Category Archives: New York Times

Theater: Stories and stages

Edward Gero, Nancy Opel, Ford Theatre, Hello Dolly, gay news

Edward Gero and Nancy Opel in Ford Theatre’s upcoming production of ‘Hello Dolly.’ (Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy Ford’s)

For local LGBT theatergoers, the spring season promises a wide selection of both fresh and familiar offerings, some light and others more compelling.

At Arena Stage, Robert O’Hara is directing “The Mountaintop” (March 29-May12), playwright Katori Hall’s “bold reimagining of the last night of the historic life of Dr. Martin Luther King.” Talented, multifaceted and gay, O’Hara is currently playwright in residence at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.

Arena (arenastage.org) is also mounting gay playwright Jon Robin Baitz’s newest play “Other Desert Cities” (April 26-May 26). While spending Christmas at the beige Palm Springs home of her aging Reaganite power couple parents, fragile adult daughter Brooke drops a bomb — she’s writing a tell-all memoir. Complications ensue. The New York Times’ Ben Brantley compared “Other Desert Cities” to sophisticated plays from the past. It’s like those “literate, thoughtful, well-tailored topical dramas in which people spoke with a fluency, wittiness and sense of timing we only wished we could command in real life.”

This spring will age MaryBeth Wise far beyond her years. She’s cast to play Mary in Round House Theatre’s (roundhousetheatre.org) production of “How to Write a New Book for the Bible” (April 10-May 5), playwright Bill Cain’s autobiographical work about a man who returns home to care for his dying mother. “It’s kind of a memory play,” says Wise, who is gay. “My part requires going from age 40 to 80, and back and forth.” She predicts a “funny and intense journey.” Ryan Rilette is directing.

Triple threat Bobby Smith will be spending a lot of time at Arlington’s Signature Theatre (signature-theatre.org) in the coming months. First, Smith (who is gay) plays Peter, a possibly gay man living happily with ex-wife Susan in Eric Schaeffer’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” (May 21-June 30), the award-winning musical about a marriage-phobic bachelor’s search for meaning. The show’s spectacular score includes “Being Alive,” “Side By Side,” “Little Things You Do Together,” “Another Hundred People” and “Ladies Who Lunch.”

And this summer, Smith is evil Richard Riddle in Signature’s “Spin,” a world premiere musical based on a Korean cult classic titled “Speedy Scandal.” Smith describes his character as a sort of Rex Reed-style gossip columnist villain.

At MetroStage (metrostage.org) in Alexandria, John Vreeke is directing “Ghost Writer” (April 25-June 2). When a famed novelist drops dead mid-sentence, his typist, Myra (Susan Lynskey), continues writing his unfinished book as if taking dictation from the great beyond. MetroStage’s artistic director Carolyn Griffin says Vreeke, who is gay, is brilliant at finding “the perfect tone and balance for gemlike plays with delicate scripts in which very special relationships are portrayed.”

At Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill (folger.edu), prolific gay set designer Tony Cisek is again collaborating with British director Robert Richmond — this time on Shakespeare’s gender bending comedy “Twelfth Night” (April 30-June 9). The cast features local favorites including Joshua Morgan (also gay) as Valentine, the gentleman attendant to Duke Orsino.

In Tysons Corner, 1st Stage (1ststagespringhill.org) is presenting gay playwright John Logan’s “Never the Sinner” (March 22-April 14), an erotically fraught telling of the real life Leopold and Loeb case in which a pair of affluent Chicago teenagers attempt to commit the perfect murder. The talented Jeremy Skidmore directs.

As part of the Kennedy Center’s Nordic Cool 2013 (a month-long celebration of Scandinavian culture), Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre is presenting the U.S. premiere of “Fanny and Alexander” (March 7-9), its much ballyhooed stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s beautiful Oscar-winning feature film.

