A Washington, DC, Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that a referendum on same-sex marriage would violate the city’s Human Rights Act. The ruling (see PDF) upheld two previous decisions by the DC Board of Elections and Ethics that rejected ballot initiative proposals on same-sex marriage. Opponents to marriage equality plan to appeal the decision to the DC Court of Appeals, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

In her ruling, Judge Judith Macaluso wrote, “the fact that the proposed initiative, if passed, would violate the Human Rights Act provides an independent basis for upholding the Board’s decision: the initiative runs afoul of an implied exclusion barring provisions that violates the state’s law.”

The Washington, DC, city council voted 11 to 2 to legalize same-sex marriage in December.

If the bill is not overturned during a mandatory 30 day congressional review, then Washington D.C. will join Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont in granting same-sex marriages. Congress has expressed little interest in intervening with the law and did not intervene when the DC City Council voted to recognize out-of-state same sex marriages in July. Without intervention from Congress or through a ballot initiative, marriage licenses will start being issued to same-sex couples in March.

Media Resources: Christian Science Monitor 1/14/10; DC Superior Court Ruling 1/14/10; Feminist Daily Newswire 12/15/09

Garden State Equality is one of several groups who will benefit from the Atlantic City event

BY JEN CALANTONE, www.newjerseynewsroom.com Jan 15, 2010

The eccentric pop-star Lady Gaga will be bringing her “poker face” to the House of Blues at the Showboat Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City on Jan. 16 — but it won’t be to promote her latest single.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Award nominee will appearing at the Hands Up for Marriage Equality Benefit, where all funds will help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Admission for the event is $20, and doors to Club Worship in the House of Blues will open at 10 p.m.

Lady Gaga, a well-known advocate for LGBT rights and a supporter of gay marriage, said in a statement that the event will be helpful in garnering support for marriage equality in these states.

“I am honored to be able to continue to raise awareness and money for this cause and these outstanding organizations. Organizations like these are in the trenches every day working on behalf of all of us whether you are LGBT or straight. Equal and full civil rights are supposed to be for all of us,” she said.

Prior to the benefit, Lady Gaga will be performing a sold-out show at the Borgata in Atlantic City.

The Power, Empire State Pride Agenda, Garden State Equality and Equality Pennsylvania will each receive proceeds from the event.

- Empowering Spirit Foundation Notes Jan 14, 2010

Lawyers for the nation’s top military officer are recommending holding off on an internal Pentagon effort that could lead to the repeal of the ban on openly gay military service. The delay could push a decision by Congress to the middle of the next presidential election.

Other advisers at the Pentagon, however, argue that lifting the ban would not cause unmanageable problems or divisions among the uniformed military, according to two U.S. officials. They discussed internal conversations about the ban on condition of anonymity.

“Now is not the time,” the in-house legal counsel for Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote recently in a memorandum obtained by The Associated Press. “The importance of winning the wars we are in, along with the stress on the force, our body of knowledge and the number of unknowns, demand that we act with deliberation.”

Mullen received the conflicting advice this month about whether to move quickly to lift the 1993 ban, and it is not clear what he will recommend to President Barack Obama. Although allowing gays to serve openly in the military was one of Obama’s campaign promises, the issue was put on a back burner during his first year in office. Some liberal supporters and several congressional Democrats are pushing for action.

Mullen and other Pentagon leaders have quietly begun a new push to build consensus for the timing of a repeal that Mullen and others assume will come eventually. Strong opposition to swift repeal remains among top uniformed military leaders.

Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Mullen, would not discuss the legal advice and said there has been no decision among the Joint Chiefs about what to do or when. He would not characterize Mullen’s own views.

“They continue to have a dialogue about the policy and the law,” keeping in mind Obama’s “strategic intent” to lift the ban, Kirby said.

Mullen was unable to get the full backing of other senior uniformed leaders during an unusual meeting of the top officers from each branch of the military last week, U.S. officials said. He is expected to hold a follow-up session within days.

- By TERESA MASTERSON www.nbcfphiladelphia.com

The ex-wife of Jim McGreevey, the former New Jersey Governor who resigned after admitting to being gay and having an affair with a male employee, has come out against gay marriage, reports The Daily Record.

