Feb 27, 2009  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

About 250 people packed the bleachers at the Kennedy Recreation Center in North-west Washington last week to show their support for the city’s bid to host the 2014 Gay Games.

The Gay Games, an Olympic-style international gay athletic competition, could draw as many as 12,000 athletes and 100,000 spectators to the host city. Following an initial winnowing down of competing cities, three other U.S. cities are expected to submit rival bids for the right to host the games.

“We’re going to submit a great bid,” said Brent Minor, co-chair of the Bid Committee for the Metropolitan Washington Gaymes, the organization coordinating the city’s effort to host the 2014 games. “We are not taking anything for granted.”

Vince Micone, president of the Metropolitan Washington Gaymes and the bid committee’s other co-chair, predicted that D.C. would beat Boston, Cleveland and Miami because of its long track record of hosting large athletic and political events, including the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Barack Obama.

With four members of the D.C. City Council and City Administrator Dan Tangherini standing beside him during the Feb. 21 rally, Micone shouted to the crowd, “How are you feeling?” In unison, the crowd responded, “Fired up! Fired up!”

D.C. and the other cities competing to host the Gay Games must submit their bids to the Federation of Gay Games by March 15, with a $3,000 fee for the bid due on March 1.

Officials with the Federation of Gay Games, the organization that will choose the winner of the bids, are expected to begin site visits to the competing cities in July and August, according to Minor.
Organizations representing the cities are then scheduled to travel to Cologne, Germany, in October to formally present their bids to the federation. Cologne is the host city for the 2010 Gay Games.

The D.C. effort’s organizers have pointed to the large number of athletic facilities and other needed amenities, such as hotels and a mass-transit system, as key factors that should work in Washington’s favor.

“The entirety of the Fenty administration is behind this,” City Administrator Tangherini told the gathering, in pointing to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s support for the city’s bid for the games. Fenty was traveling in Dubai and did not attend the rally.

Gay D.C. Council members David Catania (I-At Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), joined by Council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), took turns reading the “2014 Gay Games Support Resolution of 2009,” an official declaration passed unanimously by the Council.

Graham said the resolution demonstrates the strong support and commitment the city’s Council and government as a whole have for bringing the Gay Games to D.C.

Catania said he was moved by the strength of the commitment of the entire 13-member Council and the mayor’s office for working with local bid coordinators to bring the quadrennial gay event to D.C.
“I think we can do it. I know we can do it,” Catania said. He added, “Just in time for these gay games, but I hope sooner, we will have marriage equality in this city.”

Catania was referring to his longstanding plans to introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in D.C., a proposal that has the support of nearly all Council members as well as the mayor.

Last month, Catania postponed introducing the legislation after some gay activists indicated that they needed more time to organize and raise money to fight expected opposition in Congress and a possible ballot initiative seeking to overturn the legislation.

Catania has declined to say when he plans to introduce the same-sex marriage bill.

Thomas, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Parks & Recreation, said he would work with the mayor’s office and Clark Ray, the mayor’s openly gay director of the Department of Parks & Recreation, to aggressively promote the city’s bid for the Gay Games.

“We have the venues and the facilities,” Thomas said. “But most importantly, we have the commitment of the leaders of the District of Columbia.”

Evans, whose ward includes the city’s downtown area, pointed to how the city’s performance in handling as many as 2.4 million visitors for Obama’s inauguration “provides a clear record of our being able to run a big event.”