May 11, 2008
Just when Obama supporters were hoping the Jeremiah Wright flap had started to die down, and that Donnie McClurkin was already just a distant memory (as if), the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston’s Windsor Village United Methodist Church raises his ugly head, reminding voters all over again that Barack Obama’s choice of the company he keeps, frankly, sucks major weenies.
No doubt you heard that Jenna Bush, the snottier of George and Pickles’ two vacuous party-animal daughters, got married yesterday.
You remember Jenna; she’s one we’ve all seen pictured falling down drunk in a bar, the one who stuck her tongue out at reporters, the one who got busted using a fake I.D. (oops, sorry, that was Barbara), the one who was “underage-drinking” and smoking dope with Ashton Kutcher (oops, sorry, that was both twins).
Anyway, Jenna (who wore white *snort!*) married a geek (who parts his hair on one side as if this were 1964) named Henry Hager, who, we think, is perfect for her; he’s the son of John H. Hager, “Virginia’s first director of homeland security and a former lieutenant governor … [who in 2005] joined the Bush administration as an assistant secretary of education.” Henry himself interned for Karl Rove, and went on to work for the Bush-Cheney reSelection campaign.
(We wish Jenna and Henry everything they deserve in life. We only ask that they refrain from breeding.)
So, what’s the big deal about Kirbyjon Caldwell? Why should we care, or be surprised, that a right-wing preacher who somehow forgot about his own involvement in the “pray the gay away” movement joined a Bush Twin and her icky boyfriend in the bonds of unholy Republicanism? Caldwell is, after all, George W. Bush’s own “spiritual advisor.”
The big deal is this.
And if you don’t get the symbolism of “marrying” the Obama camp to the Radical Right camp once and for all, then you have no sense of irony whatsoever.
Which probably means you’re an Obama supporter.
(Thanks for the heads-up to Heywood — who remarks: “Change we can believe in, eh?”)
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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April 17, 2008
Well, now you know why Obama insists on “reaching out” to rabidly homophobic conservative churches, while refusing to grant a real, no-fluff interview with local gay media.
In Obama’s eyes, it all depends on who’s legitimate, and who’s not.
I keep saying there’s a larger pattern to everything Barack Obama says and does, and — while most people out there really don’t give a rip about our piddly little civil rights struggle — we can begin to see where Obama’s bullheadedness and tunnel vision come from, by looking at the big picture, in this case, Obama’s perspective on one of the most volatile, sensitive areas any U.S. president will ever face… and one in which the wrong decision could kill us all.
(Relax, he’s not president, and he hasn’t decided to nuke Iran or invade Pakistan. Yet.)
Let’s review:
• Barack Obama agrees that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization.
• But Barack Obama is willing to meet — “without precondition” — with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran (as well as with the leaders of “Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea”).
• Barack Obama criticizes former President Jimmy Carter — the guy who brokered the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty — for meeting with Hamas, because “Hamas is a terrorist organization.”
In detail:
April 24, 2007
Obama co-sponsors S.970, the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007, Section 16(d) of which designates the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (a branch of the Islamic Republic of Iran military, of which current Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a member, during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war) as a terrorist organization:
(d) List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations- Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury shall report to the appropriate congressional committees on the efforts of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury to place the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189) and the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224 (66 Fed. Reg. 186; relating to blocking property and prohibiting transactions with persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism).
July 23, 2007
At the YouTube debate, in answer to the question, “[W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?” Obama replies:
I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.
November 11, 2007
Obama reiterates to Tim Russert on “Meet the Press”:
I have said, unlike Senator Clinton, that I would meet directly with the leadership in Iran. I believe that we have not exhausted the diplomatic efforts that could be required to resolve some of these problems — them developing nuclear weapons, them supporting terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. … That has not been tried. Not only has it not been tried, but reports indicate that it has been explicitly rejected by the Bush administration. That is a policy that I intend to change as president of the United States.
March 3, 2008:
Obama supports George W. Bush’s stubborn refusal to so much as talk to Hamas:
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday backed the Bush administration’s policy of shunning contact with the Islamic militants of Hamas in its Middle East peace diplomacy.
