GLAA Forum

Barney Frank: Diet-Man

Barney Frank answered ten questions for Jay Leno.

Gay man missing

Will O'Bryan at Metro Weekly reports:

The Prince George's County Police Department is looking for Kevin Britt Jr., a 23-year-old resident of Hyattsville, Md., reported missing by his partner, Elias Fishburne.

Fishburne says he last saw Britt Sunday morning at approximately 11 a.m., as Britt left their home to attend to some paperwork at his place of work. Britt, originally from Talbot County, Md., on the Eastern Shore, works as a coordinating supervisor at Psychotherapeutic Services Inc. in Landover, Md., a provider of mental-health services for Prince George's County residents.

Anyone with any information about Britt's whereabouts is asked to call Officer E. Lindeman of the P.G. County Police at 301-772-4900.

No marriage-equality bill yet

Loose Lips Daily reports that no same-sex marriage bill was introduced at yesterday's legislative meeting of the D.C. Council. Best guess at this point is the first week of October. Any later than that and the bill won't be able to get through the Council by year-end.

Stop-loss, Mr. President

Unfriendly Fire author Nathaniel Frank writes about the extended, degrading abuse endured by Navy sailor Joseph Rocha in Bahrain:

Rocha's case is not about bad apples. The military doesn't even think that what happened was wrong. In fact, the military leader who oversaw and perpetrated these acts against Rocha, Chief Petty Officer Michael Toussaint, was promoted to Senior Chief following the incident, even though the military was fully aware of all that happened. Toussaint was implicated in other incidents as well, including handcuffing a female sailor to a bed and forcing her to simulate lesbian sex with another woman, also while on video. One of the women later committed suicide.

Now that the incident is getting some press, however, and following the letter by Rep. Sestak, the Navy is doing a different dance, telling the AP that these incidents "do not reflect who we are as a Navy." Cmdr. Cappy Surette assures us that, "The Navy is now looking into the handling of this situation more carefully." Now, that is, that it's been caught....

What is the answer? Rep. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran and former professor at West Point, is spearheading the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in Congress.... President Obama, however, has the power, through a 1983 "stop-loss" statute passed by Congress, to halt all discharges immediately by executive order, giving Congress time to debate the issue. As his political capital flies out the door in an all-out effort to reform health care, the likelihood that Congress will end "don't ask, don't tell" before the 2010 mid-term elections is quickly plummeting.

This is not an academic debate, and the lives of people like Joseph Rocha should not be held hostage to politics. The cleanest, quickest way to lift the ban and protect all our service members and their national security mission, is for the commander-in-chief to lead the way.

The more light is shone on the damage being done to our military by the perpetuation of the current disgraceful policy, the better off we will be. The President supports DADT repeal, but resists issuing a stop-loss order. We need to press him to change his mind on stop-loss. Not another person should have to endure what Petty Officer Rocha did. Not in the name of our country, and not with our tax dollars.

McGreevey's missive from the seminary

Since we're getting religious, let me confess that I am not especially interested in anything former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey says. But for those who like to take their inspiration from sleazebag politicians, McGreevey has a missive from the General Theological Seminary on WaPo's On Faith blog.

Italian cardinal denounces attack on Catholic editor

Another gay-related Catholic sex scandal?

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of Italy's influential bishops' conference, denounced what he called a "grave" attack against the Dino Boffo, editor of the Italian bishops' daily newspaper Avvenire, by the Berlusconi family newspaper Il Giornale.

Earlier this month, Il Giornale reported that Boffo had been fined in a plea-bargain several years ago for making harassing calls to the wife of a man in whom he was purportedly interested.

Il Giornale published the article after Avvenire had demanded Berlusconi answer questions about his own sex scandal, including revelations that women had been paid to attend parties at his residences and that a high-class prostitute had once spent the night with him....

Prosecutors maintain Boffo made the calls, but have denied there was any gay angle to the case. Boffo has insisted that the full court file remain sealed.

Just take their word for it.

Harry Jackson to Religious Right activists: Please stop sounding like racists

The above headline is from Right Wing Watch, and it made me laugh out loud. Here's an excerpt of their report on Bishop Harry Jackson's appearance at the Values Voters summit:

Bishop Harry Jackson, the Religious Right’s favorite African American preacher, asked the mostly white participants at the Values Voter Summit to tone down their anti-Obama rhetoric. He knew they weren’t racists, he explained, but the fact that some people were sounding like racists made it even harder on him as a conservative trying to get other black clergy to join his anti-gay organizing in D.C.

While asking summit participants to be less offensive, Jackson’s Saturday afternoon speech may have actually reached some new personal lows of offensive rhetoric. Let’s review...

3) Jackson utterly ignored the existence of African American LGBT people and their leadership in the pro-equality movement in the District of Columbia. He portrayed the battle over marriage equality in DC as a battle pitting rich gay lawyers against black clergy and poor single mothers. Jackson’s litany was a perfect example of the race- and class-baiting he is using to rouse opposition to marriage equality in the District. “Many of our gay people,” he said, are professionals, disproportionately educated, make a lot of money, are living in DC’s fancy new condos. Jackson said a “K Street lawyer who decides to come out and call himself gay” cannot understand the plight of a single mother in Washington, DC raising two kids without a father. This seems to be from his new gays-vs-blacks talking points. Hey, Rev. Jackson, what about all the LGBT people in DC who aren’t rich lawyers, who are people of color, who are raising kids without the legal protections of marriage? Maybe he hasn’t spent enough time in his new hometown to meet any of them yet.

