FRC smears Obama administration with outside groups' independent effort

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12/18/2013

by Jeremy Hooper

In yesterday's Washington Update, the Family Research Council (in words attributed to prez Tony Perkins) said the following about a new effort to inform the LGBT population about the Affordable Care Act:

It looks like the President really is skirting the issues with ObamaCare. Thanks to a new partnership with a Louisiana drag queen show, the administration thinks it's finally be tapping into a market it needs to boost enrollment numbers. With the help of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a troupe of transvestites called Wednesday Night Tea has started promoting HealthCare.gov as part of its act. (If the law lacked legitimacy before, wait until a cast of cross-dressing men get through with it!)

According to the Washington Post, the show linked up with ObamaCare through Out2Enroll, the government's new outreach to homosexuals and transgenders. In conjunction with the administration and outside groups, the Shreveport performers aim to register 300,000 people in the federal exchange. And just in time for Christmas, Out2Enroll is kicking off a social media campaign that organizers promise "will have 'naughty' elements as well as holiday cheer." As if Americans weren't convinced already, this is just further evidence of how backwards the White House strategy is.

By funneling more money to the LGBT community, the administration is only making the system more unsustainable.
MORE: ObamaCare Drag Show Aims to Heel [FRC]

Only thing? This Out2Enroll effort is not at all an arm of the administration but rather a project of three outside groups. And the Washington Post piece makes the perfectly clear:

Meanwhile, several outside groups are pitching in for the LGBT outreach, including Out2Enroll, a collaboration among the Sellers Dorsey Foundation, the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Federal Agencies Project. The group is working to educate men and women in major cities about their options for coverage and how to navigate the system. According to CAP, 900,000 members of the LGBT community could get some form of subsidized health care under the law.
FULL: On health care, White House and others reach out to LGBT Americans [WaPo]

There's no "funneling of money" going on. These groups are supportive of the Affordable Care Act and they are making strides to get LGBT people enrolled.

And as for Wednesday Night Tea? It is a drag troupe that always focuses on political issues. Here is the act in its own words:

How did we get involved with Out2Enroll? Each week, we produce a slide show that covers local, state, and national news that ranges from the funny to the most serious. We always include several slides that address LGBT issues that our fans appreciate and enjoy. One of our fearless crew members was searching for new content for our show and came across the Out2Enroll website. Even though we have heard about health reform, we didn’t know all of the details or how to answer questions that our community members might have. But Out2Enroll did! We were impressed with the information and knew that it was going to be very beneficial to our local LGBT community. So we made the jump and got involved.
FULL: Why Wednesday Night Tea is Out2Enroll [Out2Enroll]

But of course FRC, an organization that could most benefit from removing the proverbial stick from its organizational undercarriage and enjoying a nice drag performance, thinks that this kind of entertainment is odd and weird and scary. So what do they do? They connect the act directly to the White House and then make it sound like something other than the politically conscious performance art that it is. It's a perfect marriage of desperation, bringing together their zeal for anti-LGBT nastiness with their fervor to destroy the ACA (/the administration).

Although FRC is right about one thing: the particular female impersonator that the staff chose for its hit piece probably shouldn't sign up for Obamacare, considering that performer is German: