News
Russia boycott calls divide LGBT activists
Group protested country’s gay rights record outside Russian embassy in D.C.
Protesters gathered outside of the Russian Embassy on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
LGBT rights advocates remain divided over calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia and Russian vodka in response to the country’s gay rights record.
Author Dan Savage, LGBT rights advocate Cleve Jones and the group Queer Nation last week launched the “Dump Russian Vodka” campaign that calls for a boycott of Stoli, Russian Standard and other Russian vodka brands. The campaign also urges the U.S. and other countries to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February.
“Do not drink Russian vodka,” Savage said in an op-ed in the Stranger, a weekly newspaper in Seattle, published on July 24. “Do not buy Russian vodka. Ask your bartender at your favorite bar — gay or otherwise — to DUMP STOLI and DUMP RUSSIAN VODKA.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks signed a broadly worded law that bans the promotion of so-called gay propaganda to minors and a statute that bans foreign same-sex couples and any couple from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally marry from adopting Russian children. LGBT rights groups are among those that face fines under a law that requires non-governmental organizations that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.”
About a dozen LGBT rights advocates gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Northwest D.C. to protest the country’s anti-LGBT rights record on Wednesday.
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights was among those who attended.
“We’re here today to protest LGBT human rights violations in Russia,” he said.
The anti-gay laws have come into effect against the backdrop of increasing anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in Russia.
Two men in the southern Russia city of Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s Far East have been killed in recent months during what local authorities have described as anti-gay attacks.
Police in St. Petersburg on June 29 arrested 40 LGBT activists and a handful of nationalists who confronted them during a gay rights rally. Authorities in the Russian capital in May arrested 30 LGBT rights advocates who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall.
Authorities in the city of Murmansk on July 21 took into custody four Dutch LGBT rights advocates who were filming a documentary about gay life in Russia. A St. Petersburg appellate court on July 25 overturned a lower court’s ruling that fined Coming Out, a local LGBT advocacy group, 500,000 rubles or slightly more than $15,202 for violating the “foreign agent” law.
Russian advocate: Boycott will have no effect
Gay bars in Seattle, Chicago, London and other cities have already begun to remove Stoli and other Russian products from their shelves. Gay City News reported a handful of ACT UP members protested a Stoli event at a gay bar in New York City on Tuesday night.
Gay bars in D.C. have thus far not indicated they will participate in the boycott.
Cobalt had been scheduled to host a Stoli-sponsored event for the website GayCities on Thursday, but the company postponed it.
The company did not return the Blade’s request for comment.
Val Mendeleev, CEO of SPI Group, Stoli’s parent company, said in a July 25 statement from Luxembourg the Russian government does not own the brand. He acknowledged the vodka contains Russian ingredients, but it is distilled in a factory in neighboring Latvia.
Mendeleev further pointed out SPI Group has supported a number of pro-LGBT groups and initiatives. These include Pride celebrations in South Africa and Austria and its “Most Original Stoli Guy” partnership with Gaycities.com.
“Stoli firmly opposes such attitude and actions,” Mendeleev said in response to growing concerns over Russia’s gay rights record. “As a company that encourages transparency and fairness, we are upset and angry.”
Nikolai Alekseev of Gay Russia, an LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade from Moscow on Tuesday he feels a boycott of Russian vodka will “not have an effect.”
“The real target of this protest should be the politicians who are behind these initiatives,” he said.
Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein called for a Sochi boycott in an op-ed the New York Times published on July 21.
Gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis, who was unable to compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because then-President Jimmy Carter boycotted them over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the year before, told Frank Bruni of the New York Times on July 28 that he feels athletes should have the opportunity to compete in Sochi in spite of Russia’s LGBT rights record. Retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova; the LGBT advocacy groups All Out and Athlete Ally and Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of OutSports, are among those who also oppose a boycott of the Sochi games.
“We want to encourage and support athletics, particularly the Olympics, and feel that a boycott would only hurt the athletes,” Hudson Taylor, executive director of Athlete Ally, told the Blade on Tuesday. “We understand the rationale behind a boycott, but are also cognizant that our call for a boycott could result in negative ramifications and backlash for regional LGBT and ally organizations in Russia.”
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on July 26 said the U.S. does not support calls to boycott the Sochi Olympics.
“That’s certainly not what we’re calling for,” she told reporters during her daily briefing in response to the Blade’s question about Russia’s LGBT rights record.
