Reflections Ten Years Later on The First LGBTQ Bloggers & Citizen Journalists National Summit

Yours truly at the LGBT Blogger Summit in 2008.

I first began blogging at the suggestion of my therapist who suggested I write a book for those coming out in "mid-life" since so many of the existing materials at the time were aimed at teens and young adults.  There was little available for those in their 40's or 50's.  Once I started the endeavor of gathering materials through blog posts something happened.  This blog became a needed form of therapy and slowly took on a life of its own.  A major transformation took place in December, 2008, when I was privileged to be selected to participate n the LGBTQ Bloggers & Citizen Journalists National Summit in December 2008.  I won a spot among those invited to the all expense paid gathering in no small part due to my role in helping Mike Rogers "out" then Virginia 2nd District Congressman, Ed Schrock, a closeted Republican with the second most anti-gay voting record in Congress.  I had also assisted activist Wayne Besen expose "ex-gay" fraud Michel Johnston, a former poster boy for so-called conversion therapy. Despite these efforts, this blog still had a small readership back in 2008 yet was a labor of love. At the blogger Summit, I was in the big league and eventually when on to also be a contributor to The Bilerico Project which the Washington Post once referred to as a "must read" blog (it later became a part of LGBTQ Nation). 

Ten years later I am still in contact with many of the summit attendees via Facebook, following each other's blogs and writings, and a listserv through which we can quickly spread stories and information to hundreds of activists and journalists across the country. Fellow attendee Sue Kerr has a post on her blog that pulls together great memories of the experience. Like Sue, I'd love to see another summit! My husband also has found memories of the experience.  Here are highlights from Sue's post (go to Sue's post for the links to participating blogs - many of which are still ongoing -  and a video where I can be seen standing near Sue):

[T]he first LGBTQ Bloggers and Citizens Journalists National Summit. It was December 5-7, 2008. I met a lot of folx there and my mind was awhirl with new possibilities for blogging.

More than 60 organizations and blogs were represented. I’m trying to remember how I was invited – I think I had been interacting with Mike Rogers (formerly of BlogActive, now know with Raw Story) online after he wrote about Rick Santorum. This gathering was a prelude to the Netroots Connection preconferences that began in 2009 (in Pittsburgh)

Rather than wax eloquently about my memories, let me share a few links.

Here are my original blog posts summaries My Preview  Day One Summary Post

Pam Spaulding’s write up of the weekend (Pam’s House Blend)

More from PamThere was great coverage of the framing used by the right wing to demonize and restrict expanding LGBT rights and how the LGBT movement can counter that framing going forward with different political strategies.

Tony from Perge Modo has a post

Today, in the revolution that has now begun for ownership of individual rights, bloggers are the new Paul Revere, but there are hundreds of thousands of them and they are not all shouting the same thing about the British coming. They are shouting huge heaps of overlapping static. Sometimes they pull together suddenly like a school of fish responding to the force of the current. There is no skill to this. There is only speed. You almost need to be out of the water to see, let alone control this. Nevertheless, the political bloggers feel that coalescence is within their grasp.

Read the takeaway of a filmmaker at Working Films

Let’s get meta – a post about a media article about the gathering with links to other bloggers reactions (whew!)  What LGBT bloggers do when they write about blogging conventions

From Blabbeando, a list of blogs in attendance in alphabetical order (probably not a complete list):

• Bilerico Project

• Blabbeando

• BlogActive

• Boi From Troy

• Buffawhat

• Burnt Orange Report

• Calitics

• Michael-in-Norfolk Coming Out in Mid-Life

• (en)gender

• Existential Punk

• Farmboiz

• Gay Agenda

• Gay Persons of Color

• Get Busy, Get Equal (ACLU LGBT Project Blog)

• Good as You

• Greta Cristina’s Blog

• hunter of justice

• InterstateQ

• Jimbo

• Joe.My.God

• Knucklecrack

• The Mad Professah Lectures

• Mombian

• The New Gay

• Ninjatron

• PageOneQ

• Pam’s House Blend

• Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents

• Project Q Atlanta

• Rod2.0

• That Gay Girl Tamara

• UK Gay News

• Working Films

Back to the present  – are you reading any of the above blogs or their spin-offs? When you have some time, I urge you to dive back into this glorious archive of LGBTQ activism and politics during the latter half of the 2000’s and reacquaint yourself. I hope someone, somewhere, takes the time to create an actual archive.

