Local
Gray under fire from McClurkin, D.C. ministers
City to pay ‘ex-gay’ singer $10,000 for cancelled appearance
Mayor Vincent Gray withdrew an invitation for Donnie McClurkin to perform at last weekend’s festivities. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Controversial gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who has said God delivered him from the “sin” of homosexuality, has accused D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray of violating his civil rights by requesting that he withdraw as a performer at a concert last Saturday at the Martin Luther King Memorial.
Gray spokesperson Doxie McCoy released a statement to the Blade on the day before the concert saying the mayor directed the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to ask McClurkin to withdraw on grounds that his appearance would be a “distraction at an event about peace, love and justice for all.”
The mayor’s directive came one day after gay activist and longtime civil rights advocate Phil Pannell said McClurkin’s past inflammatory statements comparing gays to drug dealers and prostitutes were “vile” and were at odds with King’s call for ending discrimination and injustice.
The Commission on the Arts and Humanities, a city agency, organized the concert as the kick-off for a series of events over the next two weeks to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 civil rights March on Washington at which King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
McCoy said the mayor’s office had not been aware that the commission invited McClurkin to perform at the concert, which was entitled “Reflections on Peace: From Gandhi to King.”
In a video released several hours before the 8 p.m. concert was scheduled to begin on Aug. 10, McClurkin said the mayor’s office and the Commission on the Arts and Humanities incorrectly claimed he and the city came to a mutual agreement that he withdraw as a performer.
“Last night on the way to the airport we received a phone call from the promoters who received word from the mayor’s office…that I was not welcome and uninvited the night before the concert,” McClurkin said on his video, which was posted on YouTube.
“It’s bullying,” he said. “It’s discrimination. It’s intolerance. It’s depriving someone of his civil rights when told he cannot come to an event and by coming it would cause a disruption.”
In an Aug. 11 press release, a spokesperson for the Baptist Convention of the District of Columbia and Vicinity said “pastors from throughout the city contacted the mayor’s office to insist” that McClurkin, himself a minister, be included in the concert as planned. The release says Gray ignored the request.
“Mayor Gray has systematically and deliberately done everything possible to strike at the fabric of the faith community – at least the sector of us who opposed his views,” Rev. Patrick J. Walker, president of the Baptist group, stated in the release. “This, however, is an atrocity and cannot be tolerated.”
Walker was among the leaders of the opposition to D.C.’s same-sex marriage law at the time the proposed measure came before the City Council in 2009.
The Washington Post reported Monday night that mayoral spokesperson Rob Marus said the city still plans to pay McClurkin $10,000 he is owed under a performance contract drawn up at the time the Commission invited him to take part in the event.
LGBT advocates in D.C. and in other parts of the country, upon learning of McClurkin’s latest comments criticizing the mayor’s decision to seek his withdrawal from the King Memorial concert, defended Gray’s action, saying McClurkin’s record as a leader of the “ex-gay” movement made him a divisive figure.
“If Donnie McClurkin was a white supremacist who called African Americans ‘vampires,’ ‘sissies’ and ‘evil’ people, then compared our existence to diabetes, he would never have been invited to perform on any stage in the District,” said gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Anthony Lorenzo Green of Ward 8. Green was referring to words that McClurkin used to describe gay people in past public appearances.
“All I ask is we end the double standard,” Green said in a Facebook posting Monday night. “The days of the great Bayard Rustin are no longer here. There is no more delegating my gay brothas and sistas to the back room to shut their mouths for the good of the cause. We are all part of the cause!” he said.
Journalist and commentator Rod McCullom, who writes about issues affecting the black LGBT community on his blog Rod 2.0: Beta Gay News, disputed in a blog posting Monday night McClurkin’s claim that he was a victim of discrimination and bullying when Mayor Gray took steps to cancel his performance at the King Memorial.
“McClurkin is correct about one thing,” McCullom wrote. “This is about ‘bullying’ and ‘intolerance’…except he is not on the side of ‘love, unity, peace and tolerance.’ McClurkin has become the poster child for the church-based homophobia and intolerance that is harassing, bullying and making life horrible for millions of black gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender youth in the church.”
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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