Gay athlete to wear rainbow pin in Sochi
Blake Skjellerup, a gay short track speed skater from New Zealand who plans to compete in Sochi in spite of the calls to boycott the games, last week announced he will wear a gay Pride pin during the Olympics.
He stressed to the Blade his decision is “not about defiance.”
“Wearing a Pride pin is about humanity and unity,” Skjellerup said. “It’s about representing something that is very important to me, and standing up for those who cannot stand up or help themselves.”
The Human Rights Campaign said in a July 24 letter to NBC Universal that the network has “a unique opportunity — and a responsibility — to expose” what it described as the “inhumane and unjust” anti-gay propaganda law during its coverage of the Sochi games. Mark Lazarus, chair of NBC’s sports group, deflected questions about his network’s potential coverage of Russia’s LGBT rights record during a presentation at the Television Critics Association gathering in New York City over the weekend.
The International Olympic Committee has assured gay athletes and others who travel to Sochi that authorities will not arrest them under the Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law. Vitaly Milonov, a St. Petersburg lawmaker behind the city’s gay propaganda to minors ban that took effect in 2012, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday he has not heard of any plans to suspend the national statute during the games.
“If a law has been approved by the federal legislature and signed by the president, then the government has no right to suspend it,” Milonov said, according to Gay Star News. “It doesn’t have the authority.”
Officials urged to ban Russian lawmakers from U.S.
Alekseev and other Russian LGBT rights advocates have launched a petition on the White House’s website that urges the U.S. to ban Milonov and Elena Mizulina, a Russian Parliamentarian who co-sponsored the national gay propaganda ban, from entering the country. It has received 4,775 signatures as of late on July 30.
“This is the way forward because these people are the real people behind the homophobic legislation,” Alekseev told the Blade.
Minnesota
Flanagan beats Craig in Minn. Senate primary after winning key LGBTQ endorsements
The race highlights a growing ideological shift within the Democratic Party, as Democrats increasingly seek a more robust pushback against Trump.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Democratic primary for the Senate in Minnesota, as progressive Democrats continue to clinch nominations across the country.
On Tuesday night, NBC News called the race for Flanagan, who received 59.0% of the state’s Democratic primary vote, while her opponent, Rep. Angie Craig, received 39.4%. Flanagan ran against Craig for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat.
Smith, along with Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., endorsed Flanagan, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., backed Craig.
Flanagan also received the endorsement of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender rights organization that has been at the center of efforts to counter the Republican Party’s push against transgender rights. The group chose Flanagan over Craig in part because Craig has not co-sponsored the Trans Bill of Rights, legislation that has been introduced multiple times in Congress and seeks to establish federal protections for transgender Americans.
The endorsement underscored a key difference between the two Democrats on LGBTQ issues. While Craig is the first openly lesbian mother in Congress, the Christopher Street Project said LGBTQ identity alone is not enough without a strong commitment to transgender rights as they are increasingly debated in legislative offices around the country.
In 2022, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., endorsed Flanagan’s re-election campaign for lieutenant governor alongside Tim Walz, calling the duo “Champions of Equality.”
Flanagan called the race an expensive fight of the “many versus the money,” Flanagan told NBC News’ “Meet the Press Now.” Craig and her allies combined to spend nearly $20 million on the airwaves, while Flanagan and her allies spent $4.7 million, according to AdImpact and NBC.
“I’m running to make sure that people can afford the lives they want to live,” Flanagan said. “I want to get big money out of our politics, and I want to fight for things like ‘Medicare for All’ so that people aren’t just paying for health insurance but actually have access to health care.”
Flanagan criticized Craig, who is in her fourth term, for not standing up enough to President Donald Trump’s administration, a characterization Craig disputed. Craig flipped a competitive House seat in the Twin Cities metro area and had argued that she was the best candidate to win in November.
Craig faced criticism for voting for the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure that Trump signed into law shortly after he started his second term in January 2025. Craig said she later regretted that vote.
Flanagan has been vocal about her stance on abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a recent Minnesota Public Radio debate she said that ICE “has to be ripped apart.” Flanagan said she does support immigration enforcement to ensure secure borders.
Immigration and ICE debates are especially pertinent in the Twin Cities, as ICE agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis during an enforcement crackdown at the behest of President Trump.
