In explaining its reasons (experience, we agree, is a major one) for endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, GayWired Media takes a fresh approach:
As LGBT people fighting for the right to marry—the right to a legal recognition of partnership—no one knows better what Hillary Clinton has faced in her fight to be treated as her husband’s equal. With the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady’s position was always that of loyal “spouse” whose job it was to smile, nod and support her husband. Hillary Clinton was the first woman to step into the role of first lady ready to fight in a public forum… for better or worse, and as anyone who read headlines during her eight years in the White House knows, the press and the right-wing made her fight tooth and nail for the respect she earned.
Well done. And equally well done is this succinct summary of Barack Obama’s liabilities in the area of equality:
But whereas Clinton’s support of LGBT issues is consistent — in her autobiography Living History, she calls “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” a terrible “compromise” of her husband’s presidency — we get the sense much of Obama’s support is merely PR. The omission of the word gay from his South Carolina victory speech and refusal to remove openly homophobic gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from a performing engagement on his campaign trail further support those fears.
At first glance, none of the candidates for president on the Republican side express anything resembling a strong commitment to LGBT rights. In fact, many express the opposite. But one holds a strong commitment to state’s rights—a commitment that, thus far, has protected LGBT rights at the federal level while discouraging any amendment to the constitution that would prohibit same sex marriage. Coupled with his commitment to ending the war in Iraq and putting an immediate end to this costly and misleading charade, Ron Paul may look like the dark horse to lead America beginning in January, 2009, but he’s far better suited for the role than many of his fellow party members would have you believe.
And certain Southerners still scream, “States’ rights!” while defending slavery.
We will give GayWired credit for proving that gay folks are not just single-issue voters, as it takes Paul’s stance on the Iraq war into account:
Ron Paul is that rare politician who has gone out on a limb—the only Republican nominee to have voted against the Iraq War Resolution, he says the war in Iraq was sold to Americans with false information and if elected president, he would begin yanking troops out of the Middle East immediately—no disrespect to the issue of gay marriage, but as far as we’re concerned, ending the war is the most important issue at stake this election.
And we must admit GayWired’s reasoning also takes a fresh (well, novel) approach:
Though Paul isn’t known to be an avid supporter of gay rights, he opposes all federal efforts to redefine marriage, has said “don’t ask, don’t tell” fails because it doesn’t take into account heterosexual behavior that is disruptive to service and has said he has no interest in interfering with two individuals in a social, sexual or religious sense. That said, he was an outspoken critic of the Supreme Court’s decision on Lawrence v. Texas which deemed sodomy laws unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment. Though he called the law ridiculous, his support of states rights, he argued, gives the State of Texas the right to regulate sex using local standards.
A consistency that, while bizarre, is almost refreshing. His view on the rights of the individual and of the state have defined his entire career. Better the devil you know or the devil who shape shifts depending on how he’s doing in the polls?
We still think GayWired is off the hook endorsing Paul — or any Republican; where is it written that a news outlet must endorse a candidate from each party? Well, maybe it is a requirement with for-profit companies — but still: If we were forced to endorse one of the remaining Republican candidates (that is, remaining as of GayWired’s press deadline), we would have picked Rudy Giuliani.
Make no mistake: We can’t stand Giuliani — but when the other choices are McCain, Huckabee, Romney, and Paul, choosing Giuliani is like choosing to have one eye gouged out, as opposed to having all four limbs amputated.
The reason John Edwards dropped out seems clear to anyone who’s been following the 2008 presidential race closely. The NYT summarizes the official reason so:
It was a decision rooted simply in the political reality of the challenges he faced in the 22 states holding contests on Feb. 5, according to people familiar with the decision, and had nothing to do with the health of his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, who has been battling cancer.
More telling is this short paragraph:
Throughout the campaign season, Mr. Edwards had not been able to break through the dueling high-profile candidacies of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, and he had not been able to raise the kind of money that his two chief rivals had early on.
True. And the reason for that is the mainstream media itself: Just as the MSM is responsible for creating a great part of the myth that is Obama the Risen Messiah, there’s been a practical news blackout on Edwards.
Why that is… Well, nothing happens by accident in politics, and timing is never coincidental. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to guess that the big guys working the Democratic Machine decided it was time for Edwards to pull out — before Super-Duper-Whoop-De-Doo Tuesday. So he did.
It’s a shame, really; had Edwards any sort of chance to win the Democratic nomination, no doubt a significant number of us Kucinich supporters (and Richardson supporters, and Gravel supporters, and even Biden supporters) would have thrown our support behind him.
But that’s that, and now we’re presented with just two candidates, just as it was planned from the beginning. You were told more than a year ago that you would be choosing between Clinton and Obama, and now you are.
There is some good news on the “So long, and thanks for all the fish” front: Yet another Republican congresscritter has announced his decision to retire at the end of his term this year: Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia. Why? He’s “just very tired,” he says.
Davis’ exit brings the total number of Republicans leaving the House (either through retirement or by running for higher office) this year up to 28.
Last week, Repubs Jim Walsh of New York and Dave Weldon of Florida announced their plans to retire this year; their departures leave two vacancies on the House Appropriations Committee.
With the continuing exodus of Republicans from the U.S. House, and the generally-accepted calculations of “vulnerable” Republican seats come November (Raising Kane offers an excellent breakdown), it’s as close to a sure thing as a sure thing can be that come swearing-in day, 2009, we will have a heavily Democratic — and filibuster-proof — House. And with a Democratic president (after eight years of the BFEE, a houseplant could take the White House as long as it had a D after its name)…
I’d like to say “the country will be ours again,” but the truth is, the new president and Congress are going to be spending the bulk of their time cleaning up Bush’s messes both overseas and domestically. Maybe, just maybe, sometime during the 112th or 113th session of Congress might we see some actual progress on other issues.
That’s assuming the president we get doesn’t screw up so badly (*coughObamacough*) as to lose re-election and sour voters on the Democrats.
But for now, we can be content in the almost-sure knowledge that the White House and the House of Representatives will be delivered back into the hands of the grown-ups come November.
Gordon B. Hinckley, the president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who led Mormonism through a period of global expansion, died Sunday at his apartment in Salt Lake City. He was 97.
. . .
Mr. Hinckley spent 46 years in the church’s top leadership ranks, nearly 13 of those as its 15th president, and became the its oldest president.
. . .
To Latter-day Saints, the church president is not merely a temporal figure but also an inspired prophet who interprets church teachings for the present day. In his first year in office, Mr. Hinckley issued a proclamation on the family. Besides reaffirming Mormon belief that families live on together after death, it condemned domestic abuse. It also said that gender was a characteristic determined even before birth, and that procreation was reserved only for a man and a woman as husband and wife.
Under Mr. Hinckley, the church endorsed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman and financed political campaigns to support legislation that would ban same-sex marriage in California and Hawaii. …
In what will likely be remembered as one of the most offensive Christmas devotionals ever, LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley used part of his 2003 Christmas address to condemn homosexuals and to remind his audience that “the traditional family is under attack.”
“Sodom and Gomorrah, and the sinful practices observed therein, became examples of that which was evil and abominable in the sight of God,” said the nonagenarian leader. “It was Jehovah, speaking through his prophets, who decried evil and pleaded for righteousness. When there was no repentance, it was his withering hand that destroyed them.”
Rather than speak ill of the dead, we’ll just let the dead speak for himself:
158 Years of Racism in the Mormon Church = Merely “Little Flicks of History”
Mike Wallace: From 1830 to 1978, blacks could not become priests in the Mormon Church. Right?
Gordon B. Hinckley: That’s correct.
Wallace: Why?
Hinckley: Because the leaders of the church at that time interpreted that doctrine that way.
Wallace: Church policy had it that blacks… uh… had the mark of Cain. Brigham Young said, “Cain slew his brother, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.”
Hinckley: It’s behind us. Look, that’s behind us. Don’t worry about those little flicks of history.
Why Did It Take So Long to Overcome Racism in the Mormon Church?
I like that. “I don’t know.” That’s nice. “Mr. Hand, will I pass this class?” “Gee, Mr. Spicoli, I don’t know.” You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to leave your words right up here for all my classes to enjoy, giving you full credit of course, Mr. Spicoli.
Steve, a devout Mormon, feared God would not accept him if he were gay. The couple met with their bishop who urged Steve to rid himself of his homosexuality by going through conversion therapy, a controversial program intended to eliminate homosexual feelings. Steve felt he had no choice.
“I wanted to be accepted by God,” he said. “I wanted to be loved. That was everything to me. And so I saw no other route.”
