Local
Fireworks in Md., as minister and Senate prez speak out
Jackson, Miller denounce marriage bill as 2012 session begins
Bishop Harry R. Jackson linked same-sex marriage to perversion, corruption and pollution. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Bishop Harry R. Jackson, the Maryland minister who led efforts to oppose D.C.’s same-sex marriage law in 2009, jumped head first into the marriage fray in Maryland last week when he delivered a fire and brimstone speech linking gay marriage to “perversion,” “corruption,” and “pollution.”
Jackson spoke out against the same-sex marriage bill pending before the Maryland Legislature at a Jan. 3 spiritual rally organized by the anti-gay Family Research Council at D.C.’s Chevy Chase Baptist Church, which is located on the D.C.-Maryland line.
Jackson’s remarks came just over a week before Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D) reiterated on Wednesday his opposition to the same-sex marriage bill in an interview on a local radio show, calling the legislation “an attack on traditional families.”
Miller also reiterated his long-held position of allowing the bill to come up for a vote even though he personally plans to vote against it.
“I don’t want to sound like one of the Republican candidates for president,” he said on the Marc Steiner Show, “but I am what I am.” He said he would vote against the bill while allowing it to come up for a vote on the Senate floor, where he predicted it would pass as it did in a similar vote last year.
LGBT rights groups responded to Miller’s remarks on Thursday.
“Democrat Maryland Senate President Mike Miller is trying to divert attention away from his anti-gay pandering by hiding behind certain conservative candidates, but the truth is he is badly out of step with Marylanders, including Republican State Senator Allan Kittleman, who voted in favor of marriage equality last year and continues to be a champion on this issue,” said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans in a statement. “Miller’s disrespect for LGBT Maryland families is backwards, and Democrats should hold him accountable for it.”
The National Stonewall Democrats accused Miller of perpetuating GOP myths “claiming equal access to marriage is an attack on ‘traditional families’ and that religious institutions have been forced ‘out of business’ in other states.”
House Speaker Michael Busch (D) this week called the bill an important civil rights measure. But he said supporters will have to persuade “about 10 people that last year wanted more information on the initiative” to vote for it this year. Busch also made his remarks on the Steiner radio show.
Busch said he has not seen any negative effects from D.C.’s same-sex marriage law in either D.C. or in Maryland, where state Attorney General Douglas Gansler said D.C. same-sex marriages could be recognized under state law.
While Jackson appeared poised to be the most visible figure opposing the Maryland marriage bill, political observers said a group called Maryland for Marriage was expected to take the lead in lobbying the legislature to kill the bill.
Most political observers believe Maryland for Marriage is an arm of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM). As of this week, its website had not been updated since last summer, when its operators posted several commentaries praising the legislature for “killing” the Maryland marriage bill.
The one updated feature on the site this week was a pop-up box urging its supporters to fill out a form with their contact information to help efforts to defeat the bill this year. The box also offers to send supporters contact information about their elected officials in the state.
NOM executive director Brian Brown was not available for comment on the Maryland bill this week, according to NOM publicist Elizabeth Ray.
Ray said Maryland for Marriage official Derek McCoy would be handling inquires about the Maryland marriage bill. McCoy did not return a call this week seeking comment.
Kevin Nix, spokesperson for Marylanders for Marriage Equality, the coalition leading efforts in support of the marriage bill, said the coalition would be monitoring actions by the opposition groups.
“We’re expecting the usual negative attacks and vilification of committed, loving couples and their families,” he said. “It’s par for the course.”
Jackson, a longtime Montgomery County resident who said he moved to D.C. in 2009 to lead the opposition to the D.C. marriage bill, is senior pastor of the Beltsville, Md.-based Hope Christian Church.
The church website shows that Sunday services are held at the Beltsville church as well as at the E Street Cinema located 555 11th St., N.W. in D.C.
It could not be immediately determined whether Jackson currently lists his home in Montgomery County as his legal address. In 2009, Jackson announced he had moved into D.C., where he registered to vote, to enable him to file petitions to hold a voter referendum seeking to overturn the same-sex marriage law passed by the D.C. Council and signed by then-Mayor Adrian Fenty.
The city’s Board of Elections and Ethics later ruled that a referendum could not be held on the marriage bill because, if approved, it would violate the D.C. Human Rights Act that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Subsequent court rulings upheld the election board decision.
