White House censored "pro-gay" video for two days while deciding whether to issue permanent gag order to college

[romantico]

Posted: 11/12/09 at 8:31pm

White House censored "pro-gay" video for two days while deciding whether to issue permanent gag order to college
Posted by John Aravosis (DC) at 1:04 PM

I just spoke with Nate Kenyon, the director of Marketing and Communications at the Boston College Law School, and he told me quite a bombshell for an administration in Washington that claims it isn't embarrassed of its gay supporters, and claims to believe in transparency.

According to Kenyon, the White House agreed to be the final arbiter of whether or not Boston College (BC) should censor a video of a talk that senior Obama domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes gave at Boston College's law school this past Monday. In the talk, Barnes was asked by BC law student Paul Sousa about gay marriage. Sousa claims that Barnes allegedly expressed sympathy for the position that gay couples should be permitted to marry. Monday evening, the White House vehemently denied to Sam Stein at Huffington Post (see link above) that Barnes said anything other than the White House official position, opposing marriage equality for gay couples.

That's when things get interesting. BC took a video of Barnes' talk. Sousa says that he has spent the past four days trying to get the college administration to release the video, to clear up once and for all what Barnes actually told the students at the public meeting. The video is only now reportedly to be released tomorrow, Friday afternoon (the traditional time in Washington for embarrassing documents to be dumped publicly). Sousa claims that numerous employees of Boston College told him that the video couldn't be released because the White House wouldn't let the college release it, at least until the administration could get a copy and see what in fact Barnes said about gay civil rights. Joe Sudbay and I were informed of this on Tuesday, but we waited until today, in order to get all the facts.

I spoke this morning to Nate Kenyon, a spokesman for Boston College Law School, and Kenyon, while trying to downplay the controversy, suggesting that these kind of delays for publishing video are the norm at the school, and suggesting that Sousa misquoted what Barnes actually said in the video, confirmed that the White House received the video on Tuesday, and Kenyon confirmed that the White House called BC this morning, two days later, and gave its permission for the video to finally be released. And he confirmed that the video was not going to be released until and unless the White House gave its permission.

more:

http://gay.americablog.com/2009/11/white-house-temporarily-censored-pro.html

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/12/09 at 10:17pm

Heh. Kenyon.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/13/09 at 9:44am

The Advocate screened a copy of the recording, which was provided by the college’s communications department and should be posted to their website around 1:00 p.m. on Friday.

The questioner, Boston College law student Paul Sousa, voiced a number of concerns about what he called President Barack Obama’s "separate but equal" stance on same-sex marriage, before asking, "What I would like to know is whether or not you support equal civil marriage rights for gay and lesbian Americans, and if so, are you speaking or will you speak with President Obama on this civil rights matter?”

Barnes responded: “I appreciate your question, and I also belong to United Church of Christ. And I guess I would respond in a couple of different ways. One, I appreciate, I really appreciate your frustration and your disappointment with the president’s position on this issue. He has taken a position, and at the same time, he has also articulated the number of ways that he wants to try and move the ball forward for gay, lesbian and transgendered Americans, including signing the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and a whole host of other things that we’ve started to do to model as a leader in terms of what the federal government is doing, as well as to encourage changes both in the military, in the workplace, and certainly with regard to hate crimes. I accept that that is very different than what you are talking about. And what you’re talking about is something that is quite fundamental.

"With regard to my own views, those are my own views. And I come to my experience based on what I’ve learned, based on the relationships that I’ve had with friends and their relationships that I respect, the children that they are raising, and that is something that I support. But at the same time, when I walk into the White House, though I work to put all arguments in front of the president, as you say, I also work for the president. And we have very robust policy conversations, very robust constitutional conversations with the White House counsel, and others about these issues, and we’ll see what happens from there. At this point, all I can say to you is that his plans right now are to move the ball forward in the ways that I’ve described. He hasn’t articulated a shift in his position there, and that is something that at this moment I accept as it being, it is what it is, even as we continue to have a national, or we continue to have a conversation with him about it."
The Advocate - The Real Remarks of Melody Barnes

[Q]

Posted: 11/13/09 at 10:11am

In other words, "he hasn't supported, and isn't changing his mind, and I know that's frustrating."

No, it's not frustrating, it's infuriating and unacceptable to those affected.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/13/09 at 10:12am

It's almost become laughable the way the Obama administration has fumbled every single GLBT issue it touches. With friends like these, you know?

[Roscoe]

Posted: 11/13/09 at 10:18am

It would be laughable if it wasn't so infuriating. But hardly surprising. Mr. Obama's anti-LGBT bigotry has been a matter of public record for some time now.