Despite the contested race, Craig made it clear that Democrats are committed to unifying.
“We have an existential crisis in our nation with Trump and Republicans, and so I would be right by the lieutenant governor’s side asking my supporters to support her,” Craig said. “The most important thing in this election is that we beat Republicans. That’s what matters.”
On the Republican side, former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya won the Senate primary. Considered an outsider to the Republican Party structure, she did not win the state GOP’s endorsement at the May convention, where delegates instead backed retired Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze.
She has run her campaign on a slew of issues Republicans have deemed worthy — including transgender sports participation, corruption, and minimizing illegal immigrants in the area.
This recent pattern of moderate and centrist Democrats raising huge funds — in many instances backed by major PACs — only to lose to more progressive and less experienced candidates is growing as more people grow disillusioned with the Democratic Party’s inability to push back against Trump and Republicans. A similar outcome happened in Michigan’s Democratic primary last week when progressive physician Abdul El-Sayed won over incumbent U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who decided not to run for re-election, stayed neutral in the Senate primary but his wife, Gwen, backed Craig over Flanagan, the governor’s ticketmate.
The Senate seat will be determined in the election on Tuesday, November 3, later this year.
District of Columbia
Gay ANC commissioner sues D.C. over police ‘failure’ to pay reward money
Lawsuit says information led to conviction in murder, armed robbery cases
Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Tom Donohue on Aug. 11 filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court charging that D.C. police acted improperly and violated a local law by not paying him $30,000 in reward money for his role in helping police identify and arrest — and obtain the subsequent conviction — of one man charged with murder and another man charged with armed robbery in separate cases.
Although the lawsuit alleges improper action by D.C. police in carrying out the city’s Crime Solvers reward program, it names as defendants the District of Columbia and the Office of the Attorney General for D.C., which, among other things, defends the city against lawsuits.
Donohue, who is a member of the city’s ANC Rainbow Caucus consisting of LGBTQ elected ANC members, held a news conference outside the D.C. Superior Court building on Aug. 11 to talk about the lawsuit before entering the courthouse to officially file it.
The lawsuit states that Donohue “provided key video evidence that led to the arrest and conviction” of a man initially charged with first degree murder for allegedly running over a bicyclist with his car after the two got into an argument.
The lawsuit states that police had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the defendant in that case, but police “arbitrarily slashed the payment to $5,000 without prior notice or policy justification.”
Court records show that D.C. resident Eric Beasley was charged with first degree murder for killing David Farewell, 45, by hitting him with his car on Sept. 4, 2020, on the 2100 block of Young Street, S.E. The records show the evidence for the case was based in large part on video camera footage of the incident obtained by police. Donohoe has said he provided that video camera evidence.
The records show that during Beasley’s October 2023 trial a jury was unable to reach the required unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial.
According to the records, Beasley later agreed to an offer by prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced in September 2024 to eight years in prison, a development that angered the victim’s family members who called it a “slap on the wrist,” according to a Fox 5 News report.
Donohue’s lawsuit says the second case in which he provided police with pivotal information involved a series of armed robberies known as the Fairlawn Serial Armed Robbery Spree that occurred in the Fairlawn neighborhood in Southeast D.C. in 2023 near where Donohue lives.
The lawsuit says evidence consisting of video surveillance footage provided by Donohue to police enabled police to determine they initially wrongfully arrested an 18-year-old male for the robberies. “Using Plaintiff’s security video, MPD identified, arrested, and convicted the actual robber, David Crocker, who was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison,” the lawsuit states.
It says one of the detectives investigating the case recommended a $10,000 reward for Donohue’s help in the case based on the police Crime Solvers reward program. The detective’s recommendation was approved by then-Assistant D.C. Police Chief Kyle Ramey on Aug. 4, 2025, according to the lawsuit.
But it adds, “Nevertheless, MPD improperly withheld payment.”
When contacted by the Washington Blade for comment on Donohue’s lawsuit allegations, a D.C. police spokesperson said “MPD does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
Gabriel Shoglow-Rubenstein, who serves as press secretary for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which will be defending the city against the Donohue lawsuit, said he would look into obtaining a possible comment but said the office has a similar longstanding policy of not commenting on pending litigation.
“This action arises from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department’s arbitrary, bad-faith, and legally unsupportable failure to honor its public reward promises and administrative obligations to Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.
