Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

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Queer Talk: Measures of Success

By Joyce Arnold on 06 August 2011

Joyce L. Arnold: Liberal, lesbian, Independent, equality activist, writer.

Two different ways to measure LGBT equality success came out this week: the “Momentum Report,” by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), and The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s (GLADD) “Network Responsibility Index.” That’s “network” as in television.

Before turning to those reports, something from Bayard Rustin’s Time on Two Crosses, in the essay, “From Montgomery To Stonewall.” For information in reports to be made real, we need words from people who fight the fight. Rustin was one of those people. Via Autumn Sandeen, at Pam’s Houseblend:

[T]he job of the gay community is not to deal with extremists … . Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America … such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest antigay sentiment.

The two reports help provide information about how well the task Rustin presents is being carried out.

In reference to the “Momentum Report,” by MAP, from Keen News Service:

The LGBT movement is making progress, but it’s being seriously outspent by opponents and still has ‘a long way’ to go to reach equality. That’s the conclusion of an in-depth analysis by an independent think tank devoted to studying how best to marshal the LGBT movement’s resources to speed advancement of equality … .

The 2011 report

… notes that amid an accelerating rate of progress, LGBT people are facing an increasingly two-tiered existence, depending almost entirely on where they live. Committed gay and lesbian couples still have almost no legal protections in 30 states; hard-working (LGB) employees can still be unfairly fired in 29 states … while transgender employees can still be unfairly fired in 35 states; 32 states lack safe schools laws …; and 35 states lack similar laws based on gender identity. In addition, the federal government’s refusal to recognize gay and lesbian couples means that even couples who legally marry in their state are denied fundamental protections … .

Regarding their “Network Responsibility Index,” GLADD:

released its fifth annual … report that maps the quantity, quality and diversity of images of LGBT people on television. Primetime programming on the five broadcast networks was evaluated as well as original primetime programming on 10 major cable networks. …
Broadcast Networks:
The CW remains the top broadcast network with 33% of its primetime programming hours being LGBT-inclusive. Fox came in second at 29%, and both networks received a ‘Good’ rating this year.
ABC remained in third place in terms of its percentage of LGBT-inclusive programming hours (23%). ABC received a ‘Good’ rating because of the strong quality of its LGBT images, and the network broadcast the greatest total number of LGBT-inclusive hours (253).
CBS remained in last place with 10% LGBT-inclusive hours of primetime programming. After receiving their second ‘Failing’ score in a row last year … they improved enough to receive an ‘Adequate’ score this year. …
Cable Networks:
In addition to ABC Family’s [55%] ‘Excellent’ rating, Showtime (37%), TNT (33%), HBO (31%), Lifetime (31%), AMC (29%), and Syfy (22%) all received ‘Good’ ratings for the quantity and quality of their LGBT-inclusive original programming.
USA increased their LGBT-inclusive hours from 4% to 18%, which improved their score from ‘Failing’ to ‘Adequate.’
For the fourth year in a row, A&E (5%) and TBS (5%) both received ‘Failing’ ratings for their lack of LGBT-inclusive images.
One area in which all networks continue to struggle is the underrepresentation or misrepresentation of the transgender community.

Another measure of success comes by way of the American Psychological Association’s endorsement of marriage equality. Via AmericaBlogGay: “The policymaking body of the American Psychological Association unanimously approved the resolution 157-0 on the eve of the group’s annual convention … .”

Also about marriage equality, and first via Bilerico, The State, a South Carolina newspaper which in 1996 editorialized in support of a state constitutional amendment to ban “same-sex marriage,” this week printed the wedding announcement of William Hasty III and Gregory S. Smith, now living in New York. The State is their hometown newspaper. Second, from Box Turtle: “the Suquamish Tribal Council formally changed its ordinances to join Oregon’s Coquille in extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.”

Less happy, you can read about “Hateful Homophobic Statements From Boehner/GOP DOMA Briefs” at Bilerico.

Turning from marriage, but staying with the GOP, via AmericaBlog, news that the second GOP House member has joined the LGBT Equality Caucus (96 total members). Rep. Richard Hanna (NY) joins Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL).

GOP related – I’ll leave it to you if this is a plus or a minus. From Pam’s Houseblend, “American Conservative Union bars GOProud from co-sponsoring 2012 CPAC.” Also from Houseblend :

(the) Fred Karger for President campaign tells us the openly gay GOP Presidential aspirant is tied with Newt Gingrich in a newly released Zogby national poll.
The question the campaign presents is, will Fred be heard at the Iowa Presidential debates …?

In the “more work to be done” category, from Wayne Besen, in The Advocate, a call for an apology from NPR which

… aired a segment this week that inexplicably claimed, ‘The debate about the value of conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, has been raging in psychological circles for more than a decade.’
In reality, the debate began to ebb in 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. In 2009 the American Psychological Association conducted an exhaustive study on the efficacy of ‘ex-gay’ therapy. The press release said it all: ‘No evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work, says APA,’… .

NPR did respond to the apparently significant amount of criticism they received regarding the story. The Advocate summarized their take on the response: “NPR Admits Some Mistakes, Stops Short of Apology.”

Finally, I opened with the powerful words of Bayard Rustin. I want to close with a powerful story. From The Advocate

The last known gay concentration camp survivor imprisoned because of his sexual orientation has died, according to Germany’s Lesbian and Gay Association.
Rudolf Brazda, who was held at the Buchenwald concentration camp for three years until U.S. forces liberated the camp in 1945, died Wednesday at the age of 98 … .
In a 2008 interview with the French gay magazine Têtu, Brazda spoke for the first time of his imprisonment since he made remarks at the dedication ceremony of a Berlin memorial to gay victims of the Third Reich. ‘The way Nazis treated the ‘pink triangles’ is unspeakable,’ Brazda said … .
After he was freed from Buchenwald, Brazda moved to France, where he lived for 35 years with his partner, who died in 2002.

Context and history: we can’t measure success without them.

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Women Seeking Legal Abortion Forced Into Do-It-Yourself Situations

By Taylor Marsh on 28 July 2011

Abortions are still legal in America, but you wouldn’t know it today.

Women requiring an abortion are now forced, because of lack of access to doctors, to utilize telemedicine to effectively terminate a pregnancy, which is a legal procedure according to U.S. law. This has come about because of right-wing zealots and religious quacks, who are not only still a danger to our country, but specifically to women’s freedoms, partly because politicians have stopped standing up for hard fought rights we’ve won in the courts, allowing wingnuts to break the law and force women into an impossible situation.

The good news is that abortificients are effective and studies have shown they are also physically safe. The other positive sign is that telemedicine seems to work, which when you’re up against matters.

Using an abortificient like mifepristone, it’s what emergency reproductive health care for women looks like in rural Iowa and some other states, with Arizona, Kansas, North Dakota, Nebraska and Tennessee already jumping in to impede women’s freedom to control their own life.

The report comes from ABC News:

… As states increasingly enact laws that restrict women’s access to legal abortion and a dwindling number of doctors choose to perform them, women who live in rural states like Iowa have found it more difficult to terminate their pregnancies. But now, women who might otherwise travel hundreds of miles to see a physician have another option: telemedicine.
A woman seeking an abortion via telemedicine has an ultrasound performed by a trained technician, receives information about medical abortion and signs a standard informed consent for the abortion.
Once that is complete, a physician steps in via teleconference. The doctor reviews the woman’s medical history and ultrasound images, and once it is determined that she is eligible — up to nine weeks pregnant and not an ectopic pregnancy — she has time to ask questions.
Then, the doctor enters a computer passcode to remotely open a drawer at the clinic containing two pills. She then swallows the mifepristone, under the doctor’s supervision, and then is instructed to take four additional tablets of misoprostol within the next 24 to 48 hours. The actual abortion happens at home. [...]

There’s really not a lot to add on this one that I haven’t written before, except to emphasize the opening paragraph:

As states increasingly enact laws that restrict women’s access to legal abortion
and a dwindling number of doctors choose to perform them, women who live in rural states like Iowa have found it more difficult to terminate their pregnancies. But now, women who might otherwise travel hundreds of miles to see a physician have another option: telemedicine.

What’s come to America that denies women a legal procedure due to the zealotry of a determined group to impede women’s freedoms, without the Democratic president and every single member of Congress on the Left standing up to demand women’s court-won rights be ~~honored~~ upheld?

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Progressive Notes: More Black Women Would be Impoverished if SS Cuts Pass

By Art Pronin on 15 July 2011

Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

As President Obama and Congressman Cantor hash out trillions in cuts, which no economist says we can afford , our POTUS has tossed in cutting Social Security benefits among other programs. Let us be clear: these SS cuts will destroy lives in ways no Republican has been able to accomplish.

By ending COLA, which uses inflation to raise your benefit payments, most Americans would see by the year their SS checks get smaller. This is immoral and cruel. And as usual which group would pay the most of a price? Women. And among women black women will pay the worst fate.

