Month: October 2009

If you believe it is wrong to fire people from their jobs solely because they are gay, as you said Saturday night, stop doing it.

Apologies for the few posts today. After enduring the HRC event last night on CSPAN, I needed to cheer myself up and remember why I'm so glad to be gay. So we went to Bob Mould's and Rich Morel's Blowoff dance party and danced the night away with all the bears. By the time we came to this morning, we had to rush to get to the Equality March. We just got back. The Dish can sometimes wait.

It my have been, in Barney Frank's opinion, "useless," but for me and Aaron and my friends, it was a beautiful  and empowering time. So many young people, so many old and dear friends, so many faces I haven't seen in so long, so many straight people, and kids and families and trannies and a good, good happy vibe. Then the message that was louder and clearer than any march I've been to since 1987. Just equality. Not tolerance. Not protection. Nothing special. Just equality as human beings and citizens – in all things large and small.

More to the point, this was not a plea for it; it was a statement of it. We are equal. We always have been. The prison of inferiority is in our own psyches as well as in others' fears. But I sense now, for the first time, a critical mass of self-respect among my LGBT brothers and sisters. It was there before; but now it's everywhere, especially the young, who seem to have found the courage of their own desires and the knowledge of their own love.

I don't know how many people showed up and don't care. There were some off-moments, of course, but also some fine, fine messages, from Dan Choi and Cynthia Nixon especially. After watching last night's self-satisfied worship of access to power, it was so great to be among people who are not interested in getting invites to the White House or appointments to federal jobs or yet another photo for their mantelpiece next to Obama. I was among people who simply want to be treated with the respect that they're entitled to.

So I repeat to myself what I often forget. Know hope. Love life. And always remember: gay is good. 

(Photo: me, Aaron, Eddy and one of the first gay rights pickets ever made for a Washington protest. It was made in 1965, four years before Stonewall, and the Mattachine heroes held it up in front of the White House on October 23 forty four years ago. Charles Francis brought it, and allowed me to hold it for a while. I am so proud to have been part of this movement, and so honored to touch one its sacred artefacts.)

A new study by Pew finds that nearly a quarter of the world's population is Muslim. Juan Cole reacts:

If current demographic trends continue, moreover, the world could level off at about 9 billion persons in 2050, and nearly 1/3 of those could well be Muslim. The really big Muslim populations are not in the Middle East, which is largely arid and wouldn't support such populations. It is in relatively well-watered places such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia in Asia where the bulk of Muslims live. Pakistan now has about 170 million people but is likely to rival the current US population of 300 million in the next few decades. (When I first went to Pakistan in 1981 I think its population was, like, 70 million).

Chris Good asks:

If you think Obama's Nobel Prize was a bit of a reach, who do you think should have gotten it? And if you think he deserved it, who, in your mind, was second?

I'll take a different tack: I'm happy Obama got it, but it is quite obvious who I would have picked in his stead: Neda, the murdered Iranian who died defending her own freedom and democracy. If not Neda, then Mousavi and Karroubi. Obama has set the stage for peace, and changed the global dynamic. But these people are heroes, displaying the courage of their convictions, putting their lives on the line for freedom.

Can you imagine how much more impact it would have had to have given them this prize? How big a blow it would have delivered to those vile torturers and thugs, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei? Oh, well. Maybe they missed the deadline for nominations. But history will remember them. I hope it one day remembers Obama for similar courage.

West Jefferson, North Carolina, 6 pm

Some Egyptan politicans want to ban the Artificial Virginity Hymen, a small pouch "intended to help newly married women fool their husbands into believing they are virgins—culturally important in a conservative Middle East where sex before marriage is considered by many to be illicit." Will Saletan pounces:

[T]the artificial hymen serves as a useful test of religious idiocy. If a $30 item that leaks fake blood violates your faith so profoundly that you must ban it, then what you have isn't really a faith. It's a fetish. And your fetish won't survive globalization.

