Not to start a "baited" debate, What are your thought's. Time to settle for less with the gay marriage issue? Would rock solid domestic partnership be just as good? I am sorry gay marriage offends the multitude. I think it's mostly the word "marriage". It just seems like banging our heads on the wall. It's costly too, with the tax code, home ownership, no family healtcare available to us. How do you feel? I guess, turning five 0, last month has whipped some of the fight out of me. alr2903
I am kind of glum with last night's elections
- Thread starter alr2903
- Start date
Every civil rights struggle in the U.S. has been a matter of two steps forward and one step back. Ours isn't any different.
Medical marijuana passed in Maine, and domestic partnerships passed in Washington. So there was quite a bit of good news last night as well.
Medical marijuana passed in Maine, and domestic partnerships passed in Washington. So there was quite a bit of good news last night as well.
panthera
Well-known member
Transgender also
won in Kalamazoo, despite the good old "they'll be waiting in the bathrooms for your daughter" scare, complete with the TV ads paid for by the Catholic church and the momos.
alr2903, my 50th birthday was rough. It gets better, really.
My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter what we ask for, the bastards will attack us anyway. They did all they could to block the Washington State law, and the legislatures there even wrote into the law that it was not "marriage".
Three things:
1) Civil rights are never granted by mob rule. This is why we have a Constitution. Eventually, the 1, 4, 10 and 14th Amendments will be respected by the Supreme Court and we will be treated as fully human.
2) We have made tremendous progress, this is why the hateful Right-Wing Christians and Republicans are pushing back with such filthy, dirty lies. In Maine and California, we are hitting nearly 50% now, and with every passing year - even during the Bush #43 years - we gain 2%. The best part here is that the younger people, when they hit our age, stay committed to freedom and equal rights for all. They don't become more conservative on social issues.
3) It's our own damn fault for taking it. Look, I have friends who live right down the road from where they hung Matthew Sheppard out to die, I grew up in the Marilyn Musgrave congressional district (second most conserative in the US most years) so I understand physical danger and overwhelming odds.
To the extent, however, protest and standing up for our rights is possible, we must. Every single study has shown, people who know gays and transgender personally, support us.
Yes, had the college students gotten their asses in gear, had Obama said one single word, we would have won. The Democrats know we have nowhere to go (hallo, Republicans in 2009 are not the Republicans of Eisenhower/Nixon). The only way we are gong to be granted full human status is by working for it. It is not fair, it is not just, it is not American.
It is what it is. We won 2 out of 3. Fight harder.
won in Kalamazoo, despite the good old "they'll be waiting in the bathrooms for your daughter" scare, complete with the TV ads paid for by the Catholic church and the momos.
alr2903, my 50th birthday was rough. It gets better, really.
My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter what we ask for, the bastards will attack us anyway. They did all they could to block the Washington State law, and the legislatures there even wrote into the law that it was not "marriage".
Three things:
1) Civil rights are never granted by mob rule. This is why we have a Constitution. Eventually, the 1, 4, 10 and 14th Amendments will be respected by the Supreme Court and we will be treated as fully human.
2) We have made tremendous progress, this is why the hateful Right-Wing Christians and Republicans are pushing back with such filthy, dirty lies. In Maine and California, we are hitting nearly 50% now, and with every passing year - even during the Bush #43 years - we gain 2%. The best part here is that the younger people, when they hit our age, stay committed to freedom and equal rights for all. They don't become more conservative on social issues.
3) It's our own damn fault for taking it. Look, I have friends who live right down the road from where they hung Matthew Sheppard out to die, I grew up in the Marilyn Musgrave congressional district (second most conserative in the US most years) so I understand physical danger and overwhelming odds.
To the extent, however, protest and standing up for our rights is possible, we must. Every single study has shown, people who know gays and transgender personally, support us.
Yes, had the college students gotten their asses in gear, had Obama said one single word, we would have won. The Democrats know we have nowhere to go (hallo, Republicans in 2009 are not the Republicans of Eisenhower/Nixon). The only way we are gong to be granted full human status is by working for it. It is not fair, it is not just, it is not American.
