The blogosphere is buzzing with rumors that President Obama, who will sit for a hastily-arranged interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts this afternoon, will officially endorse marriage equality today.
The New York Times, Politico, and others are reporting that the issue will be discussed at length, and that Roberts will press the President to clarify his position. Richard Socarides, who served as an LGBT adviser to the Clinton White House, told Politico, “I’m hopeful that the president is going to speak directly on this issue. When he does, I think it will be an important moment.”
A tweet from Marc Ambinder, White House correspondent for National Journal and contributing editor at The Atlantic, added fuel to the fire. Ambinder wrote: “So do I think President Obama will endorse same-sex marriage today? Yes. Yes I do.”
Not holding my breath here, but needless to say, if the evolution does happen today, it will be a watershed moment. We’ll keep you posted.
Maybe if we simply insisted that, any time a constitutional amendment is proposed banning same-sex marriage, the amendment would also ban cousin marriage, we’d start winning these Southern states back by landslides.
I mean, you’ve got to know your opposition’s weaknesses…
Here is a run-of-the-mill anti-gay woman calling a radio show in support of North Carolina’s Amendment One, and when challenged by the hosts on her ignorance of the Bible she purports to use as her moral authority, tripping over her words for the next five minutes. It’s kind of hilarious. These are our opponents.
While the world waits to see whether President Barack Obama’s position will “evolve” on gay marriage before Election Day, one thing is certain: His party’s evolution has already taken place.
Obama is probably the last Democratic presidential candidate who can win the nomination without voicing full-throated support for marriage equality. For the past two presidential cycles, LGBT voters have swallowed their pride and openedtheir wallets while the Democratic contenders dissembled. On one hand, they claimed to be for full equality, while on the other they demeaned our relationships and damned them to second-class status.
Implicit in this humiliating deal was that the Republican challenger was so awful that gay voters had nowhere else to go. There was also the underlying fear that turning critical elections into referendums on same-sex marriage might backfire and place an ogre in the White House.
This trepidation was exacerbated by the candidacy of Ralph Nader, who elevated (with the help of the Supreme Court) George W. Bush into the Oval Office. This historic debacle underscored that elections can have severe consequences and that victory in this divided nation often comes by a razor thin margin. In truth, many LGBT voters were concerned about being cast in the role of Nader and blamed for sabotaging a close election.
In terms of Barack Obama, the activist side of me wants him to embrace marriage equality today. As someone who is legally married, I personally feel the sting of not having access to the same federal rights and benefits as my heterosexual peers. Because I travel often for my job, it seems that half of the month I’m in a recognized marriage in Vermont, while the other half I find myself in states where I am officially single and have no legal protection. Such disparate treatment is disgraceful, humiliating, and un-American.
Nevertheless, the pragmatic part of me wonders whether Obama embracing gay marriage will harm his chances in the nine swing states that will decide this election. Clearly, these states are not all bastions of tolerance: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
There is also concern over how embracing marriage for same sex couples would impact the four states that lean in favor of the Democrats (Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, and Maine) and the states that teeter towards the GOP (Arizona, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina).
The argument in favor of Obama evolving now is that most voters believe he already supports gay marriage and those who would vote against him because of this issue were never voting for him anyway. Meanwhile, coming out in favor of marriage equality would energize the progressive base and open the floodgates of gay volunteers and money. It would also show true leadership and restore the idea that Obama’s presidency stands for hope and change.
I wrestle mightily with the ramifications, if any, the President might face if he supports gay marriage. LGBT advocates can be mostly correct about the decision having few consequences. But a bad outcome in one or two of the seventeen swing or tilting states could still cost Obama his reelection. Thus, I remain deeply ambivalent about him coming out in favor of marriage equality prior to the election.
What I do know is that Obama being reelected is significantly more important than him supporting gay marriage today. A victory means four more years of Americans becoming comfortable with the idea of their LGBT friends and family members marrying. It means fair-minded Supreme Court justices, who may well have more impact on this issue than any president. It results in almost half a decade of unbridled and irreversible cultural change, while watching polls in support of same-sex marriage approach sixty percent.
