April 22, 2008
While scanning today’s headlines, two op/eds jumped out at me; seemingly unrelated, they say exactly the same thing: We — The Left — have lost control of the Democratic Party to the “liberal elites,” the rich, triangulating Third Way DLCers who talk a great talk, but have never walked the walk — and really don’t give a damn about your walk.
The first piece, by Dana Milbank at WaPo, profiles an impoverished Pennsylvania couple who are voting for Hillary Clinton today, and — despite the silly notion that they may not “even think [Barack Obama is] American,” and the extremely disturbing racism prevalent among a few other vocal locals) — their practical, economically-based reasons for refusing to vote for Obama, even if he gets the Democratic nomination (and this couple are Democrats).
The second piece is by Chris Hedges, about whom I’ve written before in these pages; Hedges is the author of one of my favorite and most dog-eared books, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America, which explains in clear, if excruciating, detail just how the Radical Religious Right has managed to embed itself into U.S. politics — and, most importantly, why religious fundamentalists of all stripes believe what they believe, and do what they do.
Make no mistake: Hedges is not the radical leftist secularist of the Right’s worst nightmares. The son of a minister and seminary graduate himself, Hedges is equally critical of atheists as he is of religionists; in his newest book, I Don’t Believe in Atheists, he makes it clear that his belief in God and conviction that sin is real, and the barometer of morality, is steadfast:
We have nothing to fear from those who do or do not believe in God; we have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin. The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgment that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest. The concept of sin is a check on the utopian dreams of a perfect world. It prevents us from believing in our own perfectibility or the illusion that the material advances of science and technology equal an intrinsic moral improvement in our species. To turn away from God is harmless. Saints have been trying to do it for centuries. To turn away from sin is catastrophic. …
We discard the wisdom of sin at our peril. …
The question is not whether God exists. It is whether we contemplate or are utterly indifferent to the transcendent, that which cannot be measured or quantified, that which lies beyond the reach of rational deduction.
Hedges’ credibility established, let’s turn our attention to the first op/ed that caught my eye today, by Dana Milbank:
In This Forgotten Town, Obama Can Forget About It
The Monongahela River Valley lost its steel mills in the ’80s and, a quarter-century later, this sad town in the heart of the Mon Valley still hasn’t recovered. Its downtown is a collage of crumbling buildings, and its once-proud landmark, the 102-year-old People’s Union Bank Building, has signs in the window: “Bank Repo Sale. Excellent Deal. Eight stories. Priced to sell!”
It is, in short, just the sort of place Barack Obama was talking about when he said he wasn’t getting the support of blue-collar workers of the industrial heartland because they “cling” to guns and religion out of economic bitterness. It is also the place Obama chose to visit on Monday night, on the eve of Tuesday’s primary — and the reception here explains why Obama, the national front-runner, is expected to lose Pennsylvania. …
The Norgrens, who backed Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, will vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. And if Obama wins the nomination, these Democrats say they’ll vote for Republican John McCain, even though they want an end to the war in Iraq, where their soldier-son is about to start his third tour.
If Hillary Clinton wins Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary — and polls forecast that she will do just that — it will be because of white, working-class voters like the Norgrens. Yet the blue-collar voters poised to keep Clinton’s candidacy alive are also the reason she is losing the national race to Obama: Though still in charge here, they have lost control of the Democratic Party to the wealthy and better-educated. …
The average household in McKeesport earns less than $30,000 a year, barely half the U.S. average. Its population has shrunk and aged with the loss of the mills, and the average home here sells for a mere $45,000. …
The antipathy toward Obama isn’t necessarily logical. Outside the Giant Eagle … Edward Norgren listed his reasons: Clinton’s ad accusing Obama of taking oil-company money; Michelle Obama’s suggestion that she hadn’t been “proud” of her country; Obama’s provocative former preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, of course, there was the “bitter” remark. …
Now, on to Chris Hedges:
The left has lost its nerve and its direction
The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues, from universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, to the steadfast protection of workers’ rights, to an immediate withdrawal from the failed occupation of Iraq to a fight against a militarized economy that is hollowing the country out from the inside.
Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation’s political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves. …
The object of a movement is not to achieve political power at any price. It is to create pressure and mobilize citizens around core issues of justice. It is to force politicians and parties to respond to our demands. It is about rewarding, through support and votes, those who champion progressive ideals and punishing those who refuse. And the current Democratic Party, as any worker in a former manufacturing town in Pennsylvania can tell you, has betrayed us. …
The working class has every right to be, to steal a line from Obama, bitter with liberal elites. … Human beings are not, despite what the well-heeled Democratic and Republican apologists for the free market tell you, commodities. They are not goods. They grieve, and suffer and feel despair. They raise children and struggle to maintain communities. The growing class divide is not understood, despite the glibness of many in the media, by complicated sets of statistics or the absurd, utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals. It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer making enough money to live with dignity and hope. …
The failure of the left is the failure of well-meaning people who kept compromising and compromising in the name of effectiveness and a few scraps of influence until they had neither. … The left has been transformed into anguished apologists for corporate greed. They have become hypocrites. …
Hope, St. Augustine wrote, has two beautiful daughters. They are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to see they do not remain the way they are. We stand at the verge of a massive economic dislocation, one forcing millions of families from their homes and into severe financial distress, one that threatens to rend the fabric of our society. If we do not become angry, if we do not muster within us the courage to challenge the corporate state that is destroying our nation, we will have squandered our credibility and integrity at the moment we need it most.
The message is the same — the Democratic Party has forgotten its core values, and we, the left wing of the (formerly-)left wing, have let the party get away with it. Of course, they’ve got the money — but we have the votes. The party can spend all the money in the world trying to schmooze us, but at the end of the day, when it’s your job that’s disappeared, and your kid who goes to school without breakfast, you have to decide what your loyalty to the party has gotten you.
The answer lies within the Democratic Party itself, in both its official platform (for which DNC has deemed the top three “key Democratic Party ideals” as prosperity, peace, and progress), and, more telling, in its simple, clear mission statement, “The Democratic Vision“:
The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American. That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.
What’s telling is that, in this statement, national security comes first — and is the first issue mentioned, again, at the beginning of the second sentence — and civil rights comes last, with the economy and vague, imprecise language about “expanding opportunity for every American” and “strong economic growth” jammed in between.
But you have to ask: What do those things mean? What do they mean, in practical terms, to you and your family?
If you take the time to read the full Democratic Party platform, you’ll see that “prosperity, peace, and progress” still take a backseat to more than 18 pages’ worth of discussion about defeating terrorism and strengthening our military.
As essential as it is to prevent another 9/11, the fact remains: If you’re hungry or homeless, you’re not going to give a damn about anything except food and shelter. That’s why the economy is the number-one issue on voters’ minds: We’re talking survival. And a whole lot of us aren’t surviving.
The latest Hightower Lowdown arrived in my mailbox yesterday; the entire issue is dedicated to spelling out, in many simple but terrifying tables, “What 8 years of BushCheney have done to our economy.” I won’t get into the whole thing here; it deserves to be read, and digested, in full. Suffice to say, if you’re not rich, you’re in trouble.
Nevertheless, you may be surprised to learn that economic fears are apparently not affecting votes:
With growing layoffs, tight credit and an ailing housing market, 67 percent say the economy is an extremely important issue, up from 46 percent in November. Gasoline prices follow close behind at 59 percent.
The war in Iraq — the dominant issue for several years — stands at 48 percent. …
Yet those who have become extremely concerned about the economy since last fall show no significant difference from everyone else in backing a presidential candidate. Both groups divide about evenly between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, and between McCain and the other Democrat, Hillary Rodham Clinton. …
People calling the economy extremely important lean toward the two Democratic presidential contenders, while those less concerned prefer McCain. The partisan divide helps explain that, as does income. Of those most worried about the economy, people earning under $50,000 a year prefer the two Democrats over McCain, middle-income earners are divided evenly, and McCain wins the most affluent.
