Delaware
Former CAMP Rehoboth director launches Sussex Pride
Non-profit to focus on ‘the folks who really need help the most’
Sussex Pride, a new LGBTQ organization based in southern Delaware, announced its official launch last Friday in a press release from its founding board of directors. The nonprofit looks to serve Sussex County and the state as a whole through yearlong LGBTQ programming and advocacy.
David Mariner, Sussex Pride founder and director, began to conceptualize the organization after noticing disparities in access to LGBTQ resources among different communities in Sussex County.
While Rehoboth Beach already has resources for LGBTQ community members, that is not the case for the entire county, he said. Many areas surrounding the beachside hub experience the “greatest need” for advocacy and resources, yet face the largest accessibility barriers.
“What I wanted to do is connect with some amazing activists from across the county, and really see: Is there a way we could create a new organization that centers the needs of those folks,” he said.
The organization’s board of directors includes members from different backgrounds who can help contextualize the diverse experiences of LGBTQ community members across the county, he added.
For Sussex Pride, recognizing and addressing the needs of underrepresented communities also means speaking with individuals from those communities directly. The organization will conduct a county-wide assessment to determine areas of community need, paying particular focus to the needs of “LGBTQ youth, transgender and nonbinary individuals, LGBTQ People of Color, LGBTQ seniors, and those living in more rural areas of our state,” the press release read.
Mariner launched Sussex Pride shortly after stepping down from his role as executive director of nearby LGBTQ nonprofit CAMP Rehoboth on May 31 — a position he began in 2019. According to Mariner, Sussex Pride is interested in working with CAMP Rehoboth in the future.
“I enjoyed my time at CAMP Rehoboth,” he noted. “I certainly hope there’s opportunities for us to collaborate.”
Wesley Combs, president of CAMP Rehoboth, echoed Mariner’s sentiments, noting that he hopes the two organizations will have a collaborative relationship.
“We welcome more support for the LGBTQ community in Delaware and look forward to learning more about what Sussex Pride will be doing,” he said. “We are always interested in partnering with other organizations who share our values and are committed to creating a more positive Rehoboth as well as a more positive Sussex County and beyond.”
Jamie McKenna, a Sussex Pride board member, noted that bringing a new LGBTQ organization to Sussex County is not an indictment against those already in place, but instead a way to expand resources and make them more accessible. “I don’t think any one organization can adequately represent our entire community,” she said.
Kathy Carpenter Brown, another Sussex Pride board member, noted that there is currently a lack of trans-specific resources among local LGBTQ organizations, which the new nonprofit hopes to remedy.
In 2017, Carpenter Brown founded Rehoboth TransLiance, a social group for transgender and gender diverse individuals in the Rehoboth Beach area. Through social events and educational resources, the organization has worked to create space for gender diverse Delawareans in areas where, previously, it might not have existed.
Carpenter Brown noted that her involvement with the organization led Mariner to invite her to get involved with Sussex Pride. When asked to join the organization, “I brought a few friends along with me,” she added, referring to other trans women on the board of directors.
Rehoboth TransLiance will now find a home as a subgroup of Sussex Pride, working on the forefront of its trans-specific programming, Carpenter Brown said. The organization will continue to create events and resources for the Sussex County trans community, and has secured an office and meeting space in a local church, she added.
When it comes to Sussex Pride’s motivations for creating trans-specific resources, “I don’t think it’s useful to look at it as [doing] what CAMP Rehoboth doesn’t do,” McKenna added. “Almost nobody does it anywhere, and we’re trying to bring something new or, at least, something relatively rare.”
For Carpenter Brown, the top priority in supporting local trans community members is clear: creating a local trans-inclusive and gender-affirming healthcare facility. She pointed to the attention TransLiance’s table at Delaware Pride received as evidence of a deep community need for trans-specific education and healthcare resources.
“There are so many people out there with questions, so many people looking for support, and they just don’t know where to find it,” she explained. “I know this area is known as a liberal area … but we really have no resources.”
“We don’t have the healthcare that we need. We don’t have the education that we need,” she added. “We don’t have the doctors, therapists and psychologists and all the things that the state and federal government requires us to have in order to get the healthcare we need.”
McKenna echoed Carpenter Brown’s sentiments, noting that the barriers she experiences accessing healthcare might outright prevent other trans individuals from accessing important medical services.
