Well, it’s good to see this long-time frustration with being an ATM getting traction. In the February Advocate, activists and bloggers who have been leading the charge to hold the Democrats responsible for their lame, limited, spineless “support” of LGBT rights, are simply tired of the party’s hand always out looking for your cash assuming you’re too dumb to see that you’re really being pickpocketed.

In the wake of the Maine defeat, a coterie of liberal bloggers and activists called for a temporary moratorium on DNC donations. The fledgling movement, which has adopted the motto “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” and has attracted the likes of legendary gay rights activist David Mixner, hopes to discourage donations to the party until the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the repeal of both “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act. In so doing, these activists are hoping to reshape-if not completely upset-the relationship between gays and the Democratic Party.

…With the 2010 midterm congressional election looking increasingly perilous for progressives, thus making the imperative to pass pro-gay legislation before then all the more urgent, a picture is beginning to emerge of a Democratic president and political party that are, as [Andy] Szekeres describes them, happy to take money and votes from gay people but less inclined to spend political capital on their behalf. So far, the only piece of significant gay rights legislation to pass Congress and receive the president’s signature is the expansion of the hate-crimes act, which was ultimately appended to a defense spending bill. Hearings on ENDA and the repeal of DADT have been delayed, and the prospects for getting DOMA off the books are dimming. Perhaps candidate Obama made too many promises; even some of his strongest supporters acknowledge that his early guarantees for change may be coming back to haunt him. “I wish he had said he was a ‘firm and steady ally’ rather than a ‘fierce advocate,’ ” says one prominent gay Democrat.

Losses on the state level have only darkened impressions of the DNC in the eyes of some gay activists. In addition to the revocation of equal marriage rights in Maine, the New York state senate rejected a marriage equality bill in December, with eight Democrats joining all of the chamber’s Republicans. At press time it appears marriage in New Jersey, which once looked like a surefire bet, may not make it through the legislature. “Many of us in the progressive movement just want to throw up,” Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality told Newark’s Star-Ledger. “Democrats put out one hand to ask for money, and with the other they stab you in the back.“

Oh my god, you have to click over to see the photo they used of Andy Tobias.  A little free-form commentary? LOLOLOL.

How about these sample quotes of this “holy war” featured in the article:

“The goal is freedom. And we have to go get it. They’re not going to give it to us. In stead of pumping money into the Democratic Party right now, we should be pumping money into our struggle for civil rights. Lobbying Washington. Challenging state ballot initiatives. Engaging in civil disobedience…. There’s no one right way.”

- Activist and blogger David Mixner

“We’re just saying we’re going to take you [the Democratic Party] down with us. We’re going to blow this up and it’s going to hurt you too.”

– AmericaBlog editor John Aravosis

“The administration is going to continue to make steady progress on our issues whether we help strengthen its hand or not. But the stronger it is, the faster that progress will come.”

– Democratic National Committee treasurer Andrew Tobias

I want to note that the matter of the gAyTM is more symbolism that anything else, since the DNC and DNCC rely on big-time politicos who bundle donations; small dollar donors, as you have seen don’t carry much weight with these folks.

The most effective statement average people can convey is to use those mailed fundraising appeals as opportunities to convey your sentiments, and when the phone rings asking for money, that you politely tell the person on the other end why your dollars will go to candidates you support, not party infrastructure that doesn’t work for you. Obviously, if you have the ear of big dollar donors to influence that’s always a plus, but the movement to symbolically show dissatisfaction with the status quo isn’t unsophisticated or irrelevant.