Democrats divide between Obama and Clinton about the same whether or not they are extremely concerned about the economy.
While I’ve long believed (and still do) that a Hillary Clinton administration stands a far greater chance of restoring economic health in the U.S., it appears that voters see so little difference between A) the two Democratic candidates, and/or B) the two parties, that the most pressing issue — the economy — isn’t having much effect on voters who were going to vote Democratic (or Republican) anyway.
And that begs the question: Is there any longer a truly significant difference between the parties, on this or any other urgent issue on which the very survival of our people, and thus our nation, hinges?
Not that I’m advocating anyone vote Republican, mind you — that would be utter insanity. No; what I’m asking you to think about is just how far to the right the Democratic Party has shifted (on every issue, not just the economy), and, more importantly, what you are going to do about it.
Can the Democratic Party be fixed from within? That’s one option. But that’s what we’ve been trying to do all along, isn’t it? We’ve been holding our noses and voting a straight Democratic ticket, because we have no other choice — or so we’ve been told. And while we’ve been gritting our teeth and waiting for our party to return to the core values that made this country great, the big-money types keep dragging the party further and further to the right — and us along with it.
You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results every time.
I just can’t do the insanity thing anymore. Where I go from here, I don’t know. The Greens, God love ‘em, cling too stubbornly to the idea that they can run a presidential candidate every term before building the party from the local and state level up (like the Republicans did — quite successfully, if you’ve noticed). I’m not a Libertarian (although, honestly, if Mike Gravel wins the LP nomination, I will be voting Libertarian for the first time in my life). What about the Socialist Party? As noble as Socialist goals are, no, I’m not so idealistic as to believe society can be rebuilt from scratch.
All I know is that I never left the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party left me.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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April 21, 2008
The face of homophobia. And he’s ugly, too.
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We’d love to know what these folks would say about this jerk using “short people” as a pawn in his cruel attempt to mock gay Coloradans — and make a mockery of the law as well:
Senator’s mock amendment prompts emotional discrimination debate
The debate on the Senate floor over a bill that would expand the prohibition of sexual orientation-based discrimination became personal and emotional this morning after a senator offered a rhetorical amendment to ban discrimination against short people.
Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, withdrew the stunt amendment after arguing that there is no need for the bill because he has not seen evidence that gays and lesbians are discriminated against when seeking a job or a home.
“What I’m talking about is economic discrimination, political discrimination, employment discrimination,” Brophy said. “I find no pattern of any of those.”
Brophy’s comments outraged Democrats, who took turns at the lectern denouncing his argument with angry and sometimes shaking voices.
“It must be nice,” said Sen. Jennifer Veiga, a Denver Democrat who is sponsoring the bill and who is gay, “as a white male to sit back and mock the real discrimination that occurs in our society, especially on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, came close to tears when recalling the ugly fights surrounding the state’s Amendment 2, which prohibited laws protecting gays and lesbians and which the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned.
Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, spoke about his son, who is gay and who moved to Oregon to be a prosecutor several years ago because he felt Colorado was not accepting of him. …
And Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, said he was disgusted by Brophy’s amendment.
“Discrimination is a practice that has gone on in this country too long,” Groff said. “It is the birth defect of this country. And I think it’s time we deal with that.”
Of course, a handful of other Republicans tried to shoot down SB 200, which would prohibit discrimination “on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, places of public accommodation, consumer credit, labor unions and school enrollment, among other areas,” using the same old, tired, brain-dead arguments about crippling “a free society” — you know, the usual transparent idiocy the Wrong Wing parrots every time they’re threatened by the possibility that we homos might actually be recognized as human beings under the law.
The good news is that SB 200 passed a voice vote; it “still needs a final vote in the Senate before heading to the House.”
Let’s hope Colorado hasn’t forgotten the lessons learned from that travesty called Amendment 2.
In the meantime, we suggest some enterprising Democrat in the state legislature introduce a bill prohibiting discrimination against ugly people.
