11/07/2006
Bill Clinton Makes Surprise Appearance at LGBT Benefit
Amazing Race winner and friend of Towleroad Chip Arndt sent us a photo from last weekend's National Gay and Lesbian Task Force fundraiser in Miami honoring NAACP Chair Julian Bond, which raised over $270,000. Bill Clinton made a surprise appearance at the benefit after hosts, one of whom was Arndt, realized the former Pres was in the area making stops at rallies for Gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis and Lt. Governor candidate Darryl Jones.
The dinner was organized by over 100 local volunteers, along with executive director Matt Foreman, and DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias.
Clinton arrived 15 minutes before the dinner portion of the event was to begin and mingled for 45 minutes, long enough to greet plenty of the benefit's attendees as well as his friend Julian Bond.
Since winning the Amazing Race with his then partner Reichen Lehmkuhl, Arndt has become active in South Florida politics where he continues his work in a variety LGBT causes. He is president of the Freedom Democrats, the Miami-Dade LGBT Democratic Caucus.
Posted 11:55 AM EST by Andy Towle in Bill clinton, Chip Arndt, Florida, News | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
"Clinton wrongly amputated an arm and a leg."
You make it sound like Clinton accidentally signed DOMA into law when in fact it was a strategic political calculation done to inoculate himself against the issue in the Presidential election and deprive the Republicans of a campaign issue. This was Clinton's patented strategy of "triangulation" in dealing with the Republican Congress - co-opt and/or neutralize their issues, and gay people got used by him even as he continued to take our money.
I'm not going to get into a pissing match over which is/would be worse, DOMA or a Constitutional amendment. In either case, we're talking about playing games with gay people's civil rights for political gain.
The record shows that Bush may have advocated for a anti-gay marriage Constitutional amendment but he never signed anything into law. Bill Clinton's signature is on not one but two pieces of anti-gay legislation. That's two pieces more than any Republican President has ever signed. And now he has the chutzpah to waltz into HRC fundraisers and the Gays fall all over themselves to suck his dick.
When are the Gays going to get some self-respect and dignity?
Posted by: LightningLad | Nov 7, 2006 5:01:14 PM
Well, Leland, I think the best you can hope for in your argument is that the country has become more polarized, with "blue" areas much more gay friendly than they used to be and "red" areas worse than they used to be. Since most population growth over the last 30 years has been in "red" areas, one might argue that overall the situation has gotten worse, but as long as there are gay Republican staffers on capitol hill (ha!) legislation to have us rounded up and shot will be tabled indefinitely.
Posted by: Anon | Nov 7, 2006 5:09:56 PM
Lightninglad, raise the visor of your Clinton Pathological Haters Club baseball cap and even you might see that you have no piss at all, only vinegar, when it comes to contrasting the major FACTUAL differences between the damage done by DOMA and the damage FMA would do, just as the REPUBLICAN, Bush endorsed, state constitutional amendments have done. You WANT to believe they're equal to DOMA and so, like Mary and her God/Jesus/Bible ranting yesterday, you just keep repeating your fantasy, thus insulting your own intelligence.
That also limits your ability to see that there is more than one interpretation of my "wrongly amputated." I did not mean he did it by accident; I meant it was ethically wrong of him to do it.
Your comment "Bush may have advocated for a anti-gay marriage Constitutional amendment but he never signed anything into law" is embarrassingly asinine, repeat ASSinine! That doesn't mean he wouldn't. And, given that it is simply the converse of the patented Repug logical shell game that's been played here before re Schwarzenegger signing more pro-gay bills than any Democratic governor [the argument is mute because he's been given more to sign], one might think you've signed up for advanced classes in Repug Speak.
And while I can no more judge you than myself for not having the time to read every post in every string, including this one, as I mentioned above, and it wasn't "legislation," per se, but a Republican President DID sign an antigay Executive Order that devastated thousands of lives, which, again, BTW, Clinton reversed with his own order that George's appointee is refusing to recognize. And Bush justifies killing thousands in Iraq in the name of extending to survivors there the liberty and justice enjoyed by ALL Americans.
And, Anon, while I don't expect us to be rounded up and shot in any foreseeable future, the presence of gay Repug Kapos on Kaptial Hill wouldn't be likely to prevent it
Posted by: Leland | Nov 7, 2006 6:08:58 PM
Leland,
I've been reading your comments on this blog long enough to know that if someone dares to disagree with you, you become screechy and shrill and attempt to cut them down through personal attacks.
