Listen Now: Bob Barr Could Be McCain's Nader




Conservative former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr - who wrote the Defense of Marriage Act - is going to run on the Libertarian Party ticket for president, and could take votes away from McCain. He came on the show to talk about being the presumptive nominee, just before the Libertarian Party convention began.

Tune into the Michelangelo Signorile Show weekdays from 2-6 p.m. EST on Sirius Satellite Radio’ s OutQ, Channel 109. Not a subscriber? Listen online at any time by getting a free three-day pass.

CA Poll: Bare Majority in Favor of Ban on Marriage

As the LA Times story explains, this actually bodes well for marriage equality: Usually ballot measures lose steam as the campaign goes on, so you want to start well about 50%. Opponents of marriage just barely make it, and this poll is coming after the initial shock (for some) of the news, and well before thousands of gay couples marry, couples who will, by November desensitize voters to the issue.

It does, of course mean, we have our work cut out for us, big time: This is a battle we must win, and it's a battle for the entire country because of the impact of California. Go and do what you can at EqualityforAll.com.

McCain Drops "Spiritual Advisor" Parsley too

Boy, what progress we get when the media actually do some semblance of their jobs in covering their pet presidential candidate. Now John McCain has dumped maniacal Rod Parsley, whom he'd called "one of the truly great leaders in America."
What's curious is how none of this news about Parlsey that has surfaced is new, and in fact was all true back when McCain took his endorsement -- it just wasn't covered by the media pack, which was in 24/7 overdrive over Rev. Wright at the time. (And let me point out that the coverage now of Hagee and Parsley has still not risen to the hyper-crazed level of that of Rev. Wright and Obama.)

Hagee and McCain Dump Each Other

John Hagee said he was leaving anyway, after John McCain, responding to Hagee's Hitler comments, announced he is dumping him.

But there's still McCain's "spiritual adviser," Rod Parsley, who has said the U.S. must "destroy" Islam (and declared war on gays, etc.) When is McCain going to renounce this guy?

New Hagee Video: Hitler was Sent by God to Kill the Jews

Last week he said he attacked Catholics only to protect the Jews. Now it turns out that the McCain backer believes God made the Holocaust happen to teach a lesson to the Jews. How long is the media going to give McCain a free ride on Hagee's endorsement?

Logo Piece on California Decision


I'm interviewed in this piece on Logo, and they shot a bit of the show in the studio. Itay Hod did a great job at showing how the media completely downplayed the story and just didn't get it.

Israel Appeases Syria!

Oh boy, what will George W. Bush have to say? More and more his comments about Obama and "appeasement" seem to have backfired on him and McCain.

McCain Talking to Closet Case as Possible Running Mate?

It looks like all the speculation about McCain considering Florida governor Charlie Crist as a running mate is true: He'd meeting with him, in addition to Romney and the Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal. Either the McCain campaign is clueless, or they're just trying to make it seem like he's so moderate that he would actually think of bringing a guy with a lot of gay baggage onto to the ticket. McCain is, after all, going on Ellen today --to be aired on Friday -- trying to show that he's cool and can get down with the lesbo host just like the rest of them. I can't wait for the wingnuts to weigh in on all of this.

New Site Coming

You may have heard me talking about this on the show, but next week we are re-launching the web site and the blog, with a new design, lists of show guests, as well as audio and video. Here's a taste of some of what we'll do. This will be on the new site, in the video section, with others, regularly updated.


The California Strategy

Like what you see? Check out more videos on my video page, where I frequently post special interviews, TV appearances and behind-the-scenes footage from my radio show.

On the Show Today

Bob Barr, now running for the Libertarian Party nomination for the U.S. presidency, the right-wing former Georgia congressman, has written the Defense of Marriage Act and led the Clinton impeachment. But he is opposed to a federal amendment banning marriage for gays, and actually is fine with the California Supreme Court decision. We have a lot to talk about. He'll be on a 3:30 p.m. ET

Fox Does its Best to Get Ellen's Sponsors Pulled

This idiotic segment of The O'Reilly Factor -- with E.D. Hill sitting in -- presupposes that Ellen Degeneres has risked losing her advertisers over her announcement that she will get married, which is now a legal right for her in California.

The crazed guest, Laura Ries, an "advertising expert," says there is a "danger" to Ellen talking about getting married. Hill ponders something she finds more interesting: "How did a 50-year-old woman get a 35-year-old woman?"

Meanwhile, idiot Fox overnight host Greg Gutfeld -- in his "Greg-alogue" segment -- says Ellen should keep her wedding to herself, and that speaking about it is equivalent to talking about your "bowel movements."

UPDATE: The links only take you to the gallery of videos; you have to look for the the gutfeld piece among them.

