So, to review, the wingnuts took a seat that would have been a win for the Republicans, so much so that the seat had not gone to a Democrat since Reconstruction and the Democratic candidates had been getting about 35% of the vote the last few elections, ran the Republican out of the race, brought their own special kind of crazy to town, and the voters rejected them handily.
Even I didn’t expect Owens to win. I seriously hope they pursue this strategy nationwide.
In other news, a Goldman employee has finally lost a job, with Corzine out in NJ. I know nothing about the election there, nor the one in Virginia, but I do know that Terry McAuliffe is not Governor. That is a good thing.
The only really bad thing is the repeal of the gay marriage law in Maine. Other than that, I’d be hard pressed to draw any conclusions from yesterday other than that Sarah Palin is still a loser. I’m sure that won’t stop the right-wing hacks from claiming this has been a bad result for Obama, but let’s face it- everything is good news for Republicans.
r€nato
The media hype about this election being a referendum on Obama, was just that – hype. Media trying to create a storyline for a few odd-year elections which are really a lot more about statewide/local issues than about Obama.
The House race in NY-23 was the real story, but nothing we didn’t know already. Anyone have a headcount on the real world results of far right-wing candidates knocking out center-right Republicans, when they run in the general election?
Off the top of my head – Sheldon Whitehouse became a US Senator thanks to the right crippling (but not defeating) Chafee in RI.
Club For Growth has, IIRC, over the past two or three elections handed at least two House seats to the Democratic party by knocking off moderate Republicans in the primary. Anyone recall those races? Wasn’t one in PA?
Rick Taylor
Owens won????
August J. Pollak
I agree with Aravosis being hyperbolic on this but there’s certainly a respectable point in wondering why the DNC couldn’t be bothered to spend a penny on No on 1 while devoting tons of money as well as a visit from the President toward helping Deeds lose by 15 points.
Kryptik
What Maine tells me is that even actually properly legislating marriage equality (one of the bigger gripes of legalizing gay marriage before Vermont was the first to do it through the legislature) won’t quell people from voting their bigotry, with no small part thanks to the enabling of the morons at NOM.
There’s a fucking reason civil rights legislation, Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education, etc. were never put up to popular vote. If they were, we’d have had segregation up into the 80s most likely.
pablo
Saint Sarah certainly proved her worth. Not!
Coffee is now the national drink!
r€nato
I, too, am mystified why Obama campaigned for Deeds. Maybe it would have looked bad to not have him show up at all, but I am far, far away from Virginia and even I knew Deeds was going to lose.
Bhall35
Not cool, John. Especially after such a heartfelt post on the subject the other day. For some of us, this wound is still very raw, and you have to keep poking at it.
ChrisNBama
The Best. Quip. Evah!
Pasquinade
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/03/mcdonnell-republicans-sweep-virginia/
El Cid
When Democrats won both these governors’ seats in 2001 it was not news and everyone agreed that this should in no way be seen as getting in the way of Lord Bush Jr’s agenda.
However, when Democrats lose both these seats in 2009, it means that America has tired of the radical Obama-Pelosi agenda and Democrats need to become the center-rightists that the Broderites know Americans want them to be.
The fact that Democrats have a larger and more liberal majority in the House of Representatives should not be used to counteract the center-right lesson drawn from the 2 governors’ races, because that would be wrong and crazy.
Napoleon
I have a feeling you are right, but in reality with a 6 point spread there is nothing anyone could have done to win it. My WAG is that if Obama got involved (assuming that his involvement didn’t actually boomerang) maybe he gets them 1 or 2 points (for comparison sake my understanding is a really good ground game gets you in the 1-3% neighborhood).
Kryptik
@August J. Pollak:
To be fair, it seemed more like Deeds needed the help (his problem mostly being not WANTING the help and actively running away from Obama and progressive promises), where Question 1 was projected to lose by a decent margin (unless my memory went faulty) until the approach of election day.
Not that Obama helped Corzine much either. Seems like things were more a lack of local GOTV.
liberal
I don’t like TM either, but I’d be hard pressed to explain why he’d be a worse gov than the right-wing nutjob the idiots in VA just elected.
John Cole
@Bhall35: You’re right. I removed it.
Napoleon
@r€nato:
I think it was to build up chits with Deeds and others in the VA political establishment. Just because Deeds was going to loose doesn’t mean its not a good idea to go out and give your all from the team, especially if you are going to ask the team to give its all for you in 3 years.
Kristine
The only really bad thing is the repeal of the gay marriage law in Maine.
At the risk of displaying my brutal lack of knowledge of the legislative process, why are laws allowing gay marriage constantly in the position where they can be repealed? When does it stop? When is a law a law? Every state has laws that people don’t like–could all of them be repealed by referenda if we had the drive and the money and the organization? Does gay marriage need to be defined as a civil right by the US Supreme Court, and even if it is, would that be enough?
Is the consistent repeal of gay marriage laws a form of mob rule? Given that the majority isn’t always right, is this constant exercise of majority will in itself a form of legally-enabled discrimination?
cleek
NY23 has clearly repudiated all those who think Obama has lost his magic touch. without even going there, he managed to swing a district that has been out of Dem control longer than the Republican Party has existed. take that, haters.
(hey, there’s no reason to make only losses about Obama!)
Kryptik
@liberal:
Considering Deeds’ “strategy” (if one were gracious enough to call it that), I’m not terribly convinced that McAuliffe would’ve been worse than him either.
The moment Deeds decided to run on ‘I’ll fight against progressive legislation to spite my party’, VA was pretty much screwed either way, I think.
ChrisNBama
@Kryptik:
Let me give you some perspective on Maine. I actually grew up there, and my family still resides there.
Maine is isolated. Geographically, economically, and culturally isolated. I grew up in a fishing village, and had never even met a black person–or a gay person for that matter–until I joined the Navy. So let’s stop it with the condescending bigotry talk. It’s as easy to attribute it to that, but intellectually lazy and mean spirited.
Opinions are changing. Do you think, for instance, that this referendum would have been this close say ten years ago? Not a chance. And in another ten years, gay marriage will be perfectly acceptable to the majority of Maine voters. Obviously, they aren’t there quite yet, but they are moving in that direction.
So, please. Show a modicum of respect. All southerners aren’t rednecks, and all Mainers aren’t bigots.
General Winfield Stuck
Because nothing is. You have to read Erick Erickson for the full skinny and play it backwards to Palin Tweets.
Rey
Sarah Palin should avoid the date Nov 3rd. She was a loser last year and a loser this year. Sarah Palin = Loser- I love it…
Elroy's Lunch
@liberal
Good point but unfortunately some of us here in NoVa looked at McAuliffe the same way NY-23 looked at Hoffman.
Kryptik
@Kristine:
I’m honestly not really sure either, especially since each state has to handle them in different distinct ways.
But yeah, like I pointed out earlier, if the Civil Rights fights way back when were put up to popular vote state by state, we probably would have segregation all the way into the 80s. There’s a reason why it was put into federal hands and the Supreme Court (though with our current court, not sure if that’s a sound idea either).
El Cid
@cleek: No. Only losses are about Obama. Just like the fact that polls show overwhelming public support for the most liberal variants of health care reform can only be seen as meaning that Americans are united in opposition to Obama-Pelosi’s big government threat to all of our health care.
gizmo
I think there is some truth to the notion that some of this is Obama’s fault. His team has failed miserably at sustaining the momentum and excitement that would motivate Democratic voters to show up at the polls. He’s got ex-Goldman Sachs guys running the economy. His Justice Department has been awful on detainee issues. He’s dragged us deeper into the mess in Afghanistan. He failed to speak out in support of marriage equality in Maine. And, he has not provided good leadership on the healthcare issue.
Having Obama in the White House beats the hell out of Bush/Cheney; but from where I sit, Obama looks like another halfass centrist President, and to the extent that Democrats fared poorly last night, it’s not because the GOP did so well- it’s because Democrats have slipped back into apathy.
r€nato
@ChrisNBama:
yes, what you said, from beginning to end.
The Maine defeat is a temporary setback.
In 10 years, gay marriage will be legal in the majority of US states. You watch.
10 years ago, DOMA was passed. Today, I am certain it would not be passed by Congress and Obama would never sign it, despite his current stance in support of maintaining DOMA.
In 10 years, there will be even fewer of the older generation which simply can’t cope with the idea of homosexuality being socially acceptable. I don’t mean to sound ghoulish; this is simply something that is going to inevitably change as an older generation dies off.
gocart mozart
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/11/04/is-americans-for-tax-reform-on-our-side-still-its-tax-policy-director-clearly-is-not/
Heh. Is Grover Norquist too liberal? Burn baby burn.
Chad N Freude
@Pasquinade: The article you linked to contains this gem of analysis:
If I understand this correctly, we elect our state governors because we’re unhappy with the national economy. I suppose the vote was a protest against accepting federal stimulus money.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: If you play it backwards, you’ll hear that Paul is dead.
John Cole
@liberal: because Obama just took Virginia in 2012 last night.
Three years of a wingnut governor doing stupid things and trying to ram socially conservative bullshit on the citizens, pulling stunts like Perry and Palin will do wonders for Obama. Plus the wingnuts will feel energized and start flexing their muscles there, creating the inevitable backlash.
John Cole
@Kristine: I agree.
Chad N Freude
@John Cole: I’m not familiar with VA politics. Is the Eric Cantor’s pride and joy really as you describe him?
Guster
I’m just so disappointed in my fellow Mainers. The No on One campaign was great, though. I only volunteered a few times, but they were fantastic, organized and smart. But I guess sometimes fear wins.
I want to cry.
Chad N Freude
@Chad N Freude: Take out “the”, please. Why have you banned the Edit button?
Just Some Fuckhead
My thoughts exactly. We are all Club for Growth now. Hell, considering all the Republican misnomers, like Clear Skies, Healthy Forests and Mission Accomplished, “Club for Growth” is starting to make sense.
Kryptik
@ChrisNBama:
I didn’t mean it as a slight against Maine in specific, and I’m sorry if it came out that way.
It’s just that these referenda, propositions, questions, etc. seem to draw out the bigots in large numbers regardless of state, and that even actually proper legislating it didn’t quell people like NOM and those they enable, despite being one of the big complaints about the process in other states.
It’s not a bash against Maine in specific (especially since most of the support for Question 1 likely came from out-of-state organizations like NOM, just like how Prop 8 was mostly supported by out of state interests). It’s a frothing disgust with the process and state of things on this issue in general. Maine just happens to be even more frustrating since, like I pointed out, it was actually passed by law, rather than set as precedent by the State Supremes such as in other states.
Napoleon
@r€nato:
Bingo – I know Maine looks like a loss but when you take into account how much closer it was then what you would have expected 5 years ago and combine it with polling results and demographic data I think its hard not to know that the “losers” in the vote really are going to end up on the winning end, and likely pretty soon. Honestly, would they rather have won but have the polling data and demographic trends running in the opposite direction?
dmsilev
@gocart mozart: Hah! So the Purity Wars have begun, have they? I’m not sure whether to root for the Judean People’s Front or the People’s Front of Judea.
-dms
Bhall35
@John Cole: Thank you.
Kryptik
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Don’t forget ‘compassionate conservative’, ‘No Child Left Behind’, and even more recently, the proposed ‘Internet Freedom Act’.
Johnny Pez
@r€nato:
1st CD in Maryland. GOP mod was primaried out by a Club4Growth wingnut, who went on to lose to a Blue Dog Dem.
Guster
@ChrisNBama: I live here now, and so does my family.
It’s bigotry. That’s what it is. It’s spiteful hateful bigots. I understand that they’re spiteful and hateful because they never learned better–and that one day, I hope, they will. But yesterday, they were what they were.
Max
I think it was Chuck Todd who said Obama should have gotten involved in the NYC mayor’s race, as he could have pushed the dem ahead of Bloomberg.
Really Chuckles? The fucking President should campaign for a fucking mayor.
These guys are a parody of themselves at this point.
liberal
@Kristine:
I personally think “direct democracy” is an abomination. Not in theory, but based on empirical data (namely, California).
While there are disadvantages to the strict federal const amendment process (for example, the fact that rural conservatives are going to be vastly overrepresented in the senate for no good reason until the end of time), the state const and other pop dem processes are somewhat ridiculous.
Actually, one of the dumbest examples was this idea floating around that if a bare majority of Quebec-ers voted for succession from Canada, then it should do so. Uh, I can demands supermajority for succession?
liberal
@Johnny Pez:
I think the GOP mod was Gilchrest. That was sad; he had become staunchly against the Iraq war by then.
liberal
@Max:
Yeah, it’s not like NYC has a larger economy or population than, say, any US state, for example. /snark
Chad N Freude
@cleek: I doubt that Obama’s magic touch had much, if anything, to do with it. I think it was the magic touch of the Palin/Beck/Malkin axis of
evilarrogant stupidity. This has been discussed at some length in a couple of other threads, and I find the idea that the local RINOs were really pissed off about the national party trolls interfering with local party decisions more plausible. All politics is … what was the word that Tip O’Neill used … oh, yeah, local.David
The Club for Growth spent $1,022,040 in support of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $897,404 on its candidate, Dede Scozzafava.
Cerberus
Also, there were victories in Kalamazoo for anti-discrimination ordinance, WA looks solid for passing domestic partnerships and a strong smattering of out gay mayoral candidates won practically without fanfare. Combine that with the victories that weren’t subject to bullshit public referenda earlier in the year and the fact that all of the ballot measures were bigot backlash rather than bigots proactively taking away rights and things are better than they look for the health of homomentum.
Still, fucking Maine, man.
debit
@dmsilev: Splitter!
Max
@liberal: Bloomberg spent $100 mil to barely win. I think it’s ridiculous to think Obama wants to get involved in the mayoral race of a city that houses Wall St, etal with all that is going on.
If he gets involved in that race, it becomes about him.
Bloomberg bought that race, just like the Yankee’s.
Chad N Freude
@Max: I don’t think it’s that dumb a proposition. The mayor of New York City is a little bit more significant nationally than the mayor of Wasilla.
Ed in NJ
I guess despite losing the only national race in NY-23, the teabaggers are going to somehow claim victory today. This despite the fact that the biggest teabagger lost the primary in NJ (Lonergan) and both Christie and McDonnell won by downplaying their teabaggedness. As a matter of fact, you really can’t take anything from Christie’s campaign. He basically went into hiding for the past couple of months and just hung on.
The Grand Panjandrum
Thanks for the edit John. I was so fucking mad at you I couldn’t type so I went and got a cup of coffee and by the time I’d come back you came to your senses. Good on ya.
I belong to no minority group. I am straight, white and male, yet I feel as strongly about marriage equality as I did about civil rights legislation in the 1960’s when I was just a kid. The vote in Maine is appalling and I do think the DNC, i.e. Organizing For America (OFA) formerly Obama For America, let down the families in Maine who were on the verge of being officially recognized by the state. OFA is still a very powerful grassroots organization. Last October 20 they sponsored a telephone event that generated more 350,000 calls to Congress to support health care reform. It was awesome and helped to push Harry Reid to publish the bill now being considered in the Senate. Imagine the force of hundreds of thousands of calls to voters in Maine asking them to NOT strip their neighbors of the right to marry the person they love. No the White House and the DNC are not to blame for the loss, but they didn’t lift a finger to help.
Not one more penny to the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC until they get on board with marriage equality and they strip Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship and pass meaningful health care reform. Not one more fucking penny. They can kiss my big white ass. I will give to individual candidates who I believe will serve the interests of my family and those of my neighbors. I have had it with these rat fuckers.
Bob In Pacifica
The national news seems to have missed that Dem John Garamendi has won Ellen Tauscher’s open seat in California. He’s a lot more progressive than Tauscher ever was. In short, if yesterday was a vote on Obama he’s got two more Dems in the House.
The lesson in New York’s 23rd is that there aren’t enough crazies yet, even there, to elect a teabagger.
Corzine was really hated in NJ and his car accident really crystalized it. The tubby Republican is a Rovian hack who’s probably got dirt on him from his prosecutor years. From my remembrances of New Jersey politics he’ll probably be caught with his hand in the till at some point.
Noblesse oblige worked in New York City but not New Jersey, but maybe it was also the amount of money spread around.
I know little about Virginia politics except it was the capitol of the Confederacy. The Dem candidate has been described as “weak”, I don’t know what that means. The voters there this off-year were whiter and older than 2008. I know the Repug winner was railing against fornicators which almost guarantees he’ll be caught boning someone.
The passing of medical marijuana in Maine suggests that perhaps federal prosecutors should be elected. See this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/3/204751/806
Gay marriage? Sigh. Think of all the rights we could take away from each other if only we voted on it. This makes the lawsuit in federal court over Prop 8 all the more important because it seems like the same dynamics (and people) were behind it.
Watch the spin. Measure the spin. That’s the game today.
ChrisNBama
@Kryptik:
I appreciate the clarification, Kryptik. I’m a little trigger happy right now because I’ve read lots of blog posts this morning painting Mainers as bigots. My apologies.