It is what it is. We won 2 out of 3. Fight harder.
panthera
Well-known member
Senate Hearing on ENDA
And we are making progress, I hear. Just back from two classes, so haven't been able to follow it - anybody know how it is going?
And we are making progress, I hear. Just back from two classes, so haven't been able to follow it - anybody know how it is going?
You can follow the hearing here, at least for the next hour or so:
http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_11_05/2009_11_05.html
http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_11_05/2009_11_05.html
panthera
Well-known member
live tweeting
Very interesting, the Committee Chairman is on our side (well on the side of those gays who are tired of being kept sub-human) and is hitting back at the industry idiots quite well.
Very interesting, the Committee Chairman is on our side (well on the side of those gays who are tired of being kept sub-human) and is hitting back at the industry idiots quite well.
panthera
Well-known member
forgot url
sorry - very interesting
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/13965/senate-enda-hearing-liveblog-this-morning
sorry - very interesting
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/13965/senate-enda-hearing-liveblog-this-morning
panthera
Well-known member
live enda hearing stream
Look for employment non discrimination act, click the blue link and the stream opens...pretty fast and steady, too.
http://www.capitolhearings.org/
Look for employment non discrimination act, click the blue link and the stream opens...pretty fast and steady, too.
http://www.capitolhearings.org/
It must be marriage . . .
"Separate but equal" is never, ever equal.
I can't begin to say how appalled I am that both Maine and California have put important civil rights up for public referendum. We now have a situation where the right to marry is determined not only by gender but by timeframe: if you were lucky enough to marry between certain dates then you're married, if not then you must settle for a second-class domestic partnership.
"Separate but equal" is never, ever equal.
I can't begin to say how appalled I am that both Maine and California have put important civil rights up for public referendum. We now have a situation where the right to marry is determined not only by gender but by timeframe: if you were lucky enough to marry between certain dates then you're married, if not then you must settle for a second-class domestic partnership.
panthera
Well-known member
hydralique,
That is so true. This is why I refuse to back down when the Right-Wing Christians demand that I stop saying we are treated as sub-human in the USA. We are - else the 14th Amendment would prevent this treatment.
It's that simple.
Enda as of this morning, 5 November, now has 56 committed Democrats/Independent. We need four more and the Republicans can go screw themselves.
Best comment of the whole hearing was from Nike on the 420+ Fortune 500 companies which have ENDA as their company policy.
Chairman: Why?
Nike Rep: Uh, well, it's the bottom line. We get and retain better employees when gay and transgender work for us, and better employees earn us more profit. That's really all - we make more money treating people fairly.
So simple. Why can't the Republicans comprehend that?
Oh, and the Catholic Church showed their hatred again today, they want ENDA completely killed off because, otherwise, non-tax-exempt Catholic organizations couldn't fire gays and transgender for being gay or transgender anymore and, worse yet! Would have to hire people for their professional qualifications, not their heterosexuality and birth gender.
What pigs. What filthy vermin these Far-Right Christians are.
That is so true. This is why I refuse to back down when the Right-Wing Christians demand that I stop saying we are treated as sub-human in the USA. We are - else the 14th Amendment would prevent this treatment.
It's that simple.
Enda as of this morning, 5 November, now has 56 committed Democrats/Independent. We need four more and the Republicans can go screw themselves.
Best comment of the whole hearing was from Nike on the 420+ Fortune 500 companies which have ENDA as their company policy.
Chairman: Why?
Nike Rep: Uh, well, it's the bottom line. We get and retain better employees when gay and transgender work for us, and better employees earn us more profit. That's really all - we make more money treating people fairly.
So simple. Why can't the Republicans comprehend that?
Oh, and the Catholic Church showed their hatred again today, they want ENDA completely killed off because, otherwise, non-tax-exempt Catholic organizations couldn't fire gays and transgender for being gay or transgender anymore and, worse yet! Would have to hire people for their professional qualifications, not their heterosexuality and birth gender.
What pigs. What filthy vermin these Far-Right Christians are.
> So simple. Why can't the Republicans comprehend that? <
Keven, you already know the answer to that question.
All three of the world's largest religions are currently stuck between a rock and a hard place on this issue. On one side is hundreds or thousands of years of traditional discrimination against gay people, and on the other side is common sense, and 40+ years of formal research that indicates this discrimination amounts to institutionalized bigotry.