If you take Bishop Jackson's illogic seriously, which would be perverse, what's his point--that the rich gay white men of his fantasies should marry poor black single mothers? Is he pitching a sit-com?

Orly Taitz knows a forgery when she sees one

When the right wing gets this loony, there's something strangely wonderful about it:

Birther attorney Orly Taitz tells TPMmuckraker she believes a letter sent by her now ex-client renouncing Taitz -- in a case alleging that Barack Obama's birth certificate is a forgery -- may itself be a forgery. It's worth noting that Taitz submitted as evidence in the original filing in the "birther soldier" case of Army Capt. Connie Rhodes a "Kenyan birth certificate" that is itself an obvious forgery.

Coburn COS: "All Pornography Is Homosexual Pornography"

In remarks last Saturday at the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit, Michael Schwartz, chief of staff to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), provided the latest proof that you are always wrong when you hear something nutty from the far right and think they'll never top it. Schwartz mentioned a conversation he had had with a friend “who was in the homosexual lifestyle for a long time”:

And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.” You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people.

I'd love to know why homosexuality represents turning one's sexual drive inwards in some way that heterosexuality doesn't. Actually, I wouldn't. There's only so much looniness I want to endure for the cause. But I suspect it traces back to the old slander that homosexuality is a form of narcissism. I'd say if someone masturbates while looking at himself in the mirror, the charge might stick. Otherwise, the fact that both sexual partners have penises is no more indicative of pathological self-reflection than the fact that a man and a woman both have heads, arms, legs, lips, and so forth. This is just a case of foolish people using pseudoscience to stigmatize difference.

As for the notion that all porn is gay, I have seen snippets of straight porn a few times, and I don't see where Schwartz or his gay friend sees a gay connection. Does Schwartz mean he was so grossed out by watching straight sex that it turned him gay? Let me end my speculation there and wish Mr. Schwartz a happy new year.

Turnabout is fair play

Good for this protester. This sort of thing should be done more often. The Bible, while it contains some beautiful poetry and wisdom, is also replete with barbarous nonsense that virtually no one for a moment believes. To insist that it is all the word of God and should be imposed upon one's fellow citizens while actually picking and choosing from it is dishonest, unscrupulous, and an act of bad faith. The passage cited on that sign is near other barbarous passages. For example, a stubborn and rebellious son should be stoned to death (Deut. 21: 18-21); "If a man is caught sleeping with another man's wife, both must die" (Deut. 22:22); "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Deut. 19: 21).

These harsh prescriptions are not the basis for our law. Far too much respect is paid to frauds and fanatics who selectively invoke ancient scriptures as if they have any bearing on modern lives, much less constitute a coherent or desirable basis for civil government. It's not enough just to say people are entitled to believe what they like but not to impose it on the rest of us; their cherry-picking of scripture is insultingly dishonest. One might as well cut up a Renaissance masterpiece into quarter-inch squares, reassemble them mosaic-style into a completely different picture, and present it as the original.

(Hat tip: Rodney Elin)

Same-sex marriage fading as focus for "values" voters?

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com reports on the interesting results of one of the straw polls conducted at the Values Voters summit. Abortion ranked first as an issue of concern among the straw-poll voters at 41 percent. Protection of religious liberty ranked second at 18 percent. Opposition to same-sex marriage came in a distant third at 7 percent. Silver comments:

This is not to suggest that these voters have become pro-gay marriage. If any of them was spotted in leather chaps at Remington's after the event -- it was not, I assure you, to show solidarity for their gay brothers and sisters. But the last time this poll was conducted, in October 2007, gay marriage was the top choice of 20 percent of the attendees. That's quite a decline, particularly given that gay marriage has been more in the news than abortion for the past couple of years.

Public opinion is moving toward acceptance of gay marriage. But it is doing so very slowly, at a rate of perhaps a point or two per year, and has at least a few years to go before it is the majority opinion. In the near term, the more relevant dimension may be 'passion', or depth of feeling. It used to be that the conservatives were ahead on passion -- they were strongly opposed to gay marriage, whereas liberals were, at best, lukewarmly in favor of it. Increasingly, that dynamic seems to be reversing.

I agree with my colleague Bob Summersgill that we should not read too much into this straw poll, but it is interesting.

(Hat tip: Mauro Montoya)

LGBT community convocation on Wed., Sept. 30, 7 PM

Monique Ellison, an ordained minister and LGBT activist, writes at the Bilerico Project:

The LGBT community has a great opportunity this fall. Council Member David Catania is expected to introduce legislation that will bring marriage equality to the District. As states pass marriage equality laws, the opposition pushes back. LGBT advocacy organizations are working hard all over the country against lies, fear mongering, even bald hatred.

We, along with our allies, are responding with the truth and smart organizing. We bring our true stories. We show that we only want what every human being wants, security for our families. A Convocation of the LGBT community on September 30 is a call for the entire LGBT community in Washington DC to come forward in support of marriage equality with our families, with our friends and allies, and with the truth.

