PageOneQ, via an on-line messaging service, received a tip from a political activist who was considering applying for a job at the organization. The activist, who asked not to be identified by name because of his intent to apply for a job, shared the information with PageOneQ Monday afternoon.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for the DCCC said that the policy included sexual orientation and that its absence on the website was an error. A return visit to the website revealed that the policy had not been corrected, but completely removed.

Here is a capture of the policy made before its removal yesterday:

Here is a capture of the same web page after the job listings and policy were removed:

In the call, Mr. Burton read what he said was the policy: “All applications will be considered without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, sex, including marital or parental status, disability or age.” The one difference between Mr. Burton’s version of the policy and the now-removed website version was the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation.’

After verifying two additional times with Mr. Burton that the policy was exactly as he was quoted above, PageOneQ conducted an informal assessment of non-discrimination policies. A random web search of twenty companies, educational institutions and non-profit organizations revealed that if Mr. Burton’s statements are correct, the DCCC would be unique in listing ‘sexual orientation’ before ‘sex’ in its non discrimination policy. (A list of the twenty sites and the methodology used for their selection follows this article.)

Other Political Organizations

PageOneQ contacted the other national political organizations, representing both parties, requesting a copy of the group's non-discrimination policy if one existed.

Karl Frisch, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said a copy of the policy would be provided by the end of the day Tuesday. As of the publishing of this article, Mr. Frisch has not provided the policy. An email request of the DSCC for information by intern/researcher William Navarro went unanswered.

Spokesmen for both the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governor’s Association confirmed the inclusion of sexual orientation in their policies and provided written copies. Neither organization lists the policy on their website.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) explained that the policy request must be faxed to Cathy Secor at the RNC. When contacted to follow-up on the faxed request, Ms. Secor hung up the phone on this reporter reporter.

Carl Forti, Director of Communications of the National Republican Congressional Committee said, “I will not tell you if there is a non discrimination policy here and if there is one I would not send it to you as it would be an internal policy.” When asked what good the policy was if perspective job applicants could not find it, Mr. Forti responded, “I am not going to discuss that with you.”

A message left at the National Republican Senatorial Committee went unreturned. Caitlin Miller, executive assistant to Charlie Spies, the General Counsel and Chief Financial officer of the Republican Governor's Association, said that they would issue the policy or a reply by the end of today. {This story will be updated upon receiving their response.)

'Is this about advertising?'

Perhaps in an effort to deflect attention from the question at hand, Mr. Burton, the spokesman for the DCCC, asked this reporter if this "is even a story or if it had more to do with the DCCC not advertising on your site?"

This reporter (and publisher of this site) did talk with Jessee Lee, on-line editor for the DCCC about advertisiing on the internet. In that conversation, held in October, 2005, Mr. Lee was asked about DCCC advertising on a variety of gay websites, including PageOneQ. Mr. Lee asserted that the DCCC would not take ads on sites that, in his words, "link to outing stories." But a review of DCCC web advertising shows that the group has purchased ads on numerous sites which have linked to what the DCCC calls "outing stories" -- stories which expose the sexual orientation of hypocritical politicians -- including DailyKos and Atrios.

An inquiry of the DCCC as why their blog advertising program includes no LGBT blogs, when gay and lesbian support for Democratic House candidates is as high as 85%, remains unanswered.

Methodology for policy analysis

For the research cited above, a Google search of "non discrimination sexual orientation" was conducted and, beginning with the top search return, went to each site until twenty sites resulted in a policy that included both 'sex' and 'sexual orientation.' Of the first twenty policies found with both terms, none had 'sexual orienation' listed before 'sex.' the sites are available here.