Box Turtle Bulletin
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 lobbyAugust 12th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Political “Soap Box” At Iowa State Fair: Des Moines, IA. . The Des Moines Register is hosting an old-fashioned political soapbox at the Iowa State Fair where presidential candidates can address attendees for up to twenty minutes on any topic they choose. Only one candidate spoke yesterday, but Mitt Romney’s turn on the soap box ended up becoming major news. Members of the Des Moines-based Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement who confronted Romney over proposed cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Romney denounced the alternative of raising revenue from taxes on corporations, saying “Corporations are people too.” Today’s schedule at the soapbox will go like this:
Out In Africa Film Festival: Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. The 18th Out In Africa South African Gay & Lesbian Film Festival begins today. The lineup includes six feature films, four documentaries, and nine shorts from fourteen countries. On documentary, Getting Out, shows three gay Africans seeking asylum, but find that neither South Africa nor Europe are reliable sanctuaries for them. Another documentary, Waited For, follows a lesbian couple’s difficulties in adopting a child in South Africa. Glitterboys and Ganglands give a behind-the-scenes view of preparations for Miss Gay Western Cape. The festival runs through August 21.
Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit: Houston, TX. After Texas A&M’s student council moved to force a shutdown of the school’s LGBT resource center last spring, organizers of the the statewide transgender conference feared that the campus would be an unsafe venue for their third annual meeting. Consequently, the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit, has been moved to the University of Houston to protect “the safety for the participants.” The 2011 summit begins today on the campus of the University of Houston and continues through tomorrow.
Australians Rally for Marriage Equality This Weekend: Adelaide, SA; Brisbane, QLD; Canberra, ACT; Melbourne, VIC; Perth, WA and Sydney, NWS.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Brighton, UK; Charleston, SC; Eugene, OR; Fargo, ND; Indianapolis, IN (Black Pride); Irvine, CA; Mannheim, Germany; Montréal, QC; New York, NY (Black Pride); Palouse/Moscow ID; Prague, Czech Rep.; Sligo, Ireland; and Wakefield, UK.
AIDS Walk This Weekend: Denver, CO.
Also This Weekend: Northalstead Market Days, Chicago, IL and Provincetown Carnival, MA.
Click to view the full broadsheet.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Captain Nichols Hanged for “Buggery”: 1833. Yes, that was the actual British legal term for homosexual activity, and it was a capital offense until 1861, when the laws were finally relaxed to allow for life imprisonment. But that change came almost thirty years too late for Captain Henry Nichols. In 1833, the the London Courier printed the following account:
Captain Henry Nicholas Nicholls, who was one of the unnatural gang to which the late Captain Beauclerk belonged, (and which latter gentleman put an end to his existence), was convicted on the clearest evidence at Croydon, on Saturday last, of the capital offence of Sodomy; the prisoner was perfectly calm and unmoved throughout the trial, and even when sentence of death was passed upon him. In performing the duty of passing sentence of death upon the prisoner, Mr. Justice Park told him that it would be inconsistent with that duty if he held out the slightest hope that the law would not be allowed to take its severest course. At 9 o’clock in the morning the sentence was carried into effect. The culprit, who was fifty years of age, was a fine looking man, and had served in the Peninsular war. He was connected with a highly respectable family; but, since his apprehension not a single member of it visited him.
You can also read a different account from a popular broadsheet by clicking the above image.
[via ExecutedToday.com (which proves that there is truly a blog for everything)]
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
August 12th, 2011
Think Progress has a handy compilation clip from Thursday night’s GOP debate in Iowa of candidates discussing same-sex marriage. One of my favorite reactions comes from across the Pond, with The Guardian’s Richard Adams responding to Romney’s argument that “marriage is a status“:
Looking back through some clips, there’s Romney saying: “Marriage is a status, it’s not an activity.” Who says romance is dead, eh? Calling marriage a “status” makes it sound like a Facebook update.
