HomoQuotable - Gregory Angelo

"This is really a time of choosing for LGBT advocates on the left. Do you support the left agenda, or do you actually support equal rights for Americans? Those who fall in the latter category are going to be the ones who are going to be come to the table with Republicans and find solutions, ways to pass things, like employment protections for LGBT individuals, that also reach consensus among Republicans." - Log Cabin head Gregory Angelo, speaking to the Washington Blade.

Super Gay Bet: Blade Vs B.A.R.

From Washington Blade reporter Phil Reese:

Editors and publishers of the Washington Blade and the Bay Area Reporter, an LGBT newspaper in San Francisco, announced this week the terms of a bet for their respective teams playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl championship in New Orleans. If the Ravens win, BAR will send the Blade staff a lunch of dungeness crabs and a $1,000 donation to the local LGBT charity of the Blade’s choosing. If the 49ers win, the Blade will send BAR’s staff a lunch of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and a $1,000 donation to a San Francisco LGBT charity of BAR’s choosing. “When Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, the Patriots won the Super Bowl. When New York legalized marriage in 2011, the Giants won the Super Bowl. In 2012, Maryland passed marriage equality, so it’s our turn,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff, who lives in Baltimore. “Go Ravens!”

I suppose it should be pointed out that DC legalized same-sex marriage in 2009 and that the Redskins finished last in their division that year, having won only four games all season. Yes, I had to look that up. Go sportsball! Go local/regional team! I like the ones in the aubergine blouses!

Bishop Harry Jackson: I Personally Cursed A Gay Newspaper Into Bankruptcy

"One night I walked past one of those newsstands. As I was walking past it, I looked at that newsstand and they had some article about same-sex marriage and all that blasphemous stuff. And I laid hands on that newsstand and I said, 'In the name of Jesus, I CURSE THIS PAPER!' Less than two months, that paper went bankrupt. It was part of a six-newspaper chain! It went bankrupt! It went out of business! IT WENT UNDER! It did!" - Crackpot preacher Harry Jackson, presumably speaking about the Washington Blade, which as Good As You points out, quickly resurrected itself and remains in business three years after Jackson's failed "curse."  Hit the link for the audio and hear Jackson's audience react.

HomoQuotable - Kevin Naff

"Log Cabin members are not self-loathing closet cases more concerned with their bank accounts than their basic civil rights. They are smart, thoughtful people working thanklessly for change within a party whose leadership disdains them. Withholding a Romney endorsement isn’t an easy decision and would certainly cost Log Cabin access to Romney. But let’s face it: Romney can’t win this thing. Sure, national polls are close, but in the handful of swing states that really matter, Romney would have to run the board of states all won by Obama in 2008 to prevail. Given his endless gaffes, sloppy and disorganized campaign, tone-deaf messaging and inability to connect with average voters, Romney is a deeply flawed and doomed candidate. Log Cabin should withhold its endorsement and continue working to change Republican hearts and minds with an eye on eliminating the anti-LGBT rhetoric in 2016." - Kevin Naff, editor of the Washington Blade.

Today In Lying Liars Who Lie

Perkins knows well that those names are Maryland public records and that all the Washington Blade did was post a link to the state-provided PDF. But you can bet that the OUTRAGED the money will roll in.

Washington Blade Publishes Link To List Of Maryland's Marriage Petition Signers

The Washington Blade writes:

The names of some 110,000 Maryland residents who signed a petition to force the state’s new marriage equality law onto the November ballot are now publicly available online. The Washington Blade obtained a database of the names from the Maryland Board of Elections and posted the names here. The list is searchable and includes names, addresses and whether the signature was deemed valid. (Note: After clicking the link, allow a few moments for the file to load; a search box will appear on the far right side of your screen.)

Via Blade writer Phil Reese.

