Local
Va. activists remain wary of Cuccinelli administration
Attorney general will likely face former DNC Chair McAuliffe in 2013
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Virginia advocates remain concerned Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will thwart efforts to advance LGBT-specific issues in the commonwealth if he becomes the state’s next governor in 2013.
Equality Virginia Executive Director James Parrish noted in a Nov. 28 statement after Lieutenant Gov. Bill Bolling said he would not run to succeed Gov. Bob McDonnell that Cuccinelli in 2010 recommended Virginia colleges and universities remove LGBT-specific provisions from their non-discrimination policies. The Virginian-Pilot reported in Oct. 2009 that he described same-sex sexual acts as “wrong.” The newspaper reported Cuccinelli stressed homosexuality “represents — to put it politely, I need my thesaurus to be polite — behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.”
Cuccinelli was among those who spoke at an anti-gay marriage gathering at a Manassas church in October to which the Washington Blade was denied access.
“We are shocked to see Attorney General Cuccinelli enter this race as a choice for governor with his past statements and actions of bigotry toward the LGBT community,” said Parrish, who further criticized Cuccinelli for what he described as “bullying” the State Boards of Social Services and Juvenile Justice. “We hope to educate Virginians in the coming year so they can make an informed decision in this election.”
Terry McAuliffe (center) at an Equality Virginia fundraiser in Arlington, Va. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Cuccinelli is expected to face former Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe once he officially receives his party’s nomination.
Neither men returned the Blade’s request for comment, but Cuccinelli spoke during a Virginia Republican Party “advance” that took place at the Homestead Resort last weekend.
“Virginia once again has an opportunity,” he said. “This is an opportunity to show the country that conservatism isn’t dead; that it’s not old or worn out and that it’s still alive and thriving.”
Gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) told the Blade he feels Virginians should expect a Cuccinelli administration to be as “ideologically focused as he is.” He also said he expects more of what he described as “Cuccinelli’s symbolic lawsuits and politically motivated investigations” against those who oppose him and his agenda.
“I find it very scary,” added Hampton Roads Pride Board member Michael Hamar, who cited a Dec. 3 ThinkProgress blog post that categorized Cuccinelli as Virginia’s equivalent to Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, who sparked outrage in August when he suggested to a St. Louis television reporter during his unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) that women who suffer a “legitimate rape” rarely become pregnant. Hamar also criticized him for his positions on abortion and immigration
“He’s a religious fanatic,” he said. “To have someone who is that anti-gay running for [the] position of governor is frightening.”
State Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) echoed Ebbin and others who said Democrats and progressives should not underestimate Cuccinelli going into the 2013 gubernatorial campaign. He told the Blade on Tuesday he feels the current attorney general would try to thwart a bill he and Ebbin have co-sponsored that would bar discrimination against LGBT state employees if he becomes governor.
“I have no doubts he would attempt an appeal,” said McEachin. “Just as importantly, if we’re not able to pass it this year and we were able to pass it next year, if he were governor he would veto it. He is not receptive to bills of that nature that try to treat all Virginians fairly.”
Hamar further described Cuccinelli as the “Virginia version” of anti-gay former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum as he cited his opposition to non-discrimination statutes.
He noted the city of Norfolk last year banned anti-gay discrimination against its municipal employees. Hampton Mayor Molly Ward in October joined the handful of other Virginia mayors who signed onto Freedom to Marry’s “Mayors for the Freedom to Marry” campaign.
“Someone like Cuccinelli as governor will do all he can to thwart that kind of thing, certainly if he’s consistent with what he’s done with the universities,” said Hamar. “All of us are very concerned with him being the likely nominee.”
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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