Local
Anti-gay consultant working for Gray campaign
Former NOM official King hired to transport senior citizens to polls
Vincent Gray’s campaign manager says Robert King is ‘not a political adviser’ to the campaign. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
A Ward 5 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner who was paid by an anti-gay group in 2010 to work on the unsuccessful effort to overturn D.C.’s same-sex marriage law in a voter referendum is working for Mayor Vincent Gray’s re-election campaign as a get-out-the-vote consultant aimed at senior citizens.
Chuck Thies, Gray’s campaign manager, said he hired Robert “Bob” King to assist with the effort to transport senior citizens to the polls on the day of the city’s April 1 Democratic primary.
“Bob is not a political adviser to this campaign,” Thies told the Blade. “He has no influence whatsoever on public policy, internal policy, or strategy — nothing — zero,” said Thies.
Instead, King, who has had ties to the city’s senior citizen community for more than 30 years, will organize logistics to transport mostly low-income seniors to the polls by bus on Election Day, Thies said.
King’s role as a paid consultant in 2010 for the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, surfaced last April when he emerged as an early supporter of the mayoral campaign of D.C. Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4). The Bowser campaign at the time listed King as a member of the host committee for the campaign’s kick-off celebration and fundraiser.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday, King said he’s been a longtime friend of the Bowser family and decided to support Bowser for mayor before Gray announced he was running for a second term, believing Bowser was the best candidate at that time.
However, he said the Bowser campaign never responded to a proposal he submitted last spring to do get-out-the vote work targeting senior citizens for her campaign. So after Gray announced his candidacy in December and Gray supporters approached him to organize Gray’s senior citizen outreach effort he decided to join the Gray campaign, King said.
“I looked around and I said the lowering crime rate, the improvement in the schools, the bond ratings – and I thought he had done a great job in advancing Mayor Williams and Mayor Fenty’s blueprint” for the city were factors that prompted him to switch his support to Gray, King said.
The Gray campaign’s Jan. 31 report filed with the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance shows that the campaign paid King $2,500 on Jan. 8 for his services during the campaign’s first reporting period.
King told the Blade last April, at the time he was supporting Bowser, that he has never taken a public position for or against the city’s same-sex marriage law. He said he was retained as a consultant by the National Organization for Marriage to coordinate a campaign to place the marriage law on the ballot in a referendum.
“My position was to give the people the right to vote on the issue,” he said. “My personal view is not the issue. The issue was democracy and whether the people should be given the right to vote.”
Rick Rosendall, president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, said at the time that King and others who clearly opposed marriage equality for same-sex couples have sought to “hide behind the ‘let the people vote mantra’ in their efforts to kill same-sex marriage laws in D.C. and elsewhere.
“The fact is that no other people’s rights are put to a plebiscite,” Rosendall said.
Thies noted that Gray is a strong supporter of marriage equality and LGBT rights and has taken heat from clergy members and many residents – including black senior citizens – for his outspoken advocacy for gay marriage.
“And so when it comes to Mayor Gray’s position on same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues, I don’t think anyone can question his commitment and his dedication to equal rights,” Thies said.
According to Thies, King told him he now accepts the city’s marriage equality law as the “law of the land.”
“I talked to him before I hired him,” said Thies. “I said Bob, I have a problem with this and you need to address this. And he said that’s the past. I accept the law and that is the status quo now.”
King reiterated that on Tuesday, saying he’s interested in meeting with representatives of the LGBT community to open the door to working together on future projects. He said he’s also doing senior citizen outreach on behalf of the re-election campaigns of D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) and Council member Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5).
“They are marriage equality supporters and I am working with them,” he said.
Thies said King’s efforts to arrange transportation for senior citizens to the polls will be open to everyone regardless of who they are supporting for mayor.
“We will hire buses and bring them to the senior centers and anyone can board them, including someone wearing a sticker that belongs to one of our opponents,” he said.
Maryland’s legislative caucuses outlined their legislative priorities heading into the final weeks of the 2026 General Assembly during a joint press conference on March 24.
The press conference was titled “We are Maryland,” where a representative for each of the legislative caucuses outlined priorities.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Frederick County) of the LGBTQ+ Caucus opened the press conference with a statement on the unity of Maryland’s caucus.
“Together we can show our state and our community a different world, one where we mutually support one another and through that support uplift every Marylander,” he said.
