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News & ArtsSaturday, March 24, 2012
Politics / LGBTQITSLFA Log Cabin Republicans
Posted by Dan Savage on Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 12:44 PM
They're not as noxious as the kapos at GOProud, but... they're spineless apologists who are out there raising money for the sworn/orange enemies of LGBT equality.
1
Good for Joe - so many politically active gays are the middle-aged mortgaged white guys with a little money saved up - gotta keep reminding 'em to fight their own bourgeois drift to conservatism. Log Cabins are a stern reminder of how ridiculous it looks to lose that battle.
2
@1: I'm a middle-aged white gay guy who's been a proud life-long Democrat and I have no intention whatsoever of drifting rightward to the Repugs. They are and always have been bad for America ever since I've been voting.
3
Ultimately of course, sexual orientation should be tangential to one's political philosophy and involvement.
4
@3, As long as one party campaigns on treating you like a second-class citizen, how is that even possible?
5
@2 I am too, but I haven't fingers and toes enough to count the number of similarly situated friends who've done the rightward drift. You'll be fine, I'll be fine, but the point is the many not as immune to the temptation as we.
6
I'm tempted to Godwin but I'll just say I cannot fathom the spineless souls that must occupy the ranks of the LCR. Has anyone here ever met/had a conversion with them? How do they square that circle?
8
@7
Yes, "orientation" should be tangential.
But once you try to actualize that orientation by having sex with a consenting adult(s) not approved by the Right-wing (see attached chart A1)
or by using a non-approved orifice(s) (see attached chart A2)
or using non-approved methods of birth control (see attached chart A3)
then the Republican political party has a problem.
Yes, "orientation" should be tangential.
But once you try to actualize that orientation by having sex with a consenting adult(s) not approved by the Right-wing (see attached chart A1)
or by using a non-approved orifice(s) (see attached chart A2)
or using non-approved methods of birth control (see attached chart A3)
then the Republican political party has a problem.
10
@7: Yeah, but so what? The Republican party exists to be SOCIAL conservatives. Sexual identity IS their philosophy and your bedroom their involvement, certainly including Ron Paul and the rest of these hucksters.
Anyway, why isn't Andrew Sullivan included with these assholes? He's just as much a fraud as the rest of the Log Cabiners.
Anyway, why isn't Andrew Sullivan included with these assholes? He's just as much a fraud as the rest of the Log Cabiners.
11
@8 Brilliantly stated.
It's not so much about identity for identity's sake so much as it's about control, pure and simple.
It's not so much about identity for identity's sake so much as it's about control, pure and simple.
12
Why isn't LCR fundraising for gay-friendly candidates? They must realize that they are being used as cover by Boehner and others ... the "gay friends" defense.
13
@12..but the repugs never name names of any gay sort, not even the log cabin ones.
or
'who is more fool, the fool or the fool that follows the fool ?'
or
'who is more fool, the fool or the fool that follows the fool ?'
14
Though I am a white, middle class gay male with a mortgage, I feel confident that I would be a Democrat even if I was straight. (My straight twin brother lives in a very red state where he is a lonely Democrat.)
I am strongly pro-choice in many contexts, whether it's abortion and insured-covered contraception (even though I'll never get pregnant), medical marijuana (even though I get sick on it), or other issues. I'm proud of my family's Labor roots even though I've always worked in management. I was a vocal feminist at the age of 12 in a very conservative town. I believe in evolution, mankind's affect on climate change, and sex education. I'm confident these things would be true of me -- as they are of most of my straight male friends -- even if I was straight.
I am strongly pro-choice in many contexts, whether it's abortion and insured-covered contraception (even though I'll never get pregnant), medical marijuana (even though I get sick on it), or other issues. I'm proud of my family's Labor roots even though I've always worked in management. I was a vocal feminist at the age of 12 in a very conservative town. I believe in evolution, mankind's affect on climate change, and sex education. I'm confident these things would be true of me -- as they are of most of my straight male friends -- even if I was straight.
18
"I base the future of the country on some people's irrational fear/hatred of me." Or maybe, "There are Republicans who don't like gays, so Republican ideas must be bunk."
20
"I base the future of the country on some people's irrational fear/hatred of me." Or maybe, "There are Republicans who don't like gays, so Republican ideas must be bunk."
