Category: LGBT

Clownshoes

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When professional Facebooker Sarah Palin quit her last public employment as Governor of Alaska, it was because the media were intruding too much and too far into her personal space, and her family. 

So it’s somewhat ironic to find Ms. Palin’s single-mother abstinence advocate, Bristol, criticizing the Obama family for helping the President arrive at his acceptance of same sex marriage. 

“Is anyone really surprised by the fact that President Obama came out of the closet for gay marriage? What was most surprising is when he explained how his position (supposedly) “evolved,” by talking to his wife and daughters“, wrote Bristol. 

The single mother of one, who is estranged from her babydaddy, went on to write, 

While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads.  In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage.  Or that – as great as her friends may be – we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home.  Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.

In this situation, it was the other way around.  I guess we can be glad that Malia and Sasha aren’t younger, or perhaps today’s press conference might have been about appointing Dora the Explorer as Attorney General because of her success in stopping Swiper the Fox.

Sometimes dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking.  In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.

At what point does Tripp‘s dad get to be dad? The irony and cognitive dissonance here is so incredible – so palpable -as to be infuriatingly hilarious. It’s got everything, starting with the irony of a single mother lecturing the President – who is in a longtime monogomous marriage – about family values.

She lectures the Obamas about how to parent; she trivializes the societal and political import of same-sex marriage – which is critically important to many people, and does no one any harm; she clumsily throws up the idea that teenaged kids and their perhaps more progressive opinions about social issues are akin to a toddler recommending fictional cartoon characters to occupy cabinet posts; and finally, she passive-aggressively attacks Glee, which is a conservative bogeyman representing popular culture’s acceptance of LGBT people as valuable members of society. 

But what I want to know is something I Tweeted shortly after learning of this astonishing criticism by America’s Walking Contradiction: 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/200644393131196416″]

Prez in Gay Flip Flop Flap

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The headline is tongue-in-cheek. Last night, that’s what I predicted the New York Post’s headline would be. I had to put myself in the mindset of an alliterative Murdoch-paid wingnut headline author.  Instead, the Post went with a Travolta massage story. 

Yesterday, I wrote, 

Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place here. If he follows his head and comes out in support of same-sex marriage, he risks alienating a huge swath of the electorate – especially those in swing states. This is all about independent and undecided voters, and a vicious campaign based on a selective, phony reliance on obscure Biblical passages ensures that the homophobic drive to oppose same-sex marriage will continue to be strong, and risk Obama’s re-election. 

Unfortunately, this is the perfect opportunity for Obama to led on this particular issue. It’s a great chance for him to give one of those barn-burner, epic, historical speeches he’s known for where he appeals to people’s decency and common sense to try and change minds. 

Later that same day, President Obama said that he had come around to the opinion that, in his opinion, gay couples should be able to get married. This was a shift from his previous opinion – that civil unions would do the trick.  As we learned during the debate in New York over same sex marriage, civil unions don’t do the trick very much at all. 

I’ve seen lots of reaction over Obama’s change of opinion. Some Republicans accuse him of flip-flopping.  But that only works when the politician has changed his view to something safe.  I don’t think this is safe at all – I think it’s risky. This is not a poll-driven thing – this came up unexpectedly thanks to Joe Biden’s appearance on Meet the Press last weekend. The White House took only a few days to get its act together on it.  Mitt Romney reaffirmed his position that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, thus further alienating a particular population – something the Republican field (including Swiss-American Michele Bachmann) had been doing throughout this campaign. 

But it’s clear that Romney is a bit irked by the attention Obama’s getting. 

 

Some Republicans quip that Obama has become – at long last – a clone of Dick Cheney.  For Republicans, that would be valid were it true that Cheney’s view was the mainstream Republican position, but it isn’t.  But even though Obama’s statement in support of same sex marriage didn’t come right out and advocate for any change in legislation – state or federal – it’s a pretty big deal. And it’s quite risky. 

But one thing it might do for Obama is reignite youthful enthusiasm for his re-election. The acceptance of same sex marriage isn’t just geographical or philosophical – it’s generational. 

