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:

Survived with Pride

M'yow! I would have loved to have partied with the crowd in this video. Diana Ross and Ru Paul perform, I Will Survive, an LGBTQ classic. Filmed in West Hollywood, CA in January 1996. I can't tell how many times I've seen drag queens perform this song.

Some day I'll tell the story of how my hometown underground of gay guys and a St. Louis transvestite saved me as a teen lesbian from small-town despair, isolation, and the closet. Discovering the community set me free and I survived.

Especially poignant lyric in political terms: "... now I'm saving all my loving for someone who's loving me..." About time, doncha think?

Via. The Gloria Gaynor version.

Sexocrites strike a blow for irony

A pair of wingnut weasels:

Two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43, dubbed the Marriage Protection Amendment. If ratified, the bill would amend the United States Constitution to state that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).

Craig, who entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, was detained and charged for attempting to engage in sexual activity with a male undercover police officer. His arrest and plea became public two months later. At that time, Craig attempted to withdraw his plea and enter a new plea of not guilty. To date, his efforts have been denied by the courts.

In July of 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of a prostitution firm owned by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, commonly known as The DC Madam.

With a Democratic controlled Congress it is unlikely the bill will be brought up for a vote in either the Senate or House of Representatives.

Craig and Vitter mocked their marriages so natch these compulsive sexocrites need a scapegoat. Attacking same-sex marriage--attempting to ban it by codifying discrimination into the Constitution--is such a tired, very tired, old flim-flam and quite telling about who is undermining the sanctity of marriage. It's as if rabid homophobes wear signs around their necks that beg, "Investigate me! I've got a secret sex scandal."

What's outrageous is that these two bozos named the bill the Marriage Protection Amendment. If I didn't know better, I would swear the story hailed from The Onion.

Hat tip to egalia who wrote of the "lusty senators"...

Suffice it to say, the Marriage Protection Amendment does not read: Thou shalt not publicly humiliate your wife by coveting another man in a bathroom stall. Nor does it read: Thou shalt not publicly humiliate your wife by fooling around with prostitutes....

...Apparently, the senate bad boyz want to return to the days when they were the laughingstock of the nation.

Monday catch-up, Tuesday predictions

Since I've been somewhat unplugged for the past few days, checked in with various sources for a little catch-up. As we head toward Tuesday's primaries...

SurveyUSA tracking poll in Indiana:

24 hours untill [sic] votes are counted in the Indiana Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama in the symbolically important popular vote, and possibly by enough to pick up more than a trivial number of net Convention delegates, according to SurveyUSA’s final pre-primary tracking poll conducted for WCPO-TV Cincinnati and WHAS-TV Louisville. In 4 tracking polls over the past 5 weeks, Clinton has never polled lower than 52%, Obama has never polled higher than 43%. At the wire, they finish: Clinton 54%, Obama 42%.

SUSA's tracking poll for North Carolina:

On the eve of the North Carolina Democratic Primary, with 25% of votes already cast, Barack Obama has no breathing room in his hope to defeat Hillary Clinton in popular votes, according to SurveyUSA’s 8th and final tracking poll, conducted exclusively for WTVD-TV, the ABC-owned TV station in Raleigh. On the final day of the fiercely fought campaign, it’s Obama 50%, Clinton 45%. There is no foreseeable outcome in North Carolina, regardless of which candidate wins the popular vote, where one candidate collects significantly more Convention delegates than the other. Therefore, the exact final vote totals have much more symbolic importance than real importance.

VastLeft's list laid out an excellent Clinton vs. Obama summary of why Hillary over Barry... point by point.

Jerome Armstrong put up two ads: one "closer" from Clinton and one from Obama, "probably his most negative ad to date." Jeralyn at TalkLeft offered a transcript on the Obama ad. Irony alert! Mr. New Kind of Politics uses a negative attack ad to accuse, "And what does Hillary Clinton offer us? More of the same old negative politics."

Clinton and Obama talked with local gay media in North Carolina and Indiana. The Obama interview was his first with local gay press. What took him so long? QNotes, which covers both NC and SC, posted the Clinton interview here, Obama interview here. In Indiana, the LGBT magazine, Reality, "along with bloomingOUT, The Bloomington Beacon, The Letter, Indiana Equality and The Word," asked questions of the candidates and published their responses here. (Via)

Riverdaughter coined the new term--“Mitchellism”--and defined it as: "The tendency of the media to see American politics through its own eyes and to over value its impact on the voting public."

