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Library of Congress staffer fired, claims anti-gay bias

Says he was outed on Facebook, ‘stalked’ by superior at D.C. gay bar

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Peter TerVeer, gay news, gay politics dc

Peter TerVeer, 30, was fired last week from his job at the Library of Congress and claims his former boss cited biblical passages condemning homosexuality.

A gay man has charged in a discrimination complaint that he was fired last week from his job at the Library of Congress after being harassed and humiliated for more than a year by a supervisor who repeatedly cited passages from the Bible condemning homosexuality.

Peter TerVeer, 30, a management analyst at the Library of Congress’s Office of the Inspector General since 2008, says in his complaint that supervisor John R. Mech created a hostile work environment for him to such a degree that he suffered severe stress, forcing him to take disability leave last fall and earlier this year.

“I contend that I have been subjected to a hostile work environment by Mr. Mech since August 2009 on the basis of my sex (male), sexual orientation (homosexual), and religion (non-denominational Christian/Agnostic),” TerVeer states in an affidavit accompanying his complaint.

“I maintain that Mr. Mech has acted to impose his religious beliefs on me,” TerVeer says in the affidavit.

TerVeer’s attorney, Thomas Simeone, said he will likely file a discrimination related lawsuit against the library on TerVeer’s behalf regardless of how the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is deliberating over the complaint, rules on the matter.

Gayle Osterberg, director of communications for the Library of Congress, said TerVeer’s complaint is considered a personnel matter and the library never comments on personnel-related issues pertaining to an individual employee.

She said that under library rules, neither John Mech, an accountant and lead auditor for the library’s Office of The Inspector General, nor any other library employee familiar with TerVeer’s case would be permitted to comment on the case.

Simeone said a key factor in the case is that library officials promoted TerVeer three times and praised his work and that negative job performance reviews suddenly began after Mech learned TerVeer was gay.

Asked about a policy adopted by the Library of Congress in the 1990s prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, Osterberg declined to confirm whether such a policy is still in effect.

“We adhere to Title 7, period,” she said, referring to a provision in existing U.S. civil rights law that bans job discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex and other criteria but not on sexual orientation.

An internal “Librarian’s Policy Statement Regarding Non-Discrimination” issued to Library of Congress Employees on May 6, 2010, reiterates the 1990s-era statement pertaining to sexual orientation discrimination.

“Discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including sexual harassment), national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or political affiliation will not be tolerated,” the statement says.

Osterberg declined to disclose whether that and previous sexual orientation non-discrimination statements were still in effect.

TerVeer’s complaint, filed with the EEOC, follows a September 2008 federal court decision finding that the Library of Congress violated federal law against sex discrimination by denying a job to a transgender woman.

In that case, the library had determined that the applicant was qualified and hired her shortly before she announced she was transitioning from male to female. When officials learned that David Schroer was transitioning to Diane Schroer they rescinded the job offer and refused to hire Schroer.

A U.S. District Court judge ruled in September 2008 that the library’s refusal to hire Schroer violated a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination, a development hailed by the ACLU as an important breakthrough for transgender rights. The library decided against appealing the case and agreed to an out-of-court settlement with Diane Schroer in which it paid her compensatory damages.

Library of Congress: ‘AWOL’ for 37 days?

Dome of the Library of Congress. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

In a March 29, 2012 letter to TerVeer, Karl W. Schornagel, the library’s Inspector General and head of the division where TerVeer worked, said he approved TerVeer’s firing on grounds that TerVeer had been absent from work without approved leave or “AWOL” since Jan. 4, 2012.

Schornagel states in the letter that under library personnel rules, absence without approved leave is considered a form of misconduct that could lead to disciplinary action, including dismissal.

“I considered that you failed to report for duty as scheduled for over 37 consecutive workdays and failed to properly request approved leave despite being reminded of the proper procedures for requesting approved leave and advised of the consequences of your failure to report for duty as scheduled,” Schornagel said in his letter.

