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.

1. Read it. Here is the link. It’s not in extremely complicated legal language and it might well be a significant historical document one day (hopefully the one step too far for Obama).

2. The case is being heard in front of a judge who previously ruled in favor of a Gay Straight Alliance in Orange County. He issued an injunction demanding that the school allow the GSA to form. Now, the arguments for gay rights in the school context are very different than those in the marriage context, but they are in some ways harder to dismiss: school boards argue that the safety of children requires the removal of gay groups – such groups can become targets for homophobia. As well, school children have limited rights when compared with the general public.

This is a good thing. There is a chance that, if Justice Carter refuses to dismiss the case, and then rules in favor of the plaintiff, Obama (and let’s be clear, this IS Obama) will not appeal.

Now, on to Dean and DADT:

Yesterday, on the Rachel Maddow show, Howard Dean decried the language in the DOMA brief (quite rightfully so) and stated that the Obama administration would now likely be forced to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in order to appease the gay community.

Well, I might be in the minority here, but the repeal of DADT will do nothing to appease this member of the LGBT community. Calling my relationship the equivalent of incest cannot be erased if you let people who share my sexual orientation come out of the closet while serving in the armed forces. It’s just not sufficient.

Sure, DADT is infuriating and demeaning. But at the end of the day, my rights and the rights of most people like me are not affected. This doesn’t make it a fringe issue, the respect of military service members relates to the American community-at-large, but it does mean that repealing DADT while defending DOMA is just like granting rights to a small portion of the LGBT population while defiling the relationships of the whole LGBT population.

It’s just not good enough.

So focus on the issue at hand. One can fix this problem by making it a policy to refuse to defend DOMA in all future legal challenges, including an appeal of this current challenge. Because defending DOMA will always require the use of derogatory terms when describing LGBT relationships and will always lead to a cowardly reversal of campaign promises made by Obama to Americans just a few months ago.

(Washington) Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is embarking on a voter registration bus tour he hopes will help push Dixie to the Democrats.

Dean’s trip begins Thursday in President Bush’s hometown of Crawford, Texas, riding an eye-catching bus wrapped in the red, white and blue of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign logo.

Dean said in a telephone interview that he’ll focus on winning over people who are struggling economically.

“We think that they have been disillusioned,” said Dean, a former Vermont governor and presidential candidate in 2004. “Many of them voted for George Bush. We think they want something new and we’re going to provide it for them.”

Democrats dominated the South through the first half of the 20th century. But as President Lyndon B. Johnson famously predicted when he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the party gradually lost support in the region. Georgia native Jimmy Carter is the only Democratic presidential candidate to win broad support in the South since then.

“I think the big reason is we haven’t tried,” Dean said. “If you don’t show up, you can’t win. And that’s not going to happen this time. We are going to show up everywhere.”

Republican Party spokesman Alex Conant said it will take “more than a road trip” to convince Southerners to support the Democratic agenda.

“Barack Obama’s partisan record is out of step with voters in the states Dean will be driving through,” Conant said. “Democrats have lost these states by double digits in recent elections and there’s no reason a typical politician like Obama would do any better.”

Obama has predicted he can change the trend of a Republican South, in part by registering black voters who participate in elections at a lower rate than whites. Obama and Dean have been united in their commitment to campaign for voters in all 50 states, even those where Democrats have performed poorly in the past and haven’t built an organization.

But Obama is competing more aggressively in some states than others. His spending on advertising is an indication of where he thinks he has the best chance of winning, and the Southern states on the list at this point are Georgia, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

“The key is going to be registering people to vote,” Dean said.

Dean said the voter registration drive is focused on boosting Obama’s standing in the states, but local candidates will join the tour when it comes their way and he hopes it can help them, too.

Dean’s travel plans include:

- A drive from Crawford to Austin on Thursday.

- Stops Friday in New Orleans and the Mississippi cities of Hattiesburg and Jackson.

- Visits to the Louisiana cities of Shreveport and Baton Rouge on Saturday.

- On July 25, three stops are planned in North Carolina – Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte.

- July 26 takes him to Georgia for visits to Savannah, Macon and Atlanta.

- In August, the bus is scheduled to make stops in Midwest swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana before it heads to Denver for the Democrat National Convention, which opens Aug. 25.