Local
Lesbian judges seek election in Baltimore
‘Community can count on all of us for fair treatment in our courts’
Judges Audrey Carrión and Shannon Avery are running for a 15-year term. (Photo courtesy Carrión and Avery)
While much attention is being focused on Baltimore’s mayoral and City Council contests, another important race is taking place that impacts the city’s LGBT community. Six sitting judges on the Circuit Court, running as a slate, are seeking election for a term of 15 years. Their names will be on the ballot on April 26. They preside over the different cases that come to Circuit Court, including criminal, civil, family (divorce, child custody, adoptions) and juvenile.
Two of these judges are out lesbians: Shannon E. Avery and Audrey J.S. Carrión. The other four — Michael DiPietro, Karen C. Friedman, Wanda Keyes Heard and Cynthia H. Jones — have also demonstrated fairness toward LGBT Marylanders.
For example, Judge Friedman is well known for an opinion she wrote when she was a judge in the orphans’ court in which she broke ground in respecting the wishes of a same-sex couple prior to marriage equality.
“Judge DiPietro’s brother is an out gay man,” Avery told the Blade. “Judges Jones and Heard have demonstrated values of fairness and equality to LGBT people. We all marched in the Pride parade last summer.”
She added, “While Audrey Carrión and I have a particular interest to the community, we can vouch for the whole ticket. The LGBT community can count on all of us for fair and equal treatment in our courts.”
Avery, who was appointed by Gov. Martin O’Malley to the District Court in August 2010 and then to the Circuit Court in February 2014, has a long record of pro-LGBT activism since 1989. Aside from being on numerous boards and commissions and serving as an adviser to several elected officials, Avery is the past president of the FreeState Legal Project. She was co-chair of the Baltimore Justice Campaign that secured domestic partnership benefits for Baltimore City employees.
Avery spearheaded a police advisory board for LGBT issues, as well as an LGBT youth advocacy board that is now known as the Youth Equality Alliance (YEA!). She is currently a member of the International Association of LGBT Judges and works as an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
Judge Carrión, a fellow of the Maryland Bar Foundation and the Baltimore City Bar Association Foundation, has been a member of the Maryland Hispanic Bar Association since 1993. Carrión was appointed to both the District Court and Circuit Court by Gov. Parris Glendening. She currently sits on the Civil Docket of the court and is the director of the Business and Technology Case Management Program, which covers complex civil business matters.
“For approximately six years I was the judge in charge of our family division and in that role I created an atmosphere that was welcoming to our LGBT families,” Carrión told the Blade. “I approved hundreds of same-sex second parents’ adoptions and included same-sex families in our annual adoption month celebration in November. It has always been important to me that LGBT families be treated with respect.”
Carrión added, “When I sat as the drug court judge in the Juvenile Division I made sure that the counselors who worked with our youth were sensitive to LGBT issues. Every year for the past 10 years I’ve taught the diversity section of the new judges’ orientation in which among other topics I cover LGBT subjects.”
Avery said it is important to have out lesbians and gay men represented in the judiciary because people need to see that the judiciary represents a fair cross-section of the population.
“It contributes to the legitimacy and sense of fairness of the courts,” she said. “We are really proud of the diversity of the six sitting judges who are running in 2016.”
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
District of Columbia
Owner of D.C. gay bar Green Lantern John Colameco dies at 79
Beloved businessman preferred to stay ‘behind the scenes’
John Colameco, owner of the popular D.C. gay bar Green Lantern, has died, according to a March 7 announcement posted on the bar’s website and Instagram account. The announcement didn’t provide a date of his passing or a cause of death.
Green Lantern manager Howard Hicks said Colameco was 79 at the time of his passing.
“It is with great sadness that Green Lantern announces the death of our beloved owner, John Colameco,” the announcement says. “Most of our patrons might have heard John’s name, but might not have known his face,” it says.
“He was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of guy who avoided the limelight,” the announcement continues. “He preferred to stay in the back of the house with staff and team ensuring everything was running smoothly so that everyone out front was having a good time.”
The announcement adds, “As a veteran and businessman, John wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ + community, but he was one of the best damn allies our community has ever had.”
It says he “long provided spaces for the queer community to come together” since the 1990s when he owned and operated a popular restaurant on 17th Street, N.W. called Peppers.
According to the announcement, Colameco and his then business partner Greg Zehnacker opened the Green Lantern in 2001 in an alley off of 14th Street, N.W., between Thomas Circle and L Street, N.W.
The announcement points out that the Green Lantern first opened in the same location in the early 1990s before it later closed when the original owners decided to purchase and open other bars, one of which was the gay bar Fireplace near Dupont Circle. Colameco and Zehnacker were able to reopen the bar with the Green Lantern name.
“When Greg died unexpectedly in February 2014, John remained steadfastly committed to carrying on their vision and ensuring that Green Lantern remained part of the fabric of D.C.’s queer community,” the announcement says.
“Over the years, through Green Lantern, John has provided support to many community organizations, most notably Stonewall Sports, the Gay Men’s chorus of Washington, and ONYX Mid-Atlantic with Green Lantern serving as a gathering hub for their activities,” it states.
The announcement adds that Colameco’s family was planning a memorial for him in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“His Green Lantern family will celebrate his life by operating the bar as usual and we encourage you to stop by and join us,” it says. “Community coming together and having a good time – it’s exactly what John would want.”
Far-right Chilean President José Antonio Kast takes office
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Housewives head to Capitol Hill to promote PrEP coverage
Fla. House passes ‘Anti-Diversity’ bill
Ukrainian Supreme Court recognizes same-sex couple as a family
In D.C. comedy, be sure to shop local
Comings & Goings
Too afraid to leave home: ICE’s toll on Latino HIV care
Intense doc offers transcendent treatment of queer fetish pioneer
