Rachel started us off with the oddest story of the night. Rachel reported last night that Get Motivated! Business Seminars had bagged George and Laura Bush as its newest speakers.

And co-owner Tamara Lowe shocked me to pieces by actually coming on the show to discuss it.

Wait til you see the promo. I was immediately and powerfully motivated to do anything that isn’t going to one of these seminars. Clean out the vegetable crisper, scrub the grout, drive the entire length of Route 66 with a cat in the car, anything.

I am not a mean person by nature, but watching Tamara Lowe’s smile get less sparkly as Rachel asks questions is awfully enjoyable.

You’re supposed to learn time management at these? Here’s a time management tip: Don’t go to a football stadium and sit there for several hours to learn about time management. That goes double if hugging strangers is involved.

$20, please. And just another $30 a month if you’d like to subscribe to my innovative e-mail series.

Hula Hope

Michelle Obama hula hooped it up at a healthy kids’ fair, and, like most things the First Lady does, she seemed to be really good at it.

But of course she has engagingly swiveled her way right into a trap: Hula hooping, given its name, is clearly Hawaiian, and we all know that Hawaii is actually Kenya, which in turn was secretly a part of the Soviet Union.

Somebody get Orly Taitz on the phone!

Bonus Round

Rachel reported that the government has decided to assert some ownership muscle over those companies our taxes bailed out. The treasury has ordered the top recipients of bailout money to cut the salaries of their highest-paid executives. By a lot.

The salary levels they’ll be howling about today are way, way more than I make, but I will work past that minor irritant to really enjoy the howling. (OK, maybe I am a mean person by nature. Who knew? Besides you, Mom.)

In the meantime, three Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee proposed a bill that would completely deregulate the banks, because that era worked out so well. Hell, why stop there? Let’s just deregulate everything. I heard the Triangle Shirtwaist fire was a hoot.

Representative Barney Frank (D – Massachusetts), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, battled past a sore throat to talk some sense.

Crunch Time

As Rachel noted, it is no longer playtime.

At some point during the health care reform brouhaha, someone noticed that insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws, in case you were wondering where that cheerful “What the hell are you going to do about it?” customer service ethic comes from.

On Wednesday the House Judiciary Committee voted to end that protected status, since there was no earthly point to it unless you believe our national security somehow depends on insurance executives being able to afford zoot suits made out of spun gold and moonbeams.

Ms. Information

As Rachel reported earlier in the week, during the course of defending Senator Jim DeMint (R – South Carolina), South Carolina Republican county chairmen Edwin Merwin and James Ulmer wrote an op ed that made reference to a stereotype about Jews and then issued lame apologies.

Now Lake Havasu, Arizona City Councilman Lee Barnes, has issued a similar “compliment,” calling himself “just a little Jewish” about spending money.

After the ensuing uproar, Barnes clarified that he was just saying that “Jewish people are pretty good with their money,” and then he was wrestled to the ground and chloroformed by his aides, who apparently whacked him with rolled-up newspapers until he figured it out and issued a real apology, of which Rachel approved.

Lawmakers, if you know what is good for you, you will go ahead and give your aides a steady newspaper supply right now.

Rachel next reported that one can now buy an official FBI cologne called Integrity and Rachel and TRMS staff, I love you, but I am officially skeptical of this story.

Rachel’s source for this one was a website called Tickle the Wire. In fact, when I started looking for a link to the cologne, I noticed that everyone’s source for this one was Tickle the Wire.

Even The Washington Post linked back to Tickle the Wire, and nobody seemed to link back to the “website” where the cologne was supposed to be on sale. I couldn’t find it on the FBI website, and the FBI Recreation Association doesn’t seem to have a main site at all, let alone an online store.

FBIRA does sell official FBI merchandise at FBI Headquarters and at field offices, but I couldn’t fine a single reference to Integrity that didn’t link back to that sole, non-FBI source.

Either the FBI cologne is deep undercover or there’s still a little hoaxing in the air.

Now I’m interested and, no, I can’t just let it go. If someone has actually seen or purchased this cologne, could you drop me a line? @Ali_Davis on Twitter.

Indefensible

Remember how 30 Republican Senators voted against the Franken amendment? The one about how we shouldn’t do business with companies that stop employees who have been raped from taking legal recourse?

