Never really thought about that before but it makes sense given the blending of gender traits seen in homosexuals. Does that mean butch lesbians tend to be more conservative?
I’ll borrow your ability to blithely assume that marriage equality is coming one day soon irregardless to make the equally blithe assumption that a court’s going to strike down the stop-and-question law as blatantly unconstitutional. Wow, working together we’ve hypothetically solved two problems with no muss and no fuss.
Apparently, I should blow smoke up their ass about how we’re all part of a grand coalition fighting for “Truth, justice* and the American way” and hope they don’t ask awkward questions. At least you seem to think it will suffice.
*Except justice for gays 'cause that would complicate things too much.
Well, now, 42, that was meant as a fair question. If you want to sneer it off, thats your privilege, you have no obligation to me.
What sneering? After all, we’re part of a team. And by pulling that rope together we’ve managed to hypothetically solve both gay marriage and anti-Latino profiling. Makes me feel all hypothetically warm and fuzzy.
Or to put it another way: Writing your hypothetical so that it boils down to “Since we all know gay marriage is coming anyway, would you allow anti-Hispanic discrimination to exist just to speed up the process?” is such blatant well-poisoning that I gave your “fair” question an equally fair response.
Then pick your own. A black issue compared to a latino issue, it doesn’t matter, its a hypothetical. The question is how does a leader elected to make tough decisions make this decision, i.e., which oppressed minority gets how much political capital. Assuming that the supply is not infinite, which I take as a pretty safe assumption. On what basis do you judge?
Assuming you want to at least appear impartial, if not actually want to be impartial, how do you judge? Do you try to determine which group faces the most oppression? How? Or would you judge on the basis of numbers, which group is biggest? Assuming that the more people who suffer injustice, the more the injustice?
Its an honest question and deserves an honest answer, regardless of what you may think of the person asking it. If somebody else asks it, will that make it respectable?
Okay, here’s my hypothetical. You can have the Arizona law repealed, but only if you have all the gays rounded up and put in camps. If you don’t round them up, the law stays on the books, forever and ever and ever. Which choice do you make?
And remember, complaining about the inanity of the hypothetical isn’t allowed!
You already answered the question. They’ll wait for theirs “for a change”. I guess because they’ve had it so good, all this time…
Yeah, but you didn’t. Which is it? ID law, or gays in camps?
Concentration camps for gays? Sorry, I simply cannot give that question the contempt it deserves.
I must say that I am flummoxed by the tangential discussion in this thread. I expect sophistry and word twisting in a Scylla thread, but I don’t expect that someone other than Scylla will stand out for doing so. Yet Miller is engaging in some world class word-twisting here. One problem here is that the thread title indicates liberals, but we’re talking a lot about Democrats. The two are obviously not equal. The DLC of the Clinton era was a centrist, moderate group. Obama is a centrist, as are many Democrats.
Trouble is, I agree that the Democrats have been craven, spineless wimps. I think they have been so on most issues, and especially when it comes to civil rights. I also think that compromising on civil unions versus marriage is bullshit. I think DOMA was a travesty driven by political calculation. I think DADT was better than Hunt Gays Down and Kick Them Out, but I’d much prefer a Let Americans Serve in the American Military policy, and liberals would fight for that. Centrist Democrats would make political calculations and gently push in the right direction. Republicans and conservatives would push for whatever might be on the other side of Hunt Gays Down.
elucidator says it all quite well, even if you want to mock him for it. Liberals fight for the rights of everyone. It’s a liberal principle. If you want to get pissy because you want liberals to fight for you at the exclusion of everyone else, too bad. That would be at odds with the principle. In terms of positions regarding current civil liberties concerns, I take my marching orders, as it were, from Glenn Greenwald. He is gay, but he must be insufficiently gay, because his primary concern appears to be for the principles behind civil liberties, not for special interests regarding civil liberties for some and not others.
So, I encourage you, as I always do, to vote your conscience. I suggest that you vote for every single candidate whose position is exclusively for gay rights. Screw everyone else! No principled stands! Latinos, women, African Americans, American Mulsims, Americans with Disabilities, people with mental illness – go do things to yourselves. It’s us and us alone! If you feel I’m twisting the words of anyone in this thread, then knock it off yourself.
If on the other hand, you feel it best to vote for the candidate who comes closest to representing your position on issues and your general principles, even if it means that they may not fight hardest on your position, then get in line. I can guarantee you that on improving matters in terms of gay rights, it won’t be the conservative, Republican or Tea Party candidate.
If luci had been arguing “If you agree with the Democrats on health care/immigration/etc., don’t let their dropping the ball on gay rights dissuade you from supporting them,” then fine. I largely agree with that.
