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News & ArtsFriday, June 19, 2009
Politics / Homo The Bleeding Continues
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 12:24 PM
More and more gays and lesbians are boycotting the DNC's LGBT Leadership Council fundraiser next week. At this rate Tammy, Barney, and Joe Biden are going to have that 10,400 square-foot spa all to themselves.
5
To support a group that constantly stabs us in the back is insanity. The gay community is just now understanding that in order to gain the rights of full citizenship, we need to demand them.
Stand up for your rights!
protestforhumanrights.com
Stand up for your rights!
protestforhumanrights.com
8
For those of us at work without time to do the proper research, could someone assemble a list of who has dropped out of this and who is still in. Knowing who are true friends are is vitally important and I want to put my energy in the right place.
Sorry for being lazy, but time is often difficult to find these days. Thanks!
Sorry for being lazy, but time is often difficult to find these days. Thanks!
9
What's with all the haters? It's incredibly important that gays boycott this to send a clear message. That's how we're going to get equal rights.
12
Don't let the bastards get you down, Mr. Poe.
And I wouldn't describe boycotting this fundraiser, at this moment in time, as cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's more like declining to give a four-figure check to the party that just cut off your nose.
But, yeah, I'm crazy and delusional and nuts, nuts, nuts. And all these mainstream gay bigwigs who are pulling out—from HRC, GLAD, et al—they all take marching orders from me.
And I wouldn't describe boycotting this fundraiser, at this moment in time, as cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's more like declining to give a four-figure check to the party that just cut off your nose.
But, yeah, I'm crazy and delusional and nuts, nuts, nuts. And all these mainstream gay bigwigs who are pulling out—from HRC, GLAD, et al—they all take marching orders from me.
13
@8 All of the following are still going. This is from AMERICAblog:
If you can't make the date, take a rain check and help anyway? SUZE ORMAN just signed on that way. ELIZABETH BIRCH signed on that way. Lots of others.
If you CAN make the date, you'll be joining the Vice President of the United States . . .
. . . along with Virginia Governor / DNC Chair Tim Kaine . . . immediate past DNC Chair Howard Dean . . . Chairman Barney Frank . . . Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis . . . District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty . . . NBJC's Alexander Robinson . . . GMHC's Marjorie Hill . . . The Victory Fund's Chuck Wolfe . . . Iraq Marine vet Brian Fricke (whom you may have seen on 60 Minutes) . . . Billy Bean . . . Joan Garry . . . Keith Boykin . . . Ray Buckley . . . Brian Johnson . . . Dixon Osburn . . . Paul Smith . . . Mitchell Gold . . . Krystal Ball . . . and so many others, like YOU, who have been pushing the ball down the field for so long. (Well, Krystal is fairly new to this, but what a kick to have a pro-marriage CPA triathlete young mom running to unseat a conservative Republican in Virginia.)
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/two-m…
protestforhumanrights.com
If you can't make the date, take a rain check and help anyway? SUZE ORMAN just signed on that way. ELIZABETH BIRCH signed on that way. Lots of others.
If you CAN make the date, you'll be joining the Vice President of the United States . . .
. . . along with Virginia Governor / DNC Chair Tim Kaine . . . immediate past DNC Chair Howard Dean . . . Chairman Barney Frank . . . Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis . . . District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty . . . NBJC's Alexander Robinson . . . GMHC's Marjorie Hill . . . The Victory Fund's Chuck Wolfe . . . Iraq Marine vet Brian Fricke (whom you may have seen on 60 Minutes) . . . Billy Bean . . . Joan Garry . . . Keith Boykin . . . Ray Buckley . . . Brian Johnson . . . Dixon Osburn . . . Paul Smith . . . Mitchell Gold . . . Krystal Ball . . . and so many others, like YOU, who have been pushing the ball down the field for so long. (Well, Krystal is fairly new to this, but what a kick to have a pro-marriage CPA triathlete young mom running to unseat a conservative Republican in Virginia.)
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/two-m…
protestforhumanrights.com
14
...And so came Palin's great "Southern Strategy." By doing an abrupt about face on teh gay issue, publicly promising teh gayz everything they ever wanted, the Republican Guard hoped to return to the near-dictatorial levels of power they'd enjoyed the previous decade.
