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Our Business Matters: A year-end update

A look-back at the challenges and concerns of community businesses

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The past nine months have provided this columnist the privilege of sharing observations, information and feature news profiles on some of the issues, challenges, people and perspectives originating with the local business community. The following is a special year-in-review update on several 2011 “Our Business Matters” topics.

A “scandal scarred” D.C. Council reverses vote on taxes by dropping its opposition to raising local income taxes, already among the very highest in the nation, with a new top rate hitting the small business community hard – allowing for yet another District government spending increase.

Year In Review: 2011

As the year comes to a close, the Council rushed last week to mask some of the stench emanating from the Wilson Building by approving a timid ethics bill after more than two months of discussion punctuated by a nine-hour federal raid and property seizure by IRS and FBI agents at the home of D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5).

Meanwhile, criminal and ethical investigations into alleged improprieties by several elected officials drag on, while other Council members suffer the unabated suspicions of residents regarding potential wrongdoing or questionable ethical behavior – in total engulfing a majority of the Council as well as the mayor.

Earlier this month, D.C. Council legislation was introduced addressing taxicab confusions: inferior service, regulatory chaos. Overconfident taxi drivers, believing that their support of Mayor Vincent Gray’s successful 2010 campaign would lead to adoption of their call for a nearly doubling of fares, went ballistic when the D.C. Taxicab Commission instead recommended more modest increases, elimination of most surcharges – including for extra passengers, and a number of service improvements.

Local hospitality industry and business organizations, joined by the grassroots consumer group D.C. Taxi Watch organized by gay Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Jack Jacobson, led the opposition to the huge fare increases requested by drivers and demanded better service, including the ability to accept credit and debit card payments and the forced retirement of aged vehicles.

A hearing on the bill is expected in January. Even if passed, don’t expect to see implementation of service improvements for at least a year.

While the annual “Small Business Survival Index” will soon be issued for 2011, little suspense surrounds whether the District will again rank last among itself and all 50 states – detailing how D.C. small businesses face worst-in-nation obstacles. The release of this nationwide study will undoubtedly herald D.C.’s last place reign again this year – a dishonorable distinction held for as long as anyone can recall and disproportionately affecting the outsized percentage of lesbians and gays engaged in entrepreneurial activities.

D.C. Council member Mary Cheh’s “Scarlet Letter” legislation to post sporadic, outdated, meaningless and arbitrary “snapshot” health inspection “letter grades” at the entrances of all food service and hospitality establishments again languished in limbo with no pick-up of support among her colleagues. Reflective of the folly of this proposal by the Democratic Ward 3 Council member, the city’s meager number of inspectors remains insufficient to conduct timely regular inspections or fulfill required re-inspections.

Washington remained one of the very few locations reflecting on its D.C. bag tax: paper, plastic or puffery? Although neighboring Montgomery County, Maryland, institutes a mandatory fee next month, nearly all other jurisdictions across the country have rejected similar business mandates, some by voter referendum.

While retailer compliance remains a significant and serious problem, local consumers have resigned themselves to either paying the minor nuisance price of paper or plastic bag usage or toting around their own household bags. The city has discontinued its recent advertising campaign reminding residents that “the law remains in effect” and checkout clerks now often wait for a customer to volunteer whether they want a bag without needing to ask — except when serving befuddled visitors and tourists.

The last year saw little let-up in the usual shenanigans by neighborhood citizens associations, tiny cadres of random residents forming business licensing protest groups and many Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) members fighting local economic development, commercial projects and alcohol licensing applications. It became more apparent, however, that these squeaky wheels enjoy less support among their neighbors than ever before.

It became widely known in the Dupont Circle area that VIDA Fitness faces opposition by ‘provocateurs’ protesting a liquor license application for the rooftop pool and lounge atop the new U Street fitness center location that opened in mid-July. Prominent community businessman David von Storch was only days ago ultimately successful in acquiring an Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) license — but not before suffering several hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, expenses and lost revenue. The unique amenity will be available to neighborhood residents enjoying one of the sold-out pool memberships beginning April 1 upon the return of warm weather.

A 25-year D.C. entrepreneur, von Storch long ago became familiar with the business obstacles easily and often cavalierly posed by “an extraordinarily small number of people agitated by new development and change.” “The irony of this all,” he now says, “is that as much as the license protestants fought it, the first thing they will mention when selling their home will be its proximity to amenities such as a world-class fitness center, restaurants, nightlife and entertainment.”

A few blocks away, disappointment that a foreign government Chancery — replacing a gay-owned community bed-and-breakfast hobbled by operating restrictions urged by a small number of residents — paved over the front lawn and removed three towering trees underscored that Dupont denizens doth protest too much and illustrated the oftentimes unintended consequences following in the wake of neighborhood obstructionists.

