A lawsuit brought against the Democratic National Committee by it's own former LGBT community outreach person has been settled out of court. It's the last chapter in a bitter battle between Donald Hichcock and the DNC that's been filled with accusations of homophobia and suggestions that the DNC pits blacks against gays, which is crazy because Democrats would never do that to us, right? Democrats are our friends. Right?

Well, actually– it may just be that Howard Dean got pissed off that his LGBT outreach guy's boyfriend was badmouthing him. We all know what happens when the Doctor get angry, after all.

"A courtroom showdown between the Democratic National Committee and its former gay outreach director, Donald Hitchcock, is likely to occur next year. Hitchcock was fired from his DNC post in 2006, shortly after his domestic partner, Paul Yandura, wrote an open letter to gay Democrats urging them to withhold donations to the party because he felt [Chairman Howard] Dean wasn’t doing enough to combat anti-gay state ballot initiatives. Hitchcock later filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Dean and the DNC alleging, among other things, anti-gay discrimination. The DNC has denied the claims. Final efforts at mediation failed in September and a pretrial conference has been set for Jan. 5." [NY Blade]

Oy! We do not envy the Democratic National Committee at the moment. Not only are they fighting what's become an increasingly tough presidential election, but they're about to have a full-fledged discrimination trial!

After months of discovery and mediation, talks between the DNC and Donald Hitchcock failed yesterday. For those of you not paying attention, Hitchcock once served as the DNC's gay outreach officer, but found himself sacked soon after his boyfriend, Paul Yandura, wrote an open letter criticizing the DNC's gay politics.

The party organ, said Yandura, simply used gays as an ATM without fully incorporating them into the party. Hitchcock claims he was fired for political revenge. He also claims the DNC paid him less and marginalized gay outreach. The DNC and Chairman Howard Dean deny these claims, of course.

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Remember when Donald Hitchcock and the Democratic National Committee failed to work out their differences over Hitchcock's discrimination lawsuit? Well, the DNC offered him $100,000 to drop the suit. He refused, obviously. [POQ]

Can't get enough of Howard Dean's deposition from the Donald Hitchcock discrimination brouhaha? Well, there's new video showing the DNC Chairman discussing platform formulation and the gays therein. Hoorah! On a related note, there was a 2008 platform conference call, but we'll have more on that later. Meanwhile, the Convention theme nights have been released. And, no, there's no drag night. [Pam's House Blend]

Things got heated after Donald Hitchcock's failed mediation with the Democratic National Committee.

A former gay outreach officer, Hitchcock's suing the party organ for discrimination and wrongful termination. He claims Chairman Howard Dean and other leaders sacked him in retaliation for his boyfriend's public criticism of the party. The DNC denies the allegations and potential settlement talks crumbled last week.

And months of tension exploded soon after…

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Mediation efforts between the Democratic National Committee and former employee Donald Hitchcock failed today, which means Hitchcock's wrongful termination and discrimination suit will go to trial. Pretrial has been set for October 20 – fifteen days before the presidential election. More details as they become available…

In case you're just joining us, Hitchcock claims key DNC leaders conspired to sack him as retaliation for his boyfriend Paul Yandura's public criticism of the party. Dean denies the allegations, claiming Hitchcock failed to seduce the gays.

This particular video – part of which has been blacked out for its confidentiality – has less to do with Hitchcock's firing and more to do with the Democratic Party's alleged inclusion, specifically with regard to the national convention's contentious gay goals.

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The Democratic Party prides itself on its inclusion. Their past electoral missions, however, suggest otherwise.

In the months leading up to the 2006 election, the Democratic National Committee's Faith In Action initiative, led by the DNC's troublesome Chief of Staff, Leah Daughtry, funded and endorsed an anti-gay agenda.

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Thing aren't looking good for the DNC. Judge Jeanette Clark this week rejected the party organ's plea for a summary judgment in Donald Hitchcock's discrimination lawsuit.