Dina Matos, who stood by her husband when he came out of the closet announcing he was a “gay American,” told The Daily Record that she is glad the N.J. legislature did not pass last week’s gay marriage bill.

Matos, 43, gave a speech at the Zonta Club in Mountain Lakes, telling the group that she believes marriage should only be between and man and a woman.

The legislature’s bill to legalize gay marriage was pushed quickly to a vote last week in hopes to pass it before republican Gov.-elect Chris Christie takes office Jan. 19. But the bill was defeated 20-14.

Matos also talked about her memoir “Silent Partner,” and the horror she experienced in finding out her husband and father of her daughter was keeping such a huge secret from her.

She said that if she had to do it again, she probably wouldn’t have stood by McGreevey as he confessed his infidelity and homosexuality.

“There are at least two million marriages that break up each year because one of the spouses come out of the closet. You don’t understand unless you live it,” said Matos.

McGreevey is studying to be an Episcopal priest. He has said that he would marry his partner if it was legal.

By The Associated Press
01.14.2010

(Portland, Maine) A gun collector who introduced several weapons into sexual play with two other men contended the weapons were intended to fulfill a sexual fantasy. Instead, a lethal combination of drugs, extreme sex and Russian roulette put him on trial for manslaughter.

Both the defense and prosecutors said there was no intention to kill. But prosecutors said defendant Bruce Lavallee-Davidson, a farmer from Skowhegan, was responsible for ensuring his gun wasn’t loaded when it was being handled. He was convicted Wednesday and faces at least four years in prison.

The trial shed light on a dungeon in the victim’s South Portland home that was filled with sex toys that three men used as a drug-fueled escape from reality.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese said the focus should be on the handling of the gun – not the sexual acts that were going on in the victim’s basement. The victim, Fred Wilson, 50, of South Portland, died of a single gunshot wound to the head on April 18, 2009.

“You just don’t hold a gun to someone’s head and pull the trigger without making sure it’s not loaded. And at the moment he pulled the trigger, he didn’t know,” she said.

Defense lawyer Tom Hallett told jurors the men had been using guns as part of their sexual play and that the victim was a thrill seeker who may have slipped a bullet into the .44-caliber Rossi revolver unbeknownst to Lavallee-Davidson, who’d previously checked to make sure the gun was unloaded.

Jurors deliberated less than an hour before returning their guilty verdict in Cumberland County Superior Court. Manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in state prison in Maine. Because a gun was involved, the minimum sentence is four years, Marchese said.

The bespectacled Lavallee-Davidson, with short gray hair and a goatee and dressed in a sport coat, gave the appearance of a college professor in the courtroom. He showed no visible reaction to the verdict, and left without speaking to reporters. Hallett said the outcome was “devastating” for him.

The Dartmouth College graduate was in a committed relationship when he testified in favor of keeping Maine’s now-overturned gay marriage law at a public hearing, four days after the discovery of Wilson’s body and several weeks before he was indicted by a grand jury in Cumberland County.

The fatal shooting happened after Wilson, Lavallee-Davidson and a third man had been smoking pot, consuming the party drug GBL, huffing aerosol inhalants and having sex over a 12-hour period in the basement of Wilson’s Colonial home in a middle-class neighborhood two blocks from the ocean.

The third participant, James Pombriant, 65, of Auburn, testified he first thought the others were playing a sick joke on him when he saw the flash of a handgun after hours of partying.

Pombriant, who was engaged in a sex act with the victim when the shot rang out, says there was a moment of silence before Lavallee-Davidson said, “I think I killed him.”

Lavallee-Davidson, 50, contended the killing was a tragic accident.

His lawyers said their client checked not just once – but three times – over the course of the night to make sure the revolver wasn’t loaded. They contend the victim loaded a bullet into the revolver’s chamber while Lavallee-Davidson slipped out of the room to use the bathroom.

When Lavallee-Davidson returned, Wilson asked him to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger to intensify his pleasure, the defense contended. On the first try, there was a click when Lavallee-Davidson pulled the trigger. Wilson asked him to do it again, and there was a flash, the defense said.

After the shooting, Pombriant and Lavallee-Davidson left Wilson’s body behind for hours before Pombriant called police. Police recovered the handgun used in the killing and a .12-gauge Mossberg shotgun that Lavallee-Davidson had taken to Wilson’s home for the sex games.

