Local
Businesses look to cash in on Del. marriage law
Gay couples can legally tie the knot in First State on July 1
Rehoboth Beach residents Chris Beagle and Eric Engelhart, owners of event planning company Flair!, on the beach last September following their civil union. (Photo courtesy of the couple)
Rehoboth Beach business owners are preparing for an expected increase in wedding-related business once Delaware’s same-sex marriage law takes effect on July 1.
CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Steve Elkins told the Washington Blade his organization’s wedding space is already booked into next year. He also noted the latest issue of CAMP Rehoboth’s newsletter has full-page ads from local jewelers that “are all about wedding rings.”
“People are looking for the opportunities,” Elkins said.
Chris Beagle, a Realtor who co-owns the event planning company Flair! with his partner of more than 23 years, Eric Engelhart, noted he saw an increase in inquiries from gay and lesbian couples in the months after Delaware’s civil unions bill took effect in January 2012. He told the Blade he expects the same interest in weddings once the state’s same-sex marriage law takes effect.
“I suspect we will see more in the next few months,” Beagle said. “I’m certain there is a segment of the population that feels more strongly about marriage than a civil union.”
Gov. Jack Markell on May 7 signed his state’s same-sex marriage bill into law after the state Senate approved it by a 12-9 vote margin.
Gays and lesbians can currently marry in neighboring Maryland and eight other states and in D.C.
Same-sex marriage laws in Minnesota and Rhode Island will take effect on Aug. 1 after Govs. Mark Dayton and Lincoln Chafee signed their respective state’s bills into law. The Illinois House of Representatives in the coming weeks is expected to consider a measure that would allow nuptials for gays and lesbians in the Land of Lincoln.
Same-sex marriage opponents continue to highlight several cases of business owners who have faced lawsuits because they refused to provide services to same-sex couples who seek to tie the knot. These include Barronelle Stutzman, a Richland, Wash., florist whom state Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued last month after she would not sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding.
The Alliance Defending Freedom continues to represent Elaine Huguenin, a New Mexico photographer against whom a lesbian couple filed a complaint with the state’s Human Rights Commission after she refused to photograph their commitment ceremony based on what she described as her religious beliefs. The Arizona-based organization also defended owners of the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vt., whom two New York women sued after they refused to host their wedding reception.
The innkeepers last August paid $10,000 to the Vermont Human Rights Commission and placed $20,000 in a charitable trust to settle the couple’s lawsuit.
The Williams Institute said after Markell signed his state’s same-sex marriage bill into law that nuptials for gays and lesbians could generate an additional $7 million for Delaware’s economy. It added same-sex marriage could generate an estimated 36 jobs in the state.
“Those states that have approved same-sex marriage are already seeing positive economic benefits,” Williams Institute Research Director M.V. Lee Badgett said. “As Delaware becomes the 11th state to extend marriage to same-sex couples, they will begin to see the economic benefits that other states are experiencing.”
Carol Everhart, president of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce, said she has not seen an increase in wedding-related inquiries since Markell signed the same-sex marriage bill, but stressed it is “possible.”
Beagle noted the growing momentum in support of nuptials for gays and lesbians across the country has become increasingly difficult for wedding-related businesses to ignore.
“Three states have passed it in 10 days,” he said. “I think forward-thinking businesses are seeing it as an opportunity.”
Virginia
Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration
Veteran lawmaker will step down in February
Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.
Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.
His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.
She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.
Maryland
Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress
Md. congressman served for years in party leadership
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.
Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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