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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyOctober 4th, 2010
In 1978, California State Senator John Briggs sponsored an initiative on the ballot which would have banned gays and lesbians, and possibly anyone who supported gay rights, from working in California’s public schools. Although this initiative was initially successful in the polls, it failed on election night by 58.4% to 41.6%.
While the notion of banning gay people from certain types of employment (other than the military) seems archaic, it certainly isn’t dead. In fact, one of the more prominent voices in the Senate seems to be channeling John Briggs. (Spartanburg Herald-Journal)
[Senator Jim DeMint] said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.
“(When I said those things,) no one came to my defense,” he said. “But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn’t back down. They don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.”
Undoubtedly DeMint considers himself to be a good Republican. And, as such, undoubtedly he idolizes Ronald Reagan. So perhaps he should consider these words from the man that is credited for turning around public opinion:
Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.
Were DeMints thinking based on Fears About The Children, then he could rest assured that they are baseless. But they aren’t. Rather, DeMint is concerned about that nebulous “freedom to religion” which seems to be defined as the right to force others to do what your religion dictates.
And so Senator DeMint’s objection to gay people teaching is based in something a bit less susceptible to argument or logic: a desire to harm the lives of gay people and to falsely present them as something to be feared or shunned. Because that is consistent with the values of the god he serves.
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Patrick
October 4th, 2010
I think it also probably has to do with not wanting them gays to be holding influence over their children. If they did, them gays would probably tell the children that being gay is ok and that gays should be allowed to be married and all sorts of other awful stuff that the parents don’t want the children to hear.
Won’t somebody please think of the children! (in my best Helen Lovejoy voice)
Lindoro Almaviva
October 4th, 2010
What do you expect from a Republican. Sadly the party has become a collection of bigots, racists and xenophobes who are no longer needing to hide their ideas in the closet.
Regan DuCasse
October 4th, 2010
My parents were very politically minded people and we had analysis all the time. I loved being in on those discussions, and I helped canvas for McGovern and other candidates before I was out of grade school.
When I went to see “Milk” with two very close friends, I realized that I’d worked against the Briggs initiative as a newly minted voter with LOTS of gay friends as a teenager.
My friends, literally had been toddlers back then.
More than half my damn life and THIS gasbag is echoing a time I hoped I’d never see again.
Pardon me for being indelicate here, but sometimes I want to take people like Sally Kern and DeMint…and beat them to death with each other.
Ya feel me?
Scott P.
October 4th, 2010
Oh, Regan, I know EXACTLY how you feel!
I remember the Briggs Initiative and thought it would never resurface, I was wring. I thought the Mormons had finally gain some humility, I was wrong. I thought the Catholic church had become less hostile, again, wrong. If I could weave all the lies into a rope and hang these people with it I would. But lies are only air, and things, slowly, are getting better for us here. And, then work on benighted counties like Uganda.
Regan DuCasse
October 4th, 2010
I was so lucky… I learned from an old guard. Like my uncle, an investigator for the ACLU, conscientious objector during WW2 and co founder of the LA chapter of CORE. Congress of Racial Equality.
And Morris Kight. Who showed me all the affection and respect like a grandfather to me. Told me to stay the gazelle I was and give em hell like he knew I could.
I need to keep my energy up for all of this. THEY sure did and this terrible month of grief and anger at the losses of these precious young boys to suicide is telling me to regroup and get back to the young guard I love so well.
Sometimes I DO call on the spirits of my uncle and Brother Morris, to help me.
(sigh)
But then, one of my kids who had a tough teen hood who is now an adult will call me, and I know what I need to do.
When you have days like that…it gets better for us adults too.
customartist
October 5th, 2010
DeMint is a problem. He is funded by deep Conservative pockets in South Carolina. These “fiscally responsibles” have not balanced the SC budget, nor have they paid their waaay overdue Social Security taxes to the Federal Government.
Does this sound “responsible”? But yet they are pouring tons of cash into advertizing, even posting ads on gay and liberal sites.
It seems that in today’s political sphere, the vote means nothing. It matters not how much real support issues, candidates, or partys have, just how much money they have to expend on advertizing.
Jerry Sloan
October 5th, 2010
If DeMint is channeling John Briggs do you suppose he is also hiding a second family like Briggs?
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