Rick Warren Raises Thousands of Dollars for LGBT Equality at Obama’s Inauguration

Driving Equality: “Rick Warren Raises Thousands of Dollars for LGBT Equality at Obama’s Inauguration.” That could be the headline on newspapers across the country the day after President-elect Obama’s inauguration.

Rick Warren, a staunch opponent of equal rights for LGBT people, has used his pulpit to spread lies about LGBT families and to raise money for anti-gay legislation, such as proposition 8, which stripped equal marriage rights away from same-sex couples. When Warren takes the stage on Inauguration Day, however, he will be raising thousands of dollars to advance LGBT equality across the country.

Driving Equality is hosting a Rick-A-Thon to turn Rick Warren’s anti-equality stance into positive change for LGBT people. Every second that Warren stands at the podium, he will be raising money to advance LGBT civil rights. (Pledge Online)

Rick Warren’s invocation will not last longer than a couple minutes. You can pledge any amount you chose, whether it be $0.05, $0.10, $0.25, or even $1 for every second he speaks.

You can even pledge a flat rate for the entire time he is at the podium. We will be displaying signs around Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day, tallying how much money Warren has raised for LGBT equality. We will make sure that everyone knows exactly how much money Rick Warren is raising for LGBT civil rights.

Inauguration Program

(Via Radical Russ @ Pam's House Blend)

U.S. Rejects U.N.'s Gay Rights Statement, Cites "Don't Ask"

Michelle Garcia, Advocate.com: A joint statement addressing homophobia and LGBT rights for the first time at the United Nations was tabled Thursday, without the backing of the United States.

"We urge states to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention," the draft document read.

The unprecedented gay rights declaration was proposed by the French and read by Argentinean ambassador Jorge Arguello. The nonbinding statement is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stating that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."

The United States did not sign the statement, but former U.N. spokesman Richard Grenell said the U.S. was hung up on its "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which bars out gays and lesbians from serving in the military.

"The fact that the Bush administration hired as many gays and lesbians with top secret security clearances in and of itself means that we are not criminals," Grenell said. "To later suggest that because of 'don't ask, don't tell' we can't support this resolution flies in the face of real compassion."

Grenell added that before he left his post in October as the longest-running American spokesman for the United Nations, he explained to State Department officials that the United States should sign the statement immediately, as a means to show the Bush administration is compassionate and accepting. "Yet, they came up with this phony argument that legally they had a problem with 'don't ask, don't tell.'"

Sixty-six of the 192 member countries, including the full European Union, Central African Republic, Brazil, Cuba, Israel, and Japan urged the decriminalization of homosexuality on Thursday to fellow member countries. In addition to the United States, China, Russia, and all of the Arab nations refused to back the statement.

A rival statement, read by Syria, garnered 58 signatures, according to Bloomberg News. Syrian envoy Abdullah al-Hallaq, reading the statement, said homosexuality could "usher into social normalization and possibly the legitimization of many deplorable acts, including pedophilia."

More than 77 countries find consensual same-sex relations to be a punishable offense, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Association. Seven countries -- Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen -- punish homosexuality by death.

Jerry Brown's About Face: Void Prop. 8

Ross von Metzke, Advocate.com: In a surprising change of pace, California Attorney General Jerry Brown made a bold statement Friday by urging the state’s supreme court to void Proposition 8.

The proposition, which reversed a supreme court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the state of California, passed on election day by a narrow margin. Brown said Proposition 8 is in and of itself unconstitutional because it “deprives a minority group of a fundamental right.”

That’s an about face for Brown, who had previously said he would defend the ballot measure against legal challenges from gay marriage supporters. The attorney general is legally bound to uphold the state’s laws as long as there are reasonable grounds to do so.

With his surprising 111-page legal brief -- filed at the last possible moment before the court’s deadline -- Brown offered substantial support for overturning Proposition 8.

"It became evident that the Article 1 provision guaranteeing basic liberty, which includes the right to marry, took precedence over the initiative," he said in an interview Friday night. "Based on my duty to defend the law and the entire Constitution, I concluded the court should protect the right to marry even in the face of the 52 percent vote."

Brown served as the governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and is rumored to be seeking the office again in 2010. Though Brown said he personally had voted against the marriage ban, as recently as last month, he said he would fight to uphold it as the state's top lawyer.

Opponents of gay marriage, who also filed arguments with the court Friday, were said to be shocked by Brown’s decision.

The Protect Marriage coalition urged in their brief that the justices uphold the proposition, which voters approved 52% to 48% on Nov. 4 -- the most expensive battle for gay rights in history.

Andy Pugno, the lawyer for Protect Marriage, told the Associated Press that Brown's argument is "an astonishing theory." He said he was "disappointed to see the attorney general fail to defend the will of the voters as the law instructs him to."

Also up for debate –the state of the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the election.