I do agree with your larger point: I’m not a fan of the referendum or ballot initiative. It’s done wonders for the folks in California, tying the hands of representatives to respond aggressively in times of crisis. I’m a strong supporter of representative democracy and I loathe so-called “direct” democracy.
Cheers,
Chris
Cerberus
@Cerberus:
Addendum, No on 1 had a great campaign and Maine is remarkably close to victory for a state that only thought gays equal enough not to be discriminated against 4 years ago especially on an off-year election. So not denigrating Mainers…well, not denigrating ALL Mainers at least when I say that.
GregB
No, no, no. Cole, you have it all wrong. This is such a crushing repudiation of Obamism that he should immediately resign and install Mitch McConnell as a place holder until the Duma can declare Sarah Palin as defacto head of state of United Christian America.
That’s the takeaway.
-G
Deborah
Horrifying thought: Palin robocalled in VA and NJ, though in the bizarre “get out and vote for my values, and I’ll call back three more times today” way. Maybe that’s the lesson they’ll take, blanket Palin robocalls.
@Cerberus: I live in MA and less than 10 years ago I thought “Gay marriage–come on, not happening in my lifetime, or if it does I’ll be a granny, you need to go after civil unions to have any chance.” Then poof, it was law and I actually had to think about my stance, which turned out to be “sure.” It’s astounding how fast views have changed, and I bet we will overturn DADT in the next 2 years, and in 10 years gay marriage will be gaining everywhere.
AkaDad
Q. How do you compliment someone from Maine?
A. Tell them they have a nice tooth.
Yes, I am a Masshole.
Just Some Fuckhead
On the bright side, black folks can’t be blamed for overturning gay marriage in Maine like they were blamed in California. There ain’t no black people in Maine. Ha!
Chad N Freude
@Ed in NJ:
As a matter of fact, they’re doing exactly that.
TR
I don’t know about McDonnell, but if you watched some of Christie’s ads, you would have sworn he had Obama’s endorsement. The NJ results weren’t a smack at Obama by any means.
Per Olbermann, MSNBC had exit polling of both states, and big majorities in each said their votes had nothing to do with the president. The minority in each state that said they were trying to send a message to Obama were evenly split between those who liked him and those who didn’t.
Just Some Fuckhead
Yeah, McDonnell was running pretty far left for a Pat Robertson Republican.
ChrisNBama
@Guster:
Guster, the problem with calling people “spiteful, hateful bigots” is that it is meaningless analysis. You go on and admit the obvious: that people don’t know better.
The fact is, by your definition, we are ALL spiteful, hateful bigots at some point. At least until we become acquainted with those we fear, and develop relations and an understanding of them.
By your definition, I was a “spiteful, hateful bigot” when I jointed the Navy. I thought bad things of black people. All I saw on the news was the bad stuff that they had done, and I didn’t know any, so my ignorance was complete. Once I went through boot camp, things changed. Half my company was black, and one of the persons most responsible for helping me stay out of “marching party” (inside baseball, but think of it as reformatory) was black. And my attitudes change. I live in Alabama now, and half of my closest friends are black. So, calling someone a “bigot” does nothing to foster or change that persons point of view. Sure, there are people that will not change, and perhaps they deserve the label, but it’s reductionist and counterproductive, and frankly self righteous, because you are inferring that you are somehow better than they are.
Anyway, the rhetoric is good for scorched earth tactics, but not for furthering your political agenda.
Michael D.
Re: Maine – For all of you who advocate lobbying your state reps, there you go. In Maine, polling was indicating we would win. We didn’t. And the reason we didn’t is because many people who SAY they support gay people really DON’T when they can voice their lack of support privately.
To: Gay people everywhere – Marriage has now been put to a vote in 30-31 states and YOU have been defeated. It’s time to do something about it, and here’s what I plan on doing:
When the topic of marriage equality ever comes up, whether it’s at a party or at work – anywhere – I am going to ask the person how he or she voted. If that person tells me he or she supported equality, I am going to thank that person and let him or her know I appreciate it immensely.
However, if the person tells me he or she voted AGAINST equality, I am going to make it very clear that this person is no longer someone I consider a friend. If I find out a family member did it, then it will be the same thing.
“Friends” who vote against your equality are NOT your friends. Family that votes against equality are not people you should be spending your Thanksgivings and other holidays with.
And it’s time to let them all know that they CANNOT be part of your life until they support you.
EDIT: When the list of people who contributed $$ to the repeal of Maine’s same sex marriage law comes out, you need to look at it and see if ANY of your friends and family are on it. You need to look on it to see if there are businesses you support on it. And if there are businesses on it, you need to tell your family and friends NOT to support those businesses. And if they DO, well, you know what to do.
r€nato
@Michael D.:
don’t you think it might be more productive to try to persuade people, rather than shunning them?
ChrisNBama
My only fear of the GOP gubernatorial sweep, is that the blue dog democrats, and their like minded brethren in the Senate, will interpret the results as a harbinger of things to come in 2010. Nothing is further from the truth, of course, but as Mark Pryor admitted to Bill Maher, you don’t have to pass an I.Q. test to be a senator…
Bhall35
@The Grand Panjandrum: This.
geg6
I have heard some stupendously stupid punditry today, even in the face of trying to actively avoid it. Chuckie T was as concern troll as could be on the Today Show, with dire warnings to Obama regarding the now completely more empowered Blue Dogs who are the most awesome enemies of Obama in the halls of Congress. Because two Dem governorships went to the GOP. The congressional races weren’t significant at all. NY-23 was glossed over as simply a family feud that the now-surging GOP will use to build their new majority by kicking Charlie Crist in the balls. And CA-10 didn’t happen at all.
Apparently, governors run Congress. Who knew?
Napoleon
@The Grand Panjandrum:
They could have gone all out in support but it would not have mattered. 6% is too much to make up by a well executed, well thought out media and ground game blitz.
Opinion is drifting into the pro-camp at a rate of about 1% a year, so the question becomes do you wait, say, 3 or 4 years and try again when a well executed, well thought out blitz may take you over the top or wait 6 or a little more when the shoe is on the other foot and the anti camp needs to flawlessly execute a defense to beat you?
Michael D.
@r€nato:
No. And the more I hear that from people, the more it makes me sick. People here say the worst things about conservatives. I could just as easily ask the same question of people here.
But no. People need to lose something important to them in this fight. And I suggest a good thing to lose is friends and family. Besides, if they aren’t supporting you, then who gives a fuck?
Brick Oven Bill
It is too bad that this Hoffman guy lost. But consider this, as a Teabagger, a Certified Public Accountant, and a newly-minted Revenge of the Nerds-style rock star, he may serve a higher purpose as the lead investigator into the inner-workings of Goldman Sachs-Treasury Department-Federal Reserve Axis of Evil.
So this is good news for conservatives.
…
We have Somalis in Maine Just Some Fuckhead. The people of inner-city Atlanta were beating them up so the Catholic Church relocated these Somalis to Lewiston, and more recently Portland.
Maine is the home of the ‘ham-steak’ incident, also the ‘pig head-Mosque’ incident. I do not know if Somalis are homophobes or not. But they are Muslims, so probably yes.
Therefore it is the Somalis’ fault.
Davis X. Machina
Most of the states without a referendum or initiative process are in the Deep South.
Civil rights legislation, good or bad, could not have gone out to popular vote.
John Sears
@The Grand Panjandrum: I second the sentiment. Money’s a bit tight this month but I’m going to see what I can scrape together for Alan Grayson.
The Dem party apparatus on the other hand can go directly to hell. I’m sick of it. The rather noteworthy silence on gay rights in Maine plus Stupak’s little crusade to make sure that no woman who gets health insurance through the Exchange ever has an abortion has just about driven me insane. Our tent is way too big if we let mouth-breathing religious fanatics dictate morality from inside.
Tropical Fats
I just learned from Yahoo!’s front page that “Dems suffer humiliating losses in two gubernatorial races, sending a strong message to Obama.”, that this was a “wake-up call”, “an unmistakable rebuke of Democrats, reshuffling Obama’s political circumstances in ways likely to have severe near-term consequences for his policy agenda and larger governing strategy.”
My goodness, how bad must the reality be if this is the spin put on it by the liberal media? Can the president simply resign, or must he now ritualistically disembowel himself on the front steps of the Capitol?
Chad N Freude
@ChrisNBama: Representative democracy doesn’t work all that well in CA either. The state legislature consists almost entirely of gerrymandered seats safer than the womb.
Jack
<—not a fan of the sort of mischief caused by the referendum process. See California. See Maine.
It’s only “democratic” in theory, since the theory (a) neglects money and (b) voter apathy.
gocart mozart
This is exactly how God would speak to Erick son of Erick.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/11/02/faithful-flock-to-see-virgin-may-in-bird-poop/
ChrisNBama
@r€nato:
Renato, I think the problem is that some people want change quicker than many people are ready for it. It’s a recipe for backlash. Good politics is about incrementalism–leading the horse to water, than drinking yourself, and waiting for the horse to follow suit.
Frankly, I’m quite impressed with the inroads the equality movement is making. In another ten years, things will be vastly improved. And I’m not suggesting that those folks who are deeply invested shouldn’t continue to prod progress forward. That’s absolutely necessary. But one has to be mindful that people are stubborn animals, and require space to do the right thing. I’m utterly confident that they will do the right thing in the end.
Cerberus
@Deborah:
Yeah, we’re on the cusp of something. It’s just stressful not knowing how long the forces of darkness can hold off the day it all starts rolling downhill, but the important thing is that that cusp is here.
Chief evidence, the bigot brigade is whining about being called bigots and stating how human they see us and our relationships. When your enemies who seek to dehumanize you are having to humanize you just to win temporal battles, you have already won the war. Right now, it’s just waiting for enough bigots to die and for moderates to realize that the war has already ended and it’s time to jump belatedly onto the right side.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill: What have you done with the real Brick Oven Bill?
Shell
But now we here in Jersey have to live with this clown. He might not be a forner Goldman employee , but he has the kind of dick-character that tries to get out minor scrapes by telling the cop ‘do you know who I am?”
People voted mainly on the subject of propery taxes. If they think he’s gonna lower them, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
slag
As often happens, the left coast brings some good news and is ignored.
Guster
@ChrisNBama: I’m not trying to make meaning right now, and I’m not trying to change anyone’s minds. I’m trying to describe reality.
The reality is, they’re bigots. I agree with you, though, to the extent that maybe I should say, they act like bigots. Because I don’t care about what’s in someone’s heart, just how they act.
And you probably were a spiteful, hateful bigot when you joined the Navy. God knows I’ve been one–and still am, no doubt, in some ways. When I act that way, I hope someone respects me enough to call me on it.
There’s no reason to sugar-coat this. The people who voted for bigotry aren’t children. They’re adults. They knew what they were doing. They were voting their bigotry. I think it’s people who say, ‘those simpleminded backwoods Mainers didn’t know what they’re doing’ who are exhibiting a feeling of superiority, not the ones who say, ‘they knew exactly what they were doing.’ Give them a little respect.
I’m sure that justice of the peace in Louisiana who refused to marry interracial couples doesn’t consider himself a bigot. But I do. That doesn’t make me superior; that makes me rational. And honest.
Guster
Gr. That ‘act like’ was supposed to be italicized, not strikethrough! Same with ‘were.’
Davis X. Machina
Maine’s experience: Anti-discrimination law passed in 1997, vetoed by referendum. Anti-discrimination law passed in 2005, veto referendum fails by six percent.
In three years, if the courts don’t get there first, it passes. In five, it passes handily.
geg6
@gocart mozart:
OMG, that’s for real? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Even Larry David can’t be more absurd than the religious nuts.
Librarian
I said yesterday that the media would be unwatchable because of all the GOP victories, but they may be a little more tolerable because of NY 23. If Hoffman had won, they’d be literally popping champagne corks and celebrating on the air.
Max
@Shell: Reading some blog posts from NJ, the positive seems to be that this opens up 2013 for Cory Booker to run for gov.
I don’t know a lot about him, as I live in CA, but he is impressive in what I’ve watched/read/heard.
MikeJ
Ref 71, Washignton’s “everything but marriage” law, seems to have won.
And we made little Timmy Eyman cry, so that’s good.
And Susan Hutchinson got her ass handed to her. 14 point loss. The negative ads running for the last week were designed to look pro-Hutchinson but make Seattlites hate her. “don’t you want someone who raised huge amounts of money for Bush and McCain? If you want a true blue conservative…” etc. A thing of beauty.
Jack
@Guster:
There really are two Maines. There is coastal and southern Maine, and then there are places like Millinocket, Lewiston, Van Buren and Ft. Kent which are ruled by Churches of the Nazarene, paper mills and near hereditary landed families.
kay
@geg6:
They’ve been predicting the implosion of Obama for going on three years.
I don’t think the people who work for him pay any attention to it.
You really do have to wonder why the media are so steadfastly opposed to health care reform, though.
It’s really unbelievable to watch them try to kill it this time around. They played such a central role in scuttling reform 16 years ago. It’s like a goddamn MISSION for these people.
Michael D.
@Guster:
I fixed it for you…
Don’t put hyphens before and after words or it strikes it. :-)
John Sears
@ChrisNBama: I must respectfully disagree. Being ignorant and being a bigot are different things.
Being ignorant, as you described, is a situation where a person has had no reasonable chance to learn the error of their ways and reform for the better.
Being a bigot, on the other hand, is a conscious choice to deny the inherent humanity of another person or group of people and embrace hate instead.
Ignorance is the default state of all humanity. Bigotry is a severe moral failure. It does us good to identify the bigots for what they are, and yes, in fact, we *are* better people.
r€nato
@Michael D.:
I understand that you feel passionately about this, but I don’t believe that shunning is going to change any minds. People are, by nature, stubborn and prideful. They typically only change their minds about things that are important to them, when they can do so in a way which makes them feel as if they decided on their own.
It pains me that some on our side want to continue the divisiveness which the GOP intentionally inflicted upon this country. I have close family and friends who are by any objective measure generous, kind and decent people; however we happen to have very different political views.
I’ve learned that while politics is important to me, it doesn’t always say all that much about who the person is. I would trust my semi-wingnut stepfather to keep his word about something, a lot more than I would this guy I know who is about the most liberal person with whom I am personally acquainted.
I think you’d be a lot more effective if you’d talk to these people about why they oppose gay marriage, rather than shunning them and hectoring them. Just my $0.02.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Bigot: n – One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
A-yuh. There’s bigots in Maine, ah reckon.
Jack
@r€nato:
The “why” is religious belief. Any discussion on those terms favors the believer, especially the sort inclined to think that the Grand Maker of Everything and All gives a rat’s ass about how two people love.
r€nato
@ChrisNBama: I think we both said exactly the same thing, with different words.
Which means you are a genius, like me ;-)
Cerberus
@ChrisNBama:
Yup old bigots need to continue to die out, young voters need to continue to be cool and we need to shove our dicks in the faces of small town america until they either die of shock or learn that the pe.nis isn’t some devil tool, but rather a fairly boring flesh-colored elephant impersonator.
Most of the opposition is fear of sexuality and facing sexuality. We need to encourage our older relatives to make peace with this or we need to wait for them to die.
Note: I say all this as an asexual woman, because it impacts me to.
danimal
As soon as Owens was called in NY 23, the CW became that knocking out a moderate GOPer was the wingnut goal and a Hoffman win in the district was only going to be icing on the cake. I literally did not read this claim once prior to polls closing. I’m gobsmacked by all the ‘Obama referendum’ talk referencing the governor races and the downgrading of the two congressional Dem wins.
On the bright side, maybe Obama will get a clue and start cracking down on the banksters now that Corzine’s head is on a NJ platter. If anything is going to harm Obama, it’s his coziness with Wall Street; he really needs to start acting like a Dem and fight some class warfare.
Michael D.
@r€nato:
Except that I’ve been doing this for 2 decades and I know people in my family and who are “friends” who still haven’t changed their minds.
1. I am a gay, married Canadian.
2. I have a decent, stable job.
3. I like football, hockey, and lots of other sports.
4. I stay home on weekends and have beers with friends or go to a pub with them and watch a game.
5. I like country music
6. I am like you and my friends and family in EVERY way, except I am gay.
Yet they don’t change.
I’ve tried it your way for 20 years. Time to try it my way.
Update: What @Jack said.
John Sears
@Jack: Church of the Nazarene, eh? That’d do it.
My uncle and his family are in that particular, ahem, sect. I’ve been to their church. They are completely and utterly mad.
geg6
@kay:
You know, I don’t understand this, either. I mean, I know they are tools of the worst kind, but what is this special hatred of getting health care for everyone (or almost everyone). It’s not like it’s some sort of sexy issue that they’ll lose viewers and page views over if they were actually honest. It’s bread and butter for middle America, and so they barely have covered it over the last 70 years. You’d think they’d be happy for the whole issue to go away so they don’t have to actually think about something that they don’t care about. The rabid opposition to it by media makes no sense.
r€nato
@Jack:
religious belief is certainly part of it, but there are plenty of anti-gay-marriage folks who are simply disgusted by the thought of two men having sex, or kissing, or whatever.
