They were in a band, you see, until things went off the rails and Sarah started stealing from Jewel.

Weekly Column

This weekend, I attended an event on Fire Island that featured Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (who was quite lovely and engaging). Interestingly, a few donors publicly expressed displeasure about the Democratic Party’s progress on LGBT issues during a Q&A session. This got me thinking about why some Democrats are disappointed with the Party – and it goes much deeper than votes on a few key issues. The unease, in my view, comes directly from the Party’s inability to define itself, defend itself and the style in which it communicates.

If one is asked to name five defining issues the Republican Party stands for, it would be easy: Lower taxes (for the rich), Pro-business (corporate welfare), Discrimination (gays, blacks, Muslims immigrants, etc.), Family Values (undermining separation of church & State) and a strong defense (dumb wars we can’t afford).

But, if one asks the same question about Democrats, people would be left scratching their heads. Over the past couple of decades, the Party has left us with a series of mind-numbing, ever-changing slogans and strategies.

Sure, many of the Democratic Party’s issues are laudable and they have had some success passing legislation. But the merry-go-round of messages has left the Party with an identity crisis. Any experienced salesperson understands that without a solid brand, the product can’t easily be marketed or sold.

In the absence of a brand, Democrats have had to disproportionately rely on prodigy politicians, such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as scaring voters into believing (rightfully) that Republicans are too radical to govern. Fear will send many Democratic voters to the polls in November. However, spooking people into voting against the bad guys and Mama Grizzlies, while important, will not be enough to win long-term.

Aside from defining, the Democrats are going to have to start defending and stop allowing themselves to be tarred by Republicans. First, Al Gore was painted as a wimpy, serial exaggerator who lacked leadership. Then, we had war hero, John Kerry, who was swift boated as a traitor. Now, Barack Obama has been mercilessly slimed as a communist, Muslim terrorist who wants to march into Middle America and take their guns.

It is frustrating that the Democratic Party can’t make Americans remember the disaster of George W. Bush’s presidency, a mere two years ago. Yet the GOP still has people remembering the alleged nightmare of life under Jimmy Carter.

Wouldn’t the party be much better off if it cast aside its reticence and threw political punches against the GOP in the same way that Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart do each night?

If Barack Obama still thinks he can play nice and make friends with intransigent Republicans, then he is kidding himself. The GOP is already planning, if they win back the House, to undermine the President’s legitimacy and effectiveness by launching a series of frivolous investigations.

Of course, the biggest problem the Democrats have is that they often do not know how to talk to voters. In the early stages of my career, when I was in broadcasting, news directors taught that to reach a mass audience, reporters had to write at a fifth-to seventh grade level. The Republicans get this, while Democrats talk to the American people as if they are conducting a college seminar. We hear them yammering about complicated or meaningless terms such as: public option, cap and trade, deregulation, ENDA, and working people.

(Today’s real working people would rather be defined by their aspirations, not their current station in life. So, appeal to their dreams, not their present job.)

Here are four quick examples of the way Democratic Party officials and politicians should start talking to voters about key issues:

Deregulation: “Thanks to Republicans, we can’t even feel secure having eggs for breakfast because they have dismantled safeguards that protected us from food poisoning.”

Alternative Energy: “Every time we go to the gas pump and use foreign oil, we are pumping up the terrorists. This is why we support homegrown energy innovation.”

Environment: “We will not allow Republican policies to ruin our heritage by polluting our blue water and skies with oil and smog.”

ENDA: “In a free market, the best worker should get the job, regardless of sexual orientation. We have zero tolerance for discrimination because it is morally wrong and it is bad for business.”

I know it can be difficult to dumb down the rhetoric. But, it is better than feeling stupid on Election Day, watching Republicans trick the American people into voting against their own interests.

NOM is very concerned about what is happening in New Zealand. No…not same-sex marriage…

“An earthquake is beginning: If ‘gay is like black,’ then ‘Christian is like racist.’ The early warning signs are now taking place all over the globe. In New Zealand, Exodus Ministries was just stripped of its tax-exempt status, on the grounds that helping gay people lead Christian lives is not a charity.”- National Organization for Marriage

If you are wondering now what the charitable status of ex-gay ministries has to do with marriage, you’ve been taking that National Organization for Marriage name a tad too seriously.  NOM you have to understand…well, NOM’s secret bank rollers…aren’t specifically worried about the value society places on marriage.  Their concern is the value society places on gay people.   We’re not supposed to have any value.

