Petrelis Files

Day After Gays Lost Maine,
HRC Leaders at White House Concert

Fred Hochberg is a gay Democrat with a lotta bucks. A longtime board member and one-time co-chair of the board of the Human Rights Campaign, Hochberg is now head of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. He was appointed to that position by President Obama, and he has many policy and social reasons that draw him to the White House.

Visitor logs show that Hochberg has been at the Obama White House 13 times, up through the end of January 2010.

Hochberg was one of three gay leaders at a November 4, 2009, classical music concert with POTUS and FLOTUS. That was the day after we lost gay marriage rights in Maine, without Obama lifting one of his boney fingers to help us.

Hochberg, his partner Tom Healy, and current member of the HRC Foundation's board Mary S. Snider, all trooped up to the White House to hear old world classics. Nice.

We had just suffered our 32nd or 33rd gay ballot initiative, this time about marriages, and three of our Gay Inc leaders engaged in political business as usual with our Oval Office fierce advocate. Oops, sorry about that. The promised fierce advocate is MIA.

Then the next day, three NGLTF leaders took their tired asses up to the White House for a flick, and never told the community about it. Look, if gay leaders are going to be spending downtime with the President and his family at the White House, they have a solemn duty to inform the rest of us about it. Show us some photos from the screening.

More on Hochberg. He's was at four meetings where less than five people were present, and he's been at one event with 1,156 other people. On December 7, 2009, Hochberg attended the White House's Congressional Ball, which is the first Gay Inc name to show up in the logs for a ball.

Then on December 16 he was back for the Obamas' first reception to mark Hanukkah, also a first for a gay leader. Almost 600 showed up for that event.

Total number of visits for partner Healy is 5, coupled with Hochberg's 13, sub-totals to 18. Add that to the 172 visits from other Gay Inc types, and the total number of visits for these folks now stands at 190.

Photo-ops for Rea Carey and Joe Solmonese. Cocktail parties and bill signing ceremonies. A classical performance and sharing the popcorn bowl with Barack and Michelle. Let's us not forget about the ball we now know Hochberg and Healy were at.

The Gay Inc leaders sure know how to play limp-wristed politics with this White House.