Local
Beloved D.C. bartender Howard Bivins dies at 77
‘He knew everyone’s name’
C. Howard Bivins Jr., a bartender who worked for six D.C. gay bars over a period of 35 years and became known as a congenial conversationist with many of his customers, died on April 12 at his home in Burke, Va., from complications associated with the lung illness known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to his partner of 39 years Perry Morehouse. He was 77.
Morehouse and others who knew Bivins said his regular customers at some of D.C.’s most popular gay bars often sought his advice and viewed him as an avid listener to whatever was on their minds.
“He loved to talk over the bar,” said Morehouse. “And he knew everyone’s name. He knew where everybody came from. He was very congenial,” Morehouse said. “He was always leaning over the bar talking to people. He was not the type of bartender that would make a drink and walk away.”
Morehouse said Bivins was born and raised in Richmond, Va., and was a 1963 graduate of Richmond’s Manchester High School, where he became known as a good dancer at the school’s student dances.
He worked in various positions in Richmond, including at Reynolds Metals, according to Morehouse, before moving to D.C. in the early 1980s. Morehouse noted that a number of the bars where Bivins started out as a bartender are no longer in business.
Among them were the Dupont Circle gay bar Fraternity House, where Bivins worked from 1982 to 1986. From 1986 to 2000, Bivins tended bar at the Capital Hill gay country western bar called Remington’s. And from 2000 to 2002 Bevins moved to another gay country western bar a few blocks away near the U.S. Marine barracks called Sheridan’s.
During part of the time he worked at Sheridan’s, Bivins also worked on different nights at the gay nightclub Ziegfeld’s-Secrets at its original location on the unit bock of O Street, S.E. up until 2006, when the club was displaced by construction of the Washington Nationals stadium.
Morehouse said Bivins then began bartending at the nearby gay nightclub Wet before that club was also displaced a year or two later by development related to the new baseball stadium. From there, according to Morehouse, Bivins returned to the former Fraternity House which had been renamed Omega. He tended bar there until Omega closed its doors in 2012.
“When Omega closed in 2012, he retired at the age of 68,” said Morehouse.
“Howard was always a spitfire and kept things lively and real,” said gay activist Robert York in a posting on Morehouse’s Facebook page. “Treasure the memories and know he will be missed by our community,” York wrote. “No doubt he’s keeping heaven on their toes and pouring shots for break times. Rest in power Howard.”
Morehouse said Bivins had a special place in his heart for Morehouse’s grandson Henning. “Trying to figure out how he was to be referred, he came up with the name 3-Pa, the third grandpa,” Morehouse recalls.
“He loved eating out and traveling, always surrounded by his close friends Craig, Mike, Ed, Carl, Greg, Chas, and Harry,” said Morehouse.
Bivins was predeceased by his parents. He is survived by Morehouse, his partner of 39 years, and his siblings Dorothy, David, and Beverly, and numerous nieces and nephews.
Contributions may be made in Bivins’ name to the D.C.-area hospice service Capital Caring Health at cpitalcaring.org/get-involved/donate.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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