African American women are most likely to be impoverished in this country. If COLA is abolished poverty will rise sharply, especially among black women. Strengthen Social Security, the progressive org fighting to save the program, is shouting from the rooftops against cuts:

According to the National Women’s Law Center’s analysis of Current Population Survey data, in their report on how the chained CPI would affect women, the median annual Social Security benefit for a 65-year-old single African American woman is $10,680. (By contrast, the median benefit for all single senior women is $13,200.)
That puts the median benefit for African American woman seniors just above the 2010 poverty line for individual seniors, which is an obscenely low $10,458.

So right now a black single woman on average gets just above poverty levels of SS. And what happens to black women if COLA is cut?

…by age 70–after just five years of collecting Social Security benefits–the median benefit for African American single women seniors would dip below the poverty line, and continue on a downward spiral as those women age, cutting nearly $1,000 by the time they reach age 95. …
…the median benefit would go below the poverty level for non-married African American women, and that a near-majority of non-married elderly African Americans rely on Social Security for all of their income–lead to the conclusion that the chained CPI would lead to an increase in poverty among elderly African Americans.
What is more, the fact that the chained CPI’s cuts increase as beneficiaries age will be especially harmful to African American women, who live longer than African American men. Life expectancy for African American women at age 65 is 83, compared with 79 for African American men.

So if these pols get their way black women face an even harder life in America. They live longer than black men and if COLA is scrapped more will face hellish poverty.

National Women’s Law Center has done a incredible report against ending COLA. In their report they highlight, for all women, the price that would be paid if cuts are made. I urge everyone to read their report here .

A graph from Strengthen SS starkly shows that many more seniors would face many hungry days with these cuts in place:

As someone on SSI the thought of anyone getting cuts in SS pay by the year is just sickening- literally.

I do not think the public is well educated on what is being hurriedly hashed in DC despite efforts by AARP and others running ad campaigns alerting folks to cuts. So it’s our job to spread the word as much as possible on facebook, by phone, and email (use the tools email feature on this page under this post). Hound your member of congress on this issue right now. Contact list:

White House
White House Comments Line: 202-456-1111
White House Switchboard: 202-456-1414
White House FAX: 202-456-2461
White House Email Page.
Congress
Capitol Switchboard: (202)224-3121
(Just ask for your Rep.’s or Senator’s office).
Look up your Representative’s / Senator’s contact information.
Democratic National Committee (DNC)
DNC by email .
DNC by phone: (202) 863-8000
DNC by snail mail: 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC 20003
Social Networking:
White House Twitter ID: @WhiteHouse
White House Facebook Page .
Use TweetCongress to look up your Representative’s / Senator’s Twitter ID

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Queer Talk: Marriage According to those who have it Right

By Joyce Arnold on 09 July 2011

Joyce Arnold is a liberal Independent activist whose column “Queer Talk” appears regularly on Saturdays, and occasionally on other days of the week.

This QT column could also be called, “I’m Right, and you’re Left out,” since it’s about more than marriage. Just like DADT is about more than servicemembers, DOMA is about more than couples who want to get legally married. ENDA is about more than civil rights in the work place. It’s all connected, all the bits and pieces, of varying sizes and significance, in the long struggle toward equality. And although Obama’s choices regarding LGBT equality are obviously significant, all of this, including marriage, is about much more than Obama. He has both helped and hindered. On marriage in particular, a Democratic president to the Right of popular opinion, and of some Republicans, basing his argument on states’ rights, isn’t subtle or clever. Whatever he’s thinking, the states’ rights argument means, in practice, that if you’re LGBT (among other groups), states are just as free to discriminate against you as they are to provide civil rights.

Pam Spaulding, at Houseblend, recently wrote:

… the states have varying laws on the books related to marriage, but what we have going on can and should be addressed by this President – we have states embracing equality, while other states are enshrining bigotry into their state constitutions against a class of citizens at the ballot box.
He knows this is wrong; and it will give comfort to our foes who will quote the President with glee in their campaigns to pass marriage amendments.
For those of us in states facing institutionalized oppression, the perspective of ‘progress’ looks very different when you are sitting where further battles loom, as opposed to areas where equality is blooming. There is thinking that exists in abundance in the LGBT community (usually couched in the legal abstract) that helps generates the willingness to see ‘throw away states’ – where LGBTs will suffer – as mere speed bumps on the way to equality.

For many of us already in “throw away states,” the battle is to undo the damage already done. I rejoiced at the big marriage win in New York, but for those of us in the 29 states with constitutional amendments restricting marriage to “one man, one woman,” and the 12 states with laws doing the same thing, listening to Obama extol the right of state legislatures, and the right of a majority of citizens to vote on the rights of a minority, is not encouraging.

And just to be clear, these mini-DOMAs and state constitutional amendments are not restricted to “the South.” Via the Human Rights Campaign, states with constitutional amendments:

Alabama (2006), Alaska (1998), Arizona (2008), Arkansas (2004), California (2008), Colorado, Florida (2008), Georgia (2004), Kansas (2005), Idaho (2006), Kentucky (2004), Louisiana (2004), Michigan (2004), Mississippi (2004), Missouri (2004), Montana(2004), Nebraska (2000), Nevada (2002), North Dakota (2004), Ohio (2004), Oklahoma (2004),Oregon (2004), South Carolina (2006), South Dakota (2006), Tennessee (2006), Texas (2005), Utah (2004), Virginia(2006) and Wisconsin (2006).

States with laws: Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

And, there are 18 states “where the law or amendment has language that does, or may, affect other legal relationships, such as civil unions or domestic partnership. … : Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.”

DOMA, of course, was signed into law by Bill Clinton. It’s been under attack in the courts fairly consistently since. Via the NYTimes:

Last year, a federal judge in Massachusetts declared the law unconstitutional as it applied to same-sex couples for issues like inheritance taxes and federal health and pension benefits. President Obama has expressed his opposition to DOMA, and in February the Justice Department announced that it would not defend it in court …

The comments above, from Spaulding, introduced an article by regular guest contributor Rev. Irene Monroe, “Obama harkens backs to slavery with ‘states’ rights’ for same-sex marriage.”

The fight for marriage equality in the U.S. is similar to my ancestors’ fight for freedom. In their day, before the Civil War in 1861, the U.S. consisted of nineteen free states and fifteen slave states….
As LGBTQ Americans, we’re not in slavery, but we certainly will be in a civil war as each state battle this issue. Whereas President Lincoln acted on behalf of my ancestor’s civil rights, we need to call on Obama to move on ours.
‘The President has staked out a cynical political position aimed at not rocking the boat,’ said Richard Socarides, who advised President Bill Clinton on gay rights issues. ‘This states’ rights argument is a separate but equal argument.’ …
While our President states his opinion is still ‘evolving’ on this issue, he needs to know that we LGBTQ Americans and our families want to sample what he and Michelle and every heterosexual married couple take for granted – marriage, not marriage-lite.

Of course, Democratic-lite Electeds are part of the problem. Comparatively speaking, an “evolving” president is better than other alternatives. For an admittedly extreme contrast, Michele Bachmann said, in 2004, that “in the gay marriage issue, legalizing a new status – if you will, redefining in a sense what it is to be man, woman, what it is to be human … ” Bachmann is defining not just marriage, but what it means to be “human.”

She doesn’t seem to have evolved since then. On Thursday of this week, she was, according to The Advocate, “first in line to sign a new pledge affirming her belief that gay men are a public health risk, that gay parents are inferior to straight parents, and that homosexuality is a choice.”

By such comparisons, evolving can sound, if not good, at least better. But neither “better” nor “good” is equal. Ultimately, that’s the only standard by which Electeds should be measured. For that matter, it’s a standard for “we the people,” too.

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Obama’s ‘Deal of the Century’ for Republicans

By Taylor Marsh on 05 July 2011

If you want one reason why Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection this is it.

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases. – The Mother of All No-Brainers

The bookend to David Brooks is Frank Rich, who evidently has finally awakened to the actual Barack Obama, 3 years too late. This was after appalling political analysis that should not only have gotten him laughed out of the opinion racket, but rendered his views worthless. Rich preferred to play games in the primaries rather than learn, then help readers understand Barack Obama’s political philosophy:

But as long as the likely Democratic nominee keeps partying like it’s 2008 while everyone else refights the battles of yesteryear, he will continue to be underestimated every step of the way.

One of the people who underestimated Barack Obama was Frank Rich, but not in the manner he originally meant. It’s because he was too besotted to identify candidate Obama’s squishy Republicanism.