Hitchcock, you'll remember, filed the suit after the DNC sacked him as their gay outreach officer. The politico alleges that Chairman Howard Dean and company were retaliating against him and his boyfriend, Paul Yandura, who wrote a very public letter blasting the DNC's gay politics and for using gays as an ATM. The DNC denies these claims and hoped Clark would put the issue to bed. But, alas, she will not.

And what's more, Clark's taking a hard look at Dean and DNC treasurer Andy Tobias, both of whom have been accused of making defamatory statements about Hitchcock.

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As many of you know, former DNC gay outreach adviser Donald Hitchcock claims the Democratic National Committee sacked him in retaliation for his boyfriend's public criticism of the party.

Chairman Howard Dean, however, testified earlier this year that he and his peers fired former gay outreach adviser Donald Hitchcock for poor job performance. Said Dean: “The relations with the gay community, which I had a very good relationship when I started, had been deteriorating since Donald came on board.”

Well, that story lost a bit of weight last month when lesbian fundraiser and Dean loyalist Claire Lucas told a DC judge that she was "shocked" by Hitchcock's firing, because he had, in her opinion, been doing a good job.

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The Democratic National Committee got some bad news yesterday.

A DC judge ruled that the organization cannot block press, such as ourselves, from accessing internal documents related to the ongoing lawsuit filed by Donald Hitchcock, who alleges the DNC canned him in retaliation for his boyfriend's public denouncement of the party organ. DNC officials hoped to keep the media's hands off the documents, which they argued could damage the organization's reputation.

Judge Jeanette Clark disagreed: "…The Court is constrained to deny the Motion because the DNC has not met its burden of articulating sufficient facts in support of its Motion to limit the dissemination of discovery [documents]. Therefore, good cause was not shown to grant the motion."

Here's a PDF of the ruling.

Remind us not to send our imaginary children to Memphis public schools. Administrators there have basically cleared principal Daphne Beasley of any wrongdoing in the student outing scandal.

Officials released a statement today assuring parents – and press – that Beasley did not intentionally out two gay students and, in fact, was looking out for everybody's best interest, if you can believe that. Yet, in said statement, they also allude to "explicit sexual behavior," which sounds like a euphemism to us…

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Leah Daughtry sure knows how to put on a show.

The DNC Chief of Staff last week addressed the National Black Justice Coalition and promised to gives gays more say in the party's politics. And you can be sure she used to opportunity to praise the party's chairman, the woefully forgetful Howard Dean:

We made a commitment under Gov. Dean’s leadership that we wanted to do something different. We wanted to make sure, make a way so that people from various communities, and particularly the GLBT community, would have a seat at the table, would have a voice, would have a vote when we nominate our president of the United States.

Daughtry went on to say that she and her peers are going to fight tooth and nail for diversity. Unfortunately Daughtry keeps her gay inclusion on her terms.

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Donald Hitchcock's lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee continues. Formerly the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council, Hitchcock alleges the DNC terminated him in retaliation for his boyfriend's public criticism of the party. DNC Chairman Howard Dean denies this, but sort of lent credence when he said Hitchcock failed to rally "the community," as if we're some giant homo bloc.

Past testimony aside, there's a new twist as a federal judge has ordered GLLC Chair Claire Lucas to take the stand – and she will on Friday.

Lucas has been quite the contentious figure in this mess, but not necessarily because of her role in the Hitchcock affair. Lucas refused to testify in the hearings – and sparked all sorts of rumors.

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Howard Dean's memory continues to fail him. The Democratic National Committee Chairman claims his organization fired Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council director Donald Hitchcock for "poor job performance," not as retaliation for his boyfriend, Paul Yandura's open letter criticizing the party's lackluster gay politics.

Taking a look at Dean's sworn deposition, however, one has to wonder whether his shady recollection says more his parsed replies. And gay Democrats should be wondering how they can stand up and save their party.

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The Democratic National Committee's ugly insides are spilling out. Howard Dean's testimony in the Donald Hitchcock discrimination suit reveals more about the organization than just their gay politics.

And it's unsettling, to say the least.

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It was only a matter of time, but the mainstream media picked up on the DNC's gay drama.

