UPDATED: How Foolishness gets Started: The White House/DADT drama

So today, AmericaBlog Gay reported:

''Joe [Sudbay] and I were just informed that the White House congressional liaison office is telling US House members not to include the repeal of 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' in the Defense Authorization bill, and not to have a vote on DADT on the House floor, this year.''

Then, the frenzy started! From Twitter to Blogs, this (unproven) info ran frakking wild. Folks were already blaming Obama and my mama for this. In fact, there were tweets all about how 'Obama lied' 'Barney betrayed us'

I would say within an hour, folks were taking this info very seriously, even though there was NO ASS PROOF.

Now, most of y'all know me, I usually wait to hear it from Swift Wind's (horse's) mouth before I hold it as truth and it's a good thing I did, because Chris Geidner from Law Dork/MetroWeekly got the real info:

A White House official responded this afternoon via email, writing, ''These rumors are blatantly false. The President has been clear in his desire to see Congress repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the Department of Defense is already moving forward with its own review.''

In an explicit denial of the claims, the official wrote, ''The Office of Legislative Affairs continues to engage lawmakers, and at no time has the White House asked any Member to take this issue off the table.''

A spokesman for Frank, who has been critical of the lack of action from the White House on DADT repeal in recent weeks, said of the report, ''We have heard no word of that whatsoever. From what I can tell you, that's just wrong.''

Once again, certain LGBT bloggers jumped the gun, but I expected that. However, my heartache comes from the many of LGBT peeps that took this mess verbatim. It's really sad to see how easily our community can get whipped into butter. I hope that in the future, we can wait for the true source before overreacting.

UPDATE: AmericaBlog claims they are right!

"If the White House thinks it's a lie to say that they're not on board, then there's a really easy solution. Get a senior White House official, on the record, by name, to go public and tell us that President Obama wants to have the repeal legislation included in the Department of Defense authorization so that DADT is repealed this year. And, have Obama send that message to the Hill through his budget requests. Then, we'll believe it. Otherwise, we're sticking with our sources who have been consistently more reliable on LGBT issues than this White House or any of their apologists."

Okay, and I hope John and Joe do the same, by revealing their anonymous source. Because for all we know, Cooky the Clown could have told them a false statement.

The Date for the Federal Case for Prop 8 is...

January 11, 2010

According to the wonderful Law Dork, that's the date.

Bill Clinton on DOMA, DADT and everything else

At the Netroots Nation conference, Bill Clinton had a lot to say about his babies, DADT and DOMA.
This is a very passionate, but long discussion. However, the highlight points are here
1:39:30 he starts
1:59:00 the "party" starts and the real Clinton stands up
2:03:25 it's all about DOMA
There's more on health care and politics, but I have to say Clinton is no joke... And my crush on him has returned.

Thanks to Law Dork for posting this on his wonderful blog

Law Dork weighs in On the DOMA Drama

Chris Geidner is known as the blogger, Law Dork. He is a lawyer who writes about LGBT issues, policies and the fun stuff (politics). He's also very realistic which I greatly appreciate.

Today, Chris provided some interesting info that is...well interesting. John Aravosis, from AMERICAblog has been a strong critic of Obama for a hot minute (actually longer than that). However, yesterday the truth was in the pudding or rather in Chris' blog.

According to Chris, John's piece about Barney Frank throwing us under a bus is very misleading and borderline false.

I'll share:

Soon thereafter, John Aravosis published a piece that just went round the bound. I have tried to keep my blog as forward-looking as possible, but it’s clear that Aravosis’s heavy popularity at his blog and media contacts have allowed his false statements about what the filing means to push the debate into the twisted, contorted view he is giving it.

The two main problems that I have with Aravosis’s coverage are:

1. His continued misstatements regarding whether Justice should have filed a brief in this case.
2. His “comparing us to incest and pedophilia” claim is overstated and does not withstand any serious, legal scrutiny.

Also...

The brief does not ever use the words “incest” or “pedophilia.” And, by the way, the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), the standard for diagnosis, defines pedophilia as involving “sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger).” Under that definition, there is not even a case involving pedophilia appearing in the brief at all — which is likely the reason that no mainstream publication has repeated that claim.

Despite all that, this is what Aravosis concluded this evening about Chairman Frank:

Barney thinks the language of the brief was great. He even, between the lines, defends the invocation of incest and pedophilia.

No, he clearly did not think the brief was great, as his statement made clear. Moreover, he never defended anything that isn’t in the brief, despite your constant claims to the contrary.

It is Aravosis’s spreading of this continued falsity — particularly to demean the smart, legitimate statements of members of Congress — that lead me to continued reporting about why it’s false.

This was helpful and scary. AMERICAblog has a lot of readers and followers, and after I commented on other articles, I was attacked...Big time.

I had to use the Phoenix Force up in there just to survive.

Anywho, with so many folks following that blog, I hope they are checking up on the content. What Chris reveals is disturbing, however I'm glad there's someone looking out for our best interest.

Please check out his blog, here