I interact with some of these folks via email and all sorts of social media. I’ve been to two follow up events associated with Netroots Nation since then. And I’ve continued to blog. During that first year, Laura and I met with media expert Cathy Renna for advice on my blog. She told us we were doing a good job and basically to keep on with what we had accomplished. Thanks to the wonders of a former webhost, you can see the original blog format from that very day.

A lot has happened in ten years. Netroots Nation will be in Philadelphia in July 2019 so I hope we’ll attend. One thing that has not changed is the lack of revenue in blogging – to get this lesbian voice and others to these events, there has to be scholarships and fellowships and other supports. It might interesting if someone crunched the numbers about the state of the blogosphere in 2008 versus now, including revenue data.

I miss having a chance for blogger connection. I’d like to see events that bring people together, old and new. I’d like to harness the power of experience to the energy and new ideas of today’s leaders.

Here’s a snip of video via Tony Adams survering the crowd. You can see me in the right hand margin wearing a black sweater and having very short hair.

I will always treasure the experience and the brilliant and interesting friends I made (the now husband was there for the weekend too and enjoyed the experience).  I'd love to do a reunion summit where we could work on strategies for the coming 10 years.  Kudos to Sue for putting together her excellent post.  Thanks also to Progressive Insurance and Microsoft for their underwriting of the 2008 event. 

National LGBT Blogger Initiative Summit

Blogging can be addicting as I suspect most fellow bloggers will concede. For me blogging allows me to express my thoughts and opinions, has allowed me to build a remarkable network of friends around the globe, and hopefully allows me to bet information out to others that may help the rights and visibility of LGBT Americans. Others have seen the role that LGBT blogs can play in political and social discourse. Now, there will be a summit that will allow some LGBT bloggers to meet each other and hopefully build networks and ties that will allow them to further their blogs and LGBT citizens in general. I think the summit is a wonderful idea and have applied to attend the summit - I will be keeping my fingers crossed that I am lucky enough to be selected. You can apply to attend here. Here are details on the summit which will run from December 5-7, 2008, in Washington, D.C.:

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Washington, DC – Blogger Michael Rogers today announced the formation of the National LGBT Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative to support training and grants for the country's leading and emerging online voices. The program, established with a leadership gift of $50,000 from Jonathan Lewis, will bring together the online world with traditional organizations throughout the country. To date, over $70,000 has been committed to the Initiative.

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“The importance of bloggers in both the LGBT community and larger blogosphere cannot be overstated,” said Rogers, publisher of PageOneQ and a leading blogger. “This initiative will bring bloggers together to acquire new skills, build relationships, and improve the effectiveness of their work. This is the first opportunity to collaborate between online media and traditional organizations and I am excited at the coalitions that will form as a result. Groups sponsoring this Initiative are at the forefront of new media in the LGBT community and we are grateful for their support.”

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The Initiative will begin with a summit of 50 bloggers, citizen journalists, and representatives of LGBT and progressive groups. The event will take place in Washington on Dec. 5-7. . . . “Citizen journalism is strengthening the LGBT community in ways none of us could have imagined just a few years ago,” Victory Fund President Chuck Wolfe said. “We’re sharing information at lightning speed and reaching audiences that have been underserved by traditional media.

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For Initiative and Summit application info, please visit www.bloggerinitiative.com.

