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Comings & Goings
Magpantay named to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
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Congratulations to Glenn D. Magpantay, Esq. on his appointment to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The commission is an independent, bipartisan federal agency, to advise Congress and the White House on the enforcement of federal civil rights laws and development of national civil rights policy. Magpantay will be the third Asian American, third openly LGBTQ, and first LGBTQ Asian American to serve on the commission. On his appointment Magpantay said, “It’s an enormous honor to serve my country and represent my community. We’ve been overlooked too long. This would not have happened without Sen. Schumer, Rep. Meng, and my community’s support. I hope to make you all proud.”
Magpantay is a longtime civil rights attorney, professor of law and Asian American Studies, and LGBTQ rights activist. He has been organizing in the community for more than 30 years. He is currently a principal at Magpantay & Associates, a nonprofit consulting and legal services firm. He was selected for a prestigious George Soros Equality Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations.
Magpantay co-founded and served as the executive director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), a national federation of Asian American, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander LGBTQ organizations for nearly a decade. His efforts were recognized by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) with its Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award and Walter & Evelyn Haas, Jr. Fund Outstanding LGBTQ Leadership Award for Immigrants’ Rights.
Magpantay was a nationally recognized civil rights attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) for nearly 20 years. Instinct magazine showcased Magpantay as one of the nation’s “25 Leading Men” in 2004. He organized the first-ever LGBTQ testimony before The White House Initiative on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in 2000 and spoke at the National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation in 1993.
Magpantay has brought 15 briefs to the United States Supreme Court; testified before the United States Congress; published 20 scholarly legal and academic articles; authored impactful public reports; and has given commentary to The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press, MSNBC-TV, NBC Asian America, and others. He served as a trustee to the Boehm Family Foundation, and currently serves on the Gold Futures Challenge Selection Committee of Asian American Futures Fund. He chairs the LGBT Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of New York.
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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