While we’re on the topic of quick changes Republicans can’t make, let’s talk about gay rights. Gay Americans are a fairly small voting group, compared to the browns, so perhaps the Republican’s desire to deny gay Americans their rights might not seem consequential. But is there any question that Republican bigotry is hurting them with the youth vote? Here’s one example from the great site Straight Up Thanks:
This is my friend Whitney. We’ve known each other since we were 12 years old. We used to leave each other BFF-love notes in our lockers in high school, and hang out watching soap operas during the summer at her mom’s house. As you can see from the AP caption on this photo, she’s carrying a big-ass box of petitions to the Maine Secretary of State’s office. These petitions were the ones submitted to put marriage on the ballot this year. […] This year, she and her adorable boyfriend worked tirelessly with Mainers United for Marriage, campaigning for my rights. I can safely say that now, in part because of her, I’m her legal equal. But I know that I’ve always been an equal in her eyes. I’m so lucky to have her as my friend. And the state of Maine is lucky to have her as a citizen. Thanks, Whitney.
Do you think Whitney, and the millions of young people like her who voted for gay rights for their friends, are going to vote for Republicans, the party that wants to deny their childhood friends the same rights they enjoy, anytime soon?
schrodinger's cat
Hey I have lived both in Old Town and Orono ME.
Violet
Republicans are the party of intolerance. Racism, misogyny, anti-immigrant, anti-gay. You name it–if it isn’t white and male and Christian, they’re against it. People just don’t want to be associated with that sort of thing. Republicans are a damaged brand.
Culture of Truth
You mean like this?
Carnacki
I was really optimistic after 2006 and 2008, but if we want to remain happy we got to make sure these people don’t forget to turn out in 2014.
Carnacki
@schrodinger’s cat: Do you know my friend Shenna?
trollhattan
But, but, but…”War on Coal(tm)!” Let us pray.
http://chicagoist.com/2012/11/09/coal_ceo_lays_off_workers_blames_ob.php
James Hare
I don’t plan on it. Even if they switch positions I can’t forgive years of using my friends as target practice in the culture wars.
mai naem
Yes it is hurting the GOP but I think the GOP is more anti gay than it is racist so I think it’ll be a long time before they accept gay marriage. Heck, they’re going to have a hard time accepting civil unions, forget gay marriage.
BTW, I have only heard one article mention Texiera and Judis’s book from way back in 2002. I think it was called the Emerging Democratic Majority. Anyhow, I remember Kos pushing that book when Dean was running and then Kerry lost I couldn’t wait for this Democratic demo come into being for real. I think one of the two authors used to post on DKos.
danah gaz
Washington citizens said “fvck you!” to the American Taliban.
Washington citizens said “fvck you!” to the War On Drugs.
Washington citizens care about our migrant workers. (We’re one of two “sanctuary states” left in the union.)
Forgive me for saying that I think we are a model for other states at this point. I’m so proud. Yay!
Sarah, Proud and Tall
The Republicans don’t understand how “normal” people could possibly want equality for the queers (just like they don’t understand anyone wanting equality for the sluts or the browns). They think the general public is as intolerant and stupid as them, but the public has moved on.
maya
They do welcome (some) browns into their ranks. Like the Bombay Bouncer, Bobby Jindal who now urges everyone, ” Don’t be stupid, be a schmaty. Come and join the Republican party.”
EconWatcher
We just had a very nice win, so it’s worth savoring. But don’t get carried away and think the GOP is done.
We heard a lot of that nonsense in 2008, and I remember thinking–and saying–at the time that there was no way Obama could get the economy back on track by the midterms, so we would probably get our clocks cleaned in 2010, as we then did. Not hard to see that one coming.
For 2014, we don’t have good odds for retaking the House, and we have a five-seat advantage in the Senate, but six vulnerable Dems up for reelection in red states (Landrieu, Pryor, Begich, Hagan, Baucus, and Johnson).