In his Jan. 3 sermon-like speech at Chevy Chase Baptist Church, Jackson lapsed into speaking in tongue, prompting the audience to shout and cheer.
Jackson cited a fundamentalist Christian belief that the devil had sent a figure he referred to as the Queen of Heaven to the D.C. area to create harm. He linked the Maryland marriage equality bill to harm that could be in store for the state.
“The power of the Queen of Heaven bring a malady over this region and has created perversion, pollution,” he said. “In the House of God, we declare that the Queen of Heaven has no authority over Maryland. Jesus is lord in Maryland.”
Rehoboth Beach
Officials raise troubling concerns about Rehoboth mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode
Homophobic emails, ‘aggressive’ behavior cited: ‘It just seems to be getting worse’
As Rehoboth Beach voters prepare to elect a new mayor on Aug. 8, some city officials and local residents are raising new concerns about the behavior of City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode.
In addition to a history of troubling emails in which she has used homophobic language and criticized the city’s rainbow crosswalks, Goode is being accused of inappropriate behavior by a neighbor and a fellow Commissioner related to a dispute on the Nextdoor online platform.
The Blade spoke to City Manager Taylour Tedder, Commissioner Chris Galanty, and others about Goode’s behavior during her time as commissioner.
Goode was elected commissioner in August 2024. Fellow commissioner Susan Stewart, who is also running for mayor, criticized Goode’s behavior in a March 9, 2026 meeting, bringing up emails outlining Goode’s offensive conduct toward city staff.
In one email, Goode wrote to Rehoboth Beach City Solicitor Lisa Borin Ogden: “I am sorry that I learned from Google when you were first interviewed [in the] spring [of] 2025 that you are Jewish. My opinion of my fellow Jews declined significantly thanks to you since last summer. Actually would have thought you would have more compassion than the average person, based on your late brother. Except you don’t. I am sick of your haughty attitude toward me.”
In other emails, Goode questions why city officials encouraged CAMP Rehoboth and Clear Space Theatre to apply for grant funds. She has denigrated both institutions, referring to CAMP as a “questionable non-profit” and Clear Space as “second rate” with a “woke, drag queen bent” at times. She accuses Rehoboth’s LGBTQ community of displaying “their sex lives in public view” and fears physical violence from LGBTQ activists.
Goode disputed the claims and called for the city to remove Stewart’s remarks from the website.
The following statements were included in the emails sent by Goode:
• “Gays and theatre aficionados can donate as much as they like to these pet causes. Some taxpayers think the theatre is second-rate as community theatres go, and many dislike the RB emphasis on LGBTQ when heterosexuals don’t demand equivalent display of their sex lives in public view.”
• “Just because the LGBTQ community feels oppressed and discriminated against, that doesn’t mean that those who identify as LGBTQ are better able to recognize racial discrimination than someone like myself. It might surprise some of you to learn that I briefly dated an African American fellow college student.”
• “A performing arts and LGBTQ agenda isn’t appropriate for BOC spending when the city faces over $60M in debt.”
• “But there are some folks in town, who ironically have to remain in the closet (conservatives now have to do what gays had to do in the 20th century — ah, the irony) who object to the woke, drag queen bent of Clear Space at times. They have confided this in me, and thanked me for fighting for their tax dollars. Maybe I will regret speaking up, as some LGBTQ activist will attack me physically, even though I am a complete supporter of gay rights, and have as many gay male friends as female friends now that I live in RB with a large gay population.”
In the emails, Goode also referred to City Manager Tedder as “the mayor’s whore.”
Stewart told the Blade that the troubling behavior has since escalated.
Commissioner Chris Galanty spoke to the Blade about Goode’s behavior as commissioner and her issues with the rainbow crosswalks in town.
“Suzanne told me on two separate occasions that she didn’t like the rainbow crosswalks, and she said that she didn’t understand why they had to exist, and she didn’t understand why gay people had to advertise their sexuality, and she said straight people don’t have to do that.”
Galanty said that when he challenged her on this, she “moved very quickly to another topic.” He said that she has now shifted her perspective and is more concerned that the rainbow crosswalks are an issue of labor costs.