I think we should all remember which ones did that. Thanks to Rachel and staff for calling every last one of them to try to get one the show and for running their names in the Crawl of Shame again.

Rachel welcomed former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones to talk about this appalling story.

The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), a long-time supporter of equal rights for gays, has essentially no chance for a hearing or vote during this session of Congress, according to Frank. It is the last of eight bills of specific interest to the LGBT community to be introduced to this session of Congress, which is nearing the end of the first of its two years. And Frank, the de facto leader on LGBT-related measures in Congress, says four other bills come first.

“We have pending four major pieces of [LGBT] legislation which have a serious chance to pass,” said Frank Monday in a phone interview. Those, he noted, are the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill, attached to a bill authorizing defense spending; the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA); a bill to give equal benefits to the partners of gay federal employees as provided to straight spouses; and a bill to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The Nadler bill, said Frank, “has zero chance of passage, even out of committee. It’s a mistake.”

Frank’s problem with the bill isn’t just its timing on a crowded and unusually urgent Congressional calendar monopolized by health care reform, financial regulation reform, appropriations bills, and the other LGBT legislation.

“It’s a very controversial form” of the bill, he said.

 Nadler’s bill, the “Respect for Marriage Act,” (ROMA) is a simple two-page measure, seeking to do two things:

·     repeal both sections of DOMA –Section 2, which says no state can be “required” to recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple licensed in another state, and Section 3, which limits the interpretation of “marriage” for any federal purpose to only heterosexual couples; and,

·    add language that says “for the purposes of any Federal law in which marital status is a factor, an individual shall be considered married if that individual’s marriage is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into or, in the case of a marriage entered into outside any State, if the marriage is valid in the place where entered into and the marriage could have been entered into in a State.”

Frank says the latter clause abandons the strategy of “dealing with marriage state by state.” If a same-sex couple obtains a marriage license in Massachusetts and moves to California, the federal government would recognize their marriage in California.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of the national Freedom to Marry organization, helped write that latter provision, which has been dubbed the “certainty clause.”

“It’s called the ‘certainty clause,’” said Wolfson, in a phone interview after the press conference, “because it establishes certainty that your federal protections and responsibilities will remain with you no matter where you travel” as a same-sex married couple. “The federal government will have a consistent approach. And it’s not telling states what to do,” says Wolfson.

Frank concedes that it’s “a desirable goal,” but says, “we’re not remotely close to achieving it and it’s unwise politically.” For that reason, said Frank, he’s not one of the bill’s current 90 co-sponsors.

But doesn’t Frank’s refusal to co-sponsor the bill, even as a starting point for discussion, essentially kill the bill before it’s out of the chute?

“It does send a message that it’s a bad idea,” says Frank. “But I want to send a message.”

 Top priority for community

While the Nadler bill doesn’t have Frank’s support, it does have the co-sponsorship of two of Congress’ other openly gay members – Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

Joining Nadler and others at Tuesday’s press conference were some of the movement’s biggest leaders –Wolfson; Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign; Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund; and Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

HRC’s website says its communications with the LGBT community around the country indicates repealing DOMA is “a top priority.” Some 50,000 people responded to the organization’s request for examples of how DOMA affects them negatively.

“We’re in this for the long haul,” said Solmonese, in a phone interview following Tuesday’s press conference. “This is a long term strategy.” He seems untroubled by Frank’s withholding of support.

“We have a difference of opinion about tactics,” said Solmonese.    

Perhaps, but Frank likens Nadler’s bill to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome’s decision, in February 2004, to direct city officials to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples even though a state law prohibited it.

“It’s an effort to make people in the community happy,” said Frank. “That’s not our job. We owe people our judgment.”

Some political observers have blamed Newsome’s tactic as off-putting and responsible for at least some of the vote to approve Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, in California last November.

Frank says he thinks “the way we’ll win” repeal of DOMA is through the lawsuit filed by GLAD against Section 3 of the law.

Noticeably absent was the Massachusetts-based legal organization that has been leading the charge for same-sex marriage rights and against DOMA –the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders. But Carisa Cunningham, a spokesperson for GLAD, said the organization supports the bill.

