06/06/2006
Gay Marriage: While You Were Bashing
Here is a short round-up of some interesting leftovers from yesterday's White House gay bashing.
Bill at Crooks & Liars got through to Senator Crapo's office yesterday. Crapo is a Republican Idaho Senator and a co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment. C&L has a hysterical recording of the line of questioning.
AmericaBlog has some interesting details regarding Bush's gay bashing yesterday. It turns out that the White House hid wingnut religious leaders who were in attendance yesterday "Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Focus on the Family, Janet Parshall, radio host (formerly FRC), Bob Knight, Concerned Women for America, Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Peter LaBarbera, former CWFA and FRC, Lou Sheldon and Andrea Sheldon, Traditional Values Coalition; Who DID we see? A number of black people, and of course the required Catholic guy. I.e., we saw "mainstream" people, the kind of people who don't embarrass George Bush."
Bill O'Reilly has a chat with William Eskridge and Darrren Spedale, authors of Gay Marriage: For Better or for Worse
Think Progress video on Tony Snow, who slipped off the wingnut talking points and actually talked about same-sex marriage as a (gasp!) civil right!
Apparently Bush invited leaders from Ex-Gay groups to the gay bashing as well.
Only 3% say homosexuality is America's Most Serious Moral Crisis. Another poll that shows our out of touch Republican congress.
AmericaBlog also supplies us with a helpful reminder of what happened in the world yesterday while Bush was bashing gays.
Posted 9:23 AM EST by Andy Towle in Gay Marriage | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Send your letters to the editor to your local paper, and also to USA TODAY on this issue (they have 6 million readers) at editor@usatoday.com (include name, address and phone number for verification).
Posted by: Bill | Jun 6, 2006 10:03:52 AM
I so wish people would stop using the term "wingnut." I certainly understand the temptation. But, it just diminishes the quality of the debate. "But they call us names." Yeah, I know. It still doesn't make it right. The ideas presented here are better than namecalling, and I think using the term "wingnut" over and over again demeans those ideas.
Posted by: Cyd | Jun 6, 2006 10:42:31 AM
...I’ll assume your post about Beckham will land more comments than this post on political gay bashing. Perhaps that in itself is commentary on the state of our interest in encouraging progress.
Posted by: Jason | Jun 6, 2006 10:45:44 AM
I am appalled that the president of the United States invited invited so-called "ex-gay" leaders to the White House, giving them legitimacy. These people are unlicensed and unhinged and what they do to kids is nothing less than child abuse.
Posted by: Sam | Jun 6, 2006 10:52:18 AM
Well said, both of the above posters...
Posted by: jmg | Jun 6, 2006 10:53:33 AM
Andy,
Please keep us posted when Mary Cheney responds to the President’s gay bashing speech. She did say that she was going to be fighting against this amendment for the GLBT community. Now would be the time for her to get out there. If she doesn’t, I guess that would mean that Jeffery Dahmer has had a more positive effect on the GLBT community than she has.
