SLDN disappointed with the Stanley confirmation hearing

As noted below, today, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the confirmation of Clifford Stanley as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. If approved, Stanley will oversee the implementation of policies relating to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" when (and if) that law is repealed.

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network wasn't entirely pleased with hearing for two reasons: 1) John McCain's inane support for the discriminatory policy, which wasn't unexpected, and 2) Stanley's relatively weak responses to questions from Senators about DADT.

Here's the statement from SLDN's Executive Director, Aubrey Sarvis:

Dr. Clifford Stanley punted on several questions regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this morning. When given the opportunity by Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.) to support his commander in chief’s position to overturn the ban, Dr. Stanley did not do so. However, as is the case with most nominees, Dr. Stanley did not delve into any of the policy issues in his portfolio. We look forward to Dr. Stanley becoming fully aligned with President Obama on repeal. The President has said the right words but some of his chief lieutenants may not have heard those words. The fact remains that a 2010 repeal has never been more promising.

Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) opening statement today on repeal was troubling. The Senator said he believes the law is “working successfully.” The facts and record show DADT is not working. More than 13,500 service members have been discharged under DADT and thousands more leave the services every year because of the ban. Nearly a quarter of service members, according to a recent report by the RAND Corp., know a member of their unit is gay. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to make the case to the Senator that the law is not working and that 58 percent of conservatives support allowing gays to serve openly.

We keep hearing that Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be addressed next year. The only acceptable solution is a full repeal of the law. Hopefully, that's what will be included in the Defense authorization bill. Anything less won't cut it. Read More...

Homophobia in Houston: Mayoral candidate Annise Parker hit with ugly anti-gay mailer

Houston is having a runoff in its mayoral election on December 12th. The two candidates are Annise Parker, a long-time city councilor, and Gene Locke, a lawyer. This is a non-partisan election. Both candidates are Democrats, but Parker is also a lesbian. She wants to put "Houston First," however, others want to put homophobia in the forefront.

Via Towleroad:

The homophobic attacks against Houston mayoral candidate Annise Parker have begun, and the first is a doozy. It's a postcard mailing to 35,000 people from local activist Dave Wilson featuring a picture of Parker and her longtime partner, which asks, "Is this the image Houston wants to portray?" and reads:

“I have nothing but compassion, respect and sensitivity towards those trapped in homosexual behavior. I have family members and friends who have been ensnared in this behavior, and I know something of the incredible pain and sorrow it has brought to them and their families. With God’s grace, I carefully balance this love and respect for these individuals with warnings about the promotion and demand for legal and political approval for homosexual behavior that will stifle religious freedom and trap millions of more people in its deadly grip. Therefore, I would ask you to vote against Annise Parker for Mayor.”

Andy also posted the images of the hateful post card. Sick stuff.

Annise needs help to fight the hate. Read More...

UPDATED: Two key Senate confirmation hearings are underway

This morning, there are two hearings in Senate Committees that impact the LGBT community.

UPDATE from Armed Services: Kerry reports:

Hearing ends, no further #DADT questions. Only GOP DADT mention was McCain. 3 questions from Dems. Stanley noncommittal, as expected.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for Clifford Stanley, who will serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness in the Department of Defense. In that role, Stanley will oversee whatever happens to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The Armed Services live broadcast of the committee is here. Even better, Kerry Eleveld is live-tweeting this hearing. The questions relating to DADT have already started.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is holding a hearing on the nomination of Chai Feldblum to be a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The right-wingers, using their GOP lackeys on the committee, are expecting to launch a homophobic assault on Feldblum, a highly accomplished attorney and legal scholar who is also openly gay. The hearing is being broadcast here. Read More...

A right-wing reason to love Palin: Her values include “putting homos back in the closet."

Trying so hard to avoid the Palin-mania, but I couldn't avoid this tidbit from Ben Smith, which I found via Michelangelo Signorile:

The event also drew its share of more ideological conservatives. Bob Weinert, 56, a fencing salesman from Lansing, said he’d heard Rush Limbaugh say recently that Palin is “the most conservative candidate out there.” She represents, he said, “limited government and traditional values,” including “putting homos back in the closet.”

“And putting Christmas in the stores,” added his wife, Rexanna, who said she felt she could trust the “down-to-earth” Palin.

A few minutes later, a diffident young man wandered by with a handmade “Homos for Palin” t-shirt until he encountered a mall security guard.

“You’ve got to zip it up or leave,” said the security guard and the young man, who said he was a college student but wouldn’t give his name, complied.

Apparently, "Homos for Palin" are happy in the closet. Read More...

Bill giving benefits to domestic partners of federal employees passed House Committee tonight

As noted below, Kerry Eleveld live-tweeted the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's mark-up of H.R. 2517, the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act. The Committee did pass the legislation earlier tonight. Here's Kerry's report:

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday voted 23-12 to pass the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act, which would extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal government workers.

The bill is now likely to move to a full House floor vote, which many anticipate could take place before the end of the year.

“Last I talked to the majority leader who sets the floor schedule, he was hopeful that it could get fairly prompt attention by the full House,” said out congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who is the lead sponsor of the bill in the House.

So a House vote this year. Even before ENDA.

NOTE FROM JOHN: I'm still curious how this comports with DOMA. And let's not forget - the gay legal groups, earlier this year, tried to meet with the Obama administration to discuss how to provide these kind of benefits to the partners of gay employees, how it could be done even within the confines of DOMA, and the administration refused to even meet with them. So while it's nice that Berry is now all behind the House effort, let's not forget, the administration wasn't willing to lift a finger on this very issue just several months ago. Read More...

Dan Savage on Catholic priests.

We've been writing a lot lately about the Catholic Bishops. Today, Dan Savage has a post on Catholic priests, partly inspired by cartoons provided by his "good Irish Catholic mother." Dan dissects the latest report from the Bishops on the sex abuse scandal -- the one that absolves the gays:

Despite the fact that most of the victims of clergy sex abuse were boys, the study — commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops — found that sexual identity was not "a predictor of abuse." What was? According to the authors of the study the Church has to distinguish between sexual identity and behavior and be on guard against pedophile priests, not gay priests, "and to look at who the offender had access to when seeking victims." This study is going to throw a serious wrench in the Vatican's efforts to pin the whole clergy sex abuse scandals on teh gays.

The Bishops protected the pedophiles for decades. That's why Dioceses are going bankrupt. And, that's why the Bishops are trying to change the subject to gay marriage. Read More...

In its anti-gay zeal, Texas may have banned all marriages

I always knew the anti-gay constitutional amendments would lead to unanticipated problems. I thought some right-winger would use one of the bans to claim divorces weren't allowed, since most said marriage was the "union of one man and one woman" -- and that meant only one man and one woman. After all, many of the theocrats do think divorce is the biggest threat to marriage.

But, Texas may have outdone itself. All marriages may have been banned by the state. Joe.My.God has the details:

Anti-gay legislators in Texas have an egg on their faces today as others realize that the 2005 ban on same-sex marriages actually bans ALL marriages, depending on who is reading the law's fine print.

Read More...

Mary Cheney delivered another grandchild for Dick and Lynne

Dick and Lynne Cheney are grandparents again:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary Cheney has delivered a baby girl.

It's the second child for Cheney and her partner of more than 17 years, Heather Poe.

Sarah Lynne Cheney was born Wednesday morning at Sibley Hospital in Washington, weighing 6 pounds and 14 ounces. She is the seventh grandchild of the former vice president and his wife, Lynne.

I'm sure she'll be getting all kinds of nice wishes from all her old homophobic pals from the Bush campaign like Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson and Bishop Harry Jackson. Read More...