The marriage thing is just the hook they’re hanging that on.  NOM does not exist to promote traditional marriage.  It exists to promote traditional bigotries.  Ex-gay ministries and the gays choose to be gay so ergo they also choose to be persecuted rhetoric that comes out of them have been very useful in that fight for the traditional values of bigots…which is how the charitable status of ex-gay ministries is important NOM.

So can we, at long last, be honest here.  Call them what they are.  Not the National Organization for Marriage, but the National Organization against Gays.

Add this one to the pile of studies that confirms what we on the side of fairness, equality and love have been saying forever:  Kids do best when raised by two committed parents, regardless of sexual orientation, which is completely different from the constant Religious Right Lying Machine, where they pit children of married heterosexuals against kids from single parents homes, and then use that as “evidence” against gay couples having children.  From Stanford’s website:

In a study published this month in the journal Demography, [Stanford sociologist Michael] Rosenfeld concludes that children being raised by same-sex couples have nearly the same educational achievement as children raised by married heterosexual couples.

By mining data from the 2000 Census, Rosenfeld was able to figure out the rates at which children in all types of families repeated a grade during elementary or middle school. According to his findings, nearly 7 percent of children raised by heterosexual married couples were held back a year, while about 9.5 percent of children living with adults identifying themselves as same-sex partners repeated a grade.

The difference between the groups pretty much vanishes when taking into account that the heterosexual couples were slightly more educated and wealthier than most gay parents, Rosenfeld said.

“The census data show that having parents who are the same gender is not in itself any disadvantage to children,” he said. “Parents’ income and education are the biggest indicators of a child’s success. Family structure is a minor determinant.”

Duh. The sample size involved in this study is significant:

Because gays and lesbians make up such a tiny sliver of the American population – only 1 percent – it has been difficult for researchers to conduct a representative study of how their children perform in the classroom. And gay marriage opponents have criticized earlier studies for having sample sizes that are too small.

“Sample size is power,” Rosenfeld said. “And the census is the biggest sample we have. This study is based on a sample of thousands and thousands of kids.”

Most personal decisions about gay marriage are based on gut feelings, religious beliefs and individual experiences. Rosenfeld knows his research isn’t going to change the minds of most people opposed to same-sex unions. But he has added new data to the debate that helps debunk assertions – whether based on a lack of knowledge or some unfounded fear – that children raised by gay couples cannot thrive.

It’s good to see that, more and more, it’s being pointed out that opposition to gay marriage is rooted in absolutely nothing of any factual or rational merit, but rather unfounded fear and prejudice.

[h/t The Advocate]

The thesis here, promulgated by Australian pastor Fred Nile, seems to be that pregnant women will be more likely to just have lots of abortions, rather than consider the idea of their offspring being raised by gay parents. This happened in a meeting called in opposition to a bill which would legalize same-sex adoption in Australia:

Addressing the packed public meeting, Christian Democratic Party leader Reverend Fred Nile said the bill could deter women thinking of adopting out their child and “lead to the tragedy of abortion”.

“Any mother putting up her baby for adoption would never imagine that their baby would be brought up by two male homosexuals or two female lesbians,” he said.

“Is this really an ideological issue or homosexuals demanding yet another human right?

WHERE DO THOSE DISGUSTING GAYS GET OFF WANTING “HUMAN RIGHTS”?

Ahem.  What a revealing statement from the “man of God” in Australia that was!

Thankfully, there are sane people in this debate as well:

However, the Benevolent Society charity and UnitingCare Burnside, one of the largest child and welfare agencies in NSW, have come out in support of the bill, saying it will benefit children and boost foster carer numbers.

“We believe that an individual or couple’s sexuality has no relevance when it comes to considering their ability to provide high quality care and a nurturing environment for a child,” Benevolent Society acting CEO Maree Walk said today.

The charity has had contact with many same-sex couples who have adopted children outside of NSW and have found they are highly sensitive to the needs of their child, Ms Walk said.

“Potential adoptive parents should be assessed on the basis of their suitability to parent, not their sexual orientation.”

David Badash points out that in the United States, the states with the lowest levels of child homelessness are the marriage equality states.

I can’t imagine why.  Of course, the states that have marriage equality tend to be run a little bit better than the slave states, so we shouldn’t give all the credit to gay couples.  Just some of it.

This is not an invitation to get into The Cuba Discussion, but it is good when any world leader looks back on a nation’s past misdeeds against LGBT people and says, “You know what?  That was wrong.”

