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
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.
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).
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.
“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.
“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.”
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.”
District of Columbia
D.C. police investigating anti-gay assault at 14th & U McDonald’s
In separate incident, gay man found unconscious near Florida Avenue bar
D.C. police are investigating an incident in which a group of as many as 15 men and women allegedly assaulted a gay man while some of them called him a “faggot” at around 1 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27, at the McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Streets, N.W., according to a police report and the victim’s husband.
The report, which lists the incident as a suspected hate crime, says the victim, Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, was taken to Howard University Hospital for treatment. A police spokesperson said he was released from the hospital the next day.
A GoFundMe page posted by Stuart West, Lascarro’s husband, who said Lascarro goes by his middle name Thomas, states, “Medical bills, therapy costs, and ongoing recovery needs will continue to increase and any help to ensure he gets the care he needs to regain his health and peace of mind will be a blessing.”
The GoFundMe message adds, “Thomas was attacked by a mob who used hateful, derogatory language targeting his identity as a gay man. This horrific hate crime left him hospitalized overnight, facing serious physical injuries and emotional trauma.”
In response to an inquiry from the Blade about the 14th and U Street incident, a D.C. police spokesperson disclosed that a man whose friends identify him as gay was found unconscious on the ground suffering from a head injury about 5 a.m. also on Sunday, Oct. 27, at the intersection of 5th and T Streets, N.W. just off Florida Avenue near the gay bar Uproar.
A police report lists the case as a robbery but doesn’t say how the injuries he suffered to his head happened. And like the case of the gay man attacked at the McDonald’s, friends of the man found unconscious posted a GoFundMe page identifying the man.
“Bryan Smith (aka the barber) recently suffered immense trauma to his head and will be hospitalized for the foreseeable future,” it says. “Bryan is a dear friend and a pillar in the D.C. queer and nightlife communities,” the GoFundMe appeal says. “Any amount of donations would be greatly appreciated to go towards the upcoming expenses he will incur.”
One of the friends who posted the GoFundMe told the Washington Blade they would have no further comment at this time. However, D.C.’s Fox 5 News reports members of Smith’s family said he remains in a coma, with D.C. police saying they have video footage of two possible suspects who reportedly took Smith’s phone and wallet containing credit cards.
Although people who knew Smith said he had worked for many years as a hairstylist, the Fox 5 News report says he had recently been serving as a DJ. It points out that police are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the perpetrators responsible for Smith’s robbery and assault.
West, the husband of Lascarro, when contacted by the Blade, said Lascarro, 22, had been at the nearby gay bars Crush and Bunker, and he stopped at the McDonald’s on his way home. West said the assault began inside the McDonald’s, which was crowded with customers. He said the police report correctly states that Lascarro told police the incident began when one of the attackers, a woman, criticized him for not saying “excuse me” when he walked past her.
“He ignored her, and he walked away,” West told the Blade, adding that the woman then called him a faggot and her friends, who were mostly men, blocked the exit door at the McDonald’s, preventing Lascarro from leaving and demanded that he apologize to the woman.
“And when he said he was not going to apologize and he raised his hand to try and move the door to get out, that’s when more than 10 individuals started to assault him,” West said. “And so, they started punching him all over his face and body, and it eventually moved to outside the McDonald’s on the D.C. sidewalk, where more people got involved and started hitting him and assaulting him.”
At one point when Lascarro was sitting on the ground, “bloodied, dazed, and confused, they decided to throw drinks and trash at him,” West said. He said when two people walking by asked him if he needed help, Lascarro was able to dial 911 on his phone, and an ambulance arrived minutes later, which took him to the hospital.
“They performed a full CT scan and thankfully there were no critical injuries discovered,” West said. “So, the only injuries are bruises and scrapes and cuts and a very sore jaw,” he said, adding that the head injuries have caused his husband to suffer migraine headaches.
West said he later visited the McDonald’s and asked two supervisors if they would release to him a copy of the video surveillance camera images from their security cameras from the night of the attack. He said the two declined his request but said they were cooperating with the police investigation.
D.C. police officials have said investigators routinely obtain video camera footage from businesses or from city security cameras along public spaces such as parks or streets when investigating crimes.
Police have said anyone with information that could lead to the identification of the perpetrators involved in the crimes targeting Lascarro and Smith should contact police at 202-727-9096.
The GoFundMe pages for the two men are here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-thomass-recovery-from-hate-crime
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-bryan-smiths-medical-recovery
Polls indicate Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is comfortably ahead of former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted between Oct. 17-22 found Alsobrooks ahead of Hogan by a 52-40 percent margin. Alsobrooks, a Democrat, was ahead of her Republican rival by a 48-39 percent margin in a poll the University of Maryland Baltimore County conducted between Sept. 23-28.
Alsobrooks during an interview with the Washington Blade before she defeated Congressman David Trone in the May 14 primary said she supports the Equality Act. Alsobrooks also highlighted her support for Maryland’s marriage equality law that voters upheld in a 2012 referendum.
