Local
Protesters return to Smithsonian after ban lifted
‘Censored’ video triggered action; ‘Hide/Seek’ closes Sunday
Two activists detained in December after protesting a decision by the Smithsonian Institution to remove a video from the “Hide/Seek” exhibit about gay art in America were officially permitted to return to the National Portrait Gallery, site of the exhibit, for a private tour sponsored by Washington Blade on Feb. 3.
After intervention by the Blade, David Ward, co-curator of the exhibit, agreed to seek an official end of the enforcement of any “ban” by Smithsonian security officials barring the two protesters — videographer/photographer Mike Iacovone, who is straight, and Mike Blasenstein, who is gay — from entering any Smithsonian museum. The two were detained following their protest of a decision in late November by Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough to remove a four-minute video, an extract from a longer video by the late gay artist David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1993, showing for a few seconds ants crawling on a crucifix, imagery that a right-wing group, the Catholic League, claimed to be anti-Catholic.
They were detained when Blasenstein and Iacavone entered the National Portrait Gallery and Blasenstein displayed the video on an iPad hung around his neck. He was also holding a stack of fliers with text explaining his protest at the video’s removal from the exhibit. Iacaone was then also detained by Smithsonian police for filming Blasenstein’s run-in with security. Each was released but only after being made to sign letters pledging not to return to any Smithsonian facilities.
Explaining his decision to protest, Blasenstein later told the newsletter ArtInfo, that he joined in actions critical of the removal of the video because, he said, “I just felt this was an important issue.”
“I’m not really an artist or an activist,” Blasenstein said, “but when I heard that they took it down, it just seemed to send such a clear negative message. So I thought to myself, I would send my own message and bring this art back into the museum.”
Blasenstein later told the Blade that they were not only banned from the museum but during their detention they were “forcibly stripped of our materials, handcuffed, dragged into a stairwell, and told to sign papers thrust in front of us or be arrested.” They were then escorted from the building, he said, “without being given copies of what we had signed.”
Ward, an historian at the Portrait Gallery and co-curator of the exhibit with Jonathan D. Katz of the State University of New York in Buffalo, told the Blade that the ban was actually “never imposed” by the Smithsonian, but was instead “done by D.C. Metro,” the city’s police force, which was called to the scene, “without our knowledge or acquiescence.”
“They then passed the buck back to us to make us ‘lift’ a ban that wasn’t our doing,” he said. Ward personally welcomed both Iacovone and Blasentein to the exhibit for the private tour on behalf of the Blade, saying, “I hope this is the end of it.” He also stated he wanted to “move on” from the entire controversy over the edited video, one of 105 items in the exhibit, which opened in late November, and closes on Feb. 13.
Blasentein told the Blade that he never felt the ban was purely a paper reprimand, saying, “let me tell you, when everyone around you is wearing guns, nothing about the process feels ‘bureaucratic.'” He said that though “you could spend hours untangling this thing” Ward was correct to insist that the so-called ban was really triggered by the city’s police, but he added that “the sergeant I spoke to at MPD was pretty clear in his opinion that MPD doesn’t ban anybody, but merely enforces a ban on behalf of the property owner.” He also stressed that the Smithsonian management “to the best of our knowledge” never insisted on barring them from the museum. That action, he believes, “was solely a decision of Smithsonian police.”
Blasentein said that “the story here is not primarily our ban,” but rather the act of official censorship itself. However, he insists that “had we been allowed back into the building,” after the incident with the iPad and the leaflets, “our protest would have been a lot different.”
“The only reason a trailer is parked outside the National Portrait Gallery is because that was the closest we were legally allowed to get to the building. If the Smithsonian had let me stand there for seven and a half hours with the iPad, we would have mobilized volunteers to do the same every day until Feb.13,” the day the exhibit closes its doors.
Instead, Iacovone and Blasenstein secured paperwork from the city to park a trailer directly in front of the museum at its entrance in the 700 block of F Street, N.W., where what they call the Museum of Censored Art — to show “the art the Smithsonian won’t,” will remain open until Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Even though they can now legally enter the museum, Iacovone said their counter-exhibit in the trailers will continue to remain open, staffed by 12-15 volunteers through Sundayt.
Iacovone said they have spent more than $6,500 so far on trailer and parking space costs and for powering batteries to run the video player. He praised two art galleries — the Hamiltonian and Flashpoint, as well as two others, Transformer and Civilian — for assisting them in various ways. More than 4,000 people have entered the trailers and viewed the video, he said, noting that “our biggest day so far was over 500 people,” and he thinks by the time the Museum of Censored Art shuts down they will reach the 5,000-visitor mark.
The exhibit is the first on the subject of same-sex desire in American art and shows the work of noted artists Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent as well as more recent icons such as Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe, the latter a photographer whose photo images showing explicit male sexuality caused the Corcoran Gallery to halt the exhibit planned of his work more than 20 years ago.
Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough, the official responsible for the decision to order removal of the video, part of a larger work in 1987 called “A Fire in My Belly,” meanwhile, has been the target of calls for him to resign in the wake of that decision. Last week, about 30 protesters rallied outside the Smithsonian Castle on the Mall during a quarterly meeting of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to demand that they fire him.
Organized by Art+ (positive), a New York City-based group that fights censorship and homophobia, and backed also by the activist group, People For the American Way, protesters declared that Clough had given in to right-wing pressures and should step down. They chanted “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Clough must go!” and “Ants in my pants, fire in my belly — Clough has got to go!”
