Signorile Takes On 'Obama As First Gay President' Meme

Author and radio host Michelangelo Signorile waded into the debate over whether President Obama's pro-gay marriage politics make him the first gay president, as Andrew Sullivan asserted in Newsweek.

Signorile's blunt response: no. Unlike Bill Clinton, the "first black president" dethroned by an actual black president, President Obama did not grow up "immersed" in the projected culture he allegedly represents.

Here's more from his explanation at The Huffington Post:

…The "first gay president" label just doesn't work, no matter what rhetorical device you employ. And it makes us gays seem silly and starved for validation.
…
Bill Clinton grew up poor and among the African-American community, including in the churches in which he worshiped.

Barack Obama didn't grow up immersed in gay culture or understanding the gay experience, and he had no such connection to the gay community... For almost four years the president, for political reasons, didn't say he was for marriage equality. Then, after being pressured by gays, and after many in his own administration couldn't hold back their own support for marriage equality, the president announced his support in the midst of an election campaign.

Though Signorile certainly thinks we should tip our hats to the commander-in-chief, and that he deserves "immense credit," the "first gay president" moniker should be reserved for a actual gay person.

Andrew Sullivan Holds Back Tears Talking About What Obama's Gay Marriage Endorsement Meant to Him: VIDEO

Andrew Sullivan, whose Newsweek article "The First Gay President" is getting a lot of attention as much for its text as its cover image, appeared on The Chris Matthews Show on Sunday and offered an emotional account of what Obama's announcement meant to him.

Said Sullivan:

It's hugely important and to tell you the truth, i didn't realize how important it would be until it happened. Beforehand, I was kind of steeled. I was like, 'I don't care, he's going to disappoint us again.' And then I sat down and watched our president tell me that I am his equal, that I'm no longer outside, I'm fully part of this family and to hear the president who is in some ways a father figure speak to that, the tears came down like with many people in our families, to be included.

I never understood the power of a president's words until that day, really. I thought, all that matters is the states and the Congress and the Defense of Marriage Act and I had all this in my head and suddenly this man saying, 'I'm with you, I get it, you're like me, I'm like you, there is nothing between us, we are the same people and we are equal human beings and I want to treat you the way you treat me.' That -- that was overwhelming. That's all I can say. I was at a loss for words.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

New 'Newsweek' Cover: The First Gay President

Here's the cover of the new Newsweek:

The headline tries for wit in its unsubtle recollection of a profile of Bill Clinton authored by Toni Morrison, entitled "Clinton as the First Black President," which appeared in the New Yorker in 1998. In it, Morrison wrote:

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food loving boy from Arkansas.

Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek story has yet to be posted to the web, so there's no telling if he's written similarly of Barack Obama. Hard to imagine he would. I'm pretty sure Obama's never "displayed" any gay "tropes," if such things exist at all.

Leaked Republican Memo Advises Quick Evolution On Gay Issues

Not sure how this memo leaked, but I'm glad it did. It was dispatched yesterday from the desk Jan van Lohuizen, the respected Republican pollster and founder of Voter Consumer Research, and was destined for the desks of various Republican "insiders" and operatives. Here's the text:

Background: In view of this week’s news on the same sex marriage issue, here is a summary of recent survey findings on same sex marriage:

1. Support for same sex marriage has been growing and in the last few years support has grown at an accelerated rate with no sign of slowing down. A review of public polling shows that up to 2009 support for gay marriage increased at a rate of 1% a year.  Starting in 2010 the change in the level of support  accelerated to 5% a year.  The most recent public polling shows supporters of gay marriage outnumber opponents by a margin of roughly 10% (for instance: NBC / WSJ poll in February / March: support 49%, oppose 40%).

2. The increase in support is taking place among all partisan groups. While more Democrats support gay marriage than Republicans, support levels among Republicans are increasing over time.  The same is true of age: younger people support same sex marriage more often than older people, but the trends show that all age groups are rethinking their position.

