Despite Boycott Democratic Fundraiser Raises Money And Attention, Camille Paglia Proves Her Irrelevance, Isaiah Washington Supports The Gay

Despite an ad hoc protest that included a number of prominent guests, including Democratic Chairman Howard Dean, boycotting Thursday evening’s Democratic Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Leadership Council, hosted by Vice-President Joe Biden, the event, in its tenth year, managed to raise at least one million dollars. Amid a climate of contrived celebration, as the failure of the Obama Administration to tackle the military ban on gays serving openly and the defending of the Defense of Marriage rankles not only gays in America, but those dedicated to ensuring equal rights for all, or at the very least, the semblance that equality is available, those in attendance listed to Biden acknowledge the frustration felt by all who regarded Barack Obama as an instrument of undiscriminating change. Biden, in a twenty minute speech, said that he hoped attendees “don’t doubt the president’s commitment,” offering assurances that Obama was determined to address the “unfinished business of true equality for all our people. “ Perhaps most pointedly, Biden said “I don’t blame you for your impatience.”

Late 20th Century academic oddity Camille Paglia, who never met an idea she did like to suffocate of any significance, was in Toronto this past week, as a part of Royal Ontario Museum’s Directors Signature Series, held to correspond with the city’s Pride celebrations, where, in a interview with Xtra.ca, she lashed out at gay activists, whom she terms “childish,” at political correctness, at traditional modeling of lesbian relationships, and more, although couched as her statements were, in a kind of failed academia semantic speak, what her point might have been was likely lost.

Isaiah Washington showed support for gay marriage by participating in the NO H8 campaign, the Adam Bouska and Jeff Parshley series enacted to protest the passing of Proposition 8. Washington, fired from Grey’s Anatomy in 2007 for allegedly attacking then co-star T.R. Knight in 2006 with a series of anti-gay slurs, however on the set of the NO H8, Mr. Washington said, somewhat cryptically, “what has been purported about me has nothing to do with who I am.”