“You should be grateful”Funny, my ex-husband would say something similar right before beating me. Something along the lines of, “I’m the best you’ll ever get, no one else can love you, you’re worthless without me.”
Perhaps the gentleman from Rhode Island might want to reconsider his statement. It has a familiar ring to it.

Gratefulthat teh gays seem to turn the entire Obama Administration in screaming, flaming drama queens?
Grateful that Joe Solomnese (and Barney Frank, apparently) doesn’t think we know anything about anything?
and this

He said the Republicans were obstructionists, and added amendments to bills, etc

Pot, meet kettle.  

“cuz little things are all you seem to give”……Janet JacksonI can’t get “What Have Done For Me Lately” to quit playing in my head.
   http://vodpod.com/watch/152910…

Grateful? Really?Shouldn’t THEY be grateful that we helped send their sorry @sses to DC? And shouldn’t they return the favor by fulfilling their promises?

We should pose thisto all Democrats in Congress as a litmus test- to find out who else echoes this sentiment.

Why do I get the feeling……that “fortunate,” in this case, is meant to imply that we, as a community, are stragglers that no political party should pander to, and we’re “fortunate” that we even get to have someone listen to our indescribable, inexcusable requests/demands? To me, I can’t help but imagine the following political cartoon: a man, wearing a t-shirt with the word “GAY” on it, laying flat on his back in the desert, dehydrated extensively. The DNC is standing over him, canteen loaded. The speech bubble would say, “Hey, we’ve got the water and the means to give it to you. But, you’re ‘fortunate’ we even stopped to notice you. The other party would just keep driving down the road.”
It occurs to me the old adage can be reversed and be totally applicable to this situation: One man’s treasure is another man’s trash.

Thank you, sir. May I have another.This time with even less lube and protection?  I don’t think so.
With the utter betrayal of hardcore constituents — gays and single women — the Democratic Party and its defenders have lost any moral or political authority.  It’s as if the DNC and the Obama administration are actively seeking a backlash in order to appeal to the moderate right-wing.  Or maybe they’re secretly in collusion with the RNC.
I would remind these…miscreants…of Harry Truman’s dictum: “Given the choice … between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.”  
My corollary would be, “Given a choice between a principled Democrat and a spineless Democrat, the people will choose the principled Democrat.”

BoycottI would take this Boycott a step further and withhold funding for state and county parties if your state or your county haven’t enacted LGBT rights locally.  This needs to be a wake up call up and down the Political spectrum to be effective.  

Feeling Fortunate Lately?I feel so fortunate to have Obama in the White House these days that I am BOYCOTTING–that is right boycotting the DNC, the DCCC and the DSCC, but will give directly to candidates who support an equal rights agenda on behalf of LGBT citizens.  Terry Bean and others get access because they are wealthy and give the big bucks, but we have received barely a pittance for our dollars and our sweat and tears.  I am really over it.  When you are told to wait and wait…Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not believe in waiting.  He said: “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.” .  Yes, let’s keep the pressure on the White House and the DNC.  I am not waiting anymore to be free.

I’m a little uncomfortable with this postbecause your blockquote, and the whole of the story is based on your source’s (an email you received) PARAPHRASING Whitehouse. There isn’t a actual quote in there.
I respect blogger’s claim to be journalists, but to repeat an anonymous source’s paraphrasing of Whitehouse is not good journalism, in my opinion.

See this is why I made the post belowabout being uncomfortable with repeating an anonymous source’s paraphrasing, as opposed to a direct quote.
This is now gone from “we’re fortunate” to “You should be grateful,” which are different concept.
But we don’t have a transcript to refer to.

the email in questionWas from a reporter (and reader of the Blend) who was in the room, and wanted to remain off the record, so I respected those wishes. So I am not uncomfortable with the post.

Hey, I feel so DAMN fortunate!How lucky could we be?  I’m just simply nuts about living in a country whose constitution guarantees certain basic rights to all citizens but whose government denies them to me.  Good gosh, how goddamn fortunate could a fellow be?  I wake up every morning and shout, “Yippee!  I’m a second-class citizen!  Hooray!  I live under a system of government-sanctioned apartheid!  Good fortune doesn’t come any better than that!  Three cheers for America!”
To paraphrase The Lion in Winter, if I saw a Democratic congressman on fire, I wouldn’t piss on him to put it out.

The Democrats Incompetance“We should be grateful” for what? With answers like that it is no surprise that democrats are worried about the 2012 elections, they should be. Seems the democrats have gone out of their way this year to push their base as far away as possible, we are not alone. Well, their childish behavior this year has been noticed by the voters, they are not doing what they promised. They appear as spoiled children corrupted by money in the eyes of voters. The formula is simple, keep your promises, get re-elected. They just don’t get it.

another report from the eventI wasn’t at the event and so won’t offer an opinion about what Sheldon Whitehouse said or how he came across in talking about the issue. But for anyone interested, the local liberal blog also posted a report about the event. Mind you, the same blogger who posted this report was the one who said the other day that RI should put marriage equality on the ballot, and then when challenged on it in comments seemed to back away and said he was just trying to spark a conversation on the legislature’s inaction.
All of that said, Sheldon Whitehouse is a solid supporter of LGBT issues, including marriage equality (one of few sitting senators who does publicly support it.) That fact doesn’t excuse him for making excuses for Homophobama, but it’s just some interesting context to have about a senator you may not be familiar with.

Personally, I have considered WhitehouseA fine Senator and a good man. And as the source provides no quoted material demarked with “quotations” I read this and I am certain of what he actually said.  

