National
Fresno activists wage lonely battle to oust congressman
California’s newly drawn 22nd District ‘safe’ for anti-gay GOP incumbent
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) received a ‘0’ rating on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard. (public domain photo)
Editor’s note: This is the second in an occasional series profiling congressional districts in which the incumbent is not supportive of LGBT rights. The articles seek to assess the chances of electing a supportive candidate to help advance pro-LGBT bills that have been stalled in Congress. Visit washingtonblade.com for the first installment on Maryland’s 6th District.
U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is one of 14 members of the U.S. House of Representatives from California who received a “0” rating on LGBT issues from the Human Rights Campaign’s 2010 Congressional Scorecard, which has a rating scale of 0 to 100.
Nunes and most of the other U.S. House members with a 0 rating in the state — all Republicans — represent districts inside or bordering on California’s Central Valley, a vast rural and agricultural region in the interior and eastern part of the state.
The region has traditionally elected conservative Republicans to Congress and to the California Legislature.
“The rabid homophobes come from rabid, red homophobic districts,” said Mark Leno, a gay State Senator from San Francisco and longtime LGBT rights advocate. “They’re going to get re-elected. So to waste time, energy and resources in those districts is just that, a waste,” Leno told the Blade.
“You have to look at party registration where it’s most possible for a Democrat to win, and that’s what the Democrats are doing,” he said.
The newly redrawn district includes precincts that voted overwhelmingly for Sen. John McCain in 2008, leading many observers to label the seat “safe” for Nunes.
But gay activist Jason Scott, a resident of Clovis, Calif., a small city that borders on the much larger City of Fresno, said he’s troubled that the national Democratic Party and national LGBT organizations appear to have written off the 22nd Congressional District and other Central Valley districts.
Scott is one of the organizers of Gay Fresno, an online LGBT news and resource service that covers Fresno and nearby cities and towns in the Central Valley region. Although he agrees that Nunes is likely to win re-election this year, Scott told the Blade residents of Nunes’ 22nd District have changed their views on LGBT issues in recent years.
“I don’t feel like the people he represents have the identical mindset that he does on gay rights,” Scott said.
Lesbian activist Robin McGehee, a Fresno resident who teaches communications at the College of the Sequoias in nearby Visalia, expressed a similar view. McGehee is co-founder of the national LGBT direct action group GetEqual and one of the lead organizers of the 2009 National March on Washington for LGBT Equality.
“It would be great if more of our state-based organizations and even national organizations were putting boots on the ground and resources in these congressional districts,” she said. “I think we can swing the vote because Nunes is really not liked as well as what would be expected in a farming community like this.”
McGehee added, “There are lots of liberal Democrats that are here. Nunes is the one who’s gotten all the resources. That’s the reason he’s been in that seat as long as he has.”
Nunes has voted against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law that prohibited gays from serving openly in the U.S. military. According to the HRC Congressional Scorecard, Nunes has declined to back all of the LGBT supportive bills pending in Congress, including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which calls for banning private sector employment discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity.
He also opposes legal recognition of same-sex marriage and has declined to support or co-sponsor legislation to repeal the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
Jack Langer, director of communications for Nunes’ congressional office in Washington, said he would make inquires to determine if Nunes has changed his position on LGBT issues since the release of the HRC Scorecard in October 2010. Langer didn’t get back with a response by Wednesday afternoon.
HRC is scheduled to release an updated version of its Congressional Scorecard in October. People familiar with Nunes’ voting record and positions have said he doesn’t appear to have changed his views on LGBT issues.
Scott of Gay Fresno said he wrote a letter to Nunes’ office urging him to take a more supportive posture on LGBT-related issues. He said the response he received was a terse refusal to back any of the bills or positions he inquired about.
“I was surprised that the response I received went further than the Republican talking points you would expect from a member of Congress,” Scott said. “It looked like it came from one of the anti-gay groups.”
