Sep 10, 2004   | COMMENTS     

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams on Wednesday signed an executive order creating a mayoral Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Affairs and named Wanda Alston, his special assistant for LGBT affairs, as head of the new office. Williams said the office would have cabinet-level status, with Alston serving on the cabinet and attending cabinet meetings with all city department and agency heads. He said the office would be located in the District Building, which serves as D.C.’s City Hall. Alston said one additional staff person, a full-time administrative assistant, would be assigned to the office, with the possibility of additional staff members in the future. “We’re raising the stakes here in the nation’s capital, establishing a cabinet level office to address the important concerns of lesbian and gay citizens,” Williams said at a Sept. 8 signing ceremony in his office. “I’m proud to be establishing this office with Wanda Alston leading it.” Williams said D.C. now joins cities like Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles that have similar offices. Like those offices, Williams said, the D.C. office would work with the Department of Health to monitor gay-related health concerns. The mayor’s order came one year after the D.C. Council declined to act on a bill introduced by gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), which called for creating an LGBT affairs office through legislation. Council action stalled on Graham’s bill after the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance came out against the bill on grounds that such an office wasn’t needed. GLAA argued that gays are politically sophisticated and capable of lobbying the city government on their own behalf and that a mayoral LGBT office would be beholden to the political wishes of the mayor. However, GLAA member Mario Acosta-Velez, who spoke at the Sept. 8 ceremony where Williams signed the order, joined other local gay activists in expressing strong support for the office, saying it would serve as an important advocate for gay issues from within the city government. Others attending the ceremony were Cornelius Baker, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic; Rev. Candis Shultus, pastor of the D.C. Metropolitan Community Church; Sgt. Brett Parson, commander of the D.C. Police Department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit; Peter Rosenstein, a mayoral adviser and gay Democratic Party activist; and Brian Watson, an official with the Carl Vogel Foundation, a local AIDS service group. Graham and the activists supporting the office said they believed gays should have a cabinet-level office similar to the existing Latino Affairs Office and Asian-Pacific Islander Affairs office.
LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Campos a gay favorite in Md. special election
William Campos, a Democratic contender for the District 2 County Council seat in Prince George’s County, is winning praise from some area gay residents, who note that he has publicly promised to support equal rights for gays, including domestic partnership benefits for county employees. One of his opponents in the race, Hyattsville City Councilmember Chris Currie (Ward 1), was the lone dissenter in early June when the Hyattsville Council voted 9-1 in favor of domestic partner benefits. Prince George’s County does not offer domestic partnership benefits to gay couples but the issue is likely to be considered in the future. The special election is slated for Sept. 14. Campos has raised about $30,000 from businesses and received several endorsements from elected officials, according to a report in the Maryland Gazette.
JOE CREA

Web site critical of UVA’s DP policies closes down
A Web site soliciting contributions from potential donors to the University of Virginia as a means for them to demonstrate their disappointment in the school’s domestic partnership policy closed shop earlier this month, citing the cause’s increased awareness. But the Web site, www.dontgivetouva.com, which stopped accepting donations before commencement last spring, collected little money during its existence, despite receiving media attention when it launched in February. Andrew Borchini and Andrew Bond, two UVA alumni who founded Don’t Give, would not disclose the amount of money the site managed to raise, but said it fell far short of the $100,000 they had planned to use toward supporting the uninsured domestic partners of the school’s gay employees, in addition to continued outreach efforts. “One hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Borchini told student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily. “In terms of money, we didn’t raise much. It wasn’t much compared to what the initial goal ...