"But I have this gay friend/brother/sister/whatever who isn't the least bit bothered about McClurkin!" As if we all share a homosexual hive mind.
But the actual gay people who pull that crap are even worse. I can vaguely sort-of tolerate a straight person who might honestly not know any better, but when gay people start giving me the "The McClurkin thing doesn't bother me, so why should it bother you?" routine, I tend to get a little upset. A better question would be, why doesn't it bother you?
They accuse us of having a hive mind (or say they're being unique and not having a hive mind) because we think they
should be outraged over McClurkin. I don't understand how people can't be hurt over it, but then I don't like being trampled. Maybe some people are so used to being treated like dirt they no longer care.
I've noticed that a lot of that kind of rhetoric within our community comes from the ones who are fortunate enough to live in a place where they don't face as much danger and discrimination on a daily basis as some other GLBTs do. If someone is lucky enough to live somewhere that allows marriage/unions, and/or has lots of non-discrimination laws in place, I'm happy as hell for them. But not all of us are that lucky. There are gay people in South Carolina who could be in more danger than ever right now, because Barack Obama decided that courting the religious nutjobs was a higher priority than protecting the vulnerable red-state GLBTs, and most Democratic voters didn't give a damn. The fundies didn't learn any lessons in tolerance; all they learned is that Obama is willing to overlook their bigotry and hate in exchange for a few key votes. Winning took precedence over principle. Well congratulations Obama for moving the Dem party just a little bit closer to the dog-eat-dog miasma of the right wing.
Exactly. It's as if they've forgotten that not everybody shares the same rights/privileges they do and they don't even care. What Obama did in SC was say to those homophobes, in so many words, "I'm in agreement with you. I don't like those gay people any more than you do--so vote for me". If anybody thinks that the homophobes aren't going to expect him to live up to that implied promise once he's in office they've got another thing coming, his recent ads in LGBT publications notwithstanding.
History has proven that the go-along-to-get-along types are NOT the ones who change things for the better. If we aren't willing to stand up and call out our leaders when something they do is Just Plain Wrong, how are we ever going to see any real progress? If the liberal community had risen up with a strong, clear voice to tell Obama that the McClurkin incident was NOT acceptable, and that such instances of bad judgment would NOT be tolerated in a Democratic President, he would have fallen all over himself to apologize, and he would have learned an important lesson--Democratic candidates do NOT give soapboxes to bigots. Ever.
Yes, and the people who can't understand the difference between putting McClurkin on stage with a microphone and HRC just associating with a regular homophobe are the ones that drive me insane. I've been planning an intensive blog post on why the "Ex-Gay" homophobes are worse than the run-of-the-mill homophobes but I haven't got it together yet. Sadly I don't think it would do any good with this crowd. At any rate, putting anybody on stage to spew bigotry is not "reaching out", it's spreading hatred. Somehow neither Obama nor many of his supporters can understand that.
Instead, the complacency crowd chose to ignore it for fear of "weakening" his candidacy. Ha. If he can't handle what we throw at him and still win, he doesn't have a freaking prayer when the Republicans get their paws on him. All the liberal complacency in the world isn't going to stop the right-wing media machine from tearing him to shreds. They'll make him look more liberal than Ted Kennedy, and they'll hit him on everything that the Dems tip-toe around without feeling an iota of guilt. Like Obama, the right-wing doesn't give a damn about principles--they care only about winning, and will use every filthy weapon in their arsenal to make that happen.
Indeed. If he can't stand up to pointed criticism from his own party, how will he tolerate the rabid dogs of the RRRW? They're going to tear him to shreds then run the remains into the pavement. But the supporters don't want to hear any of that. They'd rather pretend his Hope and Change mantra is going to have everybody singing Kumbaya around the non-partisan campfire come election time.
All I know is that, if Obama gets the nomination and then loses the General to McCain, I don't want to hear a single fucking person trying to blame the GLBT community, or crying "Diebold!", or any other such nonsense. Our party is currently in the midst of sowing a big old crop of willful blindness. My biggest fear is that, come November, we'll reap every bit of it right back, because nobody does willful blindness like the American political right-wing. Goddess help us.
They're going to blame us, and the HRC voters who refused to vote for him, and Diebold, Ralph Nader, and anybody else they can blame. Because according to them Obama has this locked up and in the bag. So, of course, the only reason he could lose would be because of somebody/something out of his control.
But here's something we might want to use when they start whining about us or anybody "losing the election" for them (thanks to the Green Party):
The subject: How should Greens handle attacks from Dems who call a
Green presidential candidate a "spoiler"?
The perfect response:
"Tell them you wish we had 'spoiled' the election because then they
might pay attention to our demands!"Until later,
Buffy
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