GLBTQIA: Combined Gay News Headlines (T5T-1)

And I'm not talking about Bill Clinton -- we're talking Harding, as in Teapot Dome Warren G. Harding, who served as the 29th president (March 4, 1921 - August 2, 1923). This is all pretty funny, and hasn't been discussed very widely in the MSM. We've been making the assumption that Barack Obama will be the first black president.

There have been always been rumors along the way that Warren G. Harding was of black heritage, albeit passing, of course. In fact, the subject came up in the NYT last April.

Will Americans vote for a black president? If the notorious historian William Estabrook Chancellor was right, we already did. In the early 1920s, Chancellor helped assemble a controversial biographical portrait accusing President Warren Harding of covering up his family's "colored" past. According to the family tree Chancellor created, Harding was actually the great-grandson of a black woman. Under the one-drop rule of American race relations, Chancellor claimed, the country had inadvertently elected its "first Negro president."
...As recently as 2005, a Michigan schoolteacher named Marsha Stewart issued her own claim to Harding ancestry. "While growing up," she wrote, "we were never allowed to talk about the relationship to a U.S. president outside family gatherings because we were 'colored' and Warren was 'passing.' "

The Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy's Martin Eisenstadt says much the same about the matter and raises the bar by quoting a Harding descendant.

I spent the holidays with our benefactor, Clifford Harding III, and he authorized me to spread what until now was mostly a family secret. He said, "The family is ready to come clean about how proud we've always been of our great uncle's contribution to the mosaic of American diversity." As President Harding himself once said, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration."

True or not, the fact is Harding didn't run as a black man, a man of black heritage or anything of the sort because that would have been political suicide. But it does bring up the issue of passing and how the social construct that is race is lunacy on so many levels., and

There have been always been rumors along the way that Warren G. Harding was of black heritage, albeit passing, of course. In fact, the subject came up in the NYT last April.

Will Americans vote for a black president? If the notorious historian William Estabrook Chancellor was right, we already did. In the early 1920s, Chancellor helped assemble a controversial biographical portrait accusing President Warren Harding of covering up his family's "colored" past. According to the family tree Chancellor created, Harding was actually the great-grandson of a black woman. Under the one-drop rule of American race relations, Chancellor claimed, the country had inadvertently elected its "first Negro president."
...As recently as 2005, a Michigan schoolteacher named Marsha Stewart issued her own claim to Harding ancestry. "While growing up," she wrote, "we were never allowed to talk about the relationship to a U.S. president outside family gatherings because we were 'colored' and Warren was 'passing.' "

The Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy's Martin Eisenstadt says much the same about the matter and raises the bar by quoting a Harding descendant.

I spent the holidays with our benefactor, Clifford Harding III, and he authorized me to spread what until now was mostly a family secret. He said, "The family is ready to come clean about how proud we've always been of our great uncle's contribution to the mosaic of American diversity." As President Harding himself once said, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration."

So what's on tap here in the coffeehouse? I haven't planned any wall-to-wall coverage, since well, you can see that on cable or broadcast news. I opted not to go to DC to freeze my *ss off and stand for hours on end to watch a Jumbotron of Obama's big day. Yes, it would have been nice to be there in person in theory, but given the amount of chronic pain I've been in lately, I'm fine staying home.

Daimeon is in DC and will likely file a diary or two. I actually need to work part of the morning, so I will be offline, but I will jump on for The Big Event and watch it with all of you who plan to hang out in the Blend chat room for live conversation.

The room is open for business now, btw, if you want to gab...

This room is via Chatroll. You don't have to sign up for an account to chat in the above room, but if you want the full experience on the Blend Chatroll site, you can register there, and start written discussions, share videos and a lot more.

From the San Francisco Chronicle blog Bronstein At Large's piece "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" switch makes "gay" the new civil rights issue:

A few days ago, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs posted a video on the new Administration's web site, change.gov, answering a constituent's question about the military's "don't ask, don't tell," probably one of the most nonsensical, silly and politically contorted policies ever to come out of the Clinton White House. More pretzel-like even than what the definition of "is" is. "Don't decide, don't please anyone" was more like it.
There'd been some concern that Mr. Obama seemed to be waffling on his earlier statements that he was going to dump "don't ask.." Was he going to end the policy or not? "You don't hear politicians give a one-word answer much," Mr. Gibbs answered in more than one word. "But it's "Yes." "
That's a change the gay community and supporters have been seeking since the policy went into effect in 1993. As Chronicle reporter Matt Stannard notes today, Mr. Obama is firmly in line behind people like Colin Powell and Sam Nunn, both of whom first supported "Don't ask.." and later came to oppose it. Also it's a safer bet when three-quarters of Americans polled now believe gays and lesbians should serve openly in the military, compared with less than half in '93.

The actual question and response begins at about the 4:15 minute mark of the Robert Gibbs (incoming White House Press Secretary) video: