Palin no friend to gays and lesbians

Media claims about Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska do not fit the facts. Specifically, NYT columnist David Brooks asserted "she's pretty progressive on gay and lesbian issues." Au contraire:

...as Media Matters for America has documented, while Palin vetoed a bill in 2006 that would have prevented state officials from granting spousal benefits, her actions followed a 2005 Alaska Supreme Court ruling [PDF] that the state's policy of denying spousal benefits to same-sex partners of public employees violated the Alaska Constitution and a 2006 state Supreme Court order [PDF] requiring the state to issue regulations granting such benefits by January 1, 2007.

Palin followed the ruling begrudgingly:

In the veto message, Palin's office stated that she disagreed with the Alaska Supreme Court's actions: "The Governor's veto does not signal any change or modification to her disagreement with the action and order by the Alaska Supreme Court."

She's no maverick on LGBTQ issues.

Further, as a candidate for governor, Palin also reportedly supported efforts to prohibit state benefits for same-sex couples. The Anchorage Daily News reported on August 6, 2006, that Palin believes "[e]lected officials can't defy the court when it comes to how rights are applied, she said, but she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to homosexual couples. 'I believe that honoring the family structure is that important,' Palin said. She said she doesn't know if people choose to be gay." [Emphasis added.]

Haven't we heard too many times that LGBTQs are not part of a legit family structure? Conservatives (and sadly some Democrats) reject that we are a naturally-occurring sexual minority. Pfft. Pffft! Forget science. Republicans cling to archaic thinking. I wonder when did Sarah choose to be hetero?

Make no mistake, Gov. Sarah Palin is a hard-line conservative. For trustworthy and astute political analysis (bookmark her blog!), see Anglachel's posts on McCain-Palin here and here. For me, a liberal left-of-center lesbian who opposes Obama for reasons I've reiterated numerous times here at The RealSpiel, the following nugget from Anglachel's, Basic Instinct, on McCain-Palin, sounded all too familiar:

The Obama campaign treated the Clinton Democrat constituency and our champions with disdain and hostility, right down to the roll call vote. "You have no where else to go," is what we were told week after week when we said, no, stupid, it's not race, its the economy. It's the lack of partisan committment. It's the refusal to address our concerns about the social safety net. The magninimity [sic] of the Clintons and their unshakeable [sic] loyalty to the party, fully on display at the convention, threw the petty selfishness and insecurity of the Obamacans into relief.

The general election is now in doubt for the Democrats because Obama has spent most of a year kicking the Clinton Democrats, the base of the party, to the curb. His refusal to even consider our candidate for the ticket shows he puts his emotional satisfaction ahead of the political needs of the party. The campaign's first reaction to Palin was an attack on the person, exactly in the mode of their hateful attacks on Hillary - sexist, disdainful, mocking, and crude....

Shakesville has initiated their famous Sexism Watch on Palin as they did under the feminist aegis of Melissa McEwan on the attacks aimed at Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. Too often in Hillary's case, so-called liberals demonstrated their chosen sexist tendencies. Now they hurl ugly misogynistic rants toward Sarah Palin that has been so typical of Obama supporters. Such as:

“What is this, the Vagina Epilogue?”

From the previous link, Violet sums up the electoral implications of Palin as veep on the McCain ticket:

Yesterday I wrote that the possums will lose this election for Obama by alienating every woman in America who hasn’t already run screaming from the sexism in the Democratic party. Well, not every woman, but enough. Enough women will either stay home or vote for Sarah Palin (not McCain) to make that nut.

They’ll do so not out of spite and not because they’re irrational. They’ll do so because they will have decided that the critical thing, right here, right now, is not to be bound by some historical allegiance to the party that used to be the home of women’s rights, but to strike a hard blow against the sexism and misogny of today.

I can forgive a protest vote for McCain-Palin after having witnessed the shameful treatment of partisan loyalist Hillary Clinton from inside the party.

However, be not deceived that Palin is a friend to gays and lesbians. Given the chance, I daresay she would support a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage, oppose ENDA, and high-five the ban on gays in the military. She's not a ballot option I will entertain for a nanosecond.

To be true to my liberal principles, and after checking the write-in rules of my state, I will lodge a presidential protest vote in November with the Green Party that placed a woman at the top of its ticket and fully embraces LGBTQ equality including "housing, jobs, civil marriage, medical benefits, child custody, and in all areas of life provided to all other citizens" and women's rights.

I don't give Obama high marks on LGBTQ issues or the Democratic Party that used to be the champion of civil rights, a subject of another RealSpiel post coming soon.

Comments captured below:

No way, no how, no Obama

From the convention floor after Hillary's speech, Anne Price-Mills, an African-American woman and a delegate for Clinton, summed up why she's still in Hill's camp and uncommitted to Obama (with emphasis):

Tell me, why is this so important to you? What does this moment mean to you?

