Un Año Más…

I was talking to someone about Spain today and I started to think about New Years past.  This song takes me all the way back to 1988 when I spent my first New Year’s Eve in Spain at the tender age of 18.  I was in high school there and one my friends at school was the daughter of the Hungarian ambassador to Spain.  And although she looked like she stepped out of an ABBA video and came to school everyday in a limousine, she never lost an opportunity to scold me about my capitalist American ways.  So on New Year’s Eve, while Ildiko’s parents were entertaining dignataries at the embassy, we held the mother of all parties in her parent’s two-story penthouse apartment.

The mother of the Spanish family that I lived with was, like all Spanish mothers, a professional worrier and hypochondriac.  And in the 80’s pharmacies in Spain were, shall we say, lax about asking for a prescription for just about any kind of medication.  So that night, after hearing me cough several times, my Spanish mom insisted that I swallow a handful of pills before she would let me go out in to the cold and to the  party with my friends.  Long story short, I had one glass of champagne and promptly passed out.  When I woke up the next morning, in a chair, decorated with streamers and balloons (I still have the picture somewhere), the house was in ruins.  I walked into the kitchen to find the ambassador and his wife eating breakfast at the kitchen table.  True to their diplomatic nature, they were nothing but cordial as we ate croissants and drank orange juice as the remnants of the large sheet cake we had bought sat crumpled at the foot of the refrigerator, a trail of icing streaking the stainless steel where it had slid to its place on the floor.   We were never invited back.  I cherish these memories as I get older and look forward to looking back to this time years from now with the same fondness.  I hope that all of you have priceless memories that you treasure and may this year bring more of the same.  Happy New Year everybody!

I Want to Believe!

Back in the 90’s I was a huge fan of the X-files.  Never mind that the stories were kind of dopey, and the “science” that they used to explain certain phenomena would be readily dismissed by a bright 7th grader.  The show was and is just mindless fun.  I have been revisiting the show lately because Mawm never watched it before and I bought him the first two seasons for his birthday. 

One of the great things about the show is that it is pure fantasy.  Although the tagline of the show, “I want to believe…”, became a mantra for its fans, no one in their right mind would ever actually believe that there are werewolves living in Montana, or vampires roaming L.A.  It is all just children’s ghost stories, dolled up for adult geeks and sci-fi nerds.

But maybe I’m giving people more credit than they deserve.  Take Huff poop writer Adele Stan, for example.  If she did watch the show, I have to wonder if she still looks up at the stars every night wondering if the Truth really IS out there.

See, Ms. Stan, like so many others suffering from kool-aid induced zombification (hey, now that sounds like an X-file!)  is twisting herself into a million little knots to explain away Barack Obama’s decision to invite right wing bigot Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.  Ironically, people like her are willing to grasp at anything to explain his actions except for the actual truth, which in this case isn’t out there, it’s right in front of your face:  Obama is a homophobe who does not care about gay people.  He doesn’t care about women’s reproductive rights, and he doesn’t care about you, Ms. Stan.  He is not the transcendental messiah figure that you’ve been dreaming about your whole life.  The sad part is that Ms. Stan’s own common sense is telling her what her heart refuses to believe:

For many of us who supported Obama vociferously during the campaign, this all feels a bit personal. Still, I know that simmering in this stew leaves me no path to redemption. And a sense of redemption, deserved or not, is part of what made election night so glorious for so many of us.

I’m just not quite there yet. “I don’t even want to go to this inauguration now,” I told one friend. Trust me, reader, that’s a sentiment of extreme deflation, so excited have I been, so looking forward to a transcendent moment on the Mall with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, straining for a glimpse at a Jumbotron amid children and grandmas as they jockey for position. And still a bitter taste laces my tongue when I imagine Warren at the microphone, calling for the blessing of a God he believes sanctions bigotry against queer folk, a God who would deny a woman her bodily integrity, a God who demands that Jews and other non-Christians burn in Hell. Not my God, thank God…

In fact, the predictable back-and-forth between left and right around this issue leads me in moments when my worser angels — you know, the less-than-angelic angels — of my nature have my ear to wonder whether or not we just got Souljahed out. Would Obama step on our tails to make us squeal in order to look “normal” to the pro-America parts of the country?

