MPA Debate: Patrick Guerriero’s Letter To President Bush
Issued earlier today from Log Cabin Republicans:
Dear Mr. President,
On behalf of millions of gay and lesbian Americans, I write to denounce your decision to divide the American family by promoting an amendment that would insert discrimination into the United States Constitution. Your decision to use the grounds of the White House—America’s House—to advance discrimination is an insult to millions of fair minded Americans from all walks of life.
Mr. President, gay and lesbian Americans pay taxes, contribute to community and family life across our great nation, and worship the same all-loving and compassionate God. Thousands of gay and lesbian Americans, under your command, serve proudly in our nation’s military, fighting to win the war on terror and promoting liberty across the globe. Your effort to codify discrimination against our families, including men and women in uniform while the nation is at war, is offensive and unworthy of the office of the Presidency. Great Republican Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan have united Americans and appealed to our best hopes, not our worst fears.
Wedge-issue politics may score short-term political points but will end up eroding your ability as President to unite the American people behind winning the war in Iraq, enhancing border security, advancing immigration reform, and controlling spending. Your call for “civility and decency” in this debate rings hollow because the effort to write discrimination into our Constitution is intolerant and uncivil.
While Americans deserve a chance to debate contentious issues, the constitutional amendment process you propose denies states the right to handle this issue as they deem appropriate. This proposal runs completely counter to our Party’s conservative belief in federalism. We suggest you listen to your own Vice President who has reminded us that this is an issue that should be left to the states. And, we suggest you listen to your former U.N. Ambassador and former United States Senator John Danforth (R-MO) who has called this amendment one of the silliest ever proposed in our nation’s history.
While decent Americans can respectfully disagree about how to offer fairness to our families, your White House event today further legitimizes the voices of intolerance who have made an industry out of denigrating gay and lesbian Americans. That legitimization has sadly fueled discriminatory state amendments across America that go beyond denying civil marriage equality—by denying even domestic partnerships or civil unions that allow for hospital visitation, inheritance rights, and basic dignity to life-long loving couples.
Mr. President, the White House has been the site of historic legislative triumphs that expanded liberty and opportunity for the American people—from expanding equal opportunity for women to the signing of the Civil Rights Act to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Today, you desecrate America’s House by using the White House grounds to denigrate part of the American family. History recalls those moments in America’s past when our nation’s leaders expanded liberty and fairness for American citizens. History also remembers those political leaders who have stood in the doorway of equality and tolerance.
Mr. President, may God bless our great nation—and each and every American who believes in the promise of the Declaration of Independence that all Americans are created equal.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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I have a lot of reading on my plate and it’s too long & boring for me. I was hoping you’d net it out
Comment by Calarato — June 5, 2006 @ 8:47 pm - June 5, 2006
Why do you think *I* posted the whole thing? I was hoping someone else could read it for me too!
Comment by GayPatriot — June 5, 2006 @ 9:01 pm - June 5, 2006
Well, I read it… As an open letter from a putatively-Republican source it’s too-confrontational, rather than being persuasive or enlightening;
“…I write to denounce…”,
“…is an insult…”,
“…is offensive and unworthy of…”,
“…further legitimizes the voices of intolerance…”,
“Today, you desecrate America’s House by using …”
Unfortrunately, Patrick seems to have forgotten that letters using such phrases got torn into strips for re-use in the outhouse in the old-days. Rather than attempting to sway through education, he hurls insults. Rather than present a civil and pursuasive agrument, or presenting a different view-point encouraging the seeking of a middle-ground like civil-unions, it just piles-on the invective. GW Bush has stated on several occasions a leaning towards civil-unions as a way out of the kerfuffle…why not play to that from strength, rather name-call from weakness?
Rather than a plea from the loyal opposition within his own Party, it reads like a mimeograph from a Pelosi staffer’s trash-basket.