The emerging consensus, albeit a snarky one, is that the debate’s real winner was Rick Perry, who doesn’t officially declare his candidacy until tomorrow.
Here’s the clip and transcript.
Mitt Romney: Marriage should be decided at the federal level. … Marriage is a status. It’s not an activity that goes on within the walls of a state and as a result, our marriage status relationship should be constant across the country. I believe we should have a federal amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman because I believe the ideal place to raise a child is in a home with a mom and a dad.
Jon Huntsman: I also believe in civil unions, because I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to equality. And I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to reciprocal beneficiary rights rights. And I believe that this is something that ought to be discussed among the various states. I don’t have any problem with the states having this discussion. But as for me, I support civil unions.
Ron Paul: (About whether polygamy would “be okay too”) It’s sort of like asking the question if the states wanted to legalize slavery or something like that, that is so past reality that no state is going to do that. But on the issue of marriage, I think marriage should be between a single man and a single woman and that the federal government shouldn’t be involved. I want less government involvement. I don’t want the federal government having a marriage police.
Rick Santorum: It sounds to me like Rep. Paul would actually say polygamous marriages are okay. If the state has the right to do it, they have the right to do it.
Michele Bachmann: I support the Federal Marriage Amendment because I believe that we will see this issue at the Supreme Court someday, and as president I would not nominate activist judges who legislate from the bench. I also want to say that when I was in Minnesota, I was the chief author of the Constitutional amendment to define marriage as one-man, one-woman. I have an absolutely unblemished record when it comes to this issue of man-woman marriage.
August 12th, 2011
Just when you think you know a guy…
Of course this particular point about gays is moot. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously declared in 2007 that there are no beers in Iran.
August 11th, 2011
The National Organization “for” Marriage is upset with us again. According Jennifer Roback Morse (NOM’s resident big-brain), we’re guilty of intimidation though breathing.
Seriously.
No, seriously.
Morse writes in her article, Intelligent Replies to Idiotic Comments, Part 2, (Gasp!!!):
“But same sex couples already have children!” This is not, strictly speaking, an idiotic comment, since it is a statement of fact. However, I want to call your attention to the exasperated gasp (EG for short) that usually accompanies this comment. The EG is designed to intimidate the listener into believing that some deeply important conclusion follows instantly and obviously from the observation that same sex couples already have children in their homes. The Exasperated Gasp is supposed to convey that the whole issue is a done deal, and we shouldn’t offer any resistance to further social change.
And again, at the end,
The true statement, But same sex couples already have children!” accompanied by an Exasperated Gasp, is either an intimidation tactic, or another idiotic comment. Take your pick.
Have you noticed a shift in NOM’s rhetoric? As their public support dwindles, they’re now casting themselves as the bullied victims of power-mad gays out to strip them of their basic rights.
And apparently we’ve gotten so good we can do it with a single breath.
I do have to point one thing out (because it may be confusing). Her warning that we breathe while exasperated is intended to be her intelligent reply to our idiotic respiration. Whoa.
Morse continues:
Let’s examine this. What exactly is it that supposedly follows automatically and obviously [from the true statement that same sex couples already have children]?
She offers several possibilities, some merely straw men, some genuinely offensive.
Same sex couples should be encouraged to have more children. No, that doesn’t follow. You’d have to make an argument to support that conclusion.
She’s right, it doesn’t follow. But when did we ever say it does. The fact is, same-sex couples already have children! Those children exist, will continue to exist, and would benefit from marriage rights bestowed on their parents. Whether same-sexers should be encouraged to have more kids or not is entirely beside the point — the point being that these children exist.
So that’s a straw man. Next?
Same sex couples will continue to have more children, no matter what the law does or doesn’t do. No, that doesn’t follow either. As a matter of fact, the law can, if it chooses, make it quite difficult for same sex couples to share parenting rights.
