Although few people have ever heard of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the organization, which fights slander and libel against gays in the media, has performed some excellent work. It's possible that without GLAAD, the media, which tends to be fairly hostile, or at most, ignorant of gay issues, might be worse.
Yesterday GLAAD announced its new president, a man named Neil Giuliano, who is former four-term mayor (1994-2004) of Tempe, Arizana. In those four terms Giuliano ran campaigns against some excellent Democrats, and while in office, kissed up to the Republican state leaders.
This is because the man who will now serve as the leader of the nation's largest gay anti-defamation organization (okay, so it's the only one, and it isn't really that large) is, indeed, a Republican.
Consider the Republican party: An organization that considers gay rights an affront to humanity, an organization whose very platform proudly denounces gays, an organization that vilifies gays every chance it gets.
(This isn't to say that, as far as gays go, all Republicans are bad. They're not -- past and present governors like Christy Whitman (NJ) and George Pataki, Senators like Olympia Snowe (ME) and Gordon Smith (OR), have been supportive of gay rights. Nor for that matter, are all Democrats good -- not even close.)
But the reality is that today's Republican party isn't run by Whitman, Pataki, or Snowe. It's run by George Bush and Karl Rove, which means that GLAAD has appointed a man whose very political mission in life has been to go out and do grass roots work and raise money for politicians who want very much to keep gays from enjoying any of the rights that straight people take for granted.
Guiliano's announcement has already caused GLAAD consternation. They've received scores of emails denouncing the choice and withdrawing financial contributions; on the country's largest gay bulletin board, DataLounge.com, the tone is, at best, infuriated.
But the weirdest part of all this is, again, GLAAD is a media organization -- yet here's how they announced what they know is a highly controversial appointee: They ran. They simply sent out a press release. They didn't address the issue they knew every gay man and lesbian would want them to address. Instead, they simply said they appointed a Republican, and by the way, you can't talk to him until Sept 1.
Huh?
No one can talk to him until Sept 1? Is that because he's thinking about the issue of being a Republican in an organization that is probably 90 percent Democratic? Is it because he's going to have to convince a hostile crowd why of all the possible candidates, he was the best one for the job? Or, as one of the Datalounge posters suggested, maybe he's spending the time searching for a conscience.