The Illinois senator has said he would break with President George W. Bush’s stance of declining to talk to some other international adversaries but that stance does not apply to Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
April 16, 2008:
Obama jumps on Jimmy Carter for talking to Hamas:
Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday disagreed with former President Jimmy Carter’s overtures toward Hamas, saying he would not talk to the Islamist group until it recognized Israel and renounced terrorism.
The Illinois senator, campaigning in Pennsylvania which holds the next presidential voting contest on Tuesday, told a group of Jewish leaders he has an “unshakable commitment” to help protect Israel from its “bitter enemies.”
“That’s why I have a fundamental difference with President Carter and disagree with his decision to meet with Hamas,” Obama said. “We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements.”
“Hamas is not a state. Hamas is a terrorist organization,” he said.
Ohhhh! I see now! Obama will meet with the leaders of all sorts of states (even rogue states, like North Korea), because they’re states, and Hamas is not a state.
In Obama’s eyes, one is legitimate, and the other is not.
Never mind that Iran’s “Ahmadinejad has clearly stated his intent to annihilate the State of Israel and also provides generous funding, advanced training, equipment, weapons and other support to Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations that attack Israeli citizens daily.”
Don’t even whisper that, or you might send Barry into an unstoppable fit of the ums and uhs and y’knows that always tumble out of his mouth when he’s caught off-guard, and off-script.
Nope, never mind that Iran is a sworn enemy of the State of Israel — one of its “bitter enemies” Obama has an “unshakable commitment” to help protect it from — and yet he wants to have a coffee klatch with that punk Ahmadinejad? But… Never mind that. Right, Barry? Barry…?
And never mind that Obama insisted, while talking to a group of Jewish voters in Pennsylvania:
“We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements.”
Barry might go absolutely catatonic if he has to explain why it’s a bad thing to “negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction,” while it’s a good thing to negotiate with a terrorist state intent on Israel’s destruction.
It’s not a black-and-white issue, not a one’s-a-state-and-the-other’s-not proposition. Unfortunately — and very unfortunately for the rest of us, should he actually get into the White House (shudder) — Barry doesn’t do “shades of gray” very well at all.
As Matt Schofield at the KC Star put it:
But isn’t Obama all about getting to the table with these people [Hamas], no matter how distasteful? We can be as offended as we like by the tactics of Hamas. But they’ve got a very real, and very political backing in the Palestinian territories. True, they are not a state actor. But it is hard to imagine a lasting peace agreement that ignores them. they simply have too much support in the region.
It’s not a one-off situaiton [sic], either: A study out this week notes that Nasrallah, the head of Lebanese Hezbollah, is the most respected Arab leader on Earth at this moment. Hezbollah and Hamas are not that far apart, and are frequently linked, at least by Israel. Can the continuing Israel/Hezbollah animosity be solved without the invovlement of Hezbollah? No.
I’m not saying they’re not both terrorist groups. From our perspective, and Israel’s perspective, certainly they are. Now, does this mean that Obama as a US president should sit down with them? No. Not sure that should be done.
But should he necessarily be critical of a former president who does? …
As Obama has noted, diplomacy can insist on an American leader sitting down with folks seen as strong enemies of the US. That is no reason not to meet with them. In fact, it’s an argument for why we should meet with them. …
[I]n a sense, Carter’s meeting serves this country, and the region. It’s a way to get to the table with people we can’t really otherwise talk with.
But if that’s not the case, if meeting with such folks is simply wrong, bad, and betrayal of trust, then isn’t Obama’s whole view of diplomacy a bit naive?
Easy answer: No — it’s a lot naïve.
I tell you, folks, if Barry — in all his naïveté, in all his black-and-white thinking — ends up being the one with his finger on the button, we’d all better start thinking about building bomb shelters in our backyards.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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March 21, 2008
By metalluk. Reprinted with permission.
Visit metalluk’s Epinions home page
Before our very eyes, there is a new Religious Left coalescing out of the splintered remnants of the old Democratic coalition: the Obama movement, or, simply Obamania. Obama’s appeal to his supporters has much of the quality of religious hysteria and his oratory resembles that of a minister on a pulpit. His speeches allude sometimes to a coalition of faith and bipartisanship. If Barack Obama goes on to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, it may very well signal a fundamental realignment of the political landscape in America. That realignment might be transient, as when the so-called Reagan Democrats shifted party allegiance for an election cycle or two, during the 1980’s. Or it could be something more lasting.
