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Mattachine founded 50 years ago

D.C. ‘homophile’ group remembered as first civil rights organization for gays

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Frank Kameny, one of Mattachine’s founders, died last month, just prior to the organization’s 50th anniversary. The city staged a farewell for Kameny last week a the Carnegie Library. (Washington Blade file photo by Doug Hinckle)

Records kept by the late gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny show that Kameny and fellow activist and native Washingtonian Jack Nichols co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., on Nov. 15, 1961 as the city’s — and nation’s — first homosexual civil rights organization.

Kameny, then 36, and Nichols, 23, were joined by at least three others on that day at the group’s first official meeting, held in the Harvard Street, N.W., apartment of Earl Aiken, one of the group’s first members, according to information obtained by D.C.’s Rainbow History Project.

LGBT activists and Kameny’s friends and colleagues in D.C. and across the nation are scheduled to gather in Washington at the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill next Tuesday, Nov. 15, for a memorial service celebrating Kameny’s life and legacy. The gay rights leader died at his home in Washington on Oct. 11. Organizers say the gathering will also commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kameny and his gay rights colleagues’ founding of the Mattachine Society of Washington.

The Rainbow History Project reports that an example of the hostile climate the fledgling group was to face in its first few years of existence in the early 1960s surfaced three months before its official launch, when Kameny organized a preliminary meeting to discuss the need for forming a homosexual rights group.

When Kameny and others sat down at the start of that meeting, held at the Hay Adams Hotel on Aug. 1, 1961, Kameny quickly discovered the gathering had been infiltrated by Louis Fouchette, the head of the Perversion Section of the D.C. Police Department’s Morals Division.

“Fouchette was identified, exposed, and left the meeting,” Rainbow History Project reports in one of its papers on the Mattachine Society of Washington.

Kameny told the Blade years later that he and others attending the August 1961 meeting viewed Fouchette’s visit, and the fact that he learned of plans to form a gay group before it even held its first meeting, as a chilling reminder of the work that lay ahead for the group.

In part because Mattachine’s organizers knew that discovery by authorities, including police, of someone’s status as a gay person would almost certainly lead to the loss of their job, the group adopted a bylaw making it mandatory that all members except Kameny use a pseudonym to identify themselves publicly. The pseudonyms would also be used on Mattachine’s membership list.

Among those complying with this requirement were Mattachine members Nichols, who later went on to become an accomplished author, journalist and out gay activist; Robert King, Lilli Vincenz, Paul Kuntzler, Eva Freund; Ron Balin; and Jon Swanson, according to Rainbow History’s reports on the group.

Each of them played a key role in Mattachine Society of Washington’s groundbreaking work, including the group’s first-ever homosexual rights protest demonstrations in the 1960s at the White House, Pentagon, Civil Service Commission and other government buildings.

Kuntzler later co-founded the D.C. Gay Activist Alliance, which later became the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, two of D.C.’s leading LGBT advocacy organizations that continue to operate today.

Back in 1961, Kameny chose to use his real name in connection with the Mattachine Society of Washington because he already suffered what he believed to be the irreversible consequences surrounding his firing in 1958 from his job as a civilian astronomer at the U.S. Army Map Service after authorities discovered he was gay.

“He knew he was essentially blacklisted for life in his profession as an astronomer, where, at the time, everybody knew each other in that profession,” said author and Kameny biographer David Carter. “So he had nothing to lose.”

Carter, who interviewed Kameny extensively during the past several years, said Kameny told him he chose to be one of the few “out” gays at the time following his unsuccessful but highly acclaimed appeal of his firing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kameny wrote his own brief to the high court as a document known as a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, which asked the court to take on his case. In 1961, the Supreme Court denied his petition and upheld a lower court decision that refused to back a Kameny lawsuit seeking to force the U.S. Civil Service Commission to overturn his firing.

The lawsuit and his petition to the Supreme Court marked the first known time a gay person had challenged the U.S. government policy of refusing to hire and automatically firing gay people from federal government employment in any capacity or position.

Kameny’s 61-page Supreme Court petition, which is now part of the Kameny Papers collection at the Library of Congress, is viewed today by historians as the first comprehensive gay rights manifesto in the United States.

