Local

Gay man seeks to become Delaware’s next insurance commissioner

Crane could become state’s first openly gay statewide elected official

Published

14 years ago

September 5, 2012

Michael K. Lavers

Gay News, Washington Blade, Gay Delaware

Photo courtesy of Mitch Crane

A former judge is poised to potentially become the first openly gay person elected to statewide office in Delaware.

Mitch Crane of Lewes will square off against incumbent Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart, Paul Gallagher and Dennis Spivack in the Democratic primary on Sept. 11. The winner will face Republican Benjamin Mobley and Libertarian Eisenhower David in the general election.

Then-Insurance Commissioner Matt Denn hired Crane, who was a district judge in Chester County, Pa., from 1982-1987, as a regulatory specialist for the Delaware Department of Insurance in 2007. Stewart succeeded Denn, who is now the lieutenant governor, in 2008. Crane stepped down in Jan. 2011 after he said he realized that his now opponent would not continue what he described as the “pro-consumer programs” that he said her predecessor put into place.

“A few months later some progressive members of the party asked me to run,” he noted. “I was hesitant about running against an incumbent Democrat — also a woman, but I was convinced it was important that the insurance commissioner be a consumer advocate. And if I didn’t run, someone less qualified or less able to do the job properly would run and either beat her or lose and we would be in the mess that we’re in now.”

A commitment to civil rights

Crane’s maternal grandparents became active in the civil rights movement in the 1930s — he was 16 when he and his grandmother were arrested in 1963 during a protest outside a Brooklyn, N.Y., hospital that was under construction. Crane later coordinated three buses that brought the West Chester, Pa., contingent to the 1963 March on Washington that Bayard Rustin, the openly gay adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who grew up in the southeastern Pennsylvania city, organized. The University of Denver expelled him shortly before he was to have graduated in 1968 because he led a student rights movement.

“I come from a family of activists — my parents and my grandparents — in almost every aspect of the human rights movement,” said Crane. “I wasn’t brought up to become a rebel in the 60s. I actually was just following my family tradition of fighting for other people.”

Crane invited Rustin to speak at a local high school and West Chester University while he was on the West Chester Borough Council in 1981. He also spearheaded the effort to name a park next to his home in honor of the civil rights activist after his death in 1987. Crane became a permanent Delaware resident in 2002, but he remained involved in the effort to name a new West Chester high school in honor of Rustin.

Crane later played a role in the effort to add sexual orientation to the state’s non-discrimination laws. He was president of the Barbara Gittings Delaware Stonewall Democrats in May 2011 when state lawmakers passed a civil unions bill that Gov. Jack Markell signed into law. The statute took effect earlier this year, but the governor told the Huffington Post last month that he expects state lawmakers could debate a same-sex marriage bill as early as next year.

Crane’s opponents did not immediately respond to the Blade’s inquiries about whether they support either Delaware’s civil unions law or nuptials for gays and lesbians. Crane, who entered into a civil union with his partner of 14 years in February, told the Blade that he feels marriage is a federal issue that Congress and the courts should ultimately decide. He described the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act as the most important issue.

“To upset the applecart by herding legislators who are brave by voting for it is not worth a word,” he said, referring to what he said is a lack of support among Dover lawmakers for a same-sex marriage bill. Crane stressed that adding gender identity and expression to the state’s non-discrimination laws should remain a top legislative priority going into 2013. “I’m saying this and people aren’t going to like what I’m saying, but quite frankly you’ve got to pick your fights and you’ve got to do what’s helping people. And that’s always been my attitude. Fighting a battle you know you can’t win is only good if you can’t win something less than that.”

In spite of his skepticism over the timeline of a potential same-sex marriage bill, Crane stressed he would support it.

“If it comes up and I’m the insurance commissioner, I will testify in favor of it,” he said. “I’m fine with it; it’s just not the battle I choose to have at this point.”

Crane, 65, would join Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown as the country’s only other openly gay statewide elected official if voters elect him in November. The state’s Democratic Party, the Delaware State Education Association, the Victory Fund and House Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf (D-Rehoboth Beach) are among the groups and local officials who have endorsed him.

Gay state Senate candidate Andy Staton and Marie Mayor, a lesbian who hopes to represent House District 20, are also running in their respective primaries.

“It’s important that people see that it’s possible to be out, to be gay and to run and succeed in high elected office. That’s the significance of it.” said Crane when asked about the possibility of becoming Delaware’s first openly gay statewide official. “There are people in the legislature who are not out who maybe would come out if they saw it’s not going to hurt them.”

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Cameroon

Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now

Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality

Published

18 hours ago

March 13, 2026

Baltimore Banner

Competitive gamer Ludovic Mbock, left, with his sister, Diane Sohna. (Photo courtesy of Diane Sohna)

By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.

The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.

“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

District of Columbia

Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position

Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director

Published

2 days ago

March 12, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The Wilson Building (Bigstock photo by Leonid Andronov)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.

The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.

“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.

The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.

Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.

“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.

District of Columbia

Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary

Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event

Published

3 days ago

March 11, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Mayor Bowser is expected to attend the Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th gala. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

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 50^th 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 8^th 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