Hallett said he was disappointed by the jury’s fast verdict. “It was a close call. It was a tough case, and minds can disagree,” he said.

- Empowering Spirits Foundation Notes Jan 14, 2010

The D.C. Superior Court today, for the second time, rejected a proposed initiative to roll back legislation passed by the D.C. Council extending marriage in the District to same-sex couples. In June, a D.C. Superior Court judge rejected a similar lawsuit with the same intent – to force a public vote on legislation that, at the time, allowed D.C. to recognize marriages by same-sex couples performed in other jurisdictions.

Today’s ruling upheld the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics’ ruling rejecting the proposed initiative as an improper subject matter for a public vote. The lawsuit was brought by several national anti-gay activists and backed by thirty-nine Republican members of Congress. The legislation extending marriage rights to same-sex couples in the District is set to become effective at the conclusion of the Congressional review period, likely in early March.

In her decision, Judith N. Macaluso determined that the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled properly that the proposed initiative would violate the D.C. Human Rights Act. Under D.C. law, no ballot initiative may authorize discrimination under the Human Rights Act, which, among other things, prohibits the government from denying services or benefits based on an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Petitioners had argued that D.C.’s human rights protections dating back to 1979 were invalid; however, Judge Macaluso ruled that the D.C. Council acted within its legal authority when it adopted these vital anti-discrimination provisions.

“The Campaign for All D.C. Families appreciates the court’s affirmation of the decision of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics that a vote by the majority on the rights of a minority is not appropriate under D.C. law,” said Aisha Mills, President of the Campaign for All DC Families, a diverse coalition of District of Columbia residents working to secure and preserve civil marriage equality.

The Campaign for All D.C. Families, along with D.C. Clergy United and four same-sex couples, participated in the case as amicus curiae in support of the Board of Elections and Ethics and the District.

Said Minister Dennis Wiley, Pastor of Covenant Baptist Church, “As a minister who’s been serving the community for over 40 years, I am pleased that the D.C. Superior Court has upheld the right of the D.C. Council to prohibit discrimination in our community. I think this decision will be a unifying moment that helps bring healing to many families in the District. Gay and lesbian families are an integral part of our community and our church.”

“This moment is a sigh of relief for me, my partner, and my family,” said Reggie Stanley, another amicus curiae participant. “My partner and I have long waited for the right to marry here in the District. This is our home. We work here, we raise our children here, and we are pleased that our love and commitment will now be fully recognized in the District that we call home.”

The Human Rights Campaign is also applauding the ruling.

“This second, back-to-back ruling by the D.C. Superior Court is an overwhelming victory for fairness, the rule of law and the protection of all D.C. residents against discrimination,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “D.C. has the right to govern itself and make its own laws without the interference of thirty-nine Republican members of Congress, more interested in scoring cheap political points than in the everyday lives of D.C. residents. As D.C. law justifiably recognizes, no initiative should be permitted to strip away any individual’s civil rights. It is heartening that two different judges upheld the anti-discrimination protections wisely enacted by the Council more than thirty years ago. ”

The D.C. marriage law is likely to become effective on March 2, 2009.

- Empower Spirits Foundation Notes From Proposition 8 Trial, Jan 13, 2010

“YOU ALL HAVE BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN AND IT EVEN GOT AWARDS— GAY DISCRIMINATION IS OVER

Thompson, the attorney for the Proponents of Prop 8, is taking the position that gays are not being discriminated against any more and so that cannot be the reason that Prop 8 passed.

He makes a point and then asks Professor Chauncey if that is correct.

He’s mentioning Will and Grace, the movie Philadelphia, and Brokeback mountain as evidence that LGBT people are not being discriminated against.

NANCY PELOSI IS A GAY RIGHTS CHAMPION

Did I miss something? Nancy Pelosi is our fierce advocate?

Thompson says she is.

Thompson-“Homosexuals couldn’t get hearings in the 1950s, but today you have Barney Frank and he’s a powerful ally of gays and lesbians, correct?”

Thompson, “You have AIDS funding, isn’t that important to gays and lesbians, correct?”

Thompson, “Thousands of employers have non-discrimination policies, correct?”

