Response to Andrew Tobias, DNC Treasurer

There is an interesting development on Americablog regarding the DNC and what it recently did and did not do in regard to the recention Proposition 1 vote in Maine. Part of the situation involves an e-mail written by DNC treasurer, Andrew Tobias.

Apparently the topic got his attention. He came to the comments with his response and participated in the thread.

I wrote a response to him I would like to share here.

Hello Andy,

I've been a fan of yours for a very long time since back in the days of your Managing Your Money software. It was a sad day for me when that product was retired.

I want to say that I am in full support of witholding blanket contributions to the DNC because it has become obvious over the years that is not the best choice of investment in our future.

I do agree with you that in terms of our issues in general, voting for Democrats is better than voting for Republicans. In my view, that is not what this is all about. This is about investing in our future. It is time for us to invest wisely rather than just throw money in the general direction of people who stink less than Republicans stink. It is time for us to invest in those who smell good. There are plenty of Democrats willing to work at providing a good return for our investment, and we need to invest in them individually. Investing in smelly Democrats simply facilitates perpetuation of the stink.

For decades now we have seen the Democrats in general come to us for money and votes only to be insulted and ignored by them when it comes to our issues. We will no longer accept or support that behavior. You claim that witholding generalized funding of the DNC somehow fails to help strengthen the administration. I disagree. The president is supposedly a "fierce advocate" for us. By supporting only those who support our "fierce advocate" in our issues, we are strengthening him in that area.

I must say, however, that I am not convinced that Obama is a true friend of our community, particularly since he announced during the campaign that he does not support marriage equality because of his religious beliefs. And then came his unwillingness to order a stop to the DADT firings until Congress repeals the unjust law as well as the other things I need not repeat to you or the readers here.

What we want to do is strengthen our true friends, Andy, not the ones who want us to think they are friends in the hopes of accessing the GayTM. Sure, we'll probably vote for the Stinkers with Ds, but it is a foolish waste of our time and resources to do anything to strengthen them.

If you make any further comments regarding this issue, either in this place or elsewhere, please stop trying to characterize this as a "DNC boycott." That is nothing but a red herring. I know you understanding the distinction between investing in something with a good return versus a poor return versus a negative return. That's what we're talking about, investing only where there's a good return. Maybe you can even help create a situation in which the overall DNC can produce a good return on investment as opposed to its rather marginal return recently and in past decades.

Check out the list of co-sponsors of Rep. Nadler's Respect of Marriage bill for a good start on where to find an investments with a good potential returns. And do take note of the glaring absences.

Mike

Majority Would Support Qualified Gay Candidate for Office

The Advocate is reporting the results of a new Zogby poll. And frankly, I find the results puzzling. If Americans would support such a person to be their leader, why do they object so strongly this person marrying the person he or she loves?

Following an Advocate article pondering the electability of an openly gay candidate for president, a new nationwide poll from Zogby International found that 65% of likely voters would support an openly gay person to serve as President of the United States if they believed he or she was the most qualified person for the post.

The results were similar for a vice presidential candidate, with 66% saying they would back a gay VP whom they believed had the right skill set, and 69% said they would support an out candidate for the U.S. Senate. More than 70% of respondents said they would support an openly gay person to serve as a cabinet-level secretary.

“These results prove that most Americans want to be fair to gay people. Our aspiration is to always see each other as individuals first, and though we may not always succeed at that, our underlying fairness and decency means that one day soon we will. This marks tremendous progress for our community and for the voting public,” said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute (GLLI), a non-partisan leadership development organization.

California Doctors Cannot Deny Gays Treatment

I have always wondered how people can claim that discrimination is either "freedom of speech" or "freedom of religion."

But then, I guess the haters will stretch anything beyond belief while attempting to hang onto their ability to discriminate without repercussion.

Apparently the California Supreme Court also has the same difficulty in making that alleged connection of the dots.

California's highest court Monday barred doctors from invoking their religious beliefs as a reason to deny treatment to gay men and lesbians, ruling that state law prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination extends to the medical profession.

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state's law, which "imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations."

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from inseminating her. One of the doctors referred her to another fertility specialist without moral objections, and Benitez has since given birth to three children.

Nevertheless, Benitez in 2001 sued the Vista-based North Coast Women's Care Medical Group. She and her lawyers successfully argued that a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation applies to doctors.

Full Advocate Article Here

The Right Goes All In to Stop Marriage Equality in California

Now more than ever it is vitally important to contribute to the battle against the religious fascists. Evan Wolfson has recommended that we send our contributions to Equality for All. I trust his advice implicitly.


The good people at Right Wing Watch are keeping up informed of what the religious fascists are doing to prevent equal treatment under the law for GLBT American citizens.



As we have noted over the last several weeks, the Religious Right’s response to the California marriage ruling has been noticeably over-the-top, even for them. Throwing out everything from Nazi metaphors and warnings that the end of the world was upon us to hateful language and ridiculous scare-tactics, the Right’s response has consisted almost entirely over rhetorical over-reaction.

But now that same-sex marriages have begun in California, the Right appears to be transitioning from over-reaction to action and begun ramping up its organizing efforts to amend the California Constitution to “provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized.”

