Local
Town hall addresses Pride, financial concerns
Celebration slated for July 23-24 despite declining revenue
GLCCB board president Jabari Lyles addresses the town hall meeting. (Washington Blade photo by Steve Charing)
Under pressure from members of the community to account for the income and expenditures incurred during Pride 2015, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland (GLCCB), held a town hall meeting on Nov. 10 at the Chase Brexton Mount Vernon Center. The gathering allowed new board president Jabari Lyles to address Pride-related issues, offer an overview of the organization and to welcome community input.
Lyles described the GLCCB’s structure and the financial data from the most recent Pride to a crowd of about 60. Pride, which is the GLCCB’s principal source of revenue, made a profit of $49,400 this year. In 2014, Pride netted $64,000.
Some in the community raised concerns about the absence of accounting for the outlays and questioned specific expenditures. These issues, coupled with the sudden resignation of Pride coordinator and deputy executive director Paul Liller, motivated GLCCB’s leadership to hold the town hall.
Lyles and others charged that Liller used bad judgment in procuring the amount of T-shirts for Pride, for example, as well as creating a fundraising Halloween event called OutRageous without authorization. OutRageous was cancelled because of a lack of sales and ultimately cost the GLCCB $9,000 with nearly half of that amount to be used as a credit for a future event involving the same caterer.
Liller, who was not present at the meeting, rejected the criticisms. “Regarding allegations of mismanagement for both OutRageous and Pride T-Shirts, I will say that during my time at the GLCCB, all my decisions were either run through the former executive director Joel Tinsley-Hall or the board of directors,” he told the Blade via email. “Accurate financials were provided monthly during board meetings (which strangely there are no minutes for). The GLCCB board was involved in decisions made as they chose to be at the time.”
Lyles stated that tighter financial controls have already been put in place including the hiring of a bookkeeper. Moreover, he announced that the next Pride celebration would take place July 23-24, 2016.
He also unveiled an updated strategic plan that was developed in 2012 but had largely been relegated to the back burner due to an ongoing turnover in leadership. Indeed, since the last town hall took place in July 2014, there have been four different board presidents and four different individuals in the role of executive director.
Nonetheless, Lyles who has been the board president since July and is acting as the interim executive director since Liller’s departure last month, promised a better accounting of funds, greater transparency, a stronger effort to make the board more inclusive and to expand services and programs.
He also announced the resurrection of the GLCCB Advisory Council and that the organization is actively pursuing new office space. The GLCCB has been housed on the third floor of the Waxter Center on Cathedral Street in Mount Vernon since February 2014.
While not nearly as contentious as the last GLCCB town hall meeting 15 months ago, this meeting also afforded community members an opportunity to sound off on matters of concern. Many of those who participated in the “open mic” portion of the program focused on the GLCCB’s mission and the need for diversity on the board.
Some members advocated for more youth programs while others support elder programs to cope with the aging LGBTQ population. A few offered to assist in partnering with other LGBT organizations and allies while some volunteered to help with fundraising. More involvement with faith-based groups and activities was also urged.
Overall, Lyles was pleased with the nearly three-hour meeting. “It’s refreshing to see the community willing to help us and be dedicated to our mission,” he told the Blade. He promised another town hall in March and that they will take place biannually.
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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