Pam Spaulding's Blog, page 56

GOP's Quiet Retreat on Gays

Tea Party activists in New Hampshire express apathy toward repealing marriage equality

Evidence is mounting; the party of Guns, God and Gays may soon be evolving into the Party of Guns, Gods and Gays.

It's actually a big enough story to be seen from across the pond. Tim Stanley of the UK Telegraph observed yesterday, in The queering of the Republican Party:

There are signs that the GOP is going soft on gay rights. A couple of weeks ago, a city in Illinois elected its first ever gay alderman – a Republican called Cory Jobe. Fred Karger, a gay political consultant, has declared an admirably ambitious campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. In the past year, the LGBT Log Cabin Republicans group has been entertained by former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld has endorsed repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell rule that banned open homosexuals from serving in the military.

The piece is long on dubious generalization, and may draw conclusions from facts that don't warrant it. Karger's Presidential run is certainly a quixotic fluke. But, the fact that he was able to prevail in an NH GOP straw poll earlier this month—over many much bigger names—might give GOP strategists cause to contemplate how much gas there is left in the "hating the gays" tank.

 

In fact, Think Progress attended a Tea Party Tax Day event in New Hampshire recently. And quizzed these hard right activists about the topic of GOP efforts to repeal marriage equality in the Granite State. (See video at top.) They came back with this report:

But at Friday’s event, not a single Tea Party activist told me that expanding marriage to gays and lesbians has undermined their relationships or in any way changed the state. In fact, everyone I spoke to insisted that changing the marriage law was not a priority: “Have I seen any changes?…No, not really.”“No, not really, it hasn’t really effected me. And I don’t think that this is a priority right now for most people.”“It’s not an issue for me. Love is love, I don’t care one way or another…we have much bigger problems to worry about than that.”

The New York Times observed in Feburary:

“The wedge has lost its edge,” said Mark McKinnon, a Republican strategist who worked for President George W. Bush during his 2004 campaign, when gay marriage ballot measures in a dozen states helped turn out conservative voters.

Indeed, the polling is moving fast. From 70% opposition in 2004 to just today, Nate Silver declaring "Gay Marriage Opponents Now in Minority."

This is the fourth credible poll in the past eight months to show an outright majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage.

The lockstep opposition to all things gay seems to be quietly fading away on the national level. Let us not forget in the 111th Congress, it was Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who helped to pull "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal fat out of the fire at the last minute by co-introducing the stand alone bill. And she certainly played a part in persuading seven of her GOP colleagues to vote for it. Collin is but one of three GOP Senators set to co-introduce the Employment Non-Discrimination Act into the Senate (Olympia Snowe also of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois being the others). The bill forbids employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

An under-reported story is newly-minted Republican Senator Kirk was also an introductory sponsor on an LGBT-affirmative piece of legislation last month, the Safe Schools Improvement Act. The bill would address school bullying and provide tools to creating a more safe learning environment for all, including LGBTQ teens. Is this what the party will have to put up with as a new class arrives?

These gay rights turncoats make it difficult for the GOP to rail in lockstep against the "radical homosexual agenda!" How to protect seats in Maine and Illinois if homophobia is a indelible part of the party platform but also becoming unfashionable?

Perhaps more illlustrative on a national level is the saga of the House Resolution to condemn the DOJ's abandonment of defending DOMA. It was a strident "demand that the Department of Justice continue to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in all instances."

AmericaBlog sought to make the names of the signers infamous and rightfully so.

But, focusing on the opposition threatens to bury the lead, in my opinion. It had only 98 signers. Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly framed the story with the headline: "DOMA's Dwindling Defenders."

Think about it: in the three weeks from introduction to declaration, 143 House Republicans DECLINED to sign on to resolution. Rumors were Speaker Boehner was being lobbied by the far right to put the resolution on the floor for vote, an option he could have exercised. Barney Frank explains at a panel discussion held by equalitygiving:

“They had two paths they could take: They could bring a resolution to the floor directing the general counsel of the House to defend the constitutionality of DOMA, or they could do what they did do which was convene the five top leaders of the House – the three Republicans and two Democrats – and vote to direct the general counsel to defend the constitutionality of DOMA.”

Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank “pointed out that the significance of their choosing the latter course of action was that they didn't want their members on record because it would probably have shown that there was more support for repealing DOMA today than there was the last time a roll call vote was taken about this, but also probably this happened because they were hearing more and more from members of the Republican party who don't want to take these socially divisive votes anymore.”

Floor votes are the sort of grandstanding measures that make good political theater on issues you know you stand firmly with the public opinion.

But it's not good political theater if you mount a bad show.

Imagine if he had put their anti-gay marriage resolution on the floor and it had garnered only 98 votes out of 435. Yikes. It's easy to see why Speaker Boehner moved forward under the cover of Bipartisan House Legal Advisory Group committee vote, and did not consent to put the vote into the bright national spotlight.

Sure they might have been able to twist some arms and garnered more support. But 143 more?

I suspect he might have had some angry phone calls from some of the country's more virulent homophobes when he got back to his office. "How could the party not be united in their hatred of gays? We demand satisfaction!" Boehner made sure they got it, but keep his moderates covered.

Clearly there were 143 House Republicans that felt was more value in keeping their name OFF the resolution than putting it ON. If they felt they could go home in 2012 and sell the voters that they'd done everything they could to stop the gay marriage and it would be a win for them, they would have signed it.

Nate Silver notes they're in danger of circling the drain, though:

But this does put Republicans in a tricky position. Their traditional position on gay marriage is becoming less popular. But to the extent they disengage from the issue, they may lose even more ground. One way to read the trends of the past few years is that we have passed an inflection point wherein it is no longer politically advantageous for candidates to oppose same-sex marriage, which in turn softens opposition to it among the general public, creating a sort of feedback loop and accelerating the trend.

The GOP can read the crosstabs too and see there's no future in doubling down on the gay hate. The kids who are all but are lost on the issue.

It is rather awkward politics to walk back after decades of claiming "teh gays are going to ruin everything!" to suddenly go all Emily Litella on the topic. The GOP is likely trying their best to engineer as a quiet retreat as possible. A full-on high-profile 180 would cause a deep fracture with the Religious Right that has been such an important part of the base. The problem for the GOP is the gay-haters are increasingly becoming the outliers, and letting them set the party agenda could well cost them seats (like in Maine and Illinois) and relegate the GOP to a regional party. For now, they'd like to keep their gay-hating in the echo-chamber of the far-right circles, outside of, say the floor votes on the House. But, that's kinda hard to do in these days of blogs and YouTube, ask George Allen.

So, it's probably no coincidence that while Republicans are attempting quiet retreat, Democrats are on the offense, but it is a welcome change to see the Democratic party exploiting an opening when they see one.

Recognizing the fast moving polling works in their favor, many Democrats are doing their best to not let the GOP go quietly into that homophobic night. The high-profile legislative efforts to repeal DOMA and push the Uniting American Families Act probably represent an effort on the party's to use the wedge the GOP created in the 1990s to the the Democrats' favor.

And good for them. It isn't the the 1990s anymore.

Maggie Gallagher shucks and jives her way through the DOMA hearing

crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Equality Matters has listed the top five moments from Friday's DOMA hearing. The moments are very telling in terms of how unnecessary DOMA is and the mindset of those trying to defend it.

But the best moment comes when Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) questions National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher on the idea of same-sex parenting:

At 2:29 - 2:41 , Gallagher admits that "there are some gay people who are wonderful parents." She also says that she thinks its unfortunate that people misinterpret things she says as a condemnation of "gay people" and their parenting skills."

But as Equality Matters points out:

This “interpretation” might have something to do with Gallagher having called homosexuality “an unfortunate thing” which represents “at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction.” Or perhaps it has to do with her decision to assert that gays and lesbians are “committing several different kinds of very serious sins.”

Also, Gallagher's past other comments and actions haven't been as conciliatory to the idea of same-sex parenting as she tried to make herself seem during the hearing.
In 2004, she wrote the following about same-sex marriage and parenting:

Marriage is our most basic social institution for protecting children. Same-sex marriage amounts to a vast social experiment on children. Rewriting the basic rules of marriage puts all children, not just the children in unisex unions, at risk. 

