Chris Crain has a good post on the Blade Blog that accurately summarizes where we are with Howard Dean and the DNC. Crain joins NGLTF and HRC in describing Dean's 700 Club comment as a "deliberate misstatement" and offers two reasons why it was a mistake:

...... Dean is miscalculating the gay issue for two important reasons: First and foremost, gay Americans are fighting for their own civil rights, unlike their counterparts on the right, who are pushing to limit someone else's freedoms. One reason America's history reflects social progress by minorities despite hostility from the majority is that the minorities are far more motivated than their foes, not to mention the "mushy middle" that doesn't feel strongly one way or the other.

So by dissing gay issues, Dean abuses what could be a powerfully motivated constituency for his party, as his own presidential candidacy attests. Instead, as the party controversies of the last year demonstrate, gay Americans won't accept second-class treatment.

Second, by treating gay civil rights like just another "special interest" to be alternatively pandered to or ignored, Dean and the Dems only contribute to their party's worst image problem: as a do-nothing party without clear positions, principles or a plan.