Gays, Tea Parties, And Tax Day Protests. One Year Later, A Look Back.
Wrong Fight At The Wrong Time In The Wrong Place Surrounded By The Wrong People
Editorial note:
I published this piece on Tax Day, 2009, under the title, “An Open Letter To Joe Solmonese About Teaparties, Taxes, Cabbages, And Kings,” and I am republishing it today.
To be clear, this is a piece from last year, and HRC is not planning any tax day protests and is not planning to encourage the gay community to attend any, based on information from my contact there. This piece this year has nothing to do with HRC, please do not view it as anything more than a look back, and an urging to not attend Tea Party or Tax Day Protests this year, especially while attempting to engender support for LGBTQ Americans and our second-class status.
Several LGBTQ organizations are encouraging people to form Tax Day, “Tea Party” style protests on the steps of their local post offices. Respectfully, this is a bad idea, for all the reasons I mention below. Bottom line, yes, our bottom lines are affected by being second-class citizens in the eyes of our government. But trying to gain support by protesting alongside the Tea Party protesters will only hurt, not help our cause.
Sometimes, doing the right thing at the wrong time is just as bad as doing the wrong thing at any time. And LGBTQs know all too well that guilt by association is how far too many people operate. Perception, as they say, is reality.
Protesting alongside the “Tea Party Patriots” or “Tea Party Americans” will only associate the LGBTQ community with their unhinged antics and lunatic rhetoric, racism, and bigotry in the minds of the general public. And then it becomes one more misconception, one more opportunity to blame us for something that we don’t deserve.
Lastly, one year later, I thought it would be interesting to look back to see how far the Tea Party has come. A word to the wise: they’re not going away. We need to remember how much they have turned our nation’s conversation to the right and emboldened the bigots and those who hate us to feel comfortable in their hate speech and ignorance. They’ve gone from wanting to elect someone they’re comfortable having a beer with to someone they’re comfortable having a beer with in an 1850s saloon with a gun strapped to their belt. And we need to thwart them at every turn.
April 15, 2009
Dear Joe,
For several months, Conservatives have been the willing butt of many “teaparty” jokes, by, pretty much most of the country. They’re really excited about playing dress-up and pretending to be Paul Revere, or 1773 pre-Revolutionary War Sons of Liberty left-overs. And for the past few days, my friends and I have had a blast, watching Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox ridicule Conservatives and their teaparties. I’m sure you saw them last Thursday night on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC. Who hasn’t watched that clip of “Insanitea” over and over and over! It’s become such a joke that even Anderson Cooper last night on his show said, “It’s hard to talk when you’re tea bagging.” Yeah, it’s been good times!
So, imagine my anger when I got your “Stop unfair taxes on lesbian and gay families!” email, asking gays and lesbians to “head down to your local post office April 15 to talk to people in line and any members of the media who show up.” It’s the wrong fight, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, Joe. This is wrong on so many levels. I would say I can’t even begin to tell you, but I’m going to.
Today, April 15th, Conservatives will be holding “teaparties” on the steps of post offices around the country, hoping to rally support against what they perceive as an “oppressive Obama administration” and against what they see as unfair taxes. Taxes, I might add, that go to support the very programs that help our community, programs that Conservatives would cut first, given the chance, programs championed by those who support our cause the most.
Programs like 1-800-RUNAWAY, the federally-funded National Runaway Switchboard. Joe, as you know, while only a small percentage of all youths are gay, approximately 40% of all runaway youths are gay. 40%. Gay teens are up to four times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts. We learned just last week of an eleven year old boy who committed suicide because he suffered taunts and threats from other students who made fun of him, insulted the way he dressed and called him gay.
Even when money exists for LGBTQ programs, money from taxes, Conservatives want to take it away. In 2006, in Southeastern Nebraska, Conservatives rallied to deny a small grant that would go to help LGBTQ youth, “saying it was controversial and “causes grief†to use tax dollars to fund gay and lesbian issues.” Protesting against taxes is not the right fight for us right now.
Let the Conservatives rally against cabbages and kings. Let us not be seen railing against an administration that is reaching out to our community and is providing us with the best chance at true equality we have ever had. An administration that, albeit far too slowly, will act to repeal DOMA and DADT, and enact ENDA.
I love my country, Joe. I love our rich and activist history. I love the idea of the Boston Tea Party. Good for those guys! Without their courage, we might not be here today. But, like many things they touch, today’s Conservatives have corrupted the very essence, and purity of meaning that the original Tea Party represented.