This tendency has been noted before by other bloggers who have referred to the Washington DC press corps and pundits as The Villagers, that self-selected authority of knowledge of what the voters will or will not tolerate. High-Brodersim is another variation and is the belief that the root of the problem in American politics is too much partisanship and if the Democrats would just sell out all of their beliefs and try to meet Republicans half way, there wouldn’t be any more fights and there would be unity and much rejoicing and we could all buy the world a Coke. Barack Obama is a disciple of High Broderism.

Funny un-ha-ha how the Obamasphere hasn't noticed the similarities between "post-partisan" rhetoric and High Broderism.

Riverdaughter went on to say, "But I have noticed a curious thing happening this primary season. I don’t think the voters trust the media much these days." I agree. Here's why: from a big picture perspective, an annual report on The State of News Media 2007 stated, "The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the public knows." In its "Public Attitudes" section, the report reiterated:

...the public’s confidence in 2006 according to some indices continued to slip.

And perceptions of bias, and the partisan divide of media, appear to be on the rise.

All that comes, of course, against a background of more than 20 years of growing skepticism about journalists, their companies and the news media as an institution. As we have noted in other reports,since the early 1980s, the public has come to view the news media as less professional, less accurate, less caring, less moral and more inclined to cover up rather than correct mistakes.

I suspect the disconnect between the public, which includes voters, and the media has widened this year.

Sometimes Bob Somerby's candor tickles me when he analyzes media bias:

COHEN (2/12/08): My Feb. 5 column was critical of Hillary Clinton for supporting a bill to make flag burning illegal. I have since learned from a reader that Barack Obama also supported that bill.

That’s right, dumb-ass! Clinton supported the flag-burning bill. And Obama supported it too!

But then, more than half the senate’s Democrats supported that bill, in June 2006. It was brought to the floor by Dick Durbin, Obama’s biggest senate supporter. Everyone understands the politics of these bills–everyone but [Richard] Cohen and [Gail] Collins, that is. Because they’re two of the world’s biggest androids, they keep singing the same tired songs.

Shhhhh! Don't tell the Hillary-haters at the Orange Sippy Cup™ who criticize Clinton over the flag-burning amendment. Their CDS-suffering heads might explode with reality.

Speaking of a lost grasp on reality, a Cannonfire update on the robocall controversy involving Women's Voices, Women's Votes demonstrates that "another Obamabot attempt to do the GOP's work" is still ticking as if it's "never been discussed before!"

Yesterday at the Left Coaster, eRiposte debunked the hoopla over the gas tax holiday:

Aside from the usual jokers rending their garments over it, I don't find the gas tax holiday back-and-forth to be particularly earth-shaking. I already linked to two Paul Krugman posts that touched on the gas tax issue in previous posts; one of Krugman's posts was a specific critique of Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain's different proposals and another was an op-ed where he again mentions the gas tax issue in a broader context. I agree with Krugman's view that Sen. Clinton's proposal is "pointless not evil".

All politicians pander and I've never said Sen. Clinton is above pandering. That said, her proposal has been misrepresented or distorted by the Obama campaign (see here and here) and by some in the media (see here). Sen. Obama's own history of pandering and his repeated voting in favor of a gas tax holiday in 2000 (when gas prices were much lower) make his current pronouncements on this matter, um, amusing....

My new friend Declarations of Pride posted a rallying cry: On Tuesday, the game will change!

On Tuesday, Hillary will vastly pad her lead in the popular vote. On Tuesday voters will show momentum for Hillary by way of votes of confidence for her that were once not thought to swing her way. Voters will change the game on Tuesday because the luster of inspiration isn't enough to make change happen. The voters will change the game on Tuesday because the Senator from Illinois is becoming less consistent. The voters will change the direction of the wave of democracy on Tuesday because electability is more important that hope alone. Hope can only be fulfilled if the hopeful win. Otherwise that hope was just a dream, and it appears that democratic voters are waking from the Obama dream as it turns to a nightmare where McCain could be President.

Voters are changing the game. Voters are continuing the shift in opinion. Whereas Barack was once seen as the only option, buyers remorse has set in, and the voters are changing the game to who they see as the GE winner: Hillary! Hillary has demonstrated over and over again a winning strategy that includes more than hope for change, but details, plans and understanding of how to make change happen. The voters are changing the game because they know that hope of change alone isn't enough. For change you have to have a plan. For change you have to have an understanding of the problem. For change you need stamina, charisma, and the will to fight on in the face of your enemies. Otherwise, your only hope is to return to sleep and dream of a reality that never had a chance.

Couldn't have said it better!

CREDITS: Cropped photo originally shot by Barbara Kinney.

Homophobes unite!