Some have said it was tragic that the Republican Guard appeared to have forgotten that the gay-Democrat split of 2009 appeared as the result of lofty promises unfulfilled rather than a lack of said promises.
The general consensus, however, remains that it was just politics as usual.
Some have said it was tragic that the Republican Guard appeared to have forgotten that the gay-Democrat split of 2009 appeared as the result of lofty promises unfulfilled rather than a lack of said promises.
The general consensus, however, remains that it was just politics as usual.
15
I predict the DNC will crumble as 0.1 percent of its anticipated revenue vaporizes.
...
oh, wait, did you actually think this would change something?
...
oh, wait, did you actually think this would change something?
16
@6: Please don't stay away too long Mr. Poe.
You're missed even when you take brief absences from Slog. Listen to Dan and don't let them get you down.
You're missed even when you take brief absences from Slog. Listen to Dan and don't let them get you down.
17
Truth be told, I can't be pushed to care about this one way or the other. Should there be a public option to Universal health care, then the partner benefits thing becomes largely moot; it is hardly "easy" for even straight couples to get citizenship for a foreign partner short of actually getting them pregnant; the benefits of civil marriage are discriminatory on the face of it against the unmarried. Period.
Many of us can remember a time where it wasn't safe to be obviously gay at all. Those who do will easily say that gay marriage was something that no one would have even dreamed of. So why the piss and vinegar, Dan? Could it be that once these goals are achieved, the gays will cease to be Democrats anyway? What incentive does Obama have not to string you along?
Many of us can remember a time where it wasn't safe to be obviously gay at all. Those who do will easily say that gay marriage was something that no one would have even dreamed of. So why the piss and vinegar, Dan? Could it be that once these goals are achieved, the gays will cease to be Democrats anyway? What incentive does Obama have not to string you along?
18
Dan, you're just as wrong as anybody else who asserts that they are absolutely right and mocks their dissenters.
But you can't see that, because you are so absolutely right, of course.
But you can't see that, because you are so absolutely right, of course.
19
Let me articulate, if I may, a progressive critique of Savage et al.'s stance on this.
Civil rights are always important, whether we're talking about the rights of gays to marry, a woman to choose, citizens to have non-wiretapped conversations, or foreigners not be tortured and held indefinitely without due process.
Obama has clearly not made gay civil rights a priority.
The question is, does it makes sense for anyone who cares about civil rights in general, as opposed to just "my civil rights", to abandon Obama's presidency and the Democratic Party because of this, as Dan and company have apparently done?
It's a self-centered move. Apparently healthcare for unemployed spouses of gay federal employees is more important than universal healthcare, even though the latter would cover said spouses along with millions of other Americans who have no coverage, and have no political donations or media figureheads with which to press their cause.
More importantly, it's every bit as self-defeating as voting for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. Losing the 2012 election will be just as disastrous for gay rights and every other aspect of American life as was losing the 2000 election. President Palin, anyone?
And yet Dan and his company of single-issue voters have apparently jumped ship.
Dan, it IS possible to press the cause of gay rights without demonizing Obama. In fact, looking forward to 2012, I don't think you can both demonize Obama AND claim to be an advocate of gay rights, not to mention the right to choose, the right to privacy, the right to healthcare, and the privilege of economic stability.
Civil rights are always important, whether we're talking about the rights of gays to marry, a woman to choose, citizens to have non-wiretapped conversations, or foreigners not be tortured and held indefinitely without due process.
Obama has clearly not made gay civil rights a priority.
The question is, does it makes sense for anyone who cares about civil rights in general, as opposed to just "my civil rights", to abandon Obama's presidency and the Democratic Party because of this, as Dan and company have apparently done?
It's a self-centered move. Apparently healthcare for unemployed spouses of gay federal employees is more important than universal healthcare, even though the latter would cover said spouses along with millions of other Americans who have no coverage, and have no political donations or media figureheads with which to press their cause.
More importantly, it's every bit as self-defeating as voting for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. Losing the 2012 election will be just as disastrous for gay rights and every other aspect of American life as was losing the 2000 election. President Palin, anyone?
And yet Dan and his company of single-issue voters have apparently jumped ship.
Dan, it IS possible to press the cause of gay rights without demonizing Obama. In fact, looking forward to 2012, I don't think you can both demonize Obama AND claim to be an advocate of gay rights, not to mention the right to choose, the right to privacy, the right to healthcare, and the privilege of economic stability.