But like so many other people who wallow in their denial before accepting the fact that what they so wanted to believe in is just simply not true, Ms. Stan clutches at the most absurd hopes that this is all part of the glorious plan of Obama to transform hatemongers into hippies, and that yes, Adele, their really is a Santa Claus, and his name is Obama.

Let’s consider another alternative — please. Like any council of chiefs, the leadership of the religious right is often riven with jealousy and competition, as well as ideological differences between purists and pragmatists. Mainstream media have latched onto Warren’s AIDS-fighting work in Africa and his preaching on environmental responsibility as evidence of his ostensibly kinder, gentler biblical Christianity though, by his own admission, the difference between Warren and authoritarian right-wing media mogul James Dobson is merely one of “tone”. Yet Warren isn’t really *of* the clique of religious-right leaders as we’ve come to know them: the Dobson mob, the Robertson cabal, the Falwell gang…

If the campaign revealed anything about the president-elect, it is his use of existing dynamics to his own advantage, knowing when to get out of the way of — or lend a hand to — Nature as she takes her course. The leaders of the religious right are far less dangerous to the rest of us when sniping among themselves. Could it be that, in elevating Warren so high above the rest, Obama has tossed an apple of discord over the right fence, a clever bait of distraction?

Perhaps I think too wishfully as I look to find a reason to believe.

That is exactly the problem.  If you have to look for a reason to believe, then the thing you want to believe in probably isn’t the truth.  I always thought that those of us on the left were more in touch with our inner “Scully” and that we look to science to help us understand the world we live in.  Apparently Ms. Stan never learned the principle of Occam’s Razor, which basically states that:

“when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”

In other words, your parents are putting the presents under the tree, not some magical elf with flying reindeer, The Roswell “incident” really was a weather balloon, and despite all of Adele’s wishful thinking, Obama selected Warren because he actually agrees with just about every homophobic, misogynistic tenet that Warren himself believes in.  To try to convince people otherwise puts you in the camp with the “Lone Gunmen” and other conspiracy theorists who are usually only given as much attention as their value as camp entertainment will allow.  But poor Adele only makes it worse by listening to the crazed theory of a friend who is obviously more deluded than she is:

For Sale: Bridge to Nowhere

An artist friend who wished not to be named (“Call me Wes and keep me out of that mess!”) took it one step further. “How do you know, Adele, that that moment, when that man is on that stage, lookin’ out on all those people — how

do you know that will not be his transcendent moment? Think of all the people he could move.”

Yeah, right.  Oh, and Adele, if you buy that, I’ve got a bridge on Omicron Persei 8 that you might be interested in, all you have to do is believe…

OMG, Like, Kennedy for Senate, you know?

and that includes the US Senate!

I thought this snarky comment from the NY Daily News smackdown of Caroline Kennedy’s self-entitled bid for the Senate seat being vacated by Clinton was indicative of the absurdity of this whole cringeworthy circus she is creating:

keenan Dec 29, 2008 6:57:27 AM Report Offensive Post
When I first heard of the housewife becoming bored with her UES digs and coming out of the Ivory Tower to roll out the red carpet for Obama I was like, OMG, she really can do something for our country. Then I’m like…you know, maybe she just might be like, you know, totally ready for this Senate thing to like, for real happen. Then I took another bong hit and thought, wow if she like totally takes this job it would be like, you know she just might be able to take the job away from, like you know the new president and that would like be such a….you know, bummer! How about having a real senator go into office and Caroline can like you know, be his like awesome speech writer to practice until 2010 then she just might graduate from cosmetology school and be like totally prepared to do this job. I don’t know, like what would Oprah do?

Oprah?  That gives me an idea. Now why haven’t they thought of this before?  Kennedy for NY and Oprah for Illinois.  By 2012 we can have a celebrity Senate worthy of our cult-of-personality-driven press.  Now that’s change you can believe in!

H/T to Edgeoforever at Not Your Sweetie

I would also like to point out, that while I find Kennedy’s bid to be Senator both insulting and repugnant to any real liberal, I find it interesting that she is being lambasted by many of the fauxgressives who have sold their souls to their Dark Lord, Vald-Obama.  I mean Obama himself approves of Princess Caroline, so why don’t the obots like her?  This is what sub lord Kos had to say:

When you’re rich and come from a political family, and are heir to American royalty, you can apparently dispense with dealing with pesky voters by simply ringing up the governor…

But running for office is an icky process. It’s hard work

Yeah it is, Markos.  Take your friend Barack, for example.   It’s much easier to be

OMG it's full of stars!!

selected rather than elected, isn’t it?  Just ask the voters of Michigan, Florida, and all the other states that overwhelmingly voted for Hillary in the primaries, but had their votes nullified so that the Democratic leadership could have their very own Mirror of Erised.  Or ask Alice Palmer, or Jack Ryan, or anyone else who posed a real electoral threat to Obama and was pushed out of contention by less than democratic means.