Personally, I wish you would try and gain a little perspective on this: while our government sits and debates the merits of things like employment non-discrimination and same-sex marriage, if you were to go to Iran and start spouting off about being considered inhuman, their government would either chop your weenie off or hang you.
Keven, you already know the answer to that question.
All three of the world's largest religions are currently stuck between a rock and a hard place on this issue. On one side is hundreds or thousands of years of traditional discrimination against gay people, and on the other side is common sense, and 40+ years of formal research that indicates this discrimination amounts to institutionalized bigotry.
Personally, I wish you would try and gain a little perspective on this: while our government sits and debates the merits of things like employment non-discrimination and same-sex marriage, if you were to go to Iran and start spouting off about being considered inhuman, their government would either chop your weenie off or hang you.
panthera
Well-known member
Jeff,
I can't reach you by email, drop me a line? Thanks.
Until my family situation mandated regular travel, I was a volunteer for the Evangelikal Kirche here, which was commissioned in our area by the German government to help refugees settle into their new lives Germany.
Those refugees were often from Afghanistan and occasionally, Iran. Sadly, I have seen the condition of those lucky enough to escape to know how bad things are there.
But, I am dealing day-to-day with the fact that where I am living in the US, I can be fired for no other reason than that I am gay, until last week, it was ok by the local sheriff's department to beat gays up (you just had to say the gay guy came on to you and that made it 'self-defense') and my partner and I are non-existent in the eyes of the law.
Here in Germany, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or perceived gender. Several years back, we had a sadistic local police chief what was sending the boys from Poland working the streets back with the note in their passports: Kicked out of a Catholic country which takes the Pope's word seriously for servicing other men.
Many of those boys were disappeared at the border, which is how it ultimately came to light. He was fired, all the cops working under him were transferred for the rest of their careers to positions where they had not power greater than to hand out a parking ticket. My partner could come here, marry me and would immediately have a permanent residency permit and be entitled to full unemployment compensation and training until he found work...
So if I am a bit harsh on the Right-Wing Christians and the Republicans in America, it is because I know, first hand how good it can be and, through the refugees without tongues and whose balls have been smashed, how bad it can be. America can do better, we will only do better, tho', if we continue to make very clear to the Right-Wing Christians that we are mad as hell and we arent't going to take it anymore. Being nice, being polite, backing down to the bastards has got us nowhere.
ActUp! was right.
I can't reach you by email, drop me a line? Thanks.
Until my family situation mandated regular travel, I was a volunteer for the Evangelikal Kirche here, which was commissioned in our area by the German government to help refugees settle into their new lives Germany.
Those refugees were often from Afghanistan and occasionally, Iran. Sadly, I have seen the condition of those lucky enough to escape to know how bad things are there.
But, I am dealing day-to-day with the fact that where I am living in the US, I can be fired for no other reason than that I am gay, until last week, it was ok by the local sheriff's department to beat gays up (you just had to say the gay guy came on to you and that made it 'self-defense') and my partner and I are non-existent in the eyes of the law.
Here in Germany, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or perceived gender. Several years back, we had a sadistic local police chief what was sending the boys from Poland working the streets back with the note in their passports: Kicked out of a Catholic country which takes the Pope's word seriously for servicing other men.
Many of those boys were disappeared at the border, which is how it ultimately came to light. He was fired, all the cops working under him were transferred for the rest of their careers to positions where they had not power greater than to hand out a parking ticket. My partner could come here, marry me and would immediately have a permanent residency permit and be entitled to full unemployment compensation and training until he found work...
So if I am a bit harsh on the Right-Wing Christians and the Republicans in America, it is because I know, first hand how good it can be and, through the refugees without tongues and whose balls have been smashed, how bad it can be. America can do better, we will only do better, tho', if we continue to make very clear to the Right-Wing Christians that we are mad as hell and we arent't going to take it anymore. Being nice, being polite, backing down to the bastards has got us nowhere.
ActUp! was right.
Speaking of right-wing crazies - look who's back in the news with a new church!
