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Anniversary for marriage
One year after the first same-sex couples wed in D.C., all eyes are on Maryland
Candy Holmes (left) and Darlene Garner on their wedding day last March. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
As the battle over marriage equality in Maryland reaches its endgame, the sparks it throws are reflected in the lives of real people, including a married couple wed just next door in Washington on the first day the D.C. same-sex marriage law went into effect in March of 2010.
Residents of Bowie, Md., one of the three couples wed with fanfare at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters on March 9, 2010 — Candy Holmes and Darlene Garner — looked back this week at the struggles to win equality in D.C. and the continuing efforts in Maryland.
“In retrospect, it’s been a mixed year,” Holmes says. “Because it was a great year to be married in D.C. in my hometown and Darlene’s adopted city, really it was a year of a piece of heaven, once we got through the murky waters that it might be taken away by the courts. It was the realization of something long desired by us, to be married, and legally acknowledged so, to the love of my life.”
“But when we come back to where we live, in Maryland, where our marriage is not recognized, the struggle goes on because we were free to be married in D.C., but we are not free to be married in Maryland — yet.”
Holmes and Garner — who dated on and off for 14 years before getting married — are both ordained ministers in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), a liberal, mostly gay Christian denomination — and now they are determined to see the blessings afforded to them by marriage become theirs by right also where they live.
“We have so much enjoyed the last 12 months as a married couple,” Garner says. “We have been completely embraced by our extended and blended families — children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren, cousins — and I will be eternally grateful to the D.C. government elected officials, and also remain hopeful that the elected officials in my home state will follow the example set in our national capital.”
When Garner and Holmes boast of their blended, extended family, they are not talking idly. Garner is the mother of four, grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of three, the eldest of whom is now 3 years old.
Holmes considers Garner’s offspring hers too.
The giddiness and hoopla from a year ago now long since subsided, how do they assess what marriage equality means to them today? Once they were married, “there’s been a big difference at work,” says Holmes, who has worked as a manager in the federal government’s GAO (now called the Government Accountability office) for 34 years. “It shows up in how people greet me and treat me, the respect and regard from others.”
Statistics from D.C. Superior Court’s Marriage Bureau show a surge of weddings in the District, more than double the number from the prior year, March 2009-March 2010.
Those numbers — 6,604 marriages in D.C. from March 3, 2010, when the same-gender right to marry, enacted in December 2009, went into effect, through March 2, 2011 — vaulted over the number from the prior year, when only 3,101 couples applied for marriage licenses in D.C.
The city doesn’t track how many straight couples there were versus same-sex couples, but the court attributes the spike to the change in the marriage law.
Speaking last week at an event held to celebrate enactment of the new law, Mayor Vincent Gray said he “was thrilled to hear this,” adding that the new law “has been so smoothly implemented,” even though he acknowledged that he has lost some friends due to his own outspoken support for the measure when he served on City Council until being elected mayor in November. But he said that was a price he willingly has paid for doing what he called “the right thing.”
As for the possibility that the new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives might still seek to roll back the new law, the mayor said he was aware it could happen, but “I haven’t heard anything yet” about it.
And so the dust in D.C. has settled. And in the wake of the new law have come party planners and experts in wedding officiating like Deborah Cummings-Thomas and Sheila Alexander-Reid, both licensed and ordained to perform weddings, lesbians and partners since May of last year in Marry Me in D.C., which helps connect people wanting to marry in D.C. with what Cummings-Thomas calls “our network of gay and gay-friendly service providers who celebrate, not just tolerate them on their wedding day.”
On March 19, Marry Me in D.C. hosts a “Marriage Equality Wedding Expo,” from noon to 4 p.m. at the Washington Court Hotel, 525 New Jersey Avenue NW, on Capitol Hill. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Advance registration is encouraged at marrymeindc.com.
Robin McGehee (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Marriage not a happy ending for all
With the legalization of same-sex marriage comes, inevitably, gay divorce.
Robin McGehee has felt its sting. The 37-year-old California resident and lesbian who decided to wed in June 2008, says she decided to un-wed a year and a month later, in July 2009. She and her partner took their vows under California’s same-sex marriage law prior to its being overturned by the state’s voters in November 2008 ballot when Proposition 8 passed. Their marriage remained valid however under a grandfather clause.
But it fell victim nevertheless, in an ironic way, says McGehee, since it was the fight against its passage that brought her into the fray to oppose Prop 8.
After getting iced out of volunteer work at her son’s Catholic school, she became a gay activist and helped organize the National Equality March, held in Washington in October 2009. As a newly mobilized activist, she says, she was “on the road almost every weekend for months at a time.”
And that activism led her away, she acknowledges, from placing a focus needed at home, to repair the fraying ties that bound her with her spouse, a woman 19 years her senior, with whom she had joined in 2001 in a domestic partnership contract under California law. They had been a couple for 11 years at the time of their wedding.
She says she “met someone on the road, someone I connected with emotionally.” Basically, she admits, “I fell for someone else.” They have now been together for a year and a half, and they face, McGehee says, “the same challenges,” because now she is also working a second job, as executive director of GetEqual, a group that focuses on using non-violent civil disobedience to advance LGBT rights.
