Are you going to call the Human Rights Campaign and tell them not to criticize Obama?

[Clintonista2]

(For those of you who haven't heard, the Obama campaign has been encouraging supporters to call HRC and demand they not publicly criticise Obama)

[terrya]

1. I'll be calling Mitt Romney to tell him what a swell guy he is...

before I do what you suggest.

HRC speaks for me on this. As does John Aravosis.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. A more pointed poll would be

"Are you going to call the Human Rights Campaign and tell them not to criticize President Bush?"

I can't do polls, but I'd be interested in one posting this HRC letter to Bush and asking whether people agree with it.


http://www.hrc.org/issues/2031.htm

[AlCzervik]

3. his judgement is terrible, if Obama's campaign cannot handle the heat then get out of the kitchen.

he could have stopped this but instead he let it go---bad move.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

26. Biden, Clinton, Dodd, and Edwards voted for the Iraq War Resolution

Obama spoke out against it. Now, who is it who has terrible judgement?

[AtomicKitten]

4. You might want to get confirmation of that allegation instead of

passing on gossip (which is exactly what that is without proper sourcing) for the sheer purpose of denigrating Obama and his supporters.

The blog you got that from alleging Obama campaign people said this had no sourcing whatsoever, although I'm certain that pesky detail doesn't phase your attack mode in the least.

[MADem]

8. Geez, it's not gossip. It's all over the internet. Google is everyone's friend.

Right from the Horse's Mouth, too--the campaign itself:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1007/Gay_minister_to_open_Obama_gospel_show.html

Obama aide Steve Hildebrand, and a prominent gay adviser, Tobias Wolff, conceded that the campaign had failed to "vet" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin for his view that homosexuality is a "curse", one person on the call said. But they said he would still perform at Obama's concerts, which are aimed at tightening his bond to that state's African-American community.

"They recognized that there was a mistake here," the source said.

They also stressed Obama's "unequivocal" commitment to gay rights, and defended McClurkin's presence at the performance, he said.

"The perspective is that he can bring in different elements of the Democratic Party and American society," the Obama supporter said.

Wolff and Hildebrand also asked supporters to contact the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay group, and press them not to publicly criticize Obama.

[AtomicKitten]

10. do you have a direct quote on that?

Wolff and Hildebrand also asked supporters to contact the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay group, and press them not to publicly criticize Obama.

[MADem]

13. I have what is at the link. That should get you started, post what you can find for the rest of us.

The two individuals named are Obama staffers. The former one is gay, the latter one is an 'inner circle' type.

I rather doubt the source of that assertion is making that shit up, if that's where you going...

[AtomicKitten]

17. My colleagues have already pressed the campaign on this -

and nobody within the campaign has said or heard anything about asking supporters to call the HRC.

And so without substantiation of that particular allegation, it isn't credible. Oh, it makes a lovely cudgel to stir up more shit to exacerbate a problem because god knows there isn't enough shit-stirring being done here at DU.

[MADem]

18. You're saying the writer of that story is putting his reputation on the line and posting a lie?

That IS what you're saying.

Why would he do that? Really--I want to know. Why would a political reporter make up remarks and attribute them to two members of Obama's campaign? When CLEARLY, the two named would immediately come back and say "Muthafucka--I NEVER said that!!"

What are you going to do when it's corroborated by other sources?

I'm afraid you are grasping at straws.

[AtomicKitten]

19. lots of quotation marks EXCEPT around that

I want to know if it's true. I don't accept everything that is posted here at DU as the absolute truth, certainly not without proper sourcing. Blogs have muddied the waters of accurate reporting, and that matters (at least to me).

I can find ZERO documentation anywhere that anyone from the Obama campaign asked supporters to call the HRC. I would definitely be interested in hearing otherwise.

I am completely behind Obama bouncing McClurkin from the one venue he is appearing at.

I am not supportive, however, of people using gossip (I still maintain unsubstantiated, unsourced reporting on blogs is gossip) as a cudgel to beat an opposing candidate's supporters about the head and neck just cuz.

[MADem]

21. Apparently, it was a conference call between Obama HQ and gay supporters

That's how the Boston Globe reported it, anyway. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/10/dissonance_over.html

The call happened today, and what was going to be said was hashed out last night, per The Hill: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-pressured-on-gay-cure-preacher-2007-10-24.html

Senior Obama aides had planned to hash the issue out Tuesday evening and discuss it in a conference call with gay supporters advising the campaign at noon Wednesday, said sources in contact with the campaign.