Maybe they’ll do us a favor and replace some of their safe sitting Senators with crazy teabagger candidates, as they did this year. But we’ve got a hard slog ahead in the next few years, make no mistake about it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Yup, that’s the deal.
Respecting the equal rights of all is the way to make sure that when you’re in the minority, you don’t get carted off to the camps.
That’s what they fear…that they’ll be treated exactly the same way as they’ve treated others.
The solution is to follow the advice of that dirty fucking hippy from Bethlehem and Nazareth. You know, the one you assholes say you hold in such esteem.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat:
You say that like there’s a 3rd town in Maine in which to live.
ranchandsyrup
I have a bad habit of lurking at teh LOOG. Trying to quit. Anyhoo, one of their conservatives asked, “If the GOP announced today that they have been wrong about gay marriage, asked for forgiveness and called for an immediate legalization in all 50 states… would you be any more inclined to vote for them in the next election?”
Oh, an announcement you say? That changes everything!
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/11/a-question-about-same-sex-marriage/
Villago Delenda Est
@maya:
I see what you did there.
gbear
The billboards that the anti-gay marriage groups were posting in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area all showed a happily married black couple dressed to the nine’s in tuxedos and lace. I believe they did it so that they could try to make the point that gay rights are not the same as civil rights. Heaven forbid they would show an interracial couple on their billboards.
So glad that the amendment went down.
D. Mason
This is part of the formula that Republicans don’t understand I agree. I would also say it applies elsewhere and that awareness is the main factor. I’m a white man and I wouldn’t vote for a candidate that sought to deny rights to women or minorities either. When average Americans remain ignorant of inequality among such a small minority it can stay in place for many years but I think most are against oppression when they become aware(I hope so anyway). The Republicans need to bring their bigotry front and center to court certain elements of their base but they never account for how much this will turn off voters outside the targeted groups. Multiply that by the fact that they target so many groups and it’s no wonder they look so weak nationally.
Gindy51
@maya: And half brownie’s like Jeb’s son (coming soon to a political office near you in TX).
jibeaux
@maya: Jindal spent the day or two before the election in complete twitter meltdown mode, writing things like “Forward to what? SOcIALisssm?!?” Really, astonishingly intellectual stuff. So I award him no points for his 20/20 hindsight or his Sister Souljah attempt.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: Actually Portland ME is the biggest “city” in ME. I miss Maine!
Catfish N. Cod
Devil his due: Erick, Son of Erick, condemns and expels secessionists and voter fraud conspiracists.
“Barack Obama won the election.
“He did not win by stealing the election…even in the worse scenario of reports out there, there were not enough tales of voter irregularities to matter nationwide…
“Barack Obama won. He won by turning out the most people in a well run campaign. In other words, he won fair and square…Our aim is to beat the Democrats, not beat a retreat to a Confederacy that Generals Grant and Sherman rent asunder well over a hundred years ago.
“Even here at RedState, while we may not much care for him, President Obama is still our President and we are still quite happily citizens of the United States.”
Well, now that was welcome. Finally hit your personal peak wingnut, did you? Good for you.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
One of the joys of the last couple of years watching my kids grow up thru their middle school years has been watching the term “gay” as a catchall insult and as a synonym for lame, stupid, gross, dorky and anything else not cool slowly fall off the map in terms of the vocabulary used by my kids’ peer group. If the GOP cannot find a way to act and talk at least as maturely as your average 8th grade boy, they’re in deep yogurt.
trollhattan
@EconWatcher:
A little crowing is in order, so long it isn’t anything quite like this.
http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Map-Red-Permanent-Republican/dp/0895260026
gwangung
Hell, yeah!
The Moar You Know
Getting gay folk who’ve “made it” to not vote for/run as Republicans would be a good start.
(Carl DeMaio and every fucking person who lives in the Castro, I’m looking at you)
eric
The GOP will win low turnout elections and Dems will win high turnout elections with obvious big stakes. that will be the norm until texas comes over to the dark side and then the GOP will have to recalibrate nationally which will mean necessary local calibrations as well.