Mr. Rich also predicted a Democratic “civil war” if Hillary didn’t cool it, though even Rachel Maddow did this, but Rich went several ugly steps further, to make his points:

A race-tinged brawl at the convention, some nine weeks before Election Day, will not be a Hallmark moment. As Mr. Wilkins reiterated to me last week, it will be a flashback to the Democratic civil war of 1968, a suicide for the party no matter which victor ends up holding the rancid spoils.

The “suicide for the party” is indeed happening, just a lot later and through the very politician Mr. Rich exalted.

Rich could have looked at Obama’s Illinois record, his statements about being non-ideological, about being more of a mediator between two opposing views, but he chose fan politics instead, ignorantly blinded by what the outcome could eventually be.

Paul Krugman laid out the economics for Rich and his ilk, but there were many clues, the most important coming from candidate Obama himself:

“I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.” – Barack Obama, 5.14.07 (on ABC’s “This Week”)

Pres. Obama adopting the Republican economic model has set the Democratic Party back, how far and for how long it’s hard to tell.

Obama’s position is now where Republicans have placed the new center, which will dog any Democratic candidate and president who believes progressive philosophy is not only more sound, but imperative to save the middle class.

Any Democrat not starting by offering tax cuts and even targeting the safety net will now be considered “extreme” or “far left” by the new center, you know, because Barack Obama did it. Progressive politics then becomes a harder sell. Where that leaves the “professional Left” is anyone’s guess, but it’s nowhere good.

That is unless Obama’s economic Republicanism is abandoned wholesale, which is unlikely when you look at the behavior of elite Democrats today, politicians who don’t understand that by “winning” the Democratic Party is actually losing their identity. Though there are some signs of life in small quarters of Congress, with a few Democrats recognizing that the small differences that used to exist between the parties, Pres. Obama has obliterated, not only on economics, but including on matters of war and peace.

There’s something even more chilling about Pres. Obama’s economic Republicanism. If he’s doing this now, what will he do if he’s reelected, facing no other elections in his future, able to carve the path as he sees it?

It’s not Republicans who should start worrying about Obama’s reelection, it’s Democrats.

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’1776′ John Adams: One Useless Man is Called a Disgrace; Two are Called a Law Firm; Three or More Become a Congress

By Taylor Marsh on 04 July 2011

… Lincoln saw an unresolvable tension between the Constitution of a democratic republic and the policies of aggrandizement and intemperate self-interest that lead from the manners of freedom to the slavish love of power. He spoke of the difference between the work of establishing a constitutional republic and the longer task of maintaining it. But maintaining it against what? Lincoln’s answer was always the same: against the internal pressure of greed, and the external pressure of war. The predicament of the country in 1861, he said, “forces us to ask: ‘Is there, in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?’”
We are now ten years into a policy shared by two successive administrations to plant a new understanding of the spirit of the laws in America. That policy has pretended there is a “trade-off” between liberty and security, and that in a time of crisis, security ought to have the upper hand. The Cheney-Bush and Obama administrations have accustomed us to laws and language concerned above all with the “protection” of citizens — as if there were something higher or more worth protecting than the liberty that is guaranteed by our laws and the framework of laws, the Constitution. [...]
To Maintain a Republic, by David Bromwich

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Queer Talk: Barbarians, Termites and Bathrooms

By Joyce Arnold on 03 July 2011

Joyce Arnold is a liberal Independent activist whose weekly column “Queer Talk” appears on Saturday.

Back in April I wrote about Dan Ramos, Bexar County, Texas, Democratic Party Chair, who compared “homosexuals” to termites — “white termites who have infiltrated the party much like termites infiltrate your house.” I said at the time that I didn’t think, as a lesbian, I’d ever been called a “termite” before. The more extreme anti-LGBT folks are often boringly predictable, but “termite,” that shows some kind of creativity. I thought about the Ramos and termite thing recently because of another label applied to Queerdom that I don’t recall ever hearing before, either: barbarian.

You’ve likely heard the story. Republican presidential candidate contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has said a lot of not-very-nice things about LGBTs. But it was her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who made the connection between “the homosexuals” and “barbarians.” Sarah Bufkin, guest blogging at Think Progress first reported the story on June 29. Here’s an excerpt:

When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s ‘strategist,’ runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to ‘ungay’ themselves.

Dr. Bachmann was offering advice to parents who think or know, and probably fear, that one of their children is gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender.

We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps …
And let’s face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it but to encourage action steps. That’s why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase.

This is a “where to start” kind of thing. First, “barbarian”? As in uncivilized or brutish? Or maybe Bachmann is thinking more of the foreigner or outsider meaning. I could certainly see him thinking “outsider,” and wanting to be the doorkeeper who maintains the purity of the “insider” space. There seems to be some hope offered the uncivilized outsider “homosexuals,” because Bachmann is talking about education and discipline. Maybe those speculations about his possible use of “reparative therapy” and unqueering are accurate. What such education and discipline looks like … well, I guess only the civilized and insiders are in a position to determine that.

One other comment by Bachmann leaps out at me, when he uses the familiar “be very afraid” tactic, by claiming that the “percentage of homosexuals in this country … is starting to increase.” Because, you know, the door to the inner sanctum of those who deserve equality isn’t being appropriately guarded. He doesn’t go to the “homosexuals have to recruit our innocent children” line explicitly, but the implication is certainly there. It’s an argument that the adamantly anti-LGBTs can’t afford to lose. They have to maintain the “it’s a choice” argument as foundational, even when some are willing to acknowledge there may be a “born with” trait that contributes to the “homosexual condition.” It’s still a “lifestyle choice,” see, because you can fight it. You can “leave” it, if you just pray hard enough, and position yourself so that your “natural” opposite-sex attraction can kick in. And if such positioning coincidentally includes some paid time at a “Christian counseling center” you and your wife happen to run …

As Cher tweets: (via JoeMyGod ) “omg! Is This true? He has a Christian clinic where he de-programs gay Boys & Girls! I’m gonna strangle him with my Boa!”

I doubt Cher could get close enough to the not-only-good-but-better-than-you-homosexual-barbarians doctor to make use of her “Boa”. His wife, after all, once ran screaming from a women’s bathroom when two women tried to talk with her. As reported last month by The Daily Beast, via The Advocate, “Rep. Michele Bachmann … had claimed in 2005 that she was almost abducted by two women in a bathroom,” a “lesbian and an ex-nun.” Bachmann had “refused to speak about gay rights at a constituent forum,” and the women in the bathroom “questioned her on the subject.”

Pamela Arnold, a 5-foot tall lesbian now in her 50’s, began a conversation with the then-senator, when Bachmann screamed out, ‘Help! I’m being held against my will!’
Arnold stepped aside and opened the door. Bachmann rushed to an SUV waiting outside and shortly after, filed a police report stating that she was ‘absolutely terrified … .’
No charges were filed in the case, as the Washington County attorney deemed the incident to be a simple conversation between a politician and her constituents.

Remember Bill Clinton saying, during his initial run for the WH, that with Hillary, voters would get a “two-fer”? Well, I’m wondering what a two-fer Bachmann presidency would look like. And then I think, maybe we homosexual barbarians would storm the White House. We could use the opportunity to release swarms of gay termites. And maybe hold both Bachmann’s hostage in an Oval Office bathroom.

I’d be happy to hear about any ideas you might have, even if you aren’t one us barbarians. We’re fairly civilized that way, wanting to include others.

(Photo of Marcus and Michele Bachmann via the LA Times)

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Progressive Notes: ERA!, NAACP Among those Pushing WH for No Cuts, Rats Greet Walker, and Other Happenings..

By Art Pronin on 02 July 2011

Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

Progressives are pushing on the Hill to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. In wake of the Supreme Court ruling against women in the Walmart case we need now more than ever the ERA. Rep. Maloney (D-Ny) and Sen. Menendez (D-Nj) have reintroduced it again.

