Before Super Tuesday, when all the candidates for the Democratic nomination I would have preferred to vote for pulled out, the lineup — and the order in which I would have voted for them in the primaries — was:
• Dennis Kucinich • Mike Gravel • Bill Richardson (yes, despite the LOGO debate and the maricon remark) • Chris Dodd • Joe Biden • John Edwards • Hillary Rodham Clinton • Barack Obama
Not that it even begins to compensate for my deep unhappiness with the President we ended up getting, but I am glad to see that my instincts remain trustworthy. After the three actual liberals at the top of the list, I liked Dodd for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he made noises — not direct statements, but low rumbles — indicating he wasn’t such a hard-ass when it came to LGBT equality, particularly on marriage.
What a day for religious-hypocrisy scandals! Last night, we get the first of six promised nude pictures of Carrie Prejean (whose frantic, middle-of-the-night press releasedefending herself, and not denying anything, convinces us that the photo we’ve seen is real, and Miss California Jugs for Jesus expects the silicone to really hit the fan once the rest of the pics hit the Web), and today, we find a thoroughly misleading headline on the cover of the sleazy tabloid, the Globe:
We haven’t mentioned the National Enquirer’s scoop on John Edwards’ extramarital affair for the simple reason that it never pays to jump on a salacious story that hasn’t been verified yet (despite the Enquirer’s admittedly good track record of breaking such stories).
But now Edwards himself has confessed to the affair — only after lying through his teeth while running for the Democratic nomination for POTUS:
John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.
In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.
Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter’s baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test. …
According to friends of Hunter, Edwards met her at a New York city bar in 2006. His political action committee later paid her $114,000 to produce campaign website documentaries despite her lack of experience. …
Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter.
As if Elizabeth’s remission status makes a damned bit of difference?!
You cheated on your wife.
You cheated on your wife who is suffering incurable cancer — making a mockery of that “in sickness or in health” vow.
You cheated on your wife, who is a freaking goddess of a woman, and a far better human being — and progressive — than you ever were, or ever will be.
When the National Enquirer first reported the alleged Edwards-Hunter affair last October 11, Edwards, his campaign staff and Hunter vociferously denounced the report.
“The story is false, it’s completely untrue, it’s ridiculous,” Edwards told reporters then.
He repeated his denials just two weeks ago.
Edwards today admitted the National Enquirer was correct when it reported he had visited Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month.
The former Senator said his wife had not known about the meeting. …
And to think I was going to vote for you on Super Tuesday. You fake, you fraud, you weak, pathetic liar.
I thought I made it clear that I was speaking to the Obamaniacs — the Obama supporters who have made the last year of my life as a Democrat a living hell.
A lot of us never had any hatred towards Hilary, and are pretty insulted that Hilary supporters hate us for no good reason.
Now, who’s generalizing?
First, you have to remember I’m not a Hillary supporter — merely a Hillary voter by default. At the risk of putting myself to sleep by repeating it for the umpteenth time: I am a Kucinich woman. Clinton and Obama were my last two choices.
Second, not all Hillary supporters “hate” all Obama supporters — but those who hate many Obama supporters have lots of very good reasons. Honestly, don’t tell me you haven’t seen the name-calling, the threats, the F.U.’s… all in an attempt to silence criticism of Obama?
If you have a problem with someone individual, insult them, not the group they belong to. Get it?
If I were to name every last member of Obamanation I “have a problem” with — well, the task would be akin to typing out the contents of the Manhattan phone book.
Go back over some of the hate mail I’ve received. Go find me on Democratic Underground, before I gave up the futile effort of trying to talk sense to the brainwashed. Anyone who called me a racist, who told me my civil rights were a non-issue (which goes all the way back to 2002, pre-Obama), who accused me of being a Republican troll, etc., etc. — that’s who I’ve got a problem with.
(And, no, I don’t buy the line, “It’s only a message board.” I know there are real people behind those “anonymous” usernames. In fact, I had a long, wonderful history with a good many of those very real people before they were put on a drip feed of Obamania.)
Now, I definitely disagree on Obama with this, and on other important things. But the sad fact of the matter is the alternatives were worse.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! The only alternative — and the right one — was for Obama to stand tall, against his own party. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to be all about, doing the right thing, as opposed to the politically-expedient (and cowardly) thing?
Yet all he’s done is live down to my extremely low expectations of him. Don’t make me read off the long, long laundry list of his endless sell-outs — although one I haven’t mentioned much is NAFTA; that’s another prime example of Obama selling out on progressive Democratic values (and typical of the way he operates).
In any case, I truly believe he was not forced into a corner on FISA. Re-read Unqualified Offerings‘ take; UO’s “sneaking suspicion” is my “sneaking suspicion,” too:
I have a sneaking suspicion that, as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, Obama could have kept the bill from getting even this far with a quiet word or two. Nothing stopped him from dragging Steny Hoyer and Harry Reid into the same corner where he buttonholed Joe Lieberman. If the House and Senate leadership really did sneak the bill past him last week, which I’m not inclined to believe, still nothing stopped him from shutting them down this week. Except if he either doesn’t consider it important enough to be worth his time and credibility, or if he’s just as happy that the measure might pass.
The man is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, and he has a lot of political capital to spend — less today than yesterday, of course, but Obama could have circumvented this disaster… unless, of course, “Obama Kinda Likes the FISA Bill (But He Won’t Come Out and Say It).” Which, I believe, he does.
I like Hilary, but she felt it necessary when she was First Lady to end her campaign for universal healthcare thanks to being bribed by the healthcare industry. So I don’t feel I could trust her to work for the wellbeing of the poor if she was bribed again.
Who mentioned Hillary (or healthcare, for that matter)? Hillary has nothing to do with this. This was Obama’s decision and Obama’s decision alone, and no amount of speculation about what Hillary might or might not have done has any bearing on that.
Did you read the post where I mentioned Godwin’s Law? You’ve got to get out of the “Hillary would have been worse” mindset (the Siamese twin of “Hillary did it too!”/”Hillary did it first!”) and focus on Obama now. The Hillary blame game is moribund, defunct, pointless, futile.
The primaries are over. Obama is the nominee now.
McCain? I won’t even get started on that sick bastard.
Neither will I. Nor did I.
So complain all you like, got any better ideas?
As a matter of fact, I do — but none of them will work now that Obama has been crammed down our throats (mine and yours). But since you asked, I’ll tell you how we, together, could have avoided this whole nightmare — although I expect you won’t like the answer:
Take the big money out of politics, and you’ve eliminated the legalized corruption of politics. Leave campaign financing in the hands of private donors, and you end up with truly excellent candidates like Dennis Kucinich, and truly decent candidates like John Edwards, dropping out. That’s the reason Edwards dropped out before Super Tuesday (the day he, and not Clinton, would have gotten my vote): He was outspent. His campaign was starved to death.