In the first place, it doesn’t matter that much, because these children already exist. And same-sexers will continue to have kids and raise them. Even if the law can “make it quite difficult for same sex couples to share parenting rights” (nice veiled threat there, Jennifer, and the “quite” adds a great James-Bond-villain flavor, circa 1967 — I can see you sitting in a huge chair stroking a white kitty saying, We can make it quite difficult to share parenting rights, Mr. Bond), the law will have a hard time keeping us from sharing parenting responsibilities. We’d just have to do so without the legal protections put in place to safeguard the child, things like the child’s access to both parents’ healthcare plans.
That makes this a factually incorrect straw man offering a repugnant veiled threat. Next?
Same sex couples have children the same way opposite sex couples do.
I don’t know anyone who says this, or even hopes to convey it through an Exasperated Gasp. We do say that same sex couples can raise children the same way opposite sex couples do, which is a different point entirely
Straw man. Next?
Same sex couples should be allowed to marry so “their” children can have all the benefits of marriage.
STOP! I can’t handle the scare quotes around “their.” This is one of NOM’s most despicable and frequent insinuations: that adoptive parents aren’t a child’s real parents. And I truly don’t get it. Morse herself has adopted a child and I can’t believe she introduces the kid by saying, This is “my” child, complete with air quotes on the my.
Anyway, this is not a straw man. If our offensive exhalations mean to signify anything, it’s that children of same sex parents deserve the protections of marriage. What is Morse’s intelligent reply?
No, this doesn’t follow either. This assumes that the “marriage” of a same sex couple will work in the same way as the marriage of a man and a woman. This is highly doubtful. We already know that in terms of economic behavior, male couples are different from female couples, and both are different from married couples. We also know that separation rates (ie divorces) are different for male couples and for female couples and both are different (higher, like way higher) than for married couples. We have no reason to assume that same sex “marriage” will function in the same way, and convey all the same benefits to children, as natural, conjugal marriage does.
So many things wrong here, I’ll have to number them.
I’m sorry. I have to stop now. I let slip a few Exasperated Gasps as I typed this piece, and I wouldn’t want such intimidating idiocy to violate Morse’s right to share her intelligent replies. I could only continue if I stopped breathing altogether, and Morse surely wouldn’t want that.
August 11th, 2011
On Tuesday the LA Times ran an article by Mark Barabak about gay Jewish Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger,
By running for president and trying to get on stage for at least one debate — the overriding goal of his candidacy — Karger hopes to send a message to people like himself: a boy growing up outside Chicago and, later, a closeted adult, shamed by society’s view of his sexuality and too scared to admit, even to himself, who he was.
They need to understand, Karger says, that not only is it OK to be gay, it’s also possible to be gay and an unflinching candidate for the nation’s highest office.
Ultimately, Fred’s goal is revolutionary. If he is successful, he will – at some point – walk onto a stage in front of cameras and show the world that the quest for the American Presidency actually is open to anyone who is dedicated to the fight and whose positions can resonate with voters.
And, to the horror of much of the Republican Party, Fred mere presence would demonstrate that “anyone” doesn’t come with an *asterisk.
(* – except gay people)
August 11th, 2011
The metaphors become even more strained:
Rick Santorum today finally wrapped up his 50-city tour de Iowa. He continued to press anti-gay views, saying that calling same-sex marriage a marriage would be like calling a cup of tea a basketball. He repeatedly quoted a study that families do better in heterosexual marriages. Though that study actually uses the phrase “nuclear” family, which can include same-sex couples.
He made those remarks yesterday at a very lonely stop of the “Value Voters Bus Tour” which is making its way through Iowa. He’s really been straining at the metaphors: napkins and not paper towels, water and not beer. But none of those metaphors have the punchiness of “frothy mix.” His weird metaphors may go on a temporary hiatus: Santorum is reportedly developing laryngitis. That development will be particularly timely if it affects his participation in tonight’s GOP debate.
