A lot of Blenders do the healthy thing and log off the internets for the weekend and miss stories we cover, so I wanted to recap our coverage of Saturday’s 2010 HRC Carolinas Gala.

Held at the Raleigh Convention Center I liveblogged and shot footage during the event. In the wee hours I uploaded hot-off-of-the press video, and it wasn’t long before it was picked up by quite a few media outlets and blogs (some crediting the Blend, others not so much; it’s the wild west, you know).

BTW, it’s amazing how many Clay Aiken fans are out there and have posted the video and blogged about this. At last count, it has been seen viewed over 7,000 times since 1:30 AM on Sunday and weekends are usually slow.

One outlet featuring our coverage was E!Online.

According to the blog Pam’s House Blend, the 31-year-old “Invisible” crooner, who came out in September 2008, argued that the HRC is fighting for equality for everyone. He also addressed why he waited to reveal his sexuality to Claymates.

“What the hell took me so long? I was waiting like so many folks are waiting… for change,” Aiken said. “I realized the time for waiting has passed. The power of truth and living honestly is very liberating”.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Clay Aiken emailed me a while back,  maybe a year ago, saying he was a fan of PHB. We played email tag for a while and never managed to connect to have lunch. One day I’m at work and my cell rings (I almost never answer it at work), I by chance pick it up and it’s Clay Aiken on the phone. I recognized his soft polite Southern twang and he said he was calling to apologize about not connecting. That was overly thoughtful. And it workd out that we finally met on Saturday. I thanked him not only for coming out, but for taking on the godawful, bible-beating Wake County School Board. And we’re going to get that lunch/dinner date in soon.

More below the fold.When Meredith Baxter took the stage, I can safely say no one expected to laugh as hard as we did. Her witty address was picked up by The Advocate:

After joking her way through a brief recap of her coming out experience (“My big public moment was a big news item for about five minutes because… I owe a major debt of gratitude to Tiger Woods.”), Baxter moved on to talk about harassment in schools, “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the need for strong leaders to push gay rights forward.

Speaking of a young student in upstate New York who was ignored by school officials when students harassed him for being gay, Baxter said: “Students said that he ought to die, and one of his teachers told him that he ought to be ashamed…. You have to ask, ‘What kind of society creates these harassing students and these unsympathetic teachers?’ Our society. And when you look at some of the laws of our society, it’s not hard to see why.”

Baxter went on to say that laws like “don’t ask, don’t tell” are the governments message to students and teachers that its OK to harass and discriminate.

While Clay Aiken and Meredith Baxter fired up the room, it was HRC’s Joe Solmonese who confidently  threw the gauntlet down against the President and Congress regarding repeal of DADT and other pro-LGBT actions, promising all would occur before the end of 2010.



1. “We are going to eliminate the tax that you pay on domestic partner benefits. We’re going to get rid of that this year at long last.”

2. “We are going to extend domestic partnerships to federal employees.”

3. “We are going to get people living with HIV/AIDS treatment much earlier if they are on public assistance.”

4. “And finally, finally this year we are going to bring down the discriminatory policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’…once and for all.”

He did not mention any progress on ENDA or DOMA, but the crowd of HRC supporters certainly expect strong action by the organization to make DADT and the rest of that list happen this year (see “In high risk gamble, HRC promises DADT will be repealed this year, and disagrees with WH spokesman – says repeal must happen before Nov. elections“).

You can capture the Blend’s full coverage of the gala and related posts below:

* HRC’s Solmonese: ‘this year we are going to bring down the discriminatory policy known as ‘DADT’

* Coverage of the 2010 HRC Carolinas dinner – commentary and PHB video of speeches by Clay Aiken and Meredith Baxter.

* NC: Raleigh native Clay Aiken to give equality speech at Saturday’s HRC Carolinas Gala