For the record, the Chancery recently removed the concrete ground cover, illegal under the District’s applicable “public space” restrictions, at the urging of the U.S. State Department. No word yet on tree replacement.

In the same vein, Eric Hirshfield provided readers with a personal reflection of his business start-up experiences and participation in industry advocacy efforts regarding D.C. regulatory hurdles as the Duplex Diner pioneer hands over the keys to former bartender and new owner Kevin Lee at mid-year. Hirshfield detailed his experience with the exasperating and notorious so-called “Voluntary Agreement” process leading up to a 1998 opening and continuing operation.

The popular community venue enjoys the renewed affection of customer “stakeholders” under Lee’s stewardship, and the business has recently re-instituted a Sunday brunch. Hirshfield currently assists area businesses in navigating the arduous regulatory process as he examines potential commercial and residential development projects in his Adams Morgan neighborhood.

The highly successful second annual 17th St. Festival unites area to promote business in late September, doubling the number of attendees according to festival co-chair and coordinating sponsor Urban Neighborhood Alliance (UNA) vice president Stephen Rutgers. UNA hopes to continue to build alliances unifying Dupont Circle businesses and residents to overcome the legacy of bitter past regulatory battles, allowing the area to create a more favorable environment for enterprise success – such as that experienced to the more business-friendly east where the 14th and U streets ‘Arts District’ blossoms into more.

Despite the fact that D.C. gives ANCs ‘great weight’ on medical marijuana, the city continued a glacial pace toward implementing its uber-cautious and restricted program. Fear of a threatened federal crackdown resulting from President Obama’s assault on medical marijuana laws has not yet stopped the District from preparing to sometime in the next year issue business licenses for the small number of cultivation centers and dispensaries.

Although the D.C. marriage law engages fewer than predicted during the nearly two years since the initiation of marriage equality in the nation’s capital, minimizing the projected revenue benefit for local businesses and the city’s tax coffers, marriage between heterosexuals has certainly fallen out of favor. Barely half of American adults – a record low of only 51 percent – are currently married, continuing a long downward trend in marriage “market share” unrelated to economic cycles, according to a Pew Research Institute analysis of U.S. Census data released on Dec. 14.

2012 will present both usual and unique challenges and controversies affecting community business activities. A celebratory toast to the hardworking and dedicated purveyors of the amenities enhancing our shared cultural lives is appropriate as we enter the New Year.

Mark Lee is a local small business manager and long-time community business advocate. Reach him at [email protected].

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Africa

American Evangelical churches masquerade as connoisseurs of African family values

Anti-LGBTQ Family Watch International, partners held conference in Nairobi last month

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(Photo by NASA)

On Friday, May 16, 2025, Family Watch International and its partners gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, for a week-long conference themed “the Pan-African Conference on Family Values.” Family Watch International is a U.S. Christian conservative organization led by the infamous Sharon Slater. This anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ+ organization lobbies in the United Nations and countries around the world to push their anti-rights and anti-gender agenda

This wasn’t the first conference convened on East African soil; one such was held in Uganda, from May 9-11, 2025, where Family Watch International was also a part. East Africa seems to be the hub for conservative U.S. evangelists, and one wonders why. The conference is a series of conferences focusing on what they call traditional African family values. Again, one wonders what gives an American organization the authority to speak to Africans about African Family values. After the May gathering in Nairobi, the delegates released a press statement introducing and claiming to be adopting what they labelled “The Nairobi Declaration on Family Values.” 

Funded misinformation

This article was thus born to review and address, particularly, the “African family” ideas purported in the declaration. The first inquiry is, who is funding the conference? This conference is heavily funded and guided by the ultraconservative far-right evangelical movements from America and Europe. The African hosts, the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum and the Kenyan Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and actors are merely tokens in this scheme aimed at taking over Africa by erasing its actual values and redefining them from a Western and Eurocentric religious lens. The colonial missionaries historically employed this very familiar move. Another blatant untruth in their declaration is the claim that they represent governments, civil society, academia, religious bodies, and “allied international partners.” There has been no evidence to prove this claim, except for the participants who are known conservatives, infamous for their hate and anti-rights rhetoric from countries such as Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa. This piece of misinformation and disinformation is one of the strategies they employ to make it seem like most, if not all, African governments and masses approve of their unscientific absurdity. 

African Family values owned by foreign entities

According to the declaration, their engagements aim to “Promoting and Protecting Family Values in Challenging Times,” advocate for and protect the “natural family.” It is rather peculiar that American and European organizations would lead a conversation about African family values. These are modern imperialists; they intend to cement their Western-centric idea of a family. Their family structure comprises a mother, a father, and children, while the African family is beyond that. Although nuclear family units do exist within African society, it is the more nuanced family structures consisting of “children, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters who may have their own children and other immediate relatives” that dominate the African family traditions. Often in rural areas, children are communally raised by their grandmothers, aunts, and siblings, as the parents go to the cities for economic opportunities and serve more as financial support for their young. It is therefore naïve for these modern imperialists to falsely claim a singular and rigid definition of family, especially as it concerns African people. Failure to acknowledge the diversities and complexities that exist within African family structures is both delusional and a clear indication of how there is nothing Pan-African about the conference itself.