Here's another cite, talking about the run-up to the conference call, from TIME mag's blog: http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/10/obamas_antigay_supporter.html

You might try calling Obama's gay outreach guy and asking him if you still think this is some nefarious trick by DU rabblerousers. I guess if you weren't a gay supporter (read: Moneyed Contributor, maybe?) of the BO campaign, you weren't invited to participate in the call, perhaps?

I really do think that it happened. It took me two seconds to find those cites. You might as well stop torturing the question and realize that this did go down, and it isn't terribly helpful to the campaign, frankly.

More on the imbroglio from New York Times, Caucus Blog:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/obama-adds-openly-gay-minister-to-concert/

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay-rights organization in the country, says it appreciates the gesture but is still “disappointed” that the Obama campaign is giving a platform to someone it considers homophobic. The activists and many bloggers want the Obama campaign to bump the signer, Donnie McClurkin, from the tour.
But in a phone call that just concluded, Mr. Obama told Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, that he intended to keep Mr. McClurkin in the lineup. He is to appear Sunday in Columbia as part of a three-day gospel tour to help Mr. Obama reach out to black evangelicals.
Mr. McClurkin, a black minister, says in an interview with The Chicago Tribune that he is being unfairly maligned and that his words and his ministry have been misconstrued. He has said he was raped by male relatives when he was a child and was gay for many years but is now straight. Gay rights activists say that Mr. McClurkin is homophobic and counsels that homosexuality is a curse that can be cured through prayer.
Mr. Solmonese said in a statement tonight: “There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any Presidential candidate’s stage.”
He added that in his phone call with Mr. Obama, “I did thank thank him for announcing he would be adding an openly gay minister as part of the tour and for his willingness to call on religious leaders to open a dialogue about homophobia. We hope that Senator Obama will move forward and facilitate face to face meetings with religious leaders, like Rev. McClurkin, and the GLBT community to confront the issue of homophobia.”

HRC was offering the campaign suggestions to mitigate the mess, according to Joshua Micah Marshall:

According to sources familiar with the fast-evolving situation, the Obama campaign has been in discussions with the HRC throughout the day, and had sought to delay the HRC's release of a statement so it could settle on a way to deal with the crisis.

According to sources, HRC offered various suggestions to the Obama camp to avoid criticism by the group, among them dropping McClurkin from the gospel act. But the Obama campaign said that there were too many logistical difficulties attendant with such a move, sources said. Dumping McClurkin, of course, could also have political repercussions, as the South Carolina gospel campaign concerts come amid an intense battle for the state's black vote.

One intriguing idea that was privately floated, according to sources, was the possibility of having a gay gospel group as the opening act for the concerts. The idea, sources said, was that this might prompt the antigay McClurkin to pull himself out of the concerts, thus solving the problem. It's not clear where that idea originated, and at any rate it didn't go anywhere.

The Obama campaign ultimately settled on a slightly different solution, though this didn't mollify HRC: It has decided to have an openly gay minister open the gospel shows. Obama advisers informed the campaign's top gay supporters of this decision on a conference call this afternoon.

After it became obvious that HRC would be releasing their statement today, HRC and the Obama campaign set up a private call for Obama himself to talk to HRC chief Solomonese. The call was set for 5:20 P.M. Solomonese thanked Obama for the gay minister idea but expressed his disappointment in the continued use of McClurkin. Soon after, HRC's statement went out.

The full statement is after the jump.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/big_gay_group_condemns_obama_for_campaign_event_with_antigay_singer.php

It's not just McClurkin, either. There's another group of less-than-enlightened gals named Mary Mary performing who cheerfully compared gays to murderers and prostitutes--but hey, they pray for THEM too! A blog called QUEERTY breaks it down pretty brutally:

Meanwhile, you guys may want to read Jasmyne Cannick’s assessment of the situation, in which she sheds some more light on Mary Mary’s homophobic attitudes, including this doozy from a 2007 interview with Vibe:



I feel how God feels about it, um… but I still love them. You know what I mean? I don’t agree with the lifestyle, but I love them. They can come to the concert; I’m going to hug them just like I hug everybody else. They have issues and need somebody to encourage them like everybody else - just like the murderer, just like the one full of pride, just like the prostitute, everybody needs God.


Cannick also uses her column to deflect blame from Barack Obama to his ignorant white staff. Yes, really. Cannick would rather point a finger at Obama’s melanin-deprived staffers than the candidate - a candidate who should a. know better and b. have the brain power to check his staff’s decisions. Here’s Cannick’s take:


However, I am surprised that given the number of high profile openly gay men and women working on Obama’s campaign, that neither one of those choices set off a red flag for any of them. Perhaps that’s because most, if not all of the gays working on the Obama campaign are predominantly white, followed by Asians and Latinos. Pair that up with a set of campaign advisors that probably never heard of Donnie McClurkin or Mary Mary until recently, and you can easily see how the stage could be set for something like this.