Not so easyGetting legislation through Congress, especially Civil Rights legislation, is not as easy as some here would suppose. It was 100 years after the Civil War that the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was enacted.
Look what it took to get the Hate Crimes Bill through Congress. It had to be attached to the DOD Authorization Bill. Even then, both of our Tenn Senators, staunch supporters of the military, voted against it, simply because of the Hate Crimes amendment.
Health insurance reform, the administrations most important issue, just squeaked through the House on a 220 to 215 vote. Prospects of passing it in the Senate are formidable.
We are fortunate we have a President who will sign LGBT legislation that reaches his desk. He can’t force Congress to pass this legislation in the first place.

SupportWithholding money seems like such a negative approach, one  which usually does harm to both parties involved. Can’t we find a more positive approach to promoting our goals?
Withholding funds from Democratic efforts just makes it more likely that Religious Right candidates will win. How does that help?

Withholding action on basic rights for citizensseems like such a negative approach, one that does harm to the party footing the bill.  Can’t Congress find a more positive approach?

“He can’t force Congress to pass this legislation in the first place.”This diary wasn’t about Obama, but since you raised this point I have to remind you that we don’t know what Obama can do with Congress on these issues because he hasn’t tried.  He loves passing the buck.

There are only two options here:giving them money or not giving them money. You may feel comfortable (or “positive”) giving more money to liars who have already defrauded you.  But claiming there is something “negative” about a refusal to be defrauded any more is just plain silly.
Branding something “negative,” as if that were somehow a valid or substantial criticism, isn’t a hard game to play.  For example:  Why do you have such a negative attitude about LGBT people standing up for ourselves?  What’s the point?

Congress…He knows he can get a health care bill passed in the strongly Democratic House by only 5 votes.  

ContributionsI simply don’t contribute to federal or state parties or campaign committees. Such a shotgun approach dilutes my influence on the outcomes. I focus my resources on candidates and issues that will appear on my local ballot with a few exceptions like No on 1, Maine.
I have no intention of changing that. It’s not how I “feel” that matters, it’s what I do that counts.
As a trained counselor, I focus my clients attention on positive activities and life affirming outcomes. It’s fine to stop contributing to DNC, et al. It’s better to replace this with a more positive and effective way to deploy your resources.
Turn this negative experience with the DNC to a more positive approach elsewhere. That’s my point.

ConclusionsYou conclude that Obama “hasn’t tried.” Yet we don’t really know what he has or hasn’t done, do we?
We discover from the NYT article about Rep Cao (R-LA) that his yes vote supporting health care reform, unique in his party, was influenced by several conversations he had with Pres Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Had Rep Cao voted no, this effort would have never come to light.
So we don’t know what he’s doing in support of LGBT legislation in a similar way. Why assume the worst based on no evidence whatsoever?
He’s insisting that Congress pass legislation, which is where the responsibility for passing legislation lies. This is not “passing the buck.” This is prompting Congress to do its job. He speaks about what he and the American people want in general terms, then sets Congress to the task of developing the means to get the job done.
He provides encouragement along the way, and when the final vote comes due, he even calls a newly elected Republican Congressman from Louisiana seeking support.
Would you rather like someone who blathers about LGBT rights in one photo op or another? He’s already had unflattering remarks made about his HRC speech. Or would you rather have someone who works hard day by day, mostly unnoticed, who actually gets the job done?
I’d favor reaching our goals, not just talking about them myself.

And it’s a health care billwhich is still far more conservative than a genuine universal or single-payer system which would be supported by the large majority of people in the U.S.  So Obama can barely pass legislation which is to the right of most of the country.  Go figure.

I’ll stick to giving my moneyto people who actually support my positions, thanks.  I’m not sure why the Democratic party feels entitled to the little money I can afford to devote to politics, anyway…

“Withholding funds from Democratic efforts just makes it more likely that Religious Right candidates will win.”Where have you been Bill?
One of the candidates of the religious right did win the White House in 2008. The same one who empowered the bigot vote on Prop 8, repeating ‘gawd’s in the mix” until every hater in California got the picture.  
Those who were bamboozled into voting for Obama and other bitot enablers don’t like to think it about but their party is as deeply interconnected with the christer cults as the Republicans. That cult-party interpenetration is the reason the DNC, the Obama campaign and legislative Democrats are so hostile towards us and why we should boycott them and go a step further and declare our independence from them.  
The White House Office In Charge of bribing ‘Faith Based’ pulpit pimps is run by an ordained pentecostal bigot, Josh Dubois, who’s going to spend billions bribing cult leaders like Warren and McClurkin. In the meantime HIV/AIDS funding is being cut in state after state. Dubois was previously Obama’s campaign manager for outreach to faith (read bigot) communities from the beginning with revival meeting featuring ex-gay pentecostal piglet Donnie McClurkin to the end at Rick Warrens bigotfest.  
Obama chose Tim Kaine of Virginia to run the DNC. Kaine, like Bill Cinton, is a Dixiecrat. Kaine’s ‘faith based’ politics oppose reproductive choice  and stem cell research. He’s for funding “abstinence” training. He was an early and hardnosed supporter of the genocide in Iraq and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. He ran a gay-baiting campaign to become governor of Virginia and has the same bigoted attitude towards same sex marriage as Obama, McCain and Hillary Clinton.
The real power in the DNC is Leah Daughtry who runs its day to day operations. She’s a theocrat, someone who caters to the christer right. She’s an ordained pentecostal bigot who opposes same sex marriage. Daughtry used DNC funds to pay for anti-GLBT and anti-choice campaigns by other jebuz jumping Democrats in the South via the DNC funded Faith Advisory Council. Daughtry was sued, successfully, by the DNCs own director or LGBT outreach for antigay discriminatory hiring and firing practice.
If you support the Democrats to any extent you support a party that’s infested with bigots, caters to bigots and is led by bigot like Obama and Biden who voted for DOMA.