Scott said he knows of no local LGBT political advocacy groups in Nunes’ district or in any locations within the Central Valley. While the statewide group Equality California gets involved in some issues in the region, for the most part LGBT people in the region have been left to fend for themselves, Scott said.
He and McGehee said an effective advocacy campaign for LGBT equality, especially through TV ads, could have resulted in far more votes in the Central Valley against Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure approved by California voters that bans same-sex marriage in the state constitution. McGehee said the No on 8 campaign had little or no presence in the Central Valley other than to provide campaign signs.
“I think voter education is an important part of this,” Scott said, adding that a concerted effort by national and state advocacy groups to promote LGBT rights in the region would significantly boost the chances for electing pro-LGBT candidates to Congress and state offices in the Central Valley region.
Leno, the gay state senator, points to a plan developed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that strategically targets eight congressional districts in California that are held by Republicans or are vacant due to redistricting.
The plan, dubbed “Red to Blue 2012,”calls for sending money and logistical support to the Democratic candidates running in those districts from the National Democratic Party and Democratic contributors from across the country.
One of the targeted races is in the newly created 41st District in the Los Angeles area, where gay Democrat Mark Takano is said to have a good chance of winning in an area with a solid Democratic majority. Takano is receiving logistical and financial support under the Red to Blue campaign.
Another district targeted is the redrawn 36th in the Palm Springs area, which is held by Republican Mary Bono Mack. The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed Bono Mack in 2010 but have yet to do so this year, according to an endorsement list on the group’s website.
Bono Mack received a rating of 53 on the HRC Scorecard in 2010, the highest rating of any Republican in the state.
The newly drawn 22nd Congressional District where Devin Nunes is running for re-election to his sixth term in office is not one of the districts targeted in the Red to Blue 2012 campaign. The Red to Blue 2012 campaign is targeting just three of the 14 California districts where the GOP incumbent had a 0 HRC Scorecard rating. The three targeted districts are not in the Central Valley region.
Nunes is being challenged by Democrat Otto Lee, a Chinese-American businessman and U.S. Navy veteran who served in the first Gulf War and later, as a commander in the Navy Reserves, was recalled to active duty during the Iraq war.
Lee is a former city council member and former mayor of Sunnyvale, Calif., in the state’s Silicon Valley area, which is located more than 100 miles away from the 22nd Congressional District. The fact that he and his family moved to the district earlier this year has prompted Nunes supporters to call him a carpetbagger.
Brandon Fisk, an official with the Fresno County Democratic Party Central Committee, said voters would likely view Lee’s experience as an accomplished businessman, Navy Reserves commander, and “public servant” in Sunnyvale as an asset that will help him better serve as a congressman in the Fresno area.
“Nobody called him a carpetbagger when he served in Iraq,” Fisk said.
Scott and McGehee said that although Lee has not mentioned LGBT issues in his campaign speeches he has made it known in the district that he would be supportive on LGBT issues in Congress. Scott said the Lee campaign reserved space to set up a booth at an LGBT Pride festival scheduled for Saturday in Visalia.
Although Congress in the past three-and-a-half years has passed legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and to approve a hate crimes law that allows the federal government to prosecute hate crimes against LGBT people, all other LGBT supportive bills have remained stalled in committee.
Some LGBT advocates have said they are especially troubled over the inability of the Democrats to arrange for the passage of ENDA when they controlled both the House and Senate in 2009 and 2010. Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have said Democratic supporters, who far outnumbered Republicans committed to backing ENDA, had the votes to pass the bill itself but not to defeat one or more hostile amendments expected to be introduced by opponents of the bill.
Frank said a head count taken by House Democratic leaders found that supporters would fall short by a dozen or more votes in an effort to defeat an amendment calling for banning transgender people from certain jobs such as schoolteachers.
It was due to that uncertainty that Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders chose not to bring up ENDA for a vote at the time, according to Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill.