It’s not Obama’s fault! He can’t be held accountable for his own campaign!
Are we the only ones who see fundamental flaws in this argument?

Cannick also says that Obama needs to sit down with black gay people to get a sense of their lives and issues. By neglecting to do so, she says, Obama’s ruling out an important social population. We totally agree with Cannick’s thinking, but does she truly believe Obama’s going to give up millions of gospel-loving churchies for a few black queens? It’s not likely…

http://www.queerty.com/news/obama-comes-out-about-anti-gay-gospel-ally-20071023/

There's no nice way to play this--it is a fucking PR disaster, getting worse by the hour, and Obama has decided to go with the South Carolina Holy Haters as opposed to the national progressives. He clearly is hoping to win South Carolina, and maybe place or show in Iowa and or NH, and use SC as a springboard to national momentum. But he's trying to do it on the springy gay backs of some of his best, deep-pocketed, supporters. That ain't cool. This is, IMO, a massive fuckup. It was bad and fixable two days ago, now, it's a damned mess.

FWIW, I am an undecided voter, but this hasn't endeared me to Obama. I have been saying, here on DU, for two full days that he still has time to fix this shit, but time IS running out--and he does seem disinclined to really fix it.

His "solution" to mollify the GLBT communtiy--shoving a gay guy up on stage to open the show, but still keeping the homophobes-- is like putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound...IMO.

[AtomicKitten]

23. I still see no sourcing for the specific charge that Obama campaign

... asked supporters to persuade HRC to lay off. I read everything you posted which included "the Politico reports ..." and "according to sources," but in neither case did they actually source it.

I went over all my sources, talked to everyone I had access to, and even the report of the conference call I saw makes no mention of the Obama campaign asking supporters to pressure the HRC.

The charge is particularly suspicious to me because every single Obama supporter I know is supportive of the HRC intervention. It just doesn't make any sense to me and I still see no evidence that that request was ever made of Obama supporters.

In the end, the HRC was satisfied. It is up to the voters to decide what the truth is, what the alternative is (Hillary Clinton), and weigh all the factors when they step into the voting booth.

I completely understand if this is a deal-breaker for some. If Obama had voted yes on Kyl-Lieberman, we would have parted company. It is what it is, and we vote the way we see the universe.

Peace.

[MADem]

24. Good grief. I can't help you. Every major paper is reporting this,

And you're still seeing 'nefarious' hands at work. Maybe, just maybe, people from the campaign are actually SPEAKING to reporters OFF THE RECORD, but they don't want to say shit to you, for fear you'll finger them as having said it???

You actually think a variety of reporters would ALL make this shit up? Come on. That's stretching credulity.

HRC is NOT happy. They are NOT satisfied. Where are you getting that fiction?

"Dissapointed" is not a synonym for "satisfied." It never has been. Here, read what they actually said: http://www.hrc.org/7949.htm

Human Rights Campaign Statement on Sen. Obama’s South Carolina Gospel Tour

10/24/2007



WASHINGTON – Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights organization, released the following statement in response to Sen. Barack Obama’s South Carolina Gospel Tour featuring anti-gay gospel singer, Rev. Donnie McClurkin:

"I spoke with Sen. Barack Obama today and expressed to him our community’s disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher who states the need to ‘break the curse of homosexuality.’ There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any Presidential candidate’s stage."

"I did thank him for announcing he would be adding an openly gay minister as part of the tour and for his willingness to call on religious leaders to open a dialogue about homophobia. We hope that Sen. Obama will move forward and facilitate face to face meetings with religious leaders, like Rev. McClurkin, and the GLBT community to confront the issue of homophobia."

"We also call on all of the Presidential campaigns to look within their ranks of supporters and make the same commitment to engage in a dialogue among differing views around issues of equality and fairness for our community."

[AtomicKitten]

25. good grief indeed

I used to write a political column. My editor would have had a stroke if I tried to slip by unsourced non-quotes like this particular one. I'm not seeing anything in the ballpark of a quotable source for that particular comment.

I dispute nothing else, just the suggestion that the Obama campaign tried to get their supporters to badger the HRC. That particular item that was of interest to me, and I could find no evidence of it and I'm sorry to report in the copious information you provided you have not either; getting snippy about it is rather beside the point.

As an aside, you can characterize the mood of the HRC on striking a "deal" with Obama however you wish but, in my opinion, that would again be stretching what you actually know and trying to sell it as factual. I chose the word "satisfied" because a converging point is struck between parties in any agreement.

Peace out.

