Gaining momentum, the blog swarm urging HRC to take a more assertive stance with the White House (and with that, pressure Congress) in order to repeal has been picked up by The Advocate.

The bloggers are looking for the President to take a lead role in ensuring that Congress passes legislation to overturn the military’s gay ban this year and to publicly call on Congress to do so. To that end, they are mounting what they called a “blog swarm” to compel HRC to advocate more vocally for the President to take a stand.

…”We truly believe that if HRC were to openly call on the White House to get DADT repealed this year, it would happen. Mostly because Democrats are rightly worried about the gay vote (and the support of our straight allies) months before a critical congressional election.”

The post encourages readers to contact HRC and voice their concerns and provides the following information:

HRC front desk: (202) 628-4160

TTY: (202) 216-1572

Toll-Free: (800) 777-4723

HRC website comment page: http://www.hrc.org/12022.htm

General membership e-mail at hrc: membership@hrc.org

Firedoglake:

Many gay rights advocates have been frustrated, not only by the pace of change in the Obama Administration, but the muted response from the national organizations, who they feel should be more aggressive in advocating for those changes. This action against the HRC seeks to push them into the spotlight with public pressure on the White House and members of Congress, and bloggers note that their close working relationship with the White House would mean that public statements of the type they desire would send a powerful signal.

Adam Bink at Open Left has a really strong piece underscoring additional ways HRC, the blogosphere and readers can act:

I think increased pressure from HRC is important, though what I’d really like to see is four-fold, and I’ve called for several for months now:

• Increased pushback in the media when items come out like the Pentagon considering segregated shower facilities or the Pentagon memo originally advising the President “now is not the time” (here)
• Increased pushback on the one-year “study”, like Rep. Sestak did in my interview (here), and emphasizing that Congress must repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell this year while the Pentagon completes its study
• Increased pushback by warning, like the labor unions are doing, that angry and apathetic LGBT voters will stay home in droves during the 2010 elections (here)
• Mobilization aimed at the White House. The night of the State of the Union speech, HRC launched its Voices of Honor campaign around grassroots mobilization, media events and legislative pressure. This is all important, but what remains to be seen is presidential leadership on the issue. John is dead-on here:
  

  Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point with the Obama administration where allies have to publicly demand action, or promises are never kept. Just last week, the AFL-CIO was forced to send an action alert to its members, targeting the White House. If it’s good enough for the unions, it’s good enough for us.

  Just like I asked LGBT leaders and activists to take a page out of labor’s book on media pushback, HRC could do the same on this front. I’m not going to be satisfied with an official HRC statement “calling” on the White House to ask Congress. I’d like to see grassroots mobilization to do the same.

John et al are right that the momentum is on our side. We don’t just need legislative mobilization, we need strong leadership, both from traditional groups and from the Administration, to push this through, and I’d like to see it on multiple fronts.