Local
Marriage law prompts gay Md. couple to move to D.C.
Gansler opinion not enough to keep Silver Spring pair from selling house
DeWayne Davis (left) and Kareem Murphy of Silver Spring, Md., are selling their home and moving to D.C. to enjoy the benefits of marriage. (DC Agenda photo by Michael Key)
Kareem Murphy and DeWayne Davis of Silver Spring, Md., have been together for nearly 19 years.
The two gay men, who are active members of D.C.’s Metropolitan Community Church, said they have been grappling for several years over whether to remain in Maryland or move back to the District, where they lived in the 1990s.
“Moving back to D.C. was attractive, but when the marriage issue took off it made the choice between Maryland and D.C. very clear in D.C.’s favor,” said Murphy, a lobbyist with a firm that represents local municipal governments.
“It kind of sealed the deal,” he said, referring to the D.C. same-sex marriage law that took effect Wednesday.
The couple has placed their Silver Spring house up for sale and is actively looking for a new home in the District.
Murphy and Davis, both 38 and graduates of Howard University, belong to a demographic group that gay activists and city officials say they will closely monitor over the next year or two to measure the economic impact of same-sex marriage in the nation’s capital.
An analysis prepared by the staff of D.C.’s chief financial officer estimates that the city would see a multi-million dollar increase in tax and business revenue during the first few years of legalized gay marriage. The tax and business revenue would be generated by a surge in weddings for same-sex couples from other states as well as from the District and nearby suburbs.
Studies conducted in other states that have legalized same-sex marriage have also found that gay male and lesbian couples have moved into those states for the sole purpose of being able to marry.
Davis, a former congressional staffer and lobbyist, recently left the realm of politics to enter D.C.’s Wesley Theological Seminary to become a minister. He said he and Murphy are rearranging their lives to move into the District not because of economic issues but because marriage is an important component of their faith-based beliefs.
“It has been made that much more important for us because we really want to be married,” Davis said. “We’ve called ourselves married and we’ve debated many times about going places to get married. But we’ve always said we didn’t want to move out of this area to marry.
“If we were going to marry, we wanted to be here, where we are. And so that was a deliberate decision we made. It was so important to us that this was going to happen in D.C.”
Murphy and Davis’ decision to move from Maryland to the District comes at a time when both jurisdictions have been rocked by ongoing struggles between same-sex marriage supporters and opponents.
In D.C., an ongoing campaign by Bishop Harry Jackson, a minister from Beltsville, Md., to overturn the city’s same-sex marriage law through proposed ballot measures and court injunctions appears to have been halted for the time being. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Jackson’s request for a stay to prevent the marriage law from taking effect March 3.
In Maryland, a long-awaited legal opinion by state Attorney General Douglas Gansler saying out-of-state same-sex marriages appear to have full legal standing under Maryland law has drawn the ire of conservative members of the state legislature.
Officials with Equality Maryland have hailed Gansler’s Feb. 24 opinion as an important breakthrough in efforts to bring about same-sex marriage equality in the state. But Equality Maryland Executive Director Morgan Meneses-Sheets acknowledged that the Gansler opinion has stirred up anti-gay groups and lawmakers who are mobilizing to block a same-sex marriage equality bill that activists hope to persuade the legislature to pass in 2011.
Meanwhile, Equality Maryland and other LGBT groups are studying the Gansler opinion and the response by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to determine what, if any, marital rights and benefits same-sex couples in Maryland can realize in their home state if they marry in other jurisdictions, including D.C.
Gansler has said his opinion was based on a careful legal analysis showing that most lawful marriages from other states — including same-sex marriages — are recognized under Maryland law. But he noted that the state’s high court would have to make the final decision on same-sex marriage recognition if opponents challenge state agencies that provide marital rights and benefits to gay couples.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
District of Columbia
Owner of D.C. gay bar Green Lantern John Colameco dies at 79
Beloved businessman preferred to stay ‘behind the scenes’
John Colameco, owner of the popular D.C. gay bar Green Lantern, has died, according to a March 7 announcement posted on the bar’s website and Instagram account. The announcement didn’t provide a date of his passing or a cause of death.
Green Lantern manager Howard Hicks said Colameco was 79 at the time of his passing.
“It is with great sadness that Green Lantern announces the death of our beloved owner, John Colameco,” the announcement says. “Most of our patrons might have heard John’s name, but might not have known his face,” it says.
“He was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of guy who avoided the limelight,” the announcement continues. “He preferred to stay in the back of the house with staff and team ensuring everything was running smoothly so that everyone out front was having a good time.”
The announcement adds, “As a veteran and businessman, John wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ + community, but he was one of the best damn allies our community has ever had.”
It says he “long provided spaces for the queer community to come together” since the 1990s when he owned and operated a popular restaurant on 17th Street, N.W. called Peppers.
According to the announcement, Colameco and his then business partner Greg Zehnacker opened the Green Lantern in 2001 in an alley off of 14th Street, N.W., between Thomas Circle and L Street, N.W.
The announcement points out that the Green Lantern first opened in the same location in the early 1990s before it later closed when the original owners decided to purchase and open other bars, one of which was the gay bar Fireplace near Dupont Circle. Colameco and Zehnacker were able to reopen the bar with the Green Lantern name.
“When Greg died unexpectedly in February 2014, John remained steadfastly committed to carrying on their vision and ensuring that Green Lantern remained part of the fabric of D.C.’s queer community,” the announcement says.
“Over the years, through Green Lantern, John has provided support to many community organizations, most notably Stonewall Sports, the Gay Men’s chorus of Washington, and ONYX Mid-Atlantic with Green Lantern serving as a gathering hub for their activities,” it states.
The announcement adds that Colameco’s family was planning a memorial for him in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“His Green Lantern family will celebrate his life by operating the bar as usual and we encourage you to stop by and join us,” it says. “Community coming together and having a good time – it’s exactly what John would want.”
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