Local
O’Malley confident voters will uphold marriage
Md. governor addresses conference of gay Catholics
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley spoke Friday at the New Ways Ministry’s annual symposium. (Washington Blade photo by Steve Charing)
BALTIMORE — Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley received a warm reception as he addressed an audience of nearly 400 Catholics who attended the New Ways Ministry’s Seventh National Symposium of Catholicism and Homosexuality at Baltimore’s Renaissance Inner Harbor Hotel on March 16. New Ways Ministry, based in Mount Rainier, Md., is a national Catholic organization that focuses on LGBT issues.
O’Malley, a practicing Catholic, opened his brief remarks by stating, “I did not come here as a Catholic. I came here as the governor of all of Maryland.”
Acknowledging that Maryland is comprised of citizens who represent a variety of backgrounds including different ethnicities, perspectives, traditions and faith traditions, O’Malley said, “we should expect and demand from all our leaders … to protect rights equally among all people.”
O’Malley discussed Baltimore’s important place in history especially during the War of 1812 and its connection to the Star-Spangled Banner. “The flag had been stitched together by black and white hands here in Baltimore. And the thread that stitched those stars and stripes together was the thread of human dignity.”
He added that we all want the same things for our kids: we want them to live in a loving, caring, committed and stable home protected equally under the law. “For a people of many different faiths, for a people committed to the principle of religious freedom, the way forward is always to be found through greater respect for the equal rights of all; for the human dignity of all.”
He added, “The very reason for Maryland’s founding was for religious freedom. And at the heart of religious freedom is respect for the freedom of individual conscience.”
The governor indicated the passage of the marriage equality bill in the General Assembly was “based on the fundamental beliefs, the fundamental principles we share, foremost among them is our belief in the dignity of every individual.”
O’Malley acknowledged the referendum battle ahead. “In Maryland, we were able to find a way to protect individual civil marriage rights and religious freedom. And while it is likely to be challenged on the ballot, I believe that ultimately the voters…will come down on the side of human dignity.”
Appropriately, O’Malley concluded his address on a religious note.
“The mystery of human existence; the mystery of our own relationships with one another; the mystery of our own individual relationships with the creator of creation … these are deep, deep mysteries. Every person must search for the truth that is at the center of that mystery. This search requires individual freedom. And it also requires religious freedom.”
The symposium was titled, “From Water to Wine: Lesbian/Gay Catholics & Relationships” and was held March 15-17. It received the endorsement of 45 national Catholic organizations. Many of the nearly 400 attendees were priests and nuns and all of them active leaders in their church communities.
Other speakers included former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson from Australia and Barbara Johnson, the lesbian denied communion at her mother’s funeral in Gaithersburg.
“As Catholics, we are proud of Gov. O’Malley’s ardent support of marriage equality,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry. “His support is in the best tradition of Catholicism’s legacy of social justice for all. We are happy to have this opportunity to thank him for his work and to show how faithful Catholics support full equality for LGBT people.”
The organization came under fire by Cardinal Edmund F. O’Brien who said, “In no manner is the position proposed by New Ways Ministry in conformity with Catholic teaching.”
In response, DeBernardo told the Blade, “Thousands of Catholic people and hundreds of Catholic institutions from across the country continue to support our programs and attend our events. They recognize that what we are doing is authentically Catholic.”
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.
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
JD Vance to travel to Hungary next week
Pam Bondi ousted as attorney general
VIDEO: Gay journalist detained for booing Trumps at ‘Chicago’ opening night
Idaho Gov. signs harshest anti-trans bathroom bill in the country
‘Out for McDuffie’ event held at D.C. gay bar
‘Jonah’ an undeniably compelling but unusual memory play
The Oscar-losing performance that’s too good to miss
Thousands attend ‘No Kings’ protests in D.C.
