Nancy Reagan Turned Her Back on Rock Hudson

I know that some see it as bad form to criticize the dead, but, in my view, it is also bad form to allow one's death to magically sweep away the misdeeds that one committed while living.  With the death of former First Lady Nancy Reagan today at age 94, one is already seeing the magic erasure beginning that omits the woman's failings while over stating her accomplishments.  As a former Republican, if I am honest, I never truly liked the woman.  She always struck me as overly concerned with appearances - artificial, if  you will - and her "Just Say No" program was always more PR than substance (I have children that suffered through the program which never addressed the underlying causes of why one would use drugs for an escape, and hence may be a bit peevish).  Perhaps the most unforgivable thing to me, however, was he betrayal of her supposed friend Rock Hudson in his final days as he was dying of AIDS related complications.  Her concern? Appearances, of course, not what was right or what a true friend would do.  A piece from Buzzfeed last year looks at this ugly aspect of Mrs. Reagan which must not be lost in all the fluff pieces that are now forthcoming.  Here are highlights:

Although only a handful of people knew it, Hudson was in Paris desperately seeking treatment for AIDS — treatment that even a prominent, wealthy actor could not get in the United States in 1985.

Although more than 5,500 people had died from the disease by the start of 1985, the government had taken few significant steps toward addressing the disease — with the Reagan administration recommending a $10 million cut in AIDS spending down to $86 million in its federal budget proposal released in February 1985.

And so, Hudson traveled to France, hoping to see Dr. Dominique Dormant, a French army doctor who had secretly treated him for AIDS the past fall. Dormant, though, was unable to get the actor transferred to the military hospital. Initially, the doctor wasn’t even able to get permission to see Hudson at the American Hospital.

Hudson’s longtime assistant, Mark Miller, flew to Paris immediately. There, he met with the French publicist, Yanou Collart. Over the following days, the pair, along with Hudson’s American publicist, Dale Olson, tried everything in a desperate attempt to get the dying actor moved to the military hospital for treatment.

These 10 days changed the course of history, as the world learned that Hudson was gay — and why he was dying.

“AIDS was on the front page of virtually every Sunday morning paper in the United States,” Randy Shilts wrote of the Sunday that followed Hudson’s collapse and revelations in his epic coverage of the epidemic, And the Band Played On. The revelations changed the course of AIDS coverage — and the broader attention paid to the disease. Hudson’s death a few months later, on Oct. 2, 1985, made him the first high-profile celebrity death from AIDS that was openly acknowledged as such.

The story was covered extensively at the time. By 1987, Shilts wrote that “[i]t was commonly accepted” that there were two phases of AIDS in the United States: “There was AIDS before Rock Hudson and AIDS after.”

One key part of this story, though, has never been told until now — not discussed at the time and lost in piles of paperwork from the Reagan administration. As Hudson lay deathly ill in the hospital, his publicist, Olson, sent a desperate telegram to the Reagan White House pleading for help with the transfer.

“Only one hospital in the world can offer necessary medical treatment to save life of Rock Hudson or at least alleviate his illness,” Olson wrote. Although the commanding officer had denied Hudson admission to the French military hospital initially, Olson wrote that they believed “a request from the White House … would change his mind.”  First Lady Nancy Reagan turned down the request.

Hudson was a supporter of the president, attending a state dinner in May 1984, as he and Davidson wrote, seated at the first lady’s table. There, she asked him about his health. Shilts reported that Hudson told her he had caught a “flu bug” when filming in Israel. “I’m feeling fine now,” he said.

For Hudson, his longtime desire for secrecy about the fact that he was gay likely was only reinforced by the anti-gay sentiments that the advent of AIDS raised.

In a desperate telegram sent at 12:22 p.m. ET on July 24, 1985, Olson made his case directly to the White House in a message addressed to Mark Weinberg — a special assistant to the president and deputy press secretary in the White House.

“Doctor Dominique Dormant specialist treating Rock Hudson in Paris, reports only one hospital in the world can offer necessary medical treatment to save life of Rock Hudson or at least alleviate his illness. This hospital is Ministere du la Defence Centre d’Researches du Service de Sante des Armees Percy Hospital in the city of Clamart,” the telegram read, with Olson going on to give the phone number to the hospital.

“Commanding general of Percy Hospital has turned down Rock Hudson as a patient because he is not French. Doctor Dormant in Paris believes a request from the White House or a high American official would change his mind. Can you help by having someone call the commanding general’s office at the Percy Hospital at the above number,” the telegram stated.

After Weinberg received the telegram, he shortly thereafter spoke with the first lady.  “I knew the Reagans knew Rock Hudson, obviously from their years in Hollywood, and for that reason I decided to call her,” Weinberg told BuzzFeed News in a recent interview about the 1985 request.

Would the White House intervene on Hudson’s behalf? That was what the publicist was asking for — help getting the actor, lying in the hospital in a dire condition, transferred from hospital to hospital.

Weinberg recommended to Nancy Reagan that the White House refer the matter to the U.S. Embassy in France, because, as he told BuzzFeed News, “This is probably not the [last] time we’re going to get a request like this and we want to be fair and not do anything that would appear to favor personal friends.”

Told of the communications and Weinberg’s explanation, Peter Staley — an early member of ACT UP and founder of the Treatment Action Group who was prominently featured in the Oscar-nominated AIDS documentary How to Survive a Plague — was incredulous.

“Seems strange that the Reagans used that excuse, since they often did favors for their Hollywood friends during their White House years,” Staley told BuzzFeed News, pointing out a time when President Reagan personally intervened to assist a fundraising effort led by Bob Hope, as detailed in a biography of the entertainer. “I’m sure if it had been Bob Hope in that hospital with some rare, incurable cancer, Air Force One would have been dispatched to help save him. There’s no getting around the fact that they left Rock Hudson out to dry. As soon as he had that frightening homosexual disease, he became as unwanted and ignored as the rest of us.”