Brown argued that Proposition 8 was not written to be retroactive and that the marriages should remain valid.

Protect Marriage countered that none of the same-sex marriages should be legally recognized.

The Supreme Court justices are expected to hear arguments in the case as early as March, with a ruling expected later in the spring. Kenneth W. Starr, the former Whitewater prosecutor and U.S. solicitor general, plans to argue on behalf of Protect Marriage, the group said Friday.

"Resolutions"

Caroline Kennedy Comes Out for Gay Marriage

From the Left: Caroline Kennedy, who is seeking the soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton, is sharing some of her political opinions with the people she’s campaigning to represent.

Following in the solid liberal tradition of uncle Ted Kennedy and rejecting Barack Obama’s regressive position on the subject, Kennedy says she fully supports same-sex marriage.

Ackerman compares Caroline Kennedy to Palin - Mike Soraghan , The Hill: “They’ve basically Sarah Palin-ized her, if I could coin a phrase,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), referring to the Alaska governor and former GOP vice presidential candidate criticized for being sheltered from the media. “They’re answering questions that you have to submit in writing. She’s not talking to reporters as she makes this grand tour. They’re, kind of, building a mystique and an industry around her, when we need somebody to fight.”

Critics also hammered home the criticism that she’s a viable candidate primarily because she’s the daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy.

“Rembrandt was a great artist,” Ackerman said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “His brother Murray, on the other hand, Murray Rembrandt wouldn’t paint a house.”

Obama Just Doesn’t Get It

H/T: Troy@365Gay

The Right To Dissolve The Constitution

Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish: One thing you have to concede to Dick Cheney. He says what he thinks. And so we get this:

WALLACE: This is at the core of the controversies that I want to get to with you in a moment. If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?

CHENEY: General proposition, I'd say yes. You need to be more specific than that. I mean — but clearly, when you take the oath of office on January 20th of 2001, as we did, you take the oath to support and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The irony seems lost on him. How can the suspension of all laws into the power of the executive branch in wartime be seen as a defense or protection of the Constitution? Perhaps for a brief amount of time in a dire emergency, after which there would be a thorough accounting to the Congress and the Courts. But indefinitely? As inherent in the office? And with jurisdiction over the entire United States as well as the world? With "enemy combatants" defined as anyone the president calls an "enemy combatant" and no distinction between citizen and non-citizen?

Including the right to torture? Indefinitely?

What Cheney has advanced is that the president has the right to dissolve the constitution permanently. That he has the right to commit war crimes with impunity. That there is no legal authority to which he is ever required to pay deference in a war that is his and his alone to declare and end. Now when you consider that, in Cheney's view, these war-powers are limitless, and that war is declared not by the Congress but by the president, and can be defined against a broad, amorphous enemy such as "terrorism", and never end, you begin to see what a dangerous man he is, and how much danger we have all been in since he seized control of the government seven years ago.

And Cheney's colorful explanation of this theory is also extremely revealing:

The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.

He could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in.

What Cheney is saying is that if the president of the United States has the power to destroy all civilization alone, he has the power to do anything up to and including that. Chris Wallace asks the right questions, but it is very telling that he didn't ask about torture. I presume that was agreed by Fox and Cheney in advance. I can see no other reason for the lacuna.

But what we know with real clarity is the following: the vice-president long ago became an enemy to the Constitution and to all it represents. He should have been impeached long ago; and the shamelessness of his exit makes prosecution all the more vital. If we let this would-be dictator do what he has done to the constitution and get away with it, the damage to the American idea is deep and permanent.

Allegedly Threatened by Rove, Now Dead in Small Plane Crash

Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars: You silly tinfoil hat-wearing people will of course try to make me think there's a connection between this and this - or possibly even this:

LAKE TWP.: A single-prop, private airplane crashed next to a vacant house on Charolais Street Northwest Friday evening, exploding into flames and killing the pilot.

Michael Connell, 45, of Bath Township, was alone in the plane, according to State Highway Patrol Lt. Eric Sheppard.

Connell was a prominent Republican political consultant. He founded New Media Communications in Richfield, which developed campaign Web sites for Republican presidential candidate John McCain and President George W. Bush.

I mean, who would ever believe that nice Karl Rove would have threatened this man? Or that his attorney recently asked for protection for his client? Just another one of those coinkydinks that happen when people fly small planes!

UPDATE: Larisa has more. He was one of her sources.

McCain, Lieberman & Graham Throw Their Weight Behind Odierno

Cernig, Crooks and Liars: There's a lot of fluff about bi-partisan agreement, withdrawing to leave a democratic Iraq and the "successes" of the last two years in an op-ed by John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in the Washington Post today. But there's only one important bit.