TerVeer told the Blade that library officials approved disability leave he had requested in October 2011 at the urging of his therapist and doctor based on the therapist’s determination that a hostile work environment at the library caused him to suffer severe mental stress.

According to TerVeer, the unpaid disability leave approved by the library expired in January 2012. He said library officials declined his request for a transfer to another office and demanded he return to duty with Mech remaining as his supervisor.

Simeone, TerVeer’s attorney, said library rules may have allowed TerVeer to apply for an extended disability leave. But he said TerVeer by that time had exhausted his financial resources following three months of unpaid leave and couldn’t afford to pay doctors and his therapist for the necessary examination and documentation needed to apply for extended disability leave.

“He was in a bind,” said Simeone. “He loved working there and he wanted to continue. And as you can tell, he needed the money. He tried to get a transfer to a new setting or a new area, but it was just not possible. They wouldn’t do that.”

Simeone said going back to the office where TerVeer knew he would be subjected to the same harassment and stress wasn’t an option he could accept.

Outed by boss’s daughter

TerVeer told the Blade he never intended to come out as gay at work when he first started his job at the library in February 2008. He said he had recently moved to D.C. from rural Western Michigan, which he said was devastated by the economic recession.

With a bachelor’s degree in business management from Hope College in Michigan and his enrollment at the University of Maryland for a degree in accounting and auditing, TerVeer said the start of his employment at the library’s Office of The Inspector General appeared to be a perfect fit for his chosen career path.

“The first year and a half, almost two years I was there I was closeted and essentially I was kind of the golden boy in the office,” he said. “He took me under his wing and we had a cordial discourse,” he said of Mech. “And he appeared to come off initially as really nice.”

TerVeer said the cordial relationship was based, in part, on their shared interest in sports and TerVeer’s role as captain of a school football team in Michigan. At one point Mech invited him to join his wife and son at a University of Maryland football game, TerVeer said.

As TerVeer tells it, his problems started just after that, when Mech invited him to “look up his daughter” in the late summer or early fall of 2009. Within days, said TerVeer, Mech’s daughter Katie contacted him on Facebook and asked to become Facebook friends.

He said he accepted her request after using the appropriate Facebook privacy controls to hide information on his own Facebook page that identified him as gay. But a short time later, Facebook put in place changes in its settings in such a way that TerVeer’s link to a Facebook group in support of gay adoptions became publicly visible, TerVeer said.

“I get home one day and she saw it and commented and she said, ‘You’re not one of those weirdoes are you?’ I said I am actually, in fact, one of those weird ones if you’re referring to the fact that I’m gay.”

TerVeer said Katie Mech initially said she wasn’t troubled by this discovery, saying she had a good friend in San Francisco who’s gay.

However, the following day TerVeer said he discovered that she had both “de-friended” and blocked him from her Facebook page. Within days of that, John Mech began raising his religious beliefs with TerVeer in emails and in face-to-face conversations with him, TerVeer said.

“All of a sudden now, every time I’m going into his office he’s starting off with a religious conversation. Then it comes out where he pointed out he was a believer with a literal translation of the Bible,” said TerVeer. “Then he goes specifically into homosexuality.”

TerVeer said he knew then that Katie Mech informed her father that he is gay.

In his affidavit, TerVeer said things came to a head on June 21, 2010.

“He came into my office on that date and said he wanted to educate me on hell and that it was a sin to be a homosexual,” TerVeer says in the affidavit. “He said he hoped I repented because the Bible was very clear about what God does to homosexuals.”

Among other things, TerVeer says in the affidavit that Mech quoted the Old Testament passage of Leviticus, stating, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their heads.”

TerVeer says in the affidavit, “He stated that as a homosexual I could never succeed because it was against God’s law.”