In a press conference on March 5, the LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined its top legislative priorities. Fair highlighted two of those bills again during the “We are Maryland” press conference.
The first of the two highlighted pieces of legislation was Senate Bill 626 and House Bill 1589.
The bills would simplify the process of updating an individual’s birth certificate and align the Department of Health and DMV systems to reflect those changes. The bill is being led by state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and state Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County).
The second piece of legislation is Senate Bill 950 and House Bill 1209, which would update and modernize laws and regulations around so-called conversion therapy. The bills have failed to pass either chamber thus far. They are being led by state Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) and state Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County).
(The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a Colorado law that bans so-called conversion therapy for minors. Maryland is among the U.S. jurisdictions that prohibit the widely discredited practice for anyone under 18.)
Martinez and Lam have introduced bills in their respective chambers that would expand PrEP access in Maryland. Martinez did not attend the press conference, and Fair did not mention it when he spoke.
State Del. N. Scott Phillips (D-Baltimore County) represented the Black Caucus during the press conference. State Del. Dana Jones (D-Anne Arundel County) spoke on behalf of the Women’s Caucus, State Del. Teresa Woorman (D-Montgomery County) represented the Latino Caucus, and State Del. Lily Qi (D-Montgomery County) represented the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Caucus. State Del. Jared Solomon (D-Montgomery County) represented the Jewish Caucus, and state Del. Sean Stinnett (D-Baltimore County) represented the Muslim Caucus during the press conference.
Solomon ended the press conference by explaining the importance of all the caucuses coming out together.
“We are stronger when we’re together, and many of these issues that we have talked about, again, impact all of us,” said Solomon.
District of Columbia
Blade contributor, husband exchange vows in D.C.
Yariel Valdés and Kevin Vega held ceremony at Jefferson Memorial on March 23
Washington Blade contributor Yariel Valdés and his husband, Kevin Vega, exchanged vows at the Jefferson Memorial on March 23.
The couple married in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 24, 2025. The Jefferson Memorial ceremony — which Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Samy Nemir Olivares officiated — coincided with the third anniversary of Yariel and Kevin’s first date.
Yariel in 2019 asked for asylum in the U.S. because of the persecution he suffered as a journalist in his native Cuba. He spent nearly a year in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody before his release on March 4, 2020.
Yariel wrote a series of articles about his time in ICE custody that the Blade published. The series was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award in 2022.
Yariel and Kevin live in South Florida.
District of Columbia
‘Out for McDuffie’ event held at D.C. gay bar
Mayoral candidate cites record of longtime support for LGBTQ rights
More than 100 people filled the upstairs room of the D.C. gay bar Number 9 on Thursday night, March 26, to listen to D.C. mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie at an event promoted as an “Out for McDuffie” meet and greet session.
Several local LGBTQ activists who attended the event said they support McDuffie, a former D.C. Council member, in his run for mayor while others said they had not yet decided whom to vote for in the June 16 D.C. Democratic primary election.
As of March 27, eight other Democrats were competing against McDuffy in the June 16 primary, including D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), considered McDuffie’s lead opponent. Lewis George also has a record of strong support on LGBTQ issues.
Most political observers consider McDuffie and Lewis George the two lead candidates in the race, with the others having far less name recognition.
The two lead organizers of the Out for McDuffie event were LGBTQ rights advocates Courtney Snowden, a former D.C. deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Cesar Toledo, a local LGBTQ youth housing services advocate.
“I’m a candidate for mayor of Washington, D.C. and I’m running for mayor because I love this city,” McDuffie told the gathering after being introduced by Snowden. “And now more than ever we need leadership to take us to the future,” he said, adding that he and his administration would “stand up and fight” against President Donald Trump’s efforts to intervene in local D.C. affairs.
“Our strength is in the 700,000 beautifully diverse residents of Washington, D.C.” he told the gathering. “And as Courtney said, I didn’t just show up and run for mayor and then start saying that I’m going to be an ally for the queer community, for the LGBTQ+ community,” he said, “I’ve lived my entire professional life fighting for justice and fighting for fairness.”
Following his speech, McDuffie told the Washington Blade, “We’re going to fight to protect our LGBTQ+ community every single day. That’s what I’ve spent my career doing, making sure we have a beautifully diverse and inclusive city.”
He remained at Number 9, located at 1435 P St., N.W., for nearly an hour after he spoke, chatting with attendees.
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Blade contributor, husband exchange vows in D.C.
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