All I can say is: the president gave a speech he could have given at any point in the last three years. No one in that room could disagree with any of the things he said. I sure don't (with the exception of the hate crimes hooey). And he said it well and movingly. Like we didn't know he could do that.

But the point of electing a president who pledged to actually do things is to hold him to account, and to see if he is willing to take any risk of any kind to actually do something. I had a few prior tests of his seriousness or signs that he gets it, a few ways to judge if this speech had anything new or specific or clear. He failed every test.

To wit:

He says he will end Don't Ask Don't Tell but he has done nothing, and he offered no time-line, no deadline for action and no verifiable record that he has done anything, despite his claims that he has.

He says he is ending the HIV ban, but it is still in force, a year and a half after it was signed by George W. Bush and passed by massive majorities in both houses.

He says he favors equality for gay couples but said nothing tonight to support the initiatives in Maine or in Washngton State or the struggle in Washington DC for marriage equality. That's a test of real sincerity on this matter. He failed it.

He says he wants to end discrimination in employment even as he is firing more gay people solely for being gay than any other employer in the country – as commander-in-chief. And if an employer is firing gay people all the time, is it tolerable to accept as a response that he will stop doing it one day – but gives no time-line at all to hold him to?

Look: I didn't expect these issues to be front and center given his appalling inheritance; I know he has many other things on his plate; I didn't expect the moon; I didn't believe he would do any of this immediately; I understand that the real job is for us to do, not him, and that most of the action is in the states. And I remain a strong supporter of him in foreign policy and in the way he is clearly trying to move this country past the ideological divides of the recent past.

But the sad truth is: he is refusing to take any responsibility for his clear refusal to fulfill clear campaign pledges on the core matter of civil rights and has given no substantive, verifiable pledges or deadlines by which he can be held accountable. What that means, I'm afraid, is that this speech was highfalutin bullshit. There were no meaningful commitments within a time certain, not even a commitment to fulfilling them in his first term; just meaningless, feel-good commitments that we have no way of holding him to. Once the dust settles, ask yourself. What did he promise to achieve in the next year? Or two years? Or four years? The answer is: nothing.

HRC, of course, is putting no pressure on him; Joe Solmonese's disgraceful email actually took all pressure off him by saying he'd be happy to wait till 2017 for HRC to hold Obama accountable. HRC are putting pressure, as they always have, on gay people to go to the back of the line and be grateful a president attends their fundraising event. The only word for this is a racket. And if gay people do not rise up and demand change from this organization and stop funding a group whose goal has always been to sell the Democrats to gay people rather than secure civil rights, then they will continue to suffer the discrimination they live under day after day.

8.56 pm. More campaign boilerplate. This speech could have been made – and was made – a year ago.

8.53 pm. His major achievement – the one thing he has actually done – is invite gay families to the Easter egg-roll.

8.51 pm. Again, more of a campaign speech. I've called on Congress to repeal DOMA. Does he think we're fools? He has done nothing to advance this.

8.50 pm. Now we get the campaign speech on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Does he not realize he is now in office? "I'm working to end this policy. I will end Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Solmonese has given us the timeline: 2017. This is bullshit.

8.48 pm. He mentions the HIV ban. It's "already under way."Already?" Eight months into office?

8.46 pm. This is his big achievement: a member of his administration testified against firing gay people for no good reason. That's it. Nothing else.

8.43 pm. Now the useless, trivial and total symbolism of the federal hate crimes bill. And the crowd goes wild. Matthew Shepard's murderers were brought to justice without any such law. The law itself is not actual progress; it's a bauble to distract from a refusal to grant real equality that could treat gay people as full citizens, not vulnrable victims beaten up by thugs. Hate crimes laws are not about equality; they are about entrenching victimhood.

8.40 pm. Now he's pivoting away from his responsiibilty and the Democratic party's responsibility and changing the subject to healthcare reform, Iraq, Afghanistan – as if gay soldiers are not already in Afghanistan being discriminated against by him.

