Local
D.C. paid anti-gay gospel singer $80,000
Kirk Franklin performed at Emancipation Day event in April
Gospel singer Kirk Franklin (Photo by Bigstock)
LGBT activists have expressed concern that the D.C. government paid $80,000 this year for a performance at the city’s annual Emancipation Day celebration by a gospel singer who has publicly called for gays to abandon the “homosexual lifestyle.”
Internationally acclaimed gospel singer and musician Kirk Franklin, the winner of seven Grammy Awards, gave an outdoor concert April 16 in Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington as part of this year’s Emancipation Day festivities.
“He has a First Amendment right to say whatever he believes,” said Earl Fowlkes, president and CEO of the Center for Black Equity, which advocates for the black LGBT community.
“However, I would not want my tax dollars to go to anyone who espouses which is in essence homophobia any more than I would want my tax dollars to go toward anyone who espouses racism or who was anti-Semitic,” Fowlkes told the Blade. “It’s just not appropriate.”
Although Franklin, 43, reflects his deeply held Christian beliefs in his songwriting and performances, his comments about LGBT people and homosexuality have surfaced mostly in media interviews and in his 2010 book, “The Blueprint: A Plan for Living Above Life’s Storms.”
In most of his comments on the subject, Franklin has called on the church to treat LGBT people with kindness, compassion and love but has insisted “we can never compromise what the Bible says about homosexuality,” as stated in his book.
When he was asked in an Associated Press interview what he sees in the future for the LGBT community in the black church, Franklin reiterated his theme of compassion along with change.
“I think that you have to be, as Scripture would say, ‘as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove’ to lovingly share the truth, to lovingly and to passionately speak the truth in love into the lives of all people to allow that message that you speak…trust that it has enough power to do the changing,” the AP quoted him as saying.
The decision to bring Franklin to D.C. for the Emancipation Day event was made by the office of D.C. Council member Vincent Orange (D-At-Large), which has organized and promoted the event since Orange persuaded the Council and city officials to host and sponsor Emancipation Day as an annual city event.
Legislation introduced by Orange and approved by the Council and mayor has made Emancipation Day, which commemorates the freeing of the slaves in the District of Columbia during the Civil War, as an official city holiday.
The total cost of this year’s event, which included a parade as well as entertainment, was $250,000, according to the Washington Post. The Post reported that, “Franklin traveled to the District with a 16-person entourage, including backup singers, …. In addition to Franklin’s $55,000 booking fee, city taxpayers spent $8,758 for airfare, $1,557 for his limousine and $8,721 to put Franklin and his entourage up at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, including $2,600 for Franklin’s VIP suite. Records attributed $4,215 in food and beverage costs to the entourage.”
Orange has proposed increasing the budget to $350,000 for next year, the Post reported.
“I’m sure that in the decision of securing Mr. Franklin the Council member was not aware of any anti-gay or anti-human rights comments that he might have made,” said James Brown, Orange’s chief of staff.
“The Council member is a strong supporter of the gay community,” he said.
Brown said Orange was out of town this week and couldn’t immediately be reached but would be available for comment upon his return. According to Brown, plans for next year’s Emancipation Day event won’t begin until after the Council returns from its summer recess in September.
Ron Hill, an official associated with the RCA Inspiration recording label who serves as Franklin’s manager in Grapevine, Texas, a Dallas suburb, didn’t return calls seeking an interview with Franklin.
Wayne Besen, founder and leader of Truth Wins Out, a national LGBT organization that monitors efforts by religious groups to help gays change their sexual orientation to heterosexuality through a process known as “conversion therapy,” said many of the advocates of that debunked process have changed their rhetoric and public statements in recent years.
Besen said on the heels of overwhelming scientific evidence that conversion therapy doesn’t work and is harmful to people who undergo such treatment, many of the groups promoting the treatment have dropped their previous harsh rhetoric condemning homosexuality as being evil and calling gay people sinners condemned to hell.
“What we have from people like Kirk Franklin and others is an exercise in double- speak and dishonesty,” Besen said. “But their message is the same – gay people are inferior and we should punish them. As we’re enacting punitive laws and conferring second-class citizenship on them we’re going to sugarcoat it and tell them that we love them.”
Rev. MacArthur Flournoy, director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Faith Partnership Mobilization program, said he, too, supports Franklin’s right to his own views on the subject of homosexuality.
Similar to Fowlkes, Flournoy said he also is concerned that city funds were used to finance Franklin’s appearance.
“To bring someone to an event that symbolizes freedom and the removal of oppression and celebrating freedom and it’s paid for with taxpayer dollars who’s going to espouse a perspective that is oppressive – that’s problematic,” Flournoy told the Blade.