To which I say… why do you want to keep the gays from marrying, because you can’t quit thinking about gay sex? I think fisting is disgusting. That’s why I don’t sit around thinking about it all day. That’s why I don’t pass my time lobbying my legislators to pass laws banning people who like fisting from getting married.
Josh E.
So, any sight of that Corner Stone guy who was talking about how good a fit Hoffman is for NY-23 a few days ago?
Anya
What we have here are two races were the Republican candidates did not make it about Obama – Christie in fact ran away from the republican brand, and one race were it was all about Obama and his agenda. They lost the one that was about conservatism and against Obama’s agenda. Do you think the media will notice that?
r€nato
@Michael D.:
well Michael, give it a try, come back in a year or six months or whatever and tell us how it worked out.
(not meant as snark)
Kryptik
@r€nato:
I’m honestly torn on matters like this. As much as I want to go for inclusiveness and persuasiveness, I think Michael D. has a point, insomuch that some people will only wake up on the issue if they actually face the real pain of someone they might consider a friend, face to face. Some are detached enough to not consider how it hurts real people when they vote to strip rights like this, and being confronted by someone they know on the issue might make the issue hit home a little closer.
jenniebee
This is one of those mornings when you just have to remind yourself that Virginia law prevents governors from succeeding themselves.
Jack
@r€nato:
I don’t discount the “ick factor,” but that’s not the politics of it. Politically, these
stinking invitations to bigotry and mischiefballot initiatives are driven by organized action groups, on specifically and categorically religious grounds, using churches and religious studies groups, mailing lists and networks to promote the legislation of a specifically religious interpretation of human sexuality, to the detriment of those who cannot or will not conform to that worldview.The “ick” is negligible, when you look at the politics of it.
Michael D.
@Kryptik: That’s exactly what I am talking about.
@r€nato: As to coming back and saying how it worked out. It’ll work out one of two ways…
1. My “friends” and family will wake up on this issue and realize what they are doing to me.
2. They will do nothing and be out of my life.
Either way works for me.
kay
@geg6:
I’m baffled by it, I really am. I thought S-CHIP expansion was going to be a media slam-dunk, but they fought it tooth and nail, along with former President Bush and the GOP Congress.
I couldn’t even identify a rational objection. It was all these weird projections of unspecified horrible things happening, because, ya know, Medicare is complicated and insurance is boring.
It was a fun campaign, because it was conducted entirely under the media radar, and we had the House wrapped up before media could lodge, loud, irrational and uninformed objections. They were freaking smug when Bush vetoed, then, wham, they lost.
burnspbesq
@The Grand Panjandrum:
A completely reasonable position under the circumstances, but may I make a suggestion. When you get fundraising calls from those wonderful organizations, be sure to tell them why your checkbook isn’t closed – don’t just hang up.
John Sears
@Michael D.: I agree with your action but renato’s right, the people you cut out won’t change. That’s not the point. You cut them out for your sake, not theirs. Some people are beyond help and beyond hope, and it’s not worth the time of a decent human being to try and save them from themselves. It only serves to hurt the decent people.
On a lighter note, I was going to make a joke about liking country music, and how on that point we’re very much not alike. But this might not be the best time to argue, even goodnaturedly, over music :D
Plus, I do love Johnny Cash. Who can’t appreciate Johnny Cash?
geg6
@jenniebee:
One thing (well, many things I don’t know about VA, but…) I don’t know about VA is what is the makeup of the state legislature? Is this one of those deals where the people of a state have the mistaken view that a divided government is ALWAYS a better government? Since the history seems to show that they regularly flip parties for governor, the divided government argument seems to me one that would be powerful there.
ChrisNBama
@Guster:
Okay, I think I understand where you are coming from, Guster. I appreciate the elaboration of your ideas.
My only problem with it is the tone it sets. Perhaps the best word is indeed bigotry to describe some of the people who voted yes on 1, but it assumes too much. I think many people had different reasons for the way they voted. For example, there are many earnest people who believe homosexuality is wrong based on how they read the bible. Now, I suppose at ten thousand feet we can sit back and belittle this, as I have on occasion, but I don’t think a person who votes against marriage equality based on this belief is “hateful”, “spiteful”, or a “bigot”. It’s very difficult for these people to be convinced that homosexuality isn’t a sin, because they have been taught that their whole life. However, I’ve met conservative religious people, who after getting to know homosexuals, come to realize that it’s not a “choice” or a “lifestyle” like they were taught. This sort of thing produces cognitive dissonance, which results in a fundamental change in that persons understanding. Which is a good thing. I guess, in short, calling people “spiteful, hateful bigots” might represent reality for a certain number of people, but it certainly doesn’t represent the reality of most of them–IMHO.
Cheers,
Chris
Cerberus
@r€nato:
There are conflicting theories on outreach. Some say be kind and apologetic, but this can lead to “But I have gay friends, I can’t be a bigot” syndrome. Some say be hardline and reject those who reject you, but this can lead to a bigot deciding to up his game cause “dat dere faggot wuz mean to me.”
Personally, do what you have tolerance for. If you have patience, be affable and don’t hide yourself and always put it up front and politely ask bigot friends to support you as a personal favor.
If you don’t, it’s a quality of life issue. No one should have a worse, more stressful existence just to maybe one day, maybe not, drag someone into growing the fuck up already. And maybe learning that it isn’t a game will knock some sense into people or at least alienate the bigot from family members who do believe family is more important than what some pastor says.
The important part of outreach though, is simple. Living honestly, living proud. After that, it’s really all just a matter of techniques.
Kryptik
@kay:
It’s all apart of the ‘liberal media’ culture.
Wait, my bad, it’s the ‘We Can’t Be Seen As Anywhere Near Liberal’ Media culture. There we go, that’s closer. It’s got to be, since it seems like aside from personally liking a couple of individuals here and there, there’s always an immediate, reflexive reaction against liberals and any nominal liberal policy, outside of a handful of outlets like Olbermann and Maddow.
geg6
@John Sears:
This.
I have had to cut people out of my life. It isn’t what I’d prefer and it was and is a hard thing. But sometimes you have to quit drinking the poison.
Comrade Darkness
@Kryptik: There’s a fucking reason civil rights legislation, Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education, etc. were never put up to popular vote. If they were, we’d have had segregation up into the 80s most likely.
This. It really sucks to have to wait for the bigots to die or grow senile before getting basic civil rights. The upside, small as it is, is that it will happen eventually.
Michael D.
@John Sears:
I also like electronic, house, trance, non-southern Rock (with exceptions), and pretty much anything else. I said “country” because I come from those types of people. :-)
bemused
@pablo:
I think there should be a resolution introduced in Congress to make coffee the national drink. More often than I want to admit, I have impatiently poured my first sip of coffee of the day when the coffee maker is only 1/4 the way thru dripping. That will jolt you out of bed.
John Sears
@ChrisNBama: This is one of the areas where I have a real problem with American society.
Any belief, no matter how insane, or hateful, or hurtful, or destructive, is made somehow acceptable, or at least excusable, if it has a religious origin.
Being a bigot because the Bible, or your preacher/pastor/priest, tells you to be one doesn’t make you any less of a bigot. It does, perhaps, make you more of a sheep.
Nylund
Lets all draw crazy conclusions from a sample size of three!
Flip a coin 3 times. Most likely, you’ll get two to come up one side, and 1 of the other.
Jack
@Comrade Darkness:
Probably later than the 1980s, in truth. CRA 1964 is only 16 yrs before Reagan rode White Rage into the White House.
ellaesther
@r€nato: Shoot! I was going to invite you over for an afternoon of just that!
/shuffles off to change itinerary/
The Grand Panjandrum
@Napoleon:
I disagree. I don’t know, nor do any of us for that matter, if they could have turned the vote around. That is all that can really be said here. But their silence on the issue is DEAFENING. They chose to remain silent. I do not.
Here in NH the legislature passed a marriage equality bill. A bill has already been introduced to repeal that legislation when the legislature reconvenes in January. I for one will not stand by and whine like a little punk because the Christianists and the Roman Catholic Church are seeking to strip away marriage equality from my friends. colleagues and neighbors. I have already pledged money and 100 hours of volunteer service to make sure that doesn’t happen here.
MikeJ
It’s because they really don’t care one way or the other about policy, just winning and losing. If Democrats are for it, they must be against it. Total war, all the time, without end.
Brick Oven Bill
If an asexual woman shoved her dick in my face, I am not sure what I would do, but this is not recommended Cerberus, the dog that guards the gates of hell.
I am fairly confident what some others would do though. Therefore, I would in no case recommend shoving your asexual dick in stranger’s faces. Most people are just content living their live without this type of interruption.
What you are seeing, in the reactionary right circles in which I sometimes swim, is that traditional values have skipped a generation. You see people on social security, and then you see people under forty. These young ones usually have a strong sense of situational awareness. This is also known as future time orientation. This is related to reflection.
The generation that grew up without a major societal challenge is the generation that is not typically present in these circles.
jenniebee
@Michael D.: I hear you. A friend of mine just flew in from Cali to attend a wedding of a lesbian couple she roomed with for a while. She’s broke, but she found the money for a plane ticket and crashed on a couch for a couple of nights so that she could be with her friends on their wedding day. In just about every aspect of her life, including her gut reaction to homosexuality, she’s a person you’d expect to strongly support gay rights. And yet… she’s a Mormon, and her church told her to vote yes on prop 8. So she did.
I don’t know what’s going to get through to people like that. I really don’t.
Cerberus
@Nylund:
The era of Tails is threatened by the resurgence of head. Let the dremmeling commence.
Jack
@The Grand Panjandrum:
If you want, I can link you up with a few of the Manchvegas based Dems who are running point on this.
The Grand Panjandrum
“What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority.” — Molly Ivins
georgia pig
This result could be problematic. The teabagger losing in NY while “centrist” Repubs win in NJ and VA may weaken the conservative purity caucus and prevent it from delivering a mortal blow to the Republican brand. It might have been better if Hoffman won. The bluedogs may also read this as more reason for Liebermanism, i.e., the pundits will parrot Republican talking points that “voters in NJ and VA rejected the liberal tax and spend agenda,” and the bluedogs will fall for it. The reality is the voters who actually showed up rejected Corzine and Deeds, who were pretty bad candidates with nothing in particular to offer, and thus failed to bring out dem constituencies. Thus, while this election has no direct effect on Obama, it may undermine his ability to get things done in the next year.
John Sears
@Michael D.: Ah good, it’s not too early for a goodnatured argument about music.
Unfortunately I don’t know enough about electronica to throw bombs in that area. My esteemed hetero-lifemate does, but she’s already on the way to work.
In the rock area, I could get a pointless but cathartic flame war started. The Stones kick the Beatles’ collective ass.
Max
Browsing the usual anti-Obama left sites, we all know the names, it’s interesting to see:
1. This election proves Obama has no coattails and has lost his influence over voters.
and
2. If Obama had used his power and influence over voters in Maine, equality would have passed.
I’m not sure how you reconcile those two opposing statements, but apparently, the way you remedy is to say that Hillary should be president.
Wankers.
r€nato
@Cerberus:
I don’t believe in being kind and apologetic (nor humble and meek) when confronted with someone whose political views I’d like to change. That’s just weakness.
I think there’s a way to subtly undermine people’s views, but few of us have the rhetorical and intellectual acuity to pull it off. I’ve seen people do it and I’ve tried to learn from them. One technique is, don’t offer an opinion one way or the other. Encourage the other person to talk further about the topic at hand, and look for an opening to ask the rhetorical question which might linger in their mind long after the encounter.
For instance, if you meet someone who really is against gay marriage, and as you draw them out you find they keep returning to the topic of gay men having sex… you might ask them, “Oh, so what I hear you saying is that you’re against two homosexual men getting married, but two homosexual women getting married doesn’t bother you so much.”
This. I have always believed we can do more to change people’s minds by leading by example. For instance, the more people understand that gay Americans are just like the rest of us (we may not even know that we know some of them), the more they become ‘us’ and the less they become ‘the other’.
Jack
@John Sears:
Meh. Zeppelin. Rush. Yes. That’s when music begins.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kryptik: I think the ignorance versus bigotry comment above has it right. If faced with ignorance, attempt to persuade and inform. If faced with bigotry, go with Michael D.’s method. The key is being able to identify who is who.
ChrisNBama
@John Sears:
John, I appreciate the distinctions you have made. I’ve been struggling with it myself all morning.
The problem is that one can not make the distinction Guster was making by your definitions. One would have to know a person personally to make a judgement of whether a person is a bigot. But to assume that troves of people that came out to vote against marriage equality are “spiteful, hateful bigots” is a bridge too far.
The other problem I have is that it is not an easy thing to change one’s understanding after being confronted with the facts. It’s not just a rational exercise. I wish, in many respects, that rationality were the overriding factor, but there are so many other things at play. Perhaps it is a moral failing if a person, when confronted with facts, is unable to accept them. But I’m optimistic, that once the other barriers are torn down, that people ultimately come to do the right, moral thing. In short, I’m not much of a Calvinist :-)
Cheers,
Chris
Irony Abounds
It today’s “journalists” mission: must find winners and losers of somebody even if it ignores the obvious. The one and only message coming out of last night from Va and NJ (and NYC): It’s the economy stupid. It will be the economy in 2010 and 2012. Next year, if employment numbers are doing much better by next June or July, the Dems will do just fine (and in 2012 they should be great and Obama will crush the Republican). If the numbers are ok, but not great, Dems lose about 25 seats in the house and a few Senate seats. If the numbers haven’t improved much, Republicans take the House and come close in the Senate. No magical uprising of teabaggers is going to change that.
r€nato
@ellaesther:
hehehe just because I don’t like fisting, it doesn’t mean I’m vanilla.
But that’s a topic for some other blog.
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
@r€nato:
Club for Growth knocked off moderate Congressman Joe Schwarz (R-Battle Creek) in 2006 in Michigans 7th district. He was beat by Tim Walberg (R-Nutjob) in the primary and went on the win the general against a weak Dem. In 2008, Walberg was knocked off by Mark Schauer (D-Battle Creek)
Incidentally, Schwarz endorsed Schauer.
Thank you Club for Growth.
John Sears
@Jack: Zeppelin, it is true, does kick ass. But the usual ‘boxers or briefs’ style question I’ve heard is Beatles vs. Stones, so I started with that.
Damnit. Now I have to go listen to some Zeppelin. You have Kashmir stuck in my head.
Shalimar
@Brick Oven Bill: What happened to you? Your posts at least used to have some internal logic. Now it reads like the random rantings of a lunatic.
R-Jud
BWAH HA HA HA HA.
Michael D.
@Cerberus:
I am NOT suggesting going to a “friend” or family member and calling someone a bigot. I am advocating saying to someone:
“You voted against my equality by doing what you did. This issue is very important to me and has impacted my life in the following ways [list of impacts]. Because you supported this, I can no longer call you a friend until I know that you no longer support these things. So, going forward, the phone calls stop, going out for social gatherings stop. Coming to family dinners will stop, too. My partner and I will eat Thanksgiving with either each other or with our true friends. We’ll spend [whatever holiday] together and with our friends, going forward. If you decide that you no longer wish to support inequality for people like me and my partner, and can prove to me in actions – not words – that you support us, then we can be friends. But starting today, that’s not an option for me.”
MikeJ
@John Sears: Ogg pretty sound make on log.
gocart mozart
@Brick Oven Bill:
I kinda like the new B.O.B. version 2.0. Now with extra crazy.
kay
@MikeJ:
It’s funny, because states are and have been addressing health care, completely under the radar, for years. To them, it’s a big problem. “On the ground”, it’s a huge mess, and has been for years. There are already mandates to purchase health insurance, too. Unmarried parents have to purchase health insurance for their children in every state, as a result of an order signed by President Bush, and college students at public universities do, too, as a result of action taken by my state legislature.
None of this is ever mentioned. Because national media weren’t paying attention, this stuff did not happen.
jenniebee
@geg6: The last time our legislature made news was in 2005 when we narrowly escaped becoming the first state in the union to outlaw baggy pants. In general, we have a very low-key legislature. They show up, they put together a budget, they go home.
About whether or not it’s a split ticket, usually not. We elect our assembly on the same crazy low turnout off years that we elect our governor.
bemused
The wording of the anti gay marriage ballots as in Calif are confusing, yes vote is actually a no vote & vice versa, to lazy, dumb american voters which is probably deliberate.
John Sears
@ChrisNBama: I think that casting a ballot to strip people of their civil rights and make them less human than yourself, in the eyes of the law, is an overt way of labeling yourself as a bigot.
Most of the time, you’re right, you can’t judge a person without some personal interaction. But when they come right out and advertise their bigotry it’s easier.
AkaDad
/points and laughs
twiffer
@Michael D.: friends are one thing, as you choose your friends based on mutual interests and ideals. family though…well, for example, i’m sure as fuck not going to ask my 100 yr. old great-grandma her stance on gay marriage. nor, if i did, would i shun her for not agreeing with me. same goes for my grandma (who is 80).
i disagree with a great many of the beliefs a large portion of my family holds. but witholding my love from them over ideology? fuck that. everyone has to pick their battles and some are not worth it. moreover, i think that teaching shunning, instead of engaging, as a reaction to difference of opinions is a poor lesson for my son.