3. Polling conducted among Republicans show that majorities of Republicans and Republican leaning voters support extending basic legal protections to gays and lesbians.  These include majority Republican support for:

1. Protecting gays and lesbians against being fired for reasons of sexual orientation
2. Protections against bullying and harassment
3. Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
4. Right to visit partners in hospitals
5. Protecting partners against loss of home in case of severe medical emergencies or death
6. Legal protection in some form for gay couples whether it be same sex marriage or domestic partnership (only 29% of Republicans oppose legal recognition in any form).

Recommendation: A statement reflecting recent developments on this issue along the following lines:

“People who believe in equality under the law as a fundamental principle, as I do, will agree that this principle extends to gay and lesbian couples; gay and lesbian couples should not face discrimination and their relationship should be protected under the law.  People who disagree on the fundamental nature of marriage can agree, at the same time, that gays and lesbians  should receive essential rights and protections such as hospital visitation, adoption rights, and health and death benefits.

Other thoughts / Q&A: 

Follow up to questions about affirmative action: “This is not about giving anyone extra protections or privileges, this is about making sure that everyone – regardless of sexual orientation – is provided the same protections against discrimination that you and I enjoy.”

Why public attitudes might be changing: “As more people have become aware of friends and family members who are gay, attitudes have begun to shift at an accelerated pace.   This is not about a generational shift in attitudes, this is about people changing their thinking as they recognize their friends and family members who are gay or lesbian.” 

Conservative fundamentals: “As people who promote personal responsibility, family values, commitment and stability, and emphasize freedom and limited government we have to recognize that freedom means freedom for everyone.  This includes the freedom to decide how you live and to enter into relationships of your choosing, the freedom to live without excessive interference of the regulatory force of government. 

Andrew Sullivan, writing at The Daily Beast, thinks the memo is a rather big deal. He writes, only a little melodramatically:

The last paragraph is, to my mind, the most remarkable. It's advising Republican candidates to emphasize the conservative nature of gay marriage, to say how it encourages personal responsibility, commitment, stability and family values. It uses Dick Cheney's formula (which was for a couple of years, the motto of this blog) that "freedom means freedom for everyone." And it uses David Cameron's argument that you can be for gay marriage because you are a conservative.

And the walls came tumbling down.

 

NEWS: Nazis, Mega Millions, Nick Cage, John Cage, God, Surveys, Science

Armed neo-Nazis patroling Sanford, FL:

Neo-Nazis are currently conducting heavily armed patrols in and around Sanford, Florida and are "prepared" for violence in the case of a race riot. The patrols are to protect "white citizens in the area who are concerned for their safety" in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting last month, says Commander Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement. "We are not advocating any type of violence or attacks on anybody, but we are prepared for it," he says. "We are not the type of white people who are going to be walked all over."

Because nothing diffuses racial tension like gun-toting racial separatists patrolling an already on-edge community.

Some pro-equality activists don't like what other pro-equality activists do with their money.

A survey for your mothers. (HT: Joe.My.God.)

Only dubiously witty, but unexpectedly fun: Nicholas Cage does John Cage.

Apparently, Los Angeles isn't superficial, New York drives aren't that bad, and Miami isn't full of fit people.

PinkIsTheNewBlog has a pic of Zac Efron's bum.

Andrew Sullivan on America's bad religion:

"When I go and see young people, their image of Christianity these days is one of judgment, intolerance and to some extent bigotry and politics," Sullivan said. "They associate it with one political party in this country, because of the fusion of evangelical and ultra-orthodox Catholics with the Republican Party. They don't see it as the message of Jesus, they don't see it any more as a message of love and forgiveness. They see it as a bunch of people trying to control their lives through political mechanisms.

Gallup probes American religiosity:

... it’s no surprise that all of the “top” ten [religious] states are in the south save Utah and Oklahoma, which, as Abbie Smith will attest, may as well be in the south. It’s also no surprise that the least religious states are in New England, with the proportion of “very religious” being 23% in New Hampshire and Vermont, 25% in Maine, and 28% in Massachusetts ...

What did surprise me was the 32% of Americans who see themselves as “nonreligious" ... Since roughly 10% of Americans don’t believe in God, and only about 1.5% go so far as to describe themselves as “atheists” or “agnostics,” I wonder how many of these 32% of “nonreligious” Americans are secret atheists who just don’t like the label, or are unwilling to confess to an interviewer that—horrors!—they don’t believe in God.