Carter, who is writing Kameny’s biography, said the Supreme Court petition became the founding principles used by Mattachine Society of Washington to carry out its work calling for equality and non-discrimination for homosexuals in employment and a wide range of other areas.

Origin of ‘Mattachine’ name

Local activists commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Mattachine Society on Nov. 15, 1986. (Blade archive photo by Doug Hinckle)

There were other Mattachine Society groups created by gays in other cities beginning in Los Angeles in 1950. But nearly all of them acted as clandestine groups seeking to promote a better understanding of homosexuals, with most agreeing with the then prevailing view by psychiatric professionals that homosexuality was a mental disorder.

The Mattachine name was first adopted in 1950 by pioneering gay rights activist Harry Hay, the lead founder that year in Los Angeles of the first such group. Hay said he took the name from a French medieval and renaissance group known as Société Mattachine, which operated within the royal court as court-jester type figures wearing masks to conceal their identity. In some cases the Mattachines were believed to have been given liberty to speak frankly to the ruling monarch on matters that others were forbidden to discuss.

Carter said Kameny favored using another name for the Washington group that boldly used the word homosexual in its title. He said Kameny told him he was outvoted by the other members, who thought “Mattachine” was a name widely recognized within the nation’s homophile movement.

While insisting on adopting Mattachine Society as its name, Carter and others familiar with the group said the members agreed to Kameny’s request that it remain independent of other Mattachine Society groups, with whose philosophy and tactics Kameny disagreed.

None of the other Mattachine Society groups, including those located in L.A., San Francisco, and New York, took on the role of a civil rights and civil liberties organization like the Mattachine Society of Washington did.

“They certainly were the first to take that position,” said Carter, in discussing Mattachine Society of Washington’s activist, civil rights stance. “And the second unique thing about them is their attitude or strategy. They took a militant approach toward achieving that goal, an unapologetic approach,” he said.

“It is time that a strong initiative be taken to obtain for the homosexual minority – a minority in no way different, as such, from other of our national minority groups – the same rights, provided in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, as are guaranteed to all other citizens,” the Mattachine Society of Washington said in an August 1962 statement.

“These include the rights to the pursuit of happiness and to equality of opportunity; the right, as human beings, to develop and achieve their full potential and dignity; and the right, as citizens, to be allowed to make their maximum contribution to the society in which they live – rights which Federal policy and practice now deny,” the statement says.

In what Carter and others following the LGBT rights movement say was a first of its kind development, the group launched a four-point campaign in 1962 calling for repeal of the U.S. Civil Service Commission’s policy barring gay employees, which it called unconstitutional; an end to the U.S. military ban on gay service members; an end to the federal government policy of denying security clearances for gays; and the repeal of state sodomy laws that made it illegal for consenting adults of the same sex to engage in private sexual relations.

Kuntzler said the group went one step further by taking what others in the homophile movement at the time considered a radical action. Following a heated debate among its members at an April 1965 meeting, Mattachine Society of Washington adopted a formal resolution declaring that homosexuality was not a mental disorder.

The resolution, introduced by Kameny, opened the way for the group to begin a national campaign to pressure the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its diagnostic manual as a disorder.

Kuntzler said he recalls members voted 27 to 5 to approve the resolution, with the group’s then president, Bob Belanger among those who voted against it.

“The Mattachine Society of Washington takes the position that in the absence of valid evidence to the contrary, homosexuality is not a sickness, disturbance or other pathology in any sense but is merely a preference, orientation, or propensity on par with and not different in kind from heterosexuality,” the resolution states.

Kuntzler also recalled that the group got an unexpected flurry of publicity in the summer of 1963 when then U.S. Rep. John Dowdy (D-Texas), who chaired the House committee overseeing D.C. affairs, called a public hearing on a bill he introduced to curtail the activities of the Mattachine Society of Washington.

The Washington Post reported in an Aug. 10, 1963 story that Dowdy became outraged when he learned that a D.C. government agency had granted Mattachine a license to solicit charitable contributions in the city as a fundraising tool. The Post story said Dowdy’s bill called for overturning the city’s approval of the group’s charitable solicitation license and called for barring the city from approving any future license to any organization whose existence threatened to harm “the health, welfare and morals” of the city.