The White House did not decide that AIDS would be an issue to “get into” until nearly two years after Hudson’s death.

The actor and friend of the Reagans — struggling to receive treatment in a foreign country — had been regarded, at least by the White House, just the same as everyone else with AIDS at the time.

Despite Hudson’s revelation and death in October, it wasn’t until the next year, and as the story of another person with AIDS — Ryan White, a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS through a blood treatment — entered the public spotlight, that the national policy movement began in earnest.

Even then, it took the administration’s own surgeon general, Dr. C. Everett Koop, issuing his groundbreaking Surgeon General’s Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome — without giving advance notice to the White House — and the Senate pressing for a presidential commission on AIDS for the White House to take steps toward action.

When President Reagan finally decided that he would not ignore the disease, he gave his first major public address on the issue on May 31, 1987 — at the request of another Hollywood star, and longtime friend of Hudson’s, Elizabeth Taylor.

When Koop drafted Reagan’s remarks for the dinner, he wrote, in part, “It’s also important that America not judge those who have the disease but care for them with dignity and kindness. Passing moral judgments is up to God; our part is to ease the suffering and to find a cure.”

Within the White House and throughout the administration, though, many conservatives vigorously disagreed with Koop’s report and recommendations. Regularly, those with anti-gay opinions ruled the day. For Carl Anderson — then a special assistant to Reagan who worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison and now the current supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus — such language was completely unacceptable.

In a two-sentence memo he sent to Mari Maseng, then the director of the Office of Public Liaison, on May 28, 1987, Anderson wrote bluntly, “Failure to make moral judgments on this behavior is why we have this epidemic. To my knowledge, the President has never said that we are to abandon moral judgment on these types of matters.”

The official, if unstated, White House position was that those with AIDS should not be rejected — but could still be judged. Final judgment comes from God, but Americans could pass moral judgments in the meantime.

“Drenched in animus, stigmatization, and an inexplicable nonchalance, the notes and memoranda provide a window into federal discrimination against a despised group, even in the midst of a raging epidemic,” Charles Francis, the president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., told BuzzFeed News about the documents.

By the time Reagan spoke, Shilts reported, it was known that more than 36,000 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS — more than 20,000 of whom, including Rock Hudson, had died. Later data would show the numbers were significantly higher, with more than 41,000 dead by the end of 1987.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive when it comes to betrayal by supposed friends. When I came out some 14 years ago, I found out very painfully how few friends I actually had.  Suddenly being gay made me radioactive and shunned.  I still clearly remember being at a swim meet for one of my children's high school team and having three of my supposed friends and surf buddies walk by me as if I were invisible.   I would also note that Carl Anderson who was noted in the article and who is now Supreme Knight of the Knight of Columbus has never ever condemned the Catholic Church hierarchy for the sex abuse scandal or demanded that the Church cease protecting and covering up for child rapists. It is the Reagans and their god fearing advisers who are the ones who were/are morally bankrupt.  If there is a god, I suspect Nancy Reagan is now receiving judgment herself. 

MAINE: NOM Finally Hands Over Donors List and Only SIX Names Are On It

I and many others have long speculated that one reason why the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") has fought tooth and claw and blatantly violated campaign finance disclosure laws was because did not want it disclosed that rather than being a "broad grass roots movement" it was really a front for a small group of anti-gay extremists.  These suspicions have now been now confirmed in Maine where NOM has been forced to disclose the names of the donors who contributed over $2 million to back NOM's anti-gay campaign.  ONLY SIX donors contributed the money expended. Worse yet for NOM, the vast majority of the money tracks back to a single individual. That's right, SIX donors. And, oh yes, the Knights of Columbus was one of the six donors and spent $140,000 better spent on true charitable works to deprive LGBT individuals their civil legal rights.  It is LONG past time that the K of C lost its tax-exempt status.  Here are highlights from the Bangor Daily News:

The National Organization for Marriage has filed details of its financial activities related to a 2009 effort to repeal Maine’s same-sex marriage law after a more than five-year legal battle over Maine’s campaign finance laws. 

Brian Brown, president and co-founded of the National Organization for Marriage, said by phone Monday that being forced to disclose donors was a “gross injustice” to his organization.

The National Organization for Marriage funneled more than $2 million to a political action committee called Stand for Marriage Maine, which represented about 64 percent of the PAC’s spending on the referendum that repealed a same-sex marriage law enacted by the Legislature and Gov. John Baldacci. Same-sex marriage became law in Maine after voters endorsed it through another referendum in 2012.

The National Organization for Marriage, which has been arguing that Maine’s campaign finance law should not apply to the disclosure of national-level donors, already has paid a record fine to the state of more than $50,000 in the matter. Wayne said Monday the filing appears on initial inspection to satisfy Maine’s campaign finance reporting requirements.

The donor list includes one Mainer and four out-of-state donors who gave the National Organization for Marriage between $50,000 and $750,000 in individual donations.
— Richard Kurtz of Cape Elizabeth, $50,000 on Aug. 5, 2009.
— John Templeton of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, $300,000 on Oct.1, 2009.
— Terrence Caster of San Diego, California, $300,000 on Oct. 9, 2009.
— Knights of Columbus of New Haven, Connecticut, $140,000 on Sept. 4, 2009.
— Sam Fieler of New York City, $750,000 on July 15, 2009, and $500,000 on Oct. 13, 2009.
— There were an additional $5,279 in smaller contributions that were not itemized on the report.

Like everything else that comes out of NOM - and the mouths of Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher - the claims that NOM is a broad based "grassroots" organization is a lie and utter bullshit.  NOM is a front group for a handful of anti-gay bigots and anti-gay religious organizations like the Mormon Church, K of C, and U.S. Catholic bishops.  When the godly folk's lips are moving, the safest assumption is that they are lying - you will rarely be proved wrong.