I also know that this is the last time we will ever have this debate. Vice President Joe Biden’s comments in favor of marriage on Meet the Press, combined with Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s seal of approval, signals that the debate is over in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. This is even more apparent when one considers that party elders, such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have endorsed gay marriage. Both are not only former presidents, but committed Christians, which essentially gives Democrats of faith permission to vote their consciences.
It is simply unfathomable that a serious Democratic candidate in 2016 would split hairs and disingenuously claim they believe in full equality, while denying loving same-sex couples the right to marry. That dismissive strategy may have worked when only candidates with little chance of winning, such as Dennis Kucinich, championed the cause. But the equation is changed when leading Democratic contenders, such as Joe Biden, have embraced genuine equality.
After November, any Democrat with presidential ambitions who claims he or she is still evolving will be an unelectable dinosaur.
There comes a time in every Porno Pete’s life, when he sees the writing on the wall, sees that his life’s work will be officially a waste in a few years’ time, and comes up with a plan he thinks is clever, in order to stave off the inevitable for a few more days:
A strong voice for traditional marriage suggests President Obama should be honest with Americans and just come out and endorse homosexual “marriage.”
Over the last two days, two members of Barack Obama’s Cabinet — Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan — announced, in so many words, their support for “gay marriage.” Biden stated Sunday he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex couples who marry getting the same civil rights and liberties as heterosexual couples. Then on Monday, Duncan stated for the first time publicly that he supports allowing homosexuals to “marry” in the U.S.
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality tells OneNewsNow that he believes it is just a matter of time — and timing — for President Obama to endorse homosexual marriage.
He’s right. Probably just after the election.
“If you look at the swing states that Obama’s got to win, or he’s trying to win — Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana — these are places where same-sex marriage is not popular, and so I think Obama is holding off,” LaBarbera offers. “I think he really supports so-called same-sex marriage. And besides, he’s doing a ton already to help the gay side fight for same-sex marriage.”
Porno Pete is actually kinda right, but for the wrong reasons…
LaBarbera adds that a person would be “beyond naïve” to believe Obama would not come out in support of same-gender marriage after the election is over. “This is all about politics. He knows he can’t do it now because it might jeopardize some swing states,” state the family activist. “So the Obama administration is so phony on this issue it’s not even funny.”
So here is the problem for Porno Pete and others like him: regular Americans, even in those swing states, just aren’t that energized by hating gay people anymore. Nobody who lives his/her life, day in/day out, in seething Porno Pete-esque fear of gays, is ever going to vote for a Democrat anyway, at least not enough to count very much in the final tallies. Moreover, Barack Obama’s opponent really doesn’t have very strong credentials in the “hating gays” department, so an Obama endorsement of marriage equality really wouldn’t tip the scales like Porno Pete thinks it would. Sure, Mitt Romney is kowtowing to wingnuts right now, but based on his record, there is no evidence that he would give a DAMN about their concerns, if elected. Would a President Romney come out for marriage equality after the election? Hell no. But in all likelihood, he really doesn’t personally care.
Porno Pete is upset because he believes, erroneously, that if Obama were to reveal his true feelings on the issue [I do agree with Pete that Obama completely supports marriage equality, but is playing politics], that some sort of silent wingnut horde would rise up to vote him out. Not gonna happen. This isn’t 2004. A majority of Americans support marriage equality, and while it’s true that those percentages are spread unevenly across the states, only the most fervent of resentful wingnuts are clinging to their bitter hatred of gays as a political issue. Americans are still concerned with bread and butter issues like the unemployment rate, and really don’t have too much time to lose their minds over whether Bruce and Larry down the street have equal constitutional rights.
So, Porno Pete, take all the time you want, wishing and hoping against reality that if only the President would stop playing politics, that your side will ultimately win. But dude, your moment has passed. History books will record that moment with embarrassment.
Since the theme of the week is The Bullies Are The Real Victims, I must ask you, dear Bam Bam Barber — are we bullying God?
