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.
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.
District of Columbia
As mayor’s race takes shape, candidates endorse LGBTQ equality
Like nearly all recent D.C. elections, LGBTQ voters will be choosing a candidate for mayor in 2026 from a list of mostly strong LGBTQ rights supporters in the city’s June 16 primary.
As of March 30, the D.C. Board of Elections’ list of candidates who submitted the required number of petition signatures for the June 16 primary ballot included 10 mayoral candidates: nine Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate.
Among those candidates, six, all Democrats, have issued statements expressing strong support for LGBTQ rights, including the two leading Democratic contenders, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie and current Council member Janeese Lewis George, who represents Ward 4.
One of the lesser-known Democratic candidates who released an LGBTQ supportive statement, Rini Sampath, a cyber security consultant, told the Washington Blade she identifies as queer, becoming one of the first known LGBTQ D.C. mayoral candidates to gain access to a major party primary ballot.
“We’re living in an extremely diverse community, an extremely unique community,” she told the Blade. “And being able to self-label, self-identify as queer is something that I just want to take pride in.”
Similar to McDuffie and Lewis George, Sampath released statements to the Blade and the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ local political group, expressing support for LGBTQ rights and outlining plans for LGBTQ supportive policies if elected mayor.
Although many D.C. LGBTQ activists have said they have yet to decide whom to support for mayor, those who have decided appear to be divided between McDuffie and Lewis George. Most D.C. political observers consider McDuffie and Lewis George to be the two leading candidates in the mayoral race.
The other Democratic mayoral contenders who have released statements expressing support on LGBTQ issues include Gary Goodweather, a local real estate manager and developer who has been actively campaigning at LGBTQ events; Vincent Orange, a former At-Large and Ward 5 D.C. Council member; and Kathy Henderson, a longtime Ward 5 community activist and elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.
The remaining two Democratic mayoral candidates, Hope Solomon, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor and Dupont Circle civic activist; and Ernest Johnson, a real estate broker and Ward 1 community activist, did not respond to inquiries from the Blade and Capital Stonewall Democrats seeking information about their position on LGBTQ related issues.
Robert Gross, the Statehood Green Party candidate who is running unopposed in the June 16 primary, also didn’t respond to inquires from the Blade about his position on LGBTQ issues.
D.C. Board of Elections records show that at least five Republican candidates filed papers to run for mayor in the June 16 GOP primary, but none of them remained as candidates as of March 30, when the election board issued its updated candidate list.
Just one of the five Republican candidates replied to an email message from the Washington Blade sent to all mayoral candidates in early March seeking their position on LGBTQ issues. That candidate, Esa Muhammad, whose website identifies him as an engineer, consultant, and local business owner, sent a reply expressing opposition to LGBTQ rights.
“Unfortunately, I do not support LGBTQ because The God only created 2 genders (Adam/Eve),” he wrote. “Anyway, I will be fair to you all despite your sick way of looking at life,” he stated.
Capital Stonewall Democrats President Stevie McCarty said his group sent questionnaires to all the Democratic mayoral candidates as well as to Democrats running for other offices such as D.C. Council. Information posted on the group’s website shows only four of the mayoral candidates returned a complete questionnaire: McDuffie, Lewis George, Goodweather, and Sampath.
Each of them provides detailed information of their plans for supporting LGBTQ policies if elected and their record of support on LGBTQ issues. McCarty said the questionnaire responses for all candidates that submitted them can be accessed at outvotedc.org.
He said Capital Stonewall Democrats will hold virtual LGBTQ forums in April, including a mayoral forum on April 8. He said the group’s members will vote on the candidate endorsements online from April 20 through May 11, and the group expects to announce its endorsements May 14.
GLAA DC, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has issued candidate ratings for most D.C. elections since the 1970s, and the nonpartisan LGBTQ group was expected to issue ratings for mayoral candidates this year. But like in recent years, the group is expected to base its ratings on mostly non-LGBTQ issues, with a progressive, left-leaning perspective, according to a nine-page “Back to Basics GLAA Policy Brief 2026” that the group released in March.
The LGBTQ activists who are backing McDuffie or Lewis George appear to be gravitating to the two based on their political leanings separate from LGBTQ issues, just like voters in general. Lewis George, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is popular among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ “progressives.”
McDuffie, who is seen as a more moderate candidate along the lines of current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, is being supported by LGBTQ activists who hold those views, some of whom currently work in the Bowser administration.
Among Lewis George’s LGBTQ supporters are longtime Ward 8 community leader Philip Pannell and former Capital Stonewall Democrats president Howard Garrett. Among the LGBTQ McDuffie backers are longtime D.C. Democratic activists John Fanning and David Meadows.
Longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting McDuffie, has raised concerns about Lewis George’s backing by the national group Democratic Socialists of America. In Facebook postings, Rosenstein points to the Democratic Socialists of America’s opposition to Israel as a country and said it is viewed by many in the Jewish community as promoting antisemitism. He has criticized Lewis George for not speaking out against that and for accepting the DSA’s endorsement.
