March 13, 2007
To spite their face (In defense of the HRC)
I have to admit, I don’t understand the animosity gay republicans have towards the HRC. What is the rub, here? That the HRC inflates it membership count (A practice even Andrew admits most ‘lobbying’ groups use).
Andrew criticizes them for not ‘defending’ gay marriage, and has actually accused them of opposing it. He also complains that, rather than make the case for gay marriage, they are too busy claiming ‘American’s aren’t interested’. However, he confuses the issues.
The ‘American’s aren’t interested’ platform was about defeating the FMA not about settling for ‘something less’ than marriage. The HRC was arguing, correctly, that the American People have a higher priority than amending the constitution to prevent gay marriage. Yet, Andrew would somehow blame the HRC for being at a point where, instead of being able to promote and argue for gay marriage on a federal level, we’re trying to prevent a blanket ban of it. Yet, isn’t it the fault of the Republican party? Andrew is complaining that HRC isn’t driving fast enough, yet the HRC is trying to focus on putting out fire which threatens to engulf the entire car – a fire, I might point out, set by the very party Andrew is a member of.
And, contrary to Andrews’s claims that no ‘gay group’ worked with the folks in the first gay marriage suit in Hawaii, Evan Wolfson, of Lambda Legal was co-counsel on the case. HRC’s archives don’t go far enough back to see if they commented on the Miike case in Hawaii before the decision, but they clearly were involved in lobbying against the amendment to overrule Miike, and there is evidence HRC was involved early on..
The HRC, while far from perfect, has done a great job of publicizing gay people and gay issues. Look here to see a selection of the ads they have run on the issues. Just recently, HRC has worked with Eric Alva, on Don’t ask Don’t Tell. Ex-NBA start John Amaechi – working with HRC. HRC just organized 300 lobbyists to go lobby on LGBT issues.
In fact, the real issue seems to be that Andrew (and others) view the HRC as an arm of the democratic party. However, they’re missing the larger picture. The HRC is more closely aligned with the Democratic party because it is the democrats who value gay positive legislation. Time and time again, the Republican party – on both a state and federal level has come out against gays:
- Preventing gay marriage is in the Republican platform (though, they call it ‘protecting traditional families).
- Republicans, as a party, support the FMA.
- Republicans, as a party, support the state DOMAs.
- Republicans, as a party, are against hate crimes legislation.
If you were a gay-rights lobbying group – where would you focus your energies and support?
(By the way, spare me the ‘Clinton was bad because of DODT and DoMA’ argument. While I was disappointed by both of those things, the fact is that Clinton enacted both because he had no choice.)
dolphin said (at March 14, 2007 10:50 AM):
I've always said that poor HRC just can't win. The Republican partisans swear that HRC is the gay wing of the Democratic Party which they claim you can see just by comparing the number for Dem candidates endorsed to the number of GOP candidates. And in the rare instance that a GOP candidate actually has a better track record on gay rights and wins HRC's endorsement, the Dem partisans claim HRC is just "throwing a bone" to the GOP gays.
North Dallas Thirty said (at March 14, 2007 03:51 PM):
Ah, but Henry, Clinton did have a choice; he could have vetoed DOMA, and he could have blocked DADT.
What you more correctly should say is that Clinton, after receiving gays' money and endorsement, chose to cover his political ass rather than keep his promises that he made in exchange for that money and endorsement -- and gays never held him in the least accountable for it.
And then to this:
In fact, the real issue seems to be that Andrew (and others) view the HRC as an arm of the democratic party. However, they’re missing the larger picture.
You know, that's what seems to be said every time that HRC has to explain why they support a homophobe.
Meanwhile, Log Cabin Republicans, when given the choice, chose not to endorse ANYONE rather than to give their money to someone that doesn't support their goals.
HRC could have publicly stated that they were not giving money to any candidates and were instead going to focus on fighting the state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. But instead, they took money FROM those fights to give tens of millions of dollars to people like John Kerry, who were endorsing said amendments and laws that HRC affects to despise.