But Kos has another reason to oppose Kennedy which he shares with hypocritical faux-feminist, Jane Hamsher: (who also thinks David “Pimp your Daughter” Shuster is a swell guy, btw):

I’m also with Jane.

Everyone seems to be salivating because Caroline Kennedy called David Patterson and is apparently interested in the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton.

It’s a truly terrible idea.

Her leadership could have been really helpful when the rest of us were trying to keep the progressive lights on and getting the stuffing beaten out of us by a very well-financed right wing for the past eight years.  But when things were tough, she was nowhere to be found.

Now that the Democrats are in power, she’d like to come in at the top.  We have absolutely no idea if she’s qualified, or whether she can take the heat of being a Kennedy in public life.  She’s certainly shown no appetite for it in the past.  She’ll have a target on her back and if she can’t take it, if she crumbles, she will become a rallying point that the right will easily organize around.

But Jane is right, in this case, the idea is particularly egregious — Caroline has done nothing to help beat back the right-wing machine. But now, she’s supposed to be handed by fiat what others fight their whole lives to attain?

Jane’s observation (in bold) is especially interesting because it is very similar to what many of us were saying about Obama about a year ago. Their response to us?  “You’re all racists!!”  And their claim that she has done nothing to beat back the right wing machine?…I guess they mean like Obama fighting the right wing by capitulating on FISA, or hedging on ending the war in Iraq, or throwing MoveOn under the bus, or retaining Bush’s SOD Gates, or pandering to homophobes like Warren and other Prop 8 supporters, or…well, you get the point, you know, real progressive stuff.  Furthermore, Kennedy has about as much experience as Obama himself had when he ran for the Senate, so why now is the Obamanation all up in arms about Kennedy?

..and our ceilings are made of titanium!

Well, she’s missing one little thing that is required to represent the He-Man Woman Hating Obamabot Nation:  A Penis.  Yes, Caroline, sweetie, even you can not escape the sad fate of those of your gender.  The rabidly misogynistic Obats will not tolerate women in positions of power, no matter how well they pleased their master by tearing down other women.    And while I can’t say that I feel the least bit of sympathy for Caroline, it is important to note that her rejection by the Obamaphiles is in many ways another symptom of their horrific treatment of women.  And women in power who do not stand up to this treatment–including Hillary Clinton–are not only not helping to shatter that glass ceiling, they are helping to reinforce it.

Happy New Year?

From El Roto in El País:

The Black Analogy and Some Quotes from King

The formidable champion of civil rights

Something that has infuriated me lately is the attempt by some so-called “Progressives” to insist that the civil rights battles fought for the rights of Black Americans are completely different than what faces the gay community today.  Whether Neo-liberals want to admit it or not the struggles of Black Americans to be recognized and treated as equals are not unique in this world.  Many other groups of people have and do struggle for the same thing.  The list is long, but some historical examples are the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S., India’s fight for self-rule, and Protestants’ desire to worship free of persecution in Europe.  Looking back on these conflicts, the average person living in the U.S. today would see each of these struggles as clear examples of right vs. wrong.  Of course, protestants should have the same rights as other religions.  Of course, Indians should have the right to rule themselves just as other nations do.  Of course, women should have the same right to vote as men.  Of course, black people have the same rights as other races.

However, during these struggles there was not a crushing majority that held these views.  Just fifty years ago it would have been easy to find some very vocal people who would argue that Black people were less than Whites and did not deserve to be recognized as equals.  These people were not considered crackpots either.  Some of them were intelligent leaders in their communities able to articulate many reasons for their discrimination.  There are still people that hold these views today, but the difference is they have been marginalized.  You cannot be a leader in the present day U.S. and publicly push for a return to JimCrow.  If you are a racist, you have to keep that very quiet because the vast majority of people will ostracize you if you don’t.

