Local
Gay groups ‘not excluded’ from D.C. parade
Organizers unaware of LGBT Irish group expressing interest in taking part
Patricia Hawkins, who serves on the board of the D.C. Center, said the group plans to march in D.C.’s St. Patrick’s Day parade next year. (Washington Blade file photo by Pete Exis)
Unlike their counterparts in New York City and Boston, no LGBT Irish organization or any other LGBT group has applied to become a contingent in D.C.’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, even though the parade has no policy that would exclude an LGBT contingent.
“We are a non-profit,” said Colleen Cohan, vice chair of the St. Patrick’s Parade Committee of Washington, D.C. “So we don’t exclude any group that wants to participate in the parade.”
Cohan said the D.C. committee does have a policy banning “political campaigning” or commercial advertising by members of parade contingents. But she said contingent participants are free to carry signs or a banner displaying the name of their organization.
The mayors of New York City and Boston chose not to march in St. Patrick’s Day parades in their cities this year as a show of solidarity with the LGBT community because parade organizers ban participation of contingents that self-identify as LGBT.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio hosted a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast Monday morning at the Gracie Mansion mayoral residence but boycotted the parade in Manhattan later in the day.
“I simply disagree with the organizers of the parade in their exclusion of some individuals in this city,” CNN quoted him as saying at a news conference.
De Blasio marched in a separate St. Patrick’s Parade over the weekend in the Borough of Queens, which allows out gay contingents.
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh decided early Sunday, March 16, not to march in the South Boston St. Patrick’s Parade shortly before the parade was scheduled to start that same day, saying, “I have to do my best to ensure that all Bostonians are free to participate fully in the civic life of our city,” according to CNN.
Cohan said she was informed by one of her colleagues on the D.C. St. Patrick’s Parade Committee that an LGBT group contacted the committee about participating in the parade last year but never followed up.
“I believe it was last year that we received an inquiry from an LGBT group,” she said. “And we directed them to apply online, to submit the application online. But we never received an application and that was the last we ever heard from them.”
She said she doesn’t know the name of the LGBT group that contacted the committee.
Lesbian activist Patricia Hawkins, who serves on the board of the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, said it may have been the center’s executive director David Mariner that made the inquiry to the parade committee.
According to Hawkins, Mariner indicated the center’s staff and volunteers may not have had the time to organize an LGBT parade contingent for this year’s parade. In an email, Mariner told the Blade a D.C. Center spokesperson would provide a comment on the matter shortly.
“We definitely plan to do this next year,” she said. “I have been at the parade almost every year here in D.C. and sometimes in New York,” said Hawkins, noting that she’s half Irish.
Virginia
Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration
Veteran lawmaker will step down in February
Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.
Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.
His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.
She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.
Maryland
Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress
Md. congressman served for years in party leadership
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.
Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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