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Long lines, frayed tempers for couples seeking to wed

D.C. courthouse staff overwhelmed as DOMA ruling triggers boom in marriage applications

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David Kero-Mentz, Ken Kero-Mentz, gay marriage, same-sex marriage, marriage equality, District of Columbia, gay news, Washington Blade
David Kero-Mentz, Ken Kero-Mentz, gay marriage, same-sex marriage, marriage equality, District of Columbia, gay news, Washington Blade

David Kero-Mentz and his new husband Ken Kero-Mentz waited two hours for their marriage license to be processed in July. Despite the delay, the couple praised D.C. courthouse staff on the rush of gay marriage license applications following the death of DOMA. (Photo courtesy of the couple)

The number of people applying for a marriage license in D.C. each month has nearly tripled since the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling on June 26 overturning the Defense of Marriage Act’s provision barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

The D.C. Superior Court’s Marriage Bureau doesn’t keep track of the gender or sexual orientation of the couples applying for a marriage license. But court observers say gay and lesbian couples make up the overwhelming majority of the additional couples going to the Marriage Bureau on most days at the courthouse at 500 Indiana Ave., N.W.

“We were sitting there and there were so many same-sex couples,” said veteran lesbian activist and businesswoman Eva Freund in describing the scene in the waiting room at the Marriage Bureau last week as she and her partner of 21 years, Elke Martin, waited to be called to file their application for a marriage license.

The two women, who live in Vienna, Va., are among the large number of same-sex couples from states that don’t recognize gay marriage that are now getting married in D.C., which doesn’t have a residency requirement for obtaining a marriage license.

“We just kind of overwhelmed the place,” Freund told the Blade. “And then they called a name and it was a heterosexual couple. And Elke and I looked at one another and said, ‘What are they doing here?’ And then we said, ‘Oh yeah, they need papers, too.”

According to courthouse observers, Freund’s humorous anecdote may be the exception to the disposition of many of the couples – both gay and straight – who become irritable after waiting two hours or longer while the Marriage Bureau staff struggles to process the seeming explosion of applications since late June.

Ken Kero-Mentz, a U.S. Foreign Service officer, and his new husband, David Kero-Mentz, a German national, described their experience with the D.C. Superior Court’s Marriage Bureau as favorable, even though the two waited close to two hours in early July to have their license application processed. The couple also had to wait about eight weeks for an appointment to be married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse, a service the court began providing long before same-sex marriage became legal in D.C.

“Everyone was so nice to us,” said David Kero-Mentz, who is applying for U.S. permanent residency status now that the longstanding prohibition of immigration rights for gay bi-national couples ended with the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA.

Ken Kero-Mentz said he and David, while thrilled to be legally married, didn’t view their D.C. ceremony as that big a deal because they were joined as a couple in an official “registered life partner” ceremony in Berlin in 2008, with 95 friends and family members in attendance. Under German law, registered life partners have all the rights and benefits of a marriage, including immigration rights for foreign national partners.

The D.C. Superior Court has processed same-sex couple applications for marriage licenses since March of 2010, when the city’s marriage equality law took effect.

Court spokesperson Leah Gurowitz said that prior to the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision in late June, the court received on average between 300 and 400 license applications a month. But in July the number of couples applying for a license jumped to 977 and in August the number of couples applying totaled 908 – more than double the average, Gurowitz told the Blade.

“The D.C. Superior Court is committed to addressing the needs of those seeking our services as promptly as possible,” she said in a statement. “In order to meet the increased demand, additional staff have been detailed to the Marriage Bureau.”

Gurowitz added, “In addition, we are working to locate additional office space to help handle the number of applicants we are currently seeing each day, as well as evaluating work processes to improve our customer service.”

Gay rights attorneys have said they expected more same-sex couples to marry following the Supreme Court ruling, which cleared the way for married same-sex couples to obtain most if not all of the federal rights and benefits of marriage.

The Obama administration’s aggressive effort to quickly implement the DOMA ruling by directing federal agencies, including all the branches of the military, to provide marital benefits to same-sex spouses of federal workers, civilian and active duty military, has also boosted the number of lesbian and gay couples deciding to tie the knot, experts have said.

D.C. gay activist Christopher Dyer, who last year obtained a license to perform marriages as a court-approved officiant, said the number of same-sex couples seeking him out to perform their marriage has doubled since the Supreme Court decision.