8.39 pm. "I'm here with you in this fight." When are you going to prove it? Answer: by 2017.

8.38 pm. Obama begins the history of the gay rights movement with Stonewall, once again. The sheer Democratic party conventionality of this speech is pretty depressing.

8.35 pm. "A privilege to open for Lady Ga-ga." Great line. Pity it cuts too close to the bone with this crowd.

8.29 pm. Solmonese is speaking quite clearly as a representative of the Obama administration and the Democratic party establishment. Well, at least he's honest. His fundamental point is that the Republican party's base is the alternative and so we should do nothing to pressure the White House to act right now. In fact we should give him a standing ovation. Notice Solmonese mentions health insurance reform before marriage equality. He is a Democratic party functionary first and foremost and HRC is a means to advance Democratic party interests and gay issues second. That's why Solmonese is head of this group – despite no record of activism in gay rights before he got the job. His real job is to get gay money to support healthcare reform.

Time from Andrew Curtis on Vimeo.

This is my Great-Grandfather’s 1944 railroad watch. I’ve had it for years but only recently realized what was “under the hood.” Watching the gears turn, even in real time, is very soothing to me.

Readers know I've long been highly critical of the Human Rights Campaign, because I believe they get nothing much done, and have been co-opted by the Democratic party establishment, and have sucked resources out of local gay groups and states who really are creating change, and because of their insufferable smugness, eagerness to take credit for work others do, and Rotary Club dinners that often form their only seriously organized activity. That's a little unfair because they do have good people working for them, they have made real strides in local organizing, they have trained gay people to lobby, and they do help eventually in Congress (such as on removing the HIV ban). I do not want to tar with one brush many well-intentioned people working for them or with them. But their leaders are just so passive, weak-kneed and apologetic, you could mistake their balls for a couple of peas.

This split in the gay movement is not new – if you saw the movie Milk, you could see the same tension between those who wanted to stand up and fight for equality and those who wanted to offer milquetoast, semi-closeted incrementalism with straight power. There's a place for both wings, of course, and most civil rights movements have included both.

This weekend, these two tendencies will collide together in DC. Thousands of gay, lesbian, transgender and straight allies will be descending on this town for a classic march to express anger, commitment and seriousness to equality. At the same time, one thousand wealthy, tuxedoed, Democratic party donors will be at the Washington Hilton for the HRC dinner of dinners (which tend to be fabulous and fucking endless). I don't fully feel a part of either camp, but I will not attend the dinner and I will march with my fellows and friends. Why? Because of letters like this from Joe Solmonese, head of HRC, that was sent out this week.

I was sent it last night and my first question back was: is this a hoax? It has to be a hoax, right? Joe Solmonese isn't that much of a tool, is he? I'll post the letter to HRC subscribers in full after the jump. But the bottom line is as follows:

[W]hat has he [Obama] done?

I've written that we have actually covered a good deal of ground so far. But I'm not going to trot out those advances right now because I have something more relevant to say: It's not January 19, 2017.

That matters for two reasons: first, the accomplishments that we've seen thus far are not the Obama Administration's record. They are the Administration's record so far….

I am sure of this: on January 19, 2017, I will look back on the President's address to my community as an affirmation of his pledge to be our ally. I will remember it as the day when we all stood together and committed to finish what Senator Kennedy called our unfinished business. And I am sure of this: on January 19, 2017, I will also look back on many other victories that President Barack Obama made possible.

Essentially, Solmonese is asking for patience and silence until the last day of Barack Obama's second term for any sort of movement on gay equality. Now I can understand how, say, Brian Bond, who is paid to defend the administration on these issues, might say that to mollify activists. I can understand Rahm Emanuel saying that behind closed doors. But what on earth is the head of the biggest gay lobby doing saying that? Can you imagine AIPAC's head or La Raza's head pre-emptively telling the administration that we won't mind very much if you do nothing for us until the end of your second term? They would be forced to resign, pronto.