Private campaign financing makes for the most un-level playing field possible. That we ended up with the two candidates with the deepest pockets should come as no surprise.
So that’s my answer: Strike at the root, before you find yourself strangled into immobilization by an out-of-control weed. (In Obama’s case, we’re being chocked to death by kudzu.)
But that’s all moot now. The problem can’t be fixed. I’m tempted to fill an entire paragraph with old sayings about putting the toothpaste back in the tube and shutting the barn door after the horse has escaped, because that’s what it comes down to: It’s too late to fix it now. Obama is the nominee, and he shouldn’t have been.
That’s why I ended my post as I did: I don’t have any solution to this travesty. The problem could have been avoided if the Obama believers had just listened to us doubters, and taken our concerns as seriously as we did (and do).
And yes, I will keep complaining all I like. I’m hella angry with Obamaniacs (the ones who spit out “racist!” like an endless loop at every criticism of Obama, no matter how valid), and even angrier at those who refuse to admit their complicity in forcing an unvetted DINO on us.
I feel exactly the way I did in 2000: I was in the minority then — the minority of Americans who saw right through George W. Bush’s snow job — and now I’m in a minority within a minority: those of us who never bought Obama’s snake oil in the first place.
My only consolation — and it is a very small consolation indeed — is that at least I wasn’t responsible for this mess. I tried to stop this, in the only way I knew how, and so did 18 million other voters, and scores of clear-headed bloggers. Nobody listened, and so here we are.
You bet I’m angry. And I expect I’m going to be raging against the machine until the day I die.
It’s just a damned shame that the party I once believed in with all my heart and soul is the machine.
You really have it in for Obama; I’m not clear on why you think Clinton is a better pick (especially after your early faves in Demo-land were Kucinich and Edwards)
Don’t assume I made the leap from Kucinich to Edwards to Clinton without a lot of “help” from Obama.
Until the Donnie McClurkin fiasco last fall, Obama seemed a perfectly acceptable candidate to me. I was, frankly, ambivalent about him; I had planned on voting for Kucinich in the primary, and, knowing Dennis would never get the nomination, lining up to vote in the general for whichever Democrat did. I assumed that would be Edwards or Clinton or Obama, and I was fine with any of them (as fine as I could be, that is, since I know I’ll never really get the president I want).
But then came McClurkin, and— and, honestly, I’m so tired of writing about Obama and McClurkin (and at the moment, I can’t think of anything I want to say that I haven’t already), I strongly suggest you read all my entries on McClurkin, as well as Kirbyjon Caldwell (here and here).
Mind you, it was not solely the McClurkin issue that turned me off to Obama; it was (and is) a huge issue, yes, but it served more to open my eyes to everything else that is Barack Obama.
I discussed my revulsion at the way Obama mishandled the McClurkin flap with my better half. My question to her was: “Are his supporters right? Am I just piling on the guy because he used us to get the bigot vote in South Carolina, so I’ll never be able to see him in a positive light?”
The answer, we both decided, was no. The McClurkin issue forced me to take a harder look at Obama — his slim record, his flip-flopping (on issues having nothing to do with The Gay Thing), his convenient memory losses, his sucking up to the GOP, his whiney-ass schoolyard games, the vast emptiness of his rhetoric — and I didn’t like what I saw. And, as time went on, I began to see a very clear pattern in Obama: He was (and is) exposing his own feet of clay with each and every new incident.
You also need to understand that my support for Clinton is lukewarm, at best, and I’m not afraid to point out her missteps (although, in sharp contrast to Obama, has improved). Because Kucinich and Edwards dropped out before Super Tuesday, the only choices left on my ballot were Clinton and Obama — and by the time the California primary rolled around, I knew far too much about Obama to even entertain the thought of voting for him.
I gather that Clinton is someone you trust more on gay issues in particular. No one in my family has flagged Obama as weaker on these issues than Clinton; Obama may in fact be, but it hadn’t been brought up as a concern before I read your pieces.
Let’s say I dis-trust Clinton less than I distrust Obama on gay issues. In reality, their positions are very similar; the difference (on the gay angle alone) is that Clinton didn’t exploit raging, religion-based homophobia to win votes at the expense of gay and lesbian Americans, and then pretend she didn’t do it, and didn’t do it deliberately.
I’m thinking no one’s brought it up because during her Senate run she said she opposed same-sex marriage and would have voted for DOMA and apparently she remains opposed to gay marriage.
As DOMA goes (and she didn’t vote for it, as she wasn’t a Senator at the time), Hillary was wrong to support it when it was passed, and she’s wrong not to support its complete repeal now. (There is a “but” in that, which I’ll get to in a second.)
If you wanted a fight out of me on that, you won’t get it; I’m well aware of Hillary’s flaw here (she wants to overturn only one part of DOMA), and Obama’s strength (he wants to repeal the whole thing). I also recognize that Clinton has attempted to compensate for her earlier support of DOMA by striking a middle ground: retaining the part of DOMA that continues to leave marriage equality to the states, while overturning the part that would prohibit federal recognition of same-sex marriage.
While that would leave the possibility of federal recognition open, that’s not good enough for me. But (and here’s the “but” I warned you about a moment ago) — as much as I rail about having to take “baby steps,” especially when it comes to issues of full equality — I’m pragmatic enough to understand that Clinton’s approach is more likely to succeed, thus staving off another attempt by the Hard Right to write a federal marriage ban into the U.S. Constitution.
Yes, I understand very well that a constitutional amendment is a massive undertaking than can span decades, even generations — I cheered and pumped my fist in the air at ERA rallies in the 1970s, you know — but I also know that a wholesale threat to strip individual states of their so-called “right” to deny us equality would result in a backlash that would plunge the fight for equality back into the Dark Ages.
As much as I want federal recognition, and as much as I detest the “states’ rights” argument, I’m not above setting my emotions aside long enough to consider — and admit — that perhaps the “baby steps” strategy really is the most workable plan. I could be wrong either way, but as I often say, if you keep doing something one way, and it’s not working, it’s time to think about doing something else. That “something else” in this case, as it is fomenting in my thoughts these days, is to take the same path as that of anti-miscegenation: Go ahead, leave it up to the states — and then challenge each state, through the court system, to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages.