Henry said (at March 14, 2007 04:13 PM):
1. Yes, he should have vetoed DOMA (though, thewre were enough votes to override it). That doesn’t change the fact that DOMA was passed by Republicans and that 99% of the people who opposed it were democrats. (They managed 65 votes against in the House, 14 in the senate. Republicans had one vote against it in the House. None in the senate).
2. If Clinton blocked DODT, then the status quo was gays not being able to serve in the military at all. As flawed as DODT was/is, it was better than what was before it.
Clinton didn’t introduce DOMA. Nor did he, like our current president, campaign on an anti-gay agenda. Did he fold? Yes. Did he do so on his own? No, the Republican Part created a political atmosphere that made it impossible for Clinton to do more. Even with his flaws, Clinton was the most pro-gay president ever elected, and remains to most pro-gay president to ever hold office.
As for the rest, if you bothered to do any research you would have found that Kerry was one of those who voted against DOMA. He also was against the FMA. And For Hate Crimes Legislation. And For Civil Unions. And for...
North Dallas Thirty said (at March 14, 2007 09:26 PM):
Nor did he, like our current president, campaign on an anti-gay agenda.
Which, I suppose, is why he ran ads on Christian radio stations touting his support of DOMA.
And the simple fact of the matter is this; Clinton promised gays he would veto DOMA, then didn't. Probably because he knew gays would blame Republicans rather than admit he lied to them and that he manipulated them for his own ends and money.
And as for Kerry, I know what he supported and that he proudly proclaimed that he had the "same position" as Bush.
Curiously, HRC once claimed that civil unions weren't good enough and that any candidate who supported bans on gay marriage was against gay rights -- only to swallow their tongues and proclaim how "pro-gay" and "gay-supportive" John Kerry was on command.
What you miss is this, Henry; because HRC has made it clear that they will claim Republicans are homophobic while praising Democrats with the same position as "pro-gay", they have set themselves up to be ignored by both sides - the Republicans because they know it's a waste of effort for them to try to please HRC, and the Democrats because they know HRC will just blame the Republicans when Democrats are homophobic.
dolphin said (at March 15, 2007 06:55 AM):
Ah, but Henry, Clinton did have a choice; he could have vetoed DOMA, and he could have blocked DADT.
For the sake of argument, let's put ourselves in the twisted conservative mindset and assume that DOMA and DADT were evil little conspiracies that Clinton personally planned and then planted into the Republican Congress.
That leaves us with this choice, the party who wants each state to decide whether we can marry within their borders and wants us to be allowed to serve in the military but only if we keep to ourselves.
-OR-
The party who wants to outright ban marriage rights nationwide while simultaneously taking away the few contractual options we have to protect our families now. And who deems us not fit to serve in the military under any circumstances whatsoever.
STILL seems like a no-brainier to me.
North Dallas Thirty said (at March 17, 2007 10:19 AM):
Or you could simply admit that Clinton lied to gays when he said he would oppose both, dolphin.
And finally, what your last two statements demonstrate is that you can always make excuses for why Dems can be homophobic, but still receive unlimited support, shilling, and cries of "pro-gay" from the gay community.
Dems know that there are no consequences. Gays will invent whatever fantasies they need about Republicans to explain why Dems are better. Gay Dems like Joe Solmonese even supported giving money to FMA supporters like Inez Tenenbaum because "the Republicans were worse".
Henry said (at March 18, 2007 08:54 PM):
NDT -
You're so focused on the Clinton 'failures', yet you don't seem to grasp that it was a Republican who introduced DOMA, and 99% of Republicans voted for it.
It was also Republicans who prevented Clinton from allowing gays to serve openly - thus leading to the DODT compromise.
As bad as you view Clinton, Republicans were (and are) a million times worse.
dolphin said (at March 19, 2007 06:59 AM):
Gays will invent whatever fantasies they need about Republicans to explain why Dems are better.
What fanatasies? You've yet to provide any documentation for why Republicans have a better record on gay rights. You haven't' be cause you can't.
You KNOW that Republicans are FAR worse on gay rights than the Dems which is why you are doing everything in your power to avoid talking about Republicans. As long as you can keep the focus of the conversation on what the Dems are doing wrong, you don't have to acknowledge that the Republicans are doing all of those things wrong and then some.