ETC: this is eric.
Cris (without an H)
Let’s savor this aspect of responsible citizenship. When I vote, when I campaign, when I write my congressthings, I am not simply looking after my own interests. I am looking after the interests of my friends, my neighbors, and people I have never met.
Voting exclusively your own interests is irresponsible. We are in this together, and I as a straight can still advocate for the rights of gays, as a white can advocate for the rights of browns, as a man for the rights of women, as an unbeliever for the rights of the religious, and on and on…
Empathy and altruism are as much part of our being as selfishness. I believe in the former. The Republican party has all its chips on the latter.
Dan
@mai naem: I dunno. I think we’ll actually see them come around on gay rights before they do on casual racism. Lots of the country is still very racially segregated, but everyone has gay relatives. Harder to “otherize” them.
El Cid
The average conservative has been told endlessly that the vast majority of Americans agree with them, believe what they believe, value what they value.
And now they are having to consider that this just might not be true.
They’re used to portraying themselves as a victimized, embattled minority, but now conservatives have to deal with the concept that theirs aren’t the default, ground-level beginning positions any more.
They won’t give up — not least of which because the plutocracy and the plantationist elites will keep hiring people, institutions, and movements to pursue their interests untiringly.
But all their embattled paranoia and self-righteousness have to now come in conflict with a world that they’ve been screaming about as coming as having arrived.
(There’s a reason that many conservatives have been so obsessed with limiting abortion and contraception — they think it’s disproportionately giving the population advantage to non-whites.)
Gex
@danah gaz: Well done, WA!
This thread is kind of making me tear up. They lost. They’ve won on this every single time up until last Tuesday. It’s so great.
Literalreddy
@Cris (without an H): This. A thousand time this.
My conception of what my own interests are includes the idea that if other people are not as well-off it could end up making me less secure and well-off.
Patricia Kayden
If Republicans are Biblical literalists, I can’t see them changing their views on marriage = one man, one woman.
And given the deluge of racist tweets after Obama’s re-election, I can’t see Republicans disavowing anti-Black racism either. I do think we’ll see immigration reform from Republicans, however, so that they can reach out to Latinos.
Villago Delenda Est
@Catfish N. Cod:
Wow. He lives in serious cracker country, too.
If I were him I’d be careful starting my car in the morning.
Roger Moore
@Catfish N. Cod:
That’s really the only way of winning them over. Once they wake up to a little piece of the crazy, they’ll start paying more attention until they realize just how insane the whole thing is. That’s how it worked here for Cole, and that’s how it worked for Charles Johnson at LGF. Win enough people one by one, and you can make some real progress. The only other way forward is to wait for them all to die, and that’s too slow and painful to contemplate.
Mr. Longform
@D. Mason:
I think one of the problems with the right generally is that they don’t respond to anything unless it’s personal. Broken empathy organ or something. I remember one winger here in Indiana who would vote to disband every service possible under the sun — medicaid, road repair, schools — but he wanted the government to fund treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome (of all things!) because his daughter had been diagnosed with it! So, if I’m not gay and no one I hang out with is gay (or will admit to being gay) then what’s the problem? I always assume old conservative Andrew Sullivan wouldn’t give a shit about gay rights if he weren’t personally affected.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but think about the level of cognitive dissonance that has to be in play to both assume that most people agree with you and that you’re a victimized, embattled minority. That’s not a position that makes somebody easy to reason with.
ranchandsyrup
@The Moar You Know: I view Carl De Maio as a special case. He was carefully cultivated by Papa Doug Manchester to be a trojan horse. Not exempting him as he was clearly ready to jump as high as Papa Doug wanted.
Roger Moore
@Literalreddy:
I would add that if it’s permissible to deny rights to others because of who they are, it’s possible to deny me rights because of who I am. If there’s more than one class of citizen, there’s no guarantee at all that I’ll wind up in the highest class. Only by guaranteeing that there’s only one class do I guarantee that I’m in first class.