Polls, this year, indicate that Barack Obama has an unusual ability to attract Independent voters and even a few nominally identified as Republicans. On the other hand, somewhere between a quarter and one-half of the traditional Democrats currently supporting Senator Clinton indicate that they will cross party lines to vote for the Republican candidate if Senator Obama is the Democratic nominee. Race may be one factor in the impending realignment of voters, if Obama is a candidate, but there is another factor at work as well.
Obama is far stronger than Clinton in the Old South and in the Heartland, where religion plays a strong role in the daily lives of people. Obama does less well in California, the Northeast, and the Industrial portion of the Midwest, where wage-earners predominate and where religion, though still evident in the private lives of the populace, tends not to be intermingled with such secular activities as work, school, and play. These folks have a strong tradition of supporting separation of church and state and are less likely to join in with what is essentially a religious revival, even if it is arising from the left, this time, instead of the right side of the political spectrum. Organized labor, with its Marxist roots, will not comfortably embrace the new Religious Left, although it may be supported by some individual workers who are especially devout in their religious affiliation. There is evidence in current polls of a movement of white, male working class voters into the Clinton camp. For all too many leftists, Obama is a Pied Piper and the voter himself like the child who was too lame to follow the whole of the way. At first, he will stand aside and watch dumbfounded, but if the phenomenon is a lasting one, these voters will need to find a new home.
The last two elections, in 2000 and 2004 respectively, pitted a candidate from the Christian Right against candidates from the secular, pragmatic, nuts-and-bolts Democratic tradition. If Obama is nominated by the Democrats, the 2008 general election will pit a new kind of candidate from the Religious Left against a somewhat secular, pragmatic, nuts-and-bolts candidate from the right. Voters will align themselves, in part, based on whether they view the left/right or religious/secular dichotomy as the more important one. If the Obama phenomenon takes hold, in the Democratic Party, sooner or later there will be a contest between a candidate from the Religious Right and one from the Religious Left. That might create the kind of vacuum in which a genuine third party might emerge, with a secular and pragmatic orientation.
Religion, by its nature, is an inherently conservative phenomenon. Its epistemology is “revealed truth” and if God is all-knowing he can’t also be presented as “changing his mind.” No one likes a God who is a flip-flopper. By contrast, the secular domains occupied by science and reason are inherently revolutionary, constantly revising and up-dating their dogmas with each new experiment and discovery. So, it was a natural kind of alliance between two conservative traditions when the Religious Right emerged in the late seventies, spearheaded by Robert Grant, Jerry Falwell Ed McAteer, and Pat Robertson. It also dramatically changed the political landscape and led directly to the Reagan years.
The Obama phenomenon is a less likely kind of alliance and harder to comprehend. Obama presents himself as the “change” candidate and is widely perceived as such by his followers. Obama recognizes, however, an odd kind of paradox that his candidacy represents, when he describes the ethic of his Trinity Church of Christ community, with its emphasis on self-help, as a “quintessentially American — and yes, conservative — notion.” Religions have never been about change except in the sense of expanding the reach of their viewpoints into new communities.
Change can be good or it can be catastrophic. Many of us who have long advocated change in America do not welcome all of the kinds of change that Barack Obama represents. Certainly, we welcome inclusivity and the “new face on America” that Obama’s rise in prominence heralds, but do not welcome his emphasis on faith, overt Christianity in public life, and evangelical-style speeches delivered as though from a pulpit. Leadership by “inspiration” is a dangerous kind of leadership. Faith is diametrically opposed to critical thinking. Political prophets too often insulate themselves among their followings, leading to corruption, cronyism, and political sloth. It is only the willingness of voters to punish political parties for their corrupt tendencies that holds such problems in check. Loyalty in politics is an invitation to abuse of power.
America found itself knee-deep in an immoral and strategically unsound war in Iraq not merely because of George W. Bush and his neoconservative cronies. The other major contributing factor was the ignorance of the American people, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. The American public was too easily duped by spurious arguments and false information into supporting the administration’s preposterous position. Only those who took the time to read and critically evaluate the available information saw through the gambit, before it was too late. Without critical faculties to draw upon, the public will repeat such mistakes over and over again. America will not be a significantly better country until Americans learn to think critically and independently. What does it matter if we are led around by our collective nose-rings by a leader on the left or one on the right? Obama, with his appeals to faith, hope, inspiration, and zealotry, is inviting the public down a pathway that leads to clapping and singing, as well as conformity and acceptance, rather than thoughtful analysis of alternative viewpoints and policies.