In an interview with the Blade, Lewis George strongly disputed that assessment, saying she has been a strong ally and supporter of the Jewish community.
“I’m a member of the Metro DSA here in D.C. that I work with to fight for labor and for tenant rights,” she said. “I’m also a member of the Democratic Party,” she added, saying, “There are things that the Democratic Party does that I don’t agree with. There are things that the national DSA does that I don’t agree with. That’s a group that I work with.”
“But I want to be clear that I am running for mayor to represent all of our community, and that includes our amazing and historical Jewish community here in D.C.,” she said. “I have had the amazing opportunity to spend time at synagogues and talking to Jewish leaders and groups and institutions. And so, there should be no worry here.”
Following are short excerpts from the detailed statements five of the nine Democratic mayoral candidates submitted to the Capital Stonewall Democrats or the Washington Blade.
Kenyan McDuffie: “As mayor, every piece of legislation I sign, craft, or endorse should also encompass the interest and input of the LGBTQ community members and advocates…From housing to health care and everything in between… We have a dire crisis regarding the rise in homelessness especially among the youth in our LGBTQ communities. In my administration that simply cannot be the status quo and will not be…I have been a consistent champion for our LGBTQ community and will remain so as Mayor of D.C.’
Janeese Lewis George: “As mayor, I will protect our LGBTQ+ neighbors against federal attacks on their identity, including their health care…On the Council I have been a strong supporter of pro-LGBTQ+ bills, including making D.C. a sanctuary for people seeking gender-affirming health care as well as addressing discrimination and harassment in nightlife and hospitality…And as mayor, I am prepared to move up and win those fights – a fight for D.C. statehood, a fight for our true economy, and a real opportunity to uplift our Black queer and trans youth.”
Gary Goodweather: “A Goodweather administration will defend every D.C. law protecting LGBTQ residents. I will establish a Defend DC office to coordinate the District’s legal and public response to federal overreach, with LGBTQ+ protections explicitly within its mandate…My affordable D.C. plan will produce 50,000 new homes with 36,000 affordable units, and I will ensure LGBTQ+ youth housing programs are funded as a budget priority.”
Rini Sampath: “I am an immigrant, proud queer woman, and a 10-year resident of Washington, D.C…For me, LGBTQ+ voters including transgender and nonbinary residents, are not a separate or symbolic constituency; they are a core part of a broader, multiracial, cross-ward coalition rooted in in equity and opportunity.”
Vincent Orange: “I have a long and consistent record of supporting LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion in the District of Columbia, grounded in both policy and personal commitment. As the District’s Democratic Committeeman from 2006 to 2015, I publicly supported marriage equality and voted accordingly … During my time on the D.C. Council, I worked to advance protections for LGBTQ+ residents, including authoring and passing legislation to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals in the workplace.”
Kathy Henderson: Kathy Henderson has maintained a consistent record of treating all members of the community with dignity, compassion, and respect, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, identity, political party, national origin, or ideology. Kathy Henderson embraced the late Wanda Alston as a colleague and good friend…Alston was the first director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Henderson helped to organize and facilitate the first LGBTQ citizens summit.”
Local
D.C.’s affirming congregations to mark Holy Week, Easter
Dignity Washington among groups holding events
LGBTQ-friendly congregations in the D.C. area this week are marking Easter and Holy Week.
The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C., located in Mount Vernon Square, holds both online and in-person services.
An online-only Good Friday service will take place on April 3 at 7 p.m. In person or online Resurrection Sunday services will take place on April 5 at 10:30 a.m.
Dignity Washington, an LGBTQ Catholic group, is also holding Holy Week and Easter events.
The group on March 29 held a Palm Sunday prayer event. Dignity Washington on April 5 will hold a Mass at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church at 6 p.m. It will be livestreamed on Facebook.
Foundry United Methodist Church holds two Easter Sunday services at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
Riverside Baptist Church, located in Southwest Washington, is an “Inclusive, Multicultural, Christ-Centered” congregation that also offers Holy Week and Easter activities.
The church on Good Friday at 3 p.m. is holding an outreach period in which they will clean up the neighborhood. Easter Sunday services will be held at 9:45 a.m., starting with a musical prelude, followed by services.
The church offers weekly “Wednesday Witness,” a youth and safety zone drop-in, serving as a safe space for the students of Jefferson Middle School and the community. It takes place from 3-5 p.m.
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center offers a comprehensive list of inclusive faith communities on its website. The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists offers a list of churches partnered with their organization that are inclusive and mainly Baptist, but the group does feature churches of other denominations.
The 18th National Rainbow Seder took place at the Human Rights Campaign on March 29. The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event included Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder was “Liberation for All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern led it.
The Seder honored the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
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