Log Cabin: Dem Rep Must Apologize For Linking Blog That Refers To Gay US House Candidate Carl DeMaio As "Mary"

The Log Cabin Republicans today demanded an apology from Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) for linking to an Americablog post which refers to homocon GOP House candidate Carl DeMaio as "Mary." The link has since been removed from Peters' site. Americablog founder John Aravosis responds:

Apparently, Lob Cabin isn’t terribly familiar with “the gay lifestyle,” as Carl DeMaio’s friends on the religious right like to call it, if they think calling someone “Mary” is a slur. The only people who ever call gay people “Mary” is other gay people. And it’s not a slur, it’s actually often a term of ironic endearment. But then again, we shouldn’t expect anti-gay gays to actually understand, support or defend a culture that their own political party and candidates have long sought to destroy. Keep in mind that Log Cabin supported Mitt Romney for president when Romney refused to endorse any of their basic civil rights.

Romney was against ENDA, against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, against marriage equality. Mitt Romney was even for enshrining anti-gay prejudice in the United States Constitution. Mitt Romney was so anti-gay that he got rid of his campaign’s foreign policy spokesman when word got out that the man was gay. And after all that, Log Cabin still supported Mitt Romney for president. So if that’s the best Carl DeMaio has to offer to prove that he’s not really anti-gay — a group that endorses candidates with a “zero out of 100″ record on gay civil rights issues — then it’s no wonder that the entire gay community has abandoned Carl DeMaio.

RELATED: In 2012 local LGBT activists organized a campaign to boo DeMaio during that year's pride parade, noting that he'd been reluctant to endorse marriage equality and had accepted donations from backers of Proposition 8. DeMaio, a wealthy political consultant, is vehemently anti-union and has vowed that LGBT rights will never affect his political decisions.

Schock Makes Instagram Account Private

A few days ago John Aravosis posted an AmericaBlog column titled The 7 Gayest Aaron Schock Instagram Posts Of 2013 in which he needled Schock's famous sense of fashion and devotion to bodybuilding. That AmericaBlog post was referenced in yesterday's Facebook piece on Schock by CBS reporter Itay Hod. And JMG reader Michael reports that Schock today made his Instagram account private. Previously the account was open to all, including non-members. Read into this as you will.

John Aravosis Vs Jennifer Rubin

Americablog founder John Aravosis appeared on CNN to debate convention coverage with wingnut blogger Jennifer Rubin. Things get "a little heated" as Aravosis put it. Watch this.

John Aravosis Vs. Dennis Prager

White House On DADT Meeting: Mention Court Cases And The Meeting Is Over

As I noted this morning, today the White House will meet with advocates for the repeal of DADT to strategize the coming lame duck session of Congress. Oh, but one little warning to the attendees: if you bring up any of the DADT court cases, this meeting is SO over. From an email from White House LGBT liaison Brian Bond:

“Obviously this meeting has gotten out. We are expecting the content of the conversation today to be off the record and to help us figure out how to move forward with the lame duck session. Also as previously mentioned, there can be no discussion of current court cases or legal strategy or Counsel’s Office will end the meeting. The focus is repeal and the lame duck session. This is also a non-partisan meeting where we want everyone’s help.”

John Aravosis responds at AmericaBlog: "Nothing better illustrates the hubris the White House brings to its relations with its allies. Our civil rights representatives are invited to a key meeting on DADT, as part of the overall White House "'offensive' to win back the base before the elections, and the White House outright threatens our leaders. Perhaps it's time our leaders started threatening the White House."

RELATED: The "to" list of Bond's email reveals the names of those invited to the meeting:

Allison Herwitt and Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign; Shane Larson of the Stonewall Democrats; Winnie Stachelberg of the Center for American Progress; Aubrey Sarvis of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network; R. Clarke Cooper of the Log Cabin Republicans; Alex Nicholson and Jarrod Chlapowski of Servicemembers United; Nathaniel Frank, DADT expert formerly of the Palm Center; Jim Kessler of the Third Way.

UPDATE: The White House responds to criticism.

Among LGBT activists, the leaked invitation was interpreted as evidence that the administration is not only punting on Don't Ask Don't Tell (the Justice Department is set to appeal a ruling overturning the 17-year old policy) but also unwilling to hear dissenting opinions. Asked for comment, however, an administration official stressed that there are very precise legal lines that can't be crossed. One of them is talking about ongoing litigation with litigants in the room.

"Some of the participants in the meeting are involved in active litigation against the government on the issue of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, so it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss that litigation," said the administration official "This is standard procedure for any meeting where that would be the case. You could add further that our lawyers can't have contact with represented parties without their counsel being present."

PENTAGON: We Were Only Talking About Adding Shower Curtains

The Pentagon is furiously denying yesterday's allegation by AmericaBlog's John Aravosis that they are considering building separate living quarters for gay troops if DADT were to be repealed. According to Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morell, they were only talking about adding showing curtains.