Kameny drew widespread media coverage when he testified at the hearing in opposition to the bill and challenged Dowdy’s assumptions that homosexuality was a “perversion” harmful to society. A representative of the D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union also testified against the bill, saying it was unconstitutional because it would infringe on Mattachine’s First Amendment right of freedom of expression.

Kuntzler said that much to Dowdy’s horror, the testimony by Kameny and the ACLU official resonated with the public and media, prompting a Post editorial opposing the bill and calling Dowdy a “moralist.”

The bill eventually died in committee. The brouhaha surrounding its introduction and the hearing helped to boost the Mattachine Society’s message of equality and non-discrimination for gay people, Kameny and other members of the group concluded at the time.

The Mattachine Society of Washington became less active following the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, which was considered a momentous development in the gay rights movement that led to the creation of a plethora of other gay groups, including D.C.’s short-lived Gay Liberation Front.

According to Kuntzler, nearly all of Mattachine’s small corps of remaining members devoted their time and energy in 1971 to Kameny’s historic run as the nation’s first known openly gay candidate for Congress. Kameny became one of five candidates competing for the newly created non-voting delegate seat in the House of Representatives to represent D.C. in Congress.

Mattachine members, among other things, organized a first-of-its-kind “gay” questionnaire for each of the candidates running in the race, asking them to state their views on gay-related issues, including whether they would support legislation to ban discrimination against homosexuals in employment.

All but Kameny ignored the questionnaire, Kuntzler said. But he said the questionnaire and the election-related work performed by Mattachine members laid the groundwork for the type of gay rights work assumed by the Gay Activists Alliance, which formed as the recognized successor to Mattachine Society of Washington immediately following Kameny’s run for Congress.

Kameny finished fourth in the election, receiving 1,888 votes or 11 percent of the total, Kuntzler recalls. In a development that surprised many and delighted LGBT activists, Kameny finished ahead of the Rev. Douglas Moore, the fifth place candidate who denounced homosexuality and gays as being “immoral” and a threat to the community.

“It was a very nice place to be,” said lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz, who said she joined Mattachine Society of Washington in 1962 after being discharged from the Women’s Army Corps, or WACs, on grounds of homosexuality. “I was glad to be a part of it.”

Vincenz was among many of the group’s early members who went on to successful professional careers in the D.C. area while they continued to participate in the LGBT rights movement. All of them switched to using their real names.

Eva Freund, who, like Vincenz and Mattachine member Nancy Tucker, became among the group’s first female members, continued to participate in LGBT-related causes. She currently serves as president of a D.C.-area information technology services company.

Vincenz received a doctorate degree in psychology and operated a therapist practice specializing in helping lesbian and gay clients. Kuntzler became an advertising executive for a non-profit association and his longtime domestic partner, Steven Miller, who also participated in Mattachine activities, became the owner of a successful court reporting business.

Tucker and Vincenz also became coordinators of a Mattachine newsletter project that led them to found an independent gay newspaper in the city in October of 1969 called the Gay Blade, which later evolved into the Washington Blade.

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Virginia

Arlington church seeks to offer LGBTQ-affirming senior housing

Project by Clarendon Presbyterian faces opposition from residents

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Clarendon Presbyterian Church (Washington Blade photo by Lou Chibbaro, Jr.)

Leaders and members of the Clarendon Presbyterian Church, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary on April 13, have said they decided to continue to fulfill their mission of religious faith by using the land on which their church is located in the Clarendon section of Arlington, Va., to develop a new, larger church building to include LGBTQ affordable housing for seniors along with an independently run childcare center that currently operates in the church.

“In line with the church’s deep history of supporting affordable housing, LGBTQ communities, and seniors, in 2021, the church relaunched a visioning process of how we might invest our most valuable physical resources, our church property, for the good of the community,” church leaders said in a Feb. 9, 2024, statement describing the project.

The statement says that in 2022, the congregation voted to partner with the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH), a real estate development company that specializes in affordable housing projects. Through that partnership, the statement says, the two partners in June of 2023 applied to the Arlington County government for a zoning change that would allow the construction of a building that could accommodate as many as 92 residential apartments for seniors 55 or 62 and older.

