Abortion-rights leader to head gay group

NEW YORK - After 12 years advocating for abortion rights, Joe Solmonese might have opted for a less divisive field of work. Instead, he is taking over leadership of the largest national gay-rights group at a time when the same-sex marriage debate rivals abortion for volatility and virulence.

"My challenge is to talk about why the equality we seek is not just important to our community, but should be important to everyone," Solmonese said. "I have to believe in the optimism and fair-mindedness of the American people."

Solmonese was named last week as the new president of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign and will formally assume the post April 11. He plans to start his tenure by traveling around the country, meeting with state and local activists.

Since 1993, Solmonese has been a strategist for EMILY's List, a political action committee supporting state and federal candidacies of Democratic women who favor abortion rights. He was its chief executive for the past 2 1/2 years, helping break fund-raising records but also seeing candidates his group endorsed lose 2004 Senate races in Florida, South Carolina and Missouri.

Solmonese, 40, graduated from Boston University with a degree in communications after growing up in Attleboro, Mass. One of his role models was the local congressman, Barney Frank - who disclosed his homosexuality in 1987 when openly gay politicians were almost unheard of.

"Barney Frank is an incredibly heroic person, but also someone who is absolutely in touch with his constituency," Solmonese said in a telephone interview. "He's a man who values family more than anyone I know."

Solmonese came out as gay in his early 20s; he recalls attending a Human Rights Campaign dinner when he was 22. Before joining EMILY's List, he was an aide to former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and a fund-raiser for Frank.

He credits his parents, both schoolteachers, with inspiring him to pursue a career of political activism.

"After a decade in the reproductive rights movement, I see myself having been in the fight for a progressive America," he said. "Groups like the HRC are very much at the forefront of that fight."

Another common denominator for the abortion-rights and gay-rights movements is their determined and politically well-connected opposition. Conservative leaders who focus on those two issues have claimed credit for the Republicans' strong showing in the 2004 election.

"The American people fear a whole range of things right now, from terrorism to their economic future," Solmonese said. "Our opposition has been pretty crafty at capitalizing on that fear, using whatever means necessary to make political gains."

Many conservative groups are now waging a two-pronged fight against gay marriage. They are lobbying Congress to approve a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman; they also hope many more states will join the 17 that already have amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage.

The Human Rights Campaign was among numerous gay-rights organizations participating earlier this month in a strategy session aimed at competing effectively in upcoming state ballot campaigns regarding gay marriage.

Solmonese says he hopes his home state will demonstrate to Americans nationwide that its pioneering legalization of same-sex marriage has positive, not negative, results.

"Massachusetts is still there, with loving, committed families going on with their lives and experiencing the same rights and responsibilities that all Americans do," he said. "We want to shine a light on what happened in Massachusetts, and tell the American people who we truly are."

He replaces another Massachusetts political activist, Cheryl Jacques, who stepped down as HRC president late last year, citing differences with its board. Her departure coincided with speculation in the gay media, and elsewhere, about discord among the HRC and some other major gay-rights groups. Solmonese said he has detected no serious rifts since his hiring was announced.

Several other national gay-rights groups are undergoing leadership changes. The Family Pride Coalition and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays recently named new executive directors, while Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is stepping down in June.

Both Barney Frank and MA are so foul with stench, most families just try their best to stay home. Our young people refuse to marry here, instead going to other states where there is still a "real" marriage license. One that allows them to be called "bride and groom" "husband and wife" This entire article, the organization it is written about, and homosexual legalities are all a farce.

As is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! You can't even go to the grocery store without being offended to the extreme! The gay agenda is FAR FROM accepted here. In fact, it has created an extremely hostile environment, leading to the only state in the union with growth numbers in the minus.........to the degree of thousands! Only 3000+ that it admits too, but the actually -number is far higher!

NARTH is indeed a wonderful organization.

You may have seen this before, but if not, you might find this of interest, pulled from the conlusion to Satinover's The Gay Gene?:

Isn't homosexuality heritable?
Yes, significantly.
So it is inherited?
No, it is not.
I'm confused. Isn't there is a "genetic component" to homosexuality?
Yes, but "component" is just a loose way of indicating genetic associations and linkages. This will not make sense unless you understand what, and how little, "linkage" and "association" really means.
What about all the evidence that shows that homosexuality "is genetic"?
There is not any, and none of the research itself claims there is; only the press and, sadly, certain researchers do-when speaking in sound bites to the public.
But isn't homosexuality "biologically in the brain"?
Of course it is. So is just about everything else. I'll bet people who pray regularly have certain enlarged portions of their brains!
So doesn't that mean that homosexuality is "innate"?
No more than prayer is. The brain changes with use or nonuse as much as muscles do-a good deal more, in fact. We just do not usually see it happening.
But doesn't homosexuality run in families?
Yes.
So you get it from your parents, right?
You get viruses from your parents, too, and some bad habits. Not everything that is familial is innate or genetic.
But it just seems to make sense. From the people I know there's a type-it's got to be inherited-that runs in families and a lot of these people are gay, right?
That is what associated traits are-but what exactly is the associated trait-or traits-you are detecting? If there is one thing the research confirms, it is that it is not "gayness" itself. That is why these traits are sometimes in evidence at a very early age, long before sexuality is shaped.
So what are these traits?
An important question, indeed. Science is being seriously obstructed in its effort to answer that question. If we were allowed- encouraged-to answer it, we would soon develop better ideas on what homosexuality is and how to change, or better, prevent it. We would know who was at greater risk for becoming homosexual and what environments- family or societal-foster it. As one prominent gay activist researcher implied, all genetic things being equal, it is a whole lot easier to become "gay" in New York than in Utah. So who do you think would benefit most from that kind of research?
Well, what traits do you guess are "associated," as you put it, with homosexuality?
May I speculate, perhaps wildly? That is how scientific hypotheses are first generated. The important thing is not to avoid ideas that prove wrong, just not to cling to them if they do.
Okay, go ahead, speculate.
Intelligence, anxiety, sensitivity, aesthetic abilities, taste. You know, all the stereotypes.
But where do these traits come from? Aren't they inherited?
We do not know yet. Some may be. Or rather, we do not know how much is inherited, and which elements are direct and which merely further associated and linked with other yet more fundamental traits. But you are getting the picture. That is how the research ought to proceed. It is not necessarily that the traits that facilitate homosexuality are themselves bad; perhaps many are gifts. Athleticism is a generally good thing, and we think highly of people who satisfy their athletic impulses as, say, outstanding BBPs. Not so the fellow who merely becomes a thug.

If more folks understood the above, there would be

less confusion on the topic
less celebration of homosexuality
less encouragement to experiment
thus, fewer homosexuals in number

But no, we have homosexual sympathizers whose ignorance is so profound, they continue to encourage and celebrate a very unhealthy lifestyle.

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