Literalreddy
@Roger Moore: Definitely. I always presume that I will not end up in the highest class if there are multiple classes.
I remember back in the early 90s with the anti-gay amendment in Colorado that people would presume that I must be gay to be concerned about it. I just figured if you start separating people, it never stops and eventually they will get to me. The old ‘and there was no to defend me’ argument.
1badbaba3
This seems like an appropriate thread to say “Hey y’all, let’s give it up for Kyrsten Sinema!”
Don’t know too much about her yet, but the 15 year old in me is really looking forward to taking my time finding out. Seriously though, the little I’ve seen about her has come from AZ wingnuts who are FRANTIC about her as a triple threat. And the pic of her with O-bam-a-lam should make RWNJ heads asplode for decades to come.
Attractive, communistical, and bi. What’s not to like?
Chris
@mai naem:
Yeah, this. And there’ll be a lot of motivated voters behind that for years to come.
Wingnut relative posted something during the debates lamenting the fact that people who held “traditional values on issues of sex” were on their way to being as hated and marginalized as white supremacists.
All I could think of, besides “good. That’s what you are. That’s what you deserve” was “God, I wish white supremacists were as marginalized as you’re claiming.”
Chris
@EconWatcher:
I just wish the voting public wasn’t so hooked into instant gratification. They didn’t give FDR only two years to fix the Great Depression, and they weren’t dumb enough to put the people who caused it back in power.
Yutsano
@Villago Delenda Est: The real fear is that when they do become a minority the majority won’t believe in that hippie from Nazareth. And worse, remember how they didn’t live up to those principles either. So they go the Boer route for as long as they can. But this ain’t South Africa.
Chris
@Catfish N. Cod:
Wait, this guy’s admitting that the Confederacy was on their side? God damn! What happened to the party of Lincoln?
SatanicPanic
@ranchandsyrup: I didn’t know that guy was gay until days before the election. Were the Republicans trying to play that up or keep it quiet?
Chris
@eric:
Solution – do what you gotta to increase turnout. (Unions used to be key in this).
Redshift
@Roger Moore:
Do they actually generally think of themselves as an embattled minority, or just embattled? I’m thinking that’s what the whole anti-“elites” thing is about — they’re the majority, but the smaller party of elites illegitimately has power over them. (It’s serious projection, of course, considering that “elites” of any stripe other than academic tend to be Republicans, but it’s at least internally consistent.)
Beauzeaux
I agree that right wingers care about nothing unless it affects them directly. One of the consequences of so many gays coming out is that more and more people are faced with gay relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues. And not just one — many.
When it’s your child who has to face bullying, harssment, and denial of basic human rights, most people experience a change of attitude.
JustAnotherBob
@Roger Moore:
I think that’s the argument we should be making to those on the right. I think all of them probably understand that whites, especially straight whites, will not remain “the majority”.
Best to firmly establish one class now rather than having to fight for your rights later as a minority member.
NotMax
Hope you do realize that the “No Chaser” part of the headline could be read as an unwelcome slam at a sub-group on the sexually-attracted spectrum.
Before anyone gets bent (no slam intended – see how easy it is to use a potentially loaded term?) out of shape, yes – I’m well (even too well) aware of the reference in terms of drinking.
In the vast majority of instances, that meaning would be obvious and paramount. Just pointing out as gingerly as I can that in light of the topic of the post, the wording might have been better served with some tinkering in a
positive direction. For example:
Straight, With An Equality Chaser
El Cid
@Roger Moore: It’s what has driven the Evangelical movement in this country ever since it began.
Remember, since they [fight, not “find”] the Devil Himself, no matter how many Earthly riches they have, and how much Earthly power they possess, they can always summon up among followers the fear that the Dark One and his minions are unceasing, that any victory can be overturned, that you never know who has been turned and what they are plotting to do next.
It doesn’t really have to be cognitive dissonance as much as cognitive compartmentalization, in which at certain times and occasions you bring forth thoughts and attitudes about yourself and your kind as being the normal and the dominant and the natural, and at other times you bring forth thoughts and attitudes about yourself and your kind as at risk, endangered, and barely hanging on bravely in the face of the long-marching horde trying to tear down the walls you built.
In fact, even Empires do this. Look how vast our Roman Empire is, how much our people love us, even those we conquer and generously make part of the glory of Rome; yet we are ringed by bandits and barbarians who refuse our glory, who look for any opportunity to attack our more distant provinces.
The U.S. during the Cold War was continually proving how the might of its free market economy and its political democracy were showing the world its glory in the face of the Soviet and Eastern Bloc model failure; yet, at the same time, we were in desperate danger of Soviet attack from such imperial outposts as Nicaragua or Guatemala or El Salvador, and if we fail to act now the tide of Soviet Communism will sweep through our hemisphere — after all, the Sandinistas are only two days’ drive from Harlingen, Texas.
Our entire foreign policy has been based upon our unchallengeable might and enviable glory which is ever at risk from even the tiniest of opponents, and against whom we can never let down our guard.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Do you think Whitney, and the millions of young people like her who voted for gay rights for their friends, are going to vote for Republicans, the party that wants to deny their childhood friends’ the same rights they enjoy, anytime soon?
Which suggests that their hatred and bigotry for gays should be encouraged, enticing them to express it in public whereever possible.
Go on, wingnuts, let it out. You know you want to.
ranchandsyrup
@SatanicPanic: It’s an open secret that gets downplayed by the goopers so they can play it both ways (pun not intended).
TheMightyTrowel
Can I propose we rename the RWNJ to right-whingers?
Roger Moore
@Chris:
In as much as most Confederate apologists try to claim the Confederacy was about protecting Southern rights and social system while carefully eliding the points about slavery, he probably would accept the comparison. Besides, you can still draw comparisons between contemporary and Civil War era secession and what it says about the likely success of secession today without necessarily accepting any comparisons of their justification.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
If they were Biblical literalists, they’d be polygamists. Instead, they come up with dozens of convoluted rationalizations for how the Bible was TOTALLY pro-monogamy, you just have to read these passages and squint… REALLY hard.
It’s not hard to come up with rationalizations to make the Bible mean what you want. Here’s one that I’ve heard re homosexuality; the Hebrews banned it for health reasons, because gay sex = more risk of STDs, but it’s not a moral issue, it’s on the same level as whether or not you eat ham or shellfish. There.
I have no idea whether it’s Biblically sound or even remotely true, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that people believe it, just like they believe that Christianity = pro-monogamy and anti-slavery, despite all Biblical passages to the contrary. And I’m not saying conservatives would embrace that, certainly not OUR conservatives. I’m just saying the notion that self-proclaimed Biblical literalists could be pro-gay-rights is not at all inconceivable to me. They won’t go for it, but their great grandkids might.
El Cid
@Chris: They hold that the Bible means whatever they choose to have it mean, no matter what other words are found inside.
Same way with the Constitution. They are faithful to the Real Constitution, the one which says the things they want it to say, and they’re not bothered by what the boring document actually says, and any part of it they don’t like is invalid or never properly ratified, either.
Rafer Janders
@Mr. Longform:
See, e.g. this instant classic:
https://balloon-juice.com/2012/05/02/its-only-a-war-if-the-bullets-are-flying-at-you/
Basically, Sullivan earlier this year had written that “I hate the term ‘war on women’. It’s so hackish and echoes with the kind of liberal screechiness that backfires with everyone else”, only to then turn around, and, only a few weeks later, denounce “The GOP’s War on Gays.”
As Cole had so accurately predicted, “It really is only about things that affect him directly, isn’t it?”
NotMax
@El Cid
Yup.
