Oh, look. A Democrat lying about his position on gay rights. Quel fucking surprise.
GOProud isn’t fighting for civil rights. They take no position on same-sex marriage. They invited Ann Coulter, who’s been known to use anti-gay hate speech, to address their convention, and to tell them that same-sex marriage isn’t a civil right, and “you’re not black.” GOProud is a phone-booth’s worth of gays who think the Log Cabin Republicans waste time working for gay rights when it could be better spent bashing liberals. And even then, this is the reception they get just for being at CPAC (where they were certainly not given any speaking time.
So that leaves you with the Log Cabin Republicans as your “all these Republican groups”. A group that awarded it’s Barry Goldwater award to John Cornyn who has a rating of 0 for the last three Congressional sessions on gay rights issues from the Human Rights Campaign. But, being the first time someone as prominent as the head of the NRSCC has actually deigned to appear with a gay organization, it’s pretty historic. Yep, that’s some effective lobbying, going from “your money’s no good here” to “I’ll take your help, as long as you don’t require anything from me” in only 14 years.
Seriously, there is no contest which party is less harmful to gay rights.
There’s 37 Senate races this year. Do you want to go through them one by one and see if there’s a single one where the Republican is better on gay rights than the Democrat? What was the DADT vote again? Oh, yeah 57 Democrats in favor, 41 Republicans and 2 Democrats opposed. Maybe Blanche Lincoln’s challenger supports DADT repeal, but that seems vanishingly unlikely.
There’s also 37 governor’s races. How about these? How many current Republican governors have vetoed gay rights bills that have passed the legislature? I’ll start you off with Rhode Island, Vermont, Minnesota, and Hawaii.
Maybe the House of Representatives has the occasional Democrat staking out the anti-gay position in their race, but I don’t know of any. I recall Dede Scozzafava was for marriage equality in the NY-23 special election, while Bill Owens wasn’t. But the Republicans drummed her out of the race in favor of a less gay-friendly candidate than either. Even Ike Skelton, probably the most anti-gay Democrat in Congress is in some danger of losing his seat to the even more rabidly anti-gay Vicky Hartzler.
There’s simply no contest between the parties. Electing Republicans to advance the cause of equal rights for gay people would be like getting pissed that the fire department cares more about conserving their water than extinguishing the fire burning down my house, so maybe I’ll try those other guys with a truck full of gasoline they’re willing to use. It’s a shitty situation to be in, but it’s where we are.
Scylla, now that you’re back, i’d still be interested in hearing why, in your estimation, Obama is responsible for what the Justice Department does on his watch, but Bush was not responsible for what the Justice Department did on his.
The original question, and your posts that inspired it, are back in post #47.
Can you grasp the distinction between “not advance to the forefront” and "…should take a backseat… " They are very different. A whole bunch.
Hard to believe that you don’t grasp the distinction. But being a generous soul, I’ll attribute that to incomprehension rather than mendacity.
And Christ Jeus, dim bulb, I’m not a Democrat, you’re the one says he’s a registered Dem!
It’s not a retreat, it’s a strategic advance to the rear!
Like fucking hell they are. If you’re trying to parse a meaningful distinction between the two, you should be running for office. With bullshit skills like that, you could go far.
Yeah, right, sorry. You’re not a Democrat. You’ve just voted for them in every election since the Great Deluge. And you throw a giant hissy fit when any of us uppity queers dares - dares - to suggest that the Democrats take us for granted. But you ain’t one of them, nosiree.
Talk about your distinctions without a difference. Up next, elucidator insists he never said he liked to-may-tohs, reaffirms support for toh-mah-tohs.
Let me see if I can break this down into cognitive chunks small enough for your algae level intelligence. Its going be tough…
Lets say you drive a buggy with three horses, one black, one brown, one gay. All three horses are in tandem, side by side. And I say to you “It would not be wise to advance the gay horse in front of the others”, you will hear me saying “Take the gay horse, and place him behind the others.” That’s what that means, so far as you can grasp?
Seriously? You’re gonna stick to that?
And I swear by Eugene V. Debs, this has to be the first time a registered Democrat has slandered me by calling me a Democrat. Its so post-modernist!
That makes perfect sense… except for one thing. The poster you were responding to wasn’t asking to be placed ahead of anyone. He was asking to be treated the same as everyone else. So, if I may, I think your analogy should be corrected thusly:
You have three horses. Two of them are regularly fed and well treated. The third is half-starved and badly whipped. I ask you why you treat the third horse so poorly, and you respond, “It would not be wise to advance that horse in front of the others.”