Nothing Pan-African about it

Furthermore, how does a Pan-African family conference discuss African family values without African traditional leaders, elders, and spiritual leaders? Their exclusion of these figures demonstrates that they uphold the colonial and missionary legacy. It remains the view of the majority of Africans that those in traditional roles are the true custodians of the African culture, language, traditions, customs, and values, and these individuals clearly misalign with these modern imperialists’ agenda and mandate, thus illegitimizing claims of Pan-Africanism and protecting African family and values. The cognitive dissonance is evident in African actors who adopt those imported religious beliefs and regard them as superior to true African spirituality and culture, making these individuals modern imperialists.

Misleading the people

The intentional misuse of the term “Pan-African” not only misleads but can also entice those who believe what the term has historically meant, while in actual fact, the ideals they are spreading are far from Pan-Africanism. Meanwhile, African human rights organizations and those who can legitimately claim Pan-Africanism are concerned about colonial laws and the reform and eradication of colonial legacies. The modern imperialists, on the other hand, are reinforcing the colonial legacy by using confusing and dividing language aimed at causing moral panic among African communities.

Erasure

Activists in Kenya who have been following and monitoring the work of Family Watch International in Africa have argued that their agenda poses a grave threat to erasing Africa’s rich diversity of families. What the conference deems un-African are the same characteristics that the colonial missionaries historically labelled undesirable when they indoctrinated African societies in Christianity and its values, when Africans were made to believe that their own spiritualities are demonic. 

The term “values” becomes redundant when it is solely tied to Christianity and disregards true African realities. They are causing confusion among African societies through the use of desirable and triggering language such as “Pan-Africa” and “African values.” When people are divided and busy fighting each other, important issues will fall through the cracks, go unnoticed, and there will be a lack of accountability. These modern imperialists use tactics to distract the African nation with these ideas that historically have never been a problem within African societies; meanwhile, the looting of the African land continues, and so does the exploitation of its minerals and resources. This article is part of the Southern Africa Litigation Center’s campaign around addressing hate speech, misinformation and disinformation. #StopTheHate #TruthMatters

Daniel Digashu is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Center.

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LGBTQ people must stand with immigrants now

Their courage and care have made our communities stronger

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(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Protests are erupting across the country in response to a surge in immigration enforcement: increased ICE raids, expanding surveillance networks, and political calls for mass deportations. Organizers are mobilizing to stop detentions, defend immigrant communities, and push back against the broader criminalization of migration. 

LGBTQ+ people are not bystanders in this story. We are at its center.

There are 1.3 million LGBTQ+ adult immigrants who live in the U.S., and more than 289,000 who are undocumented. Many fled their countries because of anti-LGBTQ+ violence. When they arrive in the U.S., they face new threats: detention, denial of medical care, and the looming fear of deportation. Some are sent back to places where being LGBTQ+ is punishable by death. Others are locked away in U.S. facilities that claim to protect them but instead isolate and endanger them.

We know from available data that LGBTQ+ immigrants in ICE custody are 97 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than other detainees. Hormone therapy, HIV medication, and mental health care are frequently denied. Deaths in custody, like those of Roxana Hernández and Johana Medina Leon, are tragic outcomes of these structural conditions. But the harm does not end with detention. The constant threat of raids and deportation drives people away from clinics, silences abuse, and cuts off vital access to preventive care. These systems undermine health at every level: physical, emotional, communal, and political.

As a public health researcher who studies the consequences of public policy, I see this moment not just a legal or political crisis, but a public health emergency. The systems being protested are the same ones that make people sick. They fracture communities, expose vulnerable populations to trauma and medical neglect, and deepen the structural conditions that cause premature death. 

This is what public health calls a syndemic: multiple forms of violence interacting to produce compounding harm. Immigration enforcement doesn’t just criminalize. It isolates. It separates people from care, severs support networks, and creates conditions of chronic fear. And that fear becomes its own form of illness.

What we are witnessing is not just an immigration issue. It’s about power. The expansion of enforcement, surveillance, and detention reflects a broader effort to consolidate control over who is allowed to exist safely in public space. And once those powers exist, they rarely stay confined to one community.

LGBTQ+ people have lived this before. From sodomy laws to the surveillance of gay bars, from HIV criminalization to today’s drag bans and curriculum restrictions, we know how governments weaponize control in the name of “public order.” When we ignore state violence against immigrants, we normalize the very tools – raids, profiling, incarceration – that have also been used against us.

