Posts Tagged As: Cannot Say Our Name

GOP Endorses “Most Anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-Year History”

Jim Burroway

July 13th, 2016

As Time reported:

On Tuesday morning, the first openly gay member of the Republican Party’s platform committee said she was offering amendments to see “just how far this committee is willing to go to avoid a single positive reference to the LGBT community.”

According to reports, the platform committee went about as far as they could. The committee voted twice yesterday — exactly one month to the day after the Orlando massacre at the Pulse gay night club — to erase the gays from the worst mass shooting on American soil in a century. For example, under “War on Terrorism,” the platform now reads:

PlatformScreenShot

War on Terrorism

We are a nation at war! Islamic extremists have declared war on our Nation and the civilized world. The terrorist’s attack on the LGBT community in Orlando on June 12th ads to the long list of hundreds of attacks of war against the United States…

The strike-out “on the LGBT commiunity” was a proposed amendment to the platform which was rejected by the platform committee. That move builds on a predominantly-Republican theme of refusing to say our name. In another statement on “radical Islamic terrorism,” the platform committee rejected a mention of “LGBT individuals, Christians, Jews and women” as being “a target of violence and oppression.”

The New York Times political reporter Jeremy Peters reports: “Jim Bopp, a delegate from Indiana, said the Republican Party had always rejected ‘identity politics.’ Arguing against the measure, he said, ‘Obviously, there’s an agenda here’.” Peters continues:

But nearly every provision that expressed disapproval of homosexuality, same-sex marriage or transgender rights passed. The platform calls for overturning the Supreme Court marriage decision with a constitutional amendment and makes references to appointing judges “who respect traditional family values.”

“Has a dead horse been beaten enough yet?” asked Annie Dickerson, a committee member from New York, who chastised her colleagues for writing language offensive to gays into the platform “again and again and again.”

Additional provisions included those that promoted state laws to limit which restrooms transgender people could use, nodded to “conversion therapy” for gays by saying that parents should be free to make medical decisions about their children without interference and stated that “natural marriage” between a man and a woman is most likely to result in offspring who do not become drug-addicted or otherwise damaged.

The Family “Research” Council’s Tony Perkins, who is a Louisiana delegate to the platform committee, was in a celebratory mood going into yesterday’s final meeting ahead of the convention. In a email blast to supporters:

The marriage plank was strengthened with language explaining why children deserve a mom and dad. Religious liberty text was added protecting businesses and military service members. …

We are also pleased that the party is now on record standing with the 23 states that are suing President Obama over his bathroom & locker room edict. These amendments were overwhelmingly adopted. There were a handful of LGBT activists and sympathizers who opposed language highlighting the privacy and safety concerns related to the president’s locker room decrees as well as the party’s clearly stated view that natural marriage is the cornerstone of society. Some in the media attempted to seize on this as evidence of a divided party. Far from it. My prediction is that Republicans will leave Cleveland with a solid platform and will unite around the party’s nominee for the purpose of saving America for the next generation and beyond.

Log Cabin Republicans were outraged:

There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell — and I know you are, too.

Moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history.

Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there.

This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either. Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s! When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.

Peters said the platform that emerged from yesterday’s meeting “amounts to a rightward lurch even from the party’s hard-line platform in 2012.” With the public moving steadily toward support for marriage equality and non-discrimination protections for LGBT people, moderate Republicans say they have enough signatures to demand a vote on their proposals to take to fight over the party’s anti-LGBT planks to all 2,475 delegates on the Convention floor, which should make for some compelling must-see TV.

GOP Edits the LGBT Out of Its Orlando Statement

Jim Burroway

June 17th, 2016

Rebecca Ruiz at Mashable noticed something odd about the Republican National Committee’s statement about Orlando: a sentence is missing. when the statement was first released on Sunday, it contained an rather awkward sentence that nevertheless acknowledge the attack against the LGBT community. “Violence against any group of people simply for their lifestyle or orientation has no place in America or anywhere else,” it said. Clumsy, sure. A lot of people gagged on the “lifestyle” reference. But at least it was some kind of an acknowledgement, even if it sounded like it was written by Aunt Betty.