Now, as you can clearly see, that’s a crazy and incomprehensible response to the question. So, when you first said it would be “unwise to advance our interests over theirs,” I assumed what you were trying to say was, “Blacks and Latinos are pretty homophobic, and we don’t want to risk pissing them off, so you gays are going to have to go fend for yourselves, because you simply aren’t important enough to have your concerns addressed.” Which, while a generally shitty sentiment, is at least sensical and based on real-world logic. My apologies for assuming that you meant to present that argument, and not the crazy and incomprehensible one. I’ll try not to make that mistake in the future.
Then the question for gay voters becomes, how do they balance their concern for basic human rights, which Democrats don’t have a stellar record on, with all the other concerns they may have that the party may be better with (e.g. health care, the economy, etc.)? That question will probably determine what individual voters (and not, obviously, the larger special interest/issue groups) do next week and two years from now.
I may have overreacted to the slight as well. No worries.
Like I said, Bush does not appear to have been particularly involved in the issue you raise. Obama is out front on this, and appears to be Directing it.
Bush is responsible for what happens under his watch, in some sense. What’s more telling are the issues a President actuAlly gets in front of and directs. Obama appears to be very much in front of this issue and the justice department actions, Bush did not from what i can see.
I’m a liberal and I absolutely hate gays.
No, wait, not gays…whatchamacallits…what are those things with all the legs? Oh yeah…centipedes. I really hate centipedes.
And I definitely don’t think people should be allowed to marry them.
So, George Bush’s general position was to do absolutely nothing for gay rights. He consistently supported DADT and over 6,000 service members were dismissed under this law during his presidency; he supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage; he opposed gay adoption; he supported the right of the Boy Scouts to refuse gay members; and he opposed the expansion of employment non-discrimination legislation to include gays.
But he’s not to be criticized when his Department of Justice fights against a court challenge to DADT, because he’s not “in front” of the issue.
Barack Obama has made clear that gay rights is an issue for him; he has explicitly stated that he opposes any constitutional amendments banning gay marriage; he has explicitly called for the repeal of DADT, and has pushed Congress to actually enact legislation that would allow gays into the military; and he supports the expansion of employment non-discrimination legislation to include sexual orientation.
But he deserves criticism when his Department of Justice appeals a decision in that same court case, because he doesn’t have “the guts to stand up to this and give you the equal rights to the protections of marriage or to serve your country.”
Got it.
FWIW, i agree with many of the critiques of the Obama administration offered in this thread, and i wish he had pushed a whole bunch of these issues harder over the past year and a half, like he promised he was going to. But your position is one of a partisan hack looking to take a political cheap shot, and using the issue as nothing but a thinly-veiled dig at Obama. You’re pathetic.
I don’t agree with this distinction. The Justice Department under Bush was not given a free hand to pursue or drop issues like this. This would have been a political calculation that the DoJ would have gotten White House approval in 2006 just as much as in 2010.
I grant that the appearance of Presidential involvement is greater, but only because Obama is (a) a constitutional law scholar; and (b) a Democrat. This means there’s a general perception he’s not hostile (or not as hostile) to gay rights as a Republican, and he has some personal understanding of the legal issues as well as the policy issues.
But Bush and Obama deserve precisely the same amount of credit or blame for this type of decision. You cannot ding Obama and give Bush a pass.
I should add, Scylla:
I am somewhat heartened by your concern about this issue. I guess i must have inadvertently skipped over your cogent and impassioned pleas for gay rights in all the threads we’ve had about DADT over the past couple of years.
Military Polls Soldiers on DADT
According to Sen. James Inhofe, soldiers are unwilling to fight and die for gay soldiers
Allowing Gays to Openly Serve In the US Military, But Not In Combat Arms Positions: Fair?
“A kiss sealed her fate”, or “Don’t ask, don’t tell SUCKS!!!”
Also, knowing your concern about the importance of holding a President responsible when he is “in front” on an issue, i went in search of the thread you started when George Bush, in 2004 and 2005, explicitly called for an amendment to the US Constitution that would ban gay marriage and prevent “activist judges” from allowing it in places like San Francisco and Massachusetts. Unfortunately, my search skills seem to be lacking, and i couldn’t find the thread; perhaps you could track it down for me.
Can we do it the other way around?
One of the possible interpretations I have been considering is that Obama is deliberately avoiding commitment to this issue to avoid energizing the Republican base in advance of the elections. The last thing he needs is the social conservative wingnuts voting in force because he dared to suggest that homosexuals are people too.
I am, however, aware that this is an extremely charitable view of what Obama has been doing and would rely on him suddenly pressing the “go” button after the election. Or after the 2012 election. Or the 2014 midterm…
Okay, I’m officially grumpy about it.
Well, here, let me help you with that. Next time you don’t quite grasp the point, next time you are confused about something I said, ask me. I’ll tell you, I’m not particularly shy about expressing my views. I will be happy to clarify.
