Local
Washington Post publishes pro-Russia supplement
Oct. 9 insert lacked references to LGBT rights record
The Washington Post on October 9 ran a paid supplement from a Kremlin-backed Russian newspaper.
The Washington Post’s Oct. 9 print edition included a paid supplement produced by a Kremlin-backed newspaper that lacked any references to the ongoing controversy over Russia’s LGBT rights record.
Rossiyskaya Gazetá produced the insert – Russia Beyond the Headlines – that contained, among other things, an op-ed from Jeffrey Mankoff of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C. He cited portions of the speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered during a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, a Russian think tank, that took place last month.
“Discussing his own view of Russian identity, Putin criticized the West for abandoning its Christian roots and ‘placing on the same level families with many children and single-sex partnerships, belief in God and belief in Satan,’” Putin said, according to Mankoff. “This cultural relativity, according to Putin, is ‘a direct path to degradation and primitivization, to a deep demographic and ethical crisis.’”
The Oct. 9 supplement is not the first time the Washington Post has published a Russia-specific insert.
The newspaper first published a Russia-themed supplement – Russia Now – in 2007.
Russia Beyond the Headlines said in a press release last month it decided earlier this year to redesign and revamp the supplement. It reappeared under the aforementioned name in the Washington Post’s Sept. 11 issue with a lead story that focused on the controversy surrounding the Russian law that bans gay propaganda to minors.
The article quoted Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group, an organization that monitors human rights in Russia, as describing the statute that Putin signed in June as “a step toward the Middle Ages.” The Sept. 11 supplement reported Kirill Kobrin of Radio Free Europe’s Russia Service said he feels “it was unthinkable to even discuss these issues 20 years ago in Russia.”
“Under the Kremlin’s lead, LGBT rights are the focus of public attention and debate in Russia – albeit censored debate,” the Russia Beyond the Headlines article reads.
The New York Times on Sept. 18 published an eight-page Russia Beyond the Headlines supplement that contained articles about the gay propaganda law and coming out in the country. Putin reiterated his opposition to air strikes in Syria in an op-ed that ran in the newspaper less than a week earlier.
Ketchum PR, a public relations firm that represents Putin, placed it in the New York Times. Pro Publica reported the New York-based company received more than $1.9 million in fees and expense reimbursements from the Russian government from December 2012 through May.
The New York Times included another Russia supplement in its Oct. 16 print edition that contained an article on the arrest of 30 Greenpeace members last month who tried to board a Russian oil platform. The insert also contained a reference to the LGBT advocates who protested Russia’s gay rights record during the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night gala in New York last month.
Washington Post spokesperson Jennifer Lee declined to tell the Washington Blade how much the Russia Beyond the Headlines insert cost, but she confirmed it was a paid supplement and the advertiser provided the content. It contained a disclosure on the front page that said “it did not involve the news or editorial departments of the Washington Post.”
The top margin of each subsequent page contained a disclosure that stated the insert was “a paid supplement to the Washington Post.”
Observers and even journalists themselves have questioned the way Russian media outlets have covered the gay propaganda law, Russia’s LGBT rights record and the controversy surrounding it.
Gay American journalist Jamie Kirchick on Aug. 21 challenged Russia’s LGBT rights record during an interview with the Kremlin-backed television network RT on the sentencing of former U.S. Army private Chelsea Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.
“Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network I’m going to wear my gay pride suspenders and I’m going to speak out against the horrific anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law, that passed unanimously by the Russian Duma that criminalizes homosexual propaganda,” Kirchick told anchor Yulia Shapovalova. “It effectively makes it illegal to talk about homosexuality in public. We’ve seen a spate of violent attacks on gay people in Russia.”
RT aired a segment on calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in response to the country’s LGBT rights record less than two weeks before Kirchick appeared on the network to discuss Manning. The journalist further criticized Shapovalova and her colleagues before RT took him off the air.
Anton Krasovsky, the former editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin Kontr TV, said the television station fired him in January after he came out as gay during a segment on the gay propaganda law.
The Washington Post in recent weeks has published a number of stories on the controversy over Russia’s LGBT rights record and how it threatens to overshadow the Sochi games. These include a Sept. 26 article on the International Olympic Committee’s position that it has no authority to challenge the gay propaganda law and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals’ response to a question about it during the lighting of the Olympic torch in Greece late last month.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, who bought the Washington Post in August and contributed $2.5 million to a group that backed a successful 2012 ballot measure that secured marriage rights for same-sex couples in Washington State, did not return the Blade’s request for comment.
Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, a media ethics watchdog, told the Blade that paid supplements and advertorials have become common in newspapers. She noted the Washington Post’s use of different fonts throughout the Russia Beyond the Headlines supplement is “common practice” and “is amazingly effective at cueing regular readers to advertising content.”
“Combined with the disclosures, it looks to me the [Washington Post] is within the standard practice of the industry,” McBride said.
District of Columbia
D.C. gay bar Uproar issues GoFundMe appeal
Message says business struggling to pay rent, utilities
The D.C. gay bar Uproar located in the city’s Shaw neighborhood at 639 Florida Ave., N.W., has issued a GoFundMe appeal seeking financial support as it struggles to pay rent and utilities.
The GoFundMe appeal, which was posted by Uproar’s owner Tammy Truong, says its goal is to raise $100,000. As of Dec. 10, the posting says $4,995 had been raised.
“For over nine years Uproar has been an integral part of the D.C. LGBTQIA+ community,” the GoFundMe message says. “It has been a place of refuge for many people and has been a space where people have been allowed to express themselves freely.”
The message adds, “We have recently faced unexpected challenges and are asking for help from the community that we’ve given so much to. We want to be able to continue to pay and support our staff and our community. All donations will be used to pay for these unexpected costs and will be used to improve the space for staff and patrons.”
On its website, Uproar provides further details of the unexpected costs it says it is now faced with.
“Due to significant increases in insurance costs for 2025, we’ve had to deplete our reserves from our summer sales,” the website message says. “As a result, we are now struggling to cover rent and utility costs through the winter.”
The message adds, “Our top priority is to ensure that our amazing staff, who are the heart and soul of Uproar, are fully supported. We are committed to keeping them fully employed and scheduled during this difficult time so they can continue to provide for themselves and their families.”
Uproar, which caters to a clientele of the city’s leather and bear communities, has faced challenges in the past when the local D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission voted to oppose the routine renewal of its liquor license.
In November 2019, ANC 1B voted unanimously to oppose the license renewal of Uproar and 22 other liquor serving establishments in the U Street-Florida Avenue area on grounds that they have a negative impact on “peace, order, and quiet” in the surrounding neighborhoods. The city’s liquor board nevertheless approved the license renewals for Uproar and most of the other establishments.
Local nightlife advocates criticized the ANC’s action, saying it was based on an anti-business and anti-nightlife bias that requires bars such as Uproar to expend large sums of money on retaining lawyers to help them overcome the license opposition.
The Uproar GoFundMe page can be accessed here:
District of Columbia
Mayor, police chief highlight ‘significant’ drop in D.C. crime
Officials cite arrests in two LGBTQ-related cases
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser joined District Police Chief Pamela Smith and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah in crediting a series of stepped-up crime fighting and crime reduction programs put in place over the past year with bringing about a 35 percent reduction in violent crime in the city over the past year.
Bowser, Smith, and Appiah highlighted what they called a significant drop in overall crime in the nation’s capital at a Dec. 9 news conference held at the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department headquarters’ Joint Operations Command Center.
Among other things, the city officials presented slides on a large video screen showing that in addition to the 35 percent drop in overall violent crime during the past year, the number of carjackings dropped by 48 percent, homicides declined by 29 percent, robberies declined by 39 percent, and assaults with a dangerous weapon also dropped by 29 percent.
“I want to start by thanking MPD and I want to thank all of our public safety teams, local and federal, and the agencies that support their work,” Bowser said in noting that the improved crime data this year was due to a combined effort in adopting several new programs to fight crime.
Bowser also thanked D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) who introduced legislation backed by the mayor and approved by the Council in March of this year called the Secure D.C. bill, which includes a wide range of new crime fighting and crime prevention initiatives.
In response to a question from the Washington Blade, Chief Smith said she believes the stepped-up crime fighting efforts played some role in D.C. police making arrests in two recent cases involving D.C. gay men who were victims of a crime of violence.
In one of the cases, 22-year-old Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, a gay man, was attacked and beaten on Oct. 27 of this year by as many as 15 men and women at the D.C. McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Street, N.W., with some of them shouting anti-gay slurs. D.C. police, who listed the incident as a suspected hate crime, arrested a 16-year-old male in connection with the case on a charge of Assault with Significant Bodily Injury.
