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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 lobbyMarch 17th, 2011
Bexar County (San Antonio) Democratic Party Chair and yesterday’s LaBarbera Award winner Dan Ramos held a news conference this morning to announce that he was not resigning over comments he made last week likening gay people to “the “f*cking Nazi Party.” Not only that, but Ramos doubled down:
Bexar County Democratic Chairman Dan Ramos reiterated that he believed that gays were like “white termites who have infiltrated the party much like termites infiltrate your house,” and were co-conspirators with direct involvement in the theft of over $200,000 from party coffers.
…”I’ve always tried to be politically correct, however the gays, through the Stonewall Democrats, have taken over the party. Hell, my opponent in the election, Choco Meza, she’s a lesbian,” Ramos said. (Meza is not a lesbian.)
Ramos also referred to State Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie as a “racist bastard” and an “idiot” who’s been too busy to help the local party. “Gay people have been advising Richie,” he said, “and he slipped when he asked me to resign.”
Update: Oh, goody. We have video:
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patrick
March 17th, 2011
He is from Texas. Nuf said.
Timothy Kincaid
March 17th, 2011
Wow… this guy really sees everything through the prism of his ethic identity, doesn’t he. He thinks blacks are citizens (begrudgingly) and “white” is an insult.
Erin
March 17th, 2011
He seems to think gay people are only white. Hmm.
enough already
March 17th, 2011
This is the face of our enemy.
We must not permit the Democratic party to get away with this.
For too long, they have treated us like dirt because they thought we were only 3% of the population and thus not worth fighting for.
Now that we have some inertia behind us, now that we have hard statistics behind us (8-11% of the voting population, never mind our parents and loved ones, one-third of us voted rethuglican or teabagger or sat on our hands in protest in 2010) it is time to hit the Democrats and to hit them hard.
Stand for us or lose us. They need us. Without us, they can’t win in 2012. Time to push them and push them hard to fight for our civil and human rights.
Andrew
March 17th, 2011
Umm, enough, we are not now nor have we ever been 8-11% of the voting population. Unless you can point me to some new research I missed. In most cases, the 10% number appears to be plain wrong and the result of errant science reporting.
enough already
March 17th, 2011
Um, Andrew, I am making one assumption – I am assuming that gays, lesbians and the transgender over the age of 17 vote.
Now, what you are really asking is how I should return to the percentage which Americans used to recognize and which most of the civilized world still recognizes.
Fair question.
I won’t vouch for this website, but their data summaries are accurate:
http://www.avert.org/gay-people.htm
Now, obviously, I could point to the ancient Kinsey studies and say 37%, or the later studies and cut that by 2/3, or the current French studies cited in Wikipedia (which has a strong anti-gay bias) and admit 4.7% or the christian studies of Conservapedia which suggest less than 1/10 of 1%…
But I’ll go with the average of the current western studies which is roughly 10%, counting gays, lesbians and the transgender. I leave bisexuals out. Were we to include them, it would be more.
Are you asking out of genuine doubt or curiosity? If you are under 40, you probably grew up with the long since discredited 3% studies.
Why don’t you provide some data backing up your doubts?
Kevin
March 17th, 2011
I don’t want to equivocate, because the differences on gay issues between the Dems and GOP are huge…and much to the favor of the Dems, BUT if a Repub had said this, he would have been hounded out of the party forthwith. Where is the outrage?
mike
March 17th, 2011
#1 that data is only those who REPORT as having gay contact nothing more
#2 it does NOT include all of the voters who do support our cause that are straight or celebate
#3 “The 2000 census” is the data they site under their number of homosexuals in America section
#4 “So, if we accept that the data presented by the Human Rights Commission is indeed indicative of the real numbers, then it shows that the census data is only showing up a small percentage of the actual number of gay people living in America.” meaning since 2000 a REAL study has YET to be conducted and until then every time 10%-13% is the same scientifically as claiming the HIV doesn’t directly lead to AIDS.
Kevin
March 17th, 2011
I think Dan’s a bit sensitive, because “Dan Ramos” is an anagram of “A man’s rod!”
enough already
March 17th, 2011
Kevin,
That explains a lot – he is quite short.
Just sayin’…
John
March 18th, 2011
Isn’t there a way to fire him or vote him out of his position? He mostly certainly does not express Democrat ideals or positions. He’s worse than a Blue Dog Democrat. It’s like he’s a Tea Party Democrat. Even if he is Texan, that doesn’t excuse him. Texas has had some really good Democrats, ie former Gov. Richardson.
Timothy Kincaid
March 18th, 2011
enough already,
The three ways to quantify sexual orientation are to look at those who identify as being gay, those who predominantly experience same-sex attraction, or those who engage in same-sex behavior. Interestingly, the best data shows that these three methods generally overlap to such an extent that the numbers come out pretty closely the same.
So I am comfortable in saying that the percentage of gay and bisexual Americans is roughly 4% of the population. This is a slightly conservative estimate, but it does not serve our purposes to claim the closet as part of our community’s voting influence (the opposite is more likely).
My analysis was in the context of identifying the rate of gay male HIV infection (12%) and was based on the Centers for Disease Control’s extensive study. You can read it here.
Interestingly, the CDC has finally come up with a number and they are also using 4%. They also came to roughly the same conclusions on infection rate (11.8%).
But as for the question as to what percentage we are of the voting population, we need not estimate, speculate, or guess. CNN exit polls report that the percentage of voters who identify as gay (and for the purposes of political clout this is the relevant number) have pretty consistently been 3 to 4 percent of voters.
Mark F.
March 23rd, 2011
Yes, 4% seems about right, more or less.
F Young
April 6th, 2011
“But as for the question as to what percentage we are of the voting population, we need not estimate, speculate, or guess. CNN exit polls report that the percentage of voters who identify as gay (and for the purposes of political clout this is the relevant number) have pretty consistently been 3 to 4 percent of voters.”
I disagree. I think the exit polls are actually proof that gays are MORE than 3 – 4 % of the voting public. The 3 – 4 % are those who are out to complete strangers who interview them in a public space. They exclude closeted gays.
The 3 – 4 % CAN ONLY BE THE TRUE if closeted gays never vote, or their vote doesn’t count.
I don’t think it is safe to assume that closeted gays, such as those that now serve in the US military, vote more like straights than they vote like open gays. Admittedly, that is a hard thing to prove.
F Young
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