20
Hey guys, I don't care! I care so little that I'm going to post about it, in every thread, over and over again. That's how little I care! Aren't I cool and edgy for being so apathetic? Guys? Guys??
Could be any more obliviously stupid, Will? If you don't give a shit, maybe you should post about it a little less obsessively.
Could be any more obliviously stupid, Will? If you don't give a shit, maybe you should post about it a little less obsessively.
21
@20, I think he's OCD. He has to post something stupid and nonsensical in every Slog post, otherwise his cats will all die.
@19, no one is abandoning Obama or the Democratic party. Withholding monetary support from an organization that doesn't give you any support back is what politics is all about. When big corporations don't get any returns on their thinly-veiled bribery, do they keep giving the politician money in the hopes that one day the politician will one day look the other way when they dump toxic waste in the river?
Your reasoning that this is self-centered does not make any sense either. It is not one or the other. We can work towards both universal health care AND civil equality for gays. Gay men and women are being beaten and killed every day because they are gay. The government's codified inequality in part contributes to the idea that it is okay for people to do this. How is this not an urgent issue? Just because not as many of us are beaten as people who don't have health care? I don't get your stance.
Being vocal about huge slights like this is how we press for our politicians to do things for us. They are working for us; we are not working for them.
@19, no one is abandoning Obama or the Democratic party. Withholding monetary support from an organization that doesn't give you any support back is what politics is all about. When big corporations don't get any returns on their thinly-veiled bribery, do they keep giving the politician money in the hopes that one day the politician will one day look the other way when they dump toxic waste in the river?
Your reasoning that this is self-centered does not make any sense either. It is not one or the other. We can work towards both universal health care AND civil equality for gays. Gay men and women are being beaten and killed every day because they are gay. The government's codified inequality in part contributes to the idea that it is okay for people to do this. How is this not an urgent issue? Just because not as many of us are beaten as people who don't have health care? I don't get your stance.
Being vocal about huge slights like this is how we press for our politicians to do things for us. They are working for us; we are not working for them.
22
19. Andy said plenty to counter your argument, but I'd like to add more.
No one--not anyone on Slog anyway--has said anything against universal health care, or that it's not important. I don't know any lgbt person here who has said that universal health care is meaningless or shouldn't come about until marriage equality is law or DADT is repealed. You are--purposely or not--misrepresenting what we're saying.
Protesting and criticizing is "abandonment"? How? This is the equivalent of the Bush Adm. saying that criticizing a president at wartime is anti-American. We're not abandoning Obama, and bringing up the 2000 election is simply an argument from emotion.
Dan Savage has--as far as I know--never supported a Green Party candidate. And--again, as far as I can tell--it's only because he knows that voting for Greens can lead to Republican wins, and he knows what that will do to the everyday lives of lgbt people. Dan's politics and worldview are closer to the Green platform, but he's always set that aside for more rational reasons.
You're being unfair and disingenuous.
No one--not anyone on Slog anyway--has said anything against universal health care, or that it's not important. I don't know any lgbt person here who has said that universal health care is meaningless or shouldn't come about until marriage equality is law or DADT is repealed. You are--purposely or not--misrepresenting what we're saying.
Protesting and criticizing is "abandonment"? How? This is the equivalent of the Bush Adm. saying that criticizing a president at wartime is anti-American. We're not abandoning Obama, and bringing up the 2000 election is simply an argument from emotion.
Dan Savage has--as far as I know--never supported a Green Party candidate. And--again, as far as I can tell--it's only because he knows that voting for Greens can lead to Republican wins, and he knows what that will do to the everyday lives of lgbt people. Dan's politics and worldview are closer to the Green platform, but he's always set that aside for more rational reasons.
You're being unfair and disingenuous.
23
It's somehow even creepier when liberals won't let you criticize their fearless leader than when the conservatives do it.
Seandr: Obama is not the messiah. He's a man. He makes mistakes. The Democratic Party though is a reasonable facsimile of organized religion -- selling faith to the poor and powerless and screwing them behind their backs.
Seandr: Obama is not the messiah. He's a man. He makes mistakes. The Democratic Party though is a reasonable facsimile of organized religion -- selling faith to the poor and powerless and screwing them behind their backs.
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