Morning Sweep

As a response to an Ithaca demonstration by anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, a group of Cornell students is organizing a counter-demonstration tomorrow morning in Ho Plaza.

Hillary is throwing a fundraiser at (in)famous West Hollywood nightspot The Abbey on the night of the HRC/Logo debate. Obama and Edwards are also having events, but have chosen venues on L.A.'s restaurant row (LaCienega Blvd.). Good As You has info on how you can host your own viewing party, depending on which candidate you support.

NGLTF Executive Director (and former Pride Agenda E.D) Matt Forman calls out Democratic presidential candidates in a statement released yesterday: "But, what of the Democrats? Sadly, mostly silence. You can find our issues explicitly referenced on only three candidates’ sites (Kucinich, Richardson and Gravel). Frontrunners Clinton, Obama and Edwards carefully parse their support of our people into specific reforms. We find no evidence that the Democratic frontrunners counter Republicans’ anti-LGBT speech with routine and positive inclusion of LGBT people in their visions for a whole and healthy society." Full text here.

Conversely, Ben Smith writes that 2008 is shaping up to be much different than 2004, when LGBT issues were used as a wedge by GOP candidates. Instead, writes Smith, "the leading Democratic candidates have spent the early presidential campaign in a newly public competition to show off their pro-gay bona fides."