Teen sells kidney for Apple products:

He received 220,000 yuan ($35,000) for the transplant, gave the student 22,000 yuan ($3,500) and shared the remaining money with the other defendants and several medical staff involved in the operation, Xinhua said.

When the student returned home, he was asked how he could afford a new iPhone and an iPad and he told his mother that he sold one of his kidneys

High up in Chile's Atacama desert -- at almost 17,000 feet above sea level, where heads ache, noses bleed, and "dizziness overcomes the researchers toiling in the shadow of the Licancabur volcano" -- scientists are turning Chile into one of the world's elite destinations for astronomical research. But for how long? From the Times:

At the same time, the financial crisis in rich industrialized countries has raised concerns that funding for some ambitious astronomy projects could face constraints. In the United States, a Congressional panel last year proposed killing NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope before a compromise spending plan saved the project.

“It would be very sad for humankind if we were so spiritually decadent to forgo the pleasures of consciousness and of knowledge,” said Mr. Mosterín, reflecting on the funding choices political leaders need to make. “These things make human beings a very interesting animal indeed.”

News: Weekend, Sean Hayes, The Senator, German Football

Failed Russian Mars probe plunges into Pacific Ocean.

Uganda's Ambassador to the U.S. Perezi K. Kamunanwire says 'kill the gays' bill dead.

Dorian Awards announced: "Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, a British film about the relationship that develops between two men during the course of a brief hook-up, has been named both best film of the year and best LGBT film of the year by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association."

VIDEO: "Donkey punch" on Jeopardy.

Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke receives PFLAG Ally Award: “I’m honoured, greatly honoured” Burke said in a short, dramatic address. He said he had a longer speech prepared, but abandoned it.

Michael Fassbender sexes up Interview and GQ UK.

Dutch insurers pay for "ex-gay" therapy: "Health insurance companies are obligated to pay for the therapy because the organisation providing it, Different, is an officially recognised institution for mental health care."

Why gay parents may be the best parents.

Daniel Radcliffe: You can do anything!

Andrew Sullivan on how Obama's long game will outsmart his critics. Sarah Palin isn't impressed.

New Jersey Assemblyman apologizes for gay slur in Facebook update: "While bragging about the Giants, Assemblyman Charles Mainor, who is also an officer with the Jersey City Police Department, wrote 'Who the hell do you think we are the DALLAS COWGIRLS OR THOSE GAYBIRDS FROM PHILLY....NO WE ARE THE NEW YORK GIANTS.'"

Effie Trinket in another crazy outfit in new Hunger Games image.

The Senator: Fire destroys 3,500-year-old tree in Florida. "It was one of Central Florida's leading attractions before the arrival of the region's theme parks, and though the park is in neither city, advertising associated it with Sanford and Longwood. A billboard on U.S. Highway 17-92 boasted of the tree's age and pointed motorists toward Big Tree Road — now General Hutchinson Parkway."

German football chief says gay players should come out of the closet: "Theo Zwanziger called on gay players 'to have the courage to declare themselves,' although he conceded it was surely difficult to acknowledge one’s homosexuality within a team."

Casting Calvin Klein's Milan Men's show.

Dolphins and whales play together.

Sean Hayes heading to Parks and Recreation. "ayes will play a revered  TV journalist who the locals refer to affectionately as 'the Matt Lauer of Indianapolis.' His character lands a big interview with Leslie, potentially boosting her election prospects."

Justin Timberlake takes the wheel in new Givenchy Play ads.

Elmhurst College, the first in the nation to ask applicants about sexual orientation, says there have been no issues surrounding the question: "Few applicants have skipped the optional question asking whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, Rold said, and it doesn’t appear straight students are cheating the system to receive the diversity 'enrichment scholarship' that’s worth one-third of Elmhurst’s $29,994 tuition. When Elmhurst announced its policy, skeptics predicted many students would be uncomfortable, or that straight applicants would declare themselves gay to get the scholarship money."