SOUNDBITES — “I think it’s incredibly important that Obama is invited to speak. Cleve is in contact with the White House, and if Obama does show up and speak I think that says a lot. And if he doesn’t, that also speaks volumes. I’m all for him being given the only VIP invite to speak.” —Dustin Lance black, who’s working with Cleve Jones to promote the National Equality March, on inviting the president to speak there [Dallas Voice]
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Cleve Jones Wants Obama at the Nat’l Equality March. And We Want a Pet Unicorn
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Joel
Best Queerty headline ever.
Brian
Cleve will be there to pick up his pay-check. Why would Obama be there?
Terranimal
Glad to know Cleve is “in contact” with the White House. Like they do for Batman, does the Prez use a spotlightedmimage in the sky to gain our dear new leader’s attention? I bet that image is a dollar sign.
Hollywood douchebags and their associated sychophants.
mike
Dustin Lance will be there to perform some more bareback sex for us all. That’s the values we want to put on display at the march!
I nursed Jackie
@mike:
Let’s assume that Mike is all of us and that his stamp is an example of self-absorption.
Pro-social rallies and marches express ideas that are far better displays of truth in action than what their counterparts produce. The argument was never about homosexual rights. The argument is about about universal rights. Hypocrisy is our species favorite thing to build and our favorite thing to break down. This struggle is interesting and exhausting, but one that is is essential in refining principles and ethics. This balance, nitwit, is one of the purposes of our world. I don’t suffer from basic knowledge deprivation and am at perfect ease with expressing dismay at your failure to grasp that. When equality is fully established, or restored, we will still have some more work to do. Your display though is, frankly, ambiguous.
Is it that your lack of comedic talent further diminished by dense reason and courage, for by appearing to join this thread’s bandwagon your words only seem to illuminate your status to panderering follower whose message of “value” is negated by your cheap immitation of another man’s scorn.
Or is it that you believe his personal sexual choices to be so heinous, so shameful, that the only recourse is to ostracize him for the sake of securing everyone else’s virtue? How very noble of you. Your blurb seems harmless but it is quite insidious. Using condoms during sex has the relative benefit of preventing the spread of micro-organisms and viruses that use the body as a breeding ground, but the risk is not one that you took, so your fear is based on hate and punishment, not of concern for others.
Taking a risk for the sake of pleasure or verve is his right and not your concern, Moron. If you die in a car crash tomorrow it will be, according to your logic, your fault. You didn’t do enough to prevent your fiery death. You should have walked or rode a bike. Isn’t that safer?
Brian
We just think Cleve’s March is STUPID. It’s a waste of time, money and energy.
SFNative
@Brian:
If you ask me, I don’t think this is Cleve’s March – it’s everybody’s March, for all people from LGBT people to straight people.
Our LGBT Civil Rights Movement has been re-ignited thanks to Prop 8 last November, and our Movement needs as many avenues as feasible for people to not only join our Movement but get more involved as we continue to drive our movement, from attending the National Equality March on Washington D.C. in October to volunteering and donating to the Maine No on 1 Campaign that is currently underway, from getting ready to do the same for the potential Washington Approve Ref 71 Campaign to organizing to win marriage equality back in California for the 2010 election, from pressuring our U.S. Congress to pass federal civil rights laws such as ENDA, MREA and the Hate Crimes Bill to challenging current unconstitutional laws in Federal Court such as Prop 8 in California and DOMA, from going door-to-door in neighborhoods to have conversations with others about LGBT civil rights to coming out in everything that you do.
As one person has said: “The more involved I have gotten with LGBT rights, the more involved I want to get.” We have vast and numerous opportunities for our still sometimes-complacent and apathetic LGBT people to jump into our Movement, and all of these opportunities will serve to get more and more people involved as we snowball into an avalanche of a movement. If we restrict ourselves and our ideas, then we will restrict our Movement.
Charles Merrill
I have donated to both Maine (1K) and the March (5K). I was dissapointed that there are not meetings in Washington with the LGBT orgs about the march. Kip Williams, the Director of Equality Acorss America went there as a tourist with Bill Browning and his other half. They took photos like country boys wowed by the sights. This was the first trip to New York by Browing.
I expected to see seasoned gay activist David Mixner or Torrie Osburn going to the White House to speak with Obama. Instead of that we get a Knoxville Tennessee pup, head of Equality Across America touring the White House like any other tourist with a ticket. Check out their White House attire: inappropriate short sleeve pullover shirts. Obama is too busy to mess with these hicks.