Most political observers say ENDA and most other LGBT bills would have little or no chance of passing in the next two years if Republicans retain control of the House. Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s leaders say they are hopeful that Democrats will win the 25 House seats they need to regain control of the House in the November election.
McGehee and other LGBT advocates, however, say if Democrats win a majority in the House, nearly all of the new members making up their majority will likely be from swing districts with many conservative, Republican leaning voters. Unless advocacy groups and the Democrats do the outreach work needed to change the hearts and minds of voters on LGBT issues in places like California’s Central Valley, Democrats may not be able to garner the votes needed to pass ENDA and other gay bills, the advocates say.
“Could we do more about this?” asked gay California Assemblyman and former San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano. “Absolutely,” he said.
Ammiano said he was hopeful that the growing number of LGBT supportive members of the state legislature and in county and municipal offices throughout the state would serve as a “farm team” for future LGBT friendly members of Congress.
LGBT advocates note that while California has the distinction of having 14 congressional districts with anti-LGBT incumbents, the largest number of U.S. House members with a 0 HRC rating of any state, California also has the most members of Congress with a perfect 100 HRC rating — 21 House members and both U.S. senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
“California certainly is a progressive state and is becoming ever bluer every year,” said Leno.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
National
Multi-billion-dollar 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to continue until 2090
Eligibility for same-sex partner survivors remains unclear
As part of its commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally operated program, released information during the past week showing it has awarded more than $18 billion to over 77,000 9/11 victims and their families since 2011.
Officials with what’s now referred to as the VCF point out that it was created to provide compensation to individuals or to a court-approved personal representative of a deceased individual who were present at one of the three sites where the hijacked jetliners crashed.
Among those supported under the program are thousands of rescue workers, clean-up crews, and residents living near the World Trade Center Twin Towers destruction site who became ill, many of whom later died, by being exposed to the toxic fumes created by the fire and falling debris.
“Twenty-five years since that day, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund has served tens of thousands of victims and their families, and we continue to receive over 750 new claims each month — a clear indication of the ongoing importance of our mission,” said Allison Turkel, VCF’s leader, who holds the title of Special Master.
In a Sept. 2 briefing for the news media in advance of the 9/11 anniversary commemoration, Turkel pointed out that the VCF operation was upgraded and expanded by separate laws passed by Congress in 2011 and 2019, with the 2019 law signed by President Trump providing full funding to “pay all eligible claims and extended the filing deadline to Oct. 1, 2090.”
LGBTQ advocacy organizations in New York and nationwide have reported that during the time shortly after the 9/11 attacks same-sex surviving partners of 9/11 victims learned they were ineligible for compensation benefits because their same-sex relationships were not legally recognized.
Nicole Nava, a VCF spokesperson, told the Washington Blade she would inquire into whether same-sex couple surviving partners were being supported under the VCF program in more recent years.
She said under long established VCF procedures, all applicants for benefit claims regarding a deceased person, whether same-sex or opposite sex, must be appointed as a Personal Representative of the deceased person by a state court. For D.C. residents, the probate division of the D.C. Superior Court appoints a Personal Representative.
“Claims for deceased victims (regardless of the cause of death) may be submitted only by the Personal Representative,” a statement on the VCF website says. “Each state has laws that define the process for appointment of the Personal Representative and the specific authority granted to that Personal Representative,” it says.
The Washington Blade couldn’t immediately determine the criteria for being approved as a Personal Representative by the D.C. Superior Court and various state courts, including whether a same-sex survivor partner would be eligible for such an appointment.
A spokesperson for the District of Columbia LGBTQ+ Bar Association, which includes many local attorneys who specialize in a wide range of specialized legal issues, couldn’t immediately be reached to find out if one or more of their members might be able to determine the same-sex partner eligibility for Personal Representative status.
In her news media briefing, VCF Special Master Turkel said detailed information about how best to file a claim for 9/11 victim compensation is available on the VCF website.
“Twenty-five years since the events of September 11th , 2001, we know it has become increasingly challenging for claimants to find documents needed to prove their presence at an eligible location, which is one of the key requirements to be eligible for compensation,” she said.
