Republicans, including Ken Mehlman, played key role in NY marriage victory - Dems beware

Democrats need to up their game.  There's a new guy in town.  And he's a Republican.  And he's not your daddy's gay Republican (the kind who proudly helped his boss bash the community).  But a gay Republican who actually pulls his weight and helps our community get its number one goal, marriage.

Granted, all but one Democrat voted for marriage in NY.  So Democrats were better on the issue than Republicans.  But it feels like we're seeing more improvement, more advancement, on the GOP side of the aisle than we're seeing on the Democratic side of the aisle, in terms of acceptance of us and our issues.  Dems are still ahead in raw numbers, but the GOP is ahead in changing attitudes -- the Democrats attitudes sometimes feel like they've frozen in 1993 (though Cuomo, a Dem, was clearly the hero of the day, so it's still a mixed bag).

Still, I think the days of the gay community being massively in the Democrats' pocket may be over.  The GOP, for the first time in my memory, is actually coming through for the community.  And while Dems are still better overall than Republicans overall, the kind of thing Mehlman and company pulled in NY could provide enough emotional cover for increasing numbers of gays to at least consider voting for someone without a D after his name.  I think we're seeing an epic change here.  Will the Dems see it coming?

From Sam Stein at HuffPost:

Increasingly, however, the defining feature of the gay rights activist community is its bipartisan nature. Some of the biggest donors in the Republican Party were bankrollers of the gay marriage push in New York and, presumably, would write checks for candidates elsewhere who back their worldview.

As The New York Times reported, several weeks before the crucial vote, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's most trusted advisers met with "a group of super-rich Republican donors," successfully convincing them to "win over the deciding Senate Republicans." Attendees included Paul Singer, whose son is gay, and hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Dan Loeb. According to interviews with nearly a dozen activists and operatives involved in the New York same sex marriage push, that anecdote was -- as one source put it -- just one of many critical stepping stones on the path towards the bill's passage. Steven Cohen a hedge fund manager and the founder of SAC Capital, also was persuaded to lend his clout to the campaign.

Last year, the American Foundation for Equal Rights held a major event featuring Singer, Mehlman, and Peter Thiel, the gay billionaire who was an original investor in both PayPal and Facebook. It also included a host of famous politicos, like former Gov. William Weld, Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Todd Whitman and Republican operatives Nicole Wallace and Alex Castellanos. The event provided an early illustration of the type of donor base that was available for the right-minded candidate.

Read the rest of this post...

Carney: The President made it clear that he’s sticking to the states’ rights argument

The second series of marriage-related questions at the White House press briefing today. The questioner was Bill Press. Watch here at 42:30:

Q My name is Bill. (Laughter.) Jay, I want to come back to the same-sex marriage issue, if I can. If the right to -- if the opportunity to enjoy the same rights, same-sex couples or straight couples or whatever, is a basic civil right, how can you square that with saying we leave it up to the states?

MR. CARNEY: Well, look, I’m not going to -- the President has made his position clear. It’s not very useful for us to have this debate. I think the President spoke about this on Thursday. He spoke about it -- sorry, he’s spoken about this a number of times in the past. So you could take it to other places but I think I’ll leave it to what he said.

Q Let me ask this, then. But with New York being the largest state so far to recognize same-sex marriage, are you concerned that the President may have missed his opportunity to lead on this issue?

MR. CARNEY: Again, the President’s record on issues involving and of concern to the LGBT community is exemplary and we are very proud of it. He continues to fight on behalf of that community for the rights -- for equal rights. And his position on New York, he himself, rather than his press secretary, spoke at length about just a few nights ago. So I’ll leave it at that.

Can we have this debate with the President, then. I think that would be useful.

Evolve already. Read the rest of this post...

White House sticking with the "it’s for the states to decide" talking point on marriage

This is when we realize that the White House really is very insular. The people who work there must have no concept of how ridiculous their talking points on same-sex marriage sound in the real world -- you know, to the base. They're sticking with that "states' rights" argument. Still. Seriously, just evolve already. This is beyond ridiculous.

Not sure who the reporter is who asked the question. (Update: it was Laura Meckler from the WSJ) You can watch here, this interaction beings at around 26:30:

Q On another topic, last week the President spoke about gay marriage when he was in New York and he said that -- talked about how this has been the province of the state and that’s the -- referring to what was happening in the debate in New York, he said that’s the power of democracy at work. Does that mean that he also respects the outcome of democracy at work in California where voters rejected the idea of gay marriage.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think as you saw in the decision we announced that we would no longer -- this administration would no longer be participants defending the Defense of Marriage Act because we do not believe it’s constitutional, that it’s precisely because of his belief that this was a matter that needs to be decided by the states. So without commenting on a particular other state, I think he was making that clear
with regard to the action in New York.