The other case involved a robbery and assault that same day of gay DJ and hairstylist Bryan Smith, 41, who died 11 days later on Nov. 7 from head injuries that police have yet to link to the robbery. Police have since arrested two teenage boys, ages 14 and 16, who have been charged with robbery.
Smith said the police department’s Special Liaison Branch, which includes the LGBT Liaison Unit, will continue to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community.
“And so, I think that what we will do is what we have been doing, which is really making sure that the reports are coming in or the incident reports are coming in and we’re ensuring that the Special Liaison Branch is getting out to the communities to ensure that those types of hate crimes are not increasing across our city,” she said.
Smith added, “We will continue to work with the community, work with our members, our LGBTQ, our other groups and organizations to ensure that we are getting the right information out and making sure that people, when they see something, they say something to share that information with us.”
Data posted on the D.C. police website show from Jan. 1-Oct. 31, 2024, a total of 132 hate crimes were reported in the District. Among those, 22 were based on the victim’s sexual orientation, and 18 were based on the victim’s gender identity or expression.
During that same period, 47 hate crimes based on the victim’s ethnicity or national origin were reported, 33 were reported based on the victim’s race, and six were based on the victim’s religion.
The data show that for the same period in 2023, 36 sexual orientation related hate crimes were reported, and 13 gender identity or expression cases were reported.
District of Columbia
Dupont’s Soho Coffee and Tea closes
Neighborhood institution holds fond memories for many older gay residents
Beloved Dupont Circle Soho Coffee and Tea has closed unexpectedly.
During the early evening of Nov. 25, Soho Coffee and Tea employees began taking down artwork and menus of the establishment. Within 12 hours, everything from the rolling counters to the patio furniture had disappeared. Today, only the yellow walls remain.
On May 30, 2018, Eduard Badalyan received his new business license: Group Soho and closed on the sale of Soho Tea and Coffee at 2150 P St., N.W., in Dupont Circle. Eduard’s sister Liana Badalyan became the manager. Conveniently, they lived in the neighborhood.
Eduard Badalyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia and earned his master’s in Public Administration. Liana had experience in the service industry. She was front office manager for the Remington Hotel Marriot in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, Calif.
So the stage was set for a great neighborhood coffee and tea shop.
Owner Edward and manager Liana transformed it into a clean and organized establishment. But business gradually fell off and the rent continued to rise so Edward closed Soho unexpectedly.
For many older gay residents, the closing brought back fond memories when Soho Coffee and Tea was the gay hub of West Dupont Circle. At that time, 22nd and P Streets, N.W., aka West Dupont Circle, was D.C.’s gayborhood. Across the street from Soho was a section of Rock Creek Park known as P Street Beach, a large grassy area perfect for sunbathing. For many years starting in 1972, this was home for the unofficial Gay Pride celebration. In fact, for many years the Gay Pride Parade kicked off at 22nd and P streets.
Adjacent to the so-called P Street Beach was the Black Forest, a popular cruising area occasionally raided by the National Park Police. They chopped down many bushes and trees so their cruisers could drive directly onto P Street Beach.
Entrepreneurs and lesbians Helene Bloom and Fran Levine opened Soho in 1994. At that time, this was the center of many gay bars including the dance bar Badlands (1984-2002 which then became Apex) on 22nd Street; Fraternity House, which became Omega, was located down the Twining Alley (closed 2013); Friends Piano Bar on P Street then became gay Latino bar Escandalo; and finally Deco Cabana, as well as P Street Station (rebranded as The Fireplace) and Mr. P’s. Each night when the bars closed, the patrons would flood to Soho for eggs, bacon, and coffee.
Helene and Fran had envisioned a New York City-style eclectic restaurant hangout. It became a spot for book clubs, art shows, political meetings and wine parties.
Longtime Dupont Circle residents and Soho customers Gordon Binder and Michael Rawson lamented the loss of Soho.
“Soho was around the corner from where we live, we’ve been going to Soho several times a week since it opened in the ‘90s, 30 years enjoying the atmosphere, the patrons, the friendly albeit ever changing staff, the chicken salad sandwich, and so much more,” Binder said. “Sad news indeed. We will surely miss this neighborhood hangout.”
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