That’s a hard road, a longer road, and one that promises to clog our already-overburdened court system. But I think, at least today, that a constant chip-chip-chipping away, state by state, may be the only practical way of getting there. Plainly put, the bigger a headache it becomes — i.e., the more time, money, and resources that are wasted — for each state to defend its archaic anti-marriage laws, the more likely… How does that Confucian (or perhaps Zen) saying go? “Water continually dropping wears hard rocks hollow.”
Now, it’s fine, even commendable, that Obama intends to overturn all of DOMA — and if he can manage to do it, I’ll be the first to thank him, praise him, and re-evaluate everything I’ve ever said about his commitment to equality. (Re-evaluate, mind you, not retract; he’s got a lot to make up for, and I will never accept the rubbish that he is a true ally as long as he remains opposed to full marriage equality — and until he completely repudiates all his “love the sinner, hate the sin” rhetoric, and patently ignorant and offensive remarks about giving us a “set of basic rights,” to “allow” us to live our lives “in a way that doesn’t cause discrimination” — for starters.)
But can he do it? Will he do it? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume, generously, that he is sincere; after all, Bill Clinton was sincere about allowing gay people to serve openly in the military (he even made it his first priority, just days after taking the oath of office) — but look what that got us: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Bill, for all his good intentions, was forced into that compromise.
And that is how, in retrospect, I perceive DOMA: It was a rotten compromise. It sucked. It sucks now. I hate it. But it did serve one purpose: as a stop-gap measure to stave off a major backlash, and at least delay the push for a U.S. constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Bill handled both DOMA and DADT badly, due to his underestimation of the anti-gay forces against us, and we’re still suffering for his lack of judgment. I don’t want anything like DOMA or DADT (or something worse that I haven’t even imagined yet) to happen again. And yet I am told, repeatedly, by Obama supporters, that as a gay person I’m a fool not to support Obama on his promise to repeal DOMA alone — whereas I see Obama ignoring the outcome of Bill’s promise to us, and the resulting DADT policy. Obama is taking a gamble on our lives in a way that’s already been proven reckless. And that in itself is reckless.
Since that seems that’s largely the raison d’etre of your site…
It depends how you look at it. The raison d’etre is to point out injustices and hypocrisy (legal and otherwise), in the hope it will open a few eyes and effect change, through the “water continually dropping” effect.
Marriage equality, of course, is a huge issue, but if we were granted full federal recognition tomorrow, I wouldn’t go away. (Sorry! LOL) I want to reiterate something I don’t think I say enough: Marriage equality is not a single, narrow lens through which I view life; it is a wide-angle lens which offers a nearly 360-degree view of countless life issues lost on those lacking the same peripheral vision.
I suggest you read what my better half (who is far more direct and succinct than I could ever hope to be) had to say about it recently, from the perspective of LGBTs being thought of as “one-issue voters.” In short, we’re not just fighting for the right to say “I do”; we’re fighting for a plethora of rights and protections that we would have automatically through federally-recognized marriage. As it stands (and by leaving it all “to the states”), we have to fight for each of those rights and protections, one at a time.
So, yes, marriage equality is a major reason for this blog, but not the only one. Frankly, I wish I never had to write about marriage equality again; I’d rather concentrate on eradicating homophobia on a social (instead of legal) level, through education, interfaith networks, whatever works through peaceful, nonviolent means.
I’d also like to spend more time celebrating gay culture, art, film, literature, and recognizing people (especially young people) and programs making a positive difference in the world.
But until we do get those “I do’s” and everything that goes along with them, I can’t.
…I’m surprised by just how much the Church Lady you can sound on the topic “Obama does not make me happy.”
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever sounded churchy to anyone. LOL
Monday’s guilt-by-association-with-Wright-rant was great. You slam Wright for brining up Lewinsky; you talk about how astonishing it is to see a Democrat mention that scandal…. and then you use Fox as one of your primary news sources for analysis of Wright’s statements?
I’m hard-pressed to find where I used Fox as one of my “primary news sources for analysis of Wright’s statements,” unless you mean the quote I cited from Fox recounting Wright’s Christmas and January 13th sermons from this article — in which case I don’t see a conflict; everything in that article appears to be factually correct, with little if any editorializing.
In the end, it was Fox that broke the story the MSM had been ignoring up to now; if you’d rather I’d quoted ABC or MSNBC (or even CNN, which came into the game last), well, I could, but as the other networks piggybacking on Fox have only supported Fox, why bother?
Following on that, your use of the term ‘heterosexual privilege’ in today’s leader was jolting.
One of the things you accuse Wright of is being racially divisive by pointing out the racism inherent in our culture; I have not heard him speak, but that sounds very much like a man pointing out white privilege to me.
I have no problem with pointing out white privilege — I’ve never once pretended I’m not automatically privileged by my white skin — but there’s a big difference between pointing out white privilege and 1) blasting all whites for black oppression in the 21st century, and 2) preaching a theology that seems to have no goal other than the endless perpetuation of anti-white hate.
The difference between Jeremiah Wright and me is this: I don’t blame all heterosexuals for my oppression.
And the difference between Barack Obama and me is this: If my “spiritual advisor” — since I don’t have one, let’s say Harvey Milk — had ever “preached” against straight society, and fired up the gay masses against straight society as a whole, I’d condemn Harvey faster than you could say “Anita Bryant.”
Pointing out white privilege can indeed make white folks very flinchy; we don’t like to admit how much of a pass we get.
Not this white woman. I do recognize my free pass, and I don’t like it one bit.
But I also don’t like being lumped in with every ignorant jackass who happens to share my skin tone. I don’t know how to make it clear to you, or to anyone else, that not all of us deserve to be the target of Wright’s harpoon, since all white people cry, “But I’m not a racist! Some of my best friends are…”
But I do recognize it, and I do fight racism, with the same angry passion as I fight homophobia. Without looking, I can tell you from memory that since I started blogging in 2003 (one of these days, I’ll have to move the old stuff over here, but if you want to find it, go Google the long-dormant “doublethink” blog at Salon.com; that was mine), I’ve blasted fark through George W. Bush for his Pickering nominating because I recognized the racism; I blasted some idiot Florida state rep (whose name escapes me) for making a joke about blacks and basketball because I recognized the racism; I’ve spilled tons of pixels attacking first-class jerks like Trent Lott and Ted Nugent and Toby Keith and that spawn of Satan Michael Savage because I recognized the racism.
I do see it, and I do scream about it. Loudly. Being white, it’s my responsibility to scream about it — precisely because I recognize how much more weight the words of heterosexual allies carry when speaking out about homophobia — and it is a responsibility I welcome.
It just pisses me off when everything I’ve tried to do is tossed aside because I’m white.