Babeu Speaks To Washington Blade

Beleaguered Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu has told the Washington Blade that his bid for Congress is definitely still on, despite the deportation scandal still percolating locally. A rabid libertarian, Babeu says that he supports the repeal of DOMA because marriage should be a state and not a federal issue. Chris Johnson reports:

Babeu said he would “certainly vote to repeal” the Defense of Marriage Act and said he thinks the anti-gay law exceeds the authority of the government under the U.S. Constitution. “I’m a strict constitutionalist as well,” Babeu said. “As a strict constitutionalist, this has no business at the federal level. This should go to the states.” The sheriff said his opposition to DOMA is in line with his belief that the government shouldn’t tell religions which individuals they can or can’t marry. “The issue of marriage is a deeply religious ceremony, and this is where the government shouldn’t tell certain faiths, say like Catholics, that they have to marry two men or two women, in the same way that they shouldn’t tell other faiths or religions that they can’t,” Babeu said. “This isn’t a role for the government to enter into. This is an issue of religious freedom.”

Saying he was unfamiliar with the bill, Babeu declined to comment on the Uniting American Families Act, which would ban the deportation of the foreign spouses of gay U.S. citizens. Babeu added that he believes Mitt Romney would be a friend to the gay community if elected president. He also said that he find it "outrageous" that some are wondering about his personal friendship with state Rep. Matt Heinz, one of two Democrats who granted $1.7M to Babeu's office. Both GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans have reached out to Babeu.

Read the full Washington Blade article.

GOProud Vs Washington Blade

Morning View - Netroots Boys

The first familiar faces I ran into here in Minneapolis were Washington Blade staffers Chris Johnson and Phil Reese.

Robert Gibbs Nearly Ends Press Conference Over Obama's Position On Marriage

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today nearly cut his press conference short after Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson pressed him about the president's 1996 support of same-sex marriage, a position Obama later reversed. Gibbs resumed taking questions after other reporters complained. Johnson has been relentless on LGBT issues with Gibbs for the last couple of weeks.

Washington Blade Returns

Washington DC's venerable Washington Blade is back to publishing under its original name after six months as DC Agenda.

The 40-year-old newspaper -- founded as a one-sheet newsletter in October 1969 just months after the Stonewall riots in New York incited the modern gay rights movement -- has published weekly editions under the name D.C. Agenda since Nov. 20, four days after parent company Window Media declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy and ceased operations. Working with half the staff of the Blade (which last year had 24 full-timers) and an array of freelancers, D.C. Agenda also relied on the generosity of lawyers, accountants, advertisers and readers from around the world, many of whom contributed pro bono or financial support, according to editor Kevin Naff. "A lot of people really have an emotional connection to the Blade, and the outpouring since it closed was overwhelming and was really what led us to carry on," Naff says. "We'll be a leaner publication and we'll grow as we can afford to grow, but Friday's issue, as of now, is 56 pages, which is remarkable considering Agenda launched with eight pages."

Washington Blade Assets Purchased

The former Washington Blade staffers behind its successor, DC Agenda, have purchased the assets of the demised title. Most importantly, the purchase includes the paper's irreplaceable archive of the last 40 years of LGBT history and journalism.

Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, Inc., doing business as DCAgenda, proudly announced today that it acquired the assets of the Washington Blade, the nation’s oldest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) newspaper including, but not limited to, any and all rights to exclusive use of the name The Washington Blade including copyright and trademark rights and the more than forty (40) year print and electronic archive. “We are relieved that the Blade’s long history of quality, award-winning journalism will be preserved and accessible to the public,” said Lynne Brown of Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia and publisher of DCAgenda. Brown, along with former Blade publisher, Kevin Naff, and former Blade, senior sales executive, Brian Pitts, founded Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia to chronicle local, national, and international news of interest to the LGBT community when the Blade ceased publication on November 16, 2009. DCAgenda has published weekly since November 20, 2009.

It's unclear of the purchase means a return to publishing under the venerable Washington Blade title.