Oh, look. A unity pony exists. Obama's website proudly displays the endorsement from Georgia's former U.S. senator Sam Nunn as Barry continues to build his coalition of homophobic bigots. Obama responded to the Nunn-Boren endorsement, "I am honored to have the support and counsel of two of our nation’s leading voices on national security, and two of our most respected advocates for national unity."

National unity? Who's he kidding?

As Chair of the Senate's Armed Services Committee during the 1990s, Sam Nunn took the lead in forging Don't Ask, Don't Tell and sided with Republicans in opposition to Bill Clinton's initiative to lift the gay/lesbian military ban. Does Obama understand the historical impact DINO Nunn had on the LGBTQ community? Let me put it another way: if Sam Nunn had stridently opposed racial desegregation of the military and Hillary began touting his endorsement on her website, would that offend Obama? African Americans? Liberals?

On Obama's website, Nunn said, "I believe that [Obama] will also attract skilled, experienced and energetic people to government and will have the sound judgment to put together an outstanding governing team, bringing people together across old boundaries." Is Obama aware that DADT has purged thousands of "skilled, experienced and energetic" gays and lesbians out of the military? A GAO report released in 2005 estimated that DADT has cost U.S. taxpayers $200 million and the loss of "valuable personnel over the last decade." So pardon moi if I don't believe a word Nunn says or Barry's commitment to LGBTQs.

I believe Sam Nunn is looking for a payday for his foundation. Plus, Nunn serves on the boards of big corporations -- GE (media, war machine), Chevron (petro-military complex), Coke (environment and health concerns) and Dell (outsourcing). He runs the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a seemingly worthy enterprise that received $3 million from the U.S. government beyond its private money. NIT advisor Warren Buffet pledged $50 million toward an IAEA nuclear fuel bank if a member state or states contribute(s) $100 million. Maybe Nunn's courting Obama with hopes of American tax dollars to answer Buffet's proposal and Obama is eyeballing more corporate donors to add to his stable of Wall Street, Big Oil, and K Street power brokers. Washington politics as usual.

What I object to most: Sam Nunn is the homophobe who gave us DADT:

Nunn, foreseeing problems of equal treatment for "hand-holding," "kissing" gays and non-gays under a new code of conduct, said that "if people keep their private behavior private, if they don't declare and advertise their private behavior," they are currently able to stay in the service as long as they perform their duties. The interim compromise "may be a pretty good place to end up," he said.

Sam Nunn espouses post-partisan poppycock but he has never made amends for the damage he's done:

January 29, 1993 -- ATLANTA (UPI) -- A coalition of Georgia gay and civil rights groups Friday urged Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., to end his opposition to President Clinton's proposal to lift the ban on homosexuals serving in the military.

Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has opposed lifting the ban and had proposed a six-month waiting period during which federal hearings would be held to consider the impact of removing the restrictions....

..."We are here today to call upon Sen. Sam Nunn to stop obstructing President Clinton's effort to end discrimination in the United States military,'' said Don George, the Atlanta field coordinator for the Human Rights Campaign Fund.

"Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter ruled the military ban against gays and lesbians to be unconstitutional,'' he said.

"Today, we ask Senator Nunn to abide with the court ruling and stop standing in the schoolhouse door and to work with President Clinton to end this 50-year-old injustice against lesbian and gay Americans,'' said George....

...Wesley Temple Jr., chairman of the Georgia chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America, said members of his organization are testimony to the fact that gays and lesbians have never caused problems in the military.

"We strongly condemn Senator Nunn's decision to side with the same bigots who opposed integration of African-Americans into the military in 1948,'' Temple said. "Morale and discipline problems have not been experienced by 11 of the 16 NATO countries which do not have a ban on gay and lesbian personnel....

...Larry Pellegrini, lobbyist for the Georgia chapter of the Gay Political Action Committee, also asked Nunn to abide by Hatter's ruling that declared the military ban unconstitutional.

"Republicans and Republican wannabes like Senator Nunn are still fighting an election that's three months over,'' he said. "What 50 people in the line of succession died and made him president?'' [Emphasis added.]

For more details on Nunn's despicable behavior as the "architect" of DADT and his submarine episode, when he advanced the "canard that homosexuals are sexual predators, and that knowingly sleeping or showering near one would be a nightmare to which no straight man should be subjected," read ducdebrabant series of comments here.

First, Obama courted homophobe Donnie McClurkin.

Obama played us stupid with homophobe Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell and his ex-gay ministry that promoted a program for "those seeking freedom from homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, sex addiction and other habitual sins.”

Obama has made divisive remarks about being a Christian vs. same-sex marriage as if the two are somehow incompatible.