I guess some of us have never lived in a big city and seen a driving while black checkpoint in operation nor made a truly boneheaded traffic mistake and gotten off with a warning, nor seen an interracial couple getting harassed by local cops.
Wrong-O. I’ve seen it, and I’ve lived and worked amidst it. In my long entry about Michelle Obama, I mentioned that for a couple of years I worked as a photographer in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Who do you think attended those schools, the Waltons? Years before that, I lived near the corner of Wilshire and Crenshaw in L.A.; from the moment the news started covering the Rodney King riots live, I didn’t have to look at a map to see where Reginald Denny was getting his head bashed in — I could name every fast-food joint around the intersection of Florence and Normandie.
The only new thought that came to my mind was: “Denny is white… I am white… I would be killed without anyone stopping for one second to consider whether I was on their side or not.”
On the flip side, I could say: “I guess some of us have never lived in a big city” — or a small town — “and seen a driving while queer checkpoint in operation nor made a truly boneheaded traffic mistake and gotten off with a warning, nor seen a gay couple getting harrassed by local cops.” Or a straight person bashed because he was mistaken for being gay. Or a transgendered woman sentenced to a cruel death because of the paramedic who was supposed to be treating her after an auto wreck but wouldn’t touch the “chick with the dick,” the doctor who denied her treatment, and the host of other “care” givers who finally performed only the most perfunctory (read: half-assed) procedures after she lay unattended for half an hour, in a state of what was probably “sheer terror.”
As I wrote at Democratic Underground (ironically, regarding the way people gloss over homophobia yet go insane when it comes to racism, anti-semitism, etc.) nearly two years ago:
Now, listen: I am not playing the “my persecution is worse than yours” victim game. As far as I’m concerned, all persecution is equal; when you’re the one getting lynched, or burned at the stake, or herded into a gas chamber, your victimhood is 100%. And it doesn’t matter if you’re gay, or Jewish, or black, or even an Australian in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb goes off in an Indonesian pub. You’re just as dead as everyone else, and your family is just as destroyed as any other.
You could argue that Jewish persecution has occurred on a larger scale, and you’d be right; e.g., the Nazis gassed some 6 million Jews, and “only” about a million male homosexuals. But persecution is persecution, and dead is dead is dead.
Matt Shepard is just as dead as Anne Frank.
Anne Frank is just as dead as Emmett Till.
Emmett Till is just as dead as Brandon Teena.
And only by the grace of God (or providence) is that 17-year-old Texas boy not as dead as any of them.
Dead is dead is dead.
And hate is hate is hate. And while I can fathom the many reasons for it, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept the fact that the general public just doesn’t care much (or at all) when it’s the queers who are being bashed, murdered, or verbally assaulted.
Don’t you see? I don’t see any difference between homophobia and racism. They both destroy lives — whether we’re talking about the life of the gay man or the black man, or about the pervasive hate and fear that drive homophobes and racists to oppress, and beat, and kill.
But okay, so that’s racially divisive, a rhetoric that aggregates all members of a group into a group eligible for privilege.
And then today, you’re using heterosexual privilge, which is an idea that derives directly from white privilege? And in the following sentence, you lump all of your opponents into kinky Jesoids who want piss on you?
If by “all my opponents,” you mean people who use their religion as an excuse to maintain both my second-class citizenship and their privilege, then yes, I do.
Yes, I do lump my “opponents” together — but only not only into one big “Jesoid,” because there are plenty of non-Christian religionists who oppose my equality, too. However, it is only those who base their anti-gay crusades on their “deeply held religious beliefs” who oppose me at all. I have never once heard a secular argument against same-sex equality. If you’ve ever heard one, please clue me in; I’d be fascinated to hear a compelling argument that has nothing to do with religious beliefs.
Randall Terry — founder of Operation Rescue and absolutely maniacal anti-gay crusader — unknowingly made this point crystal clear (in part 2 of an essay he wrote bemoaning his son Jamiel’s homosexuality); bold emphasis mine:
But more simply put: Homosexual behavior is wrong because it violates the way our Creator made the world, and the Laws He gave us. This brings me to the most important part of this article: The Name, the Person, and the Standards of God.
If you have followed the fight over homosexual marriage, there has been a steady drumbeat to keep the Name and the Standards of The Almighty out of the debate. This, of course, is not new. Whether it is the debate around abortion, or over prayer in schools, or the Pledge of Allegiance, or the posting of the Ten Commandments in government buildings, there is a blatant, unashamed effort to drive the Name and the Laws of our Maker from the public square.
Tragically, many well meaning people in our camp have decided to go along with these rules. I tell you plainly: If we surrender on this point, we will lose the war. We will not win. We cannot win.
Why? Because absent the Created order and standards of the Almighty, there is no reason to oppose same-sex-marriage. Why should we deny two consenting people who love each other the right to be married?
The arguments against homosexual marriage involving children (having or raising them) won’t hold up. Older couples who marry cannot have children. And children are raised in homes without two natural parents every day. Sometimes a grandparent raises a child. These scenarios might not be optimum, but it is done by millions every day.
Arguments over “traditional marriage” are also of little value. We’ve had a lot of traditions that needed changing. This could be another one. Traditions are important, unless they stand in the way of liberty. Moreover, who is to say which tradition is the best? America’s, or ancient Greece’s or ancient Rome’s, where they openly practiced homosexuality?
The reason we oppose homosexual marriage is because it violates the way God made the world — it attacks the institution He created; it betrays and defies the Laws He gave us.
If there is no God; if we are the chance arrangement of molecules that happened to evolve from some primal swamp; if we are merely animals and there is no such thing as moral absolutes, good and evil, right and wrong — defined by the Ultimate Lawgiver — then anything goes. Let the homosexuals do what they want. Who are we to impose our morality on them?
But if there is a God who makes the rules, then He has imposed His morals on all of us, and we are obliged to obey and defend those ethics in the public square.
Here, for comparison, is a short discussion of the same subject by two atheists; the argument is essentially the same as Randall Terry’s!
Bottom line: There is no compelling secular argument against same-sex equality. It is always based on religion. Always.
That’s not to say I lump all religious people in with the bigots. I have only one complaint about the religious left: They won’t take the religious right to task. But then, that is an integral part of being a Christian: not judging others, but simply emulating Christ, turning the other cheek, being meek, that sort of thing.
Still, even Jesus got angry enough to turn over the moneychangers’ tables in the temple. I wish the meek-and-mild religious left would turn over a few more tables.
Ah well. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind, right?
Talk about damning with faint praise.