Four days later, on June 25, 2010, Mech spoke with TerVeer about TerVeer’s annual performance review and TerVeer expressed concern that his ratings were lower than he believed they should be, he says in the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, he politely told Mech he was concerned that the lower performance review might be biased because of Mech’s strongly expressed religious beliefs toward homosexuality.

“Mr. Mech became extremely upset and vehemently denied that my homosexuality and his personal views had an impact on his rating of me,” TerVeer says in the affidavit. “He accused me of attempting to injure his career and reputation and to ‘bring down the Library.’”

Gay official ‘stalks’ TerVeer

TerVeer says in his affidavit that beginning in July 2010 through the middle of 2011 Mech appeared to be “piling on” work assignments in an effort to set him up to fail. He said one particular project he was assigned to handle by himself had been previously worked on by six full-time employees and took more than a year to complete, yet he was told to complete it during a shorter period of time.

“I believe that Mr. Mech gave me this assignment to set me up for failure and to give him a better opportunity to identify and manufacture deficiencies in my performance,” TerVeer says in the affidavit. “I believe he decided in advance to give me negative ratings in my next performance review and began to create a record of alleged ‘job deficiencies’ to support this.”

In an effort to appeal what he believed to be an unfairly negative job performance rating calling for denying him a normally routine “step” pay increase, TerVeer said he approached Mech’s supervisor, Nicholas Christopher, the assistant inspector general for audits. “Mr. Christopher declined to change my performance evaluation and denied me a WIGI [Within Grade Increase]” in pay, he says in the affidavit.

When he indicated he was in the process of filing a possible discrimination complaint, TerVeer said that both Mech and Christopher appeared to warn him against doing so, saying he could face consequences such as additional poor performance ratings.

In a staff meeting on June 28, 2011, TerVeer says in the affidavit that Mech demanded that he explain, “what I was doing” concerning his stated intention to appeal the low job performance rating.

“He berated and humiliated me in front of my co-workers,” TerVeer says in the affidavit. “He interrogated me regarding the exact nature of my appeal and who I was filing the action against.”

After beginning his disability leave in the fall of 2011, TerVeer said he was startled when Christopher appeared at the D.C. gay bar Number Nine, where TerVeer had been working as a security staffer, and began to take a video of him with his cell phone.

TerVeer and his lawyer at the time, Brennan McCarthy, said TerVeer’s therapist believed working a job at a gay bar provided a friendly, supportive work environment and was an important part of his recovery from the stress-related ailment that required he take a leave from his job at the library.

In a Feb. 16, 2012 letter to Vicki Magnus, acting deputy director of the library’s Office of Opportunity, Inclusiveness and Compliance, which investigates discrimination complaints, McCarthy expressed concern that Christopher had “commenced a pattern of harassment, including stalking Mr. TerVeer at his second job and videotaping Mr. TerVeer while working.”

McCarthy said Christopher appeared to have begun harassing TerVeer after Christopher learned that TerVeer was considering filing a discrimination complaint.

“Following that revelation, Mr. Christopher took all steps possible not only to keep Mr. TerVeer from filing his complaint with your office, but also stated that poor performance reviews are ‘what happens’ when someone tried to bring down the Library of Congress (i.e., files an EEOC complaint),” McCarthy said in his letter.

Sources familiar with the Library of Congress have told the Blade that it’s widely known at the library that Christopher is gay. Christopher states in the publicly accessible part of his Facebook page that his “relationship status” is “single” and he’s “interested in” men.

He also describes his religious views on his Facebook page as being “vociferously atheist.”

Christopher didn’t respond to a Blade message asking whether he was troubled over TerVeer’s allegation that Mech had been reciting biblical passages to TerVeer at work condemning his homosexuality.