“We just didn’t have anyone who could make it to Washington today,” said Cunningham.

And Nadler defends ROMA: “Mr. Frank knows better than anyone that our opponents will falsely claim that any DOMA repeal bill ‘exports marriage’ in an effort to generate fear and misunderstanding.  But the dishonest tactics of our opponents should not stop us from aggressively pushing to end this horrific discrimination now, as is the consensus of the nation’s top LGBT groups who all support this approach.”

Nadler says his bill “does not tell any state who it must marry or what marriage it must recognize under state law.”

“Our bill,” says Nadler, “allows states to continue deciding those questions, while ensuring uniform access to critically important federal responsibilities and rights that hinge on marriage and upon which all married couples should be able to rely.”

© 2009 Keen News Service

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, would prohibit workplace discrimination – including decisions about hiring, firing and wages – based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It would exempt religious organizations, the military and businesses with less than 15 workers.

The driving force behind the bill has been Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the longest-serving of the three openly gay members of Congress. He expects hearings on the measure to be held this fall.

Frank pushed ENDA in 2007, but it foundered because of insufficient backing in the Senate and a split within the gay and transgender communities. Many activists were irate because Frank – seeking support from wavering colleagues – was open to covering sexual orientation but not gender identity, excluding transgender people from protection.

This time around, several factors have changed:

-Barack Obama is now president, and is on record supporting ENDA. A veto was considered possible if the 2007 bill had reached then-President George W. Bush.

-ENDA’s core supporters, including Frank, have agreed they will push only for a bill that includes gender identity.

-The bill has picked up key support in the Senate, where it was introduced earlier this month by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley and Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Even without other GOP senators, Merkley believes it has a good chance of obtaining the 60 votes that likely will be needed to pass the Senate.

The main Senate champion of ENDA in the past had been Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who died Tuesday. That role was passed on to Merkley earlier this year.

There is another difference from 2007. Frank now has a policy adviser who is a female-to-male transsexual. Diego Sanchez is the first transgender person hired for a senior congressional staff position on Capitol Hill.

Sanchez has done extensive face-to-face lobbying for ENDA, and Frank says that’s enabled some members of Congress to get to know a transsexual for the first time.

“He interacts with a lot of people,” Frank said. “Prejudice is literally ignorance.”

Frank says he now doubts votes will be cast against ENDA solely because it extends to transgender people.

Sanchez is a longtime activist who worked for the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention last year before joining Frank’s staff. Back in 2007, he was among a minority of transgender activists who accepted Frank’s tactical decision to drop gender identity from that version of ENDA.

“He’s called on the entire community since then to lobby, work – and the community has said, ‘OK, we’ve got one game plan, and it’s Barney,’” Sanchez said. “There’s broader support this time.”

Opponents of ENDA – led by several national conservative groups – concede that the bill has enough support to clear the House, and expect a closely fought battle in the Senate.

Ashley Horne, federal issues analyst for Focus on the Family, promised that her conservative Christian ministry would encourage tough opposition.

“It’s definitely a bill we will put a lot of resources toward fighting,” she said. “Our primary concern is the chipping away of religious liberties.”

Twenty-one states already have laws prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 12 extend those laws to gender identity – California, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Several other states protect public employees who are gay or transgender.

The experience of these states shows that passage a federal law is unlikely to unleash a flood of litigation and conflict, Frank and Merkley say.

Minnesota, for example, has had a non-discrimination law covering transgender people since 1993 that rarely triggers controversies. Oregon passed a comparable bill in 2007.

“There were concerns there’d be a huge number of lawsuits – it simply didn’t materialize,” Merkley said.

However, attorney Jim Campbell of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, said ENDA would impose its provisions on more conservative states with more business owners who have religious objections to hiring gays and transgenders.

Campbell also worries that ENDA will serve gay-rights activists’ long-term strategic interests.

“One of the really big problems with enacting ENDA is in the future litigation battles dealing with same-sex marriage,” Campbell said. “It will provide ammunition for homosexual activists in the future to push their agenda in the court system throughout the country.”

Some conservatives say ENDA is unnecessary.

“There is no epidemic of homosexuals being fired; in fact, they are increasingly being courted by major corporations,” contends Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. “It’s religiously devout employees … who face reprisals for opposing homosexuality.”

