When D.C. Councilmember and alum David Catania (I-At Large, SFS ’90, LAW ’94) gave a speech at Georgetown in March of last year, he talked about same-sex marriage as an “undying civil rights” issue that he hoped to make progress on. What a difference a year makes: Yesterday, Catania was back on campus, discussing the successful same-sex marriage legalization bill he sponsored and the role race and religion played in the fight for marriage equality in the District.

The panel discussion—which also featured Cathy Renna, a media relations expert who specializes on LGBT topics, Richard Sincere (SFS ’81), the president of Gays and Lesbians for Liberty, Michael Crawford, the communications director of Freedom to Marry, and Joseph Palacios, a Georgetown professor and priest who has been vocally supportive of same-sex marriage—focused on how D.C.’s marriage equality movement found success by actively engaging minorities and people of faith.

Catania opened the discussion by emphasizing how D.C.’s civil rights legacy and the high amount of attention local religious groups pay to equality issues made the city well-suited to support same-sex marriage legalization.  Over 200 religious leaders joined the D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality alliance and, according to Catania, more clergy members testified for the same-sex marriage bill than against it.

“We’re just not a fertile ground for intolerance,” Catania said.

For Renna, involving religious people in the District’s same-sex marriage movement was particularly important because it challenges the perception that marriage equality is a “God versus Gay” issue.

“What happened in D.C. was incredible,” Renna said. “This community proved that that’s a false dichotomy.”

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Same-sex couples have been exchanging vows all over the District since D.C. first began to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples on Tuesday—in gardens, in courthouses, in the office of the Human Rights Campaign, and even in Hello Cupcake. And today, a Georgetown establishment is going to be the site of a same-sex wedding, DCist reports, when the marriage between Keith Spangler and Andreas Vellios takes place at Georgetown’s Ben and Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s has a prominent history of supporting several social justice movements—the company even made a commemorative ice cream, Hubby Hubby, when its founders’ home state changed its laws to recognize same-sex marriage—and Jerry Greenfield (the Jerry of Ben & Jerry’s) will be at the ceremony to talk about his company’s commitment to justice and to congratulate the couple.

City Councilmember David Catania (SFS ’90, LAW ’94), the first openly gay member of the D.C. City Council who introduced the bill legalizing same sex marriage, will also be there, along with Freedom to Marry Director Michael Crawford. Afterward the ceremony, there’s going to be ice cream cake for friends and family of the couple.

Via DCist

As dozens of other churches in the District of Columbia are banding together to protest D.C.’s new marriage equality law, which went into effect yesterday, Georgetown’s Dumbarton United Methodist Church has announced that its pastor and all 12 other ordained clergy will recognize and perform ceremonies for same sex couples.

“As a pastor, I am called to extend care and grace to all people even as Jesus did,” Pastor Mary Kay Totty said after all 28 members of the Dumbarton Church Council voted to support same-sex marriage, according to a press release from the church. “We celebrate love and loyalty wherever it is found.”

Specifically, the Council voted “to honor and celebrate the wedding of any couple, licensed in the District of Columbia, who seek to commit their lives to one another in marriage.”

Given the congregation’s history, their support of same-sex marriage is not surprising. The Week explains that in 1987, the oldest Methodist church in D.C. made a point to “publicly welcomed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families into full participation in the life and ministries of the congregation.”

But in the greater context of the Methodist Church, the move is risky. The United Methodist Church does not recognize same-sex marriages, and no other Methodist church in D.C. has promised to do so.

Acknowledging the risk, Totty said that marriage equality is about justice and civil rights.

“We rejoice that at this point in history,” she said. “The arc of justice now bends toward equal recognition of marriage for all couples.”

Via the Georgetown Week

At right, David Catania

As things stand, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. says it will have no choice but to abandon its contracts with the City if the December 1 vote on the D.C. City Council’s proposed same-sex marriage law is successful.