You undercut your own arguments this way and prove yourself to be nothing but a gaseous assbag.
Posted by: LightningLad | Nov 7, 2006 6:16:50 PM
Leland verbally bashes me in order to distract people from realizing that he doesn't address the main point in my post:
No one held a gun to Clinton's head and forced him to sign DOMA. Leland's bringing up the hypothetical that a Constitutional amendment "would have" been signed by Bush and "would have" been far worse than DOMA is not the point here. The point is that Clinton sacrificed us at the altar of political expediency to deprive the Republicans of a campaign issue while he ran for re-election and then continued to ask gay people for campaign donations, which he still does to this day.
No amount of hypotheticals about what Bush wouldacoulda done if a Constitutional amendment passed negates this point and is irrelevent to the argument at hand, and brought up simply because Leland has no other good counterargument.
Posted by: LightningLad | Nov 7, 2006 6:34:07 PM
hello andy...
i haven't visited in awhile....and these comments are hilarious....saw hillary in a few pride parades in new york -- novel, yet, wondering about the connection to "don't ask, don't tell" and the other hypocritical realm of developing ignorance based in denial...yet, having visited different groups or centers in urban areas, as well as attempts to receive relevant (not trumped up) newsletters, i have to say i was immensely disappointed or surprised at the lack of vision in moving beyond singular topics of concern. there have been far too many charades -- in retrospect -- and far too much credit given where it certainly wasn't due. cute picture of bill....over the past few years, people screech about incidents similar to the recent scandal in colorado springs....not the most beautiful person, yet, with the increasing khakification of whatever diverse aspect of queer culture remains....it certainly has been neither inspiring nor ultimately uplifting. actually, i find it rather embarrassing as principles or foundations are flushed when so many other things should be.
ciao....still love your site....but, nature has been beautiful beyond the blah blah blah that stems from dissipating substance.
Posted by: ricardo | Nov 7, 2006 6:34:29 PM
"You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair." "But ja AAH, Blanche, ya AAH in that chair!" Lightning, don't blame me for implying you're an idiot by pointing out your idiocy. But I'll play your child's game just long enough to challenge you to do a Towleroad site search and document just once where I have insisted, claimed, implied, hinted, murmured under my breath blah blah blah that anyone held a gun to Clinton's head re DOMA. But that's a straw man argument in any case. It falls within the rhetorical sophistication of, "If someone asked you to jump off a cliff would you do it?"
On the other hand, you have never explained why Bush isn't worse by explicitly campaigning against gay rights as recently as yesterday, nor given one example, date, time, place where Clinton did anything remotely comparable.
And, back at you: I'm familiar enough with your cult to know that the only way you can attempt to defend Bush is to attack Clinton or someone else, and the only way you can attempt to defend your ignorance and/or purposeful and selective misstatement of the facts is to whine about real or imagined ad hominems, and, further, misrepresent my approach. Out of a hundred posts, I rarely use an ad hominem without accompanying facts. At the same time, I have repeatedly made clear that I won't play the Above All Else Be Polite game, nor let someone else determine how I express myself. The only person who has a right to do the latter, at least in this venue, is Andy Towle.
Now, before you embarrass yourself any further, please detour off Towleroad to Google and enter "United States Constitution." After reading and rereading until you grasp its "trumps all" reality, and the significance, the shamelessness of Bush & Company repeatedly exploiting it for their own political gain relative, then come back. I take as seriously as anything in my life the attempt of anyone to take me and those I love and those I'll never meet out of that precious document. Your facile diminishing of that earns you my opprobrium. Sue me.
Posted by: Leland | Nov 7, 2006 7:08:40 PM
"Defend Bush"? Where did I "defend Bush"? Please quote the exact sentence I wrote in which I explicitly "defend Bush."
What's that? Can't find it? Yeah, cause I didn't write it.
I guess since I've shown you're full of nothing but hot air, you have to resort to making things up and saying I said things I didn't say.
I don't have to explain why Clinton is "worse than Bush" in some kind of hypothetical matchup between two people who both have endorsed legislation that restricts the rights of our community. My comments were confined to Clinton's actions and Clinton's actions alone, since that was who the original article was about. Since you obviously can't defend what Clinton did, you attempt the stage magician's trick of distracting the audience's attention elsewhere.
Clinton bitchslapped our community and asked us to pay for the pleasure. Maybe you bottom boys enjoy that kind of thing but I don't.
Now take your meds and get a job so you have something productive to do other than post on the Internets all day.