Conservatives Praise Severely Flawed Study About Same-Sex Parents

Dishonest "researcher" Donald Sullins

This blog has noted a number of times the hugely flawed gay parenting "study" issued by Mark Regnerus.  Indeed, the study was so flawed that Regnerus' own department trashed both Regnerus and his anti-gay report that was funded by right wing anti-gay groups,  Now, Donald Paul Sullins, a Catholic priest and sociology professor at Catholic University of America who is also a fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of Family Research Council, a certified hate group, has authored a similar study that seeming decided the anti-gay findings it wanted to derive and then manipulated data and facts to purportedly support the preordained conclusions. As I have said many, many times, no one lies more often or more deliberately than the "godly folk."   Both Regnerus and now Sullins need to be expelled from the faculties of their respective universities.   Think Progress looks at this latest religious extremist propaganda smear piece.  Here are highlights:

Conservatives are excitedly promoting a new study that supposedly reveals negative outcomes for the children of same-sex parents. Like the infamously flawed Mark Regnerus study rushed out two years ago, the new study seems timed to impact the Supreme Court’s upcoming consideration of marriage equality for same-sex couples. It suffers, however, from some of the same flaws and biases as Regnerus’ study, and doesn’t actually support the argument against marriage equality that it tries to make.

The new study comes from Donald Paul Sullins, a Catholic priest and sociology professor at Catholic University of America. Sullins is a fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council, and a Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, which has funneled millions of dollars into fighting marriage equality over the past decade. In 2010, he co-wrote a study suggesting that female homosexuality was somehow connected to growing up in a broken home, and when he has written about same-sex marriage, he uses scare quotes around the word “marriage.”

Sullins conducted an analysis of data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) that had been collected from 1997-2013. He concluded that information about the 512 same-sex parents identified in the study demonstrates that their children have more emotional problems compared to couples raised by their biological different-sex couples.

One of the first major flaws, however, is the fact that Sullins has no information about whether the same-sex couples were actually married. As he notes, “Almost all opposite-sex parents who are raising joint biological offspring are in intact marriages, but very few, if any, same-sex parents were married during the period under observation.”

No conclusions can actually be drawn about the impacts of legalizing same-sex marriage because the study, by its own admission, collected no data about same-sex marriage or its effect on children. 

Regnerus himself provides an overview of the research. In his attempt to defend it, however, he in turn reveals that it also has the very same flaws as his own study.

As a vehicle for opposing same-sex marriage, the study severely lacks integrity, as its political positions don’t jibe with its data.  

Conservatives praise these studies for their large samples, eagerly highlighting their negative results while ignore the distortions required to arrive at them. A recent large study from Australia with a similarly-sized pool of same-sex parents who had actually raised children together as couples found that the children have quite positive outcomes. Indeed, there are ample studies that consistently justify the medical community’s support for same-sex couples to have equal access to marriage and joint adoption for their families. As Regnerus himself pointed out, when researchers don’t conflate same-sex families with unstable homes, the results are positive.

It is also noteworthy that Sullins is a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus, an organization that has consistently supported bishops and cardinals who covered up for and abetted predator priests and threatened and intimidated abuse victims and their families.   The K of C was founded to protect widows and children but over the years its main focus has been to support the corrupt Church hierarchy and throw children under the bus. 

How the Knights of Columbus Bankrolls Extremism

For the record, I am a former member of the Knights of Columbus ("K of C") and once was a member of its 4th Degree (the highest level).  That all changed when I came out and left the anti-gay Roman Catholic Church.  But what clinched my exiting from the K of C was the organization's refusal to demand that members of the Church hierarchy who aid and abetted predatory priests and who threatened and intimidated victims and their families be disciplined.  Rather, the K of C leadership had its collective nose so far up the ample asses of the hierarchy, its a wonder they did not smother.  All of this is in stark contrast to the goals and motivations that were behind the K of C's founding: to aid widows and families and to provide a social organizations for immigrants facing discrimination. Now, the K of C has gone on to bankroll discrimination and other right wing causes as examined by a piece in Think Progress.  Here are some article highlights:

In 1882, a group of Catholic men gathered together by New Haven, CT pastor Father Michael J. McGivney incorporated an organization to provide for the families of its deceased members. More than 125 years later, the Knights of Columbus boasts of more than 1.8 million members and of “donating more than $167.5 million to charitable needs and projects” in 2012. Among its members: presidential 2016 hopeful Jeb Bush (R), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R), and Justice Samuel Alito.

But while much of the Knights’ charitable efforts in recent years have supported purely altruistic causes such as the Special Olympics and Habitat for Humanity, millions of their charitable dollars have funded a very socially conservative ideological agenda: opposing abortion, LGBT rights, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and pornography, while supporting public funding for religious organizations. 

The Knights also operate a legally-separate but affiliated charitable arm called the Knights of Columbus Charities Inc. That tax-exempt non-profit organization made about 57 percent of its annual grants in 2013 to efforts to “promote matters affective life family, marriage and similar priorities in building a culture of life.” More than $1 million of that went to support “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” a network of facilities that dissuade women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies, often by sharing misinformation.

Beyond just the “culture of life” initiatives, the Knights of Columbus have also spent a large sum of money on other controversial political issues. 

With at least $250,000 in contributions since 2010, the Knights of Columbus are among the most generous donors to Morality in Media, likely the nation’s loudest voice against adult pornography, and its efforts to curb “the ravages of the pornography pandemic in America.”

And since 2010, the Knights of Columbus have given at least $100,000 in support of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies — the nation’s leading force for a more conservative judiciary . . . 

[T]he Knights of Columbus also sent more than $625,000 to another conservative legal group, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. . . . . In addition to its work against the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate and against LGBT rights, Becket has worked to erode the separation of church and state required by the First Amendment. This has included defending prayer at government functions, religious symbols in public spaces, and public funding for religious schools.

the group’s annual resolutions continue to endorse efforts to make sure governments at all levels embrace a “definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.”

And they followed their words with money. In 2012, the national organization sent $450,000 to the ballot committee pushing to block Maryland’s marriage equality legislation, $300,000 to block marriage equality in Washington, $100,000 to oppose same-sex marriage in Maine, and $250,000 to support a proposed constitutional ban in Minnesota. All four efforts were unsuccessful. The national group and local chapters also contributed more than $1.3 million in 2008 toward the passage of California’s Proposition 8, $100,000 to Arizona’s 2008 constitutional amendment, and $100,000 to Kansas’ 2005 amendment effort.

Although most Catholics in the United States support marriage equality,” it concluded, “the best known U. S. Catholic fraternal organization has used its considerable financial strength and its political connections to mount aggressive campaigns against legislation that would permit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to be treated equally under the law.”

Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People For the American Way who follows the organization, told ThinkProgress the group is not being transparent about its aims: “Many Catholic parishioners who support the Knights of Columbus might be surprised and dismayed to know that the money they gave at the pancake breakfast is being used to deny equality to their LGBT friends and family,” he observed. “The Knights of Columbus do a lot of good work. Unfortunately, they also contribute millions to culture war battles against LGBT equality and reproductive choice.”

I suspect that today's K of C is not exactly what its founder had in mind back in 1882.

The Christofascists Nerve Center: The World Congress of Families

The fruits of WCF's export of hate in Russia

As it commits atrocities and pushes for genocide against those who do not subscribe to its perverted and hated based form of Islam, it claims to be supporting the true pure message of the Koran.  Jump thousands of miles to the west and one finds another organization which makes the promotion of hatred towards targeted groups its main agenda under the guise of furthering "Biblical values."  While not engaging directly in horrifically violence itself - at least not yet - it encourages others to engage in legalistic and physical acts of violence.  The organization?  The World Congress of Families ("WCF"), the main exporter of Christofascist hate across the globe.   The Human Rights Campaign has compiled a report that details the heinous work of WCF and its deadly tentacles extending across the globe.  Here are highlights from HRC's press release announcing the release of the report (the full report can be found here):

Labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and active in several nations across five continents, the Rockford, IL-based World Congress of Families (WCF) has organized large international “pro-family” conventions that bring together the most fringe activists engaged in anti-LGBT extremism since 1997.  In July, WCF announced that its next annual international convention will take place in Salt Lake City, making it the first ever hosted on American soil.

“The World Congress of Families coordinates a dangerous group of activists spreading anti-LGBT rhetoric and promoting laws and policies that criminalize LGBT people and the speech of those who support them,” said Ty Cobb, HRC Foundation’s Director of Global Engagement.  “They praise Vladimir Putin as the standard-bearer for traditional ‘family values’ and honored a Nigerian activist who claims LGBT advocates conspire with the terrorist group Boko Haram with a “Woman of the Year” award.  Their advocacy abroad harms LGBT people from Russia to Nigeria and beyond.  Hate is not an American value, and we must expose and work to stop the World Congress of Families and their extremist allies.”

Uganda, Russia, and Nigeria have enacted horrific anti-LGBT laws within the past year, and LGBT people in those countries have suffered vicious and violent backlashes in their wake. This includes harassment, discrimination, prosecution, public beatings, and murder. WCF and its affiliates are connected to anti-LGBT advocacy in each of the three countries, among many others.

WCF affiliate Scott Lively traveled repeatedly to Uganda claiming that LGBT people are responsible for the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the spread of HIV/AIDS.  Some Ugandan officials credit Lively with the idea of introducing new legislation to further criminalize homosexuality in the country, and prominent Ugandan LGBT activists say the "bill is essentially his creation."  WCF also forcefully advocated for the draconian anti-LGBT Russian law, met with the law’s author in the Russian Duma, and released a public letter in support of the measure. WCF has also repeatedly hosted events in Nigeria with “pro-family” activists from Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

“Their harmful impact is being felt in nearly every corner of the globe, and we urge all fair-minded Americans to reject the World Congress of Families and their exportation of anti-LGBT hate.”

Not surprisingly, many of WCF's allies comprise a who's who of American Christofascists, the Mormon Church and the hypocrites in the Knights of Columbus who engage in the equivalent of fellatio with high Catholic Church clerics who aided and abetted sexual predators among the Catholic clergy and engaged tome and time again in the obstruction of justice.   Here are a few telling quotes from the report:

WCF describes itself as “an alliance of orthodox believers, based on their commitment to Judeo-Christian values and the natural family.” It has ties to several religious organizations, including the Knights of Columbus, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Russian Orthodox Church. Speakers at WCF meetings have included representatives from the Southern Baptist Convention, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, and the Center for Family Ministries.

WCF partners are some of the largest and most influential conservative groups in America and throughout the world — including Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and National Right to Life Committee. A 2001 conference in Washington, D.C., was sponsored by, among others, the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation, the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Concerned Women for America, the Brigham Young University Management Society and Southern Virginia University.

WCF has done much to fan the flames of this frightening increase in homophobia and Transphobia. According to Mother Jones , “the rise of anti-gay laws in Russia has mirrored, almost perfectly, the rise of WCF’s work in the country.”  Indeed, WCF takes full credit for the rise of anti-choice and anti-LGBT sentiment and legislation in Russia.

WCF has also been working for years to block marriage equality in Australia. Legislative efforts against equality coincide with WCF’s presence in the country. WCF officials have been traveling to Australia since 2008, and the seventh World Congress was held in Sydney, Australia, in May 2013.

Read the whole report.  WCF is an insidious organization.  Worse yet, it and many of its partners parade themselves as tax-exempt charities.   They all need to lose their tax exempt status and be treated as hate groups by decent, moral people. 

Is It Time for NOM to Shut Down?