As for her former spouse, they remain in constructive discussions over dual issues, caught up still in legal proceedings over the terms of ending both their marriage and their earlier domestic partnership. Closure should come, she expects, “any time now.”
Maryland
FreeState Justice launches 501(c)(4) group
FreeState Equality will focus on policy and advocacy
FreeState Justice, an LGBTQ organization that provides legal services, community programs, and public education in Maryland, announced the launch of FreeState Equality on Wednesday.
The new, independent organization intends to pursue advocacy and policy work beyond the legal capability of FreeState Justice, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. FreeState Equality functions as a 501(c)(4) organization, meaning it can partake in political activity.
“We are committed to transparency throughout this process and look forward to continuing our work together in service of LGBTQ+ Marylanders,” said FreeState Justice Executive Director Phillip Westry.
FreeState Equality will take on policy, advocacy, and civic engagement initiatives while FreeState Justice will pursue legal and direct-service work, according to Westry.
While both organizations adhere to similar values, they will feature separate leadership, operations and compliance.
FreeState Equality is hosting its first launch fundraiser on Dec. 10 at the Brass Tap in Baltimore. The event, held from 5-7 p.m., will feature insight from FreeState Equality staff about how Maryland policy can support the state’s LGBTQ community.
Attendees can purchase fundraiser tickets on Zeffy for $25 general admission, which includes a free first drink. The organization also welcomes additional donations.
By LEE O. SANDERLIN, PAMELA WOOD and BRENDA WINTRODE | Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman and first person of color to hold her position, stepped down from her leadership post Thursday, effective immediately.
Jones, 71, has been a member of the legislature since 1997 and ascended to the top role in 2019 following the death of longtime House Speaker Michael E. Busch.
Jones held a meeting with top House Democratic leaders Thursday afternoon, sources said, at which she informed them of her decision. In a statement, Jones described the changes of life’s seasons and said she was ready to focus on what lies ahead.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Activists praise Mayor Bowser’s impact on city, LGBTQ community
‘She made sure LGBTQ residents knew they were seen, valued, loved’
Members of D.C.’s LGBTQ community offered their thoughts on the impact Mayor Muriel Bowser has had on them, the city, and LGBTQ people in statements and interviews with the Washington Blade in the week following Bowser’s announcement that she will not run for re-election in 2026.
Bowser’s Nov. 25 announcement came during the third year of her third four-year term in office as mayor and after she served as a member of the D.C. Council representing Ward 4 from 2007 to Jan. 2, 2015, when she took office as mayor.
The LGBTQ activists and mayoral staffers who spoke to the Blade agreed that Bowser has been an outspoken and dedicated supporter on a wide range of LGBTQ-related issues starting from her time as a Council member and throughout her years as mayor.
Among them is one of the mayor’s numerous openly LGBTQ staff members, Jim Slattery, who has served in the Cabinet-level position as the Mayor’s Correspondence Officer since Bowser first became mayor.
“As Mayor Muriel Bowser’s longest serving LGBTQIA+ staffer – dating back to her first term as the Ward 4 Council member – and a proud member of her Cabinet since day one of her administration, I have had the opportunity to witness her at work for the people she serves and leads,” Slattery said in a statement. “Noteworthy is that throughout the entirety of my 27 years in District government, I have always been able to do so as an out and proud gay man,” he stated.
Slattery added that he has witnessed first-hand Bowser’s “absolute belief” in supporting the LGBTQ community.
“She has led on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, on shelter for vulnerable members of our community, housing for older members of the community, and has been a reliable and constant presence at events to LGBTQIA+ residents,” Slattery said. Among those events, he said, have been World AIDS Day, the D.C. Pride Parade, the 17th Street LGBTQ High Heel Race, and WorldPride 2025, which D.C. hosted with strong support from the mayor’s office.
Ryan Bos, CEO & president of Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events and served as lead organizer of WorldPride 2025, praised Bowser for being a longtime supporter of that organization.
“She played a very supportive role in helping us as an organization grow and to be able to bring WorldPride to Washington, D.C.,” Bos told the Blade. “And we commend her years of service, And our hope is that she helps us to continue to advocate for the support from the D.C. government of the LGBTQ+ community, especially during these times,” Bos said.
Bos, who was referring to the Trump administration’s hostility toward LGBTQ issues and sharp cutbacks in federal funds for nonprofit organizations, including LGBTQ organizations, said Capital Pride Alliance appreciated Bowser’s efforts to provide city funding for events like WorldPride.
“She provided support through the event process of WorldPride and ultimately along with the D.C. Council provided necessary funding to ensure WorldPride was a success,” Bos said. “And we are proud that we are able to show that Capital Pride and WorldPride had such a large economic impact for D.C. and the D.C. government,” he added.
Marvin Bowser, Mayor Bowser’s gay brother who operates a local photography business and has been active in the D.C. LGBTQ community for many years, said he has also witnessed first-hand his sister’s support for the LGBTQ community and all D.C. residents since the time she became a Council member and even before that.
