In this case you are mistaken to suggest both sides are deceiving voters by using scare tactics. Discrimination against gay people has been, and continues to be, a real thing in the US. A politician isn’t engaging in scare tactics by saying they will support equality for LGBT people.
Since discrimination against Christians is an imaginary thing in this country, politicians who make that argument are using scare tactics to deceive people into supporting them.
That’s the difference.
I’d like to call out the assumption, here, that “Christians” and “gays” are on opposite sides. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of people who support gay rights are, themselves, Christian. The fight, as always, is not between gays and Christians. It’s between gays and their allies, and bigots.
Yes. Clinton did what he could with what he had.
Well I should hope that the President is mindful of politics. Presidents represent all the people, and most Americans were bigoted on the gay issue in 1995. Politics is the art of the possible.
Don’t like it? Trans folk were told to sit carefully and wait in the back of the bus for decades by major gay rights organizations. I guess political expediency stopped the Human Rights Campaign from pushing harder for transfolk, right?
This blanket vilification of Hilary is ludicrous and clownish.
That’s pretty funny. The funniest part is trying to present the Libertarian Party as champions of social progress! The reality is that the Libertarian view of social policy is not to have any, period. Social policy for the poor? Screw 'em. Social policy for the sick? Let 'em die. Right now their platform is to condemn the Affordable Care Act which they regard as a creeping horror of socialism that must be repealed at once.
I’ve read their first party platform from 1972 and the only thing of relevance I could find on the issue is that they call for the repeal of laws on “victimless crimes”. IOW, neither prostitutes, heroin addicts, or gays should be thrown in jail. Which is part of their overall policy that government should basically cease to exist except to protect the one thing that matters to them: property rights. Not exactly coming from a place of social liberalism and advocacy of gay marriage as a human right.
Now that it’s fashionable, of course, they’re applauding the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and if anyone happens to mistake them for social progressives and mistakenly votes for them, that’s fine with them. But the reality is that Libertarians are mainly concerned with eliminating government, Republicans are mainly concerned with protecting business interests and religious dogma, and if one is interested in social progress and a genuine advancement of human rights one needs to look elsewhere.
So your point can only be interpreted as the assertion that no politician who ever changes their view on anything, regardless of what it is and regardless of the circumstances, can ever be trusted again. Which, as already noted, is absurd.
I agree with this, someone’s views changing is a good thing when their views used to be bad. And their current stance is what will affect how they govern. She seems pretty sincere and consistent for the last few years regarding her support of gay rights, she’s not just spouting off what’s political expedient. And even if she was, the support for gay rights is only going to increase, so it will continue to be politically expedient, she wouldn’t have any reason to start being against gay rights.
Sanders may be better, but even he wasn’t exactly perfect. I’m not as familiar with him and his history, so I googled ‘Bernie Sanders gay rights’ and this is the first article that came up:
No politician is perfect, and they all have to work within the system, both regarding other politicians and regarding the voters. It’s not something I love, but something I tolerate.
The gay lobby loves Clinton, and always has, late to the party or not. The gay community here was extremely skeptical of Obama (not unreasonably, given his general silence on the topic in 2008 and the often-opposed views of black churchgoers and gay-rights activists), and gay voters were among the last to join the Obama party.
I have no expectation Sanders or any other person is perfect, politician or not. I have very little doubt I will be voting for HRC come Election Day 2016 but that will not stop me from pointing out when she or her campaign try to rewrite history concerning why Bill signed DOMA. His position, just like that of many people, has evolved over time and I appreciate that. But the idea he signed DOMA to forestall a constitutional amendment prohibiting SSM is total bullshit and I will not hesitate to point that out, now or in the future.
DADT was in no way a step forward for gay rights. We already had the right to serve if we stayed in the closet. What DADT did was take what had been military policy, and turned it into US law. It also did nothing at all to stop gays from being discharged. Rates of discharge for homosexual conduct went up almost every year that DADT was in effect. Considering that Clinton had actually campaigned on letting gays serve, this wasn’t just bad policy, it was a straight up knife in the back. And it wouldn’t be the first.
