Local
Shevlin, Suwanlert have union blessed
Ceremony at the Wat Thai Buddhist temple
Peerapol Jack Suwanlert and George Felix Shevlin, IV had their marriage blessed last month.
George Felix Shevlin, IV and Peerapol Jack Suwanlert of Washington and Rehoboth Beach, Del., respectively had their marriage blessed on April 17 at the Wat Thai Buddhist temple in Silver Spring, Md.
Phramaha Ruangrit Thaithae led eight other monks in a traditional Northeastern (Isaan) Thailand Bai Sri Su Kwan ceremony, which was attended by their mothers, friends and family. Shevlin and Suwanlert were legally married on Aug. 11, 2011, by the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan, a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Sullivan had presided over Suwanlert’s naturalization ceremony in the United States Capitol Building in 2010.
Their son, Patrick Kul Shevlin, born June 20, 2015, was also blessed by Phramaha Thaithae at the ceremony.
Shevlin is the son of Linda Owens Shevlin of Glen Falls, N.Y., and the late George Felix Shevlin, III. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore and a degree from the London School of Economics. He is a member of the Maryland and United States Supreme Court bars. He worked for the United States House of Representatives for 20 years. His last position was the executive director of the House Democratic Caucus under Chairman John B. Larson. He is currently the political affairs officer for the Investment Company Institute, the trade association for the mutual fund industry.
Suwanlert was born in Muang City in the Province of Nakhon Ratchasima, in Thailand, where he spent most of his youth. He is the second son of Mongkol Suwanlert from Lampang in northern Thailand and Siriporn Rattanakul, from Nakhon Prathom (central part of Thailand).
He received a bachelor’s degree in public administration (police science) at the Royal Thai Police Cadet Academy in Sampran, Nakorn-Prathom, Thailand, where he worked as an interrogation inspector in Bangkok for the Royal Thai Police Force. He received a master’s degree in political science from the National Institute of Development Administration in Bangkok.
He moved to Washington in 2000 to work at the Marriott International Headquarters in Bethesda, Md., where he is director of global intelligence and support. Suwanlert is a member of the Private Security Analyst Group under Overseas Security Advisory Council, conference committee chair of the Public Sector Intelligence Council and the D.C. Intelligence Analyst Working Group. He completed his second master’s degree in Intelligence Studies at the American Military University in 2013.
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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