Also coming to the Kennedy Center: “The Guardsman” (May 25-June 23), a revival of the 1920s Broadway comedy hit that starred the famed married acting team Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as game-playing newlywed actors. Known for years as the first family of the American theater, Lunt and Fontanne, both gay, were married primarily for reasons of business and friendship. (kennedy-center.org)

On the Ides of March, Ford’s Theatre (in co-production with Signature) is rolling out that musical comedy chestnut “Hello Dolly!” (March 15-May 18) (fordstheatre.org). Based on gay playwright Thornton Wilder’s comedy “The Matchmaker,” the 1964 fun musical boasts a memorable score by gay composer Jerry Herman that includes enduring tunes like “Before the Parade Passes By,” and, of course, “Hello, Dolly!” The title role — most notably performed by Carol Channing in New York and on tour for what seems several centuries, and Barbra Streisand on the silver screen — will be played by Broadway veteran Nancy Opel. Terrific local actor Edward Gero is cast as Dolly’s grumpy romantic quarry Horace Vandergelder. Signature’s gay artistic director Eric Schaeffer is directing.

Philip Fletcher is taking on the lead role of the wronged Prospero in Synetic Theater’s (synetictheater.org) “The Tempest” (through March 24), the ninth installment of the fabulously innovative movement based company’s “Silent Shakespeare” series. Fletcher, who’s gay, won a Helen Hayes Award for his outstanding supporting actor effort as one of three witches in Synetic’s “Macbeth.”

Olney Theatre Center (olneytheatre.org) is mounting Jeff Talbott’s racially charged comedy “The Submission” (May 9-June 9). Here’s the premise: Using the pen name Shaleeha G’ntamobi, a nascent gay white playwright writes a about a black family dealing with ghetto life. When his play is selected to be produced by a prestigious theater festival, the playwright hires a black actress to stand in for him. Guess what? Things don’t go smoothly.

Takano calls on Obama to speak out on Prop 8

Mark Takano, United States House, California, gay news, Washington Blade

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) is calling on President Obama to participate in the Prop 8 case (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A freshman openly gay member of Congress from California is calling on President Obama to participate in litigation challenging Proposition 8 before the Supreme Court as the administration has done in the DOMA case.

In a letter dated Feb. 26, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) asks President Obama to instruct his Justice Department to argue Prop 8 is unconstitutional on the basis it should be subjected to heightened scrutiny — or a greater assumption it’s unconstitutional — just as it did in a brief filed last week in the case against the Defense of Marriage Act.

“I strongly and respectfully ask that the United States provide an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Perry to explain how heightened scrutiny, the standard that the United States urges be applied to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, applies to Proposition 8,” Takano writes. “A brief by the United States will assist the Supreme Court to see that Proposition 8 fails heightened scrutiny and does not further any proper governmental objectives.”

Takano explains in his letter that Prop 8, a ballot initiative that was approved by California voters in 2008, affects couples in his state and district who are unable to marry because of the amendment.

“My district includes thousands of loving gay and lesbian couples, who are not able to marry due to Proposition 8,” Takano writes. “They are our families, our friends and neighbors. They are doctors, veterans, teachers, gardeners, firefighters and police officers. They are Americans. Every day that they cannot enjoy the same rights and obligations enjoyed by other Americans, they and their families suffer.”

The White House has repeatedly declined comment on whether it’ll participate in the Prop 8 lawsuit before the Supreme Court, although President Obama has said Solicitor Donald Verrilli is “looking” at filing a brief. In response to the Takano letter, a White House spokesperson deferred comment to the Justice Department, which didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment.

Other LGBT advocates have been calling on President Obama to participate in the Prop 8 case, known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief. The deadline for them to file a friend-of-the-court brief is Thursday.

Herndon Graddick, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, announced on Monday that his organization shares the desire for Obama to participate in the Prop 8 case.

“President Obama has already weighed in on DOMA, but as he himself said in his inaugural address: ‘Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,’” Graddick said. “With less than four days left to act, it is time for the administration to make its views known directly to the U.S. Supreme Court by filing a friend of the court brief in the Proposition 8 case as well.”

Takano’s letter comes on the same day as The New York Times reported that more than 75 prominent Republicans have signed their own friend-of-court brief asking the Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8.

Among the signers of that brief is Ken Mehlman, the gay former chair of the Republican National Committee, who is credited with organizing the brief. Another signature is from Hewlett-Packard CEO and former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who campaigned in support of Prop 8.

Two Republican members of Congress who have sponsored legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act — Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) — are also among the signers. They are the only two Republicans currently holding federal office who signed the brief.

