Local
Washington Post publishes pro-Russia supplement
Oct. 9 insert lacked references to LGBT rights record
The Washington Post on October 9 ran a paid supplement from a Kremlin-backed Russian newspaper.
The Washington Post’s Oct. 9 print edition included a paid supplement produced by a Kremlin-backed newspaper that lacked any references to the ongoing controversy over Russia’s LGBT rights record.
Rossiyskaya Gazetá produced the insert – Russia Beyond the Headlines – that contained, among other things, an op-ed from Jeffrey Mankoff of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C. He cited portions of the speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered during a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, a Russian think tank, that took place last month.
“Discussing his own view of Russian identity, Putin criticized the West for abandoning its Christian roots and ‘placing on the same level families with many children and single-sex partnerships, belief in God and belief in Satan,’” Putin said, according to Mankoff. “This cultural relativity, according to Putin, is ‘a direct path to degradation and primitivization, to a deep demographic and ethical crisis.’”
The Oct. 9 supplement is not the first time the Washington Post has published a Russia-specific insert.
The newspaper first published a Russia-themed supplement – Russia Now – in 2007.
Russia Beyond the Headlines said in a press release last month it decided earlier this year to redesign and revamp the supplement. It reappeared under the aforementioned name in the Washington Post’s Sept. 11 issue with a lead story that focused on the controversy surrounding the Russian law that bans gay propaganda to minors.
The article quoted Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group, an organization that monitors human rights in Russia, as describing the statute that Putin signed in June as “a step toward the Middle Ages.” The Sept. 11 supplement reported Kirill Kobrin of Radio Free Europe’s Russia Service said he feels “it was unthinkable to even discuss these issues 20 years ago in Russia.”
“Under the Kremlin’s lead, LGBT rights are the focus of public attention and debate in Russia – albeit censored debate,” the Russia Beyond the Headlines article reads.
The New York Times on Sept. 18 published an eight-page Russia Beyond the Headlines supplement that contained articles about the gay propaganda law and coming out in the country. Putin reiterated his opposition to air strikes in Syria in an op-ed that ran in the newspaper less than a week earlier.
Ketchum PR, a public relations firm that represents Putin, placed it in the New York Times. Pro Publica reported the New York-based company received more than $1.9 million in fees and expense reimbursements from the Russian government from December 2012 through May.
The New York Times included another Russia supplement in its Oct. 16 print edition that contained an article on the arrest of 30 Greenpeace members last month who tried to board a Russian oil platform. The insert also contained a reference to the LGBT advocates who protested Russia’s gay rights record during the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night gala in New York last month.
Washington Post spokesperson Jennifer Lee declined to tell the Washington Blade how much the Russia Beyond the Headlines insert cost, but she confirmed it was a paid supplement and the advertiser provided the content. It contained a disclosure on the front page that said “it did not involve the news or editorial departments of the Washington Post.”
The top margin of each subsequent page contained a disclosure that stated the insert was “a paid supplement to the Washington Post.”
Observers and even journalists themselves have questioned the way Russian media outlets have covered the gay propaganda law, Russia’s LGBT rights record and the controversy surrounding it.
Gay American journalist Jamie Kirchick on Aug. 21 challenged Russia’s LGBT rights record during an interview with the Kremlin-backed television network RT on the sentencing of former U.S. Army private Chelsea Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.
“Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network I’m going to wear my gay pride suspenders and I’m going to speak out against the horrific anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law, that passed unanimously by the Russian Duma that criminalizes homosexual propaganda,” Kirchick told anchor Yulia Shapovalova. “It effectively makes it illegal to talk about homosexuality in public. We’ve seen a spate of violent attacks on gay people in Russia.”
RT aired a segment on calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in response to the country’s LGBT rights record less than two weeks before Kirchick appeared on the network to discuss Manning. The journalist further criticized Shapovalova and her colleagues before RT took him off the air.
Anton Krasovsky, the former editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin Kontr TV, said the television station fired him in January after he came out as gay during a segment on the gay propaganda law.
The Washington Post in recent weeks has published a number of stories on the controversy over Russia’s LGBT rights record and how it threatens to overshadow the Sochi games. These include a Sept. 26 article on the International Olympic Committee’s position that it has no authority to challenge the gay propaganda law and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals’ response to a question about it during the lighting of the Olympic torch in Greece late last month.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, who bought the Washington Post in August and contributed $2.5 million to a group that backed a successful 2012 ballot measure that secured marriage rights for same-sex couples in Washington State, did not return the Blade’s request for comment.
Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, a media ethics watchdog, told the Blade that paid supplements and advertorials have become common in newspapers. She noted the Washington Post’s use of different fonts throughout the Russia Beyond the Headlines supplement is “common practice” and “is amazingly effective at cueing regular readers to advertising content.”
“Combined with the disclosures, it looks to me the [Washington Post] is within the standard practice of the industry,” McBride said.