But by Monday, the statement was updated with no explanation, and that update obliterates all acknowledgment, klutzy or otherwise, of the attack on the LGBT community.  An RNC Spokesman said the revision was meant to be “more inclusive.” Log Cabin Republican president Gregory T. Angelo wasn’t having it.

“Scrubbing an early draft of their press release for any specific mention of gay people or sexual orientation is indicative of the cowardice a lot of Republicans exhibited in the aftermath of the shootings,” Angelo told Mashable. 

This is mart of a larger pattern among several Republicans and social conservatives who have refused to mention exactly who was attacked. It’s as if the shooter had attacked a shopping mall or a Denny’s. As Ruiz notes:

The RNC’s decision to remove the sentence from its statement highlights the party’s challenges as it tries to embrace the victims and show solidarity with the LGBT community without alienating Republican voters who often describe so-called identity politics as divisive.

One of the Most Anti-Gay Republicans In Congress CAN Say Our Name. Just Don’t Get Too Excited Over It.

Jim Burroway

June 15th, 2016

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who had been one of the country’s staunchest opponents of marriage equality and is a regular speaker at the Family “Research” Council’s annual Values Voter Summit, broke ranks with the majority of his caucus today on CNN’s New Day, when he told Chris Cuomo that it was “clear that gays were targeted in Orlando”:

I think it’s clear that gays were targeted in Orlando. It does matter. And it’s tragic that they were targeted because of their sexual orientation. I talk with hundreds of conservatives over on this side of the aisle. No one brings up the fact in any derogatory way or even mentions it to that extent. I mean, it’s tragic. And we’re sorry about that and they are in our prayers as if they were the Christians that were slaughtered in Charleston, South Carolina some time back, equal standing with God, Chris.

So yeah, there’s probably no reason to get too excited by this. I mean, those gays in Orlando aren’t Christians, but they do get equal standing. Which is, I guess, is some kind of a small improvement. Two years ago, King said of gay people: “I’ll just say that what was a sin 2,000 years ago is a sin today, and people that were condemned to hell 2,000 years ago, I don’t expect to meet them should I make it to heaven.” Whatever.

Southern Baptist Convention Cannot Say Our Name

Jim Burroway

June 15th, 2016

SBC-logo1The Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution on “The Orlando Tragedy” yesterday on the opening day of its annual meeting in St. Louis. The resolution, though, leaves me confused. Who were the more than one hundred people who were shot? Where were they? Were they morning commuters at a crowded bus station?

RESOLUTION 1: ON THE ORLANDO TRAGEDY

WHEREAS, Our entire nation is grieving as a result of the mass shooting of over one hundred people, resulting in the tragic deaths of at least fifty in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016; and

WHEREAS, The Bible teaches that God has created all men and women in His image (Genesis 1:26–27), and as the Author of life, regards acts of murder as evil (Matthew 16:18), and calls His people to love their neighbors as themselves (Matthew 22:39); now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, June 14–15, 2016, pray for the surviving victims, all affected families of those murdered, injured, and otherwise harmed, and first responders; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we extend our love and compassion to those devastated by this tragedy and pledge to come to their aid by donating blood and other supportive means; and be it finally

RESOLVED, That we regard those affected by this tragedy as fellow image-bearers of God and our neighbors, and therefore condemn this act of terrorism and others like it and pray for the day when these senseless acts of violence cease.