Other signers are former Utah governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, who publicly came out in favor of marriage equality last week, as well as GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who helped with John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and came out in support of marriage equality in a 2009 interview with the Washington Blade.

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said the brief as reported by the New York Times reflects the growing support for marriage equality — even within the Republican Party.

“A who’s who of the Republican Party has come before the Supreme Court to affirm that support for the freedom to marry is a mainstream position that reflects American values of freedom, family, and fairness, as well as conservative values of limited government and personal responsibility,” Wolfson said. “As opposition to the freedom to marry becomes increasingly isolated and the exclusion from marriage increasingly indefensible, Americans all across the political spectrum are saying it’s time to end marriage discrimination, do right by families, and get our country on the right side of history.”

Surviving Oscar

How to Survive a Plague, AIDS, HIV, gay news, ACT UP, Washington Blade

A scene from David France’s harrowing documentary ‘How to Survive a Plague.’ The film has its Oscar rendezvous Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood where its up for Best Documentary. (Photo courtesy Sundance Selects)

It sounds so straightforward — the New York Public Library had a collection of videotapes AIDS activists made decades ago with vintage camcorders back when they were heavy behemoths you had to rest on your shoulder with full-size VHS or Beta tapes inside. Filmmaker/journalist David France combed painstakingly through the clips to compose his powerful 2012 documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”

But how this was achieved — what format was the footage stored in? What condition was it in? Could anyone go in and check these out with a library card? How did France pull this off?

In some ways, it’s the least interesting part of the film’s story, which is told via a sobering chronology of video footage shot by angry protesters — the kind the Religious Right calls “militant homosexual activists.”

The film has been almost universally praised. The New York Times called it “inspiring” and crackling with “currents of rage, fear, fiery determination and finally triumph.” It has a 100 percent freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes (a film quality-ranking site), several awards including “best documentary” from the Boston Society of Film Critics. This weekend it’s up for both an Independent Spirit Award and an Oscar. Gold Derby, a site that predicts entertainment industry awards, gives it a 4/1 chance at winning the Oscar (behind “Searching for Sugar Man” which it gives 13/8 odds). “5 Broken Cameras,” “The Gatekeepers” and “The Invisible War” (made by the “Outrage” team of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering) are also nominated.

For “Plauge,” France took footage — some of which was housed at the New York Public Library — shot by 31 videographers and paces it chronologically to the story of the formation of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a group that formed in March 1987 in a spirit of extreme frustration during a speech activist (and “Normal Heart” playwright) Larry Kramer gave at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York.

France, during a lengthy phone interview last weekend before he was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles on Tuesday, gladly shares the logistics behind “Plague’s” formation.

A veteran investigative journalist, author and GLAAD Media Award winner (for a GQ piece on gays in Iraq) who’s had his work published in everything from the New Yorker to Ladies’ Home Journal, France says he was a graduate student during the time AIDS hit in the early 1980s and having written about it extensively over the years, he knew activists had brought cameras to their protests. And yes, the process of crafting “Plague” was a lot more involved than simply checking tapes out of the library.

“The tapes from the library are actually just a small portion of the footage you see in the film,” France, who’s gay, says. “That’s really the first door I went through, this archive of AIDS activism video that’s housed in the Manuscript Division of the New York Library, where you go if you want to read Lincoln’s letters. It’s an exclusive corner of the library that’s not accessible to the general public and everybody’s going around wearing white gloves and handling antiquities. In one corner, they have a television and a VCR and you watch the AIDS footage recorded in those early days. It’s just raw footage, not really ever intended for public view. Some of it you’ll be watching and all of a sudden it will go to a gay porn video, which just happened to be on the same tape they recorded on.”

France says the library kept all the tapes — recorded in every home video format on the market in those years as one might imagine — but had transferred them all to the Betacam SP format, a higher resolution tape on larger cassettes that for years was the broadcast standard and is still in use today. France convinced the library to let him take select footage to a nearby production lab and have it digitized. He ended up with about 100 hours and says the process became difficult as the project moved along.

“They’re really not accustomed to working on a film production schedule, so trying to get them to hurry got more and more difficult as we went along,” he says.