But you know what? I’ll take the faint praise; it’s one of the small benefits of refusing to march in lockstep with any group to which I belong, be it by default (women, gay people, Caucasians, Italian-Americans) or by choice (Democrats — and that’s subject to change at any moment).
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.
CNN is finally recognizing Barack Obama’s appalling missed-vote record, leading the coverage with the fact that Obama has missed more votes than any of the other congresscritters running for president, and pointing out that while he’s all over Hillary for her IWR vote, he missed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment vote because — you guessed it — he was out campaigning, in New Hampshire.
His handlers are saying he didn’t know about the Kyl-Lieberman vote in time to get back to D.C. — which is funny, since all the presidential candidates in Congress are notified of upcoming votes in advance, and somehow everybody else managed to get there in time, including Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
What’s also funny is that we found, via Travelocity, no less than 29 regularly-scheduled commercial flights Obama could have taken from New Hampshire to Washington, D.C., or one of its nearby airports — including three nonstops, none lasting more than an hour and 44 minutes.
But that point is completely moot, since:
A few candidates, including Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats, have decided not to take corporate flights at all, opting instead to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more each year to charter their own jets.
In other words, Obama has a private aircraft — that, judging by the arrival times of many recent commercial flights (thank you, FlightAware!) on the same route, could have made the trip in as little as an hour and a half — at his disposal, yet his campaign is saying he still couldn’t drag himself back to Washington “in time.”
Failing that excuse, Obama’s flunkies are now saying that it’s a matter of deciding which Senate votes are “crucial”…
Lou Dobbs (of whom we are no fans) remarked yesterday, voice dripping with sarcasm: “Well, it’s so nice to believe these people can decide what is crucial, and what is not,” and then opined that maybe we should cut back the time Congress is in session by 20%, so it will be more convenient to the candidates.
(On the other hand, maybe we’re overlooking something here: It’s entirely possible Obama missed the Kyl-Lieberman vote deliberately; after all, he’s on record as being open to bombing Iran. Could it be that he couldn’t afford to be accused of flip-flopping if he voted against Kyl-Lieberman now — and then made the decision as president to attack Iran later? That’s a very disturbing thought — which is exactly what makes it worth considering.)
But here’s something we didn’t know: Obama has missed nearly 80% of all Senate votes since September!
And, overall:
Barack Obama missed 137 of 1040 votes (13%) since Jan 6, 2005 (Very Poor relative to peers).
Sen. Barack Obama has missed the most votes of any Democratic presidential hopeful in the Senate over the last two months, including a vote on an Iran resolution he has blasted Sen. Hillary Clinton for supporting.
The Illinois Democrat has missed nearly 80 percent of all votes since September.
. . .
Obama’s campaign argues that looking at the last two months is arbitrary.
Obama missed a vote on a resolution that declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an elite part of the Iranian military, a terrorist organization. He has criticized Clinton for voting for it, saying it would give President Bush a “blank check” to invade Iran. …
. . .
Obama was campaigning in New Hampshire when the vote was taken. His campaign blamed his absence on the short notice given when the vote was scheduled. But two senior Democratic Senate aides said senators were advised the night before that the vote would occur the next day.
A spokesman for Obama, however, was adamant Obama did not have enough time to return to Washington for the vote.
Obama has also missed votes on a Democratic priority, the expansion of the federally funded State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)…
. . .
With the mounting fight with the White House over key bills, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is putting all the contenders on notice. …
“Obama’s campaign points out that Biden missed the most votes if the whole year is considered, followed by Dodd, then Obama.” = “They do it tooooo!”
What’s more, a shocking number of Obama supporters we’ve encountered on the Web are scrambling to justify this ugly blot on Obama’s “flawless” voting record — which appears to be their pattern: When they find a comparable situation to rag on any other the other candidates about, they treat it with equal gravity; i.e., Hillary’s two anti-gay SC chairs = just as bad as the Donnie McClurkin fiasco; Joe Biden missing 68% of Senate votes = just as bad as Obama missing 80%; and so on and on, ad nauseam.
And we’re not buying the argument that Obama’s statement of opposition to Kyl-Lieberman — nor his statement of support for SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) — as just as good as a vote. Talking the talk without walking the walk does not have any effect on whether legislation is made or broken.
But Kyl-Lieberman was hardly the only “critical” vote Obama missed. To illustrate the breadth of votes Obama didn’t consider “critical” enough to show up for, this very abbreviated look at his no-shows is illuminating:
Nov 1, 2007 5:15 PM No Vote H.R. 3963: Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 64-30, 6 not voting Senate Roll #402
. . .
Oct 31, 2007 3:48 PM No Vote Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider H.R. 3963: Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 Cloture Motion Agreed to 62-33, 5 not voting Senate Roll #400
. . .
Oct 3, 2007 2:00 PM No Vote Feingold Amdt. No. 3164, H.R. 3222: Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2008 (On the Amendment) Amendment Rejected 28-68, 4 not voting Senate Roll #361
. . .
Oct 1, 2007 5:59 PM No Vote H.R. 1585: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 92-3, 5 not voting
. . .
Sep 26, 2007 12:44 PM No Vote Kyl Amdt. No. 3017 as Modified, H.R. 1585: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 76-22, 2 not voting
. . .
Sep 24, 2007 5:51 PM No Vote H.R. 1495: Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (On the Conference Report) Conference Report Agreed to 81-12, 7 not voting
. . .
Sep 10, 2007 3:30 PM No Vote Murray Amdt. No. 2792, H.R. 3074: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008 (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 60-33, 7 not voting
Sep 10, 2007 11:29 AM No Vote Confirming Janis Lynn Sammartino, of California, to be U.S. District Judge Nomination Confirmed 90-0, 10 not voting
Sep 10, 2007 11:06 AM No Vote Confirming William Lindsay Osteen, of North Carolina, to be U.S. District Judge Nomination Confirmed 86-0, 14 not voting
Sep 7, 2007 10:15 AM No Vote H.R. 2669: Higher Education Access Act of 2007 (On the Conference Report) Conference Report Agreed to 79-12, 9 not voting
Sep 6, 2007 9:46 PM No Vote H.R. 2764: Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 81-12, 7 not voting
. . .
Sep 6, 2007 12:16 PM No Vote H.R. 2642: Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 92-1, 7 not voting
. . .
Sep 4, 2007 6:08 PM No Vote Confirming Jim Nussle, of Iowa, to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget Nomination Confirmed 69-24, 7 not voting
. . .
Jul 30, 2007 5:32 PM No Vote Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to H.R. 976: Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 Cloture Motion Agreed to 80-0, 20 not voting
. . .