You need 38 states to approve it. In 1982 it fell 3 states short ,which was the year of the deadline to ratify ERA. Congress gave 10 years to ratify the amendment. But many scholars say if 3 more states ratified it today ERA would be part of our Constitution because the Constitution gives no deadlines for ratification of amendments. Maddow had a must see piece on ERA this week and how we need it more than ever and that ERA would lead to equal rights for gays also:

Key civil rights and poverty advocacy groups have written to the WH and Congress warn against cutting any social programs. La Raza, NAACP and many more are part of this push. Here are some statements:

QUOTES:
Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director, Center for Community Change
“Our families are struggling to make ends meet and our communities are suffering from record levels of unemployment and increasing poverty. It’s time to get the country back on track and that means focusing on job creation and supporting our families. Protecting the programs that serve families in need is a vital component of any budget negotiations. It’s time to move beyond the partisan gridlock and to the real solution, good jobs for unemployed and underemployed workers and adequate support for families in need.”
…
Nancy Duff Campbell, Co-President, National Women’s Law Center
“Unless programs for low-income people are protected in the budget negotiations, women and their families will bear the brunt of deficit reduction. Women are more likely than men to be poor because they still face discrimination on the job and take on more of the responsibility for unpaid caregiving. So women disproportionately rely on Medicaid, SNAP (Food Stamps) and other safety net programs to meet their own and their children’s basic needs – and on programs like child care assistance and Pell grants for a chance to get ahead and give their children a better life. Maintaining supports for low-income women and their families isn’t just fair – it’s a smart investment in our common future.”
Marian Wright Edelman, President, Children’s Defense Fund
“Children are the poorest age group in America and hunger, homelessness and poverty have risen dramatically for them in the last two years. Two-thirds of the 15.5 million poor children live in families in which at least one person is working. We must protect children, their families and other vulnerable people while finding ways to reduce the deficit that reflect moral sense, common sense and economic sense. We urge the President and Congress to reject all cuts that would increase poverty and inequality to ensure children and other vulnerable people are better off tomorrow than they are today. We all need to stand together for what’s morally right; the future and soul of our country is at stake.”
Vicki Escarra, President and CEO, Feeding America
“With more of our nation’s men, women and children facing hunger today than ever before, it would be unconscionable for the Congress and the Administration to cut the first line of defense against hunger in America. Feeding America food banks are already overburdened as we struggle to keep pace with historic levels of need for emergency food assistance and private charity cannot fill the gap if nutrition assistance programs are cut. We must recognize the reality that federal nutrition programs are the difference between having enough to eat and not for one in four Americans, and we must find solutions to our nation’s economic challenges that do not send millions more people into the grips of hunger and poverty.”
Ambassador Tony P. Hall, Executive Director, Alliance to End Hunger, United States Congressman, Retired
“America faces tough choices about its long term fiscal health. We owe it to future generations to cut the deficit, which threatens future prosperity for all, and especially the poor,” said Ambassador Tony Hall, a former Member of Congress and Executive Director for the Alliance to End Hunger. “But how you cut a budget or reduce a deficit is also a moral issue. Poor and hungry people didn’t get us into the current mess and hurting them isn’t the right way out of it. It’s not only morally wrong, it ignores the bigger problem.”
Robert Greenstein, President, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
“President Obama and Congress should enact a plan sooner rather than later to put the nation on a sustainable fiscal course, and the recent history of deficit reduction makes clear they can reduce deficits without increasing poverty and hardship — as policymakers did in 1990, 1993, and 1997. That’s particularly important now, with inequality in the United States at its highest in over 80 years and poverty considerably higher here than in most other wealthy nations. In designing deficit reduction plans, policymakers should follow a core principle of the Bowles-Simpson Commission – to design them in ways that protect low-income people and do not increase poverty.”
Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
“With millions of low-income Americans struggling to gain economic stability – including millions of women, minorities, and people with disabilities – reducing the deficit in ways that increased poverty or added to their hardships would be contrary to our national values. Our leaders would be wise to follow the precedent of previous administrations and Congresses and refuse to cut any programs that strengthen economic security for low-income families.”
Alan Houseman, President and Executive Director, CLASP
“The current debate over the nation’s deficit is incomplete,” said Alan W. Houseman, executive director of the CLASP, the Center for Law and Social Policy. “We have to make tough choices about how the nation spends and raises money to keep the government functioning, but we also must consider deeper questions such as what kind of nation we want to be now and in the future. As lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said, deficit reduction should protect the truly needy. Lawmakers must do more than pay lip service to this principle. They must commit to it, and they must ensure that the decisions they make don’t increase poverty and inequality.”
John Podesta, President and CEO, Center for American Progress
“Long-term deficit-reduction is a critical goal, which can, indeed must, be accomplished in a way that strengthens the middle-class and ensures adequate protections for the most vulnerable.”
…
Hilary O. Shelton, Director, NAACP Washington Bureau & Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy
“A nation’s budget is, in its aggregate, a statement about the values and priorities of its people,” said Hilary O. Shelton, the Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau and the Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy. “The NAACP fully believes that it is incumbent upon the federal government to meet the unique needs of the most vulnerable Americans among us and that they are allowed to engage in their Constitutional right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. We therefore strongly encourage everyone involved in the budget negotiations to do all they can to ensure that essential services are not cut and that no American goes hungry, is undereducated, underemployed or homeless or suffers from a preventable illness. Not on our watch.”
James Weill, President, Food Research and Action Center
“One in five Americans reported they were unable to afford enough food for themselves or their families in 2010. Given the economic struggles that Americans continue to face, our nation’s leaders must refuse to even consider reckless cuts that harm the most vulnerable. Any proposal to cut or otherwise restructure valuable safety net programs would roll back a generation of progress in this nation against very deep hunger and poverty, and would destroy a bipartisan compact that for two generations has developed and sustained a strong and effective safety net.” …

You can read the letter here.

Big news in Ohio. History has been made in one of the largest petition drives in American politics:

Opponents of Ohio Governor John Kasich’s push to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights—as part of a national push by newly elected Republican governors to silence opposition to their cuts in funding for public education and services — needed to collect 231,000 valid signatures to force a referendum that would override anti-labor legislation enacted by Kasich and his allies.
That was a tall order. But the labor and community groups that have come together to defend public employees, teachers, schools and services have exceeded it —by more than one million signatures. [1]
With petitions carrying 1,298,301 [2]signatures packed in 1,500 boxes carried by a semi-truck, organizers of the We Are Ohio [2]campaign and thousands of their allies marched to the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office in Columbus Wednesday—one day before the deadline—to file the paperwork necessary to force a November vote on overturning Ohio Senate Bill 5 and Kasich’s attack on labor rights.

1.2 million people signed petitions to get a chance to vote to repeal Kaisch’s attack on unions. The election likely is in November and polls show voters 2 to 1 in favor of repealing the anti-union law. Democracy lives.

Poor Governor Walker. He went to New York City for a GOP fundraiser. And New York gave him a grand welcome- with giant inflated rats:

Riots have been sweeping Greece against austerity cuts. If Greece does not comply with austerity it defaults. It cannot get the loan needed from the EU otherwise. How did Greece wind up so troubled? Part of it is revenue and extra low taxes for corporations:

..the Greek corporate tax rate is very low, the corporate tax, is .. 25%, TEN PERCENT lower than the U.S.A.
On top of all of this tax information, low corporate taxes and tax dodgers that are rampant, the unemployment rate in Greece is 14.1%. According to the Republicans running for President here in the U.S. we need to lower corporate taxes to 25% or lower to increase employment. Seriously?
This brings me to the second country that is being watched for default, Ireland. Ireland has a corporate tax rate of 12.5%. The unemployment is Ireland is 14.7%. the European Union has been approached by Ireland asking for a bailout, but Germany and other countries have told them to essentially pound sand until it raises it’s corporate tax rate to the average percentage of all EU countries, which sits around 25%.
The conservatives continue to blame social programs for the financial troubles of these countries, but the one thing they DO NOT bring up is the fact that their tax rates are a lot lower than ours. They also never talk about their unemployment being higher than ours even though their taxes are lower. They won’t bring this up obviously because it runs contradictory to their talking points.

Democratic Senator Inouye of HI is not buying this austerity crap and says cutting domestic programs must be off the table in any debt dealings. Oh and he chairs the Appropriations Committee:

“Are we really spending too much on non-defense programs? The answer is clearly no. Non-defense discretionary spending levels are essentially unchanged from 2001. There is no reason we shouldn’t be able to afford them today,” Inouye said.
“The focus of our deficit talks should not be on domestic discretionary spending, but on the real reason why we are not running a surplus: historically low revenues, soaring mandatory spending, and the cost of war,” he added.
Inouye called for more investment in highways, rail, levees, bridges and dams.
“In short, domestic discretionary investments are not the problem; they are in fact a vital part of the solution to our economic and fiscal challenges,” he said.
Inouye told The Hill Thursday that there is waste that can be trimmed from domestic discretionary spending since “there is waste in everything,” but said it should not be the focus of the debt-ceiling talks.

And in the Right wing nut files is a funny. The author of Ohio’s voter ID bill would have just taken away his own voting rights if the bill were actually law:

On April 23, an Indiana state trooper pulled Rep. Robert Mecklenborg over for a burned out headlight on a 2004 Lexus he was driving. After failing three separate field sobriety tests, Mecklenborg allegedly refused to take a breath test and was placed under arrest. A blood test later revealed that he had recently taken a Viagra.
“Given that he likely is not in possession of his own drivers license (it should have been confiscated and suspended in accordance with Indiana DUI law and procedure), perhaps he will opt to arrest his drive to repress voting rights,” the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee’s Carolyn Fiddler wrote in a blog post.

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Queer Talk: “Self-evident truths” about equality vs. transgender reality

By Joyce Arnold on 02 July 2011

Joyce Arnold is a liberal Independent activist whose weekly column “Queer Talk” appears on Saturday.