GLAAD and the HRC love Clinton, because having a former president show up at your fundraiser really helps pull in the bucks. Actual gay people, on the other hand, still have a high degree of distrust over the both of them, and Hillary straight up lying about DOMA isn’t helping.
Of course, that’s only going to hurt her in the Democratic primary, and not particularly badly, at that. As much as the pair of them are craven, two-faced, backstabbing false friends to the gay rights movement, they’re still lightyears better than the most enlightened candidate on the right.
From the Libertarian Party platform in 1976:
We call for the end of Defense Department policy of discharging armed forces personnel for homosexual conduct when such conduct does not interfere with their assigned duties. We further call for the retraction of all less-than-honorable discharges previously assigned for such reasons and the deletion of such information from military personnel files.
That was 17 years before Bill Clinton gave us don’t-ask-don’t-tell, and 34 years before President Obama finally allowed gays to serve openly in the military.
Repeal of legislation prohibiting unions between members of the same sex, and extension to such unions of all legal rights and privileges presently enjoyed by
partners in heterosexual marriages. (source)
Sounds pretty clear to me. 36 years before the leader of the Democratic Party supported gay marriage rights.
You claim that the one thing that matters to the Libertarian Party is property rights. Even a quick search on the party’s website turns up plenty of writings on topics other than property rights:
What’s the Libertarian party’s stance on non-discrimination laws protecting LGBTs?
I presume it’s the same as what Ralph Raico expressed in his essay. Right after listing the rights for gays that the Libertarian Party has fought for consistently since it’s founding, he says:
Now, the regular reader may perhaps have noticed a certain omission here: namely, legislation forcing private persons who, forone reason or another, dislike homosexuals, nevertheless to hire them, admit them to “public accommodations” (which are not really “public” at all, but privately owned), and rent or sell apartment or houses to them. Many gay groups are presently advocating such laws. We, however, strenuously oppose them, as infringements on the rights of homophobic persons. Freedom, in our understanding, implies also the freedom to be wrong. We have always made it a point of honor that we are “the Party of Principle,” and our principles compel us to say that bigotry and prejudice, so long as they do not involve coercion, must also be legal. What justifies our freedom, justifies that of anti-gays as well.
There are further arguments against such proposals, pointed out by the Canadian libertarian gay activist and poet, Ian Young. First of all, such laws would tend to be relatively ineffective; an employer, for instance, could always come up with a rationalization for getting around the law. A more effective way to deal with this problem is through gay self-help: direct action, when the need arises, by means of negotiation, picketing, boycott, etc. As with all forms of self-help, this has the advant age also of nurturing the kind of self-assured, imaginative and independent individuals who some-day, we hope, will become the norm in our society. Secondly, these proposed laws, it should be noted, would also prevent gays from hiring or associating only with gays when they wish. Occasionally in business or the selection of residence, quite often in social situations, homosexuals prefer the exclusive company of other homosexuals; such laws would make this by and large illegal.
And I would add to Ian’s objections another one. In the long run, gay people do not need the “help” of the State, as their progress wherever they have been freed from governmental tyranny shows. Furthermore, there is a point which I find it somewhat hard to express, but this may give you an idea: when one has been brutally, systematically oppressed, there are certain relationships of trust and dependence which it would be improper and demeaning to enter into with one’s oppressor. For many centuries now, as we have seen, the mortal enemy of homosexuals and of the gay in all of us has been the State. To have been savaged by the state and its agents for so long, and yet to have come this far, should tell us that we can and should make the last part of the road on our own, without calling in that old blood-stained Hangman now to do the job on anti-gays.
Well that sucks. The data is spotty, but Wikipedia indicates that discharges went up until 911, then declined. That makes sense: during wartime, the military stops caring about BS regs. Don't ask, don't tell - Wikipedia
Not entirely fair. Pushing for gay rights destroyed Clinton’s honeymoon. Conservative airwaves were filled with discussion of the specter of sharing same sex showers with those of same sex preferences. And frankly there’s Congress to consider: the odds that they would override the Joint Chiefs of Staff are rather slim.