That’s right, ugly people. While we certainly see no pattern of “economic discrimination, political discrimination, [or] employment discrimination” against ugly people — like Sen. Brophy; after all, his rubbery visage, evil-clown smile, beady little eyes, and criminally awful haircut didn’t impede his political career, did it? — the more we look at that mug of his, the more we think that’s not a face every employer would want greeting customers in a store, or peering out from behind the desk of a hotel concierge. So why not pre-empt anti-ugly discrimination before such unfortunates as Sen. Brophy ever feel its sting?
We think somebody so butt-ugly as Sen. Brophy would appreciate such a bill.
Howdya like them apples, Brophy?
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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April 17, 2008
Last October, I mentioned that The Bahamas was (were?) finally started to wake up to the reality that if you treat homos like garbage, homos won’t spend their vacation dollars in your island/country/town.
It ain’t rocket science.
Of course, not too many homo-haters in this country, the Grand Ol’ U.S. of A., are even close to rocket scientists. Sally Kern — about whom Buffy has written extensively on The Gaytheist Agenda — would be lucky to pass a course in the Science of Tying One’s Shoes.
Luckily, Oklahoma is not filled with Sally Kerns (although we do question the very humanity of the dipsticks stupid — or just hateful — enough to vote for her), and is beginning to understand that homophobic hatred could cost the Sooner State some serious money.
Not that we Sneaky Homosexual Agendaists were planning to descend en masse and rename the place Oklahomo; no, it’s this, via The Journal-Record:
OKC Chamber: Kern spooks big biz relocation consultant
OKLAHOMA CITY — A San Francisco Bay-area financial services company has not yet ruled out Oklahoma City for a major office relocation, a vice president of a real estate search firm confirmed. A decision is expected in three to four weeks.
But Tom Maloney, vice president of California-based Staubach Co., would neither confirm nor deny that the 1,000-employee, AAA-rated client company’s top executive is a lesbian who expressed concern over Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern’s recent anti-homosexual statements, as has been the topic circulating among local business leaders.
Roy Williams, president of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, said the issue is a major concern the chamber is trying to address. He confirmed a Staubach consultant was troubled by Kern’s comments during a recent visit to the city.
“He told us straight up … ‘I cannot recommend to any of my clients that they should consider Oklahoma City because of that,’” Williams said. “When you have one of the nation’s premier relocation experts making those statements, you should pay attention to that and not dismiss it.
“And that’s immediately what happened: People said, ‘Well, then tell them not to come here.’ …”
At the Commerce Department, Business Services Deputy Director Sandy Pratt said … Kern’s comments have not been raised as a concern: “It did not come up in any of the governor’s economic development team meetings with consultants or discussions we’ve had with consultants,” Pratt said. …
As for Kern’s comments, “They no doubt send a message out there that no city wants to send, and that is one of divisiveness instead of unitedness,” [Williams] said. For the last five years, the chamber has made a greater effort “to embrace differences and embrace diversity, to build a community that is open and welcoming to anyone.”
Well, that’s a very nice sentiment, Mr. Williams, but while Oklahoma City may be “open and welcoming to anyone,” the state of Oklahoma is very much stuck in the Dark Ages, thanks to your constitutional ban on marriage equality.
Sally Kern aside — and seriously, who is Sally Kern but just another dunderheaded bigot who’s done us the favor of showing the public just how mean and stupid homophobes can be? Sally Kern is a flyspeck in the cosmos. It’s the people of Oklahoma — the ones who decided to legislate their own gay and lesbian neighbors into permanent second-class citizenship — who are the problem. It’s nearly impossible to comprehend that the marriage ban isn’t Staubach’s biggest concern: Staubach’s LGBT employees will have no rights in Oklahoma.
Interestingly, Indianapolis is also on Staubach’s list of potential new homes. Wake up, Staubach — Indiana is hardly better than Oklahoma; aside from the fact that Indiana refuses to recognize any same-sex marriage, civil union, or domestic partnership established in another state, and aside from the fact that a state constitutional ban on marriage equality failed in February, the issue is far from dead: Both houses of the state legislature favor a ban, and there’s an ongoing push to put the issue to the voters. And (especially when you consider that over the past seven years, only one state, Arizona, was able to beat back a marriage amendment) you know what that means; to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin (and mix in a little Ayn Rand), when you allow the majority to vote on the rights of a minority, you’ve got two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Staubach, you need to reconsider this move. I’m assuming you want to leave California because it would be cheaper to do business somewhere else.
