North Dallas Thirty, now firmly rooted over at GayOrbit, has a great posting about how the gay community has as much to blame for our “marriage predicament” as the pandering politicians.
A Voice In The Wilderness – NDT @ GayOrbit
Simply put, polls show that a solid majority of the public supports repealing DADT, anti-discrimination provisions, and establishing pathways to limited legal protections for same-sex couples.
We have sallied forth and spent millions of dollars promoting gay marriage — which a solid majority of the public opposes.
Furthermore, along the way, we’ve put ourselves in the pretzel position of roundly criticizing state and Federal initiatives against gay marriage, but continuing the flow of dollars and endorsements to those on the left who support them.
NDT references a longer column on the subject by Mike Fleming in this week’s Southern Voice. (Yes, Virginia. There’s a gay agenda, and it’s totally wack) Read the whole thing! It is brilliant.
I wrote a similar column (pre-GayPatriot) two years ago. (That photo of me is just hideous. Luckily you would never recognize me on the street using that mug shot! *grin*).
A Fine Mess We’re In Now – Bruce Carroll @ Washington Blade
The path to gay marriage is not to force Americans to accept a morality they are not prepared to embrace. Instead of radical gay groups spending their precious few dollars, time and resources engaging in court fights and street battles, it’s time to turn our attention to the hearts and minds of mainstream America.
What is needed is a fundamental and, most importantly, mature awareness campaign across the country about what it is to be a gay or lesbian American today. We all need to be willing to come out of our closets — proverbial or not — and let our friends, family and work colleagues know who we are.
Let them know that we pay our taxes just like them. Let them know we experience the ups and downs of daily life just like them. Let them know that we want the same financial, job and relationship security that they enjoy. Let them know that we want to be as tolerant of their long-standing religious beliefs as we want them to be tolerant of ours.
Until the leaders of these radical gay groups come to grips that they have wasted precious years on counterproductive strategies, we will continue to face these predictable setbacks to gay marriage and other issues with increasing frequency.
Until all of us start reaching out to mainstream Americans, instead of shouting in their faces, we will continue to be responsible for our own failures.
I was roundly derided and called a gay traitor by those who wrote about it. Interestingly, one of the friends mentioned in the article no longer speaks to me, and in fact, “outed” me to a gay activist who would later tried to get me fired from my private sector job.
Nevertheless, I thought I was right then, I am more convinced of it today. Yet we still allow unaccountability of defeat to reign at the Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin, and National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Is our community destined to keep our victimhood status forever? I hope not.
GayPatriot is at attempt to communicate to the people we need to educate. Not each other, but the other 90% of America who is not gay or lesbian. I hope we continue to do that job every day.
Being a leader means having the courage to stick your neck out and actually lead people in a new direction. Our gay groups still have not developed an education and communications strategy to actually lead and not simply follow each other around in the same old worn-out circles laced with anti-American, anti-military, pro-abortion and pro-socialist diatribes that are topped off with hateful anti-religious bigotry.
Maybe the opening at Log Cabin is the opportunity for a true gay leader to emerge. I’m not holding my breath.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
You’re rewriting history. The gay marriage issue didn’t become one because HRC or any other group picked it; it became an issue because individuals in several states (Hawaii, Vermont) sued to get marriage licenses. And so the issue was born, and the choice was really just to participate, or not.
In many respects, Bruce has it right, but in so many other respects, he exhibits the gay GOP version of “Bush derangement syndrome”, but instead of it being about Bush, Bruce loses it over GLBT organizations.
So I suppose I will point out, for the umpteenth time, that the major gay and lesbian political groups wanted nothing to do with the gay marriage issue for the first five years or so after the initial fracas was raised in HI. The lawsuits so readily blamed on gay rights organizations were largely begun by private individuals, not activists groups.
The funny thing is, that the approach to gay marriage was actually a sign that the GLBT movement was becoming less liberal, not more so.
The chant of the 70’s and 80’s for that matter, was “why would we want to imitate sicko oppressive heterosexual marriages in the first place?”
The gay marriage movement was started by, and in many ways still supported by, those gay and lesbian people who are conservative, not those that are liberal. The, “I just want to settle down behind a picket fence with my boyfriend and my cats” type of person. -Nothing wrong with that, and I’d like to do that myself, but it not a traditional view held by the liberal gay activists Bruce loves to deride.
The other main problem of course is that Bruce seems to think that if the GLBT community would simply stop filing lawsuits that the issue would die down in the US. I don’t think that would happen. He seems to ignore that those on the other side of the argument, as well as the majority of the GOP, have found a good fundraising tool. So they are not going to let go of all that money. So the lawsuits on both sides of the issue must continue, there is no way around that.
