* Are you unemployed?
Yes
* Did you lose your job because of your sexual orientation or gender identity?
On four prior occasions, yes
* Do you live in Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio or West Virginia?
No. Screwed by geography I guess.

From John Aravosis, AmericaBLOG.com today:

Lobby Days are here!

Sigh.

Over the next few weeks, a number of gay groups, and individuals, are organizing "lobby days." These are opportunities for the groups' members, and others, to visit congressional offices and lobby congressional staff on the issues of the day.

While I'm loathe to criticize what I'm sure is a worthwhile experience in civics and the benefits of participatory democracy, the dirty little secret in Washington is that lobby days don't really work. At least at the national level they never have. You'd be hard pressed to find an example of a group of citizens coming to town and lobbying congress, and it having any significant effect whatsoever. It's just not the way the system works, unfortunately.

Remarkably, John is now admitting that lobbying in ineffective. When I made that observation on his website I was blocked. Just two weeks ago John was adamant that "lobbying was very effective." Did he change or did somebody LOBBY him?

In the comments after this was posted, John actually said:

"I think, some of us would rather fix HRC than destroy it."

But, John HRC is a lobbying organization. You want to FIX something that "doesn't work." You've outdone yourself, again.

Link:http://gay.americablog.com/2010/03/political-masturbation-wont-get-dadt.html

Dr. Jillian, any thoughts on witch bill we should attach ENDA?

@joe,
HR3017 does not need to be attached to anything, not that there even is anything to attach it to.

We need;
ENDA out of committee markup, and I expect that in the next few weeks.
We need;
A floor vote scheduled when the Bill is out of ctte, and assuming there are no more changes required
We need;
Speaker of the house to act, move and DO!
Wen need;
All of the readers to call Speaker Pelosi and tell her to move on the Bill - when? Right now !!!!!!!

Sooner or later everyone will learn that lobbying doesn't work.

Some more evidence:

Gay Politics reports that CA state Rep. Roy Ashburn came out on a Sacramento radio station today. But he says he's going to continue his anti-gay voting ways, because that's what his constituents want.

JMG: http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/03/sen-roy-ashburn-comes-out-but-plans-to.html

We can't even lobby a GAY politician to support us because of the polling data demonstrating his constituents beliefs. Until we change those beliefs - something that is NOT part of our movement - we will continue to fail.

John Aravosis nailed it when he called lobbying "Political Masturbation."