What HRC have now done is give away any leverage or bargaining power the gay community has with the Obama administration. They are doing what they did with the Clintons: essentially apologize for being a burden and prostrate ourselves to the Democratic party in the hope that they will be kind to us in the very, very long run. And since at a federal level, almost everything is a Congressional act, there's absolutely no guarantee that Obama will even be able to fulfill any pledges past 2010, let alone 2017. And there's no guarantee that he will be re-elected in 2012.

This is why HRC drives me bonkers. And I'm joined by more and more gay people – check out John Aravosis, Andy Towle and and Dan Savage. I understand the need for an establishment broker as well as a grass roots movement as well as cultural and intellectual advocacy. But the establishment broker in this case is not a broker; it is a representative of other forces in the Democratic party that, while not wanting to hurt gays, are nonetheless hostile to expending an ounce of political capital on behalf of our equality. Solmonese was hired by these people (he had virtually no record of gay activism before he was placed in his position by Emily's List's Ellen Malcolm) and answers to these people. Barney Frank, whose good work always seems to end up with backing whatever his party leadership wants, is so embarrassed by this he has left town this weekend and slammed the march as "useless". So the gay movement's most prominent power-broker is deliberately absent from both the establishment and the grass roots' big weekend. What does that tell you?

Maybe Solmonese is right and on January 19, 2017, Obama will have become the best civil rights president the gays have ever had. I sure hope so and I will stand up and applaud till my hands are bleeding if he does.

But you don't fricking say that in public in 2009 when you head up the country's largest gay group.

The entire email reads like a battered wife's defense of her husband. It is without self-respect; it is riddled with the self-loathing of low expectations. It confirms every dark suspicion of HRC I have ever had and I have watched it closely now for twenty years. I really think this is the last straw.

If you do not really believe in your own equality, why should anyone else? I know it's difficult and I know the president has a lot on his plate. But you know who really have a lot on their plate? The servicemembers out there risking their lives for our security, enduring sacrifices Joe Solmonese cannot even imagine, serving their country day in day out – only to be treated as pariahs, and fired for the sole crime of being gay. This is wrong; it is unjust; it is cruel; it is ingratitude of the deepest kind; it is disrespect; and it is now sixteen years since we were promised it would end, as it has in every other civilized country, to no ill effects at all.

My first boyfriend was in the airforce and I saw firsthand the strain. I know and have met and am friends with many of the most admirable people I know in uniform who are rewarded for their service with contempt and the constant fear of exposure and losing their jobs, their pensions, and their self-respect. If anything is wrong, it is treating servicemembers this way. We must never tell Obama that continuing to persecute these people is in any way acceptable. It is an outrage. And it must end. Especially in a war like this, especially when their patriotism is so deep. It must end now – or as soon as practically possible.

That's why I will be marching this weekend, and I hope you will too. And that's why the Human Rights Campaign has become as much a hindrance to our advancement as a help. It is time to draw a line. Stop enabling this battered wife syndrome. If you belong to HRC, demand this syndrome end and withdraw your financial support until they start standing up for the powerless rather than constantly defending the powerful. No mas.

Solmonese's entire email is after the jump. I have a smidgen more respect for Obama's sincerity on this than Solmonese's so I will be live-blogging his speech tonight in some small hope he may have something substantive or constructive to offer. If Obama offers something real and new, I will be the first to cheer; if he offers nothing but words again, I will march with more fervor and determination tomorrow. But I will march tomorrow regardless because this is not about Obama; it is about a civil rights movement that should and must exist independently of any political party or president. And I will attend the AIDS vigil this evening to remind myself of those we lost. They are with me always and I know what they would want right now. We didn't lose 300,000 young people to sit around a decade later and make excuses. It's an insult to them as well.

Please join me and Cleve Jones and thousands of others to show we have the self-respect the Human Rights Campaign doesn't. At noon it starts tomorrow at 15th and I streets. Please come if you are straight. I know many more straight people who have more conviction on this than the Human Rights Campaign. God help me but Jon Stewart has more conviction on this than Joe Solmonese. To have the support of our straight friends and families is critical. This is not just a march for gays; it's a march for the profound American ideal of civil rights and civil equality.