But you’ve got to ask yourselves which is more important: money, or doing the right thing.
Meh, I know: It’s business. And money always trumps the right thing.
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March 1, 2008
Point by point, let’s look at Barack Obama’s statement, released February 28, 2008:
I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all — a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.
So, Barry, where was this appeal before Camp Obama realized how badly they’ve been screwing over the LGBT community? Why didn’t you make this statement before the South Carolina primary, instead of handing an “ex-gay” bigot a microphone so he could tap into the raging homophobia of throngs of religious bigots at the expense of the LGBT community you’re suddenly sucking up to now? Why wait until just before the Ohio and Texas primaries to cozy up to the queers — because you just realized Ohio and Texas are full of queers who don’t go in for that “love the sinner, hate the sin” sermonizing you do so well?
Equality is a moral imperative.
Then why don’t you support marriage equality, Barry?
That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
If these issues are so important to you, then why wait until you’re president to “place your weight” behind them? Why haven’t you introduced any domestic-partnership bills as a U.S. Senator? You’re allowed to do that, you know.
As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws.
Not good enough, Barry. You can “urge states” all you like, but when you leave equality to the states, you get separate but equal — just like the validity of your parents‘ marriage was “left to the states” when you were born.
That’s not good enough. You can’t claim your intention to push through “equal treatment” of LGBT Americans on a federal level, while leaving “family and adoption laws” to the states.
Only federally-recognized marriage equality will do.
I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment.
Every married same-sex couple in New Jersey would disagree with you.
But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.
Again, with the “states’ rights” argument. You’re just wrong, Barry. You’re misinformed, deluded, and just plain wrong.
Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate.
You can promise “the complete repeal” of DOMA — in fact, you can promise anything you want — before you’re president. Bill Clinton did; he promised to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve openly in the military, and look what happened to him: He was blindsided by Congress, and forced to compromise with DADT.
So, you can promise us anything you want, Barry — or you can be realistic about DOMA, like Hillary Clinton has been: She’s promising to overturn the part of DOMA she believes she can overturn — she’s not making a promise that is absolutely impossible to keep.
Now, you could say that your eagerness to compromise on marriage equality via the baby step of civil unions is based on political expediency, but I won’t believe it for a second. Your aversion to full marriage equality is based on your religious beliefs, and nothing else — which we’ll address further in just a moment.
While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether.
So do I, but I have no confidence whatsoever in your ability to get rid of it altogether. If you can, great — I’ll praise you for it — but I’m not holding my breath.
And let’s not forget that you can’t do it alone, Barry. It’s going to be up to Congress to overturn DOMA; you’re just the guy who’ll get to sign the bill, if it ever gets to your desk.
Finally, don’t think for a minute that I believe you’re going to go to work on repealing DOMA right away; LGBT equality has never been a priority for you in the past; especially with the mess left to you by the Bush administration, LGBT equality is going to be further down on your to-do list than you’d like to admit.
Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does.
Then why aren’t you pushing for federally-recognized civil marriage — not civil “unions,” but civil marriage — right now?
I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.
Oh? Since when did this issue hit your radar? Last I heard, your position on the UAFA was identical to Senator Clinton’s: You have both been withholding your support for the UAFA, citing concerns about immigration fraud.
Well, here’s my question to you, Barry: If immigration reform is such a big issue to you, why not propose a moratorium on all immigration-by-marriage until you’ve got it sorted out? By holding up passage of the UAFA, you are denying only same-sex couples immigration rights. Either open immigration to everyone, now, or deny immigration to everyone, now, until you figure out how to deal with fraud.