Church-Based Hate: Apology Required

David P. Gushee, professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, has written a review of Mitchell Gold's book, Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America, in The Christian Century. As some may recall, I discussed back in December 2008 after I meet Mitchell Gold at the LGBT Blogger Summit in Washington, D.C. In his review, Gushee looks at some of the stories recounted in the book and concludes his review with these words:

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Crisis recounts the sad stories of dozens of young people who, like the biblical Esau, cried for a blessing from their parents, friends and churches. All too often they have not received it. All too often they have been left broken, rejected as human beings—at the hands of Christians and in the name of the Bible. Obviously we must extend basic acceptance to gay youths such as these, as well as Christian love.Moreover, after reading these stories, I feel that Christians have something they need to request from God and from gays and lesbians, and that is forgiveness.

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Personally, I view what self-proclaimed "godly Christians" do to LGBT youth and adults alike as the equivalent of spiritual murder. It's hard to take even as an adult, but as an uncertain pre-teen or teen it is truly devastating. Instead of extending Christ's message of love as should be the case, the Gospel message with these false Christians becomes a message of hatred towards LGBT individuals. Here are some additional highlights from his review of Crisis which involve Matt Comer who I also met at the Blogger Summit and whose religious upbringing bears parallels with my own, albeit in a different denomination:

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Matt Comer, who came from a conservative Baptist family in North Carolina, began experiencing same-sex attraction in his preteen years. Matt's preacher said from the pulpit things like: "Put all the queers on a ship, cut a hole in the side and send it out to sea." The contrast between his sexuality and the beliefs of his church and family drove Matt to thoughts of suicide. But that same religious faith told him that suicide "would have sent me straight to the depths of hell, landing me in the same spot as being gay. So, I turned to begging and pleading."

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Lying on his bed at night, "crying and praying," Matt would ask God to spare him eternal damnation if he tried his very best not to feel attraction to males. But it didn't work. Finally Matt told the truth to his parents. "My mother said I was crazy and sick and told me I was going to hell." Eventually, however, his mother changed her views. "Today," Matt writes, "she is my strength and my most avid supporter, and I know that she loves me no matter what."

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Gushee also looks at some of the other fruits of church based anti-gay hate:

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What exactly do such young people go through? Gold and co-editor Mindy Drucker offer not just stories but summaries of some key data. They include the following:

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• Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among 15-to-24-year-olds; for every young person who takes his or her own life, 20 more try.

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• Gay teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.

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• Forty-five percent of gay men and 20 percent of lesbians surveyed had been victims of verbal and physical assaults in secondary school specifically because of their sexual orientation.

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• Gay youth are at higher risk of being kicked out of their homes and turning to life on the streets for survival. They are more likely than their heterosexual peers to start using tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs at an earlier age.

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• Twenty-eight percent of gay students drop out of school—more than three times the national average.

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Indeed, there is much for which the Christianists and other homophobes need to pray for forgiveness.

Why Being Out and Proud Matters

As I posted yesterday evening, those of us who attended the LGBT Blogger Summit had the unique opportunity of seeing the movie Milk and then engaging in a discussion session with Clive Jones, Dustin Lance Black and Bruce Cohen. One message that I took away from the whole experience - not to mention specific portions of the movie itself - was that LGBT citizens need to come out of the closet and live openly. The fastest way to dispel the lies put out by our enemies is to allow friends and neighbors to come to realize that we - their doctors, lawyers, fellow business owners, etc. - are just like everyone else save and except who we fall in love with.

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Being out and open can be a terrifying prospect and I will confess my own failure and shortcomings in that regard for many years. For far too many years I tried to be something that I was not and in the process made myself and often those around me miserable. Unfortunately, I listened to the propaganda and lies put out by churches and a larger society that value control and uniformity over allowing people living their own lives as God made them. In short, I allowed myself to buy into the anti-gay stereotypes and felt myself a freak, reject and victim. But not anymore. Another side benefit of attending the blogger summit was being surrounded by smart, vibrant LGBT individuals who demonstrated that we are as good as anyone else - hence for example the name of Jeremy Hooper's blog, Good As You.