Jul 26, 2007 10:49 PM No Vote H.R. 2638: Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 89-4, 7 not voting
. . .
Jul 26, 2007 11:39 AM No Vote H.R. 1: Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (On the Conference Report) Conference Report Agreed to 85-8, 7 not voting
. . .
Jul 24, 2007 4:44 PM No Vote H.J.Res. 44: Joint resolution approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, and for other purposes. (On the Joint Resolution) Joint Resolution Passed 93-1, 6 not voting
Jul 24, 2007 12:46 PM No Vote S. 1642: Higher Education Amendments of 2007 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 95-0, 5 not voting
Jul 24, 2007 12:22 PM No Vote Kennedy Amdt. No. 2381, as Modified, S. 1642: Higher Education Amendments of 2007 (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 93-0, 7 not voting
. . .
Jul 20, 2007 12:36 AM No Vote H.R. 2669: Higher Education Access Act of 2007 (On Passage of the Bill) Bill Passed 78-18, 4 not voting
. . .
Jul 13, 2007 9:29 AM No Vote Dorgan Amdt. No. 2135, as Amended, H.R. 1585: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 87-1, 12 not voting
. . .
Jul 9, 2007 6:12 PM No Vote Confirming Janet T. Neff, of Michigan, to be U.S. District Judge Nomination Confirmed 83-4, 13 not voting
Jul 9, 2007 5:43 PM No Vote Confirming Liam O’Grady, of Virginia, to be U.S. District Judge Nomination Confirmed 88-0, 12 not voting
. . .
Jun 12, 2007 5:46 PM No Vote Bayh Amdt. No. 1508, H.R. 6: Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 63-30, 6 not voting
Jun 11, 2007 6:16 PM No Vote Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider H.R. 6: Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 Cloture Motion Agreed to 91-0, 8 not voting
. . .
Jun 5, 2007 7:46 PM No Vote Feingold Amdt. No. 1176, S. 1348: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 67-26, 6 not voting
. . .
May 22, 2007 5:47 PM No Vote Dorgan Amdt. No. 1153, S. 1348: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (On the Amendment) Amendment Rejected 31-64, 5 not voting
May 21, 2007 5:43 PM No Vote Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S. 1348: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 Cloture Motion Agreed to 69-23, 8 not voting
. . .
May 7, 2007 5:09 PM No Vote Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Committee Substitute as Modified and Amended to S. 1082: Food and Drug Administration Revitalization Act Cloture Motion Agreed to 82-8, 10 not voting
May 7, 2007 4:05 PM No Vote Cochran Amdt. No. 1010, S. 1082: Food and Drug Administration Revitalization Act (On the Amendment) Amendment Agreed to 49-40, 11 not voting
Are these, or are these not, “critical” votes? Does Obama not consider these issues “critical” enough? Not even a bill which could lead us into war with Iran? And for all his chatter about the importance of healthcare for the some nine million children without health insurance in this country, failing to show up for a “critical” vote on the SCHIP bill reveals all that chatter as just so much empty rhetoric.
This week was another key week in the battle to re-authorize and expand the vital S-CHIP program. After the Bush veto of the first S-CHIP re-authorization bill, it was extremely important for Congressional Democrats to let the President know that they aren’t backing down when it comes to providing access to health care for America’s children.
As you may know, on October 25th the U.S. House voted 265 - 142 to send another S-CHIP bill to the President’s desk. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate followed suit and voted 64 - 30 to send House Resolution 3963 to the White House for another anticipated Bush veto.
Over in the House, America’s children were 25 votes away from gaining increased access to health care. In the House, every Democrat save one voted for the revised S-CHIP bill. Over in the Senate, America’s children fell 3 votes short of overriding the Bush veto against their health and well-being.
Three votes, ladies and gentlemen; and one of those three votes could’ve been supplied by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois if…
…he had even bothered to show up and vote.
The only “critical” vote Obama made in the past month was a nay on the Southwick confirmation — but perhaps he just happened to be in town that day.
In any case, Obama’s inexcusable pattern of missed votes is only more proof of how Barack Obama is more focused on recruiting supporters for his presidential campaign — at any cost — than he is about doing the right thing, which, in this case, is his job.
If you missed that many days of work because you were out looking for another job — and your boss knew it — you’d be canned in a New York minute.
Cate Edwards took questions in Des Moines Sunday on behalf of her father, former Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, but she could only answer a few without referring to a campaign staffer for the details of her dad’s positions.
She needed no help, however, in responding to a question relating to her position on gay rights, specifically gay marriage.
“I’m on my mom’s side with this, not my dad’s,” Edwards said. “It’s the word ‘marriage’ that he is hung up on.”
“It’s not about gay rights,” she added.
. . .
“He very much does not understand–he has trouble, I guess, with the term ‘gay marriage.’ I don’t,” Cate Edwards said. “I’m not going to try to defend him on that because I don’t agree with it, but that’s where he stands. But I don’t want it to be understood as not standing for gay rights because that’s certainly not true.”
Cate Edwards and ‘Desperate Housewives’ actor James Denton were at a stop during a two-day swing through the Hawkeye State stumping for the Edwards for President campaign.
You are NOT my ally, Obama, and until the day you recognize your privilege by denying me my rights, I won’t vote for you — even in the national election.
There, I said it: If by some horrible twist of fate Obama gets the nod, I will not be voting for the Democratic nominee for president, for the first time ever. He has nothing to offer that would offset his stubborn stance on marriage equality, or his revolting pandering to the fundies. A strong background in foreign policy might have convinced me to turn a blind eye one more time, but he sure hasn’t got that.
Even Hillary brings more to the table (she’s been there already, and yes, Bill is a strong plus for her in my eyes; no matter how much crap he pulled on LGBTs, his reign constituted the best eight years of my life as an American) — and as much as I dislike HRC, I will be able to hold my nose and vote for her.
But not Obama. Never Obama.
To paraphrase Tevye: “If I bend that far, I will break.”
swimboy asked me to elaborate the reasons I think Barack Obama would be a bad choice for President, and this was my answer:
In my mind, because there’s nothing to offset his stance on marriage equality. Meaning: If I thought this was the one person who could (and would) get us out of Iraq and begin to restore our nearly ruined reputation with the rest of the world, I’d consider taking yet another hit for the team in lieu of his full support for LGBTs.
But — and this is completely aside from the marriage issue — the idea of Obama as foreign-policy setter scares the hell out of me. This is the man who is open to the idea of bombing Iran, and, just a week or two ago, pissed off Pakistan when he said he’d consider attacking that country in order to go after global terrorists.