And that was just the starting point — in the library footage, France saw other people holding video cameras. He started tracking them down one by one and eventually found a group of people, many long-time AIDS survivors themselves, who had videotape footage they had never revisited. Again, formats remained a challenge.

“We had all this stuff in so many different formats from private collections,” he says. “We were constantly scouring Craigslist and eBay for decks that would play these old tapes. We ended up with about 800 hours and that really became the building blocks of the film.”

And yes, France says it did take some persuasion to get these individuals to hand over their footage.

France says, “A lot of these people had moved on but I think now have started to see the real value in this footage. I think they gradually started to realize, that yes, enough time has passed and now is the time to really use it and this is the project.”

France said his project is timely and important because many of the other landmark AIDS pieces, from Kramer’s play to Randy Shilts’ “And the Band Played On” were written before the era of anti-retroviral therapy when HIV morphed into a more manageable condition.

He says the film is important for anyone interested in the AIDS fight to see.

“There were even people in ACT UP who didn’t know the outcomes of many of these things,” he says. “If you think you know the story of AIDS, this film will surprise you and that goes for just about everybody.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Will this be your first time at the Academy Awards?

DAVID FRANCE: Yes. I’ve never gotten any closer before than my television screen.

BLADE: Have you watched very often over the years?

FRANCE: Oh yeah. My boyfriend and I always have an Oscar party. With ballots and everything. I’ve never won.

BLADE: What’s your favorite Oscar memory?

FRANCE: Tom Hanks’ acceptance speech when he won for “Philadelphia.” That’s really seared in my memory.

BLADE: What did you think of Michael Moore’s controversial speech when he won the category you’re up for? Ballsy or inappropriate for the occasion?

FRANCE: I think if you’ve got an audience of a billion people and you’ve got something to say, you need to say it. That’s not to say I’m intending any surprises should I have that opportunity.

BLADE: Have you seen the competition?

FRANCE: Of course. They’re all brilliant films.

BLADE: If you win, where will you put Oscar?

FRANCE? I’m not sure. I keep the other awards we’ve won in the production office so everyone on the crew can enjoy them and hopefully see their own contribution but if we get this little gold thing, I’m not sure. I have no idea.

BLADE: Do you feel AIDS, as horrible as it was and is, put gay issues on the national radar and that ended up being a silver lining to the cloud or is that an absurd oversimplification?

FRANCE? No, it’s absolutely true. Before that, gay people were entirely disenfranchised and we were not seen as being contributing members to the culture at all. We had no role whatsoever in civic life … From those ashes (of AIDS), now we have a president who acknowledges us as human beings and Stonewall is mentioned in the same breath as Seneca Falls.

BLADE: How did you feel when Dustin Lance Black won for “Milk”?

FRANCE: I felt it was incredible. He gave a great speech and I thought it was a very, very good movie.

BLADE: Did you plan all along to submit it for a nomination? What’s the process like?

FRANCE: There are all kinds of rules about it playing in New York and L.A. and being reviewed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and that’s just the first threshold. I was lucky I had a distributor who saw the potential for the film early on and made sure we did everything we needed to do for both the Oscars and the Independent Spirit Awards. … Anytime you make a film, sure, you fantasize about getting an Oscar nomination and it’s really just because you want more people to see it. An Oscar bump is a tremendous thing.

More U.S. colleges offering trans-inclusive health care

Manning Chapel, Brown University, gay news, Washington Blade

Brown University (Photo by Dale182 via Wikimedia Commons)

NEW YORK — When Brown University in Providence, R.I., announced last week it would extend health care coverage to transgender students to provide for their gender reassignment surgery, it became the 36th college to do so, the New York Times reported. Just six years ago, no U.S. colleges offered the benefit.

Another 25 colleges don’t cover surgery but have student plans that cover hormone therapy. Another 20 universities have plans that cover some or all sex-change treatments for their employees, the Times reported citing information from the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

Those lists include many of the top American universities — Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Penn, Emory, Northwestern, the University of California system, Yale, Princeton, M.I.T., Washington University and others, the Times reported. Colleges are not required to provide health coverage for their students, many of whom are still covered by their parents’ plans, but they generally do, the article said. These are typically schools that, five or 10 years ago, took smaller first steps to accommodate trans students such as allowing trans women to have female roommates and use the women’s restroom, the Times reported.

Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense

I am not prepared to write off former Sen. Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense for comments he made years ago about former Ambassador James Hormel or issues related to the LGBT community. I am willing to accept his apology, which Ambassador Hormel has now accepted even if reluctantly, because Hagel will work for President Obama and I don’t believe the president would nominate anyone to this sensitive position who will not be supportive of our community.

I believe that the president understands that were Hagel to not promote or do anything to thwart the continued integration of gays and lesbians into the military there would be huge demonstrations not at the Pentagon but in front of the White House. It would be the president that the LGBT community would and should hold accountable.

I recently had to stymie a chuckle when reading the full-page ads that Log Cabin Republicans placed in a number of newspapers including the New York Times and the Washington Post opposing Hagel’s nomination. An organization that in 2012 endorsed the Romney/Ryan ticket for president is now claiming to be so upset about things Hagel said years ago is blatant hypocrisy. I have to wonder who paid for those ads and whether the donor was really trying to stop Hagel’s nomination for other reasons and only using Log Cabin as a vehicle to do so. It is interesting to see some in the LGBT community aligned with neocons and other Republican conservatives on this issue. I had a real belly laugh when reading right-wing columnist Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post say, “If Republicans had nervy firebrands like the late Senator Ted Kennedy, someone would rise up and declare, ‘Chuck Hagel’s America is a land in which gays would be forced back in the closet.’” These, of course, would be the same Republicans who in 2012 adopted and supported a party platform that basically would have accomplished just that.

Hagel is part of a dying breed of moderate Republicans. In 2002, he accused the Bush administration of a “cavalier approach” to the rest of the world. In a recent National Journal article on Hagel it stated he voted for the Iraq war resolution but insisted, “Actions in Iraq must come in context of an American-led, multilateral approach to disarmament not as a first case for a new American doctrine involving the preemptive use of force.” Hagel has said he is for talking to and trying to negotiate with the Iranians rather than having either the U.S. or Israel use military force to deal with them before all other options are exhausted. He voted for more than $40 billion of aid to Israel during his time in Congress but isn’t willing to give Israel a blank check or approve new settlements and aggression when they aren’t necessary.

He clearly shares many of the foreign policy positions of the administration. He shares the president’s view that we must realign our military and prepare for the kind of warfare we could face in the future, which is anathema to many of the neocons who have led us into war in the past.

One very interesting fact about Chuck Hagel is that he would be the first Secretary of Defense who actually volunteered for military service when he enlisted to fight in Vietnam — something that should stand him in good stead with our all-volunteer military. I know there will be a fight over this nomination and it is a fight the president has chosen to make. I support his right to choose the person he wants to lead the Pentagon and unless something new and disturbing is unearthed during the confirmation hearings agree with organizations like J Street and a large bipartisan group of individuals, including former Sens. Boren (Okla.), Hart (Colo.) and Kassebaum-Baker (Kan.), and others such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Thomas Carlucci, Brent Scowcroft and Paul Volcker, who agree that Hagel should be confirmed.

Hagel nomination controversial in LGBT community

Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama, White House, Secretary of Defense, Washington Blade, gay news

President Obama nominates Chuck Hagel and John Brenner to high-level administration positions (Washington Blade photo by Chris Johnson)

President Obama officially announced on Monday he would nominate former Sen. Chuck Hagel for defense secretary, a move that has stirred controversy in the LGBT community.

Obama appeared with Hagel in the East Room of the White House to name the Nebraska Republican as his choice — calling him “the leader that our troops deserve” and praising him for his service as a U.S. senator and Vietnam veteran — in addition to nominating John Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Chuck Hagel’s leadership of our military would be historic,” Obama said. “He’d be the first person of enlisted rank to serve as Secretary of Defense, one of the few secretaries who have been wounded in war, and the first Vietnam veteran to lead the department.  As I saw during our visits together to Afghanistan and Iraq, in Chuck Hagel our troops see a decorated combat veteran of character and strength.”

Obama also alluded to outstanding work at the Pentagon on LGBT issues without enumerating any specific initiatives, saying the nation must move toward “continuing to ensure that our men and women in uniform can serve the country they love, no matter who they love.”