NOM's pathetic turnout

I have long suspected that the National Organization for Marriage (is in reality a front group for either a few wealthy anti-gay bigots or the Mormon Church and/or Roman Catholic Church.  This reality would explain NOM's hysteria over refusing to report the names of its donor as required by many state campaign finance laws, including those in Maine where NOM has been found to have violated the law.  Brian Brown and others at NOM who have been making a very nice livelihood peddling anti-gay animus consistently allege that the organization has "broad based" and "numerous financial supporters."  If that is the case, few of these supposed legions of supports showed up for NOM's much ballyhooed "March for Marriage" in Washington, DC.  By all reports, attendance was pathetic despite NOM's promotion of the event, including offering free buses to would be participants.  As The New Civil Rights Movement reports, every news out let that has written about the event has lowered their estimates of the number of attendees in direct opposition to NOM's claim that 10,000 were at the failed event.  Here are some highlights:

[A]lmost all news reports including those from reporters on the ground estimated the number of people at NOM’s anti-gay hate march at 2000. The march, organized by the National Organization For Marriage, was thoroughly panned across most of the media.

World Magazine reported, however, that NOM claimed the number of people at the march was 10,000, as The New Civil Rights Movement pointed out earlier today. And the Deseret News (initially) put the number at 5,000.

Friday evening after a lengthy email conversation with The New Civil Rights Movement and several posts from critics and activists on social media, Kellner and the Deseret News changed their reporting to read “several thousand people present.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports the “crowd appeared to number between 1,000 and 2,000; there was no official estimate.”

The Washington Times also reported on how many people attended the march.  “Hundreds.”  “Hundreds march in defense of traditional marriage,” the Washington Times’ headline reads.

[C]learly if the nation’s top-funded and number one organization attacking the rights of the LGBT community and same-sex couples cannot even muster up 5,000 or 10,000 people to come to a rally in Washington, D.C. — even after providing free busses — then clearly America has grown tired of them. NOM’s rhetoric and tactics are so far removed from the mainstream that only 2,000 want to show up to support their cause? The rally will go down in history as evidence they lost the battle for marriage.

Like virtually everything else that NOM puts out, it is clear that the 10,000 attendees claim is a lie.  NOM needs to either shut down or start being honest and admit that it is nothing more than a front group that exists to hide the identity of a few large donors.  The Catholic Church and groups like the Knights of Columbus remain high on my suspect list of the handful of individuals/groups that fund NOM. 

Is Anti-Gay Protect Marriage Broke?

While the National Organization for Marriage never seems short of money - I suspect thanks to the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and the Knights of Columbus - as the Supreme Court appeal of the 9th Circuit ruling striking down Proposition 8 nears oral arguments in March, Protect Marriage, the anti-gay organization which is defending Prop 8 since the State of California has refused to do so is now claiming that it is broke.   Given the Christofascist proclivity to lie incessantly, it is hard to know whether the whining is true or merely a form of scare tactics to drive Kool-Aid drinkers and anti-gay extremists to take out their checkbooks and stroke checks.  Reuters has coverage of Protect Marriage's purported financial straits.  Here are highlights:

ProtectMarriage.com, the advocacy group defending a California gay marriage ban now under review by the high court, showed a $2 million deficit in its legal fund at the end of 2011 - the third year in a row that expenses exceeded donations, federal tax records show.

The 2012 accounts are not yet available. ProtectMarriage.com says it has since covered the 2011 shortfall. However, it is still $700,000 short in fundraising for its Supreme Court costs, according to a ProtectMarriage.com attorney, Andrew Pugno. That message has gone out to donors, with some urgency, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in March in its first thorough review of same-sex marriage.

"Unless the pace of donations starts to pick up right away, we could soon be forced over a financial cliff," ProtectMarriage.com said in an email to donors earlier this month.

ProtectMarriage.com's lead outside counsel, Charles Cooper, has not stopped work on the Supreme Court case, although he declined to comment on financial arrangements with clients.

But gay marriage opponents' money problems go beyond legal fees for the landmark case: they were vastly outspent in four state ballot campaigns last fall, and lost all of those races.

The fund-raising fall-off is a result of donor fatigue, the dramatic rise in public support for gay marriage and the softening of some major gay marriage opponents, including the Mormon Church, people involved with the campaigns say. Both individuals and institutions opposed to gay marriage say many are fearful of being associated with the cause.

A group of corporations opposed to DOMA has formed the Business Coalition for DOMA Repeal, including Marriott International Inc, Aetna Inc, eBay Inc, and Thomson Reuters Corp, the corporate parent of Reuters News.

I for one hope the claims of financial straits are true.   And kudos to the corporations that have stepped up to help remove religious based bigotry from the nation's laws.

Catholic Group Demands that Knights of Columbus Cease Anti-Gay Campaign

Perhaps there is still some hope for the Catholic Church laity which typically ignores much of what the Vatican dictates but fails to ever actually speak out against the evil agenda of the Church hierarchy and its water carriers such as the Knights of Columbus.   The Knights raise millions of dollars annually to allegedly assist the poor and needy - the organization's founder wanted it to aid and protect widows and children left destitute when husbands/fathers died back in the bad old days of the Gilded Age yearned for by Republican plutocrats - yet this past election cycle squandered millions of dollars funding the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-gay groups.  As the Boston Globe reports, some Catholics are outraged and want the anti-gay campaign to stop.  Here are highlights:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Catholic advocacy group delivered a petition with about 7,500 signatures to the Knights of Columbus on Tuesday, asking the Catholic fraternal organization to stop using its money to oppose same-sex marriage.  Catholics United Education Fund submitted the petition to the Knights’ New Haven headquarters.

The liberal advocacy group, which was founded in 2004 and claims 45,000 members, says the Knights spent more than $600,000 opposing same-sex marriage in the last election cycle. The group says the effort drives younger Catholics away from the faith and the Knights should focus on serving the poor and vulnerable.

