IT'S THE WRONG CROWD IN WHICH TO REFUSE TO BEND OVER, NO?:

BELTWAY BACKTRACK: Has the leading gay-rights group in Washington lost its voice? (Michelangelo Signorile, 12/21/04, NY Press)

AT FIRST THOUGHT, it's difficult to understand how the Human Rights Campaign, the Washington DC-based gay group that employs slick and high-powered lobbyists, could stumble into the p.r. disaster it did in recent weeks. It only becomes plausible when you remind yourself that those who live on Planet Beltway often don't have a clue about what's happening back on Earth.

Soon after John Kerry's defeat, news leaked and spread via the gay blogs that HRC was axing its executive director, Cheryl Jacques, the former state senator who hailed from the bluest of the blue states and had been at HRC for less than a year. The group's board was sending her packing back to Massachusetts; the reasons cited were Jacques' supposed stridency—signing off on bumper stickers that said, "George Bush, You're Fired!"—and her post-election refusal to bend on the issue of marriage rights.