Are we Ready for Equality Matters?

A new media watchdog group will act as “communications war room for gay equality”, setting their site on the next LGBT battle,  gay marriage. They will be called, Equality Matters.

The new group, Equality Matters, grew out of Media Matters, an organization backed by wealthy liberal donors — including prominent gay philanthropists — that has staked its claim in Washington punditry with aggressive attacks on Fox News and conservative commentators like Rush LimbaughGlenn Beck.  and

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 newspaper 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.” 

Here's a little bit more about this new group...

The organizers of Equality Matters say that is their intent. Mr. Socarides and the founder of Media Matters, David Brock, said they began planning Equality Matters several months ago. They quickly persuaded Ms. Eleveld, who covered the Obama campaign and has covered Washington for the last two years, to join them. 

“I’ve spent the past two years with a front-row seat to history, and the longer I sat there the more I felt drawn to participating,” Ms. Eleveld said in an interview. 

Mr. Brock, a former conservative journalist who is gay — and who broke with the right in the 1990s — has lately been expanding the Media Matters organization. He said in an interview that he had raised $23 million in the last year for the group, which has an operating budget of $13 million. His backers include George Soros, the liberal donor; the Hollywood producer Steve Bing; and gay philanthropists like James Hormel, an ambassador to Luxembourg under Mr. Clinton. 

Equality Matters, Mr. Brock said, should “expose right-wing bigotry and homophobia wherever we find it” and “stiffen the spines of progressives.” That, he said, did not change with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He said Equality Matters was planned long before anyone in Washington had an inkling that repeal was possible. 

I will need some time to process this. I'm a tad bit skeptical about some of people involved. I think about the posts and articles I've seen from some of them for the past 2 years, and I have to say, I'm not that thrilled.

They will be judged as harsh as HRC, Task Force and GLAAD. I hope they are ready for that, but then again, some of these folks involved, were the harsh critics of the groups I just listed.

I hope there are fresh faces aboard. Many of us are not fans of some of the folks (Richard Socarides) in this group.  Is this something we want and do we have enough groups doing the same thing?

Then, the statement about gay marriage being the next battle; why not ENDA, that affects all of us. And should we, the community, have a say in what's the next battle?

We will see how his goes. I don't want to dog it out, it could be a great thing. But right now, I need some time to feel this.

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