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District of Columbia

Activists hold chalk art protest at McDonald’s after anti-gay assault

Police say victim attacked, beaten by 15 people for not saying ‘excuse me’

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Local gay activist Joey Minervini and two others drew supportive messages in chalk at the site of an anti-gay attack. (Photo courtesy of Joey Minervini)

Local gay activist Joey Minervini and two others used chalk to draw LGBTQ supportive messages on the sidewalk outside the McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Streets, N.W. at 9 a.m. Sunday Nov. 3, one week after D.C. police say a gay man was attacked and assaulted by 15 men and women at that McDonald’s while shouting the word “faggot.”

Police say they are investigating the Oct. 27 assault against Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, 22, that Lascarro has said began inside the McDonald’s at about 1 a.m. when one of the attackers, a woman, criticized him for not saying “excuse me” when he walked past her.

“He ignored her, and he walked away,” Lascarro’s husband, Stuart West, told the Washington Blade. West said his husband told him the woman then called him a faggot and her friends, who were mostly men, blocked the exit door at the McDonald’s, preventing Lascarro from leaving and about 10 of the attackers began to punch him repeatedly in the face and body.

He was taken by ambulance to Howard University Hospital, where he was treated for multiple cuts and bruises before being released the next day.

Minervini released a series of photos he took of the Nov. 3 chalk protest, a few of which show the words “EXCUSE ME We All Belong” drawn in rainbow colored chalk on the sidewalk in front of the McDonald’s entrance. Other messages they drew on the sidewalk included, “We all belong here,” and “D.C. For You And Me,” with a drawing next to it with fingers making the peace sign.

Joining Minervini for the protest was D.C. artist and muralist Chelsea Ritter-Soronen, who operates a local chalk art and mural business called CHALK RIOT, Minervini told the Blade. He said one of his friends, Darren Pierre, also participated in doing the chalk art drawings.  

Minervini said most passersby, including customers entering and leaving the McDonald’s, appeared to be supportive of the protest, with some taking pictures of the chalk drawings.

“The vibe there was positive,” he said. “Some people were unaware of what we were doing, so I explained to them a gay man was attacked for apparently not saying ‘excuse me.’ So, that’s why we were chalking the words ‘excuse me’ to reclaim the phrase,” Minervini said. “We were doing it there to reclaim the space a little bit.”

He said he did not see any of the McDonald’s employees come out to look at the drawings up until the time the three ended their chalk art action about 10:15 or 10:30 a.m. Minervini said he and a friend walked past the McDonald’s around 5 p.m. Sunday evening and the chalk drawings were still on the sidewalk.

D.C. police have listed the attack against Lascarro as a suspected hate crime. But they have not provided an update on their investigation, including whether investigators have interviewed McDonald’s employees who were present during the attack or whether they have requested video footage from the security cameras at the McDonald’s.

West, Lascarro’s husband, said the ambulance took Lascarro to the hospital before police arrived and police officers first spoke to Lascarro about the attack at the hospital rather than at the scene of the assault.  

“Thankfully, he has been recovering from his injuries, the scrapes, cuts, bruising and swelling have all started to heal, but I fear the real damage can’t be seen,” West said in an updated message in a GoFundMe posting he set up to help defray the costs of Lascarro’s medical expenses.

“Unfortunately, after this incident, he’s battling with many emotions including anxiety, depression, fear of leaving the house and worse, questions whether D.C. is the right fit for him,” West says in his posting.

West told the Blade Lascarro, who goes by his middle name of Thomas, is a recent immigrant from Colombia who has permanent U.S. resident status. He said Lascarro had been at the nearby gay bars Crush and Bunker before stopping at the McDonald’s on his way home.

(Photo courtesy of Joey Minervini)
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District of Columbia

D.C. police investigating anti-gay assault at 14th & U McDonald’s

In separate incident, gay man found unconscious near Florida Avenue bar

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Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro was attacked at a McDonald’s at 14th and U streets. (Photos courtesy of Stuart West)

D.C. police are investigating an incident in which a group of as many as 15 men and women allegedly assaulted a gay man while some of them called him a “faggot” at around 1 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27,  at the McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Streets, N.W., according to a police report and the victim’s husband.