The National Center for Transgender Equality disagrees. It recently released a survey of 6,500 transgender Americans that said 91 percent had faced bias at work.

Among those claiming harassment was Toni Maviki, a former corrections officer in New Hampshire who said she was pummeled by a fellow guard who learned she was transitioning from being a man to being a woman.

“I carried a badge and I protected all you people and there was no law to protect me from harm,” Maviki testified earlier this year.

Maviki said she filed complaints that led to further harassment, and finally quit her job. Her testimony failed to sway a state Senate committee, which voted against extending anti-bias provisions to transgender people.

National gay-rights groups will be watching ENDA closely this year.

“We’re further than we’ve ever been, but there is certainly still work to be done,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “It is frustrating sometimes, having to explain to the community that there are so many procedural hurdles in our way.”

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank asked the woman, who had stepped up to the podium at a southeastern Massachusetts senior center to ask why Frank supports what she called a Nazi policy.

“Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it,” Frank replied.

He continued by saying her ability to deface an image of the president and express her views “is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.”

Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, sought to assure more than 500 people attending the rowdy meeting that the average taxpayer wouldn’t be hurt by plans currently under consideration in Congress.

Some of those attending the meeting organized by the Democratic Town Committee of Dartmouth shouted and booed as Frank and others addressed the crowd.

At one point, Frank asked the crowd: “Which one of you wants to yell next?”

Several people wanted to know how the government would pay for the reforms without worsening a growing federal budget deficit.

At least two dozen protesters gathered in small groups outside, handing out pamphlets and holding signs criticizing the overhaul, Obama and Frank. Some of the posters read: “It’s the economy stupid, stop the spending” and “Healthcare reform yes, government takeover, no. Tort Reform Now”

Audrey Steele, 82, from New Bedford, said she does not want the government to get involved with health care because “they just make a mess of everything,” referring to the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions that was used to pay for lavish conferences and hefty executive compensation.

Others at Tuesday’s meeting were more supportive of reform.

Dr. Sheila Leavitt, a physician from Newton, said she hoped for changes that would support primary care physicians who aren’t paid as much as specialists. She said some of the rowdy critics at Tuesday’s meeting appeared to be using the same “talking points” as those who showed up at similar meetings around the country.

Crop circle people, I hope you are watching these guys. You could learn something.

Seriously, featured cowardly Republican politicians? Is this why you got into public service? To pander to the racist voting block? To be so frightened of your own constituents that you can’t bring yourself to say something that is demonstrably true?

Real leaders have spines and are willing to speak the hard truths. This is an easy one. Reexamine your lives.

Kill Bill
Rachel confirmed what you’d been suspecting: The Republican plan to “slow down health care reform for a sensible review” is of course an attempt to stop health care reform entirely. The current lag is about buying time to get the noise machine cranked up.

And the noise machine is blaring a lot of amazingly bad information lately – including “nonpartisan” information financed by a little outfit known as United Healthcare.

Former DNC chair Howard Dean dropped in to help Rachel get your dander up.

Congressional Democrats, remember how I was talking to the Republicans about locating their spines earlier? Now would be a good time for you too.

Or have new ones installed. Don’t worry, you have government health care – you’re covered.

I know there are a few bold souls among you, but for the most part I could not be more disgusted with the great, quivering swaths of cowardly elected Democrats lately.

Please, just this once in your invertebrate careers, get out there, get loud, and make this one good thing happen.

If you do this one good thing, you can be as rabbity or as weasely as you want for the rest of your days and you will still get to retire knowing that you had a hand in saving thousands of lives and preventing the financial ruin of untold thousands more.

Get one set of vertebrae between you and share them for all I care, but GET them, get out there, and start throwing some elbows on this one.

Hit the airwaves. Stop being polite. When the Republicans are lying, freaking call them on it. You don’t have to be polite when you know they’re lying!

Try righteous indignation – you might even discover you enjoy the rush.

Don’t weigh a safe, timid bet on another term against the greater good of millions and accept a compromise that you know is bad. Just this once, dare to be the people you dreamed of becoming when you first ran.

If you pass something genuinely useful that benefits the people instead of the health insurance industry, we’ll totally let it slide when you’re wussbags about defense spending or something next year. I promise.

