Drama Queens at Equality Forum Flip on Gannon Issue
Posted on | May 4, 2006
While I am still waiting to read Mike Rogers’ post on this, reports are starting to be posted about the Equality Forum’s blogger panel yesterday in Philadelphia and it looks like the panel organizers flip-flopped yet again.
The drama started when John Aravosis of AmericaBlog and Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend both questioned the presence of "Jeff Gannon", a former White House "reporter" who was exposed as a $200/hr gay prostitute whose real name is James Guckert. While Equality Forum organizers may have had the noble goal of viewpoint diversification in mind there are several other, more qualified candidates to represent a conservative point of view especially in light of the accusations of plagiarism that have surrounded Gannon and his now-defunct employer, Talon News. Any of the guys who post at The Gay Patriot come to mind rather quickly. Both Pam and John wanted to be sure that they could discuss the scandal surrounding Gannon. Pam called it the "the elephant in the room that people are coming to see a discussion about" and she is right. In the end both John and Pam cancelled their appearances on the panel.
Equality Forum organizers shot back at Aravosis and claimed he "wanted to control the content of the overall panel" and other such nonsense. After being called on their bullshit, Equality Forum organizers reversed course and stated that the Gannon Scandal was going to be a topic, yet Pam notes in her post announcing her withdrawal from the panel that the agenda she received from the moderator, Katherine Sender who is a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, not only did not have "GannonGate" as the centerpiece, but did not mention the topic at all.
The clincher is that the Executive Director of the Equality Form, Malcolm Lazin, jumped into the fray. But the lying apparently did not stop there. SpinDentist of the AllSpinZone happened to be in the elevator with Lazin and while they chatted the subject of John’s withdrawal came up and Lazin claimed he had no clue as to why John had withdrawn. Lazin also mentioned that Pam would be in attendance anyway. Unfortunately for Lazin, Pam and her wife Kate had dinner with SpinDentist the previous night and both had explicitly stated that would not be attending the panel. In Lazin’s defense, Pam’s blog did mention she would still be attending events in the area as she and her wife had already purchased plane tickets when this debacle had occurred and Lazin could has misinterpreted that to mean she would still attend the panel as well.
But the meat of this farce of a panel is in the fact that, in spite of Equality Forum organizers’ assurances that GannonGate would be a topic, it seems that Sender, with the help of the third panelist, Anne Gordon of The Philadelphia Inquirer, was able to shift the discussion away from the topic. SpinDentist noted:
"The other high point came when Rogers asked Gannon where he was those nights he slept over at the White House. Gannon did not respond. In fact, he was saved from responding by Sender and Gordon. And therein lies the odd thing about the whole panel. Gordon kept talking about ethics and journalism and getting facts straight, but when Mike Rogers asked Jeff Gannon for a straight factual answer, she and the moderator helped change the topic. That’s the problem with the mainstream media today: they don’t seem to want to dig for the truth if it is uncomfortable."
Another blogger made the same observations.
I cannot wait to read Mike’s take on it. But I do offer this piece of advice to Equality Forum organizers and Malcolm Lazin especially, if you are going to lie to people at least stick to the same lie.
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May 8th, 2006 @ 11:46 am
If you would like, we have video from the panel discussion with highlights from Jeff Gannon and Mike Rogers (BlogActive.com) on PoliticsTV’s Democracy Channel.
May 13th, 2006 @ 11:53 am
A bankruptcy judge has ordered Philadelphia gay activist Malcolm Lazin to return more than $500,000 to trustees representing the 2000 Millennium March festival. (Photo by Clint Steib)
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
A federal bankruptcy court judge ordered Philadelphia gay activist Malcolm Lazin on June 11 to return more than $500,000 to bankruptcy trustees representing a gay-owned Washington, D.C., company that produced a festival to help pay expenses for the 2000 Millennium March on Washington.
The ruling by the bankruptcy court becomes the latest in a series of controversial developments surrounding the Millennium March and festival, including allegations of as much as $100,000 in missing funds from the festival site and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid debts associated with the march for gay equality.
Lazin, an attorney and former director of the Millennium March itself, advanced Millennium Productions Inc. a 12-day emergency loan of$400,000 , and charged the company $100,000 in interest for the loan, to help finance the festival just days before the event. At the time, both the festival and march were on the verge of financial collapse, according to festival organizers.
Festival organizers chose to accept Lazin’s high-interest loan to avoid the possibility of having to cancel the festival, along with the Millennium March, less than two weeks before the two events were set to take place on April 30,2000, said Jose Ucles, president of Millennium Productions.
Ucles has said the missing funds and a smaller than expected attendance at the festival resulted in a financial loss for the event, forcing his company to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after dozens of food vendors and other creditors filed suit for payment for their services.
In an action that triggered a furor among vendors and Millennium March leaders, Ucles repaid the loan from Lazin, who is also executive director of Philadelphia’s annual gay pride event, PrideFest America, as well as the $100,000 interest fee in the week following the festival.
Millennium March organizers complained that for-profit Millennium Productions agreed in a contract to pay the march the first $750,000 in festival proceeds. In exchange, the march agreed to promote the festival in its nationwide promotional campaign. Organizers of both events predicted as many as one million people would come to the nation’s capital to attend the two events, with the prospect that between $1.5 million and $2 million in gross revenue could be realized by the festival.
Millennium Productions was expected to keep as profit all revenue over and above its own expenses and the cash it pledged to pay the march. The cost of putting on the march was put at $1 million.
Flawed security interest
In defending his decision to repay Lazin first, Ucles pointed to a signed loan agreement that reportedly gave Lazin a “security interest” and “constructive trust” calling for him to be repaid as soon as Millennium Productions collected enough cash from admission fees and food and beverage sales at the two-day festival. Because of this, Ucles said, Millennium Productions sent Lazin a bank check within days of the festival, repaying the loan and interest in full.
In his June 11 ruling, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge S. Martin Teel Jr. said the loan documents and security interest agreement had never been filed with the D.C. government’s Recorder of Deeds, making the agreement “fatally flawed” with regard to the bankruptcy court. The lack of a legal security interest and constructive trust, under federal bankruptcy law, Teel said, meant that Lazin must return the $500,000 plus interest to the Millennium Productions bankruptcy trustees for eventual equitable disbursement to all creditors.
Under the ruling, Lazin must now file papers like other creditors, meaning he will likely receive only a partial payment based on a formula worked out by the trustees and the judge.
Under the bankruptcy law, he has a right to appeal the ruling with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Lazin could not be reached for comment by press time. The Philadelphia Gay News reported Lazin was out of town on vacation.
Lazin’s attorney argued in court filings that Lazin should not be required to return the money because he had a legally sound security interest and constructive trust for the loan, but that Ucles failed to file it with the city as part of their agreement. Teel rejected that claim, saying Lazin was responsible for ensuring that any agreements and loan documents were properly filed with the Recorder of Deeds.
Ucles, reached by telephone Thursday, said Lazin never asked him or other Millennium Festival officials to file loan papers with the city.
“We signed everything he asked us to sign,” said Ucles, who added he was unaware of Lazin’s court filings on this point. “This is the first I’ve ever heard anything about him saying we should have filed papers with the city. It’s totally untrue.”
The FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office earlier this year said it had completed an investigation into allegations that money had been stolen or embezzled from the grounds of the Millennium Festival. FBI spokesperson Christopher Murray said investigators believe wrongdoing may have occurred but could not obtain sufficient evidence to link a theft or embezzlement to anyone associated with the festival.
News reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.