| Related Links |
|
Awards presented at GLAA 30th Anniversary Reception 04/19/01 GLAA Announces 2001 Distinguished Service Awards 02/14/01 Awards presented at GLAA 29th Anniversary Reception 04/27/00 Awards presented at GLAA 28th Anniversary Reception 04/22/99 |
GLAA Announces 2002 Distinguished Service Awards
The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC is pleased to announce its 2002 Distinguished Service Award recipients. GLAA presents awards to local community members and organizations committed to protecting the civil rights of lesbians and gay men in the national capital area.
The 2002 Distinguished Service Award recipients are Earline Budd, Councilmember David Catania, Free State Justice, Barbara Menard, Don Michaels, and the Rainbow History Project.
The awards will be presented at GLAA's 31st Anniversary Reception at the Hotel Washington at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday, April 18, 2002.
Earline Budd has been an advocate for transgender rights since she was a teenager. She has successfully sued for her right to use a roller skating rink, prison visitation, and has worked for many years to improve the health and welfare of transgender people and people with HIV/AIDS across the region.
Councilmember David Catania became the first openly gay member of the D.C. Council in December 1997. Since then, he has been a leading force for government reform, from his well-prepared grilling of government officials to his unannounced visits to District agencies, and he was successful in getting Metro to offer healthcare benefits to domestic partners of employees. He has played a key role in lobbying efforts to prevent Congress from attaching anti-gay riders to the District's annual appropriations bill. His tireless efforts have succeeded in protecting adoptions by same-sex couples, and most recently in permitting implementation of the District's Domestic Partners Registry after a decade of congressional prohibitions. He has also obtained federal funding for the Citizen Complaint Review Board and greater funding for HIV/AIDS programs, as well as breast and cervical cancer examinations. Catania continues to work for passage of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and for congressional non-interference in DC's needle exchange program.
Free State Justice is a non-partisan, proactive voice in obtaining full rights and equality under the Statutes and Constitution of Maryland for all members of our diverse community by providing understanding, education and legislative initiatives. FSJ has spent the past 10 years working to secure non-discrimination rights for gay people and finally succeeded in making Maryland the 12th state to enact this important legislation.
Barbara Menard is a Senior Policy Advocate at the Human Rights Campaign. Barbara played a leading role in ending the congressional funding ban on DC's Domestic Partnership program, a breakthrough victory that demonstrates the power of well-targeted and informed coalition work and the importance of HRC's lobbying presence on Capitol Hill. She has also advocated for the Ryan White Appropriations and Reauthorization and the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Don Michaels was the publisher of the Washington Blade newspaper for 20 years, building it into a paper with high journalistic standards and raising the bar for community newspapers across the country. Don made the Blade into a paper of record that other communities have envied and tried to emulate for years. While now retired from the Blade, Don Michaels' accomplishments have benefited DC in countless ways.
Rainbow History Project is dedicated to preserving our community's memories. In just over a year, RHP has created a timeline of DC's gay history; collected a directory of our bars, clubs, and hangouts since the 1930s; created projects to restore and archive video recordings of major events and audio recordings of the Friends radio program; collected oral histories of dozens of people from a variety of backgrounds in our community; presented numerous programs on various aspects of our community; helped groups uncover their own histories and identified numerous archives that are available to researchers.
A list of previous award winners can be found on the GLAA website at www.glaa.org/resources/awardshistory.shtml.
Founded in 1971, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington (GLAA) is an all-volunteer, non-partisan, non-profit political organization that defends the civil rights of lesbians and gay men in the Nation's Capital by lobbying the D.C. Council, monitoring government agencies, educating and rating local candidates, and working in coalitions to defend the safety, health, and equal rights of gay families. GLAA remains the nation's oldest continuously active gay and lesbian civil rights organization.