World AIDS Day, 2010

I've been driving all day to Dallas, and remembered World AIDS Day just as I was pulling out on the road, so I hadn't been able to get a more timely post up. I don't want to forget to remind everyone today. Celebrities have decided to sacrifice one day of being digitally connected or go "digitally dead" for one day.

No, Alicia Keys is not dead.

But she is going to be "digitally dead" tomorrow, Dec. 1, for World AIDS day.

Keys, along with celebs including Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Justin Timberlake, P. Diddy, Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Khloe Kardashian, Jay Sean, Swizz Beatz, Serena Williams, The Buried Life, Elijah Wood, Janelle Monae, Kimberly Cole, David LaChapelle, Daphne Guinness and Bronson Pelletier will take a moment of silence and "end their digital lives" by signing off from all social networking platforms including Twitter and Facebook in solidarity for those in Africa and India affected by HIV/AIDS.

I think it is a really nice and unique gesture by them to add awareness.

Personally, I have lost a lot of good friends to AIDS, and I know our readers have as well. Two of my dearest friends, a loving couple, died when the cocktails were not available and I often think of them, and deeply miss the two bright lights that were extinguished in their early twenties. So many in my generation were wiped out during those years when there was no effective treatment whatsoever. Here is to all the memories I treasure of you, Tim Rondeau and David Robinson! I love and miss you both. Who would you like to remember on World AIDS Day? Read the rest of this post...

IL Senate joins state House in passing civil unions, off to Gov now

And the governor has said he'll sign it.

Civil unions for same-sex couples would be allowed in Illinois under historic legislation the state Senate swiftly sent Wednesday to Gov. Pat Quinn, who is expected to sign the measure.

The bill would give gay couples the chance to enjoy several of the same rights as married couples, ranging from legal rights on probate matters to visiting a partner in a hospital that won't allow anyone but relatives into a patient's room.

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Chris Matthews had to address misinformation spewed by leading homophobe Tony Perkins

Alvin McEwen has been on the rampage -- and rightly so -- about the lies spewed by Tony Perkins on Hardball the other night.

Tonight, Matthews offered a clarification:

Tony Perkins is a homophobe. He's a bigot. Nothing more. Stop giving him air time.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Well, he is a little bit more... He's the head of an official "hate group" now. Read the rest of this post...

WaPo doesn't realize DADT survey came out in our favor

From Media Matters:

Some expressed fears about contracting AIDS or getting leered at in the showers. Others worried that it would get in the way of critical bonding at barbecues and bar outings. Still others said it would be an affront to their religious beliefs and harm the military's credibility.

That's the Washington Post's lede for an article about a study finding that 70 percent of the military thinks ending DADT won't pose a problem: The fears of "some" about AIDS. Instead of emphasizing views that are consistent with the study's findings, the Post chose a more inflammatory, and less accurate, route, playing up ugly stereotypes about gays. The first quote or paraphrase of a survey respondent who favors repealing DADT didn't appear until halfway through the article, after the Post had told readers that (again, a small minority) of respondents fear AIDS, leering gays, affronts to their religious beliefs, damage to military credibility, diminished barbecue bonding -- and quoted three repeal opponents.

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Any questions?

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Socarides: Senator McCain is trying to re-litigate the election with DADT opposition

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Obama opens opportunity for GOP to play chicken (and they, of course, do)

Fresh off apologizing to Republicans for not reaching out to them enough, Obama has been rewarded by Mitch McConnell making it very clear he is going to hold our nation hostage to Republican demands.