“I’m getting more military people than ever before,” he said. “Many of them are from Virginia.”

Local gay rights attorney Michele Zavos, who practices family law in the D.C. metro area, said she and other attorneys familiar with the marriage laws of D.C. and Maryland are advising out-of-state clients to choose D.C. over Maryland as the preferred place to marry.

Although same-sex marriage became legal in Maryland earlier this year, Zavos points out that unlike D.C., Maryland has a residency requirement for couples seeking to get a divorce. This means that if a same-sex couple from Virginia or other states that don’t recognize gay marriage decide to marry in Maryland, they could not obtain a divorce in Maryland unless they become a Maryland resident for a year, Zavos said.

She noted that they couldn’t obtain a divorce in their home state if that state doesn’t recognize their marriage, especially if the state has a law or constitutional amendment specifically banning same-sex nuptials as Virginia does.

“Nobody wants to hear this, of course,” Zavos said. “They’re about to be married. They don’t want you to be talking to them about getting divorced.”

Nevertheless, Zavos said many same-sex couples knowledgeable about the residency rules for divorce are choosing D.C. and Delaware, which also allows out-of-state couples to file for a divorce without a residency requirement.

Among those encountering the brunt of the delays at the D.C. Superior Court’s Marriage Bureau are the private marriage officiants who, among other things, file marriage license applications at the courthouse for their same-sex couple clients.

Deborah Cummings-Thomas and her wife, lesbian activist Sheila Alexander-Reid, co-owners of Marry Me In D.C., Inc., specialize in marrying same-sex couples and taking care of the couples’ marriage-related paperwork.

“It’s a nightmare down there right now,” Cummings-Thomas said. “It often takes two hours, sometimes longer” to file a marriage license application, she said. “I’ve been there when people waiting have gotten very upset.”
She said 95 percent of the couples she marries are from jurisdictions outside D.C. and at least 95 percent or more of her clients arrange for her to go to the courthouse to deal with the application.

“The employees are very nice,” said Rev. Starlene Joyner Burns, another D.C. marriage officiant who reaches out to same-sex couples. “But they realize the office needs more help. It’s not a system that is broken. It’s just that the demand is greater than what it was in the past.”

One marriage officiant criticized Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, claiming she should be doing more to secure funds to hire staff at D.C.’s marriage bureau.(Washington Blade file photo by Jeff Surprenant)

One marriage officiant criticized Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, claiming she should be doing more to secure funds to hire staff at D.C.’s marriage bureau.(Washington Blade file photo by Jeff Surprenant)

Another marriage officiant, who spoke on condition of not being identified, criticized D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton for not pushing for more funds from Congress to hire additional staff at the courthouse to handle the greater demand for marriage licenses.

Congress and various federal agencies control the D.C. court system rather than the city government under the city’s limited home rule charter. Norton spokesperson Daniel Van Hoogstraten said he would look into the matter.

Others familiar with the Marriage Bureau noted that the D.C. City Council could help the situation by changing the wording in the city’s marriage law that requires a three-day waiting period between the time a marriage license application is submitted and the time a marriage can take place. Marriage laws in most other states have a similar waiting period but those states, like Maryland, issue the license during the applicants’ first visit to the state marriage bureau and post-date it to prevent the marriage from taking place until after the waiting period expires.

Critics of the D.C. Marriage Bureau say it requires applicants or officiants working on their behalf to return to the bureau a second time to pick up the license following the waiting period, a process that causes further delays.

But according to people familiar with the D.C. marriage law, the law prevents the Marriage Bureau from postdating a marriage license because it states explicitly that a license “shall not be issued until three days have elapsed” from the time the application is filed.

“They have two people handling 50 or 60 people at any given time,” said the marriage officiant who asked not to be identified. “They told me please do what you can to get out the word and help us get more staff.”

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Virginia

Defying trends, new LGBTQ center opens in rural Winchester, Va.

‘It has taught me that I am not alone in this place’

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Members of the community gather for the opening of the LGBTQ center in downtown Winchester, Va. on June 30. Holding the scissors from left, R.I.S.E. Center co-directors Matt Buracker and Mary Bohacek with ARE Executive Director Katy Vance. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A new LGBTQ community center celebrated its grand opening on June 30 in Winchester, Va., defying recent trends amid a federal crackdown on DEI and LGBTQ funding.