WHAT: A Convocation of the LGBT Community
WHEN: Wednesday, September 30 7pm
WHERE: True Reformers Building 1200 U Street NW

GLAA has endorsed this convocation for marriage equality and encourages you to join us. For more background, read the rest of Rev. Ellison's post here.

(Hat tip: Michael Crawford)

Rainbow History Project announces 2009 Community Pioneers

The Rainbow History Project has released its 2009 list of Community Pioneers:

1. Vic Basile
2. Melvin Boozer
3. David Catania
4. Lou Chibbaro
5. Toni Collins
6. James Crutchfield
7. Mindy Daniels
8. Pat Hawkins, PhD
9. Essex Hemphill
10. Dr. Theo Hodge, Jr.
11. Loraine Hutchins, PhD
12. Valerie Papaya Mann
13. Jack Nichols
14. Philip Pannell
15. Michelle Parkerson
16. Rick Rosendall
17. Randy Shulman
18. Cheryl Spector
19. Nancy Tucker
20. Jim Zais

I am honored to be included in such a distinguished list. I note that three other former GLAA presidents beside myself are included: the late Mel Boozer, the late Jim Zais, and Mindy Daniels. And Vic Basile, who was a GLAA vice president back in the 1970s, is also on the list. There is to be a reception for the honorees next month, details TBA.

Harry Jackson, stoking a racial divide on same-sex marriage

Robert McCartney's Metro column in the Sunday Washington Post looks at another poll of D.C. voters on same-sex marriage:

A poll conducted in May for same-sex marriage supporters found that whites in the District back same-sex marriage by more than 8 to 1, while blacks were against it 48 percent to 34 percent. Results of the survey, done by the Feldman Group, were provided by D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who's leading the campaign for same-sex marriage in the District.

The poll showed the city as a whole supported same-sex marriage by 54 percent to 34 percent. Even though the city is majority black, the huge margin of support from the white community made the difference....

The poll cited by Catania showed white support at 83 percent, compared with 10 percent opposed. Nationwide, approval among whites is 48 percent versus 46 percent against, a gap that is statistically insignificant, according to a Washington Post poll conducted in April.

Why the difference? The District's white population is more secular, liberal and better-educated than the rest of the country. Some surveys have suggested that educational level is the most reliable predictor of attitudes on same-sex marriage, with more-educated people being more likely to support it.

The cynical opportunism of our opponents is on full display in this quote from Bishop Harry Jackson:

"You see privileged white [gay] males in many situations trying to tell an underprivileged black single mother: My pain compared to your pain. That doesn't connect," Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville and leader of the anti-gay marriage campaign in the District, said.

McCartney quotes Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for equality:

"The reason we speak about Hispanics and women, their very different experience nevertheless resonates with us [black people]. The very different experience of the gay community resonates with me because I am an advocate and strong supporter of universal human rights," Norton said.

In any case, the trend within the black community is toward tolerance. The May survey found that District blacks favored same-sex civil unions, with the legal rights of marriage, by 52 percent to 36 percent.

Contrary to Bishop Jackson's relentless misrepresentations, the gay community is diverse racially, economically, and by gender. We represent a variety of faith traditions, a fact reflected in the diversity of affirming clergy in DC Clergy United for Marriage Equality. And contrary to Jackson, we do not claim that the gay struggle is the same as the black civil rights struggle. Jackson treats any comparison at all, any invocation by gays of the civil rights movement, as a complete equation of the two. The fact is that every leading advocate of marriage equality in the District openly acknowledges the differences between the two struggles. But the fact remains that civil rights are the proper birthright of all Americans.

Jackson falsely portrays the gay community as being all-white and econcomically privileged in order to stoke racial and class-based resentments. Can't you feel the Christian love? But the diverse coalition we have built for marriage equality is strong. The most crucial fact in refutation of Jackson and his slanders is that we and our families are here. We have established roots in communities throughout the city — more so, we might add, than this pastor from Lanham, Maryland who appears to have established a residence in D.C. solely for the purpose of attacking gay families.

Parson leaves GLLU

We learned over the weekend that our good friend Sgt. Brett Parson, at his own request, has been transferred to the Sixth Police District and is no longer commander of the Metropolitan Police Department's Special Liaison Units, which include the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit. Lou Chibbaro of The Washington Blade reports:

Lanier appointed Parson to the [SLU] post [in 2007] following complaints by gay activists of plans she announced a few weeks earlier calling for decentralizing the GLLU by assigning most of its officers to police patrol districts across the city. Activists said the plan, if carried out, would effectively dismantle the GLLU as a cohesive organization that had worked closely with the LGBT community for six years.

The chief later backed down from her decentralization plan. She said she would retain the GLLU in its Dupont Circle headquaters for an indefinite time, but that she would push to educate and train all officers in the department to handle LGBT related issues so that a GLLU would no longer be necessary.

Earlier this year, GLOV and local LGBT activists complained that the GLLU has been without a permanent head for at least two years. GLOV also expressed concern that the number of officers working in the unit has dropped by attrition over the past three years from more than six to four and that Lanier has declined requests by activists that she refill the vacant positions.

While serving in his post as commander of all of the liaison units, Parson for more than a year has served as acting commander of the GLLU. The unit's most recent permanent commander, Sgt. Tanya Bell, was placed on administrative leave before being fired from the department in the spring. Police officials have declined to discuss the reason for her dismissal, saying all personnel matters within the department are confidential.