Among other things, the project calls for demolishing the current church building and constructing a new, larger building that would include a smaller version of the church space for its religious services as well as space for 40 to 58 children ages two through six at the Clarendon Child Care Center, which has operated at the church for more than 60 years.

Rev. Alice Tewell, the current pastor at Clarendon Presbyterian Church, told the Washington Blade another important factor contributing to the decision to redevelop the church property is the high cost of maintaining a 100-year-old building and its aging infrastructure that was becoming less and less affordable for the church’s budget. And like many churches across the country, the membership of Clarendon Presbyterian Church has declined over the years, making it no longer necessary for a worship service space as large as that in the current church building, Tewell said.

The statement describing the development plan says that without a major redevelopment project, the church could no longer afford to remain in the current building, forcing it to move to another location outside of Clarendon and possibly outside of Arlington. 

According to Rev. Tewell, the redevelopment decision came after several years of internal discussion, meetings with longtime church allies, including members of the LGBTQ community and other community groups.

“And after all these conversations, we came to where we could serve Christ, which is part of our faith, and where we could be good neighbors in Arlington – would be to tear down our entire property and rebuild so it would include senior affordable housing as LGBT welcoming, a new church space, which we also plan to turn into a community space, and the new space for our preschool center,” Tewell told the Blade.

She noted that the church’s location at 1305 N. Jackson St. is walking distance to the Clarendon Metro station and many local amenities such as restaurants and retail stores, making it a convenient location for the senior residents in the redeveloped space. 

She also points out that church members have consulted with the New York-based LGBTQ seniors advocacy organization SAGE, which informed them of the great need for LGBTQ welcoming senior housing, including in Northern Virginia.

But news of the church’s redevelopment project, especially reports that it would include a proposed 92-unit apartment building, prompted many nearby residents to raise strong objections and to call on the Arlington County Board, which must make a final decision on a zoning change, to deny the zoning change request.

Most of the opposition comes from residents of single-family houses, who point out that the church is located in a largely low-density residential neighborhood with just a few nearby low-rise apartment buildings. In August of 2023, a group of nearby residents created an online petition that gathered at that time more than 1,000 signatures calling for the county to turn down the church development project.

“We, the concerned residents of Arlington, Virginia, stand united in opposition to the proposed destruction of the historic, over 100-year-old, Clarendon Presbyterian Church (CPC) and the subsequent construction of a massive 6-story apartment building having 100 units within our cherished residential neighborhood,” the petition states. “We believe that this development project will have serious detrimental effects on our community’s character, quality of life, and historic heritage,” it says.

The Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, or APAH, the development company working in partnership with the church, submitted an official application on June 29, 2023, for a Special General Land Use Plan Study calling for the needed zoning change for the church project with Arlington County Zoning Administrator Arlova Vonhm. APAH officials have said the initial application was the first of a multi-step process seeking final approval of the project.

Garrett Jackson, APAH’s Director of Resource Development and Communications, told the Blade that APAH on behalf of the church asked the Zoning Administrator to put the application on hold while the church and APAH consider revisions for the project.

“We are currently working with our architect, engineer, and construction management team to assess the feasibility of different development options while also considering feedback we have received from the county and the community,” Jackson told the Blade in a March 15 email.

In a phone interview with the Blade on March 21, Jackson and APAH officials Mitchell Crispell and Brian Goggin, said the decision to put the project on hold did not come as a result of an informal message from the Zoning Administrator that the project was about to be turned down. 

“So, we were the ones that put it on hold,” said Crispell, APAH’s Director of Real Estate Development. “It wasn’t the county that said no to us at all. We wanted to kind of pause for a minute and consider our options, the feasibility of different options and the development plans,” he said.

Crispell noted that the decision to put the project on hold came last fall, a few months after the application was submitted in June and after strong opposition to the project surfaced by nearby residents. Crispell, Jackson, and Goggin pointed out, however, that opposition to development projects is a common phenomenon in Arlington and other jurisdictions and that ongoing dialogue between developers and concerned residents often leads to a resolution to the objections.

“We understand the back and forth that it takes to get these projects to fruition,” Jackson said. “So, you’ve got to rest assured that this is very much a part of the very thorough process that both APAH and the county go through regularly to make sure that we’re getting the absolute best product in the actual building that will go up for Clarendon Presbyterian Church and for the future residents,” Jackson points out.

