Latest News
01-16-09
By Ryan Gierach
WeHo News
Thursday, January 15, 2009
West Hollywood, California - President-Elect Obama made two moves this week that went a long way to salving gay American's concerns about him after inviting anti-gay preacher Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation.
He began the week by inviting openly-gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who advised Obama on gay rights issues during the campaign, to deliver the invocation at a Lincoln Memorial event 48 hours prior to his swearing-in.
In other news, his communications director, answering a question in a video on the transition's web site about abolishing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), replied, "You don't hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it's 'Yes.' "
Much has been made and written about Rev. Rick Warren's selection, with gay leaders denouncing the invitation as an insulting cave in to the religious right, given the Orange County Saddleback Mega Church pastor's support for Proposition 8.
Rev. Warren made a much-publicized pre-Christmas visit to West Hollywood in an effort to mend fences (see Saddleback's Rev. Warren Comes To WeHo, Monday, December 29, 2009).
At the time, Bishop Robinson called President-Elect Obama's decision a "slap in the face."
The tables turned with this selection; Catholic League president Bill Donohue issued a statement calling Bishop Robinson "the most polarizing person in the Episcopal Church."
Consecrated in 2003, his rise to a bishopric set off a worldwide controversy in the Anglican Church, threatening to splinter it.
Rev. Warren issued a statement in which he praised Bishop Robinson's selection.
"President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground," Warren wrote. "I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen."
Despite President-elect Obama's oft repeated campaign promise to abolish DADT, Robert Gibbs, his press secretary's, flat pronouncement that the policy would be replaced with one allowing gays to serve their country openly and without fear of discharge sent ripples of excitement through the airwaves.
Chris Matthews, on his show "Hardball," led his hour on Wednesday with the story.
Former Marine pilot Tom Carpenter, a former Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) board member living in West Hollywood, cautioned that righting the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy will be more complicated than President-Elect Obama's campaign speeches and that video chat reply makes it sound, however.
Mr. Matthews interviewed California Senator Barbara Boxer, who said she thought that the Senate would approve a piece of legislation that has been incubating in the House for a few years.
That bill's sponsor, a Walnut Creek, CA congress woman named Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The question isn't if we do it, and the question isn't when we do it, it's how we do it."
"I'm going to reintroduce the bill in the next few weeks," Congress woman Tauscher said. "We've got the American people behind us."
Mr. Carpenter agreed, but said lessons learned in the Clinton Administration taught him and his fellow activists to move cautiously. "We don't want anything done right out of the box," he said.
"The President has a lot bigger fish to fry [such as] the economy, and, frankly, you need to get the withdrawal from Iraq going so the Defense Secretary gets comfortable with him," he said.
"Once the top brass gets to see that he's the kind of leader we think he is, it'll be a lot easier to get the military to buy into it."
His Pentagon sources say that the leadership, which had said "no way, no how" to gays serving in the military in 1993, will now stay neutral, handing the hot potato onto Congress for resolution.
"They'll say, ‘we'll follow the law, whatever the law is,'" he said.
Legislatively, Mr. Carpenter added, the numbers looked good in both houses.
"We went from 128 co-sponsors the first time the bill came around and got 147 co-sponsors the second go around," he said.
He expected that, with explicit encouragement from the Obama Administration, the third time will be the charm in the House.
With a 58 vote Democratic majority in the Senate, he said that the House bill would proceed because 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster could be had.
"We'll get the support of the only two moderate Republicans left in the Senate," he assured, "Maine Senators [Olympia] Snowe and Susan Collins, to break any filibuster."
Acknowledging that he was preaching to the choir in West Hollywood; Congressman Henry Waxman and Senators Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are solidly on board with the DODT revocation, he suggested another way locals could affect the debate in the legislature.
"We're all here from somewhere else," he observed. "I'm from South Carolina and still have family and friends there. It's steep hill to climb, but I take every opportunity I can get to educate them about the issue."
He encourage WeHo or California readers to discuss the issue with the folks back home as a way of making a direct impact on the debate. He said he tells his extended network that every Anglo-speaking cultural sister nation of America's - Israel, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - not only allows gay to serve, but witnessed precisely the same debate play out.
Military leaders declared the idea impossible because, they claimed, allowing gays to serve would destroy unit cohesion and morale, the same argument used here in the States.
"It's the same thing as gay marriage," he said. "When the day came to lift the ban on gays, it was the biggest non-event in their military's history," just as marriages threatened by same-sex marriage seem to have avoided the promised destruction.
Unlike desegregating itself, or allowing women to serve, Mr. Carpenter said, "there were no facilities to change or adjust. Everyone went to work the next day as usual."
Just another day at the office.