PRESIDENTIAL POLICY ON GAYS AND LESBIANS

Thompson- “President Clinton appointed 116 gays to employment, correct?”

Thompson- “He issued presidential orders, barring discrimination in employment, correct?”

All the advances Clinton made however for LGBT people in the government were immediately revoked or ignored during Bush’s 8 years. It was shocking to see how quickly, we went backwards.

ALL MEN AND WOMEN ARE SINNERS, CORRECT?

Christian organizations against gay rights are in the minority, correct?

Thompson trying to show that significant shift in acceptance toward gay people as evidence by the fact that numerous churches support gay rights and read off a list of denominations that support gay people. He also submitted two videos for evidence to show that even the churches are supporting gay people. One of the signing of the DC marriage equality resolution being signed in a church and then one was an interview of Rick Warren on Fox said that he believed that people show “respect” for “all people regardless of their lifestyle, but I don’t believe in redefining marriage as it’s been the past 5000 years.”

- by Robert Nakatani, www.gbge.aclu.org Jan 13, 2010

The ‘aughts’ were a decade of rapid progress – and some setbacks – for LGBT rights. These are the top ten developments, as we see them, for LGBT Americans these last ten years.

10. State sexual orientation nondiscrimination laws pass halfway mark

At the start of the decade, state laws banning at least one type of anti-gay discrimination covered only about a third of the population. By 2006, these state law protections spread to more than 50% of Americans. Today, 21 states and the District of Columbia protect lesbians and gay men from discrimination, many comprehensively. We’re still lagging significantly behind, however, on state laws banning gender identity discrimination, which now cover roughly 40% of the population.

9. Transgender rights: Schroer v. Library of Congress

Decorated Special Forces veteran David Schroer was offered a job as a terrorism research analyst for the Library of Congress, which serves as the research arm of Congress and is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. This offer was rescinded when the Library learned that David would be starting work as Diane. Schroer sued the Library in federal court and won an unprecedented ruling that refusing to hire a qualified person because that individual is transitioning violates the existing federal civil rights law against sex discrimination. Ironically, Schroer’s story has provided members of Congress deliberating on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) with a human face for the need for job protections for transgender Americans. For more on Diane’s story, see

http://www.gillfoundation.org/equal-opportunity/career/aclu/

8. Election of Barack Obama as President

OK, we know — and we agree – that President Obama has not been as assertive on the LGBT rights front as we would like. But he did sign into law a bill making it a federal crime to assault someone because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity, the culmination of over a decade of hard lobbying. And his administration has made several low-profile changes, from explicitly protecting transgender individuals in federal employment to ending the HIV travel and immigration ban. LGBT advocates currently have much more access to key administration officials than we had in the previous administration. And lest we forget, he did rid us of eight years of a closed, hostile and lawless administration.

7. Growth of Civil Unions

In 2000, Vermont became the first state to establish civil unions, acting under the mandate of the state high court’s ruling in Baker v. Vermont. Since then, these states have followed suit to provide same-sex couples the same rights and protections accorded married couples: California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington (CT, DC, NH later established marriage). In 2009, Washington’s law survived a voter challenge, making it the first law in the nation granting comprehensive relationship rights to same-sex couples to win at the ballot box.

6. From criminalization to acceptance: Lawrence v. Texas

Texas police arrested John Lawrence and Tyron Garner after bursting into Lawrence’s apartment and finding them sexually engaged. Although this law enforcement home invasion was prompted by a neighbor’s false report of a “man going crazy with a gun,” Lawrence and Garner were arrested for violating the state sodomy law. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this conviction and in the process struck down all remaining state sodomy laws, capping a decades-long, state-by-state coordinated effort by the ACLU and Lambda Legal. In sweeping language, the high court said that the constitutional right to privacy protects the right of gay people to form intimate relationships and that gay people have the same right to “define one’s concept of existence, of meaning . . . and of the mystery of human life” that heterosexuals do. More importantly, the Court’s ruling reversed its own 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick whose language of utter contempt for gay people had become a potent political tool for those working to derail the movement for LGBT equality.

