Add the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to the growing list of those refusing to attend a DNC $1000-a-plate LGBT fundraiser over the recent DOMA brief controversy. As reported by Americablog, HRC joins Andy Towle of TowleRoad, Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda and Foundation, former top Clinton aide Richard Socarides  and David Mixner, long time friend of Bill Clinton.

Vice President Joe Biden will be speaking at the event, hosted by gay representatives Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Jared Polis. Polis released a statement on the DOMA brief today.

“I was shocked and disappointed to learn that President Obama chose to defend DOMA in federal court, especially given his campaign promise to call for a full repeal of DOMA. My sadness turned to outrage when I read the Justice Department’s brief that not only defended this hurtful law but seemed to embrace it. Comparing my loving relationship with my partner, Marlon, to incest was unconscionable coming from a president who has called for change.”

Tammy Baldwin is also disappointed with the brief as reported at GayPolitics.com:

“Last week the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of DOMA.  I was profoundly disappointed by this action, particularly coming from this administration.”

Barney? Where are you?

It appears the fundraiser has all the makings of a PR disaster. Ben Smith at Politico writes: “Organizers, I’m told, are scrambling to get visible White House action on gay issues in advance of the June 25 dinner to prevent it from becoming a protest stage.”

Pam’s House Blend has published a list of those who were invited to the fundraiser, and the Washington Blade plans to cover the event to see who shows up.

The New York Times published an editorial today criticizing  Obama’s controversial defense brief for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which cited decisions involving incest and underage marriage to make it’s case. From the New York Times:

The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.

These are comparisons that understandably rankle many gay people. In a letter to President Obama on Monday, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, said, “I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.”

…

If the administration does feel compelled to defend the act, it should do so in a less hurtful way. It could have crafted its legal arguments in general terms, as a simple description of where it believes the law now stands. There was no need to resort to specious arguments and inflammatory language to impugn same-sex marriage as an institution.

The best approach of all would have been to make clear, even as it defends the law in court, that it is fighting for gay rights. It should work to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that bans gay men and lesbians in the military from being open about their sexuality. It should push hard for a federal law banning employment discrimination. It should also work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act in Congress.

The controversy is definitely picking up steam, with coverage in the Wall Street Journal, CBS News and of course on the Rachel Maddow Show. Let’s hope Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is asked about it today.

A Fresno hospital has been asked to apologize, and adopt policy changes after a lesbian was denied access to her partner after she collapsed at the Meet in the Middle 4 Equality march last month. Teresa Rowe, and her partner Kristin Orbin, who suffered an epileptic seizure near the end of the 14 mile march, began to experience discrimination the moment the ambulance arrived.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) have sent a letter to the Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno on behalf of the couple, seeking an apology and the policy changes listed below:

1. Adopt a comprehensive visitation’ policy that:
   • Affirms all patients’ rights to have visitors, explicitly including same-sex partners and their children;
   • Outlines a clear process for determining when visitors will be restricted and how that decision will be communicated; and
   • Includes a grievance procedure in the case of visitation denial that can be acted on quickly in an emergency situation
2. Ensure that your hospitals’ non-discrimination policy explicitly describes LGBT individuals as a protected group;
3. Ensure that that your patients’ bill of rights explicitly describes the rights of LGBT patients;
4. Provide LGBT healthcare training to the Emergency Department staff at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno; and
5. Participate in the 2009 Healthcare Equality Index, an annual survey of healthcare industry policies and practices related to LGBT individuals and families.

The Community Regional Medical Center has until June 22, 2009 to respond to the letter or risk possible legal action. The hospital however has already issued a statement denying any wrongdoing.

Rowe and Orbin told their story to ABC7 in San Francisco. Watch:

At the 77th annual U.S. Conference of Mayors, mayors have passed a resolution titled “Equality and Civil Rights for Gay and Lesbian Americans,” defining support for gay marriage, ENDA and hate crimes legislation and opposing DADT. From the press release issued by Freedom to Marry:

“By passing this resolution, America’s mayors spoke for the families they know and serve in communities across the country, and said that excluding those families from the freedom to marry must stop,” said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality and Gay People’s Right to Marry. “The mayors have their fingers on the pulse of the country, and their voices today said loud and clear that ending discrimination in marriage is the way to go.”

In reference to the freedom to marry, the resolution stated, “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that The U.S. Conference of Mayors supports marriage equality for same-sex couples, and the recognition and extension of full equal rights to such unions, including family and medical leave, tax equity, and insurance and retirement benefits, and opposes the enshrinement of discrimination in the federal or state constitutions.”

“The nation’s mayors are proud to take the lead in recognizing the importance of protecting all our citizens equally. It is now time for state legislatures and our federal government to enact the same protections for all our nation’s citizens,” said U.S. Conference of Mayors President Greg Nickels, Mayor of Seattle.

The resolution which was submitted by Mayor Christopher Cabaldon of West Sacramento, CA, Mayor David N. Cicilline of Providence, RI, and Mayor Sam Adams of Portland, OR, reads as follows:

EQUALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS FOR GAY AND LESBIAN AMERICANS

1. WHEREAS, The U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution in 1984 calling for the legal protection of gay and lesbian rights at all levels of government, and within two years dozens of cities had adopted anti-discrimination policies or executive orders; and

2. WHEREAS, The U.S. Conference of Mayors has long supported granting the protection of federal hate crimes laws to all citizens, including lesbian and gay communities, and adopted its first resolution calling for increased vigilance in preventing hate crimes in 1991, citing statistics compiled by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; and

3. WHEREAS, subsequent hates crimes resolutions were adopted by the Conference in 1992 and 1994, designed to strengthen protections for all communities; and

4. WHEREAS, the Conference of Mayors, in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has awarded nearly $12.6 million in HIV/AIDS prevention grants, and the Conference took the lead in issues affecting gay/bisexual men of color, conducting a national HIV prevention needs assessment as well as 48 local HIV prevention project; and

5. WHEREAS, hundreds of mayors have been at the forefront of the battle for marriage equality, from the historic leadership of Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco in early 2004 granting marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, to a paradigm-shifting news conference by Mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego in 2008, to Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington DC in 2009 signing legislation to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states; and

6. WHEREAS, then-Conference President Wellington Webb of Denver spoke on behalf of the nation’s mayors at the Millennium March for Gay and Lesbian Rights in 2000 calling for federal action on hate crimes, employment discrimination protection, repeal of don’t-ask-don’t-tell, and marriage equality; and

7. WHEREAS, current Conference President Manuel A. Diaz of Miami co-chaired the statewide campaign against marriage discrimination in 2008, and incoming President Greg Nickels of Seattle issued an executive order recognizing same-sex marriages; and

8. WHEREAS, The U.S. Conference of Mayors has a long record of leadership in advancing civil rights and equality for all, answering President Kennedy’s call for national mayoral action in support of the civil rights movement at the Honolulu annual meeting in 1963,

9. NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that The U.S. Conference of Mayors endorses the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, the Uniting American Families Act, and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act; and

10. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that The U.S. Conference of Mayors supports marriage equality for same-sex couples, and the recognition and extension of full equal rights to such unions, including family and medical leave, tax equity, and insurance and retirement benefits, and opposes the enshrinement of discrimination in the federal or state constitutions.

Outstanding. Our nation’s leaders could definitely learn a thing or two from the folks at the local level.