It's now 1,540 days since Obama has spoken to the local LGBTQ press.

And Obama further signals how unimportant the LGBTQ community is to him by throwing us under the bus for a Bloomberg pal with corporate and national security gravitas.

He's playing us LGBTQs and all of us stupid with his "no money from lobbyists" promise.

Does Obama cross his fingers when he speaks? Or is he flipping us the finger?

The more I learn about Obama, the more I dislike him. I would have to hold my nose for a Clinton-Obama 2008 ticket. I would do it for Hillary. But Obama+whomever? Don't hold your breath.

Why would I vote for a Democrat?

I'm taking a stand. I am sick of holding my nose to vote for Democratic challengers or incumbents who continue to be intimidated by the Republican Party's apartheid stance on lesbians and gays. Initially, my disenfranchisement grew after President Clinton's 1993 flip-flop over lifting the ban on gays and lesbians in the military. He broke his promise after courting pink votes during his 1992 presidential election. Perhaps more egregiously for a Georgia voter such as me, my Democratic senator opposed Clinton's changes to the military policy from the Reagan-Bush Administration and threatened to legislate a permanent ban.

Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with a cabal of military commanders attacked Clinton's initiative to rescind the anti-gay ban just after Bill entered the Oval Office. After Judge Hatter's decision that stated...

...[t]he Department of Defense's justifications for its policy... are based on cultural myths... very similar to the reasons offered to keep the military racially segregated in the 1940s...

...and a flurry of judicial, legal and political maneuvers, the newly-minted president caved in to tenacious pressure as a congressional statute authorized, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The march to codify gay discrimination didn't stop there. In 1995, after Republicans swept into power, Congress enacted and Clinton signed the Solomon Amendment, legislation that denied DOD funds to schools (some people resist discrimination) that barred military recruiters from campuses. In 1996, the law was amended to include funds from the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health & Human Services.

Consequently, in protest, I did not vote after 1992 until the 2000 election when I got a whiff of what Texas Republicans such as George W. Bush would envision for our future (not a pretty picture.). However, I did not remain silent through the 1990s. A blessing in disguise, Clinton's 1993 reversal and the resultant bigotry over gays in the military motivated me to finally undertake painting queer and feminist Christology, art that I had conceptualized in 1991. I decided to answer gay apartheid with artistic courage and foster my spiritual belief that God created who we are albeit a sexual minority. Exercising my faith, I believed that Christ did not condemn lesbians and gays and conceivably could have had a male lover.

Since the fateful 200o election, I have rallied to support Democrats with my money and my vote to blunt the advance of Republicans who pandered to homophobic voters and the Religious Right's anti-gay agenda. I also vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq and later voted for John Kerry in 2004 both in the primary and the general election. I had put aside my grievance with the Democratic Party over DOMA and its sometimes wishy-washy attitude towards gay equality. But, on Tuesday, my patience ran out.

When Georgia Democratic voters in the 4th District delivered a victory to Hank Johnson by more than 12,000 votes over Cynthia McKinney in the runoff election, I was absent from the approximately 70,000 voters who turned out. My partner and I participated in the primary to stop Ralph Reed (which I'll explain in a minute) and in the 2004 primary when McKinney barely edged out five other contenders. Yet, 33,591 less Democratic voters went to the polls in this July 18 primary compared to the one in 2004. Why?

From my perspective as a registered voter in the 4th District of Georgia, Cynthia didn't give me a reason to vote for her. When Cynthia McKinney did not show up to vote against FMA, I did not feel compelled to show up to vote for her. Her scuffle with the Capitol police didn't overly alarm me and I liked her defiance of Bush over the years. She wasn't perfect but who is? What I cared about was whether she would represent me, her constituent, a lesbian, a marginalized minority. Perhaps I wasn't the only voter who felt this way. Cathy Woolard, a lesbian for whom I voted in the 2004 primary, received 18,164 votes--more than enough votes for McKinney to have cinched the Democratic nomination in this year's primary. But I had had enough of Democrats avoiding the "gay wedge" issue. Candidates would now earn my pink vote. And Cynthia hadn't. So on Georgia's July 18 primary election day, my partner and I did what we thought was best: We asked for Republican ballots to vote specifically against Ralph Reed and for every Republican challenger to a GOP incumbent in the field.

When Cynthia did not win a majority of Democratic votes, a predicament that put her in the position of having to face a runoff with Hank Johnson, I emailed Hank asking him whether he supported gay civil rights. Did I get a reply before the runoff? No! So Tuesday, my partner and I stayed home. I wondered if other disenfranchised lesbian and gay voters had done the same. The 4th District has an enormous gay population with Atlanta as the gay mecca of the South. I also pondered when the election results were tallied, did McKinney lose by forgetting lesbians and gays in her district, by failing to reach out to us? Who can say? I can count two votes she lost because she didn't.