It says the MPD violated the city’s Freedom of Information Act or FOIA law by not responding to Donohue’s request for information and documents related to the decision not to pay him the full reward money.
“MPD’s reduction of Plaintiff’s homicide reward from $25,000 to $5,000, and its withholding of his approved $10,00 robbery reward, were undertaken completely devoid of written standards, making such decisions inherently arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of administrative discretion,” it says.
It calls for Donohue to be awarded $30,000 in compensatory damages consisting of the $20,000 “unpaid balance” for the homicide case reward and $10,000 for the robbery case reward. It also calls for reimbursement for “reasonable” litigation costs and attorney’s fees. Donohue told the Washington Blade that at this time he is representing himself without an attorney.
Donohue told the Blade that the refusal by D.C. police to pay him the full reward money also limited his plans to donate some of that money to the family of murder victim David Farewell to help pay for a burial stone. He said that due to the family’s limited resources Farewell is buried in an unmarked grave
Delaware
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
The Collective to feature gift shop, queer museum, more
During Pride month this year, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective (DSGC) announced plans for The Collective, which will become Delaware’s first LGBTQIA+ visitor center and Wilmington’s first dedicated LGBTQIA+ space in nearly 40 years.
“We’ve been talking about the concept of a brick-and-mortar space for a long time,” said Noah Duckett, co-founder of DSGC.
A licensed clinical social worker, Duckett co-founded DSGC with his mother, Julissa Coriano, in 2018. DSGC is an independent nonprofit organization that provides vital clinical and educational support, social programming and direct-need support to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Some of the programs DSGC offers include a free clothing closet for the trans community, meal support for people recovering from gender-affirming surgery, connections to pro bono legal services, a biannual Pride Market featuring over 100 LGBTQIA+-owned small businesses, and more.
“Our vision for The Collective is a place where our community can come to learn, create, work and be inspired,” said Coriano.
The Collective will feature a visitor center and gift shop highlighting LGBTQIA+-owned businesses in Delaware.
“I think that this is something that’s going to benefit our community so much,” said Duckett.
Some of the LGBTQIA+-owned businesses that DSGC has already partnered with include Stress Induced Art Attack, Moonbeam Art Collaborative, Voce Coffee, Groovy Gemini Co., Scout Cafe, Macaron Social and Huxley and Hiro.
“Specifically in Wilmington, we haven’t had an LGBTQIA+-dedicated space in almost 40 years,” said Duckett.
The Griffin Community Center, which operated from 1986 to 1990, was Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ community center. The Griffin was founded by Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James C. Welch and provided a range of community services during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, including AIDS hotlines, organizational offices and meeting space. The center ultimately closed because of a lack of financial support.
Duckett said DSGC hopes The Collective will carry on The Griffin’s legacy while building a sustainable space for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I think now more than ever, there’s more and more spaces closing their doors. More and more spaces are losing funding, seeing reduced funding and reduced access, especially LGBTQ+ organizations and communities,” said Duckett.
The Collective will also feature Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ history museum, curated by LGBTQ+ historian Carolanne Deal.
“We don’t have any permanent displays in the state about Delaware’s queer history, and we want people to be able to access that history any day of the year, not just during Pride Month,” said Deal.
With a master’s degree in art history for museum professionals, Deal has more than seven years of experience in curatorial work and hands-on collections care.
“It’s mainly going to be a graphic display with photographs, articles and accessible text that draws people in and creates a story for the community,” said Deal.
Although the museum will not initially have an object collection, Deal said she hopes to add physical archival pieces in the future.
“Delaware has been at the forefront of a lot of queer civil rights, and it’ll be really amazing to have that enshrined in a permanent display that’s not only up for Pride Month,” said Deal.
Duckett said DSGC is currently raising funds with the goal of beginning construction this summer and opening by the end of the year.
Duckett told the Blade that fundraising efforts have reached just under $29,000 and that the organization is awaiting several major donations from community partner organizations.
However, he said DSGC continues to be denied many grants tied to federal or state funding because of restrictions on those funds being used for LGBTQ+-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction and renovation of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.ose funds being used for LGBTQ-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.
Flanagan beats Craig in Minn. Senate primary after winning key LGBTQ endorsements
Gay ANC commissioner sues D.C. over police ‘failure’ to pay reward money
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
Jason DePuy on coping with homophobia in ‘Big Brother’ house