The local HIV/AIDS service organization AIDS Response Effort, Inc. (ARE) worked with a team of volunteers to open the area’s first physical center.  

ARE’s R.I.S.E. (Resources, Inclusion, Support and Empowerment) Center, located near the heart of Old Town Winchester on West Piccadilly Street, is more than a renovated bank building to the local LGBTQ community. The empty teller window on the side of the structure and converted vault inside give away the building’s past. But the volunteers, program participants, and well-wishers gathered at the ribbon-cutting ceremony tell the Blade that they are hopeful for a thriving future for the building — and the community.

The Washington Blade spoke with the executive director of ARE as well as the co-directors of ARE’s R.I.S.E. Center during a tour of the facility ahead of the opening.

Mary Bohacek, Katy Vance and Matt Buracker stand among donated clothes at the R.I.S.E. Center in Winchester, Va. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Katy Vance, executive director of ARE told the Blade, “I started [at ARE] about five years ago and we were an AIDS service organization, we have been for about 35 years now. We started as a group of volunteers out at the hospital —with Valley Health, and we’ve grown into a program that provides HIV case management for folks living with HIV in the community.”

Vance explained that as community needs have changed for service organizations like ARE, it has led to some soul-searching among advocates.

“We had this big meeting about, ‘who are we?,’ ‘who do we want to be?,’ ‘who do we want to be in a few years?,’” Vance recalls. “As things shift and change with HIV … we have a lot of folks that come into our office who are newly diagnosed. They will get connected to a medical case manager, they’ll get on medication, and they are undetectable within one to two months, which means they are untransmittable, which is amazing.” 

“So, science and technology has come so far,” Vance continued. “And so, who are we when this tends to go in the direction of no longer being the major epidemic it has been for the last 30 years, right?”

“But, when I came in, we also had a general housing program for anyone in the community,” Vance said. “That was confusing for a lot of people who came into our doors trying to figure out who we were and what we are. We called it, our ‘identity crisis,’ essentially.”

“Are we an HIV service organization? Are we a housing program?” Vance asked. “So we worked with our local Goodwill and the board got together and we decided to transition our housing program out and we realized we wanted to open an LGBTQ center.”

“We have had a little bit of pushback as to why an HIV agency is opening a center,” ARE’s R.I.S.E. Center Co-Director Matt Buracker said. “Obviously, HIV and LGBT identities have a long history and a lot of stigma, but we felt like it was kind of irresponsible to talk about one without talking about the other. And we’ve always been supporting the LGBT community, so we’re just expanding our services to encompass more.”

The center seeks to serve the LGBTQ community in a county that Donald Trump carried with more than 63% of the vote in the 2024 election. While ARE receives local, state and federal grants for its operations, the LGBTQ center is currently funded by community donations and a founders’ campaign and is staffed with volunteers.

Vance tells the Blade that the Center met its initial fundraising goal of $50,000 very quickly. The building housing the center was renovated with a combination of grants, donations and volunteer work.

The new LGBTQ center in Winchester, Va. includes spaces for group activities and socializing. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“I think our fundraising goals now are going to be more programmatic so that we can do the things that we want to do,” R.I.S.E. Center Co-Director Mary Bohacek said. “Because Matt and I are great at finding things to do for free. But there are other things that people are asking us to do, craft events or things that aren’t free to do. Eventually, we might need a license if we want to do movie screenings. So there is always going to be a fundraising need to fund the programming, but the building has been a huge success.”

“The support from the community has been overwhelming,” Buracker told the Blade. “We’ve had such a positive response from the community and it’s just it’s been so emotional to see that the need has been here and we are the one to finally do something about it.”

Vance interjected, “And of course, there are community members that aren’t a fan that are ‘keyboard warriors’ that are coming out saying stuff. What is amazing is: we had an article in the paper and they put it up on their Facebook page and people were making just terrible comments. But then, we got new volunteers from that. The community support has been, like Matt said, amazing and overwhelming.”

ARE’s R.I.S.E. Center is a member of CenterLink, a community of LGBTQ centers. Other LGBTQ community centers in the wider region include the Roanoke Diversity Center in Roanoke, Va, the Shenandoah LGBTQ Center in Staunton, Va., Diversity Richmond in Richmond, Va., NOVA Prism Center in McLean, Va., the DC Center for the LGBT Community in Washington, D.C. and the Frederick Center in Frederick, Md. A new MoCo Pride Center is scheduled to open in Bethesda, Md. in August.