The pulled contracts would have substantial consequences in D.C., as diocese-run “Catholic Charities,” currently serves 68,000 District residents and spends $10,000,000 on social services in the city annually in the District, and so City Council members are hurriedly seeking a compromise that will keep Catholic Charities in the City.

On Wednesday, Councilmembers Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) and David A. Catina (I-At Large) (SFS ‘90, LAW ‘94), the Georgetown graduate who introduced the bill, sent a letter to the Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl asking the Church to adopt a policy like the one in effect at Georgetown that allows the University to provide medical coverage the same-sex partners of employees without recognizing their union.

The New York Times editorial board seconds the idea (which City Paper columnist and Voice alum Mike DeBonis wryly notes is probably “the first time a D.C. Council committee report has been quoted in the Gray Lady”).

Susan Gibbs, the spokesperson for the Archdiocese, has not responded to a request for comment, but she has told the Catholic News Agency and the Washington Post that she is “not confident” and “not sure the proposal alleviates the Church’s concerns.”

An explanation of Georgetown’s policy, after the jump

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The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington provoked quite a stir this week when it announced that it would abandon its contracts with the city unless the D.C. Council changed its proposed same-sex marriage bill.  The church says that the bill could force it to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, so they would no longer be able to provide the charitable services they currently offer.

Patrick Deneen (left), an associate professor of Government at Georgetown and director of the Tocqueville Forum, hosted a chat on the Washington Post’s website yesterday to explain and defend the Archdiocese’s decision.

Deneen spent a large part of the chat trying to re-frame the issue as the church being forced into giving up business relations with the city:

I think the basic premise of the Post’s story requires clarification. The premise of today’s story was that the Catholic Church was threatening to cease to provide charitable services if the law legalizing gay marriage is passed. In point of fact, it is the DC government that would cease to license or contract with the Church unless the Church conformed to a definition of marriage that violates its faith tradition.

Without a set of broader legal exemptions allowing for the Church to remain faithful to its definition of marriage, it will cease to be permitted by the City to provide the contracted and licensed services that it has for well over a century. The Church’s fundamental desire in this controversy is to continue its desire and freedom to serve.

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In a recent interview with WTOP, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier speculated that the of recent hate crimes in Georgetown may have been motivated by the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage.

Lanier, who recently told WTOP that MPD is classifying the assaults as hate crimes, was asked on WTOP’s Ask the Chief Program whether it was possible that the issue of same-sex marriage could have sparked the attack.  She responded:

“Whenever there’s an issue that’s getting a lot of attention, there may be something that’s sparking these assaults. Certainly that’s something we are looking at.”

WTOP notes that there have been 31 hate crimes based on sexual orientation in D.C. during 2009.

Lanier said MPD has put an investigator on the case, and that the Gay Liaison Unit is assisting with the investigation.  She was also asked whether it’s possible that the two assaults are related, and responded that “we don’t have anything to connect the two incidents as of right now.”

D.C. Councilmember and Georgetown double alumni David Catania (I-At Large)(SFS ’90, LAW ’94) is planning to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the District next Tuesday, according to the Washington Post.

The bill, “The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009,” is being co-sponsored by ten of the D.C. Council’s 13 members, and Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) has pledged to sign the bill, so it is all but guaranteed to pass.

According to the Post, the bill will change the city code to state that “any person … may marry any other eligible person regardless of gender.”

Rumors have floated around about Catania introducing a same-sex marriage bill since last year.  In May, the D.C. Council nearly unanimously passed a bill that recognized same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Catania, who is openly gay, announced his intention to introduce the bill at the Council’s Tuesday meeting at a gathering of 150 gay rights activists, saying, “We are going to do it now.  We are going to do it now, not for ourselves, but for the young people who are 20 years-old, 16-years-old, 13-years-old.”

Photo from Flickr user krossbow, used under a Creative Commons license.

John Sweeney: Lovable labor leader, or enemy of Catholic doctrine?