I found out I know someone who attended the June 30, Pride Reception at the White House. Marisa Richmond, Ph.D., is one of the people I think about when considering grassroots activism. Her many years of work at the local level, in Nashville, TN, are also filled with work at the state and national levels. Sometimes I’m too quick with the “Insider & Access” generalization, applied to DC advocacy work. I know better, because I know Marisa, and others like her, whose consistent work toward LGBT equality isn’t about gaining an “elite” status, but about gaining equality.

Marisa does this work in multiple ways, including as president of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition, Secretary of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and at large board member of Davidson County (TN) Democratic Women. She was a member of the Transgender Delegate Caucus at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. That’s just a sampling, but it should give one “this is what an activist looks like” picture.

Before listening to Marisa, some context.

Studies consistently show that transgender individuals are the targets of discrimination far more frequently than anyone else in the LGBT communities. For example, in February of this year, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality released “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.”

The EXECUTIVE SUMMARY begins:

This study brings to light what is both patently obvious and far too often dismissed from the human rights agenda. Transgender and gender non-conforming people face injustice at every turn: in childhood homes, in school systems that promise to shelter and educate, in harsh and exclusionary workplaces, at the grocery store, the hotel front desk, in doctors’ offices and emergency rooms, before judges and at the hands of landlords, police officers, health care workers and other service providers.

The study provides stories, not just statistics. One recent story comes by way of a June 23, 2011 article by Eliza Gray, “Transitions: What will it take for America to accept transgender people for who they really are?” :

On April 18, a transgender woman named Chrissy Lee Polis went to the women’s bathroom in a Baltimore County McDonald’s. When she came out, two teenage girls approached and spat in her face. Then they threw her to the floor and started kicking her in the head. As a crowd of customers watched, Polis tried to stand up, but the girls dragged her by her hair across the restaurant, ripping the earrings out of her ears. The last thing Polis remembers, before she had a seizure, was spitting blood on the restaurant door. The incident made national news—not because this sort of violence against transgender people is unusual, but because a McDonald’s employee recorded the beating on his cell phone and posted the video on YouTube.

That a member of the transgender communities was at the WH Pride reception is obviously significant. That there is much more work to be done is just as obvious.

And so, from Marisa (with her permission), via a July 1 e-mailing of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition,“The Dichotomy of Transgender Lives”:

This week, two events have reminded us of the dichotomy of the lives of transgender Americans.
On Wednesday, I had the honor and privilege of being one of several hundred who attended the LGBT Pride Reception at the White House. Just prior to the public remarks made by the President of the United States, I was one of 13 attendees, and the only transgender representative, who was ushered in the Diplomatic Reception Room for a personal meeting with President Barack Obama. After our private meeting and the President’s public speech in the East Room, I also got to meet and chat briefly with Vice President Joe Biden.
While I was in the White House talking with the two highest ranking officials of the United States government on behalf of the transgender community, back in Nashville, a local transwoman named Forresta Bee was speaking up about a reported transphobic incident.
According to Ms. Bee, she was at the All-White Affair at LP Field (home of the TN Titans) on June 4, when 101.1 The Beat Jamz DJ Dolewite, of the weeknight radio show Dolewite & Scooby, requested her removal from the makeshift dance floor.
‘Dolewite invited everyone on stage to dance (after the fashion show),’ she says. ‘Everybody was taking pictures and doing videos. The next thing you know, he was saying ‘If you don’t get your Amazon, Shaquille O’ Neal-looking (expletive) off the stage, you better now.’ Then some heavyset guy was tugging my arm and telling me to get off the stage. …’
The incident reported by Ms. Bee occurred just one day after Tracy Morgan’s highly publicized rant at the Ryman Auditorium, also in Nashville.
When several LGBT community leaders met with Mr. Morgan on June 21, I pointed out the problems of harassment and violence against transpeople. …
I concluded my remarks that day by saying that transphobia and homophobia plagues many in the African-American community, and, thus, African-American leaders and spokespeople have a responsibility to stand against bigotry, not make fun of it.
So, at a time when an African-American transgender activist from Nashville got to shake hands and talk with the nation’s first African-American President, another African-American transwoman …, also from Nashville, was standing up for respect and dignity from her own community after being insulted, and made to feel vulnerable and humiliated, at an event she paid to attend.
As we gather together this weekend to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence with those inspirational words ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,’ let us not forget that not all Americans are yet truly equal.
The Transgender community is making progress, but serious challenges remain, and that is why the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition exists to do the work we do.

Marisa is among the LGBT activists who really can take a local and state, grassroots level knowledge and activism, to DC. And she, and activists like her, from across issues and concerns, help provide the much needed accountability in the fight toward making equality “evident” in fact, and not just in words.

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Queer Talk: ‘Human Rights’ (Hillary), ‘States’ Rights’ (Obama)

By Joyce Arnold on 28 June 2011

Joyce Arnold is a liberal Independent activist whose weekly column “Queer Talk” appears on Saturday.

Two events on Monday of this week added to the conversations about marriage equality. One was from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who talked about international LGBT rights as “human rights.” And one from White House press secretary Jay Carney – responding to questions about marriage between same-gender couples from The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler and Bill Press from The Bill Press Show – who talked about “states’ right”. It’s worth noting, as does Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner, that Meckler and Press are not among the “Five writers with LGBT outlets or known for their LGBT writing” who were at the briefing, but not called on by Carney.

The context for both are the unhappy sounds from Queerdom and allies regarding the Obama administration’s spins on LGBT rights, at this moment, particularly marriage equality. To be clear, Clinton’s speech was not a response to the New York vote or a direct challenge to Obama, in whose cabinet she serves. But the contrast between LGBT equality framed as “human rights” and “states’ rights” is still relevant.

On Monday, Clinton spoke at an event co-hosted by the Department of State, and Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies. The scheduled event was in celebration of LGBT Pride Month, and included a panel discussion lead by Under Sec. Maria Otero regarding the status of LGBT people around the world.

You can read the transcript of Clinton’s remarks here. Video here.

She began:

… this is an especially momentous and extraordinary time for us to meet for the State Department’s annual Pride celebration, the third event we’ve had here at State since I became Secretary, and the first following the historic vote in New York, which I think gives such visibility and credibility to everything that so many of you have done over so many years …

Later in the speech, she added this:

If you followed closely … the debate in New York, one of the key votes that was switched at the end was a Republican senator from the Buffalo area who became convinced that it was just not any longer fair for him to see one group of his constituents as different from another. Senators stood up and talked about nieces and nephews and grandchildren and others who are very dear to them, and they don’t want them being objectified or discriminated against. And from their own personal connections and relationships, they began to make the larger connection with somebody else’s niece or nephew or grandchild and what that family must feel like.

No, she doesn’t say, “I support marriage equality,” and yes, I wish she would. Of course, as long as she’s Sec. of State, it’s highly unlikely she will. We’ll see about later. But I think it’s worth noting who she singles out: “a Republican senator from Buffalo.” Obviously the focus should be at the state level, not DC. But I, at least, find it significant that there is no mention of the Obama administration’s position on marriage equality. The only way she could have done that, of course, would have been to follow the same strange story line coming out of the WH, which among other things, emphasizes the right of states to make such decisions.

As AmericaBlog’s Sudbay writes about the WH “sticking with the ‘it’s for the states to decide’ talking point”:

This is when we realize that the White House really is very insular. The people who work there must have no concept of how ridiculous their talking points on same-sex marriage sound in the real world … .

I’d just add, Insider and Access individuals and organizations who continue indefinite support of the administration which is using such “talking points” also appear “very insular.”

Clinton goes on to highlight some of the successful efforts toward LGBT human rights on the international scene, from Honduras to Slovakia, as well as steps taken in the UN, including by the Human Rights Council, two weeks ago, which passed “the first ever UN resolution recognizing the human rights of LGBT people worldwide.” She notes, however, that “all this progress is worth celebrating, but we cannot forget how much work lies ahead. Because let’s just face the facts: LGBT people in many places continue to endure threats, harassment, violence … in public and private.”

As for that Carey “states’ rights” press briefing, an excerpt, via Metro Weekly:

Meckler asked, ‘[L]ast week the President spoke about gay marriage when he
was in New York and … talked about how this has been the province of the state … referring to what was happening in the debate in New York, he said that’s the power of democracy at work. Does that mean that he also respects the outcome of democracy at work in California where voters rejected the idea of gay marriage?’ …
MR. CARNEY: Well, I think as you saw in the decision we announced that we would no longer – this administration would no longer be participants defending the Defense of Marriage Act because we do not believe it’s constitutional, that it’s precisely because of his belief that this was a matter that needs to be decided by the states. So without commenting on a particular other state, I think he was making that clear with regard to the action in New York

Carney’s responses to follow-up questions from Meckler, and then from Press, didn’t get any better.

