The HRC-Logo press release, dutifully repeated sans scrutiny by dozens of blogs and gay, straight and even anti-gay media outlets, called the forum "historic." How, exactly, do HRC and Logo claim it is "historic"?



That statement is about as true as HRC's claim to have 700,000 members. In fact, the very same organization (under different leadership) hosted a forum of Democratic presidential candidates on July 15, 2003.

You may be among the more than 2 million people who have tuned into YouTube to watch the now infamous “Obamagirl” tribute to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

But you’re probably not among the 1,200 to have watched the drag king rap of Obama saying, “I’m down with the dykes, the straights, and the gays.” Or the 4,400 who have viewed the video of “Nitt Rommey” whose “plan for America” consists of “No homos”?

This is not your father’s presidential campaign. This is 2007, and the ease with which anyone can now create and upload a video onto the World Wide Web, enabling hundreds of people to get an audience for their views on the presidential candidates. And many are using YouTube, the most popular venue for such videos, to highlight candidates’ views on gays.

Finding those videos takes just a little work and many hours of YouTube surfing, and the rewards can be both hilarious and entertaining — or downright frightening.

Hillary Clinton may be a liberal in regard to the issue of gays and lesbians, but organizers apparently realized at some point that in West Virginia holding a fundraiser at a gay bed and breakfast would not be the best message to send. An official invitation circulating on Tuesday said the site has now been changed to the South Branch Inn in Moorefield, a traditional hotel and conference center.

The debate featured questions submitted by web users via YouTube, the popular video sharing site that is also a magnet for lawsuits alleging copyright infringement. Cooper announced that same-sex marriage had emerged as a popular topic among the 3,000 questions submitted. Two such questions made the cut. In the first clip, a lesbian couple from New York asked the Democrats if they would support their right to marry — each other. The second gay-related question came from a North Carolina-based pastor who asked John Edwards to explain why he invokes his religious beliefs to justify opposition to same-sex marriage.

The problem with this taped setup, of course, is that the questioners can’t follow up. Cooper made a few attempts at pressing the candidates, but he simply lacks the gravitas to do the job credibly. Several times, the candidates simply ignored Cooper and continued with their evasive answers.

In their responses, several candidates repeated their support for “equality under the law” for gay couples. In the Democrats’ political parlance, that doesn’t mean actual equality, it means they back civil unions, whatever that means. They never explain what they mean by the term and Cooper didn’t press them for specificity.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich was the only one to enthusiastically and unequivocally support the right of gay couples to marry during the debate, though cantankerous former Sen. Mike Gravel also supports marriage equality. The others, including Sen. Chris Dodd, Gov. Bill Richardson, former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, stressed their support for civil unions or domestic partnership rights. Obama even emphasized that he backs full “states’ rights” for gay couples. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wasn’t asked the question during the debate.

But the issue no one will touch concerns the hundreds of federal rights that convey to married couples. What about those rights? If these candidates support “equality under the law” as they claim, how do they address the issue of the many disparate federal benefits that would be denied to gay couples even if they had access to a state-sanctioned civil union?

The federal government provides more than 1,200 benefits and rights for married couples, including joint tax filings and Social Security survivor benefits. Existing federal law does not recognize gay couples — including those legally married in Massachusetts — and so none of those benefits would confer to same-sex couples in a civil union. Furthermore, a civil union performed in Vermont, Connecticut or New Jersey is meaningless in all other states.

Granting those 1,200 or so rights to committed gay couples would require more than just a federal law recognizing civil unions performed in the states. Legal experts have said lawmakers would need to repeal at least part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was supported by many Democrats and signed by President Clinton in 1996. That law does two things: It defines marriage as a union only between a man and a woman and it allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

The part of DOMA that defines marriage as a heterosexual union prevents federal recognition of a same-sex marriage performed in a state and would likely have to be repealed if gay couples were to access those 1,200 benefits.

Our best hope for clarity on these issues arrives Aug. 9, when the Human Rights Campaign and Logo sponsor a Democratic candidates forum (not a debate, because they won’t appear on stage at the same time). It’s a welcome opportunity for the candidates to address a key constituency and probably the only chance gay voters will get to hear precisely what they think on issues important to us.

After progressive (Pam Spaulding) and conservative (Andrew Sullivan, Chris Crain) bloggers fumed over the announcement that HRC and co-sponsor Logo selected HRC director Joe Solmonese and rock star Melissa Etheridge to serve as the sole panelists, HRC secured Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News to moderate and Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for the panel.

HRC is expected to announce the update sometime today.

Former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia said Friday he is frustrated with the direction of the presidential race and acknowledged talking with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others about an independent challenge to the major parties.

Queer religious leader endorses a political candidate (not someone I'D endorse), and suddenly the "Interfaith Alliance" feels the need to speak out against religious leaders dabbling (swimming in?) politics.

A sudden epiphany about the importance of the separation of Church'nState?

Why? 'coz it's a Democrat being publicly endorsed all of a sudden, or 'coz it's a queer religious leader doing it?

I question the timing here. But then, I'm a Cynic...

The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) is a 501(c)(4) nonpartisan advocacy organization. Founded in 1994 to challenge the radical religious right, TIA remains committed to promoting the positive and healing role of religion in public life by encouraging civic participation, facilitating community activism, and challenging religious political extremism.

Like the other Republicans in the race, Giuliani will not be taking part in tonight's presidential debate on gay issues. But he still has done more to advance gay rights than just about any of the Democrats who will participate, gay activists said.

"Rudy Giuliani is near the top of the list," said Matt Foreman, head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, who was an activist in New York when Giuliani was mayor.

"The challenge for those of us in the gay rights movement is to look at two things: an elected official's accomplishment while in office and whether they affirm the humanity of gay people," said Foreman.

"On that score, Mayor Giuliani has a good record," he said, citing the city domestic partnership law, state hate crimes law, public support and appointments of gay judges.

Melissa Etheridge wasn’t just fawning over Dennis Kucinich — she was having a genuine epiphany about the Democratic presidential candidate during the LGBT forum in Hollywood sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and Logo, and broadcast live by the network on Aug. 9.

The gays love Hillary. She's not for marriage equality, and her husband instituted Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but man, those boys sweat her anyway. A while back, Newsweek tackled this conundrum, but in next week's issue, gay newsmagazine The Advocate does it better: "Like a blushing schoolgirl, we take the varsity jock’s flirtations at face value, deluding ourselves into believing he’s going to ask us to the prom," explains editor Sean Kennedy. "When in reality he’s just using us to get to our sexy friend who will actually put out." (Hey, there’s a reason these people write all the cleverest shows on television.) Some hopeful gay voters take her carefully worded objections to marriage equality and interpret them as hints that she really, deep down, believes in it. But in the Advocate story, Clinton for the first time makes it aggressively clear that this is not the case. "I would tell you [if it was]," she said to Kennedy. "This is an issue that I’ve had very few years of my life to think about when you really look at it, when you compare it to a whole life span. I am where I am right now, and it is a position that I come to authentically." Hear that, gays? She really, really doesn't support gay marriage (or was it not the gays who were supposed to be listening up?).