On the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots: A note from Andy Tobias about the Gay DNC fundraiser--Protesters & Grilled Cheese

A note about disclosure, this email was not sent to me. I received via a listserv but feel it is important that our community see it. I did not attend. If I had the resources, I would have. Maybe sometime soon

Every year we do this dinner there are all kinds of worries.One year, there was the little problem of summer thunderstorms that threatened to keep all our speakers -- Howard Dean, Barney Frank, our Presidential Nominee Himself -- stuck on the tarmac in DC as we contemplated our Waldorf salads in NY.

But somehow, it always works out (the clouds parted), and I am always left
with the same feeling: If only we had had 300 more people there!

Well, it happened again Thursday night.

And before I get into the grilled cheese sandwiches and the designer
underwear, for those interested in the details, here is the
executive summary:

The Vice President of the United States came . . . at the behest of the President of the United States . . . to address the 10th Annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council Dinner and did so with a sincerity and depth of feeling no transcript will convey. In particular, his impromptu remarks when he spotted Frank Kameny and spoke of what an honor it had been to meet him at the White House the week before. He lingered on this, saluting the lifetime of courage this Harvard-trained astronomer had shown -- fired by the government in 1957 simply for being gay -- in fighting for his rights in a way no gay American theretofore had. "An honor," the Vice President kept repeating, of their meeting. "An honor."

We have come a long way since 1957, and since 1965, when Frank Kameny and our late friend Barbara Gittings, and eight others picketed the White House for respect and equality.

Today, we have that respect. And now the White House is working to help us get that equality.

To the protestors outside -- as to every guest inside -- it¹s not coming fast enough. Equality NOW? We deserved equality from the day we were BORN. We are Americans. There is no dispute about that.

But the mechanics even for simple things that require no legislation take a
little time -- which is maddening, not least because time slows down when you are eagerly anticipating something -- and more time still when the votes of 60 senators are required.

Even so, the Vice President reaffirmed the Administration¹s commitment to do everything from lifting the HIV travel ban to passing hate crimes and enda and repealing da/dt and doma.

So that's the executive summary. Now for the protestors and the grilled cheese and so forth.

I had learned from a waiter at the Four Seasons (our spies are everywhere) that Joe Biden has an unnatural, almost eccentric enthusiasm for mini grilled cheese sandwich hors d'oevres. So, having a direct connection to Mandarin Oriental management thru my boyfriend's brother's boyfriend (we are everywhere) . . . and by the power vested in me as Treasurer to commit $20 to a plate of mini grilled cheese sandwiches . . . I started pulling strings.

The mechanics of passing gender identity inclusive ENDA may involve some nuance, but the mechanics of having a plate of mini grilled cheese hors d'oevres in the Holding Room upon the Vice President's arrival --with a nice little note of thanks and welcome . . . well, I don't mean to brag here, but I have a graduate degree.

Long story short (obviously, you could see this coming), there was no way in hell this was going to happen. Turns out, Secret Service would have required a naval officer continuously in the hotel kitchen for 24 hours before to oversee preparation of the grilled cheese.

When I got to tell the Vice President this afterwards, the disappointment in his face was evident, but quickly turned to amused eye rolling.

"Like, anyone's really going to try to poison the VICE president," he smirked.

Meanwhile, as I was trying to arrange for the sandwiches, others were trying to arrange for a protest, to turn up the heat on the Administration with the goal we all share of keeping our issues from getting lost amid higher profile issues like the economy, health care reform, and the rest.

When I learned that SLDN had printed up "265" buttons -- to mark the 265 service members discharged under Don't Ask Don't Tell since Inauguration Day, I called and arranged to get 175 of them for the dinner, which SLDN graciously provided.

On the back, a sticker reads, "Mr. President, work with Congress to repeal this unjust law" -- something he is completely committed to doing -- so as our guests arrived, we asked each of they would join us in wearing the pin, to support the President's call to Congress to repeal DA/DT. Virtually everyone did.

The SLDN protest outside looked great -- a large rainbow banner and ³265² signs carried by 15 or 20 protestors.

Separately, another 15 or 20 not identified with any specific group were shouting "shame" and "boycott the bigots" as guests arrived.

Let me tell you about the bigots at my table. They included marine sergeant Brian Fricke, working with the rest of us to lift the ban (he served in Iraq but chose not to reenlist and live a lie) . . . a straight couple from Wisconsin who double maxed to support us ($60,800)and have a lesbian daughter, two adopted African-American children and two adopted Asian-American children (the husband kept threatening to show us his Andrew Christian Barack Obama briefs) . . . Tina Tchen, White House Director of Public Liaison, who spoke at last month's Task Force Leadership Awards
event . . . and Mitchell Gold and his partner Tim, who had come to give the Vice President a copy of CRISIS. (When he did, the VP looked at it and said, "Oh, we already have it -- my wife is reading it now." Mitchell had given it to Dr. Biden when she keynoted the GLSEN dinner earlier this month. "So now I can read it too," he said.)

