Someone got this right. Reporting is coming from Michael Sneed at the Chicago Sun-Times that Brent Sopel and his family will appear Sunday in Chicago’s Gay Pride March.

Sneed has learned Blackhawks President John McDonough is rerouting the Stanley Cup from the NHL draft in L.A. to the parade Sunday . . . and Blackhawk defenseman Brent Sopel has volunteered to represent the team.

“I am honored to do it,” said Sopel, who will be accompanied by wife, Kelly, and his four kids, Jacob, 12, Lyla, 8, Jayla, 6, and Paul, 20, whom they adopted three years ago after Paul’s parents died within six months of each other.

[I’m having problems with the Sun-Times link, Americablog story is here, h/t.]This strikes me as seriously awesome. A straight guy in one of most testosteroney sports, participating with full endorsement of the organization. It’s great public relations news, hitting a core problem that the LGBT community has as we inch ever closer to solid majorities of public support for our issues.

Some polls I’ve observed have straight men lagging straight women by as much as 10% in their support of LGBT issues. This is a problem, but also an opportunity. If we’re only at times, trying to swing a vote 5% (like in ME or CA’s marriage equality) that’s a pretty ripe demographic for targeting.

One thing the thoroughly reprehensible Karl Rove did get right was the idea of hitting your opponent where he or she is strong. If equality opponents have straight men on their side, well, goddamnit, figure out how to convince straight men to be cool with it, and just chill the fuck out.

At times I feel our community has under-utilized the resources we have to reach out to new markets. There are typically straight men who have come out in favor of LGBT equality that would peg pretty high on the hetero heros list, Steve Young (Mormon to boot), Scott Fujita, others. (Who else? Leave a me pointer.)

A prime example of poor judgment would be Human Rights Campaign’s decision to bring comedian Kathy Griffin in as a celebrity spokesperson for a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” publicity campaign. What were they thinking? The woman lives to offend people–she’ll be the first to admit it. And she set about doing exactly that. I don’t blame Kathy for being Kathy, I blame the decision makers at HRC (who should know better) that this train wreck could have been seen from a mile down the tracks.

And morever, as Lt Dan Choi, who really deserved to be the one the event was built around, observed in Newsweek:

“When I heard Kathy Griffin was going to be a spokeswoman for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I wondered about that. I have great respect for her as an advocate. But if [the Human Rights Campaign] thinks that having a rally at Freedom Plaza with a comedienne is the right approach, I have to wonder. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is not a joking matter to me.”

Besides that, whose attention is Kathy Griffin going to attract to the issue? Does anyone outside the LGBT community know who Kathy Griffin is?! Newsflash to HRC: the LGBT community is on board with repealing DADT, we need to expand the messaging, not contain it to our own echo chamber.

If it was felt that no authentic veterans could be found that would reach sufficient “star power,” I still would have argued against Kathy, had I been looped in (for the record, I wasn’t).

Myself, I would have suggested and fought for reaching out to Bruce Springsteen. Yes, the Boss. Springsteen famously came out in support of marriage equality last year, during New Jersey’s consideration of such legislation, going as far as posting a statement on his own website.

So, we know he’s sympathetic and pro-actively supportive. We also know his credentials as a mainstream, working-class, heterosexual American male are beyond reproach. He also enjoys the respect and admiration of many in the military community, given many feel he’s authentically told their stories many times through his music. And, he’s the Boss. Who’s gonna argue with that?

His involvement in a free concert on the Mall would have filled that space, and pegged the news cycle. No. Gay people wouldn’t have flocked to the concert, but that can’t be the point. I think this is the kind of out of the box moves that need to happen for our community to thoroughly marginalize detractors as merely noisey Michelle Bachmann fans of the world.

Sometimes, the gay community just doesn’t get this. I’m glad whoever made the overture to the Blackhawks in Chicago does. I’d like to shake his or her hand.

PS please don’t misunderstand: I still love and want to see all the dykes on bikes, leathermen, drag queens and trans-folk, the go-go boys, whatever else you got. This isn’t about washing them away, not by a long shot! It’s about expanding, not replacing.