I can’t even begin to imagine the repercussions of attacking Iran — and attacking Pakistan is even more unimaginable; Pakistan is (and has long been) a nuclear power. I’m not worried about Pakistan launching a nuke at us — they wouldn’t have to; their best bet would be lobbing a nuke into New Delhi, and wiping out our strongest ally (and satisfying their own bloodlust against India in the same strike). If you think we’re in a mess in the Middle East now, just wait ’til the war games start up in South Asia.
And, speaking of Asia, if he’s so reckless with his threats while he’s still just a candidate, what in the world does he intend to do about North Korea? (Nothing, I hope, because if he puffs out his chest at NK, what can we expect from China?)
Bottom line for me is that he has less of a grasp on the concept of diplomacy (and just plain not pissing off countries that can destroy you) than I do. That scares me, a lot.
So, there’s that. He’s got nothing to offer (except a lot of potential chaos) to convince me that life will be better with him at the helm, or that I should give him an inch on LGBT issues in exchange for a safer, more secure America.
And it goes well beyond just marriage equality; his stance on that indicates to me a lack of basic understanding about the issue of church-state separation. He says that marriage “has religious and social connotations” (sure, only as long as it’s been a social fabrication; it was originally a business deal).
He’s all too willing to “leave it to the states” — even though he’s said that his own parents’ (interracial) marriage was illegal (in states other than Hawaii, where they married). How can he then justify “separate but equal” for us? What kind of double standard is that for someone who claims to support equal rights — for anyone?
IMO, Obama’s problem is that he never grew up under the full weight of discrimination in the U.S. himself; part of his childhood was spent in Kenya, and part in Hawaii — and Hawaii is not Wahoo, Kentucky. I’m not saying he’s “not black enough” (I’ll leave that to black commentators, who say it plenty; see the quotes below from Rev. Irene Monroe and Jasmyne Cannick, for just two), but I will say I don’t believe he has the frame of reference his generational contemporaries do. He is of a generation (mine, in fact) for whom the Civil Rights era is but a dim memory; yet even I have a greater advantage in understanding what it means to suffer not merely discrimination, but state-sanctioned discrimination, that he does not.
Should his race be an issue? No — unless he’s going to tout himself as a champion of the underdog. Because he doesn’t have the lifelong experience of a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton, his race means nothing to me (if he had, then I would consider his race a plus, in that we shared some common thread; i.e., the lifelong effects of bigotry). AFAIC, he knows as much about my experience as Edwards or HRC… which is to say: nada.
OK, so what does his voting record have to say? It’s beautiful, really, on LGBT issues — it shows that he is not in favor of any bill that would strip us of any current protections, nor burden us with any further restrictions. But to me, that is the least any candidate can do, as opposed to fully supporting our equality, and actually doing something about it. His hypocrisy is even more glaring every time he pays lip service to us, while stubbornly refusing to give us the same — not special, but merely the same — rights he enjoys.
Whether it’s his religion getting in the way (which he says it is; he’s been quite clear that his religious beliefs are at odds with marriage equality), or whether it’s really that he doesn’t want to alienate Christian voters and other conservative Democrats, it doesn’t matter: He’s making religion a stumbling block for what it a simple, secular issue.
Finally, he took the same tack Hillary did when asked about Peter Pace’s comment that homosexuality was immoral: He hedged, he dodged… Even HRC tried to run damage control after John Edwards had the cojones to answer the question directly; I haven’t heard Obama even try to backtrack (although I may have missed it).
To round out my thoughts on Obama, here’s what a few other people have to say, and say better than I can:
What’s disappointing however, was Obama’s initial reaction to Pace’s remarks. According to the Tribune, a Newsday reporter asked Obama as he was leaving a speaking engagement if he thought homosexuality was immoral. Obama’s first answer was: “I think traditionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has restricted his public comments to military matters. That’s probably a good tradition to follow.” Asked a second time, he said: “I think the question here is whether somebody is willing to sacrifice for their country.” When asked a third time, the senator ignored the question, signed an autograph, posed for a photo and then jumped into a Lincoln Town Car. Obama later clarified his position, telling Larry King on CNN, “I don’t think that homosexuals are immoral any more than I think heterosexuals are immoral.”
A calculated response from Hillary is no surprise; we’ve come to expect her to tap dance around all kinds of issues. And although he has been taking heat from his supporters for it, Obama has been remarkably consistent with his position on gay marriage. During his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, he said “I’m a Christian. … And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.” While we may not agree with that analysis, he is certainly entitled to his beliefs. What’s disappointing is watching a man whose personal story, background and persona have the power to unite a nation that is clearly worn down by the politics of division and false choices try to find an answer that will satisfy everyone. We aren’t convinced that Obama actually believes that homosexuality is immoral. But what his reaction did demonstrate is that his commitment to equality goes only as far as political expediency will allow.
As an African-American woman who is also a lesbian, I have a lot to weigh in making my final decision for who I am going to support. I obviously want someone who is going to do more than pay lip service to African-Americans but I also want the same concerning gays.
I like Obama, I really do. I went to hear him speak when he came to L.A. for his book signing. In fact, I have his autographed book on my bookshelf in my living room and every now and then, I glance at it and think, he may be the next President.
But with all of Obama’s audacity, he hasn’t been able to stand up and say yes, I agree that separate isn’t equal and gays and lesbians deserve to be treated equally under the law with the same rights and privileges as America’s heterosexual citizens. Now that would truly be audacity!
But that hasn’t happened and I fear that what is happening is that in this mad dash rush to get the support of the Black community, via the Black church, Obama is trying to ignore the fact that I don’t have all of my rights and that I am not treated equal. And if he can stand up and speak out against the war he should be able to stand up and face the Black church and say that while he may not agree with the idea of lesbians and gays getting married, that they do contribute to society like everyone else, including paying taxes and therefore deserve to be treated equally.
By the same token, showing up at Black churches and “talking Black” to the Blacks and showing up at gay organizations talking in circles about what you’re going to do if elected, which if you read between the lines isn’t really anything, doesn’t impress me either. Nor does trying to use your husband’s strange popularity with Blacks to boost your standings in the African-American community.
There’s a lot riding on this next election. It’s not just about the war, Social Security, universal healthcare, and the economy. It’s also about putting an end to lawful discrimination and having the guts to take a real position, the right position, on unpopular issues. It’s about reparations and America apologizing for slavery as much as it’s about my rights as a lesbian to marry the woman of my choice…legally.
So in other words, if you want my vote, you’re gonna have to work for it. Being Black isn’t going to be enough, nor is being a woman. And paying lip service on Sunday’s isn’t going to get it either.