Cerberus
@r€nato:
Yeah, I know, I was just talking about the two extremes in the usual debate that occurs in all outreach discussions. What’s the best tactic, no, be more X, etc…
The best tactic tends to be what you can stand personally and the best and most lasting radicalization or conversions tend to be mostly organic consequences of the principle you, I, and most everyone sane agrees on.
My parents and friends all got radicalized for gay rights by knowing queer individuals, myself, my partner, other personal friends. Being close to the struggles, the heartaches, the inequalities can cut through a lot and getting them to think about sexuality can trigger some pretty interesting revelations in their own rights (my partner’s mom responding to my partner’s coming out with a story about a lesbian crush in college).
On the hostile to sexuality thing, I’ve always been curious to see if just being blatant would have better results than the “deference”. Too often in rhetoric when we see someone hostile to sex in general, we defer to them as if the sex is wrong viewpoint is somehow more worthy, which often sabotages the conversation behind the conversation. Sometimes I wonder if they’d go better if the conversation went “so you stick dicks in asses do ya?” “actually it works more like Y rather than the horror show you are imagining. Now why does this act most heteros also engage in make me unworthy of basic human rights?”
But again, it’s all technique variations of the central rule and even I change it up depending on the friend or the venue.
Svensker
@Ed in NJ:
Coupled with the fact that people really dislike Corzine. He’s Mr. Goldman Sachs, the money bags who doesn’t really stick his neck out but makes sure all his buddies are taken care of. Meh. I’m the only one in my Dem family who voted for him (and that after much soul searching) — everyone else either stayed home or voted for the very appealing independent. Nevertheless, I feel like barfing every time I see Christie’s mug on my TV.
John Sears
@geg6: I’ve had to do it myself, which is why I said what I did.
In my personal experience, it hurts a lot less than you’re afraid it will, and afterward, you’re not just happier, you’re a better person, able to do more good overall, if you’re not constantly being torn up by trying to maintain the relationships you should have abandoned.
r€nato
@twiffer: this.
ellaesther
@r€nato: Well, I really meant that I was going to invite you over for an afternoon of thinking about the fact that we find the notion of fisting disgusting… but hey, if the afternoon turns into something more interesting, who am I to argue!
But, as you say, that may be for a different blog….
Ash
@Max:
He could have extended his coattails by extending his coattails. Duh.
[/logic]
ksmiami
No no the two rock competitions are
Zeppelin vs the Who
and Beatles vs Stones
The Grand Panjandrum
@burnspbesq: Very good advice. I think I will be proactive in this area as well and mail those fundraising letters back to them without a check and explain why they are not getting my money.
@Jack: Thanks. My handle links to my blog where you can contact me, or you can contact me through the Blue Hampshire blog. I am getting some connections through my state legislators who both voted for marriage equality. I have also asked for assistance at Blue Hampshire to make sure my time and money are most effectively used.
ellaesther
@AkaDad: /joins in the general glee, brings popcorn/
Cerberus
@gocart mozart: Oh god, why’d you quote that? I was so much happier just assuming he was opining on pie rather than masturbating to my estrogenized pe.nis.
gocart mozart
I hear that the next California inititive will be to outlaw divorce. Seriously. Heh, good luck with that.
Michael D.
@twiffer:
Except…repeat after me.
Gay.
Is.
NOT.
An.
Idealogy.
It’s my life. And if my grandmother doesn’t love my life, then she doesn’t love me. I don’t accept the “we’re part of a different generation” or “we come from a different time.”
So do all the old white men we bitch about and say we despise here on a regular basis.
EDIT: And I would ALWAYS encourage my son/daughter to engage people rather than shun them. Except that, after years of trying, I’d probably tell him it’s pointless to try to explain to his bigot friend that the black and white or gay couple down the street is in a perfectly legitimate relationship and he should move on and try to find new friends.
MikeJ
@gocart mozart: I believe it’s being put forward by a marriage equality supporter. “You want to defend traditional marriage? I got yer defense of marriage right here.”
ChrisNBama
Okay, I do think that IE8 is a superior browser to Google Chrome. I had to get out of Chrome and into IE8 to cut and paste your comment into this post. Chrome was just grabbing everything, including the side bars :-P
That wonderful insight aside, I just want to say I think what you said is really important. I think leading by example is more persuasive than all manner of argumentation. As an author I really like once wrote, no one ever became a believer because he lost an argument. Although, I do like what you said earlier about injecting subtle rhetorical statements so that a person will reflect on it later. That is quite clever, and it sounds like it can be devastatingly effective if done with humility and kindness.
Anyway, just wanted to say I agree with you is all :-D
John Sears
@twiffer: The people I cut out were in fact my biological family. Almost all of them, in fact. I think it was the right decision.
I’ve come to believe that there’s no meaningful distinction between friends and family. Your real family is made up of the people you choose to love and value, the people you’d make great sacrifices for and who would make great sacrifices for you; the people who make your life worth living.
Not the people you’re connected with by the accidents of genetics.
It’s a bit of a Stoic idea, I suppose, but I don’t value a person any more or less because they share my gene pool.
r€nato
@Cerberus:
most people don’t have the balls to conduct the following conversation:
“So you don’t like gays getting married, chiefly because you think two guys fucking each other in the ass is disgusting.”
“yep, pretty much.”
“Have you ever fucked a chick in the ass?”
“Yes, of course!” (if they are being honest…)
“So, do you think it would be OK for the state to bar you from getting married because you enjoy anal sex with women?”
“Uhhh…”
If we could have more frank discussions like this with gay marriage opponents, it would make it that much harder for them to rationalize their stance. I think it would also lay bare the utter hypocrisy and cause people to re-examine how they really feel. A key step in getting people to change their minds, is getting them to re-examine their premises. That’s something most of us do not do much of, whether left or right.
Cerberus
@Michael D.:
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to knock any specific techniques, just mocking the debate that always exists between the two factions. We all agree on 99% of it. Being honest, being open, being real and most of us vary techniques by environment to carry every which range. I’ve been hardlined with radical liberals who should have known better and did and I have soft-pedaled to the extreme in things like work situations.
The right solution is always what the person trying it can stand emotionally and is willing to try.
Seanly
@Tropical Fats:
Yeah, the Yahoo politic news is trashtastically right wing.
The pundits & concern trolls can blab all they want. Obama & his crew are smart. Not to say they won’t have to deal with some Blue Dogs running scared, but what’s new? The Republicans don’t want Obame to accomplish anything, but that’s nothing new. The results change the chatter but not much else – aside from 2 new Democratic representatives.
Brick Oven Bill
It could be the boxing lessons Shalimar. Today, we start hitting each other. Perhaps this will again cause changes.
LarryB
@Brick Oven Bill: Meat pies! Love ’em.
Skepticat
@ChrisNBama:
I was born and spent the first third of my life in Maine, and have a summer home and family there. However, I grew up in a relatively sophisticated, well-to-do suburb of Portland suburb, and would amend “Maine is isolated. Geographically, economically, and culturally isolated.” to say that some–but not all–parts are indeed isolated. A breakdown of the vote geographically would be interesting, though lawd knows, bigots and haters are pretty much everywhere.
I do wish that the No campaign had spent more time stressing the outside influences in the race. Most Mainahs resent being told what to do by those from away.
I’m very sad that Maine is the current poster child for injustice and uninformed bigotry.
John Sears
@Ash: That’s sort of political zen.
How about: Is there a Barack Obama so strong that he’s able to overcome his incredible weakness?
jenniebee
@Irony Abounds:
I can’t speak for NJ or NY, but I just don’t see that in VA. The turnout demographics changed radically between last year and this in VA. Young people and minorities didn’t vote this year, whites over 45yo did. Basically, we just replayed the Simpsons’ episode that ends with the passage of a curfew for everyone under the age of 70.
Cerberus
@John Sears:
Yes. This.
r€nato
@gocart mozart:
that reminds me of another clever rhetorical question wrt gay marriage:
“Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage!”
“Really? More than no-fault divorce?”
“Uhhh…”
“How many marriages have been ruined by gay marriage? How many by divorce?”
“Uhhh…”
John Sears
@ksmiami: Not sure I have an opinion on The Who vs. Zeppelin thing.
We could have all sorts of fun on these questions though.
asiangrrlMN
@John Sears: I agree completely. If it’s religious, then it must be respected. It’s not bigotry, oh no! Yes it is, just wrapped in a religious package. People who vote against gay marriage are bigots. Period. Just as people who were against interracial marriage were bigots, no matter why they were against it.
I will talk with someone until I’m blue in the face if I think there is any chance at having a reasonable discussion. Otherwise, I am just hurting myself by banging my head against a wall. I have learned a long time ago to distinguish between people who truly want to learn something or have their minds opened and people who just want to spout their shit at you and will not change their minds for anything.
As others have said, I choose to disengage from the latter for my peace of mind. I have had to defend myself and my lifestyle (in various ways) for most of my life. I am not interested in doing it any longer. If someone thinks bisexuality is thisclose to bestiality (and yes, I have gotten that response), then I will talk to that person for ten minutes to see if the opinion is mutable. If not, I walk away. It’s all about self-preservation.
ChrisNBama
@John Sears:
Again, I don’t think many of these people intend to “strip people of their civil rights” or “make them less human than yourself”. They view it as protecting an institution ordained by God. From a sophisticated perspective, perhaps it amounts to the same thing, but I don’t think many of the people voting this way consider the consequences of their actions as you do. I think that’s important.
ellaesther
Re: the bigotry vs. ignorance argument:
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote something so, so smart about this a few months ago. He was writing about the stupid-ass attacks from the right on Nancy Pelosi’s appearance (!), and said that until he watched this one video clip, he hadn’t really understood what the women in his life had been telling him all along about how women are judged by their looks. Like: He believed them, he supported them, he just didn’t get it.
Why is bigotry is “so tough to fight,” he wrote because “it’s not about the limits of empathy — it’s the limits of imagination.”
Most people want to be nice, but if they simply cannot imagine what you’re suffering, they might find it hard. In other words: It’s both ignorance and bigotry, because the latter is a result of the former.
Of course, this is not an excuse. It’s an explanation, and a good reason for the kinds of co-existence work and endless dialogue that I sometimes grow weary of. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own journey on the question of gay rights, confronting my old homophobia — and, I stress, I don’t remember ever thinking that gays didn’t deserve civil rights, I just thought they deserved pity, too, and I was skeeved out. What brought it around for me was coming to know and love people who happened to be gay. (Here’s a think to some of that thinking, if you’re interested: href=”http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/do-tell/”>Do tell.)
So, I guess I think there always has to be a combination of all approaches, on any issue of social justice — laws must be passed, even if some of the people aren’t ready, but at the same time, we have to be honest about the fact that some of the people aren’t ready, and try to bring them along to where they will be, someday.
WereBear
@John Sears: Religion is the great “cloaking device.”
Significant Other is reading The Family by Jeff Sharlett. He says it is more chilling than any horror movie, because these maniacs are so openly admiring of raw power… that’s all, just power. Crushing lives is just the frosting. Funny how that works out.
And their “cover” is religion. It seems to me there’s a switch in some people’s head that goes, “That’s insane! It’s totally against all my needs and wishes… oh, God says? Okay then.”
Cerberus
@r€nato:
Yup. This.
I think I’ll be trying more of this when I move back into the States, especially as I’m a much harder opponent for them to morph into the “pervert sex addict” myth since I’m openly asexual and as a biology major can be just as pedantic as they like on the issue of sexual reproduction and the heterogeneity of the human mating ritual.*
First up for them, why gay men use lube and foreplay so it doesn’t hurt and instead feels mutually pleasurable unlike the last time you tried to stick it up her like a moron.
*And it has gotten me a weird reputation sometimes with friends where I end up being their asexual sex therapist.
Svensker
@John Sears:
Bernard Chazelle at Tiny Revolution, who is a music maven, has a really interesting post on the difference between the Stones and the Beatles.
I like both the Stones and the Beatles, for different reasons, and pretty much dislike groups like Rush intensely (Zeppelin is a good but hard to listen to), so we’d probably disagree on a lot. But it’s a good read.
ellaesther
@ellaesther: Ack! Weird link!
Here it is, again:
Do tell.
Chad N Freude
@Shalimar: I am convinced that this BOB is not the original BOB. Some say it’s DougJ up to his old, old tricks. Some say.
gocart mozart
Pat Boone Godwins himself.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114547
Ken
Napoleon @11 wrote: “I have a feeling you are right, but in reality with a 6 point spread there is nothing anyone could have done to win it.”
Didn’t Hoffman have something close to that? However, that might indicate that you can’t win when you’re down by six, but you certainly can lose from an up-by-six position.
Svensker
@ksmiami:
Wha? Much as I dislike listening to Zep most of the time, they were a really good and creative band. The Who? The Monkees of the 60s.
General Winfield Stuck
@gocart mozart:
Jeepers. This is dog whistle from Hell.
Reason60
What I think is interesting is that the only genuine Tea Party candidate lost; Christie and McDonnell held the Palin wing at arms length and moved towards the center in order to win.
Comrade Darkness
@Chad N Freude: They are in a lovely mouth froth, chomping at the bit of 2010. It’s a beautiful and pathetic thing. Stomping all over local politics at a national level, by itself, will earn them lots of friends.
John Sears
@ChrisNBama: People always have reasons for the evil they do. No one, or perhaps almost no one, thinks to themselves, ‘Today is a good day for evil!’
Choosing an institution you believe ‘ordained by God’ over actual living, breathing human beings is both bigoted and insane.
Choosing to worship a God of hate and malice, one who would direct you to harm your fellow man in this way, is also bigoted and insane.
John Sears
@WereBear: I’ve read some of Sharlet’s stuff online. It really is creepy.
Of course, I find almost all religious practice creepy up close. I feel like the last human in a town full of pods, and that at any moment they’ll all turn around and start hissing at me.
Ash
@asiangrrlMN:
I just recently finished reading The God Delsuion, and while for the most part I completely hated it, I loved the part about how religion is the great “dog ate my homework” of the universe. If you’re a shitty person and feel like being an asshole, just cloak it in religion, and then for some reason people will have to respect your beliefs.
Reason60
@r€nato:
Your point about no-fault divorce reminds me, that long ago during the 1960’s, fundamentalist preachers had a talking points list of modern sinfullness that they regularly railed against from the pulpit-
Divorce was number 1, along with drug use, rock n roll, and premarital sex.
Along the way, as the number of divorced church members climbed, equal to the population, that message became softer and softer, and today, in any megachurch you walk into, premarital sex and divorce are openly accepted, with barely a ripple of protest.
Its hard to scream about a sin that most of your congregation is committing- its bad for the collection plate.
jenniebee
Awww, crap. McDonnell wants to privatize the state’s liquor stores as a “fiscal” measure. Not that the ABC stores are getting state subsidies to sell booze, mind you. Arrrggghhh.
For those of you who aren’t Virginians, we don’t have private liquor stores, we have state owned and run Alcoholic Beverage Commission stores. Wine and beer are sold privately, but liquor all goes through the ABC. The upside to this is that the state maintains a certain distance between stores and keeps up standards around the stores as well (the stores don’t become the thing that drags a neighborhood down).
Bleah. Once again, elections have consequences.
ksmiami
No Svensker – Moon’s drumming is still some of the best and the Who lyrics – brillant still. Stones beat the Beatles over and over and the Doors’ career was cut short. Still think the Kinks were one of rock’s best bands and Bowie gets massive kudos for being out there, man. Also partial to the Birds and Vanilla Fudge though and while I like the Dead, they were weak sauce compared to the Allmans.
Damn though RADIO today SUCKS
The Grand Panjandrum
@Svensker: Weren’t The Monkeys from the 60’s?
Svensker
@gocart mozart:
Crikey. These people really are nuts.
Chad N Freude
@John Sears:
I assume you mean the subject matter, not the stuff he writes.
John Sears
@Svensker: That post makes my head hurt. My level of sophistication with music is on the level of ‘Do I like it?’ so… largely lost on me. Heh.
Still, always worth being reminded how ignorant one is on a subject.
Reason60
ehh, stupid question- can someone tell me how to use the link feature, when responding to another’s post?
thankyouverymuch
John Sears
@Chad N Freude: Yes, although he does write in a horror style, lots of ominous foreshadowing and flashbacks to lay the groundwork. No stabs at faux objectivity or analysis from 10k feet.
r€nato
@Ash:
yup, though it’s not limited to religion.
Revanchist Southerners like to dress up their history of slavery, plantations and segregation in the warm, fuzzy cloak of ‘heritage’.
And of course, much of conservative philosophy is simply a way to rationalize narcissism and boundless greed.
Chad N Freude
@Reason60: Click on the little curvy arrow at the right of the timestamp.
John Sears
@Reason60: Click on the littel arrow to the right of their timestamp.
It took me a few posts to get this myself.
General Winfield Stuck
@Reason60:
Just click the crooked arrow to the right of date
Chad N Freude
@John Sears: Are you accusing him of [dramatic pause] bigotry?