Goode told the Blade that, “Unfortunately, the rainbow crosswalks have potentially reduced the upkeep of the conventional crosswalks. But the rainbow crosswalks are attractive in and of themselves, and they do add to our recognition of Rehoboth’s longstanding status as a gay-friendly town.”
Accusations of “aggressive” behavior by Goode aren’t limited to emails. Last summer, Goode came to the home of Diana Jones, a property owner in Rehoboth Beach who is a neighbor of Galanty’s. Jones spoke to the Blade to share her experience with Goode.
Jones is active on Nextdoor, an online social network for neighborhoods. She said that she got involved on the platform during the time of the commissioners election last summer, in which her neighbor, Chris Galanty, was elected as commissioner.
Jones said that she made posts supporting Galanty. She said that someone posted a link of a lawsuit that involved Goode’s husband, Jeffrey Goode, who lost his race for commissioner last summer. Jones said that she reposted the link after it was taken down.
Jones said that the lawsuit was “very relevant to somebody who is running for city commissioner.”
Jones said that Suzanne Goode showed up at her house as a result of the post. Jones was out walking her dog nearby so Goode briefly spoke with Jones’s husband who was home.
“She came over to my house because she was saying I was doxing him,” said Jones. Jones said that Goode then found her as she was walking her dog and tried to talk to her about her Nextdoor posts, saying that she “brought up a very painful time in her life.”
Jones said that she has not had any communication with Goode since.
When asked for comment on the situation with Jones, Goode responded by saying “Diana Jones’s behavior toward me was despicable, and the way she has chosen to give her side of the story to news media says more about her than it will ever say about me.”
Galanty told the Blade that Goode came to his house in late June of this year when he was not home. She then called him about Jones.
“She relayed to me that she was having a disagreement with my neighbor on the Nextdoor platform, and she asked me to intercede with the neighbor,” said Galanty. “She said, ‘Please speak to her because I am frustrated with what she is saying. She needs to stop, and you need to say something to her.'”
Galanty said that Goode called him four times and texted him 32 times in the span of three and a half hours the next day.
Galanty said that he responded the next day, telling her that her behavior was inappropriate.
“Eventually it took a couple of weeks, but she apologized in her own way. She just said we just need to let it go.”
From his perspective as commissioner, Galanty said, “She likes to re-litigate things that have happened, six months ago, nine months ago. She likes to rehash issues that are in the past.”
“She can be really aggressive, and people are just really turned off by her,” said Galanty.
Tedder, who has accused Goode of creating a “hostile work environment,” told the Blade about his experiences working with Goode.
“She does not support the staff, and constantly tells us to resign,” said Tedder.
Tedder said that Goode texted City Solicitor Ogden at 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday, telling her to resign.
“Sometimes she does have good ideas. It’s just it gets so lost in these pages and pages of emails and thousands of emails that she sends,” said Tedder.
In regards to Goode’s behavior, Tedder said it has been going on since the beginning. “It just seems to be getting worse.”
Maryland
Advocates for trans students urge Md. to fight White House threats
Four school districts under federal investigation
By JESSICA CALEFATI | Allies of transgender children are urging state education officials to fight back against the Trump-Vance administration, which has threatened to punish a growing number of Maryland school districts over local policies that affirm students’ gender identities.
The advocates testified Tuesday morning before the Maryland State Board of Education — one day after the U.S. Education and Justice departments alleged that Anne Arundel County’s school system violated federal student privacy law by withholding a student’s gender identity from their parents. A spokesperson for the district said Monday legal counsel had not yet reviewed the claims and that the district had no further comment.
School districts in Prince George’s, Montgomery, and Frederick Counties were already under investigation for allegedly violating Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination. The federal government last month threatened to revoke funding from the districts because they allow trans students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their identities.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
White House threatens Anne Arundel schools over gender identity policy
District faces possible legal action or loss of federal funding
By JESSICA CALEFATI | The Trump-Vance administration on Monday threatened to punish Anne Arundel County’s school system with legal action or the loss of federal funding for allegedly withholding information about a student’s gender identity and transition from the child’s parents.
The U.S. Education and Justice Departments together determined that the suburban Maryland district treats students’ gender identities as confidential medical information that cannot be shared with parents, in violation of federal student privacy law, according to a news release. A federal lawsuit filed against the district earlier this month made similar claims.
“As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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