What the hell is Howard Dean doing?

[kevinbgoode]

John Aravosis over at AmericaBLOG.com posted that Howard Dean sat down for a nice chat with CBN News, the "news" organization for Pat Robertson's 700 Club. In his attempt to show how the Democrats can appeal with the cuckoo-bananas crowd (and yes, that is exactly how I view anyone associated with Herr Robertson) Dean talked about all of the things Democrats have in common with conservative "christians."

Problem is, he also apparently misquoted the Democratic platform from 2004 about same-sex marriage:

“Well, let's discuss abortion first,” Dean said. “I think what we have in common with the evangelical community is that we ought to have a lot fewer abortions than we do. The abortions have actually gone up in the last few years. We should have far fewer abortions…we ought to make sure that there's not just abstinence, but family planning used to get rid of abortion, and that is something that we share. Now the difference is that we don't think making criminals out of doctors and women is a good idea.”

He added, “The Democratic Party platform from 2004 says that marriage is between a man and a woman. That's what it says. I think where we may take exception with some religious leaders is that we believe in inclusion, that everybody deserves to live with dignity and respect, and that equal rights under the law are important.”

This little pandering error has caused one national GLBT organization to already return a $5,000 check from the DNC, according to reports on AmericaBLOG.

It is also wrong - or at least appears to me to be from the statements from the Democratic platform in 2004:

"We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families. In our country, marriage has been definited at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there. We repudiate President Bush's divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing a Federal Marriage Amendment." Our goal is to bring Americans together, not drive them apart."

You can read the report from CBN at:

http://cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/060510a.asp


And AmericaBLOG is located at:

http://www.americablog.blogspot.com


Now look Howard, I certainly agree with the idea of "inclusiveness," since after all gay Americans ARE Americans, and there is no excuse to expect us to be perpetually "single" just because a bunch of evangelical crazies demand that someone else make sacrifices for their "sacred" and personally-held CHOSEN lifestyles. But when you misquote the damned Democratic platform, you look like a pandering fool and the Democratic party is rapidly marginalizing the support of many gays with this kind of crap.

If Democrats want to cozy up to a bunch of lunatics, then at least do the gay community the courtesy of telling US that you only think of us as some kind of money-and-vote mining operation.

I am now going to have an even more difficult time choosing candidates in the midterms - it is bad enough that I already know most Republicans are beholden to the christo-fascist mafia, but I'll be damned if I'm forced to scrutinize every Democrat the same way too. This is the kind of stuff which makes me start to think that its time to put both parties on notice that running our government is not a damned entitlement - nor that you defend the rights of all Americans by pandering. We've had enough of that crap with the Republican party.