ANNE PRICE-MILLS, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Hillary Clinton proved to me tonight that she would have made an excellent president. She was presidential tonight. She's the evidence that women have come so far and to let gender be a hindrance, to let a phenomenal, an intelligent, a powerful, a moving, a motivating person not move us into the next generation, not move us into the future that we deserve, not move us into the green economy that we deserve, not being able to address the concerns that we deserve, and now everybody just want us to suddenly shift.

You just saw it yourselves. You saw it yourself; you know that was a presidential speech. You know it. When you guys look back at the end of this week and you start to tear apart the speeches and you will, you know that was a presidential speech.

She did everything for Obama that she was supposed to do. Now it's time for him to step up and do what he's supposed to do.

MALVEAUX: Will you vote for her when you cast your votes later in the week?

PRICE-MILLS: I was selected to come here as a delegate for Clinton. I will vote for Clinton.

You ask me about my personal vote in November? Obama has two months. I won't vote for McCain. But he has to get me there and I haven't connected with him. Experience speaks to me. I ask everybody all the time, I said, would you take us to heal us? Would you take somebody straight out of Harvard, even if they had the education, and put them as a CEO in the company?

MALVEAUX: Tell me the kind of connection you felt with Hillary Clinton.

PRICE-MILLS: I see in Hillary, I saw in Hillary what my potential future could be. I saw more than just dreams. I saw things that could be reality.

In her eyes and in her words, I could envision the reality of knowing that we can actually have green jobs instead of talks. That we could have the image that we once have of a United States that was respected and that went out and did the jobs that we're supposed to do on the global level. I saw the country that we strived to be and wanted to be and she could have made it happen.

MALVEAUX: Will you cast that vote for him in November? Will you cast your vote for Barack Obama in November or will you vote for McCain or not vote at all?

PRICE-MILLS: I will not vote for McCain. I will not vote for McCain. But for the first time since I was 18, and that's been a long time, I may be faced with something I don't want to have to deal with.

I've never not voted. I am one of the strongest Democrats I know. I call up all my family and say, Carl, you need to get out the house, I don't care how much rain is pouring down. I don't what's going on in your schedule, you need to vote.

For the first time I'm faced with not being a person who calls them and says go vote. They may have to call me and tell me and remind me of how hard and how long we strived to get to the right to vote, the right to be here.

Experience counts. I don't care what anybody told you. And his resume is just --

Anne Price-Mills never filled in the blank about Obama's résumé but I can guess. It's lacking.

Obama isn't the best choice for the Democratic presidential nominee at this time in history. Hillary is.

With the highest respect for Hillary's call for unity, I must be true to myself. I own my vote and it must be earned. I will not reward a party that has betrayed Clinton Democrats, turned a blind eye to sexism, and allowed a rookie U.S. senator with a thin résumé to usurp the party because of why? Money?! Sexism? Clinton-hatred? The party has disgracefully lost its way especially in taking action on women's rights.

I have previously written:

I can't speak for others but my opposition is:

• about protesting a party that's sexist, corrupt, and out of touch
  

• about throwing out party leadership by abstaining from their Anointed One
  

• about a nomination process that used undemocratic means, i.e., caucuses, that made the Democratic party's name a joke

• about the injustice of punishing MI and FL but giving NH, IA, and SC waivers when those states also violated the Rulz
  

• about the dismissal of women and the working class by claiming we have no other political option other than voting Democratic
  

• about the DNC rigging the nomination to wrangle their cash cow

• about nominating the least qualified candidate of the field

• about Obama's complicity in a dirty-tricks campaign of false racial smears, sexism, and okey doke politics

• about manipulating the press propaganda machine to favor The One

• about embracing homophobes and playing the LGBT community for suckers

• about voting for "the lesser of two evils" that insidiously enables evil, hypocrisy, and complacency

• about rejecting the extortion of my vote through intimidation and fear-mongering
  

• about protesting the abandonment of constitutional principles for political capital.
  

I'm probably forgetting other important motives, but in short, I am fed up and revolting against corruption, sexism, exploitation of racial tensions, homophobia, and the plutocracy of both parties.

I hold Howard Dean, the biased anti-Clinton DNC, and the barking mad Obama wingnuts responsible for discrediting the Democratic party that's supposed to represent liberal principles and to stand up for democratic policies.

The party should count its lucky stars that I plan to vote for down-ticket Democrats. But...

No way, no how, no Obama.

Hillary Clinton is simply the best

After a long, long absence, I was compelled to comment having been motivated by the absolutely phenomenal speech Hillary Clinton delivered a few hours ago.

Now that is how a president leads and how a real Democrat behaves.

I will continue to fight to reform the party of The One, an un-democratic party I no longer recognize, and a so-called liberal blogosphere that has transformed into a frat boy club that spread right-wing Clinton-hating memes like a vicious virus.

This early morning, I take solace in Harriett Tubman's words as quoted by Hillary:

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

POSTSCRIPT: The national media continue to eviscerate their credibility. Did they ever have any?