Local
March on Washington speakers – gay and straight – call for LGBT equality
Martin Luther King III, NAACP head, U.S. Attorney General mention gays in speeches
The Lincoln Memorial, site of the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. originally gave his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Five gay and lesbian speakers were among those who took the podium on Saturday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
At least a dozen civil rights leaders and public officials speaking at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington joined five gay and lesbian speakers in embracing LGBT equality.
Martin Luther King III, one of the lead organizers of the 50th Anniversary March on Washington; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous; and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights President Wade Henderson were among those expressing the theme that LGBT rights are part of the boarder civil rights movement.
HRC Associate Director of Field Outreach Donna Payne was one of the LGBT speakers at the March on Washington. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
With tens of thousands of people assembled before her on the Lincoln Memorial steps and the National Mall, lesbian activist Donna Payne expanded on that theme.
“In times like this today I stand proudly with you as an African American lesbian representing the Human Rights Campaign,” Payne told the gathering. “I am proud because the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community and the African American community are working together toward justice for all.”
Payne added, “There have been many attempts to tell you that we can’t get along because we are so different. Don’t believe that hype. I come from a mother and father that sat at the tables at Woolworth stores fighting for freedom from Jim Crow laws.”
Payne, HRC Associate Director of Field Outreach, was referring to black civil rights activists who staged sit-in protests in the early 1960s at segregated restaurants and other businesses in the South that restricted blacks to “colored only” areas.
“The majority in my family are lifetime members of the NAACP,” she said. “This commitment doesn’t stop because I’m a lesbian. I am part of the fabric that weaves our destiny together,” she said. “Freedom is not about one civil rights group but it’s about all of our civil rights for everyone.”
A second rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday, Aug. 28, in connection with the 50th Anniversary March on Washington events, was scheduled to include speeches by Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. Also scheduled to speak was lesbian activist Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
HRC director of Faith Partnership and Mobilization Rev. MacArthur Flournoy (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Rev. MacArthur Flournoy, HRC director of Faith Partnership and Mobilization, told the Lincoln Memorial rally that LGBT people are also part of the faith-based arm of the civil rights movement.
“Today I stand up as a black gay man ordained in the church in love with God filled with faith,” he said. “So we at the Human Rights Campaign – we join our faith with your faith. We look for an end to discrimination in all its forms. No more religious bigotry. No more racist bigotry. No more violence bigotry.”
Sharon Lettman-Hicks, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, an LGBT rights organization, and Payne of HRC were added as speakers at Saturday’s Lincoln Memorial event after the initial list of speakers had been released.
Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition Sharon Lettman-Hicks (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“Every day I educate, advocate, and celebrate the contributions of the black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community because if any of my brothers and sisters are not equal and free none of us are truly equal and free,” said Lettman-Hicks, a straight, longtime advocate for LGBT rights.
Lettman-Hicks was among a number of the rally speakers who talked about Bayard Rustin, a gay man who served as one of the lead organizers of the 1963 March on Washington and one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s top advisors.
“Rustin was a radical visionary, a black gay activist for freedom and justice during a time when the conditions of both of these identities were perilous,” she said. “Rustin was as unapologetically black as he was gay and by his very presence challenged the evils of homophobia and racism throughout his life.”
Adrian Shanker, president of the statewide LGBT rights group Equality Pennsylvania, identified himself as a “gay Pennsylvanian reflecting on the historic march 50 years ago, a march organized by another gay Pennsylvanian named Bayard Rustin.”
Shanker said he was proud to speak at an event with distinguished civil rights leaders “who paved the paths that allow us to stand here today more equal than yesterday, but with so much farther to go before the dream Dr. King shared will be realized.”
He noted that in Pennsylvania LGBT people can still be fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In his home state the governor recently signed a voter ID law “intended to suppress our votes,” and LGBT youth face school bullying “every day,” he said.
Adrian Shanker, president of Equality Pennsylvania (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“In Pennsylvania my legal marriage to my husband Brandon is not recognized by my government,” said Shanker, who called on states and the U.S. Congress to pass laws to eliminate the remaining discriminatory practices faced by LGBT people across the country.
Two out lesbians and LGBT rights advocates that spoke at the Lincoln Memorial rally – Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; and Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), stressed the importance of organized labor in the U.S. civil rights movement.
“Dr. King’s oration 50 years ago helped us create a better world, although we do not yet have the world that Dr. King dreamed of,” Weingarten said. “So this must not be a commemoration. This must be a continuation of that righteous fight to achieve racial and economic opportunity at the voting booth, in our schools, in our workplaces and in our communities.”
