CommuniKate

So much for no-drama Obama. This holiday season we got an early gift stuffed in our fishnet stocking. Clinton at least waited until after his inauguration to throw us under the Straight Talk Express bus with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

As you have no doubt heard, Barack Obama invited Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Warren is the new breed of kinder gentler mega-pastor, who, and it pains him to say this, opposes women’s choice and homosexuals. Other Talibangelicals* are furious at Warren for accepting the invitation. Or envious. Which is a sin.

In an explanation of laughably transparent disproportion Obama said, “Look, he invited me to speak at his church a few years ago. So I’m inviting him to speak at my inauguration.” Why not just have a hoops play date instead?

Warren had sermonized from his Southern California pulpit in favor of Prop Hate using the standard child abuse, bestiality and pedophilia lies. When gay protestors picketed his house after the election, he told a heart-warming story about how he had gone out to them and offered them coffee and doughnuts. Call me ungrateful, but I’d rather have my civil rights than a French cruller.

We, the 70% of the gay vote for Obama are told it’s no big deal. It’s not a cabinet appointment; it’s just a prayer. And p.s. we didn’t get a gay cabinet appointment. We are told to wake up and smell the political coffee. This is what it means to reach out to the other side. We are told to grow up.

And we gay people keep saying we’re just like straight people. We are not. We are much more tolerant. We have been putting up with their tiresome phobia for long enough. What are they afraid of? Why must they drag out Bible stories to justify their fears? Quit drinking. Stop watching online porn for a minute. Go to therapy. Quit taking it out on us.

Let’s have some real gay balls after this inauguration. The gay movement is too big to fail. That’s exactly what they are afraid of.

*Thank you Jim David

Just got word of another piece of coal from Benedict the Pope for our gay stockings this holiday season. I heard if from the smoky voiced Sylvia Polgolla in Rome, so it must be true. To review: as far as the Vatican is concerned, homosexuality is a deviation, an irregularity, a wound. In his cheery holiday message, the unmarried Pope said saving heterosexuality from gay marriage is as critical as saving the rainforest. No word yet on whether he will be sharing his papal PowerPoint with Rick Warren for his inaugural invocation.

That a two thousand year old Christian identity movement is so threatened by a forty-year-old gay identity movement indicates to me that we must be doing something right.

One group doing things right is the Victory Fund. In early December I had the privilege of working at their Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute in Washington, DC. The conference is designed to train and support LGBT candidates across the country. In addition to meeting gay elected officials, attendees heard from strategists and practitioners about the post-election political landscape. Representative Barney Frank, Chair of the Finance Committee took time from his work on the auto bailout to speak to conference attendees. He assessed the LGBT progress and was optimistic about passage of several LGBT civil rights bills.

Of course Barney Frank made his remarks before Barack Obama’s Rick Warren announcement. Among the things we learned from the Bush years is that when homophobia continues to be sanctioned at the highest level of government, it is an excuse for bad behavior among the very rank and file.

In crises like these, I’ve learned to just keep doing my job, which I am grateful for every day. I just finished a CD recording of my third book, presciently titled, if I do say so myself, I Told You So. The book and CD will be out in spring, 2009. It was nice to be in a sound proofed booth wearing a giant sound-canceling headset. I wanted to stay forever. They finally had to ask me to leave because the booth was booked for another recording session.

When you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand, go to the Apollo for the reunion of Labelle. That’s what we did. In the middle of a snowstorm. Whoopi Goldberg brought the outrageously styling Sarah Dash, Nona Hendryx, and Patti Labelle to the stage to thunderous welcome. They had kicked out six songs when the storm caused a power surge that shut down the sound system. So they said. I think Nona caused it when she took her jacket off and flexed her 64-year-old biceps. Or it could have been a sustained Patti note. After two hours of Con Ed trying and pleasant milling fueled by free drinks, the Apollo management rescheduled for the next night. We cancelled everything to be there.

An hour before we were going to make the trek again to Harlem, Nona called and said that Whoopi could not make it to introduce them again. Nona Hendryx asked me, moi, Kate Clinton, to introduce them. Um. Yes. The Apollo was packed again, and I got to step out on that historic stage, welcome everybody back, and introduce Labelle. Pinch me and funk the pope. What a great way to end my 2008 tour.

Apparently Chicago was getting a little too big for its britches about their favorite son and it got a big old biotch slap. First Oprah announced that she literally had gotten too big for her britches. She admitted - and what tacky person asked? - that she has hit the double centenary pound mark. I’m sorry you feel so bad about it, Oprah, and for health’s sake you probably should try to shed a few pounds, but heck you are one big beautiful black woman, so don’t get all shamey, do what you can and look gorgeous in the meantime. It might be karma for that wheel barrel of fat you had carted out on stage a while back.

Then Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, with the very slim resume, got carted off for allegedly trying to sell Barrack Obama’s=2 0vacant Senate seat. It’s not like it’s never been done before, but you have to admire this guy’s level of transparency. Rod married Chicago alderman Dick Mell’s potty-mouthed daughter and rose to governor on a reform plank. Like the reform-minded guv from Alaska he got bored with the job and sought a national platform. There are no transcripts of Palin trying to sell Sen. Ted Steven’s old seat. Yet. Though we face huge state deficits, I hope my NY Governor Patterson doesn’t try to sell off Hillary Clinton’s senate seat. And who knew being governor was such a giant yawn?

The “expletive laced” transcripts made young Rod sound like he was off his meds. The subpoenaed Team of Rovals linked the scandal to Barack Obama, Tony Rezko and maybe Boss Tweed. With audacity of hype FOX news denounced the pay-to-play demands of the governor and wanted off with his bleeping bushy head. Meantime the slobbying, mendacious GOP sees “ethics” as their mantra for the next election. Gag me with a forklift.

It is sad that selling vacant senate seats is seen as a viable revenue stream in this economy. Desperate times. While America shopped, our unregulated capital markets turned into ponzi scum and high stakes poker parlors. Desperate measures. The damage continues to trickle down and very good, decent, hardworking people, who shower before and after work, are being hammered.

Ironically gay and straight are equal in the great leveling juggernaut of this recession. The LGBT community is reeling. Individual memberships, donations and corporate funding have dried up and LGBT groups are cutting staff or going under. The Day Without Gay is real and it’s here and threatens to turn into weeks and months.

Now more than ever it’s time fo r our own version of pay-to-play. In whatever year-end giving we can afford we need to support our LGBT centers and organizations, local, state, national and international. We also need to support straight organizations run by courageous out LGBT leaders. We need to lean on our straight allies to pay up with us.

It’s time for some Pay-to-Gay.

The weather’s getting colder, but the movies are getting hotter. Get the Moviefone Toolbar and see Moviefone’s holiday movie guide today.