Brett has been superb at GLLU and is highly popular in the LGBT community. We are sorry to see him leave GLLU. However, we cannot begrudge him his desire to return to patrol work, and have wished him all the best.

A few of us who have been involved in the GLLU reorganization issue (and with police matters in general as they affect the LGBT community) will meet this week to discuss the situation and what can be done to defend the community's interests.

Those missing "ex-gays"

Amanda Hess of City Paper's Sexist Blog (in a post I missed the other day) does a good skewering of PFOX's latest attempt to explain why it hasn't been more successful recruiting so-called ex-gays:

The problem of people-who-don’t-like-gay-people plagues both gays and “ex-gays,” of course. Gay activists have come up with a pretty good solution for this: they work to eliminate the stigma against homosexuality instead of never having good sex ever again. “Ex-gay” activist groups, like PFOX, actually work to promote “ex-gay” stigma: They encourage people to not like gay people, and to become not-gay people, which in turn makes people not like “ex-gay” people, because they used to be gay.

PFOX can’t find more ex-gays because of PFOX. Since the group represents a minority of people who are driven to silence by the shame over their homosexuality and, uh, political differences with the gay community, PFOX is in the privileged position of providing a voice to the voiceless. While the gay community works to eliminate shaming its members’ sexuality, the stigma against “ex-gays” actually benefits the “ex-gay” activists. When “ex-gays” aren’t talking, PFOX gets to say whatever happens to serve their own interests.

Of course, PFOX’s self-interest doesn’t explain why individuals would choose to leave a life of shame and good sex for a life of shame and bad sex. I have to think that’s another reason why I can’t find any ex-gays around here.

Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out comments:

What a joke. It is amazing how they always find professional, paid lobbyist “ex-gays” to appear on Jerry Springer. But, then when the media wants to find real, live ex-gays they are suddenly worried about privacy.

The fact is, ex-gays do not exist. It is a slick, political strategy employed to deny GLBT people equal rights. Ex-gay programs are consumer fraud and have harmed a great many people. This is why they are rejected by every respected medical and mental health organization in the nation.

Hackery hell at the Democratic State Committee

Mike DeBonis of City Paper reports on a big fight in the D.C. Democratic State Committee over finances. A friend comments, "FDR’s VP John Nance Garner famously declared that the Vice Presidency 'ain’t worth a bucket of warm piss.' What, then, would he have said about the DC Democratic State Committee?" Oh, I think it's worth that.

Race and Political Polarization

WaPo guest bloggers Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler, authors of the new book Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics, argue that their research supports former President Jimmy Carter's identification of racism as a major source of hostility toward President Obama:

In fact, the partisan divide today is even more troubling than if it was driven by race alone.

Americans' views of political issues and their partisan attachments are being increasingly shaped by gut-level worldviews. On one side of many issues are those who see the world in terms of hierarchy, think about problems in black and white terms, and struggle to tolerate difference. On the other are those who favor independence over hierarchy, shades of gray over black-white distinctions, and diversity over sameness.

We call this dividing line an authoritarian one, and we find that what side of the line people fall on explains their positions on a wide ranging set of issues, including race, immigration, gay rights, civil liberties, and terrorism. This is because what lies behind these preferences is a larger difference in worldview, where people understand reality in starkly different ways. This, in turn, leads to rancorous and irreconcilable-seeming political conflicts.

In other words, some of us try to deal with the complexities of reality, while others refuse.

Missing from Gerson's marriage proposal

Ferris Allen of Bloomington, Indiana has a letter in today's Washington Post responding to Michael Gerson's Sept. 16 op-ed, "Lost in a World Without Courtship," in which Gerson urges people to marry in their early-to-mid 20s for the sake of "marital survival and happiness." Allen writes:

If Mr. Gerson truly believes in marriage as a solution to sexually transmitted diseases and the "emotional and physical wreckage" of 20-somethings, he should support recognition — at all levels of government — of civil marriage for gay Americans.

Yes, America needs what Gerson calls a "courtship narrative" — except for those icky people over there, who we'll just pretend don't exist.

Harold Hill should be tarred and feathered if this was his band

A student band does Richard Strauss. If you think this is cute, and kids should be applauded for playing dreadfully, we have a wee disagreement.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Statler and Waldorf heckle Obama

"Outing" a public figure: standards of evidence

A recent column by Mike Ference of the Pittsburgh Independent Examiner raises questions about what evidentiary standards should apply when "outing" a public figure. Ference writes about Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl:

Donald Wuerl’s personal battle over the legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. is nothing more than a classic example of the pot calling the kettle lavender. According to an article in the Washington Post, Wuerl sent a letter to 300 local Catholic priests, reminding them that the Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriage - as if they already didn't know. Wuerl unleashed a barrage of staged media conferences and interviews, in order to reinforce the church’s stand on the topic. Perhaps a more suitable messenger is needed.

For those who are either in denial or have been asleep for the past 50 years, Donald Wuerl, like so many other Catholic clerics, is an alleged homosexual. Was he celibate as a cleric? This writer would be willing to bet the farm and my first-born that Wuerl was about as celibate as the growing number of rabbits that invade my vegetable garden every new season....