Even more than George Bush, it is WE, the American people, who are the problem in America. WE need to think carefully and substantively about major issues and, collectively, to direct our government toward sensible courses of action, instead of allowing them to embark on unilateral, unprovoked wars or reelecting advocates of torture. WE will not be a better people because of a euphoria imparted by a charismatic speaker — or when a “forceful wind” and “voices from the rafters” overpower our capacities for reason and objectivity.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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March 11, 2008
We’re royally pissed off at Elliot Spitzer — not because he was patronizing a prostitute (or ten, or a hundred), but because by letting his little head do his thinking, he’s really screwed over gay and lesbian Americans.
Elliot Spitzer was one of the best friends American LGBTs could ask for. He’s been a longtime advocate for marriage equality, and last April introduced a same-sex marriage bill in the New York legislature — the first governor in the country to do so. Although the GOP-dominated state senate killed the bill, we were hopeful that New York would be one of the next states (competing with Rhode Island and California) to offer full, equal marriage, à la Massachusetts.
Spitzer had also promised to sign the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).
Now it looks like we’re going to lose our best friend in the Empire State. And even if Spitzer doesn’t resign (and, really, he has to; he violated the Mann Act), his power is effectively neutered.
We don’t care a whit if Elliot Spitzer wants to pay for sex, and whatever damage he’s done to his marriage (and his relationship with his children) is his own concern. What a person does sexually, in private, is nobody’s business — unless his behavior puts a crimp in somebody else’s freedom. That includes conservatives trying to force the rest of us to live by their “moral values,” or, in Spitzer’s case, a single individual setting back the march toward LGBT equality by way of a really stupid choice he made for his own selfish pleasure. In short, Elliot Spitzer traded our freedom for the promise of a lousy orgasm.
A lousy, expensive orgasm. It’s difficult to imagine what you get for $4,300 — the price Spitzer was going to pay for a call girl named “Kristen” — but we imagine it wasn’t seven minutes in the missionary position.
Whatever Spitzer was going to get for his money, he didn’t get it. We were the ones who got screwed — without, as my dear departed father used to say, so much as a kiss.
Then, of course, there is the damage Spitzer has done to the Democratic Party, the extent of which remains to be seen. We already have a hint about the extent of the damage he’s done to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign; within minutes of the story breaking on the newswires, Barack Obama supporters on the Message Forum That Shall Remain Nameless were using the Spitzer scandal to smear Clinton. First, they somehow rationalized (if you can call this line of thought “rational”) that Clinton was tainted merely by her association with Spitzer, one of her most high-profile supporters; furthermore, they decided that this association by default cancels out Obama’s relationships with Donnie McClurkin, Kirbyjon Caldwell, and the rest of the homophobic bigots from whom Obama refuses to distance himself.
As if.
Second — and this is very real damage — the widely-circulated image of Spitzer’s wife, the silent, suffering Silda, standing by her man…
…brought the image of Hillary standing by Bill during the Monica Lewinsky scandal back into razor-sharp focus.
Literally. This is the image ABC decide to run to illustrate a piece called “Why Women Stand by Their Men“:
Counter-clockwise from upper left: Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Spitzer, Mr. and Mrs. Larry Craig, Mr. and (now ex-) Mrs. Jim McGreevey, and Mr. and Mrs. Bill Clinton.
What’s wrong with this picture? For starters, three of the four disgraced politicians are Democrats. Having researched political pecadilloes for years, I can tell you that Republicans far outnumber Democrats in the cheating department. Granted, represented are four of the most infamous sex scandals in recent memory (although it’s a stretch to call the Lewinsky scandal “recent”), but if ABC had asked for my input, I could have given them dozens of examples of humiliated wives standing by their men — from the other side of the aisle.
