ON OUR GAYDAR — News, notes, clicks, and quips from around the web.
• Rep. Jerry Nadler on Tuesday will introduce legislation to repeal DOMA. While gay Reps. Jared Polis and Tammy Baldwin have signed on as co-sponsors, Barney Frank has not. Because of strategic differences. Namely, Frank doesn’t think the bill has a chance in hell of passing right now, and that court cases like Gill v. Office of Personnel Managemen have a better chance of effecting change. And maybe he’s right — and he doesn’t like signing on to losing bills. Responds Nadler: “Mr. Frank knows better than anyone that our opponents will falsely claim that any DOMA repeal bill ‘exports marriage’ in an effort to generate fear and misunderstanding. But the dishonest tactics of our opponents should not stop us from aggressively pushing to end this horrific discrimination now, as is the consensus of the nation’s top LGBT groups who all support this approach.”
• Photographer Annie Leibovitz, some three days late on paying back a $24 million loan from Art Capital Group (secured by everything she’s ever created and owns), has reached “an agreement” with her lender, which means she won’t be losing all her homes and photographs. For now.
• Transexual marriage … in Iran?! Indeed. A woman wins a family court ruling that will let her marry her childhood best friend, a MTF, without the blessing of the father of her future wife, as law requires.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
• Amsterdam is going balls out to be known as the gay travel destination.
• While Florida’s adoption ban makes it way through the courts, Miami gay adoptive father Wayne LaRue Smith got a leg up from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Smith, the first Florida gay man in decades who successfully adopted, is seeking a federal subsidy provided to Florida residents who adopt. The state’s the Department of Children & Families tried blocking it; the feds say he should get it, and not providing it violates federal law.
• Just-resigned California State Rep. Mike Duvall, the anti-gay “family values” married father who described sleeping with two lobbyists, was just “storytelling” on the live mic. Whatever: He could soon face an ethics probe.
• Another attack on a Ft. Worth gay bar — except Stampede was brought down by an electrical fire and will remain closed, unlike Rainbow Lounge’s single night of police harassment.
• Drug makes of AIDS-related pharmaceuticals received their report cards from the non-profit AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition, which handed Merck the top score among nine companies in an assessment of each firm’s last 25 years in working to fight the disease.
• A church in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, gets to challenge a decision by the Advertising Standards Authority to ban its ad (which referred to sodomy as an “abomination”) ahead of Belfast Gay Pride.
• Live tweeting from the Robert Wone murder trial.
• Upstate New York’s Dean “Wayne” Bissell receives a 20-year sentence for the beating death of gay man Walter “Sebastian” Bak, whose body was discovered days later.
• A delay in India’s official response to decriminalizing gay sex.
• ENDA hearing date set in the House: Sept. 23.
Charles Merrill
He may be playing financial footsie with the repugs, making deals with our enemy. Also desperately saving his ass because of his bad management of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and giving perks to his former lover. It’s hard to figure him out.
Bill Perdue
He’s a right winger in a right centrist party that moving right.
1. He chaired Hillary Clintons’ LGBT campaign.
2. He opposed same sex marriage in California just like the mormons, catholics, Obama and the southern baptists.
3. In 2007 he fought hard to make ENDA worthless, accepting every Republican amendment offered, including one that forbade using ENDA in legal disputes about DOMA.
It doesn’t get any worse than that.
He’s a quisling.
A Republican politician is a baboon in a people suit with a totalitarian christer attached at the hip. A Democratic politician is a Republican in drag.
B
Before being too harsh on Barney Frank, keep in mind that they are trying to get health care passed. The faster you can do that, the higher its chances of passing – the insurance companies and other vested interests are obviously running an all-out campaign to kill it.
My guess is that Frank knows they can’t afford any distractions right now if health care is to have any chance of passing.
It would be nice if we could solve all our problems simultaneously, but we can’t in the current highly polarized political environment where you have a Republican minority doing its utmost to sabotage any even mildly progressive or liberal change for the better.
Bill Perdue
You can’t be too hard on Frank. He’s a quisling.
As for the fake health care reform the Democrats are trying to sneak in it’s bogus. The quibbling between Democrats and Republicans, both of whom are owned lock, stock and barrel by insurance companies, Big Pharma and HMOs monopolies is just a sideshow. It’s meant to distract from discussion of the only viable option – socialized medicine. To get that we have to break the back of the profit before health companies, put them out of the business, and reopen them as publically owned, worker controlled institutions. The money being wasted on profits will more than pay for the costs of socialized medicine.