The report, which lists the incident as a suspected hate crime, says the victim, Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, was taken to Howard University Hospital for treatment. A police spokesperson said he was released from the hospital the next day.

A GoFundMe page posted by Stuart West, Lascarro’s husband, who said Lascarro goes by his middle name Thomas, states, “Medical bills, therapy costs, and ongoing recovery needs will continue to increase and any help to ensure he gets the care he needs to regain his health and peace of mind will be a blessing.”

The GoFundMe message adds, “Thomas was attacked by a mob who used hateful, derogatory language targeting his identity as a gay man. This horrific hate crime left him hospitalized overnight, facing serious physical injuries and emotional trauma.”

In response to an inquiry from the Blade about the 14th and U Street incident, a D.C. police spokesperson disclosed that a man whose friends identify him as gay was found unconscious on the ground suffering from a head injury about 5 a.m. also on Sunday, Oct. 27, at the intersection of 5th and T Streets, N.W. just off Florida Avenue near the gay bar Uproar.

A police report lists the case as a robbery but doesn’t say how the injuries he suffered to his head happened. And like the case of the gay man attacked at the McDonald’s, friends of the man found unconscious posted a GoFundMe page identifying the man.

“Bryan Smith (aka the barber) recently suffered immense trauma to his head and will be hospitalized for the foreseeable future,” it says. “Bryan is a dear friend and a pillar in the D.C. queer and nightlife communities,” the GoFundMe appeal says. “Any amount of donations would be greatly appreciated to go towards the upcoming expenses he will incur.”

One of the friends who posted the GoFundMe told the Washington Blade they would have no further comment at this time. However, D.C.’s Fox 5 News reports members of Smith’s family said he remains in a coma, with D.C. police saying they have video footage of two possible suspects who reportedly took Smith’s phone and wallet containing credit cards.

Although people who knew Smith said he had worked for many years as a hairstylist, the Fox 5 News report says he had recently been serving as a DJ. It points out that police are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the perpetrators responsible for Smith’s robbery and assault.

West, the husband of Lascarro, when contacted by the Blade, said Lascarro, 22, had been at the nearby gay bars Crush and Bunker, and he stopped at the McDonald’s on his way home. West said the assault began inside the McDonald’s, which was crowded with customers. He said the police report correctly states that Lascarro told police the incident began when one of the attackers, a woman, criticized him for not saying “excuse me” when he walked past her.   

“He ignored her, and he walked away,” West told the Blade, adding that the woman then called him a faggot and her friends, who were mostly men, blocked the exit door at the McDonald’s, preventing Lascarro from leaving and demanded that he apologize to the woman.

“And when he said he was not going to apologize and he raised his hand to try and move the door to get out, that’s when more than 10 individuals started to assault him,” West said. “And so, they started punching him all over his face and body, and it eventually moved to outside the McDonald’s on the D.C. sidewalk, where more people got involved and started hitting him and assaulting him.”

At one point when Lascarro was sitting on the ground, “bloodied, dazed, and confused, they decided to throw drinks and trash at him,” West said. He said when two people walking by asked him if he needed help, Lascarro was able to dial 911 on his phone, and an ambulance arrived minutes later, which took him to the hospital.

“They performed a full CT scan and thankfully there were no critical injuries discovered,” West said. “So, the only injuries are bruises and scrapes and cuts and a very sore jaw,” he said, adding that the head injuries have caused his husband to suffer migraine headaches.

West said he later visited the McDonald’s and asked two supervisors if they would release to him a copy of the video surveillance camera images from their security cameras from the night of the attack. He said the two declined his request but said they were cooperating with the police investigation.

D.C. police officials have said investigators routinely obtain video camera footage from businesses or from city security cameras along public spaces such as parks or streets when investigating crimes.

Police have said anyone with information that could lead to the identification of the perpetrators involved in the crimes targeting Lascarro and Smith should contact police at 202-727-9096.

