Thursday, December 23, 2010
Via JMG: PROMISE RING: Lt. Dan Choi Gets His West Point Ring Back From Sen. Harry Reid
Sen. Harry Reid has returned Lt. Dan Choi's West Point ring, fulfilling a promise he made to Choi at Netroots Nation in front of hundreds of progressive writers, including yours truly. Upon receipt of the ring, Choi tweeted: "The next time I get a ring from a man, I expect it will be for full, equal, American marriage.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Via JMG: Obama On "Evolving" Marriage Position
Yesterday the president sat down with Advocate reporter Kerry Eleveld, who reminded him of his recent comment that his position on same-sex marriage has been evolving. OBAMA: I'm not going to make more news today. The sentiment I expressed then is still where I am—which is, like a lot of people, I'm wrestling with this. My attitudes are evolving on this. I have always firmly believed in having a robust civil union that provides the rights and benefits under the law that marriage does. I've wrestled with the fact that marriage traditionally has had a different connotation. But I also have a lot of very close friends who are married gay or lesbian couples.Eleveld then pressed the president as to a timeline for "getting there" on marriage. Obama: "I'm going to stick with my answer."
OBAMA: And squaring that circle is something that I have not done yet, but I'm continually asking myself this question and I do think that—I will make this observation, that I notice there is a big generational difference. When you talk to people who are in their 20s, they don't understand what the holdup is on this, regardless of their own sexual orientation. And obviously when you talk to older folks, then there’s greater resistance. And so this is an issue that I'm still wrestling with, others are still wrestling with. What I know is that at minimum, a baseline is that there has to be a strong, robust civil union available to all gay and lesbian couples.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
via jmg: Sen. Lindsey Graham About To Be Outed?
Wonkette reports that outing kingpin Mike Rogers finally has the goods on Sen. Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s favorite lifelong bachelor and former military prosecutor, is always reliably against homosexuals having any basic human rights in America because Lindsey’s a Republican, y’all. Anyway, famous outer-of-self-hating-queers Mike Rogers says he’s got pictures of one of Lindsey’s boy toys leaving Lindsey’s house. This would be SHOCKING because come on, everybody knows Republicans cannot be gay because Jesus did not make gays.Mike Rogers has a 100% track record for correctly outing anti-gay closet cases. He's never been proven wrong.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Via JMG: Blowhard Bill Donohue: The $26M Man
It turns out that the anti-gay Catholic League, whose leader Bill Donohue was once famously insulted as "one guy with a fax machine," has assets of over $26M. And Donohue pays himself quite handsomely out of that hate jackpot.Via Catholics United:
Controversial Catholic League president William Donohue – whose work has now gained the support of the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – earned a salary of $342,500 in 2009, with an additional $56,656 in fringe benefits. According to annual IRS Form 990 filings, the organization spent more than $2.6 million in 2009, despite the fact that its program work constitutes little more than the issuing of inflammatory press releases.[snip] The organization shells out $335,914 for its midtown Manhattan office space, and compensates vice president Bernadette Brady to the tune of $203,727. An additional $57,826 is spent on office equipment. As organizations go, the Catholic League is a “non-profit” in name only. In 2009 it pocketed $943,516 in excess revenue, down from $1.35 million in 2008. As of the most recent filings, the Catholic League reported $26.2 million in net assets.While impoverished parishes close down and soup kitchens are shuttered, the Catholic League spends somehow spends millions and makes millions doing nothing but fighting against LGBT rights. And this they do completely tax-free. Holy crimes, indeed.
Via JMG: USMC Gen. James Amos Pledges To Lead Implementation Of DADT Repeal
Even though he thinks having openly gay soldiers will cost Marines their limbs, USMC Commandant James Amos says he will personally lead the implementation of the repeal of DADT. Here's his full statement as published by Stars & Stripes: "Fidelity is the essence of the United States Marine Corps. Above all else, we are loyal to the Constitution, our Commander in Chief, Congress, our Chain of Command, and the American people. The House of Representatives and the Senate have voted to repeal Title 10, US Code 654 "Policy Concerning Homosexuality in the United States Armed Forces." As stated during my testimony before Congress in September and again during hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, the Marine Corps will step out smartly to faithfully implement this new policy. I, and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, will personally lead this effort, thus ensuring the respect and dignity due all Marines. On this matter, we look forward to further demonstrating to the American people the discipline and loyalty that have been the hallmark of the United States Marine Corps for over 235 years."