“I go up to Philadelphia to get my hormones, my basic medical care. There’s really nowhere around here that people can go,” she explained. “I’m lucky enough to have the resources where I can get up there, but a lot of people around here don’t. If you’re some 19-year-old trans kid just coming out, you might as well be on the moon trying to get care out here.”
Nicholas Lee, another Sussex Pride board member, noted that living in Lewes, Del., has made accessing LGBTQ resources in Rehoboth Beach more challenging, even though the two towns are in the same county. “We don’t have the best transportation system,” and “we don’t have a particular central location,” he explained.
Carpenter Brown said that she would like to create the healthcare facility as well as a trans community center in Georgetown, Del. — a location central to the county and more accessible to those from rural areas than coastal towns.
“When the opportunity came to set up a nonprofit that can help all Sussex County, I got excited,” Lee said. He noted that the name ‘Sussex Pride’ demonstrates the organization’s underlying goal to help “the whole entire community,” which requires “broadening” current LGBTQ resources to more directly consider the needs of local rural communities.
“I think in the big picture, it’s important to have an organization that people feel welcome in, in terms of the whole community,” he added.
While the nonprofit is still in the early stages of development, it has a “wonderful group of people who are now donating monthly to sustain its work,” Mariner said. The organization will also be “looking at a wide variety of funding sources in the near future.”
Mariner pointed to the experiences of a young woman he met last year as further evidence of a deep need for LGBTQ resources in rural communities across Sussex County.
“Her family discovered that she was a lesbian and kicked her out of their home. For a couple months, they didn’t talk to her,” he explained. “I’m not familiar with that happening in Rehoboth Beach, but I know it happens in other parts of the county on a regular basis.”
For Mariner, it is stories like those that affirm the importance of Sussex Pride — an organization that will focus on “the folks who really need help the most.”
Sussex Pride will host its first in-person event, a bus trip to the New York City Pride Parade, on June 26. For more information, visit sussexpride.org.
Delaware
Delaware considers enshrining same-sex marriage into state Constitution
Senate Executive Committee will hear testimony on Wednesday
Delaware is considering amending its state Constitution to codify same-sex marriage. The bill, SB 100, will be heard in committee on Wednesday.
SB 100 was introduced in April 2025 by Democratic Sen. Russ Huxtable of the sixth district of Delaware and is the first leg of an amendment to the Delaware Constitution. The act would “establish the right to marry as a fundamental right and that Delaware and its political subdivisions shall recognize marriages and issue marriage licenses to couples regardless of gender.”
“[SB 100] really came from the community that I represent and so that was the inspiration behind it, addressing concerns that my constituents have,” Huxtable told the Washington Blade.
CAMP Rehoboth, an LGBTQ community center and advocacy organization based in Rehoboth Beach, sent a letter to members of the Senate Executive Committee in support of SB 100.
“We applaud this proactive approach because it ensures that even if federal protections are weakened, same-sex couples in Delaware will retain their rights under Delaware law,” the letter reads. “We believe that doing so NOW is crucial for several reasons, particularly in the context of evolving legal landscapes and the erosion of civil rights long recognized in Federal law.”
CAMP Rehoboth Board President Leslie Ledogar is scheduled to testify at the Wednesday hearing on behalf of CAMP Rehoboth. She hopes to convey how personal this bill is for the organization.
Ledogar said CAMP Rehoboth has an almost 35-year history of advocating on behalf of LGBTQ people in the state of Delaware. Past Board President Chris Beagle and his husband were among the first couples to be married in Sussex County after same-sex marriage was legalized in the state in 2013, with CAMP Rehoboth hosting the ceremony.
The letter cited concerns with the possibility of Obergefell v. Hodges being overturned in the future, the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to marry for same-sex couples.
“We really feel that this is a proactive and protective measure that ensures long-term security for LGBTQ+ couples,” Ledogar said. “While we do have that [protection] now, it could be just that temporary and just that fleeting, and everything we’ve worked for and built could fall apart, not by our own initiative but because of the stroke of a pen.”
The letter details the positive impact that the bill would have on Delaware’s LGBTQ community, such as affirming equality and human dignity, preventing legal backsliding and creating legal certainty and reflecting public support.
“[SB 100] would align the law with the values of a majority of Delawareans, ensuring that legal frameworks reflect contemporary societal norms and standards,” Ledogar said.
In 2024, the Public Religion Research Institution found that 61% of Delawareans favor allowing same-sex couples to marry.
