Step aside, Jimmy Carter…your many misdeeds, including all those houses you’ve built for Habitat for Humanity and the almost-completed initiative to eradicate the horrifying scourge of the guinea worm have been overshadowed by the malevolent designs of our current president.
This least of God's creatures will soon be extinct, thanks to the evil machinations of Jimmy Carter
President Obama, in a an attempt to show gays & lesbians once and for all how much he hates them, yesterday held an event at the White House to ridicule and demean LGBT Pride Month. Taunting the assembled activists by refusing to make an unequivocal statement in support of legalizing gay marriage nationwide, the president went on to enumerate his many offenses against the gay community – and how they do add up. There’s the hate crimes law, named after Matthew Sheppard to diminish and exculpate the suffering he endured at the hands of homophobic bigots. There’s the executive order Obama issued prohibiting any hospital accepting Medicaid or Medicare funds from keeping gay partners from the bedsides of ill loved ones. Then there’s the end of the HIV travel ban and the first-ever national strategy for fighting HIV/AIDS. Last but not least, there are the biggest slaps to the face to the LGBT community – the repeal of DADT and his refusal to order the Justice Department to vigorously defend DOMA.
Clearly, the man is hell-bent on the destruction of our gay and lesbian friends, and must be stopped. Just watch this clip, and note the hatred emanating from his every pore:
We have no choice but to primary his black ass if he does not give in to our demands to say what we must hear if we are to believe his intentions are anything other than sinister.
I am reminded of this
Ok, enough sarcasm.
My ass is chapped a bright red today thanks to being lectured on my lack of “morality” and my “bigotry” and my desire to “blame gays and lesbians” for any electoral loss the president may suffer in 2012 if he comes out in full-throated support for same-sex marriage legalization. I was given quite the dressing down on how “principles are paramount” and how, apparently, the principles an individual subscribes to can best be gauged by their words rather than their actions. And you know – it REALLY pissed me off.
There’s a faction on the left that doesn’t know how to disagree with people who share their goals, without impugning their motives or morals, when they have a difference of opinion on how best to reach those goals. Because this discussion took place on someone else’s blog, I restrained myself from responding in kind, instead just asking in the hypothetical, “would it be FAIR for me to assert that YOU are actively trying to derail marriage equality in states like mine for the next several decades with your demands that the president’s words are more important than his actions, and that if he doesn’t say what you want to hear, then he shouldn’t be re-elected?” Because the simple fact is, same-sex marriage is not going to be legal for a long time to come in places like Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, etc. if we don’t secure a majority on the Supreme Court. You just aren’t going to get a referendum passed in a state that 7 years ago amended its constitution to outlaw gay marriage with a 75% majority vote. You also aren’t going to get a law through a legislature in a state where opposition is running that high. The only way equality is going to come to these states any time soon is through a friendly court. And the only way we’re going to get a friendly court is with a second term for President Obama.
So if your insistence is that ONLY a statement of support by the president will suffice, and said statement leads to 1% or 2% of the voters in a place like OH, IN, VA, CO, NC deciding to vote against you or stay home on election day, causing you to lose the state and, as a result, the election, you can kiss the Supreme Court goodbye for the next decade at least – and any chance for marriage equality in most of the red states along with it. And for what gain? So you can feel good, or be reassured that your “principles” are being upheld? Because there’s no gain in the gamble if you win it, but there’s a hell of a lot to lose if you don’t.
Perhaps the social climate where some of these folks live is so different that they can’t conceive of an election turning on this one issue. I’d advise them to think back to 2004, when the Republicans used anti-gay marriage referenda in a number of states to drive turnout and drag their already-a-loser-of-a-president over the finish line. Demanding that Obama make a supportive statement – right now, this instant – is the same thing as demanding that he hand the Republicans everything they need to get out the vote. If you’re sitting in the northeast or on the west coast, maybe that’s not that big of a deal to you, because it’s not impossible where you live that your state will address this issue on its own within the next several years, should Republicans re-take the White House. But it’s a very big deal to your comrades in places where that’s not an option. Their right to equality comes before your desire to hear pretty words. This is not the hill upon which anyone should choose to die. Suck it up, and stop being such assholes to people who are on your side.
