Local
Kenneth Carroll Willis dies at 69
Retired from GSA after 32 years of service
Kenneth Carroll Willis
Kenneth C. Willis died in hospice care on July 29 after a long battle with jaw cancer. He was 69.
Willis, born June 12, 1946, had been a Dupont Circle resident for 40 years and was a familiar sight on 17th Street, N.W., where he lived with his husband. He loved jogging, reading in the circle and patronizing the many restaurants, nightclubs and bookstores in the neighborhood. He was especially fond of Trio, and, in its day, Lambda Rising. He loved the Gay Men’s Chorus concerts. He had recently retired as an information systems specialist with the Inspector General of General Services Administration, where he was given an exemplary service award “in recognition of 32 years of professionalism, dedication and commitment to excellence.” He walked to and from GSA’s building at 18th and F streets, N.W. all those years. During the war in Vietnam, he was an Army MP in Saigon. He held two degrees from the University of Mississippi.
Originally from a small town in Mississippi, Willis moved to Washington in 1975 for its freedom and opportunity. He used to say that he had escaped. In 1981, he met his future husband Robert H. Wood at a popular gay bar, the Frat House, later renamed Omega.
Willis and Wood became charter members of Partners in 1995, a group of gay couples who sought to establish social lives apart from bars.
Willis and Wood obtained a domestic partnership on the first day that form of civil union became available in Washington: July 1, 2002. They were married on May 17, 2010, the first year that was possible, 29 years to the day after they met.
Willis enjoyed eight-10 weekends each season at bed and breakfasts in Rehoboth Beach, Del., especially the Delaware Inn, where he and Wood were guests from 1998 until it closed in 2013. Long days on the beach were followed by joyful nights at places like the Boat House, the Renegade, the Strand, the Blue Moon, and more recently, the Aqua Grill.
Willis is survived by his husband, two brothers, two brothers in law, sisters in law, nieces and nephews on both sides, their children, and many cousins. A memorial service will be held Sept. 20, 12:45 p.m. at Foundry United Methodist Church (1500 16th St., N.W.). His ashes will be placed at Arlington National Cemetery. Donations in his memory may be made to Whitman-Walker Health, attn: Development, 1701 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.
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.
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