Daddy Duck Reinstated, HRC Gets a Black Eye

Well, the millionaire nonentity is back on his duck-oriented "reality" show, no fuss, no bother, and HRC, craven as always, is calling it a "victory."

From Fred Sainz, HRC's vice-president:

It's not really a reversal [to reinstate Phil Robertson]. We think it's actually a positive outcome, and we want to thank A&E for their attentiveness and collaboration over the course of the last few weeks. We've received assurances also that the Robertson family is now open to working with African-American and (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people to address the real harm that such anti-gay and racist comments can cause. That's been our 'ask' since Phil's comments ran in GQ, and while it's a positive step, it certainly cannot and should not be the last one.

Assurances? "Assurances" are what the IOC is happy with from the Russian government. Also known as "Don't rock the boat."

A&E has also promised to air public service announcements "promoting unity, tolerance, and acceptance among all people." Any guesses on whether Daddy Duck or any of his ducklings will participate?

I had hopes for a change in direction from HRC under Chad Griffin. I'm still waiting.

It's Pride Month

And in honor of that, read this post by Joe Jervis at Joe.My.God. I think the ending resonates most with me (but all of it's true):

I'm proud because I'm a middle-aged gay man who has more dead friends than living ones and yet I'm not completely insane. I've lived through a personal Holocaust (here we go again) in which my friends and lovers have been mowed down as thoroughly and randomly as the S.S guards moved down the line of Jews. You, dead. You, to the factory. And you, you, you, and you, dead. I am inexplicably alive and I am proud that I keep the memories of my friends alive. I am proud of my people, the ACT UPers, the Quilt makers, the Larry Kramers, the Harvey Fiersteins. I'm proud that I'm not constantly curled up into a ball on my bed, clutching photo albums and sobbing. And that happens sometimes, believe it.

And outside of my personal experiences, I am proud of my tribe as a group. Sometimes I think that gay people are more creative, more empathic, more intuitive, more generous, and more selfless than anybody else on the planet. Sometimes I think that if an alien culture were surveying our planet from light years away, they might classify gay people as an entirely separate species of humans. It's easy to spot us because of our better haircuts.

But sometimes I think we are the worst people in the entire world when it comes to standing up for each other. The gay people who'd like to soothe their personal image problems by selectively culling some of our children from Pride events? They disgust me. They appall me. They embarrass me. To them I say: The very road that YOU now have the privilege of swaggering upon was paved by those queens and leather freaks that you complain about as you practice your "masculine" and give us butch face. If you want to live in the house that THEY BUILT, you better act like you fucking know it. United we stand, you snide bitches. America's kulturkampf ain't gonna be solved by making flamboyant people go away.

I'll end this by making one final Jewish reference. Possibly you've heard the Jewish in-joke that sums up the meaning of all Jewish holidays? "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." My Pride version?

They wish we were invisible.

We're not.

Let's dance.

HRC Fights Back!

This is sad. Pathetic, even.

Jarrod Chlapowski, the gay former Army specialist and Korean linguist, arrives in Newsweek lauding the Human Rights Campaign's means of trying to push through a Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal — an effort that's turned up short every single year. It's part of a well-orchestrated campaign from HRC to battle back against criticism, and it'd be beautiful were it not so transparent.

If nothing else, this proves what I and others have been saying about HRC for a while -- it's become the establishment, and its constituency -- or its claimed constituency -- is not. This ties it up in a neat little bow:

One HRC source tells us: "There is more coming," and that leadership is for the moment "more concerned with" defending HRC's reputation than anything else.

I have no use for that.