Local
Ricardo Martinez dies at 71
Economist, former D.C. resident worked for development bank
Ricardo C. Martinez (Photo courtesy of Richard Viola)
Ricardo C. Martinez, a senior economist with the D.C.-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for more than 20 years and a well-known figure in the gay communities of Washington and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., died August 15 at a hospice in Fort Lauderdale from complications associated with a stroke. He was 71.
Friends and colleagues note that he worked for years traveling extensively to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean on behalf of the IDB to assess and make recommendations on those countries’ needs for economic development loans.
The friends from Washington and the Fort Lauderdale-Miami area, where Martinez moved after taking early retirement at the age of 55, say his retirement enabled him to devote more time to his lifelong passion for the performing arts, especially opera.
“Sometimes he saw his own life in terms of the grand opera he so adored,” said George Jackson, one of his longtime Washington friends.
Martinez was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. He told friends he completed high school there just as the uncertainty and turmoil that followed the assumption of power by Fidel Castro prompted many Cubans to flee to the U.S.
As an only child, he told friends his parents arranged for him to abruptly depart his homeland by himself and arrive in Miami in 1960 as part of the Catholic Church operated “Peter Pan” program, through which thousands of unaccompanied Cuban children and teenagers were dispatched to the U.S. in the early 1960s.
According to his friend Richard Poms, Martinez said his parents arrived in the U.S. the following year and the family settled in Northern Virginia. A short time later, Martinez began his studies in economics at Catholic University in D.C. through an academic scholarship.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in economics at Catholic University he studied economics on the graduate level at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
He taught courses in intermediate level macroeconomic theory and principles of economics and economic systems at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., from 1968 to 1970. He next joined the staff of the Brookings Institution in Washington as a research assistant from 1970 to 1974, according to his curriculum vitae.
Martinez began his tenure at the Inter-American Development Bank in 1974 as an economist with the bank’s Country Economic Division. He assumed the position of senior economist at the bank’s General Studies Division in 1981 and assumed additional responsibilities in 1989 as senior economist with the Country Economics Division.
As someone fluent in English and Spanish, he wrote over 40 chapters during his tenure at the IDB for the annual publication Economic and Social Progress in Latin America. Among the countries he visited and for which he made loan related assessments and recommendations were Barbados, Suriname, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico and Costa Rica.
Upon his retirement in 1998 Martinez moved from his longtime residence in Arlington, Va., to Miami Beach before settling later in Fort Lauderdale.
According to friends, he shared his passion for the opera with a longstanding interest in European history and the European nobility.
“He loved European nobility,” said Poms. “He was an expert on the kings and the queens going back all the way. He knew who was married to whom – what family this, what family that.”
Before and after retirement his love for opera prompted him travel to opera houses in the U.S. and Europe, including regular trips to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he boasted of crossing paths and socializing with famed Metropolitan Opera conductor and music director James Levine at Manhattan nightspots after the performances.
“I remember his love for good cuisine and how he wouldn’t eat dinner until the sun had set,” said Tom Hardy, a friend from Washington. “He went to all the best restaurants, and he loved company and he loved to tell us about history and of course ancestry and the European monarchs.”
Martinez is predeceased by his parents, Ricardo, Sr., and Hilda Martinez, of Arlington, Va., and his longtime friend Jack Keegel of Washington.
He is survived by an uncle in Jacksonville, Fla., Orlando Acosta, a cousin in Los Angeles, and many friends in Washington and Fort Lauderdale, including Richard Poms, Richard Viola, Steven Frias Rodriquez, Tom Hardy, Carl Spier, Larry Smelser, George Jackson, David Cox, Emilio Cueto, and this reporter, among many others.
Poms said plans would be announced soon for memorial services in Fort Lauderdale and D.C. He said plans were being made for interment of Martinez’s ashes at Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington, Va., near the gravesite of his parents.
Maryland
White House threatens Anne Arundel schools over gender identity policy
District faces possible legal action or loss of federal funding
By JESSICA CALEFATI | The Trump-Vance administration on Monday threatened to punish Anne Arundel County’s school system with legal action or the loss of federal funding for allegedly withholding information about a student’s gender identity and transition from the child’s parents.
The U.S. Education and Justice Departments together determined that the suburban Maryland district treats students’ gender identities as confidential medical information that cannot be shared with parents, in violation of federal student privacy law, according to a news release. A federal lawsuit filed against the district earlier this month made similar claims.
“As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Virginia
Winsome Earle-Sears launches campaign against Va. marriage equality amendment
Former LG lost to Abigail Spanberger in 2025 gubernatorial race
Less than a year after losing Virginia’s gubernatorial race, former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is campaigning across the state against constitutional amendments that would protect marriage equality and reproductive freedom.
She is launching a statewide “Life and Marriage Tour” ahead of November’s election.
Although same-sex couples can legally marry under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Virginia’s constitution still contains language that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Supporters say removing the language would protect marriage equality should federal precedent change.
The original ban was written into the state constitution in 2006.
