In Brief

Staff Reports

Unspecified Bomb Threat Empties LGBTQ Advocacy Organisation's D. C. Buildings

WASHINGTON -- Washington Metropolitan Police officers accompanied by special bomb detection canines were called to the national offices of major LGBTQ advocacy groups just prior to lunch time Tuesday after District police were notified by the Los Angeles Police that unspecified threats had been received.

The Human Rights Campaign headquarters on Rhode Island Avenue NW was affected along with a building located at 1325 Massachusetts Avenue NW that houses the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and several other prominent LGBTQ Advocacy groups.

No devices or threats were found according to a spokesperson for D. C. police.

An HRC email to staff quickly circulated among other groups, such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Black Justice Coalition and the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. 

''In the utmost of caution we are evacuating the building so that the police can conduct a sweep using the bomb-sniffing dogs,'' that email, sent at 11:58 a.m., read in part. ''We need everyone to leave the building until further notice. We estimate that this will take at least an hour.'' 

With the surrounding block cordoned off, police vehicles surrounded the building and prevented pedestrians from approaching as teams led dogs in search of any threat. By 12:50 p.m., MPD called the all-clear and people began re-entering the building. 

HRC President Joe Solmonese, returning to the building, said this was the second time that the headquarters, at 17th Street and Rhode Island Avenue NW, had been evacuated since he began as president in March 2005. The other evacuation occurred during the August 2011 earthquake, ''When we thought it really was a bomb,'' said Solmonese, due to leave HRC in June. 

A few blocks away, at the building that houses the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, at 1325 Massachusetts Ave. NW, as well as several other non-LGBT entities, staff waited outside as police began searching that address at about 1 p.m. ~ Metroweekly

Virginia GOP Lawmakers Block Judgeship Nominee Because Of Sexual Orientation

Tracy Thorne-Begland
via Equality Virginia

RICHMOND, VA -- GOP House lawmakers led by virulently anti-gay Delegate Bob Marshall, (R-Prince William) blocked the judicial nomination of an openly gay Richmond prosecutor. Tracy Thorne-Begland, Richmond's chief deputy commonwealth's attorney, who lives with his partner and two adopted children had been nominated for an open judgeship which was decried by the conservative group The Family Foundation and Delegate Marshall- who argued should be Thorne-Begland should be removed from the list of potential appointees because his sexual orientation would conflict with his ability to hold up the state's constitution.

Thorne-Begland has been an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ equality rights in the past, particularly after his discharge from the Navy in the early-'90s under the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, which until last year prevented openly gay and lesbian servicemembers from serving in the armed forces. Thorne-Begland also served as a board member of LGBTQ Equality Rights organisation Equality Virginia for several years.

Thorne-Begland, a prosecutor in General District Court, received 33 votes in favor of his nomination to the bench, with 31 delegates voting against, 10 delegates abstaining and 26 others not voting. 

The vote split largely along party lines, with 25 Democrats and eight Republicans, mostly from districts in Fairfax County and the Richmond suburbs, voting for his nomination. All 31 votes against Thorne-Begland came from Republicans, with nine Republicans and one independent abstaining, and 19 more Republicans and seven Democrats not voting. 

Thorne-Begland was one of nearly three-dozen nominees, but was the only one rejected after conservative lawmakers. 

Marshall, who is running for the U.S. Senate in a primary against George Allen – former governor and former U.S. senator – questioned whether Thorne-Begland could be impartial in upholding Virginia law, including the state's ban on same-sex marriage, considering his sexual orientation. ~ Metroweekly

In an e-mailed statement to LGBTQNation Tuesday after the vote, EQVA Executive Director James Parrish said; 

Equality Virginia is profoundly disappointed and dismayed that the Virginia General Assembly allowed fear mongering and shrill personal attacks by the Family Foundation and Delegate Bob Marshall to derail Richmond lawyer Tracy Thorne-Begland’s election to the bench simply because he is an out gay man. 

Mr. Thorne-Begland has served his country and his city with honor and unquestioned competence first as a Navy pilot and then as a prosecutor. Contrary to the Family Foundation’s shrill attack, the fact that Mr. Thorne-Begland chose to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly and accept the consequences (an unwanted discharge from the military) rather than continue to live each day in a lie showed his honesty and integrity and respect for the law. 

Mr. Thorne-Begland should be seen as a hero, like others whose celebrated civil disobedience helped bring change to unjust laws, rather than vilified as a law breaker by those who continue without reason to oppose basic human rights and nondiscrimination laws for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Virginians. 

The fact that the legislature caved in to the Family Foundation’s biased blathering is another unfortunate marker on the forced march to the past on which they seem determined to lead the Commonwealth.

Repeated requests for a comment from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell went unanswered.

Marshall, who is currently running for U.S. Senate in the state's Republican primary against likely nominee George Allen, has made headlines in the past for his controversial views.

The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring said today that Virginia lawmakers who scuttled the judicial nomination of openly gay Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Tracy Thorne-Begland early this morning did so without any justification that he was unqualified for the bench.

“It's hard to think about what happened in the General Assembly and not conclude that it's a form of bigotry,” Herring told reporters during a lunchtime news conference outside his office at the John Marshall courthouse in Richmond.

Herring said Thorne-Begland is a fine “man, father, lawyer Navy pilot, and would have been an outstanding judge.” He said Thorne-Begland’s defeat in the Virginia House of Delegates is an “embarrassment” for the state.