The What, When and Who of 2013
The Year in Review 2013
OCTOBER
The resonance of ”25” continued into October, beyond Corkins and HOPE DC, and straight – so to speak – to Equality Maryland as the state’s primary LGBT organization marked its quarter century. Enjoying another anniversary was the Wanda Alston House, open five years as D.C.’s only dedicated transitional housing for LGBT youth. The five-year mark also came with a new structure including a foundation and Casa Ruby serving as fiscal agent.
There was less celebration and more scramble for Ford’s Theatre, set to begin October with a month of Lincoln Legacy Project programming centered on The Laramie Project and the murder of Matthew Shepard. Capitol Hill peevishness, however, stood in the way with the government shutdown hitting the theater, which is operated in association with the federal National Park Service. The nearby First Congregational United Church of Christ, however, was able to pick up the congressional slack and offer space for Ford’s to salvage the showings.
By mid-month, the New Jersey Supreme Court forced the wheels of gubernatorial governance and ordered that marriage equality come to the Garden State. Another court, D.C. Superior, found March 2012’s IHOP shooter, Lashawn Carson, guilty on seven charges, Oct. 11.
While courts exercised their authority in October, former GOP Pennsylvania governor and former head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, exercised his own authority at the Log Cabin Republicans’ annual dinner and threw the book at his party’s tea-party bloc. Americans, Ridge told attendees of LCR’s Spirit of Lincoln Dinner, ”are not attracted to a party that imposes an even more severe litmus test on its own members, projects an unacceptable rigidity and self-righteousness on social issues, and spends more time and energy objecting to bad law rather than proposing alternatives.”
The month closed with Whitman-Walker Health’s 27th annual AIDS Walk Washington, honoring Sean Sasser, and the 27th annual High Heel Race down 17th Street.
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