But if you would be so kind as not to twist my words like a balloon animal to say something they don’t say, I would prefer that. If you have trouble with definitions of such complex concepts like the word “advance”, there are any number of online dictionaries to assist you in your quest for truth. Or, as I said, you could just ask.
Our mutual enemy lies about us quite adequately, they do not require your assistance. Disraeli, IIRC: I can deal with my political enemies, Heaven protect me from my allies.
But lets put the question, lets find out where you stand here. Suppose we made Miller a heavy leader of the coalition, one empowered to make difficult and painful decisions. Because that’s what coalition politics is about, don’t you know: difficult and painful decisions in the pursuit of justice. The kind of decisions we elected Obama to make, because we trust his judgment somewhat more than the other guy.
And lets just do a hypothetical: you can advance your agenda to the forefront, all the members of the coalition will put it at the very top. Even in those districts where the populace is not all that friendly. And you look at the polling and the numbers, you hear from your black and latino constituents, and others who desperately need health care reform, and so on and so forth.
Do you say to the Latinos of Arizona “Well, yes, you can be stopped on the street and taken to jail until you can prove your citizenship, but equal marriage and DADT are more important.” Or the to person who needs health care for their children “Well, yes, your children are very important, but not quite so important as my right to marriage.”
Of course you wouldn’t. It would destroy our fragile advantage and offer aid and comfort to our enemies. We would all lose, and you would gain nothing.
Of course, I am assuming that you are a sensible person of good will and conscience, that your commitment is to human rights above all, and not simply in it for yourself. That you are committed to justice and not just “gimmee mine, and fuck you”.
Am I wrong about that? WWMD? What would Miller do? Suppose that you were convinced that moving your concerns to the “back burner” were necessary, to advance the larger cause. Would you do it? Do you have the courage to make such hard choices, if they prove necessary?
Are you in this for us, all of us, or just for you? I shouldn’t even have to ask that question, but you’ve made it necessary. Me, I’m obvious, I’ve made it clear, I’m not gay, black or latino, I’m in it for human rights. How about you, what level of loyalty to the overall cause can we expect from you?
Mhendo:
I’ve consistently argued for gay marriage and been a proponent of gays in the military on these boards since I started posting in 1999. The fact that I may not have posted in a handful of threads that you produced is more likely an indicator that I have a life outside these boards and do not share your ubiquity of presence.
Secondly, your trying to draw some sort of false equivalence, but I’ll play along. Bush is better on gay rights than Obama because every gay person knew exactly where Bush stood on the issue. He was against gay marriage and gays in the military. No question about it. Most importantly, his actions were consistent with his stated stance.
With the Democrats on the hand, we have Clinton reinforcing and giving credence to discrimination with “don’t ask, don’t tell.”. That piece of shit legally places a stigma on gays, literally forcing them into the closet.
Obama on the other hand is actively blocking and speaking on the topic of blocking the repeal of DADT on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.
You can play all the semantics you want, but when it comes down to actions, which is what matters, we have in this case conservatives fighting for gay rights, and liberals blocking them.
The left pays a lot of lip service to gay rights, but in terms of actual actions… Not so much.
I don’t really give a shot how many democrats vote in favor of a bill that is doomed by foregone conclusion, just so that they can tick off “supports gay rights” box on their bios.
Because that’s all they’re doing. That’s all they’ve been doing for years. They create these bills that have no chance whatsoever and then they take turns supporting them so that they look sympathetic to gay rights. Nothing ever happens except that they get to claim they’re progressive on the issue. Big fucking deal.
But when a conservative group actually does something that can effect meaningful change, what happens? “oh no no, this is not the right way, be patient, we want to do tithes other way down the road.”. And then the whole thing loses momentum gets swept under the rug, the stays quo remains, and the left blames the right claiming it got blocked in this other that they had wanted to do it. Nothing changes. The left gets to blame the right, and time marches on.
I think it’s a bunch of bullshit. Truman integrated the army by executive order and that seemed to work fine. Obama didn’t even have to go that far. All he had to do was not actively oppose the repeal of DADT. But, for all his talk, when push comes to shove he didn’t do it. Actions mean something. Empty gestures and votes for doomed bills don’t.
So, Bush was better. Gays knew they did not have a friend in that President. He did them the honor and respect of being open in his opposition.
Obama smiling and saying he really doesn’t mean it and that he supports you is small consolation if he’s doing so while he’s sliding the knife into your gut.
But your right, the Democrats have a much better record of empty rhetoric on this subject than the right.
Wow. Classic Scylla. Definitely a contender for inclusion in the CD of ***Scylla’*s Greatest Hits, Vol. II.
That already went platinum. Were up to volume 4 now.