While being known as Donna Wuerl by the Pittsburgh gay community, administrators at a prominent Pittsburgh hospital openly discussed in a private venue Wuerl’s homosexuality, pointing out the inherent need to cover it up. This revelation only suggests, very strongly, that Wuerl must have been practicing the gay lifestyle while he was bishop of Pittsburgh. That revelation is based on a highly credible source.

The speculation on display above, particularly the "willing to bet" phrase in the second paragraph, is in stark contrast with the reporting of Michael Rogers, who outed South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer in an Aug. 31 report. As Rogers says:

I'm a reporter. I meet with people and I talk to them. Then based on a review of all of the facts, I report closet cases that hurt the gay community. You may not like my style, but I have a track record of 100%....

So, what is the deal with Bauer? I have confirmed and spoken to four individuals who I have no doubt are telling me the truth. These men have been hit on by Bauer, with one of them telling me it happened at least five times since Bauer's election in 2003. To a varying degree I have met with and believe the sources. And, as you'll recall, I have that 100% record.

This was still not enough for me to report on him. Then another call came in and I met with the source while he was visiting DC recently. "He's gay," the source told me.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because I've had sex with him on two separate occasions." That too, was not enough for me to report on without confirmation from others. I was led on a path to chatting with acquaintances of the source and two former employees of Bauer who served on his staff between 2004 and 2007. They reported to me that on a total of three occasions Bauer spent hours alone with men in hotel rooms. Each of them explained that the visits were with younger men who were not on the staff of the Lt. Governor nor had any official reason to be with him. The two men each confirmed that they had not known each other and each described similar circumstances under which these interactions occurred. One of them confirmed that he was told by the Lt. Governor's visitor he had a sexual encounter with Bauer.

The combination of the reports and the first hand experiences were what I need to maintain my 100% record of being right in my reporting on this site.

What we have from Ference on Wuerl does not appear to meet the journalistic standards upheld by Rogers. I have known a lot of closeted clergy in my day, many of whom by the way were not right-wing zealots. I myself have written about one of the zealots, though I used a pseudonym and omitted certain details because "outing" him was not my purpose. I respect the reporting of Mike Rogers, because he does his homework and has a track record of getting it right. Others who want to get into the business should learn from him.

Yvette Alexander explains it all for you

Loose Lips reports on Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander's rationale for opposing the upcoming marriage-equality bill:

“I stand where the president stands, that the definition of marriage is a union between a man and a woman,” she says, leaning heavily on the Obama civil-union crutch. She adds: “We give them just about everything that they would get [with marriage] with a domestic partnership.”

And don’t think any of those fancy terms is going to change her mind: “The word “marriage equality” for me doesn’t make sense. Marriage is between a man and a woman,” she says. “How more equal do they want it?”

As for it being a human rights issue, Alexander thinks not. After all, she chairs the council’s committee on again and community affairs, which has oversight over human rights matters. The bill isn’t going to her committee, she points out, but solely to Phil Mendelson’s judiciary committee. “No one can argue that it’s a human rights issue if it’s not going through human rights [committee],” she says, adding to her concerns that “I don’t see how Congress is going to approve it.”

As for a ballot initiative: “I think that would be the ideal situation.”

Where to begin with this nonsense? "Just about everything" is not good enough. Marriage is a central social institution understood by all, which is not the case with the various non-marriage alternatives. And when we finally win marriage equality at the federal level, having civil marriage equality in place in D.C. will keep us from having to play catch-up. As to how more equal we want it: Yvette, we and our families exist whether you approve of us or not, and the right to be heterosexual will not cut it. We are NOT heterosexual, and we are not going to live sham lives and form sham hetero marriages to placate bigots. BTW, whom does Ms. Alexander hate enough that she would press them into an unhappy opposite-sex marriage with a gay person?

As to this not being a human rights issue: is she seriously suggesting that my rights or the lack thereof should depend upon how a bill is assigned in the legislature? Have you heard anything more inane that wasn't from Michele Bachmann? So it's not about rights, Yvette, because your ox isn't being gored? Since Ms. Alexander previously invoked her religious beliefs, it is clear that this is really another case of someone trying to establish religion in another (flimsy) guise.

As to Congress approving the marriage equality bill: Ms. Alexander should know by now that Congress doesn't have to take any action, and we have allies on the Hill who will do their best to prevent any such action. Regarding a ballot initiative, while it seems clear that we stand a better chance with the voters than with Ms. Alexander, I am glad that all but two of her colleagues appear ready to step up and not hide behind a ballot measure (which is prohibited in this case by the subject-matter restrictions that GLAA succeeded in getting added to the Human Rights Act 30 years ago). That makes 10 votes for equality on the D.C. Council out of 13, which is a veto-proof majority — though we also have the support of Mayor Adrian Fenty.

My greater beef, though, is with the members of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club who pushed through an endorsement by acclamation of Ms. Alexander last year (notwithstanding there being three "no" votes) despite her opposition to marriage equality. Some of the same people enthusiastically supported Scott Bolden's 2006 challenge to At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson (the LGBT community's greatest champion on that body) despite Bolden's talking out of both sides of his mouth on marriage during the campaign. Mendelson went on to defeat Bolden in every ward of the city. I wonder what better chance a potential challenger to Ms. Alexander might have in 2012 if he or she could count on more members and friends of our community refusing to give the incumbent a pass?