GOP Rep Says Pulse Wasn’t a Gay Night Club: “It Was Mostly Latinos”

Jim Burroway

June 15th, 2016

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) joined the growing Republican consensus to refuse to acknowledge that Sunday morning’s attack in Orlando was against a gay night club. Sessions chairs the House Rules Committee which yesterday blocked an amendment proposed by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) to restore President Barack Obama’s Executive Order prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination among federal contractors. When National Journal reporter Daniel Newhuser asked Sessions whether the shooting might change his mind on the anti-discrimination measure, he got this response:

Pete Sessions

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)

Sessions’s office tried to explain it away in the classic “taken-out-of-context” sort of way:

Sessions’ communications director, Caroline Boothe, told TPM that Newhauser’s quotes were correct but “taken out of context without the background information.”

“What my boss meant to say was that there weren’t only gay individuals at the club but people from all walks of life were present,” Boothe said.

She added that “at the end of the day we’re all Americans” and said Sessions’ heart grieved for everyone.

Before the attack, Pulse’s web site described the club as “Orlando’s Premiere Gay Night Club” and “Orlando’s hottest gay bar located in the heart of downtown.” Today, the site has been taken down and replaced with a simple statement in response to the shooting: “From the beginning, Pulse has served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community.”

They Can’t Even Say Who Was Attacked

Jim Burroway

June 13th, 2016

They can’t even say our names. But they are perfectly happy to appropriate what happened to us.

“The nation’s prayers are with the victims and their families in the wake of this terrible tragedy. We thank the citizens and first responders who helped rescue and save lives amidst horror and chaos. We will continue to monitor developments from local law enforcement and the FBI to determine the exact nature of this crime and whether it was connected to international terrorist groups.”

— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

It is horrifying to see so many innocent lives cut short by such cowardice. Tonight, and in the long days ahead, we will grieve with the families. We will thank the heroes. We will hope for a swift recovery for the injured.

As we heal, we need to be clear-eyed about who did this. We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists. Theirs is a regressive hateful ideology that respects no borders. It is a threat to our people at home and abroad. Our security depends on our refusal to back down in the face of terror. We never will.

— House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)

“This is a horrific day for America. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the victims, survivors, and those touched by this terrible tragedy. I fear this will prove to be system failure. Congress should immediately restore the budgets for our intelligence and law enforcement communities which have been suffering. My goal is to prevent future terrorist attacks, not simply respond to them. We are fighting a war against radical Islam and a hateful ideology, not a crime.”

— Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC)

To be fair, some Republicans are naming the victims directly as members of the LGBT community. (Sen. Marco Rubio,for example, has named the LGBT verbally on TV, but his official statement erases our existence.) But others treat the LGBT community as the people who they “dare not speak its name.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has got to be one of the worst offenders of this. He has been in front of every television camera in Orlando and his office has issued an avalanche of press releases — and one Executive order — without uttering even once the who the victims actually were. In this release, it was “an attack on our people… an attack on all of us.” In this one, it was “an attack on our state and entire nation.”

It’s true that it was an attack on “our state and nation,” if you mean that in a sort of an-attack-on-the-LGBT-community-is-an-attack-on-all-of-us kind of way. But if he meant it as a statement of solidarity, it should be pretty easy to do so. “The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live… “So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation — is an attack on all of us.” Obama said that, and it’s pretty clear the “all of us” line is one of solidarity.

But if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that when someone doesn’t want to speak clearly, then watch out. When they need to reach for euphemisms and jingoisms instead of speaking plainly, then you can bet that their intention has nothing to do with any sort of solidarity with the gay community.

And so let’s just be clear, in in case anyone is confused about what Omar Mateen did. He did not attack “all of us.” He attacked some of us. Some particular of us. He didn’t go to Disney, Universal, or to Orlando’s tourist strip packed with restaurants and nightclubs where all of us go. He didn’t go to a shopping mall or a sporting event where all of us go. No, he picked a partucalr night club where some of us go — a gay night club. A night club that was tucked away from the crowds of all of us, and to a particular crowd of some of us. A crowd that Mateen sought but too many political leaders find it uncomfortable to name.

    

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