Needless to say that won’t happen while Obama is conducting at least 27 secret meetings with owners and CEOs of criminally liable health care providers. He accepted $18.5 in contributions from them to seal the deal he’s making now. The LGBT community has no real friends in either party. They’re dancing the same dance and the music is provided by AIG, Humana Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. Dosey-do and Allemande Right (centrist, that is).
The exclusion of imported and immigrant workers from health care is an inexcusable and inhumane act of racism.
Chuck
Repealing DOMA would at least be getting SOMETHING done. I mean, the stimulus just funded existing programs, eight months later healthcare seems it’s just going to mean requiring everybody to be at the mercy of insurance corporations (way to go there) and this at a time when Dems control both houses of Congress with big margins and we supposedly elected a liberal Senator from Illinois president.
Why not try to get something done before Mitt Romney is president for 8 years of Bush 3.0
spindoc
@B: said “Before being too harsh on Barney Frank, keep in mind that they are trying to get health care passed. ”
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Congress can work on many things at one time, they usually don’t start until Tuesday and are done by Thursday so they can go home and fundraise in their home districts. Please don’t try to tell me that they are incapable of the HUGE task of voting yes or no, on more than one bill at a time.
Frank is WAY more interested in his influence in the party than in getting us our rights. He is privileged Congressman, he doesn’t have to worry about whether or not gays get rights…after all, he already has his.
schlukitz
@spindoc:
Spot on!
Chuck
Another reason why Mr. Frank isn’t supporting the House bill is because he’s a Senator! I don’t think that Senators can support a bill being introduced in the House!
Jason S.
“1. He chaired Hillary Clintons’ LGBT campaign.
It doesn’t get any worse than that.”
I’m really tired of Bill Perdue and his nasty little attitude.
schlukitz
Has anyone else had a problem accessing any of the pages on Queerty? I’ve been receiving error messages since late this afternoon.
schlukitz
This is the only thread I seem to be able to access. Is Queerty having a problem with it’s servers?
Emily
Wait, WHAT??? Iran is allowing a same-sex marriage!!?!! How behind is the USA…
Bill Perdue
@Jason S.: Awwww, another offended Hilbot.
Get used to it. I’m always happy to shoot down outrageously anti-GLBT, pro-war, anti-union right wing politicians like the Bushes, the Clintons and Obama.
–Santayana
• Hillary Clinton sat on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart for 5 years and learned how to bust unions and defraud consumers and working people from the experts.
• Hillary Clinton’s an avid supporter of NAFTA.
• Hillary Clinton’s a leading supporter of the US oil piracy. She voted for resolutions declaring that the Iranian military was a terrorist group and for a resolution demanding that the Iraqi’s surrender their oil to US companies.
• Hillary Clinton’s a rightwing christer ideologue and pig-headed opponent of same sex marriage who coauthored, with Rick Santorum, another bigot, the legislation enabling the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. It’s designed to give whoever’s in office tax dollars, billions of them, to bribe pulpit pimps. The White House barters opposition to LGBT equality, especially same sex marriage, or women’s choicer issues for the votes that pulpit pimps can deliver. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics
• Hillary Clinton supported the Paytriot Act and voted for its extension. She coauthored the Republican flag burning nonsense and often voted with the right wing.
• Hillary Clinton lost, she’s over, done, a has-been.
With Democrats like his who needs who Republicans?
A Republican politician is a reactionary with a christer thug attached at the hip. A Democrat politician is a Republican in drag.
[img]http://www.motherjones.com/files/resized/files/legacy/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-[/img]
rudy
You can all scream, but he’s got the order down.
ENDA first because(1) it’s the least controversial (2) it creates more activists across the nation INSTANTLY – even in blue states, and (3) it’s a win that provides momentum.
Next, as you’ve equalized the civilian workforce, you can move on to the military and repeal DADT.
Meanwhile, marriage equality will continue to go on state by state where it’s a cash cow for Christian hate-mongers. As I type this, Catholics in Maine are having a special collection at Mass to destroy marriage on orders from Bishop Richard Malone.
Steve
@Chuck: No, Representative Barney Frank is a “Representative”, not a Senator.
His refusal to sponsor the repeal of DOMA repeal is his choice. He could, if he would.
Bill Perdue
@rudy: Pay attention, please.
We’re screaming because he trashed ENDA. And opposes same sex marriage. And agreed with the DoJs defenemse of DOMA, dismissing the vile language they used as a side issue.
He’s not on our side, especially if you’re for ENDA.
rudy
@Bill Perdue: Frank introduced the bill in July and hearings start this month on the 23rd.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: You know as well as I do, we wouldn’t be having all these problems if Hillary was President! She won the primary as you know until Pelosi and Brazil got involved.