[Evergreen Emerald]

20. who are your colleagues?

[MADem]

22. Apparently, not the moneyed gay supporters who participated in the call. NT

[cboy4]

5. As you can tell by my trademark sig line, I sure am!

NOT

:popcorn:

[MADem]

6. They aren't stopping, no matter what. But Obama did add a gay minister to the mix....(!)

http://www.americablog.com/2007/10/hrc-tells-obama-that-religious-right.html

From John Aravosis:

Here's what Human Rights Camapign president Joe Solmonese, head of the nation's largest gay lobby, had to say about Donnie McClurkin, the bigot hosting an Obama fundraising concert.

“I spoke with Sen. Barack Obama today and expressed to him our community’s disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher who states the need to ‘break the curse of homosexuality.’ There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any Presidential candidate’s stage.”

“I did thank him for announcing he would be adding an openly gay minister as part of the tour and for his willingness to call on religious leaders to open a dialogue about homophobia. We hope that Sen. Obama will move forward and facilitate face to face meetings with religious leaders, like Rev. McClurkin, and the GLBT community to confront the issue of homophobia.”

“We also call on all of the Presidential campaigns to look within their ranks of supporters and make the same commitment to engage in a dialogue among differing views around issues of equality and fairness for our community.”

Now the ball is back in Obama's court. Does he agree with HRC that bigots like McClurkin don't belong on any presidential candidate's stage, or is Obama going to continue embracing a man who thinks gays are "trying to kill our children"?

[FlaxieB]

9. Hillary can not talk She has a Minister talking about Gays herself

Give me a FUCKING BREAK. SHE has yet to get rid of or put out a piece stating her views are different from Mulberry

[MADem]

11. Well, she made a plain statement about this incident, and she's not going

on tour with a gay bashing ex-gay singer-minister, either.

For that matter, neither is Edwards, or any of the rest of the field.

But that's not really what the post was about, anyway.

[desi]

12. It appears that the poster is confusing HRC (Hillary)

with HRC Human Rights Campaign lol.

(For those of you who haven't heard, the Obama campaign has been encouraging supporters to call HRC and demand they not publicly criticise Obama)

[MADem]

16. Well, I suppose some folks find it irresistible!! Or it could have a diversionary purpose.

I dunno.

I think Obama's gonna have a helluva time praying this mess away. He thinks adding a gay minister to the stage cancels out the homophobe. It doesn't.

He's saved, though, from national excoriation thanks to those fires in SOCAL. This was a big part of the news cycle, but then the fires kind of took over.

He's gonna have to hope they keep grabbing the headlines until this ill-advised tour is finished...

[mrreowwr_kittty]

27. So Clinton just prays with them and gets endorsements, cash, and consultancy from them

And Edwards only got an endorsement from Bill Maher, who denigrates women every chance he gets. But as long as you're not going on tour with them....Oh wait, that would probably be okay because we can only slam Obama for that these days.

[MADem]

29. If you want to gripe about her, you go ahead and start a thread.

But she is NOT the topic here, nor is she the 'default' after Obama. And neither is Edwards.

We're in an apple orchard, yet you insist on talking oranges.

The "two wrongs make a right" argument is hardly a defense. It's a cowardly argument, used when one doesn't want to address the REAL problem.

FWIW, I did not see Edwards SOLICIT an endorsement from Maher. No one did, because it didn't happen. Maher said something along the lines of "I would endorse you IF IT WOULDN'T HURT YOU"--but to you, my, my, that's the same as this matter.

Sorry, it isn't. Not even CLOSE.

You keep doing this, changing the subject, distracting, hectoring. Throwing absolute BULLSHIT up against the wall, trying to make it stick--anything to distract from "The Problem."

Are you afraid to actually engage on the issue, here? Is the cognitive dissonance too troubling for you to process?

You wouldn't keep pulling this "jump in, stir up crap, change the subject' shit if what is happening within the Obama campaign isn't bothering you and makes you concerned about the viability of your 'candidate investment'...IMO. You might want to worry about that less, and think on how you'd feel if it were your ox being gored, for a change.

[Clintonista2]

28. Umm, what is Hillary "talking about"?

Are you seriously confusing "Human Rights Campaign" for Hillary Rodham Clinton?

[FreeState]

7. Im calling them asking them to criticize Obama and not stop until

he stops using bigots as part of his campaign.

[DURHAM D]

14. I already called the HRC.

I left a message because they close the switchboard at 6:00 pm. I told them I was calling to do the opposite of what the Obama campaign wants and if they keep up the pressure on Obama I would double my donation.

[Sapphocrat]

15. Where's the option for...

..."FUCK NO!" - ?