Category: LGBTQ

Pass the Popcorn…

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It appears that self hating gay Republican group GOProud was so incensed by Rick Perry’s anti-gay bigotry ad, and they grew a pair, and outed gay Perry staffer Tony Fabrizio, which so offended board member, and lush, Andrew Breitbart that he quit from their board:

GOProud issued a statement this morning, saying, “Tony Fabrizio is not the victim here. Tony Fabrizio has lined his pockets for years with money from gay groups and is now one of the chief architects of a campaign strategy – not just an isolated television ad – intended to demonize gay people in order to score political points.”

It was in response to this decision that Breitbart, who edits Big Government, Big Hollywood, and several other conservative websites, released a statement of his own, resigning from his position as an advisor to GOProud. “I have a zero tolerance attitude toward the intentional infliction of vocational and family harm by divulging the details of an individual’s sexual orientation as a weapon of political destruction,” he told The Daily Caller, “As an ‘Advisory Board member’ I was not consulted on this extreme and punitive act.”

You know, it’s so cute when sh%$ like this goes down. 

Why You Should Tell Your Local Public Radio Station to Go Pound Sand During Pledge Week

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In the latest case, we have Warren Olney, the host of “On Point,” equating homosexuality with child rape:

Allegations of child sex abuse have destroyed the carefully cultivated image of Penn State’s football team and brought down the university’s administration. They’ve also exposed once more the vulnerability of children, when a sexual predator can hide behind the façade of an institution bent on protecting its reputation. Foster children were assigned to former coach Jerry Sandusky’s care, even though charges against him were investigated for years. Today, Penn State’s Board of Trustees expanded its probe into the cover-up. With 500,000 children desperate for loving homes, we look at efforts to widen the pool of available parents. Should gays and lesbians qualify?

That’s Olney’s lede from his show on gay foster parents.

And then he lets an anti-gay bigot, Jerry Cox of the Arkansas’ Family Council, which has been designated as a hate group by the SPLC, spew his filth without challenging his cherry picking and outright lies.

But Warren Olney still has a job, while Lisa Simeone, an entertainment reporter, got fired for being a spokesman for a Occupy Wall Street Group, and now NPR has dropped its distribution of World of Opera produced by WDAV in an attempt to get her fired from that show.

Yep, you got it. They are trying to get an entertainment reporter fired, and shut down an opera show.

To be fair, On Point is distributed by PRI, not NPR, though PRI was weaseled big time on this, “Thank you for contacting Public Radio International. We share your concern. Although PRI does not have editorial control over the show -we distribute the program and KCRW produces-once we heard the program yesterday, we began having discussions with the editorial staff of To the Point, and those discussions will continue.”

The problem is that public broadcasting suffers from Barack Obama syndrome:  It sees liberals as a captive audience to be belittled and scorned in an attempt to suck up to to right wingers who will hate them anyway.

If you give, they will continue to do this, so when they call, write back, and say that balance does not involve sanctioning hate speech and leaving outright lies unchallenged.

As it stands today, Warren Olney is still secure in his job, and NPR is still trying to get Lisa Simeone fired, so public broadcasting is not is not an institution for “mindful human beings,” to quote Ronald Reagan, Jr. on Dick Cheney.

I’m not saying that these people are inherently evil, but they are so weak that they are willing allies of evil.

Military Ends Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

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And what do you know, they buried the news with a Friday afternoon announcement:

The ban on gays in the military has stood for nearly a century.

In 60 days, after decades of discharges, lawsuits and lobbying, that will change.

On Friday, President Barack Obama fulfilled a 2008 campaign pledge, formally ending the ban. After meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, the joint chiefs of staff chairman, the president certified to Congress that repealing the ban would not jeopardize the military’s ability to fight.

“As commander in chief, I have always been confident that our dedicated men and women in uniform would transition to a new policy in an orderly manner that preserves unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effectiveness,” Obama said in a statement. “Service members will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country.”

I still think that this happened because he was forced to (Google “don’t ask don’t give”) and they went with a low profile release in an attempt to bury it.

The basic rule here is that they will do the right thing, if they are absolutely forced to do do, and then they will try to minimize their involvement.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!? Rudy Giuliani Seizes the Moral High Ground?!?!

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No, this is not a joke. Rudolph Giuliani really said the right thing, and there will very likely be a not inconsiderable political cost, because the right thing has very little intersection with the Republican party:

Rudy Giuliani, always a critic of his party’s social agenda, urged Republicans to “move on” from social issues after New York State’s recent approval of gay marriage.

“I think that marriage should be between a man and woman, but I think that the Republican Party would be well advised to get the heck out of people’s bedrooms and let these things get decided by states,” said the former New York mayor, who’s considering another bid for the Republican presidential nomination, in an interview aired Sunday.

