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Friday, May 12, 2006
This Makes Me Sick
This week we had Hillary being supported by Rupert Murdock, who owns Fox News, and making a slew of complimentary statements about how "charming" Bush is. We had Dems like Harman and Feinstein kissing up on the Hayden nomination to head the CIA, and the continuing fade routine by a vast majority of Dems too afraid to say anything of substance about Iraq, Iran or the NSA lawbreaking. I'm sure you have your own particular favorite on Dems acting like fading violets and appeasers.
But this one was the topper for me: Howard Dean being interviewed on Pat Robertson's '700 Club' via CBN and claiming that the national Democratic platform limited marriage to "one man and one woman." First of all, it isn't true. Second of all, does ANY real Democrat or thinking person for that matter want someone like Dean on that dispicable hatemonger's TV show at all, let alone pandering on the gay marriage issue? As is obvious, I've strongly backed Dean since the beginning and our DFA Meetup continues. This, however, may be the straw that breaks the camels back on Democratic Party horrors. If even Dean has drunk the Kool-Aid of the DLC apologists, what possible future can this Party or its candidates have?
Read it and weep. (And here's the unedited video of the interview.) This, after so many GLBT people, including myself, have worked so hard for Dean and Democrats for years. Can you imagine how many votes he won over for Dems from the right-wingnut followers of Pat Robertson? I would guess zero. But by saying what he did in that sick setting, I can guarantee you he lost hundreds of thousands of GLBT people and others who support equal civil rights for all. Sickening.
And I cannot believe -- at all -- that he "mis-spoke" as he claims. You don't get up on a lunatic fringe TV show like that and err on something this basic. I really think even Dean has absorbed the idiotic conventional wisdom that gay people are causing Dems to lose. When we all know that it's the cowardice, disorganization, wrong-headedness and distortions like this one that are doing the trick all on their own. Congratulations Democrats. You lost hundreds of thousands of your voters in the span of a day....
May 12, 2006 at 04:47 PM in Democratic Party | Permalink
Comments
A college professor I know--sat me down three years ago and told me his theory of politics. He stated that the so-called two party system we all are so proud of has been just a "sham" for years. He went on to explain that all politicians sleep in the same bed. At the time I listened with interest but felt his theory was extreme. Now I wonder if he was right and I was too naive to understand what he was trying to tell me. Watching the Dems in action recently sure makes me pause and wonder if he was right.
Maybe, after all, politicians are not such strange bedfellows.
Posted by: Mandala | May 12, 2006 8:13:40 PM
I don't know how to react to his (Dean) "mistake" just yet, but I'll be watching him a lot closer. I do know that he has NO business getting anywhere near Robertson or anyone like him. We Dem's don't need Robertson and his theoterrorism, nor can we have these kind of mistakes being made, I know we have a very diverse party, but damm it, we have to get organized enough to all be on the same page or we are doomed to ride the back of the bus for another 4 years. I am not too sure that our country can survive another term of rich wing idiocy.
Posted by: VP | May 12, 2006 8:46:46 PM
Soooo, what are you and "thousands" of GLBT's going to do? Vote for Republicans? Or,are they just not going to vote and contribute to Republicans staying in power?
Just one Dem guy not towing the Gay line does nothing to change the PARTY PLATFORM. If it makes you not like Dean then go ahead but don't pee on your own feet.
Stop your whining.
From what I can tell, the gay issue is a poison pill for losing older and middle age moderate voters. The gay politicos have displayed a horrendous sense of TIMING these last two decades. They need to bide their time and wait until power is in their favor. They need to hold the line and lay low until a Democrat is President again. And then, they need to wait until that president has established himself.
Stop letting the far right USE you like whores.
Having said that, I personally support all civil rights for all people. Gays should be able to marry and have kids like everybody else.
Homosexualiy as well as feminism is becoming more and more acceptable with time. Younger people think nothing of it. Most families have gay members and love them just the same. More of the older boomer generation still need to die off. Personally, I am very very optimistic for gay rights in this country. Gay rights ARE progressing in America.
Posted by: qofdisks | May 12, 2006 9:33:19 PM
First, gofdisks, just who are these "gay politicos" you are raging against, who have a "horrendous sense of timing" for "these last two decades"? For twenty years, really?! Is it Barney Frank? or the other two gay members House of Representatives, which together make up a vast and agenda-controlling 0.7% of that 435 member body? The zero gay members of the Senate?
The zero gay Cabinet Secretaries? The zero gay Justices of SCOTUS? The zero gay governors of the fifty states?