I want the next President of the United States to be able to stand up on the right side of all of the issues, not the just the popular ones.
“He’s my favorite because he beats his kids with his hand instead of a stick,” is not what Bishop Gene Robinson said of Presidential would-be Barack Obama. On marriage equality, he might as well have.
As a supposedly bipartisan politician who understands and reconciles opposing views, and a non-doctrinal Christian whose personal identity and life journey shaped his lens to include those on the margins, why then, I ask, is this presidential hopeful not united with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer voters on the issue of marriage equality?
“I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided,” Obama wrote in his recent memoir, The Audacity of Hope.
But Obama’s audacity is not only his unwillingness to support the issue, but also his misunderstanding and misuse of the term “gay marriage.” The terminology “gay marriage” not only stigmatizes and stymies our efforts for marriage equality, but it also suggests that LGBT people’s marriages are or would be wholly different from those of heterosexuals, thus altering its landscape, if not annihilating the institution of marriage entirely.
But Obama’s remarks in a recent interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press spoke somewhat encouragingly about granting LGBTQ couples not marriage equality but certainly civil union rights.
However, having lived outside of America during its turbulent decades of the Jim Crow era and legal segregation, Obama may not know on a visceral and lived experienced level what those decades had been like for African-Americans.
But he ought to know, as a civil rights attorney, that granting LGBTQ Americans only the right to civil unions violates our full constitutional right as well as reinstitutionalizes the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. As a result of that decision, the ’separate but equal’ doctrine became the rule of law until it was struck down in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
. . .
Although not a cradle Christian, Christianity became Obama’s newfound religious identity late in his life. And his affinity to conservative Christian beliefs not only informs his decision on the issue of marriage equality, but it also solidifies his decision about us in a community of believers like himself.
. . .
Obama’s The Audacity of Hope is not a must-read for LGBT voters because he fails to fully comprehend or sincerely commit to the issue of social justice for all Americans. He does not tackle head-on how the religious rhetoric of this political era has played an audacious role in discrimination against LGBT people, leaving us with little to no hope, his rhetoric included.
“In years hence, I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don’t believe such doubts make me a bad Christian,” Obama writes.
As LGBT voters, our job is neither to judge nor vote for Obama on whether he is a good Christian. It is, however, for us to judge and vote on whether he is a good statesman.
If he should run for president, he wouldn’t get my vote.
If you missed last night’s televised debate among the nine (!) Democratic presidential hopefuls, you missed a scene that was curiously heartwarming to those of us desperate to spend time with some intelligent Washington denizens for a change. They could have done nothing but sit around a table and play poker without diminishing my enjoyment of seeing this wide variety of personalities and hairstyles (including that of mop-topped mediator George Stephanopoulos) in the same room.
First thought: I never realized how much Dennis Kucinich looks like a young Ross Perot. (Sorry, Dennis; I love you dearly for your courageous anti-war stance — even if your abortion flip-flop makes me nervous.) Now, I could give Kucinich my final vote, but that’s because I don’t need a candidate to look like a Kennedy; unfortunately, most of the American public is far too hung up on image to give a guy like Kucinich a chance; he’ll never make it past the primaries.
Steph played devil’s advocate, practically begging the lady and gentlemen to go on the attack against one another. But (despite some relatively mild snippiness between Kerry and Dean, giving Bob Graham the opportunity to play peacemaker) everybody kept it pretty civilized, saving their choice zingers for that guy who lives in the White House (Kerry: “The one person in America who does deserve to be laid off is George W. Bush”).
Predictably, it was Al Sharpton who elicited an audible collective gasp from the audience with his parting shot, in which he said the Bush tax cut is “like Jim Jones and Kool-Aid: It tastes great, but it’ll kill you.” Pure Reverend Al.
On the rest of the issues (as best as I can summarize without a transcript), it went something like this:
Nobody likes the PATRIOT Act. Nobody thinks sodomy should be outlawed. Al Sharpton is the only one of the bunch who favors federal licensing of handguns. Kerry wants to take back the flag; Dean wants to take back the country.
Graham called himself “electable,” while Dean took the party to task for being indistinguishable from the Repubs (a good poke at Leiberman), while Holy Joe says he’s with Bush on defense and “morality” (referring to his Clinton- and Hollywood-bashing) and against him on the economy — and still, apparently, buys into the whole “Saddam was an imminent threat” hogwash. That prompted Reverend Al to say we could have disarmed Saddam by continuing to work with the U.N. — and, best of all, that the fact no weapons of mass destruction have been found is proof that the “war” was illegitimate.
That gave Carol Moseley Braun the chance to get into the issue of the bazillions we’re spending to keep the troops in Iraq, and build up their country (while ours goes to hell).
Somewhere in there (mostly in his closing bit), Kerry worked in his Vietnam vet’s status (a smart thing to do), and capped it with another shot at Lieberman: “I’m the only one running for this job who’s actually fought in a war, Joe. I’m not ambivalent about it.”
And to Steph’s obnoxiously blunt “You can’t win,” Moseley Braun shot back, “That’s what they said when I ran for Senate.”
Kucinich, incidentally, got lots of extra brownie points from me when he said he wanted to kill both NAFTA and the WTO.
Oh, and Dick Gephardt was there. I pay so little attention to him under any circumstances, I almost forgot to mention his presence. From under his hair-helmet, The Dick yammered on about his firsthand experience with Homeland Security or some damned thing (at which Dean chuckled and reminded him that state governors have plenty of experience in that arena). Maybe if The Dick would find a bloody spine, I’d pay more attention. Can you believe he actually had the audacity to remind his fellow Dems that they can’t afford to be “Bush-lite” — when he himself is second only to Lieberman in that department? (Okay, third, behind that continually shameless sell-out Tom Daschle, but Tommy’s not in the race — thank God). Well, at least Dickie wants to repeal Bush’s tax-cut plan, so he’s got something right.
As for John Edwards… Don’t like him, never will; he’s a warmonger, anti-choice, and has no problem with the Patriot Act other than the way it’s being enforced — which means there’s not much he could say (short of backing gay marriage, which ain’t gonna happen) to convince me to listen to him. So I went to the bathroom while he tried to sell himself, which was a much more productive use of my time. But I did hear him scold Lieberman for supporting Bush’s flawed economic policy of cutting taxes and relying on big corporations to bring America out of her slump: “That sounds like Reaganomics to me.” (Umm, maybe ’cause it isReaganomics, Johnny?)
Should anyone run across a transcript of the debate, I’d love to see it; this is all from memory, and I’d like to grab a few of the choicest quotes of the evening.
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