Some critics of the bill cite religious concerns, though SB 100 explicitly protects clergy refusal, saying that “the right to marry regardless of gender does not infringe upon the right to freedom of religion because religious organizations and members of the clergy have the right to refuse to solemnize a marriage.”
The bill requires a vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to pass. If passed, the next General Assembly after the next general election also has to pass it. Delaware is the only state in the country that can amend its state Constitution without a vote of the people. Constituents can register to watch the hearing virtually here.
Other states such as California, Colorado, and Hawaii have introduced and passed similar bills to protect the right of all people of all genders to marry under state law.
Huxtable said he hopes Delaware can send a message to other states that they can do the same thing and “don’t need to feel the threat from extremists.”
“I think it’s showing that the General Assembly in Delaware in particular are advocating for good policy celebrating the individual … We’re governing by our values and not our fears.”
Delaware
Delaware governor issues executive order creating LGBTQ+ Commission
Body to ‘strengthen ties’ between government and community
Delaware Gov. Bethany Hall-Long on Jan. 16 signed and issued an executive order creating a Delaware State LGBTQ+ Commission that she said will hold public forums for the exchange of ideas on the needs of the state’s diverse LGBTQ community.
“The nine-member commission will serve to strengthen ties between the government and LGBTQ+ organizations,” a statement released by the governor’s office says.
The statement adds that the new commission will “help remove barriers to societal participation for LGBTQ+ people and improve the delivery of services to the community in Delaware to areas such as employment, equality, education, and mental health.”
It says that members of the commission will be appointed by the governor and serve without monetary compensation for a three-year term.
According to the statement, the commission members “will represent different facets of the LGBTQ+ community, taking into account age, race, gender, identity, background, life experiences and other factors, and reflect the geographic diversity of the state.”
Hall-Long’s executive order creating the new commission came at a time when she is serving in effect as interim governor for a period of just two weeks. As lieutenant governor, she became governor on Jan. 7 when outgoing Gov. John Carney resigned to take office in his newly elected position of mayor of Wilmington.
Carney, who served two terms as governor, could not run again for that position under Delaware’s term limit law. Democrat Matt Myer won the governor’s election in November and will be sworn in as Delaware’s next governor on Jan. 21, when Hall-Long will step down.
Myer was expected to appoint the commission members in the weeks following his assumption of gubernatorial duties.
“Ultimately, the commission will advise the governor, members of the governor’s Cabinet, members of the General Assembly, and other policymakers on the effect of agency policies, procedures, practices, laws, and administrative rules on the unique challenges and needs of LGBTQ+ people,” the statement released by Hall-Long’s office says.
“It is truly an honor to bring this commission to fruition, and I am very excited to see the positive changes the commission will make in the lives of our LGBTQ+ neighbors,” Hall-Long said in the statement.
David Mariner, executive director of Sussex Pride, an LGBTQ advocacy group based in Delaware’s Sussex County, which includes Rehoboth Beach, praised the new executive order as an important step in advancing LGBTQ equality.
“It is my hope that through this commission, we can address the critical issues facing LGBTQ Delawareans,” Mariner said in his own statement.
“This includes developing an LGBTQ health report with a tangible roadmap to health equity, increasing collaboration and communication on hate crimes and hate-related activities, and ensuring that nondiscrimination protections, guaranteed by law, are a reality for all of our residents,” he said.
The statement announcing the LGBTQ+ Commission and the full text of the executive order can be accessed here.
Delaware
Delaware advocacy group to host panel on media’s role in countering hate
Blade editor among journalists participating in Wednesday event
LEWES, Del. — Speak Out Against Hate (SOAH) will hold its bi-monthly community meeting at 5 p.m. on Nov. 13 at the Lewes Library and via Zoom. The meeting will concentrate on the role of the press in responding to the divisiveness and rising tide of hatred in our country and communities.
The meeting will feature a panel of journalists comprised of Chris Rauch, owner and publisher of the Cape Gazette; Benjamin Rothstein, journalist at the Daily State News and its sister paper the Greater Dover Independent; Kevin Naff, editor and co-owner of the Washington Blade; and Jake Owens, editor-in-chief of Spotlight Delaware.
Patty Maloney, president of SOAH said, “Following a national and state elections that saw our country nearly evenly divided, this important discussion with our local press will shine a light upon the role of the press locally and nationally in confronting the obvious chasm within our citizenry.”
For more information about the event and to register, please visit Speak Out Against Hate at soah-de.org.
Speak Out Against Hate was formed to confront and counter the rising tide of hate, whenever and wherever it exists.
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