Local
Gay man sworn in as D.C. Marshal
Hughes recommended to President Obama by Del. Holmes Norton
Michael Hughes was sworn in on Jan. 13 as U.S. Marshal for the D.C. Superior Court. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
With more than two dozen family members and friends looking on, veteran U.S. Marshal Service official Michael Hughes was sworn in on Jan. 13 as U.S. Marshal for the D.C. Superior Court, becoming the second out gay person to hold such a position.
D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Eric Washington administered the oath of office for Hughes, 44, in a courtroom ceremony crowded with well-wishers, including D.C. congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D).
Norton recommended Hughes for the appointment to President Barack Obama, who placed Hughes’ name in nomination for the post before the U.S. Senate last September. The Senate confirmed the appointment on Nov. 18.
“I am just so honored and privileged to be serving in this role,” Hughes told the Blade after the ceremony. “This is a fantastic opportunity for me and I’m just ecstatic at this moment for the opportunity that’s been afforded to me by the president and Congresswoman Norton and the whole community.”
Hughes’ appointment came nearly two years after Obama appointed and the Senate confirmed Minneapolis Assistant Police Chief Sharon Lubinski as the nation’s first openly gay U.S. Marshal. Lubinski also became Minnesota’s first female U.S. marshal.
Norton noted that Obama has granted her appointment recommendation privileges that presidents traditionally give to the senior U.S. senator of every state who is a member of the same political party as the president. Although presidents make the final decision on whom to appoint to key federal positions, they traditionally have given great weight to the recommendations of senators and, in this case, to Norton.
Hughes, a career U.S. Marshal Service official, will be in charge of overseeing the security at the D.C. Superior Court and D.C. Court of Appeals along with the safety and protection of judges. He’s also in charge of the transportation and housing of fugitives and the protection of witnesses.
He told the Blade he has been active in a program that provides support for LGBT partners and family members of local law enforcement officers, including D.C. police, who lose their lives in the line of duty.
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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