Obama’s Moves Affirm Commitment to LGBT Rights
By Ryan Gierach
WeHo News
Thursday, January 15, 2009
West Hollywood, California - President-Elect Obama made two moves this week that went a long way to salving gay American's concerns about him after inviting anti-gay preacher Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation.
He began the week by inviting openly-gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who advised Obama on gay rights issues during the campaign, to deliver the invocation at a Lincoln Memorial event 48 hours prior to his swearing-in.
In other news, his communications director, answering a question in a video on the transition's web site about abolishing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), replied, "You don't hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it's 'Yes.' "
Much has been made and written about Rev. Rick Warren's selection, with gay leaders denouncing the invitation as an insulting cave in to the religious right, given the Orange County Saddleback Mega Church pastor's support for Proposition 8.
Rev. Warren made a much-publicized pre-Christmas visit to West Hollywood in an effort to mend fences (see Saddleback's Rev. Warren Comes To WeHo, Monday, December 29, 2009).
At the time, Bishop Robinson called President-Elect Obama's decision a "slap in the face."
The tables turned with this selection; Catholic League president Bill Donohue issued a statement calling Bishop Robinson "the most polarizing person in the Episcopal Church."
Consecrated in 2003, his rise to a bishopric set off a worldwide controversy in the Anglican Church, threatening to splinter it.
Rev. Warren issued a statement in which he praised Bishop Robinson's selection.
"President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground," Warren wrote. "I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen."
Despite President-elect Obama's oft repeated campaign promise to abolish DADT, Robert Gibbs, his press secretary's, flat pronouncement that the policy would be replaced with one allowing gays to serve their country openly and without fear of discharge sent ripples of excitement through the airwaves.
Chris Matthews, on his show "Hardball," led his hour on Wednesday with the story.
Former Marine pilot Tom Carpenter, a former Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) board member living in West Hollywood, cautioned that righting the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy will be more complicated than President-Elect Obama's campaign speeches and that video chat reply makes it sound, however.
Mr. Matthews interviewed California Senator Barbara Boxer, who said she thought that the Senate would approve a piece of legislation that has been incubating in the House for a few years.
That bill's sponsor, a Walnut Creek, CA congress woman named Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The question isn't if we do it, and the question isn't when we do it, it's how we do it."
"I'm going to reintroduce the bill in the next few weeks," Congress woman Tauscher said. "We've got the American people behind us."
Mr. Carpenter agreed, but said lessons learned in the Clinton Administration taught him and his fellow activists to move cautiously. "We don't want anything done right out of the box," he said.
"The President has a lot bigger fish to fry [such as] the economy, and, frankly, you need to get the withdrawal from Iraq going so the Defense Secretary gets comfortable with him," he said.
"Once the top brass gets to see that he's the kind of leader we think he is, it'll be a lot easier to get the military to buy into it."
His Pentagon sources say that the leadership, which had said "no way, no how" to gays serving in the military in 1993, will now stay neutral, handing the hot potato onto Congress for resolution.
"They'll say, ‘we'll follow the law, whatever the law is,'" he said.
Legislatively, Mr. Carpenter added, the numbers looked good in both houses.
"We went from 128 co-sponsors the first time the bill came around and got 147 co-sponsors the second go around," he said.
He expected that, with explicit encouragement from the Obama Administration, the third time will be the charm in the House.
With a 58 vote Democratic majority in the Senate, he said that the House bill would proceed because 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster could be had.
"We'll get the support of the only two moderate Republicans left in the Senate," he assured, "Maine Senators [Olympia] Snowe and Susan Collins, to break any filibuster."
Acknowledging that he was preaching to the choir in West Hollywood; Congressman Henry Waxman and Senators Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are solidly on board with the DODT revocation, he suggested another way locals could affect the debate in the legislature.
"We're all here from somewhere else," he observed. "I'm from South Carolina and still have family and friends there. It's steep hill to climb, but I take every opportunity I can get to educate them about the issue."
He encourage WeHo or California readers to discuss the issue with the folks back home as a way of making a direct impact on the debate. He said he tells his extended network that every Anglo-speaking cultural sister nation of America's - Israel, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - not only allows gay to serve, but witnessed precisely the same debate play out.
Military leaders declared the idea impossible because, they claimed, allowing gays to serve would destroy unit cohesion and morale, the same argument used here in the States.
"It's the same thing as gay marriage," he said. "When the day came to lift the ban on gays, it was the biggest non-event in their military's history," just as marriages threatened by same-sex marriage seem to have avoided the promised destruction.
Unlike desegregating itself, or allowing women to serve, Mr. Carpenter said, "there were no facilities to change or adjust. Everyone went to work the next day as usual."
Just another day at the office.
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