August 11th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Fox News Hosts Iowa Presidential Debate: Ames, IA. And all the GOP candidates will be there: former Utah Gov. Jon Hunstman, former Massachusetts Gov. Mit Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Ron Paul, former Sen. Rich Santorum, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, businessman Herman Cain — and openly gay candidate Fred Karger. But Karger won’t be on the stage tonight, despite meeting all of the criteria that Fox News set out as qualifications for participating. Attorneys for Karger say they are preparing a complaint to the Federal Elections Commission, saying that Fox News is in violation of FEC rules governing all presidential debates. The debate begins tonight at 9:00 p.m. EDT and will air on Fox News.
Political “Soap Box” At Iowa State Fair: Des Moines, IA. Iowa hosts one of the largest state fairs in the country, which opens today. And this year it coincides with a big weekend for Iowa’s political junkies, what with tonight’s Fox News debate and the Ames Straw Poll on Saturday. The Des Moines Register is hosting an old-fashioned political soapbox at the State Fair, where presidential candidates can address attendees for up to twenty minutes on any topic they choose. And unlike Fox News, the Register’s forum is pretty open to just about everyone, including Fred Karger and an obscure farmer from Texas. Today is the first day of the fair, and so the soapbox schedule is extremely light. The only candidate scheduled to speak today is Mitt Romney, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Tomorrow’s schedule looks like this:
Australians Rally for Marriage Equality: Adelaide, SA; Brisbane, QLD; Canberra, ACT; Melbourne, VIC; Perth, WA and Sydney, NWS. Seven years ago this Saturday, Prime Minister John Howard’s government, with support from the opposition Labour Party, attached an amendment to the Marriage Act restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Every years sine then, large crowds have observed the anniversary with demands to repeal the law. This weekend, rallies will be held in the nation’s capital of Canberra and in six state capitals. Members of the House of Representatives are currently on break for consultations with their constituents, and many report that they are hearing overwhelming responses against same-sex marriage despite public opinions polls showing that a solid majority of Australians support marriage equality. Advocates hope that these rallies will grab their representatives’ attention.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Brighton, UK; Charleston, SC; Eugene, OR; Fargo, ND; Indianapolis, IN (Black Pride); Irvine, CA; Mannheim, Germany; Montréal, QC; New York, NY (Black Pride); Palouse/Moscow ID; Prague, Czech Rep.; Sligo, Ireland; and Wakefield, UK.
AIDS Walk This Weekend: Denver, CO.
Also This Weekend: Northalstead Market Days, Chicago, IL and Provincetown Carnival, MA.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
August 11th, 2011
Either that, or it’s like riding a scooter:
Vanillaphobe
Rep. Allen West (R-FL): You cannot compare me and my race to a behavior. Sexuality is a behavior. And so yeah, I say it: I cannot change my color. People can change their sexual behavior. And I’ve seen people do that. You know, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, so I’ve seen a very different perspective on human behaviors. So that’s where I’m coming from with that. Now everyone has the same basic rights. No one is telling people in the gay community that they don’t the same basic rights that any American has.
Q: You say people can change their behavior. Do you think gay people should change their behavior?
West: Oh, Tony, come on, no. I don’t think that. I mean, I like chocolate chip ice cream, and I will continue to like chocolate chip ice cream. So there’s no worry about me changing to vanilla. I like to, you know, I like to ride my motorcycle. What do you want me to do? You want me to change my behavior and ride a scooter? I’m not into that.
Yeah, more crappy metaphors, and reaching for ice cream flavors puts him dangerously close to becoming a political Forrest Gump. But at least I can find two silver linings here: 1) West doesn’t think gay people should change, and 2) he finds homosexuality to be kinda vanilla. Both opinions put him at odds with several other fellow party-members. But on the other hand, he also can’t seem to understand that marriage is “the same basic right” that he enjoys. Talk about your oxymorons.
Update: West took some flack for comparing homosexuality to ice cream flavors and hit back by saying that vanilla ice cream should be banned form the military. Or something like that:
I think that what I said is that is behavior, and so what I talked about is, look, I prefer or I like chocolate chip ice cream, and I’m not going against what someone prefers or has as their behavioral preference in their life. But when you start to understand about the United States military, the United States military serves one mission — that’s to fight and win our nation’s wars. And if we start to take the military and try to conform it to individual behaviors, no matter what those individual behaviors are, we’re going to lose the essence of what the United States military is.