Today, we are in the middle of the struggle for Gay rights.  Polls show varying levels of public acceptance of our equality.  We are still in the period that allows homophobic views to be treated with respect.  Gays are told we have to sit down with our enemies, or risk losing what gains we have made, as if our equality was something that straight society had the power to bestow upon us.

Here are some of the arguments made by both conservatives and so called liberals/progressives in order to disallow the comparison of the black civil rights movements to the current LGBT battles.  They usually begin with a general condescension towards even making the case, this is to initially bully the reader into backing down from their stance before they even have to set up their first straw man.

One argument I read over and over is that being Gay is a behavioral choice, but one is born Black.  This is not true.  I never met any gay people who have ever said they made the choice to be gay.  Just the opposite.  Most of us struggled for a time trying to conform to being straight, just to make our lives easier.  But even if we were to begin our discussion assuming that it is a choice, how does our gayness compare to one’s choice of religion?  Catholicism and Protestantism are definitely not genetic traits.  To belong to one of these groups, one must definitely make a conscious choice.  Since, most of the anti-gay bigotry comes from organized religions, it is the height of hypocrisy to make the born vs choice argument.  My gayness trumps your choice of voodoo.  If we are to see struggles for religious freedom in the same way we see other civil rights battles, then whether something is a choice or not becomes irrelevant.

Another straw man is the notion that Blacks have been persecuted more than gays.  First, I don’t believe there is a way to truly quantify this, but does it really matter one way or the other?  Can we agree that gays have been and still are persecuted?  Gays died in concentration camps in Nazi Germany just like Jews did.   We have been the victims of countless hate crimes just because of our queerness.  In fact, the scum bags who tortured and murdered Matthew Sheppard actually used the “Gay panic” defense in court, arguing that they were justified in killing Sheppard because he had come on to them in a sexual manner.

Playing the “my victimhood is greater than yours” game is a fruitless endeavor.  Where does women’s persecution fall on that spectrum?  How about religious freedom?  True liberals and people who care about justice and equality see all these struggles as the same.  Martin Luther King Jr. said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. “.  However, many so called liberals are arguing that we need to be quiet right now, and listen to those that hate us.  We must, for the sake of unity, accept people like Rick Warren who choose to discriminate against us, and who compare us to pedophiles and drug addicts.  These people fundamentally do not believe that Gay people are equal to straights.  They may assert that they do, but if they make arguments that our struggle is somehow less than the struggles other groups have endured, don’t believe them.  If they urge gays to be ”nice” and not make waves, they are in fact our oppressors no matter what politcal party they represent.  King also said,  ”Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.  It must be demanded by the oppressed. “

So, to all people who believe they stand with the LGBT community, do not fall for these attempts at divide and conquer.  Stand with us, and the people who would deny us our rights will be marginalized the same way the racists have been.  Do not fall for the lie that you must accept another’s bigotry.  This is an hour of great struggle for the LGBT community and we need all the help we can get.  When you look back at the civil rights movement of the sixties, don’t you want to believe that you would have been at the center of the protests, marching arm in arm with King?  I can’t believe you would imagine yourself standing on the sidelines, or telling Black people just to be quiet.  Stand with us and you will be remembered in the future as being on the right side of history.  King had this to say about sideliners,”History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”  Do not be silent.  Make your voices heard.  Walk arm and arm with us and you are walking with King.

Joe Solmonese never watched The Empire Strikes Back

Joe Solmonese, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, which blindly supported Obama during the campaign, is now pissed off that Obama has invited Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.  The same Joe who ignored many of us who wrote and called the HRC to let them know that we weren’t pleased with Obama’s history of associations with homophobes, and his own homophobia.  Joe chose to throw the HRC’s weight behind a man who has never once done anything for our community, never been to a gay pride event, refused to speak to gay journalists, and didn’t even want his photo taken with straight SF mayor Gavin Newsom.  Now he’s upset.

It is difficult to comprehend how our president-elect, who has been so spot on in nearly every political move and gesture, could fail to grasp the symbolism of inviting an anti-gay theologian to deliver his inaugural invocation. And the Obama campaign’s response to the anger about this decision? Hey, we’re also bringing a gay marching band. You know how the gays love a parade.

You’re a little too late Joe. Instead of joining in with the rest of the obots and lecturing us about how Obama was going to be an ally to our community, maybe you should have stopped your fellating long enough to take a good look at reality.

But now, after giving the Obama camp everything they wanted from the nation’s largest LGBT organization, Joe feels like he is in a position to make demands.