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Another reality that I have learned is that "coming out" is a process that one does not do just once. Rather it is a daily occurrence as one meets new people and encounters different business and social settings. While I do not broadcast my sexuality, nevertheless, new encounters sometime require that you take a deep breath and summon the courage to not hide who you are. Living in an area such as Tidewater Virginia obviously creates more situations where being out has the potential for adverse reactions and even potential rejection. I have some who tell me that I should be more closeted and I certainly know a number of gays who live double lives of sorts out of fear of rejection in business or otherwise. On the other hand, if one gives into fear and goes back into hiding, the result is that you lose a little bit of your soul each time you allow fear to win out. Personally, I forfeited my soul for too many years to go back into that trap.

LGBT Blogger Summit Weekend

Today is going to be a crazy day as I run from meetings and then travel to Washington, D.C., to attend the LGBT Blogger Initiative Summit in Washington, D.C. The event kicks off this evening at the Human Rights Campaign headquaters (I wonder if anyone has read my complaints about HRC on this blog?) for a happy hour reception with HRC senior staff, directors and coordinators of the event, as well as others attending the summit and staff from one of the sponsor organizations. The schedule is pretty exhaustive so I doubt I will have much time to blog until my return to the Tidewater area on Sunday night. From some of the people I now know are attending (e.g., Pam Spaulding, Mike Rogers and a number of Bilerico Progect contributors), it should be a pretty amazing experience and allow for incredible networking opportunities.

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The boyfriend is going to D.C., for the weekend with me and we hope to have a chance to indulge in a little of the D.C. nightlife. While not one of the most obscure areas in the LGBT world, the greater Norfolk area is not a bright center of the gay universe, so it should be fun spending the weekend in a far more progressive area among with many kindred spirits.

Andy Towle Leaves Towleroad.com

I have been writing this blog in earnest since early 2007, just shy of 14 years ago.  Along the way - especially thanks to the 2008 LGBT Blogger Summit in Washington D.C., sponsored by Microsoft and Progressive Insurance - I have had the privilege of connecting with many amazing LGBT bloggers across the country and even in other parts of the world.  For a number of years I was a contributor to The Bilerico Project (now part of LGBTQ Nation), once described by the Washington Post as the LGBT version of the Huffington Post.  One such blogger and and inspiration is Andy Towle of Towleroad. After 18 years at it, Andy has announced that he is leaving the blog that carries his name.  Much has changed over that time period yet LGBT citizens in many parts of America and the world still struggle for full civil rights and fight regular discrimination.  In a piece at his blog, Andy looks at what prompted the launching of his blog, looks at the connections made, and why he is moving on.   I don't see myself ready to hang up blogging at the moment, but readers need to know that it is part labor of love and part therapy session at times.  Here are excerpts from Andy's "good bye" piece:

Longtime readers and friends, we’ve come a great distance together. But after nearly 18 years scouring the web for LGBTQ news and bringing it to you on a daily basis, this has been my last week at Towleroad.

It’s been a thrilling experience, and a lot of hard, rewarding work. Towleroad is one of the few independently published LGBTQ news sites left. We’ve survived in a very tough environment by running a tight ship and sticking to our voice and our mission, which has been to bring you a variety of different types of news, both serious and completely silly, with a commitment to truth and honesty. I hope that it has informed you over the years, helped create some positive change in the world, and maybe given someone a laugh or a smile and inspired them to be themselves.

Back in those very early days there were a few independent gay voices doing blogs (notably Andrew Sullivan) but no online clearing houses for LGBTQ information, and it was thrilling to be able to interact with an audience in an exciting and fresh format and I’m grateful to have been in the right place at the right time to do so.