Morrell told Hotsheet that the suggestion the survey could lead to segregation is "absurd." "No one is talking about segregating gay servicemembers from straight servicemembers," Morrell said. "We don't know that any adjustment will have to be made, but in the event that's a recommendation from the review group, it would not result in any 'separate but equal' facilities." Hypothetically speaking, Morell said, it is possible the military could consider facility modifications like adding shower curtains to shower stalls that are currently open. "We don't know if any adjustments will be required, but we need to survey the force to get an idea of what their privacy concerns are," he said. Morell said the suggestion the survey could lead to segregation is "inflammatory nonsense" from groups trying to discredit the survey, which is "not helpful" for the Defense Department.

DADT Controversy: Kathy Griffin Criticized For Calling Congressman A "Big Queen"

Gay heroine Kathy Griffin is in DC to participate in the HRC's lobby day for the repeal of DADT. But today she's under fire by some for her remarks to Capitol Hill's Roll Call.

Kathy Griffin might be a D-list diva, but she says House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is royalty — of a sort. “I’m meeting with this big queen named Jim Clyburn,” Griffin, who is in Washington this week to lobby for an end to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, told HOH. “I’m going to be the first person to ever walk into his office and go, ‘Hey, girl!’” Griffin is also slated to meet with the chamber’s two openly gay Congressmen, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) (“Leave it to the gays to have two first names,” she joked) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) (“Jared’s a good gay name”).

Mediaite's Michael Triplett calls Griffin's remark "perfectly calculated" to get her the kind of attention she loves and notes the harsh criticism from some LGBT bloggers.

But in a town where even her gays don’t necessarily find Griffin’s shtick funny when it comes to politics, there’s been some blowback by the oh-so-serious LGBT power bloggers. Joe Subday at AmericaBlog said “I get that she’s a comedian (I’m a fan), but lobbying is actually serious business, especially on LGBT issues. Yes, it’s funny to you and me when Kathy Griffin insults members of Congress by calling them “big queens.” It’s a dumb way to lobby on DADT.”

John Aravosis, also at AmericaBlog, chimed in on the comment page of his blog, calling it ” idiotic to choose someone like her for a high profile job on a serious issue like this. Invite her to your dinner, sure. Don’t invite her to Congress to represent us. It smacks of either HRC self-promoting or desperately trying to show the community they’re doing something. Either way, not good.”

Griffin is being trailed in Washington by a film crew from her hit Bravo show My Life On The D-List. For the record, Clyburn is married and isn't thought to be gay.

HRC On AmericaBlog Call To Boycott DNC: Decide For Yourselves

The Human Rights Campaign has responded to yesterday's call by John Aravois and Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog for a boycott of LGBT donations to the Democratic National Committee.

"Individual donors should always make their own careful assessments of how to spend limited political contributions. We all need to focus on the legislative priorities identified by AmericaBlog and with whatever tactic individuals decide to employ, the ultimate objective needs to be securing the votes we need to move our legislative agenda forward."

FireDogLake blogger David Dayen calls the HRC's response "a tacit endorsement, or at least not a public disavowal, of the strategy." He also notes that the HRC has not donated to the DNC since President Obama ordered that the DNC not accept funding from C(4) organizations.

AmericaBlog Calls For Gay Donor Boycott Of Democratic National Committee

Under the headline Don't Ask, Don't Give, John Aravois and Joe Sudbay of the widely-read AmericaBlog today called for a boycott of LGBT donations to the Democratic party over the failures of the Obama administration and the DNC to properly support and advocate for gay causes.

Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Michelangelo Signorile, Paul Sousa the founder of Equal Rep in Boston, and soon others. It's really more of a "pause," than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends - President Obama and the Democratic party - who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.

So please sign the Petition and take a Pledge to no longer donate to the DNC, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends. You can find our Frequently Asked Questions, below, that explain the entire campaign. You can use our "Tell a Friend" page to tell all of your friends, family members, and coworkers about this effort (and we won't keep any of the email addresses you entire, they'll all be deleted after the emails are sent).

Tensions between the DNC and AmericaBlog came to a boil last week after openly gay DNC treasurer Andy Tobias revealed that the DNC had "intentionally" asked Maine contributors to support NJ Gov. Jon Corzine with no such accompanying request to help Maine's marriage equality effort.

HomoQuotable - Joe Solmonese

"But what 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." - HRC executive director Joe Solmonese, saying that we shouldn't be critical of President Obama so soon into his tenure. (And maybe not at all until 2017?)

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog reacts:

It's the kind of thing that someone who doesn't have to worry about getting kicked out of the military would write. Someone who doesn't care about getting married. And, it's the kind of thing someone who is more concerned about image and connections would write. It is simply astonishing from an organization that is supposed to be dogging this president to secure our civil rights. You don't telegraph that it's okay for him to wait until 2017 to keep his promises. That is, if he gets re-elected, if we still control the Congress, if we're not having more "distracting" wars, if it's not a close election... Good Lord.