In addition to Clinton’s speech providing some comparison and context, Carey’s remarks also came as not only LGBTs and “progressives,” but mainstream media and conservatives, question Obama’s stance on marriage equality. From a column by Maureen Dowd in which she writes “Our president likes to be on both sides at once,” and an NY Times editorial, “Gay Marriage: Where’s Mr. Obama?,” to comments from former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum in which he says, “I was wrong about same-sex marriage,” and the reports that, among other Republicans, Ken Melhman, former head of the RNC, “played a key role in the NY marriage victory” – it’s clear that a “states’ rights” framing isn’t working.

I’m not sure which is worse: If the WH doesn’t realize that, or if it does and continues with the spin anyway. Whatever, it’s certainly not an example of leading. Or even of very good politics.

(An earlier, “In the News” version of this piece has additional quotes from Secretary of State Clinton’s “The Human Rights of LGBT People and U.S. Foreign Policy” speech.)

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DADT Discharges Continue

By Taylor Marsh on 27 June 2011

From the Advocate:

The Pentagon confirmed Monday that more service members have been discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” pending certification of the policy’s repeal, with one individual’s discharge approved as recently as Thursday. A total of four airmen have been discharged under the policy in the last several weeks, Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez confirmed Monday.

Bob Gates leaves on Thursday, with Leon Panetta due to take charge, but there’s no evidence the discharges will stop anytime soon.

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The Great Equivocator

By Taylor Marsh on 26 June 2011

With each equivocation, the man in the Oval Office shields his identity and cloaks who the real Barack Obama is. – Maureen Dowd

In a dead on devastating piece, I still have to say… Come come, Ms. Dowd, surely you jest.

Barack Obama is The Great Equivocator. It’s who he is.

Nate Silver provides important perspective:

But the type of leadership that Mr. Cuomo exercised — setting a lofty goal, refusing to take no for an answer and using every tool at his disposal to achieve it — is reminiscent of the stories sometimes told about with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had perhaps the most impressive record of legislative accomplishment of any recent president.
It’s also a brand of leadership that many Democrats I speak with feel is lacking in President Obama.

This screen capture of the White House homepage, which has been live until recently, is representative of Barack Obama. When I visited the White House site and this image came up I found it jarring. Just why did Obama reelect pick this photo of Obama looking upward (an image they’ve used before), making it appear he’s got his head in the clouds and his nose in the air? It’s the oddest, most out of touch photo possible, aloof, but it does have a regal air to it reflecting the hubris of the man and his presidency. Someone who doesn’t so much care about people’s concerns as he does about projecting an image he finds presidential, even if it makes him look unreachable, out of touch, which it remains, with his “leadership” more in the minds of his speechwriters than in evidence through his actions.

As for Dowd invoking Catholic clergy, because of his two-faced political marketing he’s actually worse than New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan she mentions in her column, who as a representative of the Catholic Church is predictably reprehensible on marriage equality. Remember that the Catholic Church won’t give women power either and they actually might have been able to save these corrupt men from raping and pillaging the youth of the young boys under their charge.

Hey Barack, This is How It’s Done

By Taylor Marsh on 25 June 2011

“New York has finally torn down the barrier that has prevented same-sex couples from exercising the freedom to marry and from receiving the fundamental protections that so many couples and families take for granted,” Cuomo said in a statement. “With the world watching, the Legislature, by a bipartisan vote, has said that all New Yorkers are equal under the law.” – New York legalizes same-sex marriage in win for gay rights advocates

Evolve my a–.

This is about political calculations, which makes it indefensible.

Pres. Obama’s stance on gay marriage is now a character issue; the moral equivalency of turning away from moving on as history rounds the bend. If you’re to the RIGHT of GOP legislators who have seen the civil rights foundation of marriage equality, you have no business “leading” the Democratic Party.

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.” – New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law

What an embarrassment for Pres. Obama.

When Republicans can make such eloquent statements, while Obama remains perfectly content with the status quo in order to court conservatives for 2012, the reasons to be proud he’s the head of the Democratic Party become fewer and fewer. It now gets down to making excuses for him. Unfortunately, there are none.

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Queer Talk: NY Marriage Vote Passes UPDATED

By Joyce Arnold on 24 June 2011

FIRST GOP CONTROLLED
STATE LEGISLATURE PASSES
GAY MARRIAGE

UPDATE 4: Bill is passed. Cheers in the chamber, and parties break out, including in front of the Stonewall Inn.

UPDATE 3: Vote apparently coming soon. Sen. Grisanti says he’ll vote for, a change from earlier position. GetEQUAL tweets:

RT @danfotou Thank you NY Senator Mark Grisanti for evolving! @BarackObama #evolvealready

UPDATE 2: Amendment 36-26 (first reported incorrectly, that the bill had passed)

UPDATE: Senate is now dealing with related amendments to the main, marriage bill.

Via AmericaBlog : “7:54 PM: The compromise religious amendments to the marriage bill passed by a margin on 82 – 47. Now over to the Senate for real.”

The reporting and tweeting on this bill has been fast and furious for the last couple of days, with long periods in between of not knowing what was happening, or if the vote would even occur. Now the needed compromise religious amendments have made it out of the Assembly, and as Sudbay says, the Senate vote is “for real.” When, exactly, isn’t known, but if this passes, the passage of the bill would double the number of same-gender marriages already recognized in five other states, and in DC.

You can watch live here.

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‘American Dream Movement’ Intends to Rival Tea Party from the Left

By Taylor Marsh on 24 June 2011

From Chris Cilliza, who doesn’t believe Van Jones can replicate on the Left what the Tea Party did on the Right. Of course, Cilizza says it’s “unlikely,” which in traditional journo speak means not a chance in hell.

“We think we can do what the tea party did,” Jones said in an interview with The Fix. “They stepped forward under a common banner, and everybody took them seriously. Polls suggest there are more people out there who have a different view of the economy, but who have not stepped forward yet under a common banner.”

Cilizza gets points from me for using “liberal” in the title of his post. I’ve never called myself a progressive, though I support most of what movement progressives are doing and admire them greatly. I just don’t have much use for congressional progressives and their caucus who caved on health care, causing more grief for Democrats than if they’d stood up and fought.

Unlike One Nation, in which long-standing liberal groups agreed to collaborate, Jones’ movement is hoping to attract people who are ideologically aligned but not politically active. Those people will define their own goals. But Jones is also in conversations with many of the labor and civil-rights groups that were involved in the One Nation effort. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recorded a web video for the campaign.
Institutional involvement does not go against the tea-party model. The tea-party movement has its own benefactors — Americans for Prosperity, Our Country Deserves Better PAC, and other groups backed by longtime Republican donors and strategists. Those groups capitalized on disparate protest movements around the country, many of whom say they have no connection to the political battles fought in their name.
Still, it will likely be hard to get liberals and supporters of more progressive economic policy to rally in the same way. Tea-party activists tend to be wealthy and well-educated; Jones is hoping to reach unemployed veterans, struggling homeowners, and other groups who likely have less time to organize and grow more politically active…

I’m skeptical for one reason. If you’re going to stand up to feckless Democratic “leadership” the place to start would have been to primary Pres. Obama, no matter the outcome or the inevitable race-baiting that would occur. But because the inevitable would have manifested in a loss it wasn’t attempted. There is simply no evidence that today’s progressive Democrats have the taste for the jugular you have to have to become a Left version of the Tea Party, a group that takes no political prisoners.

A debate on Pres. Obama adopting Bush foreign policy tactics, as well as adopting Republican economics, would have been worthy of the effort. Because no one person is more important than the liberal policies that have allowed generations of Americans to maintain middle class lifestyles in the midst of herculean efforts to stack the deck for the richest against the working class who made American the great country it’s been since founded.

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Obama Reelect Calculates Against Gay Marriage

By Taylor Marsh on 23 June 2011

Obama’s gay supporters — led by entertainment titan David Geffen — have urged him to back gay marriage, as have a roster of liberal Hollywood celebrities, from Jane Lynch to Ellen DeGeneres. But Obama has been cautious, with Democratic operatives admitting the issue could provoke a backlash among independents and even church-going blacks and Hispanics. – President Obama’s gay marriage problem

via Joe Subday

Earth to “gay community,” Pres. Obama doesn’t lead, he follows polls, trends and voting blocks. So, he likely won’t have any trouble at tonight’s fundraiser, even if New York actually votes on marriage equality today and passes it.

From New York:

Others, though opposed to gay marriage, said they would not support even bringing the bill up for a vote without stronger religious protections than Gov. Cuomo included in his legislation.
The language would ensure that religious groups cannot be sued if they refuse to cater to gay couples, sources said.
It would also block the state from penalizing, discriminating against or denying benefits to religious groups by stripping them of their tax-exempt status or their property tax breaks, they said.