The GoFundMe pages for the two men are here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-thomass-recovery-from-hate-crime

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-bryan-smiths-medical-recovery

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Alsobrooks leads Hogan in Md. Senate race: polls

Previewing regional races in Md., Va., Del.

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Democrat Angela Alsobrooks and Republican Larry Hogan are competing for a U.S. Senate seat that could determine control of the chamber. (Photos courtesy of the Baltimore Banner)

Polls indicate Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is comfortably ahead of former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted between Oct. 17-22 found Alsobrooks ahead of Hogan by a 52-40 percent margin. Alsobrooks, a Democrat, was ahead of her Republican rival by a 48-39 percent margin in a poll the University of Maryland Baltimore County conducted between Sept. 23-28.

Alsobrooks during an interview with the Washington Blade before she defeated Congressman David Trone in the May 14 primary said she supports the Equality Act. Alsobrooks also highlighted her support for Maryland’s marriage equality law that voters upheld in a 2012 referendum.

Hogan in 2018 signed a bill that banned so-called conversion therapy in Maryland. He criticized Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law during a 2023 interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

A bill that created the Commission on LGBTQ Affairs in the Governor’s Community Initiatives Office took effect in 2021 without Hogan’s signature. Hogan also did not sign a bill that banned the so-called LGBTQ panic defense in Maryland.

Hogan marched in this year’s Annapolis Pride parade.

Campaign spokesperson Blake Kernan on Wednesday referred the Blade to the campaign’s final ad it released earlier in the day.

“I’m not just another Republican,” says Hogan. “I’ll make your life more affordable, and support a woman’s right to choose.”

(video courtesy of hogan’s campaign)

Kernan defended Hogan’s record on LGBTQ rights in an article the Blade published on Aug. 7. Kernan in a May 22 statement criticized Alsobrooks over her comments about Hogan’s abortion rights record.

The Alsobrooks campaign on Tuesday told the Blade it is “ready to defend our Democratic Senate Majority, protect our freedoms, and fight for our families.”

“Angela continues to travel across the state and can feel the enthusiasm and energy from all voters — from young people concerned about the cost of living, women concerned about access to reproductive freedoms, seniors concerned about the cost of prescription drugs, and all Marylanders who want a future where their families can thrive,” said the campaign in a statement. “Angela is in this fight for every one of them, for every Marylander.” 

Democrat April McClain Delaney is running against former Maryland state Del. Neil Parrott (R-Washington County) in the race to succeed Trone in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.

A Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies poll conducted between Aug. 24-31 found Parrott ahead of Delaney by a 41-39 percent margin. A Public Opinion Strategies poll conducted between Aug. 6-11 found Delaney ahead of Parrott by a 42-40 percent margin.

Delaney, a former Commerce Department official who is married to former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, in her campaign ads has noted Parrott in 2005 said people who test positive for HIV should be tattooed. Parrott in 2014 led an unsuccessful effort to prompt a referendum on Maryland’s transgender rights law that then-Gov. Martin O’Malley signed.

In Virginia, state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Loudoun County) is running against Republican Mike Clancy in the state’s 10th Congressional District. The winner will succeed Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton, who announced last September she would not seek re-election after doctors diagnosed her with an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease.

“When I think about who will best continue my legacy and deliver real results for us in Congress, I can think of no one better than state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam,” said Wexton in an Oct. 16 press release in which she and former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) endorsed Subramanyam’s campaign.

Democrat Eugene Vindman is running against Republican Derrick Anderson for outgoing Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger’s seat in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

Spanberger is running for governor in 2025.

In Delaware, state Sen. Sarah McBride is poised to become the first transgender person elected to Congress. Democratic Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester is also likely to become the first Black person to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate.

“There’s no one better to represent us in Washington, D.C., and in the United States Senate than Lisa Blunt Rochester,” said President Joe Biden in a recent endorsement.

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