On The "Death" Of LGBT Print Media

Over on Mediaite, Michael Triplett of the National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association covers the demise of the Washington Blade and other LGBT print titles and what physical gay newspapers have meant to us.

Like other “minority” media, it is easy to underestimate the significance of the LGBT press for the gay community. For many of us, it was the first glimpse into what it meant to be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender. We opened up those newspapers tentatively, almost afraid of what we would discover about ourselves and the world around us. We turn to the LGBT press to find out what’s happening on our street, to find a church, to find a lawyer, and even find a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I remember poring over the pages of personal ads in the mid-70's Advocate and After Dark, wondering what expressions like "French passive" could possibly mean and why so many of these men described themselves as "artistic" or "generous" - all while recoiling from the quarter-page ads featuring handsome men modeling black sheer harem pants and padded butt and crotch-enhancing underwear. Was I going to have to dress like that? But at the same time I thrilled to the bar and disco ads with their thinly-coded descriptions of dance floor and dark-room shenanigans.

To my embarrassment, I don't recall being particularly interested in the actual writing - that vital reporting of the brave, scary, heady days of our then young movement. Instead, I would memorize the address of places like Uncle Charlie's - you know, just in case I made a wrong turn between Algebra 2 and the cafeteria and found myself in lower Manhattan. In the above-linked article, Triplett discusses what the loss of these writers and reporters may mean for blogs like this one.

The irony of the fall of the Advocate and the Blade is that LGBT journalism is booming, at least when it comes to citizen journalism. From Pam Spaulding’s Pam’s House Blend and John Aravosis’ AmericaBlog to Andy Towle’s Towleroad and Joe Jervis’ JoeMyGod, LGBT voices are everywhere in the political and LGBT blogosphere. This citizen journalism takes many forms, from the progressive political coverage by Spaulding and Aravosis to the popular coverage by Towle and Jervis that mixes pictures of Levi Johnston in Playgirl and 80s disco videos with news about Proposition 8 and hate crimes. But the constant thread is that they rely on the mainstream press—and legacy LGBT media—to keep their operations running. They rely on reporters like Kerry Eleveld, the Washington correspondent for the Advocate, and Lou Chibbarro Jr. and Chris Johnson of the Blade to cover the ins-and-outs of the LGBT agenda at the White House and Congress.

He's completely right, of course. I have greatly depended on the timely and found-nowhere-else reporting of the Washington Blade and Advocate. Any loss of original reporting by the LGBT press means less content for this here website thingy, or at the least, less content provided with the unique gay perspective.

While I occasionally write for print LGBT publications, most of my original writing here on JMG tends to be event coverage (rallies, marches, protests, vigils, etc) or items about my personal life that I (perhaps solipsistically) think might be interesting or relevant. With diminished hard news coverage from real gay reporters, this or any LGBT news blog will suffer - how much it will hurt remains to be seen. It worries me.

DC Agenda: Replacement For Washington Blade Launches Tomorrow

Talk about quick! Staffers from the just-defunct Washington Blade will launch their new publication, DC Agenda, tomorrow. (With some help from the Gay Men's Chorus.)

Members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C. presented the former Washington Blade with a check Wednesday night for a full-page ad in the newspaper’s new print iteration, the D.C. Agenda, which will be available on Friday. Former Blade editor Kevin Naff, who will head up the D.C. Agenda, called the ad buy, one of six pages’ worth that have poured in unsolicited this week, a pleasant surprise. “They took a full page ad in this first modest issue and they went out of their way to deliver it in person,” said Naff. “It was unexpected and very heartwarming.” The chorus made the offering at a previously scheduled party for former Blade readers in Washington, D.C. that turned into an impromptu transition party after the publication’s closure was announced Monday.

The first issue of the DC Agenda will be a "modest" eight pages. It will be online at Save The Blade and DCAgenda.com. Meanwhile a campaign to preserve the invaluable and historical archives of the Blade is underway.

