Local
Log Cabin endorses Mara
Republican hopeful for Council seat emerges as rival to gay-backed Dem candidates
Patrick Mara (Photo courtesy of Mara)
The D.C. Chapter of Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT political group, voted unanimously on Wednesday to endorse GOP candidate Patrick Mara in the city’s April 26 special election to fill an at-large seat on City Council.
Mara, a member of the city’s board of education from Ward 1, expressed strong support for LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage, in an unsuccessful race for a D.C. Council seat in 2008 and in his successful school board race last year.
“Patrick is an amazing candidate and a great friend not only to Log Cabin, but also to the entire LGBT community,” said Log Cabin D.C. President Robert Turner II.
Although Turner didn’t mention it in a Log Cabin press release announcing the Mara endorsement, Mara has surfaced as one of the lead rivals to Democrat Sekou Biddle, considered by most pundits as the frontrunner in the nine-candidate race for the at-large seat.
Biddle has the backing of most of the city’s establishment politicians, including Mayor Vincent Gray and D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large). He also received the endorsement of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political groups, and is backed by many of the city’s prominent LGBT activists.
“He is the only candidate who actually testified in support of bringing marriage equality to the District,” Turner said of Mara in the Log Cabin press release. “Recent events have shown that the Council needs a watchdog looking out for taxpayers, and we believe Patrick Mara will provide that oversight.”
Robert Kabel, the openly gay chair of the D.C. Republican Committee, called Mara “the only candidate for the April 26 special election who has a proven record on gay and lesbian issues.” He noted that Mara “vigorously” lobbied Republican members of Congress last year against a Republican proposal to overturn the city’s same-sex marriage law.
Gay Democrats backing Biddle note that Biddle expressed strong support for the city’s same-sex marriage law as it moved through the City Council for approval in 2009 and has been an outspoken backer of LGBT issues on the school board.
But they acknowledge that Biddle could be hurt by his endorsements from Gray and Brown following the sensational revelations over the past two months that media reports have labeled as scandals swirling over the heads of Gray and Brown.
Brown’s request for, and his decision later to return, two city funded and “fully loaded” Lincoln Navigator vehicles for his use as Council chair drew widespread criticism from voters in all parts of the city.
Gray, meanwhile, has come under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office over allegations that a top official in his election campaign allegedly paid another candidate to denounce Mayor Adrian Fenty, Gray’s main rival in the election, at candidate forums across the city.
Gray’s mayoral staff later hired the rival candidate, Sulaimon Brown, for an $110,000 city job before firing him from the job when news surfaced that Brown had a past record of more than one arrest, including an arrest for an assault charge that was later dismissed. Other allegations surfaced that high level officials in Gray’s new administration hired relatives to fill various city jobs in a possible violation rules prohibiting nepotism.
Mara’s campaign initially seized on the scandals surrounding Gray and Kwame Brown, with Mara calling on voters to elect an “independent voice” to the Council to monitor what his campaign called an out-of-control Democratic political machine.
But Mara faced ethics questions about his own campaign when the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics earlier this month disclosed it had discovered at least 160 forged signatures on Mara’s nominating petitions required for placement on the ballot. Board officials said the forged signatures were found on petitions turned in by petition circulators who were paid for their services by the D.C. Republican Committee.
Although the city’s election law gives the election board authority to disqualify all nominating petitions if some are “tainted by fraud,” the board ruled that Mara submitted more than 3,000 valid signatures needed to place him on the ballot, and that he should not be penalized for the actions of the paid circulators.
With Mara’s placement on the ballot confirmed, his supporters – both gay and straight – are hoping he can put together a winning coalition of moderate and progressive Republican and independent voters that will outnumber the voters Biddle must obtain in a field of six Democratic candidates.
Biddle’s supporters say his popularity among Democratic voters is much stronger than that of his Democratic rivals and he likely will receive enough Democratic votes to put him over the top.
Others note that voter turnout in special elections has always been very low, making the outcome unpredictable. If Mara can attract votes from gay Democrats and independents he might be able to pull off an upset victory in a close race, according to some political observers, even though Democrats outnumber Republicans among the city’s registered voters by a margin of nearly ten to one.
Virginia
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria City Council member becomes 8th LGBTQ member of legislature
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the decisive winner in a Feb. 10 special election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, a Democrat, received 81.5 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Mason Butler, according to the local publication ALX Now.
He first won election to the Alexandria Council in 2021. He will be filling the House of Delegates seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria), who won in another Feb. 10 special election for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria).
Ebbin is resigning from his Senate next week to take a position with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration.
Upon taking his 5th District seat in the House of Delegate, McPike will become the eighth out LGBTQ member of the Virginia General Assembly. Among those he will be joining is Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who became the Virginia Legislature’s first transgender member when she won election to the House of Delegates in 2017 before being elected to the Senate in 2023.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” McPike said in a statement after winning the Democratic nomination for the seat in a special primary held on Jan. 20.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, has served for the past 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He said he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. moderated a panel at Dupont Underground on Feb. 8. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
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