She was referring to the requirement that 9/11 surviving victims seeking a claim for support for injuries or illnesses related to the 9/11 attacks must prove they were present at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon site, or the Shanksville, Pa. site where the hijacked jetliners crashed. Those requirements are separate from the less clearly defined criteria for same-sex couple victim survivor eligibility.
“Our team is committed to ensuring no claimant feels lost or overwhelmed when submitting a claim,” Turkel said at the briefing. “We have a great helpline with real live people who can answer or refer any questions that come in,” she added. “They engage in over 4,000 calls a month on average. We encourage folks to call 1-855-1555 with any questions.”
The VCF website, which has additional detailed information, can be accessed at www.vcf.gov.
National
Remembering the LGBTQ heroes of 9/11 terrorist attacks
25 years later, ‘the heartbreak remains strong’
Many in the LGBTQ community in the D.C. area and throughout the country were expected to join friends, co-workers, and family members this week in commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and on the Pentagon just outside D.C. as well as the jetliner hijacking that ended in a fatal crash in an open field in Shanksville, Pa.
A total of 2,996 people died in the 9/11 attacks, including 19 terrorists who hijacked four jetliners whose passengers included Americans and citizens of many other countries.
Activists involved with local and national LGBTQ advocacy organizations recall witnessing a coming together of LGBTQ people and their co-workers, neighbors, and family members to support one another during a time of unimaginable horror and grief.
Among those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks was American Airlines co-pilot David Charlebois, an out gay man and member of the Gay Pilots Association, who was on American Airlines Flight 77, which the terrorists crashed into the Pentagon.
Also among the terrorist victims in the 9/11 attacks was gay public relations executive and rugby enthusiast Mark Bingham of San Francisco, who was among several passengers of the hijacked United Airlines jet who reportedly stormed the cockpit to regain control of the jetliner before one of the hijackers crashed the jet into the countryside in rural Pennsylvania.
The jet had taken off from Newark, N.J. with its destination being San Francisco. Investigators learned the hijackers turned the plane around and were heading to Washington, D.C., with plans to crash it into the White House or the U.S. Capitol.
The passengers, including Bingham, who stormed the cockpit and were among the 44 passengers and crew who lost their lives in the crash are credited by investigators and family members and friends with saving the lives of hundreds of others if the hijackers succeeded in crashing into the White House or Capitol.
Among the other LGBTQ people known to have lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks was Father Mychal Judge, 68, a gay Franciscan priest who served as a Catholic chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Judge rushed to the scene of the World Trade Center shortly before the Twin Towers collapsed. He was fatally struck by debris falling from the south tower while giving last rites to a fallen firefighter, the Catholic publication reported.
“He was a decent, wonderful human being,” said New York gay journalist Andy Humm, who had interviewed Judge for LGBTQ-related stories prior to the 9/11 attacks. “I saw him at many demonstrations for gay and AIDS causes, showing up in his Franciscan monk’s cassock,” Humm told the Washington Blade five years ago at the time of the 9/11 20th anniversary. “And he was equally beloved by the fire department, there at every major fire tragedy in the city, lending moral support to firefighters,” Humm said.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic group that advocates for LGBTQ supportive policies within the church, reported five years ago that his group was supporting an effort to call on the Catholic Church to officially recognize Fr. Judge as a saint by canonizing him. But DeBernardo told the Blade this week that those efforts failed to obtain the needed support from various Catholic entities, including the Franciscan Order of Friars Minors, of which Judge was affiliated, ending efforts to canonize Judge as a saint.
DeBernardo has written a book about Judge’s life and legacy published in 2023 called “Mychal Judge:Take Me Where You Want Me to Go.”
Among the other widely reported LGBTQ victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a gay couple from California, Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa, and their adopted son, David, who were among those who died aboard the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. The Los Angeles Times reported that Brandhorst, an attorney, and Gamboa, the manager of a Santa Monica Gap store, had adopted three-year-old David when he was an infant.
