Local
Anti-gay groups denounce LGBT Pride, HRC
‘Pro-family’ leaders hold news conference outside HRC building in D.C.
Peter LaBarbera of the anti-gay group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, organized the Pride Week news conference. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Representatives of five organizations that oppose LGBT rights held a news conference on Tuesday outside the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign in D.C. to express opposition to HRC’s advocacy for LGBT equality and the celebration of LGBT Pride.
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“Our bottom line is that homosexuality is nothing to be proud of,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, which organized the news conference.
“In fact, practicing homosexual behavior, a destructive sin, is something to be ashamed of,” LaBarbera said. “Out-and-proud homosexualism – far from being a human right – is actually a human wrong.”
LaBarbera, whose organization is based in Chicago, said he and the other LGBT rights opponents chose to hold their news conference at the HRC building during LGBT Pride Month in June to voice their opposition to what they called a harmful “lifestyle.”
In anticipation of the news conference HRC displayed a large banner from a first-floor window stating, “Welcome Peter.”
Two members of the groups participating in the news conference displayed their own banner behind a podium where the representatives spoke stating, “Homosexuality is nothing to be proud of – but overcoming it is.”
Linda Harvey (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Others speaking at the news conference included Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action, a legal group that opposes same-sex marriage and LGBT rights; Linda Harvey, founder of Mission America, a conservative Christian group; Diane Gramley, president of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania; and Eric Holmberg, identified as a member of the Apologetics Group and producer of a documentary, “Is Gay the New Black? Homosexuality and the Civil Rights Movement.”
Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president for communications, was among several HRC employees who came out to observe the news conference.
“[T]hese are individuals who are out of the mainstream even within anti-equality activists circles,” Sainz said in a statement to the Blade. “Fringe is too polite a term for them.”
He added, “The unfortunate reality is that there are still Americans – a diminishing number every day – who will believe what these folks have to say and will pass on their beliefs in the form of discrimination and maybe even violence.”
Barber, an attorney, accused HRC of being part of a possible conspiracy with IRS officials whom Barber said appear to have illegally leaked a confidential tax filing from the anti-gay National Organization of Marriage (NOM) in March 2012.
The leaked 990 IRS report, among other things, included the names of 50 contributors to NOM’s 2008 campaign in support of California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. Among the contributors on the list was a political action committee formed by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
At the time of the leak, NOM President Brian Brown noted that then HRC President Joe Solmonese was among the ceremonial co-chairs of President Obama’s re-election committee and the IRS leak suggested that high-level Obama administration officials could be behind the leak.
At a hearing last month before the House Ways and Means Committee, Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller testified that the IRS investigated the leaked NOM 990 report and determined a low-level IRS employee inadvertently released the document. Miller said disciplinary action was taken against the employee for not following proper procedures.
Harvey of the Mission America group said at the news conference gay rights leaders were jeopardizing young people with same-sex attractions by pushing for laws that ban therapists and others from performing so called gay conversion therapy on people below the age of 18. Harvey said consenting youth should be allowed to undergo conversation therapy at any age to eliminate same-sex attractions.
“Is homosexuality a human right? No it’s not,” Harvey said. “But the organization in the building behind me thinks it is…The Human Rights Campaign is spreading sweeping lies across America.”
“If the charges being made weren’t so laughable, they’d be sad,” HRC’s Sainz said in his statement.
At various times during the news conference the voices of Harvey and other speakers were drowned out by loud engine noise from large dump trucks lined up in front of the HRC building waiting to haul away debris from a construction site next to the HRC building.
Virginia
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria City Council member becomes 8th LGBTQ member of legislature
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the decisive winner in a Feb. 10 special election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, a Democrat, received 81.5 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Mason Butler, according to the local publication ALX Now.
He first won election to the Alexandria Council in 2021. He will be filling the House of Delegates seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria), who won in another Feb. 10 special election for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria).
Ebbin is resigning from his Senate this week to take a position with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration.
Upon taking his 5th District seat in the House of Delegate, McPike will become the eighth out LGBTQ member of the Virginia General Assembly. Among those he will be joining is Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who became the Virginia Legislature’s first transgender member when she won election to the House of Delegates in 2017 before being elected to the Senate in 2023.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” McPike said in a statement after winning the Democratic nomination for the seat in a special primary held on Jan. 20.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, has served for the past 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He said he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. moderated a panel at Dupont Underground on Feb. 8. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
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