Frank is a creep, how dare he not support DOMA repeal!
schlukitz
@InExile:
Frank is a creep, how dare he not support DOMA repeal!
Yeah, but how do you feel about him? You know, way down, deep inside? LOL
Bill Perdue
@rudy: He’s still not on our side.
He trashed ENDA in 2007 to aid campaign contributing bigoted business owners. Remember he chairs the House Committee on Financial Services and what he did to ENDA shows how much attention he pays to the bigot business owners.
This next bit is not about Frank per se but it about the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. And it’s indicative of how they all operate.
According to Open Left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time yesterday suggested she may be backing off her support of the (healthcare) public option…” Within hours “…Steve Elmendorf, a registered UnitedHealth lobbyist and the head of UnitedHealth’s lobbying firm Elmendorf Strategies…” announced he was hosting $5,000.00 a head reception for her. These arrogant sleaze bags don’t even bother to hide anymore.
The Washington Post revealed key Senate and House players in the heath care debate have at least $27 million dollars invested in health car providers. They include Reid, Harmon, Rudd, Isakson, Hagen, Dodd, Kerry and Capro.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061204075_2.html?wpisrc=newsletter&sid=ST2009061204093
In addition Obama got $18.5 million in ‘campaign contributions’ from criminally liable insurance companies, HMOs and Big Pharma. So far he’s had 27 totally secret meetings with the owners and managers of the criminal triad of insurance companies, HMOs and Big Pharma. And we know what he’s giving away – the healthcare of working people.
We don’t know yet what Barneys raking in, but we do know he wheels and deals with the worst of the. Washington is a cesspool of corruption and that explains why Barney Frank trashed ENDA in 2007. He was so sleazy with ENDA that Hillary Clinton chose him to head her GLBT ‘outreach” program. His job was to line us up side by side on Interstate 10 and then call her to tell it was time to “ride the bus”. But Obama beat her to the punch.
Like I said Rudy, this isn’t rocket science, but you do have to pay attention.
Bill Perdue
If Barney Frank is a creep because he doesn’t support the repeal of DOMA what does that make Hillary?
At the LOGO debate she said “… I want to proceed with equalizing federal benefits. I want to repeal Section 3 of DOMA, which stands in the way of the extension of benefits to people in committed, same-sex relationships, and, you know, I will be very strongly in favor of doing that as president.”
She only wants to repeal one section of DOMA because she’s a pigheaded opponent of same sex marriage and she’s for state rights, just like all the Dixiecrats.
So, it makes you kind of wonder. Is she only two thirds of a creep? Whatever. Just makes you glad not to be a Democrat or a Republican and have to figure this shit out.
With Democrats like Barney, Barak and Hillary who needs Republicans?
A Republican is a reactionary baboon with a christer thug attached at the hip. A Democrat is a Republican in drag.
PopSnap
@Bill Perdue:
So, I’m just wondering, who do you suggest we support? Nobody?
Donnie Sanders
This whole notion that Congress can only do one thing at a time is a total fallacy. I worked on Capitol Hill and I went to hearings on a DAILY basis. Not only can each committee work multiple things at once but each SUB committee allows Congress to take dozens if not hundreds of issues at a time.
Barney Frank’s opposition to DOMA repeal is purely political and extremely partisan. For him to take a stance like this shows he is a disgrace, coward, and setback to LGBT Americans and will go down in history as one of the worst representatives to have ever served in Congress.
His mishandling of Fannie/Freddie, his extreme incompetence, his HRC-heavy buttsex ties… FUCK BARNEY FRANK!
Bring in Jared Polis, Tammy Baldwin, and the real LGBT politicos fighting for equality. No more of these big suit hacks from the House Finance Committee.
Donald
Read the proposed bill and understand it before you comment. Mr. Frank is correct that this bill, as currently proposed and written, will not have a chance in hell of passing. There is no way representatives from Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and all other conservative southern states would support any bill that forces recognition of gay couples who married out of state to be able to file for federal benefits.
“The provision that says you can take your benefits as you travel, I think, will stir up unnecessary opposition with regard to the question of are you trying to export it to other states,” he said. “If we had a chance to pass that, it would be a different story, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to rekindle that debate when there’s no chance of passage in the near term.” Washington Blade, Sept. 11, 2009
InExile
@Bill Perdue: Well she said she wanted to move on Federal Benefits, have you heard Obama mention Civil Unions with full Federal benefits? Yea, that’s what I thought. Why do you keep peddling you Clinton rumors and gossip? Some politicians like gays and others do not, which we saw in the primary.