Ms. Information
Don’t let your dander down just yet. Rachel gave us an update on the appalling KBR electrocution case.

When Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth was electrocuted in the shower of his own barracks, KBR was actually sleazy enough to lie, first claiming that he had brought an electrical appliance in with him, and then that he had touched live wires while showering.

An inspector general’s report holds both KBR and military leadership responsible for several electrocution deaths, and investigations into slipshod work continue.

Rachel also reported that Sarah Palin stepped down as Alaska’s Governor on Sunday, with much fanfare, a little pizzazz, and a whole lot of that Maverick’s disregard for traditional syntax that we’ve all grown to love.

And whatever wrong Sarah Palin may or may not have committed against the state of Alaska, Rachel and Ana Marie Cox have officially committed a crime against the nation by failing to re-watch Palin’s entire speech on the air while doing shots every time she said “media” or dropped a G.

Fortunately, some people have the decency to pick up the slack and make their drinking public. President Obama, Officer Crowley, and Professor Gates will be hashing things out over Budwiser, Blue Moon, and either Red Stripe or Beck’s, respectively.

And in my mind, they will all be using yard-long beer bongs to do so.

Mr. Greedy
Good lord. Our financial industry right now is in essentially the same state our sausage industry was in during the early 1900’s. And about as appetizing.

The magnificent Congressman Barney Frank (D – Massachusetts) stopped in with sword, spine, and umbrage all ablaze.

I always love Barney Frank, but I love him even more for telling people to call up their elected representatives and demand results.

Vice Versus
Remember how liberal hotheads used to talk about how the Bush administration was really a dictatorship?

Turns out if they weren’t, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Recent reports indicate that Dick Cheney wanted to see how stretchy the Constitution could get by sending the military to Buffalo, NY to round up some suspected terrorists. As opposed to, say, the police.

Great jumping catfish. How does Cheney keeps getting scarier? It defies all logic. Not to mention physics. Should we be concerned that he could collapse into a black hole of scary?

New stories from the emerging Bush-Cheney slap fight portray them in sort of a good-cop/bad cop scenario. Or, let’s be honest, a bad cop/maniac cop scenario.

Rachel seemed to think that they are engaged in a legacy-polishing duel, and that loyal Bushies are trying to spread the story that he was protecting us from Cheney, but I have a freakier theory.

Maybe this is all still part of Cheney’s plan. Maybe he thinks he’s nobly elevating Bush by sacrificing himself.

Or maybe I’m thinking about this too much.

Anyway, I’m hoping this story continues, mostly because Rachel is unable to get through the phrase “Bush defending our civil liberties” without cracking up.

Until tomorrow, keep our nation great by drinking a yard of beer for the President and not makin’ things up about Sarah Palin.

This clip is kind of a grab bag of delicious treats, including Governor Mark Sandford (R – South Carolina) in a press conference so uncomfortable that most ordinary men would have to chew off a foot to survive it.

Fortunately, Sanford has had some training in surviving monstrously uncomfortable press conferences. Though he still insists on having distracting people in the background. Is that supposed to be a misdirection technique or something?

The wonderful Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post dropped in to chat. He and Rachel always seem to have such fun together.

I don’t often disagree with Eugene Robinson, but I do when he says the main problem with The Family is the secrecy. Me, I’m going with the totalitarianism.

I also think it’s interesting that Zach Wamp (R – Tennessee) thinks that C Street won’t be a problem because it’s a Christian group. Do you think he’d feel the same if it were a group of politicians from any other religion meeting in secret, giving props to Hitler’s management style, and talking about keeping their birth rate high?

Northern Exposure
Oh, Sarah Palin. Don’t ever change.

Rachel reported that an investigator for the Alaska State Personnel Board found that Palin has violated Alaskan ethics laws with her – wait for it – legal defense fund to help fight accusations of ethics violations.

Such funds are apparently common for politicians on the federal level, but are illegal in the Great State of Alaska. Which nobody on the Governor’s team thought to check, I guess.

I can’t help it: A part of me finds that adorable.

By the way, if you are not following Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed, you are missing gold. Start now, I tell you! Now!

Ms. Information
Rachel updated us on a new round of protests in Iran, including an intriguing power surge protest: Tuesday night protesters were all supposed to turn off their appliances and then turn them back on at the same time.