It has been hinted at in the past by Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas that he would consider revisiting Obergefell v. Hodges regarding contraception and marriage rights for same-sex couples. He stated this in his concurring opinion regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, which allows for state-level abortion bans.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman said removing the ban would bring the state’s constitution in line with existing law.
“20 years after banning marriage equality, it’s time for our commonwealth to fully complete our evolution — and finish the job on protecting marriage equality for all,” Rahaman said.
In an email to supporters, Earle-Sears said these amendments “raise serious concerns” and could alter principles about which Virginians care.
“That is why our efforts are focused not only on informing voters, but also encouraging them to carefully consider these proposals and vote NO on both amendments,” Earle-Sears said.
Virginia voters will consider three constitutional amendments this November.
Earle-Sears is campaigning for voters to reject two of them: the Virginia Remove Constitutional Same-Sex Marriage Ban Amendment and the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment.
A “Yes” vote on the Same-Sex Marriage Ban Amendment would include removing a provision that states marriage is between one man and one woman and prohibitng the state from denying a marriage license to two adults based on their sex, gender, or race, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.
In 2025, during debates against now Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Earle-Sears argued it is not discrimination to think that gay people should not be allowed to marry. She claims it conflicts with her faith.
According to ABC 8, in 2024 she wrote that she had a “moral opposition” to marriage equality, after former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, signed a marriage equality bill that barred denying marriage licenses based on sex, gender, or race.
According to the Virginia Department of Elections, a “Yes” vote on the Reproductive Freedom amendment supports adding a section to the state constitution that would give Virginians the right to make and carry out decisions regarding reproductive healthcare, except in specific exemptions.
The Virginia Department of Elections wrote that if accepted, the amendment would allow the state government to pass laws to regulate abortion care in the third trimester of pregnancy, but require abortion care when it is medically needed to protect the life and health of the pregnant person or because the fetus is not viable.
During the 2025 election cycle, Earle-Sears was clear on her anti-abortion stance.
According to the Virginia Independent, she utilized campaign funds to donate to the Family Foundation of Virginia. The group is a faith-based, anti-abortion, and anti-in vitro fertilization non-profit.
The “Life and Marriage Tour” will include traveling throughout Virginia to speak with citizens, churches, community organizations, and local leaders. The exact locations have yet to be announced.
District of Columbia
D.C. Council approves increased funding for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs
Increase attached to 2027 budget bill
The D.C. Council on July 14 gave final approval for the city’s fiscal year 2027 budget that includes an amendment calling for increasing the number and size of funding grants that the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs provides for local organizations providing services for the LGBTQ community.
The amendment, called the “LGBTQ Community Grant Amendment Act of 2026,” was introduced earlier this year by D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member.
The D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition called the Parker amendment “a historic measure that establishes the District’s most sustainable model for a vehicle for investing in LGBTQ communities.”
The Council approved the version of the FY 2027 budget bill with the attached Parker amendment in its first of two required votes on June 9. Shortly after voting unanimously to give final approval of an earlier version of the two-part budget measure on July 7 that includes the Parker amendment, the Council sent the bill to Mayor Muriel Bowser for her signature.
Bowser has expressed strong opposition to several provisions in the $22 billion budget measure passed by the Council that are unrelated to the Parker amendment regarding the Office of LGBTQ Affairs. The mayor has yet to say whether she will sign, veto, or choose not to sign the bill.
The latter option would allow the bill to become law if Congress does not choose to overturn it during its required 30-day legislative review period for all D.C. bills. Political observers believe the Council will vote to override a veto if Bowser chooses to veto the bill.
When contacted by the Washington Blade on July 22 to determine where the mayor stands on the budget bill, mayoral spokesperson Daniel Gleick said only, there was “no update on the budget just yet.”
Among other things, the Parker amendment calls for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs to issue a $980,000 grant in FY 2027 to a private, nonprofit organization in partnership with the office “for the purpose of supporting programs that promote the welfare of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning community.”
It would allocate $680,000 of that funding total from existing funds from the city’s community affairs grants program and calls for $200,000 in newly appropriated funds.
It says the organization selected would also initiate its own fundraising effort to expand the amount of funds beyond the amount the office would provide, enabling it to provide larger grants to a greater number of local LGBTQ organizations.
“The legislation arrives at a critical moment, as LGBTQ-serving organizations face unprecedented uncertainty,” the D.C. Budget Coalition said in its comment on the Parker amendment. “Growing demand for services is colliding with shrinking resources, federal attacks on LGBTQ programs, and ongoing threats to local funding streams,” the coalition’s statement says.
In what some observers have called a highly controversial action; the budget bill approved by the Council reverses and restores millions of dollars in budget cuts proposed by Bowser in the budget she submitted to the Council earlier this year.
Among other things, the Council’s budget preserves the current level of funding for housing vouchers, childcare, paid family leave, and other programs slated to be cut in the mayor’s proposed budget, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Bowser points out that the Council approved budget bill calls for using $150 million from the city’s reserve fund, which she and others have said could put the city in jeopardy in future years. The mayor has said the cuts were needed to prevent a major funding shortfall brought about by the action by Republicans in Congress to cut the city’s budget by over a billion dollars.
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