Q Okay, but --

MR. CARNEY: But I’m not going to put words in his mouth applying to another state. I mean, you can analyze that, but -- because I haven’t heard him say that. But obviously the DOMA decision -- what he said in New York was about his belief, our belief, that this is a matter that states should decide.

Q And the central argument in the challenge to Proposition 8 by supporters of same-sex marriage rights is that this isn’t something that should be decided state by states, in fact, that there are federal rights involved. So would he reject --

MR. CARNEY: Well, the President very strongly supports equal rights and he’s -- we’ve been -- he’s made that clear as well, and he said it again in New York at the event that you’re discussing. So I’m not going to --

Q But I’m referring to the --

MR. CARNEY: I don’t really have a lot I can say about Proposition 8 with regards to what the President said last week. You know, I don’t -- I’m not willing to go to what the President didn’t discuss. I can talk about what he did discuss.

Q So, but the proper reading of what he said -- it sounds like what you’re saying but I want to be clear -- is that, yes, this is up for the states and if New York decides that they want to allow same-sex marriage, great; if California decides that they don’t want to, then that’s their decision as well.

MR. CARNEY: Well, again, I can’t improve upon the words that the President delivered publicly whatever night it was -- Thursday night. So I’m not disagreeing with that interpretation, but he has said quite clearly, as he did in the DOMA decision and as he did on Thursday night, that he believes that it’s for the states to decide.

Get your "Evolve Already" t-shirts here. Sounds like we'll need to keep up the pressure. Read the rest of this post...

Greg Sargent reminisces on being straight in a gay hood in the 70s

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

I grew up in the far West Village in the 1970s, about seven or eight blocks west of Stonewall Inn, where joyful crowds celebrated the news on Friday night. At the time, even though the Village was supposed to be a leading refuge for gays, the discrimination, hostility and abuse directed at them were everywhere. Even in this neighborhood, gays and lesbians took steps to conceal their sexual orientation. Some of my earliest childhood memories were of young bleary-eyed gay men quietly leaving underground gay clubs in the old Meat Market district in the very early morning — clubs that would be padlocked as public health danger zones when the AIDS crisis hit. Even on these streets, gay couples who openly displayed affection for each other in public were regularly abused in full public view.

It was not uncommon to see vans full of thugs who had driven in from other neighborhoods — for no other reason than to taunt and even beat up gays — screaming “faggots” at groups of young men who congregated along West Street, along the Hudson River. To reveal your sexual orientation in public through even the most basic gestures of affection was to put yourself at risk of mockery, abuse and even violence.

Maybe I lacked the imagination to see it, but that time, the notion that these folks would ever be given the right to legally marry — and have their intimate relationships recognized as equal to those of heterosexual couples — was simply unthinkable. And that was in the West Village.

Read the rest of this post...

Pedophile-enabling church has the chutzpah to talk about "the children"

A Catholic bishop starting an anti-gay oped with the words "the children." That takes chutzpah, considering the Catholic church has been raping small children for decades, and lots of bishops (and higher) aided and abetted that rape.

The children indeed.

Bishop Dimarzio of Brooklyn is also a bit of a liar:

As the chief shepherd of the Catholics in our City's two most populous boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, the decision of our Catholic Governor and State Legislature to overturn the common understanding of marriage that, despite many developments over thousands of years, has always been understood between a man and woman.

Correction, one white man and one white women, and one black man and and one black woman. That's what was understood for thousands of years.

That there was virtually no public debate on the issue and that the entire matter was concluded in just over thirty-minutes late on a Friday evening is disgraceful.

Liar. Virtually no public debate? Decided in 30 minutes? New York state has been debating this issue for years. And even this vote took weeks to iron out. 30 minutes?

Liar.

Then again, this church isn't beyond pedophilia, so what's a lie? Read the rest of this post...

Fagbug - great documentary to watch for Pride Month

A link to this documentary, Fagbug, was sent to me via a friend with the note, "This is a great documentary to watch for Pride Weekend." (Oklahoma City celebrated Pride this weekend.) This is a great documentary, period. More here:

Fagbug Documentary (83 minutes)
On the 11th Annual National Day of Silence, Erin Davies was victim to a hate crime in Albany, New York. Because of sporting a rainbow sticker on her VW Beetle, Erin's car was vandalized, left with the words "fag" and "u r gay" placed on the driver's side window and hood of her car. Despite initial shock and embarrassment, Erin decided to embrace what happened by leaving the graffiti on her car. She took her car, now known worldwide as the "fagbug," on a 58-day trip around the United States and Canada. Along the way, Erin discovered other, more serious hate crimes, had people attempt to remove the graffiti, and experimented with having a male drive her car. After driving the fagbug for one year, Erin decided to give her car a makeover. To watch Fagbug for free on Hulu click here.

