Local
Gay student loses bid for Georgetown class president
Rosenberger finishes last in 5-candidate race
Tim Rosenberger finished last in a five-candidate race for Georgetown University class president. (Photo courtesy Rosenberger)
Tim Rosenberger, an out gay student who serves as secretary of Georgetown University’s LGBT campus group, GU Pride, lost his race for student president at Georgetown on Feb. 19, finishing last in a five-candidate race.
According to Georgetown’s student newspaper, The Hoya, the winning candidate, Joe Luther, and his vice presidential running mate, Connor Rohan, ran an unprecedented satirical campaign that mocked the Georgetown Student Government Association as being unresponsive to the needs of the students.
Rosenberger told the Blade he saw no signs of anti-gay sentiment in the campaign or in the unorthodox statements and positions taken by Luther, who received 1,080 votes or 30 percent of the first round vote in an instant runoff voting system, according to figures reported by The Hoya.
The Luther-Rohan ticket received a final vote count of 1,693 votes, or 54 percent, after three additional rounds of adjusted counting as part of the runoff.
Rosenberger, a junior majoring in English, and his vice presidential running mate, Reno Verghese, who’s straight, received 154 votes, or 4.3 percent, of the vote in the first round before being eliminated from contention.
“The two guys that won are good guys,” Rosenberger said. “I didn’t see that coming, but I’m not unhappy about it,” he said. “Actually, out of all the tickets they may be the second best qualified to do good things for the gay community at Georgetown.”
The Hoya published a large photo of Luther and Rohan kissing each other on the lips at their election night celebration. Rosenberger said the two, who are straight, apparently did that as part of the satirical gestures they made during their campaign, which appears to have struck a chord of dissatisfaction among the student body over the existing student government.
In addition to his involvement in GU Pride, Rosenberger has been active in the D.C. Federation of College Republicans.
Last month, a conservative online Catholic publication called Pewsitter published an article attacking Rosenberger as a “militant homosexual activist/Catholic/Republican.” The article quoted an anonymous Georgetown student urging fellow students to support candidate Abby McNaughton, whom the student described as a “faithful Catholic” better qualified to carry out Georgetown’s tradition as a Jesuit school.
McNaughton denounced the article, saying she was never contacted by the publication and believed it unfairly criticized Rosenberger. McNaughton finished second in the race for student president.
Asked if he thought he might have lost support among some students because of his sexual orientation, Rosenberger said, “Not particularly.” He added that the votes he did receive came largely from fellow gay students.
“The gay community at Georgetown really rallied around me and helped staff this campaign and we wouldn’t have had a campaign without them,” he said.
Two years ago, out gay student Nate Tisa won election as class president, becoming the first open gay to win the class president post at Georgetown and one of the first out gays to win such an election at a major Catholic college in the U.S.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
JD Vance to travel to Hungary next week
Pam Bondi ousted as attorney general
VIDEO: Gay journalist detained for booing Trumps at ‘Chicago’ opening night
‘Out for McDuffie’ event held at D.C. gay bar
‘Jonah’ an undeniably compelling but unusual memory play
The Oscar-losing performance that’s too good to miss
Thousands attend ‘No Kings’ protests in D.C.