So every week Steve joined other Mormon men for group therapy. Most conversion therapy involves different forms of behavior modification, attempting to make people straight by having them act straight. Some programs even teach men about stereotypically “male” activities, such as talking about football and changing motor oil. Steve did not find that his experience with conversion therapy was at all therapeutic.
“I would definitely call it brainwashing,” he said. “It was an exercise in humiliation.”
Channeling Groucho: Whatever It Is, If It’s Gay, I’m Against It.
Larry King: …As the mores have changed— for example, I know the church is opposed to gay marriage. Do you have an alternative — do you like the idea of civil unions?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Well… We are not anti-gay. We are pro-family, let me put it that way. And we… love these people and try to work with them and help them. We know they have a problem. We want to help them solve that problem.
King: The problem they caused or they were born with?
Hinckley: I don’t know. I’m not an expert on these things. I don’t preted to be an expert on these things. The fact is, they have a problem.
King: Do you favor some sort of state union?
Hinckley: Well, we want to be very careful about that… because that— whatever may lead to gay marriage, we’re not in favor of. We…Many people don’t get married. Goodness sakes alive, you know that. We have many people who have to discipline themselves. If they transgress, they become subject to the discipline of the church. But we try in every way that we know how to help them, to assist them, to bless their lives.
And How, Exactly, Does the Mormon Church “Help” Gay People Get Over Their “Problem”?
This is how:
And then there’s Stuart Matis. And countless other Stuarts.
That’s enough, we think, to give the heretofore-uninformed an introduction to Gordon B. Hinckley.
Having already run over Mary once, Liz prepares to back up and do it again.
Well, we assume Liz Cheney, the not-lesbian daughter of The Big Dick and his wife who’s not a lesbian but appears obsessed with lesbian sex, hates the guts (or at least the oh so sinful lifestyle) of Mother Mary— er, her sister, Mary Cheney, the boyish, brainless lesbian turncoat we love to hate (because she got hers, so to hell with everybody else).
It’s bad enough that Neocon Liz was working for the presidential campaign of Fred Thompson, until the ugly, mediocre actor with the hearing problem (or maybe just the stupid problem) dropped out of the race, but now Liz is working for Mitt Romney as senior foreign policy adviser (so Mitt’ll have some good-sounding made-up reasons to bomb Syria and Iraq and anybody else he damn well pleases back to the Stone Age the very second he receives divine inspiration to visit blood atonement upon them non-believin’ heathens).
I tell you, if my sister decided to work on getting Rabidly Anti-Gay Magic Underwear Man — who believes that a dead parent is better than a gay parent (helllllo, Mary!) — into the White House, I’d disown her (after I tried to have her involuntarily committed).
[T]he endorsement is likely to be well received among conservatives who comprise a critical primary voting bloc in both Florida, which votes Tuesday, and the 22 states voting Feb. 5.
Romney has also enjoyed the support of aides with ties to the Bush family, including top assistants to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former President George H.W. Bush.
Liz Cheney, 41, is the elder of Dick and Lynne Cheney’s two daughters. Her younger sister, Mary, has been more prominently in the public eye after revealing she is a lesbian and having a son last year with her partner, Heather Poe, despite the administration’s opposition to gay marriage.
Liz Cheney, the mother of five children, said in a statement: “Throughout his campaign, (Romney) has distinguished himself as a leader who can guide our country with a clear vision for overcoming the threats we face today. … I look forward to working with Governor Romney because he is the leader our country needs.”
Now, we don’t really give a hoot what idiotic pursuits Liz Cheney chases, and quite frankly, we don’t have a whit of sympathy for that elitist little traitor Mary Cheney either.
We’re just struck by how not surprised we are that one Cheney would throw another Cheney even further under the bus. (And we will be even less surprised if Mary Cheney comes out to support her sister’s decision.)
As Republican family dynamics go, politics (which, for those people, translates directly into money and power) is always thicker than blood.
Nevertheless, we think Liz Cheney sucks. And not in a good way.
Never mind that Saint Barry didn’t dare breathe the word “gay” alongside “young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian” in his South Carolina victory speech tonight (and why should he, when it’s our backs bearing his muddy bootprints as evidence of the way he trampled us in order to win SC in the first place?).
Rather, I am compelled to quote what he said about religion in his speech, which caused all three residents of my home to emit spontaneous shrieks of incredulous laughter (and two of us to shout something a little less polite than “Baloney!” at the television):
And what we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon.
Forget the Republicans — you, Senator Obama, made religion a wedge among Democrats in this campaign. You used gay Americans as a wedge to woo rabidly homophobic Southern evangelicals who would have voted for you anyway. You opened a fissure the size of the San Andreas Fault between black fundamentalist Christians and gay and lesbian voters — a fissure that may never heal. You continue to employ the politics of division.
Also worth noting:
There are those who will continue to tell us we cannot do this. That we cannot have what we long for. That we are peddling false hopes.
There he goes again, with the meaningless “hope and change” rhetoric — as he steadfastly refuses to tell us what he hopes to change, and how.
Empty words, empty rhetoric, empty suit — all held afloat by the politics of division.
(And no, I’m not bitter about Obama’s SC win; I knew that was going to happen, and I don’t care. What’s important is Super-Duper Tuesday, when the big states vote. And, unless something unforeseen happens — like some crazed Obama supporter dropping LSD in the nation’s water supply — February 5th should fix Obama’s little red wagon, once and for all. I certainly hope so, anyway; I’m sick of hearing his empty promises, and sick of writing about his ruthless steamrolling of the American gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community.)
I posted yesterday about a Southern Poverty Law Center article, titled Straight Like Me, by Casey Sanchez, which blasted the ex-gay movement. In my post, I note several inaccurate reports. In this post, I provide a brief email interview with Michael Brown, president of the FIRE School of Ministry, who was named in a companion piece, Former Ex-gay Minister Speaks Out. I emailed Dr. Brown with some questions about these statements and he was very kind to respond quickly.
Throckmorton: In a recent SPLC article, you are referred to as giving a keynote at the latest Exodus Conference. This subject of this article asserts that you believe the Old Testament law should be followed regarding homosexuals. Is this your belief?
Brown: Absolutely not! I am not and have never been a reconstructionist or theonomist, and if we were to put practicing homosexuals to death, we would also have to put Sabbath breakers to death, among many others.
Note that Brown does not say, “Absolutely not! I am not and have never been a reconstructionist or theonomist,” period.
He qualifies his “absolutely not” with “if we were to put practicing homosexuals to death, we would also have to put Sabbath breakers to death, among many others.”
The only conclusion we can draw is that the only thing stopping Brown from advocating death for “practicing homosexuals” is that he hasn’t figured out how to justify singling out “practicing homosexuals” for execution without putting “Sabbath breakers” (”among many others”) to death as well.
I couldn’t agree more (probably because I can’t think of any more ways to say it than I already have) with Margaret Cho’s assessment of this CNN article:
Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in S.C.
. . .
Recent polls show black women are expected to make up more than a third of all Democratic voters in South Carolina’s primary in five days.
For these women, a unique, and most unexpected dilemma, presents itself: Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?
No other voting bloc in the country faces this choice. …
CNN received dozens of e-mails shortly after posting the story, which focuses largely on conversations about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that a CNN reporter observed at a hair salon in South Carolina whose customers are predominantly African-American.
. . .
An e-mailer named Tiffany responded sarcastically: “Duh, I’m a black woman and here I am at the voting booth. Duh, since I’m illiterate I’ll pull down the lever for someone. Hm… Well, he black so I may vote for him… oh wait she a woman I may vote for her… What Ise gon’ do? Oh lordy!”
I too am insulted at the idea that just because I am a person of color and a woman that I should be expected to automatically vote for Obama or Hillary. Why are white men allowed to look at the issues and judge for themselves and the rest of us are expected to take sides grade school style? That is racist and sexist and dumb.
Amen to that. Detractors can believe it or not as they like, but I wouldn’t vote for a gay candidate just because s/he was gay, either. As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t want a woman President, or a black President, or even a gay President; I want the best President — and if that President happens to be female, or black, or gay (or all three), then happy day in the morning! But assuming my vote has anything to do with race, gender, or any other incidental is indeed racist and sexist, and insults my intelligence.
Certainly, I will vote for a pro-gay candidate over an anti-gay candidate, but that’s not the same as voting for the woman, or the African-American, or the queer just because s/he’s a woman, or an African-American, or queer. (For the record, again, my ideal candidate this time around was Dennis Kucinich, the most pro-gay candidate of the bunch, who is a white, heterosexual male. Oh, yes, I’m still angry as hell with him, but he is still my ideal candidate.)
