Local
Md. sodomy law used in bookstore arrests of gay men still on books
Only one of two separate sodomy laws repealed in 2020
In a little-noticed development, the Maryland General Assembly agreed to requests by Republican lawmakers to delete one of the state’s two separate sodomy laws from a sodomy law repeal bill that it approved in March of 2020, leading most LGBTQ activists into incorrectly believing the full sodomy law had been repealed.
According to Maryland House of Delegates member David Moon (D-Montgomery County), who introduced the repeal bill in the state House, which approved the bill on Feb. 20, 2020, the Democratic-controlled Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee voted unanimously to pass an amendment that deleted from the bill a provision calling for the repeal of Maryland’s Criminal Code Section 3-322, which is known as the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice Act.
The act criminalizes oral sex in all possible circumstances, including between consenting adults.
It states, “A person may not: take the sexual organ of another or of an animal in the person’s mouth; place the person’s sexual organ in the mouth of another or of an animal; or commit another unnatural or perverted sexual practice with another or with an animal.”
The offense of violating the act is listed as a misdemeanor but includes a penalty of up to 10 years in prison or a fine not exceeding $1,000 or both upon conviction of the offense.
During its deliberations in March 2020, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, while deleting the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice Act from the repeal bill, left in place the provision in the bill that called for repealing Maryland’s criminal Code Section 3-321, which criminalizes “sodomy” between consenting adults as a felony with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison upon conviction.
Supporters of the original repeal bill say the two statutes each criminalize same-sex sexual relations between consenting adults and the repeal of one of them and not the other leaves on the books a statute that stigmatizes LGBTQ people even if the law is not enforced.
Supporters of the original bill also pointed out that separate, existing Maryland laws strictly prohibit acts of cruelty to animals as well as any non-consensual sexual acts, including same-sex rape and sex between adults and juveniles. This meant that repealing the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice Act would not prevent anyone engaging in sexual assault, sex with minors, or abuse of animals from being arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Among those who supported that assessment in testimony before the committee was Lisae Jordan, executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
But despite these assurances, which were further confirmed at the Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing by Maryland’s Assistant Attorney General Carrie J. Williams, Republican members of the committee, including Sen. Michael Hough (R-Frederick & Carroll Counties) raised strong objections to repealing any existing statute that might be used to prosecute someone engaging in sexual assault or pedophilia.
Sources familiar with the committee have speculated that Hough’s strong hints that he would hold anyone who voted for the full repeal responsible for an inability to prosecute sexual assault and sex with minors as well as incidents of cruelty to animals may have “spooked” the Democrats on the committee to back the amendment.
Sen. William Smith (D-Montgomery County), who chairs the committee; Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery County), the committee’s vice chair; and committee members Sen. Shelly Hettleman (D-Baltimore County) and Sen. Susan Lee (D-Montgomery County) did not respond to requests by the Blade for comment on why they voted for the amendment to remove the Unnatural and Perverted Sexual Practice Act from the repeal bill.
Each of them has been supportive on LGBTQ rights on other legislation that has come before the Maryland General Assembly. Lee, for example, introduced a sodomy law repeal bill several years earlier that failed to pass.
The other members of the committee that voted to remove the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice Act from the repeal bill included Sens. Ronald Young (D-Frederick County), Charles Sydnor (D-Baltimore City & Baltimore County), Jill Carter (D-Baltimore City), Robert Cassilly (R-Harford County), Chris West (R-Baltimore County), Justin Ready (R-Carroll County), and Michael Hough (R-Frederick & Carroll Counties).
Moon said the full Maryland Senate quickly approved the committee’s amended bill that repealed the sodomy law but did not repeal the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice Act. He noted the committee’s approval by a unanimous vote came just as the Maryland General Assembly’s 2020 legislative session was coming to an end one month earlier than usual due to restrictions related to the COVID pandemic.
With just one day left before the legislative session was to adjourn for the year on March 18, 2020, Moon said the House of Delegates, which had passed the full repeal version of the bill by a vote of 133 to 5 on Feb. 20, 2020, had a choice of accepting the Senate version or letting the bill die. He said House members decided to approve the Senate bill, with the vote taking place March 18.
“Basically, that change was made in the last day of the pandemic legislative session,” Moon told the Blade. “And so, it was a take it or leave it situation. So, we went ahead and struck the sodomy part out, and here we are,” he said.
He noted that the truncated legislative session did not provide time for the Senate version of the bill to come before a House-Senate conference committee, where supporters of the original bill could have pushed for rejecting the Senate version and sought approval of the House version.