August 10th, 2011
As it stands, much of Latin America either has some form of couple recognition or is in the process of doing so.
Marriage – Argentina 2010
Marriage – Mexico 2010 – marriage must occur in Mexico City but recognized throughout
Civil Unions – Uruguay 2007
Civil Unions – Ecuador 2008
Civil Unions – Brazil 2011
Proposed – Colombia 2011 – Court directed the legislature to draft law
Proposed – Chile 2011 – President proposed Life Partnership (Civil Unions) bill
August 10th, 2011
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera has made good on his promise to support a civil unions bill by signing and sending to Congress a bill which would grant same sex couples the right to register a Acuerdo de Vida en Pareja (Life Partner Agreement). (AFP)
Chile’s conservative president proposed legislation Tuesday to recognize gay civil unions, granting them some of the same rights as married couples in the ultra-Catholic country.
“All forms of marriage deserve respect, dignity and the support of the state,” said President Sebastian Pinera, who signed the proposal and sent it to Congress.
“This puts opposite-sex and same-sex couples on the same footing, because in both cases it is possible to develop love, affection and respect.”
Pinera, who brought conservatives to power after 20 years of center-left rule in the country, grated on his own election campaign when he announced his intention to legalize civil unions for gay couples. He said two million people in Chile live together without marrying.
I’ll admit that I assumed that Pinera’s campaign advertising which included gay couples was just for show and unlikely to translate into legislation.
The bill may face backlash from the Catholic Church. Chile is 80% Catholic.
August 10th, 2011
Politics is in many ways a game of association. Who is elected, what bills are supported or opposed, which allocation is prioritized are based on group affiliation and political identity. And political identity is created in two ways: primarily who we are, but sometimes who we are not.
Who we are is based on shared experiences and often guides positions that impact members of a group. Who we are not, however, can have murky motivations and can run the risk of becoming bigotry. And, of course, each of our identities have elements of both.
But, in our community the contrast in ways of defining oneself is dramatically illustrated by looking at Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud. Both organizations identify as gay Republicans, but the way in which they view that identity and on what it is based are worlds apart.
Log Cabin Republicans see themselves as full members of the gay community and as lobbyists on the community’s behalf to the Party. This is no small job, and consequently legislation and issues of inclusion that directly impact LGBT people are their primary focus (along with being ambassadors of sorts, building bridges, nurturing relationships, and being the face of the community in Republican circles.)
So it was natural for Log Cabin (being on the pro-military end of the community) to step up and craft a multi-year three pronged attack on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell that ultimately led to the reversal of that policy and (depending on the eventual outcome of the case) may establish precedent for finding anti-gay policies as unconstitutional.
Log Cabin sees their Republicanism primarily through the lens of fiscal policy, defense, and localized government. This isn’t to suggest that they pay no attention to social issues – they do – but rather that such issues are based on their analysis rather than handed down from the Party. And, as such, they work to support Republicans who share their fiscal conservatism but are not anti-gay and to serve as a source for the roughly one third of the community that votes Republican, providing analysis on candidates and issues.
Although Log Cabin has been attacked by social conservatives and anti-gay activists and the far right, they are not defined by their opponents. Knowing that in many many situations every possible vote counts, Log Cabin strives for communication, relationship, and access wherever they see an opportunity – even when those opportunities might raise eyebrows from others in our community. And they are careful not to make opposition to a candidate a part of their strategy, utilizing instead a “refusal to endorse” which has, in a number of presidential campaigns, made front page news and forced candidate concessions.
On the other hand, GOProud – who broke from Log Cabin in April 2009 – is primarily focused on who they are not: the Gay Left. And their fierce opposition to the Gay Left appears to drive all of their actions and statements.