Dear xxxxx,

Sometimes life moves so quickly that you can forget how much is changing around you. But this weekend we will have a powerful reminder: President Obama's appearance at HRC's national dinner. His joining us that night says that although last year, we were outsiders to our own government, this=2 0year, we are a part of its vision.

It shouldn't be difficult to see why the president of the United States speaking to the nation's largest LGBT rights group is a good development for LGBT people. But at this point in time, it is hard for many among us to see. The substance of the feeling is this: he promised us the world, and we gave everything we had to elect him. But what has he done?

I've written that we have actually covered a good deal of ground so far. But I'm not going to trot out those advances right now because I have something more relevant to say: It's not January 19, 2017.

That matters for two reasons: first, the accomplishments that we've seen thus far are not the Obama Administration's record. They are the Administration's record so far. If you ask "is that all" my question to you is "is that all you think we're going to push for?" It isn't.

More importantly: today, and for the next seven years and three months, Barack Obama is the most powerful person in the world, with the largest bully pulpit, and the most power to effect change. To do the work, we have to work with our supporters in Congress and with the Administration. Whatever you think of the Administration's first nine months, you don't pass laws by sitting out. You pass laws by sitting at the table.

And you don't get to the table at the expense of your principles. You don't get the President's ear at the expense of your expectations. In June I wrote a letter to President Obama describing HRC's disagreement with his decision to defend DOMA in federal court, and with the offensive and inaccurate arguments the government put forth. It's hard to read such a letter—a public one—from an ally.

But when the President signed a memorandum providing family protections and an inclusive non-discrimination policy for federal employees—policies for which HRC and our sister organizations had advocated—I was proud to be present. Our disagreement about DOMA did not require me to ignore a step forward for transgender federal workers and for same-sex partners. In turn, the President invited me because he recognized HRC's accomplishments in promoting those fair policies, and because he would not exclude a civil rights advocate for speaking up about our community's rights.

Those protections were a good first step. Passing the hate crimes law is a monumental one. I continue to believe that with this president, we will do much more. As we prepare to dedicate HRC's Edward Kennedy award, I know that this president shares his mentor's commitment to promoting justice for LGBT people.

I predict great things coming out of our work with this President, but that does not mean that I am satisfied today. Our community cannot be satisfied so long as DOMA is on the books and an inclusive ENDA is not. This is something we share with all those who advocate for civil rights. No civil rights advocate can be satisfied as long as there are children who eat their only meals in their failing schools each day. No civil rights advocate should be satisfied until all of us have health care and no one has to declare bankruptcy because of a hospital bill. We are not satisfied until this country keeps its promise to everyone.

Advocates for health care, education, LGBT rights and other civil rights issues are getting used to this new landscape, where passing our legislation is possible, but still hard. We've learned that end of life counseling can be twisted into "death panels" and hate crimes into "pedophile protection." We've come to understand that we didn't win it all in November but that we can win now.

I am sure of this: on January 19, 2017, I will look back on the President's address to my community as an affirmation of his pledge to be our ally. I will remember it as the day when we all stood together and committed to finish what Senator Kennedy called our unfinished business. And I am sure of this: on January 19, 2017, I will also look back on many other victories that President Barack Obama made possible.
Sincerely,

Joe Solmonese
President, Human Rights Campaign

PS: C-Span will cover President Obama's address live. Tune in on Saturday night at 7:55 p.m. And if you are travelling to DC to participate in the National Equality March, click here for details about the resources HRC will be providing, including the tools you need to become a citizen lobbyist, advocating for all of the rights that you came to march for.

You will notice, surely, no mention of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, or the HIV travel ban. You will notice Solmonese's idea of taking a stand – writing a letter, and then being thrilled to be invited to the White House "because [Obama] would not exclude a civil rights advocate for speaking up about our community's rights." I mean: seriously.