Wonder if it will be on the book tour the quitter Skank Palin is doing?
http://www.gazette.com/articles/haggard-65454-ted-church.html
Wonder if it will be on the book tour the quitter Skank Palin is doing?
http://www.gazette.com/articles/haggard-65454-ted-church.html
Here's one for Haggard (and Keven, I think you'll like this). It's from Oingo Boingo's Farewell concert at the Universal Amphitheatre, on Halloween 1985.
<object width=425 height=344><param name=movie value=></param><param name=allowFullScreen value=true></param><param name=allowscriptaccess value=always></param><embed src= type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowscriptaccess=always allowfullscreen=true width=425 height=344></embed></object>
<object width=425 height=344><param name=movie value=></param><param name=allowFullScreen value=true></param><param name=allowscriptaccess value=always></param><embed src= type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowscriptaccess=always allowfullscreen=true width=425 height=344></embed></object>
I bet the pulpit will be in the restrooms!
panthera
Well-known member
Louis,
Don't forget the kneeling boards. Teddy boy likes his men big, buff and from behind.
Don't forget the kneeling boards. Teddy boy likes his men big, buff and from behind.
panthera
Well-known member
Looking for a scapgoat or
Actually saying something which needs saying?
I'm a yellow dog Democrat, but this has made me see red.
(The website I linked to picks up the conversation in mid-stream. If you missed the first blow up (sort of like missing a super-nova in the Centauri triad, but it was a busy Tuesday), on Monday the 2 November, the DNC, instead of supporting us in Maine, asked us to reallocate money and phone resources from Maine to New Jersey, noting that no monies were to be made available for Maine as had been for Prop. 8 in California.
Well, that charming little emailed request got sent to Democrats in Maine. Sort of a "I'm throwing a big party, and you're not invited, but please lend us your chairs, we need seating for all the people we did invite" type of email.
Following on to which, the DNC denied it and implied it was a mistake (we never sent such an email, and whoever got it in Maine, just moved there from New Jersey).
When several folks in Maine produced copies, the fools then clammed up and refused to discuss anything. Finally, they sent one of their sycophants out, a token-gay spittle-licker to tell us all that we are to be grateful to the mighty Obama for all he has done and to keep those dollars pouring in, and, no, neither the White House nor the DNC would be assisting us directly with our other civil rights fights, especially not financially. We don't do that.
Confronted with the "but you do do that, here's the open campaign funds from California..." they then said they only do that for important things...
It's turning into a major cluster...rhymes with you-know-what...and the more the DNC tries to tell us to shut up and get in line, Der Führer has more important things to do than worry about our little Gau, the more damage it's doing.
One little factoid to remember: McCain's election group ran the figures after the election and determined that they would have won if not for 4 million gays breaking for Obama...
I don't want gratitude, I want full recognition of human status!
Any thoughts?
http://gay.americablog.com/2009/11/dnc-misled-gay-community-dnc-treasurer.html
Actually saying something which needs saying?
I'm a yellow dog Democrat, but this has made me see red.
(The website I linked to picks up the conversation in mid-stream. If you missed the first blow up (sort of like missing a super-nova in the Centauri triad, but it was a busy Tuesday), on Monday the 2 November, the DNC, instead of supporting us in Maine, asked us to reallocate money and phone resources from Maine to New Jersey, noting that no monies were to be made available for Maine as had been for Prop. 8 in California.
Well, that charming little emailed request got sent to Democrats in Maine. Sort of a "I'm throwing a big party, and you're not invited, but please lend us your chairs, we need seating for all the people we did invite" type of email.
Following on to which, the DNC denied it and implied it was a mistake (we never sent such an email, and whoever got it in Maine, just moved there from New Jersey).
When several folks in Maine produced copies, the fools then clammed up and refused to discuss anything. Finally, they sent one of their sycophants out, a token-gay spittle-licker to tell us all that we are to be grateful to the mighty Obama for all he has done and to keep those dollars pouring in, and, no, neither the White House nor the DNC would be assisting us directly with our other civil rights fights, especially not financially. We don't do that.
Confronted with the "but you do do that, here's the open campaign funds from California..." they then said they only do that for important things...