The so-called “gay agenda” is defined by the left through a narrow prism of legislative goals. In contrast to the approach of the left, GOProud’s agenda emphasizes conservative and libertarian principles that will improve the daily lives of all Americans, but especially gay and lesbian Americans.
GOProud ostensibly is a gay organization, in that their tiny membership is comprised of people who are homosexual. But while the language of their positions pays token homage to the existence of gay people, most have no specific bearing on the issues of importance to actual living breathing gay folk.
And the gay and lesbian Americans for whom they are supposedly advocating seem to either be theoretical or limited to their own membership. Although Log Cabin agrees with the fiscal position stated in most of GOProud’s 10 legislative priorities, they too are “absolutely, unquestionably, too far to the left” because LCR’s legislative agenda is comprised of pro-gay advocacy. And by looking at the totality of GOProud’s statements, actions, programs and advertising, it soon becomes evident that by the Gay Left, they mean anyone who views gay people as entitled to equality and inclusion.
Perhaps GOProud did not set out to be the organization they have become. Perhaps they wanted to focus on, say, supporting the Second Amendment, but discovered that no one really cared about their perspective on that subject. Nor did the press come calling for their views on health care reform.
But as a group of gay people willing and ready to demean other gay people and to attack their priorities, that made for good television. And whether it was their original intention, opposition to pro-gay advocates rather than support for conservative principles appears to now be the motivation for every action.
And while GOProud has not yet actively opposed specific goals towards equality, they have sought to punish those within the Republican Party who support those goals.
In the last election, they got involved in the California senate primary. They did not support anyone, but they ran an add in opposition to Tom Campbell, a Log Cabin ally. They compared him to Didi Scozzafava and declared him to be too far to the Left. As best I can tell, the issue which unites the two is that they both are pro-gay Republicans.
I’m not a psychologist, but there appears to be a couple things going on here. Part of GOProud’s antics can be seen as antagonism towards Log Cabin for not turning the organization over to them. And no doubt part is anger at a community which has not adopted the values that GOProud endorses.
But by focusing entirely on their opposition to the Gay Left, and defining Gay Left in such a way as to include every gay person who supports the community’s legislative goals, GOProud ceased being pro-Republican and now are best described as an anti-gay organization. Not anti-gay in the sense that they campaign against legislation that we support or in the sense that they seek laws to harm gay people, but anti-gay in the sense that they oppose gay people.
We are discussing a group who, while homosexual, have nothing but contempt for other homosexuals who see seek equality. GOProud members see themselves as different from such “Left” gays. And it soon becomes evident that it is not some leftist agenda that offends GOProud, but rather self-pride and an unwillingness to accept an inferior role. It is the gayness of the gay community that so offends them.
And the “why” is just sitting there waiting to be said. For decades, those who seemed to believe that orientation dictated fiscal policy would shrilly declare, “Log Cabin members are just a bunch of self-loathing Auntie Toms.” (Log Cabin members just role their eyes at that original bon mot)
But I am becoming more and more convinced that GOProud could be the real thing.
Oh they don’t loath themselves entirely, they are far to arrogant for that. But they do seem to loath that part which they share with you and I. Otherwise it is difficult to understand a strategy that recognizes that gay people are targeted for discrimination, but which consistently attacks any effort to correct it. And other than some desire to compensate for their feeling of inadequacy, it is difficult to understand the motivation behind consistently demeaning gay allies and praising those who treat us with contempt.
And it was an obvious attempt to spite the gay community – and to attract attention to their organization – that inspired GOProud to hire Ann Coulter to come deliver a speech in opposition to gay rights. And it did get them some attention.
But it also demonstrated their priorities. Even assuming that supporting conservatives was a higher priority for the group than advocating for equality, when they accepted Coulter’s criticism of Ted Olson, whose conservative credentials far outweigh Coulter’s, based solely on his support for marriage equality, then any question about GOProud’s nature evaporated. GOProud is comprised of people who see homosexuals as intrinsically inferior to heterosexuals and who accept slurs and inequality as their due.