Read about it at
http://www.petrelisfiles.com
Joel
“our Movement needs as many avenues as feasible for people to not only join our Movement but get more involved as we continue to drive our movement”
yes what our flailing and ignored political movement needs is more diffusion, everyone running around like chickens with their heads chopped off, asking everyone for donations for everything every other day, throwing thousands of handfulls of jell-o at thousands of walls, hoping and praying that something somehow somewhere someday will work.
this March is a horrible idea. a lot of what we’ve been doing has been piss poor too. and it’s high time we grow the F up as a political constituency, get focused, and apply targeted pressure at targeted moments.
Joel
@ Merrill: I just went to the link you provided. Queerty editors: there is a fresh post in that material. I just don’t know what to say. I’m sure the boys are incredibly well intended, great hearts, etc. etc. but this is NOT how any other political constituency goes to the WH for a meeting to press its concerns.
Brian
@Charles Merrill: Ask for your donation back. I have. The financial integrity of this March is long gone. They have given receipts in several names and tax IDs.
It’s a mess. There is time to plan a good March. We need to shut Cleve’s deal down.
Charles Merrill
@Joel:
Joel. Thanks for your alerting Queerty. It’s called protocol.
Charles Merrill
@Brian:
Brian. I could alert the credit card company not to charge it because it is fraud. I am waiting for more evidence.
corset
If this March is so important, and they are budgeting this debacle at a measly couple of hundred grand, why doesn’t Lance and his Hollywood cohorts front the cash. Is Gus on welfare? If Harvey Milk was rolling in dough like they ARE, wouldn’t this drama over funding not occur? Didn’t we already throw millions to go see Milk? They are not sacrificing anything at all.
I agree that a reset button needs to be pushed. It seems to me that Cleve is exploting his brush with fame. The glory days of truly influential marches are over. I can see it now : cable news soundbite with several clips of Cleve, Lance, the podium, colorful balloons and banners, some government nobody spokespiece, gallant speaches, audience members with kool aid smiles, all there to pat themselves on the back saying “we’re fighting the fight,” … no you won’t be. You’ll be blowing big time ego. It can’t happen from the bottom up anymore. People are tired of being held by the hand and told to run up the hill only to be kicked back down again. Who are they fooling with this old/young gay power team up? “Hey Lance, team up with me so they see the generations come together”
Yup I’m a cynical bastard.
corset
@Charles Merrill:
Old gay elitist pomposity coming from your mouth? How many times will you mention how much you donate? I feel like I read it all the time. You support it, now you seem like you won’t because, wait…they look like Hicks? Really? Why don’t you pull out your ruby encrusted rolodex and call Brangelina, you know your best friends, to come and help? Lord knows people like you only think its really only the rich and influential who ever have any say in these things. This is why this march is totally unacceptable. Its a vanity production spearheaded and championed by the lonely and truly desperate. Sad thing is that because of your alleged panache, many others get sucked into the illusion.
Charles Merrill
@corset:
I was replying to Brian and Joel’s comments. By “hicks” I meant the way they were dressed. They could never get to in to see the President of the United States looking like that if they tried. Casual dress is not appropriate in Congress or the White House. It’s called protocol. Only tourists wear casual clothes. I expect the leader of an org that I have donated money to appear businesslike, and have organizational meetings with LGBT organizations in D.C. to get more interest going in the march.
Joel
Amen, Mr. Merrill. The guys who toured the White House are undoubtedly good-hearted, wonderful people who have given a lot of time and sweat for LGBT causes.
But none of that reverses the facts of Mr. Merrill’s post above. And if Corset or anyone else finds Mr. Merrill a tad too eccentric, then I suggest you drop your ad hominem filter and simply tell us which health industry interests you figure go to the WH with giddy smiles and point-and-shoot cameras in hand, to press their community’s cause with a liaison for niche media?
Again, these are good guys. But in politics, and esp. in Washington, there is much talk of the “optics” of any moment. “Gee can I sit on this chair?” is not a sober soundtrack to the optics on this usage of a WH contact.
Bill Perdue
There is nothing that Dumocrats can do to derail the March on Washington.
Charles Merrill
@Charles Merrill:
George Soros one of the richest men in the world that gives alot $ for gay rights in Communist countries, wears a $49.95 Timex watch. I do the same. Who wants to be hit in the head with a baseball bat by gangs that want your bling bling Rolex ? Only gang leaders wear that kind of flashy jewelry. Shows me the base where you come from. Thinking class is a Rolex ?
Charles Merrill
My last reply was for “corset”. I like closeted bloggers where they don’t give their real names. I am proud of what I say and who I am so I take responsibility for my words.