She also noted that President Ahmadinejad is maybe not enjoying his Presidency as much as he thought he would. Apparently Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is pressuring him to drop his choice for Vice President. Sounds like someone just learned a Very Special Lesson about election fraud.

Rachel also gave us an update on the giant, oozing mystery blob off the coast of Alaska: Scientists have schlorped out a couple of buckets of the stuff and determined that it’s algae.

And now it’s angry.

Rachel finished off this segment with a pun that made me laugh out loud before I ran out to help rescue the many thousands who were nearly killed by it.

Jet Blew
Rachel reported that the Senate gave the military-industrial complex an inferiority complex by cutting nearly $2 billion in funding for more F-22 jets.

Turns out that is a huge, very interesting deal.

If you want to see something besides F-22s flying through the air, glance down at your socks as you watch this truly fantastic example of information synthesis. Those suckers are going to get knocked clean off.

Congressman Barney Frank (D – Massachusetts), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, dropped in to maintain his firm grip on the lead in the My Favorite Curmudgeon race.

(Also, if you are eight years old inside, you will enjoy getting to hear Rachel repeatedly say the word “frigate,” which is my favorite homophone.)

Moment of Geek
Rachel kept us all looking up with a report on Tuesday’s solar eclipse, the longest of this century.

I had the sound off for the bulk of it, but from the looks of things a particularly large dragon tried to eat the sun and came very close to succeeding!

I’m glad to see that people finally managed to drive it away, presumably with the traditional method of banging on pots and pans.

Neat!

Birther of a Nation
Amazingly enough, the birthers have not yet been distracted by, I don’t know, the issue of whether earthquakes are caused by Communist molemen or something, and they are actually getting airtime.

They are also scaring the dickens out of the tiny remaining non-whackadoodle branch of the Republican Party, based on the vigorous weaseling Representative John Campbell (R – California) did on MSNBC’s Hardball.

You’ll also get to see CNN’s Lou “Foreigners Are Scary” Dobbs, but not so much that you’ll need the ipecac.

Just Enough
Kent let us know that Carrie Prejean’s memoir, Still Standing, will be published this November.

It’s good to know that your holiday gift list is all taken of, isn’t it?

This revised version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act includes gender and has a better chance of passing, Frank said, because activists have been lobbying for the bill “in the right way.” The bill has 114 co-sponsors, including Frank and openly gay members Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis; the 2007 gender-inclusive bill had 62.

When the House dropped gender protections in 2007 over the objections of activists, the bill passed – but the Senate took no action. So far, there is no comparable Senate bill, though Frank told the Advocate he was hopeful that one would be introduced there.

If ENDA passes, it would become the first-ever ban on employment discrimination of LBGT people, who are frequently discriminated against in hiring, firing, promotion and compensation decisions.

“If passed, ENDA would promote workplace equality for everyone by expanding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Employment discrimination hurts not just families, but also the economy by creating hostile workplaces and reducing the earning power of LGBT people,” said Christopher Anders, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel, in a statement.

“The introduction of the first-ever federal legislation banning employment discrimination of LBGT people is a fitting tribute to the 40th anniversary of the historic Stonewall riots – the birth of the gay rights movement.”

The fundraiser has met with much controversy in response to the Justice Department’s defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. Several other prominent figures have dropped out of the fundraiser because of the Obama administration’s stance on DOMA.

“I will not attend a fundraiser for the National Democratic Party in Washington next week when the current administration is responsible for these kind of actions. How will they ever take us seriously if we keep forking out money while they harm us,” said author and civil rights activist David Mixner last week in a statement after pulling out from the fundraiser. “For now on, my money is going to battles within the community such as the fight in Maine or the March on Washington!”

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network announced Monday that they will have protesters outside of the event tomorrow.

“SLDN will be calling upon the President to end his silence on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” executive director Aubrey Sarvis released in a statement on SLDN’s website Monday. “We will be wearing and handing out buttons with the number 265, representing the number of service members who will have been discharged this week since President Obama was sworn in.”

Chuck Wolfe, president of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, and Hilary Rosen, the managing partner of the DC office of the Brunswick Group, have also dropped out of the event.