Out of the mouth of Karl Rove slips a bit of truth: Even a small drop in the share of black voters would wipe out his winning margin in North Carolina.

Nate Silver did a post in April on opponents of marriage equality being in the minority. It didn’t, however, address religious communities like African Americans and Hispanics, which even if a minority is against marriage equality, they still have the power to tilt a state away from Pres. Obama in 2012.

Out of New York’s battle:

The event also drew support from Bishop Harry Jackson, the senior pastor at Hope Christian Church in Maryland. Jackson has emerged as the leading African-American voice opposing gay marriage.
“What we have today is a group of people trying to hitchhike on or highjack or take the legacy of the real civil rights movement and make it their own,” Jackson said. “Most African Americans are incensed by this; thus we find in every state a huge majority of African-American voters have voted against same-sex marriage.”

Barack Obama is thinking of his own interests first. The LGBT community simply doesn’t matter to him as much as African American and even Hispanic religious voters, with Obama reelect calculating these two necessary blocks aren’t ready to support gay marriage.

I don’t know why this is so hard to understand or why the LGBT community continues a campaign to persuade Pres. Obama, which will never happen.

“Evolving” on gay marriage is code meant to pacify another zombie voter group who thinks Pres. Obama is their only option.

It brings me to Jon Huntsman’s declaration that’s similar to Obama’s, if more openly honest. He adamantly says redefining marriage is a non-starter, which I think is ridiculous, but we’ll leave that alone, as Obama has the same stance, he’s just more coy about how he says it, stringing the LGBT community along through his “evolving” charade.

Huntsman also says there hasn’t been enough movement on equality, meaning all the legal hurdles put in place to deny health care sharing, death benefits, etc.

If the LGBT community’s political savvy would evolve beyond their singleminded campaign to arm twist Pres. Obama to “evolve already,” which isn’t going to happen, they’d be asking the Huntsman campaign (or any other presidential candidate they could find to build critical mass) for a sit down with him to talk about their issues, asking the candidate to take an equality pledge up as far as possible, even if today it stops short of marriage equality on the national level.

Yes, this sucks. But it’s embarrassing to see the LGBT community running into immovable political walls continually, because they won’t accept or acknowledge Pres. Obama’s self motivation.

Civil union is not marriage, but Pres. Obama isn’t going to change his stance and it’s because his reelection team has calculated that losing African American and Hispanic religious voters in 2012 could cost Obama reelection.

It has absolutely nothing to do with “evolving.”

The issue is personal to the LGBT community, but to Pres. Obama it’s a practical political calculation.

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Bachmann Stars, Romney Skates, Pawlenty Blows It

By Taylor Marsh on 14 June 2011

Granted, it was a fundraiser, not a free rally. But the empty seats were hard to miss. The top level of the 2,200-seat concert hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for Performing Arts was entirely empty, as were the seats along the side of the second and third levels. – Obama fundraiser underwhelms

E.J. Dionne didn’t expect it, but it didn’t surprise me at all after watching her during the budget battle. So, not only was Michele Bachmann the only one who had any star quality, she made news too. But she should have skipped this very weird webvid of her announcement.

Tim Pawlenty blew it big time. What the strategy on that was all about is anyone’s guess, but it was a colossal mistake. It’s also hard to imagine T-Paw not panicking a bit upon imagining his Iowa chances vanishing with Bachmann’s strong performance. His record may delight Republicans, but he has no presence at all. I don’t now how he comes back from this, as his first debate was a snooze.

Mitt Romney made it through untouched, choosing to draw a picture for viewers of him debating Obama, saying to everyone I’m your nominee. He also tried to weave an answer on Afghanistan that didn’t offend Republican primary voters, while having it both ways by not trying to alienate the general election voter, most of whom want out of Afghanistan.

If Jon Huntsman was watching and you can bet he was, he’s got to sense Romney’s vulnerable to a Republican who actually knows his mind and is clear on matters of foreign policy.

Republicans will now have to deal with Rep. Bachmann. Her politics are not only representative of the Tea Party, but also of their extreme views. From TeamBachmann on Twitter:

Here’s a #prolife solution from MB: Let’s require mothers to hear the heartbeat before getting an abortion. #cnndebate

Few things are as offensive coming from a conservative than demanding government intervene in a woman’s most wrenching decision and moment in her life, while being subjected to steps along the way that are beyond any legal requirement of Roe or Griswold. I’d really like to take Republicans seriously, but this type of rhetoric against women’s freedoms is reprehensible from an American political party that lectures everyone on freedom and liberty.

Obama’s Libya policy, such as there is one, wasn’t popular last night either and I’d like to talk further about foreign policy, but John King didn’t introduce it until there was around 15 minutes left in the 2-hour debate.

Where Jon Huntsman fits in this group, well, he doesn’t. Maybe that will be his ace if he decides to get in, which is what everyone is waiting to see.

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Queer Talk: Let us Pray

By Joyce Arnold on 11 June 2011

Joyce Arnold is a liberal Independent activist whose weekly column “Queer Talk” appears on Saturday.

Our main players today: Rick Perry; the American Family Association; and Old Navy. There will be brief a appearance by a couple of polls.

The story of Rick Perry and his initiation of “The Response: A Call to Prayer for a nation in crisis” was a little slow in taking off beyond Texas. After all, it’s Rick Perry, governor of Texas, who is probably best known nationally for his conversation about Texas seceding from the union. Again. And for complaining about the evils of the federal government, while also taking money from the same, and complaining about not getting more.

From Think Progress, on Friday:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) looks increasingly likely to enter the 2012 presidential race, with sources telling the Daily Caller he is ‘90 percent’ in.

With that in mind, last Saturday Perry announced an “apolitical” event, a “day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation.” Perry, via The Response :

America is in the midst of a historic crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. The youth of America are in grave peril economically, socially, and, most of all, morally. There are threats emerging within our nation and beyond our borders beyond our power to solve. …

Or as Perry said in an invitation to governors: (via Texas Tribune)

Given the trials that beset our nation and the world, from the global economic downturn to natural disasters, the lingering danger of terrorism and continued debasement of our culture, I believe it is time to convene the leaders from each of our United States in a day of prayer and fasting.

The event is organized and funded by the American Family Association, and will be held on August 6, at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Via the Tribune: “Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor had been planning the event since December and was comfortable with the Tupelo, Miss.-based AFA as a host … . ”

Well, sure he’s “comfortable” with them. They’re giving him cover, and funding, for a “Look at me!” national moment. And what better way to establish your Very Red credentials than associating with the AFA? The Houston Chronicle:

… (AFA), a nonprofit that operates a network of 192 radio stations with 2 million followers that has been labeled a ‘hate group’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center for what the SPLC calls the dissemination of ‘known falsehoods’ about homosexuality. The AFA also has called for numerous boycotts against companies and entities it says ‘promote the homosexual agenda.’ …
Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Perry, defended the governor’s association with AFA. … She also denied that the event was politically motivated, saying Perry simply felt it was important to bring people together in prayer.

If any blanks still need to be filled in, this from Think Progress:

The large prayer event … will include anti-LGBT themes and rhetoric, as confirmed by the host organization. Tim Wildmon, president of (AFA) …, acknowledged that one of the purposes of ‘The Response’ is to end the ‘increasing acceptance of homosexuality’ by American society.

Polls (see below) do support that last assertion.

AFA multi-tasks, and while organizing this apolitical event for a sitting governor, they continue their boycotting actions. From RightWingWatch:

Following their not-so-successful boycott campaign of Home Depot over the company’s sponsorship of gay pride parades, leaders of the American Family Association have called for the boycott of Old Navy because the store is planning to sell shirts to benefit the anti-suicide, anti-bullying It Gets Better Project. Bryan Fischer, the group’s Director of Issues Analysis, … urged his listeners to “drop by your Old Navy store … and tell them you’re not going to shop at Old Navy until they get their minds right” … .

For a little context, which provides indications of why the AFA, Perry and such Right minded people are so intent on “the homosexuals” (along with “abortionists,” “illegals,” etc.), two polls find growing support for Queerdom. I think Perry is focused more on the purely political than the moral, but nothing says “Look Right at me!” better than a candidate wrapped in the flag (U.S., not state; his handlers may have to remind him about this), very sincere, brow furrowed head bowed in prayer, before a few thousand people and national media.

From American Progress:

A new poll from the Center for American Progress shows that the American public strongly supports workplace nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender people. … This support comes at a time when new research shows just how much dis- crimination and harassment this population faces on the job. …
Seventy- five percent of likely voters say they favor ‘protecting gay and lesbian people from dis- crimination in employment,’ while 73 percent say they favor these protections for ‘gay, lesbian, and transgender people.’ …
The survey also found that 9 of out 10 voters erroneously think that a federal law is already in place protecting gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination.