21
I propose a thought experiment for all left-leaning members of the LGBTQ community. Suppose the party of smaller government was also the party that stood for gay rights and women's reproductive rights. You know, government out of our wallets and out of our bedrooms and that sort of thing. Now suppose the other party was controlled by bible thumpers who were against gay marriage but who favored things like socialized medicine because they saw caring for the sick and poor as a christian duty. Which party would you vote for? The libertarians or the bible thumping socialists?
22
There's a Rothbard quote, discussing his history of political involvement, where he rattles off a whole list of groups he has championed, including, among others, black nationalists(!), but he finishes the quote with a statement that he has always been "true to his beliefs." I always like to think of it in conjunction with his bitter statement upon being muscled out of Cato that one couldn't trust a libertarian not to poison one's coffee--the hurt and astonishment is so...delicious!
You do realize that entrism, as envisioned by Fred Meyer, is viewed broadly as treachery, right? This isn't just a party thing. When, for example, a libertarian says that blacks are fated to poverty as an argument against welfare, using their non-violent drug arrests as evidence of their criminality, he can hardly expect the blacks to have forgotten it when, using those same statistics, he argues that marijuana should be legalized as the enforcement is "racist" and disproportionately affects blacks. Hilarious! And I'm sure once you get your legal drugs you'll lay down the clout and money to liberate those blacks wrongfully imprisoned on the previous charges, especially when up against the unionized prison guards and their bought legislators and judges. Sure thing, buddy!
To tie this together into a point, it seems that both you and Goldwater were surprised when the people whom you assisted into the Republican Party on the basis of their religious belief that God made blacks inferior turned out to also believe that gays should be executed. Really? Really. I mean Rothbard was *honestly* surprised when Pat "segregation, segregation, segregation" Buchanan turned out to be a protectionist! Shocking!
People don't trust libertarians because they are mercenaries and backstabbers; in addition to this, they have no idea how to read people--I blame autism. I suppose what really frustrates me is when some dirty turncoat like you, or Sully, or Brock, or "Deep Throat," or Frum comes down the pike how people are deceived into finding you fuckers potentially useful--they wasted so much time sharpening knives!
More...
You do realize that entrism, as envisioned by Fred Meyer, is viewed broadly as treachery, right? This isn't just a party thing. When, for example, a libertarian says that blacks are fated to poverty as an argument against welfare, using their non-violent drug arrests as evidence of their criminality, he can hardly expect the blacks to have forgotten it when, using those same statistics, he argues that marijuana should be legalized as the enforcement is "racist" and disproportionately affects blacks. Hilarious! And I'm sure once you get your legal drugs you'll lay down the clout and money to liberate those blacks wrongfully imprisoned on the previous charges, especially when up against the unionized prison guards and their bought legislators and judges. Sure thing, buddy!
To tie this together into a point, it seems that both you and Goldwater were surprised when the people whom you assisted into the Republican Party on the basis of their religious belief that God made blacks inferior turned out to also believe that gays should be executed. Really? Really. I mean Rothbard was *honestly* surprised when Pat "segregation, segregation, segregation" Buchanan turned out to be a protectionist! Shocking!
People don't trust libertarians because they are mercenaries and backstabbers; in addition to this, they have no idea how to read people--I blame autism. I suppose what really frustrates me is when some dirty turncoat like you, or Sully, or Brock, or "Deep Throat," or Frum comes down the pike how people are deceived into finding you fuckers potentially useful--they wasted so much time sharpening knives!
26
@25 Let me re-phrase that. If the pro-big money party were also the pro-marriage equality party who would you vote for? Suppose the alternative was a guy who held Rick Santorum's views on social issues, but who was pro-union and pro-universal healthcare?
27
@26: Isn't that why liberals get involved in politics beyond just at the November ballot box? So there's never a choice like that to make?
28
Thank you #21/26 (whether you are the real Ken Mehlman or not). You hit the nail on the head. The gay left is more "left" than gay. I belonged to LCR in Boston 10 years ago and we supported Weld, Cellucci, and Romney because of their positions on the economy and government. The fact they were "gay friendly" was important but not to the expense of everything else.