Posted by: ICEMAN | Jun 6, 2006 11:31:11 AM
Is there any hope in your ever growing the fuck up, Cyd?! Kick off the Mary Janes and climb out of the crinolines, for Christ's sake! This isn't a goddamn "debate"—it is in THEIR own terms—a "holy WAR" against us. We are in the weakened position we are, the worst socially, politically, and, aside from sodomy decriminalization [which COULD BE overturned under the new Supreme Court], legally than we have been in decades because of rhetorical castrati such as you. Kerry lost [no big disappointment to you, I'd guess, if you're whom I think] for many reasons, but chief among them had to be his unwillingness to take off the gloves and show the nation that he was tough enough to stand up to terrorism when he wouldn't even stand up to libel and slander about his service in Vietnam from the Swift Boat Nazis, et al. It is, among other reasons, BECAUSE our spokespeople, gay and nongay, have NOT labeled those who oppose our equality as the fascists, theocrats, and demogogues that they are. Hoi polloi has heard us labeled as everything from predatory child molestors to potential destroyers of Civilization [YES, Focus on the Family's James Dobson, et al, have literally used those apocolyptic terms] while we bill and coo in amorphous ways about freedom. You don't put out a raging inferno with squirt guns or pretty words, and, yesterday, the wretched, ruthless, Fascist in Chief, massively fire bombed us, his target not gay marriage on the US Constitutional level as he claimed, which he knows he can't possibly hit, but votes—gay marriage AND civil unions on the state level, along with our other local and state controlled rights, merely "collateral damage." As I wrote before, timed to coincide with universal news stories about the "anniversary" of AIDS, he doubly demonized us. It would have been more appropriate, as it reflects him, to have occured today on 666, just as the remake of "The Omen" is released. Damian Bush. The antichrist. Literally laughable, of course, but give me any evidence that there has ever been a President more evil in terms of the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of gay men and women—merely an "idea" to you, rather than an "inalienable right." Your tactical advice and your word choice smell of the self-loathing underneath. And I don't care how "out" you are, whether or not you openly have a boyfriend, how many cocks you've sucked or taken up the ass. You still sound like the classic, dated woman in the frilly dress, carrying the sensible purse, cluck clucking about those unpleasant, unladylike feminists. Or are you a masochist, sexually turned on by being repeatedly verbally abused, by being restrained? Bush and the current GOP are your perfect Masters then. The namecalling on blogs, in other gay media, is irrelevant because it never reaches the ears of those who only hear US called names. And the fault lies not in our not fighting "fair" but in our hardly fighting at all.
Posted by: Leland | Jun 6, 2006 11:45:19 AM
Why are we surprised he is throwing gays "under the bus" to hold onto power? This is part of our president's character, or lack there of. Throughout his life, Mr. Bush has taken ethical shortcuts to get what he wants, whether it is pulling strings to get into the National Guard (while he supported the Vietnam War), slandering Anne Richards or John McCain, distorting intelligence on Iraq, or stoking fears about gays. Sure, politicians are mere mortals, with clay feet like all of us. But George W. Bush is an extraordinary profile in cowardice.
This makes me sad.
Posted by: thisjoeinsf | Jun 6, 2006 11:54:28 AM
Namecalling is never nice, but I'd rather be called a "wingnut" than what the other side calls us... their comments about us are usually of the "pedophilic sex deviants who are deserving of death by being thrown into the lake of eternal fire by our just and righteous Lord", or some such nonsense.
Frankly, being called a wingnut is a pretty gentle response to the vitriol that's been thrown our way by the out of control fascist wing of the conservative movement...
Posted by: Brian | Jun 6, 2006 12:07:35 PM
Wingnut is rather cute compared to what they actually are: ass-wipe scumbags...
Posted by: Brett | Jun 6, 2006 12:57:46 PM
And Herr Bush attacked gay marriage [and, therefore, the gay community] yet again today in a press release. That's THREE times in four days. What next? Prop planes and blimps across the countries skies pulling banners emblazoned with the Presidential seal and reading "Stop the Mos Before They Eat Your Children and Your Dick Falls Off"? "Global Warming Caused By Flaming Faggots"? "Tony Awards Part of Homosexual Agenda"? "Jesus Told Us to Hate You"? The latter credited to "Betty Bowers."
Posted by: Leland | Jun 6, 2006 3:26:11 PM
Hi all -- first, just want to say I really enjoy this site, it's become a staple for me.
Second, a plug. In the midst of yesterday's marriage "protection" fiasco, a group of progressive religious leaders held a counter-press conferencein DC to object to the proceedings. It got a lot of TV coverage, including here :
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/05/same.sex.marriage/
The CNN article includes this quote:
"There isn't anyone here who is naive enough to believe that the introduction of this legislation now, in two consecutive election cycles, is anything but a politically motivated effort to win votes by demonizing a class of citizens," said the Rev. Robert Hardies, a Unitarian minister.
*
Full disclosure: the good Reverend Hardies is my boyfriend, of whom I was very, very proud yesterday.
Cheers --
Posted by: Chris | Jun 6, 2006 5:00:51 PM
In spite of Rick Santorums current rant on sadomy...I declare today to beMarriage Equality Tuesday!