It's turning into a major cluster...rhymes with you-know-what...and the more the DNC tries to tell us to shut up and get in line, Der Führer has more important things to do than worry about our little Gau, the more damage it's doing.
One little factoid to remember: McCain's election group ran the figures after the election and determined that they would have won if not for 4 million gays breaking for Obama...
I don't want gratitude, I want full recognition of human status!
Any thoughts?
http://gay.americablog.com/2009/11/dnc-misled-gay-community-dnc-treasurer.html
danemodsandy
Well-known member
Actually:
Sometimes a major party does give a damn about its constituents, but the political risks are huge. In 1964, a Democratic Congress passed that year's Civil Rights Act, which was a good and necessary piece of legislation, gone about in the right way. The civil rights of racial minorities were not left up to states, nor did anyone put them up to a popular vote, which was as it should have been.
Unfortunately, a traditionally Democratic - and deeply racist - South took extreme umbrage, and began voting Republican to punish the legislators who had effectively outlawed its favourite pastime, segregation. The South is largely Republican to this day, forty-five years later.
The plain truth is that most people do not want to live in a pluralistic, diverse, free society - they actually want to live in one that reflects their own world view. Any legislator who tries to force such people into acceptance of the twenty-first century is taking a huge political risk.
I don't know what the answer is here.
Sometimes a major party does give a damn about its constituents, but the political risks are huge. In 1964, a Democratic Congress passed that year's Civil Rights Act, which was a good and necessary piece of legislation, gone about in the right way. The civil rights of racial minorities were not left up to states, nor did anyone put them up to a popular vote, which was as it should have been.
Unfortunately, a traditionally Democratic - and deeply racist - South took extreme umbrage, and began voting Republican to punish the legislators who had effectively outlawed its favourite pastime, segregation. The South is largely Republican to this day, forty-five years later.
The plain truth is that most people do not want to live in a pluralistic, diverse, free society - they actually want to live in one that reflects their own world view. Any legislator who tries to force such people into acceptance of the twenty-first century is taking a huge political risk.
I don't know what the answer is here.
the odd thing is...
...it isn't always clear who the 'good guys' are.
It was, after all, Eisenhower who broke the segregation in the armed forces.
I don't know what the answer is either, except DON'T vote party line.
...it isn't always clear who the 'good guys' are.
It was, after all, Eisenhower who broke the segregation in the armed forces.
I don't know what the answer is either, except DON'T vote party line.
panthera
Well-known member
We have to make clear
to the Democrats that we are not going to play the role of the battered wife any longer.
I've had it. True, the only people who vote Republican and are gay are, well, a very small minority. Few gays and transgender will vote for them, regardless.
But that doesn't mean we have to sit still and take it. Gay votes beat McCain. Gay money put the Democrats back together after 2004 to a very large extent.
Turn the money off. The GAY bank is only open for gay and transgender issues and those politicians who support us actively. Let them know it. We are important enough financially that this actually does work as a goad.
Form action groups. Let them know that we're mad as hell and exactly why. Pick a few races where we can't be hurt, but the Democrats don't want to lose...and stay home or, where possible, run a third candidate whose declared purpose is to punish the Democrats without supporting the Republicans.
Get active, damn it. Elections do matter, we only have one party to work with and it is no good saying they're all the same - we have only one choice.
And that is to stand up and fight!
to the Democrats that we are not going to play the role of the battered wife any longer.
I've had it. True, the only people who vote Republican and are gay are, well, a very small minority. Few gays and transgender will vote for them, regardless.
But that doesn't mean we have to sit still and take it. Gay votes beat McCain. Gay money put the Democrats back together after 2004 to a very large extent.
Turn the money off. The GAY bank is only open for gay and transgender issues and those politicians who support us actively. Let them know it. We are important enough financially that this actually does work as a goad.
Form action groups. Let them know that we're mad as hell and exactly why. Pick a few races where we can't be hurt, but the Democrats don't want to lose...and stay home or, where possible, run a third candidate whose declared purpose is to punish the Democrats without supporting the Republicans.
Get active, damn it. Elections do matter, we only have one party to work with and it is no good saying they're all the same - we have only one choice.
And that is to stand up and fight!
Similar threads
