Richard Socarides On DOMA Battle

NEW YORK: Marriage Activists Buoyed After Meeting With Governor Cuomo

New York marriage equality activists say they have renewed hope after yesterday's private meeting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Paul Schindler reports at Gay City News:

“I’ve been to lots of meetings where presidents or governors call people in to say that they’re with them, and this one was really extraordinary,” said Richard Socarides, the executive director of Equality Matters, a new LGBT-focused effort of the progressive watchdog Media Matters. During the Clinton administration, Socarides, an attorney, was the White House liaison to the LGBT community. “What was clear to me from the meeting is that the governor is very committed to this,” Socarides continued. “He is prepared to do what it takes to get it done. He’s going to work on it and his team is going to work on it as soon as they get the budget done.” Acknowledging that Cuomo did not put it in so many words, Socarides said if the budget is completed on or close to the April 1 deadline, with both Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats reasonably content about that process, “I think he will turn to this, and it will be his top priority.” Socarides was not alone in his glowing assessment. Another participant, who did not wish to be identified, said, “The governor is really, really focused on this. He is putting the smartest people in his office on it.”

The New York Assembly has approved same-sex marriage three times and would doubtlessly do so again. The problem, as always, is in the state Senate, where even when Democrats held a slim majority, marriage failed. Today the GOP holds a 32-30 lead, meaning at least five or six GOP votes are needed to overcome the remaining traitorous Democrats. How the governor intends to achieve that is unclear.

Richard Socarides & Pat Buchanan On Barack Obama And DOMA

Socarides, who is now with the Media Matters affiliate Equality Matters, says that today's move "will definitely help Obama with gay groups." Understatement.

LAUNCHED: Equality Matters

Media Matters has launched Equality Matters, a new LGBT activism site meant to serve as a "communications war room for gay equality."

It will be run by Richard Socarides, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who has been deeply critical of President Obama’s record on gay rights. A well-known gay journalist, Kerry Eleveld, the Washington correspondent for The Advocate, will leave that magazine in January to edit the new group’s Web site, equalitymatters.org, which is to go online Monday morning. “Yesterday was a very important breakthrough,” Mr. Socarides said in an interview on Sunday, “and President Obama’s comments, especially following the vote, were very significant, where he for the first time connected race and gender to sexual orientation under the banner of civil rights. “But we will celebrate this important victory for five minutes, and then we have to move on, because we are the last group of Americans who are discriminated against in federal law and there is a lot of work to do.”

Among the major backers of Media Matters is billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The homocon teabaggers are already whining.

HomoQuotable - Richard Socarides

"Can President Obama, who once supported gay marriage, only to oppose it now, change his position again? The answer is yes — and he in fact has no choice. People understand that most public officials who now support gay marriage once opposed it. It wasn’t until after they left office that Bill Clinton and Al Gore (and, most recently, Laura Bush) said that they favored marriage equality. As Nate Silver recently wrote on his blog FiveThirtyEight.com: “Does anyone really believe, in a country that is becoming close to evenly divided on gay marriage, that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Kerry are among the half who oppose it? “

"The sooner Obama changes his answer on this most important equal-rights issue of the day, the better off he will be. The Perry ruling provides the right opportunity to shift his emphasis and provide real leadership, reminding people that in this country, we look to the courts for direction on what our Constitution requires. It might also help the president’s popularity with those that elected him, and it puts him and his party on the right side of the equality question, where he, of course, belongs and presumably wants to be." - Former Clinton White House adviser Richard Socarides, writing for Politico.

SLIDESHOW: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand LGBT Fundraiser In NYC

Last night NY Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell, Pam Spaulding, and Jeremy Hooper joined me at Hell's Kitchen's Therapy Lounge for an LGBT fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, an event put together by Out For Kirsten's Todd Beeton. Dropping by were SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile, activist Corey Johnson, former Clinton White House adviser Ricard Socarides, and other homo-politicos. Great night! Full-screen version of the below photos can be found here.