‘‘As a young Catholic, I want my church to focus on serving the marginalized, not fighting for far-right political issues,’’ said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United.

Catholics United, citing a report last month from a coalition of Catholics who support gay rights, said the Knights donated more than $600,000 this year for ballot initiatives in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state.

The Knights and its affiliated insurance company have spent more than $6 million since 2005 opposing same-sex marriage, according to the report cited by Catholics United.

If liberal Catholics really want to make change occur in the Church, they need to vote with their feet and/or cease ALL financial support to Church parishes and institutions.  The foul old men in Rome only react to two things: falling membership and falling contributions.  For those Catholics seeking an alternative to a institutional Church that aids and abets child rapists, I highly recommend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which is gay accepting and accepts partnered gay clergy.  As for the Knights, stop all donations of any kind and tell them why your money is being donated elsewhere.

Marriage Equality Wins Across the Board

Candidly, I never believed that it would happen, but last night marriage equality prevailed in every state where it was on the ballot: Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington State.  And it prevailed despite huge amounts of money thrown against LGBT rights by the National Organization for Marriage, the Catholic Church hierarchy, and the Knights of Columbus, and their active dissemination of utter lies and falsehoods denigrating LGBT citizens.  One can only suspect that this morning, Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins and the morally bankrupt Catholic bishops are acting not only like someone peed in their Cheerios but defecated in them as well.  NOM can no longer crow that no popular vote has ever affirmed same sex marriage - yesterday it happened four times.  The message to the GOP if anyone who is still a Republican is sentiment is that the bad old days of win by gay bashing, race baiting and Bible thumping are ending.  Here are highlights from the Star Tribune on what was perhaps the biggest surprise of last night:

The proposed marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution fell short of passage early Wednesday morning, according to the Associated Press.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment had the support of only 48 percent of voters. Support for the ballot measure trailed the combined "no" votes and blank ballots by more than 100,000 votes, an amount that seem insurmountable with so few votes left to be counted.

"You dug down and fought for love, with love," Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak told hundreds of amendment opponents gathered at the RiverCentre in St. Paul late Tuesday night. "You understood compassion. This wound up being one of the most inspirational things that's ever happened in Minnesota. Minnesota is going to be the state that's going to show the country exactly what Minnesota values are all about."

"We're for equality," Dayton said. "We understand the Constitution of the United States, we understand the founding premise where all men and women are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and those certainly include the right to marry the person you love."

As for Maryland, Virginia's neighbor just across the Potomac, the Baltimore Sun has coverage.  Here are highlights:

Marylanders made history Tuesday as they voted to make same-sex marriage legal — a question that had been defeated each of the 32 times it had been on the ballot in other states.

"To Maryland's children – please know that you and your families matter to the people of our state," Gov. Martin O'Malley, who pushed for the law, said early Wednesday in a statement declaring victory. "Whether your parents happen to be gay or straight, Democratic, Republican or Independent, your families are equal before the eyes of the law."

The Free State joins six others and the District of Columbia, which have allowed same-sex marriage. Local courts can begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in January.

One can only wonder whether the Republican Party of Virginia will get the message from these four states and Romney's defeat that either the GOP leaves its 11th Century thinking behind or it faces a slow but unalterable death.  Allowing The Family Foundation's Victoria Cobb to rule the Virginia GOP like some dominatrix is going to be more of  a losing proposition with each passing year.

Bangor Daily News Endorses Marriage Equality

Lost at times in the noise of the presidential race is the ballot question in four states on whether or not same sex couples will at last be confirmed in the same civil marriage rights enjoyed by their heterosexual counterparts without a second thought.  Despite the massive anti-gay spending by the Roman Catholic Church and its surrogates, the National Organization for Marriage and the Knights of Columbus, and the associated dissemination of lies and untruths, some polls show marriage equality perhaps pulling off a winning vote.  Also encouraging is the fact that in a number of these four states, leading newspapers are endorsing marriage equality and removing religion from the civil marriage laws.  One, the Bangor Daily News says the issue comes down to one of basic fairness.  Here are highlights from the paper's editorial:

Permitting gay couples to marry will uphold equal treatment required by the U.S. Constitution, promote family values and protect religious beliefs. The ballot initiative is a matter of fairness and, in the end, care for one another.

It’s a matter of equality. Partners raising their children together should both be able to make medical decisions concerning their children’s welfare. Partners should be able to benefit from the others’ pension. But, most of all, gay couples should have the affirmation that their home state respects their belief in marriage and their commitment to each other.

Maine cannot discriminate against gays and lesbians on matters of housing, employment, public accommodation, credit or education. It should not, then, be able to discriminate when it comes to the right of marriage. Some people may understandably oppose gay marriage for religious reasons, but — while the church has played a long and important role in marriage — they should remember that marriage licenses are issued by the state.

In his state of the union address in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower spoke of ending discrimination against minorities. His words apply today:

“Our civil and social rights form a central part of the heritage we are striving to defend on all fronts and with all our strength. I believe with all my heart that our vigilant guarding of these rights is a sacred obligation binding upon every citizen. To be true to one’s own freedom is, in essence, to honor and respect the freedom of all others.”

Some argue that gay couples should be granted only civil unions. How, though, under the 14th Amendment, is separate ever equal? What is currently missing is the public recognition of the private love, of which the most accurate representation is marriage. People want to build supportive families. This is a good thing.

Voting yes on Question 1 represents commitment to human rights and respect of religious beliefs. History is shining a spotlight on Maine, as potentially the first state to legalize same-sex marriage by a referendum vote driven by proponents. We hope voters affirm Maine as a place where people value the rights of all their neighbors equally.