Second, your words: "stop allowing the far right to use you like whores." You seem to be blaming gay people for being targets and political pawns in a bigoted and vicious campaign by Republicans. Are you really saying that gay people are responsible for their own dehumanization and demonization by wingnuts like Senator Rick Santorum and Dr. James Dobson?
Thirdly, Bill Clinton, who claimed to be a great friend to the GLBT community, gladly accepting money, time and votes from them, went on to support more regressive anti-gay policies than any previous president, including the cruel Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy in the military, and the Orwellian named Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Don't you think gay people might get a little upset when another supposedly pro gay-rights Democratic leader, Dean, convenientally forgets his party's most important and prominent gay-rights plank on a nationally televised program whose audience and host is known for their rabid contempt of gay people's very humanity? To tell our blog host to "stop whining" under and about these circumstances is more than insensitive.
There is no homosexual agenda being managed by "gay politicos", but there is an increasing demand for civil rights among gay citizens that is both necessary and understandable. And this is exactly what being a progressive is all about-- fighting for the civil rights of all, and not sacrificing any group upon the altar of short-term political expediency. It is not only correct and moral to fully support gay civil rights now, it is also a powerful long-term political strategy; and we should call on the carpet anyone, like Dean, who starts parsing and pandering in opposition to this progressive ideal.
Posted by: DN Palacios | May 13, 2006 3:32:29 AM
DN Palcious
I agree with your post. Any true progressive would. As for the previous posters comments--one word sums it up. "Troll."
Posted by: Mandala | May 13, 2006 9:06:02 AM
I wonder what qofdisks (whose email name she signs in with is cindymadridnm) would say if she had been told in the past that Hispanics and Chicanos like Cesar Chavez should have stopped "whining." That they should instead remain quiet and passive as one of the politicos who were supposedly for equal rights and justice for all went on a TV show run by a hater of Latinos and claimed that the Party's platform stated Latinos didn't deserve equal rights.
GLBT people have been scapegoated, as gofdisks has done, for the loss by Kerry and others. Maybe she should wonder about what effect the Hispanic culture of corruption is having on he elections in this state, and how the bigotry of gay haters among that group, primed by the Catholic Church, is supporting hatemongers by taking the positions they do.
Maybe she should consider that the right wing Republicans can continue winning on the gay marriage issue (and many others) because Democrats are so afraid to speak the truth about what they believe and provide powerful arguments for the separation of church and state. As even gofdisks admits, she is for equal rights for gays, yet she believes Dems like her should lie and pretend they are not for that. People see through that. By pretending to be on the side of bigots and narrowminded people, Dem candidates gain nothing.
Kerry and others went around the country and repeated over and over how against gay marriage they were in the last election cycle. Did it help? NO. The right wing still kept saying Kerry was for gay marriage -- which he really IS if you know anything about him.
This dishonesty and the refusal to speak strongly about justice permits the right wing noise machine to succeed. People hear no counter arguments to the crap pumped out by Robertson and many others. It is shameful. And it doesn't work.
Posted by: Kossian | May 13, 2006 10:31:07 AM
In the video Dean says the platform says marriage is only for one man and one woman, yet he continues that the Dems are inclusive and for equal rights for all. Sorry those two statements don't jibe. As a gay man, I'm sick of the lip service paid to my equal rights. Get a clue. You can't be against gay civil marriage and for equal rights for us. Civil unions do NOT give gay people equal rights under the law. And we don't even have that.
I think it's depressing that Dean has pushed hard for us to frame things so we aren't operating within the distorted frames the right wing creates. Yet in this interview he plays right into their hands.
What he could have said is that Democrats believe in the constitution's separation of church and state. Churches can do what they will about the sacrament of marriage. But the state must give equal rights to all to enter into civil contracts, which is all the marriage under the state is.
If you follow the silly argument about marriage being a sacred sacrament and thus gays should not be allowed to have it, then why are people allowed to be married without having a church ceremony? Shouldn't quickie marriages by justices of the peace in Las Vegas, for example, also be banned to comply with the religious right's positions?
Posted by: I'm Gay | May 13, 2006 11:14:53 AM
This is upsetting. Thanks for linking it elsewhere. Ive been too busy and didn't even know Dean went on the show.... repulsed...
Posted by: Kossian | May 13, 2006 12:04:26 PM
Kimmy: Good to see you. How are things going for you? Long time no e.
Posted by: barb | May 13, 2006 2:24:03 PM
