Last night, he put up a post claiming that the rights Obama granted today already existed:

I just asked OPM Director John Berry, on a White House media conference call, whether in fact federal agencies already have the right to give these benefits to gay employees. The answer, “yes.” So what’s new about tonight? Obama is going to “tell” the agencies to give the benefits – as if any agency in the Obama administration would dare tell a gay employee no to a request for time off to attend their partner’s funeral?

But as Alex Blaze, who was also on that call, shows, Aravosis had to twist John Berry’s words around pretty damned hard to get that particular frame to obtain:

Third, John Aravosis asked him what’s actually changing with these guidelines. Federal employment is already supposed to be based on merit, not on factors unrelated to job performance. Aravosis mentioned a woman who worked for the federal government who got leave to take care of her same-sex partner.

Berry responded that previously such benefits to gay employees was “subject to whim of the supervisor.” They were optional, and now they’ll be mandatory.

So in Aravosis-speak, optional and mandatory are apparently the same!

Arrrrrrrrrgh. I’m glad I’m not an alcoholic, or else I’d be in the Sterno right about now out of sheer frustration.

And Blaze also mentions this:

Fourth, I got a question in and wanted to know about protections for trans people mentioned in the Advocate. Since Berry mentioned several times that only job-related factors will now be considered in federal employment, and said how sexual orientation isn’t included in that several times, I asked if the new directions will specifically mention gender identity, gender expression, and/or transgender people. He responded:

Gender identity is a non-work-related factor, and in the guidelines [to federal agencies] we will be making that clear.[...] Gender identity will be added and made very clear in our guidelines.

That’s at least one positive out of this memo: specifically mentioning transgender people when it comes to federal employment.

Exactly. As far behind as the Feds are with regard to gays and lesbians, they’re in the Dark Ages when it comes to transgendered persons. Now the T in GLBT is getting some long-overdue Federal recognition — and protection.

There’s much more at Blaze’s piece. It debunks a lot of bullshit being paraded around lately.

Here's a little reality for them to imbibe (especially those who are transgendered):

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/17/gay_rights/permalink/069887b10eba4c1569bfd1b759d7fc0f.html (Aravosis twists John Berry's words around -- luckily, Alex Blaze gives an accurate account of what Berry really said)

http://www.bilerico.com/2009/06/americablog_interrupted.php (Alex Blaze documents Aravosis' scumbaggery and misrepresentations on this and other issue -- and mentions his attacks on transgendered persons)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/3/16228/75954/303/207183 (Aravosis' bizarre vendetta against Howard Dean, for the apparent crime of letting go one gay DNC staffer and replacing him with another gay DNC staffer)

If you're going to critique Obama, please try to keep it reality-based. You're not going to be influencing minds if it looks like you're easy prey for any mendacious jerk who pushes your buttons.

Because, as the WaPo showed once again, it is.

DC and its associated media clique are wired for Republicans, and they have been since 1969. Furthermore, they've worked over the decades to wire the New York media axis for Republicans as well.

Remember how Iran-Contra got broken open? Reagan's AG, Ed Meese, went on TV one fine day in November 1986 to say that it was perfectly OK to sell weapons to Iran's mullahs -- the people whose taking Americans hostage led to Reagan's victory barely six years earlier -- because the proceeds were going to help out those noble nun-killing freedom fighters, the Nicaraguan Contras!

If that had happened nowadays, Meese's remarks would have been simply relayed without comment by most of the media -- especially those media sources that reach the biggest chunk of the public, such as drive-time radio and the evening TV news; only the bloggers (and maybe Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann) would have cared. But it happened in 1986, before FOX RNC News and the other right-wing cable channels and before the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine led to the heavy promotion of Rush Limbaugh and his fellow conservative screamers. That meant that a non-trivial percentage of journalists present were actually, y'know, journalists, and so knew what Meese apparently did not -- which was that up until a few months earlier, giving aid to the Contras was illegal, and much of the aid Meese talked about was given when it was illegal for Americans to do so.

That's your problem in a nutshell.

And yes, that makes you a hypocrite. Among other things.

As for sex work: There are lots of good phone-sex workers out there who make better therapists than do a lot of shrinks with sheepskins. And as for the dangers involved in full-contact prostitution, a lot of them wouldn't exist if it were legal and the workers could unionize. (This is, of course, why a non-trivial number of persons running sex-industry businesses DON'T want it legalized. By the way, the whole reason the Russian mob owns the call-girl market in Hollywood and environs is because they were able to swoop in with cut-rate pricing when Heidi Fleiss was shut down -- and the women employed by the mob arguably work for much less and under worse conditions than did Fleiss' women. That's not exactly the hoped-for result, is it?)