Kudos to the Bangor Daily News.  Sadly, the truth is that the Catholic Church and the Christofascists hold nothing but contempt for the equal rights of other citizens.  They care only about their own rights and, in my view, have open contempt for the religious freedom promised by the U.S. Constitution to ALL citizens, gay or straight, black or white, Christian or non-Christian.  Their selfishness is breathtaking.   Ironically, Eisenhower's granddaughter has left the GOP in part because the party no longer upholds the principles enunciated by Dwight Eisenhower.

Most U.S. Catholics Back Marriage Equality, Yet Knights of Columbus Pour $15.85 Million into Anti-Gay Efforts

I realize that I have addressed the issue of the millions of dollars ($15.85 million through 2010 - the Knights delayed filing for 2011 until after this year's elections most likely to hide their involvement in political activities) being poured into anti-gay efforts by the Knights of Columbus - an organization founded to protect widows and children through a fraternal insurance plan and social support.  The Knights of Columbus - of which I was a 4th Degree member up until the time I left the Catholic Church out of disgust over the sex abuse scandal - have betrayed the goals of its founder in many ways, not the least of which is the organization's utter failure to demand accountability and a thorough house cleaning of the Church hierarchy.  As the wealthiest lay organization in the Catholic universe, the Knights could have been a cause for good and the expulsion of bishops and cardinals (and yes even Popes) who played a role in the world wide criminal conspiracy to aid, abet and cover up for sexual predator priests who preyed - often repeatedly - on children and youths.  Instead, the Knights have continued to exhibit blind, servile allegiance to those who allowed crimes against children and fought tooth and claw to deny compensation to victims.  Father McGivney, founder of the Knights must be rolling in his grave.

But such allegiance to criminal conspirators is not the Knights' only sin against children.  The organization has poured millions of dollars into anti-gay initiatives, including anti-gay marriage efforts which, if successful, guarantee that many children will be deprived of the stability and financial security that marriage would bring if their same sex parents could marry.  And then there's the issue of the misuse of funds raised from other Catholics that is raised under the premise that it will be used to help needy children, especially those suffering for disabilities.  Hypocrites is perhaps the best word to describe what the Knights of Columbus have become under the current leadership.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the anti-gay efforts of the Knights and the organization's growing isconnect from the Catholic laity which increasingly supports same sex marriage by considerable margins.  Here are some article highlights:

Quick, what organization was founded to support justice for immigrants, boasts nearly two million (all-male) members, and loves a good parade? The Knights of Columbus still support immigrants’ rights, but those sober-faced men marching down Main Street in full parade regalia are also part of an organization that was the single largest donor in support of California’s Proposition 8. 

This venerable fraternal order has taken up the anti-equality baton in a big, flamboyant way.  The National Organization for Marriage provides organizational muscle to anti-equality initiatives and legislative campaigns. What gives them that muscle is money, and lots of it, from big donors. A new in-depth report released today by Equally Blessed, a coalition of pro-equality Catholic organizations, reveals that the Knights are among NOM’s biggest supporters.

“The Strong Right Arm of the Bishops: The Knights of Columbus and Anti-Marriage Equality Funding,” documents $6.25 million in direct Knights funding to anti-marriage equality campaigns at the national level and in a dozen states since 2005—and another $9.6 million to organizations that are working “to build a conservative religious and political culture to oppose efforts for marriage equality.” According to the report, among the biggest recipients of Knights funding are NOM ($1.9 million) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ($1.2 million). The report does not include figures for 2011 because the Knights delayed filing its tax reporting for 2011 until after the November 2012 elections.

 But you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of the millions in anti-gay spending on the organization’s website, which highlights contributions to groups like Habitat for Humanity and the Special Olympics. 

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Equally Blessed member group Dignity, . . . 

says the work “is being done under cover, using the Knights’ good name and reputation and all the good work they do in the community.” According to the Equally Blessed report, “Of the nearly $155 million donated by the Knights of Columbus in 2010, $125 million was raised at the local level through pancake breakfasts, casino nights, carnivals, and the like.”  

Duddy-Burke says most individual members of the Knights are focused on the kind of charitable work the organization is known for. She said local members have little influence over what happens at the national level.

The Equally Blessed report also notes that Supreme Knight Carol Anderson is a Republican political operative equally well connected to conservatives in the Vatican and in U.S. political circles, including William Lori, Bishop of Baltimore and head of the bishops’ anti equality efforts who also serves as the Knights’ “Supreme Chaplain.” Other right-wing groups such as the Federalist Society, the Howard Center for Family, and Religion & Society (which sponsors the World Congress of Families) have been funded by the Knights, but among the largest recipients is the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is aggressively supporting the bishops’ “religious liberty” campaign attacks on the Obama administration.

According to the report, the Catholic Church has funded more than 50 percent of the effort to write discrimination against LGBT people into the Minnesota constitution. In Maryland, cash donations from the Knights and NOM have provided more than 75 percent of the Maryland Marriage Alliance’s war chest. And in Washington, the Catholic Church, Knights, and NOM have provided more than 55 percent of the funding.

“What we have on our side is the belief of the majority of American Catholics,” says Dignity’s Duddy-Burke, noting that more than half of American Catholics support marriage equality. She says “It is not consistent with the gospel for any segment of the church to be using millions of dollars to hurt people.”

Unfortunately, nowadays, most of what the Vatican and conservative Catholics and Protestants do is not consistent with the Gospel message.  Rather, these people have assumed roles even worse and more damning that those of the Pharisees so derided in the Gospels.  Fear and hatred of others have become their principal stock in trade.  Oh, and lets not forget self-congratulation and a misplaced sense of piety.  As for the Knights of Columbus, it is far past time that their tax-exempt status be revoked.

