Local
Multi-million dollar Gay Games lawsuit settled
Cleveland foundation that bested DC for games settled with City of Cleveland, Federation of Gay Games after being ousted as organizers
A Cleveland-based foundation that beat LGBT sports groups in D.C. and Boston for the right to host the 2014 Gay Games agreed to an out-of-court settlement in July that ended its multi-million dollar lawsuit against the City of Cleveland, the Federation of Gay Games and other Cleveland-based sports groups.
The Cleveland Synergy Foundation filed the lawsuit in the fall of 2010 after the FGG revoked its contract to organize the Gay Games on grounds that it allegedly failed to meet the terms of the contract. The foundation denied it had breached its contract and accused the FGG and Cleveland city officials of conspiring to break a legal and binding contract calling for the Synergy Foundation to organize and operate the games in the Cleveland-Akron area.
The Gay Games is an international LGBT sports competition modeled after the Olympics and held every four years. It usually draws more than 10,000 athletes and spectators to the host city.
Due to public reporting requirements, Cleveland officials disclosed that the city paid $475,000 to Cleveland Synergy Foundation to settle the lawsuit. But the settlement terms with the other parties named in the suit, including the Federation of Gay Games, were sealed by the court at the request of the parties involved.
A spokesperson for the FGG declined to disclose what, if anything, the non-profit LGBT sports organization paid as part of the settlement.
“The Federation of Gay Games confirms all litigation involving the Gay Games has been terminated and the parties have resolved to ensure that the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland-Akron are a success,” said FGG spokesperson Kelley Stevens in a statement to the Blade.
At the time it ousted Cleveland Synergy the FGG hired a new entity called the Cleveland Special Events Corporation to organize and operate the 2014 Gay Games.
In its 2010 finance report to the IRS, which is required for all non-profit, tax-exempt groups, the FGG reported that it incurred a deficit of $55,349, with $99,641 in revenue and $154,349 in expenses. FGG spokesperson Stevens did not respond to a question asking if expenses associated with the lawsuit were responsible for some or the entire 2010 deficit.
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.
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