She added, “Fifty years ago another gay person, Bayard Rustin, had to be in the shadows. But today, I speak as a teacher, a worker, a labor activist and a gay person deeply committed to my faith…This is who we must be, not only a country that believes in equality but a country that acts on that belief. So let’s take a lesson from King. Let’s unite…”
Henry didn’t specifically mention LGBT rights but called for the broad civil rights and economic opportunities that she said were the hallmark of Martin Luther King Jr.’s advocacy work.
“As we rededicate ourselves to the goals of the 1963 marchers imagined 50 years ago we stand for freedom,” she said. We stand for jobs. We stand for equality. And the visionaries of this march proclaimed that we were going to fight the twin evils of racism and economic inequality.”
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Holder, like many of the non-LGBT speakers, noted that LGBT people and other minorities have become a part of the mainline civil rights movement since the time of the 1963 march.
“As we gather today, 50 years later, their march – now our march – goes on,” Holder told the rally at the Lincoln Memorial. “And our focus has broadened to include the cause of women, Latinos, of Asian Americans, of lesbians, of gays, of people with disabilities, and of countless others across the country who still yearn for equality, opportunity, and fair treatment.”
Martin Luther King III said the civil rights movement has become stronger as it has become broader and more diverse, with the diversity reflected in different minorities and different faiths.
“Yes, we all need to love each other, black and white, old and young, red and brown, gay and straight, Christian, Muslim and Jew and all of God’s children loving one another,” he told the rally.
Jealous of the NAACP gave a fiery speech challenging opponents of various civil rights efforts in the country, including opponents of immigration rights and marriage equality.
“When they say no, you can’t have the Dream Act, no you can’t have marriage equality, no you can’t abolish the death penalty, no you can’t expand voting rights in any state south of the Mason-Dixon, we say – yes we can!” shouted Jealous to loud applause and cheers from the crowd.
Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate, also sounded the theme of LGBT equality being part of the broader civil rights movement.
“We must stand until we live in a nation where it doesn’t matter who you love and we don’t have second class citizenship for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters,” he said.
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) was a student in his early 20s when he joined Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights icons in non-violent civil disobedience protests in the 1960s. He’s the last living speaker from the 1963 March on Washington.
In his remarks at Saturday’s 50th Anniversary March at the Lincoln Memorial, Lewis expressed support for LGBT equality, just as he has during his years as a congressman.
“It doesn’t matter if we are straight or gay,” he said. “We are all one people.”
National March on Washington (Washington Blade photo by Jon Wooten)
District of Columbia
‘Sandwich guy’ not guilty in assault case
Sean Charles Dunn faced misdemeanor charge
A jury with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, Nov. 6, found D.C. resident Sean Charles Dunn not guilty of assault for tossing a hero sandwich into the chest of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent at the intersection of 14th and U streets, N.W. at around 11 p.m. on Aug. 10.
Dunn’s attorneys hailed the verdict as a gesture of support for Dunn’s contention that his action, which was captured on video that went viral on social media, was an exercise of his First Amendment right to protest the federal border agent’s participating in President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal troops on D.C. streets.
Friends of Dunn have said that shortly before the sandwich tossing incident took place Dunn had been at the nearby gay nightclub Bunker, which was hosting a Latin dance party called Tropicoqueta. Sabrina Shroff, one of three attorneys representing Dunn at the trial, said during the trial after Dunn left the nightclub he went to the submarine sandwich shop on 14th Street at the corner of U Street, where he saw the border patrol agent and other law enforcement officers standing in front of the shop.
Shroff and others who know Dunn have said he was fearful that the border agent outside the sub shop and immigrant agents might raid the Bunker Latin night event. Bunker’s entrance is on U Street just around the corner from the sub shop where the federal agents were standing.
“I am so happy that justice prevails in spite of everything happening,“ Dunn told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict while joined by his attorneys. “And that night I believed that I was protecting the rights of immigrants,” he said.
“And let us not forget that the great seal of the United States says, E Pluribus Unum,” he continued. “That means from many, one. Every life matters no matter where you came from, no matter how you got here, no matter how you identify, you have the right to live a life that is free.”
The verdict followed a two-day trial with testimony by just two witnesses, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Gregory Lairmore, who identified Dunn as the person who threw the sandwich at his chest, and Metro Transit Police Detective Daina Henry, who told the jury she witnessed Dunn toss the sandwich at Lairmore while shouting obscenities.
Shroff told the jury Dunn was exercising his First Amendment right to protest and that the tossing of the sandwich at Lairmore, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, did not constitute an assault under the federal assault law to which Dunn was charged, among other things, because the federal agent was not injured.
Prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. initially attempted to obtain a grand jury indictment of Dunn on a felony assault charge. But the grand jury refused to hand down an indictment on that charge, court records show. Prosecutors then filed a criminal complaint against Dunn on the misdemeanor charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers of the United States.
