The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is asking President Obama not to attend this year's National Prayer Breakfast, the signature annual event of a secretive, Washington, D.C.-based, conservative Christian organization known as "The Fellowship" or "The Family." News reports link The Fellowship to the introduction of legislation in Uganda (pdf) that would sentence homosexuals and people who are HIV-positive to death. Jeff Sharlet, author of a book about The Family, reports that the Ugandan legislator who introduced the bill, David Bahati, is a "core member" of The Family. The Fellowship has also designed the prayer breakfast to have the appearance of a government-sanctioned event; Sharlet says the event "appears to the world to be an official function of the federal government," and reports that when he attended the National Prayer Breakfast in 2003, he obtained his press credentials through the White House. The Fellowship also operates the C Street House, a Congressional residence for which The Family illegally escaped paying taxes on the building by claiming it was church instead of a rooming house. C Street has also housed a number of "ethically-challenged" elected officials, including Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn.

The White House has invited a special guest to attend President Obama's State of the Union address: Trevor Yager, the openly gay founder and co-owner of TrendyMinds, a successful advertising and public relations firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. The President will feature the agency for its growth and charitable contributions in 2009, and as an example of a business that has benefited from White House policies. TrendyMinds grew by over 200 percent during 2009, doubled the number of people it employs, gained 15 new accounts and awarded $50,000 worth of in-kind work to eight nonprofits, all at a time when many businesses were barely scraping by, or going out of business entirely. Huffington Post Editor Bill Browning attributes TrendyMinds' success to the Obama administration's "welcoming climate for small business, including many initiatives under the Recovery Act." TrendyMinds is a National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) certified gay-owned business. The NGLCC submitted Yager's name to the White House as a possible guest for the speech. First Lady Michelle Obama chose Yager and his business to attend the talk.

After California voters passed Proposition 8 -- the law that amended the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage -- in November, 2008, celebrity photographer Adam Bouska and partner Jeff Parshley created the "NOH8 Campaign," a photo project and silent protest that began with Bouska taking photos of everyday Californians who supported marriage equality. The project grew to include celebrities, politicians, military personnel and others. The campaign recently drew national attention when Cindy McCain, wife of Arizona Senator John McCain, contacted the project and asked to be photographed in support of the Campaign. Her photo is posted on the NOH8 Campaign's web site. In it, Mrs. McCain appears with silver duct tape over her mouth and the phrase "NOH8" written over her right cheek. Mrs. McCain's position supporting gay marriage is opposite that of Senator McCain, who backed an Arizona ballot measure in 2008 that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. The photo, reprinted here with the permission of Adam Bouska, is posted alongside an article titled, "Redefining Republican."

The National Organization for Marriage's (NOM's) $1.5 million television ad campaign -- with spots featuring "ominous clouds over several people warning against same-sex marriage" -- is bringing one public relations firm to the national stage. The Sacramento, California firm Schubert Flint Public Affairs "played a key role in torpedoing same-sex marriage in California," reports O'Dwyer's. For its work on the "Yes on Proposition 8" campaign, the firm won "several awards." Now, Schubert Flint is supporting the NOM campaign, a two-year effort to recruit "two million supporters to oppose gay marriage pushes" in states including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Vermont. It launched the "Two Million for Marriage" campaign in Trenton, New Jersey, on April 8. The firm's cofounder, Frank Schubert, worked for tobacco industry front groups in the 1990s. The firm's other namesake, cofounder Jeff Flint, previously worked at Russo Marsh & Rogers, the Sacramento firm behind the pro-war, anti-Democrat group Move America Forward and the pro-Sarah Palin, anti-Barack Obama group Our Country Deserves Better.

Worried about "increasing international willingness to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program," the Israeli government is ramping up its anti-Iranian messaging. Israel has committed 8 million NIS, or around U.S.$2 million, for the campaign. "To appeal to people who are less concerned with Iran's nuclear aspirations and more fearful of its human rights abuses," Israel will work with the "international gay community" to highlight Iran's repression of LGBT people. "The campaign will also reach out to Jewish groups who want to bring more attention to [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and some members of the Iranian regime's anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist views," reports Haaretz. The Israeli campaign will also include "increased briefings for foreign journalists on the Iranian nuclear program and greater use of the Internet and sites such as YouTube." A "senior political source in Jerusalem" said the campaign will "lay the groundwork" for "possible diplomatic failure" with Iran. "Despite talk of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities," the campaign advocates "harsh economic sanctions."

The National Organization for Marriage, "a national organization that opposes same-sex marriage is targeting New Jersey in a $1.5 million advertising campaign." The group is also running ads in Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. The television spots warn that supporters of same-sex marriage "want to change the way I live. ... That means wedding photographers and marriage counselors could be labeled bigots and sued if they oppose working with same-sex couples," they claim. "It's obviously going to happen if gay marriage is the law of the land," remarked National Organization for Marriage president Maggie Gallagher. In 2005, Gallagher was exposed as a payola pundit (as was Armstrong Williams), for receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the Bush administration to write favorably about its "marriage promotion" initiatives. Gallagher failed to disclose the payments, even as she praised government marriage promotion programs in her syndicated columns, op/ed pieces and interviews. She later claimed that she "had no special obligation to disclose this information," but would have done so, "if I had remembered."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the LDS or Mormon Church) is facing a public backlash following its heavy-handed support of Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriages in California, notes progressive PR pro Michael Fox. "For many years," he notes, "the LDS Church has been an active force in the anti-gay movement, most notably in regard to its sponsorship of the Boy Scouts of America, but these activities have mostly been below the media radar and opposition has been directed at the Scouts, not the LDS Church itself. ... Now that will change." A leaked internal memo shows how top church leaders egged on rank-and-file Mormons to donate more than $20 million to support Proposition 8, while members in Utah made political phone calls to Californians on behalf of the measure. In response, Fox says, "Gay and lesbian groups and their allies will challenge the Mormons everywhere, no doubt tapping into pre-existing anti-Mormon prejudice. ... And the Prop 8 boycott, if sustained, can have a serious impact on businesses owned by Mormons, such as the Marriott hotel chain, on the careers of LDS members, and even on the economy of the State of Utah."

Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina submitted an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the late Jesse Helms. Helms, Dole’s predecessor in North Carolina, was notorious for being a "strident foe of HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment." In 1988, while vigorously opposing the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, Helms said, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." Later, in 1995, in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act, he argued that "the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their 'deliberate, disgusting revolting conduct.'" In 1991, seven activists from the group Act Up famously put a giant condom on Helms' Arlington home that said, "Helms Is Deadlier Than A Virus." Helms did announce in 2002 that he’d changed his mind about AIDS funding in Africa; however, his change-of-heart did not extent to American gays, saying that homosexuality "is the primary cause of the doubling and redoubling of AIDS cases in the United States."