"Gen. Odierno was the operational architect of the surge in 2007, when he served as deputy to Gen. Petraeus, as well as of the tribal engagement strategy that persuaded Sunnis to abandon the insurgency and join our side. Gen. Odierno -- as the current commander on the ground -- is the person whose judgment should matter most in determining how fast and how deep a drawdown can be ordered responsibly."

This is the same General Odierno who recently forgot his place in the chain of command, saying that he had no intention of sticking to the U.S. agreement with Iraq which says all U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by the summer. He also hinted that the 2011 final withdrawal date might be ignorable, saying "Three years is a very long time."

The Maliki government was quick to respond that it expected the letter of the status of forces agreement to be adhered to. But Bush administration loyalist Odierno, by indicating that the U.S. would continue to try to bend treaties and deals all out of shape instead of sticking to its word, has badly damaged Obama's political capital abroad before the President Elect has even taken office. It's off a piece with other military statements, as Gareth Porter reported on Thursday:

Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on Dec. 15, according to the Times.

The determination of the military leadership to ignore the U.S.-Iraq agreement and to pressure Obama on his withdrawal policy was clear from remarks made by Mullen in a news conference on Nov. 17 -- after U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker had signed the agreement in Baghdad.

Mullen declared that he considered it "important" that withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq "be conditions-based". That position directly contradicted the terms of the agreement, and Mullen was asked whether the agreement required all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, regardless of the security conditions. He answered "Yes," but then added, "Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time..."

Mullen said U.S. officials would "continue to have discussions with them over time, as conditions continue to evolve", and said that reversing the outcome of the negotiations was "theoretically possible".

Obama's decision to keep Gates, who was known to be opposed to Obama's withdrawal timetable, as defence secretary confirmed the belief of the Pentagon leadership that Obama would not resist the military effort to push back against his Iraq withdrawal plan. A source close to the Obama transition team has told IPS that Obama had made the decision for a frankly political reason. Obama and his advisers believed the administration would be politically vulnerable on national security and viewed the Gates nomination as a way of blunting political criticism of its policies.

The "Three Amigos" advice is that Odierno, not Obama, should be Commander In Chief - "the person whose judgement should matter most" - when it comes to decisions about the US military presence in Iraq and that Odierno, not the Iraqi government, should be seen as the ruler of Iraq. They're throwing their weight behind the military's undermining of Obama and the Iraqi government's authority. The correct reply to their advice is "Hell, no."

Children Left Alone: Another Bush Legacy

Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars: When it comes to the Bush legacy, it's hard to know where to begin: a million dead Iraqis, thousands of dead American troops, untold numbers of wounded, a limping infrastructure, the open embrace of torture, the evisceration of civil liberties and the devastation of the global economy... why, I could go on all day.

But this is the image that will stay for me for a very long time, the sum total of this man's "compassionate conservatism" - a little girl hiding in her closet. Thanks, George! Thanks for everything you've done:

In the Prince George's County community of Riverdale Park, town officials have noted a distressing sign of the national economic ownturn: more children left home alone to fend for themselves by working parents too strapped to afford child care.

The problem was discovered by code nforcement officers who inspect apartments in the town of 7,000. They used to come across such cases once every couple of years. Then, six months ago, they found one child left alone, followed by another and another.

In one instance, a kindergarten-age girl was found hiding in a closet, apparently because she was scared, code enforcement officers said. In another, children aged 10 or 12 were missing school to watch their younger siblings.

Riverdale's experience comes amid an increasing economic strain inchild care across the Washington region. In an area known for day-care waiting lists, many operators report a rise in vacancies as parents withdraw their children or cut back on hours because they can no longer afford the cost.

Gluttonous bigot keeps opening big mouth

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: "Pastor" Rick Warren, the obese far-right homophobe who Barack Obama inexplicably invited to give the invocation at the inaugural swearing in, is doing more interviews, trying to put a soft face on his bigotry. Check out this latest quote from Warren:

"You don't have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand," said Warren.

Maybe, but you do have to be able to walk in the front door in order to walk hand in hand, but Rick Warren explicitly bans gays from membership in his church. (I guess there's no room at the inn.) Warren doesn't have a problem, however, with Syrians. He thinks the Syrian government is "moderate" and a model for the world on how to treat Jews. Mind you, Syria is a terror state that is technically still at war with Israel. Maybe that's who Warren wants Barack Obama to walk hand in hand with, Jew haters.

So let's review. Barack Obama's buddy Rick Warren bans gays but loves Syrians. He also thinks Jews are going to hell. [Rick Warren at the Aspen Ideas Festival: When it came time for questions, a woman stood up, proclaimed her Judaism, and asked Warren if she was going to burn in hell. He paused before responding--and then answered her question the only way it could be answered. "Yes," he said to audible gasps.] I wonder if Rick Warren thinks that theory is also a model for how the world should treat Jews? Anyone seeing a pattern here?

PS Here is why it's relevant that intolerant bigot Rick Warren is a glutton.