I don’t know whether Taibbi’s right about this race being a yawn-fest. At the very least, it’ll be fun to watch the Republicans begrudgingly fall behind one-size-fits-all Romney, and I’m sure the attacks on Obama will be as ridiculous as they will be ubiquitous. But Obama has many vulnerabilities, and it will be a test of Romney’s … “managerial” bona fides to see how he exploits that. 

Same-Sex Marriage as Civil Right (UPDATED)

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The Obama administration is floating trial balloons about same-sex marriage, but won’t just come out and endorse it. As a supporter of same-sex marriage, this is distressing to me, but being wishy-washy and floating trial balloons is a distinct improvement over the Romney camp’s outright refusal to consider the matter. What we’re learning is that attitudes toward same-sex marriage are evolving, reflecting Obama’s purported evolution on the matter. 

Except for Iowa, only northeastern states and territories (D.C.) recognize same-sex unions, while thirty states (!) have outright banned them – including North Carolina just yesterday. 

Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place here. If he follows his head and comes out in support of same-sex marriage, he risks alienating a huge swath of the electorate – especially those in swing states. This is all about independent and undecided voters, and a vicious campaign based on a selective, phony reliance on obscure Biblical passages ensures that the homophobic drive to oppose same-sex marriage will continue to be strong, and risk Obama’s re-election. 

Unfortunately, this is the perfect opportunity for Obama to led on this particular issue. It’s a great chance for him to give one of those barn-burner, epic, historical speeches he’s known for where he appeals to people’s decency and common sense to try and change minds. 

The bans on same-sex marriage that are based on referenda should all be challenged in federal court as unconstitutional denials of fundamental civil rights. This isn’t a state issue, either. Loving v. Virginia, which banned state anti-miscegenation laws, held that marriage can indeed be a federal issue, and our Constitution doesn’t permit states to deny rights to its citizens based on majority vote. 

After all, had we asked North Carolina in the 1950s what its citizens (well, the ones who had paid the racist poll tax – abolished by Constitutional Amendment in 1964) thought about Black kids attending integrated schools or the abolition of “separate but equal” accommodation for “coloreds”, there’d also have likely been a withholding of fundamental civil rights. 

One lawsuit over California’s Proposition 8 appears headed for Supreme Court review which, if it strikes down the result of that legislation, would apply not just in the 9th Circuit, but throughout the country. Perhaps this is what Obama is waiting for, but it’s a missed opportunity to lead on the civil rights issue of our time. 

UPDATE: Apparently, President Obama has personally come out in favor of same-sex marriage, although his statement falls short of outright advocacy for any sort of policy or federal legislation to codify it. 

And Yet, Here You Stand

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A little over a week ago, Jack Reese, an Ogden, Utah high school student committed suicide. He was gay and a victim of homophobic harassment. But if you read about him, he was just a regular teenager – he liked to draw, was interested in Japan, had a boyfriend, and liked to play XBox. Because his sexuality was different from others’, did that justify harassment, assault, or battery that was so pervasive that it drove him to hurt himself? 

In a great editorial, the Salt Lake City Tribune wrote that people’s attitudes about LGBT youth need to change for this harassment – and its sometimes tragic results – to stop. But that’s not all – 

They learn from legislators who refuse to extend civil rights to gays and lesbians that “those people” are not as valuable as straight people.

The country is beginning to come to terms with the notion that homosexual Americans are still Americans, regardless of their sexual identity. Their rights aren’t diminished or ended based on whom they love. It doesn’t matter, frankly, whether you know that homosexuality is hard-wired in the brain, or you still think it’s a “choice” – no one should be discriminated against or harassed to the point of suicide. 

The Tribune’s editorial cartoonist, Pat Bagley, created this, which perfectly encapsulates the way humanity typically demonizes things that are “different” before acceptance sets in.  Sometimes, it’s a change that takes millenia. Homophobia is among the last forms of hate and discrimination that is acceptable to large swaths of the American population.  It’s changing, but not quickly enough. 