After the DADT loss, Clinton would go on to issue an executive order in 1995 to revoke the ban on security clearances for LGBT folks. According to Barnie Frank, “No federal policy had done us (LGBT) more damage.” Clinton also had Janet Reno pass a rule adding those who had been persecuted for their sexual preferences to those eligible for refugee status. He also sent out a letter to all federal agencies saying that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in hiring was excluded.
Source: Frank (2015) ch 6.
So, not actually in favor of gay rights. Thanks for proving my point for me.
Its entirely fair. Clinton loved to talk about how much he cared about gays, but only so long as he didn’t have to spend any political capital on it. As soon as supporting us started to genuinely hurt him, he turned on us.
And then he signed DOMA.
Thereby heading off a possible constitutional amendment enshrining DOMA policy, and possibly worse, into the Constitution.
This is specially true about gay rights. A WHOLE lot of people changed their mind about gay marriage in the very same time span.
Millions. Hillary wasn’t one of them though unless you count “it’s now a good time to publicly come out in favor if this” as changing her mind.
I didn’t vote for Bill either time and probably won’t vote for Hillary unless the GOP fails to nominate an establishment candidate, and I think the left was short sighted then and now about DOMA. For one, it passed both houses with veto-proof supermajorities. It was going to be law of the land regardless of what Bill did. What you were asking him to do is make a symbolic veto to stand up for gay rights, and (I’m looking at this from the perspective of the left) essentially fall on his sword and lose a Presidential election to a Republican. Would that have been a net gain or a net loss for gay rights in the 90s? I don’t know that Bob Dole would’ve actually done much legislative in regard to gays, gay marriage rights in general weren’t a big issue back then, DOMA sort of manufactured it as one. But I still think a gay person would rather Bill than Bob, and asking him to do something symbolic that would have no practical effect other than make his chances at reelection go down makes little political sense to me. If I was gay and anti-DOMA in the 90s I would’ve wanted Bill to sign it so “my side” could keep the White House way more than I’d want Bill to veto it solely for “optics” reasons which would make a Republican President much more likely.
As for DADT, when it was passed it represented an expansion of rights for gays in the military, not a reduction. Homosexuality had been an offense that could get you booted forever, what DADT did was created a framework where the military would not, as much, actively “root out” homosexuals through investigations and such. If you made yourself known as gay, you’d be booted, but they weren’t going to go looking.
I don’t think that was really going to happen. The most that was going on about gay marriage back then was IIRC civil unions in Hawaii and a few other places. I do not believe you’d have been able to mobilize the force required to get a ban of gay marriage passed by 3/4th of the States. I think if they could’ve, they would’ve.
The real reason to sign it was it was simply good politics. It passed both Houses with veto proof majorities. No meaningful purpose would have been served by a doomed veto.
I didn’t say everything the Libertarian Party does is wrong. I’m pointing out the ideological reasons for this particular stance. I’d also point out that they had nothing to say about gay rights in their first 1972 platform, contrary to your claim that they were some sort of champions of gay rights since their founding. Furthermore, the quoted snippet is just more of the usual anti-government ranting that always comes from these guys – suppose a private business wanted to fire someone just because they were gay? Or because they were black? What do you suppose your beloved champions of human rights would have to say about that? Here’s the answer from the current platform: “Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate.” Because to the Libertarian, private property rights are more sacred than God.
At risk of digressing on the issue of the Libertarian Party, the point here is, again, that their overriding policy on virtually everything is to simply get rid of government. These lunatics want to abolish social security, abolish all forms of social assistance, relegate environmental protection to free enterprise (how well has that worked?), abolish the income tax altogether so any government that might remain is starved to death just like the poor would be, withdraw the United States from the UN, and on and on and on.
Laws banning gay marriage or obstructing gay rights are, much like laws against abortion, a form of government authority, which the LP rejects across the board. Since many of us object to these specific laws, we are, by sheer coincidence, in agreement with the LP stance on them. But we need to also understand the ideological basis of those positions. It’s entirely disingenuous to try to present as icons of social virtue a party that is just fine with people dying in the streets of starvation and sickness because this party sees no societal role in helping them, because they have zero concept of civilized society and don’t give a flying fig about social responsibility or a common wealth.
Yes, I’d like to hear his answer to this. It’s pretty hard to have non-discrimination laws when you don’t even have a functional government.