Morning Sweep

Anti/ex-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin's appearance at a Barack Obama campaign event in South Carolina was widely popular among the crowd he was meant to draw, despite the outcry from the LGBT community.

Disappointingly, Barack Obama made it clear to Iowans that he does not support gay marriage, but instead prefers civil unions.

Libby Post calls all of this Obama criticism nonsense, saying that the LGBT community is too easily distracted with trivialities of the moment and should focus on long-term obstacles like the confirmation of anti-gay judges.

Six of Sweden's seven political parties support legalizing gay marriage, including the Moderate Party, the party of the current prime minister. In Ireland the government is considering legislation that would legalize civil unions for same-sex couples.

Fred Thompson's position against civil unions didn't go over so well in New Hampshire.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune takes a look at where Minnesota's congressional delegation stands on the federal ENDA and Hate Crimes bills. Would be great if one of New York's papers did something similar...

Salon has the new gay stereotype.

Morning Sweep

New Jersey's Civil Union Review Commission hears from couples who claim that they are not getting the equal treatment that the civil union law was meant to ensure.

A columnist for the Albany Times-Union writes about J.K. Rowling's announcement last week that homosexuality exists in the wizarding world...and suggests that conservatives should--if they choose to get all up-in-arms about the sexuality of fictional characters--look into the behavior of some other well-known wizard-types.

The Boston Globe writes about MassEquality's identity crisis.

Religious groups in Iowa gathered over the weekend to protest the possibility of marriage equality coming to the Hawkeye State.

Country singer John Rich (of a band called Big & Rich) compared same-sex marriage to incest and is getting lots of backlash because of it.

Obama talks to The Advocate

The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld (formerly of the New York Blade) had a conversation today with Barack Obama about the Donnie McClurkin issue and Obama's general ideas on how to get more Americans to understand and support the LGBT rights movement.

The interview notably reveals that Obama's campaign didn't really have an understanding of who McClurkin was vis-a-vis the LGBT community. He also describes his race with Hillary Clinton as "running against the dominant brand name in the Democratic Party over the last 20 years." And he truly seems taken aback with the accusations that he is not "out there" enough on LGBT issues, claiming that "there has not been a stronger and more consistent advocate on LGBT issues than I have been."

Read Eleveld's full article here.

ENDA troubles

The White House's Office of Management and Budget has put out its official position on ENDA and cites religious freedom and protecting the Defense of Marriage Act as two major reasons why the bill would be vetoed if it made it to the president's desk.

Also, The Hill reports that freshmen Democrats have led the charge to kill the Baldwin Amendment, which would reinstate trans-inclusive language in the bill. Without it, ENDA is a sexual orientation non-discrimination bill, not an LGBT-non discrimination bill.

House Education & Labor Committee Chairman George Miller said that the amendment would not go forward if House Democratic leadership did not believe that it had the votes to pass.

The House vote on ENDA was postponed earlier this week and has yet to be rescheduled.

Morning Sweep

Although Cornell students and Ithaca "townies" may clash over many things, the fight for LGBT rights seems to be the area where the two communities work well together.

Mitt Romney sparred with a 15-year old in Massachusetts resident over his back-and-forth position on gay rights and abortion. Mother Jones writes about Log Cabin's campaign against Romney.

AfterEllen reviews Oprah's "Gay Around the World" episode, in which Oprah claimed that a global gay rights revolution was underway.

Same-sex marriage was an issue of debate between two candidates running for a state senate seat in New Jersey.

Mike Gravel tells Queerty that he and Dennis Kucinich are the only presidential candidates supporting full equality for LGBT people--and that our community should expect nothing less from any candidate.

Davis Senior High School in Davis, CA elected a gay couple as their homecoming royalty.

Morning Sweep

The Pride Agenda talks to Gay City News Editor Paul Schindler about 2008 election strategies.

A Fort Worth, TX councilman uses anti-gay tactics to try to get a fellow Republican elected.

Sweden moves closer to legalizing gay marriage and Austria moves towards a "civil partnership" law.

Barack Obama--in an effort to appease gay voters--added a gay clergymember to his South Carolina gospel tour in order to offset the furor caused by including anti-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin.

A group started by black leaders is working to build support within the black community for same-sex marriage.

It's not often that a Democrat from San Fransisco provides what ends up being the crucial vote to confirm a racist and anti-gay federal judge, but that's exactly what Senator Diane Feinstein did.

Weiner on ENDA

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens/Brooklyn) spoke on the House floor last night about the need to pass a trans-inclusive ENDA. He's the first member of the New York Congressional Delegation to do this, and we applaud him for his leadership on this issue. We hope other New York Members of Congress follow suit.

Also important--Rep. Weiner stated that if the Baldwin Amendment should fail, members should not vote to pass the stripped version of the bill--not accept "half the loaf," as he put it--and wait until Congress was in a place to pass a bill that would include GLB and T. He points out that House action on the bill is likely to be symbolic anyway (because of Bush's threatened veto).