Conservative "Humor"

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[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195558620920954880″]

Monica Crowley is a Fox News “analyst”, whatever that means.

Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke testified to Congress some weeks ago about the importance and cost of contraceptive coverage for women in insurance plans. Not just for contraceptive uses, but also for medical uses involving, e.g., ovarian cysts. Because Fluke stood up for herself, for women, for her beliefs, she has been the target of a blistering, hateful series of attacks from such conservative philosophers as Rush Limbaugh. 

Yesterday, news broke that Fluke had become engaged to be married.  If you Google the exact term Crowley used in her Tweet, the Daily Beast article using that headline reveals that Fluke is engaged to her longtime boyfriend. 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/humanadverb/status/195568558628020224″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195569989875531776″]

Ah,  but she was insinuating something.  As I pointed out above, the articles announcing Fluke’s engagement noted to whom she was to be married.  On top of that, it’s an old stereotype that feminist women who, for instance, don’t share the Nordic looks of most females on Fox News must all be lesbians. “Feminazis”, I think Limbaugh calls them.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195565385901293568″]

Wait – first Crowley pleads seriousness – she claims it was a “straightforward question” to which she had received “no answer yet”. But now it was humor? What, exactly was the joke? 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/WhoMD/status/195587821237579778″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195589182385700864″]

Yes, shock horror – who would think that a Fox News “analyst” who made a homophobic quip against a heterosexual woman who was just engaged to be married would have a problem with lesbianism? 

To her credit, Fluke responded thusly: 

“I’m not going to let this kind of thing get to me personally,” Fluke said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.” “What really bothers me about it [is] the blatant homophobia in the comment, and the idea that that is an acceptable thing to say publicly.”

“I don’t want an apology from anyone personally,” Fluke said. “I think it is possible she owes an apology to the LGBTQ community, because I am not offended to be asked whether or not I’m with a woman. It’s not offensive to me to be gay, but it was clearly meant as an insult.”

Conservatism has been reduced to this. It isn’t about proposing policy solutions to economic, social, and international problems – it’s just about hatred and prejudice. You see it in the Trayvon Martin case. You see it in the way in which conservatives argue about Obama’s policies. You see it in the way they treat anyone who dares to move the country’s policies and consciousness into the 21st century. 

Mitt Romney is likely to lose in November, and when he does, the clamor from the right wing of the Republican Party is going to be deafening. They’re going to double down on the notion that Romney wasn’t conservative enough, and next time they’ll probably convince themselves to nominate someone like Santorum – or worse.

Then that person will be defeated worse than Romney. Because general election voters aren’t going to buy in to whatever a Santorum type is selling. Calling Sandra Fluke a whore may play great with the reactionary types who self-identify as tea partiers, but it doesn’t go over well with middle-of-the-road casual voters. 

It’ll be at least a few more election cycles before Republicans start to look at less insane candidates for office. It took Democrats Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis before they settled on Clinton, and then we had to go through Kerry before we settled on someone new and inspiring. 

In the meantime, let’s make fun of the strong woman with a short haircut, and call her a “lesbian”. 

I don’t get the joke. 

Conservative “Humor”

4 comments

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195558620920954880″]

Monica Crowley is a Fox News “analyst”, whatever that means.

Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke testified to Congress some weeks ago about the importance and cost of contraceptive coverage for women in insurance plans. Not just for contraceptive uses, but also for medical uses involving, e.g., ovarian cysts. Because Fluke stood up for herself, for women, for her beliefs, she has been the target of a blistering, hateful series of attacks from such conservative philosophers as Rush Limbaugh. 

Yesterday, news broke that Fluke had become engaged to be married.  If you Google the exact term Crowley used in her Tweet, the Daily Beast article using that headline reveals that Fluke is engaged to her longtime boyfriend. 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/humanadverb/status/195568558628020224″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195569989875531776″]

Ah,  but she was insinuating something.  As I pointed out above, the articles announcing Fluke’s engagement noted to whom she was to be married.  On top of that, it’s an old stereotype that feminist women who, for instance, don’t share the Nordic looks of most females on Fox News must all be lesbians. “Feminazis”, I think Limbaugh calls them.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195565385901293568″]

Wait – first Crowley pleads seriousness – she claims it was a “straightforward question” to which she had received “no answer yet”. But now it was humor? What, exactly was the joke? 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/WhoMD/status/195587821237579778″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/MonicaCrowley/status/195589182385700864″]

Yes, shock horror – who would think that a Fox News “analyst” who made a homophobic quip against a heterosexual woman who was just engaged to be married would have a problem with lesbianism? 

