Balitmore'’s Graziano meets with gays and lesbians

Baltimore housing commissioner Paul Graziano met with local gay men and lesbians Tuesday night in one of several conciliatory gestures he has promised in response to homophobic remarks he made in December while drunk, the Baltimore Sun reports. Since the December remark, Graziano took a month’s leave of absence and entered an alcohol treatment program. Tuesday’s meeting at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center was off-the-record, but afterward Shannon Avery, who chairs the center’s legislative and political action committees, said, “We are ready to say this is the first step.... We respect the fact that he apologized to our community, but we are looking for actions, not words.”