Jackson and his two APAH colleagues said they couldn’t immediately predict when they will resubmit the application for the zoning change. Spokespersons for the Zoning Office, the Arlington County Board, and Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz didn’t immediately respond to a request by the Blade for comment on the church project and the likelihood of the county approving the project.

Among those supporting the church project is James Fisher, a longtime Arlington LGBTQ rights advocate and longtime church member. Fisher and Arlington gay civic activists Jay Fisette, a former elected member of the Arlington Board, and longtime Arlington resident Bob Witeck, who support the project, told the Blade they believe many nearby residents also support the church development project.

Fisette and Witeck said they do not believe anti-LGBTQ bias is a significant factor, if a factor at all, in the opposition to the church project.

“I personally observe this as disquiet about building a larger and taller presence in a space that abuts residential neighbors unsure of the implications or stresses that might come,” Witeck said. “I’m no Pollyanna, but really believe that with time, this change will be smoother than people fear or imagine,” he said.

Fisette said the church project comes a short time after the Arlington County Board adopted an “Expanded Housing Options” policy that allows for larger residential buildings in some areas originally zoned for low-density, single-family homes. This change drew objections among many residents in areas similar to where Clarendon Presbyterian church is located.

“I would say the LGBTQ elements of the proposal are likely more of a plus than a minus,” Fisette told the Blade. “I expect 99 percent of any resistance-anxiety relates to density  and the real-feared impacts of that density,” he said.

Tewell told the Blade the church’s support for the LGBTQ community dates back to the 1980s, when church members voted in support of a then-controversial proposal to allow the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Clinic, which had a Northern Virginia outreach, to use space in the church for a support group for people with HIV/AIDS and for HIV caregivers.

“And that started changing the church to becoming a church that was very welcoming to LGBTQ people,” she said, adding that the church subsequently opened its door for LGBTQ community events, some of which were organized by gay church member James Fisher. Among those using the church now is IMPACTO LGBT, a Spanish-speaking LGBT church that holds its worship services at Clarendon Presbyterian Church.

“This is how we are living out our faith in the world,” Tewell said. “We worked out what does God’s embodied love look like for the world? And how do we embody God’s grace, justice, and love? And we really feel that it is through housing for seniors that is welcoming to LGBTQ+ people,” she added. “And to transform our church space so it’s better equipped to welcome the community.”

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Maryland

Maryland’s Joe Vogel would make history if elected to Congress

27-year-old gay lawmaker running for David Trone seat

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Maryland state Del. Joe Vogel (D-Montgomery County) (Photo courtesy of Joe Vogel)

Maryland state Del. Joe Vogel (D-Montgomery County) on Monday said it is time for a new generation of leaders in Congress.

The Montgomery County Democrat last May declared his candidacy for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District after Congressman David Trone announced his run for retiring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.)’s seat. Vogel, 27, would be the first Latino, the first gay man and the first Gen Zer elected to Congress from Maryland if he were to win in November.

“We need a new generation of leadership with new perspectives, new ideas and the courage to actually deliver for our communities if we want things to get better in this country,” Vogel told the Washington Blade during an interview at the Line Hotel in Adams Morgan.

Protecting democracy among priorities

Vogel was born in Uruguay and immigrated to Rockville with his family when he was three years old.

He volunteered for former President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Vogel, who is Jewish, in 2014 worked for Maryland state Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County)’s campaign.

He was part of Hillary Clinton’s National Advance Team during her 2016 presidential campaign, and worked on former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2017 gubernatorial bid. Vogel later joined the March for Our Lives movement for gun control that began after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14, 2018.

Vogel in 2020 worked for U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.)’s presidential campaign. The Montgomery County Democrat in 2022 became the first Gen Zer to win a seat in the Maryland General Assembly. 

Vogel pointed out to the Blade that he has introduced 18 bills in this year’s legislative session. 

One of them, a bill that would prohibit the state from giving foster children in their custody trash bags for them to transport their belongings, passed unanimously in the House on March 14. Other measures that Vogel has sponsored would, among other things, provide security grants to abortion clinics and increase investments in local newspapers.