So, good on Notorious C.H.O., for reiterating what needs to be hammered into many skulls.
However: What in the world is Cho thinking (or, more accurately, not thinking) when she allows herself to be seduced by the utterly meaningless “hope” mantra of the Obama camp?
Still, I believe Obama and Hillary are the best candidates. …
Why Obama?
You’re right, Margaret: Neither gender nor race should enter into your decision — but I would think that as a bisexual woman yourself, you would take Obama’s repeated and continuous betrayals of the LGBT community into account.
I hate that people are saying that Oprah is some kind of gender traitor because she is backing Obama. Don’t even talk about Oprah unless you want to fight. I got a brick in my purse so watch it (remember, ladies — something heavy inside something light = weapon). I think it is wonderful that Oprah is getting involved in politics. It is brave and exciting and gives me lots of hope for the future.
Oprah? I think it’s a wonderful thing when anyone gets involved in politics — but Oprah’s track record isn’t exactly consistent. Let’s not forget that Bush’s 2000 campaign was languishing, badly, until his milestone appearance on Oprah’s show; the Oprah Effect on Bush was summed up quite accurately by both Kate O’Beirne and Bill Press:
O’Beirne: “[The race between Bush and Gore is] terribly tight. But we might mark George Bush’s boffo performance on ‘Oprah’ this week as the beginning of his comeback. And he certainly had no trouble explaining to that audience of women his tax-cut plan, how a single woman would get a tax cut under his plan, not under Al Gore’s, and it was very well received by those women.”
Press: “If I were the Bush campaign, I’d put George Bush on ‘Oprah’ everyday, I thought he did great today. Al Gore is on ‘Leno’ tonight. So it’s going to be the campaign of the talk shows, and we’ll see what happens. But clearly, Bernie, as we said the last time I was here, it’s a close race now, it’s going to be close, I believe, all the way down to the end.”
(Sure, Oprah had Gore on her show the week before — but talk shows aren’t bound by any “equal time” rules; heck, there isn’t even a Fairness Doctrine anymore — and the Republicans like it that way just fine.)
On the same edition of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Candy Crowley said: “If you’ve got a gender-gap problem, and George Bush does, ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ with its large and overwhelmingly female audience, is the place to be. … And whatever your dreams, if your quest to be president requires female, suburban, swing voters, then upscale, family-friendly Oprah is the one to, as she puts it, get a sense of politicians as human beings.”
Sure, Oprah smacked down Bush, hard… later, after the damage had been done. But Oprah was just one of a lot of people who woke up only after BushCo had been given free rein to bring this country to its knees. That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in Oprah’s ability to judge a candidate on his merits, or predict what he’s going to do once he gets in office.
And while Oprah has been tossing a few nickels (to Oprah, $10,000 is just a few nickels) at Democrats since backing Carol Moseley Braun’s Illinois State Senate run in 1992, let’s not forget that she previously backed the Republican leader of the Wisconsin State Senate, Susan S. Engeleiter — who lost her ‘88 race, but who was chosen by George H.W. Bush as the next Administrator of the Small Business Administration.
And let’s not forget that it was Oprah who singlehandedly gave Donnie McClurkin the break he needed to become a gospel superstar: “[The song ‘Stand’] received a critical endorsement from daytime television superstar Oprah Winfrey. McClurkin told Jet, ‘She stood on television, held the CD up and said, “This is my favorite CD in the world. After you’ve done all you can, stand. You all need to buy it.”‘ The popular reception for ‘Stand’ and ‘Speak to my Heart,’ the album’s other standout single, earned McClurkin a certified gold record and a Grammy nomination, positioning him among contemporary gospel’s elite.” [Musician Guide]
I won’t argue that Oprah doesn’t do some good with her show — but she’s best at tasks such as, say, raising awareness about anorexia. Some might says she’s at her worst when letting Tom Cruise bounce around on her couch like a hyperkinetic jumping bean, but in reality, she’s at her worst when she uses her enormous influence indiscriminately. In endorsing Barack Obama — a candidate running on some fluffy cloud of good vibes, with virtually no plan behind his ethereal promises of “hope and change” (hope for what? change what?) — it is impossible to believe that Oprah has made any serious effort to pin down what Obama intends to do. The Big O has, like every other groupie, been seduced by a nice voice and good looks, happily oblivious to the lack of substance under the pretty surface.
Which brings us back to Margaret Cho:
I think that is what I love about Obama — he represents hope.
What kind of change? No matter who gets into the White House, Democrat or (God forbid) Republican, there will be change.
The question — for every Obama supporter, not just Cho and Winfrey — is: Exactly what kind of change are you expecting? That’s a difficult question to answer, because Obama himself has never offered a clue as to what kind of “change” he intends to deliver; at this late date, it’s obvious he doesn’t know the answer to that himself.
So, let’s try an easier question: What kind of change are you even hoping for?
And another hard question: What has Obama said or done that indicates he will deliver the kind of “change” you want? I want specifics. “He’s so inspirational!” just doesn’t cut it. L. Ron Hubbard was inspirational, too. So is the Dalai Lama. So is Suze Orman.
The difference is that I can tell you, specifically, what each of the three aforementioned leaders is all about, in ten words or less. I can’t explain Barack Obama after two full years of listening to him talk. Can you?
His youthful optimism appeals to me and his hope for the future enthralls me and these issues transcend race completely.
Arrrrrgh! Attraction to his “youthful optimism” and being enthralled by “his hope for the future” are not “issues” — they are emotions. An issue is healthcare. An issue is the war in Iraq. An issue is marriage equality.
I don’t care why you like him — I want to know why you support him. Hell, I like Cameron Diaz, but I wouldn’t support her if she ran for President on nothing but her good looks and charm.
On the flip side, I don’t like Hillary Clinton — I don’t find her particularly warm or endearing — but damn it, I know what she stands for. I don’t agree with her on everything (in fact, there’s a whole lot I don’t agree with), but I know what I’m getting, and I know I can live with it.
So my choice really for the next president is going to be very well thought out; I am between Barack and a familiar face.
Margaret, if your choice really “is going to be very well thought out,” then you’ll be voting for Hillary, not Obama.
Put the Kool-Aid down now, and start paying attention to what Obama is really saying — and not saying.
A few (quite a few) dumb-butts keep insisting that nobody other than “a few fringe gay activists” know, much less give a hoot, about Barack Obama’s continuing association with the anti-gay religionist brigades.
Well, listen up, dumb-butts: If you thought Obama’s hypocritical, two-faced, double-dealing, under-the-table, behind-the-scenes, low-down, dirty crap-o-rama was flying under the “mainstream” radar (how’s that for the most mixed metaphor in history?), here’s some news for you: You’re wrong. Again. And so’s your Saint Barry.
From CBS News, which found Carrie Budoff Brown’s piece from The Politico “valid” enough to pick up this morning:
Gay Community Still Wary Of Obama
. . .
“If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community,” Obama told 2,000 worshippers Sunday at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King once preached. “We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them.”
. . .
Yet … At the same time as Obama’s Sunday speech, gay bloggers were digging into the background of the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a spiritual adviser to President Bush who endorsed Obama a day earlier.
. . .
The twin developments appeared to encapsulate the tension inherent in Obama’s embrace of what he calls a new style of politics, his belief in forging alliances even with those who hold fundamentally different views.
In this case, he has spoken out against homophobia in front of black audiences while embracing some black religious leaders who are resistant to gay rights.
“People are confused,” said Wayne Besen, a gay activist and founder of Truth Wins Out, a New York organization aimed at countering the “ex-gay” movement. “We see one report of him saying powerful words. Then he is hanging out with some shady characters. People don’t know what to make of that.”
Wayne, darlin’, we love ya, we really do, but what “people” are you talking about when you say, “People are confused”? Obama cultists, perhaps, are confused, as they should be — but not one clear head that’s been following this stroke-Peter-while-screwing-Paul game Obama’s been playing has ever been “confused” in the least.
I’ve known “what to make” of Obama since the day he told us gay folks to STFU — no matter how long and loud and hard we protested, that self-loathing faux-”ex-gay” Donnie “Gays Are Trying to Kill Our Children” McClurkin was going onstage to woo the homophobes, no matter what (and woo he did).
By Monday, Caldwell’s church, Windsor Village United Methodist in Houston, scrubbed its Web site of any reference to the gay conversion program, Metanoia Ministry.
. . .
“I got to tell you, this is going to sound real stupid, but I didn’t know it was on our website,” Caldwell said. “I was surprised and embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed from the standpoint that I should have known. We have 120 ministries at the church. You can’t be on top of everything.”