Morally Bankrupt Knights of Columbus Leading Funder of Anti-Gay Agenda

Speaking of morally bankrupt organizations, a new report analyzed in the Washington Post confirms that the Knights of Columbus - the supposed pro-family and pro-children organization which has NEVER condemned or challenged the Catholic Church hierarchy for its world wide criminal conspiracy to protect sexual predator priests - is among the largest funding source for anti-gay initiatives around America.  I had previously looked at the K of C's anti-gay activities, but the new report suggest the magnitude of the amounts of money to deprive LGBT Americans of civil rights is far greater than previously suspected.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post piece:

The Knights of Columbus, a wealthy and influential Catholic charitable organization, is a leading funder in the push to make same-sex marriage illegal in four states that have ballot measures on the issue this fall, a coalition of gay rights groups announced Thursday (Oct. 18).

The Knights have contributed millions of dollars directly to several of the campaigns to stop the legalization of gay marriage and have channeled money through other Catholic groups. They also have provided extensive financial support to the National Organization for Marriage, according to the Human Rights Campaign, one of four advocacy groups that compiled the research.

‘’In the aggregate, the (Catholic) church and NOM are the single largest funders of discrimination, responsible for funding nearly 60 percent of all anti-equality efforts in Minnesota, Maryland, Maine and Washington,” HRC said in a statement.

The two groups have spent a combined $2.5 million, the report says, with much of it coming from the Knights, a group that has become increasingly involved in conservative culture war issues under the leadership of Carl Anderson, a longtime Republican activist.

The report, which culled information largely from the Knights’ Internal Revenue Service filings, found that the Knights donated $6.25 million to fight same-sex marriage initiatives between 2005-2012. Close to $2 million of those funds went directly to NOM.

More coverage on the anti-gay efforts of the K of C can be found here where it appears that many millions of dollars have gone to anti-gay efforts even as the Knights solicit money to supposedly fund charitable efforts for those with mental retardation and other afflictions.   Meanwhile, the Knights have their noses stuck so far up the fat asses of the Catholic hierarchy that it's a miracle that they don't suffocate.

The Moral Bankruptcy of the Knights of Columbus

As many readers know, I was raised Roman Catholic and was an altar boy for a 10 years and went on to join the Knights of Columbus achieving the 4th Degree eventually.  But I ended up leaving both the Knights and the Catholic Church when it became sickeningly obvious that both the Church hierarchy and the leadership of the Knights of Columbus suffered from shocking moral bankruptcy after the sex abuse scandal exploded in the Archdiocese of Boston over a decade ago.  As we all now know, the Church hierarchy from the Pope on down engaged in what can only be described as a global criminal conspiracy to enable, aid, abet and protect sexual predator priest who have left a trail of victims worldwide numbering in the hundreds of thousands.  As for the Knights of Columbus, not a peep has been said against the Church leadership from an organization founded to aid and protect widows and children.  Instead, the Knights have slavishly groveled and brown noised to the Church hierarchy (former Bishop Timothy Daly who was documented to have threatened and intimidated victims and their families under Cardinal Law remained the Supreme Chaplain for the Knights until his retirement despite his known wrong doing against victims of child rapists).  With its wealth and unrivaled power in the Catholic Church, the Knights could have been a force for reform and a house cleaning of those who enabled and protected sexual predators.  Instead, the Knights have aligned themselves with those who ought to be behind bars (including Benedict XVI) and have become the Church's principal fundraiser for the Church's anti-gay jihad against normal, well adjusted gays who merely want full CIVIL legal rights. The Minneapolis Star Tribune looks at the sick upside down values of the Knights in the war against LGBT citizens.  Here are highlights:

In Minnesota, the Knights of Columbus are best known for hosting charitable free-throw contests, collecting pennies to support seminarians and conducting Tootsie Roll drives to aid people with disabilities.

Less well known is that members of the nation's largest Catholic fraternal organization are quietly positioning themselves to be a powerful and potentially decisive force in passing the marriage amendment, which would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

The state branch of the Knights has spent months raising money, staffing phone banks and leading seminars urging people to vote for the measure. The Minnesota Knights of Columbus are following a battle-tested formula used in several other states that passed marriage amendments. The local chapters quietly provide fundraising and crucial organizational infrastructure while the national organization pumps millions of dollars into major groups masterminding the effort to block laws around the country allowing same-sex marriage.

In the last four years, the group has given at least $3.6 million to groups leading marriage fights across the country. Now the group is trying to make its mark in Minnesota, and has directly given more than $130,000 to the fight.

The Minnesota chapters so far have given at least $31,000 to pro-amendment groups. The national headquarters has given another $100,000. But the group's 43,500 Minnesota members could prove far more valuable. In a race shaping up to be decided by a razor-thin margin, a committed bloc of thousands of energized, like-minded voters could make all the difference.

Several longtime Catholics who oppose the marriage amendment said they were surprised and troubled by the Knights' involvement in the marriage issue. They said they only knew the group for its charity work, locally and abroad.

Now they are crushed to learn the group is at the forefront of the anti-gay marriage effort and that some of their contributions might have gone to the cause.

"I don't think it is at all clear to the congregations," said Greg Seivert, a lifelong Catholic from Mendota Heights. When he was growing up, Seivert said, the Knights "were a charitable group that did the work of charity and mercy. This strikes me as a very different role. I would be very leery of contributing in any sort of way with their involvement in this political brouhaha."

The bulk of the national group's significant financial firepower comes not from its 1.8 million members, but from its lucrative and highly rated life-insurance business, Knights of Columbus Insurance.

Sharon Groves, director of the Human Rights Campaign's religious and faith program, said the group's secrecy is most troubling. The myriad entities shuffling money around to marriage-related groups makes tracking the group's contributions nearly impossible, she said.

"The Knights are really an organization pulling the wool over the eyes of many Catholics," Groves said. "They do a lot of important work, but people are being sold a bill of goods, thinking that all this work is helping the needy when really it is going toward some pretty sinister stuff."

The next time you see a Knights of Columbus fundraiser, walk on by and give your hard earned money to an organization that protects children rather than the monsters who have allowed so many young lives to be damaged or ruin - or ended by suicide.