“The next year the Unnatural or Perverted Sex Practice law is being used exactly in the manner we were trying to stop it from being used,” he said, referring to the May 20 raid on Bush River Books & Video store, in which four of the arrested men were charged with Perverted Sexual Practice.
Moon said he plans to introduce another repeal bill at the start of the General Assembly’s legislative session in January 2022 calling for the full repeal of the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice Act. Supporters of Moon’s original bill in 2020, including the Maryland LGBTQ advocacy group Free State Justice, say they will push hard for passage of Moon’s bill next year.
The 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared state sodomy laws unconstitutional, and other court rulings impacting Maryland made the two Maryland sodomy statutes theoretically unenforceable for consenting adults. But attorneys familiar with the two statutes have said police have made arrests and prosecutors sometimes have attempted to prosecute mostly men, including gay men, charged under the laws in the years following the court rulings.
The most recent known arrests took place on May 20 of this year, when Harford County, Md., Sheriff’s deputies arrested nine men during the raid on the adult Bush River Books & Video store in the town of Abingdon. Four of the men were charged with “Perverted Sexual Practice.” The store is located 25 miles north of Baltimore.
One of the men charged with Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practice was also charged with indecent exposure. Another four were charged with indecent exposure and one of the men was charged with solicitation of prostitution.
A friend of one of the men charged with indecent exposure told the Blade his friend was with another adult male inside an enclosed video room with a locked door when Sheriff’s Office deputies opened the door with a key obtained from the store and placed the two men in handcuffs as they were arrested.
The friend and others familiar with the arrests said the arrested men spent the night in jail before they were released in the morning and appeared in court. Several of the cases are scheduled for trial on Aug. 2 in Harford County District Court.
Greg Nevins, an attorney who serves as senior counsel for the national LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, said lower court rulings that apply to Maryland and other states, in addition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision overturning state sodomy laws, have left it largely up to individual trial court judges to interpret these rulings to determine whether consensual sexual activity under sodomy or indecent exposure laws took place in a “private” or “public” setting.
Most of the court rulings declaring sodomy laws unconstitutional have limited those rulings to consensual, non-commercial sexual activity conducted in a private setting.
But according to Nevin, at least one ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which includes Maryland, had the effect of making the Maryland Unnatural and Perverted Sexual Practice statute unenforceable for consenting adults regardless of whether alleged sexual activity takes place in a private or public place.
Nevin and other attorneys have said reports that some of the arrests at the Bush River Books & Video store in Harford County involving Sheriff’s Deputies opening locked private video rooms, where men allegedly were engaging in sexual activity, should be considered private spaces like a rented hotel room.
The owner or a representative of Bush River Books & Video store has not responded to requests by the Blade for comment.
In an official statement released at the reveal event Capital Pride Alliance described its just announced 2026 Pride theme of “Exist, Resist, Have the Audacity” as a “bold declaration affirming the presence, resilience, and courage of LGBTQ+ people around the world.”
The statement adds, “Grounded in the undeniable truth that our existence is not up for debate, this year’s theme calls on the community to live loudly and proudly, stand firm against injustice and erasure, and embody the collective strength that has always defined the LGBTQ+ community.”
In a reference to the impact of the hostile political climate, the statement says, “In a time when LGBTQ+ rights and history continue to face challenges, especially in our Nation’s Capital, where policy and public discourse shape the future of our country, together, we must ensure that our voices are visible, heard, and unapologetically centered.”
The statement also quotes Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President Ryan Bos’s message at the Reveal event: “This year’s theme is both a declaration and a demand,” Bos said. “Exist, Resist, Have Audacity! reflects the resilience of our community and our responsibility to protect the progress we’ve made. As we look toward our nation’s 250th anniversary, we affirm that LGBTQ+ people have always been and always will be part of the United States’s history, and we will continue shaping its future with strength and resolve,” he concluded.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride board member resigns, alleges failure to address ‘sexual misconduct’
In startling letter, Taylor Chandler says board’s inaction protected ‘sexual predator’
Taylor Lianne Chandler, a member of the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors since 2019 who most recently served as the board’s secretary, submitted a letter of resignation on Feb. 24 that alleges the board has failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization.
The Washington Blade received a copy of Chandler’s resignation letter one day after she submitted it from an anonymous source. Chandler, who identifies as transgender and intersex, said in an interview that she did not send the letter to the Blade, but she suspected someone associated with Capital Pride, which organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, “wants it out in the open.”
“It is with a heavy heart, but with absolute clarity, that I submit my resignation from the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors effective immediately,” Chandler states in her letter. “I have devoted nearly ten years of my life to this organization,” she wrote, pointing to her initial involvement as a volunteer and later as a producer of events as chair of the organization’s Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex Committee.
