I'll be attending the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner tonight in Century City and will give you a fly on the wall rundown on it tomorrow! But I got the chance to chat with HRC President Joe Solmonese about all kinds of things when we met at The Abbey Friday afternoon.
I asked Joe about how all of the anti-gay controversies in recent months involving such people as Ann Coulter, General Peter Pace and former NBA player Tim Hardaway affect the work of his organIzation as it pushes for passage of a federal hate crime bill, the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and for same-sex civil unions and marriage.
"With all of the things that we are called on to address whether it's Ann Coulter of General Pace or the myriad of other things that come at us, our biggest challenge is to stay focused on the legislative task that's before us. We put so much energy and so much work into being part of creating a gay-friendly congress, we've got to really stay focused and keep our community focused on hate crimes and then any of the other things that we're able to get done. It's all about congress right now."
But the anti-gay comments made by public figures can have an upside.
"They fire up our community and serve as a real rallying call but I think they also force Americans to take a point of view that they might not otherwise. When John Amaechi came out and Tim Hardaway said what he did, there weren't a lot of players who had come out and expressed support for John. But Hardaway said what he did and dozens of them did. It forces Americans to hear two different points of view and say, 'Wait a minute, which side am I on?'"
He believes the results of the 2006 mid-terms elections and the anti-gay rhetoric that is now getting so much press has increased awareness during a window of time that he says the LGBT community has to use to fight for social change. The hate-based language of someone like General Pace has an upside in that it "furthers the debate, it continues to keep the subject of 'Don't Ask, Don't" tell in the public dialogue and that's good for us," Solmonese says.
"What's great about the last election with the states, you had a place like Minnesota where we were always fighting to make sure the legislature didn't put a marriage ban on the ballot, with the change in the legislature there, we don't have to worry about that now. But the change is legislature also means that in places like New Hampshire and Iowa and others, you have the opportunity to work on proactive legislation, a non-discrimination bill, a civil unions bill."
So what about the anti-gay people who take potshots or more at gays?
"It's an interesting time because there's so much to do and yet there's so much that has really given our community cause to become active whether it's Ann Coulter whether it's General Pace, there's so much for us to do. And I've been very inspired by our community, 300,000 HRC members emailing and writing letters to their newspapers telling them to drop Ann Coulter. I think people feel empowered after the elections which I'm thrilled by."

The blogoshpere has proven to be a help in getting people stirred up.
"I think that our challenge every day is to send our message out through the most creative medium as possible, that's why we have a radio show, it's why we're always trying to find new and different ways to reach an audience," Solomonese says. "So when someone tells me that our campaign has somehow landed on PerezHilton.com, it isn't the kind of place I would have thought that it would land, but boy, when it does, it magnifies exponentially and I that has a lot to do with the kind of viral effect of this [anti-Coulter] campaign. And the way that it has really tainted Ann Coulter in ways that other things that she's said, she's kind of been able to default. She's said so many outrageous things like about 9-11 widows. It can be distilled down to a word, a word we are already in the middle of trying to make sure that America understsands that for our community, it is just as offensive and just as demeaning and just as dangerous as any other hate-based word that would have derailed her career long ago."