Or, as Immigration Equality noted: “The fraud protections in the UAFA are exactly the same as they are for married (opposite-sex) couples. I perhaps haven’t pushed this point hard enough in previous exchanges, but the fraud protections in the UAFA are not the problem. The problem is that politicians do not understand LGBT relationships and do not consider them bona fide. Whether it is because a marriage certificate cannot be issued, or some deeper discomfort with LGBT marriages we do not know, but to deny LGBT couples a marriage certificate and then say that because there is no marriage certificate you must be subjected to more intense scrutiny is discriminatory, and wrong. Let’s not forget that Obama does not support gay marriage while at the same time claims civil unions extend exactly the same rights as does a marriage certificate.
“The fraud protections in the UAFA are no more loose or no more strict [than] current fraud provisions for opposite-sex couples. It is unfortunate that Sen. Obama, the child of a binational couple whose marriage was once as frowned upon as LGBT relationships does not see this double standard for what it is. We are continuing to work with the Obama camp to bring them onto the UAFA but we will not let them off the hook so easily.”
The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
And this issue is specific to an “open letter to the LGBT community” why, exactly?
Did you mention HIV/AIDS because you’re so accustomed to associating HIV/AIDS with gay men — and “the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth” and other “sinners” — the way you did in your 2006 World AIDS Day Speech at your “friend” Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church?
“Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes — to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say ‘This is your fault. You have sinned.’
“I don’t think that’s a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.”
Are you so compelled to distance yourself from the AIDS epidemic by asserting your heterosexuality that you must, again, compartmentalize HIV/AIDS as a “gay issue”?
When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception.
Can’t find a thing wrong here. But then, there’s a first time for everything.
We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.
Fine, but: Why are you bringing the issue of HIV/AIDS and prison inmates and intravenous drug users into an “open letter to the LGBT community”? Are you lumping felons and heroin addicts in with “the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man,” too?
We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma — too often tied to homophobia — that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day.
I’m glad you brought up your visit to Warren’s church. You pissed off a lot of left-wingers — and Warren pissed off a lot of right-wingers — by “consorting with the enemy.”
Oh, I know it by heart: These are the people you want to “reach out” to — this is your attempt to make “post-partisan unity” a reality. But you shouldn’t be consorting with them, Barry; these are the people who want no middle ground. Surely, you’re not stupid enough to think they are going to compromise with us — the “us” being the Americans “they” have built successful careers of demonizing, and at best want to run out out of the nation on a rail: the gays, the pro-choicers, the atheists, the evolutionary scientists and teachers, the Muslims… anyone who isn’t a heterosexual, anti-choice Christian opposed to full marriage equality.
They are not going to compromise their core values, Barack — and those of us whose rights hang in the balance (where our rights exist at all) will be damned if we compromise our core values for theirs.
The Christofascists are not going to budge an inch. You may get their votes, but you’re a damned fool if you actually believe you’re going to bring them around to any mode of rational thinking.
As my friend David G (whose nail-it-to-the-wall observations I’ll be quoting again soon) remarked regarding your “gay ad”: Like Donnie McClurkin and Kirbyjon Caldwell and Hezekiah Walker and all the rest of the religionists you call your “friends,” they are in fact “fundamentalist activists, anti-choice, anti-science… They are the same as Robertson or Dobson. Not ‘good folk who haven’t accepted gays,’ but dogmatic, rigid fundies. …
“Those of you who think these members of the Religious Right are only ‘a tad homophobic’ are living in denial. They are the clinic blockers, the school boards who sue over evolution. And you are voting them to power in our party.”
Which begs the question: Is that really your intention, Barack, to bring these bigots around? You pay a lot of lip service to maintaining the separation of church and state — even a few atheists positively swooned over your remark that “we are not a Christian nation; we are a nation of Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We are also a nation of non-believers and non-church going folk who may not have ‘Sunday-best’ hanging in their closets but who most assuredly carry the best of intentions within their hearts.”
Yet you continue to infuse your rhetoric with religious buzz phrases — yes, I’ll say it: “code words” — that seem contrived as a “dog whistle” for the religionists, but are more than familiar to those of us against whom your Bible has been used as a bludgeon. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, Barry; it’s tempting to think your own religiosity is so deeply ingrained, you don’t even know you’re doing it (which, to be honest, isn’t much comfort either). But I am convinced you are doing it deliberately.