5. Explosion of LGBT student clubs in schools

In 1990, there were two gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in the entire nation; today there are more than 4,000. Student activists have joined together to win policy protections from discrimination and harassment in many school districts [e.g., in 2003students got an unprecedented decision from a federal appeals court requiring school officials to take effective preventive measures when they learn that LGBT students are being harassed (Flores v. Morgan Hill Unified School District)] and to challenge school officials on a variety of issues, from taking same-sex dates to the prom to wearing pro-gay t-shirts and gaining online access to legitimate LGBT websites. Unsurprisingly, many school districts have fought back, taking aim at their local LGBT student club. Some school districts [e.g., White County (GA); Boyd County (KY)] went so far as to ban all extracurricular clubs while others adopted the transparent rationale that recognizing a gay student club would violate the district’s “abstinence only” policy. No federal courts have been deceived by these moves [e.g., GSA of Okeechobee High School v. Okeechobee School Board (FL, 2008)].

4. Transgender rights becomes national movement: LGB + T

Powered by transgender activists and young people accustomed to questioning gender conformity, the gay rights movement grew into the national campaign for LGBT rights. Before this decade, only Minnesota had a law protecting transgender people from discrimination. Today 13 states and the District of Columbia ban some sort of discrimination based on gender identity. Understanding that fear of gender variance lies at the heart of discrimination against lesbians and gay men, all national gay and transgender rights organizations now agree with the need to pursue protections for LGBT people as a united front.

3. End to myth of lesbians and gay men as unfit parents: Howard v. Child Welfare Agency Review Board

After consideration of arguably the most extensive social science evidence ever presented to a court on the impact of gay parenting, the Arkansas Supreme Court in Howard v. Child Welfare Agency Review Board (2006) struck down a state rule that banned gay people, and anyone living in a household with a gay adult, from being foster parents. Every justice on the high court of this southern state was persuaded by this evidence to conclude that sexual orientation has nothing to do with fitness to parent. This evidence was subsequently presented in a challenge to Florida’s ban on adoption by gay people and led to the trial judge striking down the ban as unconstitutional. (In re Gill, now on appeal)

2. Marriage on the national radar screen

Marriage for same-sex couples became a reality in Massachusetts on November 18, 2003 with the historic state supreme court decision in Goodrich v. Department of Public Health. Before that decision even went into effect, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom electrified the nation when he ordered the City/County Clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on February 12, 2004. By the end of the decade, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Vermont had joined Massachusetts in extending the right to marry to gay couples. In addition, some 18,000 same-sex couples got married in California, taking advantage of a window of equality that opened between the California Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision striking down all state discrimination against lesbians and gay men in In re Marriage Cases and the passage of Proposition 8. And just before the end of the decade, the District of Columbia’s City Council brought marriage to south of the Mason-Dixon line. The growing visibility of married same-sex couples is helping to discredit our opposition’s ubiquitous argument that unions of lesbians and gay men threaten heterosexual marriages.

1. Storytelling becomes an LGBT rights imperative

We used to be bound together by the “love that dare not speak its name” but over this past decade, LGBT people, famous and not, have not only been coming out in greater numbers but have been increasingly forthright about telling their stories. These stories are arguably the single greatest factor in the rise of public support for LGBT equality. There have been some very high-profile stories:

Rosie O’Donnell talking about her struggles to be a mom in March of 2002 on ABC’s Prime Time Live;
The inspiring story of the life and death of Mark Bingham, a gay rugby enthusiast, who is believed to have been among the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who foiled 9/11 terrorists trying to take the plane on a suicide mission to inflict thousands of American casualties;
Transgender teen Brandon Teena’s horrifying story of rape and murder in Nebraska in Boys Don’t Cry, a film for which Hilary Swank won an Oscar for Best Actress in 2000;
The marriage of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi in August of 2008;
And who can forget the heartbreaking romance of two American cowboys in Brokeback Mountain (2005) which brought us the line, “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
In the final analysis, however, it’s been the stories of everyday LGBT Americans that have mattered. Some of these have been the basis of LGBT rights litigation or have been the essence of legislative testimony on LGBT rights bills, but most of them have been shared one-on-one over the phone, in cafes, and around the family dinner table in all parts of the country. Recent social science evidence has documented that people in mainstream America who are most likely to support marriage for same-sex couples are also the people who have heard the story of an LGBT person close to them. And if you want conclusive evidence of the power of personal stories, think Mary Cheney.