Always reminded of the contract scene in A Night At the Opera, during which the lengthy document gets whittled down, and whittled down.
Though in Chico Marx’ line it was a cheap pun, in the covenant of those you cite there truly is no sanity clause.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Zombie Thelonious, on line 3, would like a word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight,_No_Chaser_(composition)
Chris
@El Cid:
Yep.
So at the end of the day, it’s as simple as making them accept, not that the Bible is right, but that your interpretation of the Bible is right.
One issue at a time.
It’s grueling and long-term work, but hey, nowadays we’ve got fundiegelicals holding up Christianity’s supposedly crucial part in ending slavery as proof that we should all follow them. Sure, it’s bullshit, but it’s a step up from the 1850s when they were actually arguing for slavery.
The Moar You Know
@ranchandsyrup: I ain’t gonna let the guy off, but your analysis is spot on. I’m not sure I couldn’t be persuaded to sell out for the amount of money Manchester could promise.
Someone make me an offer and I’ll let you know if I do.
SD’s mayoral election sucked. First election in a long time where I honest-to-God wished for the Nevada “somebody else, please” option on the ballot, as Filner is also a world-class piece of shit, just a different world-class piece of shit. He seems to support unions, I’ll give Filner that, although that support seems predicated on how much money you’ve given him and what side of the bed he woke up on that day.
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: I saw those. I gave them the MASSIVE . It also was their way of trying to draw the blahs over to their side. I am so fucking glad they spent all that money in MN and LOST. Now, I have to hunt down Archbishop Nienstedt so I can laugh directly in his face.
JoyfulA
@Patricia Kayden: For biblical literalists, the Old Testament is full of heroes with multiple wives.
redshirt
@schrodinger’s cat: My condolences. The smells must still haunt you.
Jay C
@Culture of Truth:
Then isn’t he lucky that Obamacare will now cover laser-removal treatments….?
NotMax
@trollhattan
Cute, and made me smile.
But not germane re: topicality.
ranchandsyrup
@The Moar You Know: Nathan Fletcher was my preferred choice. He’s a good man. Worked with him a couple of times when he was an assemblyman.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
And I’ve heard people say entirely seriously that this was intended to be a ban on male temple prostitution, which was practiced by some of the surrounding cultures, rather than homosexuality in general. I’ve heard people use that as an explanation for many of the more obscure prohibitions in Leviticus, e.g. boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, yoking together an ox and an ass, etc. According to that this theory, those things were intended as quite specific prohibitions on particular religious practices associated with neighboring cultures, not as broad categories.
RedKitten
@Catfish N. Cod: That is the secind sane thing we’ve seen Erickson write…could he be on his way to a John Cole/Charles Johnson-style change of heart?
ranchandsyrup
@RedKitten: Moar likely that he wants to keep his cushy CNN perch.
asiangrrlMN
@asiangrrlMN: That would be the massive SIDE EYE FYWP.
Bubblegum Tate
@RedKitten:
Extremely doubtful, but still…at least he was able to admit the truth and slap down all the pitiful excuses emanating from his side of the aisle. I guess that counts as his good deed for the year.
WereBear
@Bubblegum Tate: Has he apologized for metaphorically greeting census workers with a shotgun?
I sense Suckups everywhere re-evaluating who has the most powerful behind that needs kissing.
Bubblegum Tate
@El Cid:
I dunno about that…a lot of wingnuts I’ve seen like to claim that “liberals are aborting themselves into permanent minority status” or some such shit.
WereBear
In other news, the newest Chromebook release is only $199! Day-um!
I miss mine. It’s in Texas getting a warranty repair on the track pad. I better get it back before Texas secedes.
schrodinger's cat
@redshirt: Yeah the paper mill did smell bad. Still have many friends in the Bangor-Ellsworth
area.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@The Moar You Know:
Funny, given the number of strollers in the Castro these days, I’d have said it’s time to rename that district as part of Greater Noe Valley. But I hadn’t noticed much rightward shift in the Castro.