(Via - The Advocate)

The Almost Buyers Of Washington Blade

Cathy Renna reports that a Virginia-based company had bid on the assets of the Washington Blade and were in negotiations for takeover before yesterday's abrupt closure of the venerable LGBT newspaper. Via email:

In response to media inquiries and an apparent information blackout by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Nicholas F. Benton, owner of the Falls Church News-Press, a Washington, D.C.-area weekly, confirmed today that his corporation, Benton Communications, Inc., had won a bid from parties that included the SBA in September to obtain the assets of the Washington Blade from its bankrupt parent company for purposes of a seamless perpetuation of the nation's oldest gay community newspaper. The Blade was closed without Benton's advanced knowledge on Monday.

Benton said he regrets that the negotiations to complete the transfer of ownership failed to be completed, and that as a result he is unable to carry forward the Blade, its legacy, its employees, and its service to its community regionally and nationally.

Benton said that, after responding to a request for proposal in early September, he was contacted by agents of the sellers, including the SBA, later in that month and told Benton Communications' bid had been successful. Benton Communications won based on a number of factors, including: 1.the company's record of 19 years of the successful management and publication of an award-winning weekly newspaper not unlike the Blade in the and in same region, 2. its stated commitment to perpetuate the Blade's legacy, to offer on-going employment to the Blade's existing staff, and to continue the Blade's service to its readership and community of interest, and, 3. Benton's own history of involvement and leadership in the Blade's community of interest, including Benton Communications' standing as an officially certified "LGBT Business Enterprise" by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. There was also a cash offer which the SBA confirmed that Benton Communications had the resources to cover.

Benton says the deal was still in progress as late as last week. So what happened?

Publisher Of Washington Blade And Other LGBT Print Titles Shuts Down

This weekend I noticed that the websites of the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, and several other titles published by Window Media had not been updated in a few days. Just now, Southern Voice posted this message to their Facebook fan page:

With deepest regret, as editor of SoVo, I have to tell you that we arrived at the office to learn that our parent company, Window Media, has shut down. While the 20 years of SoVo have come to an end, our civil rights movement is only beginning. I am personally grateful to all of the staff, and to all of you who have had the courage to share your stories. It has been the honor of my life to help you tell them.

Among the affected titles are the weekly newspapers Washington Blade, Southern Voice, South Florida Blade and the bar guides David Magazine and 411 Magazine. (Earlier this year, Window Media ceased publishing Genre Magazine.) Window Media's primary investor, the Avalon Equity Fund, has been in receivership over a loan from the Small Business Administration.

This is a terrible loss. In particular, the Washington Blade has been an invaluable resource for important coverage of LGBT legislation news out of the nation's capital. This and most LGBT news blogs have relied on the Washington Blade for timely reporting on issues not always covered by the mainstream media. The question now is whether anybody will step forward to rescue any of these publications. Let's cross our fingers.

UPDATE: The Washington Blade has confirmed its demise via Twitter.

UPDATE II: There's at least one survivor: South Florida's 411 Magazine will begin publishing next week as Mark's List.

UPDATE III: Predictably, the Freepers are celebrating.

UPDATE IV: Politco reports that Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff is hinting at a new life for the publication.

Naff, who is not authorized to speak for the company, but can do so now as an independent citizen, tells POLITICO: "The Blade staff is united and ready to continue the paper's long-standing mission. The first meeting for our new venture is Tuesday and we welcome the community's input as we move forward."

UPDATE V: Insiders at the South Florida Blade say they will be relaunching the title under a new name with the company taking over 411 Magazine.

UPDATE VI: Washington City Paper covers the final day at the Washington Blade.