Yesterday, I emailed Hank Johnson again about his views on gay rights. Will I get an answer before November? I dunno. But I do know this. I will no longer vote for a candidate who will not stand up for gays and lesbians. I will not vote against myself just to vote ABAR (anybody but a Republican). After reading Billmon's post last night and the out-of-state lobbying money that was donated to Hank Johnson's campaign, I am less inclined to vote for him.

In surveying Georgia's candidates, I don't feel I have a Democratic candidate who supports me. So sad, so true, and so disappointing. Unlike Democrats with principles and a spine such as Russ Feingold, too many have not heeded the call from civil rights voices such as the late, great Coretta Scott King or the NAACP.

I would mobilize to vote against Perry McGuire whose outrageous remarks about gay teens cannot go unanswered. However, the Democrat incumbent for attorney general, Thurbert Baker, will likely win re-election, so I see no need to go to the polls in November. ABAR is like voting for a Republican on gay civil rights in effect, so why vote for Republican Lite? Hank Johnson has already taken an antiwar position but he has not, at the time of this posting--after I have sent two emails requesting his position on gay civil rights--declared that he will support an end of discrimination against me. If he won't declare his support for my gay brothers, lesbian sisters, my partner, and me, I don't feel compelled to move my feet for him. Maybe he'll come around. I can only hope but we'll see.

As for the rest of Georgia's Democrats, I will seek clarification on their positions on discrimination against gays and lesbians. If I receive no answer or a lackluster response, neither will I answer their call to vote for them. It's as simple as that.

Say NO to bigotry and get America back on track

The Human Rights Campaign alerted me today to take action on the June 5 vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Republicans fearing losses during the midterm elections have resurrected one of their favorite boogey-men and a divisive issue--gay marriage--to distract the nation from more important congressional business--the Iraq War, immigration, energy costs, health care, and the economy.

Examine the most important issues facing Americans and you won't find gay marriage on the current list.



Only one poll back in 2004--the last time the GOP used gay-baiting to mobilize social conservatives--listed gay marriage at all and it was a low priority compared to the economy, terrorism, Iraq, and health care.


To the Time Poll's discredit, they lumped the gay marriage topic into "moral values issues," a specious attempt to frame the civil rights of a sexual minority as a "moral issue"--ugly political chicanery--which completely ignores the immorality of discrimination against a legit minority. Shame on Time.

Dishonest GOP politics and the outrageous, undocumented falsehood that allowing gays to legalize their unions will destroy the marriages of hetero people is a dubious claim. The divorce rate won't alter one bit for married hetero couples if gays can marry or legalize their relationships with civil unions. The Right's assertion that the sanctity of marriage is under assault is red herring, a diversion away from the truth, and an underhanded way to exploit the fear of conservatives to react with an emotional knee-jerk. Gay unions won't change how, when, or why heteros marry or divorce. Not. At. All.

But why bring gay marriage into the national debate and to a vote in Congress? Why now? With Bush's job disapproval at an all-time high and division within the GOP, putting FMA on the front-burner will rally the homophobic contingent of the conservative base and distract attention from Republican failures. Don't take the bait.

Do Americans truly want to codify discrimination into the U.S. Constitution? I don't think so and polls demonstrate that Americans oppose a federal amendment that takes away citizen rights. As Americans--and religious leaders--denounce the actions of right-wing efforts to keep gay U.S. citizens at the back of the bus, consider the words of the late civil rights advocate, Coretta Scott King. She didn't agree with anti-gay bigotry and her words powerfully speak the truth:

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice... But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people."

...Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood," she said in a speech in Chicago in April 1998, just days before the 30th anniversary of her late husband's assassination. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy."

But out-of-touch floundering Republicans want to hype an issue that won't affect the vast majority of Americans in the least to avert scrutiny from their abject failures in leading the nation to more prosperous and peaceful times. Republicans will do most anything to avoid accountability:

Rather than defend Bush, Rove will seek to rally the Republicans’ conservative grass roots by painting Democrats as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness. That’s where the national message money is going to be spent.

Take action and stop the insanity of Republicans off-track, heading us in the wrong direction and ignoring America's priorities. Say NO to the Federal Marriage Amendment and YES to no longer being manipulated politically. Voice your dissent and get Congress back on track and on the main issues affecting us all. Don't fall for gay-baiting and the GOP tactic to change the subject as they did in 2004. Look at what that got us.