These tea parties (teaparties that are being organized not at the grassroots, but behind the scenes by a group funded by Westinghouse Corporation, Prudential Insurance, and AETNA, among others,) are attended by the very people who hate our community the most. The people who hate “liberals” the most. The people who hate gays the most. People like Alan Keyes, and Newt Gingrich, and Michelle Malkin, and religious extremists and secessionists. To copy their inane rhetoric and actions puts us in the wrong game, on the wrong field, next to the wrong players.
What will we have gained, when the local TV station in Des Moines, in Boswell, in Fremont, in New Haven, shows ten-second clips of the LGBTQ community standing on the steps of their post office, next to rallying right-wing Conservatives who don’t believe Barack Obama is an American?
Putting us in the same venue as those who openly advocate against us, while letting the media mistake our presence as being part of the Conservative Teaparty is just a bad idea. What little exposure we might gain is not worth the risk of being accused of palling around with teaparty terrorists. Our presence merely will be taken as a show of support for those who hate us, our agenda, and our recent successes. What helps them hurts us. Contributing to their turnout hurts us. Via GayPatriot:
“The Tea Party movement is currently on track to be the largest genuine grassroots movement America has seen since the Sixties. We don’t know yet whether it will be such a grassroots movement, but it could be. We’ll have a better idea on Wednesday when reports from across the country start coming in. If on a weekday, these protests attract more than 224,000 people, we’ll know there really is something to it. A quarter-million participant would suggest it’s more than just a flash in the pan.”
Why risk credibility with a protest hastily-organized on the coattails of our detractors that will merely give them the ammunition they need to say of our fight, “It’s not about marriage, it’s about money.” Joe, with the possible exception of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, “I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization”, no one enjoys paying taxes. That “same-sex couples pay an average of about $1000 more in taxes than their opposite-sex counterparts” no doubt is true. We are, as a friend wrote to me on Twitter, “paying *more* than straight people to a government that classifies us as second-class citizens.” This is entirely unacceptable.
I believe in, and fight for LGBTQ equality every day. I want equal rights for all Americans, regardless of gender, orientation, or race. But the fight we don’t need to have today is one of economics. It’s not a fight we can win right now. The Right knows this. They’ve been marketing to us for decades. And given all the challenges the Right has thrown at us over the years, parts of the LGBTQ community are desperately in need of the support of civilization these days.
We are coming off of an historic week. Our wins in Iowa, in Vermont, and in D.C. will go down in history. The world, literally, is watching. Watching as yet another American civil rights movement spreads its wings. Last week gave hope to millions of Americans. Hope that said, in the words of our president, “Yes we can.” Yes we can actually win the rights we so richly deserve. The civil rights. The “unalienable rights”. The moral rights. We need to let the world know that these are the rights we’re fighting for. Economic rights come with moral rights. Not vice-versa.
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U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has declared that the Trump administration’s massive deportation plans will continue without any amnesty for migrant farm workers, and insisted that “able-bodied” American adults who access Medicaid for health care insurance should be the ones to replace deported migrant farm workers. Critics have pushed back.
“I can’t underscore enough,” Secretary Rollins said at a press conference at the USDA on Tuesday, ahead of a White House Cabinet meeting. “There will be no amnesty, the mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation.
She added that, “with 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly.”
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Secretary Rollins’ remarks do not take into account that nearly two-thirds (64%) of adults under 65 accessing Medicaid are already working, according to KFF. Another 28% are exempt due to illness, school, or care-giving responsibilities.
Her statistic of 34 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid is promoted by a right-wing think tank, the Foundation for Government Accountability, which advocates for reducing work restrictions on teenagers, and opposes expanding Medicaid.
Also, there is not large-scale farm work available in every state, nor, does it appear, that would many Americans want to perform that work, especially for low wages. Farm work rarely offers employer-paid health care. And farm work is often seasonal.
Critics blasted Secretary Rollins.
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“They’re like cartoon villains,” wrote Bloomberg Opinion columnist Patricia Lopez. “So send Medicaid recipients in as field hands? Also, what is meant by strategic mass deportations? Just Blue states?”
“Lol,” exclaimed Yahoo News reporter Jordan Werissmann, “we’ve gone from ‘the USAID program analysts will make shoes’ to ‘people will pick strawberries to keep their health care’.”
“I have talked to literally thousands of MAGAs and have not found a single one who will work on a farm. Not one,” wrote New York Times bestselling author Ramit Sethi. “This is simply anti-immigrant bigotry from Republicans.”
“Ah, yes,” remarked journalist Lydia Polgreen, “those high paying farm labor jobs that include health insurance!”