“Capital Pride once meant something profound to me – a space of safety, visibility, and community for people who have often been denied all three,” her letter continues. “That is no longer the organization I am part of today.”
“I, along with other board members, brought forward credible concerns regarding sexual misconduct – a pattern of behavior spanning years – to the attention of this board,” Chandler states in the letter. “What followed was not accountability. What followed was retaliation. Rather than addressing the substance of what was reported, officers and fellow board members chose to chastise those of us who came forward.”
The letter adds, “This board has made its priorities clear through its actions: protecting a sexual predator matters more than protecting the people who had the courage to come forward. … I have been targeted, bullied, and made to feel like an outsider for doing what any person of integrity would do – telling the truth.”
In response to a request from the Blade for comment, Anna Jinkerson, who serves as chair of the Capital Pride board, sent the Blade a statement praising Taylor Chandler’s efforts as a Capital Pride volunteer and board member but did not specifically address the issue of alleged sexual misconduct.
“We’re also aware that her resignation letter has been shared with the media and has listed concerns,” Jinkerson said in her statement. “When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” she said.
“As we continue to grow our organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” Jinkerson said in her statement. “We’re doing this because the community’s experience with CPA must always be safe, affirming, empowering, and inclusive,” she added.
In an interview with the Blade, Chandler said she was not the target of the alleged sexual harassment.
She said a Capital Pride investigation identified one individual implicated in a “pattern” of sexual harassment related behavior over a period of time. But she said she was bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that applies to all board members and she cannot disclose the name of the person implicated in alleged sexual misconduct or those who came forward to complain about it.
“It was one individual, but there was a pattern and a history,” Chandler said, noting that was the extent of what she can disclose.
“And I’ll say this,” she added. “In my opinion, with gay culture sometimes the touchy feely-ness that goes on seems to be like just part of the culture, not necessarily the same as a sexual assault or whatever. But at the same time, if someone does not want those advances and they’re saying no and trying to push you away and trying to avoid you, then it makes it that way regardless of the culture.”
When asked about when the allegations of sexual harassment first surfaced, Chandler said, “In the past year is when the allegation came forward from one individual. But in the course of this all happening, other individuals came forward and talked about instances – several which showed a pattern.”
Chandler’s resignation comes about five months after Capital Pride Alliance announced in a statement released in October 2025 that its then board president, Ashley Smith, resigned from his position on Oct. 18 after Capital Pride became aware of a “claim” regarding Smith. The statement said the group retained an independent firm to investigate the matter, but it released no further details since that time. Smith has declined to comment on the matter.
When asked by the Blade if the Smith resignation could be linked in some way to allegations of sexual misconduct, Chandler said, “I can’t make a comment one way or the other on that.”
Chandler’s resignation and allegations come after Capital Pride Alliance has been credited with playing the lead role in organizing the World Pride celebration hosted by D.C. in which dozens of LGBTQ-related Pride events were held from May through June of 2025.
The letter of resignation also came just days before Capital Pride Alliance’s annual “Reveal” event scheduled for Feb. 26 at the Hamilton Hotel in which the theme for D.C.’s June 2026 LGBTQ Pride events was to be announced along with other Pride plans.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats elect new leaders
LGBTQ political group set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Longtime Democratic Party activists Stevie McCarty and Brad Howard won election last week as president and vice president for administration for the Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political organization.
In a Feb. 24 announcement, the group said McCarty and Howard, both of whom are elected DC Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, ran in a special Capital Stonewall Democrats election to fill the two leadership positions that became vacant when the officers they replaced resigned.
Outgoing President Howard Garrett, who McCarty has replaced, told the Washington Blade he resigned after taking on a new position as chair of the city’s Ward 1 Democratic Committee. The Capital Stonewall Democrats announcement didn’t say who Howard replaced as vice president for administration.
The group’s website shows its other officers include Elizabeth Mitchell as Vice President for Legislative and Political Affairs, and Monica Nemeth as Treasurer. The officer position of secretary is vacant, the website shows.
“As we look toward 2026, the stakes for D.C. and for LGBTQ+ communities have never been clearer,” the group’s statement announcing McCarty and Howard’s election says. “Our 50th anniversary celebration on March 20 and the launch of our D.C. LGBTQ+ Voter’s Guide mark the beginning of a major year for endorsements, organizing, and coalition building,” the statement says.
McCarty said among the organization’s major endeavors will be holding virtual endorsement forums where candidates running for D.C. mayor and the Council will appear and seek the group’s endorsement.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to Capital Stonewall Democrats. McCarty said the 50th anniversary celebration on March 20, in which D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the D.C. Council are expected to attend, will be held at the PEPCO Gallery meeting center at 702 8th St., N.W.
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