Hell, if he went with a Realpolitik “Face it, getting minimal attention from the Democrats still beats what you’re going to get from the Republicans, so don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” I’d grit my teeth and admit the point.
Instead, we get “We’re all part of a grand alliance so smile and take it whenever the leadership rewards your support by selling you out.” Coupled with the occasional sanctimonious hint that kvetching about the situation means that I’d gladly sell out the Latinos/the uninsured/etc. to get mine.
Fine. My honest answer is: I’m not the leader elected to make tough decisions. I would handle President Obama’s job at least ten times worse than he is doing. Despite that, I still think I have the right to criticize him when I feel he’s screwed the pooch on an issue.
Yeah, Miller, ask only ‘fair’ questions. Like, “How willing are you to sell out the Hispanics to get gay marriage?” Nothing at all loaded about that, nosiree.
I think I missed it where elucidator said that. I’d be obliged if you wouldn’t mind actually quoting him on that.
What I’ve read is elucidator saying that the general principle of civil rights means that no one group is put to the fore, kind of like three horses abreast. Then others come back and say “Aha, you’re saying we are second class citizens” and referring to his “gay horse” analogy. When he has tried to make the realpolitik argument that you say you would grudgingly respect, it gets turned around into “you want concentration camps for gays.”
This style of argument is slimy and disgusting and as much as I might agree with you and Miller generally, I find the posts in this thread loathsome. (And remember, this is a Scylla thread about how liberals hate gays, yet it’s not his posts I’m most troubled by. I guess it’s a “what do you expect from a pig but a grunt” kind of thing.)
What a palaver, what an absolute treat,
To see a cat and its father pick a bone in the street.
[/Les Mis]
Scylla
I guess we’re back to your proposition that it is better to actively work against a group than do too little to help them. That proposition is, to me, a big ole pile of rationalized crap. But what really amused me was when, in the very same thread, you defend Republicans as better because “at least they’re honest about it”, and then spend a great deal of time denying that they do by saying that all your Republicans don’t care about sexual orientation or race, that it’s the Democrats who keep raising it. That speaking out of both sides of your mouth made me smile.
Just one quick question. Do you think that the LCR were the only ones to file lawsuits about DADT? That somehow they were at the spearhead of the court challenges to DADT? Because it seems to me that you want the Republicans to get all the praise, while ignoring the other lawsuits filed by liberal groups, that were either rejected or still pending. The ACLU, individual servicemembers, and other liberal groups have been fighting this fight for as longs as, if not longer, than the LCR.
The only “concentration camp for gays” mention is from Miller’s mocking of elucidator’s loaded hypothetical.
And, FWIW, I have no doubt that luci is sincerely in favor of gay rights. If he were somehow in charge of things, I’m sure we’d have equality on that front and it might even be worth the daily Kum-by-ya sing-alongs*.
I’m also willing to concede that I may be taking the issue too personally and reading more into luci’s posts than he intended.
And with that, I’m bowing out because: (1) if I’m not taking it too personally now, I’m sure I’m going to if I continue in this thread; (2) it’s not nearly as enjoyable nitpicking with someone who, in the final analysis, you agree, say, 80% with than bitching at people who are unequivocally wrong.
*That’s a joke, son, I say, a joke
I know - that would be totally gay, right?
Thanks for being the bigger person in this thread.
I think you miss the point. This is not a situation where gays are asking Dems to fight for their rights to the exclusion of the Latinos. It’s not like the Dems are advancing some pro-Latino idea that just happens to retard the progress of gays. The Dems are pandering to the worst kind of bigotry by opposing gays to try to win favor with the religious Latinos. Don’t you see that? *The Dems are not advancing the Latino cause here either. * They are, in my opinion, setting back the progress of Latinos and gays and whites and blacks and everyone else. You cannot cave to religious demands. You are only teaching the fanatics that they can get whatever they want. Do you think that’s the last thing they’re going to want? Do you think the fundies are going to be happy with just leaving DADT in place? No. We’ve seen what the fundies want.
You talk about the “principle” that liberal are fighting for, civil rights for all. The worst thing you can do if you want civil rights for all is to get in bed with religious fundamentalists.
I think you are continuing to erroneously conflate liberals and Democrats. I can think of few Democrats who I am comfortable calling liberal. As I said, I believe the current Democrats are craven, calculating and spineless. (I think that they are that way because they’ve allowed themselves to be figuratively beaten into submission on most issue by Republicans, so I see Scylla’s argument here like some asshole administering a “two for flinching” punishment.)
But at times, the issue has been about liberal principles, and elucidator has been mocked for trying to describe them. And other posters here have turned right around and argued from a position that sounds like “If you don’t put us first and foremost, you’re against us.”
If your argument is that the current Democrats, led by Barack Obama, have failed to be leaders on civil rights issues, at times even hurting the cause, we have no differences.