Hagel made no reference to LGBT issues during his remarks, but more generally said he was grateful to have another opportunity to serve the country as well as “men and women in uniform and their families.”

“These are people who give so much to this nation every day with such dignity and selflessness,” Hagel said. “This is particularly important at a time as we complete our mission in Afghanistan and support the troops and military families who have sacrificed so much over more than a decade of war.”

The news was met with varied reactions in the LGBT community — ranging from full support to outright opposition — based on Hagel’s anti-gay record and lingering inequities faced by LGBT service members.

First, there are the anti-gay remarks that Hagel made in 1998 about James Hormel, whom the senator referred to as “openly, aggressively gay” in remarks published in the Omaha World-Herald while questioning his ability to serve as a U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. A U.S. senator representing Nebraska from 1997 and 2009, Hagel also had a poor record on LGBT issues. He voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004, but didn’t cast a vote in 2006.

Just last month, Hagel delivered an apology to media outlets over his 1998 remarks, saying he backs open service and is “committed to LGBT military families.” Major LGBT groups like OutServe-SLDN and the Human Rights Campaign quickly accepted the apology.

But questions linger on outstanding LGBT issues at the Pentagon. Gay service members still aren’t afforded partner benefits offered to straight troops in the U.S. military  — such as joint duty assignments, issuance of military IDs, use of the commissary and family housing — which could be changed administratively at any time even with the Defense of Marriage Act in place. Pentagon officials have said they’ve been looking into this issue since the time “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted in September 2011, but no action has been taken. Another lingering issue is the prohibition on openly transgender service in the military — another problem that could be changed administratively.

Baldwin seeks answers on Hagel

Lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who after being sworn in last week as the first openly gay senator, will be faced with voting on whether to confirm Hagel, told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday that she plans to “ask some tough questions, to give a thorough review and to be fair.”

“But I do want to speak with him … to see if his apology is sincere and sufficient,” Baldwin said. “I want to hear how he’s evolved on this issue in the last 14 years because the significance to the post to which he’s been nominated is the respect for now openly gay members of the military … We need to see [repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell] implemented successfully especially because the security of this nation is at stake.”

Another group seeking additional information from Hagel is the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, which issued a statement on Monday expressing concerns about the nomination.

Rea Carey, the Task Force’s executive director, called on Hagel to address how he’d advance LGBT issues at the Pentagon — as well as abortion rights for female service members — during his upcoming confirmation hearings before the Senate.

“We continue to express our concerns about the nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense due to his poor track record on LGBT equality and reproductive rights,” Carey said. “Though Chuck Hagel has recently apologized for past anti-gay remarks, we expect him to fully explain his views during the confirmation process and what steps he intends to take as defense secretary to demonstrate his support for LGBT members of the military and their families.”

Another group that’s seeking a specific action from Hagel — after initially accepting the senator’s apology — is OutServe-SLDN, which issued a statement calling for a plan on partner benefits and non-discrimination policies.

Allyson Robinson, OutServe-SLDN’s executive director, said she wants Hagel to expand on what he means by being “committed to LGBT military families” by articulating policy plans on these issues.

“A commitment to support LGBT service members and their families must be a commitment to action,” Robinson said. “It’s past time to extend all benefits available to married same-sex military couples and families while the so-called Defense of Marriage Act is still on the books. It’s past time to put in place military equal opportunity and nondiscrimination protections so that all qualified Americans who wish to serve this nation in uniform may do so without fear of harassment or discrimination.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT group, has been relatively silent on the Hagel nomination after accepting Hagel’s apology a couple weeks ago and issued no public news statement on the day of the announcement.

Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, said in response to an inquiry from the Washington Blade that his organization is looking to hear more from Hagel during the confirmation hearings without offering an explicit position on the nomination.

“The next secretary of defense will be critical to the implementation of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal,” Sainz said. “We look forward to Senator Hagel’s testimony on how he intends to end the discriminatory behavior against gay and lesbian service members’ families.”

White House says Hagel values inclusion

The White House has responded to LGBT concerns about Hagel’s record through its chief advocate handling LGBT issues — Senior Adviser to the President Valerie Jarrett — who addressed the issue on Monday in a blog posting on the White House website.

