Liberal bloggers boycott the DNC

A week ago, John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay, editors of liberal AMERICAblog.com, launched a temporary boycott to stop contributions to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) until President Barack Obama’s administration signs legislation enacting Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

“With this boycott—called Don’t Ask, Don’t Give—we have said directly to Obama ‘we want you to follow your damn promises,´” said Aravosis during an event organized last Tuesday by the International Media, Advocacy and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

Aravosis explained how in June, for instance, Obama’s team defended DOMA in federal court while using a brief prepared previously by the Bush Administration. “They edited it but left the part whey they compared gay marriage with pedophilia. Is it crazy?,” the liberal blogger said as he recounted how the White House has refused to support gay rights in recent months.

The pledge, available online trough AMERICAblog.com and DontAskDontGive.com, is cosponsored by other liberal bloggers like Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of Daily Kos; Jane Hamsher, editor of FireDogLake.com; and Dan Savage of The Stranger & Slog; as well as gay bloggers and activists like Paul Sousa, Founder of Equal Rep in Boston; Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towleroad.com; Michelangelo Signorile and David Mixner.

On a post published on Daily Kos on November 12, Moulitsas explained he supported the initiative because democrats made a series of promises if they voted for them during the Presidential and Congress elections.

“And we did, in record numbers… I get that some things take time, and the legislative process isn’t always as fast as we’d like. But here’s the thing–don’t come begging for money when you haven’t delivered on your promises. We did our part. It’s now our party’s turn to deliver,” he wrote.

So far, the pledge hasn’t passed unnoticed. “We know from people talking to the White House that they are freaking out and that is good,” said Aravosis. “The idea is for them to look at us and fear us because they see us as money more than votes.”

However, he recognized that it could have a greater impact if politicians picked it up because “it creates a media story as they (the mainstream media) are always waiting for a credible source.”

As days pass, other cosponsors have broadened the Don’t Ask Don’t Give petition. For example, Jane Hansher, founder of FireDogLake.com asked her readers to unsubscribe to the Organizing for America (OFA) mailing list. “Let them know you’ll be back when those issues have been addressed,” she wrote.

Also Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief of 365gay.com, asked on an articled published on the Huffington Post to not only comply with the pledge but to send a letter to the DNC explaining that “your money went elsewhere and why.”

During the SIPA conference, Aravosis said the Obama’s Administration is treating bloggers as media, has tried to cut them out but hasen’t been able to defund them. Thus, the strategy use now by the White House is to ignore them and not fight back.

“Because we are blogs, they think we don’t look for the truth but they forget we are partisans too, trying to make liberals better and take down the republicans,” the editor of AMERICAblog.com said.

As Aravosis remembered he has been considered “the left of the left,” he recalled how, as a prominent member of the LGTB community and a lawyer who had a long career on foreign policy before being blogger, he has been “a bigger Obama defender too.” During the Democratic primary campaign against former Senator Hillary Clinton, AMERICAblog.com raised $50,000 for the then junior Senator of Illinois.

Therefore, the idea of asking supporters of the DNC, Organizing for America and the Obama Campaign to participate in this “temporary” boycott is considered “a brilliant strategy” within the LGTB community.

As Vanasco put it,  “the most powerful tools gays and lesbians have to fight this sort of blinders are money and media, and this boycott highlights both.”

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