You might’ve heard that while the Human Rights Campaign was hosting a “virtual lobby day” (encouraging folks to call their legislators, which it does with every email blast), it was also hosting a press conference demanding lawmakers do something involving making law, or something. Rep. Patrick Murphy was there! And they had a bunch of speakers to parade in front of the cameras, including Jarrod Chlapowski, a five-year Army veteran and Korean linguist. And he wants back in!
Oh, and this guy talked too:
Meanwhile, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley revealed today for the first time publicly his thoughts on DADT. Namely, that he wants it gone. Testifying today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Donley responded to Sen. Carl Levin’s question: “I support the president’s efforts to change the policy and change the law in this area.” Responding to Sen. Joe Lieberman, Donley said “[unit cohesion] does not depend on gender or orientation, it depends on conduct.”
That puts him in disagreement with his direct boss, Chief of Staff Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, who last week told the House, “This is not the time to perturb the force that is at the time stretched … without careful deliberation. And two, should the laws change, our standards of conduct will continue to apply to all airmen.”
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.
Ballsy.
Lady Ga-Gasp
Balls are defined by the relative scale of the effort and the proposed –actual — outcome. For HRC, its inching toward a human rights goalpost. For internet media, its inching toward profitability. Either way, its not always pretty, or up to the high standards of our romantic notions.
tazz
It absolutely boggles my mind that DADT is an issue to some people. I can’t believe it’s 2010 and we still have to live through such stupidity.
If you’re too stupid to be mature about gay cohorts in the Army, then don’t go in the Army. I mean the argument that “it may make people uncomfortable” has got to be the dumbest argument in existence.
The logic indicates that they’d rather serve with a closeted gay than an open one
klara craigg
Joe: Please meet my friend Silenda: She works at Weight Watchers and she can help you with the extra poundage you carry. Unfortunately, she doesn’t specialize in treatments of grandiosity, uselessness or naivete.
Best wishes, Joe, for a slimmer, savvier, saner and smarter you!
Klara
christopher di spirito
Maybe it’s me but I can’t tell Joe Solmonese from John Aravosis.
Both are useless, shameless self-promoting hucksters in it for the attention and the money.
Cam
:::Ring Ring::: Excuse me? I’ll check…..Everybody, we have a call from a Joe Solomnese, he wants to know if we have a storage area that can hold a large amount of self importance with space left over for a large collection of wasted opportunity.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
With respect, you have it backwards. The Air Force Chief of Staff reports to the Secretary of the Air Force, therefore gay-friendly Donley is the boss of homophobic dinosaur Schwartz and not the other-way-around.
But that sound you hear is Donley screaming from the 100 lashes he’s getting from HIS boss, Secretary of DEFENSE OF DADT Robert Gates who, as Queerty was one of the few to point out, snowed countless gay little girls with his Bait [“I’m PERSONALLY against DADT.”] and Switch [“But Congress must NOT repeal it until after I do my ‘study’ which, trust me, only coincidentally will not be completed until after midterm elections.”]
We’ve been played AGAIN, and still many professional gays are running around squealing like Sally Field, “He like us! He really likes us!” instead of denouncing en masse The Study that is simply meant to stall repeal until it is legislatively impossible.
Throw in the gays who are saying the exact opposite…that we should be surrendering to letting them continuing to discharge gays for up to two years while they “study” and “implement” and you’ll understand why the world seems to have been turned upside down.
Georgy Pie
Who are the SOOOOOOOOOOOO hot guys behind the speakers? Are they gay?
Brian En Guarde
Did you HEAR Joe?? “Thank you thank you thank you! You are so courageous! We are just so close to victory!” That talk is exactly why we are going to LOSE this fight. Because it takes so little sweet-talk from his precious party bullshitters to give him a hard-on. No work has been done! They ARE SAYING THEY NEED A YEAR, ASSHOLE. You should be saying that that is LUDICROUS.
Brian NYC
I agree with John Aravosis who said “lobbying was Political Masturbation.” He wrote this yesterday:
Lobby Days are here! Sigh.
Over the next few weeks, a number of gay groups, and individuals, are organizing “lobby days.” These are opportunities for the groups’ members, and others, to visit congressional offices and lobby congressional staff on the issues of the day.
While I’m loathe to criticize what I’m sure is a worthwhile experience in civics and the benefits of participatory democracy, the dirty little secret in Washington is that lobby days don’t really work. At least at the national level they never have. You’d be hard pressed to find an example of a group of citizens coming to town and lobbying congress, and it having any significant effect whatsoever. It’s just not the way the system works, unfortunately.
No indication HOW the “system works,” but for once, I agree with Aravosis, lobbying doesn’t work. It’s a waste of time and money.
Link:http://gay.americablog.com/2010/03/political-masturbation-wont-get-dadt.html