Via JMG: Quote Of The Day - Barney Frank
“It’s one thing to have a gay person in the abstract. It’s another to see that person as part of a living, breathing couple. How would a gay presidential candidate have a celebratory kiss with his partner after winning the New Hampshire primary? The sight of two women kissing has not been as distressful to people as the sight of two men kissing. [And because of DOMA] it’s not clear that a gay president could use federal funds to buy his husband dinner. Would his partner have to pay rent in the White House? There would be no Secret Service protection for the paramour." - Rep. Barney Frank, responding to Jimmy Carter's contention that America is ready for a gay president.Via JMG: Michele "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann Named To U.S. House INTELLIGENCE Committee
She wanted to be on the powerful Ways & Means Committee, but instead incoming House Speaker John Boehner has appointed Crazy Eyes to the House Intelligence Committee. Yup. The committee has oversight jurisdiction of the CIA, the National Security Agency, other intelligence agencies within the Department of Defense, and the Departments of State, Justice, and Treasury, and the FBI. This is the perfect reward for a member of Congress who thinks that Barack Obama spent $200 million a day on a trip to India, wants the president and Congress investigated for being anti-American, and who thinks the Charge of the Light Brigade was a military victory? Given that she's already enlisted Justice Antonin Scalia to teach frosh teabaggers about the Constitution, perhaps we can expect her to nominate George W. Bush to instruct them on foreign intelligence.We are truly lost.
Via JMG: LAUNCHED: Equality Matters
Media Matters has launched Equality Matters, a new LGBT activism site meant to serve as a "communications war room for gay equality." It will be run by Richard Socarides, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who has been deeply critical of President Obama’s record on gay rights. A well-known gay journalist, Kerry Eleveld, the Washington correspondent for The Advocate, will leave that magazine in January to edit the new group’s Web site, equalitymatters.org, which is to go online Monday morning. “Yesterday was a very important breakthrough,” Mr. Socarides said in an interview on Sunday, “and President Obama’s comments, especially following the vote, were very significant, where he for the first time connected race and gender to sexual orientation under the banner of civil rights. “But we will celebrate this important victory for five minutes, and then we have to move on, because we are the last group of Americans who are discriminated against in federal law and there is a lot of work to do.”Among the major backers of Media Matters is billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The homocon teabaggers are already whining.
Via Juan Cole: Senate Repeal of DADT in Global Context
Conservative religious fanatics lost on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and anti-gay discrimination. The scary thing is, that since it is clear that fear-mongering on gays will no longer win elections in the next generation, the turn to hate-mongering against Muslims may accelerate.
So the Senate has repealed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ the compromise policy on gays serving in the military.
The real question is why treatment of gays is such a hot button issue in the United States in the first place. Since America is a big island, only a third of Americans even have a passport, and US media carefully protects Americans from points of view emanating from abroad, most Americans would probably be surprised to discover that their country is an outlier among industrialized democracies in its treatment of gays.
If we take full marriage rights as a proxy for gay rights in general, then Argentina, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland are all heads and shoulders above federal US policy.
Gays can serve openly in the military in Russia, Ukraine, Canada, South Africa, Salvador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Israel, Nepal, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and virtually all of Europe including the Balkans with the exceptions of Greece and Turkey.
Is there anything that would make sense of this world pattern? I can make three suggestions. First, gay rights, including marriage rights, have been implemented by some countries that suffered a long period of fascist or other authoritarian governance, and which rebelled against it. Franco’s fascist Spain, in place from 1936-1975, gave way to a new Spanish parliamentary regime and in recent years to Spanish socialism. Fascist regimes affected a macho heterosexual patriarchy and typically ruthlessly persecuted gays. Fascist regimes also often, being nativist, had a special relationship to the Church (yes, Hitler was a believing Catholic) and took cues on public morality from the remnants of the Inquisition. (This is by no means to deny that many conscientious Catholics and priests vigorously opposed fascism). In Franco’s Spain mere admission of being gay could lead to imprisonment, rape and torture.
Calvinist, Protestant regimes such as Apartheid South Africa were likewise highly oppressive, patriarchal and heterosexual. The hierarchical rightwing society, which placed adult men of the most favored race, at the top of the society, was challenged by any group that did not easily fit on the social ladder or who challenged its legitimacy. The Apartheid regime in South Africa
“South Africa’s apartheid army forced white lesbian and gay soldiers to undergo ‘sex-change’ operations in the 1970′s and the 1980′s, and submitted many to chemical castration, electric shock, and other unethical medical experiments. Although the exact number is not known, former apartheid army surgeons estimate that as many as 900 forced ‘sexual reassignment’ operations may have been performed between 1971 and 1989 at military hospitals, as part of a top-secret program to root out homosexuality from the service. “
Gay rights came to form part of a human-rights backlash against rightwing policies in South Africa, Spain and Argentina, then. Although it does not yet extend to full marriage rights, a residue of reaction against central European fascism informs the general European commitment to non-discrimination against gays.