Donnie Sanders
@Donald: If we don’t even bring this up for a vote and get it in the debate now then how can we ever have any hope of repealing it down the road? The only way we will ever make marriage equality normalized is by bringing it up when it is inconvenient and putting it in the spotlight now.
By the way, ANY PERSON who says “Congress is too busy” or wants to come up with excuses for why we must hold off knows absolutely NOTHING about politics and should shut up.
When I was an intern during the heat of the Iraq War, congressional panels were debating tainted toothpaste, steroids in baseball, weather monitoring satellites, nonprofit fraud protections, and numerous other miniscule issues. So do not lecture me for one second on this topic. YOU WILL LOSE!
Bill Perdue
@PopSnap: If you view elections the way the left does, as an opportunity to educate and organize, but not at all as a vehicle for change then you can vote your principles. Eugene Debs, founder of my railroaders union, said ”It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don’t want and get it.
If you fall for the fallacy of the quadrennial born-again lesser evil, the latest version of hopey-changey, then you vote against yourself. That’s exactly what people who voted for McCain and Obama did.
I’m lucky. I live in Nevada which features Steak’n’Eggs for $3.00 and a voting option that reads;None of the Above Candidates. When there are important ballot initiatives or questions on the ballot and I have to vote, that’s who I vote for.
Change is the result of unrelenting mass pressure campaigns – mass marches, rallies, sit-ins, local and regional demonstrations and demands for cutting edge change. Occasionally Democrats and Republicans, if we frighten them enough, will give in and cede a little ground. But they always come back to take it away.
They haven’t made any fundamental changes since the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime (see Jim Crow).
That was just unfinished business from the First American Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution in September, 1787 and even that might not make if it had to go before Barney Franks Financial Services Committee.
As F. Lee Bailey, civil libertarian and defense attorney said “ Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee.
schlukitz
@Bill Perdue:
As F. Lee Bailey, civil libertarian and defense attorney said “ Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee.
That’s powerful, Bill!
rudy
@Bill Perdue: Well, Bill, congratulations on your “None of the Above.”
I’m sure it will do us all a world of good.
Bill Perdue
@schlukitz: I used to think that Bailey was a little over the top on that one but not any longer.
Bill Perdue
@rudy: It’ll do a lot more good than voting for a bigot, a warmonger and a handpuppet of the rich like McCain or Obama.
I’d have thought congratulations were in order for the Steak’n’Eggs. That’s progress. Electing another jackass is devolutionary, retrogressive and just plain stupid.
Fitz
I really have no patience for any member of the GLBT world who doesn’t prioritize civil liberties, who doesn’t seem this as an urgent issue. It is also an urgent issue that health care is addressed.. otherwise you youngin’s will either go broke or be pushed into euthanizing us. That is the thing about life– sometimes there are co-occurring urgent issues. Us grown ups sometimes need to be able to work on more than one urgent issue at a time. And Barney? Total Kappa.
Cam
@Donnie Sanders: You said “”By the way, ANY PERSON who says “Congress is too busy” or wants to come up with excuses for why we must hold off knows absolutely NOTHING about politics and should shut up.
When I was an intern during the heat of the Iraq War, congressional panels were debating tainted toothpaste, steroids in baseball, weather monitoring satellites, nonprofit fraud protections, and numerous other miniscule issues. So do not lecture me for one second on this topic. YOU WILL LOSE!””
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THANK YOU!!!!! During the Tech bubble Burst up to and through 911 Committees on the Hill were debating Boxing reform, whether or not Vietnamese fish imports should be allowed to call themselves “Catfish” and whether or not freashwater pearls from the Mississippi qualified as pears. Meeting after Meeting was held on these topics as well as a hundred other worthless topics, all while Wall Street was crashing internet companies were going bankrupt and then after 911 while the country was sending troups overseas etc…. So Congress is NEVER too busy. They are constantly doing 200 different things at the same time.
melanie
What stops us from the fight? I don’t give a farthing about the numbers in Congress – now or then or then or now…. How could anyone think that not standing up for or introducing a Correction BILL such as Nadler’s RFA is negative to the cause. It is severely a MUST DO!! What fight was ever won without taking the ultimate risks, least of all on civil rights issues. I believe Barney may be right that the Courts will ditch DOMA long before RFA passes. But unlike Barney, strategically I think RFA is a must do nonetheless. It’s mere introduction emphasizes the fight and provides legitimacy to the fight by endorsing the fact that equality on a federal level is a civil rights issue.
AxelDC
Barney Frank has turned into a collaborator for the antigay forces in our country.