“I have a record of being able to deliver results,” he said. “That’s what I’m running on.”

Vogel pointed out to the Blade that his platform includes:

  • • Protecting democracy
  • • Preventing “attacks on fundamental rights”
  • • Fighting climate change
  • • Stopping gun violence

Vogel also noted his support for the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal civil rights laws.

“At a moment of time when you have attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, against our rights, against our identities, I believe that there’s nothing more powerful than electing Maryland’s first openly LGBTQ+ member of Congress,” he said.

Vogel added his election would send “a message to all the young LGBTQ+ people across the state that they belong, and that they have someone in the United States Congress who understands them and is going to fight for them every single day,” added Vogel.

Vogel’s great-grandparents fled Europe ahead of the Holocaust. Uruguay’s military dictatorship was in place from 1973-1985. 

His multiple identities remain a cornerstone of his legislative priorities and of his campaign.

“When we talk about the attacks on LGBTQ+ people, I get that. I feel that,” said Vogel. “I understand that when we talk about the attacks on immigrant communities … not only do I understand that, personally, but I’m around so many immigrants that feel that pain of what we’ve seen over the last many years of the incessant attacks on immigrants and Latino people. When we see the rise in anti-Semitism, I feel that personally.”

HRC, Victory Fund have endorsed Vogel

The Democratic primary will take place on May 14.

April McClain Delaney, a former U.S. Department of Commerce official whose husband is former Congressman John Delaney, and state Del. Lesley Lopez (D-Montgomery County) are among Vogel’s primary opponents. Former state Del. Dan Cox, an anti-LGBTQ Republican who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2022, is also running for Trone’s seat.

Campaign finance reports indicate Vogel raised $379,755.91 between May 4, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2023. McClain Delaney reported she received $536,557 in campaign contributions from Oct. 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2023.

The Human Rights Campaign, the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, Equality PAC and the Sierra Club are among the organizations that have endorsed Vogel’s campaign. U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Frederick County Council President Brad Young are among those who have also backed him. The Maryland State Education Association and the National Education Association this week endorsed Vogel.

Vogel dismissed suggestions that he does not have enough legislative experience to run for Congress and that he is too young.

“When you’re elected to Congress, you’re elected for a two-year term,” he said. “Look at what I’ve been able to accomplish in a two-year term. I’ve proven that I can hit the ground running, get results, deliver results.”

Vogel added the race to succeed Trone in Congress is “me versus the status quo.”

“We need a new generation of leadership with new perspectives, new ideas and the courage to actually deliver for our communities if we actually want things to get better in this country,” said Vogel.

Democratic opponent gave money to Jim DeMint

Former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan last month announced he is running for U.S. Senate. Prince George’s County Executive Director Angela Alsobrooks is also hoping to succeed Cardin.

Vogel sharply criticized Cox. 

“He is as bigoted as it gets,” Vogel told the Blade. “He is a far-right extremist who bussed people to D.C. on Jan. 6, who is as homophobic as it gets, and who is as transphobic as it gets.”

Vogel said Maryland voters in November “need to reject Dan Cox” and “we have to reject Larry Hogan.” (Vogel has endorsed Trone’s Senate campaign.)

“We have to elect pro-equality members of Congress this November, to finally secure the protections that we need for our community in Congress,” said Vogel.

Vogel also vowed to “do everything in my power to ensure that” former President Donald Trump does not win re-election in November.

“Three generations in my family: My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents experienced the loss of democracy,” Vogel told the Blade. “My great-grandparents escaped fascism. My grandparents and parents lived under a repressive military dictatorship in Uruguay, and I see the concern that my parents feel seeing the rise of Trump.”

“I refuse to be the fourth generation in my family who experienced the loss of democracy,” he added. “This November, the election fundamentally is going to decide the future of our democracy.”

Vogel on Sunday during a forum the Frederick County Democratic Party sponsored criticized McClain Delaney over her 2005 campaign donation to then-U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) after he said gay people should not be teachers.

“I can’t imagine making any sort of political contribution to any anti-LGBTQ+, anti-choice, pro-NRA member of the United States Senate, and let alone the maximum allowed contribution,” said Vogel. “There is a stark contrast there.”

