This is what happens when you criticize the Petty Queer Establishment

I've been called, by more than one person, "self-loathing" for daring to criticize the gay movement.

Now Andrew Sullivan is getting slimed for questioning the effectiveness of the Human Rights Campaign.

In an entry earlier this month on his popular blog, the Daily Dish, Sullivan described HRC as a “corporation designed to milk the gay market to hire more fund-raisers and marketers to milk more gay pockets.”

“It’s a racket with a plush new multi-million dollar headquarters and salaries that would make corporate America blush,” he said.

Instead of answering Sullivan's criticisms, the HRC "accused him of seeking to weaken the Washington-based gay rights group — which generated $34.6 million in revenue in 2006 — just as it is expected to lead efforts to advance two important gay rights bills pending in Congress."

“I find it curious that, as Democrats have taken charge of Congress and we are poised for the first time in over a decade to pass this sort of legislation, he seems to have mounted this campaign to malign and discredit our work,” said HRC president Joe Solmonese.

HRC’s vice president for programs, David Smith, went a step further, accusing Sullivan of advancing the interests of anti-gay groups from the religious right.

“There’s nobody happier about what Andrew Sullivan is doing than Tony Perkins and James Dobson,” Smith said.

But as Sullivan points out, he endorsed Kerry in 2004 and the Democrats last fall.

Not that it mattters to the HRC, who seem to be following the model of their patron saints, the Clintons: attack first, answer questions never.