Recently it dawned on me that so-called “same-sex marriage,” to use the term “marriage” isn’t even appropriate. It’s not same-sex marriage, it’s mock marriage because it’s not real marriage, it’s a mock marriage. And same-sex marriage and the attacks on marriage mock God and his design for the institution of marriage.
And God will not be mocked, Shawn, and as we turn our face from God, relative to marriage and our larger culture on a number of these issues of morality and sexual morality, why should be we surprised when God turns his face from us?
So if God is “abandoning” this nation or whatever, at least the wingnut version of God, why don’t people like Bam Bam go to a country that their version of God hasn’t abandoned? Just a question.
Anyway, here’s the video, where you can watch Matt Barber attempt to run away from the real world in real time:
This year the United Methodist Church held its quadrennial General Conference, where they were scheduled to revisit (as they do every four years, according to my Methodist friends) that church’s discriminatory language against LGBT people.
Candace Chellew-Hodge of Religion Dispatches is reporting that delegates voted this morning on a petition to remove passages in the UMC’s Book of Discipline that call LGBT orientation/identity “incompatible with Christian teaching” and exclusively sanction opposite-sex marriages. Tragically, the petition was voted down and the anti-gay language preserved.
The vote apparently came after a contentious debate pitting supporters of LGBT inclusion against delegates from sexually conservative countries, including African nations. One African delegate conflated homosexuality and bestiality and denied that God creates any gay or lesbian people.
Chellew-Hodge recounts what happened next:
During the vote, supporters of the petition to change the Book of Discipline stood at the edges of the convention floor, or the “bar” as the church calls it. As the debate continued, many delegates moved from their seats to join the members on the margins to show their solidarity. In the end the petition failed to pass.
When the conference reconvened after a break, those who supported the petition remained in the hall, singing as business began again. The presiding bishop, Michael Coyner of the Indiana Conference, shut down the meeting, calling the LGBT advocates a “security concern.”
Singing? A security concern? Sheesh — I’m a vocal musician myself, and if I had known that the simple act of singing held such subversive power, I’d have bought tickets to CPAC and sung “Kumbaya” with Maggie Gallagher! Who knows what mischief I’d have been able to accomplish?
In all seriousness, though, today is a sad day for the United Methodist Church. How tragic that they chose again to accommodate bigotry rather than act justly, walk humbly, and reach out inclusively to their LGBT congregants (especially since so many churches and Methodist groups are already doing so). This pandering to the Stone Age sexual mores of anti-gay leaders is a troubling pattern in mainline Protestant churches that needs to be reversed. The UMC will have two other opportunities to take positive steps in that direction during their General Conference: before the gathering’s scheduled end tomorrow, delegates will take up the ordination of LGBT clergy and the (non-marital) blessing of same-sex relationships.
Given what happened today, I’m not holding my breath, but anything is possible.
Billy Graham — I can’t bring myself to call him “Reverend” — issued a statement yesterday through the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in support of Amendment 1, the constitutional marriage discrimination amendment being put before North Carolina voters next Tuesday.
According to Martha Waggoner of the Associated Press, Graham’s statement will appear in its entirety in a full-page pro-marriage discrimination ad running in 14 North Carolina newspapers this weekend. The statement reads, in part:
“At 93, I never thought we would have to debate the definition of marriage. The Bible is clear — God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. I want to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote for the marriage amendment. . . Watching the moral decline of our country causes me great concern. I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.”
The fact that the 93-year-old Graham — who was born during the final days of the First World War — supports marriage discrimination is not, in and of itself, surprising, when one considers both his age and his evangelicalism. What is rather surprising, however, is the fact that he’s made such a public anti-gay pronouncement at all. After all, the man has been essentially in retirement since 2007. Since that time, he’s left most of the right-wing craziness to his son, Franklin “President Obama may or may not be a ‘son of Islam’” Graham, and his daughter, Anne “9/11 was God’s way of getting back into the government and our schools” Graham Lotz. Waggoner notes that William Martin, an authorized biographer of Graham, cannot recall any effort by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association similar in size and scope to its current pro-discrimination push in the organization’s entire 62-year history. And according to Martin, professor emeritus of religion and public policy at Rice University, this can only mean one thing: that the source of this bigotry is not Franklin Graham, who heads the BGEA, but Billy Graham himself.