Obama Hits Back Hard

I really think Bush and McCain blundered with the "appeasment" idiocy. All of their old tricks are backfiring. As I said on the show today, it only allowed Obama to equate McCain with Bush, put Bush (with his 20something approval rating) squarely in the middle of the campaign, drew attention away from the Hillary/Obama show that the Republicans were enjoying, and allowed Obama to turn this entire thing to his advantage. I thought his speech focusing on Bush's failures today was dead-on and hard-hitting, and he kept calling them McCain-Bush. More of this!

Huckabee Jokes About Shooting Obama

He later released a statement apologizing. What an ass.

A Historic Day

For four hours we talked about the California marriage decision today on the show, and I must say I had goose bumps and teary eyes several times. Speaking with people like Evan Wolfson, among those who led the fight, and Robin Tyler, who was among those who decided to take this court and sue for the right to marry, we were all blown away by the excitement. I took calls from people across the U.S. and Canada, and from so many in California who were celebrating wildly, and I was exhausted yet ready to do another four hours -- and we will, tomorrow.

A few things that we focused on:

1) The California Supreme Court has enormous influence on other state courts, and you couldn't ask for a better second state to rule that marriage must be open to gays and lesbians. The 4-3 decision was detailed and pretty flawless, and, coming from a measured and moderate court dominated by Republican appointees, it will be hard to attack and the "activist judge" charge will only go so far.

2) Having experienced loses in New York's highest court and Washington State's, it was only a year ago when many were saying the strategy of fighting for marriage through the courts was dooming us, and that we needed to switch to legislatures, and get this done by the people's representatives to blunt charges of a judicial fiat. What California showed us is that we need to do both: Having the legislature in California pass a marriage bill twice (even though the governor vetoed it) and having a strong domestic partnership law in place already (practially a civil unions law), has made the California public more open, I believe, to marriage, so that now. when a court does the right and important thing, people will be more willing to accept it, even as the conservative foes of gays are organizing against the ruling.

3) This is not likely to be a huge issue in the presidential race -- not as big as it was in 2004. John McCain is opposed to a federal amendment banning marriage -- the only remedy the right sees in stopping states from making marriage legal for gays and lesbians -- and there aren't many more states left to launch statewide amendments in (many have been passed already, particularly in 2004), and it's already late in the political season anyway.

4) Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both were pretty cold-hearted, not even putting out statements themselves but rather having their campaigns issue very tepid support without quoting the candidates directly. No matter their positions -- and both have said in the past that they support a state deciding on marriage as a remedy to give gays equal rights even if they don't personally (supposedly) support that remedy over civil unions -- this is a huge civil rights win, and they both have been civil rights lawyers, and the least the Democratic candidates could do is say, hey, congratulations!

5) Couples from out of state, unlike the case with Massachusetts, can go to California and marry when the weddings begin in about 30 days. And New York is a state whose courts have recently ruled that out-of-state marriages of gays and lesbians must be recognized. So there will be a lot of people going to CA from NY to tie the knot. Even though Canada is right across the border from New York and its marriages of gays and lesbians are now recognized in NY, for some reason it doesn't register the same way. The connection between NYC and LA and SF is so strong that I think we're going to see much bi-coastal or cross-country or whatever-you-want-to-call-it marrying going on.

6) The organizing from the fundies is going to be fierce -- they see this as the battle of all battles: If they don't stop this in California, they reason, it will soon spread everywhere -- and they are right! A ballot measure to ban marriage in the California Constitution, thus overturn the ruling, looks like it will be on the ballot this November. It is so important that everyone across the country take up this fight. Go to Equality For All and do the best you can to help out.

Things are going to be very different after this. We've hit a very high point in this movement. Now we have to sustain it.

CA Supreme Court Overturns Marriage Ban!


Yes, they did it! And I will be on air talking about this -- got out of jury duty. Another historic day!

CA Supreme Court Decision

The California Supreme Court will announce its ruling tomorrow on marriage equality --- and I have jury duty!

If if the ruling is, as rumored, earth-shattering, and I'm off early enough, I'll be on the show, even if just for the last hour or two (otherwise they'll be "best of" interviews and discussions). If I'm not live on the show, however, look for me here or on the Facebook page for the show, or the Myspace page for the show and we can here discussion.

The American Family Outing

Jay Bakker, pastor of the Revolution Church and son of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, came into the studio yesterday to talk about his efforts to bridge the divide between evangelicals and LGBT people. He's part of a nationwide fellowship which groups like Soulforce have organized, The American Family Outing.

Clinton Wins W. VA in Landslide

As expected Hillary Clinton has taken West Virginia in a landslide. What does it mean? Will she use to bargain for the VP slot? Where does it go from here? How does the candidate who is supposed to be done and finished emerge in a landslide win? Sure, Obama has it sewn up, but it's not good that his opponent is having a huge win, still. This whole campaign has been unlike any other.