Local
GLAA grades Council hopefuls
Candidates get mid-range to low grades; special D.C. election set for April 26
GLAA (Blade file photo)
D.C. City Council candidates Sekou Biddle and Bryan Weaver, both Democrats, each received a rating of +5.5 this week from the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, the highest score given by the group for the nine Council candidates running in the city’s April 26 special election.
GLAA, a non-partisan political group, rates candidates on LGBT and some non-LGBT issues on a scale of -10 to +10. The group says it bases its ratings on responses given by candidates to a GLAA questionnaire and on their past record on LGBT and AIDS issues.
“No candidates in the April 26 special election for At-Large D.C. Council member approached the ‘perfect tens’ from the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance that were earned in recent elections by Council members Jack Evans, David Catania, Jim Graham, and Phil Mendelson,” the group said in a statement. Catania and Graham are openly gay.
Republican candidate Patrick Mara and Statehood-Green Party candidate Alan Page each received a +4 rating. Democrat Vincent Orange, a former Ward 5 Council member, received a 3.5 rating; and Democrat Joshua Lopez, an aide to former Mayor Adrian Fenty, received a +2.5.
Democratic candidates Tom Brown and Dorothy Douglas and independent candidate Arkan Haile each received a rating of “0.” GLAA said the three failed to return the questionnaire and the group automatically assigns a 0 rating to such candidates unless it can verify a past record on LGBT related issues.
Each of the candidates that returned the questionnaire expressed support for LGBT rights, including support for the city’s same-sex marriage law.
In a statement accompanying the release of its ratings, GLAA acknowledged that the candidates indicated in their questionnaire responses that they support GLAA’s positions on nearly each of the 14 issues the group raised in its questions. It said most of the candidates lost points by not providing sufficient substance to their responses, which, according to the group, would demonstrate a better grasp and understanding of the issues.
“We just don’t want yes or no answers,” said GLAA Vice President Rick Rosendall. “We want the substance behind the answers.”
Rosendall said the substantive issues surrounding each of the questions asked of the candidates are included in a 24-page GLAA “agenda” briefing paper for the D.C. LGBT community published on the group’s website. He said the group sent each candidate a copy of the paper along with the questionnaire.
The subjects covered in the questionnaire, among other things, include marriage and family, public health, public safety, human rights, youth, and protection for LGBT consumers and businesses – all in connection to how they pertain to the LGBT community, according GLAA.
One question asks what steps the candidates would take to improve the performance of the city’s AIDS office. Another asks, “Do you support the right of adults in the District to choose adult-oriented entertainment for themselves, and the right of appropriately licensed and zoned businesses to provide it?”
All of the candidates answering the questionnaire responded with a “yes” answer to the latter question, although they gave differing explanations of their views on the subject of adult businesses.
Each of the candidates except one — Statehood-Green Party candidate Page — gave a “no” answer to a question asking if they would consider supporting decriminalizing, zoning, taxing, and regulating prostitution in the District. GLAA noted in its questionnaire that marginalized groups such as low-income LGBT and transgender youth sometimes turn to prostitution as a means of economic survival and often are subjected to further difficulties if arrested for engaging in the sex trade.
Page and the other candidates said their favored solution to the problems of LGBT and trans youth is city sponsored job training , substance abuse counseling, and enforcement of non-discrimination laws that would eliminate the need for marginalized groups to turn to prostitution for survival.
GLAA said Biddle’s questionnaire was “generally positive but offered limited substance and was often vague.” The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group, endorsed Biddle.
Mara, who is currently a member of the city’s board of education from Ward 1, has expressed strong support for LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage. GLAA said he lost points on his rating, among other things, because he lobbied Congress for a federal school voucher program. The program pays D.C. students’ tuition in private, religious elementary and secondary schools that are exempt from the city’s human rights law, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In his questionnaire response, Mara said he backs the program because it allows students from low-income familiar to attend schools considered better academically than city public schools.
Mara this week received the endorsement of the GLBT group Log Cabin Republicans of Washington.
Copies of the candidates’ responses to the GLAA questionnaire and a breakdown of their ratings by points can be viewed at www.glaa.org.
Virginia
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria City Council member becomes 8th LGBTQ member of legislature
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the decisive winner in a Feb. 10 special election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, a Democrat, received 81.5 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Mason Butler, according to the local publication ALX Now.
He first won election to the Alexandria Council in 2021. He will be filling the House of Delegates seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria), who won in another Feb. 10 special election for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria).
Ebbin is resigning from his Senate next week to take a position with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration.
Upon taking his 5th District seat in the House of Delegate, McPike will become the eighth out LGBTQ member of the Virginia General Assembly. Among those he will be joining is Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who became the Virginia Legislature’s first transgender member when she won election to the House of Delegates in 2017 before being elected to the Senate in 2023.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” McPike said in a statement after winning the Democratic nomination for the seat in a special primary held on Jan. 20.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, has served for the past 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He said he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. moderated a panel at Dupont Underground on Feb. 8. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
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