General Winfield Stuck
You guys are fast
Comrade Darkness
@danimal: The articles talking about the exit polling in ny 23 DO show some truth to that. “we like obama, we realize the economy is bush’s fault, but he’s continuing bush’s bad policies, like the bailouts.”
Bankers/Financiers/Ratings Agency losers in jail would go a long way toward dispelling the voter sense that not enough has changed. The dems need to break from wall street, for the good of everyone, including their success at the polls.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: You knew that before.
I have to go to a very important boring meeting. Please keep this thread going for the rest of the day.
Thank you.
Cerberus
@John Sears: Pretty much this. Because that was hilariously put. The only time people don’t justify evil is when public opinion is so in favor of evil that they can be blatant about the real motivation (see some of the rhetoric even 5 years ago regarding gay rights or hell, torture).
Once it becomes more and more unaccepted, those who haven’t resolved the internal reason of opposition invent more and more elaborate covers “I just love the word marriage so much that my deep and abiding love of fags can’t let them touch it” and those who are open and proud bigots end up having to live entirely in code phrases like the wingnuts now do on race and gender.
But yeah, for the most parts, there are always rationalizations of why it’s a good thing they are doing not an evil thing. See also, white man’s burden.
Alan
For some reason the little arrow doesn’t show up for me. I get the Mac ‘?’ mark for a missing image file (red ‘x’ for Windows). So I just click that instead. :)
ellaesther
@The Grand Panjandrum: (Not to mention brilliant?)
John Sears
@Chad N Freude: He works like an anthropologist immersing himself in an alien culture. So he admits his feelings and the subjective nature of the work upfront, instead of pretending to be above it all and the purely rational arbiter of reality, ala most of our media.
At the same time he knows how scary these people are, having lived with them, and so seems to craft his narratives to reflect that fear. I think it’s appropriate enough, given the subject matter.
Left Coast Tom
@Bob (Not B.o.B.):
I think they also gave one of Idaho’s house seats to the Democrats, though it took one term of Bill Sali (Nutjob-ID) before the residents had enough.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Ash:
I’ve never understood this argument. Do we have to respect the beliefs of the folks at Storm Front because they believe the Christian bible says the races are proscribed from mixing. I think not. Even many of the Christianists wouldn’t publicly make that case. What they do privately is another matter, but they generally don’t make that case in such a public fashion. Being two-faced and deceitful about marriage equality is another matter. They can, without the slightest hint of irony, look into a camera, or stand in the pulpit, and say they don’t hate gay people … BUT … their god prohibits homosexuality so they can’t possibly condone the activity. I treat them the same way I would treat someone who made a similar argument other racial and ethic groups: I tell them they are bigots. I’ve never been very good about keeping my opinions to myself in the face of bigotry.
John Sears
I too have things that must be done. Later all, thanks for the fine discussion.
Omnes Omnibus
@Svensker: The Monkees were from the 60’s.
JMY
How does the loss of Corzine and Deeds signal that Obama has lost his touch or that this is a signal that the Obama Administration is faltering? Corzine was already unpopular in NJ. Not even God himself could have helped Corzine. I have no problem with Obama campaigning for Corzine even though he was from Goldman Sachs. It would have been bad for him not to given that they are both Dems. With Deeds, by all accounts he ran a horrible campaign and never had a chance to win the election. He went against many of his progressive ideas and signaled that he was willing to go against his party on important issues. So this has nothing to do with Obama losing power or influence, but rather the candidates were not good enough, plain and simple. When Dems lose seats in Congress in 2010 then come talk to me.
Alan
This post at Huffington Post gets a good laugh at Rush Limbaugh’s expense. Hoffman was Rush’s perfect candidate–offering the same true conservatism that gave Reagan his landslide victories. Limbaugh always said the anti-abortion position was was put Reagan over the top.
General Winfield Stuck
@Chad N Freude:
Sorry, I am burnt to a crisp on politics. Galt is where I’m headed to.
General Winfield Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
You better stop monkeyin’ around.
Comrade Darkness
@r€nato: I go for sharp sarcasm. The target takes some moments to parse what it means and meanwhile those around are laughing at them. Embarrassment and mockery by your peeps goes a long way toward making people rethink their positions.
OriGuy
@r€nato: That is almost exactly from a bit by comedian Ron White, one of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, making the same point:
“So you like porn?”
“Sure, I like porn.”
“Do you just like girl-on-girl porn, or do you want to see guys in it?”
“Do you like for the guys to be ugly, with small flaccid dicks?”
“No, I want the guys to be studs. with big, hard….I did not know that about myself!”
Comrade Darkness
@Shalimar: Be nice. BoB just took his meds an hour ago. Takes some time to settle into the synapses.
OriGuy
I left out a line! I want edit back!
“No, I like to see guys.”
Kryptik
@OriGuy:
Like Chocolate? :D
(it makes much more sense if you watched the show)
Guster
@ChrisNBama: Well, and I think I understand where you’re coming from. Certainly, I agree that calling someone a bigot isn’t productive. I didn’t do that before this vote!
But I try to judge people by their actions. If someone performs an act of bigotry, I don’t particularly care what was in their heart–if they were earnest or kind to strangers, or whatever. That act is still bigotry. If someone believes in a bible that encourages them to act in a hateful, spiteful, bigoted way, then … well, they’re acting in a hateful, spiteful bigoted way. I think they oughtta take responsibility for that.
But certainly, I agree that as far as tactics goes, there are times when calling racists ‘racist’ is counterproductive–even when it’s completely true.
Reason60
@John Sears:
Thank you
Mr Furious
@AkaDad: LOL! Good thing I finished my coffee!
Comrade Darkness
@Michael D.: You need a break from playing nice. That’s cool. I have to say, reading through your posts, that you aren’t arguing here with anyone but yourself, really. You don’t HAVE to make personal policy, you know. Every situation is different. Maybe you are at a point where you feel untrue to yourself with your current tactics and want to change. There are techniques for this. Rehearsing common conversations with a stand-in, for example. Videotaping yourself making your arguments and practicing, for another.
I only suggest this because your staying power at your argument here makes me think you aren’t so much trying to convince anyone else, but trying to make yourself strong enough to follow this new course when the time comes.
Ash Can
@Michael D.: Late to the party here, but I have to agree with you. One should never have poison people in one’s life. If this is a line defining toxic and nontoxic for you (and btw I have no quarrel with that myself), by all means you should clean house, for your own sake.
ChrisNBama
@John Sears:
John, I’m afraid I do not think religious belief amounts to bigotry and insanity.
There is no utility in calling people names. It’s devisive and exclusive.
Loving people changes them, hating them does not. Including people changes them, excluding them does not.
So, to take a page from a certain itinerant preacher, you change your enemies by loving them. Calling them insane bigots reinforces those very things you desire changed.
Tom Q
jenniebee, two things:
First, you’re quite correct that the demographics changed radically in VA between the two elections. Rachel ran some numbers last night showing under-30 turnout dropped from 20% of the electorate to 9%. I saw numbers that said Obama’s approval rating in the state is pretty much where it was a year ago, but his approval among those who turned out to vote was a dismal 36%. I think Deeds’ idiotic, Reagan-era decision to run away from the national party caused the party base to just stay away. Pundits like David Gergen are advising Democrats to be wary of supporting “the far left agenda”, but the opposite seems to be true: if you want Democrats to vote these days, you have to BE a Democrat.
On the other hand, it was also the economy, stupid, according to exit polling. In NJ, the economy was the top issue for a high-30s percentage of the voters, and in VA it was near 50%. A recession always cuts deep for incumbents. I think a year from now, assuming better job growth, Corzine would have cruised to victory, based on stae demographics. (That he came as close as he did in this environment tells us what a Dem state NJ remains — and the party held its own in the legislature as well)
LoveMonkey
@Michael D.:
Gay is not an ideology. It’s a genetic trait. We agree on that.
But it’s also politics, right now, and gawd, you folks suck at politics. Honestly.
Other than that, yesterday’s elections ……
Well, NJ proves nothing to me other than the fact that a really crappy candidate generally is going to lose. And that calling your opponent fat is just about Palin-level politics and we know how well that works, nay?
And Virginia? Who can understand Virginia politics? It’s like trying to understand Arizona politics. Can’t really be done. Hard on pundits and blogblabbers. But at the end of the day, I kind of like unpredictable politics. It sends me a message that voters are being uppity, and I like that in general. I think we need more uppity voters and fewer sheep.
Common Sense
Gay Rights advocates can take solace in the fact that a plurality of the nation’s fourth largest city voted for a lesbian as their mayor. It looks like there’s going to be a runoff between City Comptroller Anice Parker and Gene Locke, an African American former civil rights advocate in Houston, but she stands a strong chance.
Can we please lose the “only Southerners are bigots” line? They elect minorities to represent them at all levels of government. Every state seems to reject gay marriage, so it’s not like that is evidence of anything.
LoveMonkey
@LoveMonkey:
Oh, and BOB? You are really in over your head today.
Take the day off. Maybe tomorrow there will be a utility rate hike somewhere you can talk about?
scav
@LoveMonkey: “‘you folks’ suck at politics”? Really? Seriously, you folks? You just said gay wasn’t an ideology, so there’s now an allele for lock-step political action that’s gone awol? People aren’t generally good at politics, let alone agreeing on what to put on their pizza and its not like there’s a single way of doing politics or combining pepperoni and anchovies.
Michael
I think that it would be cool if gay activists threw a pride parade or an ACT UP event in a big tantrum over this. Dreass in feathers, toss some condoms at an ordination or first communion at a Catholic church while prancing around inside, either in drag or as the Village People.
That’s done so much for the movement, its hard to imagine how anything else would be as effective…..
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Svensker:
See, statements like that are just going to get you hurt.
“Who’s Next” is the rock album of the last 40+ years, eclipsing “Exile on Main Street” and even possibly “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
LoveMonkey
@scav:
I don’t know what “people aren’t generally good at politics” is supposed to mean, but when you are in a political battle, it helps to be good at politics.
Example: McCain/Palin. Bad at politics. Losers. Dumb moves, poor choices.
Example: Obama. Good at politics. Winner. Good moves, smart choices.
When you are in a huge political struggle, it helps to be guided by good political instincts and strategies. LGBT has figured out ways to snatch defeat, in state after state, from the jaws of victory, or at least progress, over and over again. For reasons discussed ad nauseum on these pages over the years and which I will not recap for you here.
Example? How about going on blogs and calling people who are your political friends and who have never voted against you, “bigots” because they think your politics suck?
Just saying. And if you doubt that this has been the case, just read the last five years of BJ and see for yourself.
slag
@twiffer:
Yeah. Why let a little thing like someone thinking you’re less of a person get in the way of loving them? Beat me again, daddy. I deserve it. I’z badddd!
Please. You love your family however you want, but personally, if someone doesn’t respect me as as being just as good as (if not better than) all the other individuals out there, then they can piss off. I don’t care if we happen to share some of the same genetic code. It’s nonsense. And should be treated as such.
It’s always better to try to engage rather than reject people who are different from you. But if only one side is trying and the other is judging, no agreement will be made. And it’s better to just accept that than to continue subjecting yourself to bigotry. The bigots should be the ones ashamed of themselves not the homosexuals.
Violet
@Common Sense:
This is getting shockingly little attention. This is in Texas, people. Texas!
@ChrisNBama:
And all Texans aren’t rednecks and/or bigots, either.
Cain
@Max:
This is Chuck Todd trying to make Obama fall into a trap. This is to get the whole “Obama is in trouble” bullshit spin going. Goddam I hate the press.
cain
Violet
@Cain:
I really dislike Chuck Todd these days. I was a fan during last year’s election season, but once he got the WH reporter job, he’s turned incredibly drab, dull and acts either like a shill for the right or a major concern troll. I can’t even watch him these days.
Cerberus
@Michael:
I know you are a bigot and this was in jest, but this is a brilliant idea.
We should take over their Churches, gay pride through small town america, every small town america and never stop until they stop freaking out every time they think about a man’s genitals. We did it in every city in the world, what happened? The city’s love us. We have huge support in the cities and the people who actually attend Pride realize that the debauchery and the sexuality is no more “evil” and “mysterious” than a spring break vacation.
Once they see that naked man thigh isn’t actually a portal for evil demons, once they are forced to stare into sexuality and realize, hey wait, this is tamer than my gd porn collection, they’ll have a harder time whipping up the fear.
More, louder, with pride. If they are going to hate us for our perceived sexualities, they can damn well perceive our sexualities.
geg6
@ChrisNBama:
It’s only important because asshats who don’t consider the consequences of their actions simply don’t seem to give a shit that they fail to take consequences into account. They are so rigidly welded to their narrow personal point of view that no one else matters to them.
Fuck them. I want nothing to do with them in my life (and I’m not even GLBT). So I’m supposed to forgive them not because they know not what they do, but because they refuse to take into account the effects of what they do and who it impacts. And this is some sort of forgivable because it’s somehow unsophisticated and not bigoted?
Sorry. I’m not sure I buy that argument.
Svensker
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Technically, yes, but they were aimed at the young teens and pre-teens, so I never think of them as actual 60s. Fake 60s — their fans all came of age in the 70s!
Thadeus Horne
@Chad N Freude: I noticed that also. He seems less opinionated and windy.
He probably hasn’t tormented a small animal yet today. I’m sure he’ll be the same old BoB as soon as he gets that little chore done.
BruceFromOhio
@The Grand Panjandrum:
… which was pretty much what I hollered at the poor kid phone-banking for the DCCC. Act Blue is my friend now. I was hesitant before because the national committee fundraising numbers are used to prop up or knock down various points of view. No longer. This progressive Dem is NOT AN ATM.
Va Highlander
I live in Virginia and even I’m not sure what happened, yesterday.
The Democratic candidate for governor, Creigh Deeds, is a local boy and my very Republican parents have supported him for years. He distanced himself from the public option, too. I think in these and other ways he played to the center, failed to energize is natural political base, and was toast as a consequence.
The good news is that Jefferson designed our government such that it’s virtually impossible to move quickly or decisively in any direction, left or right. Other than make an ass of himself generally, I’m not sure how much damage this blowhard McDonnell can do in just six years.
celticdragon
@Kryptik:
Exactly.
Gus
@ksmiami: Zeppelin in a walk, and the Beatles by a nose.
Cerberus
@Violet:
And another one in Chapel Hill, NC and one in St. Petersburg, FL. Three southern cities now have gay mayors. The tide is a-coming, it’s just kicking and screaming and teabagging as we try and drag it over the line where we don’t hate ourselves by the end of election night.
scav
@LoveMonkey: What I’m saying is, there is a diversity of what “good at politics” means. All MLK and no MX (and vice versa) all the time, forever and ever, amen, is that really what you mean to say? Send the Marines everywhere and never the Navy or Diplomats? Techniques that work sometimes very well don’t work in others and sometimes they work better in combination and sometimes there ain’t nothing that was going to work except patience and persistence. “McCain bad at politics”, unqualified statement? He seemed to be good enough at it to get elected for a quite a while. But on the basis of a single election we ignore a career. “Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?” Funny, I missed the bit where everybody everywhere always loved teh gay and would have thrown flowers and rice except for the poorness of “their” political strategy.
gwangung
Which is why Obama is a failure for his timidity in leading.
/snark.
Jack
@John Sears:
Hey, I’m a death/black metal guy. I love the progrockers from the 1970s (school bus memories), but the dark beauty of metal has always kept me sober.
Still, it’s near impossible to persuade a “Teh Beatles Is Teh Greatest” types to appreciate the sheer musical genius of Opeth and Mikael Akerfeldt.
gex
@geg6: Hear, hear. Don’t fucking vote on an issue that takes away other people’s rights unless you’ve investigated it and deliberated. “Not understanding” is not an excuse, it is a failure. Instead of calling these voters “bigoted”, this defense of the poor confused voter makes me upgrade that assessment to “stupid bigot”.
Betsy
@John Cole:
This is why I read this blog. You are one of the rare human beings who can deal with being taken to task for a mistake and correct it, publicly. Thanks for that.
Jack
@gex:
I’m wary of the “stupid” label. These are planned campaigns, and we should probably note that they tend to win them.
LoveMonkey
@scav:
I can’t figure out what argument you think you are having or who with. But whatever. I stand on what I said, I think it’s pretty clear, and self evident.
Also your blurb mixes policy with politics. Two different things.
McCain good at politics? He’s a demagogue who got elected here in AZ mainly by wrapping himself in the POW flag and marrying the richest woman in the state.
On the national level, he got himself crotch-kicked by Bush in 2000, then kissed up to Bush for eight years, and then crotch-kicked himself over and over again in the campaign of 2008 after outlasting a field of crazy losers in the Republican primary. Don’t consider getting elected in Arizona to be the mark of a good politician. Jon Kyl is as dumb as peanut butter and he has a lifetime job until he fucks up or turns gay.
ChrisZ
@Kristine:
I don’t know if there are any instances other than California and Maine, but I think the simple answer is that all laws are like that in those states. I know that Maine specifically allows voters to put any law passed up for popular vote (provided they get enough signatures). In California they went through the normal ballot initiative process, you can get any question you want on the ballot if you get enough signatures. The enemies of equality know they can win that way, so they get it on there.