When asked if he opposed such programs, Caldwell said: “It’s not a ministry of the church. It is not supported financially by the church. It is not located at the church. That is pretty much where I am with it.”
. . .
But blogosphere skepticism has persisted, in part because of this connection: Barbara Hicks, a church staff member and treasurer of the church’s Prayer Institute, is listed as the contact for Metanoia Ministry. She uses a church phone number and email address.
“That is my ministry,” Hicks said Tuesday when reached at her church office.
She directed further questions to Caldwell, who said Hicks “does it on her own.”
How stupid do these people think we are? Caldwell and Hicks are playing the “Go ask your mother / Go ask your father” game. And it stinks — to high heaven. If either of them were so secure in the rightness of their “ministry,” neither would try passing the blame off on the other.
And neither would disgust me half so much if they would accept responsibility for their hateful, anti-gay brainwashing “ministry.” I’ve got more respect for Fred Phelps — at least that crazy old bastard stands by every vile word he’s ever spat out of his brittle old chapped lips, and doesn’t blame his sickening actions on anyone else.
I’ve said the same about Huckabee and Romney and all the rest of the screw-the-gays Republican candidates: At least they make no bones about where they stand — and about what they’d like to do to me.
Or, to quote Duane Wells yet again: “I never thought I’d say this, but Mr. Obama’s duplicitous stance on gay and lesbian rights circa the Donnie McClurkin controversy has given me something of an appreciation for George W. Bush’s no-nonsense approach to politics. I may not agree with a thing that comes out of curious George’s mouth, but at least he doesn’t piss in my cornflakes and tell me that he filled the bowl with whole milk. No sir. If there is a good thing to be said about President Bush it’s that he will tell you he’s going to piss in your cornflakes, then he will actually piss in your cornflakes and then he will hold a press conference defending his right to piss in your cornflakes. There’s no deception. It’s honest and clear… whether you like it or not. With Obama that is unfortunately not the case.”
“It matters who you are endorsed by because these are the people who are going to be calling in favors,” Besen said. “The gay and lesbian community has the right to be disturbed when such individuals are standing up beside Obama.”
Read those words again: “It matters who you are endorsed by because these are the people who are going to be calling in favors.”
Damn right.
You hear that, all you Obamaites who keep whining like a bunch of little girls: “Obama’s not responsible for the views of everyone who endorses him!” Take off your blinders: If you believe that a candidate’s backers don’t expect — or get — anything in return for corraling votes and money for that candidate, then you don’t know the first thing about politics. That’s the way it works: You wash my back, I’ll wash yours. Why the hell do you think the Bushites have been courting the Radical Religious Right all these years?*
If you don’t understand that, then you’re too naive — or just too stupid — to vote this time around. Learn something about the world, and maybe by 2012 you’ll be ready to come join the grown-ups back in Realityville.
* And why do you think the RRR came thisclose to abandoning the GOP altogether? Because the GOP didn’t deliver, that’s why.
Now, don’t you Obamaites use that as an excuse to sing that old song that goes: “Obama’s just courting conservative Democrats. When he gets in office, he’ll lead the fight for gay equality!” That’s a pile of crap, and you know it; it’s the same damned song we hear every election cycle. And consider this: If Obama is making promises — to any group, including the Radical Right — that he has no intention of keeping, what does that say about his honesty?
A drunk driver who killed a cyclist in Arizona has been sentenced to ten years in jail after a judge heard a recording in which she laughed over the man’s death. Melissa Arrington, a exotic dancer from Tucson, killed Paul L’Ecuyer in 2006 while driving drunk.
L’Ecuyer was riding his bike in a bicycle lane on December 1st, 2006 when Arrington swerved off the road and struck him, according to the Times Online. L’Ecuyer was thrown into the bed of Arrington’s pickup, where he died. Arrington drove another 800ft before stopping her car.
…..
Arrington, 27, was convicted of two counts of aggravated DUI and negligent homicide in L’Ecuyer’s death. At the time she hit the cyclist, Arrington was driving on a suspended license for a previous DUI conviction. Arrington could have received as little as four years behind bars for the conviction, if not for a recorded conversation Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank called “breathtaking in its inhumanity.”
The telephone conversation, recorded been Arrington and a male friend a week after L’Ecuyer’s death, featured her talking and laughing about the crash. The man in the recording said Arrington should get a “medal and a f**king parade” for taking out a “tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot.” He then said he knew it was “a terrible thing to say” but Arrington laughed and responded, “No, It’s not.”
After hearing the tape, Cruickshank sentenced Arrington to 10 1/2 years in jail, one year less than the maximum sentence for negligent homicide, according to the Times Online. Cruikshank said in his ruling that Arrington has yet to take responsibility for her actions in L’Ecuyer’s death.
I can only hope she serves her entire sentence. Someone with so little regard for human life simply doesn’t belong on the streets. Sadly, though, she won’t likely develop any in prison and she’ll come out just as she went in.
Beautiful — just beautiful. We wish Al had seen the light years ago, but better late than never… and while we’ve always liked, respected, and admired Al, now we love the guy, without condition:
Not like that’s any big surprise. Joke’s on Freddie & Co., ‘though — the Westboro Asshats— er, Baptists have no idea where Ledger’s funeral is to be held, although it would make sense that it would be in the actor’s hometown of Perth… Australia. (Go ahead, Fred! Take the whole damn klan overseas — we’d bet money your psychotic bunch will never get past the good folks of the Australian Customs Service.)
A fundamentalist church whose members demonstrate at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and believe God hates gays will protest the Academy Awards and the funeral of Heath Ledger, because the actor played a gay cowboy in the 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain.”
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., are trying to find out where the 28-year-old actor’s funeral will be held and have already made signs to hold outside the Oscars that read “God Hates Fags and Fag Enablers,” “Heath in Hell” and “Mourn for Your Sins,” Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church’s controversial founder Pastor Fred Phelps, told ABCNEWS.com.
Though Ledger was not gay, the church believes he “misused the giant megaphone given to him by God Almighty to speak the truth about fags,” Phelps-Roper said, and instead “used his position of prominence to say God is a liar and that homosexuality is not an abomination.”
The time and location of the Ledger’s funeral remain unknown, but it is widely believed it will take place in the actor’s native Australia.
“They are going to try and hide the body like a bunch of ghouls so we can’t protest. The only thing in this country people worship more than filthy sex acts is the dead,” Phelps-Roper said.
She said members of the church had already purchased plane tickets to picket outside the Oscars, scheduled for Feb. 24 in Hollywood.
A press release posted to the church’s Web site, godhatesfags.com, reads: “Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there — besides which, nothing else about Heath Ledger is relevant or consequential.”
“The group is made up of people who are almost literally out of their minds” … “I doubt there is anyone in America who thinks more about gay sex than Fred Phelps,” Potok said.
BE IN A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE AND HELP RE-CREATE A PART OF SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY
On Monday night, February 4th and Friday night, February 8th, the feature film MILK (directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk) will be re-creating three 1970’s marches through the Castro.
We are looking for volunteers to appear in the these marches in the film. THERE ARE NO AUDITIONS. IF YOU SIGN-UP ON THIS SITE AND SHOW UP, YOU WILL BE USED. All ages, races and genders are welcome. But, you MUST be 18 or over to participate.
Filming will take place from 7pm - midnight on Monday night at Castro & Market and from 9pm - 3am on Friday night at Market & Franklin. Come either or both nights.
As a thank you for participating, we will host a screening for the marchers of the documentary THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK on Monday, February 4th at the Castro Theater at 4:30pm, with introductions by the filmmaker, Rob Epstein, Cleve Jones, Gus Van Sant, and members of the cast. The filming will begin immediately after the screening.
Buffy and I will be there… and I expect to have no trouble finding appropriate “70s wardrobe”; the old corduroys and tobacco Adidas are the only things left in my closet from the 1970s.
Mind you, we have no illusions about the “glamour” of being extras in a movie; it’s going to consist of a lot of long, torturous waiting around. It’s that we want very much, to contribute to this movie, in whatever way we can. I can’t began to describe to anyone who didn’t live through the horror (especially in the San Francisco Bay Area) just how devastating a milestone Harvey’s death and its aftermath was — or, more importantly, how uplifting and motivational Harvey’s legacy is.
By the way, it’s easy to see why they’re putting out an open call like this, and telling you to tell your friends — do you remember just how huge those marches were? I do:
I’m also hoping they’ll need lots of warm bodies to recreate the White Night riots, too:
At least I avoided using the word “shooting” in the title of this entry, unlike SFist, which, despite the unfortunate word choice in its headline, “Penn to Hit Castro Bars as Milk Shooting Starts,” reports some great news about Gus Van Sant’s upcoming Milk:
Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre … and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk’s camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that ’70s vibe.