To her credit, Fluke responded thusly: 

“I’m not going to let this kind of thing get to me personally,” Fluke said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.” “What really bothers me about it [is] the blatant homophobia in the comment, and the idea that that is an acceptable thing to say publicly.”

“I don’t want an apology from anyone personally,” Fluke said. “I think it is possible she owes an apology to the LGBTQ community, because I am not offended to be asked whether or not I’m with a woman. It’s not offensive to me to be gay, but it was clearly meant as an insult.”

Conservatism has been reduced to this. It isn’t about proposing policy solutions to economic, social, and international problems – it’s just about hatred and prejudice. You see it in the Trayvon Martin case. You see it in the way in which conservatives argue about Obama’s policies. You see it in the way they treat anyone who dares to move the country’s policies and consciousness into the 21st century. 

Mitt Romney is likely to lose in November, and when he does, the clamor from the right wing of the Republican Party is going to be deafening. They’re going to double down on the notion that Romney wasn’t conservative enough, and next time they’ll probably convince themselves to nominate someone like Santorum – or worse.

Then that person will be defeated worse than Romney. Because general election voters aren’t going to buy in to whatever a Santorum type is selling. Calling Sandra Fluke a whore may play great with the reactionary types who self-identify as tea partiers, but it doesn’t go over well with middle-of-the-road casual voters. 

It’ll be at least a few more election cycles before Republicans start to look at less insane candidates for office. It took Democrats Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis before they settled on Clinton, and then we had to go through Kerry before we settled on someone new and inspiring. 

In the meantime, let’s make fun of the strong woman with a short haircut, and call her a “lesbian”. 

I don’t get the joke. 

Hate Teach-in

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An assembly was held at a Minneapolis area Catholic School recently – it was mandatory for seniors and was on the subject of marriage.  It started out well, but suddenly veered into ugly territory: 

“The first three-quarters of the presentation were really good,” said Bliss. “They talked about what is marriage and how marriage helps us as a society. Then it started going downhill when they started talking about single parents and adopted kids. They didn’t directly say it, but they implied that kids who are adopted or live with single parents are less than kids with two parents of the opposite sex. They implied that a ‘normal’ family is the best family.”

“When they finally got to gay marriage, [students] were really upset,” said Bliss. “You could look around the room and feel the anger. My friend who is a lesbian started crying, and people were crying in the bathroom.”

The diocese won’t talk, and the school won’t say who gave the speech. The kids – to their credit – challenged the speaker on these points, as well as his opinions on same sex marriage. 

The kicker is that Minnesota will be holding a referendum on same-sex marriage, and these high school seniors will be eligible to vote right around the time it’s held. This was an attempt by the diocese – which is obviously vehemently opposed to the measure – to persuade or intimidate a captive audience into backing its political agenda. 

A priest and a volunteer couple presented the information. When someone asked a question about two men being able to have a quality, committed relationship, the couple compared their love to bestiality, Bliss said.

“Most people got really upset,” said Bliss. “And comments about adopted kids, I found those to be really offensive. There were at least four kids there who are adopted.”

Hannah, who is adopted, said one of the presenters said that adopted kids were “sociologically unstable.” She called the comments “hurtful” and comparisons between gay love and bestiality upsetting.

“My friend said, ‘You didn’t just compare people to animals, did you?'” said Hannah. “I think everyone has a right to their opinion, and I don’t judge them on it. But we don’t force people to sit down so we can tell them their opinion is wrong.”

Bestiality?!