Comment by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) — June 5, 2006 @ 9:34 pm - June 5, 2006
In other words, it just didn’t suck the President’s dick enough to make Bush’s eyeballs pop.
Lets see:
True.
True
Yes, so why the fuck is the President bringing this up when there is a War on Terror to be fought?
Yup. True. It IS offensive.
I think its safe to say, Bush ain’t no Reagan, and he ain’t even his Dad. He’s a wuss. No matter what the sycophant Fred Barnes might say.
Absolutely true. The only thing that might unite the country behind him would be another 9/11, God forbid. And even then, with his poor record on conducting the War on Terror, I don’t think people will trust him. And he certainly has managed to split the GOP into a warring camps. “Mission Accomplished!”
His call for civility is condescending at the very least. He sounds like he’s against gays getting married because he doesn’t think we are capable of it. The same way white bigots used to justify segregation and discrimination in such things as employment by saying the “Negro Race” was inferior. They said such things”civilly” when in truth what they were saying was barbaric.
If this amendment passes, California could not pass a gay marriage law, even by referendum. You don’t get much more anti-states rights than that, Mr. President.
Out of curiosity, on a topic of such apparent vast importance, why didn’t the President invite people who disagree with him on the subject to the White House? Thats what a real “uniter” would have done. That would have set a real tone of civility, instead of the orgy of anti-gay sound-bites he produced today.
The President has previously said he thinks civil partnerships are agreeable. So why hasn’t he lobbied to have the amendment changed? Why didn’t he come out in favor of civil unions today? (and mentioning them in passing does not count, – he should have taken a real stand on them. )
Not on this day apparently.
The chapter on King George in the history books will be interesting. He has given us so many failures of leadership to talk about that people would probably be grateful to just be discussing blow-jobs in the oval office right now instead of the messes Bush has created.
Do you think George ever bothers to read the founding documents anymore?
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — June 5, 2006 @ 10:32 pm - June 5, 2006
Patrick proves, once again, that when someone resigns a position… they need to leave it at once. To stay on and “work” usually results in more harm and less good –and ol Paddie boi proves it in Spanish triplets.
Way to go Patrick >> you’ve probably screwed LC in the ground for another 15 years.
Who said the guy was on our side? Good God.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 5, 2006 @ 10:32 pm - June 5, 2006
Why is the president bringing it up now? Simple – the GOP (as led by its current leaders) feeds on divisiveness. And there’s nothing more divisive than bringing up this topic in the form of an ammendment to get all those homo-haters out to the polls in November. Let’s face it…republicans are quaking in their boots because they are failing on even true Republican issues with their voters. I’m sure that if they could villify blacks, jews, muslims, etc in this way to bring out voters, they would certainly do so.
Comment by Kevin — June 5, 2006 @ 11:01 pm - June 5, 2006
Wow, I started to read your comments Gramps and couldn’t decide if it was Kevin, QueerPat, CowBoyBob from the netherworld, Ian S or a new “gifted” writer from the WeHateBush crowd come to meeting. I thought: who the Hell hates Bush this much?
I discounted you being the author because the writer used the word “True” several times and I KNOW that’s not a word you are conversant with… right along with “comprehend”.
And, as fate would have it… it was you, Gramps. And you can use the word “true” in a sentence without your tinfoil hat spinning on its axis.
Wow.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 5, 2006 @ 11:07 pm - June 5, 2006
what a bunch of, well, nothing! this has turned into such a boring subject. I will be glad when the vote is over so we can move on to something that are more important like Roe v. Wade.
Face it, 42,000,000 abortions since… no wonder so many cannot find their true life partners. pobresitos!
Comment by Ed of Tampa — June 5, 2006 @ 11:09 pm - June 5, 2006
Patrick’s statement is one of the most juvenile pieces of drivel to come out of Log Cabin since he took over. As I mentioned in a piece written shortly after Bruce posted this, like the other gay leaders, would rather insult the president than take issue with his arguments on gay marriage.