It was a collaborative time in “new media” and I soon found myself among a sea of exciting voices which shared links, inspiration, common cause, and creative ideas, like Pam Spaulding’s ‘Pam’s House Blend’, Joe Jervis’s JoeMyGod, Michael K’s Dlisted, OMGblog, Bil Browning’s The Bilerico Project, Michelangelo Signorile’s The Signorile Report, Keith Boykin, Jeremy Hooper’s Good As You, Rex Wockner, John Aravosis’ AmericaBlog, Chris Johnson and Michael Lavers at the Washington Blade, Jim Burroway and Timothy Kincaid’s Box Turtle Bulletin, Paul Schindler at Gay City News, Rod 2.0, Shakesville, The New Civil Rights Movement, Andres Duques’ Blabbeando, Trent Vanegas’s Pink is the New Blog, Just Jared, Mike Rogers’ BlogActive, Kenneth Walsh’s Kenneth in the 212, Matt Rettenmund’s Boy Culture, Queerty, Alvin McEwen’s ‘Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters’, Greg Hernandez’s Greg in Hollywood, Wayne Besen’s Truth Wins Out, Dan Savage’s Slog, the late Monica Roberts’ TransGriot, Juliano Corbetta’s Made In Brazil, Back2Stonewall, Perez Hilton, Socialite Life, NewNowNext, AfterEllen, AfterElton, Autostraddle and many others. I apologize if I’ve forgotten anyone. By virtue of our formats and audiences, at many times we were able to manifestly affect justice together in so many ways. I would like to thank them all for their support and kindness over the years.

I’ve been gratified to see the tide of public opinion and acceptance of LGBTQ people shift in vast ways. When I launched this experiment George W. Bush was president, and nobody knew what a “blog” was. There were no hate crime protections for LGBTQ people, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was still in place, and gay and lesbian people couldn’t get married anywhere in the United States. There was no YouTube, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, and no iPhone!

There’s no one reason I’ve decided it’s time for a change. When you do something for nearly two decades you start to wonder if there’s anything else for you out there. And when there’s a global pandemic and you’re stuck in isolation for a year obsessively absorbing the actions of a fascist in charge of the country you start pondering those ‘life’ questions even more. 

So what do I plan to do? I don’t know right now, but I do have a few ideas. I want to get back to creating things. I want to see what else is out there for me. I want to take a deep breath and finally maybe have a weekend off.

So many readers and commenters have offered their words of support over the years and I’m grateful for your lasting readership, and also the criticism. I have tried to learn from it.

I’d also like to thank the many writers and contributors I’ve worked with closely, including Bobby Hankinson, Sean Mandell, Kyler Geoffrey, David Mixner, Corey Johnson, Ari Ezra Waldman, Naveen Kumar, Randy Rainbow, Nathaniel Rogers, Kevin Sessums, Craig Karpel, Ari Karpel, Adam Rhodes, Andrew Belonsky, Lisa Keen, Ed Salvato, Billy Kolber, Anthony Costello, Brandon Thorp and Penn Bullock, Jon Barrett, Josh Helmin, Josh Koll, Brian Sloan, Charles Pulliam-Moore, Christian Walters, Daniel Villareal, Susie Bright, Jon Bailiff, Garth Greenwell, Jake Folsom, John Wright, Josh Trujillo, Julian Ward, Kenneth Walsh, Lewis Payton, Luis Damian Veron, Leo Herrera, Matthew Rettenmund, Muri Assuncao, Nathan Manske, Occupy the Disco’s Ru Bhatt, Josh Appelbaum and Tadeu Maghales, RJ Aguiar, Sam Greisman, Savas Abadsidis, and Steve Pepdjonovic. Again, apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone.

Keep in touch.

Slowly, many of the bloggers and platforms from the Blogger Summit are ceasing to blog although remaining active in advocacy and calling out bigots and hypocrites. I am so thankful for those with whom I was lucky enough to interact over the years.  Best of luck Andy!!