During this interview with the site Ignatius Insight in October 2005, Gallagher said the following regarding same-sex parenting:

In my opinion, judging by the standards of kinds of evidence that are used in the larger family structure debate, we know almost nothing about how the children fare. There’s been about 35 to 50 studies, but there’s not a single study based on nationally representative data that follows children from birth raised by same sex couples and can tell us how they do in adulthood.

More recently, in January of last year, she distorted a study on child abuse to make the case that children in married biological homes do better to protect children from abuse than children in same-sex households.

The distortion comes because the study in question - the one she cited - didn't even look at children in same-sex households. We know this because Gallagher even admitted at the time that same-sex households wasn't a category in the study:

All the other family structures studied (which does not include same-sex parent families probably because these are such a small part of the population), but does include solo parents, other married parents (remarried primarily), single parents living with a partner, cohabiting parents, and no parents.

I don't think any us lodging criticisms against Gallagher and NOM has misinterpreted any of her words when it comes to marriage equality or "gay parenting skills."

But in sidestepping Rep. Quigley's questions, you simply have to give Gallagher points for chutzpah.

Bear in mind that I said "chutzpah," not integrity or honesty.

By the way, that story she tells about being labeled as a bigot by a radio show host in Maine starting at 3:47. Another complete lie on her part.

Texas Outrage: man upset at daughter's lesbian relationship, kills girlfriend and her mother

There really isn't much you can say about how sick and hate-filled with homophobia a person can be to do this. In Austin, Texas:

Jose Alfonso Aviles, 45, has been charged with capital murder and was arrested early this morning in Bexar County by the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, said Lt. Gena Curtis. Aviles lives in Austin, but was found in San Antonio, police said.

Aviles' daughter had been dating 24-year-old Norma Hurtado for several months, which was the source of feuding between the Aviles and Hurtado families, Curtis said.

...Aviles and another Hispanic man, who has not been identified, went to the Hurtado's home at the 7100 block of Dixie Drive late Monday and knocked on the door, Curtis said. Moments later, Aviles' daughter, who was in the home, heard gun shots and found that Hurtado and Hurtado's mother, 57-year-old Maria Hurtado, had been shot, police said. Both women died at the scene, police said.

DOMA Defense Law Firm Takes Pride In LGBT Diversity

King & Spalding, the law firm that Speaker Boehner has hired to the tune of $520 and hour to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, takes great pride in its company diversity. This includes the value of its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees. The firm also extends partner benefits to LGBT employees, from their website:

The firm's non-discrimination policy prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Further, domestic partner benefits are offered for same-sex couples.

The firm's website names some of its LGBT associates and partners, and explains the firm's tireless commitment to actively recruiting talent from the LGBT community:

King & Spalding actively recruits LGBT law students and seeks opportunities to partner with LGBT student organizations to help their members successfully navigate the process of moving from law student to lawyer. The firm annually attends Lavender Law, the National LGBT Bar Association’s conference and career fair. Recently, an LGBT Summer Associate received the King & Spalding Diversity Fellowship, which provides $10,000 in recognition of outstanding academic achievement and leadership to candidates from a diverse background.

The firm of King & Spalding happily boasts of their "support" for LGBT events, like, Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia’s annual awards dinner and the “Out on Film” Festival in Atlanta. Also of their accolades from the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign:

• Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index Rating of 95 out of 100 (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011).

Indeed, a search of Human Rights Campaign's website confirms their high rating (PDF). Human Rights Campaign has called the defense of this law "shameful."

So, in brief, Speaker Boehner has selected a firm that very clearly recognizes the great benefit that King & Spalding derives from treating all its employees equally.

And Speaker Boehner has tasked this firm with the job of arguing in court that the United States Federal Government should absolutely do no such thing, or some really bad things will happen.

How ironic. Looks like even the bigots can't find any competent bigots to hire.

 

 

Time for right-wing WTF and schadenfreude

Since I'm not having the best day -- tired, having to chronicle the Righthaven bullsh*t, hair falling out from stress, one might as well turn to pathetic, mind-boggling garbage from right-wing land for relief.

* From JMG, what has to be a case of epic self-loathing:

Remember The Asshat Legislator Who Tried To Repeal LGBT Rights In Montana?