DOJ-DOMA Reactions

Reactions to this morning's DOJ-DOMA filing...

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

I guess this is a step in the right direction. I don't want to fail to praise the administration for doing better, but to some degree the only reason this is "good" is because of how "bad" they did on the previous brief. In the end, they're still defending a discriminatory law that the president himself has called "abhorrent." The fact that they're doing it more tactfully is, I suppose, nice - and they are no longer using language that undercuts us on a variety of other civil rights, so that's good - but again, we're praising them for no longer doing things that they shouldn't have done in the first place. And in the end, they're still defending discrimination.

Chris Geidner at Law Dork 2.0:

Those who assert that the Obama Administration did not even need to file a brief will be dissatisfied with the brief because it essentially incorporates the earlier arguments into this reply brief and continues to defend DOMA as a legal matter. But, for those many people who believe that the government, in a situation such as this, does have a responsibility to defend the law, this brief makes clear the distinction between opposing a policy and defending a law.

From the brief itself to Obama’s statement and in light of the other changes being advanced by the Administration, I continue to believe that the original DOJ Smelt filing was made without the full appreciation (or knowledge) by higher-ups. I do think that the uproar following its filing has changed the approach of the Administration, and, for that, the debate was worthwhile. This filing and statement show a keen awareness of and sensitivity to that impact, while maintaining a clear principle to defend a law that repeatedly has been found to be constitutional.

Focus On The Family at Drive-Thru:

It’s weird that our modern day defenders of the law can’t find a reason to keep marriage between a man and a woman when ancient civilizations had no trouble connecting the dots from heterosexual sex to child-rearing. Ironically, the same lawyers in the Justice Department who wrote this will also be defending DOMA. And that should make us all feel warm and cozy—marriage should be defended very well, don’t you think, by the very same people who want to redefine it for another purpose entirely. I would like to know the administration’s alternative plan for attaching fathers to their children. You would think that future generations of taxpayers would be of vital interest to an administration planning astronomical tax increases.

The Mormon Church Has Posthumously Baptized President Obama's Mother

John Aravosis at Americablog went digging through the Mormon Church's online records and discovered that the LDS posthumously baptized Barack Obama's mother during the 2008 presidential campaign. Remember the scandal last November when the LDS was caught posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims even after they said they would stop? Read Aravosis' first and follow-up posts on this latest revelation.

White House Restores LGBT Rights Promises On Website (But Changes DADT Wording From "Repeal" To "Change")

UPDATE: There's been another change and it's for the better.

Yesterday JMG reader Sean Chapin alerted me to the shrunken list of commitments to LGBT rights on the White House's official site. What was once an eight-point list of detailed promises including the repeal of DADT, the repeal of DOMA, and other major commitments shrank to these two sentences:

President Obama also continues to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He supports full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

I posted about this massive reduction and sent the post off to my contacts at several major LGBT organizations. Among the responses was this from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force:

I wanted to let you know that Rea Carey contacted the White House directly about the issue today after you alerted us to your post. Rea was told that they are changing the White House Web site to turn it into a more governance-focused site to reflect progress, as opposed to a campaign and transition site. They said they have taken out many such points throughout the site (not just on LGBT policy issues) as part of this changeover, and are apparently modifying the site over the next few weeks. We will be keeping an eye on it, but if you see changes before we do (or a lack thereof), please let us know. And thank you for calling this to our attention.

Today Americablog's John Aravosis writes:

In spite of yesterday's change in language, a White House spokesman assured me last night that no change in policy was intended:

"As is the case with most websites, periodic changes are made to WhiteHouse.gov. Recently we overhauled the issues section to concisely reflect the President's broad agenda, and will continue to update these pages. The President's commitment on LGBT issues has not changed, and any suggestions to the contrary are false."

At around the same time last night, the Civil Rights page was updated to include many of the previously omitted promises. Hate Crimes was now included as a news update, since the bill just passed the House, and AIDS is now included elsewhere on the White House Web site - all of which is fine.

There was, however, one bit of new language that caught the eye of a number of observers with whom I spoke last night:

[President Obama] supports changing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security... [emphasis added]

Aravosis concludes:

The language changed from a commitment to a "full repeal" of DADT to a commitment to "change" the discriminatory policy in a "sensible" manner. While the White House has assured us that this is not an indication of a change in policy, the language, on its face, appears to be a clear change in policy. Changing DADT is not repealing DADT. It is a commitment to keep the discriminatory policy in place, albeit with some alterations. If the White House is still in favor of "repealing" Don't Ask Don't Tell, albeit in a "sensible way" - and we're happy to take them at their word - then say just that. Change "change" to "repeal" and be done with it.

Naturally, I'm stoked that my post spurred some movers-and-shakers to pressure the White House to restore most of the list. But like John Aravosis, I'm quite dismayed with the new DADT wording.