P.O. Box 75265
Washington, D.C. 20013
For Release:
Monday, February 13, 2006
Contact: Rick Rosendall
202-667-5139
GLAA Announces 2006 Distinguished Service Awards
The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC is pleased to announce its 2006 Distinguished Service Award recipients. GLAA presents awards to local individuals and organizations that have served the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community in the national capital area. The awards will be presented at GLAA’s 35th Anniversary Reception on Thursday, April 20. (Location and other details to be announced.)
GLAA's 2006 Distinguished Service Award recipients are D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson, ACLU/NCA Legal Director Art Spitzer, Metro Weekly publisher Randy Shulman, the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, and photographer Patsy Lynch.
Councilmember Phil Mendelson was first elected to the D.C. Council in November 1998. He currently chairs the Committee on the Judiciary, where he authored the Domestic Partnership Equality Act of 2005 and shepherded it through to unanimous passage. He has been active with District issues since 1975 when he joined the McLean Gardens Residents Association in the fight to save that 43-acre housing complex from destruction. He ran for a seat on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in 1979 and continued to serve as an ANC Commissioner until he took office as an At-Large member of the Council in 1999. He has been a strong ally of the city’s GLBT community.
Art Spitzer is legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area. For more than 25 years he has been fighting for the civil liberties of people in the Washington area in such areas as safeguarding free speech, fighting police misconduct, protecting privacy, defending religious liberty, and expanding equal opportunity. During his tenure, many gay-related cases were on the ACLU/NCA docket, and he and his legal staff have been invaluable allies to the District’s GLBT community.
Randy Shulman is founder and publisher of Metro Weekly, which has been Washington, DC's gay and lesbian magazine for nearly 12 years. Metro Weekly is read by more than 45,000 people in the metropolitan area, and is nationally recognized for its lively feature stories and interviews. The magazine has added several columnists and a public affairs forum to its community event calendars, nightlife guides, and coverage of the District’s arts and entertainment scene. Shulman can frequently be seen roaming GLBT events with his camera, and under his leadership MW has built strong community ties.
The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington is a Christian church with a special ministry to gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. It.was chartered in 1971 by the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. The church originally met in Rev. Paul Breton's home on Capitol Hill. A few years later it moved to the First Congregational Church, where it remained for a decade. In 1984, during the tenure of the late Pastor Larry Uhrig, the church purchased its first ministry center at 415 M Street, NW. The congregation outgrew that facility, and construction began on a new building at 5th and Ridge Streets, N.W. in December 1991. The new ministry center was dedicated in March 1993. Rev. Candace Shultis was elected Pastor in January 1995. Rev. Venson P. Mathews was named Associate Pastor later that year. GLAA is proud to share our 35th anniversary year with MCCDC.
Patsy Lynch is a native Washingtonian who has been working as a photojournalist for over two decades. She has covered international, national and local news for a variety of news agencies, newspapers, and magazines. In addition to covering breaking news stories, she has documented thirty years of gay and lesbian activism in Washington, DC through the lenses of her cameras. Ms. Lynch’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, books, newspapers, and trade publications around the world. In addition to her editorial work, Ms. Lynch has worked on assignment for several government agencies, including the National Park Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, and, most recently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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. GLAA lobbies the DC Council, monitors government agencies, educates and rates local candidates, and works 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.
