“No leader in our community, be they an organizational head, a business leader, media magnet, or blogger, should be allowed to call for the resignation of another leader…” Well then, why don’t we just pass out tiaras now and be done with it? Frankly, after what, 35-years or more and how many hundreds of million of donated GAY dollars…$200 million?…$300 million?…$400 million? and still the HRC has not enacted a Gay civil Rights bill?, how much longer should we wait? You tell me.

You know that there were few people in our community (especially our local DC community) who fought harder to elect President Obama than I.

You also know that I admire, respect and praise your leadership at the Washington Blade.

But I take personal offense to your insinuation that those of us who understand politics are all a bunch of suck-ups who are trying to get jobs with the Administration. If you look at the primary leaders for Obama Pride, you’ll see that NONE of us even applied for jobs with the Administration.

Some of us have been fighting for LGBT equality longer than you’ve ever had the courage to say the words “I’m Gay” and we deserve as much respect as we afford you.

So please hear this clearly:

Now is not the time for community division, but a united stand for equality. We are only a few votes short of passing two major pieces of LGBT equality legislation and with a united voice, both victories are ours to lose.

Leaders calling for the resignations of other leaders are not only counterproductive, they’re spiritually base. No leader in our community, be they an organizational head, a business leader, media magnet, or blogger, should be allowed to call for the resignation of another leader, unless they’re willing to hold every other community leader, including themselves, to the same standard. If ENDA and the DADT repeal fail, it’s spiritually as justifiable to hold every newspaper editor, blogger and community organizer accountable as it is to demand the resignation of any of our organizational leaders.

Yours in the united stand for equality,

+ Phil

Ok, seriously folks. It is ridiculous that the HRC and Joe, Gladd and many other organizations, are making a fortune off of supposedly fighting for rights for the various causes and many different agendas pursued by the Gay Community.

Now, if we were smart and paid attention in school, particularly,History class, the Gay Community should’ve followed the paths of the Women and Black movements in which both fought for, demanded and received, EQUAL RIGHTS. It worked.

Harvey Milk seemed to be on track for this but unfortunately, this good man was murdered. No one since Harvey, has picked up the torch. It is truly time for the Gay Community to come together and focus on one cause: FULL LGBT EQUAL RIGHTS. This should be added to the 1964 Civil Rights Amendment. One cause that covers all. Is this really to much to ask of our own people to demand? Now I realize that HRC, GLADD and the hundreds of other organizations are going to be against this. Afterall, it would put them out of a job. Come on people, please wake up. ROY KIRKLAND …Yeah, Im on Facebook :-)

Thank you Kevin Naff, DC Agenda, for an excellent article. I am so glad to see the Blade back.

Finally, the room was filled with people from all walks of gay political life. All were pissed at HRC. That wasn’t part of the “show.” It’s a reflection of reality.

And you’re right, HRC does have the contacts. So it’s their fault if everything is going to hell, and it is.

There is nothing disingenuous about grassroots outrage at HRC’s capitulation to and collaboration with the extreme political homophobia of Rahm Emanuel, Jim Messina, and Barack Obama.

And if the attacks on HRC were so ineffective, I doubt HRC would be working so hard to generate commentaries, like yours, with their apologist talking points.

Its funny that you start your comment by criticizing those who are giving Obama “a pass” and yet the only LGBT people I can think of who have been regularly giving Obama a pass and acting as apologists for his administration ARE HRC!!!

The most vocal critics of President Obama ARE ALSO the most vocal critics of HRC. I have yet to meet a single person who’s critical of HRC/Solmonese who’s simultaneously making apologies for, or even passively supporting, the President.

As long as the largest LGBT rights organization in the country acts as an apologist for the Administration, the easier it will be for the WH to marginalize critiques/protests as “fringe elements” organized by crazy bloggers (an attack I see you’ve co-opted).

Obama deserves to be denounced for his decisions — not sure where you’ve been, but there’s been plenty of denouncing going on, and there’s plenty more to come. LGBT Americans have been giving him hell wherever they can.

But HRC also deserves to be denounced for burning through millions of LGBT dollars w/almost no legislative results to show for it. Hell, you just listed a litany of their major failures since the Clinton Administration. Some of us were willing to give them 30 years and thousands of our dollars to finally become effective, but eventually the patience wears off and it becomes time for somebody else to give it a swing.

But of course it’ll be very difficult for anyone else to give it a swing as long as the HRC is Hoovering up all the LGBT dollars.

If we can just get the word out to every pro-equality person in America to do that, ENDA and DADT would pass THIS year and we could knock off this circular firing squad. We must focus our advocacy on the persuadables in Congress. If anybody wants to protest anyone — why not protest the opponents of equality rather than its supporters and our own advocates?

GetEqual has done more in a few months than HRC has done in 20 years.