This deb-u-lesbian-te of the Golden Age of Coming Out (that’s the late 1970s for you young-uns) in the Gay Mecca (San Francisco, for those who have been living under a rock for the past few decades) says: Cool!
Well, sort of cool. As welcome a 70s-flashback as it will be to see the Castro as I remember it in those heady pre-AIDS days when my best gay boyfriend Gary and I used to hang out around the grown-up gays in The City (we were about 17 at the time), seeing even a block of the neighborhood as it was will probably send a sharp pang of grief and loss through my heart. It will probably feel like looking at pictures of the World Trade Center.
But enough about me (what do you think of my new outfit?). Other news about Milk (starring, in case you haven’t heard, Sean Penn as the doomed supervisor), due for release sometime in 2009:
• The wonderful Victor Garber, who’s come a long, long way from playing a New York City Jesus in 1973’s Godspell. (After Titanic, we can’t help but think of him as Sid Luft opposite Judy Davis’ amazing portrayal of Judy Garland in the 2001 made-for-TV movie, Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.)
• The mesmerisingly beautiful Diego Luna, star of Y Tu Mama Tambien, who, alongside his Y Tu co-star and now business partner, Gael Garcia Bernal, has emerged as a dedicated human-rights activist in the actors’ native Mexico.
• The very busy Denis O’Hare (who appeared in at least half a dozen movies in 2007, in addition to a recurring role on ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters“).
It’s no secret that the Obama cult is creeping us out. In meatspace conversations, I’ve opined, many times, that while Obama himself may not be entirely responsible for the drooling infatuation of far too many slack-jawed, glassy-eyed Obamaniacs (who react with sheer hostility when you ask them to cut the “He’s so inpirational!” crap and actually define their idol’s policies), he’s not doing anything to tamp down the frenzy, either.
You have to wonder what “inspires” this kind of cult-like frenzy in the first place. Obviously, there’s something The Man is saying, or doing, that taps into some primeval instinct devoid of rationale. Do they implant chips in Obamaniacs’ brains at every rally? Are they beaming some sort of subliminal signal through the TV during Obama’s speeches that turns viewers’ brains to mush? Whatever it is, I’m immune to it. Thank God.
Chip implants and Halloween III-like mind control aside, it’s now clear that the Obama campaign is indeed fully aware of what it’s doing, and responsible in great part for the unthinking, unblinking, mindless worship.
From the January 21 edition of the Sacramento Bee:
Volunteers told to share personal conversion stories with voters - not policy views.
In a storefront on Q Street in Sacramento, Kim Mack told a crowd that spilled out onto the sidewalk how she came to back Barack Obama.
With a son serving in the Iraq war, which she opposed, Mack was looking for a like-minded presidential candidate. She was impressed by the Illinois senator’s books.
But the clincher came on March 17, when she met the Democratic contender face to face. She describes how he lit up the room with his wide smile, shook her hand and thanked her for volunteering.
“He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words,” said Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear – she was so thrilled she doesn’t remember what it was.
Then Mack brought home the point of her story for the crowd of 100 or so eager volunteers, sipping coffee and watching a PowerPoint presentation in the Obama campaign office on a recent Saturday.
“Did that make more impact on you than if I had talked about his health care plan or his stance on the environment?” she asked.
On the verge of a hectic few weeks leading to Super Tuesday, the crucial Feb. 5 multistate primary including California’s, Mack wanted to drill home one of the campaign’s key strategies: telling potential voters personal stories of political conversion.
She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama – something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.
Whoa… “how they came to Obama“?
You come to Jesus — you don’t come to Obama.
“Work on that, refine that, say it in the mirror,” she said. “Get it down.”
She told the volunteers that potential voters would no doubt confront them with policy questions. Mack’s direction: Don’t go there. Refer them to Obama’s Web site, which includes enough material to sate any wonk.
So that’s where that comes from! By “that,” I mean: Every time I confront an Obama supporter with the dreaded question, “Hope for what? Change what? What, exactly, is Obama’s plan for [healthcare / Iraq / the economy / name your favorite issue]?” the answer is, without exception: “It’s all on his Web site. Go read his Web site. He explains everything on his Web site.”
(This, of course, is always followed immediately by some variation of “Why don’t you want CHANGE?! Don’t you have any HOPE?!” in a shrill register bordering on hysteria.)
The idea behind the personal narratives is to reclaim “values” politics from the Republican Party, said Marshall Ganz, a one-time labor organizer for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers who developed “Camp Obama” training sessions for volunteers.
“Camp Obama”? Good Lord.
When people tell their stories of how they made choices and what motivates them, they communicate their values, Ganz said in an interview.
“Values are not just concepts, they’re feelings,” Ganz said. “That’s what dropped out of Democratic politics sometime in the ’70s or ’80s.”
That’s the problem: Obama supporters are basing what may be the most important vote of their lives on feelings. Feelings! Not issues! Feelings!
Working as a precinct captain is “easy,” according to one of several campaign Web sites.
“Just follow Barack’s lead and be honest with them,” the Web site advises. “You don’t need to debate policy or discuss the day’s headlines. You have a very personal reason for investing your time and energy in this campaign – that is the most compelling story you can tell.”
Indeed, participants in the Saturday morning precinct-captain training were already adept at telling their Obama-conversion stories. …
Jesus Christ — and I really do mean Jesus Christ — “conversion stories” are for born-again Christians, not political activists.
Are you afraid yet? Very, very afraid? I am.
J.P. Maurice brought his two sons to the event. Not only did they learn to be precinct captains, but the two sons also registered to vote for the first time.
Like many at the event, Maurice, 50, said he had not felt as excited about a candidate in his lifetime and is eager to spread the word.
Spread the word. Personal conversion stories. Come to Obama.
1. Kirbyjon Caldwell — spiritual adviser to George W. Bush, pastor of Houston’s Windsor Village United Methodist Church, and senior pastor of “ex-gay” brainwashing program Metanoia Ministries — announces his endorsement for Barack Obama, and says he plans to campaign for Obama, apparently with the blessings of the Obama campaign: “I have been in contact with the Obama campaign team,” he said. “I will be making visits on his behalf.”
3. I receive an email from a reader called “dbdors” whose panties are all in a twist because the link to Caldwell’s anti-gay ministry page (in this post) doesn’t work. Twisted-Panty Reader accuses me of lying, and concludes, predictably, that I must just be a Hillary supporter anyway:
It is a sad day in America when people resort to lies and plain fraud to discredit someone becasue of their choice of canditate.
Could you please explain why I cannot link to this website via www.kingdombuilders.com??? When I go to “care groups”, there is no such site.
Why is it that a Google search brings back a bad link? I know, it’s because you made this up!!
Why is it that I can’t register for the blog and leave a comment? I know, you don’t want any facts posted!!!
You want Hillary elected really bad don’t you!!
I read the email out loud to my better half, and as soon as we finish laughing, I reply to the Obamabot, mostly because I want to know what the heck “care groups” are. (So far, my hysterical little correspondent hasn’t responded.) I also explain that s/he did just leave a comment. Duh!
(P.S. to “dbdors”: You should be grateful I don’t sue your butt off for libel, twerp.)
4. I check the link to Caldwell’s anti-gay ministry page, and find it missing. Or, more accurately, it’s been scrubbed — deleted, suicided, tossed into the memory hole, gone — *poof!* — as nonexistent as Obama’s plan for a workable healthcare system.
6. But, thanks to the wonders of The Wayback Machine, I resurrect the original page from the dead. Some of the images are broken, so I check the properties of each broken image, figure out its original URL, copy the missing images directly from the live Kingdombuilders site, and reconstruct the page completely. I then tuck away the reconstructed page in case it’s no longer available on The Wayback Machine.
I also discover that the text of the original page is still on the Kingdombuilders site, in PDF form. (I save a copy of that, too.)
I also discover that a linked MSN Group (which may or may not have been affiliated with Caldwell’s church — but they liked it enough to link it), “The African American Recovery Corner” — has also mysteriously vanished.