- By Amanda Terkel, www.thinkprogress.org Jan 13, 2010

Today’s China Daily, a state-owned English publication, has a story about the first public same-sex wedding ceremony in the country. Zeng Anquan and Pan Wenjie married 10 days ago at a gay bar. AFP notes that China Daily’s decision to run a story on the two men is significant, since same-sex marriages and civil unions aren’t actually legal in China:

State press splashed a front-page photo of China’s first publicly “married” gay couple on Wednesday — the latest sign of new openness about homosexuality in a country where it has long been taboo. [...]

Homosexuality remains a sensitive issue in China. It was officially considered a form of mental illness as recently as 2001. Same-sex marriages or civil unions have no legal basis.

China has roughly 30 million gay men and women. The first government-backed gay bar opened last month “after a three-week delay sparked by intense media attention, in a bid to boost HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.”

- They’re fond of your checkbooks — and deaf to your demands for equal rights. What will it take for the Democratic Party to step up?

By James Kirchick, www.theadvocate.com January issue

In 2004, Andy Szekeres, then a 21-year-old budding Democratic strategist with several political campaigns already under his belt, was working as the Wisconsin LGBT field coordinator for John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Szekeres estimates that he and his team registered 26,000 new gay voters across the crucial swing state that year, and on Election Night, Kerry won the state by about 11,000 votes—less than 0.5% of the overall vote. Though the win can be attributed to the support of various constituencies, there’s no question that Wisconsin would have wound up red—not blue—if it hadn’t been for gay voters’ strong backing of the Democratic ticket.

Fast-forward five years to Maine, where social conservatives proposed and funded Question 1, a November ballot initiative that, like Proposition 8 in California, successfully repealed marriage equality in the state. Szekeres worked as finance director for No on 1/Protect Maine Equality, which opposed the initiative. But he says his experience with the Democratic Party was significantly different this time. While the national party had been more than happy to enlist the support of gay donors and campaign workers in its effort to get Kerry elected in 2004, it couldn’t be bothered to involve itself in the fight to maintain those voters’ and workers’ right to marry.

In a November e-mail to Politico’s Ben Smith, a Democratic National Committee official seemed to indicate that the party’s inaction on Question 1 stemmed from its desire not to be seen as prioritizing one cause over another. “In Maine there were over a half dozen ballot initiatives and referendums, and local municipal elections at stake, and OFA [Organizing for America, the Obama presidential campaign operation’s successor, which works within the DNC] sent an e-mail to thousands of activists encouraging them to vote in support of progressive causes and candidates,” the official wrote. In fact, it was only after prompted by The Advocate’s Washington correspondent, Kerry Eleveld, that the White House issued an oblique statement about Question 1—a reiteration of the president’s general opposition to measures aimed at rescinding marriage rights. Maine wasn’t explicitly addressed.

“I don’t think Maine was a sexy enough state for [the DNC] to invest in,” Szekeres says today, suggesting that had the battle taken place in a bigger state, the party might have taken a more active role. In 2008 the DNC wrote a $25,000 check to fight Prop. 8 (a pittance in an $83 million campaign). That involvement left many to wonder why the party didn’t do the same in Maine, where $25,000 could have paid for two days of TV ads or two weeks’ pay for 10 field organizers. The DNC did send an e-mail blast to its members in Maine reminding them to vote, but there was no mention of Question 1. That oversight was compounded when John Aravosis of AmericaBlog revealed that the party sent out a second e-mail, asking its members in Maine to make phone calls in support of the embattled Democratic governor—in New Jersey.

Szekeres’s experience is illustrative of the problem that many gay people, one of the most loyal Democratic constituencies alongside African-Americans and Jews, have vis-à-vis their relationship with the Democratic Party. “We give money to get something,” he says. “We don’t give money to get warm fuzzies. If I wanted that, I’d give money to the cat shelter.”

In the wake of the Maine defeat, a coterie of liberal bloggers and activists called for a temporary moratorium on DNC donations. The fledgling movement, which has adopted the motto “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” and has attracted the likes of legendary gay rights activist David Mixner, hopes to discourage donations to the party until the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the repeal of both “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act. In so doing, these activists are hoping to reshape—if not completely upset—the relationship between gays and the Democratic Party.