It’s an interesting conundrum – the Church opposes contraception, opposes abortion, and – evidently – has some problems with adoption, as well. That sort of narrows a couple’s options, doesn’t it? The school should be ashamed of permitting this hate speech to be presented by clergy to a captive audience.

The diocese – well, with the Church’s permissive nature ranging to the downright enabling of child abuse by a multitude of priests throughout the world, I’m not surprised by its chutzpah or hubris at trying to persuade young minds to become hateful. 

I generally don’t take advice from people who have no experience in the matter being advised. I also think that it runs counter to Jesus’ teachings to preach hatred – to compare loving couples who aren’t bothering anyone to animals, or to suggest that adopted children are socially defective. 

You don’t have to support same sex marriage or adoption, you don’t even have to like it or tolerate it. What you shouldn’t do is go in front of a group of young adults – some of whom are gay and adopted – and tell them that they’re less than human; that they are broken or need fixing. 

That sort of thinking and dogma never, ever ends well. 

The Face of Evil in America

14 comments

There are no words to describe my rage at hearing this yesterday (interestingly enough, it was played & discussed on the Howard Stern Show).  In this video, demonic professional panhandler Pat Robertson tells a woman that it’s better to create a rift in her family than to attend her sister’s marriage to another woman. 

A glimpse into Santorum’s America: 

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErmD34zSyk4]

Prop 8 Unconstitutional

2 comments

Yesterday, the 9th Circuit (Federal) Court of Appeals ruled that California’s Proposition 8, which re-prohibited same sex marriage in that state, is unconstitutional.

What people forget is that a lawsuit filed in San Francisco led to the California Supreme Court ruling that the state’s prohibition against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional (based on the California state constitution).

Secondly, California’s highest court determined that reserving the term “marriage” only for heterosexual couples was violative of that state’s equal protection clause.

Two same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses in California counties brought a federal action, a 12-day bench trial was held, and the Federal District Court ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional – that there was no rational basis or compelling state interest for the state to withhold the term “marriage” from same-sex couples.

Because Proposition 8 did nothing to substantively alter the underlying relationship or domestic partnerships into which California same-sex couples had committed themselves. Instead, it simply took from them the word “marriage”. But the court didn’t point this out to diminish the matter, but to highlight it. “A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not. The word ‘marriage’ is singular in connoting ‘ a harmony in living,’ ‘a bilateral loyalty,’ and ‘a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.'”, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut, which declared the existence of a federal right to privacy and struck down prohibitions against contraception.

In the end, the court found that constitutional jurisprudence does not permit the people to “enact laws” that “single out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status” thus raising “the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.” The purpose of such a law isn’t to promote some “legitimate legislative end”, but “to make them unequal to everyone else.”

In order for a law like Prop 8 to stand, with all of its “meaningful harm to gays and lesbians”, some “legitimate state interest” must justify it. More specifically, “it” isn’t whether the legal state extant post-Prop 8 was constitutional or not – the question is whether the change that Proposition 8 made in the law could be justified, in and of itself.

The U.S. Supreme Court had decided cases going back to the 60s forbidding states from a “targeted exclusion of a group of citizens from a right or benefit that they had enjoyed on equal terms with all other citizens.” A right conveyed cannot later be withdrawn without a legitimate state justification.

The court analyzed the purported “justifications” for Prop 8 and found them illegitimate. For instance, Prop 8 proponents claimed that only heterosexual marriage was good for childrearing, but the law didn’t substantively affect same-sex couples’ right to have or adopt children. The court also went out of its way to destroy the Prop 8 proponents’ arguments that taking away the use of the term “marriage” from same-sex couples will promote responsible procreation by heterosexual couples.

The court found that Prop 8 existed as “nothing more or less than a judgment about the worth and dignity of gays and lesbians as a class.” Indeed, the court found that Prop 8 was born and promoted from a fundamental disapproval of homosexuals and from homophobia – that same-sex couples are inferior, and that their relationships are undesirable. The 9th Circuit concluded saying that the people of California violated the Equal Protection Clause by using their initiative power to target a minority group and illegitimately withdrawing a right that they possessed.


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