Petrelis Files

Hillary Donor/GetEQUAL Angel Socarides
Bashes Barack in WSJ

(From the left: Richard Socarides, Scott Sanders, Peter Wilson, and Brian Ellner. Photo by Clint Spaulding.)

When President Bill Clinton was signing his name to paper creating Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Richard Socarides, his liaison for gay political affairs kept right on collecting his White House paycheck.

While Socarides was supposedly working for gay folks, his real job was to make his boss look good, and that's what he did so well, as a perfect team player. Does anyone have proof he raised public objections when Clinton gave gay Americans DADT and DOMA? When Socarides worked in the White House, I don't recall him raising his voice against these terrible policies.

With Barack Obama in the White House, Socarides is leveraging his Rolodex to bash Obama's record on gay matters. I don't have a problem with that. But why is Socarides' record of complicity with anti-gay policies ignored?

I object to the failure of bloggers and mainstream media folks to address and frequently remind people of Socarides' go-along attitude on gay issues when he was the gay Monica Lewinksy, metaphorically and politically speaking, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

There's also the matter of his donations totaling $1,500 to Hillary Clinton for her senatorial campaigns, which are not disclosed by Socarides or the editors of the Wall Street Journal in his column today criticizing Obama's failures on his gay promises.
Socarides is a Clinton loyalist; his criticisms of Obama look to some like sour grapes - if the media and gay bloggers bothered to explain Socarides' own record and connections.

Socarides chides Obama over DADT and DOMA, among other issues, and this is his bio and disclosure info, from the WJS, a Rupert Murdoch-owned publication:

Mr. Socarides, a New York lawyer, served as White House special assistant and senior advisor on gay rights issues to President Clinton.

In his column, this gay Clintonista, has nothing but admiration for Gay Inc's charade of a grassroots activist org and its recent zaps:

Earlier this year, the president's staff indicated privately that they would prefer to wait until after the midterm elections to move forward [on DADT]. Only after it became clear that Congress was going to act without him—and after he was heckled twice at fund raisers by the activist group GetEQUAL—did Mr. Obama step in, and then with a Pentagon-inspired "compromise." [...]

If you didn't know any better, you'd think Socarides' opinion of GetEQUAL is an independent and unbiased one. Wrong. Earlier this year, he played an integral role in the formation, and finding the funding for, GetEQUAL. Here's the headline and an excerpt from the Queerty story about his cozy relations with the hecklers:

What Did Richard Socarides' 'Secret' Gay Activist Meeting in Knoxville Accomplish?

When Queerty was the first to break news of a secret activist meeting taking place outside Knoxville, we were short on details. We knew a few attendees, that it was a coming-together of power players, and that it was supposedly "all expenses paid" for guests. But who was running the thing? And what was the goal?

Richard Socarides (Bill Clinton's former LGBT advisor [...]) and Paul Yandura (a Dallas Principles organizer and leading critic of the gay-cash-loving DNC, [...]) have been identified as two organizers. [...]

Want a second source? Here's a snippet from gay journo Rex Wockner on the meeting that established in GetEQUAL:

According to veteran activist Larry Kramer, the gathering was "bankrolled" by Jonathan Lewis, the son of one of the founders of Progressive Auto Insurance. Richard Socarides, who was President Bill Clinton's adviser on gay issues, was "involved with helping him set it up," Kramer said.

But Socarides and the WSJ didn't reveal his conflict of interest with GetEQUAL, which we can see has been reported on by gay journos. Just because he's donated to Hillary and greatly helped birth an org he singles out for praise, doesn't diminish most of his valid criticism against Obama.

Still, I'd like for him to one day explain why he never spoke out, or resigned his White House position, when Bill Clinton helped create the DOMA/DADT policies. Would also do my sunshine heart good to have his friends at Murdoch's WJS fully disclose the Hillary and GetEQUAL links.