“The President is fully committed to ensuring that all of our service members and military families are treated equally,” Jarrett writes. “He is confident that, as Secretary of Defense, Senator Hagel will ensure that all who serve the country we love are treated equally — no matter who they love.”

Noting that Hagel issued an apology for the remarks and expressed a commitment to LGBT military families, Jarrett said “one of the great successes of the LGBT civil rights movement” is providing people the opportunity to evolve on those issues.

“The President would not have chosen him unless he had every confidence that, working together, they will continue to ensure that our military and DOD civilian workforce are as welcoming, inclusive, and respectful as possible,” Jarrett concluded.

A White House spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether Hagel would lay out more specific plans during his confirmation process to address outstanding issues regarding benefits or non-discrimination policies.

Former gay Rep. Barney Frank appeared to have a change of heart on Hagel. In an interview with the Boston Globe on Monday, Frank reversed his earlier stated opposition to the former senator’s confirmation as defense secretary, saying he was initially hoping Obama wouldn’t nominate him.

“As much as I regret what Hagel said, and resent what he said, the question now is going to be Afghanistan and scaling back the military,” Frank was quoted as saying. “In terms of the policy stuff, if he would be rejected [by the Senate], it would be a setback for those things.”

Frank, who’s now vying for an appointment as interim U.S. senator of Massachusetts, also reportedly said, “With the attack coming out of the right, I hope he gets confirmed.” If appointed to the Senate seat, Frank would be in a position to vote on the confirmation.

Perhaps the strongest support in the LGBT community in favor of the nomination came from Rick Jacobs, chair of the California-based progressive grassroots organization known as the Courage Campaign, who declared his support for Hagel in a column for The Huffington Post.

“Chuck, like most Americans, has evolved has changed his views on homosexuality,” Jacobs said. “He gave his word that as DoD chief he supports the law, that openly gay and lesbian soldiers will be treated equally to ‘straight’ ones. Remember when the Commandant of the Marine Corps opposed repeal of ['Don't Ask, Don't Tell'] and then when it passed said the Marines would implement it better than any other branch?”

Speaking with the Blade, Jacobs also said he’d like to see Hagel address outstanding LGBT issues at the Pentagon during his upcoming confirmation hearings.

“It would be great to have that addressed as we move forward,” Jacobs said. “It’s a good idea; we should do that. The more we can discuss openly the policies and implementation of policies to make equal LGBT people in service, the better off we are.”

Jacobs told the Washington Blade he hadn’t spoken to any groups prior to writing his column urging him to come out in support of the Hagel nomination.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Log Cabin Republicans. For the second time, the organization on Monday published a full-page ad in a major newspaper opposing the Hagel nomination. The ad, which follows a similar one published in the New York Times last month, is titled “Chuck Hagel’s Record on Gay Rights” and offers a timeline of remarks on LGBT issues made by Hagel.

In addition to the 1998 anti-gay remarks against Hormel, the ad also notes Hagel has expressed support for DOMA and says in 2005, when a federal judge in Nebraska determined the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, Hagel opposed the decision, saying, ”I am hopeful the federal appeals court will recognize the rights of Nebraskans to determine their own laws governing marriage and reverse this decision.”

Gregory Angelo, Log Cabin’s interim executive director, said his organization continues to oppose Hagel after examining the “‘totality’ of his public record on gay rights.”

“Until his name surfaced as a potential nominee for Secretary of Defense, he has stood firmly and aggressively against not only gay marriage, but also against gay people in general,” Angelo said. “Log Cabin Republicans helped lead the charge to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and is extremely invested in seeing that we don’t lose any ground due to a lack of sincere commitment to gay people and their families on the part of the incoming Defense Secretary.”

The move by Log Cabin raised questions about how a small organization can afford to buy full-page ads in major newspapers amid speculation that neo-conservative opponents of Hagel are influencing the group. Additionally, Log Cabin applied a different standard to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by endorsing the candidate even though he backed a Federal Marriage Amendment.

Speaking to the Blade, Angelo said “there’s some potential” for more ads, but declined to comment on the costs of the ads, saying they’re “part of a larger communications effort” that has come from the board of directors. Angelo also denied that other groups had asked Log Cabin to run the ads, saying they came “exclusively from within Log Cabin Republicans.”