2012: The Year in Review
Sticking to an LGBT perspective, the year rode a relatively rising trajectory
JUNE
Community pride got its biggest display of the year with the Capital Pride Parade and Festival, June 9 and 10, respectively. And even if the annual Pride of Pets fundraiser was canceled in 2012, June remained the gayest month of the year.
Team DC headed out June 15 for the eighth annual Night Out at the Nationals, with gay Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) throwing out the first pitch. Polis was joined by special guests Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C.’s Different Drummers, and straight ally Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP. Over at the White House, June 15 saw the president’s annual LGBT Pride Month Celebration. Transgender activist Ruby Corado realized her dream of opening a Latino LGBT community center, Casa Ruby. Mary Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Heather Poe chose the pride-filled month to get hitched.
There was certainly no summer holiday in June for Mayor Vincent Gray and the D.C. Council. During a Capital Pride town-hall event Gray swore in 20 members to his GLBT Advisory Committee, and the Council unanimously passed comprehensive anti-bullying legislation. Gray signed that bill at a June 22 ceremony with Chad Griffin, who took the reins at HRC earlier in the month, at his side.
Over in Virginia, with much less fanfare, the commonwealth got its first out gay judge. Following an anti-gay effort by The Family Foundation and others to block the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland – husband, father, veteran Navy pilot – the gay prosecutor was temporarily appointed to the General District Court for the city of Richmond. That appointment will still need General Assembly confirmation in 2013. State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D), the body’s only out legislator, said at the time, ”I’m hopeful that the General Assembly will make a wiser decision in 2013, and I will be advocating strongly for that.”
At the end of June the AIDS Memorial Quilt returned to Washington as part of the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival. Another sobering end to June was news from Mexico City that former Metro Weekly Coverboy Armando ”Mando” Montano, 22, was found dead June 30, cause of death unkown. Montano was in the country working as an Associated Press intern.
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