So step up to the plate Bruce, you have found your calling. Oops, can’t do that I guess, because if you did, you would actually have to spend most of your time fighting your own political party.
The little fact that just won’t go away Bruce, is that when the final vote on MPA is tallied, its still going to be overwhelmingly supported by Republicans, not Democrats.
While that is no reason to become a Democrat, its certainly not much, if any, reason to be a Republican either.
In any case, whether the MPA passes or not, its ultimate effect will be to galvanize Bush’s religious conservative base, thus ensuring continuing Republican control of Congress — and isn’t that what Bruce really wants, more than anything else in the whole wide world?
“Simply put, polls show that a solid majority of the public supports repealing DADT, anti-discrimination provisions, and establishing pathways to limited legal protections for same-sex couples.
We have sallied forth and spent millions of dollars promoting gay marriage — which a solid majority of the public opposes.”
Yeah, and we ‘sallied forth and spent millions of dollars’ on the DADT, anti-discrimination, and other issues….while ‘the public’ opposed those moves. This guy makes absolutely no point at all. And then he ignores the changes in ‘public opinion’ on marriage equality over the past several years. Waste of space quoting him…
Why won’t you acknowledge that when the Senate holds the vote tomorrow on the MPA, that it will be the Democrats who block it from passage? The overwhelming majority of the Republican caucus will vote in favor of the amendment, while it is likely all but one Democrat will vote against it.
And that, gaypatriots, is why 3 out of every 4 homosexuals vote Democratic. It’s for days like tomorrow.
Why won’t you acknowledge that when the Senate holds the vote tomorrow on the MPA, that it will be the Democrats who block it from passage?
Because the reason given by the vast majority of those Democrats is one of the following:
1) We already have DOMA, so it’s unnecessary.
2) We already have state constitutional amendments and laws stripping gays of rights — which we supported — so it’s unnecessary.
Plus, Erik, you and your fellow leftist Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars on, and endorsed as “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive”, Democrats who 1) oppose gay marriage and 2) supported state initiatives and Federal legislation stripping gays of rights. Furthermore, gay leftists have already made it clear that supporting the FMA is not an issue, as long as the person supports leftist causes.
You see, Erik, the Dems don’t want gays to be equal; as Howard Dean made clear on The 700 Club, the Democratic Party shares the values of Pat Robertson and his ilk. However, instead of coming out and being honest about the fact, they use the backdoor method; stripping gays of rights on the state level does the same thing, but gives them the added advantage of being able to milk uncritical gay leftists like yourself “because they opposed the MPA”.
The Democratic homophobe strategy is obviously superior; states by the bushel have passed antigay amendments and laws, and they’ve received tens of millions of dollars from gay leftists “because they opposed the MPA”.
Yeah, and we ’sallied forth and spent millions of dollars’ on the DADT, anti-discrimination, and other issues….while ‘the public’ opposed those moves.
That is because you phrased them one of two ways:
1) Lawsuits
2) Public statements that implied “gay rights” meant unlimited abortion, taking away parental notification, public bans on religion, higher taxes, etc.
When the question is asked in a vacuum, people support gay rights. But when phrased via the leftist methods of using gay rights as a smokescreen for other unpopular causes or for ramrodding decisions through the courts, it ain’t gonna fly.
I just read your article in the Blade. I think you would have told Rosa Parks not to sit in the front of the bus!! Cautious, fearful, don’t rock the boat thinking is good for what kind of leadership?? Certainly not the kind for progress.
The other problem is the assumption that we should only focus on what the public supports. Do any of the people who say this believe that in the early 70’s, the public would have supported taking homosexuality off the books as a mental illness? I don’t think they would have.
Tell me, Carl; where does the public go to vote on what goes into the DSM?
Short answer: Nowhere, because it’s not a decision made by the public; it’s a decision made by psychiatrists and psychologists.
So what exactly was your point?
Why did you think so highly of this piece when the author defends Cathy Cox turning against gays?
This is the statement in question:
Perhaps even scarier, even the gay-friendliest political candidates (Ga. Dem. Cathy Cox, for one) are jumping ship to show majority voters that they see eye to eye with them.
How does that constitute a defense?
Doesn’t he undermine your complaint about the Democratic Party?
I think the complaint we’ve had about the Democratic Party — or at least I’ve had — is that they are people who exploit gays for only as long as they’re useful, and ditch them at the first point they a) talk back or b) aren’t useful.
Seems like a pretty good example to me.
