Petrelis Files

Blade Omits Socarides Pay,
Equality Matters Fiscal Info

The self-proclaimed gay "war room" Equality Matters was established almost one-year ago, to great fanfare and was part of the Media Matters for America operation based in Washington, DC. Its top leaders were longtime gay Clintonista hack Richard Socarides and the former Advocate reporter of mediocre skills Kerry Eleveld.

The purpose of Equality Matters seem to be promoting Socarides as an official national gay spokesman, even though he lacks a constituency within the LGBT movement beyond other Democratic Party operatives. Gay marriage was a key launching issue for Equality Matters, as if we don't already have enough groups devoted to that concern.

I never understood why this group existed and it's had dubious and negligible positive impact on ordinary gays. If it had major accomplishments in the past year, I missed that news.

Phil Reese of the Washington Blade reported yesterday that Socarides and Eleveld are leaving the group and that's it is nearly defunct. Oh, well. This is no loss for LGBT Americans and actually is a gain for the community, seeing this worthless organization go down the drain.

Reese's story stays focused on the personalities involved at Equality Matters and the parent organization run by David Brock, while totally ignoring a few basic questions any decent journalist would have addressed starting with what was the budget for the group, who were the big donors to it, and how much compensation was paid to Socarides and Eleveld.

I attempted to post a comment at the Blade page for the story, asking why fiscal transparency and accountability were omitted but my comment was rejected by the moderator. FYI, Reese's article can best be described in three words: Equality Matters said. No criticism of the organizations or its leaders was included in the one-side article.

The Blade could do us all a big favor and assign a different reporter to look at the monetary questions that need to be raised about Equality Matters.