Update: A colleague responded to this by saying he was reluctant to write Yvette off, especially given her vote for the marriage recognition bill. To which I say, please, go ahead and contact her. She loves to say her door is always open. But if you do meet her, please tell her that when she says. “How more equal do they want it?” it comes across as dismissive, and therefore insulting. These are our lives we are talking about. I am tired of struggling year after year to win rights that she is able to take for granted. Incidentally, the ballot initiative that she says she is all for would take away the recognition of same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions that she voted for. It's hard to give her a lot of credit for that vote when she is prepared to take it away by other means.

Dimitri Mallios, ‘Dean’ of D.C. Liquor Lawyers, Dies at 77

Loose Lips reports that Dimitri Mallios, who was honored this year by the the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington as "the dean of Washington’s Alcoholic Beverage Control attorneys," died Wednesday at the age of 77:

Mallios was first among a relatively small cadre of D.C. attorneys representing restaurants, bars, clubs, and hotels in front of city liquor authorities; his services helped myriad establishments navigate an arcane licensing process and fend off countless neighbors and advisory neighborhood commissions.

He had been battling cancer for more than five years, says his law partner Steve O’Brien. Mallios had been active and practicing before his illness suddenly worsened a week ago.

O’Brien, a longtime competitor of Mallios’ before their practices recently merged, says he cut a swath in the legal community that will not soon be filled. “Dmitri was my partner for three years; he was my friend for 30 years. Everything I know about alcoholic beverage law I learned from Dimitri. He is irreplaceable.”

As a community activist who encounterred Dimitri a number of times in connection with ABC matters, I admired his professionalism, toughness, and good humor. He always knew his stuff, and as a resident and customer of the city's hospitality industry I raise my glass to his memory. Those of you who are customers of Trio Restaurant, which is owned by Dimitri's brother George, may want to convey your condolences.

Follow the money on NOM

Danielle King has a commentary in today's Blade pointing out the questionable practices of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage:

NOM is an organization with a mission to pass discriminatory legislation in all states that propose that same-sex couples have the same civil rights as opposite-sex couples. Currently NOM is under an active investigation by California to determine if the group was set up by the Mormon Church to pass Proposition 8. Nearly 75 percent of the money used to help pass Prop 8 in California came from Mormon donors — mostly from outside of the state.

NOM has been accused of money laundering in Maine and the state’s Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices is considering an investigation into NOM to see if it has violated Maine’s campaign finance laws by purposefully attempting to conceal donor names.... The Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board also is questioning NOM’s practices for attempting to conceal out-of-state donors in violation of the state’s campaign finance laws.

NOM also is now working in D.C., New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Although individual states are doing their part in oversight, they are limited by their boundaries and resources and, unfortunately, the anti-gay legislation that NOM backs is extremely time sensitive. Meanwhile, the group is allowed to operate virtually unmonitored by the federal government. NOM’s agenda involves an important public issue — swaying elections state by state — and its practices have come under fire in every state in which they operate.

Since the group seems to be pioneering the way to circumventing the democratic process, one can only wonder when the federal government will take notice.

Good question.

Poole: What happened to equal protection?

Isaiah J. Poole has a commentary in today's Washington Blade in which he uses his sister-in-law’s unceremonious wedding to make a point about equal protection:

[T]he law does not distinguish between the couple that believes that the act of marriage should be a sacred rite and the couple that believes it need not be more than a bureaucratic formality. It does not distinguish between the virile couple that looks forward to bearing children and the couple that has either no desire or no capacity to have children.

David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, directors of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, wrote in a 2008 report about childless marriages that marriage has become increasingly focused on the “ideal of a emotionally satisfying ‘best friends’ relationship — what some call a ‘soul-mate’ marriage.”

Popenoe and Whitehead think this is bad, and perhaps Rev. Jackson agrees. But it’s not illegal, and no one is suggesting that governments deny marriage licenses to people who want to be “soul mates” and nothing more.

And if my partner’s sister can have her relationship with her soul mate recognized by the federal government and every state and local government, why can’t my partner and I? In a society based on equal protection under secular law, that is not too much to ask.

If Bishop Harry Jackson and the other opponents of civil marriage equality have a response to this point, I have yet to hear it despite asking them several times. They prefer to change the subject, or simply dispute that gay people are a legitimate minority. Meanwhile, the ex-gay fraudsters at PFOX insist that "ex-gay" is a sexual orientation and is therefore a protected class under the D.C. Human Rights Act.

O’Reilly backs government health insurance option

Wonders never cease.

Summersgill: We need Mendelson’s leadership, not a rubber stamp for Fenty

Bob Summersgill has a letter to the editor in today's Washington Blade responding to the Sept. 4 letter by Jack Jacobson on the 2010 At-Large D.C. Council race, in which Clark Ray is challenging incumbent Phil Mendelson:

Jacobson’s ill-informed letter denigrates Council member Phil Mendelson’s leadership on an array of pro-gay laws and inappropriately gives credit to me. While I am very proud of my contributions, I am not a member of the D.C. Council and could not have possibly gotten the bills passed without Council member Mendelson.

