Local
Montgomery County mothers back Question 6
Women spoke in support of Question 6 during Silver Spring press conference
A group of Montgomery County mothers spoke in support of Question 6 in Silver Spring on Thursday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
A group of Montgomery County mothers on Thursday expressed their support of Maryland’s same-sex marriage law.
“I’m opening my home to you all because it’s an important issue of fairness on the ballot this year in Maryland,” said retired Library of Congress librarian Marilyn Parr during a press conference outside her Silver Spring home. “I’ve gathered some women like me who believe Question 6 is about fairness and equality. I’ll let them share their stories with you, but I believe that a couple who is willing to make a lifelong commitment should be treated with the fairness I received in my own marriage. It’s the right thing to do. And it’s time that Maryland voters do the right thing and vote for fairness and equality for all families to be equal under the law.”
Silver Spring resident Jane Meier, who identified herself as a life-long Christian, said she has already voted for the same-sex marriage law.
“I voted for Question 6 because I believe in the Golden Rule and I want to raise my children in a state where we treat others as we want to be treated,” she said.
A Goucher College poll released on Monday found 55 percent of Marylanders support marriage rights for same-sex couples in the state, compared to 39 percent who oppose them. A Baltimore Sun survey conducted between Oct. 20-23 noted only 46 percent of respondents would vote for the law. A Washington Post poll published on Oct. 18 found 52 percent of Maryland voters support Question 6, compared to 42 percent who said they oppose it.
Karin Quimby, field director of Marylanders for Marriage Equality, and others stressed that Question 6 will not force clergy who object to nuptials for gays and lesbians to marry same-sex couples.
“Every family deserves dignity, and all children need to be protected under the law,” said Susan Wilson. “We all know someone who’s gay or lesbian. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family or even members of our congregations or synagogues. And their children, who are every bit as precious as my own, deserve the securities afforded to our families under the law. In six days we all have an opportunity to provide fairness and equality for these families and children. They deserve the same protections I enjoy simply because of the person I married.”
Michelle Russo agreed.
“Marriage equality just makes sense to me,” she said. “I met the love of my life 16 years ago, and I married him three years later. I believe the gay couple down the street should be able to have the same marriage that we do. The freedom to marry should be afforded to all committee couples.”
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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