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese has set a timetable for President-elect Barack Obama to take action on certain gay-related initiatives.

The petition detailing the timetable comes days after gay activists criticized Obama for selecting Rick Warren, a pastor who was a strong proponent of Proposition 8 in California, to give an invocation at the inauguration festivities on Jan. 20.

A timetable?  A TIMETABLE??????   BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!   What makes Joe think that Obama is even going to give him the time of day now that he has gotten everything he needs from him?  It’s called leverage Joe, and you ain’t got none.  It reminds me of Lando Calrissian’s betrayal of Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back.  After making a deal with Vader to turn over Solo, he demands that Leia and Chewbacca be freed, along with his own Cloud City.   How does Vader respond?  More or less its “Hey Lando, BITE ME!, I’m Darth Vader and now all your Cloud City are mine!”.

(This clip has been altered somewhat–I don’t think that even the Jedi had heard of Nazis–but you get the point)

But even funnier are the lame demands that Solmonese makes of Darth Obama:

• Issuing an executive order within the first 100 days of his administration to reaffirm protections for federal workers based on sexual orientation while expanding them to include gender identity.

Reaffirming?  You mean saying that you agree with policy that already exists?  Policy that applies to only a small portion of the workforce?  Check!  Oh, and the gender identity?  You already threw the Transgender community under the bus when it comes to ENDA, so why should Obama give a damn about it now?

• Working with Congress to enact hate crimes legislation within 6 months.

Joe, how does this affect Obama anyway?  Congress should definitely pass this legislation within the first few months of their new session now that they have overwhelming majorities.  They’ve been tyring to for years, even in the face of Republican majorities.  Obama really only has to sign it.  Although if he did veto it, I’m not sure I’d be all that surprised. Which brings us to his last demand

• Developing a plan within 100 days to begin the process of repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, which prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military.

You mean developing a plan such as saying that he will have to wait for his second term to change the policy, which is the same plan he has now?  Don’t you think that’s asking a bit much Joe?  I mean, asking the man to live up to a campaign promise, to gay people no less, you’re kidding, right?

But what issue is completely ignored by Joe?  Wait a minute, its on the tip of my tongue.  It is of paramount importance to gay families across the US.  It was a right that was stripped from gays in the election in CA, primarily due to some of Obama’s most fervent supporters.  What is it?  You know the thing that Warren himself worked against and objected to because gay people are, you know, pedophiles and incestuous?  Oh yeah…..MARRIAGE!!!!  Come on Joe, if you’re gonna have the chutzpah to make demands now, why not go all out?  You know very well that your lame demands are going to be ignored, so why not shoot for the moon?  Sadly, it seems that Joe is shooting so low in the hope that Obama will capitulate so that he can happily get back down on his knees and start the Obama blowfest all over again.  Not gonna happen Joe.  Ask Lando…

We Told You So…..

NYC Gay Pride, June, 2008

SILENCE=DEATH

Obama has once again demonstrated that not only does he have no

silence=death

intention of including gays and lesbians in his post racial paradise, he has gone out of his way to thumb his nose at us by continually associating with some of the most bigoted homophobes in this country.  From Meeks to McClurkin, Kmiec to Warren, Obama has time after time shown the whole country that he is ok with people that discriminate…as long as they are only discriminating against gays. 

The reaction from other marginalized groups has been pathetic to say the least.  Taking a page from their own oppressors handbook, many African American Democrats have tried to turn the tables on gays by telling them their own bigotry is the reason for this situation (as if that were a legitimate  justification even if it were remotely true).   I can tell you from experience, the gay community is one of the most racially integrated, and diverse communities in this country, if not the world, no matter what racists like Jasmyn Cannick say. 

Haven’t we heard for years from the religious zealots that those of us who preach tolerance are ourselves intolerant for not accepting their viewpoints?  And hasn’t the left (including african americans) always scoffed at such twisted logic?  Why are non-gay progressives using that very same argument to try to silence us now?  Could it be that they are nothing more than opportunistic hypocrites, just like Obama?   Where is the outrage from civil rights leaders, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who up until recently claimed to be allies of the LGBT community?  They are cowards and hypocrites, plain and simple.