For many LGBTQ residents of New York and the D.C. area, the suffering over the loss of loved ones, including same-sex partners, was heightened a short time later when they learned they were initially ineligible for local and federal programs aimed at providing financial assistance to survivors of the 9/11 attack victims because same-sex couples were not legally recognized.
At the urging of LGBTQ rights organizations, state and local officials in the New York and the D.C. area took steps to address the initial denial of financial support for surviving same-sex partners In programs under their control. Officials with a massive federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, however, said they did not have legal authority to authorize payments to same-sex partners.
The officials, in the administration of then-President George W. Bush, said the best they could do would be to leave it up to local authorities to determine whether state probate laws would recognize a same-sex partner as a family member for eligibility in the federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, many of whom lived in states outside the New York and D.C. area.
Nicole Nava, a spokesperson for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally funded program established to compensate for physical harm or death caused by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including support for surviving family members, said she would inquire into whether same-sex surviving partners were being supported under that program in subsequent years in response to a request from the Washington Blade.
Jenny Pizer, an attorney for the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, which supported LGBTQ partner survivors of victims of the 9/11 attacks, said the information she and her organization had showed that many if not most of the LGBTQ partner survivors were unable to obtain the federal Victim Compensation Fund payment benefits that married heterosexual spouses obtained. She said she didn’t have a definitive answer on whether some LGBTQ surviving partners were compensated.
However, at least one case where an LGBTQ partner was compensated was reported by the Washington Post in a Jan. 22, 2003, news story about Peggy Neff, the lesbian partner of 18 years of Sheila Hein, 51, a civilian employee at the Pentagon, who was killed when the terrorist hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.
The Post reported that the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, under the leadership of its director, Kenneth Feinberg, approved an award of $557,390 for Neff in compensation for the loss of her partner. The Post story quoted a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign as saying, “It is our sincere hope that this signals that other gay families who have suffered the loss of a loved one will be treated similarly.”
The compensation program, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Justice, remains in operation until 2090. The Blade will report on any additional similar awards for LGBTQ surviving partners if Nava provides such information.
Events commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks were scheduled to take place this week at memorial sites honoring the 9/11 victims located outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., at the site of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and the site of the jetliner crash in Shanksville, Pa., which is operated by the U.S. National Park Service.
The U.S. Congress in 2017 and 2021 approved separate bills signed by President Donald Trump during his first term in office and President Joe Biden creating the Global War on Terrorism Memorial and its construction, to be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. that’s scheduled to be completed in 2028.
The memorial, to be located near the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial close to 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., is intended to honor people who served and were lost in the wars and counterterrorism operations that followed the 9/11 attacks, including U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Jay Fisette, who at the time of the 9/11 attacks held the elected position of chair of the Arlington County Board, which serves as the county’s governing body, was among the Arlington officials that came to the Pentagon’s grounds in Arlington to oversee efforts by firefighters to rescue Pentagon workers on the day of the attack.
At an Oct. 7, 2001, 9/11 Day of Remembrance and Appreciation ceremony held in Arlington, Fisette expressed the views of many in the community in response to the 9/11 attacks.
“Tonight, our community gather as a family,” he told the gathering. “We gather in sorrow and in disbelief, in remembrance and appreciation,” he said. “But we come here, too, with resolve and pride. We come together as Arlingtonians who love our country, as Americans who love our country,” he said.
“Our enemies may hurt our bodies and destroy our buildings, but they will never defeat our determination to make this a world of peace and a community in which our children grow up safe and secure,” Fissette said.
Although some of the same-sex partners of those killed in the 9/11 attacks faced obstacles in obtaining financial support through the federal 9/11 relief program, Tom Hay, the surviving partner of 14 years of American Airlines pilot David Charlebois was treated with respect and honor by American Airlines officials and colleagues at Charlebois’s funeral mass at D.C.’s St. Matthew Cathedral.