She's totally a closeted lesbian. So says my very trusted tipster who adds this about Montana state GOP Rep. Kristin Hansen: "She lives with a woman who she introduces to others as her 'friend' but has confirmed to a handful of people is her partner. The partner's ex has also been telling people what's up." Hansen was first elected to office last year with the backing of the Tea Party.

* And after getting busted sending out an email depicting Barack Obama as the child of two apes (right), teabagger Orange County Republican functionary, Marilyn Davenport "apologized" (and says she won't step down):

"I humbly apologize and ask for your forgiveness of my unwise behavior," the statement said. "I say unwise because at the time I received and forwarded the email, I didn't stop to think about the historic implications and other examples of how this could be offensive."

In the statement, Davenport also quoted the Bible and said she was "an imperfect Christian" who tried to "live a Christ-like honoring life."

"I would never do anything to intentionally harm or berate others regardless of ethnicity," she said. "I will not repeat this error."

You have to click over to Truth Wins Out and read Wayne Besen's "The Tea Party Racist? No Way, Because Monkeys Are Not A Race," and Karen Ocamb's "OC Republican Official Apologizes for Racist Email, Won't Resign." She noted that "In an Eyewitness News/SurveyUSA poll, 70% of Southern Californians familiar with the email said they found it offensive, 27% did not." Who the F are the 27&?!

* And let's take a ride completely off the rails with Glenn Beck who theorizes that "Corn Is Being Diverted In Plot To Get Rid Of People." Via MMFA:

Beck also announced this week that he's leaving the NYC area. Can we set off the fireworks yet?

The Blaze, a conservative new site launched by the radio host last year, is only the beginning of the content he will be offering to radio, television and the Internet, Beck reportedly said.

"I'm about to build a research department that will utilize the idle brains that we have, retired CIA, military, PhDs. As we build a new media, I'm not building it in New York," he added.

An orange on the seder plate

Seder at the home of Laura Ruderman, a former Washington State Representative, and her husband Craig Greenberg. Pictured are Laura's mother Equal Rights Washington Board member Margaret Rothschild and Margaret's husband George Heidorn.

I've just learned about this wonderful tradition.  Many progressive Jewish homes put an orange on the Passover seder plate as a symbol of solidarity with LGBT people.  Steven Goldstein, Executive Director for Garden State Equality, tells the story of the orange:

For those of you observing Passover tonight, and for those of you of any faith or none, invited to a seder tonight or tomorrow night, there is an LGBT theme you may want to mention or at least be aware of.

Many progressive Jewish homes put an orange on the seder plate.  The orange is a tradition only about 30 years old at a seder, itself a tradition thousands of years old in Judaism.

The story goes that Professor Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth, a progressive feminist Jewish studies scholar and daughter of one of the most famous rabbis in American Jewish history, created the idea of an orange on a seder plate to allow progressive Jewish families to show solidarity with women.  

According to the story, Professor Heschel heard an Orthodox rabbi say that women belong on the bimah - the stage at a synagogue - as much as an orange belongs on the seder plate, i.e. not at all.  So progressive Jewish homes like mine have put an orange on the seder plate ever since.

Well, it turns out the story behind on orange on the seder plate is an urban myth.  Professor Heschel actually created the tradition of an orange on the seder plate as a symbol of solidarity with LGBT people.  And until she pointed this out some years ago, many well-meaning progressive Jews, including me, didn't know.

The story continues below..

So if you're at a seder and you see an orange on the seder plate, the discussion about it may not be correct.  Of course, because we progressives support equality for everyone - there is no competition - at our seders the orange represents solidarity with women, LGBT people and particularly transgender people, people of color, the differently abled and other peoples denied equality.  

If you're interested in what Professor Heschel herself has to say about all this, here goes.  This is from an email she sent around a while back...

"In the early 1980s, the Hillel Foundation invited me to speak on a panel at Oberlin College. While on campus, I came across a Haggadah that had been written by some Oberlin students to express feminist concerns. One ritual they devised was placing a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians, a statement of defiance against a rebbetzin's pronouncement that, 'There's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate.' At the next Passover, I placed an orange on our family's Seder plate. During the first part of the Seder, I asked everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over fruit, and eat it as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. Bread on the Seder plate brings an end to Pesach-- it renders everything chametz (not kosher for Passover).