Several years ago the NAACP fought very hard to have the confederate flag removed from the SC state capitol.  They claimed it offended them as a reminder of the history of slavery and oppression that the flag symbolizes.  The response from southern whites was much the same as the response that gays are getting now.  They claimed that African Americans were intolerant of their heritage and that they should open a dialogue rather than demanding that the flag be brought down.  I, like many other liberals, saw this for what it was, an attempt to muddy the waters and make it look like the African American community was itself guilty of intolerance and extremism.   Mike Huckabee even used the argument against John McCain during the SC primary.

And a radio advertisement paid for by an independent group used the flag issue to attack Mr. McCain, of Arizona, and praise Mr. Huckabee. “John McCain assaults our values,” it said. “Mike Huckabee understands the value of heritage.”

The NAACP boycotted South Carolina, supported universally by every other member of the Democratic coalition, including the LGBT community.  In fact the LGBT community has been standing by the NAACP for quite some time, even as a large portion of that community regarded us as an “affront” or, like many white evangelical homophobes, as morally repugnant.  Many times we were one of very few people who would stand beside African Americans to promote equality and justice:

The NAACP’s continuing criticism of the TV networks for lack of ethnic diversity in their new fall shows got limited backing this week from an Asian-American group and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

“The NAACP’s concerns about the lack of African-Americans on television are fully warranted,” said Scott Seomin, GLAAD entertainment media director. “Looking at fall TV for 1999-2000, there’s a major lack of gays and lesbians of color.”

Now Obama has selected a bigoted homophobe to give the invocation at his inauguration.  And the only people who seemed concerned are the very gay leaders that helped elect him.  His response, typically, is “get over it”, and that theme has been picked up by every other member of his Democratic coalition, including African Americans who should damn well know better.  All Democrats who do not demand that this man–who equates gays and lesbians with people who molest children and commit incest–be scrapped from the program are cowardly hypocrites as well.  And any gay apologists left out there, including the African American ones, are just down right stupid. 

We all know that the argument of inclusion is pure bullshit.  No self respecting liberal would say that our message of tolerance includes tolerating people who hate us.  We are tolerant of diversity, not discrimination.  That should be taken for granted.  Using that argument makes us no better than the intolerant people who have used that argument in the past.  People like David Duke, and Fred Phelps, and the helplessly stupid parents who felt they were being discriminated against because no bakery wanted to put “happy birthday Adolph Hitler” on a cake, even if it was their son’s name.  Groups like the Minutemen and Michigan Militia or any other hate group.

Once again Obama and his supporters are trying to silence our justifiable outrage over his pick by accusing us of intolerance.  Pretty soon those charges will change from intolerance to racism for fighting back against the bigoted worldview of Barack Obama when it comes to gays and lesbians.   Those of us who were prescient enough to smell Obama’s bigotry from a mile away have already been branded with the scarlet R.  Are the groups that participated in this rhetorical lynching of many gays and lesbians now willing to accept that fate themselves to fight for what is right and just?  As I said before, the gay community took it upon itself to end the AIDS epidemic in this country when nobody would even say the word out loud.  It is time to again gather our courage to face the barrage of insults and slander that will accompany our objection to Obama’s homophobia.  That is the only way we will ever get the rights that are legally conferred on every other American, including marriage.

…And as if you need further proof of Obama’s homophobia and total dismissal of the gay community, this from The Advocate:

Gays Shut Out of Cabinet

As if the news of antigay pastor Rick Warren’s invitation to deliver Obama’s inaugural invocation weren’t insulting enough to LGBT Americans, we’re now hit with the reality that no openly gay people will be seated at the cabinet table to weigh in on the next antigay flap.

LGBT Americans were hit with yet another piece of bad news Thursday — no openly gay people will be appointed to President-elect Obama’s cabinet.

Less than 24 hours after the announcement that antigay pastor Rick Warren would be giving the invocation at Obama’s inauguration, reports surfaced that Rep. Hilda Solis is the incoming president’s pick as secretary of the Labor Department. The Labor and Interior posts having been the only two positions left for which openly gay qualified candidates were still in the running, LGBT leaders conceded that no out person will be seated at the cabinet table.

“It’s now clear that President Obama’s top appointees will gather in a cabinet room that does not reflect the living rooms, board rooms, or rooms of worship across this country,” said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund…

Steve Elmendorf, a former deputy campaign manager for John Kerry and senior adviser to Dick Gephardt, called it “very disappointing” that a number of high-quality LGBT candidates had been passed over. “It’s a very diverse and inclusive cabinet for every community except for the gay and lesbian community,” he said.