Erin Davies is an inspiration. Read the rest of this post...

TNR asks "What will it take for America to accept transgender people for who they really are?"

The New Republic has published a compelling article about the transgender community -- in a non-LGBT publication. As Jillian Weiss notes over at Bilerico:

The New Republic, a magazine of politics and the arts, is generally considered liberal, though it is to the right of many progressives. Its readership is generally considered to be older, influential establishment liberal types, and so a story in The New Republic is going to reach a lot of people who don't read much about transgender or transsexual people.

Below is an excerpt from the beginning of the article. The article also tells the story about the transition of Caroline Temmermand. Read it:

Transgender people are some of the least protected, most persecuted people in the United States. In a recent study of transgender students, nearly half said they’d been “punched, kicked, or injured with a weapon” at least once in the last year. On average, a transgender person is murdered because of their identity every month, according to the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. In 2008, for instance, Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old Colorado woman, was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher when her attacker—a man she met through a social-networking site—realized that she was born male.

Transgender people are regularly evicted from their homes, fired from their jobs, and denied medical treatment. Last July, emergency room staff in an Indiana hospital refused to help a trans woman who was coughing up blood, referring to her as “it.” More than a quarter of transgender people surveyed say they have lost a job because of discrimination. Transgender people are more likely to become homeless (at an average age of 13, in New York City). And then there is the obstacle course of inconveniences that reminds transgender people every day that they don’t belong. One trans woman told me her company requires her to lock herself in when she uses the restroom—even though it’s multi-occupancy—so she is acutely aware of making other women wait. In some states, a court order is required to change a person’s gender on a driver’s license. Many health insurance plans only cover procedures for one gender, so a person born male who transitions to female can’t get both a prostate check and a mammogram.

For some, these challenges prove insurmountable. Four years ago, Mike Penner, a longtime sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, came out to the world as Christine Daniels. But, after a year and a half, unable to cope with the scrutiny, she changed her name back to Mike and returned to living as a man. A year later, she killed herself. Daniels’s story was tragically typical: More than one in three transgender people attempt suicide at some point in their lives.

But these are statistics, and people are rarely moved by statistics. In this country, civil rights movements have prevailed when they have convinced enough people that a minority is being treated in a way that is fundamentally un-American. For this to happen, people need to see members of a disadvantaged group as human beings before anything else. The gay rights movement, for instance, has made great strides in large part because increasing numbers of people know, or are related to, an openly gay person. For more and more people, gays and lesbians do not seem strange—but the idea of denying them rights does. Such a breakthrough seems unlikely for the transgender movement. According to the Williams Institute at the ucla School of Law, there are only around 700,000 transgender people in the United States, compared with around eight million gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. They are invisible in a way that other minorities are not.

I think the author is right. It's not the stats, it's the stories that capture people's attention. Read the rest of this post...

NYT to Obama: Evolve Already

See, it's not just us.

Today's NYT editorial (read the whole thing, I'll excerpt more than I should):

Mr. Obama’s legal formula suggests he is fine with the six states that now permit same-sex marriage, and fine with the more than three dozen other states that ban it. By refusing to say whether he supports it (as he did in 1996) or opposes it (as he did in 2008), he remained in a straddle that will soon strain public patience. For now, all Mr. Obama promised was a gauzy new “chapter” in the story if he is re-elected, and his views remain officially “evolving.”

Fundamental equality, however, is hardly the equivalent of a liquor law that can vary on opposite sides of a state line. Why is Mr. Obama so reluctant to say the words that could lend strength to a national effort now backed by a majority of Americans?

In the 2008 campaign, when Mr. Obama said he supported civil unions and believed marriage should be between men and women, he may have wanted to appeal to slightly more conservative voters who were wary of him.

After he took office, it became evident that Republicans intended to portray him as a radical, out-of-touch leftist no matter what he did. Supporting same-sex marriage at this point is hardly going to change that drumbeat, and any voter for whom that is a make-or-break issue will probably not be an Obama supporter anyway.

Firm support for gay marriage is, on the other hand, likely to help him among his cheerless base. Mr. Obama opposes the Defense of Marriage Act and is presiding over the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He signed the United Nations declaration on gay rights, and allowed the Census to count same-sex relationships. But he has been absent from the biggest and most difficult drive of all.

Public opinion has swung toward acceptance of gay marriage since 2008; five more states and the District of Columbia have lifted marriage bans. Thousands of gay men and lesbians now possess marriage certificates and many former skeptics have come to realize that the moral foundation of the country has been strengthened. It is long past time for the president to catch up. He often criticizes discrimination with the memorable phrase, “that’s not who we are.” Favoring this discrimination should not be who he is.

Exactly.

And, it's for his own good. Politically and morally. That "cheerless base" could be a real problem next year. Read the rest of this post...