Still, a directory listing at CrossDaily.com shows us the description of the group, presumably submitted by whoever ran it:
Site URL: http://groups.msn.com/TheAfricanAmericanRecoveryKornerTheArk Title: The African American Recovery Korner Description: An Christian support group for those seeking freedom from homosexuality. Although we believe that no one chooses to have homosexual desires, we do believe that you can choose to change your identity. Top Category: Ministries & Organizations Subcategory: Support Groups City: Riverside State/Prov./Region: California Country: United States Start Date: February 2, 2006 (719 days)…
(Heh… Couldn’t get enough momentum to keep your self-loathing homophobe group going a whole year, eh? *snort*)
I decide to search for other scrubbed pages, but before I start, I see that, in the meantime…
7.John Aravosis writes about the Caldwell dust-up, but concludes that there’s nothing to see here, so move along — and adds that “on this one we can give him [Obama] a pass” (I disagree, but I’ll take that up some other time):
I’ve talked to the Obama campaign about this, and they assure me of a few things:
1. Caldwell has not, and will not, be asked to do anything for the campaign (and this means, we hope, that Obama won’t be doing appearances with the man any time soon).
2. Caldwell was simply wrong when he told the papers this weekend that the campaign asked him to travel around the country on their behalf. In other words, Caldwell was freelancing when he called the paper for an interview.
My Skept-O-Meter is tweaked. I don’t doubt a word John says, but something smells fishy, and it’s coming from the Obama camp — where the people who run things either have a very short memory, or think you do. From the Washington Post, October 29, 2007:
“He’s more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ,” said Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Houston pastor who was on the tour and is backing on Obama.
The “he” Caldwell was talking about was Barack Obama. The “tour” was — you guessed it — Obama’s “Embrace the Homophobia Change” gospel tour.
“So?” the Obamaites will cry in unison. “It was one concert! Caldwell probably just got all fired up over Obama and went too far in saying he was ‘campaigning’ for Obama, when he’s never campaigned for him before!”
“Then,” I’ll respond, “I guess you’d better write to Washington Times reporter Christina Bellantoni and ask her if she was lying when she wrote this on December 3, 2007 — after the gospel tour, and before the South Carolina primaries”:
Religious leaders to hold Obama event
I hear that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign will be doing a big event in Charleston, S.C., with several prominent black religious leaders in the morning.
Among them will be Kirbyjon Caldwell, the Methodist minister who delivered the inaugural prayer for President Bush and is a longtime friend and spiritual adviser to the president. Mr. Caldwell has been campaigning for Obama all year.
Ahem.
No, we’re not done with this Obama-Caldwell matter yet. There are more interesting things I’ll share with you shortly, but I want to get this entry up now.
I tell you, ‘though: The more I dig, the curiouser and curiouser this story gets.
But first, I want you to read something: a quote that prefaces the very first chapter of Chris Hedges’ amazing book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America. I’ll be referring to American Fascists a good deal as well in upcoming posts, but for now, I’d like you to focus on this quote (I mean, really focus, letting the meaning of each sentence seep into your bones), from The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Re-read it a few times. Let it roll around in the back of your head for a while.
MCCLURKIN REDUX: Kirbyjon Caldwell, Pastor who will campaign for Obama, leads “EX-GAY” MINISTRY
I cannot believe this is happening AGAIN.
Kirbyjon Caldwell, former “spiritual adviser” to George W. Bush, will campaign for Barack Obama.
From the Houston Chronicle:
The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, longtime spiritual adviser to President George W. Bush and senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, plans to campaign on behalf of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
Caldwell said Saturday that he’s endorsing Obama’s presidential campaign because of the senator’s “character, confidence and courage.”
. . .
The pastor, however, said he has informed his congregation of his presidential choice and that Obama may even pay a visit to his church.
“I have been in contact with the Obama campaign team,” he said. “I will be making visits on his behalf.”
Caldwell, who gave the benediction at both of President Bush’s inaugurations, said he personally called the president to tell him of his decision. Bush, he said, was “OK” with it. His presidential choice will not affect their relationship, Caldwell said.
In fact, Caldwell has already been on the campaign trail for Obama. His name was overlooked at the time, but a little digging reveals that Caldwell was also part of Obama’s S.C. gospel tour featuring “ex-gay” bigot Donnie McClurkin:
At the event, McClurkin said more about himself than the man who the concert was supposed to help, Obama. But the singer said the candidate “is standing for change” and “a man not afraid to bring different opinions to the stage.”
In fact, for all the criticism on the left for President Bush mixing faith with politics, some of the speakers essentially described voting for Obama as akin to a religious cause.
“He’s more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ,” said Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Houston pastor who was on the tour and is backing on Obama.
Here’s the kicker: CALDWELL IS THE SENIOR PASTOR OF METANOIA MINISTRIES, AN OUTFIT WHOSE WEBSITE ADVERTISES “A PROGRAM CREATED TO PROVIDE CHRIST CENTERED INSTRUCTION FOR THOSE SEEKING FREEDOM FROM HOMOSEXUALITY, LESBIANISM, PROSTITUTION, SEX ADDICTION AND OTHER HABITUAL SINS.”
METANOIA is apparently an offshoot of United Methodist Church.
This is actually WORSE than McClurkin. This man actually RUNS an organization that ministers to youth to “cure” them of their sexual orientation. These organizations result in severe psychological trauma and death to GLBT youth not to mention an environment that encourages violence and discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people. Obama supporters: tell your candidate that it is UNACCEPTABLE to have this man campaign for Obama again, no matter how much he “disagrees” with his message. This is the last straw, and if Obama allows this man to appear on his behalf I will do EVERYTHING in my power, including campaign for his opponents, to work against his candidacy.
This is so not over, folks. We’re going to be digging deep into Caldwell’s operation, and reporting to you what we find.
There’s little I can say that hasn’t already been said in the wake of Barack’s love-fest with Ronald Reagan, in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal (given in order to gain the paper’s endorsement) — except: If you don’t understand the outrage, you’re either too young to remember, or appreciate, the enormity of the damage Reagan and his nest of freedom-hating vipers inflicted on America — and don’t give a damn about learning your nation’s history — or you were a Reagan voter who’s still in denial.
For the rest of us still trying to heal from the Reagan Era, this is what the fuss is all about — or, more accurately, this is what Obama is all about:
Ronald Reagan More Effective Than Bill Clinton:
“I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
Obama did not specify what he believes those “excesses” were. But Reagan is widely credited with leading a rightwing backlash against the gains of the civil rights and feminist movements that preceded his 1980 election.
Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement. The libertarian anti-government ideology of an unaccountable large liberal government was designed by ideological conservatives to take advantage of the backlash against these ‘excesses’.
What about the civil rights movement, which had a huge effect on the ’60s. Was that an excess? Were people who protested the Vietnam War, because they felt it was fundamentally wrong, much the same as many of us feel concerning Iraq, an excess? What about the strong feminism movement? Was that an excess? Or how about the new found concern of the environment? Was that an excess too?
His narrative completely excludes stagflation, high gas prices, and the hostage crisis in Iran. Think they might have been factors in the 1980 election?
He also fails to reconcile the fact that Reagan won just 50.7% of the vote in 1980 (his landslide was in 1984) with his theory that there was a unified national mood.
He also fails to explain why, if the nation was so unified, 1980 saw one of the strongest third-party campaigns in 20th century American history.
Moreover, Obama ignores the racism that was fundamental to Ronald Reagan’s campaign. Recall that Reagan began his campaign with a call for state’s rights in Philadelphia, MS.
He [Reagan] was openly — openly — intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment.
I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.
Sen. John Edwards January 17, 2008
[Reagan] never did make a similar peace with the “welfare queens” he fabricated out of whole cloth to push his anti-compassionate conservatism. Nor with the African Americans he insulted by launching his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were slaughtered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Nor with the Berkeley students demonstrating in a closed-off plaza whom he ordered tear-gassed by helicopter in 1969.
Nor, last but not least, with the tens of thousands of AIDS corpses whose disease he did not even deign to publicly acknowledge until 1987.
When I think about the 60s and the 70s, I think about Medicaid, Medicare, the Environmental Protection Agency, Community Development Block Grants… It’s astounding to me to have this blanket endorsement of a right wing attack.
When he says government in effect grew too much in the 60s and 70s… Reagan agreed with that. This is not simply a tribute to Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric but an endorsement of some of the substance.
Barney Frank (D-Mass.) Conference call January 18, 2008
Republicans: The Party of Ideas
“I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there… over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.”
So I suppose that means George Bush (past 7 years), had some good ideas? I suppose he thinks Bob Dole’s ideas were better than Clinton’s in ‘96? Does he think Gingrich had the right ideas in the ’90s?
The Republicans were the party of ideas for the last 10 to 15 years, because they were challenging conventional wisdom? OK, now I’m completely boggled. Is Obama talking about the same GOP I know — the Republican party of Tom DeLay and George Bush? The party in which candidates compete to see who can do the best Reagan impersonation? This is the party that’s challenging conventional wisdom? What’s going on here?