‘My heart breaks for what we saw on’ Oct. 7

Vogel spoke with the Blade less than six months after Hamas launched a surprise attack against southern Israel.

“It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he said. “What concerns me is that Hamas has made clear that they intend to carry out an attack like that again and again and again and again.”

“My heart breaks for what we saw on that day,” added Vogel.

Vogel is among those who attended a pro-Israel rally that took place on the National Mall last November. He has also met with relatives of hostages who remain in the Gaza Strip.

“Hearing the stories of parents whose kids are still in Gaza, the pain that I feel is tremendous,” said Vogel. “We have to bring those hostages home.”

Vogel told the Blade that Hamas can no longer control Gaza. He also said peace cannot be achieved with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in office.

“If we want to reach peace, a number of things have to happen: Hamas needs to go. We need a change in leadership in Israel and we need diplomatic negotiations to get a bilateral ceasefire, which is not what I think people are calling for when they call for an immediate ceasefire.”

Vogel last October posted to his X account pictures of anti-Semitic graffiti in his apartment building.

He told the Blade the graffiti was removed, but “it took a very long time.” Vogel has introduced a bill that would require the removal of graffiti in a specific period of time if it violates Maryland’s hate crimes law.

Book bans ‘have absolutely no place’

Vogel during the interview also criticized Moms for Liberty and their efforts to ban books in Maryland. He noted Jaime Brennan, the chair of the group’s Frederick County chapter, is running for the county’s Board of Education.

“Book bans in a free democratic society have absolutely no place,” said Vogel.

The Maryland House on March 15 by a 98-37 vote margin approved the Freedom to Read Act. The measure would create a “state policy that local school systems operate their school library media programs consistent with certain standards,” require “each local school system to develop a policy and procedures to review objections to materials in a school library media program” and ban “a county board of education from dismissing, demoting, suspending, disciplining, reassigning, transferring or otherwise retaliating against certain school library media program personnel for performing their job duties consistent with certain standards.”

The bill is now before the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee.

Amber Laenen contributed to this story.

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District of Columbia

Whitman-Walker names new CEO for Health System unit

Heather Aaron credited with advancing LGBTQ health for seniors

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Heather Aaron (Photo courtesy Whitman-Walker)

Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s longtime LGBTQ and HIV health services provider, announced on March 26 that it has appointed Heather Aaron, a health care educator and executive for more than 30 years, as the new CEO for Whitman-Walker Health System.

Whitman-Walker Health System, a division of Whitman-Walker, among other things, advances the mission of Whitman-Walker through expanding its financial and fundraising capacity through the Whitman-Walker Foundation; the Whitman-Walker Institute, which conducts HIV-related research; and the Whitman-Walker Health System Real Property Holdings, according to a write-up on the Whitman-Walker website.

In a press release announcing the appointment, Whitman-Walker Health System Board Chair Ann Bonham called Aaron a “dynamic and collaborative leader that will help us to realize the vision and full potential of our health system … building revenue and growth opportunities that will further Whitman-Walker’s care, advocacy, education, and research goals in partnership with Naseema Shafi, CEO of Whitman-Walker Health.”

The Whitman-Walker Health System CEO position became open in April 2023 when former Health System CEO Dr. Ryan Moran left the position to become Deputy Secretary of Health and Healthcare Finance for the State of Maryland. Whitman-Walker named Cindy Lewin, a healthcare specialist with nonprofit organizations, as interim CEO while it conducted a national search for a permanent CEO.

“Heather has spent her entire career in health care, making a difference for the communities where she has served as Health Care Executive and Educator for more than thirty years,” the Whitman-Walker announcement of her appointment says. “She has worked tirelessly to develop diversity, equity, and inclusion in all her work,” it says, adding that her work experience includes services for members of the LGBTQ community and people with HIV/AIDS.

“In Connecticut, she operated the only continuum of care model which included a nursing home, independent living apartments and case management in one centralized community,” the announcement continues. “The care model was specifically designed for people living with HIV and AIDS,” it says. 

“I’m thrilled to be joining the Whitman-Walker family in service to the community,” Aaron said in the announcement press release. “I look forward to getting to know staff, patients, and engaging with D.C. in a meaningful way,” she said. 

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