Similarly in presidential politics, if your vote for president is defined entirely how you perceive what they think of you personally, then you are abdicating your citizenship. It is interesting that Clinton signed DOMA and Obama supports civil unions not marriage (yet has not even attempted making the federal government treat civil unions as marriage when it comes to tax law). Yet somehow Republicans candidates are the boogeymen.
The gay left (like HRC) cares more about abortion rights, socialized medicine, secularism, and meaningless things like hate crimes laws, than anything else. That is why there are no takers here to your proposition.
Similarly in presidential politics, if your vote for president is defined entirely how you perceive what they think of you personally, then you are abdicating your citizenship. It is interesting that Clinton signed DOMA and Obama supports civil unions not marriage (yet has not even attempted making the federal government treat civil unions as marriage when it comes to tax law). Yet somehow Republicans candidates are the boogeymen.
The gay left (like HRC) cares more about abortion rights, socialized medicine, secularism, and meaningless things like hate crimes laws, than anything else. That is why there are no takers here to your proposition.
29
re @21 - might be interested in this test (there are other versions of this out there, this is just the one that came up first and I'm lazy) http://www.politicalcompass.org/
30
Of course the only presidential candidate who actually supports gay marriage is two term New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who is the likely nominee of the Libertarian Party.
32
@22: hallelujah. i'm social libertarian-leaning, however I know too much about "libertarian policy" and those politicians to ever vote for one again
33
@21/26, I believe that people who do not believe in equality for gay people are not intellectually honest and are too religion-focused to truly represent my interests. However, I also believe small-government obsessives have an unbelievably simplistic and selfish worldview. I would either support a third party or pick and choose among the available candidates of both parties depending on which parts of their respective parties' platforms they emphasized. I have my quibbles with the Democratic party (gun regulation is one of them), and I'm a registered Independent. But I generally agree with its goals, fortunately.
34
BTW People I'm not a Ron Paul supporter. I'm a former Republican moderate who turned into a Democratic moderate when the Republicans all moved to crazy town.
35
@34: The answer to that is "ha ha ha that's a conflict I'd love to be able to concern myself with".
I don't see the GOP giving up the culture wars anytime in the next twenty years.
I don't see the GOP giving up the culture wars anytime in the next twenty years.
36
Living in the UK I'm in the enviable position of all 3 major parties being pro-equality (hell, the only anti-gay party left is the British Nazi, oops I mean National, Party). Unfortunately they're all such colossal fuck ups on all other counts I can't bring myself to vote for any of them.
38
@37: Gays ARE equal humanrights-wise to straights, If you have any difficulty understanding this concept, that's your stupidity shoehorning its way in.
40
@21
As @ 35 said, that would be a nice problem to have: Gosh, both parties have platforms that--while not without their flaws--have some very strong selling points.
But seriously, not in this country. As you said yourself, you have had to pick the lesser of two evils. Give me an Eisenhower conservative not given to bigotry and christo-crazy culture-war policies and I am there. But you'll have to wait a very long time to see not-crazy-conservatism or liberalism-with-a-spine in this country.
The real answer is that our de facto two-party system is fucked. A multi-party system in which libertarians, greens, christians, center-rights, far-lefts, &c. could actually support parties with which they agree--and in which minor parties can actually have some leverage--would be peachy-keen.
Of course it'd be easier to just move north of the 49th.
As @ 35 said, that would be a nice problem to have: Gosh, both parties have platforms that--while not without their flaws--have some very strong selling points.
But seriously, not in this country. As you said yourself, you have had to pick the lesser of two evils. Give me an Eisenhower conservative not given to bigotry and christo-crazy culture-war policies and I am there. But you'll have to wait a very long time to see not-crazy-conservatism or liberalism-with-a-spine in this country.
The real answer is that our de facto two-party system is fucked. A multi-party system in which libertarians, greens, christians, center-rights, far-lefts, &c. could actually support parties with which they agree--and in which minor parties can actually have some leverage--would be peachy-keen.
Of course it'd be easier to just move north of the 49th.
41
I find it hilarious that some people still refer to the Republicans as "the party of small government." "Small", I guess, in terms of those parts that do anything helpful (education, health care, environmental regulation). Huge in terms of stuff that screws most of us while making them a boatload of money and/or telling people what to do (war, drug enforcement, birth control).
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