Local
Two gay candidates seek office in Delaware
Former judge could be one of few open gays in nation to win statewide office
Mitch Crane would become one of just a few out gays in the nation to win election to a statewide office if he wins in Delaware.
A gay former judge running for the office of Delaware Insurance Commissioner and a gay Realtor running for the State Senate in a district that includes the popular gay resort town of Rehoboth Beach have a good chance of winning their races, according to political observers.
Attorney and longtime consumer advocate Mitch Crane, who served as an elected judge in Pennsylvania from 1981 to 1987 before moving to Delaware 11 years ago, is challenging incumbent Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart in Delaware’s Sept. 11 Democratic primary.
Crane is the former president of the statewide LGBT rights group Stonewall Democrats of Delaware and is a longtime LGBT rights advocate.
If he wins the primary and goes on to beat his Republican challenger in November, Crane would become one of just a few out gays in the nation to win election to a statewide office.
Meanwhile, Rehoboth Beach Realtor and LGBT rights advocate Andy Staton is considered to have a good shot at winning a state Senate seat in the newly created 6th senatorial district that includes Rehoboth Beach and the adjoining coastal cities of Dewey Beach and Lewes and the nearby city of Milton.
So far no candidate has emerged to challenge Staton in the Democratic primary in September. The filing deadline for a primary challenger is July 10. Should he capture the Democratic nomination, as many political observers in Sussex County, Del., expect, he is considered the odds-on favorite to win the general election in November in a district where Democrats far outnumber Republicans.
Crane and Staton have been endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a national group that helps raise money for LGBT candidates for public office. The two have also been endorsed by Delaware Stonewall Democrats and other political groups and Democratic leaders in the state.
Although the two candidates have strong records on LGBT issues, both have long been involved in a wide range of other issues that supporters say makes them strong, viable candidates.
Andy Staton, a Rehoboth Realtor, would become the first openly gay member of the Delaware Legislature if he wins his race for Senate.
Staton heads the Staton Group real estate firm that’s affiliated with the Prudential Gallo company in the Rehoboth Beach area. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) appointed Staton to the Delaware Real Estate Commission, where he currently serves as chair. Markel also appointed him to the Delaware Economic Financial Advisory Council, which monitors the state’s revenue and expenditures.
Staton also serves on the board of the Sussex County Family YMCA, the Beebe Hospital Advisory Board and the Camp Rehoboth Leadership Council. Camp Rehoboth is an LGBT community center and non-partisan advocacy group.
“I will focus on job development and health care,” Staton told the Blade. “I will focus on transportation services and I’m focusing on long-term planning for this area to preserve the wonderful community that people have moved into,” he said.
Crane served as regulatory counsel and acting director of consumer services at the Delaware Department of Insurance from March 2007 to January 2011, when he resigned following disagreements over policy issues with Weldin Stewart, who heads the agency.
He had been appointed to the Department of Insurance posts by Matthew Denn, Weldin Stewart’s predecessor as State Insurance Commissioner. Denn left the insurance commissioner’s job in 2009 after being elected lieutenant governor.
“She ran as a consumer advocate, which was good then, and then in a year she turned into an insurance industry advocate,” Crane said. “I told her if things didn’t change I was going to leave, and I eventually left,” he said.
“And then a few months later some people in the party approached me about running. I was at first hesitant but then decided to do it, Crane said.”
Crane’s supporters say his record as a strong advocate for consumers in the field of insurance places him in a strong position in the Sept. 11 Democratic primary, even though a Democratic incumbent ordinarily would be expected to win. Crane and his supporters say Weldin Stewart is viewed by political insiders as a weak candidate.
“It is the job of the insurance commissioner to keep insurance premiums as low as possible by recruiting the best insurance companies to do business in our state,” Crane says in a statement on his campaign website.
“The Insurance Commissioner is the only elected official whose job is to protect the insurance consumer. That job is not currently being performed,” he said. “If elected, I will stand up for the consumer as I have done all my professional life.”
Marla Blunt-Carter, a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Insurance, said Weldin Stewart would not comment on “criticisms presented by political challengers” at this time.
“The Delaware Department of Insurance website, delawareinsurance.gov, highlights the accomplishments of the department under her leadership,” Blunt-Carter told the Blade in an email. “It also demonstrates her commitment to Delaware consumers as well as her role of providing excellence in insurance regulation.”
In a statement released last week, the Victory Fund noted that in addition to being elected as a judge, Crane won election in Pennsylvania in the 1980s and 1990s as a city council member in Chester County, which is considered a Philadelphia suburb.
“Mitch has years of experience as an elected official and a judge,” said Victory Fund spokesperson Denis Dison, who noted that Crane served with distinction as an official at the Delaware Department of Insurance. “He is eminently qualified to serve as the state’s Insurance Commissioner, which would make him one of just a few openly LGBT candidates to be elected to a statewide office anywhere in America.”
Dison said Staton’s “long record of public and community service makes him an excellent candidate for the Delaware Senate,” adding, “If he wins, Andy will become the first openly LGBT candidate elected to the Delaware Legislature, and we are proud to support his campaign.”
Speculation has surfaced that a lesbian Democratic activist in Milton, Del., Marie Mayor, plans to run for a seat in the state House of Representatives. Mayor is co-owner of Lavender Fields Forever, a farm and store specializing in lavender-related products. Mayor didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
District of Columbia
Owner of D.C. gay bar Green Lantern John Colameco dies at 79
Beloved businessman preferred to stay ‘behind the scenes’
John Colameco, owner of the popular D.C. gay bar Green Lantern, has died, according to a March 7 announcement posted on the bar’s website and Instagram account. The announcement didn’t provide a date of his passing or a cause of death.
Green Lantern manager Howard Hicks said Colameco was 79 at the time of his passing.
“It is with great sadness that Green Lantern announces the death of our beloved owner, John Colameco,” the announcement says. “Most of our patrons might have heard John’s name, but might not have known his face,” it says.
“He was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of guy who avoided the limelight,” the announcement continues. “He preferred to stay in the back of the house with staff and team ensuring everything was running smoothly so that everyone out front was having a good time.”
The announcement adds, “As a veteran and businessman, John wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ + community, but he was one of the best damn allies our community has ever had.”
It says he “long provided spaces for the queer community to come together” since the 1990s when he owned and operated a popular restaurant on 17th Street, N.W. called Peppers.
According to the announcement, Colameco and his then business partner Greg Zehnacker opened the Green Lantern in 2001 in an alley off of 14th Street, N.W., between Thomas Circle and L Street, N.W.
The announcement points out that the Green Lantern first opened in the same location in the early 1990s before it later closed when the original owners decided to purchase and open other bars, one of which was the gay bar Fireplace near Dupont Circle. Colameco and Zehnacker were able to reopen the bar with the Green Lantern name.
“When Greg died unexpectedly in February 2014, John remained steadfastly committed to carrying on their vision and ensuring that Green Lantern remained part of the fabric of D.C.’s queer community,” the announcement says.
“Over the years, through Green Lantern, John has provided support to many community organizations, most notably Stonewall Sports, the Gay Men’s chorus of Washington, and ONYX Mid-Atlantic with Green Lantern serving as a gathering hub for their activities,” it states.
The announcement adds that Colameco’s family was planning a memorial for him in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“His Green Lantern family will celebrate his life by operating the bar as usual and we encourage you to stop by and join us,” it says. “Community coming together and having a good time – it’s exactly what John would want.”
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