Local
Police, military officials lead Kameny farewell
Mayor, Council members join friends, activists in memorial ceremony
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
A gay Air Force sergeant and four gay military veterans in full dress uniform joined gay D.C. Council members David Catania and Jim Graham as pallbearers at a memorial viewing on Thursday honoring the late gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny.
The contingent of pall-bearers, including gay former Army Lt. Dan Choi, carried an American flag draped coffin bearing Kameny’s remains into the main hall of the historic Carnegie Library in downtown Washington, where the viewing was held.
Friends and activists who knew Kameny during his 50 year tenure as one of the nation’s and D.C.’s leading LGBT rights advocates said the ceremony and memorial viewing of his closed coffin was a befitting sendoff for a man they said improved the lives of millions of LGBT Americans.
Members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington opened the ceremony by singing the National Anthem as D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, four D.C. Council members and a contingent of friends and activists stood near the coffin.
Hundreds of activists, community allies, public officials, and D.C. residents who knew Kameny or knew of his work filed past the coffin between 3 p.m. and the start of the ceremony at 6:60 p.m. Among them was John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the highest ranking openly gay appointee in the Obama administration.
Kameny Memorial. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Rev. Elder Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, which caters to mostly LGBT congregations throughout the country, traveled from his home base in Los Angeles to attend the event. Perry, an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights for more than 30, worked with Kameny on national LGBT related projects in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mayor Gray said Kameny’s civil rights work led to a “massive, positive change” in the way LGBT people live their lives both in D.C. and across the nation.
“Frank Kameny is one of the most significant figures in the history of the American gay rights movement,” Gray told the gathering. “It was a poignant coincident that Dr. Kameny passed away on National Coming Out Day because he came out as a proud gay man in an era in which there were virtually no social and legal supports for sexual minorities who chose to live their lives openly in this country.”
Organizers of the ceremony, led by local activists and Kameny friends Charles Francis and Bob Witeck, placed at one end of the coffin a picket sign that Kameny made for a 1962 gay rights protest he organized outside the White House. The sign, still attached to its original wood stick handle, states, “Homosexuals Ask for the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness.”
At the other end of coffin stood a portrait of Kameny painted by local gay artist Don Patron.
Norton, a leader of the black civil rights movement, said Kameny’s acts of “defiance” and “raw, pure undiluted courage” during the decades he fought oppression against LGBT people put him in a place similar to that of black civil rights legend Rosa Parks.
Norton noted that Kameny began his fight for equality and justice for LGBT people shortly after he was fired for being gay from his job as an astronomer with the U.S. government in the late 1950s.
“Frank Kameny no more set out to sacrifice his livelihood when he refused to deny his sexual orientation to federal authorities than Rosa Parks intended to give up her work as a seamstress when she refused to move to the back of the bus,” Norton said. “Rosa Parks got tired of suppressing her full identity and her full dignity. So did Frank Kameny,” said Norton, adding, “There is a special place in our country for people like Frank Kameny. The phrase he coined, ‘Gay is Good,’ is every bit as significant as Black is Beautiful.”
Kameny died in his home Oct. 11 at the age of 86. Organizers of his memorial said a larger community memorial celebration of his life will take place Nov. 15 at a location to be announced.
“He was a great man who made it possible for me to be who I am,” said Rick Wood, a D.C. gay activist who said Kameny helped him organize the city’s first gay youth group 25 years ago.
“When I heard of Frank’s passing I was heartbroken but also grateful for the fearless and brave life that he led,” said Catania. “We’re all better off for having had Frank walk this earth. He changed minds and opened hearts to acceptance and tolerance in Washington and all over the world.”
Graham, who said he got to know Kameny during Graham’s tenure as director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, called Kameny an “extraordinary” figure on the Washington scene for half a century.
“It is not possible to overstate the contribution that has been made by Frank Kameny for human rights, for gay and lesbian people and for everybody because, in point of fact, he was concerned about everybody,” Graham said.
Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance and a friend and colleague of Kameny’s for more than 20 years, read from a chapter Kameny wrote for a book about the early “homophile movement” that was published during Kameny’s early years of activism. Kameny’s message in the book chapter was intended for a gay audience.