"And it suggests that being lesbian is being transgressive, violating Judaism. I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out--a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia of Judaism. When lecturing, I often mentioned my custom as one of many new feminist rituals that have been developed in the last twenty years. Somehow, though, the typical patriarchal maneuver occurred: My idea of an orange and my intention of affirming lesbians and gay men were transformed. Now the story circulates that a man said to me that a woman belongs on the bimah as an orange on the Seder plate. A woman's words are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is simply erased. Isn't that precisely what's happened over the centuries to women's ideas? And isn't this precisely the erasure of their existence that gay and lesbian Jews continue to endure, to this day?"

I have no doubt that if Professor Heschel told this story today, she would say LGBT rather than lesbian and gay.

I wish all observing Chag Sameach!

B'shalom,

Steven

Al Friedes, 75, the father of Equal Rights Washington Executive Director Josh Friedes calls a seder for family and friends to order in Newton Massachusetts.  Al reclines, the traditional position for eating at the Passover meal.

The pictures in this diary were shared with me by Josh Friedes, Equal Rights Washington's Executive Director.  Although the legislative session kept Josh in Washington state and he was unable to join his family for Passover (his dad is pictured left), he told me:

"The picture of my brother's Passover table with oranges on the seder plates are a powerful reminder of the struggle for freedom that dates back thousands of years, the promise of liberation, and the responsibility of each generation to make the retelling of the Exodus relevant to the civil rights struggles of the current time.

"That my family participates in the tradition of placing an orange on the seder plate is yet another tangible example of how they demonstrate support for me personally and the LGBT community generally.  These small acts in families I believe are transformative. They create a public culture that is supportive of LGBT people and they let LGBT family members know that they are fully accepted.  During the course of the Passover Seder the symbolism of each item on the seder plate including the Orange is discussed.

"What traditions do you have in your family to show support for LGBT equality?" Equal Rights Washington asks on their Facebook page.  It's a great question.  I'm going to have to ponder that one.  Maybe I'll incorporate this idea into Thanksgiving dinner as a new family tradition.  An orange on the table would remind me to talk about how thankful I am for my loving and fair-minded friends and family, and perhaps remind them to consider the commitment to social justice I've brought into their world.  How about you?

NH Tea Party activists don't see any harm caused by marriage equality

Think Progress captured some video during a trip to a Tax Day Tea Party sponsored by Americans for Prosperity held in Concord, NH that will give the homophobes in the Tea Party agita.

at Friday's event, not a single Tea Party activist told me that expanding marriage to gays and lesbians has undermined their relationships or in any way changed the state. In fact, everyone I spoke to insisted that changing the marriage law was not a priority:

- "Have I seen any changes?...No, not really."

- "No, not really, it hasn't really effected me. And I don't think that this is a priority right now for most people."

- "It's not an issue for me. Love is love, I don't care one way or another...we have much bigger problems to worry about than that."

Is this the end of predator copyright troll Righthaven's flight under the media radar?

NOTE: If you read and care about PHB (and many other blogs), it's worth taking the time to read this piece about Righthaven.

What does this screen capture mean?

I'm not sure, but for many people following the business operations of Righthaven, LLC over the last year or so, there's speculation that the jig is up for the Las Vegas shell company purportedly set up to protect the copyright interests of media organizations.

Its model has become clear to those who have been slapped (almost always without notice) for copyright infringement of news articles or photographs originally published most notably in the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Denver Post).

Why am I writing about this? Well, in March of this year I was contacted by a reporter at the Denver Sun, Steve Green:

Hi, I am a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun writing a story about the attached lawsuit alleging copyright infringement

The suit claims your website posted without authorization a Denver Post TSA patdown photo

Background on similar lawsuits:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/business-notebook/2011/feb/28/roundup-righthaven-faces-pr-problem-suit-against-n/

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/feb/08/new-round-righthaven-suits-over-tsa-pat-down-photo/

Please let me know if you want to comment on the lawsuit and thanks

So I open the PDF and cannot believe what I was reading. The suit was filed the U.S. District Court in Colorado regarding a photo that was widely circulated on the Internet of a Transportation Security Agent doing a feel-up of a man's thigh that inspired the "don't touch my junk" commentary. In my case, I tapped the image that was on Ranker.com (it must have been caught up later as well; its article with the image is long-gone).