National LGBT Blogger Initiative Summit

Almost a month ago I did a post on the National LGBT Blogger Initiative Summit to be held in Washington, D.C., on the weekend of December 5-7, 2008. The goal of the initiative which was the brainchild of by Mike Rogers of PageOne Q and BlogActive.com is to support training and grants for "the country's leading and emerging online voices." The program, was established with a leadership gift of $50,000 from Jonathan Lewis of the Progressive Insurance family. While I figured that it was a long shot, I applied for the summit through the website. I just found out that I have been selected to attend! Wow!
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I have registered for the summit and am still waiting on more details about the agenda for the summit, not to mention who else will be attending. I am very, very excited to have made the selection cut and to have what I beleive will be a wonderful experience. One of my goals is to take this blog to a higher level and I hope this program will help me to achieve that goal. I believe blogs and the information the Internet offers can make a huge difference over time for the benefit of the LGBT community and democracy in general. I will share more information as I receive it.

Influence of Gay Bloggers Highlighted in Washington Post

The Washington Post has an article up today entitled "Gay Bloggers' Voices Rise in Chorus of Growing Political Influence" that among other things profiles Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend. Having met Pam at the LGBT Blogger Summit last December, I can vouch for her intelligence, quick wit and great sense of humor. Ditto for Mike Rogers also mentioned in the article. The article also notes several other "must read" blogs that include the Bilerico Project for which I am now a contributor through Bilerico-DC (that blog's formal launch will be on March 2, 2009). The article likewise notes how the gay political presence online is helping to re-energize and strengthen the gay rights movement in a bottom-up manner, with bloggers from off the beaten track having the ability to be involved. I congratulate Pam, Mike and other gay bloggers - a number of whom I met at the Summit - for their efforts to make a difference. Here are some story highlights:

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Only the blogosphere, perhaps, has room for Pam Spaulding -- a black lesbian who lives in North Carolina, the only state in the South that has not banned same-sex marriage. "California, Arizona and Florida all passed marriage amendments in November," says Spaulding, 44, an IT manager by day and a round-the-clock blogger. "All eyes are on North Carolina now." . . . What she doesn't write is that, so long as she's blogging, what happens in North Carolina won't stay in the Tar Heel State.

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Pam's House Blend is an influential voice in the gay political blogosphere, must-reads that include the Bilerico Project, Towleroad and AMERICAblog, each attracting a few hundred to a few thousand hits a day. Just as the liberal Net-roots and the conservative "rightroots" movements have affected traditional party structures, the still relatively small gay political presence online is rebooting the gay rights movement in a decentralized, spontaneous, bottom-up way. It's spreading news via blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Online, a story about two 16-year-old girls in a Lutheran private school in California being expelled for "conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians" -- as the school's lawyer describes it -- goes viral. And hits nerves.

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In the past, someone like Spaulding would have been relegated to the sidelines. She doesn't work for national gay rights organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign or the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. She lives with her partner, Kate, an audiologist, in Durham, far from San Francisco, New York or Washington, where gay activism has been historically based. But now she's helping shape the agenda, one voice in a chorus of sometimes dissonant, sometimes harmonious, often in-your-face voices that is pushing established gay groups and redefining the meaning of grass-roots action in this new media age.

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"What happened after Proposition 8 caught the national gay groups completely off guard. I think it surprised them. I think it really showed them that when it comes to harnessing grass-roots energy, they need to get online," says Kevin Naff, editor of the Washington Blade, a gay newspaper. "What happened online came together overnight for little or no money, and the protests were covered by the mainstream press. If national groups wanted to coordinate the kind of mass protests we saw, they would spend $1 million and take six months to do it."

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Though Andrew Sullivan, the openly gay Washington media veteran, has been blogging since 2000, for many, the gay political presence online began nearly five years ago. That's when blogger Mike Rogers, a longtime activist, began outing gay staffers on Capitol Hill who worked for Republicans supporting what he called "anti-gay" policies. It was controversial, it was provocative, it got everyone's attention. But the gay political blogosphere wasn't just about outing. From the outset, it highlighted issues that bloggers felt were misunderstood, back-burnered or not fully covered by the mainstream media.