In any case, Clinton (Hillary, not Bill) is screwed no matter whether Spitzer resigns or not. As Peter Baker wrote in WaPo:
Spitzer has been a bad-luck charm for Hillary Clinton to this point. His illegal immigrant driver’s license proposal arguably became the first time she was thrown off her stride in this campaign. … That led to a bad patch for her that lasted all the way through the Iowa caucuses. …
Now Spitzer may throw her off stride again at a moment she needs to keep her momentum going. And on top of that, even if he does spare her by resigning soon, that has a cost too — one fewer superdelegate for her at the convention.
It’s not lost on us, by the way, that this scandal comes at the most inopportune time for Democrats — and at a very convenient time indeed for Republicans. (You’ve already forgotten all about Vicki Iseman, haven’t you?)
And it’s not lost on us that Spitzer was nailed by a federal wiretap — you know, that part of the USA Patriot Act that allows the feds to listen in on your phone calls for any half-assed reason they want (or no reason at all). It was the Bush Machine that turned the U.S. into “one nation, under surveillance” — and we knew Big Brother wasn’t going to confine wiretapping to terrorism suspects.
OK, OK, so the Spitzer hooker bust was a by-product of a “routine tax inquiry” by the IRS, and prostitution was said to be “the furthest thing from the minds of the investigators” looking into the suspicious movement of funds through Spitzer’s hands. But the timing of the emergence of a “confidential informant, a young woman who had worked previously as a prostitute for the Emperor’s Club V.I.P., the escort service that Mr. Spitzer was believed to be using” who enabled the investigators “to get a judge to approve wiretaps on the cellphones of some of those suspected of involvement in the escort service” seems awfully convenient. To the Republican Party, that is.
But, all speculation aside, what’s done is done — and what’s been done is irreversible.
As for how badly Spitzer has hurt the Democratic Party, hurt Hillary Clinton, and hurt us LGBTs — who saw in Elliot Spitzer the closest thing we had to a savior — only time will tell.
But it’s gonna hurt every last one of us.
And all because Elliot Spitzer couldn’t keep his penis in his pants.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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March 5, 2008
Here’s something interesting, especially for our more visually- (as opposed to verbally-) inclined readers.
Paying attention to the similarities among the traditionally big, blue, liberal, Democratic states, compare this current (as of March 5, 2008) primary map from McClatchy (green = Clinton; purple = Obama):
…with this final electoral map from the 2000 presidential election (red = Republican/Bush; blue = Democratic/Gore):
…with this final electoral map from the 2004 presidential election (red = Republican/Bush; blue = Democratic/Kerry):
…with the now-venerated “Jesusland” map:
What does this say to you? Coincidence? Or something about Republican cross-over votes?
G’head, click the Comment link and tell me what you think.
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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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Category:
"Ex-Gays",
Barack Obama,
Bill Clinton,
Christianity,
Donnie McClurkin,
Election 2008,
Employment/ENDA,
George W. Bush,
HIV/AIDS,
Hillary Clinton,
Homophobia,
Immigration,
Marriage Equality,
Military/DADT,
Race/Ethnic Issues,
Radical Religious Right,
Religion & Spirituality
February 24, 2008
See Part 1 here
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you look at Obama and see no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, nothing gets your goat like a Clinton supporter saying Obama is all style and no substance.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask Obama supporters to show you Obama’s substance.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you tell Clinton supporters that Obama is a “blank screen” onto which you’re supposed to project all your own hopes and dreams.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, the “blank screen” line just means there’s no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you get angry when the Clinton supporters dismiss the “blank screen” concept.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask the Obama supporters to explain, in their own words, what Obama intends to actually do.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you direct all Clinton supporters to Obama’s Web site, to read somebody else’s words — and then complain that nobody reads Obama’s Web site.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’ve combed through Obama’s Web site, repeatedly, and find no “there” there.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, Obama’s entire campaign smacks of a preachy, religious tent revival.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you rail against religious or “cult” comparisons — while you refuse to discuss issues and policies, instead following your “Camp Obama” leader’s directive to share only “personal conversion stories.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you hate using such a heavily-loaded word as “cult,” but you’re extremely uneasy about the many ways in which the Obama supporters resemble the followers of… well… sorry to say it, but… yes… Jim Jones.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you take extreme umbrage at being branded “cult-like” — but you have to consult Wikipedia to find out who Jim Jones was.