“I am somewhat surprised that he would take that strong a stand. In the past, I have heard him say with respect to homosexuality, there are greater sins. Franklin has been more outspoken about it, but it sounds as if this is Mr. Graham expressing his own will.”
For what it’s worth, both Franklin Graham and Anne Graham Lotz have also endorsed Amendment 1.
While Graham’s evangelical “crusades,” pro-war views on Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, and closeness to twelve American presidents (most notably the racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic Richard Nixon) give me the heebie-jeebies, the fact is that he was one of the most widely-admired figures of the twentieth century. (Hell, he’s made Gallup’s list of the Top 10 Most Admired Men 55 times since 1955.) Billy Graham forged himself a place in history decades ago; he had absolutely nothing to gain by weighing in on the battle over North Carolina’s Amendment 1. It’s a shame that, when confronted with the choice between preserving his popular image as a venerable, unifying figure and mounting one last crusade against the LGBT community, Billy Graham chose the latter. It says a lot about the man’s true character, that he selected for what may be his final public gesture an act of malice, divisiveness, and discrimination. Supporters of Billy Graham like to call him the “pastor to presidents” and “the world’s preacher,” but now there’s one more title to add to the list: bigot.
I thought I’d heard all the baseless, lie-filled, hateful right-wing arguments against marriage equality — It’s unnecessary because homosexuality is a choice. The Bible/God/”natural law” opposes it. Children deserve and do better with opposite-gender parents. It will force the indoctrination of kindergarteners. It will lead to communist dictatorship and men marrying children and animals.
Not so. Blogger extraordinaire Pam Spaulding reported this morning on remarks made by Jodie Brunstetter, the wife of North Carolina State Senator Peter Brunstetter, that offered another disgusting distortion. Brunstetter authored Amendment One, the marriage discrimination amendment that will go before the voters in the Tar Heel State later this month, and according to his wife, he wrote it — get this — “to protect the Caucasian race.”
Spaulding quotes an article about Chad Nance, a freelance journalist in North Carolina:
Nance said he recorded a conversation with the woman, whose name is Jodie Brunstetter, on video, and that she confirmed that she used the term “Caucasian” in a discussion about the marriage amendment, but insisted that otherwise her comments had been taken out of context by other poll workers.
…Nance paraphrased the remarks, as told to him by those who were present [emphasis added]: “During the conversation, Ms. Brunstetter said her husband was the architect of Amendment 1, and one of the reasons he wrote it was to protect the Caucasian race. She said Caucasians or whites created this country. We wrote the Constitution. This is about protecting the Constitution. There already is a law on the books against same-sex marriage, but this protects the Constitution from activist judges.”
Nance said he recruited a friend, who works for the Coalition to Protect All North Carolina Families, to witness his interview with Jodie Brunstetter. He said Brunstetter reluctantly acknowledged that she had used the term “Caucasian” and then repeated the statement previously attributed to her, but substituted the pronoun “we” for “Caucasian. Nance said Brunstetter insisted there was nothing racial about her remarks, but could not explain why she used the term “Caucasian.”
There is truly no depth to which anti-LGBT bigots won’t stoop in order to deny loving same-sex couples the right to marry. Utterly reprehensible.
According to Jeremy, this is one of the lead proponents of Amendment One in North Carolina. Here is the transcript:
“So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you rein her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”
You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.”
That’s really sick and twisted. I was under the impression that parents were supposed to love their kids unconditionally rather than forcing them into some sort of predetermined mold. Then again, I’m not a wingnut and I want my kids to be happy and healthy, not beaten down and conformist. Of course, my way is much more likely to lead to intelligent kids who think for themselves, and wingnuts can’t handle kids like that.