President Obama and GOP leadership may be nearing a compromise on the Bush tax cuts after a surprisingly cordial meeting between GOP and Democratic leaders on Tuesday, reports the Washington Post. "We've got a path forward" on tax cuts, said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, Ill., after the meeting, though attendees declined to elaborate. The session resulted in the creation of a bipartisan group to hash out a compromise before the Bush tax cuts expire in January. Democrats may agree to a temporary extension of tax cuts for all income levels in exchange for extension of jobless benefits and ratification of the START treaty with Russia. President Obama apologized during the meeting for not making a greater effort to reach out to Republican lawmakers during his first two years in office. For their part, Republican leaders seemed receptive to the President's overtures. Republican Rep. Eric Cantor, Va., said: "I was encouraged by the president's remarks regarding his perhaps not having reached out enough to us in the last session, and that this meeting was the beginning of a series in which he hoped that we could work together." Some commentators say that Obama may not have much of a choice when it comes to his goal of letting tax cuts expire for those earning over $250,000. "Unless they [Democrats] believe they will benefit more than Republicans from a standoff in which taxes go up," writes David Leonhardt of the New York Times, "their only choice now is among various versions of retreat."

Since Obama has publicly and ridiculously proclaimed he has somehow sinned by not working hard enough to reach across the aisle to Republicans, all forty two GOP Senators have expressed their so-called willingness to work with Obama by holding the lame duck session hostage to their demands.

GOP Preparing to Block Dems Agenda, Parties Play Chicken With Lame Duck

With little progress on any of the must-pass provisions for the lame-duck session of Congress, Republicans are preparing for a showdown over the still-swollen agenda.

FOX has obtained a letter being circulated to Senate Republicans that calls for a filibuster blockade of any legislation not directly related to time-sensitive votes on taxes and spending.

All 42 Republican senators have signed on to the plan, which would effectively end Democratic hopes to push through controversial measures like allowing gays in the military to express their sexualities and offering amnesty to illegal immigrants who attend college or volunteer for the military.

It isn't like we haven't seen this sort of thing before. Obama capitilutates or triangulates away everything before negotiations start. This time he did it by falsely claiming he didn't work hard enough with Republicans and therefore giving them the false justification to shove their agenda down our throats without getting anything else accomplished in the lame duck.

Wow, we never could have seen that political move coming, eh? We've only been telling the Obama administration for two years they put off satisfying their promises to our community at the peril of never getting their promises to us enacted. It isn't like they weren't warned over and over again.

How many times have we been told by Obama supporters that he was such a masterful politician we could never imagine the multi-faceted strategy behind his every move only to have some naive, bumbling "Charlie Brown" Obama with his ever optimistic Pollyanna attitude get the football yanked away by the sneering "Lucy" Republicans? Answer: Legion.

Enjoy the below example of our "Fierce Advocate" compromising and working with Republicans to satisfy his promises to us.

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OFA's 'Petition to Nowhere' on DADT is a joke, and the joke's on you

And some people wonder why we've called on the gay community, and our allies, to stop donating to this increasingly worthless organization.

Organizing for America - formerly Obama for America, but now an arm of the DNC and the White House - just sent out an email to (some of?) their members about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Did the email call on OFA's twelve million or so members to bombard wavering Senators with phone calls in support of repealing DADT?

No.

So what did OFA's email provide as an action on DADT? They ask you to sign a public declaration that you stand with the president for the repeal of DADT.

Ooh, that should scare wavering Senators. Not an action alert targeting individual Senators, not an effort to raise money for ads targeting those Senators, but rather, a petition to nobody.

Now, how, you might ask, does a petition to nobody help us pass the DADT compromise? It doesn't. But OFA's efforts on DADT aren't about actually getting DADT repealed. We've written about their fake support for our civil rights before. They''re about raising more gay money for the DNC. (Note that after you sign the Petition to Nowhere, you're sent to a DNC fundraising page.)



The second reason OFA is doing this, they're scared. Of you. But not nearly scared enough. Rather than actually doing something to help repeal DADT, the president's henchmen at OFA and the DNC are sending out fake action alerts, that accomplish nothing, in the hopes that you'll be duped into thinking they're doing something to help the gays. When they're really not.

And you could almost forgive OFA for trying to collect more names and email addresses of gay supporters - or even raise money from gay supporters - if OFA had any plans to actually do something, anything, pro-gay, for real, at any time in the future.