“Did not think the script for 2025 would feature villains co-written by Charles Dickens and Pol Pot,” added historian Mike Cosgrave.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Brooke Rollins on farm laborers: “There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly.” pic.twitter.com/GsLprEFImG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 8, 2025
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Image via Reuters
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy escalated his attacks on New York City Tuesday morning, slamming the subway system as unsafe—despite double-digit declines in several major crime categories and an overall drop in transit crime. Duffy also lashed out at the city’s highly popular and successful six-month-old congestion pricing program, denounced its bike lanes, and took aim at liberal policies more broadly.
“I’m laughing, but it’s not funny,” Secretary Duffy told Fox News on Tuesday morning, when presented with some NYC crime statistics (video below). “So if you include the pickpocketers in those stats, yes, pickpocketers might have gone down, but assaults have gone up,” he said, “by 66% since 2019.”
“It’s dangerous to ride the subway in New York,” Duffy alleged. “And again, if you’re Kathy Hochul, the governor, or if you’re MTA, you don’t ride the subway. This is a war on Middle Americans, working Americans who have to ride the subway, and these people don’t seem to want to make it safe.”
Duffy declared reducing crime on the subways is “very simple,” and charged that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which oversees the subway system, is “not willing to fight crime like they should.”
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“By the way,” he continued, “when they talk about congestion pricing, yeah, it’s when they say it’s working, it’s working because they’re raising money. That’s why they say it’s working, but congestion is horrible still in the city. That’s because they’re taking roads for buses and for cars, and they’re making them bike lanes.”
He then blasted “liberals.”
“So when you take away lanes, you get more congestion, and then they complain about congestion,” Duffy charged. “It’s just stupid liberals with stupid policies.”
Duffy’s remarks come just days after President Donald Trump’s attack on New York City mayoral Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. The President vowed, “I’ll save New York City, and make it “Hot” and “Great” again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA!”
Secretary Duffy has targeted New York City’s subway system almost from the start of his tenure. In March, from New Jersey, he blasted New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul and threatened to pull federal funding from the MTA, which oversees the NYC subway.
“If you want people to take the train, to take transit, then make it safe, make it clean, make it beautiful, make it wonderful, don’t make it a s— h—, which is what she (Hochul) has done,” Duffy said in March, as NJ.com reported. “She could fix it in hours, not days, not weeks, and she chooses not to.”
He also insisted eliminating crime in the NYC subways, which stretch for 665 miles, is “simple.”
“This could be a non-issue, send law enforcement in, kick out the homeless, get rid of the drugs, put cops on the beat, making sure there is no violence, make sure people aren’t afraid of being punched or stabbed or pushed in front of a train,” Duffy said. “This isn’t hard — law enforcement is simple.”
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According to the MTA, 5.5 million people ride the subways each weekday—nearly 1.7 billion riders annually. There are 472 stations, with the busiest, Times Square, seeing over 65 million riders each year.
In April, Duffy toured the NYC subway with Mayor Eric Adams, denounced the subways as homeless shelters, and again insisted they are unsafe, despite statistics that show crime has dropped by double digits.
The MTA has pushed back strongly.
“Subway crime is down, ridership is up, and congestion pricing is working,” said MTA chief of policy and external relations, John McCarthy, as the New York Post reported. “We look forward to Secretary Duffy wrapping his head around the facts.”
The Post also reported that “NYPD data shows that overall transit crime is down 3% through June 29, compared to the same period last year — 1,051 incidents to 1,083.”
Critics blasted Secretary Duffy.
“Millions of people ride the subway every day, and every one of them is braver than Sean Duffy, apparently,” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.
“Millions of people safely ride the subways every day. Just saying,” declared Ken Lovett, a senior advisor to Governor Hochul and a former MTA senior advisor. “And the subways have always, and continue to be, a great equalizer, allowing those who can’t afford cars in NYC to get to their jobs, schools, or groceries.”
Another social media user asked, “Serious question- what role does the federal Secretary of Transportation have regarding local crime?”
Adrian Benepe, a senior executive with a career in government and non-profits, asked, “You scared to ride the subways, son? 5 million people—unarmed men, women and children—ride @NYCTSubway every day. Come to NYC and we will ride together so we can make sure scary bad guys don’t get you.”
David Neary, a filmmaker and archivist added, “There are very few things I do on a daily basis that feel more safe than riding the subway.”