Next up:
The way he seems to see it, gays would be in paradise if only we stopped worrying about marriage. Hate crimes laws, anti-discrimination, gays wouldn’t be beaten or killed, no gays would get fired, gays would be better at AIDS prevention – all if we just gave up on marriage.
Gays spent tens of millions of dollars in the last Presidential election cycle on a candidate who supported wholesale state bans on marriage.
Why?
Because said candidate didn’t support a Federal amendment banning marriage — because of the existing Federal and state laws banning it.
Do you have any clue what that money could have done in the gay community if it had been channeled into HIV/AIDS support and prevention and local activism?
#8. How excited with Bush’s speech are you right now? You must be happy as a pig in shit.
#10. Would John Kerry be in the Rose Garden today?
North Dallas Thirty,
No matter what Democrats state publicly as their reason for voting against the bill, voting against it is still better than the alternative.
Actually, NorthDallasThirty, I’m starting to think you have issues with gay people, considering that I saw a post from you a few weeks back on a Clay Aiken message board vehemently attacking those who thought he was gay. I came across the story after I heard about it in the NY Post last month when a Christian group canceled his scheduled apperance because of the gay issue. I hadn’t previously heard about the scandal.
But really, whats up with that? You’re out their defending Clay Aiken and he won’t even issue a denial himself, despite having concerts canceled because of that story. I mean, that’s just a bit weird. You said he couldn’t be gay because he had a girlfriend. HA! As if he would be the first gay man to have a fake girlfriend.
Your post read like you didn’t want him to be gay. I thought it was odd, coming from someone who is gay themselves.
# 10
Its not quite that simple NDT. Those psychiatrists and psychologists were lobbied by gay and lesbian activists to at least reconsider their views on the issue. In fact they ambushed their main convention. Actually, its a rather interesting chapter in GLBT history, you should read up on it.
It’s not about a failed Medicare Part D policy, it’s not about losing the peace in Iraq, it’s not about a failed Department of Homeland Security, it’s about protecting the 5000 year old institution of marriage. Well, not exactly, it is about using the religious right and gays to create a smoke screen for those failed policies. Will the religious right ever figure out how willingly the are used?
Where are my concubines?
–
# 18. This the same deflection strategy used by the Catholic Church to deflect attention away from the fact the straight clergy covered up for the abusers, both gay and straight, by transferring them from diocese to diocese, allowing the molesters to continue the abuse of their positions of power, instead of confronting the problem from the onset and kicking them out of the priesthood, at the very least. It didn’t work well then and I don’t think it will succeed this time either.
Erik at #15: “Actually, NorthDallasThirty, I’m starting to think you have issues with gay people, considering that I saw a post from you a few weeks back on a Clay Aiken message board vehemently attacking those who thought he was gay.”
Now, I know NDXXX is a big boy and quite capable of defending himself, but you are just weird, Erik. Plain, flat out weird.
I thought we were beyond using the “Are you really gay or just saying that to get dates” line of BS. To be blunt, Erik you really need to rethink your line of “reasoning” –or at least what passes for reasoning in your neck of the woods– when it requires you to defame someone’s intrinsic nature or gay self.
What’s next Erik? Are you and the other goomba of the GayLeft going to start revoking our Gay Cards like your victim-soulmate Jesse Jackson offered to do to blacks who supported Bush? Maybe round up the conservatives gays and put ’em in the political re-education concentration camps?
Gosh Erik, I might get you confused for being intolerant given that you whine about the intolerance of others so often… or is that you standing over there next to the religion bigots, narrow minded twits and other intolerants of the GayLeft?
Thought so. Gheesh, what passes for tolerance these days.
Shame on you Erik… and I don’t mean that in a positve BDSM submissive taunt.
Bruce, good post. I take issue with those that take issue with you on one key point: the nonsense that the first two commenters offered about the gay marriage issue wasn’t a function of gay advocacy groups moving in deliberate fashion –John and Gramps just have it wrong.
Surprise! Imagine that?
In Hawaii, a gay advocacy group –founded in 1989– worked to develop a gay marriage project and identify potential lawsuit litigants who would be willing to assist in a challenge. The group? GLEA Foundation. Oh wait, that doesn’t count; the lawsuits were filed by individuals. Right. Brooklyn Bridge for Sale, step this way.
In Vermont, the two people (KP & Ciel) who were ultimately the 1st ones through the proverbial civil union door had long been involved in HRC and VtLand gay advocacy groups –in fact, they reaped benefits from extensive pre-legal research and PR efforts seeking to advance the cause. Who paid for the legal work, media consulting, image framing, etc? Ghee, it was the HRC in good ole’ DC… oh wait, they don’t count as a gay advocacy group –do they John or Gramps? Right. That Brooklyn Bridge you’re trying to sell guys is still unsold.