Joe and I, for example, are asking folks to sign a public letter to President Obama, that we will deliver to the White House, calling on him to start making some phone calls to wavering Senators about DADT repeal. Note the concrete message, and the concrete action we want. Note the very public way in which we're trying to pressure the president to act. That's what effective advocacy is about - doing something that has a concrete, effective goal, and doing it in a way that has a chance at influencing the person you're going after. OFA's "alert" doesn't target anyone. It's quite literally "the petition to nowhere."

The Democratic party isn't interested in helping you get your civil rights. They're not building this list, and this war chest, in order to help you finally share in the American dream. They're treating you like an ATM. And a rather mindless ATM at that.

Well this GayTM is closed. Read the rest of this post...

Senator Udall on what's ahead for DADT

Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) has been one of the real champions for DADT repeal. Last night, he was on Rachel Maddow to talk about what's ahead for DADT.

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Dan Savage is right: 'McCain is a bigot'

Dan Savage was on Olbermann last night and he laid it out: McCain is a bigot:

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A challenge for Senator Collins on DADT: Side with equality or cave to GOP leadership (again)

Yesterday, we saw this via HuffPostHill:

COLLINS STILL MAKING ZERO SENSE ON DADT - Susan Collins, who supports repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, is continuing to concoct reasons to vote against it. The Wall Street Journal, new home of Patrick O'Conner, reported that she would oppose cloture if she didn't get some debate or amendments or some such. Not so, her office tells Jason Linkins: "Senator Collins has not said she would oppose cloture if time is not allowed for debate. In fact, she has said she supports repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and she intends to support cloture on the Defense Authorization bill if the Majority Leader allows for a full and fair debate." Um, that's the same thing.

Here's the full excerpt from Danny Yadron and Patrick O’Connor at the WSJ:

The House passed a measure to repeal the policy this spring, but Senate Republicans in September blocked a defense spending bill that included a repeal.

It’s unclear if any of that will change after today’s announcement. Sen. Susan Collins, a centrist Republican from Maine who says she wants the ban repealed, still plans to vote against the repeal if there is not more time for debate, her spokesman said Monday.

Yep. Same thing. Makes no sense.

We know why. Collins isn't making sense because of this:

Senate Republicans intend to block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending in the current postelection session of Congress, officials said Tuesday, adding that the leadership has quietly collected signatures on a letter pledging to carry out the strategy.

If carried out, it would doom Democratic-backed attempts to end the Pentagon's practice of discharging openly gay members of the military service and give legal status to young illegal immigrants who join the military or attend college.

Orders have come down from Mitch McConnell. Has Susan Collins signed the letter? We need to know. UPDATE @ 10:02 AM: We know. Collins signed the letter. McConnell just announced on the Senate floor that all 42 GOPers are on board with his strategy.

On DADT, Collins is key. She voted for the DADT language in the Senate Armed Services Committe last May. She's considered something of a pro-LGBT champion, on paper anyway. HRC's PAC has contributed $20,000 to Collins. Given that record, if Collins won't vote to end the filibuster, we can't expect any other GOPers to do it.

In September, Collins chose the bogus argument of process over equality and voted with her GOP colleagues to filibuster the Defense Authorization bill. She basically said that not getting her way on amendments was the same as getting kicked out of the military for being gay. Ridiculous. But, the GOP leader told her how to vote and she did.

Now, we're faced with the same question of whether Collins votes for equality or caves to Mitch McConnell. He's the puppet-master. And, let's face it, Collins rarely stands on principle. She usually does what McConnell wants. She'll hide behind the bogus excuse that the process isn't fair. But, notice, she won't define for anyone what a "fair debate" is.

Collins knows this is the last shot for legislative repeal to move forward. She knows her newly empowered GOP colleagues won't move repeal in the next Congress. If Collins votes to block movement on the Defense bill, the failure to pass the DADT language rests on her shoulders, too. Read the rest of this post...