While the physical building opened to the public on June 30, the R.I.S.E. Center in Winchester has held events for more than a year.

“We’ve had programming going on for almost two years now,” Bohacek told the Blade. “Our first event was a ‘Friendsgiving.’ There were so many people that showed up that we literally didn’t have enough space: we needed to knock down walls.”

The staff and volunteers at ARE and the nascent Center used that momentum to foster the growth of affinity groups, community groups and services. 

Affinity groups are described as “not just support groups or social groups, but rather as something of a hybrid between the two.” As Bohacek says about the affinity groups, “if someone needs community or needs a place to talk about queer issues, they have a space to do that.” 

Affinity groups hosted by the Center include a group for trans and gender non-conforming people, a group for the families of trans people, a polyamorous affinity group, an aro-ace group, a “Rainbow Connection” all-purpose group, and a “Gay-RP” affinity group for people 50 and older.

“We also have a young adult group, which is for ages 18-25, which is one of the more vulnerable sections of our community,” Bohacek said. “So we want to make sure that they have places to connect.”

As reported in the Blade, the youth advocacy organizations Hopelab and Born this Way Foundation recently issued a report that suggests LGBTQ youth (ages 15 to 24) living in rural communities face greater challenges than their suburban or urban peers in dealing with their sexual orientation or gender identity, though have significantly benefited from online resources. 

“We also have some community-wide programming that allies are welcome attend,” Bohecek said. Programming includes a monthly game night, a volunteer night for the many Center volunteers, as well as the “stitch and bitch” group, who “sit, crochet, embroider and talk.”

ARE’s R.I.S.E. Center in Winchester, Va. includes a library of LGBTQ-themed books. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“And Coffee and Coloring!” Bohecek exclaims. “That’s one of my favorites. We like to say it’s about — just sit down, relax, have a cup of coffee — but frankly it’s about community building.”

Bohacek proudly lists the many other services the center offers, including a transgender/gender-affirming closet, which is currently overflowing with donations of clothes.

“We also have an amazing library of all kinds of identities and all kinds of ages for people to come and see,” Bohacek told the Blade. “This building is actually an old bank, so we put our books into the vault.”

The old bank, now vibrant community center, was filled to capacity for the official opening ceremony on a hot Monday afternoon in late June. People from across the Shenandoah Valley who had come to the ribbon-cutting event snacked on rainbow-colored cupcakes as they toured the renovated building.

“To be a gay man growing up in a small, rural area . . . we didn’t have anything like this,” Front Royal, Va. resident Ed McKee told the Blade. Though he lives in a town a few miles away, he works at a salon in Winchester and had come to see the new center opening.

“We didn’t have anything like this when I was growing up,” McKee said as he gestured toward the packed LGBTQ community center. “If we had, it would have made my life so much easier. I probably would have come out sooner — I didn’t come out until I was about 30 — because I would have felt the support, you know?”

“Especially now with everything that is going on in our country,” McKee continued. “We need to show strength in numbers: come together. And the center is allowing for that to happen.”

McKee’s husband, Winchester business owner Paul Miller, agreed.

“I’m hoping that [the Center] can be a great way to connect with people who might not otherwise understand how they can come together,” Miller told the Blade. “And I’m hoping that, while I’m not sure that this is its mission, I’m hoping that it has a political effect in Virginia.”

Members of the community who came to witness the opening gathered outside of ARE’s R.I.S.E. center for the ribbon cutting. Speakers at the ceremony included the Center’s co-director Bohacek.

“Today, we’re celebrating the renovation of the building,” Bohacek began. “But, we’re also celebrating the rise of this community.” 

“This community has taught me resilience and it has taught me friendship and it has taught me that I am not alone in this place,” Bohacek told the crowd. “There are people that care. And we are so proud to have a place where we can be ourselves, where anyone and everyone is welcome — and we mean it. So, with that said, let’s keep on rising!”