Giuliani said that he thinks the New York vote was “wrong,” but “there are other things that I think are wrong that get decided by democratic vote.”

The libertarian streak of the Republican party, he added, should want to avoid “getting involved in people’s sexual lives.”

We live in strange times.

OK, So I’ve Been Watching Keith, and Rachel and Ed…

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And they all covered the revelation that Michelle Bachmann’s husband, psychologist Marcus Bachmann, has been taking Medicaid money, and then, in violation of regulations, has been performing “repairative therapy,” better known as pray away the gay.

I understand how this might get coverage, it is after all, an interesting juxtaposition of the husband of an anti-Medicaid Congresswoman, and his use of unapproved, and actively harmful, therapy driven by nothing but an ignorant and fundamentalist reading of the bible.

That’s not the part that surprised me. 

The part that surprised me was all of them made a comment to the effect of, “He seems to know an awful lot about gay sex.”

I’ve heard the tapes of him, and he does seem to “mince” a bit, but it seems to me that the “nudge, nudge, wink, wink,” from the hosts bit is a bit much.

Or maybe they have heard whispers that I haven’t.

Appellate Court Reinstates Injunction Against “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

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This is a good thing, since it appears that the Obama, in another example of moral cowardice, is slow walking this process.  What I like is the fact that they use the Obama DoJ’s words against them:

The government must stop enforcing the law that prohibits openly gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from serving in the military, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a two-page order against the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” in a case brought by the group Log Cabin Republicans.

…

Judges Alex Kozinski, Kim McLane Wardlaw and Richard A. Paez stated in their order that “circumstances and balance of hardships had changed” since their initial ruling: the Obama administration had informed the court that repeal of the policy was “well under way,” and in a filing in another case on July 1, the Department of Justice took the position that discrimination based on sexual orientation should be subjected to tough scrutiny. The government, the judges wrote, “can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay.”

The fact that the most conflicted Republicans in the nation are more proactive in pushing basic civil rights than the Obama administration.

This is a Big F%$#ing Deal

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H/t Good Girls Finish Last for the rainbow Empire State Building

The New York Senate just voted to approve gay marriage in the state.

For all those who were for it, this is something to be proud of.

For those who opposed it, and in particular those in the religious community who carved out a specific right to use God as an excuse for bigotry, blasphemy* by any sane standard, you are evil small people who history will view as evil and small people.

*I would note that I consider the right to blaspheme to be one of the most basic human rights, I am merely pointing out their hypicrisy.

And A Maryland Democrat Joins the Ranks of the Morally Repugnant

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And here he is tweeting his support a month ago

When Maryland Delegate Sam Aora (D-Silver Spring) ran for office, he said that he supported gay marriage.

He’s one of the cosponsors for the bill that provides for recognition of Gay marriage in Maryland.

Well, now that it’s passed the state Senate, and looks like it is going to pass , he says that he is going to vote against it.

This isn’t just about a politician lying. This is about a politician making the issue the core of his campaign, and then betraying the people who supported him because of it.

It was at the core of his campaign.

He campaigned on in, and raised money on it.

Unsurprisingly, there is now a drum beat of people who are asking for their campaign contributions back, particularly since it looks like his vote will kill the bill.

This guy might be the biggest slime ball in Maryland, and that says a lot!

How Politics Are Supposed to Work

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Here’s something that I didn’t know, that Palm Springs, California, is the gayest city per capita in the United States.

So, when the homophobic police chief and DA decided to run entrap run a sting operation to harass gays, they both get forced out:

The June 2009 gay sex sting netted 19 public indecent exposure arrests, and disbelief and outrage have festered in this desert haven ever since.
This is Palm Springs, “the gayest city in America,” a gay tourist destination governed by an openly gay mayor and home to the sexually charged White Party, a dance and music festival that attracts tens of thousands of gay men every year.
………
The controversy reached a boil last June with the revelation that an officer involved in the sting was taped uttering a gay slur. It grew venomous in December when Police Chief David Dominguez, who had disciplined the officer, acknowledged that he too had made an “inappropriate comment” — also caught on tape.
………
It wasn’t enough. Dominguez abruptly announced his retirement last week.
………
Former Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco’s hard-line prosecution of the Warm Sands cases, which have yet to go to trial, rallied many in the Palm Springs gay community to pour money into his challenger’s campaign in the June election. Pacheco lost to Superior Court Judge Paul Zellerbach by 8,400 votes.

“I was told that on election night he was cursing my name,” [counsel of many of defendants, Robert] Tansey said.

It should noted that the police and DA claimed that there were extensive complaints, but they have been unable or unwilling to turn over that information to defense attorneys.