Hogan in 2018 signed a bill that banned so-called conversion therapy in Maryland. He criticized Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law during a 2023 interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”
A bill that created the Commission on LGBTQ Affairs in the Governor’s Community Initiatives Office took effect in 2021 without Hogan’s signature. Hogan also did not sign a bill that banned the so-called LGBTQ panic defense in Maryland.
Hogan marched in this year’s Annapolis Pride parade.
Campaign spokesperson Blake Kernan on Wednesday referred the Blade to the campaign’s final ad it released earlier in the day.
“I’m not just another Republican,” says Hogan. “I’ll make your life more affordable, and support a woman’s right to choose.”
Kernan defended Hogan’s record on LGBTQ rights in an article the Blade published on Aug. 7. Kernan in a May 22 statement criticized Alsobrooks over her comments about Hogan’s abortion rights record.
The Alsobrooks campaign on Tuesday told the Blade it is “ready to defend our Democratic Senate Majority, protect our freedoms, and fight for our families.”
“Angela continues to travel across the state and can feel the enthusiasm and energy from all voters — from young people concerned about the cost of living, women concerned about access to reproductive freedoms, seniors concerned about the cost of prescription drugs, and all Marylanders who want a future where their families can thrive,” said the campaign in a statement. “Angela is in this fight for every one of them, for every Marylander.”
Democrat April McClain Delaney is running against former Maryland state Del. Neil Parrott (R-Washington County) in the race to succeed Trone in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.
A Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies poll conducted between Aug. 24-31 found Parrott ahead of Delaney by a 41-39 percent margin. A Public Opinion Strategies poll conducted between Aug. 6-11 found Delaney ahead of Parrott by a 42-40 percent margin.
Delaney, a former Commerce Department official who is married to former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, in her campaign ads has noted Parrott in 2005 said people who test positive for HIV should be tattooed. Parrott in 2014 led an unsuccessful effort to prompt a referendum on Maryland’s transgender rights law that then-Gov. Martin O’Malley signed.
In Virginia, state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Loudoun County) is running against Republican Mike Clancy in the state’s 10th Congressional District. The winner will succeed Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton, who announced last September she would not seek re-election after doctors diagnosed her with an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease.
“When I think about who will best continue my legacy and deliver real results for us in Congress, I can think of no one better than state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam,” said Wexton in an Oct. 16 press release in which she and former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) endorsed Subramanyam’s campaign.
Democrat Eugene Vindman is running against Republican Derrick Anderson for outgoing Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger’s seat in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
Spanberger is running for governor in 2025.
In Delaware, state Sen. Sarah McBride is poised to become the first transgender person elected to Congress. Democratic Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester is also likely to become the first Black person to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate.
“There’s no one better to represent us in Washington, D.C., and in the United States Senate than Lisa Blunt Rochester,” said President Joe Biden in a recent endorsement.
District of Columbia
46 known LGBTQ candidates running for D.C. ANC seats
32 running unopposed on ballot, 22 are incumbents
At least 46 known LGBTQ candidates are running for seats on the city’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in the Nov. 5 D.C. election, with a half dozen or more LGBTQ candidates running in each of the city’s wards except for Ward 3, where just two known LGBTQ candidates are running.
Among the 46 known LGBTQ candidates, 22 are incumbent ANC commissioners seeking re-election to another four-year term. The ANC Rainbow Caucus, which consists of LGBTQ ANC members, shows on its website it currently has 27 incumbent commissioners, most of whom are running for re-election.
That appears to indicate the percentage of LGBTQ ANC members seeking to run for re-election is greater than the percentage of the overall number of ANC members running for another term. According to reports by the Washington Post and other media outlets, many ANC members have chosen not to run for re-election this year, based in part on the stress that goes with the job
Under the D.C. Home Rule Charter, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners serve as unpaid elected officials charged with making recommendations to the city government on a wide range of neighborhood issues, including the approval of liquor licenses for bars and restaurants and zoning regulations. City officials are required to give “great weight” to the ANC recommendations, but government officials are not required to accept the recommendations.
The official list of ANC candidates on the D.C. election ballot released by the D.C. Board of Elections shows that 51 of the 345 ANC Single Member Districts, or SMDs, do not have a candidate running on the Nov. 5 election ballot. The Board of Elections has released a separate list of registered write-in candidates that includes several ANC candidates.
The Board of Elections list shows there are a far larger number of ANC single member districts in which a single candidate is running unopposed. Among the 46 LGBTQ ANC candidates, 32 have no opponent on the election ballot.
Gay ANC commissioner Vincent Slatt, who represents the Dupont Circle ANC district 2B03, and who serves as chair of the ANC Rainbow Caucus, said ANC members face a considerable amount of stress.
“ANCs are volunteer, uncompensated positions that we do in addition to our day jobs,” Slatt told the Washington Blade. “There is an extremely high turnover rate due to the lack of support we receive from the executive agencies, and the perception of our neighbors that we provide constituent services that our Council members provide,” he said.