Mendelson wrote, introduced, held hearings, marked-up and got passed most of the major gay rights bills of the past several years.... All of the legal arguments used by Rev. Jackson to put the marriage-recognition bill on the ballot were undermined by changes in the law written by Phil Mendelson. Phil Mendelson will be an introducer of the marriage equality bill. He will hold hearings and move it through the Council.

Jacobson also claims that Mendelson delayed the Omnibus Crime Prevention Act. That is nonsense....

Jacobson and his candidate, Clark Ray, would prefer to rubber-stamp the mayor’s bill and move it through the Council without scrutiny or amendment. That is exactly what you don’t want in a Council member. Jack Jacobson would like to remove our champion on the Council, and replace him with a rubber stamp with no legislative experience or expertise.

Read the whole splendid thing here. My response to Jacobson is here.

Mary Travers: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary died of cancer Wednesday at 72. I grew up in the 1960s, and the blending of their voices was as peaceful as that era wasn't. Here she sings solo, accompanied by Peter Yarrow, at a concert in Sydney in 1970.

Raw Story: Limbaugh calls for segregated buses

Raw Story reports:

In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio heavyweight declared on his program Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated buses.

Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a bus, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”

The fact that the police retracted their initial suggestion of a racial motivation to the incident naturally does not matter to Limbaugh. The guy is so over-the-top extreme, I hesitate to wonder what he will do to top himself.

Coates: Obama won't dance

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates explains why the radical right's racial fear-mongering is useful as a clarifying moment:

For black people, the clear benefit of Obama is that he is quietly exposing an ancient hatred that has simmered in this country for decades. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of us grew tired of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, mostly because they presented easy foils for Limbaugh-land. Moreover, again rightly or wrongly, they were used to define all of us....

It's no mistake that O'Reilly and Sharpton would break bread together at Sylvia's--they feed each other.

But Barack Obama, bourgeois in every way that bourgeois is right and just, will not dance. He tells kids to study--and they seethe. He accepts an apology for an immature act of rudeness--and they go hysterical. He takes his wife out for a date--and their veins bulge. His humanity, his ordinary blackness, is killing them. Dig the audio of his response to Kanye West--the way he says, "He's a jackass." He sounds like one of my brothers. And that's the point, because that's what he is. Barack Obama refuses to be their nigger. And it's driving them crazy.

It's about time.

In other words, the far right is angry not because Obama is radical, but because he is not. People don't take well to having their comfortably frozen categories busted open. This reminds me of the hostile reaction of some Hollywood veterans, including a contemptuous Tony Curtis, to Ang Lee's austere masterpiece, Brokeback Mountain. It wasn't just that the main characters were gay lovers. What was unforgivable was that neither behaved like a fag. They could put up with the comic relief of an Edward Everett Horton (who was wonderful at what he did), but these guys were serious. Now that's radical.

Speaker Pelosi decries violent rhetoric

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, discussing the danger of violent rhetoric, becomes emotional as she recalls late-1970s San Francisco. The city's mayor, George Moscone, and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk, were assassinated in November 1978.

Marriage in D.C.: Time to Act

My latest column discusses why it's time to press ahead with legislation granting civil marriage equality in the District of Columbia:

I am a great proponent of making the case for marriage equality.... But we cannot wait until the last person is won over. We have the momentum, our legislature is ready, and it is time to act....

Given that domestic partnerships have virtually the same protections as marriages under District law, upgrading to marriage will be largely symbolic until the federal Defense of Marriage Act is repealed. But marriage is a particularly powerful symbol. It is a central social institution whose meaning is understood by all, unlike non-marriage alternatives.

Aware of the constitutional power the U.S. Congress holds over the District, the D.C. Council held a dry run last spring with a bill recognizing same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. That bill's passage into law without congressional interference gives hope that Congress will not overturn a D.C. marriage-equality bill.

As one who counseled caution over the years, I never said we should wait until there was no risk. I said we should wait until we had a fighting chance. Now is that moment. We have followed our plan and built our bridge to marriage equality. Now we must cross it.

Metro Weekly publishes Fall Arts Preview

This week's Metro Weekly is the Fall Arts Preview, with a look at the new season on stage and in movies, dance, galleries and museums, popular and classical music, and readings and lectures.

Also in this week's issue: Will O'Bryan writes about Easter Spencer, a Mautner Project client who sat in Michelle Obama's section of the gallery for the President's health care speech last week. Our old friend Lisa Keen reports that Rep. Barney Frank won't seek Ted Kennedy's senate seat. Yusef Najafi reports on complaints by the Washington Renegades Rugby Football Club about the condition of the field at Dupont Circle's Stead Park. Clare Shepherd looks at the D.C. Host Committee's efforts for the upcoming National Equality March, which is less than a month away. And my "Center Field" column discusses the local marriage fight, in Time to Act.

Takei and Altman to appear on "The Newlywed Game"

AP reports that Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, actor George Takei ("rhymes with gay"), will appear on GSN cable network's "The Newlywed Game" with his husband Brad Altman. The couple has been together for 22 years, but was only married last September in Los Angeles. As AP notes, "they're nothing like the giggly young couples the game is known for." Their appearance, aside from making a small contribution toward normalizing our relationships, should be fun.

