’s Bunker’s theme tonight?” to “Who’s DJing at Aqua?”
When asked where she likes to dine in town, McBride highlighted one longtime favorite while also teasing a new addition she’s eager to try.
“Drift Seafood and Raw Bar is one of my favorite restaurants,” she said. “I actually ran into a Rehoboth restaurateur the other day while I was at Longwood Gardens for the tulips — which were beautiful. The restaurateur just opened a new restaurant on the south end of Baltimore Avenue that I’m excited to try. It sounds like an Indian fusion restaurant.”
When asked whether she frequents Poodle Beach — the longtime LGBTQ section of the shoreline — McBride shared that she prefers a quieter stretch of sand a bit farther north of Rehoboth’s gay beach scene.
“I usually go to Deauville, which is just north. It’s right there in between the boardwalk and Gordon’s Pond and North Shores.”
Regardless of where she chooses to unwind from the pressures of Washington and Dover, McBride was clear about how much both Rehoboth and Delaware mean to her.
“I love Rehoboth. I love the restaurants there. This is the professional privilege of my lifetime, getting to represent Delaware.”
“One of the things that I love is seeing how much goodness there is in this state,” she shared. “I represent more people in the House of Representatives than any other representative. Unlike most members who represent exclusively urban, suburban, or rural districts, I represent all three. Delaware demographically looks like America.”
She went on to say that representing a state whose demographics closely mirror the country as a whole gives her hope for the future — something that can at times feel elusive within the often-divisive halls of Congress.
“That means every day that I’m here, and every time Delawareans come to visit me, I get to see the full diversity of this country and this state on display. I get to see the goodness across that diversity, whether it’s diversity of identity or diversity of thought. It makes me even prouder to represent a state that time and time again judges candidates not based on their identities, but based on their ideals.”
She ended with a simple but hopeful message about her state and its people.
“Our politics are too often defined by hate. I’m glad Delaware and Delawareans are showing that a different kind of politics is possible.”
District of Columbia
Anti-LGBTQ violence prevention efforts highlighted at D.C. community fair
Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs organized May 8 event
Detailed advice on how LGBTQ people can avoid, defend themselves against, and prevent themselves and loved ones from becoming victims of violence, with a focus on domestic and intimate partner violence, was presented at a May 8 LGBTQIA+ Safety in Numbers Community Fair.
The event, organized by the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, included five workshop sessions and information tables set up by 14 LGBTQ-supportive organizations and D.C. government agencies or agency divisions, including the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s LGBT Liaison Unit and the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center.
Also playing a lead role in organizing the event was the D.C. LGBTQIA+ Violence Prevention and Response Team, or VPART, a coalition of D.C. officials and leaders of community-based organizations that work with the Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
The event was held in meeting space in the building where the Office of LGBTQ Affairs is located at 899 N. Capitol St., N.E.
The workshop topics included de-escalation training on healthy relationships, bystander intervention, self-defense training, violence prevention grants, and suicide prevention.
“This will be a public safety and violence prevention event where community partners will educate attendees on various methods of violence intervention and trauma-informed practices,” according to a statement released by the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs prior to the start of the event.
The statement adds, “We will have live demos, interactive games, and workshops focused on strategies for self-defense, protecting vulnerable communities, increasing access to mental health resources, providing tools for recognizing domestic violence/intimate partner violence signs in intimate relationships, and assistance for substance abuse.”
Sonya Joseph, associate director of engagement for the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, told the Washington Blade that studies have shown rates of domestic or intimate partner violence are higher in the LGBTQ community than in the community at large.
“Domestic violence and intimate partner violence are two very big prevalent issues in the LGBTQ community,” she said, adding that some of the workshops at the event would be providing “training on healthy relationships and how to recognize and prevent intimate partner violence and the signs of it.”
About 35 to 40 people attended the workshop sessions.
Experts specializing in violence impacting the LGBTQ community have said domestic violence refers to violence among people in domestic relationships that can include spouses but also siblings, parents, cousins, and other relatives. Intimate partner violence, according to the experts, refers to violence perpetuated by a partner in a romantic or dating relationship.
These D.C. based organizations or agencies that participated in the LGBTQIA+ Safety in Numbers event, and which can be contacted for assistance, include:
• Defend Yourself
• DC LGBTQ+ Community Center
• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
• Joseph’s House
• Us Helping Us, People into Living, Inc.
• MCSR (formerly known as Men Can Stop Rape)
• MPD LGBT Liaison Unit
• Volunteer Legal Advocates
• DC SAFE
• Destination Tomorrow
• D.C. Office of Victims Services and Justice Grants
• Life Enhancement Services
• ONYX Therapy Group
• U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.
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