Local
Lawmakers hail introduction of Md. marriage bill
Vote in Senate expected in February
Maryland Sen. Rob Garagiola at the podium. State Del. Mary Washington is to his right. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Members of the Maryland Legislature joined LGBT activists at a news conference at the state capitol in Annapolis Tuesday to formally launch a campaign to pass a same-sex marriage bill that backers introduced the previous week.
The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act is expected to come up for a committee hearing in the State Senate the first week of February and likely will be sent to the Senate floor for debate and a vote as soon as Feb. 7, according to sources familiar with the measure.
Political insiders have said they believe supporters have the votes this year to pass the measure in the Senate, where it has died in committee in past years. And sources claim the House has had the necessary votes for some time to pass it.
“I am very proud to be a sponsor of this legislation,” said House of Delegates Majority Leader Kumar Barve (D-Mont. County), who holds the No. 2 leadership position in that body. “This bill is a testament to what it means to be an American and what it means to be free and equal in our society.”
Barve was one of more than 25 lawmakers and LGBT advocates and their supporters who attended the Jan. 25 news conference in Annapolis.
Sen. Rob Garagiola (D-Mont. County), the Senate Majority Leader and a sponsor of the marriage bill, told the gathering that gay and straight couples are “no different” in their capacity to love one another.
“It’s time that the rights already enjoyed by many who can obtain a marriage license in Maryland are enjoyed by all regardless of gender and sexual orientation,” he said.
The official registry of bills on the Maryland Legislature’s website shows that the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act was introduced in the House of Delegates on Jan. 20 with 17 sponsors and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
The registry shows that the marriage bill was introduced in the Senate on Jan. 21 with 18 sponsors, including Garagiola and Richard Madaleno (D-Montgomery County), who is gay. It was sent to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.
Morgan Meneses-Sheets, executive director of the statewide LGBT group Equality Maryland, the lead advocate for the bill, said another copy of the identical bill was introduced in the House of Delegates Tuesday with 56 sponsors, including Barve, whose name was not on the first House bill introduced last week.
“This is the bill we will be pushing,” she said. “It’s very common to introduce more than one bill. It happens all the time.”
The two-page bill calls for amending the state’s family law, which currently says, “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this state.” The new language in the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act would rewrite that provision to state, “Only a marriage between two individuals who are not otherwise prohibited from marrying is valid in this state.”
A second provision in the bill states that “an official of a religious institution or body authorized to solemnize marriages may not be required to solemnize any marriage in violation of the right to free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and by the Maryland Constitution and Maryland Declaration of Rights.”
Backers say the latter provision, which is similar to a provision in D.C.’s same-sex marriage law, is aimed at assuring religious leaders that churches and other faith-based institutions cannot be forced to perform same-sex marriages.
Equality Maryland and the national same-sex marriage advocacy group Freedom to Marry jointly sponsored the Tuesday news conference.
Officials with both groups said they were hopeful that growing support for same-sex marriage in the state, as reflected in public opinion polls, would help supporters beat back a well-funded opposition campaign by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to defeat the bill.
NOM President Brian Brown said the group would immediately file a petition to bring a same-sex marriage bill before voters in a referendum if the legislature passes it and Gov. Martin O’Malley signs it. O’Malley, a Democrat, has said he would sign the bill if the legislature passes it.
A statewide poll commissioned by the Washington Post and released this week shows that 51 percent of Maryland voters favor a law allowing same-sex couples to marry, while 44 percent oppose such a law. Five percent had no response on the issue.
The same poll showed O’Malley had a job approval rating 58 percent, the highest approval he’s had since becoming governor, according to the Post. Thirty percent of those polled disapprove of O’Malley’s job performance and 13 percent were not sure, the poll shows.
Although O’Malley’s stated commitment to sign a marriage bill has been widely reported in the media, the high approval rating hasn’t changed his decision not to take an active role in lobbying for the marriage bill.
And in a related development, O’Malley released his legislative agenda for the 2011 session of the legislature that includes at least 15 bills addressing a variety of issues, including healthcare, gun control, child welfare and promotion of electric vehicles.
Missing from O’Malley’s legislative agenda are the marriage bill and a separate bill expected to be introduced this year to ban employment discrimination against transgender residents.
Asked why O’Malley didn’t include the marriage and transgender bills in his agenda list, his press secretary, Shaun Adamec, said in an e-mail that the governor includes only those bills he introduces himself in his agenda list. Adamec said O’Malley supports additional bills that members of the legislature introduce and that he fully supports and plans to sign both the marriage bill and transgender rights bill.
“The Governor has been very clear that achieving equity for all Marylanders continues to be a priority of his,” Adamec said.
“We are here today as part of a growing movement across the country toward fairness and respect for all families,” said Sean Eldridge, political director of Freedom to Marry, at Tuesday’s news conference.
“Same-sex couples are now free to marry in five states and next door in the District of Columbia, as well as a dozen countries worldwide,” he said. “And in each of these places, the sky has not fallen, and families have been helped, with no one hurt. Because there is no good reason to continue excluding same-sex couples from marriage, Freedom to Marry supports the work of our Maryland partners to pass the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act,” he said.