Slatt added that residents sometimes lack full understanding of the role of ANC members, which “has created a large amount of turnover, and the problem is getting worse.”
The Blade obtained its list of known LGBTQ ANC candidates in part from the ANC Rainbow Caucus, which compiled its own list of LGBTQ candidates, and from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the national group that supports LGBTQ candidates for elective office, which released a list of 13 Victory Fund “approved” ANC candidates. The Blade obtained a few additional names of LGBTQ ANC candidates not on the Rainbow Caucus or Victory Fund lists from people who knew the candidates.
Also, among the known LGBTQ ANC candidates, in just two single member districts, two LGBTQ candidates are running against each other. One is in district 1B03 in the Columbia Heights neighborhood in which J. Swiderski is challenging incumbent Jamie S. Sycamore.
The other is in district 2G01 in the Shaw neighborhood in which Howard Garrett, the recently elected president of the Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s LGBTQ Democratic group, is running against community activist Parker Griffin. The two are competing for an ANC seat in which the incumbent is not running for re-election.
Similar to past election years, the largest number of known LGBTQ ANC candidates are running this year in districts in Ward 2, including the Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, and Shaw neighborhoods. However, more LGBTQ candidates this year are running in Wards 4, 5, and 8 than in past years.
Gay former ANC commissioner Kent Boese, who until 2022 had represented the Ward 1 SMD in the Park View neighborhood, continues in his current role as director of the D.C. Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, to which he was appointed in October 2022. Among his duties is to oversee fiscal and administrative operations of ANCs across the city.
Following is a list of the LGBTQ ANC candidates and the single member districts and neighborhoods in which they are running.
1A04 – (Columbia Heights)
Jeremy Sherman, he/him
1A07 – (Columbia Heights)
Mukta Ghorpadey, she/her
1A10 – (Columbia Heights)
Billy Easley, he/him
1B03 – (Columbia Heights/U Street)
J. Swiderski, they/he
Jamie S. Sycamore, he/him
1B06 – (Columbia Heights/Meridian Hill)
Miguel Trindade Deramo, he/him
1B07 – (U Street)
Matthew Holden, he/him
1D01 – (Mount Pleasant)
Jay Falk, she/her
1E01 – (Park View)
Brad Howard, he/him
1E07 – (Howard University/Pleasant Plains)
Brian Footer, he/him
2A05 – (Foggy Bottom)
Luke Chadwick, he/him
2B02 – (Dupont Circle)
Jeffrey Rueckgauer, he/him
2B03 – (Dupont Circle)
Vincent Slatt, he/him
2B09 – (Dupont Circle/U Street)
Christopher Davis, he/him
2C01 – (Penn Quarter)
Michael D. Shankle, he/him
2F05 – (Logan Circle)
Christopher Dyer, he/him
2F06 – (Logan Circle)
John Fanning, he/him
2F07 – (Logan Circle)
Kevin Cataldo, he/him
2G01 – (Shaw)
Parker Griffin, he/him
Howard Garrett, he/him
2G02 – (Shaw)
Alexander ‘Alex’ Padro, he/him
2G04 – (Shaw)
Steven McCarty, he/him
3B06 – (Wesley Heights)
S. Robert Rodriquez, he/him
3F05 – (Van Ness/Cleveland Park)
Adrian Jesus Iglesias, he/him
4B01 – (Takoma)
Doug Payton, he/him
4B10 – (Lamond Riggs)
Jinin Berry, she/her
4C06 – (Petworth)
Christen Boss Hayes, they/them
4E02 – (16th Street Heights)
Vince Micone, he/him
5B02 – (Brookland)
Nandini Sen, she/her
5B04 – (Brookland)
Ra Amin, he/him
5B05 – (Brookland)
Mónica Martínez López, she/her
5D05 – (Trinidad)
Salvador Sauceda-Guzman, he/him
5D06 – (Trinidad/Carver)
Charquinta (Char) McCray, she/her
5E05 – (Bloomingdale)
Tyler Lopez, he/him
5F06 – (Eckington)
Joe Bishop-Henchman, he/him
6B03 – (Capitol Hill)
David Sobelsohn, he/him
6B09 – (Capitol Hill/Barney Circle)
Karen Hughes, she/her
7B05 – (Hillcrest)
Elizabeth Reddick, she/them
7C01 – (Deanwood)
Brian Glover, he/him
7C03 – (Lincoln Heights)
Carlos Richardson, he/him
7C08 – (Capitol View)
Brandon M. Scott, he/him
7E06 – (Benning Ridge)
Ravi K. Perry, he/him
8A01 – (Fairlawn)
Tom Donohue, he, him
8B05 – (Garfield Heights)
Marcus Thomas Hickman, he/him
8C08 – (Douglass)
Elizabeth Carter, she/her
8F04 – (Navy Yard)
Edward Daniels
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