Doing a little Googling, I found the Righthaven Victims web site and learned that I wasn't alone. There's a long list of victims, some sued by Righthaven retroactively from the time RH "obtained" the copyright (more on that to come). There is also a good deal of reporting on this debacle within the limited sphere of legal blogs.

When I posted on a couple of listservs I am on - there was zero admission that anyone on the lists  were also in this legal entanglement, but there were several general "I'm sorry this happened to yous" as reactions. There were also a couple of private blame-the-victim reactions, pretty crass considering there wasn't even a cursory look at what Righthaven was engaging in - such as squeezing autistic individuals on a fixed income over the same photo.

No one was blogging about it or discussing it publicly; after all - if they discussed my plight, it might turn Righthaven to Google them for possible IP violations. I actually generated interest from more than one major blog to discuss Righthaven's shakedown operation and every single one backed off out of the fear of being targeted. There was no mainstream media coverage, aside from the LV Sun.

What is Righthaven and why the silence by MSM?

A nice summary:

Righthaven LLC is owned 50/50 by two limited liability companies. The first is Net Sortie Systems, LLC, which is owned by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson - the Nevada attorney who is behind all of the lawsuits filed by Righthaven. The second is SI Content Monitor LLC, which is owned by family members of investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens whose investments include Stephens Media, LLC which owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Righthaven's business arranagement is memorialized in a Strategic Alliance Agreement between Righthaven LLC and Stephens Media LLC (an arrangement that some commentators (here) argue renders void Stephens Media's copyright assignments to Righthaven, thereby nullifying Righthaven's standing to bring its copyright infringement actions).

...[A] a third media company - Media News Group - is also using Righthaven's "services" - as reflected by numerous copyright infringement lawsuits that have been filed by Righthaven in the Colorado over material appearing in the Denver Post, which is owned by Media News Group. News coverage of Righthaven's Colorado "client" can be found here and here (see also Denver Posts' "Notice to readers about Denver Post copyright protections" on November 14, 2010).

You can thank Righthaven's partner in these predatory practices, The Denver Post/Media News Group, for my particular case.

Righthaven founder Steven Gibson says that he continues to add new partners. Among them: The Denver Post, which teamed with the copyright-holding company in December. Since then, Righthaven has sued numerous bloggers-the most prominent being Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report--alleging infringement of a Post photograph of a Transportation Security Administration airport pat-down. (Drudge and Righthaven reached an undisclosed settlement in February.)

The Post's publisher is William Dean Singleton, who also serves as executive chairman of MediaNews Group, which bills itself as the country's second-largest newspaper chain. Singleton holds another title: chairman of the board of The Associated Press. Is it possible that Singleton-who said at the AP's 2009 annual meeting that the news service would seek "legal and legislative remedies" against those that it believes unfairly use its material-views the AP as a potential Righthaven partner?

It turns out that the heat on Righthaven's model and practices may have made the AP distance itself, and think up a different kind of "relationship." Feb 3, 2011:

The Associated Press Board of Directors today approved the establishment of an independent news licensing agency that will allow broader and better access to original news content while providing publishers support for innovative new business models. When launched this summer, the enterprise will include news content from AP and more than a thousand publications.

AP will spin off its News Registry into the newly created entity, called the News Licensing Group, and expects to raise funding from the news industry. The News Licensing Group will be owned by news publishers, and fulfill a need for an efficient means to protect and license digital news content from thousands of news organizations to the wide and growing range of digital communications products and services.

