There are many reasons to shudder at the thought of a Sarah Palin presidency. But that isn’t one of them.

Rev. Ron Hamman may be from Wasilla but he isn’t her pastor.

@Timothy Unless Palin took McCain’s presidency. When her pastor believes the antichrist will be gay, I shudder to think of her presidency.

On Wednesday May 27, hundreds [of Armenian-Americans and their supporters] gathered around the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, California to remind the President of his broken promise [to recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915 as genocide] as he hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser. Joining them were hundreds of other activists demonstrating for gay rights and an end to the war in Iraq and torture…

Interestingly, Armenian-American’s [sic] were not the only ones demonstrating against Obama’s failure to keep his promieses [sic]. Susan Adelman, a mother protesting for the anti-war organization Code Pink, said that there “is an encompassing lack of major promises not being kept. Whether we’re here to protest against war or the recognition of a genocide, we stand here as reminders of what we believed in when he was campaigning and how closely to our hearts we held these issues.”

The insistence that LGBTs were the only protesters and that Obama was slighting the LGBT community in particular seems embarrassingly solipsistic.

Not quite. He signed the PEPFAR bill which allowed DHHS to lift the ban but never signed an executive order which would’ve actually lifted the ban. Not to excuse Obama for his lack of action on this point, but it appears you’re giving Bush credit for something he never did.

I believe the “right on conscience” ruling only applied to federal funding for medical facilities that don’t allow employees to refuse to perform abortions. It possibly might have been so loosely worded as to also include contraception and artificial insemination. This is a right, incidentally, that congress protects. Bush’s ruling had only to do with implemenation and reporting.

It does not appear that this could or would have any influence on refusing service to gay people. It’s probably a good thing this ruling was reversed (it was poorly written) but it does not impact gay people disproportionately.

As for what you buy or don’t buy, that’s of little concern. But I do know that those non-native-born who have HIV are greatly concerned about the change from the Bush policy.

I hope the President rectifies the situation soon.

If we consider that McCain was unlikely to reverse Bush’s policies as a whole, an argument could be made that at least for a very short period we would have been better off with McCain.”.

Bush had also passed a right of conscience for medical workers that would have allowed them to refuse service to people (like gays) on the basis of their religion. Obama also reversed that, which was a good thing. I don’t buy that “for a very short period we would have been better off with McCain.”.

I think your speculation is not based on history.

While it is very likely that McCain would have ignored furthering gay rights, nothing in his history shows any inclination to roll back rights that we already have.

And to assume that McCain would have rolled back rights further than the outgoing Bush adminstation is illogical.

Ironically, the situation may be precisely the opposite. At present we have a slight decrease in rights from the outgoing Bush administration (HIV immigration and travel ban) from the Obama administration. Bush had lifted the HIV ban, but Obama reversed his decision as part of a reversal of all late-term Bush decisions.

If we consider that McCain was unlikely to reverse Bush’s policies as a whole, an argument could be made that at least for a very short period we would have been better off with McCain.

Let’s hope and pray (and lobby and pressure) that this short period ends very quickly.

While we are severely disappointed in Obama’s inaction, a McCain presidency would have been even worse for GLBTQ people.

McCain would have not only ignored furthering gay rights, but would have probably rolled back rights we already have.

So Obama’s not a godsend, but he’s a hell of a lot better than McCain/Palin.