Now, all of this doesn’t change the fact that such laws are clearly in violation of the 14th amendment (really the most badass amendment out there). There are good lawyers getting that case started, and I would expect it to get to the Supreme Court in the next decade anyway, so we just need to turn enough public opinion in favor of it that the Supreme Court feels like it has to actually follow the law on this one.
Cerberus
@Jack: I’m reminded of the saying: “stupid or evil, you have to pick one”.
We should make that clear to our opponents. You can either be a no-nothing patsy of the Mormon Church’s desires for theocracy or you can be a vile homophobic bigot who delights in stripping away your neighbors’ rights. Oh don’t worry, I’ll wait for your answer.
Cerberus
@LoveMonkey:
A separate more interesting debate is the one on whether or not gays really are bad at politics. I mean, yes, here they are losing, but look at it like a movement of a hated minority which they are. They’ve gotten further social gains faster than other minority groups such as blacks and women and have done a remarkable job changing public opinion in a relatively short time as an organized “movement”. I mean 20 years ago, a good number of youth would be wary of even admitting they were gay, now it’s kind of weird for a young person over a certain age to be closeted anymore and things that we didn’t expect to see in our lifetime like the right to get married are starting to feel imminent.
It may be true that their strategies may not be conducive to short-term victories on ballot measures, but in generating the momentum that makes such victories inevitable, the gay community has shown remarkable political ingenuity.
BethanyAnne
@Cerberus: Hehe.
Very frustrated on mornings like this. I know we are winning, but it’s slow and maddening. All I can think of is that Churchill quote about “being able to count on Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve exhausted all other alternatives”.
Mike in NC
Four years. I lived in VA from 1991 to 2007, and even with that smug asshole George ‘Macaca’ Allen in the governor’s mansion, the world didn’t end.
John Sears
@ChrisNBama: Well, guess I have time for just one more comment, actually. Then it’s driving time for me.
I never said I think *all* religious belief is insanity and bigotry.
As an atheist, I do think all religious belief is irrational. People are, however, irrational in general, so it’s hard to call being irrational insanity simply on that basis.
I think using a religious belief, or any other mild personal insanity, to justify taking concrete, destructive, hurtful actions against flesh and blood living human beings… THAT is insane and bigoted. Every time.
As for hating or loving someone changing them, it doesn’t, any more than prayer cures cancer. Hating someone or loving someone might change you, but it has no magical power over anyone else. People have to change themselves. Seeing your disgust with them might provide the motivation, it might not. I don’t hate bigots because I want them to be better people. I hate bigots they’re disgusting small-minded monsters.
eemom
@Va Highlander:
I live in Virginia too and ya know what I think? I blame the electorate. Every fucking apathetic or “disillusioned” dipshit who voted for Obama last year and didn’t drag their ass to the polls yesterday.
Deeds may not have been the best candidate in the world, but the choice was REALLY fucking clear to anyone with half a brain in their heads. Shit, even the WaPo fought for Deeds — and please, no conspiracy theories. The Post sucks 99.9% of the time these days, but they nailed McD for the slick lying snake that he is.
There is NO excuse for not voting. NONE. You’re gonna live with the consequences no matter what, and so is everyone else. I just do not GET these people.
LoveMonkey
@Cerberus:
Yes I agree, calling your friends bigots because they think your politics are out of whack for several years on a generally liberal blog is a sign of good political instincts.
This would be rhetorical if I were making this up, but since I am not making it up …..
But anyway …
I don’t agree with you that LGBT has “gotten social gains.” I think that society has just changed and become more liberal over the years and will continue to do so regardless of the antics of LGBT or DOMA advocates.
Yet even in the face of that unstoppable trend, state after state votes against gay marriage. Now THAT’S some slick politickin’ right there.
Gay marriage will eventually prevail, but not because gays got it done. It will be because voters just don’t care to prevent it any more. And meanwhile we all suffer because the whole institution of marriage as the purview of government is just stupid, but has gotten chiseled deeper into stone. Government should get out of the marriage business and into the civil union business, for everyone. But now that it has turned into an issue tangled with false sanctimony, that will never happen in the forseeable future, and we are all stuck with government acting as the proxy for the church.
celticdragon
@Deborah:
I’m not sure. This defeat will likely make DOMA untouchable for the rest of the Obama presidency, and may derail DADT as well. The anti marriage folks are 30-0 ahead…and the Dems in the House and Senate know it. We will be thrown under the bus until another Dem administration gets elected down the road in another decade or two.
The only game changer I see is a win in the SCOTUS.
As pointed out above…if we had waited for votes to imnplement civil rights, we would have waited until the mid to late 80’s. Hell, 40% of the people in Alabama were against black/white marriage in 2000.
Jack
@Cerberus:
I’m a big fan of that sort of push back. Logically, either/or propositions are mostly bunk. But, in politics…
Makewi
Everyone who disagrees with gay marriage is a bigot. That makes the 31 states that have rejected it on the ballots full of bigots. Everyone who disagrees with you is a hater. Probably because you are always right.
As for Mrs. S, it’s better to have an actual Democrat elected than one who pretends to be a Republican. At least the Democrat is honest about what he stands for. You people understood that not that long ago.
ChrisZ
@LoveMonkey:
Man I see this meme all the time and I just don’t understand it. What would be the difference between the government offering marriages vs. civil unions? They are the same thing! I hear all the time that marriage is a religious institution and it just isn’t. Marriage is a human thing, that’s why all societies have it and have had it since well before any of the religions currently being practiced ever existed. I do not understand the argument that government shouldn’t be using that word, but should still provide marriage benefits under a different name.
Cerberus
@LoveMonkey:
Uh…hence why I said separate debate. Key word separate.
On social gains, I will even give you the likelihood that we just have no idea how to win a short-term victory to save our lives, quite literally, but it’s worth noting that in the 80s, a candidate could run on a platform of AIDS is a cure for homosexuality and do well. If a referenda had been around that gays should be put to death, gays would have similar failure rates as what you are talking about.
In less than 30 short years, 30 short years where the surrounding culture hasn’t gotten a hell of a lot more liberal, gays are now agonizingly close to marriage rights and a bevy of other rights.
Basically, I’m saying that a case could be made that the gays are like Obama, they play the long-game (yes, I know, ironic when you consider the me now whining of the gay blogosphere, but hey people get impatient when they start to get close, happens in every movement, happened in women’s rights, happened in black civil rights, is happening with progressives with Obama and health care).
Michael D.
@Michael:
Michael, it’s people like you who think that is all gay people do who are part of the problem. That was an idiotic comment that serves nothing, really, but to tell people that you are very ignorant about most, if not all, gay people. Nice to see that’s how you characterize all gay people. You know…how we prance around and all.
gwangung
@celticdragon:
Yeah, but can you blame them? Sure, they’ll be a selection of folks who’ll make this a central part of their public life, but they’re are those for whom it’s important, but not number one. And 0-30 is really a crappy record to stick your neck out on if it’s not a core principle.
gwangung
@celticdragon:
Yeah, but can you blame them? Sure, they’ll be a selection of folks who’ll make this a central part of their public life, but they’re are those for whom it’s important, but not number one. And 0-30 is really a crappy record to stick your neck out on if it’s not a core principle.
LoveMonkey
@ChrisZ:
Sorry, I don’t agree. Marriage in the law is just a collection of rights and obligations, a contract thing, really.
Marriage as seen by the church is this sanctimonious, superstition-bound set of absurd assumptions that has less and less basis in reality and less and less congruity to real life. It’s bound to a legacy of paternalism and a completely dysfunctional definition of “family” (where, in my view, family should be whatever any two or more people say it is, by declaration. Who is the goddammed government to tell us what a family has to be?)
Why have the government act as proxy for the church in giving approval to that crap? It’s the phony “values” aspects of marriage that drives DOMA and the opposition to gay marriage.
Shell
Reverend Lovejoy: “Wait a minute. This sounds like rock and or roll!”
Cerberus
@ChrisZ:
Seriously. Marriage is and has always been a state institution. It has almost never been a religious sacrament. But now the bigots want to take it over in order to try and prevent gay relationships from receiving social legitimacy and recognition? Uh uh, you form your own institution. You can even call it “Super Marriage that’s better than yours in every way” and none of us will object, but hands off the secular civil marriage with your grubby theocratic mindless bullshit.
John T
Are gays bad at politics? Good question. Are straight people good at prejudice, bigotry, discrimination and hypocrisy?
Makewi
@Michael D.:
Oh, bullshit. If you are in fact gay, then you know damn well how many people show up to those pride parades in a way that can only be described as risque. If it wasn’t for the churches that show up these days it might damn well be a sex parade.
Michael D.
@John T:
Good point in this instance, although I would caution that, gay or straight, we’re all, collectively, good at these things.
celticdragon
@ChrisNBama:
When the other side keeps calling you:
Pedophile
Satanic
Sick
Perverse
Disgusting
Deranged
Disordered
Vile
Animal Fucker
Child rapist
Demonic
Deranged
…calls law enforcement on your family
…stalks you in public places
…threatens you with physical violence and/or death
…fires you from your job
…harrasses you or your spouse at your workplace
…destroys personal property
…actually rapes, injures or kills you or members of your community
…Then you really don’t have much of a basis for “love” to win understanding. I understand the other side (Nom and their allies)for what they are, and they are my mortal enemies. Many of the people swayed by NOM and Concerned Women etc are nice people, but they do not truly believe that we are equal to them. Fear almost always wins, and portaying teh geyz as child raping sodomites is a horrfyingly effective weapon. It feeds off of the same retrograde hatred and fears that make up the “black men want to rape all the white women” theme that has been around for 200 years.
Cerberus
@LoveMonkey:
What is interesting is that the marriage is a sacrament thing is actually a relatively new version of marriage and one not long or widely held in the history of marriage.
It really only had its heyday for a brief period when wives were no longer right to be called property and had to be valued as individuals, but before wives were actual seen as y’know people and thus marriage started to be seen as a formal declaration of love between equals.
But yeah, marriage as a sacrament as the definition of traditional marriage is a damnable lie and an attempt by the theocrats to take over an aspect of government and use it to bully around the rest of us.
Jack
@Cerberus:
What a number of them fear, in truth, is twofold: sex-as-joy and polyamory. You see it a lot in their flawed slippery slope arguments.
In much the same way that abortion opponents aren’t trying to save the “baby” so much as prevent the social acceptance of sexual women (and the deconstruction of “woman+joy=evil”), those opposed to gay marriage fear and actively work to prevent social and juridical acceptance of the “frightening prospect” of the sanction of joy, specifically a common, secular understanding of happiness and fulfillment that is not pandered out from behind a pulpit, and not limited to duty bound pair bonds.
Not for nothing, I think, that Calvinism, the New Model Army (drill and discipline, conformity), the Prottie Work Ethic, repressed prurience, puritannical forms of relation, the artificial construct that is the “nuclear family” and holy-nationism go hand in hand with American capitalist productivity and militarism…
LoveMonkey
@Cerberus:
Well, time will tell. As I said, I think if you did nothing at all, society would just continue moving in that direction by itself.
But my main point is that LGBT doesn’t understand straight people any better than they think straight people understand them. Straight people are not generally bigots, for example. I think very little opposition to gay marriage is about bigotry, and quite a lot of it is just stubborn traditional views of the (dysfunctional) institution of marriage. And as for understanding gay people (I forget who used the phrase upthread), I really don’t care to understand gay people. Any more than I care to understand people who are bent on climbing Mount Everest, or who are Zionists, or Muslims. I can treat people fairly and judge them on actions and results whether I like or understand their culture or their mindsets, or not. That’s because, to put it simply, I don’t consider being liked by me to be a fair criterion upon which to base rights and fair treatment. Therefore I will vote for someone’s interests even if I don’t like them, and I would to be treated the same way by others.
LoveMonkey
@Cerberus:
I think we agree on that.
ChrisZ
@LoveMonkey:
I’m sorry but I don’t see how you’ve responded to my points at all . . .
Recap:
1. How would government civil unions be different than marriage other than by name?
2. Why should the word marriage be reserved for religions?
celticdragon
@gwangung:
Interesting thought. So why in the hell should I donate time or money if our interests no longer coincide?
Silly of me to think that you should actually vote for something becasue it is the right thing to do, of course…
Michael
@Michael D.
I was going to use the word “mince”, but if you want to use prance, then I’m OK with that, too.
What you and the three headed dog are missing is that acting like assholes hasn’t gotten the activist community anything – in fact, it hardens attitudes.
This was not cool, and can piss people off for decades.
http://www.dignityboston.org/history.htm
What the fuck was the point of that? Can any rational human being tell me anything that makes sense about that?
Cerberus
@Makewi:
Ah, a wonderful example. Here, allow me to address your point. First off, you are wrong, but secondly and more importantly, so what if you were right?
If gay pride were nothing more than sexual debauchery, why would that matter to how deserving they are of equal rights including the right to protection for their families and loved ones, their right to have a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife and love, honor, and respect each other.
Should straights be denied marriage, because their disgusting college parties feature the glamorization of underaged drinking and sexual debauchery to a level where they not only sometimes engage in public sex acts, but may even organize such events, such as flashing tits at Mardi Gras and “streaking”? Surely such debauchery is just as damning of the groups they belong to? And surely the Churches would have long been banned from any and all politics given the long history of not only sexual debauchery, but rape and the covering-up of rape in both the Catholic and Mormon Churches?
gwangung
Shift the playing ground into an area where you CAN win a few victories.
If one way doesn’t get you what you want, try a different set of tactics.
Jack
@Cerberus:
Yeah – should we breeders be denied the marriage contract on account of Girls Gone Wild?
Cerberus
@Jack:
This.
Michael
PS – I’m neither Roman Catholic (in many ways, I’m militantly and virulently anti religious) nor am I a gay basher, but the act I described really colors my attitude about the activist community.
I even support gay marriage, but I’m still pissed off about that little episode.
licensed to kill time
I just wanna be comment #301, and to say hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Owens won!
Jack
@gwangung:
I’ll again hold NH up as a useful example – first the state ended any discrimination for employees, then a split legislature (thanks to help from glibertarians, of all factions) approved civil unions, then the Dem dominated legislature approved full marriage equality, with throw away language about religious conscience that had absolutely no applicability in everyday world, but did appease a priest, a rabbi and an imam…
licensed to kill time
well, 303 ain’t bad.
Cerberus
@LoveMonkey:
Yeah, I think we agree for the most part and we are basically just talking past each other on definitions in some parts. I think on the “nothing” score, I think that some of the less publicized actions that go with these national pushes are responsible for the lax youth response and the inevitability of history even while the publicized actions tend to fail. The invention of coming out, creating safe spaces for queer folks to explore themselves, trying to get america to accept sexuality in general by working with sex-positive feminists, keeping track of the history, candlelight vigils for the dead, private conversations with family so that an out person is out to everyone they know and getting allies to out themselves as allies to everyone they know.
But yeah, we’ve been sucking pretty hard at the ballot, but less so in the last two years than before, so hopefully the background stuff will help us over the hurdle soon.
gwangung
@Jack: Yeah, that works for me.
My comment is that 0-30 is something any politician HAS to take notice of. Yeah, you want to do the right thing–but what good is it if you lose every single time? Acknowledging this is not throwing gays under the bus–they’ve already been run over–getting this into an area where you CAN win is still progress.
ChrisZ
@Jack:
Isn’t that more or less exactly what happened in Maine though, with the exception of the Civil Unions step? The only problem was that Maine’s Constitution allowed the thing to be rejected by popular bigotry?
Svensker
@LoveMonkey:
There are two views of marriage: one is a legal view — how do you decide who “belongs” to whom, who is legally entitled to a share of the other persons goods, who is entitled to legally act for them should they become disabled, etc. This is a very important function of marriage and cannot be dealt any other way, at least not simply.
The other is emotional — being “married” is different (at least to most people) than simply living together. You ARE “one” with your partner in a unique way – financially, legally, and — one hopes — emotionally and spiritually.
The first, the legal view, is the business of the government, absolutely, the second is not. Neither should be denied to anyone by the government, obviously.
celticdragon
@r€nato:
It doesn’t really work that way.
I think Nate Silver was right when he wrote today that:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
You can talk to anti GLBT folks for years. You can invite them to dinner and have you kids in school with theirs. It doesn’t matter. They still vote to annul your marriage. How many comments have we seen form people whose close family and co-workers voted for Prop 8? They guy who was getting ready to visit his aunt with his long term partner only to diascover she was on the donor list?
I know from my own experience that I have not spoken to my fundamentalist sister or her family in the last 5 years since I came out as transgendered. My parents have threatened to disown me and I found out from my brother that they consulted a lawyer to see if they could forcibily take my son from me. (The answer was “No”).
You can talk, smile and be sociable. You can be a responsible face for the GLBT community. I firmy believe in that, which is why I am not a fan of debauchery and nudity at Gay Pride events. You cannot expect it to ever actually change a single mind, however. The best you can do is not give them more ammunition to use against you.
Cerberus
@Michael:
All of those activists are dead of a disease that the Church at the time called “the gay disease”. You are the only one carrying a grudge over the incident in question, whereas publicly today only the most vile of proud homophobes even go there in regards to AIDS these days and we now have actual treatment programs.