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For instance, when it was announced that the Rev. Rick Warren, whose megachurch in Orange County, Calif., endorsed Prop. 8, would deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration, gay bloggers pounced. . . . On inauguration weekend, when the opening prayer by Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest to be ordained as a bishop in a major Christian church, was excluded from the live HBO broadcast of the concert at Lincoln Memorial, bloggers pounced again. HBO ended up re-airing the broadcast with Robinson, and pressure from the gay blogosphere was one of the reasons why.

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And the sheer diversity of blogs written by gays, lesbians and transgenders proves that, like all minority groups, the gay community is not monolithic. Though they may blog about the same topic -- say, Prop. 8 -- it doesn't mean they'll arrive at the same conclusion.

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Spaulding started blogging in 2004, the year 11 states passed laws banning same-sex marriage. She blogged because she wanted to express her frustration, not because she thought people would actually read her postings. But slowly, through online word of mouth, people did. Her influence is not due to the total number of people who read her -- she averages about 8,000 unique visitors a day -- but the kind of people who do, many of whom are movers and shakers in the gay community.

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"Obama has said over and over again that his will be an inclusive presidency," Spaulding says. "So we'll see. Words are just words. They must become actions. Everyone will be closely watching." Including this blogging black lesbian from the South.

LGBT Blogger Summit - Initial Reflections

This past weekend I attended the LGBT Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative in Washington, D.C., and the only way to describe the experience is that it was AMAZING!! We had approximately 83 attendees and/or presenters and in addition to being very informative and educational, the event provided an amazing opportunity to meet other bloggers in person, build connections and friendships and hopefully set the stage for increased collaboration to move forward the struggle for full LGBT equality under the law. A partial blog roll can be found here and Pam Spaulding has several posts on the event at Pam's House Blend which give an overview of the sessions, and posts can also be found at Gay Agenda, Joe My God (which includes a photo of yours truly with the boyfriend and Adele, a blogger from Richmond), Andres Duque, and Father Tony (of Billerico Project).

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Another unexpected surprise was that we were able to attend a special showing of the move "Milk" which was followed by remarks by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and a panel question and answer discussion which included Milk contemporary Clive Jones, screen writer Dustin Lance Black, and producer Bruce Cohen. The movie is very moving and for those who are too young to remember the time period it will bring to life an era that has parallels to what is happening currently with the Christianist/Mormon jihad against equality for LGBT citizens.

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I will be posting further reflections and why I believe the summit - and hopefully future summits - was important over the next few days . The energy and intellect assembled in the group was truly amazing. I am most grateful to Mike Rogers for organizing the event and Jonathan Lewis, Microsoft, Bolthouse Farms, and others who helped make the event possible.

Hate, Homophobia and Delusion in Full View at Values Voter Summit

Image via Bilerico Project.  It captures the sex obsessed mindset of the "godly folk" perfectly

In a recent post I highlighted some of the synopsis that Right Wing Watch had compiled concerning the foul hate, homophobia and racism that was the principal take away from the so-called "Values Voter Summit" over last weekend in Washington, D.C.  John Becker, a blogger friend and fellow Bilerico Project contributor attended the Values Voter Summit to report first hand on some of the virulent hate and bigotry (and, yes, unvarnished homophobia) that dominated the gathering of haters.  Here are highlights from his post on The Bilerico Project:

Last weekend the Family Research Council, an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group, held its annual "Values Voter Summit" here in Washington, D.C. The VVS is the nation's largest gathering of conservative activists from the religious right; over 2,200 people (mostly white middle-aged and older evangelicals) registered for the conference this year. Nowhere is the religious right's alliance with the Republican Party more readily visible: literally dozens of that movement's biggest stars turn out, along with senators, representatives, and future GOP presidential hopefuls seeking to burnish their social conservative credentials. 