If you’re an Obama supporter, once you find out who Jim Jones was, you suddenly understand what “drinking the Kool-Aid” means, and you’re positively aghast anyone would aim that Jonestown allusion at you.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you want to scream at the Obama supporters: “What do you think everybody meant about ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ in reference to the Bush administration all these years?!” And then you go bang your head against the nearest doorjamb until the pain stops.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you revile Bill Clinton — and by extension, Hillary — for signing NAFTA.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you think signing NAFTA was one of Bill’s worst mistakes — but you remember that 1) Obama was for NAFTA before he was against it, and 2) Obama actually wants to expand NAFTA.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’re still stunned that Bill Clinton was impeached over lying about a lousy blow job, yet all attempts to impeach George W. Bush, a bona fide war criminal, have failed.
If you’re an Obama supporter, Bill Clinton deserved to be impeached for lying about a lousy blow job, but you don’t support impeaching Bush or even Cheney, because Obama told you that he doesn’t support it, explaining that “you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president’s authority” — which means that Bill’s lousy blow job is a far more “grave, grave breech” than anything Bush or Cheney has ever done.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you remember when former U.S. ambassador Joe Wilson risked everything to blow the lid off BushCo’s “yellowcake” lie and expose the treasonous, criminal betrayal of his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame — which not only endangered her life, but endangered national security.
If you’re an Obama supporter, Joe Wilson is a paid Hillary operative, and Valerie Plame is a ditzy blonde who needed her husband to bail her out of an embarrassing situation.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you think Paul Krugman is a brilliant economist and fine political commentator, whose progressive perspective has remained consistent since the early 1990s.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you think Paul Krugman is an inbred knuckledragger too stupid to balance his own checkbook.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’ve always thought Peggy Noonan was a bitter, nasty, right-wing hack, and your opinion has never changed.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you never realized how wise and erudite Peggy Noonan really was, until late January of 2008, when she ripped both Clintons up one side and down the other.
If you’re an Obama supporter, your newfound admiration of Peggy Noonan ended less than a month after it began, when Noonan published an op/ed critical of Barack and Michelle Obama.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, nothing Peggy Noonan writes surprises you, since Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, after all, and— by the way, speaking of Ronald Reagan…
If you’re an Obama supporter, you agree with Obama’s praise of “that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship” Ronald Reagan employed in curbing “all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know that the “excesses of the 1960s and 1970s” Reagan’s right-wing backlash was targeting included the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s liberation movement, the gay liberation movement, the consumer-protection movement, and the environmental movement. For starters.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you cry, “That’s not what he meant by ‘excesses of the 1960s and 1970s’!” but when pressed to explain what he did mean by “excesses of the 1960s and 1970s,” you start to mumble something about “fiscal excesses,” but stop mid-sentence when you realize that Reagan was a union-busting tax cutter who gutted the middle class and racked up the largest federal deficit in U.S. history.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you can’t comprehend how Michelle Obama’s remark, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback,” could possibly be perceived as a dismissal of every American achievement of the past 25 years.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you wonder, as Sasha Issenberg put it, “So what did Michelle Obama think of the United States before her husband decided he wanted to run the place?”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re quick to correct the quote; what she really said was “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you don’t see how the addition of the word “really” changes the meaning — especially since both quotes are correct, as she made them in two different speeches on the same day.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you respond that no one can possibly understand what Michelle Obama really meant unless you’re black, because America has yet to earn the pride of a minority that has been oppressed, demonized, and dehumanized throughout the entirety of America’s 232-year history.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, and you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, you wonder how you manage to find plenty of things to make you proud of America while remaining oppressed, demonized, and dehumanized throughout the entirety of America’s 232-year history.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you also wonder how Obama supporters can keep claiming that Barack Obama “transcends race,” when they keep using lines like “You can’t understand what Michelle Obama really meant unless you’re black.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’ve been demanding Clinton release her tax returns, right damn now!
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’re not allowed to wonder why public access to Michelle Obama’s 1985 sociology thesis has been “Restricted until November 5, 2008.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re quick to point out that Hillary Clinton’s 1969 thesis was sealed in the early days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, in 1993.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you remember that too — and you also remember the way the Clintons were raked over the coals for it.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you remind the Clinton supporters that Michelle Obama’s thesis is irrelevant — Michelle isn’t running for president.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you remind the Obama supporters that Hillary Clinton wasn’t running for president in 1993, either.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you know Obama is going to take the general election in a landslide — just look at how he’s knocked Hillary flat on her butt in 24 state primary races already!