The regents, however, announced after their meeting that they supported Clough, though even he subsequently acknowledged that perhaps it had been made in haste and that he would respond differently in the future.
“I’d like to think I’m a little wiser than I was six months ago or three months ago,” he said at a news conference following the meeting with the regents, which reviewed the entire controversy and then issued a statement backing him. However, a three-member panel reporting to the regents implicitly criticized the way the censorship decision was made and communicated. And regents repeatedly asked by reporters whether Clough had made the right decision refused to answer directly.
Another rebuke, this time more direct, came from the board of a Smithsonian member institution, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, that met last week and issued an open letter, saying they were “deeply troubled by the precedent” of the November decision to pull the video from the show.
Virginia
Va. Senate committee approves resolution to repeal marriage amendment
Outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin introduced SJ3
The Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee on Wednesday by a 10-4 vote margin approved a resolution that seeks to repeal a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) introduced SJ3.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
A resolution that seeks to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment passed in the General Assembly in 2021. The resolution passed again in 2025.
Two successive legislatures must approve the resolution before it can go to the ballot. Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates have said the resolution’s passage is among their 2026 legislative priorities.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
District of Columbia
Ruby Corado sentenced to 33 months in prison
Former Casa Ruby director pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2024
A federal judge on Jan. 13 sentenced Ruby Corado, the founder and former executive director of the now closed D.C. LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby, to 33 months of incarceration for a charge of wire fraud to which she pleaded guilty in July 2024.
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor M. McFadden handed down the sentence that had been requested by prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after Corado’s sentencing had been postponed six times for various reasons.
The judge also sentenced her to 24 months of supervised release upon her completion of incarceration.
In addition to the sentence of incarceration, McFadden agreed to a request by prosecutors to hold Corado responsible for “restitution” and “forfeiture” in the amount of $956,215 that prosecutors have said she illegally misappropriated from federal loans obtained by Casa Ruby.
The charge to which she pleaded guilty is based on allegations that she diverted at least $180,000 “in taxpayer backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts,” according to court documents.
Court records show FBI agents arrested Corado on March 5, 2024, at a hotel in Laurel, Md., shortly after she returned to the U.S. from El Salvador, where authorities say she moved in 2022. Prosecutors have said in charging documents that she allegedly fled to El Salvador, where she was born, after “financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public,” and the LGBTQ organization ceased operating.
Shortly after her arrest, another judge agreed to release Corado into the custody of her niece in Rockville, Md., under a home detention order. But at an Oct. 14, 2025, court hearing at which the sentencing was postponed after Corado’s court appointed attorney withdrew from the case, McFadden ordered Corado to be held in jail until the time of her once again rescheduled sentencing.
Her attorney at the time, Elizabeth Mullin, stated in a court motion that her reason for withdrawing from the case was an “irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
Corado’s newly retained attorney, Pleasant Brodnax, filed a 25-page defense Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing on Jan. 6, calling for the judge to sentence Corado only to the time she had already served in detention since October.
Among other things, Brodnax’s defense memorandum disputes the claim by prosecutors that Corado improperly diverted as much as $956,215 from federally backed loans to Casa Ruby, saying the total amount Corado diverted was $200,000. Her memo also states that Corado diverted the funds to a bank account in El Salvador for the purpose of opening a Casa Ruby facility there, not to be used for her personally.
“Ms. Corado has accepted responsibility for transferring a portion of the loan disbursements into another account she operated and ultimately transferring a portion of the loan disbursements to an account in El Salvador,” the memo continues.
“Her purpose in transferring funds to El Salvador was to fund Casa Ruby programs in El Salvador,” it says, adding, “Of course, she acknowledges that the terms of the loan agreement did not permit her to transfer the funds to El Salvador for any purpose.”
In his own 16-page sentencing recommendation memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Borchert, the lead prosecutor in the case, said Corado’s action amounted at the least to fraud.
“The defendant and Casa Ruby received no less than $1.2 million in taxpayer backed funds during the COVID-19 global health crisis,” he memo states. “But rather than use those funds to support Casa Ruby’s mission as the defendant promised, the defendant further contributed to its demise by unlawfully transferring no less than $180,000 of these federal emergency relief funds into her own private offshore bank accounts,” it says.
“Then, when media reports suggested the defendant would be prosecuted for squandering Casa Ruby’s government funding, she sold her home and fled the country,” the memo states. “Meanwhile, the people who she had promised to pay with taxpayer-backed funds – her employees, landlord, and vendors – were left behind flat broke.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office and Corado’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the judge’s sentence.
“Ms. Corado accepts full responsibility for her actions in this case,” defense attorney Brodnax says in her sentencing memo. “She acknowledges the false statements made in the loan applications and that she used some of the money outside the United States,” it says.
“However, the money was still utilized for the same purpose and intention as the funds used in the United States, to assist the LGBTQ community,” it states. “Ms. Corado did not use the money to buy lavish goods or fund a lavish lifestyle.”
Brodnax also states in her memo that as a transgender woman, Corado could face abuse and danger in a correctional facility where she may be sent if sentenced to incarceration.
“Ruby Corado committed a crime, she is now paying the price,” said D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Peter Rosenstein. “While it is sad in many ways, we must remember she hurt the transgender community with what she did, and in many ways they all paid for her crime.”
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