So here's how it went:

First, we were wanded by Secret Service (no fair going back to be wanded twice) . . .

. . . then cocktails . . .

. . . then Tom Petrillo -- who has gotten more hateful voice mails and emails in the last month than any fighter for equality ever should (from US, you understand, not from those who OPPOSE us; we do this to OURSELVES) -- called us to order and introduced LGBT Leadership Council co-chairs Laura Ricketts from Chicago and Paul Horning from Atlanta . . .

. . . who welcomed us and noted some of the many notables in the room (a hat tip to Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis, of course ... and to DNC Vice Chair Congressman Mike Honda, who is working allow transnational LGBT couples to stay in the country . . . and to his fellow DNC Vice Chair Ray Buckley, openly gay, who also chairs the NH state party AND the Association of ALL democratic state party chairs AND had so much to do with getting marriage signed into law in New Hampshire) . . .

. . . and then my hero Howard Dean gave us his rousing support via video -- you remember Howard? Who stomped thru Vermont for six months working to get
the citizens of his state to embrace the first-in-the-nation civil unions bill he had signed? Whose "50-State Strategy" is now widely seen as having been responsible for flipping so many state and local districts blue, making much of our recent progress possible? Who helped pass marriage equality in Vermont recently? Whom so many in our community were vilifying for three years as they called on donors to boycott the DNC? (Not for an instant to defend the over-vigorous DOJ brief, but does anyone see a pattern here?). . .

. . . and then I got a chance to say thanks to others, including the (unrelated) "Bean brothers" (Terry, who'd come from Portland, Oregon, and has been fighting for our equality ever since he helped found HRC, and Billy, who had flown up from Miami, the former Detroit Tiger) . . . and straight allies in the room like Krystal Ball , who with her husband Jonathan Dariyanani had given $10,000 to vice chair the dinner (and whom you really should click thru to read about and then support if you want to flip a vote on marriage equality) . . .

. . . and then DNC Chair Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, a civil rights attorney in Richmond for 17 years, told us of the impression it had made on him, so many years ago, to see fellow students at the University of Missouri in 1979 flinging epithets -- and bottles -- at a group of gay students walking across campus, and how he is committed -- right along with the President and his predecessor Howard Dean -- to winning our equality with the least possible delay . . .

. . . and then we ate . . .

. . . and then Tom called us back to order and introduced Barney (with whom Charles and I would love to have you play water volleyball July 11), who had days earlier introduced gender-identity inclusive ENDA for passage and signing, we hope, very soon . . .

. . . and then Barney recognized some others in the room . . .like John Berry, openly gay head of H.R. for the entire civilian federal government, who's working (with his openly gay chief counsel Elaine Kaplan, also with us) to make sure the government does everything it can to treat its employees equally . . . and asked us to remember one number: NINETY PERCENT. Because that's the number of Democrats -- 90% -- that if we don't get with us on any LGBT-related legislation leaves us surprised and disappointed (we usually get more), and that's the number of Republicans -- 90% -- who, if any fewer than that OPPOSE us, leaves us pleasantly surprised(they usually get more) . . .

. . . and then the Vice President noted the progress of the first five months . . . made very clear that our frustration and justified impatience have been heard at the highest levels . . . and reaffirmed that a lot more progress is on the way, with work is going on behind the scenes to make it happen. He ran through the whole litany, on up through repeal of DA/DT --which brought everyone to his or her feet -- and DOMA, which brought everyone to their feet against except one Congressman, who knows how hard it is going to be to get 60 Senator votes and fears the community will expect it faster than it can be delivered.

And thus ended the dinner.

The HIGHLIGHT of the dinner, for me, was watching the exchange between Vice President Biden, up at the podium, and Frank Kameny, at table 9. It was unscripted. It was heartfelt. It was prolonged. It was sincere. And to those of us who remember what the world was like in 1957 and 1965, it was truly moving.

The PURPOSE of the dinner, for all of us, was two-fold: to help fund ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA and related efforts that strengthen the President in moving his agenda, which includes OUR agenda; and to help elect Democrats at all levels of government who overwhelmingly favor our equality, where Republicans overwhelmingly do not.

Huge thanks to all who stepped up and helped -- whether by being outside to with "265" and other respectful signs pushing for our equality or by being inside helping to fund the political infrastructure that helps us win it.

It's early yet. You can still help , and will be welcomed with open arms when you do.

Andy