“I think it would help us to get Kirk Franklin, sit him down and have a conversation with him, hear his perspective, hear what his thinking is and simply share what we know to be true,” said Flournoy.
“But at the end of the day, we simply don’t support the use of taxpayer dollars to bring in someone who clearly espouses a perspective that is detrimental to folks and their mental and spiritual health,” he said.
Rev. Cathy Alexander, minister for congregational connections at D.C.’s Metropolitan Community Church, which reaches out to the LGBT community, said she would urge Orange’s office to consider inviting a representative of the LGBT community to help in the selection process for future performers or speakers at the Emancipation Day event.
“My personal statement would be I would certainly hope there would be a conversation around who may be coming on the city’s behalf for an official function recognizing especially emancipation,” she said.
“In my view, we’re honoring the past, the present, and the future of emancipation, Alexander said. “And freedom comes in all forms.”
Joseph Kitchen, a 26-year-old Baptist minister and Prince George’s County Democratic Party activist who’s gay, said he has met Franklin several times at religious functions.
Kitchen, who campaigned for Maryland’s marriage equality law in last year’s referendum election, called on LGBT activists to be cautious about overreacting to situations similar to that surrounding Franklin’s performance at D.C.’s Emancipation Day celebration.
“If Kirk Franklin was a bigot, if he was someone who has espoused hateful feelings toward homosexuals or who had opposed their rights and fairness and equality before the law, then I think that would be different,” he said. “But he has not ever done that.”
Added Kitchen, “He was asked a theological question in a biblical setting and he answered it in the way in which he has been taught. And I think some people just need to understand that.”
Rehoboth Beach
Officials raise troubling concerns about Rehoboth mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode
Homophobic emails, ‘aggressive’ behavior cited: ‘It just seems to be getting worse’
As Rehoboth Beach voters prepare to elect a new mayor on Aug. 8, some city officials and local residents are raising new concerns about the behavior of City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode.
In addition to a history of troubling emails in which she has used homophobic language and criticized the city’s rainbow crosswalks, Goode is being accused of inappropriate behavior by a neighbor and a fellow Commissioner related to a dispute on the Nextdoor online platform.
The Blade spoke to City Manager Taylour Tedder, Commissioner Chris Galanty, and others about Goode’s behavior during her time as commissioner.
Goode was elected commissioner in August 2024. Fellow commissioner Susan Stewart, who is also running for mayor, criticized Goode’s behavior in a March 9, 2026 meeting, bringing up emails outlining Goode’s offensive conduct toward city staff.
In one email, Goode wrote to Rehoboth Beach City Solicitor Lisa Borin Ogden: “I am sorry that I learned from Google when you were first interviewed [in the] spring [of] 2025 that you are Jewish. My opinion of my fellow Jews declined significantly thanks to you since last summer. Actually would have thought you would have more compassion than the average person, based on your late brother. Except you don’t. I am sick of your haughty attitude toward me.”
In other emails, Goode questions why city officials encouraged CAMP Rehoboth and Clear Space Theatre to apply for grant funds. She has denigrated both institutions, referring to CAMP as a “questionable non-profit” and Clear Space as “second rate” with a “woke, drag queen bent” at times. She accuses Rehoboth’s LGBTQ community of displaying “their sex lives in public view” and fears physical violence from LGBTQ activists.
Goode disputed the claims and called for the city to remove Stewart’s remarks from the website.
The following statements were included in the emails sent by Goode:
• “Gays and theatre aficionados can donate as much as they like to these pet causes. Some taxpayers think the theatre is second-rate as community theatres go, and many dislike the RB emphasis on LGBTQ when heterosexuals don’t demand equivalent display of their sex lives in public view.”
• “Just because the LGBTQ community feels oppressed and discriminated against, that doesn’t mean that those who identify as LGBTQ are better able to recognize racial discrimination than someone like myself. It might surprise some of you to learn that I briefly dated an African American fellow college student.”
• “A performing arts and LGBTQ agenda isn’t appropriate for BOC spending when the city faces over $60M in debt.”
• “But there are some folks in town, who ironically have to remain in the closet (conservatives now have to do what gays had to do in the 20th century — ah, the irony) who object to the woke, drag queen bent of Clear Space at times. They have confided this in me, and thanked me for fighting for their tax dollars. Maybe I will regret speaking up, as some LGBTQ activist will attack me physically, even though I am a complete supporter of gay rights, and have as many gay male friends as female friends now that I live in RB with a large gay population.”
In the emails, Goode also referred to City Manager Tedder as “the mayor’s whore.”
Stewart told the Blade that the troubling behavior has since escalated.
Commissioner Chris Galanty spoke to the Blade about Goode’s behavior as commissioner and her issues with the rainbow crosswalks in town.