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know that Obama wins caucuses and open primaries (in which registered Republicans and in some cases even unregistered voters) can vote for whoever they want, while Clinton wins closed primaries. (Obama has won eleven caucuses, five open primaries, and eight closed primaries — while Clinton has won nine closed primaries, three open primaries, and one caucus.)
If you’re an Obama supporter, you snark at Clinton supporters because they’re essentially saying: “Some states don’t count.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know that Republicans who “cross over” to vote for the weaker Democrat in open Democratic primaries — like the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Bluey — are not an anomaly.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you scoff at Clinton supporters who just can’t believe that Obama is accomplishing exactly what he said he was going to do: convert Republicans and Independents to the Democratic Party.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’re stunned by how deeply in denial the Obama supporters are about the Republicans’ long tradition of gaming the system.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you just don’t believe the Republicans are that smart, or that organized.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you wonder if the Obama supporters have even the first clue about the real meaning of “Rovian tactics.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re convinced that Obama’s healthcare plan will give every American the same health-insurance coverage Obama himself enjoys.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know Obama’s plan is a mandate for 15 million uninsured American children — and nobody else.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you rail against Clinton’s healthcare plan because you think it involves “wage garnishment.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask Obama supporters if they think Social Security (a.k.a. FICA) deductions are a form of “wage garnishment,” too.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you point out the vast unfairness of Clinton’s healthcare plan, as it will “penalize” childless Americans who have to pay for the coverage of somebody else’s kids.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you point out — again — that Obama’s plan is a mandate for 15 million uninsured American children, and nobody else — which means childless people will be paying for the coverage of somebody else’s kids.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re stuck for an answer to this one, especially as the Clinton supporters turn to the next logical question: “Do Obama supporters complain just as loudly about their taxes paying for ’somebody else’s kids’ to attend public school, too — or would they prefer school vouchers?”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’d never in a million years dream of attributing any of Obama’s negative campaign tactics or unlikeable personal characteristics to the fact that he’s black — that would be a truly despicable, racist thing to do.
If you’re an Obama supporter, there’s a strong chance you attribute everything you hate about Hillary Clinton to the idea that she’s having her period, or she’s not having her period, or she’s past having her period — all of which makes her “unhinged,” “hysterical,” “shrill,” “screeching,” a “harpy,” a “shrew,” a “bitch,” a “nag,” a “virago,” “weepy,” “emotionally unbalanced,” “losing it,” “cracking up,” “like your ex-wife yelling at you,” “an angry schoolmarm,” “insane,” subject to “mood swings,” “bipolar,” having “Mommy Moments,” having a “case of the vapors,” “on the rag,” and “in need of a Midol” — or, as Obama himself so slyly put it, “the claws come out” and she “launches attacks” … “periodically when she’s feeling down.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you know it’s not your place to judge whether or not anyone is a “true Christian” — but you’re well within your rights to judge whether or not anyone is a “true Democrat.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, the familiar strains of “You’re either with us or you’re against us” sends a chill down your spine.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you wax poetic over the way Obama is going to unite all Americans.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you tremble when you think of the last presidential candidate who billed himself as “a uniter, not a divider.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, “unity” means: Vilify, marginalize, ostracize, and ridicule Hillary Clinton and her supporters — while “reaching out” to Republicans; gloat like a soccer hooligan over Obama’s popularity; and tell Clinton supporters Obama doesn’t need their support, their donations, or their votes.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you can’t understand why Clinton supporters respond with: “OK, then win without us in November. Good luck.”
Yes, it looks like we’re going to have a Part 3!
Copyright (c) 2008 LavenderLiberal.com. Permission is granted to reproduce “If You’re An Obama Supporter… / If You’re A Clinton Supporter…” in part or in full, on the World Wide Web or through email only (i.e., not in any hardcopy or other permanent storage medium), solely on the condition that 1) this copyright notice, 2) proper attribution (”Lavender Newswire”) and 3) a live hyperlink back to this post or to the Lavender Newswire home page ( http://news.lavenderliberal.com ) is included with the reprinted content.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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