Second, gay rights are prominent in countries, as with Scandinavia, where there is a greater degree of gender equality and where women serve in large numbers in the legislatures. One suspects that just as anti-Apartheid activists saw an affinity between oppressed black Africans and discriminated-against gays, so Scandinavian feminists found a commonality with gays in confronting hetero male supremacism.
But third, and inescapably, religious fanaticism obviously plays a significant role in denying rights to gays. There is a direct relationship between rightwing Catholicism, rightwing evangelicalism, rightwing Hinduism, and rightwing Islam on the one hand, and discrimination against gays on the other.
Hindu India has been among the worst democratic countries for gay rights in modern history, and only in 2009 finally made it legal even to be gay (though it is still illegal to have a gay relationship!). Greece has a little-noted almost theocratic relationship at times with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Sri Lanka, obsessed by Theravada Buddhism, is like an island prison for gays, at least as far as the law goes. Despite widespread experimentation with gay sex in the Muslim world, which has an old history (half of the love poems in the Diwan of classic Abbasid poet Abu Nuwas are about young men), the public policies toward gays, shaped in part by the influence of the Muslim clergy, are among the worst in the world. And it is where the Church is strongest in the Catholic world that gays are treated worst.
Regional policy can also differ from national policy where one region of a country is more religious than another. And here we come to the United States. White, rightwing evangelicals have been among the most vocal opponents of gay rights in the United States (along with rightwing Catholics, African-American Protestants, and Mormons). Once the religious Right became politically active from the 1970s forward, and especially with the swing of white southern and western evangelicals to the Republican Party as a result of the Nixon Strategy in the aftermath of the enfranchisement of African-Americans, the Republican Party became a bastion of anti-gay policies and legislation, despite the significant gay constituency inside the party in the Northeast and the Bay Area of California.
Only six Republicans voted ‘yes’ in the procedural vote that allowed the DADT repeal to go forward in the Senate.
The Republican Party in the US is a coalition of groups, and ironically includes some relatively liberal factions (the Log Cabin Republicans, e.g., who sued over DADT). But religious ultra-conservatives are a key demographic for the party, and probably are growing in importance within it, according to Gallup. The ultra-conservatives are disproportionately white and committed Protestants (likely mostly evangelicals).
The mainstream Republican Party’s view on many social issues thus resembles that of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and the Muslim Brotherhood and related parties in the Muslim world far more than it does the ‘conservative’ parties of Scandinavia and continental Europe. Religion is a big part of the reason, but likely the other two factors play a role. Frankly, many American whites still have a hierarchical view of race and sexual identity in America, and many have relatively authoritarian views of governance–favoring the National Security State over individual rights, e.g.
As in Europe, where some far-right parties such as that of LePen in France that used to bait gays have recently posed as their defenders from Muslim immigrants, we can expect the American Right to play the same game. A plea here to progressive gays not to fall for it, and to American Muslims to stand for tolerance for other discriminated-against groups.
<http://www.gaybahai.net/
So the Senate has repealed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ the compromise policy on gays serving in the military.
The real question is why treatment of gays is such a hot button issue in the United States in the first place. Since America is a big island, only a third of Americans even have a passport, and US media carefully protects Americans from points of view emanating from abroad, most Americans would probably be surprised to discover that their country is an outlier among industrialized democracies in its treatment of gays.
If we take full marriage rights as a proxy for gay rights in general, then Argentina, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland are all heads and shoulders above federal US policy.
Gays can serve openly in the military in Russia, Ukraine, Canada, South Africa, Salvador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Israel, Nepal, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and virtually all of Europe including the Balkans with the exceptions of Greece and Turkey.
Is there anything that would make sense of this world pattern? I can make three suggestions. First, gay rights, including marriage rights, have been implemented by some countries that suffered a long period of fascist or other authoritarian governance, and which rebelled against it. Franco’s fascist Spain, in place from 1936-1975, gave way to a new Spanish parliamentary regime and in recent years to Spanish socialism. Fascist regimes affected a macho heterosexual patriarchy and typically ruthlessly persecuted gays. Fascist regimes also often, being nativist, had a special relationship to the Church (yes, Hitler was a believing Catholic) and took cues on public morality from the remnants of the Inquisition. (This is by no means to deny that many conscientious Catholics and priests vigorously opposed fascism). In Franco’s Spain mere admission of being gay could lead to imprisonment, rape and torture.