And we cannot discount the confirmation that GOProud feels from people like Coulter. Sharing her opposition to self-accepting gay people, they get to be “good gays” and “Real Republicans” by contrast.
And as Coulter went on with her usual anti-gay snark as part of her increasingly predictable and boring shtick, it provided further opportunity for GOProud to set themselves apart from those who have self-respect. Unlike “leftists” like NGLTF or HRC or “leftists” like you and me or even “leftists” like Log Cabin, the “non-leftist” GOProud members will reward those who see them they are inferior.
When Ann Coulter went on Joy Behar’s show and tried to shock Joy by saying that the military should be limited to heterosexual men (the same with firemen), that she wishes that everyone would shut up about gays, and that “there are some people” for whom reparative therapy works, most people saw this as offensive towards gay people. And it was to that attitude that Log Cabin responded:
“Ann Coulter is not a serious part of the conservative movement – her positions are a throwback and do more harm than anything else,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans. “Her remarks endorsing the widely outdated and profoundly harmful idea of ‘reparative therapy,’ alleging that one can ‘pray the gay away,’ are not only demeaning to gays and lesbians, but are offensive to all people of faith. God in his infinite wisdom created us the way we are and pundits and politicians cannot change that. While her position on this matter is off base, it is exacerbated by her claim that the armed forces should bring back ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ a failed policy which impedes military readiness. Servicemembers who put their lives on the line deserve respect, not such clownish behavior. Ann Coulter may be tired of gay and lesbian Americans speaking out, but Americans, gay and straight, are tired of her overwrought and offensive behavior. Frankly, Coulter’s act has gotten stale. It’s time to change the channel.”
GOProud, on the other hand, rewarded Coulter. Evidently she had said what they wanted to have said. In fact, she delighted the tiny group so much that they invited her to join their “advisory board”.
Today, GOProud, the only national organization of gay conservatives and their allies, announced that Ann Coulter was joining the organization’s Advisory Council as Honorary Chair. Coulter’s official title will be “Gay Icon.” “Ann Coulter is a brilliant and fearless leader of the conservative movement, we are honored to have her as part of GOProud’s leadership,” said Christopher Barron, Chairman of GOProud’s Board. “Ann helped put our organization on the map. Politics is full of the meek, the compromising and the apologists – Ann, like GOProud, is the exact opposite of all of those things. We need more Ann Coulters.”
And in this, they may have gone too far. Their silly slap at gay people – calling Coulter a “Gay Icon” – comes off less as clever and in-your-face and instead feels desperate and pathetic. Even anti-gay social conservatives know when self-deprecation crosses over into self-loathing.
They might have once earned the respect of other Republicans, even socially conservative Republicans, by just not talking about “that gay stuff” and supporting the Party on other issue. But no one loves the guy who hates himself and if you declare your inferiority, no one is going to disagree.
Once the community shrugs and feels more pity than anger towards GOProud, they will no longer be interesting to Coulter. Their far-right friends have no use for a homosexual who is just ignored by the ‘homosexual activist elite’, and Fox News isn’t going to have them on when the novelty wares off.
But, hey, at least unlike every other gay person of any political persuasion that doesn’t harbor internal shame over being gay, they can hold up their head and say that they are not the Gay Left. And that’s something.
August 10th, 2011
Or something like that. This week, marriage is water and not beer. Last week, marriage was a napkin and not a paper towel, a metaphor which provided yet another opportunity to remind people of Santurum’s Google problem. He really needs to stay away from the metaphors. They just don’t work for him.
August 10th, 2011
The “Values Voters Bus Tour,” sponsored by the Family “Research” Council’s lobbying arm, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Susan B. Anthony List, kicked off yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa, with the goal of hitting several Iowa communities ahead of Saturday’s GOP presidential Straw Poll. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was on hand for the tour’s start, which was greeted by a sparse crowd that appears to have been outnumbered by reporters:
The bus made five more stops before the day was done yesterday. This morning, the bus tour resumed with a breakfast in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum met the bus.