Oh yeah, it also saved many in the straight community, by promoting safe sex and condom usage, something the Church still tries to sabotage and discourage, so that it’s automatic to sexuals. This prevented white straight men like you from being decimated by the virus at the same rates as gay and black straight men were in the 80s.
That would have been the, as you say, point.
Cain
@twiffer:
I think you need to understand the context in which Michael D is making his statement. He’s from that era (the 80s) where gays were highly discriminated against, physically abused, and that has hardened his heart so to speak. So I can understand his hardline stance given his life experience. I don’t agree with it, and it’s something he needs to work out for himself on what the right way to do it. Who knows it might work?
I’m a strong family man, so I don’t think withholding your love from your family is the best thing. Give more love. It changes more hearts. But an eye for an eye.. well.. a famous man, a guy named Ghandi said “an eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind”.
cain
ksmiami
@Gus
Damn link didn’t work – but still prefer Stones and I trade off wrt Zeppelin and the Who;
Jack
@ChrisZ:
It is, but the fecal process that is ballot initiatives remains an invitation to mischief. And as lefty as I am, I don’t think plebiscites are a good fit within the State framework, especially given the size of populations, and the short term nature of political issues and campaigns (see California, where the voters simultaneously elect social liberals and approve ballot measures which cripple the budget; or my own home city, where yesterday a school killing Republican and his tax/spending cap amendment to the charter alongside a union backed Democratic slaughter of conservatives on the Board of Alderman, and the school board).
celticdragon
@Jack:
Ouch. Not sure I agree with all your conclusions, but nicely put.
John T
@Michael:
ACT-UP in the late 80s and early 90s was an organization made up of people who were dying, and people who were surrounded by friends and lovers who were dying. Mainstream opinion at the time was that the dirty faggots deserved it. People with nothing left to lose have a tendency to be shrill.
Cerberus
@ChrisZ:
I’d actually like them to go civil unions immediately and another marriage ballot in a few years. It’ll put it to lie that they give a damn about the word marriage (seeing as they fought just as strongly the WA domestic partnership bill that was everything but the name just as the bigots claim to want) and if we win, we can protect maine families and help normalize towards marriage acceptance, and if we lose, we can run constant ads showing their angry resistance to any gay rights. I would have loved it if No on 1 (their only mistake in my opinion) had pointed out that the exact same opponents to no on 1 had been at the forefront in denying protection against discrimination.
Corner Stone
@Michael D.
I understand all the points you’re making and am on your side.
What I will NOT stand for any longer is you flaunting your admin rights to *EDIT* a damn post as you have done several times in this thread!
That’s just fucking cruel and really uncalled for.
Jack
@gwangung:
It’s a hard fight, especially with the Democratic Party built up from competing interest groups (from Wall Street types who want less wars because that’s better for NAFTA style agreements, to unions, to union-busting Blue Dogs, to DFHs who retain an inherent mistrust of the State, to GLBT activists, to greens, to Feinsteinian moral termites, et cetera).
And the Republicans and their allies in the corporate press inclined to promote a narrative that could be summed up as “Liberals – can you trust ’em?”
ChrisZ
@Jack:
I’ll certainly agree with that. California should be held up as a shining example of the public f*cking things up.
Jack
@celticdragon:
I owe Art Silber for the abortion thesis:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/08/of-abortion-and-women-as-ultimate.html
I think his case is compelling, at the very least.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen it in the companion movement to ban contraceptives.
Corner Stone
@Josh E.: I was wrong and everyone here and across the greater blogosphere in general knew fucktons more about NY CD-23 than I did, do or ever will.
Michael
@cerberus
So the people whose defining moment in their lives – their ordinations, something that they’d trained for over years, and whose innocent families were excited and pleased to attend – needed to have their day wrecked over a non-germane protest? Over a disease that was eminently preventable, provided that the frequency of promiscuous behavior should drop, which was known early on?
At some point, you’re responsible for your own condition.
Oh. So gay guys couldn’t figure out condoms and safe sex without the help of the Church. Uh-huh. yeah, right.
gwangung
@Jack: Yeah, it’s slow and a hard slog. And it’s more than a bit demoralizing.
But I’ll be damned if I let these assholes win at anything, and even small victories allow me to say fuck you to the assholes.
And I’m sorry it’s not enough for LGTBQ folks, who deserve full equality. But the assholes are making it necessary to do it the hard, slow way.
Jack
Art Silber continues the argument in a recent piece:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/11/depraved-violent-and-indifferent.html
[Fair warning to those who don’t enjoy lefty criticism of Obama: Art really, really doesn’t approve of any Presidents dropping bombs on innocents, and he takes a poke at Obama in his point about our culture of violence, and how it is maintained in part by the deliberate victimization of women, brown people as proxy women, and gays-as-ersatz-women.]
ChrisZ
@Cerberus:
I think it definitely hurts that it’s almost impossible for No on 1 to run a negative ad. I wanted them to take Yes on 1 to task more for their blatantly false “This means they’re going to teach gay sex to our kids!” ads (we should be teaching gay sex in sex ed in schools, but that had nothing to do with this issue). Negative ads are so effective, I think we need to find a way to make them for what is basically a positive campaign about civil rights and inclusivity.
D-Chance.
So, the Jackass Club won 1 out of 3 major races… and Cole labels this a “success”.
But, then, Cole is a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, so he’s used to his team winning 1 out of every 3… /ducks.
Michael
Another PS – at every opportunity I’ve had to vote, I’ve voted to expand gay rights and to allow gay marriage. When my state did an amendment to bar it, I voted against it and donated.
So for anybody who thinks I’m a bigot, kiss my ass.
Michael D.
@Cain:
I would never withhold my love from my family. I’d withhold my presence. And for what it’s worth, my immediately family is largely cool with it. Although my parents are probably not as comfortable talking about it, they did visit with me and my partner and staye with us, along with a couple of their friends, for a few days a couple years back and had a great time. Other relatives? I don’t know. But they are from Canada, and we have equality there, so I really don’t care too much what they think now.
As well, I have never been physically abused for being gay.
Finally, I have nothing to “work out” as far as being gay. I’m open in my life, open at work, and have a happy life in every way – except, that is, for what the law can give me and what a majority of straight folks continue to deny me.
Jack
@gwangung:
Here’s the problem, perhaps from a different angle: it’s not easy going up against the SBC, the LDS and the RCC.
Which is why I think we need to keep it in the spotlight that organizations which routinely promote feudal social structures also tend to be the ones funding most of the national anti-choice measures (and yes, marriage is a choice, not a Heavenly Duty).
celticdragon
@Jack:
I had noticed that a lot of that was coming form an energized and resurgent concervative Catholic movement. I have had some…interesting…discussions there. I found that the folks who want to ban, well, me…as well as contraceptives, abortion and any non procreative sex are utterly unconcerned about the niceties of the US Constituion.
It’s the 15th Century Redux for an awful lot of the people at First Things, and the kicker is that it’s often women who are the most vorciferous enablers of mens ownership of female sexuality.
Michael D.
@Corner Stone: I have only edited ONE post in this thread, and that was ONLY because the writer of the post accidentally STUCK OUT a few words that changed the meaning of his comment AND which he commented about a little later. The ONLY thing I took out was the strikes.
In fact, OTHER THAN THAT, I have NEVER touched a comment here at Balloon Juice. So go fuck yourself.
celticdragon
@Michael:
I appreciate your support. Thank you. Seriously.
celticdragon
@Michael D.:
????????????????????
Is this necessary?
Cerberus
@Michael:
No, my point was more that straight guys couldn’t figure out that the Church’s stance on contraception needed to be ignored for health due to the activism work of dying gay men and black straight men.
And they were saved by that activism. Back when those gay men were getting AIDS, contraception was largely unused and widely disparaged especially by Church leaders who thought it lead to promiscuity (and still did).
Reduction in “promiscuity” had little to do with the drop off compared to the promotion of safe sex, which was very much triggered by the horror of AIDS and the fluke chance that its outbreak was in the gay and black communities rather than the equally promiscuous god-fearing white church communities.
One of those interesting things of history.
Michael D.
@celticdragon: When someone is accusing me of editing comments here – other than one I very clearly helped someone with and made reference to, then yes, it is.
He did not accuse me of editing one post. He accused me of editing several. I have certainly NOT done that.
I do not edit things at Balloon Juice.
Jack
@celticdragon:
Here’s a word which ought to give folks pause: maximalism.
It’s the dominant political philosophy of the LDS, Dominionists like Phil Anschutz, the American Bishops of the RCC, Latter Rain charismatics and the Dobsonites.
And they have a lot of money and superstructure, built up during the years of Saint Ronnie.
In response to the withering of traditionalism (the basic belief being that God ordains the order of the cosmos), these groups retreated from the emerging consensus under Elder Bush (economic dominance, aggressive foreign policy, social tolerances, futurism such as Gingrich advocates).
They literally withdrew, and worked out theories which make 1950s traditionalism look mighty tame.
Namely, maximalism.
L’Abri was a wellspring of this movement – and it spread into very receptive Catholic, Baptist and Mormon communities.
These are the communities currently cooperating to win plebiscite victories.
Cerberus
@Cerberus:
Ah, should be except for rather than due to in the first sentence.
twiffer
@Michael D.: bad choice of words to try and be inclusive of all politics/religious differences. i understand it’s your life, but it’s not mine. i can never match your passion, because it doesn’t affect me in any concrete way. do i feel it to be wrong? yes. i fail to see any sense in dening gay couples marriage rights. historically marriage has been between one man and one-to-many women because it’s been a business transaction. used to secure property, alliances, legitimate heirs, etc.. but i digress.
if i were gay and my family was against equality i could turn from them; after all, they would have already turned their back on me. or other members of my family but for strangers? i cannot shun. be disappointed, saddened, bewildered? try to change their minds, explain why they are wrong? sure. but not shun.
the truth of it is despite any differences between us, i hold those i know and love, who in turn know and love me to be of more importance than the rest of the world. probably makes me selfish and blinded in some ways. probably makes some think less of me, if they think of me at all. but it is what it is.
@John Sears: i’m adopted. family is more than an accident of biology.
celticdragon
Dick Durbin Sends Signal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Off Table for 2010
The Hill reports on next year’s agenda in Congress:
http://www.towleroad.com/
Jack
Sorry, just realized I didn’t hyper-link the term:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/12/0081322
celticdragon
@Michael D.:
Okay. :(
I was wondering just what the fuss was all about.
Comrade Darkness
@ChrisZ: Otherwise summarized as” Democracy means you get what you deserve, and more fine-grained democracy even more excruciatingly gets you what you deserve.
Michael
@cerberus
In my heavily Catholic yet pretty progressive blue island in a sea of red, connections between pregnancy and VD to unsafe and uncontracepted promiscuous sex never really was all that much of a mystery among us. This claimed ignorance has always struck me as more a fantasy than anything else – an excuse for frequently reckless and life threating behavior.
Here, we were more likely to be watchful than not. There were slipups, but nothing of the sort of deliberate Church instilled ignorance that you seem to remember.
Reduction in “promiscuity” had little to do with the drop off compared to the promotion of safe sex, which was very much triggered by the horror of AIDS and the fluke chance that its outbreak was in the gay and black communities rather than the equally promiscuous god-fearing white church communities.
An end to promiscuity and safe sex tend to go hand in hand, y’know. Deal with one and you deal with the other – and then you can go barebacking with a stable, tested, reliable partner to your heart’s content.
Banging everybody in the bathhouse on a single night really doesn’t seem like it was ever that good an idea, in retrospect.
Michael D.
@twiffer: I don’t try to be inclusive of all political and religious differences because:
1. I think a lot of peoples’ political beliefs are just plain wrong, so why include them?
2. I don’t want to start a flame war here, but I couldn’t care less about what someone’s religion says because, in my opinion (and I won’t respond to comments about it) religion is belief in the superbnatural and has no role to play in modern society. In fact, it is a detriment to rational discourse.
celticdragon
@Jack:
I was familiar with Dominionism and “Kingdom Now”, but Maximalism is a new one on me.
I can say with some surety that the religious absolutists are the reason I am estranged from the Republican party…as an awful lot of the people at Little Green Footballs can also attest to.
Cerberus
@Comrade Darkness: It sucks that we can’t compartmentalize it, give them the government they deserve and us the government we deserve. Right now we all end up sucking up the government they deserve.
Michael
Damn lack of an edit button. This wasn’t my comment:
Cerberus
@Michael:
Mm.
Let’s just leave it at I appreciate your magnanimous support for the rights of queer individuals. Because really, I and many other queers appreciate it.
Michael D.
@celticdragon: No problem. Perhaps I went a little more “off” than I should.
For those who care, John has graciously left the admin role open to me just in case I ever want to post again. Right now I don’t have anything to say that can’t be said in the comments – and some of you, I’m sure, think I don’t have anything to say that’s even worth putting in the comments! :-)
But as far as site administration goes, I have only ever edited a couple things in my life.
1. I corrected a glaring spelling error in a front page post – ONCE – after which I said, “I probably shouldn’t do that, and haven’t since.
2. I corrected the HTML in a front page post that was making the site look wonky. I would do it again.
3. I removed the
strikethroughon a comment today that was clearly unintentionally put there.One of the worst things someone with admin rights could ever do is edit what someone says. John owns this site, and if he ever wanted to do that – which I know he wouldn’t – that’s his business.
It’s not my job to do it. No one should ever do it. And I haven’t and never will. Full stop.
Comrade Darkness
@ChrisZ: 2. Why should the word marriage be reserved for religions?
No really intellectually honest reasons, but how about a strategic reason? If it peels of 4-5% of resistance we can have equality in all but labeling half a decade earlier.
Jack
@celticdragon:
“Maximalism” covers most of those movements. It’s the category, if you will, to which they belong.
Once, Bolshevism (well, Lenin’s “democratic Centralism” as reinterpreted by Stalin) was uniquely maximalist, following the very well documented template of the Orthodox variety of the same.
Dominionists still think that Catholics and Mormons are hell bound whores of Babylon, and vice versa, but politically and socially they all promote a similar worldview, where the Nation Is Holy, and social order conforms to heavenly order, because anything else is literally “life out of balance.”
Ergo, they cooperate.
And most specifically where it matters, with regard to this thread: keeping women subservient, and gays in treatment, or worse, until their very angry Jeebus returns to earth to burn a lot of people with his heavenly bunker busters.
Va Highlander
@eemom: Let the record show that I voted and supported Deeds, as I have always done. As I say, he’s a local boy and it was the best vote for my community, regardless.
To be honest, Deeds’s defeat seemed inevitable. He’s just a good guy, honest and level-headed. Politically, this does not appear to be a time for such men. The throbbing butthurt of Virginia conservatives, nurtured and fed on a steady diet of Fox Noise, was more than enough to get them to the polls.
ChrisZ
@Cerberus:
I’m young, so I don’t know to what extent AIDS was a problem in black communities, but I don’t think it was just a fluke that AIDS was a problem in the gay community. AIDS is much more easily transmitted via unprotected anal sex than via unprotected vaginal or oral sex. It’s actually pretty hard to transmit vaginally even without a condom, plus back then at least you were probably more likely to use a condom during vaginal sex anyway to avoid pregnancy (I guess that’s probably still true).
I am not in any way suggesting that gay people deserve this disease to any extent, my only point is that it was more than just a fluke that it was a bigger problem within the gay community.
Cerberus
@Comrade Darkness:
If that were only true. WA Ref 71 will pass, but barely and a similar initiative in Utah was squashed in committee. They say they care only about the name, but they seem to turn out in similar numbers even when we go out of our way to protect the term.
That being said, I’d like to flood the states with any laws we can pass as often as we can. More rights is always better and while losses hurt, being proactive keeps us from constantly having to fight wingnut proactiveness as they go out of their ways to fuck us. I’d like to keep their fucking of us predictable and in terms of resisting positive efforts if we can.
Cerberus
@ChrisZ:
Ok, guys,. you do realize that AIDS spread in the 60s and 70s, right? And that by the 80s, it was the high profile cases of STDs that pressed increased usage of condoms specifically?
AIDS isn’t instantaneous. Almost no STDs are and straight communities were not really much less promiscuous in the 70s, especially the early 70s.
Michael D.
@ChrisZ:
While HIV transmission is easier in unprotect anal than in unprotected vaginal, I wouldn’t use the words “much more.” I’d use “more likely.”
It may surprise you to know that it’s pretty hard to transmit HIV in unprotected anal sex as well. HIV does not survive easily – anal or vaginal.
Cerberus
@ChrisZ:
Also, was? No, is.
AIDS is currently the leading cause of death among black women between 25-34 and over a million HIV positive people in this country are black.
Cain
@Michael D.:
Fair enough. I was referring to figuring out how to change people’s mind on equality. But it’s good that you’re happy. :)
cain
Michael D.
@Cerberus: And Cerebrus, you are correct. It’s important to note that the reason AIDS spread so fast in the gay community and became “the gay disease” (Remember GRID?) was because HIV was introduced in the gay community first. And it so happens that, in the 70’s, gays were much, much more promiscuous than they are today.
