I was proud to have marched alongside tens of thousands of like-minded GLBT people and allies to celebrate our lives and demand full equality. We are at a unique moment, where the Democrats rule Capitol Hill and occupy the White House. Those who marched want to seize this special moment and pass legislation while we are in the majority. The weekend was Democracy in action and it certainly energized the young people – who will be our advocates and champions of tomorrow.

The march was the perfect complement to the Human Rights Campaign dinner, featuring Barack Obama. The two events combined to capture the attention of the national media and offered a platform to make our case directly to the President, Congress and the American people.

In this effort, I appeared on FOX’s O’Reilly Factor and twice on MSNBC. Other GLBT advocates made the media rounds – and by doing so, there was no doubt that the President, or at least key aides heard our voices. We were also able to illustrate to fair-minded Americans why we are impatient to gain equality.

The march may not have been as large as those of yesteryear. But, it achieved its desired effect, because it put a spotlight on our issues at a key moment in history and let the Washington establishment know that NOW is the time to take action.

The festivities also served as a great contrast between our civilized, mature behavior and that of the extremist teabaggers, who behaved like tantrum throwing infants. Indeed, once could see the moral depravity of our opponents at the march with their infantile “Sodomy Truck” and hateful rhetoric – thinly disguised as “love”.

Our job, as activists, is to keep pushing Congress and the Obama Administration to take action and end our second-class citizenship. Please join us in our quest for full equality.

If I were advising President Barack Obama, I would tell him to pay as much attention to the ornery jeers from protesters outside the Human Rights Campaign’ Oct. 10th Washington dinner as the cheers coming from inside the ornate ballroom.

“The last thing we need is more flowery rhetoric in front of rich, self-effacing gays and lesbians dressed up like penguins,” said Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network, who plans to picket the event.

The cross mood expressed by Thayer is indicative of the restlessness felt by the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender grass roots in the early stages of Obama’ presidency.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) deserves a heaping helping of praise for furnishing a primetime platform for Obama to impart his message. But, the President and HRC must realize that the stakes are even higher than the price of the steaks served in the ballroom of the black-tie affair. While no one will likely yell, “you lie” in the middle of his remarks, there will be a collective sigh if all we get is a pretty speech.

Let it be known that the GLBT community is no longer interested in being pals with the powerful or having the famous tell us we are fabulous – unless it leads to action. If the goal of this evening were simply to provide an interesting dinner guest, Meryl Streep or Michael Moore would have sufficed. What we want from Obama, however, is a fighter working to set us free. We need signed paper in the form of laws, not paper-thin promises and illusive signs of hope. Unless a concrete vision is offered at this event, Obama’ speech will sink like concrete in the Potomac River. (Read More)

Be warned: Those new National Organization for Marriage anti-GLBT actor auditions videos Wayne reported about this week are gone. NOM noticed that its evil ruse had been exposed and demanded that YouTube take them down. Even a clip of a recent MSNBC Rachel Maddow clip that included the audition tapes is gone. NOM’s reason: copyright infringement.

YouTube has to develop a bigger pair. The fact that a national organization is working to deny equality under law to millions of certain citizens makes the story newsworthy. Showing at least excerpts is fair use — under law.

Why are people so afraid of the anti-equality crowd? It’s so obvious that the organized fundies are the ones to fear. NOM was willing to lie, manipulate, and terrify the ignorant segment of the public, low-info types who can be compelled en masse to do what is right for their brand of Christianity, but wrong for anyone who really believes in basic American ideals. The tactic is cynical, selfish, immoral, and destructive. And it works: Remember Proposition 8?

At HuffPo, Lambda Legal’s Evan Wolfson provides a description opf the ads and refutes their vicious claims, so that at least some of those unable to view the outrage can see clearly the threat with which we are dealing. It’s a long excerpt, but it is an important one:

Consider what the actors in the NOM ad pretend to be:

A doctor who wants to discriminate against her patients, despite civil rights laws and medical ethics that the California Supreme Court upheld – in a case having nothing to do with marriage.

An officer of a New Jersey group that for years voluntarily operated a beachside pavilion with special tax-breaks that required it be open to the public – but then tried to turn down a lesbian couple. The case did not turn on marriage, since New Jersey doesn’t yet allow gay couples to marry, but, rather, basic civil rights laws about open access to public accommodations.

A Massachusetts parent who sought to dictate public school curriculum about the diverse families children will need to be aware of to thrive in a diverse world, and then wanted to remove her child from classes in a way that would have disrupted class and imposed unreasonable burdens on the school and other kids.

The law in California, as elsewhere, is that doctors can’t discriminatorily refuse to treat patients ‚Äî Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM incites fear. The law in New Jersey, as elsewhere, says that organizations running public accommodations such as restaurants or rental halls cannot discriminatorily exclude people ‚Äî African American, Latino, or Asian, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM says that the discriminators are somehow the victims. The law in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, of course allows parents to teach their kids whatever they want, and even to send them to private schools or do home-schooling. The law also rightly sets rules for determining public school curriculum without having every parent, or special interest with an agenda, coming in and imposing their views on everyone else’s kids ‚Äî yours or mine, gay or non-gay.

I encourage you to read Wolfson’s entire piece — he has worked on the front lines of this fight and knows the terrain. And he’s a lawyer.

National Organization for Marriage may believe that its copyright trumps our right to know the truth, but the group is wrong. Here is an opportunity to dtake action and do some good: Anyone with a thirst for a truly equal US will share descriptions of the ad — along with the truth about marriage equality and the fact that is is no threat to anyone, save those who need legal supremacy — with everyone they know. It is particularly urgent that we talk with those who question the need for civil-marriage equality. If we can’t trust YouTube to stand up to transmit the truth, we must do it.

Here is a debate between NOM’s Maggie Gallagher and Human Rights Campaign Joe Solmonese on CNN’s “Hardball,” where the HRC chief handily obliterates his opponent’s position using truth and fact.

HRC\’s Joe Solmonese on Hardball 04/08/09

After admitting earlier today that he had an extramarital affair and fathered a child out of wedlock, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.), who was nailed for drunk driving last week, was spotted today huddling with the House chaplain in the back of the chamber during floor debate.

Fossella, who is married and has three children with his wife, could be seen standing on the back rail of the chamber, on the Republican side near the center aisle, in deep conversation with Rev. Daniel Coughlin, the House chaplain.

In a statement today, Fossella went so far as to name the woman with whom he has had an affair for several years. Her name is Laura Fay, a retired Air Force Lt. Col. who, as Fossella now admits, is the mother of their 3-year-old daughter.

Fossella’s “love child” was exposed in his drunken-driving charge because Fay is the person who fetched Fossella from an Alexandria, Va., police station after he was charged with driving while intoxicated in the wee hours of the morning last Thursday.

I just checked the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional scorecard. This human Sin-Bag had three straight ZERO ratings. So, he can oppose loving GLBT families while he wrecks his own home?

According to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the Staten Island Representative had voted not once or twice–but three times to, as many of his colleagues argued, “preserve the sanctity of marriage.”

This is so typical of our right wing opponents. Any time a conservative starts boasting about his or her morals and values and sanctimoniously preens about the “sanctity of marriage” – look out! They not only are likely to have skeletons in their closet – but a graveyard of lies, hypocrisy and deceit. It has almost become a clich?© that the more one preaches against something, the more likely he or she is to be engaged in that forbidden arena.