UPDATED: House Committee is holding mark-up of Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act

Updated @ 6:43 PM: Kerry reports things are getting intense at the hearing:

It's getting heated in here for sure. Probably some of the better theatre C-Span folks have seen in quite some time.

And updated again @ 6:49 PM:

GOP Rep. Bilbray's amendment making sure #DPBO won't provide benes to illegal immigrants has been voted down. But the debate was a total 10.

____________
Kerry Eleveld has been live-tweeting the House Oversight Committee's mark-up of H.R. 2517, the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act, sponsored by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). Once the Committee finishes its work and takes a vote, this bill will head to the floor. Senator Lieberman sponsored the companion bill in the Senate.

Sure sounds like the GOPers are up to their usual gay-bashing. Read More...

Republican Senators plan homophobic attack on Chai Feldblum

When the notoriously homophobic Family Research Council is planning the strategy for GOP Senators, there's no question that the attacks on Chai Feldblum will be based on homophobia. From Gaypolitics.com:

The anti-gay Family Research Council and its allies on Capitol Hill are readying a withering series of questions for Chai Feldblum, who could become the first openly LGBT member of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

One source told GayPolitics.com that some Republican Senators are planning “Armageddon” at Feldblum’s confirmation hearing Thursday. They plan to paint her as an anti-religious extremist whose confirmation would threaten religious liberty.

They're using all the right-wing code words for gay-bashing. And, no doubt, GOP Senators will be happy to join in.

Feldblum is brilliant. She can hold her own, there's no doubt about that. It just wrong that the gay-bashers have so much control over the Senate. Read More...

Kevin Naff, formerly of the Wash. Blade, says expect a new publication on Friday

So I blasted the Washington Post Style section in the post below. But, there's a great editorial in the Post today supporting the Washington Blade:

The Blade's importance to our area cannot be overstated.

And, the editorial makes news. Kevin Naff indicates a new publication will start on Friday:

"We're united and determined to make a go of it as an independent company," Mr. Naff told us Monday. So, the former Blade staffers met to plot the publication's future yesterday. Mr. Naff told us that there will be a new paper. The intention is to have it hit the streets this Friday. The name will be different from the one they labored for. Our hope is that its mission to inform and enlighten will be the same.

Read More...

Wash. Post puff piece on one of the District's leading homophobes, Bishop Harry Jackson

There's a surefire way to get a big spread in the Washington Post Style section: Be an outspoken, blatant homophobe.

In August, The Washington Post's Style section wrote a glowing article about one of the nation's leading homophobes, Brian Brown from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), earlier this summer. The title was, "Opposing Gay Unions With Sanity & a Smile." We just weren't clever enough to know it was snarky.

Today, the Washington Post's Style section has a puff piece on one of the District's leading homophobes, Bishop Harry Jackson. Apparently, the editors of the Style section have a thing about profiling gay-bashers. The article notes that Jackson critics have multiplied but offers only two sentences of that criticism:

D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson says he disagrees with the principles espoused by Jackson. "It's an unfortunate reality," Mendelson says, "that one can't preach discrimination without inciting homophobia."

So now we know all about Bishop Jackson's education, but the Post didn't get into the vile homophobia he spews on a regular basis.

PFAW's Right Wing Watch has been monitoring Jackson. A synopsis of Jackson's speech at the right-wing Values Voters Summit gives the sense of what this guy says about gay Americans. In his anti-gay rant, Jackson got the crowd to chant “let God arise and his enemies be scattered...” The videos of the speech are there, too. I guess adding that element to the Post's puff piece might have ruined the article. All that homophobic ranting can really ruin a story line. Jackson clearly sees gays at the "enemies." I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the gay people in D.C. really don't want to be "scattered."

The right wingers love Jackson. As someone who has followed his career noted to me, "Opposing marriage equality in DC isn't a matter of conscience for him. Its a career move." And, the Post just gave his career a big boost and validated the hate. Read More...