“It’s time to open the closet door and let in the fresh air and the sunshine,” Rosendall quoted Kameny as saying. “It is time to doff and discard the secrecy, the disguise and the camouflage. It is time to hold up your heads and to look the world squarely in the eye as the homosexuals that you are, confident of your equality, confident in the knowledge that as objects of prejudice and victims of discrimination, you are right and they are wrong, and confident of the rightness of what you are and the goodness of what you do. It is time to live your homosexuality fully, joyously, openly and proudly, assured that morally, socially, physically, psychologically, emotionally, and in every other way – gay is good.”
Joining the contingent of gay military pallbearers were four members of the D.C. Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, who served as pallbearers at the conclusion of the ceremony. With participants and well wishers lining the steps and plaza outside the Carnegie Library, the GLLU members and two of the gay military veterans carried Kameny’s coffin to a hearse on the street
Kameny’s friends and activist colleagues said they arranged for Kameny’s body to be cremated, based on Kameny’s expressed wishes, shortly after his death on Oct. 11. An urn bearing his ashes had been placed in the coffin for the ceremony.
Witeck said he and others close to Kameny had yet to decide on a burial site or other resting place for the Kameny’s ashes. One place under consideration, Witeck said, is D.C.’s Congressional Cemetery.
District of Columbia
High cost of living shuts essential workers out, threatens D.C.’s economic stability
City residents don’t always reflect those who keep it running
When Nic Kelly finishes her 6 a.m. shift as a manager at PetSmart, she walks to her bartending job at Alamo Drafthouse in Crystal City to serve cocktails, beers, and milkshakes for hundreds of guests.
Kelly, 26, doesn’t work a combined 60-65 hours per week to pocket extra cash –– she does it to barely make her almost $1,700 rent each month.
“I’m constantly working, and some days I work two jobs in the same day,” Kelly said. “But twice now I’ve had to borrow money from my mother just to make sure I pay my full rent.”
Yesim Sayin, D.C. Policy Center executive director, said this is unfortunately how the D.C. area is structured –– to keep essential workers, service employees, and lower-income people out and those with greater economic mobility in.
The DMV area’s high cost of living makes it near-impossible for employees who keep the area running to make a living, Sayin said. In 2022, only 36% of D.C.’s essential workers lived in the city, according to a D.C. Policy Center report. D.C. is also ranked 13th in the world for highest cost of living as of Nov. 7.
But for Sayin, there’s more work for policymakers to get done than simply acknowledging the high cost of living. Take a look at how current policies are impacting residents, and what long-term solutions could help the DMV thrive.
Feeling the high cost of living
D.C. has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 6.0% as of August. Sayin said the city’s high unemployment rate reflects a lack of geographic mobility in its population, meaning those who can’t find jobs can’t afford to look outside of the DMV area.
Though there are job training groups working to close the unemployment gap, securing a job –– let alone two –– rarely guarantees a comfortable lifestyle for essential and service employees.
A single-person household in D.C. with no children must make at least $25.98 an hour to support themselves, according to the Living Wage Calculator. That number jumps to $51.68 an hour for a single adult with one child. Minimum wage in D.C. is $17.95 an hour and $10 an hour for tipped employees.
Whether it’s utilizing free meals at the Alamo to save on groceries or borrowing money to make rent, every week could bring a different sacrifice for Kelly.
While Kelly lives and works a few minutes south of D.C., Sayin said the connectedness of the DMV means you don’t have to travel far to feel the withering effects of the area’s high cost of living.
“People don’t really care what flag adorns their skies,” Sayin said. “They’re looking for good housing, good schools, cheaper cost of living, and ease of transportation.”
For those that stay in the DMV area, those conditions are hard to come by. This can lead to people working multiple jobs or turning to gigs, such as Uber driving or selling on Etsy, to fill income gaps. Sayin said there are short-term benefits to securing these gigs alongside a primary job, such as helping people weather economic storms, avoid going on government assistance or racking up debt.
But she said the long-term implications of relying on gigs or other jobs can harm someone’s professional aspirations.
“You can spend three extra hours on your own profession every work week, or you can spend three hours driving Uber. One gives you cash, but the other gives you perhaps a different path in your professional life,” Sayin said. “And then 20 years from now, you could be making much more with those additional investments in yourself professionally.”
There’s a strong demand for work in D.C., but when the city starts suffering economically, those who live outside the area –– usually essential or remote workers –– will likely find work elsewhere. Sayin said this negatively impacts those employees’ quality of life, giving them less professional tenure and stability.
D.C.’s cost of living also centralizes power in the city, according to Sayin. When lower-wage employees are priced out, the residents who make up the city don’t always reflect the ones who keep it running.