Fidel Castro this week admitted responsibility for the persecution of homosexuals in Cuba in the 1960s, calling their internment in forced-labor camps “a great injustice.”

In the second installment of an interview with the editor of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Castro said that the revolutionary government’s actions represented “a great injustice – a great injustice! – whoever committed it. If we committed it, we committed it. I am trying to limit my responsibility in all that because, of course, personally I don’t have that type of prejudice.”

The interviewer paraphrases him as saying that “everything came about as a spontaneous reaction in the revolutionary ranks that came from the nation’s traditions. In the old Cuba, blacks were not the only ones discriminated against; there was discrimination against women and, of course, homosexuals.”

Was the Communist Party to blame, the interviewer asks.

“No,” Castro responds. “If anyone is responsible, I am. True, at that time I couldn’t concern myself with the subject. I was deeply and mainly involved in the October Crisis, the war, the political issues.

Joe points out that Fidel Castro’s niece, Mariela, has been the de facto leader of the Cuban gay rights movement, and likely deserves some of the credit for this.

As we found out earlier this year, the only thing George Rekers is really “good at” is hiring male escorts to “lift his luggage” on European vacations.  Apparently Focus on the Family is still too enthralled with the talking points his “work” provides them, so they’d like it if you didn’t make a big deal of the fact that they’re still using George Rekers as an expert.  Alvin McEwen has the goods, in a larger piece about FotF’s tacit support for bullying in schools:

[T]he most egregious error in Cushman’s piece, and it’s an error that says a lot not only about her mindset but that of Focus on the Family, is the following:

According to the medical and psychological experts writing in the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems, “The consequences of choices made with the advantage of developmental maturity are preferable to those consequences resulting from decisions made impulsively, in the absence of adequate knowledge, or without the moderating benefit of maturity. The latter choices will, of course, be imperfect, but the former regularly result in personal and social consequences that are painful, destructive, and not fully reversible.”

And just who are these experts? A quick look at the endnotes tells us the following:

Lundy, M.D., M.S., Michael S. and George A. Rekers, Ph.D., Fellow of the Academy of Clinical Psychology. “Homosexuality: Development, Risks, Parental Values, and Controversies,” Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems, Ed. George A. Rekers, New York: Lexington Books, 1995, p.290.

You read that right. Our “beloved” solicitor of “luggage lifters,” George Rekers.

And that, dear readers, is how little shame Focus on the Family has.

So, this exists:

Gay farmers in Canada have come out–and banded together in a social club where they can talk about crops and the weather, just like any other farmer, reported Canadian newspaper The National Post on July 27.

The Gay Farmers Club is one of a number of groups that operate under the aegis of Au coeur des familles agricoles (ACFA), an organization created to help Canada’s farmers with the pressures that modern life–along with soaring debt, international trade, and a gap between how people in other lines of work live their lives, and how farmers are tied–literally, and often without a break–to the land.

[...]

“We share personal stories, but mostly we discuss farming and agriculture,” one member told the publication. “It’s great because we face similar challenges as both farmers and gay people living in rural regions–and we don’t need to explain ourselves.”

I post this because it’s fun, but also because it just shows, yet again, that we are everywhere, and some of us are growing and preparing your food, so you should be nice.

Seriously, though, you always hear the “pro-family” crowd rail agianst “San Francisco valyews” and “East Coast lib’ruls,” and Peter LaBarbera likes to say that people in communities full of bigots should be free to make discriminatory, hateful laws against gay people, but really, we ARE everywhere, in every community. These are Canadians, so they’re obviously more protected than we are in the United States, but maybe one day we’ll get there.

Ted Cox wrote a very good article at AlterNet exploring the bizarre world of “ex-gay” therapy. According to Cox, “Thanks to the unscientific, unregulated underworld of ex-gay therapy, frauds and hacks of all stripes are getting away with any kind of therapy they can think up.”

Check out the article.

From Lady Liberty’s Lamp:

The LLL/Town Hell Posse could only be amazed at the high number of unhealthy, unhappy and aggressive people who turned out to help “Restore Honor”.
It’s almost a good thing Glenn Beck didn’t schedule a march, because he’d have been sued by the families of the nearly 100,000 heart attack and stroke victims among the roughly 100,000 who believed they Restored Honor on Saturday.

It was at this rally that the folding camp chair would become symbolic and synonymous with your slackly-rallying Teabagger.