Local
‘Worldwide’ marches set for D.C., Baltimore
no mainline national or DC-area LGBT organizations have committed to support
A screen shot of the group's Facebook page
D.C. and Baltimore are slated to be among at least 30 cities in the United States, Europe and Asia in which a “Worldwide LGBT Civil Rights March” is scheduled to take place on April 21.
The marches were initiated and are being organized by a Facebook group called “Let’s Reach 1 Million People Campaign…It’s a Start! LGBT Equality.”
Richmond, Va., gay activist Curtis Sledge, who was named lead organizer of the D.C. march, told the Blade this week that participants are scheduled to assemble for a kick-off rally at 10:45 a.m. at Upper Senate Park, located at Constitution and Delaware avenues across the street from the U.S. Capitol.
Sledge said he recently obtained permits arranging for the march to begin about 1 p.m. from Upper Senate Park, where it will travel west on Constitution Avenue, N.W., to 15th Street, N.W. The march will turn right on 15th Street and head toward Pennsylvania Avenue, Sledge said. He said it will turn right on Pennsylvania Avenue and continue along Pennsylvania Avenue to Third Street, N.W., near the Capitol, where it will end.
A website set up by organizers says the Baltimore march is scheduled to begin at 11:45 a.m. on April 21 at War Memorial Park and travel to its destination at the Inner Harbor via Fayette, North Gay, Pratt, and Conway streets. The website doesn’t say whether a rally is planned for the Baltimore march.
High school student and Dundalk, Md., resident Brian Rohrbaugh is listed as the lead organizer of the Baltimore march.
With the exception of the national LGBT direct action group Get Equal, which has said it would provide an as-yet-undisclosed role of support for the marches, no other mainline national or D.C.-area LGBT organization has said it is taking part in the marches.
“Our core mission is to achieve full LGBT equality mainly through proper and peaceful channels employing many different vehicles among the way,” Worldwide March organizers say in a statement posted to their website.
“Strong emphasis is placed on enlightening and educating society in order to achieve the ample understanding and acceptance that is necessary to garner the support we need to win at the polls and in Washington,” the statement says.
Further details of the marches and a list of cities in the U.S. and abroad where organizers say marches will take place can be found at letsreachonemillionpeople.com/locations_36.html.
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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