How bad is this predatory mess? The numbers are below the fold.
Look at the stats so far, via RighthavenLawsuits.com:

Number

of Copyright Infringement Lawsuits Filed by Righthaven:

265

(as of April 8, 2011)

Estimated Total Money Settlements

Righthaven's Efforts Have Earned to Date:

$451,500

(based on 129 cases

closed as of April 4, 2011 and an educated guesstimate of an average

of $3,500

settled per case)

(NOTE:

Number of closed cases excludes those cases closed after being

dismissed without prejudice by the court for lack of service or cases knowingly dismissed by Righthaven without any action)

Those caught up by fate -- Righthaven's investigative model was equally shoddy, they did Googles to find its targets quite randomly. The lawsuits overreached (Righthaven lawsuits are demanding that courts freeze and transfer the defendants' domain names. Imagine if a single copyright infringement on Huffingtonpost.com or Redstate.com could result in forfeiture of the entire domain. Effectively asking for control of all of a website's existing and future content -- instead of only targeting the allegedly infringing material -- is an overreaching remedy for a single copyright infringement not validated by copyright law or any legal precedent. This also indicates that the attorneys are willing to make overreaching claims in order to scare defendants into a fast settlement.

Righthaven goes straight for litigation. Righthaven isn't sending cease and desist letters or DMCA takedown notices that would allow the targeted bloggers or website operators to remove or amend only the news articles owned by Righthaven. Instead, Righthaven starts with a full-fledged lawsuit in federal court with no warning. It's sue first and ask questions later, which smacks of a strategy designed to churn up legal costs and intimidate defendants into paying up immediately, rather than a strategy aimed at remedying specific copyright infringements.And big names were caught up in this -- Democratic Underground (its case was taken up by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF); as you read above, The Drudge Report was sued (and settled). Raw Story was sued (and settled). By the way, I contacted the EFF - I was given a referral to one of our cooperating attorneys that was dealing with the onslaught of cases. Alas, it would not going to be a pro-bono angel. It was going to be all on the meter for me.

Righthaven's downfall?

So that graphic at the top of this post is where Righthaven is now, after a torrent of rulings that went against it:

After a few rounds of negotiations with Righthaven's vampires, I settled a couple of weeks ago, effectively bankrupting PHB. The lawsuit was dropped by RH last week, and while I cannot disclose the amount, it wiped out any ad revenue -- and then some -- that would have helped offset travel expenses I saved up to send PHB baristas to conferences - no Netroots Nation, no Southern Comfort, etc., - nada is left to do jacksh*t. It's all out of our pockets (and I'm still personally twisting in the wind because I still have to pay the attorneys). Talk about in the personal hole.

I've set up an LLC for the Blend, but that's cold comfort after this. So you probably can guess why it's an attractive idea to shut PHB down and return to relative anonymity.

Marine Commandant General James Amos finds that there was nothing to fear but fear itself

Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos helped fan the flames of unfounded fear prior to the December, 2010 repeal of the anti-gay military mandate known as "don't ask, don't tell".

"When your life hangs on a line, on the intuitive behavior of the young man... who sits to your right and your left, you don't want anything distracting you," Amos told reporters at the Pentagon.

"I don't want to lose any Marines to distraction. I don't want to have any Marines that I'm visiting at Bethesda (hospital) with no legs," he said.

He added that "mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines' lives. That's the currency of this fight."

Despite his reservations, once Congress repealed the anti-gay mandate late in 2010, Gen. Amos honorably vowed that his Marines would "step out smartly to implement this new policy...ensuring the respect and dignity due all Marines."

Since adopting that can-do attitude, the parade of horribles that Ge. Amos had predicted has vanished.  Last week in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Gen. Amos said:

We've not seen issues ... There's not been anxiety over it from the forces in the field ... there hasn't been pushback.

Anticipatory dread is always replaced by a pleasantly benign reality when laws are changed to treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people fairly and equitably.  Gen. Amos is realizing this regarding lesbian, gay and bisexual troops serving openly.  Let's see if the lesson sticks when attention turns to trans troops.

National Organization for Marriage breeds ignorance

crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

More times than not, you can always tell the usefulness (or lack thereof) of an organization by some of the people who chooses to support it.

That being the case, what do the following videos say about the National Organization for Marriage?

Video 1:

Video 2:

 

Video 3:

And the following tweet is from a NOM supporter who isn't happy with Louis J. Marrinelli's support of marriage equality:

Granted, Maggie Gallagher and company will probably say that I am judging them unfairly based on a few clips, but one wonders just how many other supporters of NOM out there are either like this or even worse.

But even if were only this few acting out, what does it say about NOM for attracting such an "interesting element?" So much for the lie about "decent Americans standing up for marriage."

Videos from Prop 8 Trial Tracker.