“Dunn stood within inches of Victim 1,” the criminal complaint states, “pointing his finger in Victim 1’s face, and yelled, Fuck you! You fucking fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”
The complaint continues by stating, “An Instagram video recorded by an observer captured the incident. The video depicts Dunn screaming at V-1 within inches of his face for several seconds before winding his arm back and forcefully throwing a sub-style sandwich at V-1.
Prosecutors repeatedly played the video of the incident for the jurors on video screens in the courtroom.
Dunn, who chose not to testify at his trial, and his attorneys have not disputed the obvious evidence that Dunn threw the sandwich that hit Lairmore in the chest. Lead defense attorney Shroff and co-defense attorneys Julia Gatto and Nicholas Silverman argued that Dunn’s action did not constitute an assault under the legal definition of common law assault in the federal assault statute.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael DiLorenzo, the lead prosecutor in the case, strongly disputed that claim, citing various provisions in the law and appeals court rulings that he claimed upheld his and the government’s contention that an “assault” can take place even if a victim is not injured as well as if there was no physical contact between the victim and an alleged assailant, only a threat of physical contact and injury.
The dispute over the intricacies of the assault law and whether Dunn’s action reached the level of an assault under the law dominated the two-day trial, with U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols, who presided over the trial, weighing in with his own interpretation of the assault statute. Among other things, he said it would be up to the jury to decide whether or not Dunn committed an assault.
Court observers have said in cases like this, a jury could have issued a so-called “nullification” verdict in which they acquit a defendant even though they believe he or she committed the offense in question because they believe the charge is unjust. The other possibility, observers say, is the jury believed the defense was right in claiming a law was not violated.
DiLorenzo and his two co-prosecutors in the case declined to comment in response to requests by reporters following the verdict.
“We really want to thank the jury for having sent back an affirmation that his sentiment is not just tolerated but it is legal, it is welcome,” defense attorney Shroff said in referring to Dunn’s actions. “And we thank them very much for that verdict,” she said.
Dunn thanked his attorneys for providing what he called excellent representation “and for offering all of their services pro bono,” meaning free of charge.
Dunn, an Air Force veteran who later worked as an international affairs specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice, was fired from that job by DOJ officials after his arrest for the sandwich tossing incident.
“I would like to thank family and friends and strangers for all of their support, whether it was emotional, or spiritual, or artistic, or financial,” he told the gathering outside the courthouse. “To the people that opened their hearts and homes to me, I am eternally grateful.”
“As always, we accept a jury’s verdict; that is the system within which we function,” CNN quoted U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro as saying after the verdict in the Dunn case. “However, law enforcement should never be subjected to assault, no matter how ‘minor,’” Pirro told CNN in a statement.
“Even children know when they are angry, they are not allowed to throw objects at one another,” CNN quoted her as saying.
Maryland
Democrats hold leads in almost every race of Annapolis municipal election
Jared Littmann ahead in mayor’s race.
By CODY BOTELER | The Democratic candidates in the Annapolis election held early leads in the races for mayor and nearly every city council seat, according to unofficial results released on election night.
Jared Littmann, a former alderman and the owner of K&B Ace Hardware, did not go so far as to declare victory in his race to be the next mayor of Annapolis, but said he’s optimistic that the mail-in ballots to be counted later this week will support his lead.
Littmannn said November and December will “fly by” as he plans to meet with the city department heads and chiefs to “pepper them with questions.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Democrats on Tuesday increased their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.
The Associated Press notes the party now has 61 seats in the chamber. Democrats before Election Day had a 51-48 majority in the House.
All six openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual candidates — state Dels. Rozia Henson (D-Prince William County), Laura Jane Cohen (D-Fairfax County), Joshua Cole (D-Fredericksburg), Marcia Price (D-Newport News), Adele McClure (D-Arlington County), and Mark Sickles (D-Fairfax County) — won re-election.
Lindsey Dougherty, a bisexual Democrat, defeated state Del. Carrie Coyner (R-Chesterfield County) in House District 75 that includes portions of Chesterfield and Prince George Counties. (Attorney General-elect Jay Jones in 2022 texted Coyner about a scenario in which he shot former House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican.)
Other notable election results include Democrat John McAuliff defeating state Del. Geary Higgins (R-Loudoun County) in House District 30. Former state Del. Elizabeth Guzmán beat state Del. Ian Lovejoy (R-Prince William County) in House District 22.
Democrats increased their majority in the House on the same night they won all three statewide offices: governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.
Narissa Rahaman is the executive director of Equality Virginia Advocates, the advocacy branch of Equality Virginia, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, last week noted the election results will determine the future of LGBTQ rights, reproductive freedom, and voting rights in the state.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
The General Assembly earlier this year approved a resolution that seeks to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment that defines marriage in the state constitution as between a man and a woman. The resolution must pass in two successive legislatures before it can go to the ballot.
Shreya Jyotishi contributed to this article.
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