I love the GayLeft re-re-re-rewriting history to the point that it becomes impossible to know what’s true unless you were there in the crucible –as I was for VtLand and my partner was for Hawaii.
Nice try to spin it out into the “But it was a grassroots movement of individuals not gay organizations”… but you’re wrong again John and Gramps.
But Gramps… just like you taunted Bruce, YOU step up to the plate and admit your new profession –aside from trying to nab a conservative guy and get that picket fence thing going for you in your advancing years– to spin, distort and lie your way into or out of an discussion.
It just won’t work when you run into informed opinions. Sorry about that.
Good post Bruce.
Actually, NorthDallasThirty, I’m starting to think you have issues with gay people, considering that I saw a post from you a few weeks back on a Clay Aiken message board vehemently attacking those who thought he was gay.
Why didn’t you link back to that post, Erik, and show us the proof?
Those psychiatrists and psychologists were lobbied by gay and lesbian activists to at least reconsider their views on the issue. In fact they ambushed their main convention.
So the decision wasn’t based on science, but on ideology and lobbying dollars.
Lovely.
But court decisions are also not made by the public, and many judges are never elected, they are appointed. Yet many have railed against “unelected judges” who make decisions in favor of gay rights. So if we’re going to say it was OK for psychiatrits to do this because the public wasn’t involved, then wouldn’t the same go for judges?
Unfortunately, the US Constitution says that the public has a right to rule on and overturn judicial decisions, via the ballot box.
And, as Gryph let slip above, psychologists and psychiatrists allowed gay activists — part of the public — to lobby and sway their decisions. Following your own logic, wouldn’t that require judges to do the same?
He’s saying that she can’t support gays now because we pushed too far with marriage.
Actually, what he’s saying is that she is showing voters, a STRONG majority of which oppose gay marriage, that she agrees with them. I hardly call that a “defense”; I call it a statement of reality. The fact that you don’t LIKE the reality is what is leading you to attack him, rather than deal with it.
That is exemplified by this statement:
It’s a way to avoid looking at all of the huge problems we face which were there before marriage was ever a campaign issue. The article is very disappointing to me because he doesn’t seem to realize any of this.
LOL….Carl, you’re doing a wonderful job of proving his point.
You have just argued that spending tens of millions of dollars on local activity and HIV/AIDS, instead of campaigns on gay marriage, would do absolutely nothing.
You’ve demonstrated why you and your fellow leftists are utterly unfit to speak for gay rights.
What is it going to take before you guys stop bashing yourselves? This administration has sold its soul, is pissing on the Constitution, and pissing on you/us, and you keep defending it and blaming the victim (you/us).
Folks, they see you as a pawn to be moved and sacrificed. They’re not worth the mea culpas you continuously espouse.
Alas.
Agape. Really.
errr…. No. Really NDT, you have a strong case of Snap Judgment Syndrome. Once again, its not quite that simple either. I’m not going to go farther off topic with this. Just quit being an intellectually lazy toadstool and go look up the history yourself. Pfft.
Gene writes: “This administration has sold its soul, is pissing on the Constitution, and pissing on you/us, and you keep defending it and blaming the victim (you/us).”
News Flash for Gene! Clinton has been out of office since 2000, guy. That was the last Administration that sold the Oval Office to the highest bidders… granting pardons to all of the wealthy felons… and pissed all over gays –while the GayLeft covered for the boys in the closet.
That Administration wasn’t the doing of any conservative gay American. We’d already experienced blow jobs and didn’t need a Commander in Chief to give us one to validate our self worth.
Honestly, what the GayLeft thinks passes for insight… circle your wagons boys, it’s going to be a long night for you.
What is it going to take before you guys stop bashing yourselves?
Normally, Gene, people who make an honest assessment of their priorities, are willing to point out their own mistakes, and suggest ways to improve them are called mature and well-adjusted.
In the gay community, they’re called “self-loathing” and it is claimed that they “bash themselves”.
Folks, they see you as a pawn to be moved and sacrificed. They’re not worth the mea culpas you continuously espouse.
Spoken like a true apologist Democrat.
Now get right out there and tell us how opposing gay marriage and supporting state constitutional amendments and laws to ban it is “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive”.
Or better yet, tell us how Howard Dean’s claim that Democrats share Pat Robertson’s values is advancing gay rights.
Since you call it “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive” when Democrats use gays as a pawn to be moved and sacrificed, why should we think differently about Republicans? Or are you merely demonstrating that we could go from self-loathing to self-loving simply by switching party affiliations?
