New England's largest GLBT newspaper, The Boston Globe, devotes over 1500 words profiling the new director of the D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign (fighting for homosexual "marriage" across the country).
Running inexplicably in the Living/Arts section, this puff profile of Joe Solmonese is titled "The persuader". Top story, front page of the section, huge color photo. I guess this piece is either about living or arts.
How is Solmonese living his life? He came out ...
in his early 20s, at a time when the AIDS epidemic was raging at full force. "There is that on your consciousness, and you're coming out," he recalled. "It compounded everything that you experienced coming out." But, he said, a heartening solidarity also developed in the gay community in response to the disease -- a solidarity that is still needed today, he added.
He worked for Michael Dukakis and Barney Frank. Then he worked at Emily's List (the PAC backing women candidates who support the "right" to kill babies), most recently serving as its executive director.
Maybe this piece is about arts. The art of propaganda? "To change minds, he's going straight to the heartland," reads the inner headline. The plan: appeal to emotions, not rationality. Stir up phony stories about violence and discrimination directed at gays:
The overall goal will be to appeal to the conscience of each community and to remind residents of each community that when a gay person is the victim of violence or discrimination, it is happening to a neighbor, or to a friend, or to a family member. "The most important thing we can do is to put a face and a name and a story to this," said Solmonese. So, on his outreach tour, a gay employee who was fired from a job, or a gay merchant whose store was vandalized, would be encouraged to tell their story within the context of the city or town where it happened.
He said one issue he'll focus on is "hate-crimes" legislation. Another area for artistic license.
Is there any good news for us in this article? They admit: "[T]o judge by what happened last year and what happened in Kansas this week, it will be an uphill fight." But they're not too discouraged.
''We've got to put 2004 in the context of this whole movement, this whole process of social change," insisted Solmonese. ''What happened . . . is brave people in Massachusetts came forward and said, 'We want the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of America.' And in Massachusetts, they got it. That is huge. That is history-making."
This is certainly an artistic take on events. These "brave people in Massachusetts" only got what they asked for because of four rogue JUDGES who "got it". Solmonese clearly doesn't care a whit for our Constitution.
''Were there places in the country where there were negative reactions to that? Yes," he conceded. ''But that is the way social change works." In his view, the backlash resulted from the fact that ''the people in the states were given a final exam on the first day of class."
So -- all we need is more re-education.
