Local
Cummings to vote ‘in support’ of Md. same-sex marriage law
Baltimore congressman said he identifies with President Obama’s evolution on same-sex marriage
Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Baltimore City.
A Baltimore congressman who has yet to publicly back nuptials for gays and lesbians told the Washington Blade late on Wednesday he plans to vote for his state’s same-sex marriage law on Nov. 6.
“I respect and support the decision of the Maryland legislature and will vote in support of Question 6,” said U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings.
Cummings spoke to the Blade two days after Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger announced his support of same-sex marriage during a debate against his opponent, state Sen. Nancy Jacobs (R-Baltimore County,) in Cockeysville. Maryland Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin and the rest of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation all support the same-sex marriage law.
“Ultimately, I identify with President Obama’s evolution on the topic of same-sex marriage,” said Cummings. “When you come from a religious background where you’ve been taught all your life that marriage is between a man and a woman, and then you find yourself looking at how a society is changing and how many in your own community are seeing the issue in terms of fairness and equality, it makes you re-think your position.”
A Washington Post poll last week found 52 percent of Maryland voters support Question 6, compared to 42 percent who said they oppose it.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said during a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser in D.C. on Wednesday he remains optimistic voters will support Question 6 on Election Day. He spoke hours after the Maryland Marriage Alliance announced it had begun airing radio commercials that feature Dr. Alveda King, niece of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
She criticizes the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for endorsing marriage rights for same-sex couples and Question 6.
“I understand the civil rights struggle. During the civil rights movement, we were working for access to education, to decent housings, jobs and health care,” says Alveda King in the ad. “As a minister, I believe that the NAACP leadership and gay rights activists have formed an unholy alliance by trying to convince you and me that marriage should be redefined. We did not define marriage. And we cannot redefine marriage. Marriage by definition is a holy union between one man and one woman.”
The NAACP did not immediately respond to the Blade’s request for comment on the anti-Question 6.
Meanwhile, a group of Maryland Jewish leaders held a press conference earlier today at a Baltimore synagogue to back the state’s same-sex marriage law. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who donated $250,000 to Marylanders for Marriage Equality earlier this month, is scheduled to attend a separate press conference with O’Malley and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Friday.
Freedom to Marry also on Thursday announced a $100,000 contribution to the pro-Question 6 campaign that paid for a Marylanders for Marriage Equality ad that features two women discussing President Obama’s support of marriage rights for same-sex couples and a second with NAACP Chair Emeritus Julian Bond
“Freedom to Marry’s investment comes at a key moment, and helps us accomplish an important goal,” said Josh Levin, campaign manager of Marylanders for Marriage Equality. “The radio spot we launched today ensures that voters hear President Obama’s heartfelt and compelling explanation of his journey to support marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Marylanders will identify with those same values – fairness, being a good role model for their kids – and will make the decision to vote for Question 6.”
The group announced its contribution on the same day black clergy who support and oppose Maryland’s same-sex marriage law protested the suspension of Gallaudet University’s chief diversity officer, Dr. Angela McCaskill, after she signed the petition that prompted the same-sex marriage referendum. They gathered outside the Northeast D.C. campus.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
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.
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