“Suzanne told me on two separate occasions that she didn’t like the rainbow crosswalks, and she said that she didn’t understand why they had to exist, and she didn’t understand why gay people had to advertise their sexuality, and she said straight people don’t have to do that.”
Galanty said that when he challenged her on this, she “moved very quickly to another topic.” He said that she has now shifted her perspective and is more concerned that the rainbow crosswalks are an issue of labor costs.
Goode told the Blade that, “Unfortunately, the rainbow crosswalks have potentially reduced the upkeep of the conventional crosswalks. But the rainbow crosswalks are attractive in and of themselves, and they do add to our recognition of Rehoboth’s longstanding status as a gay-friendly town.”
Accusations of “aggressive” behavior by Goode aren’t limited to emails. Last summer, Goode came to the home of Diana Jones, a property owner in Rehoboth Beach who is a neighbor of Galanty’s. Jones spoke to the Blade to share her experience with Goode.
Jones is active on Nextdoor, an online social network for neighborhoods. She said that she got involved on the platform during the time of the commissioners election last summer, in which her neighbor, Chris Galanty, was elected as commissioner.
Jones said that she made posts supporting Galanty. She said that someone posted a link of a lawsuit that involved Goode’s husband, Jeffrey Goode, who lost his race for commissioner last summer. Jones said that she reposted the link after it was taken down.
Jones said that the lawsuit was “very relevant to somebody who is running for city commissioner.”
Jones said that Suzanne Goode showed up at her house as a result of the post. Jones was out walking her dog nearby so Goode briefly spoke with Jones’s husband who was home.
“She came over to my house because she was saying I was doxing him,” said Jones. Jones said that Goode then found her as she was walking her dog and tried to talk to her about her Nextdoor posts, saying that she “brought up a very painful time in her life.”
Jones said that she has not had any communication with Goode since.
When asked for comment on the situation with Jones, Goode responded by saying “Diana Jones’s behavior toward me was despicable, and the way she has chosen to give her side of the story to news media says more about her than it will ever say about me.”
Galanty told the Blade that Goode came to his house in late June of this year when he was not home. She then called him about Jones.
“She relayed to me that she was having a disagreement with my neighbor on the Nextdoor platform, and she asked me to intercede with the neighbor,” said Galanty. “She said, ‘Please speak to her because I am frustrated with what she is saying. She needs to stop, and you need to say something to her.'”
Galanty said that Goode called him four times and texted him 32 times in the span of three and a half hours the next day.
Galanty said that he responded the next day, telling her that her behavior was inappropriate.
“Eventually it took a couple of weeks, but she apologized in her own way. She just said we just need to let it go.”
From his perspective as commissioner, Galanty said, “She likes to re-litigate things that have happened, six months ago, nine months ago. She likes to rehash issues that are in the past.”
“She can be really aggressive, and people are just really turned off by her,” said Galanty.
Tedder, who has accused Goode of creating a “hostile work environment,” told the Blade about his experiences working with Goode.
“She does not support the staff, and constantly tells us to resign,” said Tedder.
Tedder said that Goode texted City Solicitor Ogden at 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday, telling her to resign.
“Sometimes she does have good ideas. It’s just it gets so lost in these pages and pages of emails and thousands of emails that she sends,” said Tedder.
In regards to Goode’s behavior, Tedder said it has been going on since the beginning. “It just seems to be getting worse.”
Maryland
Advocates for trans students urge Md. to fight White House threats
Four school districts under federal investigation
By JESSICA CALEFATI | Allies of transgender children are urging state education officials to fight back against the Trump-Vance administration, which has threatened to punish a growing number of Maryland school districts over local policies that affirm students’ gender identities.
The advocates testified Tuesday morning before the Maryland State Board of Education — one day after the U.S. Education and Justice departments alleged that Anne Arundel County’s school system violated federal student privacy law by withholding a student’s gender identity from their parents. A spokesperson for the district said Monday legal counsel had not yet reviewed the claims and that the district had no further comment.
School districts in Prince George’s, Montgomery, and Frederick Counties were already under investigation for allegedly violating Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination. The federal government last month threatened to revoke funding from the districts because they allow trans students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their identities.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
White House threatens Anne Arundel schools over gender identity policy
District faces possible legal action or loss of federal funding
By JESSICA CALEFATI | The Trump-Vance administration on Monday threatened to punish Anne Arundel County’s school system with legal action or the loss of federal funding for allegedly withholding information about a student’s gender identity and transition from the child’s parents.
The U.S. Education and Justice Departments together determined that the suburban Maryland district treats students’ gender identities as confidential medical information that cannot be shared with parents, in violation of federal student privacy law, according to a news release. A federal lawsuit filed against the district earlier this month made similar claims.
“As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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