I’m not Otto; A. I’m hotter; B. I’m smarter C. I don’t steal cash out of other people’s houses for a lark.
I have simply had enough of the lies and bullshit peddled by the GOP. Ever since I watched Rudy’s contemptible speech in St. Paul, I have been furious that the GOP is using the same scummy tactics that fool the stupid over and over again.
Obama is far from perfect on the gay issue, but McCain has sold himself to the religious right and completely turned on gay people. I used to think he had some principles and that he had a fairly libertarian perspective, but it’s clear that this ambition has completely dissolved any conscience he may have had.
Yes, there are perfectly lovely people with impeccable manners who vote for the GOP and who would never call me a rude name. But insofar that they support policies that harm me and mine, they are the enemy.
I understand why you said it, I was just trying to both lighten the conversation a little and help draw out that it was extreme.
However, on the point of judicial activism in California and Massachusetts, I have to pretty much agree with Bricker. AFAICT, those two states have made progress in that regard, but at the expense of the rights of everyone, that being our right to have a say in the laws of the land. You can’t force people to change, and that’s what those sorts of decisions try to do, and it causes a kneejerk reaction, like the Defense of Marriage Act. Not only that, but many other states, including mine, actually went and got anti-gay marriage amendments made part of their state constitutions to prevent that sort of activism on the issue there.
So now, the situation is actually worse off in many places of the country because now they’re not just fighting to get laws enacted, but now they have to actually get those states’ constitutions’ amendments repealed as well. OTOH, if those states had passed legislation instead, which granted would have taken longer, I doubt the backlash would have been nearly as great.
I don’t think the best way to approach many of these issues, particularly gay marriage, is at the federal level or through judicial activism, but by changing public perspective and working on the political structure slowly from the inside.
That’s precisely the whole point. I imagine that the LBGT community that votes Republican is tiny, which makes their gay friendly voter base exceedinly small. You’re invisibile to them because they have no reason to address your issues because the vast majority of the LBGT community automatically vote Democrat. That is, if they thought they’d have a chance of wooing your voting block, they may address your issues, but since they don’t have a chance… why bother?
This is why I think, at least for their cause, that the LCRs are a very positive thing for the LBGT agenda because it raises awareness in the Republican party. Maybe if more of those people who are single issue voters on that, but otherwise generally agree with Republicans more joined them, it might raise awareness, make them realize it’s not a lost voting bloc, and actually begin addressing your issues.
2000 McCain would probably have been way in the lead in this election. I still remember him in 2001 presenting the flag to Mark Bingham’s lover at a memorial ceremony. Of course this was the McCain who criticized Dubya for campaigning at Bob Jones Univ. with the lines
and said if he received an invitation to speak there
and not the McCain who said he’d definitely consider an offer to speak there and flew to San Antonio to personally accept the endorsement of John Hagee (a man half a step to the left of BJU, if that much).
Yes, that’s why a hypothetical Sons of Israel chapter of the Nazi Party would have done so much to alleviate the official anti-Jewish stance of that party.
The Log Cabin Republicans have been around for 30 years. Do you see an improvement yet in how the Republican Party treats LGBT issues? There’s a difference between an organization that’s actually making headway and an organization that’s been marginalized by its own party for 3 decades. Remember when Bob Dole returned a $500 donation from the LCR in 1996?
The Log Cabin folks are a marginal organization that occasionally gets patted on the head by some minor functionary in the GOP but which isn’t even close to having any influence on Republican attitudes toward us. I prefer not to lick the dust off of the soles of the party that doesn’t even pretend to like us.
Mmmm … not really. Even if every last gay in America voted Republican to PROVE they would do it, GOP political candidates wouldn’t court them because that would lose them the support of the religious right, and there a LOT more religious right voters than there are gay voters. Do the numbers.
Here’s my take: I think the Log Cabin Republicans are almost exclusively made up of wealthy gays, who have judged that the Republicans are more attuned to their financial interests, and that their wealth is MUCH more important to their personal well-being than having their gayness legally recognized. I think they are right. I think they also believe their wealth will sheild them from the repercussions of any anti-gay legislation the Republicans pass. I think they are probably right about that. I think they don’t give a shit about gays who are not wealthy, no matter what they may say.
I do not blame most gays for thinking they are evil bastids. They are. See last point.
Ah, the “Unless we start voting for the party that hates us they won’t stop hating us” gambit…
Personally, I don’t want the Republicans to stop hating us. I want the Republicans to be made as irrelevant as the Dixiecrats are today. I want the people who consider me to be immoral garbage to be thought of with the same disgust and repulsion that most people of good heart think of Bull Connor and Orval Faubus today.
I don’t want to bring the Republican Party into the fold. I want to watch it shrivel up and die as a going concern.
Read the rest of my posts. I’m rather far from hostile to your side.
Anyway, the Bush campaigns were openly hostile to gays.
McCain has not been, for the most part; he voted against DOMA twice. I have no idea if the Republican base knows that, but I bet the ones that do aren’t happy about it.
Ah, yes. “I brought you a pie as a gesture of appreciation for capturing that horrible Mongo, and I hope you’ll have the good taste not to tell anyone I spoke to you.”
Hello!