Paul Krugman Reagan and Obama The Conscience of a Liberal January 17, 2008
That’s not the way I remember the last 10 to 15 years.
I don’t think it’s a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don’t think it’s a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don’t think it’s a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to medicare recipients. I don’t think it’s a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt.
Sen. Hillary Clinton Conference call January 18, 2008
The Republicans have been the party of ideas for the past ten to fifteen years? Including the last seven years of Bill Clinton’s administration? Really, Mr. Obama?
So just what did William Jefferson Clinton do for blacks and Latinos?
Since the economy is the hot topic these days, let’s just look at what President Clinton did for minorities in terms of economic gains. …
Unemployment Rate for African Americans and Hispanics Remains Historically Low. Under President Clinton and Vice President Gore, the Hispanic unemployment rate has dropped from 11.3 percent in January 1993 to a record low of 5.8 percent in March 1999. The unemployment rate for African Americans has fallen from 14.1 percent in January 1993 to 8.1 percent in March 1999 — one of the lowest levels on record for African Americans.
Here are additional economic accomplishments of the Clinton/Gore administration — as of 1999 (during the administration’s second term) — that also had a direct positive effect for minorities…
. . .
Listen, Mr. Obama. If you think that President Clinton and Vice President Gore accomplished those amazing turnarounds for the economy and for minorities by singing “Kumbayah” with Republicans, you’ve just shown how naive you are.
And you’ve exposed how uninformed you are about the brutal history of U.S. politics where every progressive step is spattered with the blood, sweat and tears of all who fought so hard for those gains.
How we yearn for those 1990s that you dismiss, Mr. Obama.
[The interview] also re-aroused my suspicions that Obama is not a real Democrat, given as he is to touting GOP talking points on Social Security and presenting far weaker economic stimulus and health care plans than his rivals. Are his real political views more like Reagan’s than the Democraty party’s? It’s quite possible.
Worst of all, it reminded me of Obama’s dreamy attitude about the presidency. He thinks he can just be the “vision” guy and get “smarter people” around himself, and that the governing will take care of itself.
Never mind that George W. Bush — taking off where Ronald Reagan began — has decimated all key federal agencies of their most experienced staffers and devastated the agencies’ budgets, so much so that some will have to be rebuilt from the ground up.
JedReport was unable to reach Newt Gingrich, the chief intellectual of the Republican Party for comment. JedReport was able to confirm that Albert Gore, has had an idea or two over the last fifteen years, however.
Not “Invested” in the 1960s, Yet Can Read Baby Boomers’ Minds (Oh, and By the Way, the Boomers Can Go to Hell)
“I didn’t I didn’t come of age in the battles of the 60s, so I’m not as invested in them. So I think I talk differently about issues and I think I talk differently about values, and that’s why… um, I-I think we’ve been resonating with the American people.
“I think… And, by the way, when I say this sometimes, it’s-it’s interpreted as ‘I don’t think anybody who’s a Baby Boomer should be president’ — that’s not what I’m saying, but what i’m saying is… I think the average Baby Boomer has moved beyond a lot of the arguments of the 60s but our politicans haven’t. We’re still having the same arguments, you know, it’s all around cultural wars and it’s all, you know, even when you discuss war, you know, the frame of reference is all Vietnam — well, that’s not my frame of reference, you know, my frame of reference is what works. And my— even when I first opposed the war in Iraq, my first line was: ‘I don’t oppose all wars.’ You know… it… it… specifically to make clear this is not just a… anti-military, you know, 70s love-in kind of approach.”
In one fell swoop, Obama disparages the success-filled, non-stop efforts of millions of people during the 1960s and 1970s…
News flash: Barack Obama isn’t invested in the 1960s. No kidding. He’s not invested in reality either.
. . .
The 1970s peace movement helped stop the Vietnam war. It’s what drew John Kerry to the Senate to give one of the most electrifying speeches from a military veteran in U.S. history.
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The cult of personality of Reagan, now Obama, has another thing in common. The arrogance to seduce the masses into believing something that isn’t so. Obama is convinced that Reagan was transformational, but misses on what grounds that transformation occurred.
That Obama made his case by attacking the “anti-military” Democratic rabble who Reagan also blamed for bringing this country to its knees in the 70s, because of the peaceniks’ love-in kind of approach, which was the in thing after the carnage of the Vietnam war, without realizing what he’s doing proves Mr. Obama’s cluelessness.
Reagan was the antithesis of “an anti-military, you know, 70s love-in kind of approach.” Now we find out that Obama is too. Who’s going to tell John Kerry?
Good Grief! That’s Me on the Left January 18, 2008
Astounding isn’t it? Yep, let’s put the guy who brought us “Iran-Contra, “Star Wars,” and “the largest deficits then ever known” up on a pedastal and claim he transformed this nation with “clarity” and “optimism.”
“One of the things I’m very proud of about this campaign is that I think we’ve already changed the political dialogue. When you think about it, you know, when Mitt Romney starts talking like me — which wasn’t the case… You have somebody like Huckabee who is doing very well basically taking a similar tone… I think we are shifting the political paradigm here.”
He was talking about the very same Mitt Romney who has spent more money on attack ads than all the other presidential candidates combined. Just over two weeks ago, CNN reported:
Two negative ads recently launched by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has spent more on advertising than any other candidate, either misrepresent his rival’s records or include distortions, according to a CNN analysis of the commercials. (emphasis added)
This is the man who Barack Obama proudly cites as evidence he has brought about a shift in political paradigms?
. . .
Confused? So am I. I honestly have no idea what in the hell Obama is talking about.
It’s either another one of Obama’s completely meaningless bloviations or a political analysis conducted on a geometric plane I’ve never heard of before (perhaps for those times when triangulation just won’t do).
Mind you, I’m not saying that Obama didn’t put on a fine display of triangulation in the video. …
After Obama’s Reagan love-in, a quote I posted January 16 from Ed Pilkington is, if not prescient, far more pertinent than ever:
“Look further back still and the pattern is repeated. In 1990, while a second-year student at Harvard, [Obama] had the audacity to stand for election to head the Harvard Law Review, one of the country’s most prestigious legal publications. He beat off 18 other candidates to become its president (savor the moment: He was elected president Obama).
“David Goldberg, a civil rights lawyer who was a runner-up in that poll, recalls that Obama won by reaching out to right-wing law students, several of whom went on to become key legal advisers in the Bush administration: ‘We were a really polarized group of students, and he managed to span us all.’”
Notice a pattern yet?
Reagan — the Hollywood red-baiter who rose from president of the Screen Actors Guild to president of the United States even though he was already senile. Reagan who gave us tax cuts and “trickle down” economics that didn’t work — except for the rich and richer and richest. Reagan who let “mommy” (Nancy) run the white house with the aid of her astrologer. Reagan whose horse was smarter than he was.
Give me a break. One of the most disgusting sights in recent years was the genuflecting before this total fraud that went on at his funeral. And the hypocritical bullshit being trumpeted by the networks! Where were all the actors and writers and directors whose lives he ruined? I guess they were dead. But — what, me worry? — in America nobody knows one crumb of history, so Ronald Reagan’s vicious red baiting, how he rose to prominence by smearing other actors and writers and directors, was totally forgotten.
I suppose Mr. Obama has forgotten too — scholar of history that he is. Perhaps he was not alive in the 50s so he knows nothing about it — the Army-McCarthy hearings, the smearing of creative artists who donated to Spanish Civil War Relief even though they were not “card-carrying” communists. They happened, like my parents, and their friends, to have given money to help little Spanish children, orphaned by the Spanish Civil War — and ever after they trembled lest Ronnie Reagan and his ilk witch-hunt them.
Nowadays, as we grapple with the malevolence of President Bush, it’s Reagan we remember as the sensible one. At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, let memory at least acknowledge that there was much about Reagan that was not so sensible.
It’s not just more evidence that Obama was willing to say whatever it took to get the conservative editorial board to endorse him. It’s worse. It’s much worse.
It is further evidence that not only does Obama have no sense of the history of the last half of the 20th century — wait until you see the video below the fold — but also that he really is as conservative as his weak health care plan and far weaker economic stimulus plan have hinted. (Then there’s his use of GOP scare-tactic talking points on Social Security, and how he has been embraced by the right — including George Will who last year compared Obama to Ronald Reagan…
On the issue of Obama’s lack of “investment” in the struggles of the 1960s and 70s, and his obvious lack of personal experience of recent American history, here’s another quote from my post of January 16:
“Despite his skin color versus mine, I am not at all convinced that Barack Obama’s ties to the Civil Rights era equate with mine; when my snow-white third-grade class was being introduced to our first black classmate, Obama was living in Indonesia. We both attended Catholic school — but somehow, I cannot imagine that young Barack was inundated by the issue of American race relations (on the news, in the movies, on the cover of newsweeklies, and in lengthy class discussions — yes, even before my age reached double digits) as I was.