P.S. There was one amusing point in the conversation, which came when I demanded that one of the purists tell me HOW she planned to get marriage equality passed in Texas if we lost the election, and with it, the court. Her plan? Obama should do “arm-twisting” like LBJ did on the Civil Rights Act. Yes, that’s right – the plan B was for Obama to go twist the arms of a bunch of reactionary yahoos elected to office by teabaggers, and…voila!!…they would all get on board. Even though opposition is running at 70% or more in their states. It’s almost like a twist on the Underpants Gnomes formula:
Step 1: Twist arms!!!
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Victory!!!
It would be funny if the rights of real people weren’t at stake.
And the only way we’re going to get a friendly court is with a second term for President Obama.
That could be difficult if Obama loses his Senate majority the same way he lost the House majority…by not leading on issues that matter to people. (In particular, the economy and unemployment.)
He’s been quite willing to exercise executive power, even dubiously, when it matters to him.
But when it came to something like the public option for health care, it’s ‘what can a mere president do, when faced with the mighty power of those darned conservative Democrats (like the ones he’s filled his Administration with…like the ones he campaigns for).
Frankly, this president needs his ass kicked into doing the right thing. He does the wrong things naturally.
~
I don’t disagree with you for the most part. But that’s not an excuse for taking out after him for not speechifying in favor of gay marriage, because in point of fact, gay rights IS the one area where he’s done pretty much everything that he said he’d do, and everything he, as president, CAN do via executive order and working with Congress.
If people want to complain about the other stuff and take him to task on it, that’s fine. But I can’t see what purpose it serves for anyone to go all emoprog because he won’t say what they want to hear on the topic of gay marriage. Because there’s really nothing he CAN say that will change the picture on that – DOMA is going to have to be either repealed in Congress (which ain’t gonna happen with the teabaggers controlling the House) or struck down by the courts, or individual states are going to have to pass marriage equality laws. The president making a speech about how he supports marriage equality won’t make a whit of difference, at least at this point in time, for changing any of that. But it definitely would give the Republicans something else to use to get the bufords riled up and out to the polls. And whatever Obama’s shortcomings may be, they pale in comparison with what we’d get from the other side.
Like I said, this is not the hill upon which anyone should choose to die. That doesn’t mean that there’s not another hill upon which we SHOULD. But let’s not get them confused.
I’m writing this in a level tone. There’s no point in getting excited when this is just a conversation. That thread was distressing to read because people have different kinds of political problems, not just different political problems.
Some people in that thread are interested in politics as a mostly intellectual pursuit. The outcomes of votes and legislation and campaigns won’t really affect these correspondents. They are free to regard politics as a game and they don’t mind horsetrading and deals. Those deals are merely strategic points. They can be patient. It is infuriating to read their comments.
Some people are involved in politics because their lives depend on it. They can’t see a deal as a victory for one group of people or another, because even if they gain they also lose, and they didn’t have anything they could afford to lose. I don’t have anything I can afford to lose. When you say we have to keep our eyes on the Supreme Court, we just watched that Supreme Court hand women over to Walmart and nothing is going to make that okay. It doesn’t really matter if that was decided 5-4 or 8-1, we lost and we couldn’t afford to lose. Barring a particularly incendiary bus crash and a miraculous appointment hearing schedule during a period of shocking Republican decency, that institution is in zero danger of working for us.
In that thread, you talk about doing what works. If you are one of the people for whom the deals being made do not, in fact, work, there is no reason to be patient. There is no reason to believe that strategy will help the 30 million people who ended up not being covered by the APA when that deal helped the health insurance industry most of all. There is no reason to believe that what works for you is enough to abandon my idea of what works for me.
In New Jersey, that pension and health care debacle/pay cut/union busting law that went into effect yesterday was brought to you by the Democrats. That works for someone, mostly Republicans, and not for us. The Democrats will shortly find that out when they come to us for votes and support.
First of all, I’m not going to play along with the tactic of “let’s talk about something else,” which if you read that thread, you must have noticed. When something one of the purists obviously hadn’t considered before was pointed out, the goalposts got moved. Suddenly, it wasn’t about Obama at all; it was about “the children.” I don’t play that game so…I will just point out that nothing you’ve said in your comment is on point with the topic at hand, which was “OMG, Obama has sold teh gheys down the river because he won’t say he lurves gay marriage!!!” So when I talked about “doing what works” it was ONLY in the context of THIS ONE ISSUE, because THAT IS THE ISSUE THAT WAS UNDER DISCUSSION. I’m not going to play the firebagger game of shifting the goalposts. So..if you want to point out to me why I am wrong when I say that having Obama make the statement that the purists are demanding of him won’t move the issue forward, please do. If you want to rebut my contention that in fact, it may move the issue backwards, please do. But if you want to play the other game, please play it somewhere else – or at the very least, be clear about why I’m not going to play it with you.