Openly gay elected representatives Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Jared Polis are still scheduled to attend and are listed as three of the top four names on the invitation.

“I’m a Democrat and a proud Democrat. Our party’s not perfect but certainly I will help the Democrats however I can,” Rep. Polis explained to the Advocate on why he is still attending.

“We can wait for the president to try to move members of Congress, or we can redouble our efforts and get about doing that work ourselves,” Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said Thursday.

The two most contentious proposals on the activists’ agenda – both backed by Obama during his election campaign – would extend federal recognition to same-sex partnerships and repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars gays from serving openly in the military.

The president says he wants to work with Congress to achieve both goals, but many gay-rights activists contend he is moving too slowly and hesitantly. The frustration was eased only slightly, if at all, when Obama signed a memorandum Wednesday extending limited benefits to the same-sex partners of gay federal employees.

“The atmospherics were fine, but the substance was zero,” Ethan Geto, a New York-based activist and political consultant, said of the signing ceremony.

Obama’s problem with the gay community, Geto said, stems largely from the high expectations raised by his campaign rhetoric.

“He said the gay-rights agenda would be a priority for his administration – and he received an enormous amount of support from the community,” Geto said. “Now people are beginning to really question his commitment. … Gay donors are running away in droves.”

Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, which campaigns nationally for gay marriage rights, said he remains optimistic over the long term because the American public “is ready for change.”

“What we need now is leadership from the president, Congress and state officials to deliver that change,” he said. “I’m frustrated and disappointed that the administration has not yet delivered on the vision we share for a more equal America.”

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the longest serving of the three openly gay members of Congress, said many activists placed unrealistic expectations on Obama and underestimated the need to lobby Congress relentlessly in the style of the National Rifle Association.

“It’s not that Obama doesn’t want to do it, but you need the votes,” Frank said. “You can’t complain about the president until you’ve called your senator.”

Leaders of some national gay-rights organizations acknowledged Frank’s point.

“We’re working hard to secure the needed votes,” said Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “All these issues will take work on the part of Congress as well as the president.”

The gay-rights bill closest to a vote in Congress would expand the federal hate-crimes law to cover anti-gay violence. It has passed the House and is awaiting a Senate vote, but Solmonese said its backers are proceeding cautiously, wary of possible Republican maneuvers to derail it.

Later this year, action is possible on a bill that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

There’s no timetable, however, for the pending bill to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Obama says he wants to build support for the change among military commanders before urging Congress to move ahead.

Gay-rights leaders concede that Obama has his hands full with wars, recession, health care reform and other challenges, but they nonetheless feel slighted – compared to other liberal constituencies – by a president who, during the campaign, said he would be a “fierce advocate” for gay rights.

“Show us you are indeed that fierce advocate,” said Jody Huckaby, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Huckaby said he was particularly dismayed last week when Obama’s Justice Department defended the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to reject other states’ legal gay marriages and prohibits federal recognition of any same-sex partnerships. As candidate, Obama promised to repeal the act.

On the other hand, some conservative activists continue to decry Obama’s commitment to a “radical homosexual agenda” and have launched protests against some of the gays appointed to administration jobs. The prime target at the moment is Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, who has been named to oversee the Education Department’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the responsibility for inaction on gay-rights priorities lies with both Obama and Congress.

“It’s shocking to realize we still live a country where gay and lesbian people can’t serve openly in the military, have no federal protections in the private workplace, and same-sex couples are entitled to no benefits under federal law,” Minter said.

“There’s so much anger in our community. We expect the president and Congress to move forward.”

“I think the administration made a big mistake. The wording they used was inappropriate,” the Massachusetts Democrat told the Boston Herald during an interview published in the paper’s Wednesday edition.

Jared Polis, another gay member of Congress, released a statement on his website explaining his shock and hurt after the Justice Department compared same-sex marriage to incest.

“I was shocked and disappointed to learn that President Obama chose to defend DOMA in federal court, especially given his campaign promise to call for a full repeal of DOMA. My sadness turned to outrage when I read the Justice Department’s brief that not only defended this hurtful law but seemed to embrace it,” said Rep. Polis. “Comparing my loving relationship with my partner, Marlon, to incest was unconscionable coming from a president who has called for change.”

Read the full CNN story here.