Local
Effort underway to award Kameny Freedom Medal
Activists say highest civilian honor should go to gay legend
Frank Kameny (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
An effort is under way to have gay activist Frank Kameny honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, from the White House.
Long-time San Francisco-based activist/blogger Michael Petrelis is unofficially spearheading the effort. He says Kameny is highly deserving.
“He is a civic-minded American who has brought America more freedom through his activism,” Petrelis said. “Listen, Frank is 86 years old. Before I was even born, he was doing gay activism work at a very dangerous time … if you want to go through all the things he’s done over the years, we’d be here for the next two hours.”
Widely considered one of the most influential figures in early gay liberation, Kameny was fired from the Army Map Service in 1957 for being gay. He protested it and argued his case to the Supreme Court. In 1961 he and fellow activist Jack Nichols co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington and by 1965, he was picketing at the White House and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall for gay rights, among many other activities over the years.
Petrelis says his friend Bob Roehr, a D.C.-based journalist, suggested the idea to Petrelis two years ago. It hadn’t occurred to Petrelis, but he immediately thought it was a great idea. He’s hoping some of the national LGBT rights groups — he mentions Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal and the Task Force — will pick up the effort. Several have commented on Petrelis’ site that they agree it’s a great idea, including Kameny colleague Charles Francis, London’s Peter Tatchell and law professor Art Leonard.
“Few people are as deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom as Dr. Franklin Kameny,” wrote Richard Sincere, president of Virginia-based Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. “At a time when nobody stood up for the rights of America’s gay and lesbian citizens, Dr. Kameny rose to the task.”
The effort, though, has not been without controversy. When Petrelis floated the idea in the comments section of a recent Blade article about a new White House interim LGBT liaison, some said the community has more pressing concerns.
“Kameny’s been honored plenty over the years,” wrote New Jersey-based trans activist Rebecca Juro. “And this isn’t something [that] should be high on our community’s agenda. What should be top on the agenda is that we still live in a country where in 29 states you can still be fired or thrown out of your home just for being gay and in 35 just for being transgender.”
Kameny concedes his house is overflowing with accolades. One wall in his upstairs office is covered in plaques. There’s another mountain in a spare bedroom that haven’t been hung yet. A table in the dining room is full of freestanding trophies and mementos such as White House pens used to sign significant gay-related legislation. A spare D.C. street sign designating three blocks of 17th Street N.W. in his honor is propped up on a living room sofa.
Kameny says he would be highly honored if the White House chose to award him the medal, which comes in the form of star medallion surrounded by gold eagles attached to a blue-and-white ribbon.
“It would be very nice,” Kameny said. “It would sort of tie up what has been a very long effort and it would leave me feeling very content. I’m deeply appreciative of Michael Petrelis’ effort.”
The White House has been noncommittal on the matter. Outgoing White House LGBT liaison Brian Bond told Petrelis that Kameny’s name was “in consideration.”
“He sent me about 25 words in the tersest of statements back in 2009 when I first proposed the idea, then I’ve never heard from him ever again about this,” Petrelis says. White House spokesperson Shin Inouye said in an e-mail this week, “the best we can do is point you to the website.”
Lesbian tennis legend Billie Jean King has been awarded the Medal of Freedom. Harvey Milk, the slain pioneering member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was awarded the medal posthumously.
Kameny says he hopes he’s most remembered for coining the phrase “gay is good.”
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
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.
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
JD Vance to travel to Hungary next week
Pam Bondi ousted as attorney general
VIDEO: Gay journalist detained for booing Trumps at ‘Chicago’ opening night
Idaho Gov. signs harshest anti-trans bathroom bill in the country
‘Out for McDuffie’ event held at D.C. gay bar
‘Jonah’ an undeniably compelling but unusual memory play
The Oscar-losing performance that’s too good to miss
Thousands attend ‘No Kings’ protests in D.C.