In the same speech that wooed a few atheists, you also said:
My religious upbringing taught me that homosexuality was sinful and that gay unions should not be allowed. But my political belief is that all people are created equal and thus should be treated as such, homosexual couples being given the same civil rights as their heterosexual counterparts.
I’m not so sure about that, Barack. In fact, I’m dead certain your political belief is informed, and formed, solely by your religious belief. Remember what you said in Iowa (and have repeated in one form or another ever since you started stumping in churches)?
“Doing the Lord’s work is a thread that runs through our politics since the very beginning. And it puts the lie to the notion that separation of church and state in America means somehow that faith should have no role in public life.”
And:
“My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.”
I can think of another president who was convinced that he was doing “the Lord’s work” by merging religion with politics: George W. Bush.
That is not a comforting thought.
And, as David Domke and Kevin Coe observed: Since the Saddleback sermon, “Obama’s religious politics have only grown. He often begins speeches — including his address in February 2007 in which he announced his intention to seek the presidency — by giving ‘all praise and honor to God,’ and regularly cites the biblical story of Joshua.”
To those of us not swayed by biblical ecstasy, that’s pretty chilling stuff.
But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones — and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.
I’ll give you credit for your 2004 DNC speech, Barry. I was stunned with delight to see this kid with the funny ears even mention “gay friends in the red states.”
What’s sad is how inspired I felt at the time — and how small a bone you threw to me, and how I jumped at it, with nearly feverish hope.
What’s sad is how much my opinion of you has changed in less than four years.
I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign — from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached.
Don’t bring Dr. King into this, Barry. Not when your campaign and your supporters virtually slit Hillary Clinton’s throat for making a historically accurate remark about what it took to get the Civil Rights Act passed. You don’t have a monopoly on Dr. King’s message or legacy — and, frankly, Dr. King was far more evolved on the issue of true equality than you are.
And as far as your appearance at Ebenezer Baptist Church, do you remember what you told BeliefNet after that?
“The prayer that I tell myself every night is a fairly simple one: I ask in the name of Jesus Christ that my sins are forgiven, that my family is protected and that I am an instrument of God’s will.”
I don’t want “an instrument of God’s will” in the White House, Barry. I want an employee who doesn’t drag his religious beliefs to the office every morning.
Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans.
Barry, until you commit to marriage equality, you are not committing to full equal rights for all LGBT Americans. Period.
But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary.
Why? Your stubborn refusal to “close your ears” to homophobes is impossible to defend in light of your swift and unyielding condemnation of racists.
Or have you forgotten the names Don Imus and John Tanner?
Finally, what rankles me, Barry, is that you presume to speak for the LGBT community, when you don’t “get” the LGBT community. Your intentions may be (may be) good, but you lack an innate understanding of us, what we’re about, what motivates us, and — yes — why we can’t pretend the McClurkin issue was an isolated incident and just let it go.
You are not our “voice,” Barack. You may think you’re listening to us — and this letter of yours, and your “gay ad” show you’re at least vaguely aware that many of us queers are none too pleased with you — but you’re not hearing us. You don’t have the authority to speak for us, as a genuine ally.
Which is yet another reason I say you need some more “seasoning” before you’ll be anywhere near ready to lead us all, as a nation.
Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country.
Again, “full equality” means marriage equality. Not some “set of basic rights,” as if we were children, or animals, who must prove we can be trusted indoors without piddling on the rug before you give us a set of grown-up rights.
“Full equality” means exactly equal with what you aready have, Barry. And as long as you have what we don’t, you have privileges, while we have merely second-class citizenship.
“Separate but equal” is not equal.
To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.
I don’t think so, Barry. I don’t believe in you, because you don’t understand what you’re promising us — and yet simultaneously denying us.
You’re not ready, Barry. You’re nowhere near ready.
And you don’t understand who we are.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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