The president is clearly wrong on this one, but Patrick et al. somehow think it’s wrong for him to take a position on a controversial issue. He cannot leave Log Cabin soon enough.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — June 5, 2006 @ 11:26 pm - June 5, 2006
So Dan, head to DC and help him pack his bags… PatrickG should have been made to leave within minutes of his announced resignation –MINUTES.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 5, 2006 @ 11:30 pm - June 5, 2006
And I would respond in this way to Patrick’s letter:
“Wrong. The 2004 campaign demonstrated that gays do NOT oppose bans on gay marriage — and in fact call them ‘pro-gay’ and ‘gay-supportive’ — when they are advanced by Democrats.
Furthermore, Mr. Guerreiro, forty-five of the fifty states have spoken loudly and clearly that they do not want gay marriage or to be forced to recognize gay marriages. Yet you and your fellow ‘activists’ support using the court system to ignore what voters have repeatedly said and impose your will on others.
In short, buzz off. Your hypocrisy on these issues is blatantly obvious to the American people and a major reason why the majority of them oppose gay marriage.”
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 5, 2006 @ 11:52 pm - June 5, 2006
#12. You pretend that majority rules in the United States of America. But the framers were much smarter than you and were sure to insert protections against majority rule, protections for minorities.
What’s most pathetic in the criticism of this letter is that you people actually believe this White House would take the time to read a letter from a gay group to begin with!! They don’t care about us!! Is it not clear to you at all? The tone of the letter doesn’t get it to the shredder; the fact that it is from a gay group rules it out immediately.
Sorry you weren’t invited to the White House for the media event today, Dallas guy. I’m sure you would have calloused hands and a sore throat after the event. (And by that, I mean all the applause and hooting you would be doing…)
Comment by jimmy — June 6, 2006 @ 12:04 am - June 6, 2006
So your new claim, jimmy, is that voters cannot amend the Constitution?
If 90% of the states were to vote in favor of the MPA, it would pass. Easily.
The problem is that hatemongering leftists like yourself are unable to convince voters; thus, you try to deny reality and pretend that they don’t have the right to rule against you.
They do.
Meanwhile, as for your last, you’re confusing me with your reaction to Howard Dean’s appearance on the 700 Club and John Kerry’s support of state constitutional amendments stripping gays of rights.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 6, 2006 @ 12:09 am - June 6, 2006
I think, if anything, Patrick Guerriero was a bit restrained. He was standing up for principles — some of which were once core principles of the Republican Party — and if that pisses off Bush’s minions in the White House, too bad.
Some of you, including GayPatriot, are whistling in the wind if you think sweet talk from LCR will win points at the White House. As Republican author Kevin Phillips writes in his scathing indictment of George W. Bush, American Theocracy, Bush is responsible for the Republican Party becoming a religious party. [Calling Kevin Philips a Republican is like calling Jimmy Carter president of the United States. Philips has been busy attacking Republicans since the onset of the Reagan era. And his book is filled with contempt for the president (and, as I understand it, factual errors). No serious Republican takes that man seriously. And no serious Republican calls him a Republican. --Ed.] And nothing will stop the president from pandering to James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Lou Sheldon, Donald Wildmon, the Catholic bishops, Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell, et al. Keeping their support is more important to him than advocating freedom and equality for Americans.
Comment by Trace Phelps — June 6, 2006 @ 1:12 am - June 6, 2006
Some of you, including GayPatriot, are whistling in the wind if you think sweet talk from LCR will win points at the White House.
I think the White House would be much more receptive to gay issues — if doing so had any sort of reward.
But, since Patrick et al. have made it clear that they support nothing that Bush does, why should the White House bother?
Furthermore, gay rights includes, according to gay rights groups, support for unlimited abortion, antireligious rhetoric, and hatred of all things Republican while supporting Democrats who seek to ban gay marriage through legal means as well.