The Employment Nondiscrimination Act was first introduced in 1994. Multiple introductions followed, the most recent in April of this year. We don’t seem to be able to get beyond “introductions.”

And from Gay Politics:

More than 60 percent of American adults say it would not matter to them if a candidate for president was gay, according to a new poll from Pew Research … . Thirty-three percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support a gay candidate.
The poll showed gay candidates were more acceptable than candidates who had extramarital affairs, who did not believe in God or who had never held elective office.

Nothing gay implied, but Perry does seem to meet all three of the preferences – no extramarital affairs; believes in God; has held elective office as governor, for what feels like a very long time. I’d love for him to leave Austin, but not if it means a move to DC.

Visit Facebook site “Protest of Rick Perry’s Prayer Event” to learn about a “peaceful demonstration to protest ‘The Response …’” There are options for those who can’t attend, including those who do not live in Texas, and who want to urge their governors to “reject Perry’s invitation.”

Of many possible conclusions to all of this: separation of church and state is mostly a fantasy.

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Health Care ACA on Trial

By Taylor Marsh on 09 June 2011

In the most important appeal of the Obamacare constitutional saga, today was the best day yet for individual freedom. The government’s lawyer, Neal Katyal, spent most of the hearing on the ropes, with the judicial panel extremely cautious not to extend federal power beyond its present outer limits of regulating economic activity that has a substantial aggregate effect on interstate commerce. – Cato

Log this under the bad memory file. Someone should have figured out a way that ACA wouldn’t have been so easily challenged. But that’s spilled, sour milk, though it’s the reason for the graphic, as we still need health care reform.

Not everyone agrees with the quote above, though most of the things I have read point to the fact that acting Solicitor General Neal K. Katyal for the Obama administration got grilled on high.

Cato’s Ilya Shapiro certainly was happy:

Countless times, Judges Dubina and Marcus demanded that the government articulate constitutional limiting principles to the power it asserted. And countless times they pointed out that never in history has Congress tried to compel people to engage in commerce as a means of regulating commerce. Even Judge Hull, reputed to be the most liberal member of the panel, conducted a withering cross-examination to establish that the individual mandate didn’t help that many people get affordable care, that the majority of people currently without coverage would be exempt from the requirement (presumably due to their income level).
In short, while we should never read too much into an oral argument, I’m more optimistic about this case now than any other.

But as Jonathan Cohn writes in a good rundown, if you read other reviews on what happened it’s a bit more mixed.

From Ian Millhiser:

The plaintiffs in this case make the most common argument conservatives levy against the ACA — its provision requiring most Americans to either carry health insurance or pay slightly more income taxes violates the Constitution because Congress cannot “regulate inactivity” — only the states have this power — and therefore people who don’t buy insurance are somehow off limits.
The judges, however, expressed extreme skepticism at this argument. At one point, Judge Frank Hull, a conservative Clinton appointee nominated as part of a compromise with the GOP-controlled Senate, announced outright that “this whole inactivity business just doesn’t get me.” Judge Stanley Marcus, a similar compromise Clinton appointee, said on several occasions that the plaintiffs’ entire states’ rights theory didn’t make sense.

Segue to , acting Solicitor General Neal K. Katyal for the Obama administration:

Mr. Katyal said that the insurance mandate clearly had an economic rationale because governments, hospitals and the privately insured end up shouldering costs for uninsured patients who cannot pay. That rationale, he said, satisfies the test set by the Supreme Court in a string of prior decisions: that the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
What the Supreme Court has never considered is whether a choice to not buy a product can be considered an “activity” that can be regulated, as the government asserts.

Nobody knows how this one is going to end. The next hearing is in September in D.C.

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Queer Talk: A Measure of Pride

By Joyce Arnold on 04 June 2011

Joyce Arnold is a liberal Independent activist whose weekly column “Queer Talk” appears on Saturday.

Obama proclaims Pride Month, and puts up a web page just for Queerdom. So we know: One, it’s LGBT Pride time. Two, it’s 2012 campaign time. A week earlier, the Human Rights Campaign helped kick-off the Obama re-election efforts with an early, unsurprising, and unequivocal endorsement. These three actions follow the assertion by “key figures” and “prominent donors” a couple of weeks ago that, as a Politico article headlined it, “Gay donors fuel President Obama’s 2012 campaign.” Coordination with the O Campaign is assumed (at least by me). That’s how Insider and Access games are played.

All – the “gay donors” claims; the HRC endorsement; the official WH Pride proclamation; the “you get your very own WH web page” for Queerdom – had mixed receptions. Some think all of this is great, or at least shows good efforts. Some think it doesn’t meet the “fierce advocacy” test. Or as GetEQUAL put it in a letter to Obama: “We’ve got Pride, now it’s time to GetEQUAL.”

How about we start with this: On the matter of LGBT equality, yes, the Dems in general and Obama specifically, are “better than” the Reps. That, however, is a “how low can you go” bar by which to measure. Comparing what the Dems in general, and Obama specifically, promise regarding LGBT equality, and what they actually do, is a more meaningful measure. You don’t discount what’s been accomplished, but neither do you pretend they couldn’t have done more. Or give them a free ride endorsement into the “winning the future” horizon.

While people “wrestle” and “evolve,” while cautious and incremental steps are what pass for “fierce advocacy,” while “political expediency” is allowed unquestioned control of “what gets done” … inequality continues to define the lives of millions. When you follow the path as designed by the Insider and Access level of advocacy in our two party front for the Oligarchy, you do what the RNC or the DNC want done. And although exceptions occur, in the Insider and Access world, even the “we are holding you publicly accountable” moments are carefully crafted for Outsider consumption, and the Insiders are all in on the crafting.

Bill Clinton first issued a presidential proclamation regarding “Pride Month,” and after eight W. years without such, President Obama re-introduced the practice in his first year in the WH. This year’s “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month” proclamation can be read at the new website, “Winning the Future: President Obama and the LGBT Community.” A list of pro-LGBT related accomplishments as defined by the O administration is included. And obviously, what has been accomplished is good. But there’s less here than was reasonably expected, given candidate Obama’s “fierce advocacy” claims. The wording of this year’s Pride proclamation is one measure of his pride in his Insider’s view accomplishments. From the outside, things appear to remain in the evolving, wrestling stage. In some ways, the evolutionary direction seems to be more fuzzy than it was pre-WH.

On the website: “This site is a tool for you to learn about how President Obama and his team are working to win the future for LGBT Americans.” In general, the “Winning the Future” spin doesn’t work for me. I get planning ahead. But this focus on the “future” seems a bit too convenient. Like “evolving,” it can always be pushed out just a bit further.

Joe Sudbay writes:

You may recall that Obama first told me he was ‘evolving’ on the marriage issue back on October 27, 2010. Well, he’s still not there.
Yesterday, the President did ‘proclaim June 2011 as … Pride Month.’ But, funny thing (or not), the Proclamation doesn’t mention anything about marriage or even civil unions. MetroWeekly’s Chris Geidner reported on this finding:
‘There is no mention of relationship recognition, despite the fact that on Feb. 23, Attorney General Eric Holder, announced that the president had determined that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The Department of Justice subsequently ended its defense of that portion of the law in ongoing court challenges.

Geidner goes on to note that in Obama’s 2010 proclamation, he included that “we must … repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.” In 2009 he said he “support…(s) civil unions and Federal rights for LGBT couples.”

Later, Geidner points out that “‘The Obama Administration’s Commitment to Winning the Future for the LGBT Community’ fact sheet’ has a more expansive list of ‘accomplishments’ than the proclamation, including “three bullet points about future progress. The ‘progress’ points all relate, at least in part, to relationship recognition — a topic absent from Tuesday’s proclamation.”

Of course, all of this is tied to 2012. Though just who it is the O campaign is seeking to reassure with its sometimes more fuzzy than fierce positioning is unclear. As polls show growing and even majority support for LGBT equality in general; and as there’s every reason to guess that whoever emerges as the Republican candidate will not claim anything like ardent advocacy for LGBT rights … who is it Obama is concerned about?

A photo on the “Winning the Future” LGBT website was taken on June 17, 2009, when Obama signed an executive order increasing benefits for Federal employees with same-gender partners. When I saved it for possible use, I noticed how it was tagged on the website: “lgbt hero image.” That, apparently, is how the O campaign is measuring their pride in accomplishments for Queerdom, at “hero” heights.

I tend to measure accomplishments, and pride in accomplishments, by way of employment non-discrimination protection; housing protection; marriage equality; the end of DADT discharges while the repeal process plays out; prosecution of hate crimes; LGBT kids free to go to proms, protected from bullying … things like that. And more often than not, those I most admire and appreciate are the people – usually at the non-Insider level – who spend years and decades working to make such things happen. These people are the real heroes, the real standard for the measure of pride in being and living as who they are.

Happy Pride, everyone.

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