AP-NCC Poll: small majority opposes recognizing same-sex marriages

AP reports on a new poll by the Associated Press-National Constitution Center, covering a wide range of issues from government bailouts to voting rights to health care reform. Included were questions on legal protections for gay families:

The poll found a small majority in support of extending to same-sex couples the same benefits given to married, heterosexual couples. By a similar margin, however, Americans oppose government recognition of gay marriage.

"A small majority." This means the trend is in our favor. Our opponents love to tout these snapshots while ignoring the evidence that opposition to marriage equality is declining.

"On Faith": When God Tells You to Hate

Deepak Chopra writes on WaPo's "On Faith" blog:

Since Jehovah is an expert hater in the Old Testament, urging his people to countless wars, the greatest attempt to recross that boundary comes in the New Testament, where Jesus preaches love and peace. His success, shall we say, has been limited. Christian violence is as old as the persecution of heretics, which began immediately after Constantine's conversion in 313 A.D....

If the story is old and universal, then the rise of incivility in our time displays behavior that cannot be eradicated. At best it is controlled. Sane, civil people have always been the gatekeepers of mature behavior and the teachers of morality....

At the same time, reactionary politics is rooted in incivility, having found its first success in the 1970s and 1980s by welcoming bigots, haters, the religious right, and the psychologically damaged to enter the arena of power brokers.... President Nixon had shown the way with his Southern strategy, a code name for racism, intolerance of hippies, and hatred of the anti-Vietnam movement.

The tactic didn't backfire, which struck a blow to any hope of civility in public discourse afterwards, and once a smooth talker like Ronald Reagan appeared, a shameful policy like allowing AIDS patients to die because, ultimately, they deserved it for their ungodly behavior, could be instituted.... Fortunately, the outrageousness of Reagan's AIDS indifference led to strong, vocal opposition.

"On Faith": Unhinged Society Needs Scapegoats

On WaPo's "On Faith" blog, Robert Parham, executive editor of the Baptist Center for Ethics, writes:

Take but a few examples of Christian leaders who scapegoat: Baptist minister Steven Anderson said he wanted to see President Obama die of brain cancer, while former Southern Baptist Convention vice president Wiley Drake prayed for the president's death. Both blamed Obama for their perception of what's wrong. Obama's early pastoral mentor, Jeremiah Wright, blamed the government for a genocide campaign against people of color through the HIV virus. Jerry Falwell blamed gays and the ACLU for the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11....

Perhaps behind the blame game is the loss of the four cardinal virtues.

Writing in "Mere Christianity," C.S. Lewis said that the word "cardinal" came from the Latin word that meant "the hinge of the door." He identified these cardinal virtues as prudence or common sense; temperance or balance; justice or fairness; and fortitude or "guts" when things are tough.

A civil society swings on these four hinges. And right now, our society appears to be becoming unhinged.

Religion is being sorely abused in the public realm for the furtherance of intolerance and social division. People of faith who know better need to rise to its defense.

Keyon sentenced to time served

AP reports that gay porn star Keyontili Goffney, who had acted as lookout while his twin brother Taleon broke into a Philadelphia beauty shop, has been sentenced to time served. Taleon was previously sentenced to a minimum of three years. Thus it appears that, barring an unusually liberal conjugal visit policy, Keyon (his porn name) will be performing solo for a while.

Glenn Beck's theocrackpot inspiration

Alexander Zaitchik at Salon writes about the right-wing crank behind Glenn Beck's worldview:

Beck has created a massive meet-up for the disaffected, paranoid Palin-ite "death panel" wing of the GOP, those ideologues most susceptible to conspiracy theories and prone to latch on to eccentric distortions of fact in the name of opposing "socialism." In that, they are true disciples of the late W. Cleon Skousen, Beck's favorite writer and the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement, "The 5,000 Year Leap." A once-famous anti-communist "historian," Skousen was too extreme even for the conservative activists of the Goldwater era, but Glenn Beck has now rescued him from the remainder pile of history, and introduced him to a receptive new audience....

What has Beck been pushing on his legions? "Leap," first published in 1981, is a heavily illustrated and factually challenged attempt to explain American history through an unspoken lens of Mormon theology. As such, it is an early entry in the ongoing attempt by the religious right to rewrite history. Fundamentalists want to define the United States as a Christian nation rather than a secular republic, and recasting the Founding Fathers as devout Christians guided by the Bible rather than deists inspired by the French and English philosophers. "Leap" argues that the U.S. Constitution is a godly document above all else, based on natural law, and owes more to the Old and New Testaments than to the secular and radical spirit of the Enlightenment.

Update: Getting back to my earlier discussion of the racism behind much of the vitriol being hurled at President Obama: As Zaitchik notes, Skousen's factually challenged 1982 history text, "The Making of America," calls black children "pickaninnies" and claims that slave owners were slavery's "worst victims." (I'm sorry, Master, did you scuff your boot on me?) Zaitchik writes:

"The 5,000 Year Leap" is not the only Skousen title to find new life on the 912 circuit. The president of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, Dr. Earl Taylor Jr., is currently touring the country offering daylong seminars to 912 chapters based on Skousen's "Making of America." For $25, participants will receive a bagged lunch and stories about America's religious Founders and their happy slaves. An ad for Taylor's "Making of America" seminar, currently featured on the Web site of the Tampa 912 Project, claims that Skousen's book is "considered a great masterpiece to Constitutional students [and is] the 'granddaddy' of all books on the United States Constitution."