If LCR and assorted gay rights groups were actually lobbying for freedom and equality, you might have a point. But the simple fact is that these groups are nothing more than money-laundering organizations for various leftist causes and the Democratic Party, willing to support discrimination if it gives Democrats a political advantage.
Gays have nothing to offer Republicans except hate and insults. Republicans are responding in kind.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 6, 2006 @ 2:47 am - June 6, 2006
Trace, if Patrick stands for principles, why didn’t he articulate them in this letter. Instead in an very unrestrained missive, he attacks the president rather than takes issue with him.
That’s anything but restrained; that’s unbridled anger pure and simple.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — June 6, 2006 @ 4:27 am - June 6, 2006
Trace, you’re so deep in bed with the failed gay activism of the last century, you haven’t learned that our community is getting it from both sides… the far Right, our “buddies” on the Left, the Democrats, the GOPers… its equal opportunity time for anyone who wants to hoist gay issues up the flagpole and use it for short term political gain –like the very gay activist groups who are supposed to be advancing our agenda.
Instead, like PatrickG, they’d prefer to meet over pink Cosmos and all swill political anger from a cup that runneth over in excess.
Political lesson #1 is that anger works to energize your base, it may work to generate donations, but in the end you’re left with bitter people who each have a monopoly on the correct opinion about what to do next. That’s the GayLeft and we’ve had lots and lots of examples of those people comment here recently.
Bitter, impotent, rage-filled and near implosion. The Gay Community needs new leaders, new ideas, a new agenda and needs to put Hate on the back burner for a generation… it isn’t a constructive impulse in the first place and it screws up political operations.
Groups like Act Up may have allowed us to think we could stand tall and do it all alone through rage, public contempt for civil discourse, and violent words and actions. But it didn’t work for long –it only deepened the ditch that separates us from our goal of a just, fair, equitable place at the American table. Trace, it deepened the ditch.
Rather than continue to strike at those who Hate us, we need to find mechanisms of cooperation and opportunities to rechannel the gay-str8 conflict. Gays miss the biggest point when pondering why str8s “hate” us… str8s don’t hate us; they just don’t trust us to be included in the society THEY control. The don’t trust us to keep our sexual drive in check. They don’t trust us with their kids in school. They don’t trust us at the pulpit as moral leaders. They don’t trust us in the political arena. And they may tolerate us living next door… but they’ll be watching out the window for transgressions from our camp.
They don’t hate us. They just don’t trust us.
And for damn good reasons, too.
PatrickG didn’t stand up “for principles” as you contend. He just took us three more steps down that path of conflict with str8 America by pandering to the worst instincts in gays: a misplaced sense of moral supremacy in the face of social injustice.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 6, 2006 @ 10:34 am - June 6, 2006
On behalf of millions of gay and lesbian Americans …
Guerriero does NOT speak for me. Never has. Never will.
Julie the Jarhead
Comment by Julie the Jarhead — June 6, 2006 @ 11:51 am - June 6, 2006
From #15 NDT says: “But, since Patrick et al. have made it clear that they support nothing that Bush does, why should the White House bother?”
The fact of the matter is that the Bush family and this administration demands loyalty, and gives little in return … at least when it comes to the gay community that has supported him. LCR and Patrick have been more than supportive of the President on any number of issues.
Over the past five and a half years, LCR and Patrick have actively supported the President on Social Security reform, repeal of the death tax, the war on terror, the Iraq war, most judicial appointments, AIDS funding (both in the US and abroad), and pushing to get control of government spending. In that same time LCR and Patrick have taken the President to task on pushing for a Constitutional amdt regarding marriage, and a few judicial appointments. That’s it.
So, where’s the balance and the loyalty from the Administration? Guess it falls into the category of “if we had no double-standards we’d have no standards at all”.