Just yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Focus on the Family dumped a quarter-million dollars into the effort:

The initiative campaign proposes to amend the state Constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. It received $250,000 this week from an evangelical group, Focus on the Family, and declared that the debate about same-sex marriage "is not over." Focus on the Family, led by James C. Dobson, posted a statement on its website declaring that California's "judicially imposed social experiment has hastened the demise of religious freedom across the U.S."

Today, the Family Research Council sent out an email seeking to have its own quarter-million dollar investment be doubled by a matching grant for the fight in California and across the nation:

I'm writing to ask you to give a generous donation to Family Research Council's MARRIAGE CAMPAIGN.

Your donation and others will be doubled by a Matching Grant up to $250,000!

Traditional marriage is now in grave peril across the nation due to the outrageous decisions by activist judges and radical legislators in Massachusetts, California, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Oregon. With reckless disregard for logic and law, these threats open the door to:
* Counterfeit marriage being imposed on states with marriage amendments
* Erosion of traditional morality as homosexuality is normalized
* Schools teaching that homosexual behavior and homosexual "marriage" are social goods
* Restriction of religious freedom and free speech

In response to the marriage crisis, FRC has launched our Marriage Campaign.

Our initial goal: raise $2 million immediately to educate the nation on the centrality of marriage, respond to threats and lies across the country, educate leaders and pastors, and register voters.

The crisis is so great that FRC has been given a $250,000 Matching Grant to help fight this battle and others FRC plans to use the money is raises to, among other things, “Educate the grassroots and government leaders, Launch paid advertising and press events, Alert and inform FRC's powerful network of churches and Flood TV, radio, newspapers, and the Internet with FRC experts doing eye-opening interviews.”

The group through which FOF and FRC will presumably channel their money and efforts is ProtectMarriage.com, a who’s who of right-wing organizations and individuals.

ProtectMarriage itself appears to kicking its efforts into high-gear, beginning with what they seem to be billing as the single most important conference call ever:

Dear Pastors, Friends and Christian Leaders,

We have labored to make this letter as short as possible. However, the gravity of this moment caused us to need to share several critical items. Please read carefully – at least this first page.

The landscape of California will change dramatically as of Monday, June 16 at 5:01 PM. Every Bible believing pastor and church will be affected.

Please join with pastors and Christian leaders all across California who are coming together at 43+ locations for a statewide Pastors Strategic Conference Call, Wednesday, June 25, at 10 AM.

For the location list, please see www.protectmarriagesd.com.

If you, as a pastor, are willing to host a gathering of pastors and Christian leaders at your church, or you know of a pastor who will host, please contact Chris Clark at pastor@eastclairemont.com or 858-395-7136. You need to have speaker-phone capability that can be adequately amplified, along with PowerPoint capabilities for visual purposes.

Additionally, please forward this email to as many pastors and Christian leaders as you can or email reply with the email addresses of pastors and Christian leaders so that we can keep them informed of future developments … Be assured that the information shared will be extremely beneficial for the future of the cause of Christ in California. Saying it another way, it is worth canceling all other appointments in order to be present at one of these locations.

The conference call looks like it is tied to the organization’s efforts to use churches to register thousands of new voters before the November election:

The church in California is being called upon to turn out the vote for the November election, in which voters will vote on a constitutional amendment to nullify a recent court decision legalizing homosexual "marriage" in that state.

ProtectMarriage.com has already signed on a thousand churches to work to increase voter registration and turnout. As spokesman Ron Prentice notes, the church is seen as one of the keys to victory. "[In] many elections, only 50 percent of those church members register to vote," he says. "And so we know that our success hinges on getting out as many votes as possible -- and the church community is available and willing."

Prentice explains that as a follow-up to voter registration materials, his group will provide church leaders with specific sermon content on the subject of biblical marriage -- "and then we'll be working with them to get out more and more of their congregation to vote," he adds.

It seems as if it has finally dawned on the Right that a loss in California on the marriage issue could do serious damage to their efforts to pass a federal marriage amendment and permanently deny marriage equality to men and women throughout the nation and they look set to pull out all the stops in an effort to ensure that that does not happen. As AFA’s OneNewsNow put it: “History has shown that what happens in California affects the rest of the country, so Prentice is calling on people to pray for victory."

Social Security Must Recognize Children of Gay Couples

The Advocate is reporting

The Social Security Administration must recognize the children of same-sex couples, the Department of Justice determined Tuesday.

The federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents Washington from recognizing or providing benefits to same-sex couples, but it does not explicitly address the benefits of children of such couples.

"Although DOMA limits the definition of 'marriage' and 'spouse' for purposes of federal law, the Social Security Act does not condition eligibility for [benefits] on the existence of a marriage or on the federal rights of a spouse in the circumstances of this case; rather, eligibility turns upon the State's recognition of a parent-child relationship, and specifically, the right to inherit as a child under state law," stated the legal opinion prepared by Steven Engel, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The opinion was delivered after a child of a lesbian couple who had a civil union in Vermont attempted to receive Social Security benefits.

The child's nonbiological parent began collecting her Social Security benefits in 2005, the year the child was born, and under Social Security law the minor children of adults who receive disability benefits can also claim benefits.