ARE’s R.I.S.E. Center in Winchester, Va. opened to the public on June 30. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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Maryland

Maryland’s oldest rural gay bar — and one of the last — is a log cabin in the woods

The Lodge is a Boonsboro watering hole resembling a log cabin

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Jimmy Tyner, also known as Nicole James, center wearing blue gown, poses with several drag queens after hosting an annual Christmas celebration at The Lodge in Boonsboro. (Courtesy of Jimmy Tyner)

By SAPNA BANSIL | In the woods of a conservative Western Maryland town of fewer than 4,000 people is an unlikely landmark of state LGBTQ history.

The Lodge, a Boonsboro watering hole that resembles a log cabin, is Maryland’s oldest rural gay bar — one of a few remaining in the country, according to historians.

For about four decades, the Washington County venue has offered safety, escape and community to queer people far from large, liberal cities. Starting Friday night, The Lodge will close out Pride month with one of its biggest parties of the year: a weekend of dancing, drinking and drag in celebration of Frederick Pride, held about 20 miles away in the area’s largest city.

The rest of this article the Baltimore Banner published on June 27 can be read on its website.

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Virginia

Va. court allows conversion therapy despite law banning it

Judge in June 30 ruling cited religious freedom.

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(Image by Mehaniq/Bigstock)

In 2020, the state of Virginia had banned the practice of conversion therapy, but on Monday, a county judge ruled the ban violates the Virginia Constitution and Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing the therapy to start once more.

The conversion therapy ban, which can be seen in Va. Code § 54.1-2409.5 and 18VAC115-20-130.14, was overturned on June 30 as a result of two Christian counselors who argued that their — and all Virginia parents’ — constitutional right to freedom of religion had been encroached upon when the state legislature passed the ban.

A Henrico County Circuit Court judge sided with John and Janet Raymond, two Christian counselors represented by the Founding Freedoms Law Center, a conservative organization founded in 2020 following Virginia’s conversion therapy ban. Virginia’s Office of the Attorney General entered a consent decree with FFLC, saying state officials will not discipline counselors who engage in talk conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy, as the legislation described it, is considered to be “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.” The ban’s reversal will now allow parents to subject their children to these practices to make them align better with their religion.

This decision comes despite advice and concern from many medical and pediatric organizations — including the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the American Counseling Association, to name a few — all of which denounce conversion therapy as dangerous and harmful to those subjected to it.

The American Medical Association, the largest and only national association that convenes more than 190 state and specialty medical societies, says that “these techniques are the assumption that any non-heterosexual, non-cisgender identities are mental disorders, and that sexual orientation and gender identity can and should be changed. This assumption is not based on medical and scientific evidence,” with attached data indicating people subjected to conversion therapy are more likely to develop “significant long-term harm” as a result of the therapy.

The AMA goes as far as to say that they outright “oppose the use of reparative or conversion therapy for sexual orientation or gender identity.”

FFLC has a clear goal of promoting — if not requiring — conservative ideology under the guise of religious freedom in the Virginia General Assembly. On their website, the FFLC argues that some progressive policies passed by the Assembly, like that of freedom from conversion therapy, are a violation of some Virginians’ “God-given foundational freedoms.”

The FFLC has argued that when conservative notions are not abided by in state law — especially when it involves “God’s design for male and female, the nuclear family, and parental rights” — that the law violates Virginians’ religious freedom.

A statement on the FFLC’s website calls gender dysphoria among children a “contagion” and upholds “faith-based insights” from counselors as equal — in the eyes of the law — to those who use medical-based insights. This, once again, is despite overwhelming medical evidence that indicates conversion therapy is harmful.

One study showed that 77 percent of those who received “sexual orientation change efforts,” or conversion therapy, experienced “significant harm.” This harm includes depression, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, and internalized homophobia. In addition, the study found that young LGBTQ adults with high levels of parental or caregiver rejection are “8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide,” with another study finding that “nearly 30 percent of individuals who underwent SOCE reported suicidal attempts.”

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Democrat representing Fairfax, said that the overturning of the ban on religious merit disregards the entire concept of having professionally licensed counselors.

“I have no problem if somebody wants to go look at religious counseling from their priest or their minister, their rabbi, their imam — that’s perfectly fine,” Surovell told the Virginia Mercury. “When somebody goes to get therapy from somebody licensed by the commonwealth of Virginia, there’s a different set of rules applied. You can’t just say whatever you want because you have a license. That’s why we have professional standards, that’s why we have statutes.”

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