“Ask your Amazon, Uber or FedEx driver where they live. They’re somewhere in Waldorf. They’re not here,” Sayin said.
Working toward an accessible D.C.
Build more. That’s what Sayin said when thinking of ways to solve D.C.’s affordability crisis.
But it’s not just about building more –– it’s about building smartly and utilizing the space of the city more strategically, Sayin said.
While D.C. has constructed lots of new housing over the years, Sayin noted that they were mostly built in a handful of neighborhoods tailored to middle and upper-class people such as The Wharf. Similarly, building trendy small units to house young professionals moving to the city take up prime real estate from struggling families that have much less geographic mobility, she said.
“The affordability problem is that today’s stock is yesterday’s construction,” Sayin said.
Solving these issues includes ushering in a modern perspective on outdated policies. Sayin cited a D.C. policy that places restrictions on childcare centers built on second floors. Since D.C. parents pay the highest rates in the country for childcare at $47,174 annually, she said loosening unnecessary restrictions could help fuel supply and lower costs for families.
Sayin said policymakers need to consider the economic challenges facing residents today, and whether the incentives and tradeoffs of living in D.C. are valuable enough to keep them in the city.
For Kelly, the incentives and tradeoffs of staying in the DMV area aren’t enough. She’s considered moving back in with her mom a few times given how much she has to work just to get by.
Aside from wanting higher compensation for the work she does –– she noted that businesses can’t operate without employees like her –– Kelly also questioned the value of the tradeoff of moving so close to the city.
“There’s no reason why I’m paying $1,700 for a little studio,” Kelly said. “You also have to pay for parking, utilities aren’t included and a lot of residents have to pay for amenities. We are just giving these property management companies so much money, and we’re not really seeing a whole lot of benefit from it.”
Sayin said placing value on the working people of the city will inject fresh life into D.C.’s economy. Without a valuable tradeoff for living in or around the city, there’s little keeping essential and service employees from staying and doing work taken for granted by policymakers.
District of Columbia
Activist hosts Diwali celebration in D.C.
More than 120 people attended Joshua Patel’s party on Nov. 9.
LGBTQ activist and businessman Joshua Patel hosted a community Diwali party on Nov. 9.
Patel organized the event as a community gathering amid the Trump-Vance administration’s policies against LGBTQ inclusion and DEI. The event, held at the Capo Deli speakeasy, drew more than 120 attendees, including local business leaders.
Patel is a franchise owner of ProMD Health, recently awarded as the best med spa by the Washington Blade. He is also a major gift officer at Lambda Legal.
Patel noted that upon moving from New York to Washington in 2022, he desired a chance for community-based Diwali celebrations. He stated that the city offered minimal chances for gatherings beyond religious institutions, unless one was invited to the White House’s Diwali party.
“With our current administration, that gathering too has ended — where we cannot expect more than Kash Patel and President Trump lighting a ‘diya’ candle on Instagram while simultaneously cutting DEIB funding,” Patel said.
In addition to celebrating the festival of lights and good over evil, Patel saw the event as a moment to showcase “rich, vibrant culture” and “express gratitude.”
Patel coined the celebration a “unifier.”
“From a spiritual angle, Shiva was the world’s first transgender God, taking the form of both “male” and “female” incarnations,” Patel said. “The symbolism of our faith and concepts are universal and allows for all to rejoice in the festivities as much or little as they desire.”
Savor Soiree, DMV Mini Snacks and Capo Deli catered the event. DJ Kush spun music and Elisaz Events decorated the Diwali celebration.
The Diwali party also featured performances by former Miss Maryland Heather Young Schleicher, actor Hariqbal Basi, Patel himself and Salatin Tavakoly and Haseeb Ahsan.
Maryland
Harford school board appeals state’s book ban decision to circuit court
5-2 ruling in response to ‘Flamer’ directive
By KRISTEN GRIFFITH | Marking a historic moment in Maryland’s debate over school library censorship, Harford County’s school board voted Thursday to appeal the state’s unprecedented decision overturning its ban of a young adult graphic novel, pushing the dispute into circuit court.
The 5-2 vote followed a recent ruling from the state board overturning Harford’s ban of the book “Flamer.” In a special meeting Thursday afternoon, board members weighed whether to seek reconsideration or take the matter to circuit court — ultimately opting to appeal.
The book “Flamer” is by Mike Curato, who wrote about his experience being bullied as a kid for being gay.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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