Not that anyone’s counting, but the 22 cabinet-level positions as announced/projected include three Latinos, two Asian Americans, four African-Americans, five women, and, yes, two Republicans.

Yes, even Republicans, and of course bigots like Warren, are more welcome in Obama’s inner circle than even one single gay or lesbian.  Wake up people, sheesh….

SILENCE=DEATH

Fuck You Obama, Part II

The Truth

I have been repeatedly called a racist for pointing out Obama’s homophobia since he won California in a landslide, yet Prop 8 passed, stripping gay and lesbian Californians of a basic civil right.  Obama’s pandering to evangelical and homophobic voters led to his own words being used to support the passage of the vile proposition.  Then some in the African American community had the audacity to blame the passage of the hate filled amendment on the gay community itself.  Despite all this, the gay community bent over  backwards to give the homophobe in chief a pass.  And how did they get rewarded?

the Rev. Rick Warren will pray and more than 11,000 U.S. troops will be watching over inauguration ceremonies in case of an attack during President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in on Jan. 20.

That would be evangelical con man Rick Warren who is a rock star to the right wing fundies.  This guy…

Warren in October implored his followers to vote for Proposition 8 because “there are about 2 percent of Americans are homosexual, gay, lesbian people. We should not let 2 percent of the population…change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.” Warren called opposition to gay marriage a “humanitarian issue” because “God created marriage for the purpose of family, love and procreation.”

Warren, like Rick Santorum, also believes that gay marriage would open the institution to men marrying children, animals, and  all sorts of things.   He even uses his homophobia to support other crackpot christian ideas such as creationism.

Warren, a creationist, believes that homosexuality disproves evolution; he told CNN’s Larry King in 2005, “If Darwin was right, which is survival of the fittest then homosexuality would be a recessive gene because it doesn’t reproduce and you would think that over thousands of years that homosexuality would work itself out of the gene pool.”

Warren protests that he’s not a homophobe; it’s just that two dudes marrying, in his mind, is indistinguishable from an adult marrying a child, a brother marrying his sister, or polygamy.

It is rhetoric like that which creates an atmosphere that not only promotes discrimination, but justifies violence against gays and lesbians.  Horrible actions like the murder of Matthew Shepherd, and many others, are a direct result of the rantings of people like Warren.  Obama is a bigot, a homophobe, and a disgrace to the civil rights movement.  And how are the ass kissers in the gay community reacting now? 

Joe Solomnese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, sent a blistering letter to the president-elect, accusing him of delivering a “genuine blow” to the gay community in choosing the reverend to give the formal invocation at next month’s inauguration.

“[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination,” he wrote.

Andrew Sullivan wrote on the Atlantic Web site, “[It's] shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now.”

Liberal groups criticized the inclusion of Warren, whose “Purpose Driven Life” books and lectures have made his church among the largest in the country. People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert said Warren’s support for California Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, should have blocked his invitation.

“It’s a huge mistake,” said California gay rights activist Rick Jacobs, who chairs the state’s Courage Campaign. “He’s really the wrong person to lead the president into office.”

You know what guys?  Fuck you too.  If you hadn’t been so willing to dismiss every other instance that screamed homophobe when it came to a corrupt rotten bigot like Obama, I might feel some compassion.   It seems a little weak now, coming from some of the biggest Obama ass kissers of the “progressive left”.  In fact some of them are so out of touch they are actually surprised by Obama’s hateful decision:

Washington Blade editor, Kevin Naff, called the selection “Obama’s first big mistake.”

…I’ll have whatever that guy is smoking….

You know, if McCain had won the election, and chose Warren for the invocation, the left would be outraged.  They would have said that it was a direct result of the influence of so called like minded creationist Sarah Palin.  I can’t wait to see the blogger boyz twist themselves into knots of pathological hypocrisy to justify Obama’s actions.  At the very least, maybe now gay people will wake up from their kool aid coma and start speaking out against the anti civil rights homophobe they helped to put in office.

Happy Birthday Mawm!!! The Big 40!

Happy Birthday to the love of my life, and my partner in crime as the co-commander of the rebel alliance…MAWM!!!  Mawm turns 40 today, so he is officially an old man.  Please feel free to make fun of his age in comments and wish him well too, if you so desire.