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Virginia Senate passes anti-gay adoption bill
Ebbin fears foster parents could force gay kids into ‘reparative’ therapy
The Virginia Senate voted 22-18 on Thursday to approve a bill that would allow private adoption and foster care agencies to deny placement of children based on religious or moral beliefs, including disapproval of homosexuality.
The action by the Senate, which fell mostly along partisan lines, came one week after the state’s House of Delegates approved an identical bill. With Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell saying he planned to sign the legislation if it came to him, the bill is certain to become law.
“This bill authorizes every one of the 80 private adoption agencies licensed in Virginia to refuse to offer their services to any GLBT person based on a written moral policy, which they can make up tomorrow,” said State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria and Fairfax), who is gay.
“The bill says they can do that no matter how qualified the prospective mom and dad is to become a parent,” said Ebbin in an impassioned floor speech urging his colleagues to vote against the bill.
All 20 Republicans in the chamber voted for the bill, with two conservative-leaning Democrats, Sen. Charles Colgan of Prince William County and Sen. Phillip Puckett of Russell County joining Republicans to vote for the measure.
The bill, SB 349, became known as the “conscience clause” bill because supporters say it would protect the religious rights of faith based adoption and foster placement agencies, many of whom are funded by the state.
Ebbin and other opponents of the bill said that although it doesn’t say so directly, they believe it is aimed mostly at allowing adoption agencies to turn away LGBT people as adoptive or foster parents.
The bill doesn’t change the state’s existing adoption and foster placement law and policies that allow an agency to place a child with a gay parent if the agency wishes to do so. Existing law prohibits placement of children with an unmarried couple, gay or straight, but it does not bar single parent adoptions or foster placements for gays.
“One of the most important reasons not to pass this bill is I’m sure that next year or soon thereafter we’ll be addressing a bill that seeks to directly do what this bill does do indirectly – and that is to achieve the ultimate goal to ban foster care and adoption by GLBT people completely,” Ebbins told his Senate colleagues.
In an effort to lessen the bill’s impact, Democratic opponents introduced 18 floor amendments on Wednesday. The Senate voted down each of the amendments.
One of the amendments, introduced by Ebbin, called for prohibiting a foster parent from arranging for a gay or lesbian child to undergo “reparative” therapy to change his or her sexual orientation from gay to straight.
The bill could “endanger children – GLBT children – who make up a disproportionate share of youth in our child welfare system,” Ebbin said. “Once this bill becomes law, foster care agencies contracting with the state to place our children will be free to place children in homes that are not in their best interest and potentially damaging to them,” he said.
Ebbin said studies have shown that so-called reparative or conversion therapy often causes those undergoing it great emotional distress and sometimes leads to suicide.
Sen. Jeffrey McWaters (R-Virginia Beach), the lead sponsor of the bill, said the bill was aimed only at protecting the religious and moral beliefs of adoption and foster care agencies that provide an important service for the state.
“This is completely consistent with state and federal law,” he said during the Senate debate. “It does not change who can or cannot adopt a child.”
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The Opening Reception for the 34th annual D.C. Black Pride was held at the Capital Hilton on Friday, May 23. Presenters, speakers and entertainers included Ts Madison, Monroe Alise, Billy the Goat, Kerri Colby, Apple Brown Betty, Heather Mahogani, Lyrical Mar, Lolita Leopard, Ink, and Bang Garçon. Anthony Oakes was the host.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2025 Silver Pride Resource Fair and Tea Dance was held at the Eaton Hotel on Wednesday, May 21.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
District of Columbia
Sinners and Saints bar vandalized in suspected anti-LGBTQ hate crime
Blade spoke with General Manager Blair Nixon after incident
On Thursday, shattered glass, broken doors, and homophobic slurs were discovered in the entryway of Adams Morgan queer bar Sinners and Saints (2309 18th St. N.W.) Images of the destruction were posted to the bar’s Instagram, and news of the break-in began to spread.
The Washington Blade sat down with one of the co-partners and general manager of Sinners and Saints, Blair Nixon, to discuss the break-in and the overwhelming response from the LGBTQ community.
“Our door was broken-so the glass was shattered,” Nixon told the Blade when describing the damage done to the space. “They wrote a slur on our wall, and unfortunately-we’re not sure to the extent that it was, but there’s a bunch of inventory missing from our liquor closet. It does seem like it was targeted because of what they wrote on the wall.”
Nixon, who has been with Washington’s only QTBIPOC (queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and people of color) bar since its opening last August, explained that upon learning of the break-in, fear was his first reaction.
“It was really scary,” Nixon said. “To know that somebody was in our space, vandalizing it-it was very scary and honestly, devastating.”
He went on to say that if it weren’t for the restaurant above Sinners and Saints, La Grotta, they wouldn’t have known until hours later.