Posted by: LightningLad | Nov 7, 2006 7:35:28 PM
Good Lord in Heaven! Whatever he does in bed, there's apparently no bottom to Reichen's ego or an end to the bizarre echo chamber that even straight media have become in relation to any and everything he says:
"Lehmkuhl says Harris was 'lanced'
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- Doogie Howser wasn't outed, he was "lanced." That's a new term to describe celebrities who have been forced to reveal they're gay, said Reichen Lehmkuhl, boyfriend of 'N Sync star Lance Bass. "It's to be outed by someone in the public media and to a celebrity, and Neil Patrick Harris, I understand, has been `lanced,'" Lehmkuhl told AP Radio News in a recent interview. The term was coined, he said, after Bass revealed earlier this year that he is gay. "They're calling it a `lancing.' It's to be `lanced,'" Lehmkuhl said of Harris...."
I just threw up a little into my mouth. What next? Daily press briefings on his bowel movements?
Posted by: Tagg | Nov 7, 2006 7:46:44 PM
^^ Said the guy who has posted half a dozen retorts on this thread.
Sorry Lightning, but I'm no Bill Lover and I can even see how lopsided your arguments are concerning who has "bitchslapped" our community. No fucking way it was Bill Clinton.
Now, I have to get back to my job.
Posted by: mark m | Nov 7, 2006 7:58:36 PM
Leland -- we all know you also use Tagg as a screen name.
Posted by: everyone | Nov 7, 2006 8:08:05 PM
Still i would rather entertain Bill than Rosie o donnell...
Posted by: FidBit | Nov 7, 2006 9:02:09 PM
The Clintons, NEITHER OF THEM, are on our side! He was pandering to the community in an effort to cover her flip flop comment on "evolving"! It is all about politics from now on. He wants back in the white house and she is his ticket. It sickens me how two people can be so shallow. I now know why she never left him as they are just alike and deserve one another. DADT did more harm to the gay community than any other policy in the history of the military! She is just as wrong for us as he is!!!
Posted by: RB | Nov 8, 2006 9:08:12 AM
Jimmyboyo I agree with about Clark. AS for Wilma it's time to get of the democratic plantation.
Posted by: hephastion | Nov 8, 2006 10:25:32 AM
And I was trying SO hard to play nice, RB, and then you have to go and broad brush the Clintons with your hate again. Beneath a person of your intelligence. And your "more harm...than any other policy" demonstrates only a passing familiarity with the facts about the treatment of gays by the military across the decades before DADT came along.
Posted by: Leland | Nov 8, 2006 1:50:29 PM
You are right Clinton did not bitch slap us, he stabbed us in the back. I would rather face an enemy who cofronts head on, not someone who pretends to be for us but secretly is also an enemy. I don't need any more snake oil.
Posted by: Hephaestion | Nov 8, 2006 2:24:05 PM
"but secretly is also an enemy"???? Sorry, Hephaestion, and all the keepers of the White Gloves & Elevated Pinky Flame: what a godawful, toy-box-for-a-brain thing to say. Please tell me you aren't allowed to operate machinery, including driving a vehicle; aren't allowed around impressionable children; serve food; dress yourself; or own a weapon....
Posted by: Leland | Nov 8, 2006 3:13:43 PM
Sorry Leland, but that is how I see it. They are not on our side; the Clintons. In regards to "the treatment of gays by the military across the decades before DADT came along" how many gays were discharged from the military after DADT as oposed to before? Basically, because of DADT, the military can NOW monitor Towleroad for gay activity. The numbers are what they are. We are being "hunted down" because of DADT and it has caused more discharges from the military than ever before. You think I am crazy for being a repub and I think you are crazy for placing our future in the Clintons. I am willing to at least hope I am wrong but are you?
Posted by: RB | Nov 8, 2006 8:18:48 PM
RB, I have had issues with the Clintons in the past but I just can't agree with you that Clinton did more harm to gays than help. Bush has done ZERO for us, and more to demonize us. As for the comment someone made about preferring an enemy who openly hates... I disagree. I don't give a shit what someone thinks of me in private. They better treat me with respect to my face.
Posted by: mark m | Nov 8, 2006 8:44:21 PM
Mark I agree to my face you treat me with respect. The point I was making was I would rather Know who I was fighting than having someone do it from the shadows.
Leland I guess I am stupid cause I have no Idea what the hell you are talking about, "white gloves" and such. Yes I dress in me jumpers adding a shoulder holstered glock while I take snacks to the kids I drive on the school bus.