If you want to know how to respond to the ass-tards when they say something irgnorant about marriage, try this link:
http://usagenda.blogspot.com/2006/06/marriage-equality-tuesday-learning.html
Posted by: gary | Jun 6, 2006 5:24:21 PM
Kudos to all you gay republican assholes who voted for him thinking he was a compassionate conservative. Cunts.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jun 7, 2006 2:34:33 AM
Here's a letter to the editor I sent to my local newspaper. Anyone else who wants to use it to send to the newspapers in their area are welcome to do so. Note: most newspapers require name, address and phone number (for verification purposes) and some have word limits.
Letter to the Editor
It ought to make the "family values" crowd happy that gays want to get married and settle down into committed, monogamous, loving relationships.
If gay people were allowed to marry each other, one of the benefits would be that they would not be so pressured into marrying a person of the opposite sex merely to try to conform to what society expects. Do you want a gay person to marry YOUR child or grandchild? Wouldn't it be better to encourage gay people marry each other instead?
Is it fair that 30-year gay and lesbian relationships receive less protection than those of heterosexuals who meet in the morning and marry by sundown? A gay couple may have lived in the same home for 30 years, cared for each other through illnesses, comforted each other after the loss of loved ones and shared their entire lives together are denied the rights and protections that strangers who decide to marry on a whim in Las Vegas receive.
Britney Spears was married and divorced within 72 hours. On the TV show "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" a man chose his bride from 50 women who paraded onstage in bathing suits and wedding gowns. She wanted his money; he wanted a trophy; neither of them had ever met each other before. The judge who officiated proclaimed the union was based on the love and trust they developed (I guess in the 90 seconds in between their meeting and the wedding).
Yet gay and lesbian people who are in committed, long-term relationships are denied the opportunity to marry because their relationships supposedly make a "mockery" out of marriage. Which relationship is the true joke?
A faithful gay partner of 30 years has no legal right to make important medical decisions for his incapacitated partner. He gets no help from federal legislation that would protect his job in the event he must care for his sick partner. Insurance companies deny them the opportunity to obtain joint policies for automobile, health and home insurance. When one of them dies, the other may have no legal right to continue living in their home. The deceased's unaccepting family member can contest a will and leave the long-term dedicated partner bankrupt and without a home. Such insensitive maneuvers aren't uncommon to gay men and lesbians grieving the loss of a longtime partner.
Without marriage, gay couples have tried to establish their rights privately, through contracts. For about $1,000 lawyers provide couples with a will, health care proxy, statement granting each partner durable power of attorney if the other is disabled, and a contract to govern disposition of commonly held property. But such agreements aren't always upheld in courts, and they are like a fig leaf compared to the broad legal cloak of marriage.
I don't describe a "special right." The right to marry is so basic to happiness that polls have shown that Americans value a happy marriage, even above money, as most important to their sense of personal worth and fulfillment. I think as anyone matures he or she wants to connect with something bigger than self. To love someone, follow all the threads of each other's lives, and be legally recognized as family.
Society has a compelling interest in encouraging stable, monogamous relationships between adults - straight and gay. People who are married buy houses and save money. They are good neighbors, they tend to be more helpful and quieter than singles. They have a reason to work and stay out of trouble: responsibility to their spouses. There are health benefits to monogamy, especially important in this age of AIDS. Finally, the sheer joy and comfort of having that publicly acknowledge close relationship makes one a happier person, and happy people cause less grief to others.
Posted by: Bill | Jun 7, 2006 6:23:31 AM
I'm proud to say I'm a gay Republican who did NOT vote for President Bush. Despite Leland's hate-filled labels and name-calling, I do think for myself.
Posted by: Cyd | Jun 7, 2006 10:54:19 AM
Chris: yes, you SHOULD be very proud, and you are very lucky. He's very cute.
Cyd, Cyd, Cyd. Mein kleiner Kapo. Your pride in not voting for Bush is justifiable. But "gay Republican" still equates, these days, to Jewish Nazi. Aren't you the Cyd who still thinks Ronald "Let the AIDS Fags Rot" Reagan was a great man? In any case, yes, I agree my labels and name-calling ARE filled with hate and I'm proud of it. Advise still applies: grow the fuck up!
Posted by: Leland | Jun 7, 2006 9:15:12 PM