The same political forces driving this crackdown on immigrants are fueling anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the country. These are not parallel struggles. They are interlocking, coordinated, and mutually reinforcing. And that is why now is such a critical time for coalition building. And not just symbolic solidarity, but real, material alignment. 

LGBTQ+ liberation has always depended on collective care. We have survived because we built networks to keep each other alive when institutions looked the other way. That same energy is needed now – at the border, in detention centers, and in our neighborhoods.

And we must be clear: this is about justice. Immigrants have long shaped the soul of LGBTQ+ life in the U.S. – as organizers, artists, caregivers, and political visionaries. And they haven’t just participated in our movement. They have led it. From ACT UP and HIV advocacy to today’s mutual aid networks and transgender liberation organizing, immigrant voices have been at the forefront. Their courage and care have made our communities stronger.

If we want to live in a world where no one is caged for who they are or where they’re from, we must act together to build it. That means supporting immigrant-led organizations like Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, the Black LGBTQ+ Migrant Project, and Trans Queer Pueblo. It means showing up for raids defense, calling out anti-immigrant policies, and refusing to let our movements be divided.

If Pride means anything, it must mean this: that our health, our safety, and our futures are bound together. And that we will fight – together – until we are all free.


Harry Barbee, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. They study LGBTQ+ health and public policy.

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Opinions

The felon in the White House wants to foment violence

He’s creating the problems he claims to be solving

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President Donald Trump (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

It is clear by all his actions, the felon in the White House would like to foment violence, so he can claim he is quelling it. It is what he is doing in Los Angeles, by federalizing the California National Guard, calling them up, and sending in the Marines. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said he will sue the Trump administration over its deployment of the guard, and that is now in the courts. He said, “the lawsuit would challenge Trump’s federalizing of the California National Guard without the state’s consent, a move with little precedent in U.S. history. Donald Trump has created the conditions you see on your TV tonight. He’s exacerbated the conditions. He’s, you know, lit the proverbial match. He’s putting fuel on this fire, ever since he announced he was taking over the National Guard — an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.”

This is all part of Trump’s alternate universe. He wants to be a king and a dictator. His idols are clearly the likes of Hitler and Putin. He recently had Department of Homeland Security agents tackle and handcuff California Democratic U.S. Senator Alex Padilla for attempting to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem questions at a public press conference in Los Angeles.

I believe in the Constitution, which allows us to demonstrate, speak out, and make our views known. I am not for violent protests. They simply play into Trump’s hands, allowing him to use the military to look like he is quelling the violence, even when they aren’t needed. In cities like Los Angeles, the local police are fully prepared to deal with the issue. And if they do need help, the governor can call up the guard.

Over my lifetime I participated in many demonstrations. The first was to protest the Vietnam War. In November 1969, I traveled from my home in New York City to Washington, D.C., for that one. My second time protesting the war was in front of the American embassy in London in 1970. Then there were the demonstrations for women’s equality during the years I worked for Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.). My first job in D.C. was for the Carter administration, directing the White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals/Implementation Unit. My first day in D.C. I was invited to support and participate in a demonstration in front of the White House. At that one, members of the disability community handcuffed themselves to the White House gate to make their points. Since that time, I participated in many marches for the LGBTQ community’s rights, my rights, one of which I helped organize. During Trump’s first term there were many protests I was a part of, the first being the massive women’s march the day after his inauguration. Then the demonstration against gun violence, and most recently in D.C. demonstrations against what Trump is doing today. In all those, only in the one against the Vietnam War in D.C. did I see any semblance of violence. I was tear-gassed in front of the Department of Justice. My tear-gassing seemed the result of what was being done by only a few people. Today, Trump would like TV screens to show violence, again, so he can claim he is doing something to stop it. In reality, he is creating it.  

A big symbol of Trump’s wanting to be a King, or dictator, was the military parade in D.C. on his 79th birthday, (yes, he is a diminished old man). For the country, and the world, watching this, it looked more like something happening in Russia or North Korea. The felon, Commander in Chief, not only never served (it was those damn bone spurs), but who has shared views of people who did. Just remember what he said about a true hero, Senator John McCain. “He’s not a war hero, he’s a war hero because he was captured, I like people that weren’t captured.” A sick and disgusting comment, made by a sick and disgusting man, who we must always remember is a liar, felon, racist, homophobe, found liable for sexual assault. 

 So, I hope the protests will continue, and will grow. But while they do, I plead with those few who think violence is the way to go, and ask them to think first, and realize what they are doing plays directly into Trump’s hands, and then we all will suffer more. Let us take to the streets safely, and peacefully, and then at every opportunity, go to the ballot box, and vote for Democrats. Together, we can throw the MAGA Republicans out of office, and take back our country. 


Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

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