August 10th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Brighton, UK; Charleston, SC; Eugene, OR; Fargo, ND; Indianapolis, IN (Black Pride); Irvine, CA; Mannheim, Germany; Montréal, QC; New York, NY (Black Pride); Palouse/Moscow ID; Prague, Czech Rep.; Sligo, Ireland; and Wakefield, UK.
AIDS Walk This Weekend: Denver, CO.
Also This Weekend: Northalstead Market Days, Chicago, IL and Provincetown Carnival, MA.
He's 406 in dog years.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Mark Doty: 1953. “I’ve always been a poet who wrote about urban life because I love the layers and surprises and the jangly complexities of cities,” he once said. “I feel at home in cities, being a gay man. It’s a place of permission and possibility.” He is the author of several collections of poetry, notably his 1995 award-winning Atlantis, which was inspired by his partner’s death from AIDS the year before. 1997’s Heaven’s Coast: A Memoir
Andrew Sullivan: 1963. The British transplant to America is an author, political commentator and a seminal blogger, having begun blogging before blogging was … you thought I was going to say cool, didn’t you? Cool or not, his blog, The Dish, is one of the highest trafficked blogs on the net. Sullivan describes his views as politically conservative — he supports a flat tax, privatizing social security, and supports free markets in health care. If you read him with 1995 in mind, you’d pretty much agree: he’s conservative. And he has developed conservative arguments against the use of torture, his opposition to capital punishment, his concerns over the growing influence of “Christianism” (as he distinguishes it from Christianity) in American politics, and his support for same-sex marriage. Because conservatism has changed to such a radical extent in America, those positions have opened him up to accusations of being a raving liberal. He supported George W. Bush in 2000, but went with Kerry, reluctantly, in 2004 over disagreement with Bush’s conduct of the wars and his position on the Federal Marriage Amendment. In 2008, Sullivan enthusiastically supported Obama and developed a fixation on Sarah Palin. In 2009, he moved his blog to the Daily Beast behemoth, where he and his coterie of interns churn out about fifty posts per day.
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August 9th, 2011
Eileen Gray, with the Bibendum chair and the E1027 table.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Eileen Gray: 1878. She was born the youngest of five children to an aristocratic family near Enniscorthy in southeastern Ireland. Her father was a painter who encouraged his children’s artistry and independence. Eileen studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, and in 1900 she went to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where she became enthralled with the works of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. She then moved to Paris to continue her studies and became immersed in lacquer design in particular, and in designing furnishings in general. One of the many projects she collaborated on was the design of a modern home called E-1027. That 1924 project is where her most famous design, the E1027 table, emerged. It was also during this period when she mixed in lesbian company in Paris, while she herself was bisexual. But her life and her work was interrupted by World War II, and when she returned to Paris at war’s end, she led a mostly reclusive life. Much of her work was forgotten until 1968, when a magazine article revived interest in her work. The E1027 table, along with the Bibendum Chair and several other of her designs, went into production once again and became modern furniture classics. She died in Paris in 1976. In 2009, an armchair she designed between 1917 and 1919 was sold at auction for over $28 million, setting an auction record for 20th century decorative art.
Michael Kors: 1959. The American designer of women’s sportswear launched his line at the precocious age of 22 for Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and other topline department stores. In 1997, he became the creative director for the French fashion house Celine, but left two years later to focus on his own line. He began designing menswear in 2002. For the past six years, he has been a judge for the Bravo reality television series Project Runway, which has just begun to air its sixth season. My partner has finely honed Kors’s trademark expression of disapproval — “That’s so sad!” — to utter perfection. It’s one of the main reasons we watch Project Runway. With the arrival of marriage equality to New York State, Kors announced last week that he would marry his partner, Lance LePere. “Lance and I are very excited to finally be able to have the opportunity to marry in our home state after many years together.”
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
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