Comment by GOPValues — June 6, 2006 @ 12:16 pm - June 6, 2006
Over the past five and a half years, LCR and Patrick have actively supported the President on Social Security reform, repeal of the death tax, the war on terror, the Iraq war, most judicial appointments, AIDS funding (both in the US and abroad), and pushing to get control of government spending. In that same time LCR and Patrick have taken the President to task on pushing for a Constitutional amdt regarding marriage, and a few judicial appointments. That’s it.
You forgot that the latter represented millions of dollars worth of political advertisements and hate rhetoric that denigrated Republicans and the religious.
The Bush administration rightly sees National LCR as what they are — backstabbers who spend millions of dollars to trash them and please the gay leftists whose cocktail party invitations they want.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 6, 2006 @ 1:45 pm - June 6, 2006
When gay “activists” stop trying to force gay marriage through the courts, they won’t be fueling the need to stop the courts before they capitulate.
Comment by rightwingprof — June 6, 2006 @ 4:27 pm - June 6, 2006
>>Over the past five and a half years, LCR and Patrick have actively supported the President on Social Security reform, repeal of the death tax, the war on terror, the Iraq war, most judicial appointments, AIDS funding (both in the US and abroad), and pushing to get control of government spending. In that same time LCR and Patrick have taken the President to task on pushing for a Constitutional amdt regarding marriage, and a few judicial appointments. That’s it.
Comment by Dotty Laird — June 6, 2006 @ 4:58 pm - June 6, 2006
Good! Sometimes unbridled anger is entirely appropriate. The President was a class-A Jerk yesterday.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — June 6, 2006 @ 4:59 pm - June 6, 2006
Let’s try that again. This isn’t as easy as it looks, apparently.
>>Over the past five and a half years, LCR and Patrick have actively supported the President on Social Security reform, repeal of the death tax, the war on terror, the Iraq war, most judicial appointments, AIDS funding (both in the US and abroad), and pushing to get control of government spending. In that same time LCR and Patrick have taken the President to task on pushing for a Constitutional amdt regarding marriage, and a few judicial appointments. That’s it.
Comment by Dotty Laird — June 6, 2006 @ 5:00 pm - June 6, 2006
Third time the charm?
–Over the past five and a half years, LCR and Patrick have actively supported the President on Social Security reform, repeal of the death tax, the war on terror, the Iraq war, most judicial appointments, AIDS funding (both in the US and abroad), and pushing to get control of government spending. In that same time LCR and Patrick have taken the President to task on pushing for a Constitutional amdt regarding marriage, and a few judicial appointments. That’s it. –
What I’ve been trying to ask is this: How much has the LCRs spent in support of Bush’s policies as opposed to taking him to task over the marriage issue?
Dotty
(who is hopefully getting this right at last)
Comment by Dotty Laird — June 6, 2006 @ 5:02 pm - June 6, 2006
That was kind of my point, Dotty.
They send press releases that nobody reads for the one; they buy multimillion-dollar attack ads for the other.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 6, 2006 @ 6:08 pm - June 6, 2006
Actually, that’s more like pointless NDT. The “attack ads” were ads in opposition to the FMA. They didn’t single out anyone, and only used the Vice-President’s words to undermine support for the FMA. If you’re referring to some other ad, I’d like to see it and the budget that was spent on it (since you keep refering to “millions.”
Dottie, Log Cabin’s staff and members have lobbied Congress on behalf of a number of those issues, traveled across the country and around our respective states talking to editorial boards of newspapers in support of those issues, and spent time and effort attempting to educate those in the gay “community” about why those issues are important. Not all efforts are measured in dollars.
Comment by GOPValues — June 8, 2006 @ 1:59 am - June 8, 2006
One other thing … we’re in the majority in both the US House and US Senate by substantial margins and if we can’t manage to push through legislation, or embarrass the Democrat holdouts in the Senate on cloture votes, then we shouldn’t be running the show.
Comment by GOPValues — June 8, 2006 @ 2:01 am - June 8, 2006