Of course, if gay people were allowed to marry back then, monogamy would have been much more prevalent, IMHO. Of course, I can’t know this. But I bet AIDS wouldn’t have been as big as it was (surely, it would still have been an issue.)
That’s it. If HIV was transmitted to straight people first, we’d have had a much different story, and Reagan would have been on it like white on rice.
ChrisZ
@Comrade Darkness:
My comment was intended for someone playing the “I don’t think the government should use the word marriage, I think everyone should get civil unions” card. I think that argument is without merit, and was trying to clarify why I think that.
I understand the strategic reason in the overall debate that you presented and not being gay myself, and thus not discriminated against by any of these laws, I would leave it up to those being affected by the laws to decide whether to take that strategy or not.
Michael D.
@Cain: Ahh, sorry I misunderstood.
You’re right. I can’t figure out for the life of me how to make you breeders listen to me!!
ChrisZ
@Michael D.:
Fair enough, I couldn’t find any actual numbers in my quick google search. I knew vaginal transmission rates were incredibly low, but “much more” may have been too strong. (I’d love a source with actual numbers if you have it)
@Cerberus:
I was unaware of that. Thanks.
ChrisZ
@Michael D.:
Show us boobies.
Comrade Darkness
@ChrisZ: Interesting. I think the argument that the government should get out of the marriage (aka holy union) business is a good one. Germany, where we spend most summers, did this years ago. That’s considering that church and state, especially in Bavaria, are hardly separate. As a case study in a highly conservative population, it’s a good one.
Michael D.
@ChrisZ: Fine! Here’s your boobies!
Comrade Darkness
@Comrade Darkness: addition: It’s not just the word. There are two distinctive concepts here, with distinctive purposes and interests. One of set of these purposes is strictly metaphysical, the other is strictly legal. Pinning the words down to help people separate the two out isn’t a bad way to go about getting them to understand that. That goes a long way towards getting people to let go of their determination that the state discriminate (randomly really) on what is merely a civil contract, like buying a house, or getting plumbers license.
ChrisZ
@Comrade Darkness:
Yeah, I really don’t understand this argument. Marriage is not a religious institution. Religions include marriage in their list of “things they get to control about your life,” but marriage is a human, social institution. Religion has no legitimate claim to the concept, or the word, they’ve just asserted that they do.
@Michael D.:
Listening!
geg6
@ChrisZ:
Oh, darlin’. You are really, really, really young. Cuz:
No. No, people weren’t more likely to use condoms during vaginal sex. No. It was indiscriminate sex with as many men/women as you wished but on the Pill. Not really a whole lot of AIDs protection in the Pill. No self-respecting heterosexual used condoms back then. It was bare backing all the way. And the idea that gays were horribly promiscuous compared to non-gays, you obviously weren’t an adult or even alive during the 70s through early 80s. ‘Cuz that’s just too funny and naive for words.
Corner Stone
@Michael D.: and celticdragon –
I’m not accusing you of editing posts Michael. You posted then put in the “EDIT” line to clarify your point – something all of the commenters here have been dying for since way before the BJ blog overhaul that John mentioned weeks ago.
Every thread has multiple people who bemoan the lack of the “EDIT” ability.
See Michael @ 348 for example:
“Damn lack of an edit button.”
Chad N Freude @ 34
OriGuy @ 232
And you Michael D. where you “EDIT” two of your own posts to clarify – when the rest of us can’t.
I would’ve thought the use of the word “flaunt” or maybe “cruel” would have been enough to signify my comment as snark but I guess not. You’re really wrapped a little too tight to tease about much of anything.
Monty
@Common Sense: Also dont forget that just up I45 in Dallas there is a Gay Latina Sheriff, the only African American DA in the Country and a few yrs back we were a Hairs breath away from having an Openly Gay Mayor. Tx has some very deep blue pockets in a vast sea of red.
Makewi
@Cerberus:
You are trying to change minds, to win allies. You don’t do that by acting in ways as far out of the mainstream as possible.
Cerberus
@Makewi:
You mean the mainstream conservative-minded Real Americans consuming copious amounts of porn, buying Girls Gone Wild DVDs, attending strip clubs, yelling at women to “show us your tits”, likes scantily clad cheerleaders at all their sporting events, and often hosts raucous parties where people pour beers into their cleavage and have their partners or a supposedly straight girl drink it up? The same mainstream that practically demands that all products from tv sets to beer be sold by women wearing as little clothing as possible or crude sexual innuendo?
Ah, yes, apparently the gay community’s problem is that there’s too many gay parent contingents and not enough men with foam cheese or beer cozies on their head.
Please do go on.
ChrisZ
@geg6:
You are correct, I was born in ’86. Forgive my youthful naivety. For me, condoms are and have always been the default assumption.
Makewi
@Cerberus:
Once again you miss the point, perhaps on purpose. I am not saying that you must avoid debauchery in all situations. I am saying that at a gay pride parade, which is one public face of the gay community, a way to say this is who we are and why we are proud, you should leave the assless chaps at home.
Then again, perhaps the reason that you are so successful is because of your open mindedness towards those who would be allies, and are telling you the truth.
Cerberus
@ChrisZ:
Yup, born ’85, myself so yeah, similar reaction to finding out about that myself. Pretty much, ubiquitous condom use today basically occurred because of a big push among the gay set for sex education and condom promotion in the wake of how AIDS had decimated many of their gay male leaders. It caught on in the straight community as a “do you want to end up with a deadly disease like the fags” most famously by a warning by Wilt Chamberlain, straight basketball star after he caught it and warned the straight male population that they can catch AIDS too.
It’s also why condoms are freely distributed around Pride and safe sex is always a critical focus of at least one float. The queer community promoted the condom world we inhabit and are its biggest defenders.
Queer and sex history can be really interesting.
Michael D.
@Corner Stone: I’m sorry I misunderstood. Now that I read your comment again, I see the point you were making. Please accept my apologies.
In solidarity, I will no longer edit my posts until John opens it up to you all.
See? I’m reasonable. Just like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who won’t get married – even though they can – until I can.
Again, sorry. I mean it.
Cerberus
@Makewi:
But what about heterosexuality’s public face? It is smeared on every billboard, on show in every sporting event, debauched in every spring break.
Or are you saying that you are responding entirely and unevenly to the knowledge and fact that homosexuals have a sexuality and hoping for us to closet that knowledge because what you are freaking out over is “omg that man is nearly naked unlike every billboard model plastered over the highway, EVIL”?
How is one different than the other? Be thorough, take your time.
Thadeus Horne
@Brick Oven Bill: Maybe it is the lessons,Bill. Things do change when you start getting hit for your mistakes.
geg6
@ChrisZ:
Well, you’re just a baby and can’t be expected to know what it was like to live through about 15 years of FREE SEX! and the Pill as the main cause of it. We disdained condoms. And we had as much non-committal sex as gays, if not more. We just didn’t have to hide it in places set aside specifically for it (like the bathhouses) for fear of being beaten to death or arrested.
ChrisZ
@geg6:
You see, you might think that this 23 year old would be happy to hear that we’ve gotten better at preventing STD’s (or STI’s or whatever), but that would be wrong. I want condom-free sex!
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Makewi: Cuz, yeah, nobody on this blog has a more credible record of “changing minds and winning allies” than you. Please, please do tell us how to go about it.
ksmiami
Cerberus – Take a deep breath- Makewi isn’t worth it, trust me. Frankly, government should just give everyone a civil union and be done with it – if people want the pomp and circumstance of a religious marriage, then they can go to whatever house of worship or non-worship they want to.
Besides, I think allowing gays to marry would have a big stimulus effect on the economy, so have at it. (confession, I was an event planner for a long time so I see real money and style in this)… For what it is worth, I am in my late 30s and in general, people my age and lower really could care less.
ps. The so called straight people who are obsessed with homosexuality have major latent issues themselves, or have never met a gay person in the same way I have never met a zombie….
Makewi
@Cerberus:
Heterosexuality has the rights it desires, and the majority numbers to impose it’s will. It isn’t trying to convince anyone of anything, nor does it need to.
You lost ground the other day. Maine was a major setback, as this was not simply another denial of gay marriage, this was the removal of the compromise of domestic partnership. You aren’t doing yourself any favors pretending that society views the public display of sex at a gay pride parade as equal to that on display at spring break. You are putting the cart before the horse.
ChrisZ
@ksmiami:
I swear if I see this one more time I’m going to hurt someone . . .
Cerberus
@ksmiami: Eh, I was just trying out a debate tactic we had been discussing earlier, which has paid better fruits than I expected. Makewi has basically admitted that it’s a double-standard before trying to argue that double-standards are just what minority groups have to suck on in the long slog towards equality. Since the tactic is all about getting the other party to acknowledge the double standard, I consider my curiosity already well-satisfied and will probably use this more among bigots I encounter.
On closet cases. Yup, the whole lot of them. Another reason why it is critical to bring bigots into a realization about sexuality on a mass level. They are a bunch of some flavor of bisexual trying to beat the gay out of themselves and recruiting us to play demon in their passion play. If we can train them to accept this in themselves instead, there’s no more reason for them to jump out of the house in fright for every referenda action.
Anne Laurie
@Max:
You say that like it was a bad thing… Going back to at least Alexander Hamilton (the Founding Father most discussed in NY-approved school texts when I was growing up there), the ‘you want it, you buy it’ school of representative government has always had a strong voice in New York City politics. Wall Street was built, and remains, the preeminent US ‘financial center’ because mercantalism is as much a religious influence in NYC as Mormonism is in Salt Lake City. Keep in mind that both Bloomberg (born in MA) and Donald Trump (born in NJ) chose to emigrate to a city-state that best represented their natural urges.
Anne Laurie
@Guster:
I fully sympathize with your anger. But, to your neighbors, you’re a newcomer, a flatlander trying to impose your faddish outsider ways on “their” community, and calling them spiteful & hateful will not improve their opinions. The professional anti-marriage bigots have succeeded, too often, by portraying gay marriage supporters as outsiders. Those of us on the sane side of the issue need to take this weapon out of their hands — like the YouTube clip of the elderly Mainer explaining that he didn’t fight at Omaha Beach so that three of his kids could marry the persons they loved but not his fourth son. One factor in keeping judicially-activated gay marriage legal in Massachusetts was that, for instance, the Portugese-American fishermen in Provincetown don’t necessarily love sharing their town with drag queens and leather boys, but by their tribalist God they were NOT going to let blow-ins from the landlocked Midwests tell them how to deal with their queers! We are used to “states rights” as the universal codeword for “kill the coloreds/queers/minorities” but the demographics have changed so much that we need to keep reminding people that even the most parochial small-town lifer probably has an openly gay family member and maybe some bi-racial grandkids or cousins as well.
PaulB
Anyone bothered by a few carefully-chosen pictures from the local gay pride parade is never going to vote for equality, anyway, so I’m afraid your point is, as usual, both stupid and moot. Nice try at ducking the issue, though.
Cerberus
@PaulB:
Yeah, if you’ve been to a Pride, what strikes you pretty quickly is how tame most of it is. 3/4 to 7/8 of the Parade are affirming Churches, random businesses hoping to harness some gay dollars, and lots of organizations where people march in matching baggy t-shirts and hold moderate banners, the rest can be topped by your average Renn Faire and the laxness is only underlined when you are sitting on the sidelines next to a bunch of people in beach chairs and families playing with their children.
But yeah, the whole thing really underlies how it’s really about fear of sex for the opposition. If we can just get more straights to realize that we can start winning even in these stupid referenda battles.
HyperIon
@ChrisNBama: So, please. Show a modicum of respect.
A very eloquent statement.
I agree. But sadly….
na ga ha pen.
PaulB
Yup. This was just makewi’s rather pathetic attempt to change the subject and shift the blame. Anything but actually deal with the issue at hand. Just the usual trolling behavior we have come to expect from that individual.
HyperIon
@slag:
Exactly.
And that douchebag Eyeman got punished again.
There are some smart voters here in WA.
HyperIon
@LoveMonkey:
Many gay men seem to think that the existence of a gay gene has been demonstrated. It has not. Most of the original work on this topic has been refuted by further scientific investigations. While I understand WHY gay men might want to believe it, it is important to acknowledge that as far as science is concerned, the “gay gene” hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis….one for which there is essentially no support.
/ducks because the last time I said this here I was accused of homophobia
Hookers and Cocaine
Enough with the bitter gay crap. At this point it’s they have morphed into a bunch of gay Al Sharpton’s. They’re not helping the situation by immersing themselves in their anger and lashing out mindlessly at anyone not in their corner.
Advocates such as Bill in Portland Maine gave heartfelt testimonials about what it would mean to him personally if NO on 1 had prevailed, that is effective and persuasive. That is the sort of thing that will get me to break out the Mastercard and give for the cause. Mindless Obama bashing, on the other hand, will make want to lock it in a safe. I really don’t want my money going to people who brag that they are going to write in Harvey Milk in 2012.
Here’s a clue for all the peeps who apparently don’t understand how politics works. Obama got elected because, amoung other reasons, he got 95% of the black vote. I think it’s safe to assume 95% of black voters don’t support gay marriage. Even young voters don’t support gay marriage by those margins. So if he does what you demand, he loses votes in 2012. If he loses, you lose. How does that help you? No doubt Hillary Clinton would have been more outspoken on this issue, since she’s pretty much a lesbian and all. But would she have been effective? Would she have even beaten McCain? Maybe, but I bet Dems would get hammered in 2010 with Hills in the White House.
The fact is that, thanks to some ballot initiatives in Washington, gay people enjoy more legal protections today than they did yesterday. So chill. And, oh yeah… Not Gay Marriage isn’t just as bad as the holocaust and isn’t slavery either. That’s a fucking retarded analogy.
That said, I’m sorry you lost and hope you have better luck next time.
Comrade Darkness
@ChrisZ: Pick another word then. But without terminology you are closing the route to this nice clear soundbiteable argument right down. It’s counterproductive to do that. Words matter to thought and the reformation of it.
Darkrose
@ChrisNBama:
Here’s the thing:
I don’t care.
If you vote against marriage equality, then in practical terms, it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re Fred Phelps or whether your best friend/co-worker/son/daughter/second cousin twice removed is gay. I don’t care if you’re a Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Orthodox Jew, or Muslim. Because from where I sit, the result is the same: you believe that my relationship with the person I’ve been with for five years, the person I moved 3,000 miles to be with, the one who goes out at 3 AM to get ginger ale and crackers for me because I have stomach flu, the one who’s held my hand and been there while I’ve dealt with my mother’s dementia and Parkinson’s disease–you’re telling me that because that person is the same gender as I am, our relationship is less valid and less worthy of respect than that of a man and woman who met in Las Vegas, got drunk and decided to get married in front of an Elvis impersonator.
If you (hypothetical you) said that the only reason my wife and I shouldn’t be married is because she’s white and I’m black, hardly anyone would argue that you weren’t a bigot just because some of your best friends are black. Somehow, though, when it’s OMG GAY MARRIAGE, I’m supposed to smile sweetly and be understanding towards someone whose actions reinforce the idea that I am less than a full citizen of this country. I’m sorry, but when you’ve deliberately taken action to make my life more difficult, and less happy, then regardless of your deepest innermost feelings, you’re someone I don’t have the energy to deal with in my life.
Steeplejack
@Darkrose:
Well said.
Nick
@The Grand Panjandrum: Not for nothing, I spent some time in Maine and helped on the No campaign…if their ads and their canvassers couldn’t change minds, Obama certainly can’t.
Besides, what do you think the percentage is of those people who called Congress for healthcare, but also oppose gay marriage…I’m willing to be at least 30%.
Nick
@Hookers and Cocaine:
What’s most interesting is that Hillary didn’t even campaign on repealing DOMA, just some parts of it…and the gays swooned over her anyway.
I have a hard time believing she wouldn’t have been able to get away with crap like Rick Warren or the DOMA defense or staying out of Question 1.
Nick
@Makewi:
Why wouldn’t society view both as seperate? I don’t know, I’ve seen gay guys making out at a gay pride parade and I’ve been on spring break…Personally, I was much more disgusted by spring break.
Nick
@Makewi:
A sex parade would be HOT!
LoveMonkey
@Svensker:
No, I absolutely disagree with your assertions. The legal assignments you refer to do not require “marriage” in order to be managed by legislation and statute. The use of marriage as the container is just a conceit, a convenience that as near as I can tell adds no value and serves no useful purpose.
Everything that is disposed of in the laws of marriage can be handled by civil unions or some other nice noun that describes a contract between people who want to form a family and look out for each other. I am not (here) advocating this for gays, I am advocating it as an across-the-board replacement for the bogus concept of marriage as we know it now. I don’t need, or want, the government acting as agent for the church just because politicians want to suck at the teat of sanctimony for totally self-serving reasons.
There is no valid reason to employ the government to advance or enforce a church version of what a family can be. If people want to belong to churches that have asinine rules like “one man one woman,” let them, and let the church say their holy words over these assholes. Government should leave the rest of us alone to decide for ourselves what our families look like and who they can contain.