The Values Voter Summit is also heavily attended by members of the media and progressive activists, both because it's important to keep tabs on one's political and ideological opponents and because the event is a veritable gold mine of insanity.

I went to the Values Voter Summit myself for the first time this year, and let me tell you: it did not disappoint in the batshittery department.

The civil war currently roiling inside the Republican Party between its rabidly extreme Tea Party wing and shrinking crowd of marginally-less-crazy political pragmatists was in full view, with open partisan bickering and speakers taking potshots at other, less conservative Republicans. It was clear right from the beginning whose side these so-called "values voters" were on: the first person to speak after FRC president Tony Perkins delivered his opening remarks was Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, one of the primary architects of the Republican shutdown of the federal government. 

And then came the shutdown's chief proponent and public face: Texas Senator Ted Cruz. . . . Cruz was introduced by Fox News pundit, conservative activist, and Catholic League board member Brent Bozell, who whipped the crowd into a frenzy by repeatedly slamming Sen. John McCain (an outspoken critic of Cruz and his shutdown strategy) as intellectually dishonest, a "whiner," and a "faux conservative." "Will you stand with Ted Cruz?" Bozell asked. The crowd roared its approval.

Cruz fed the crowd the red meat they wanted, rattling off talking points peppered with Biblical references, and nearly every sentence he uttered met with shouts of affirmation. When pro-immigration reform activists from the group United We Dream interrupted him, Cruz didn't miss a beat, suggesting that President Obama had sent "paid political operatives" to derail his speech. At least half a dozen other hecklers interrupted Cruz, but the crowd drowned them out with shouts of "shut up!" and chants of "USA! USA!"

By the time Cruz's speech was finished, it was clear that the religious right had found its new golden boy. If he survives this shutdown fiasco, expect him to be the Michele Bachmann/Rick Santorum crowd's choice for president in 2016.

Perhaps no two speakers personify the delusional world in which the GOP's insurgent right flank operates than Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck. Both spoke at the Values Voter Summit, and both spewed out all kinds of crazy.

[Bachmann's] peech was mostly devoted to attacking health care reform, which she called "Deathcare." She said she was "weeping" the night the Affordable Care Act passed the House, and she wondered if in a future shutdown, our horrible socialist president would stop C-sections and kidney transplants in progress or "place padlocks on a private clinic" like the ones she and her husband Marcus owned.

Did Bachmann's allegations have any factual basis whatsoever? Nope, but as usual, that didn't stop her.

Perhaps the most revealing moment of Beck's 50-minute rant -- and for this listener, certainly the most disgusting -- came when he whipped out a binder full of concentration camp badges from his extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia. (Yes, Glenn Beck has an extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia. Let that sink in for a minute.) Beck flipped through page after page of these gruesome artifacts, explaining which group wore which symbol.

He then asked the crowd if anyone knew what group wore purple triangles. (The correct answer is Jehovah's Witnesses.) One member of the audience guessed gays, to which Beck replied that no, gays' concentration camp badges were pink. And how did the crowd of so-called "values voters" respond? With laughter.

The world these Tea Party, religious-right, mostly white, middle-aged and elderly conservatives thought they knew is evolving all around them and rapidly morphing into something they no longer recognize -- and it scares the hell out of them. But instead of challenging their preconceptions and growing along with the rest of America, they've chosen to dig in their heels, wrap themselves in the Gadsden flag, climb up onto crosses of their own making, and fight desperately to cling to their prejudices for as long as possible.

And yes, that includes anti-LGBT bigotry. Stay tuned for my second and final report, where I'll go into detail about homophobia and transphobia at the Values Voter Summit.

Let's be honest.  These are NOT nice or decent people.  They are racists, bigots, homophobes and anti-Semites who wrap themselves in religion as an excuse for their vile evilness.  They deserve no respect and no deference whatsoever.  The majority of Americans need to figure this out and expedite the marginalization of these people from both politics and polite society.