Rehoboth Beach
Auction of Rehoboth’s Blue Moon canceled
Details on sale of iconic bar, restaurant not disclosed
The Blue Moon in Rehoboth Beach, Del., has been an iconic presence in the local LGBTQ community for four decades but its status remains murky after a sheriff’s auction of the property was abruptly called off on Tuesday.
The property was listed for sale in December. At that time, owner Tim Ragan told the Blade that he is committed to preserving its legacy as a gay-friendly space.
“We had no idea the interest this would create,” Ragan said in December. “I guess I was a little naive about that.”
Ragan explained that he and longtime partner Randy Haney were separating the real estate from the business. The two buildings associated with the sale were listed by Carrie Lingo at 35 Baltimore Ave., and include an apartment, the front restaurant (6,600 square feet with three floors and a basement), and a secondary building (roughly 1,800 square feet on two floors). They were listed for $4.5 million.
The bar and restaurant business is being sold separately; the price was not publicly disclosed.
But then, earlier this year, the Blue Moon real estate listing turned up on the Sussex County Sheriff’s Office auction site. The auction was slated for Tuesday, April 21 but hours before the sale, the listing changed to “active under contract” indicating that a buyer has been found but the sale is not yet final. As of Wednesday morning, the listing has been removed from the sheriff’s auction site.
Ragan didn’t respond to Blade inquiries about the auction. Back in December, he told the Blade, “It’s time to look for the next people who can continue the history of the Moon and cultivate the next chapter,” noting that he turns 70 this year. “We’re not panicked; we separated the building from the business. Some buyers can’t afford both.”
The identity of the buyer was not disclosed, nor was the sale price.
Delaware
Delaware school district remains supportive after Trump attacks on trans students
Cape Henlopen has gender identity nondiscrimination policy
The Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, one of five school districts in several states where the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month rescinded agreements protecting the rights of transgender students, says it will continue to provide a “safe and supportive learning environment” for all students.
In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the Cape Henlopen district sent the Washington Blade a short statement on its response to the federal Education Department’s action under orders from the Trump administration that ended what were called school district “resolution agreements” put in place under the administration of President Joe Biden.
Among other things, the federally initiated agreements required schools to train faculty on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns and to implement policies that allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
“The Cape Henlopen School District has received correspondence from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights regarding the resolution agreement entered in March 2024,” the Cape Henlopen School District’s statement says. “As always, we are committed to providing a safe and supportive learning environment where all students can succeed,” it says.
“We will continue to work collaboratively to ensure our practices and programs support the well-being, growth, and achievement of every student in our District,” the statement concludes.
Although it did not respond specifically to the Trump-initiated action ending federal protections for trans students, a statement on the Cape Henlopen School District’s website says the district has a policy of non-discrimination based on a wide range of categories, including race, religion, creed, gender, and “sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The Trump administration’s latest action does not take away nondiscrimination policies put in place by school districts on their own.
The Cape Henlopen district is in Sussex County, a short distance from Rehoboth Beach, a Delaware resort town with many LGBTQ residents and summer visitors.
The other school districts for which the U.S. education department ended the trans nondiscrimination agreements include the Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Fife School District in Washington State, and La Mesa Spring Valley School District also in California.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said in a statement that the decision to terminate the school agreements highlighted the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in her statement.
Shiwali Patel, an official with the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the action removing protections for trans students would negatively impact all students.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel,” she said. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
Virginia
Va. voters approve HRC-backed redistricting plan
10 of state’s 11 congressional districts now favor Democrats
Virginia voters on Tuesday narrowly approved a congressional redistricting plan ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The referendum passed by a 51-48 vote margin.
Virginia’s last Census happened in 2020. The next time maps would have been redrawn was intended for 2030, but the referendum results allow for redistricting to happen this year, while allowing the standard district procedures to resume after the 2030 Census.
Many congressional maps have been redrawn since the Trump-Vance administration took office, adding seats for both Republicans and Democrats. Ten of 11 of Virginia’s congressional districts will now favor Democrats.
The Human Rights Campaign PAC supported the referendum.
“Virginians made their voices heard today, rebuking Republicans’ attempts to stack the deck in their favor in the 2026 midterm elections and beyond,” said Human Rights Campaign PAC President Kelley Robinson in a statement. “This year, we’re going to take Congress back from the fringe extremists who have bent the knee to President Trump’s historically unpopular agenda at every turn.”
“Virginians just put anti-equality, anti-democracy, and anti-freedom lawmakers on notice — together, we are fighting for a future where every single American’s vote matters and where every elected official must earn their constituents’ trust,” she added.
Auction of Rehoboth’s Blue Moon canceled
Delaware school district remains supportive after Trump attacks on trans students
Va. voters approve HRC-backed redistricting plan
Australia lifts additional restrictions on LGBTQ blood donors
Top EU court strikes down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law
Calendar: April 17-23
Team DC’s annual gala set for this weekend
The latest Supreme Court case erasing LGBTQ identity
Judge rescinds stay-away order in Capital Pride anti-stalking case