Washington Post today ran a piece on Donald Hitchcock's discrimination suit against the Democratic National Committee, particularly with regard to Howard Dean's testimony.

The article largely catches readers up with the suit, but also offers a view of the conflict between Dean, who's Chairman of the DNC, and Hitchcock's lawyer, Lynne Bernabei:

…Dean's infamous short temper was on full display toward the end of the second day of his deposition during a testy exchange with Lynne Bernabei, the plaintiff's attorney who deposed him.

Bernabei grilled Dean about why, as governor of Vermont, he didn't hold a public ceremony when he signed the state's civil union bill into law. "You don't get to put words in my mouth," Dean fumed. "If you want the truth and whole truth and nothing but the truth…You have to let me answer your question."

"You can say anything you want. You are a politician, Mr. Dean," Bernabei said. (He's also a doctor, Ms. Bernabei.)

"You are not behaving in a manner which is professionally competent or qualifying," Dean said, adding, "You are an embarrassment to this profession, counselor."

"Well, it is not your profession. Thank you," Bernabei snapped.

"It is my daughter's profession," Dean shot back. "I am going to show her this tape so she never behaves like this."

Who knew Dean had such an inner bitch? We love it!

Duck and cover! The claws are definitely coming out in the DNC v. Washington Blade battle.

Tensions have been building for months, ever since the Blade began writing unflattering pieces regarding Donald Hitchcock's discrimination suit against the Democratic National Committee. Things only got worse last week when a testifying Howard Dean took some swipes at the paper and compared its reporting to that of Fox News. Ouch.

Blade editor Kevin Naff says he didn't want to get personal, but Dean's left him no option:

It is irresponsible of Dean to question the paper’s credibility without offering any specific claims of inaccurate reporting. I challenge him to produce examples of how the paper was “incorrect” in its reporting… Why are party officials, including Dean, so dismissive and critical of the gay press? It’s unfortunate that Dean and his staff have avoided responding to questions that are so important to such a loyal party constituency.

Oh, please, what else are we homos going to do? Vote Republican? Some would rather die – and the Demmies know it.

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Some DNC-associated lawyers have been up to no good. Homo-journo Kevin Naff alleges that DNC Chief of Staff Leah Daughtry sent her lawyers to intimidate him.

Naff, whose op-ed appears tomorrow's Washington Blade, the representatives tried to put the squeeze on him and his publisher:

Naff writes that he "got a taste of the Democratic wrath last month, after criticizing DNC Chair Howard Dean and his chief of staff, Leah Daughtry, in an editorial."
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According to Naff, Daughtry responded to the editorial by sending two lawyers to confront him and Blade publisher Lynne Brown, lodging what Naff calls "red-faced cursing and threatening of lawsuits."

One of Daughtry's lawyers, Charlie Kimmet, denies the allegations and described their meeting as "not at all contentious".

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Howard Dean's most certainly got a headache today.

As the Democratic party veers toward complete and utter madness, the politico had to take some time to defend the Democratic National Committee against Donald Hitchcock's discrimination allegations. Dean's one of many DNC officials and insiderS who have been deposed in the suit, which may pave the way for a trial.

Hitchcock's legal team sent out a press release this week in which they give the nitty-gritty details of the case – some less-than-kind words about the DNC's post-scandal behavior:

The DNC's inconsistent and unsupported reasons for Mr. Hitchcock's firing keep evolving and changing over time including "not the best fit," "spiral of bad publicity," "willful misconduct," "lack of access to senior DNC staff," "not doing enough outreach," and "insufficient fundraising".

"With over one year of discovery and depositions of every senior DNC official involved, the DNC and defendants have failed to produce any documentation or facts supporting their assertions of Mr. Hitchcock's alleged misconduct or bad performance," stated lead attorney, Lynne Bernabei.

We're getting bits and pieces about Dean's testimony today, but we hear that he took some time to trash Washington Blade's coverage of the discrimination discovery and equated the weekly paper's picking with Fox News' anti-Democratic coverage. This gossip isn't surprising, of course – the DNC and gay press have a rocky relationship.