. . .
“I wasn’t quite four when the Watts riots exploded — and exploded with such repercussion that I remember them as well as I remember the endless news footage of the Vietnam War, and the nightly body count out of Southeast Asia.
Does Obama remember any of this? Did he even hear about it before he returned to the U.S. at the age of ten — when even the Summer of Love was a quickly-fading memory?”
Liberals always talk as if only the conservatives of our own generation were scary, and the conservatives of a previous generation kind of cuddly. Not helpful. Reagan really did almost blow the world up.
Look, I know this is weedy stuff and probably doesn’t matter to the average voter under the age of 45. But to long time liberals who lived through this period as an adult, it’s like waving a red flag in our faces. Reagan ran explicitly against the left (and in the process normalized the kind of indecent talk that made Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter millionaires.) Because he won big in 1984, leaders in both parties accepted this omnipotent Reagan myth and have run against liberalism ever since — and have ended up, through both commission and omission, advancing the destructive conservative policies that brought us to a place where we are debating things like torture. It would be helpful if ending the era of Democrats running against the liberal base could be part of this new progressive “trajectory.”
Some of us also remember the early devastating AIDS epidemic sweeping through the gay community without a word of support, comfort, or recognition from Ronald Reagan.
Some of us remember the lies about “Welfare Queens” he used to justify horrible callous, usually racist rhetoric about vulnerable fellow citizens.
Some of us remember illegal drugs sold on the streets of our cities to pay for illegal arms to the Contras and torturers and death-squads, while Nancy piously suggested we “Just Say No” as the racist War on Drugs ramped up here.
Some of us remember that an extreme minority of anti-democratic fundamentalist zealots started calling themselves “The Moral Majority” in the Reagan years.
Some of us remember Reagan telling us “government is the problem” and then seeing to it that whenever Republicans are in charge they would damn well prove it.
Some of us remember how Reagan sold the lie that giving to the rich and taking from the poor would create prosperity that would “trickle down” to the poor anyway.
Some of us remember Reagan tearing down Carter’s solar panels from the White House and his choice of James Watt as environment secretary.
Some of us remember “Ronbo” belligerently making war noises, throwing his weight around, and joking about nuclear strikes.
Some of us remember PATCO, and Reagan’s war on the unions that created a democratizing middle class (even if it never managed to extend to people of color as it so urgently needed to do).
Ronald Reagan was an evil bastard and he set the stage for the even worse Killer Clowns of the present Administration.
Feel good bullshit about the affable Gipper is dishonest and dangerous and damaging and we will not stand for it.
No, Ronald Reagan didn’t appeal to people’s optimism, he appealed to their petty, small minded bigotry and selfishness. Jimmy Carter told people to tighten their energy belts and act for the good of the country; Ronald Reagan told them they could guzzle gas with impunity and do whatever the hell they wanted. He kicked off his 1980 campaign talking about “state’s rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi — the site of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964’s Freedom Summer. He thus put up a welcome sign for “Reagan Democrats,” peeling off white voters who were unhappy with the multi-ethnic coalition within the Democratic Party.
One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 — one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century. And his vision of deregulation didn’t free the country up for entrepreneurship, it opened it up for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis. He popularized the notion that all government is bad government and in eight short years put in place the architecture for decades of GOP graft and corruption.
There’s enough hagiography of Reagan on the right, I don’t think Democrats really need to go there.
…if you think, as Obama does, that Reagan’s rise to power was premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, then you don’t understand the conservative movement. Reagan tapped into greed and fear and tribalism, and those are powerful forces. Ignoring that isn’t going to make them go away.
It’s not as if nobody saw this coming — the warnings were there, over and over and over again. Did anyone think the Donnie McClurkin flap was an isolated incident? The easy dismissal of the Baby Boomers? The attack on church-state separatists?
(What “attack on church-state separatists,” you ask? Better you should ask, “Which attack on church-state separatists?” But here’s just one example, from his keynote address at the Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New America conference: “At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word ‘Christian’ describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.” Nice job broadbrushing those of us who believe in Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” as a bunch of Christian-haters, Obama.)
Here are just a few — a very few — of the warning signs (note the dates):
Just before U.S. Sen. Barack Obama admitted on the TV television program “Meet the Press” last fall that he was thinking about a run for the presidency, host Tim Russert asked him to define a great president.
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Then, waxing more philosophical, Obama addressed the broader, cultural significance. “When I think about great presidents,” he said, “I think about those who transform how we think about ourselves as a country in fundamental ways so that, at the end of their tenure, we have looked and said to ourselves, that’s who we are. And … you know, there are circumstances in which I would argue Ronald Reagan was a very successful president.”
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In terms of political philosophy, professional background and racial heritage, Obama and Reagan are distinctly different, one a figure of the new century and the other a representative of the previous one.
Look more closely, however, and you see a number of striking parallels between the young senator contemplating a White House campaign and the late, Illinois-born two-term president. …
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Are such parallels predictive? Of course not. The disparity between Reagan and Obama in governmental experience is profound. Eight years as governor of the country’s most populous state is executive training that eight years in the Illinois state Senate and less than a full term in the U.S. Senate could never offer. And other differences abound.
But the intriguing similarities reveal two political figures possessing common traits, including vivid personalities with rare skill in connecting with the public. Both, in their ways, speak American, the distinctive dialect of the nation’s ideals and yearnings. Reassuring smiles and welcome wit of self-deprecating humor notwithstanding, electoral ambition is an animating drive for each.
In Reagan’s case, it took three campaigns spanning 12 years to reach the White House. Will Obama’s future follow such a course? His much-anticipated decision about 2008 will start to answer that question.
I recommend that every Dem read Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” and read it with a critical eye.
I didn’t know much about Obama so I bought the book. It was an eye-opener.
He is laudatory of Ronald Reagan for his involvement in ending the Cold War. He makes no mention of the bloated military budget taking down the Soviet Union.
He says “Bush won two elections”. There is no mention of election fraud in either Florida or Ohio. He tells stories about first meeting Bush; he definitely was taken in by Bush’s “folksy” charm.
He refers to the “bankruptcy of socialism”.
He claims the press is only “distracted” not bought.
His discussion of 9/11 says nothing about questions disputing the “official” story of how it happened.
I found enough in it to give me pause about Obama, especially since he’s running a campaign on personality as opposed to policy.
That Reagan’s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them. For the fact was government at every level had become to cavalier about spending taxpayer money. Too often bureaucracies were oblivious to the cost of their mandates. A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities. Reagan may have exagerrated the sins of the welfare state, and certainly liberals were right to complain that his domestic policies tilted heavily toward elites, with corporate raiders making tidy profits throughout the eighties while unions were busted and the income for the average working stiff flatlined.
Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster.
pp. 156-157:
The conservative revolution Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan’s central insight — that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing he pie — contained a good deal of truth.
As SusanUnPC wrote two days ago: “If that not-a-real-Democrat gets nominated, I’ll be watching ‘Mourning in America.’
“And so will all those young people so smitten with Barack Obama now.”
Here’s a nice, long thread at Democratic Underground that spells out many (’though hardly all) the reasons Ronald Reagan was the devil incarnate. Read it and weep, Obamaites — for that two-faced Janus you call a candidate, for your own naïveté, and most of all for the country you’re so willing to give up to the dogs — again:
…from a Reagan defender who admits he’s “too young to remember most of Reagan’s years, but… The research I’ve done indicates that he did not start any significant wars during the 80’s. He was very poised and did not act based on knee-jerk reactions.”
(The poster, thank goodness, has since been banned from DU.)
Are there any Obama cultists who don’t get it yet? Well, get this: You’re getting PLAYED, suckers.
No word yet as to whether this is a potential hate crime.
(Miami, Florida) Miami-Dade police are searching for a 20-year old man in connection with the murder of an elderly gay man who had taken him into his home.
The body of Alexio Bello, 68, was found by his housekeeper. An autopsy showed he had been stabbed to death.
The apartment had been ransacked and a pair of bloody shoes were found near the body.
The housekeeper identified the shoes as belonging to Jorge Espinoza Navarette, a young homeless man who Bello had taken in.
Police as identified Navarette as a “person of interest” in the case but he seemingly has disappeared.
…..
Borelli called on anybody who had information about the murder to call police.
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