You’re shouting. I’m not. I was clear on what I was talking about here and now. I didn’t comment there because there simply wasn’t any point in trying to get a drink during a bar fight.
I wasn’t shouting. I was placing emphasis where it belonged.
As for what you’re talking about here and now, for the most part it’s not on point. Your disappointment with ACA isn’t really about gay marriage equality, is it? It’s about your disappointment with another issue entirely. FWIW, I’M disappointed with ACA as well, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about marriage equality and whether or not the president is now history’s greatest monster because he won’t say the words some people want to hear him say, and whether or not what he has said or hasn’t said is more important than what he has actually done.
The one part that’s tangentially on point is about the court. So we are seeing a lot of bad 5-4 rulings. I agree, that sucks donkey. But it’s not going to improve with a Republican making the next appointment, and the current president didn’t appoint any of the jerks on the 5 side of that equation, so again…I’m not seeing where it belongs in this conversation, other than as another thing you’re frustrated about. Stuff sucks; I get it. It sucks pretty hard for me too. But a key to getting things to where they DON’T suck is identifying why it is that they suck right now, who’s responsible for them sucking, and etc. I don’t see where a case has been made that it’s the current president’s fault that a lot of this stuff sucks, or how it will be improved if we abandon him at the polls and a Republican takes his place. Which is why I question you bringing it up at all. To me, it looks like another case of moving goalposts.
Also. Too. RE: the “bar fight”…one side was throwing drinks. It wasn’t me. Heck, I was so well-behaved that I never even pointed out that most of the folks commenting from the other side were people who pretty obviously stay on constant lookout for the many ways in which the president has betrayed us, though that was kind of an impossible thing to miss. But it’s not really helpful to bring up every wrong you perceive has ever been done in every conversation. This is so universally known – it’s Family Counseling 101 – that it’s hard to NOT assume when you see someone doing it that they’re attempting to make sure that the current issue can’t be resolved.
It’s also something you see conservatives doing quite a lot, when they can’t formulate a cogent response to the question or issue under discussion. At root, it’s a dishonest tactic to avoid ceding ground even where you know you’re wrong. At least, that’s how it’s usually employed.
Sideshow Rob
July 5, 2011 at 9:37 am
You’re having a lengthy conversation with someone who is not me and I’m not really following what you’re saying. I don’t know what a firebagger is. You can keep telling me off, I suppose, but nothing changes.
I disagree, Rob, and I have to say I find both your comment and Jenn’s interesting and measured. On the specific issue of goalpost-moving, I get Jenn’s frustration, and I share it. But this is not a bar fight, not here. In fact, I will happily buy you a drink. I will go up to the bar, buy it, and bring it back to you.
Sideshow Rob
July 5, 2011 at 9:38 am
Thanks anyway, but I think I’ll back out of this bar and find another watering hole.
Well……all I know….was that was a great read (I was disappointed when the posts ran out. Seriously….a great read). I agree with Larks……I’ll buy a round. Sorry, I really didn’t mean to crash your black panther party…..but I just happened to be in the area. Happy Fourth to you and yours.,
Well, Rob, if I’m having a conversation with someone who isn’t you, and you’re having a conversation about pretty much everything but the topic at hand, I’d say that makes us even. Alls I know is you dropped by here and made a string of observations about things you are unhappy about, other than the topic of the post, accused the host of yelling at you for pointing out that you weren’t on topic, and now are unhappy that you’ve not been understood when you’ve not even attempted to clarify what your intent was in coming here trying to change the subject. Sorry I can’t help you out with that.
You are so right — on both points. Neither of which I’d given enough thought to until now.
I must admit that I don’t care about the second point — people who whine on blogs in long, witty strings of comment that are off-point but nevertheless long, witty strings of comment.
But on the first: There’s never been a stronger national advocate who’s done more, has there?
I told Jaffner recently that I’ve been disappointed that our President doesn’t use his bully pulpit, his privileged soapbox, better to control the national conversation. Or debate. Or separate diatribes. But maybe that’s just because I don’t watch TV and really have no idea. The 3 talks I’ve seen him give on this topic are incredibly on point, levelheaded and yet inspirational.
It sucks to get on back to the back of the bus and wait a few more months, folks. But I think we can trust this one to do whatever he can to get r done after the next election.
3 weird sisters 
Oh, excellent! Brava.
And the only way we’re going to get a friendly court is with a second term for President Obama.
That could be difficult if Obama loses his Senate majority the same way he lost the House majority…by not leading on issues that matter to people. (In particular, the economy and unemployment.)
He’s been quite willing to exercise executive power, even dubiously, when it matters to him.
But when it came to something like the public option for health care, it’s ‘what can a mere president do, when faced with the mighty power of those darned conservative Democrats (like the ones he’s filled his Administration with…like the ones he campaigns for).
Frankly, this president needs his ass kicked into doing the right thing. He does the wrong things naturally.
~
I don’t disagree with you for the most part. But that’s not an excuse for taking out after him for not speechifying in favor of gay marriage, because in point of fact, gay rights IS the one area where he’s done pretty much everything that he said he’d do, and everything he, as president, CAN do via executive order and working with Congress.
If people want to complain about the other stuff and take him to task on it, that’s fine. But I can’t see what purpose it serves for anyone to go all emoprog because he won’t say what they want to hear on the topic of gay marriage. Because there’s really nothing he CAN say that will change the picture on that – DOMA is going to have to be either repealed in Congress (which ain’t gonna happen with the teabaggers controlling the House) or struck down by the courts, or individual states are going to have to pass marriage equality laws. The president making a speech about how he supports marriage equality won’t make a whit of difference, at least at this point in time, for changing any of that. But it definitely would give the Republicans something else to use to get the bufords riled up and out to the polls. And whatever Obama’s shortcomings may be, they pale in comparison with what we’d get from the other side.
Like I said, this is not the hill upon which anyone should choose to die. That doesn’t mean that there’s not another hill upon which we SHOULD. But let’s not get them confused.
“Step 1: Twist arms!!!
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Victory!!!”
Boehner cries too much because he found out that his Mom had an affair with Stretch Armstrong.
I’m writing this in a level tone. There’s no point in getting excited when this is just a conversation. That thread was distressing to read because people have different kinds of political problems, not just different political problems.
Some people in that thread are interested in politics as a mostly intellectual pursuit. The outcomes of votes and legislation and campaigns won’t really affect these correspondents. They are free to regard politics as a game and they don’t mind horsetrading and deals. Those deals are merely strategic points. They can be patient. It is infuriating to read their comments.
Some people are involved in politics because their lives depend on it. They can’t see a deal as a victory for one group of people or another, because even if they gain they also lose, and they didn’t have anything they could afford to lose. I don’t have anything I can afford to lose. When you say we have to keep our eyes on the Supreme Court, we just watched that Supreme Court hand women over to Walmart and nothing is going to make that okay. It doesn’t really matter if that was decided 5-4 or 8-1, we lost and we couldn’t afford to lose. Barring a particularly incendiary bus crash and a miraculous appointment hearing schedule during a period of shocking Republican decency, that institution is in zero danger of working for us.
In that thread, you talk about doing what works. If you are one of the people for whom the deals being made do not, in fact, work, there is no reason to be patient. There is no reason to believe that strategy will help the 30 million people who ended up not being covered by the APA when that deal helped the health insurance industry most of all. There is no reason to believe that what works for you is enough to abandon my idea of what works for me.
In New Jersey, that pension and health care debacle/pay cut/union busting law that went into effect yesterday was brought to you by the Democrats. That works for someone, mostly Republicans, and not for us. The Democrats will shortly find that out when they come to us for votes and support.
First of all, I’m not going to play along with the tactic of “let’s talk about something else,” which if you read that thread, you must have noticed. When something one of the purists obviously hadn’t considered before was pointed out, the goalposts got moved. Suddenly, it wasn’t about Obama at all; it was about “the children.” I don’t play that game so…I will just point out that nothing you’ve said in your comment is on point with the topic at hand, which was “OMG, Obama has sold teh gheys down the river because he won’t say he lurves gay marriage!!!” So when I talked about “doing what works” it was ONLY in the context of THIS ONE ISSUE, because THAT IS THE ISSUE THAT WAS UNDER DISCUSSION. I’m not going to play the firebagger game of shifting the goalposts. So..if you want to point out to me why I am wrong when I say that having Obama make the statement that the purists are demanding of him won’t move the issue forward, please do. If you want to rebut my contention that in fact, it may move the issue backwards, please do. But if you want to play the other game, please play it somewhere else – or at the very least, be clear about why I’m not going to play it with you.
