:: President-elect Barack Obama announced at a press conference yesterday that Nancy Sutley, currently deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles, will chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She was a member of the Southern California LGBT steering committee for Hillary Clinton during her bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Since the election, Sutley has been serving as a senior adviser to the Obama transition team on environmental and energy matters.
Responding to the announcement, Lisa Derrick wrote at Firddoglake's Campaign Silo, "The rainbow ceiling has shattered.... Sutley is the first highly visible member of the gay and lesbian community to earn a senior role in the Democrat's new administration."
Obama also announced that he will nominate Dr. Steven Chu as secretary of energy. Chu is a physicist who serves as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Lisa Jackson, chief of staff to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, has been tapped for the post of administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
"The team that I have assembled here today is uniquely suited to meet the great challenges of this defining moment," Obama said. "They are leading experts and accomplished managers, and they are ready to reform government and help transform our economy so that our people are more prosperous, our nation is more secure, and our planet is protected."
:: The Obama inauguration planning group has invited Lesbian Gay Band Association to participate in the inauguration day parade, according to multiple reports. Although the LGBA had made the announcement earlier, the official announcement was made Dec. 10.
Cliff Norris, a member of the LGBA and a gay tuba player in the Atlanta Freedom Band, told Washington Blade that LGBA applied earlier this year to join the parade because "the way the polls were going, it was probably going to be a good year to have a gay-inclusive president, to be in the parade."
Norris said LGBA's participation in the Inauguration Day parade is important "for a visibility perspective" because it "reminds people that gay and lesbian people are part of the fabric of America."
"We are integral in the community," he said, according to Washington Blade. "We're a part of the coalition that came together to elect the new president."
An e-mail distributed to LGBA members says that the contingent has spots for musicians, flags, twirlers, honor guard, and banner holders, Washington Blade reports. Participants will wear blue berets, and a silver baseball-style jacket, similar to the ones the band wore for President Clinton's inauguration celebrations, where they were allowed to play on the sidewalk but weren't invited to march in the parade.
The news of an LGBT band in the inauguration has some culture warriors trying to drum up anger. The right-wing and aggressively anti-gay Catholic News Agency, posted a subtly and artfully inflammatory story about the band that focused on the bow-to-Broadway name the group had chosen for a Halloween-season meeting they held in New York City: "Deliciously Wicked".
In the CNA lede, the story emphasizes, "the group will also march in September as part of the homosexual 'Southern Decadence' festival infamous for its public lewd acts."
(It fails to mention that the band has never been invited to participate in the Roman Catholic 'Mardi Gras' festival infamous for its public lewd acts.)
:: Arne Duncan, the head of Chicago Public Schools, was announced today as Obama's choice for secretary of education. The President-elect called Duncan "the most hands-on of hands-on practitioners," when it comes to school reform. "In just seven years, he's boosted elementary test scores here in Chicago from 38 percent of students meeting the standards to 67 percent," Obama said.
Among the recent reforms that Duncan has championed is a proposal to establish a gay-friendly high school in Chicago. Although plans for the Pride Campus were tabled last month after opposition mounted from local preachers, Duncan was a steadfast supporter of the concept.