It's a small yellow bus but we have room for you and an extra helmet.
Posted by: Hephaestion | Nov 9, 2006 8:33:18 AM
Come on, RB, focus! You claim the numbers are significantly higher post DADT so the burden of proof is on you to document them. I have read them, but can't reliably recall the comparison so I'm open to your proof [which, of course, in any case is no DEFENSE of DADT]. What I do remember reading recently, which surprised me a great deal, and would apparently surprise you, too. The MAJORITY of gay discharges since DADT have been the result of people volunteering they were gay to get out. Not hunted down. Not outed by someone else. Not from one of Reichen's calendars with the pages stuck together accidentally falling out of their duffel bags.
I don't recall if there was any discussion of whether the percentage has increased since Bush starting using American soldiers for cannon fodder in Iraq, but that must play a role to some degree. If I find the article again, I'll forward to you. Again, that in no way justifies the abuse of those who wanted to stay [or enlist openly] but I tend to believe that enough of the truth is on our side that we don't need to inflate numbers, whether it be of gay discharges or our percentage of the population.
As for "placing our future in the Clintons," there is nothing I said to justify your saying that.
Posted by: Leland | Nov 9, 2006 2:06:43 PM
But since the policy went into effect in 1994, the number of discharges has climbed: 597 in 1994, 722 in 1995, 850 in 1996, and 997 in 1997, according to the latest Pentagon statistics.
"That's a highly significant number," said Michelle Benecke of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "Nine hundred ninety-seven discharges under the gay policy would be the highest rate of gay discharges since 1986, and the highest number of discharges since 1989."
The U.S. armed forces discharged 742 gay service members last year, 2005, an average of about two per day, according to new data from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
SLDN spokesperson Steve Ralls said the tally, confirmed by the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, represents a loss of 386 from the Army, 88 from the Air Force, 177 Navy personnel, 75 Marines and 16 from the Coast Guard.
Those numbers are up 11 percent from 2004, when 668 personnel were discharged. Since the military began discharging gays in 1994 under the policy, more than 11,000 men and women have been removed from the military.
I could continue, but I think the increasing numbers speak for themselves.
Posted by: RB | Nov 11, 2006 8:34:03 PM
So, RB the numbers have increased dramatically since the gay-baiters are in power? Once again you prove everyone else's point. A Republican White House, a far-right Sec. of Defense, and a rt-wing Republican party controlling Congress mirror your time arguments. During this same period the constant use of gays and lesbians as propaganda tools for the recruitment coffers of the most corrupt government/industrial coalition in the modern era has helped to make us a MUCH more visible target. DESPITE this, our own visibility has grown exponentially since 1994. As I said earlier, Clinton is not perfect, but even using his name to create a cover for this administration is laughable. With any luck, the Dems will ignore Pelosi's call and just send Jr, Cheney, et al over to the Hague to be tried for war crimes. Maybe we can make it a multiple hanging party w/ Saddam.
Posted by: PSMike | Nov 12, 2006 8:32:31 PM
Ok, Psmike, I will bite...Actually, the "numbers" have decreased during the last few years as we are at war! DO YOUR HOMEWORK PLEASE! Actually, gays are needed at a time of war and the number of gays discharged since the war, and under repub control, have decreased as they are needed. I deliberately left that out of my post thinking that no one would call me on it as it is obvious. Either way, I did my homework....DID YOU?
Posted by: RB | Nov 12, 2006 9:11:41 PM
Honey, I knew that too. I knew that your points are selective. I knew that you manipulate figures to make your case, not to tell the truth. I assumed you learned that at your Fox school of lies and manipulations. I know that your comment above disputes the comments prior to that. I know that your version of doing your homework means starting with a viewpoint and only promoting the 'facts' that support your viewpoint. I know that I won't win in an argument with you because you know you're right and won't rest until I admit to your grandiosity. I know that virtually every single stance that the neo-cons have taken over the last 10 years has ben based on greed and malice, has been proven to be wrong, and should be punishable up to and including death for their contribution to the murder of hundreds of thousands in the Middle East. I know that I'm frankly tired of even putting up with monsters like you who want to 'debate' the undebatable, simply to continue the joy you felt as 'someone' during your years on the high school debate team. I know that this country would be better off without the two of us talking the bullshit that we pass off as knowledge. I know that I'm done arguing for today. I know that you won't be.
Posted by: PSMike | Nov 13, 2006 11:06:14 AM