NJ Senate to consider gay marriage vote next week

Good news, since NJ seemed to be stalling. Read More...

What will gay Obama admin official do with case of lesbian seeking benefits?

As Mike Signorile reports, senior gay in the Obama administration, John Berry, who heads the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), wasn't in office yet when OPM intervened to kill the health benefits of a lesbian partner of a gay federal employee. But Berry is in office now. And he has fewer than three weeks to make a decision reversing yet another discriminatory action taken by the Obama administration. Berry can claim he wasn't responsible for the first time (though the Obama administration overall was), but in 20 days, if OPM continues to support discrimination against gays and lesbians, this will rest on Berry's, and Obama's, head. Read More...

Notice that Gibbs is still talking about 'changing' rather than 'repealing' DADT

Joe and I have been writing for a while about how ever since the White House Web site changed the description of the President's commitment on Don't Ask Don't Tell from "repealing" the discriminatory law to simply "changing" it, the White House began using that new terminology. Interestingly, White House officials often talk about "repealing" DADT when they're speaking to a gay audience. But when they're speaking to the nation as a whole, it's "change" DADT. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs did it again yesterday. You can find his quote in the post Joe did earlier about troops being stretched thin.

I've talked to a lot of people about this. Smart people. And every single one laughs when I tell them that the White House expects us to believe that "changing" DADT and "repealing" DADT mean the same thing. Joe and I both think the administration is planning some half-measure, like they do on every issue, to not quite repeal DADT, but to make it more "humane," as they said earlier this year. The big question is whether our national organizations will let the administration recodify discrimination. Read More...

Abuse settlement from Maine Catholic Diocese

The Catholic Diocese of Maine has been doling out a lot of money lately. There was that $550,000 spent on the anti-gay campaign. And, there was another $200,000 paid to the victim of a sexually-abusing priest:

A lawyer has confirmed that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland made a $200,000 settlement on Nov. 5 with his client, who said she was molested by a priest in 1976 in the rectory of St. Michael's Church in South Berwick.

The priest was the Rev. James Vallely, said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, of Boston. The victim, who lives outside of New England, was 11 years old at the time and one of the first female altar servers in the state.

The settlement money came from insurance, said Sue Bernard, spokesperson for the diocese. The diocese received its first complaint about Vallely in 1978 and took action. It did not involve the victim in the settlement.

Took action? The Church leaders enabled abusers for decades. Yet, these same abuse-enabling church leaders are setting social policy for America. That's sick. Read More...

Chase Bank is supporting NOM Education Fund

WTF?

Reader "sonofloud" writes about Chase Bank's effort to support the anti-gay group, National Organization for Marriage (NOM), found via Queerty:

A little off topic but....

Chase Bank is running a contest called 'Community Giving' for users to select charities worthy of receiving a chunk of a 5 million dollar donation by the bank. Among the non-profits listed are the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage.

NOM being on the list is a direct violation of Chase's own non-discrimination policy:

"Chase Community Giving's own "clear and simple" rules state in Section 4 that any organization that "by itself or through an affiliated entity, discriminates on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, medical condition, citizenship, ancestry or marital status is not eligible" (Queerty).

The Chase list likely came from a standard non-profits list and was not edited to take out organizations that violate the non-discrimination policy.

Please tell Chase to review and remove the National Organization for Marriage at chasecommunitygiving.inquiry@chase.com

Thanks for drawing our attention to this outrage, "sonofloud" and "JamesR."

Checked this morning to confirm and NOM is, in fact, a beneficiary:
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Gibbs admits troops are stretched thin, but no info. on whether DADT discharges will be slowed

Yesterday, while many of us were glued to the New York Senate debate on marriage, Kerry Eleveld was at the White House briefing asking questions that made some news.

In the aftermath of the President's speech on Afghanistan with its commitment of 30,000 additional troops, Kerry asked Robert Gibbs if he had any information on whether Don't Ask, Don't Tell discharges would be slowed -- given that our military is still using "stop-loss." Gibbs, as usual, didn't have an answer on a gay-related question. But, Kerry's follow-up got him to admit that "No doubt" our troops are "stretched thin." (The full transcript of the Q & A is after the break.)

So, our troops are stretched thin, but DADT discharges continue unabated. That's smart policy, huh?

From the White House Transcript:

Q Some people have analyzed the number of troops available to deploy and said that sending 30,000 troops is tantamount to deploying nearly every U.S. Army brigade possible. Given that about 10,000 soldiers are already in stop-loss, do you know where Defense Secretary Gates is with his review of softening the discharges on "don't ask, don't tell"?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I have not heard an update from the Secretary on that. I know that obviously the President wants that policy changed. In terms of -- I mean, obviously it's not just Army. This is Army and Marines, as well as -- well, Army and Marines. They are -- this was very specifically asked in terms of whether force flow options would interrupt either Marine or Army policies that have been instituted to give longer breaks for tours of duty and then return home. The Joint Chiefs, to a commander, all told the Commander-in-Chief that they could meet the force requirement without interrupting what they had instituted in order to provide that time at home and away from the tour of duty.

Q But the troops are stretched thin. I mean, it's not --

MR. GIBBS: No doubt. And I think that the President was very clear in wanting to see the Joint Chiefs to, quite frankly, ask them very directly whether that was the case. There's no doubt that there has been for many, many years a strain on our forces; that that strain has caused repeated tours. And only recently has Secretary Gates and others instituted policies that ensure that we had time outside of a theater of war and that they believe was necessary to maintain an all-volunteer force, which they think obviously is tremendously important, as well as just dealing with the stress physically and mentally on them.

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