“We found out because of the restaurant upstairs that we’re partnered with,” he said. “The electricity to the entire building was turned off-including apartments and the restaurant above us. Whoever broke in went into the closet that’s outside of the building and turned the electricity off to the entire building. When the restaurant owners got there, they tried to figure out why there wasn’t any electricity. They went downstairs and saw the shattered glass, the door broken, and the slur on the wall.”
Once Sinners and Saints staff arrived to survey the damage, they posted the images to their Instagram and called the Metropolitan Police Department. Nixon was grateful for both MPD and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs’s quick reaction.
“We were really happy with the response,” Nixon said. “The mayor’s office reached out relatively quickly, and I had a conversation with them, and the police came shortly afterwards, and they did a really good job. So we’re very appreciative of the response. They took a statement, they looked at the damage, took photos of everything, and made a report.”
“They actually sent, like, the entire department,” he added. “There were multiple police officers, multiple detectives, and the LGBTQ liaison came a little bit later. In general, I just really appreciated the response overall.”
The Blade obtained a copy of the filed police report, which described the break-in as a felony-more specifically, MPD considered it a second-degree burglary. MPD’s report also classified the break-in and subsequent graffiti as having “a hate bias or motivation” against sexual minorities who own and frequent the bar.
Unfortunately, there were no cameras on the premises at the time of the break-in, which MPD estimates happened sometime between 2-6 p.m., but Sinners and Saints were able to obtain footage from nearby businesses.
“We did have some camera footage from the hostel next door, and we submitted that to law enforcement,” he said. “We’re just going to let them do their investigation, and I don’t want to make any suppositions about what might have happened.”
When asked what he believed motivated the assailant(s), Nixon didn’t offer a definitive answer. He suggested it was likely someone hostile to LGBTQ businesses in Washington but assured the Blade that Sinners and Saints would not back down-and that the LGBTQ community stands firmly behind them.
“I don’t want to make any statements about what we think happened. We’re going to let the police do their job. But, as the only QTBIPOC bar in D.C., I think it’s important to note that we’re still here. We’re not going to close. We appreciate the support of our community, and I think that overall, it’s really important that we’re a safe space for the underserved and marginalized communities in D.C. Given that D.C. has, you know, one of the largest queer populations-but there aren’t very many spaces for the communities that we serve-we’re very proud to serve those communities. And we aren’t going to stop.”
Nixon had one critique for MPD, but was overall with their quick response.
“We hope that law enforcement would have a greater presence in Adams Morgan,” he said. “I think that, especially from talking to other establishment owners and bar owners, there’s definitely been some increased issues in Adams Morgan, and we hope that that doesn’t continue. We talked to the Mayor’s Office about it and to the police when they came-to have a greater presence in Adams Morgan.”
Since its opening, Nixon said the support from the QTBIPOC and broader LGBTQ community felt strong-but now, after the break-in, that connection has only grown stronger.
“We opened in August of last year, and we think that D.C. in general has really responded to our mission, and the community has really shown up for us-just like the same way that we’ve shown up for them.”
That community support for Sinners and Saints, Nixon said, extends past the diverse group of QTBIPOC people buying shots and tipping 20 percent nightly. Some of the city’s LGBTQ organizations showed up, offering to help. One of those community members who reached out owns a popular gay bar just up 18th Street.
“The response has been really strong, and we definitely appreciate the support. A few of the other LGBT bar owners in Adams Morgan actually stopped by in person. We really appreciated that Dave Perruzza from Pitchers came by, and just in general that the community has been rallying around us.”
On Thursday night, Sinners and Saints opened as planned and hosted their “Sapphic Sailor Moon” party. Despite the break-in, the LGBTQ community came out to support them.
“I was working-actually bartending,” Nixon said. “I wasn’t originally supposed to be working, but I thought it was important for all the partners to be there. So everyone that’s involved in Sinners and Saints’ leadership team came out. Obviously, we were dealing with the incident, but being there the entire night, we thought that the response from the community was really strong. We wanted to make sure that we posted on social media the fact that we were still open, because a lot of people were contacting us and asking if we were going to be continuing on, if we were going to close. We thought it was really important to make sure that we were there and still open and still available.”
That community, Nixon said, includes members of the LGBTQ population who are often overlooked-which makes the attack on a space intentionally dedicated to them-particularly trans people and people of color-even more painful.
“I think that DC in general, as one of the cities with the biggest queer populations, has adopted the LGBT community in general-and it’s great. However, the adoption of people of color and the overall QTBIPOC community, you know, our trans community, hasn’t been the same. It’s super important to us to make sure that that community is protected and that there are safe spaces for them, and that’s what our core mission is. We never want that to stop. The most important thing is that the safe space for those marginalized and underrepresented communities continues. And I would hope that the acceptance of the community that we serve continues-and is just as important as the acceptance of the LGBT community as a whole.”
If you have any information about the break in, please contact MPD at (202) 727-9099. Sinners and Saints has set up a GoFundMe page for repairs. It can be accessed here.
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