Tuesday, November 16, 2010

GetEQUAL Protests at White House "Common Purpose" Meeting - HRC Kisses Obama's Ass

The last two years have demonstrated what "playing nice" and kissing the Liar-in-Chief's ass yields to LGBT Americans (other than, of course, members of Gay,Inc., who prefer cocktail party invites over real progress): absolutely nothing. While sucking up huge amounts of LGBT money, HRC and to a lesser extent NGLTF have delivered absolutely nothing. The sell out of rank and file LGBT citizens in red states and fly over country continues as both HRC and NGLTF once again offer political cover to the Liar-in-Chief. America Blog has details on the sell out of these organizations as they crossed a protest line organized by GetEQUAL, an organization that realizes that only constant confrontation and embarrassing media coverage for the Liar-in-Chief and weak kneed Democrats (and perhaps some Republicans) will ultimately force the change that is needed. Here are some highlights:
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UPDATE @ 8:14 PM via email from GetEQUAL. It was quite a protest:
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David Smith, Vice President of Policy and Strategy for the Human Rights Campaign, Winnie Stachelberg, Sr. VP for External Affairs for CAP; Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, were greeted tonight by the protestors and asked to stand with the LGBT community and not attend the meeting. All three of them chose instead to cross the protest line and enter into the hotel. Smith refused saying, “I’m running late”.
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Also, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina was greeted tonight by protestors who chanted to him “Obama, What’s Your Plan?” and “Keep Your Promise!
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On Tuesday nights here in DC, there's usual a gathering of White House staffers, often led by Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, with leaders of progressive organizations. The meeting is called "Common Purpose," but is better known as the "veal pen" -- a term coined by Jane Hamsher. Basically, the White House gives the groups their marching orders -- and most of the groups have done as instructed. We can see how well that's worked.
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Among those attending the meeting tonight are CAP's Winnie Stachelberg and HRC's V.P. David Smith. Rea Carey from the Task Force is there, too. (UPDATE: Just learned Messina was there.)
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From GetEQUAL's press release: This evening, seven of the original 13 LGBT veterans and advocates who were arrested yesterday at the White House fence, stood outside of the Capitol Hilton (1001 16th Street NW) to protest the White House’s “Common Purpose” meeting, a mostly secret, low-profile gathering of White House officials and institutional, progressive organizations aimed at controlling the agenda and messaging around those issues, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.
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Here's the quote from GetEQUAL's Heather Cronk via Politico: "The White House's Common Purpose meeting is the primary way that progressive ideas and values supported by a majority of Americans are being upended and compromised," said Cronk in an email to POLITICO. "We are calling on the progressive groups attending these meetings to shake free the yoke of White House staff who are refusing to push forward the progressive ideals that President Obama campaigned on."
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I stopped giving money to HRC and NGLTF years ago due to their failure to truly fight for LGBT equality (I did continue to donate to Lambda Legal). I increasing wonder why people continue to fund organizations that put "access" and party invitations and winning "best dressed" awards ahead of representing regular LGBT Americans . I wish people would wake up!

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