Gramps writes, speaking to another: “Just quit being an intellectually lazy toadstool and go look up the history yourself. Pfft.”
How fitting for someone still sitting on his own toadstool; lazy as ever. I think those words of advice you offered fit better on you, Gramps, than on anyone else commenting here today.
Gene, I’m hard-pressed to see the relevance of #23 as I can’t see many here defending the Administration on the MPA.
I definitely haven’t read all comments… but in the ones I have, even the people who DON’T support gay marriage mostly seem to agree that the MPA is unnecessary, a bad decision, and will fail.
Calarato-
Gene’s comment (#23) and most of the other shrill comments prove yet again that our critics do not, or cannot, read and comprehend the postings they rail on about.
Please read!
You never seem to comment at all anymore MM unless its something bad about me. Obsessed I see. And I don’t know why you keep calling me “Gramps”. You do realize don’t you that I am in fact a 12-year old girl from Encino, CA, right?
Patrick/Hank (#30, 31)-
I’m as mystified as to why all you trolls continue to hang out here and get yourselves all worked up and enabling your laden anger.
Hey, at least here you are allowed to vent. Conservatives aren’t given that same courtesy at all of the Leftist Blogs.
You guys must like S&M?
hank, when you FINALLY write something truthful, we’ll see if the comment gets removed. ’til then, it’s just speculation on your part, eh?
Gramps, no obsession here… I’ve long since quit reading your flurry of angered emails that follow my comments here and elsewhere. Obsession is a strange word for a self-professed guy who hangs out with the ancient, grey and leering old men over at OutSports. But hey, Gramps, if it keeps ya’ out of the bars and off the streets, I’m all for you indulging in this latest perversion/obsession.
BTW, I thought you didn’t read comments anymore? LOL, you slay me Gramps.
You and boy-John were wrong on the nature of it being a “grassroots” movement regarding gay marriage initiative in Hawaii and Vermont… and you were wrong when you tried to argue that Bruce got the issue wrong, too.
But, like usual, when called to task and held to account… good GayLeft liberals like you and boy-John and raj and Kevin and Erik and QueerPat all play the same game: don’t admit your error, try to divert the discussion and –when that fails– move the goalposts.
It’s an old debate trick for an old gheezer, Gramps. But it’s cool with me. I’m just calling the spade a spade.
BTW Gramps, I won’t wait for you to apologize to Bruce for getting it wrong and then slamming him for your mistaken notions. To admit error, you have to have character first.
#28
How can GP comment in post #28 and referr to posts 30/31?
However, if you had a blog that everyone always agreed with you on every issue it would be rather boring.
Ghee, Patrick, let’s see? You have a well known penchant for deleting any comments that don’t perfectly jive with the narrow spectral views you offer on your blogsite… I would think calling any other blog’s editorial standards into question would be… well, sort of having the pot call the kettle black.
Come on pot, fess-up and be truthful at least once this day.
Matt my jaw is getting a little slack here.
Gryph has your e-mail and hits your inbox privately? I mean, in addition to his stuff here?
And Gryph routinely deletes commentors on his blog? (while playing HTT above?)
#20 by North Dallas Thirty — June 5, 2006 @ 4:25 pm – June 5, 2006
>>>>Those psychiatrists and psychologists were lobbied by gay and lesbian activists to at least reconsider their views on the issue. In fact they ambushed their main convention.
So the decision wasn’t based on science, but on ideology and lobbying dollars.
Lovely.
I’m always amused at right-wing nutters–gay or otherwise–who bloviate about topics about which they know nothing, while apparently asserting some expertise in the matter.
Aside from the often overlooked fact that the psychiatrists had no basis in science for their original 1950s determination that homosexuality was a mental disorder, the fact is that they had rather substantial scientific evidence that it was not a mental disorder by 1973 when they made the decision to delete the “81 words” regarding homosexuality from their DSM bible.
Do a little rooting around in the IndeGayForum archives–if they have a search function there, do a search on “Thomas Szasz.” And look for the “81 Words” audio program on Ira Glass’s This American Life series. And, by the way, take a look at http://www.priory.com/psych/disparat.htm the first half of which gives a fairly concise synopsis of what actually happened. I doubt if you will do any of these, since you apparently only want to bloviate.
Michigan Matt says:
I think you would find only one instance of were I ever deleted someones comment on my blog. Frankly I don’t get enough of them to delete. And I have never banned anyone from commenting.
Caralato says:
Caralato, if you ever actually figure out what the fuck MM is talking about, let me know. I gave up a long time ago.