Next Thursday, Georgetown will be giving an honorary Doctor of Law degree to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney for his dedication to fighting for better working conditions and human rights for workers. Sounds like some harmless, feel-good ceremony, right? Not to the Cardinal Newman Society.

The conservative Catholic organization which is “dedicated to renewing and strengthening Catholic identity at America’s 224 Catholic colleges and universities,” caught wind of our plans yesterday and called for Georgetown to rescind the honor.

Why the hubbub? The Cardinal Newman Society believes the AFL-CIO’s pro-gay marriage and pro-contraception stances are at odds with Catholic doctrine and should disqualify Sweeney from receiving an honorary degree from Georgetown:

“The Catholic bishops have made it abundantly clear that Catholic universities are not to publicly honor leading opponents of Catholic moral principles, said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS). “We strongly urge Georgetown to uphold its Catholic mission and rescind the honor to John Sweeney.”

According to Georgetown’s Director of Media Relations, the University disagrees with CNS’s condemnation. In an email Pino writes:

This criticism is totally unwarranted. Georgetown University awards honorary degrees based on an individual’s distinguished accomplishments over the course of his or her career. Throughout his career, John Sweeney has championed the needs of working people, demonstrating his commitment to principles of Catholic social teaching such as social justice and social equality.

Read the rest of Pino’s response after the jump!

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Yesterday morning the American Apparel store on M St. received a call threatening to break their windows if they didn’t remove the “Legalize Gay” T-shirts displayed there, according to Washington City Paper‘s The Sexist blog:

Around 10:30 a.m., visual merchandiser Walter Reed fielded a call from a male who was “enraged for no reason.”

“He was like, is this the Silver Spring location? And I said, ‘No, this is the Georgetown location, ‘” says Reed. “He said, ‘You have some Legalize Gay shirts in the window there.’ He said that he and his friends found it offensive, and that if we didn’t take them down, they were going to break it—the window,” said Reed. “I said, ‘Is that a threat, Sir?’ And then he hung up.”

The threat is particularly credible because on Monday an American Apparel branch in Silver Spring, which was also showcasing the “Legalize Gay” tees, did have its window broken (but nothing was stolen).

Update 12:00 p.m. American Apparel released a statement on its website about the threats and vandalism:

[N]ot only are they not going to prevent us from speaking out on an issue that is important to this company and our employees but we’ll continue to run Legalize Gay advertisements in papers across DC-Metro area. We’ll also send Legalize Gay t-shirts to any group in Washington DC that is fighting for gay rights and will help support any protest or rally for the cause.

We don’t find this kind of thing funny and we definitely don’t find it intimidating.

No matter how poorly your 4th of July went, it’s safe to say it was probably better than former “Mayor for Life” and current D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry‘s (D—Ward 8). Saturday evening Barry was arrested by the Park Police and charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend, Donna Watts-Brighthaupt.

The stalking charges were dropped on Wednesday, but not before it was revealed that Watts-Brighthaupt received $20,000 in city contracts after her relationship with Barry began. City Paper‘s Loose Lips columnist (and former Voice EIC!) Mike Debonis got the scoop of the week when he obtained recordings of some of Barry and Watts-Brighthaupt’s phone conversations, leading to the greatest City Paper cover line of our time: “You put me out in Denver ’cause I wouldn’t suck your dick!”

Meanwhile, the fallout from the Red Line crash continues. A couple more lawsuits have been filed against WMATA and commuters are getting cranky about the delays and crowding caused by the ongoing investigation. Metro also announced that it is planning a $177 million overhaul of the line to begin in 2010.

After months of fights about whether or not the recognition of same-sex marriages could be put up to a referendum vote and concerns about congressional interference, D.C. officially started to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states at 12:01 a.m. this Tuesday. D.C. Councilmember David Catania (I—At Large) is expected to introduce legislation that will allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the District soon.

After the jump: Metro’s new “one strike” texting policy, the Onion takes on the Nat’s kiss-cam, the summer youth jobs program is going broke, and more!

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