Amateur historian and native New Yorker Russell Drew wrote, “The fact that Sean Duffy is a Cabinet member shows how far we’ve fallen. It used to be that Cabinet members showed professionalism and restraint. Now they go on Fox News to call Americans ‘stupid.’ Unprecedented partisanship. Unprecedented nastiness.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Sean Duffy on Fox: “It’s dangerous to ride the subway in New York … it’s just stupid liberals with stupid policies that impact the lives of New Yorkers” pic.twitter.com/Y5RnePMgpF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 8, 2025
READ MORE: Democratic Strategist Warns Trump Could Try to Impose Martial Law Before 2026 Midterms
Image via Shutterstock
An increasingly “anxious” White House is lashing out at Democrats and the media, accusing them—without providing evidence—of blaming President Donald Trump for the catastrophic Texas floods that have killed over 90 people, including many children.
Critics are questioning whether cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) by the Trump administration hampered accurate forecasting and slowed emergency warnings. Others point to failures by local officials to communicate timely alerts to the flood-stricken area along the Guadalupe River.
“Former federal officials and outside experts have warned for months that President Donald Trump’s deep staffing cuts to the National Weather Service could endanger lives,” the Associated Press reported Monday afternoon. “The Trump administration has cut hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20% at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day. Hundreds more experienced forecasters and senior managers were encouraged to retire early.”
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“The website for the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, shows six of 27 positions are listed as vacant,” the AP also reported, noting, however, that there were the usual number of staff members on hand the night of the flood.
Now, veteran foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen writes that the White House is “very anxious that administration/DOGE massive staffing cuts to national weather service and related agencies not be seen as connected to flooding deaths in Texas, inadequate warning.”
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday, in a letter to Roderick Anderson, the Commerce Department’s acting inspector general, urged him to immediately “open an investigation into the scope, breadth, and ramifications of whether staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding,” The Hill reported.
“He noted that The New York Times reported that key forecasting and coordination positions at the San Antonio and San Angelo offices of the NWS were vacant at the time of the Friday storm,” The Hill also reported. “Those local offices were missing a warning coordination meteorologist, a science officer and a senior hydrologist, among other ‘vital forecasting, meteorology and coordination roles.'”
Only once in Schumer’s letter does he mention Trump, and it is not to blame him for the flooding.
But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday strongly suggested Senator Schumer was indeed directly blaming Trump for the flooding.
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“Unfortunately, in the wake of this once in a generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media. Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning,” Leavitt told reporters (video below).
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz on Monday also falsely claimed that President Trump is being blamed for natural disasters, telling reporters, “you see that with a hurricane, with a tornado, with a wildfire, with this flooding, where people immediately say, ‘Well, the hurricane is Donald Trump’s fault.'”
Critics pushed back at the White House.
“Nobody is blaming Trump for the floods,” wrote journalist and environmentalist Michael Dominowski. “But he did decimate National Weather Service forecast offices, despite being told doing so would hamper the agency’s ability to accurately predict storms. He did it anyway. Look at what happened. Cause/effect is a thing.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Leavitt: Unfortunately in the wake of this once in a generation national disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats, such as Schumer and members of the media. Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie pic.twitter.com/eOB4tk3xSh
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 7, 2025
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‘Depraved Lie’: White House Claims Democrats Are Blaming Trump for Texas Floods
Ted Cruz Blasted for Defending Trump, Dodging Questions on Flood Warning System Failures
‘Stupid Liberals With Stupid Policies’: Trump Transportation Secretary Slams NYC
‘Cartoon Villains’: Ag Secretary Under Fire for Medicaid-to-Farm-Work Plan
‘Cartoon Villains’: Ag Secretary Under Fire for Medicaid-to-Farm-Work Plan
‘Stupid Liberals With Stupid Policies’: Trump Transportation Secretary Slams NYC
‘Depraved Lie’: White House Claims Democrats Are Blaming Trump for Texas Floods
Ted Cruz Blasted for Defending Trump, Dodging Questions on Flood Warning System Failures
‘Authoritarian’: Trump Treasury Chief Ripped for Call to Punish Private Citizen’s Speech
News1 day ago‘Authoritarian’: Trump Treasury Chief Ripped for Call to Punish Private Citizen’s Speech
News20 hours ago‘Depraved Lie’: White House Claims Democrats Are Blaming Trump for Texas Floods
News23 hours agoTed Cruz Blasted for Defending Trump, Dodging Questions on Flood Warning System Failures
News2 hours ago‘Stupid Liberals With Stupid Policies’: Trump Transportation Secretary Slams NYC
News35 minutes ago‘Cartoon Villains’: Ag Secretary Under Fire for Medicaid-to-Farm-Work Plan