Local
Latino GLBT History Project to hold 7th annual Pride
Event comes amid allegations groups not invited to take part
One of last year’s Latino Pride events at Town Danceboutique (Washington Blade file photo by Blake Bergen)
The ongoing immigration debate will provide the backdrop for the seventh annual D.C. Latino Pride that will take place at various locations throughout the city from May 30-June 6.
Unid@s Director Lisbeth Melendez-Rivera will moderate a panel co-organized by the Latino GLBT History Project and the D.C. Latino Pride Advisory Committee on how the issue impacts LGBT Latinos. James Ferg-Cadima of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Dilicia Molina of La Clínica del Pueblo are among those who will take part in the event on Thursday at the Human Rights Campaign.
Marco Antonio Quiroga, an undocumented gay immigrant who works for Immigration Equality, and Valerie Villalta, a trans advocate who received asylum in the U.S. in 2009 after she fled from her native El Salvador to D.C., will also discuss the issue.
The panel will take place nine days after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a comprehensive immigration reform bill that did not include amendments that would have allowed gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born partners for residency and permitted married same-sex couples to apply for marriage-based green cards.
“Not only were our LGBT families painfully left behind, but politicians used my family as an excuse for discrimination,” Quiroga wrote in a May 24 post to Immigration Equality’s website. “When politicians and pundits talk about the Latino community and the gay community as separate communities, they exclude me. They exclude my family. This false separation hurts our communities.”
Members of the Latino GLBT History Project were among the tens of thousands of people who rallied for comprehensive immigration reform outside the U.S. Capitol last month. The group also worked with CASA de Maryland and Equality Maryland last year on a campaign designed to garner additional support for Maryland’s same-sex marriage law and in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.
Both ballot measures passed during last November’s referendum.
“As an LGBT Latino group, immigration reform is very important to us,” David Pérez, president of the Latino GLBT History Project, told the Washington Blade.
In addition to the immigration panel, D.C. Latino Pride will also hold a bilingual Mass at Metropolitan Community Church in Northwest Washington on June 2 from 6 – 8 p.m. Joe El Especialista of El Zol 107.9 will deejay a party at Town on June 6 that Candy Citron from the Spanish-language radio station’s Pedro Biaggi en la Mañana program will emcee.
Founded by José Gutierrez in 2000, the Latino GLBT History Project has staged its annual D.C. Latino Pride for seven years. It also celebrated its eighth annual Hispanic LGBT Heritage Awards in 2012.
This year’s D.C. Latino Pride will also take place against the backdrop of a series of LGBT-specific advances that have taken place in countries throughout Latin America over the last several months.
Brazil’s National Council of Justice on May 14 ruled registrars cannot deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Gays and lesbians in neighboring Uruguay can begin to tie the knot in August. The Colombian Senate last month overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples, but they can begin to register their relationships on June 20 if lawmakers fail to act upon a 2011 ruling from the South American country’s highest court that mandated them to pass legislation within two years that extends the same benefits heterosexuals receive through marriage to same-sex couples.
The Mexican Supreme Court in February released its decision that found a Oaxacan law that bans same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Justices with the same tribunal a few weeks later announced a ruling that found anti-gay slurs are not protected speech under Mexico’s constitution.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in May 2012 signed a law that allows people who have not undergone sex-reassignment surgery to legally change their gender without a doctor or judge’s approval.
“Pride is a really exciting time of the year where we can all celebrate our culture, our identity,” Pérez said. “There are definitely many reasons to celebrate LGBT equality and great activities and legislation that’s passing throughout Latin America as well as to renew our commitment to continue to fight for LGBT equality for equal treatment under the law for all Latinos here in the United States and in many of our members’ home countries throughout Latin America.”
Groups to hold alternate Latino Pride
Eleven groups, including Casa Ruby, the D.C. Center and other LGBT rights organizations, on Tuesday announced they plan to hold an alternate Latino Pride celebration that will take place at various locations throughout the metropolitan area from June 4-9.
Pérez disputed Casa Ruby CEO Ruby Corado’s claims that the Latino GLBT History Project left her group and others out of this year’s Pride celebrations.
“Casa Ruby was invited to be part of the advisory committee, but decided not to participate,” he said.
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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