“Make no doubt about it – Maryland is ready for marriage equality, and we will not stop until it is no longer denied to our families,” said Del. Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery County), one of five lesbian members of the House of Delegates.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
As mayor’s race takes shape, candidates endorse LGBTQ equality
Like nearly all recent D.C. elections, LGBTQ voters will be choosing a candidate for mayor in 2026 from a list of mostly strong LGBTQ rights supporters in the city’s June 16 primary.
As of March 30, the D.C. Board of Elections’ list of candidates who submitted the required number of petition signatures for the June 16 primary ballot included 10 mayoral candidates: nine Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate.
Among those candidates, six, all Democrats, have issued statements expressing strong support for LGBTQ rights, including the two leading Democratic contenders, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie and current Council member Janeese Lewis George, who represents Ward 4.
One of the lesser-known Democratic candidates who released an LGBTQ supportive statement, Rini Sampath, a cyber security consultant, told the Washington Blade she identifies as queer, becoming one of the first known LGBTQ D.C. mayoral candidates to gain access to a major party primary ballot.
“We’re living in an extremely diverse community, an extremely unique community,” she told the Blade. “And being able to self-label, self-identify as queer is something that I just want to take pride in.”
Similar to McDuffie and Lewis George, Sampath released statements to the Blade and the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ local political group, expressing support for LGBTQ rights and outlining plans for LGBTQ supportive policies if elected mayor.
Although many D.C. LGBTQ activists have said they have yet to decide whom to support for mayor, those who have decided appear to be divided between McDuffie and Lewis George. Most D.C. political observers consider McDuffie and Lewis George to be the two leading candidates in the mayoral race.
The other Democratic mayoral contenders who have released statements expressing support on LGBTQ issues include Gary Goodweather, a local real estate manager and developer who has been actively campaigning at LGBTQ events; Vincent Orange, a former At-Large and Ward 5 D.C. Council member; and Kathy Henderson, a longtime Ward 5 community activist and elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.
The remaining two Democratic mayoral candidates, Hope Solomon, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor and Dupont Circle civic activist; and Ernest Johnson, a real estate broker and Ward 1 community activist, did not respond to inquiries from the Blade and Capital Stonewall Democrats seeking information about their position on LGBTQ related issues.
Robert Gross, the Statehood Green Party candidate who is running unopposed in the June 16 primary, also didn’t respond to inquires from the Blade about his position on LGBTQ issues.
D.C. Board of Elections records show that at least five Republican candidates filed papers to run for mayor in the June 16 GOP primary, but none of them remained as candidates as of March 30, when the election board issued its updated candidate list.
Just one of the five Republican candidates replied to an email message from the Washington Blade sent to all mayoral candidates in early March seeking their position on LGBTQ issues. That candidate, Esa Muhammad, whose website identifies him as an engineer, consultant, and local business owner, sent a reply expressing opposition to LGBTQ rights.
“Unfortunately, I do not support LGBTQ because The God only created 2 genders (Adam/Eve),” he wrote. “Anyway, I will be fair to you all despite your sick way of looking at life,” he stated.
Capital Stonewall Democrats President Stevie McCarty said his group sent questionnaires to all the Democratic mayoral candidates as well as to Democrats running for other offices such as D.C. Council. Information posted on the group’s website shows only four of the mayoral candidates returned a complete questionnaire: McDuffie, Lewis George, Goodweather, and Sampath.
Each of them provides detailed information of their plans for supporting LGBTQ policies if elected and their record of support on LGBTQ issues. McCarty said the questionnaire responses for all candidates that submitted them can be accessed at outvotedc.org.
He said Capital Stonewall Democrats will hold virtual LGBTQ forums in April, including a mayoral forum on April 8. He said the group’s members will vote on the candidate endorsements online from April 20 through May 11, and the group expects to announce its endorsements May 14.
GLAA DC, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has issued candidate ratings for most D.C. elections since the 1970s, and the nonpartisan LGBTQ group was expected to issue ratings for mayoral candidates this year. But like in recent years, the group is expected to base its ratings on mostly non-LGBTQ issues, with a progressive, left-leaning perspective, according to a nine-page “Back to Basics GLAA Policy Brief 2026” that the group released in March.
The LGBTQ activists who are backing McDuffie or Lewis George appear to be gravitating to the two based on their political leanings separate from LGBTQ issues, just like voters in general. Lewis George, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is popular among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ “progressives.”
McDuffie, who is seen as a more moderate candidate along the lines of current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, is being supported by LGBTQ activists who hold those views, some of whom currently work in the Bowser administration.
Among Lewis George’s LGBTQ supporters are longtime Ward 8 community leader Philip Pannell and former Capital Stonewall Democrats president Howard Garrett. Among the LGBTQ McDuffie backers are longtime D.C. Democratic activists John Fanning and David Meadows.
Longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting McDuffie, has raised concerns about Lewis George’s backing by the national group Democratic Socialists of America. In Facebook postings, Rosenstein points to the Democratic Socialists of America’s opposition to Israel as a country and said it is viewed by many in the Jewish community as promoting antisemitism. He has criticized Lewis George for not speaking out against that and for accepting the DSA’s endorsement.
In an interview with the Blade, Lewis George strongly disputed that assessment, saying she has been a strong ally and supporter of the Jewish community.
“I’m a member of the Metro DSA here in D.C. that I work with to fight for labor and for tenant rights,” she said. “I’m also a member of the Democratic Party,” she added, saying, “There are things that the Democratic Party does that I don’t agree with. There are things that the national DSA does that I don’t agree with. That’s a group that I work with.”
“But I want to be clear that I am running for mayor to represent all of our community, and that includes our amazing and historical Jewish community here in D.C.,” she said. “I have had the amazing opportunity to spend time at synagogues and talking to Jewish leaders and groups and institutions. And so, there should be no worry here.”
Following are short excerpts from the detailed statements five of the nine Democratic mayoral candidates submitted to the Capital Stonewall Democrats or the Washington Blade.
Kenyan McDuffie: “As mayor, every piece of legislation I sign, craft, or endorse should also encompass the interest and input of the LGBTQ community members and advocates…From housing to health care and everything in between… We have a dire crisis regarding the rise in homelessness especially among the youth in our LGBTQ communities. In my administration that simply cannot be the status quo and will not be…I have been a consistent champion for our LGBTQ community and will remain so as Mayor of D.C.’
Janeese Lewis George: “As mayor, I will protect our LGBTQ+ neighbors against federal attacks on their identity, including their health care…On the Council I have been a strong supporter of pro-LGBTQ+ bills, including making D.C. a sanctuary for people seeking gender-affirming health care as well as addressing discrimination and harassment in nightlife and hospitality…And as mayor, I am prepared to move up and win those fights – a fight for D.C. statehood, a fight for our true economy, and a real opportunity to uplift our Black queer and trans youth.”
Gary Goodweather: “A Goodweather administration will defend every D.C. law protecting LGBTQ residents. I will establish a Defend DC office to coordinate the District’s legal and public response to federal overreach, with LGBTQ+ protections explicitly within its mandate…My affordable D.C. plan will produce 50,000 new homes with 36,000 affordable units, and I will ensure LGBTQ+ youth housing programs are funded as a budget priority.”
Rini Sampath: “I am an immigrant, proud queer woman, and a 10-year resident of Washington, D.C…For me, LGBTQ+ voters including transgender and nonbinary residents, are not a separate or symbolic constituency; they are a core part of a broader, multiracial, cross-ward coalition rooted in in equity and opportunity.”
Vincent Orange: “I have a long and consistent record of supporting LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion in the District of Columbia, grounded in both policy and personal commitment. As the District’s Democratic Committeeman from 2006 to 2015, I publicly supported marriage equality and voted accordingly … During my time on the D.C. Council, I worked to advance protections for LGBTQ+ residents, including authoring and passing legislation to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals in the workplace.”
Kathy Henderson: Kathy Henderson has maintained a consistent record of treating all members of the community with dignity, compassion, and respect, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, identity, political party, national origin, or ideology. Kathy Henderson embraced the late Wanda Alston as a colleague and good friend…Alston was the first director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Henderson helped to organize and facilitate the first LGBTQ citizens summit.”
Local
D.C.’s affirming congregations to mark Holy Week, Easter
Dignity Washington among groups holding events
LGBTQ-friendly congregations in the D.C. area this week are marking Easter and Holy Week.
The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C., located in Mount Vernon Square, holds both online and in-person services.
An online-only Good Friday service will take place on April 3 at 7 p.m. In person or online Resurrection Sunday services will take place on April 5 at 10:30 a.m.
Dignity Washington, an LGBTQ Catholic group, is also holding Holy Week and Easter events.
The group on March 29 held a Palm Sunday prayer event. Dignity Washington on April 5 will hold a Mass at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church at 6 p.m. It will be livestreamed on Facebook.
Foundry United Methodist Church holds two Easter Sunday services at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
Riverside Baptist Church, located in Southwest Washington, is an “Inclusive, Multicultural, Christ-Centered” congregation that also offers Holy Week and Easter activities.
The church on Good Friday at 3 p.m. is holding an outreach period in which they will clean up the neighborhood. Easter Sunday services will be held at 9:45 a.m., starting with a musical prelude, followed by services.
The church offers weekly “Wednesday Witness,” a youth and safety zone drop-in, serving as a safe space for the students of Jefferson Middle School and the community. It takes place from 3-5 p.m.
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center offers a comprehensive list of inclusive faith communities on its website. The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists offers a list of churches partnered with their organization that are inclusive and mainly Baptist, but the group does feature churches of other denominations.
The 18th National Rainbow Seder took place at the Human Rights Campaign on March 29. The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event included Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder was “Liberation for All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern led it.
The Seder honored the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
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