You’re shouting. I’m not. I was clear on what I was talking about here and now. I didn’t comment there because there simply wasn’t any point in trying to get a drink during a bar fight.
I wasn’t shouting. I was placing emphasis where it belonged.
As for what you’re talking about here and now, for the most part it’s not on point. Your disappointment with ACA isn’t really about gay marriage equality, is it? It’s about your disappointment with another issue entirely. FWIW, I’M disappointed with ACA as well, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about marriage equality and whether or not the president is now history’s greatest monster because he won’t say the words some people want to hear him say, and whether or not what he has said or hasn’t said is more important than what he has actually done.
The one part that’s tangentially on point is about the court. So we are seeing a lot of bad 5-4 rulings. I agree, that sucks donkey. But it’s not going to improve with a Republican making the next appointment, and the current president didn’t appoint any of the jerks on the 5 side of that equation, so again…I’m not seeing where it belongs in this conversation, other than as another thing you’re frustrated about. Stuff sucks; I get it. It sucks pretty hard for me too. But a key to getting things to where they DON’T suck is identifying why it is that they suck right now, who’s responsible for them sucking, and etc. I don’t see where a case has been made that it’s the current president’s fault that a lot of this stuff sucks, or how it will be improved if we abandon him at the polls and a Republican takes his place. Which is why I question you bringing it up at all. To me, it looks like another case of moving goalposts.
Also. Too. RE: the “bar fight”…one side was throwing drinks. It wasn’t me. Heck, I was so well-behaved that I never even pointed out that most of the folks commenting from the other side were people who pretty obviously stay on constant lookout for the many ways in which the president has betrayed us, though that was kind of an impossible thing to miss. But it’s not really helpful to bring up every wrong you perceive has ever been done in every conversation. This is so universally known – it’s Family Counseling 101 – that it’s hard to NOT assume when you see someone doing it that they’re attempting to make sure that the current issue can’t be resolved.
It’s also something you see conservatives doing quite a lot, when they can’t formulate a cogent response to the question or issue under discussion. At root, it’s a dishonest tactic to avoid ceding ground even where you know you’re wrong. At least, that’s how it’s usually employed.
You’re having a lengthy conversation with someone who is not me and I’m not really following what you’re saying. I don’t know what a firebagger is. You can keep telling me off, I suppose, but nothing changes.
You’re shouting. I’m not.
I disagree, Rob, and I have to say I find both your comment and Jenn’s interesting and measured. On the specific issue of goalpost-moving, I get Jenn’s frustration, and I share it. But this is not a bar fight, not here. In fact, I will happily buy you a drink. I will go up to the bar, buy it, and bring it back to you.
Thanks anyway, but I think I’ll back out of this bar and find another watering hole.
Well……all I know….was that was a great read (I was disappointed when the posts ran out. Seriously….a great read). I agree with Larks……I’ll buy a round. Sorry, I really didn’t mean to crash your black panther party…..but I just happened to be in the area. Happy Fourth to you and yours.,
Glad you dropped by! Don’t be a stranger. I love comments, even ones I don’t agree with.
Well, Rob, if I’m having a conversation with someone who isn’t you, and you’re having a conversation about pretty much everything but the topic at hand, I’d say that makes us even. Alls I know is you dropped by here and made a string of observations about things you are unhappy about, other than the topic of the post, accused the host of yelling at you for pointing out that you weren’t on topic, and now are unhappy that you’ve not been understood when you’ve not even attempted to clarify what your intent was in coming here trying to change the subject. Sorry I can’t help you out with that.
Dear Rob,
Meet my friend Jaffner. She gets the last word. And I’m laughing at your expense.
Hugs and kisses,
Beth
You are so right — on both points. Neither of which I’d given enough thought to until now.
I must admit that I don’t care about the second point — people who whine on blogs in long, witty strings of comment that are off-point but nevertheless long, witty strings of comment.
But on the first: There’s never been a stronger national advocate who’s done more, has there?
I told Jaffner recently that I’ve been disappointed that our President doesn’t use his bully pulpit, his privileged soapbox, better to control the national conversation. Or debate. Or separate diatribes. But maybe that’s just because I don’t watch TV and really have no idea. The 3 talks I’ve seen him give on this topic are incredibly on point, levelheaded and yet inspirational.
It sucks to get on back to the back of the bus and wait a few more months, folks. But I think we can trust this one to do whatever he can to get r done after the next election.