Palm Springs has been in decline for decades, with its recent status as a gay vacation destination being the only thing that is not turning it into Inland Empire, but the police, and the Republican (I Wikied it) DA decided that it was time for some gay bashing, and they discovered that the LGBT community has learned to vote.

Good News on the Legislative Front Today

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The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was signed into law, the Senate passed the START arms control treaty, and a new food safety bill that gives the FDA the power to order recalls passed the house and is heading to the President’s desk.

I still don’t see any gazillion dimensional chess here, but it’s a good day.

BTW, since the bill gives the military fairly broad discretion in how the ban is phased in, I would take even money that separations from the military will be continuing into 2012, because Obama won’t push the military on this.

Obama is Now Blocking DADT Repeal

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So much for his promise to be a “Fierce advocate” for the LGBT:

Sources on the Hill are telling me a big reason DADT repeal isn’t moving faster comes right from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Despite President Obama’s public support for repeal, with DADT stacked up against the START nuclear arms reduction treaty that Obama carefully brokered with the Russians earlier this year, the White House is putting its legislative push behind START.

At this point, with more than the 60 votes secured to invoke cloture on a repeal bill in the Senate, obstacles to repealing DADT legislatively are a simple combination of time and priorities. Time is short in the lame duck session, and DADT repeal is just one of many items the Senate would like to address before it adjourns. Where repeal slots into the remaining legislative calendar, and how much time is left in that calendar when it does pop up, will make the difference between repealing the ban and keeping the status quo.

I strongly disagree with the next paragraph though:

No one questions that Obama wants to see DADT end, or that he wants to see it end this year. The concern is over the priorities: Obama, it seems, wants START to come first. And with the White House pushing START (in daily phone calls from top White House officials, according to one source on the Hill), Obama could end up standing in the way of DADT getting done.

Truth be told, Barack Obama’s excuses for not supporting LGBT civil rights, whether it’s his slow-walking DADT, or aggressively defending it in court, or ignoring judges orders to recognize gay marriages where they are legal, etc. rivals John McCain’s flip flops on gay rights for their mendacity.

Meanwhile, in the House…

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The House of representatives passes a stand alone bill to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

After impassioned debate both for and against the measure, the House of Representatives today passed a standalone bill to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The measure passed by a vote of 250 to 175, and the House broke into applause at the announcement of the final vote.

The measure was introduced Tuesday, in the final days of the Democratic-led 111th Congress, after the Senate last week failed to pass a defense authorization bill that included a repeal of the policy. “Don’t ask,” which has been in effect since 1993, prohibits gays from serving openly in the military.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today that repealing the law would fix a “fundamental unfairness in our nation” and “honor the service and sacrifice of all who dedicated their lives to protecting the American people.”

Considering the relatively efficiencies of the House and the Senate, I am thinking that the “World’s greatest deliberative body”, i.e. the Senate, is nothing more than growth media for sociopathic narcissists.

You Didn’t Really Come Here to Hunt, Did You?*

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So, the Senate failed to end a filibuster and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal is dead, probably for at least the next 4 years.

Obama started calling people about this yesterday, so much for fierce advocacy, and the witch hunts and separations continue.

With financial reform, he was pushing back to keep it as small as possible.

With healthcare reform, he cut a deal that made us all slave labor for the insurance companies.

And not a peep from the administration about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

And then there is the tax deal, which lowers the inheritance tax, and gives the Republicans a wedge to defund Social Security.

As I have noted before, he appointed Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, both supporters of “privatizing” Social Security to chair his debt commission.

I am beginning to think that he’s not a bad negotiator, but that he is getting everything that he wants, and what he wants are largely Republican policies.

I’m beginning to think that he bay actually getting he wants.

Talk about eleventy dimensional chess.

* It’s an old joke.

God Help Me, I Agree With Joe Lieberman

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Yes, the sanctimonious rat-fink is saying that the Senate should postpone its adjournment to make sure that there is time to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) wants the Senate to stay in session until it’s passed legislation to do away with the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Lieberman, a key Senate proponent of repealing the military’s ban on openly gay or lesbian members, doesn’t want the chamber to adjourn until it’s acted on a defense authorization bill that contains a provision to do away with the policy.

Note that Lieberman has been a stronger advocate of repeal than either Barack “Fierce Advocate” Obama or Harry Reid.

For once, we have a bunch of wankers in the room, and Lieberman isn’t one.

In the Annals of the Unsurprising…

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The 10 month long Pentagon study shows that the overwhelming majority of those serving in the military have no problem with repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

“We are convinced the U.S. military can make this change, even during this time of war,” the Defense Department report concludes, noting that 70% of the tens of thousands of military personnel and family members surveyed predicted there would be “positive, mixed or no effect” from allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly.

This won’t stop Republicans from blocking a repeal though, because pandering to a small, but vocal, minority of bigots is how they play.