More than a dozen uniformed company pilots and flight attendants attended the mass. And a press release issued by American Airlines mentioned Charlebois’s relationship with Hay and told how Hay stood with Charlebois when Charlebois advocated for equal rights for LGBTQ people in the airline industry through his involvement with the National Gay Pilots Association.
“David was an early member of the NGPA,” the American Airlines statement said. “His contribution helped ensure ongoing progress toward fairness and solidarity.”
Activists in New York have said the 9/11 attacks drew attention to the need for legal protections for same-sex couples, including the need for recognition of same-sex marriage, which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized nationwide in its landmark ruling in 2015.
But LGBTQ advocates in New York pointed to the difficulties LGBTQ surviving partners faced when desperately seeking to find out if a partner had survived at the site of the World Trade Center attack where the Red Cross and other emergency relief agencies set up a station near the site of the attack.
“Literally, gay people had to go there, turn around, go back home, and get some paperwork that spouses didn’t have to get to prove a relationship existed,” said Ross Levi, who at the time served as executive director of the New York LGBTQ advocacy group Empire State Pride Agenda.
“You were nervous and scared and sad and then you had to go through that,” Levi told the Blade in 2011 at the time of the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “And worse yet, other people turned them away, even with the paperwork, saying sorry you’re not a family according to our guidelines.”
Activists said New York City and New York State officials quickly recognized the inequities faced by same-sex partner survivors and took steps to change polices and laws to correct the situation. Among other things, New York’s then-Gov. George Pataki (R) issued an executive order in October 2001 that included surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims of the World Trade Center attacks in receiving full spousal benefits from the state’s Crime Victims Board.
In a separate development, the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, ESPA, the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ advocacy groups created the September 11 Gay & Lesbian Family Fund to provide some support to surviving same-sex partners who were ineligible for help from the federal relief fund program.
“The terrorist attack on September 11th is a tragedy that touched every American, impacting people and families from all walks of life,” Jonathan Lovitz, the Human Rights Campaign’s Senior Vice President for Campaigns and Communications told the Blade in a statement this week.
“As in all moments in American history, LGBTQ+ Americans were there, and feel the impact of this day,” he said. “As we remember the lives lost 25 years later, the heartbreak remains strong and the work to ensure that every person can live safe from violence in this country continues.”
2026 Midterm Elections
Chris Pappas wins NH Democratic Senate primary
Gay congressman running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
New Hampshire Congressman Chris Pappas on Tuesday won the Democratic primary in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in the U.S. Senate.
Pappas defeated Karishma Manzur, who was his primary challenger, by a 61.8-36.1 percent margin.
The gay congressman will face off against former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, who defeated former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in the Republican primary.
“Tonight’s victory sends a clear message that voters are looking for leaders who will fight for their rights, their freedoms, and to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement.
She campaigned for Pappas in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city, on Aug. 30.
“Chris Pappas has delivered results, stood up for equality, and showed up for the people he serves,” said Robinson in her statement. “HRC was proud to mobilize Equality Voters across New Hampshire to help power this win. We don’t have a second to waste between now and November. We look forward to continuing our work with Rep. Pappas as he drives toward victory in November so he can help return a pro-equality majority to the United States Senate.”
A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released on Aug. 26 showed Sununu ahead of Pappas by a 45-43 percent margin if they were to face off in the general election. The margin of error is +/-2.1 percent.
Pappas would become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate if he were to win in November.
‘Thelma and Louise’ remains landmark of unspoken queer rebellion
Comings & Goings
LGBTQ Military Happy Hour set for Sept. 15
Calendar: September 11-17
Multi-billion-dollar 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to continue until 2090
Md. groups receive state grants to fight hate crimes
Nominate your favorites for the Blade’s 25th annual Best Of LGBTQ DC Awards
Gloria Steinem’s life of substance and consequence
PHOTOS: SUNFESTIVAL