Among his vivid memories, he said, was his sister’s strong support for the marriage equality law legalizing same-sex marriage in D.C. that the Council approved in 2009 under then-Mayor Adrian Fenty.
“I remember the first time she was standing up and giving clear and unequivocal support to the community when that law passed,” Marvin Bowser told the Blade. “And she was front and center in speaking very strongly in support of marriage equality,” he said.
Marvin Bowser also credits his sister with expanding and strengthening the then-Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs, among other things, by appointing advocate Sheila Alexander Reid as the office’s director in 2015.
Reid, who for many years prior to becoming director of the GLBT Affairs office was founder and publisher of the national lesbian publication Women In The Life, had the reputation of a “rock star,” according to Marvin Bowser.
He recalls that Mayor Bowser also played a lead role in D.C.’s bid to host to the quadrennial international LGBTQ sports competition Gay Games for 2022.
D.C lost its bid for the 2022 Gay Games after the Federation of Gay Games selected Hong Kong to host the event in an action that Marvin Bowser says was unfair and based on the effort to hold the Gay Games for the first time in Asia even though D.C. had a stronger bid for carrying out the event.
“Everything she’s done for the community has been very visible and from the heart,” he said of Muriel Bowser. “And in my personal relationship with her, she has also been nothing but absolutely supportive of me and my partner over the years,” he said.
“And we were just at her house helping her put up Christmas decorations,” he added. “And so, it’s been wonderful having her as a sister.”
Veteran D.C. LGBTQ advocate Japer Bowles, who serves as the current director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, discussed the mayor’s record on LGBTQ issues in his own statement to the Blade.
“Mayor Muriel Bowser has been an unwavering champion for D.C.’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual community and movement,” he said. “Her more than 20 years of leadership brought consistent and historic investments for our LGBTQIA+ youth, seniors, veterans, and residents experiencing homelessness as well as impactful violence-prevention initiatives,” he added.
“Under her leadership, the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs grew into a national leader, delivering more than $10 million in community grants for LGBTQIA+ programs and managing 110 Housing Choice vouchers,” Bowles said in his statement.
“Because of her work, we are stronger, safer, more visible, and, proudly, ‘the gayest city in the world,’” he said in quoting Bowser’s often stated comment at LGBTQ events about D.C. being the world’s gayest city.
In a statement that might surprise some in the LGBTQ community, gay D.C. small business owner Salah Czapary, who served from 2022 to 2024 as director of the Mayor’s Office of Nightlife and Culture as a Bowser appointee, criticized some of the city’s non-LGBTQ related polices under the Bowser administration as being harmful to small businesses.
Bowser appointed Czapary, a former D.C. police officer, to the nightlife office position shortly after he lost his race as an openly gay candidate for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat held by incumbent Brianne Nadeau.
“Mayor Bowser led D.C. through turbulent years and major growth, and we can all be proud of her leadership on many fronts,” Czapary said in a statement to the Blade. “She is also setting an example that more leaders should follow by stepping aside to allow a new generation to lead,” he said. “But as we turn the page, we must be honest about what the next mayor should deliver,” he says in his statement.
Without mentioning Bowser by name, he went on to list at least four things the next mayor should do that implied that Bowser did not do or did wrong. Among them were treating the D.C. Council as a “true governing partner,” not letting residents and small businesses “feel the weight of outdated, slow, and unresponsive systems,” and the need for leadership that “values competence over loyalty.”
He added that a “reversal” by the city of the city’s streetery program that was put in place during the COVID pandemic to allow restaurants to install outdoor seating into street parking lanes, was a “roll it back” on progress for small businesses.
He concluded by stating, “LGBTQ rights and inclusion are among the many fronts on which we can be very proud of the mayor’s leadership.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to an offer by the Blade to give the office an opportunity to respond to Czapary’s statement.
A significantly different perspective was given by Sheila Alexander Reid, who said she was proud to serve as director of the Mayor’s LGBTQ Affairs Office during the first six-and-a-half years of Bowser’s tenure as mayor.
“I watched her evolve from a newly elected mayor finding her footing into a confident, seasoned leader who met every challenge head-on and time after time slayed the competition,” Alexander Reid said in a statement to the Blade.
“With each year in office, her voice grew stronger, more grounded, and more fearless,” her statement continues. “And she needed that strength, because being a Black woman mayor is not for the faint of heart, But Mayor Bowser never backed down. Instead, she showed the city what courageous, compassionate leadership truly looks like.”
Alexander Reid added that Bowser funded a new LGBTQ Community Center facility, expanded a workforce development program for the transgender community, and “made D.C. the first jurisdiction in the nation to require LGBTQ+ cultural competency training for healthcare providers.”
She also pointed to the mayor’s LGBTQ “safety nets” through low-barrier shelters and housing vouchers and her support for LGBTQ celebrations like the 17th Street High Heel Race.
“But what inspired me most was this,” Alexander Reid stated. “At a time when some elected officials across the country were retreating from LGBTQ support, Mayor Bowser was doing the opposite. She leaned in, she doubled down. She made sure LGBTQ residents knew they were seen, valued, protected, and loved by their city.”
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