Dean's drama continues tomorrow.

Read the aforementioned release, after the jump…

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Donald Hitchcock's wrongful termination and discrimination lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee takes another turn today. Treasurer and openly gay Andrew Tobias sent out an open letter last week hoping that Hitchcock and the DNC can come to an understanding.

Image: Andrew Tobias sandwiched between designers Kenneth Cole and Charles Nolan, who also happens to be his boyfriend.

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Internal emails indicate a race-based culture war within the Democratic National Committee.

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It's a big day for Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee! Chief of Staff Leah Daughtry takes the stand today in the ongoing discrimination discovery hearings.

Claire Lucas has grabbed more than her fair share of headlines in recent weeks.

The Democratic National Committee's gay board chair caught our attention when she refused to testify in the ongoing discrimination discovery hearings. Then Lucas popped up in a story about her potential perjury and backstage scheming against former DNC-staffer Donald Hitchcock.

In an effort to preserve his client's image, lawyer Barry Reingold sent our editor the following missive:

Ms. Lucas is a witness, not a defendant, in this matter. She has not been sued. The issues of this case, including Ms. Lucas's motion to quash the subpoena, are pending before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by a Judge appointed by the President of the United States. Ms. Lucas has told and will continue to tell the truth to the Court. All of the issues in Hitchcock v. DNC will be litigated in this Court and decided by this fair and impartial tribunal.

We never said that Lucas was being sued, nor did we call her a "defendant". It appears to us that Reingold's attempting to distance his client from this ugly matter. And we can't blame him: she looks really, really bad, especially when she refers to Hitchcock as a "complete loser".

The DNC's gay discrimination case got stickier this week. Washington Blade reports that gay DNC's gay board chair Claire Lucas could potentially face perjury charges for lying about her place of residence.

Legal documents filed in D.C. Superior Court this week and obtained by the Blade allege that Claire Lucas, a longtime Democratic National Committee volunteer and National Stonewall Democrats board member, committed perjury when she filed an affidavit asserting that she does not live in Washington.

The affidavit, filed Jan. 4, was part of efforts to quash a subpoena ordering Lucas to sit for a deposition in a lawsuit that alleges the DNC discriminated against a former gay employee.
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D.C. property tax records contradict her assertion in the affidavit seeking to quash Hitchcock’s subpoena that she has been a California resident since 2005. Those records show she claimed the Homestead deduction for the tax years of 2005 through 2007, as well as in prior years, according to Hitchcock’s court filings.

The D.C. law creating the Homestead deduction requires, upon possible penalty of perjury, that homeowners affirm that they live in their home as a condition for obtaining the deduction

Just yesterday the DNC released a statement declaring the contemptuous Lucas a Californian.

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August's Democratic National Convention will have some gay representation. The DNC – led by Chairman Howard Dean – has appointed seven LGBT members for the Convention's Standing Committee, which oversees Convention business and considers delegate recommendations. From the DNC press release, which we've included in full after the jump:

The Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) unanimously elected DNC Chairman Howard Dean's nominations for the Chairs and members of the 2008 Democratic National Convention Standing Committees, including a record number of openly LGBT members.

Dean's LGBT appointments include Dr. Marjorie Hill of the Gay Men's Health Crisis organization in New York, Diego Sanchez from AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, State Representative Patricia Todd of Alabama, and Ingrid Duran of Virginia to serve on the Platform Committee, along with Claire Lucas and Evan Low of California to the Rules Committee and Bob Rogan of Vermont to the Credentials Committee.

In addition to appointing a record number of LGBT standing committee members, Dean was also the first DNC chair to appoint a member of the transgender community to a Convention committee.

Former Vermont governor Dean expressed his excitement over the party's strong showing this election season: "The record turnout and enthusiasm we've seen for our Democratic candidates is a clear sign that Americans trust Democrats to bring much needed change to our country."

The appointments are certainly good news for the DNC, which is currently fighting a gay discrimination lawsuit filed by former Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council leader, Donald Hitchcock.

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