Calvinist, Protestant regimes such as Apartheid South Africa were likewise highly oppressive, patriarchal and heterosexual. The hierarchical rightwing society, which placed adult men of the most favored race, at the top of the society, was challenged by any group that did not easily fit on the social ladder or who challenged its legitimacy. The Apartheid regime in South Africa
“South Africa’s apartheid army forced white lesbian and gay soldiers to undergo ‘sex-change’ operations in the 1970′s and the 1980′s, and submitted many to chemical castration, electric shock, and other unethical medical experiments. Although the exact number is not known, former apartheid army surgeons estimate that as many as 900 forced ‘sexual reassignment’ operations may have been performed between 1971 and 1989 at military hospitals, as part of a top-secret program to root out homosexuality from the service. “
Gay rights came to form part of a human-rights backlash against rightwing policies in South Africa, Spain and Argentina, then. Although it does not yet extend to full marriage rights, a residue of reaction against central European fascism informs the general European commitment to non-discrimination against gays.
Second, gay rights are prominent in countries, as with Scandinavia, where there is a greater degree of gender equality and where women serve in large numbers in the legislatures. One suspects that just as anti-Apartheid activists saw an affinity between oppressed black Africans and discriminated-against gays, so Scandinavian feminists found a commonality with gays in confronting hetero male supremacism.
But third, and inescapably, religious fanaticism obviously plays a significant role in denying rights to gays. There is a direct relationship between rightwing Catholicism, rightwing evangelicalism, rightwing Hinduism, and rightwing Islam on the one hand, and discrimination against gays on the other.
Hindu India has been among the worst democratic countries for gay rights in modern history, and only in 2009 finally made it legal even to be gay (though it is still illegal to have a gay relationship!). Greece has a little-noted almost theocratic relationship at times with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Sri Lanka, obsessed by Theravada Buddhism, is like an island prison for gays, at least as far as the law goes. Despite widespread experimentation with gay sex in the Muslim world, which has an old history (half of the love poems in the Diwan of classic Abbasid poet Abu Nuwas are about young men), the public policies toward gays, shaped in part by the influence of the Muslim clergy, are among the worst in the world. And it is where the Church is strongest in the Catholic world that gays are treated worst.
Regional policy can also differ from national policy where one region of a country is more religious than another. And here we come to the United States. White, rightwing evangelicals have been among the most vocal opponents of gay rights in the United States (along with rightwing Catholics, African-American Protestants, and Mormons). Once the religious Right became politically active from the 1970s forward, and especially with the swing of white southern and western evangelicals to the Republican Party as a result of the Nixon Strategy in the aftermath of the enfranchisement of African-Americans, the Republican Party became a bastion of anti-gay policies and legislation, despite the significant gay constituency inside the party in the Northeast and the Bay Area of California.
Only six Republicans voted ‘yes’ in the procedural vote that allowed the DADT repeal to go forward in the Senate.
The Republican Party in the US is a coalition of groups, and ironically includes some relatively liberal factions (the Log Cabin Republicans, e.g., who sued over DADT). But religious ultra-conservatives are a key demographic for the party, and probably are growing in importance within it, according to Gallup. The ultra-conservatives are disproportionately white and committed Protestants (likely mostly evangelicals).
The mainstream Republican Party’s view on many social issues thus resembles that of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and the Muslim Brotherhood and related parties in the Muslim world far more than it does the ‘conservative’ parties of Scandinavia and continental Europe. Religion is a big part of the reason, but likely the other two factors play a role. Frankly, many American whites still have a hierarchical view of race and sexual identity in America, and many have relatively authoritarian views of governance–favoring the National Security State over individual rights, e.g.
As in Europe, where some far-right parties such as that of LePen in France that used to bait gays have recently posed as their defenders from Muslim immigrants, we can expect the American Right to play the same game. A plea here to progressive gays not to fall for it, and to American Muslims to stand for tolerance for other discriminated-against groups.
<http://www.gaybahai.net/
Saturday, December 18, 2010
ViaTruthout:: Senate Repeals "Don't Ask Don't Tell"
Faiz Shakir, ThinkProgress: "Moments ago, by a 65-31 vote, the Senate acted to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, the policy banning gays from openly serving in the military. The same six GOP senators who broke with their party during the cloture vote earlier today also voted for repeal: Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski, George Voinovich, and Mark Kirk. Two more Republicans - John Ensign and Richard Burr - joined with Democrats in final passage."
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