Paul Yandura made headlines two years ago after calling on gays to withhold donations to the Democratic Party. (Blade file photo)
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JOSHUA LYNSEN
Friday, May 09, 2008
A gay Democratic Party activist who once advised his friends to withhold donations to the party has relented on that stance.
Paul Yandura made headlines in April 2006 when he sent an open letter criticizing Democratic National Committee officials for not doing enough to fight anti-gay initiatives, and suggesting that gays should temporarily withhold donations to Democrats.
But in documents obtained by the Blade this week, Yandura says his letter was tied to events that occurred years ago and its advice therefore “wouldn’t be relevant today.”
“Well, this was leading up to the election,” he says. “It says clearly in here that we’re leading up to the election, that they weren’t going to fight these. So this wouldn’t be relevant today.”
Yandura’s comments came during a deposition conducted in February. His domestic partner, Donald Hitchcock, is suing the DNC, alleging the DNC discriminated against him during his time on staff.
The lawsuit also alleges Hitchcock was the target of retaliation and defamation. DNC attorneys have said the allegations have no merit.
Hitchcock was fired days after Yandura sent his letter criticizing DNC Chair Howard Dean and suggesting that gays should temporarily withhold donations.
“My advice would be that we should ask hard questions,” Yandura says during his deposition. “And if you don’t like the answers, you shouldn’t give money.” John Young, a DNC attorney, then asks Yandura whether he got answers to his questions. Yandura replies, “Yes.”
“And having gotten the answers,” Young says, “is it now your advice that your various political friends should now give more money to the Dems?”
Yandura then says the advice given in his letter “wouldn’t be relevant today.” He does not explicitly say whether gay Democrats should continue to withhold money or resume their donations.
Yandura, who preceded Hitchcock as executive director of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council, notes in his deposition that he sent his April 2006 letter after reading an article about DNC expenditures.
He said the article described how “the DNC had spent $100,000 on ads — and I’m just paraphrasing because it was a long time ago — that basically said, immigrants are people, too, and we shouldn’t use them as scapegoats.”
Yandura said the article angered him because Dean told him during an October 2005 meeting that the DNC would not do such “constituency work.”
“In our meeting in October, Howard Dean told me to my face that we do not do constituency work anymore and that we wouldn’t be seeing anything like that because I asked him, ‘Why don’t we fight back on these ballot initiatives and treat gays and lesbians with the same respect as we do with other constituencies?’” he said. “And he told me that was the old way of thinking, that we don’t do that anymore, and we wouldn’t be spending money on constituency work.”
Yandura said the ads exemplified how “there had been and continued to be structural and programmatic deficiencies within the DNC while I was there and after I was there that I’ve always talked against and tried to fix privately.”
Yandura said he wrote his letter to draw new attention to those problems, but it drew a harsh response from Andy Tobias, the DNC’s treasurer and highest-ranking openly gay official.
“I remember that he said to me, if we starve the party, and I kept arguing that I was not calling for a starving of the party, I was calling for people to ask questions — that we would — where would we start if we lost money? Who would we cut? Should we cut Donald’s job?” Yandura said.
The deposition, which lasted more than four hours, also included several harsh exchanges between attorneys involved in the case, but there was a moment of levity.
At one point, Yandura describes himself as “the spokesperson for the cranky wing of the Democratic Party.”
In response, Young asks, “And that is incorporated where, sir?” Yandura replies, “I haven’t incorporated it yet.”
“Okay,” Young says after a moment. “I think that says much about where we are today.”
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