Barney Frank: DADT Repeal To Be Part Of FY 2011 DOD Funding Bill

Yesterday Rep. Barney Frank says that a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will likely be attached to a fiscal year 2011 Department of Defense funding authorization bill that will be voted on in the spring of next year. Via Washington Blade:

“The House will take up and the Senate will take up ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal,” he said. “That will again, like hate crimes, even more so, will have to be done, I believe, in the context of the defense authorization. You can’t do the standalone bill. It belongs in the defense authorization.” Frank said lawmakers would seek to amend the defense measure to include a provision repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Such a move would mimic the way Congress recently enacted the hate crimes measure. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) is the sponsor of the standalone version of legislation in the House that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” No such legislation exists in the Senate, although Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) has said he’s in talks with the Obama administration on the issue.

Asked about Frank’s prediction for the repeal strategy, Allison Herwitt, legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, said her organization “always takes its cues from its congressional allies.” “They’re the ones that write the legislation and obviously [the defense authorization] would be a great bill to have repeal be a part of,” she said. “That’s where it should be.” David Stacy, HRC’s senior public policy advocate, noted that Congress enacted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993 as part of a defense authorization bill, so repealing the law via the same vehicle would mirror the process.

And it worked for the Matthew Shepard Act.

No Evidence Our Soldiers Killed Gay Iraqis

Last month, two gay Iraqis spoke to a group of Washington LGBT activists, claiming they had evidence that American soldiers had taken part in the murders of gay men in Iraq. Yesterday the Washington Blade reported that U.S. Army officials have investigated the claim and found no evidence to support the charges. Additionally, one of the gay Iraqis making the accusation has recanted, saying language barriers caused him to be misunderstood.

Chris Grey, a U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesperson, said in an e-mail Tuesday that special agents determined there was no “credible evidence” to support such claims after receiving a sworn statement from the gay Iraqi refugee who made the accusations. Grey noted that the refugee, who went by the alias “Hussam” during the public presentation in which he made the allegations, said in the statement that “his words were taken out of context, he was misunderstood due to language barriers and he was misquoted.” The Blade first reported Hussam’s allegations, and in subsequent correspondence with the Blade he never identified inaccuracies in previous articles. The charges surfaced July 24 when Hussam spoke during a benefit held at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters intended to raise money for Helem, a Lebanon-based center that works to address the plight of LGBT people in the Middle East.

The Human Rights Campaign praised the Army for promptly launching an investigation.

Two Gay Iraqis Accuse U.S. Military Of Joining In Executions

The Washington Blade is reporting that two gay Iraqis claim to have photos of U.S. soldiers preparing to execute gay men in Iraq. The men displayed some of their photos at a Washington fundraising event last week.

One of the Iraqis, who goes by the name “Hussam,” showed the audience of about 80 people gruesome images, including shots allegedly of a beheaded man who was gay and another of the victim’s twin brother grieving over the severed head. While asserting that anti-gay violence in Iraq is often committed by Iraqis, Hussam also said U.S. service members were involved in anti-gay hostility. For example, he said service members displayed signs in front of their barracks with the words “Fuck Off Fags.”

But the reaction from the audience turned from anger to shock when Hussam said U.S. service members had detained Iraqi civilians perceived to be gay and executed them. He then showed an image of what appeared to be an American soldier standing in front of a small group of four or five kneeling naked men who were chained together. Hussam claimed the men were gay Iraqis and that he possessed images of their execution, which he did not show the audience.

Dana Beyer, a transgender activist and Chevy Chase, Md., resident who attended the event, said she was “appalled” by the images of the atrocities, but especially by the allegation that U.S. service members were murdering gay Iraqis. “When it comes down to our armed services … who potentially have contributed to atrocities like that, I’m just appalled,” she said. “And I hope that we will pursue this through the government, through the State Department and through the Department of Defense because this just can’t be left standing.”

The men refused to turn over their photos to the Blade, saying their release might incite further attacks in Iraq. Several LGBT and human rights groups are investigating the claim.

Read the entire Blade story by Chris Johnson and Lou Chibarro.

At The DNC Fundraiser Protest

The Washington Blade reports on last night's action.