(no subject)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

There is a fascinating right wing meme floating around the Internet. The essential summary is "So Obama came out for gay marriage. Big whoop!" Obama had to gather all his glorious courage into a fist, all his qualities of a leader and to finally join Dick Cheney on this topic. Of course the implication is Obama hasn't really done anything special here, and since it he can't do anything legally, it was a very safe but calculating campaign statement that has no real impact. But I disagree with the way this is framed, and the way it is rather dismissive of what President Obama has done for gay rights. And frankly, I'd like to turn the question back on them: so what did Dick Cheney do to influence policies in the Bush White House (in terms of gay rights)? In eight years did Cheney accomplish anything remotely along the following list?

1. Reversed US refusal to sign the UN Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity


2. Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees in 2009 and, further, in 2010


3. Lifted the HIV Entry Ban


4. Issued diplomatic passports, and provided other benefits, to the partners of same-sex foreign service employees


5. Committed to ensuring that federal housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity


6. Conceived a National Resource Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders -- the nation's first ever -- funded by a three-year HHS grant to SAG


7. 
   

   
   Banned job discrimination based on gender identity throughout the Federal government (the nation's largest employer)
   

   
   


8. Eliminated the discriminatory Census Bureau policy that kept our relationships from being counted, encouraging couples who consider themselves married to file that way, even if their state of residence does not yet permit legal marriage


9. Instructed HHS to require any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds (virtually all hospitals) to allow LGBT visitation rights


10. Required all grant applicants seeking HUD funding to comply with state and local anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT individuals


11. Adopted transgender recommendations on the issuance of gender-appropriate passports that will ease barriers to safe travel and that will provide government-issued ID that avoids involuntary "outing" in situations requiring ID, like hiring, where a gender-appropriate driver's license or birth certificate is not available


12. Extended domestic violence protections to LGBT victims


13. Extended the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover employees taking unpaid leave to care for the children of same-sex partners


14. Issued
    guidance to assist tenants denied housing on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and banned LGBT discrimination in all HUD-assisting housing and HUD-assisted loans 


15. Issued a National HIV/AIDS Strategy
    praised as "long-overdue" by the Task Force, Lambda and others


16. Issued guidance to 15,000 local departments of education and 5,000 colleges to support educators in combating bullying


17. Cut back authority to discharge under Don't Ask/Don't Tell from hundreds of generals to just 6 civilian appointees, effectively ending discharges while working toward a permanent end to the policy.


18. Led the fight that reversed a 2010 UN vote removing sexual orientation from the list of things people should not be killed for 


19. Launched the first-ever national study of discrimination against members of the LGBT community in the rental and sale of housing


20. Determined that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional


21. Determined that LGBT discrimination should be subject to a standard of "heightened scrutiny"


22. Stopped defending DOMA, leading to "dramatic changes across the country and the federal government in the way that lawyers and judges see legal challenges brought by LGBT people - and, slowly but surely, in the way that LGBT people are able to live their lives" 


23. Filed an unprecedented brief
    detailing the history of discrimination faced by gay, lesbian and
    bisexual people in America, including by the federal government itself -- the single most persuasive legal argument ever advanced by the United States government in support of equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people


24. Vacated a court order that would have deported a gay American's Venezuelan partner 


25. Begun recognizing joint bankruptcy petitions filed by same-sex married couples


26. Endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act


27. Reduced the deportation threat faced by binational LGBT couples


28. Authorized military chaplains to perform same-sex weddings on or off military bases


29. Upped the nation's commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS at home and abroad


30. Launched a energetic, game-changing campaign for global LGBT equality, highlighted by the Secretary of State in a half-hour address to the United Nations


31. Extended the gender-based employment discrimination protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to transgender employees


32. Added an LGBT representative to the diversity program at each of the nations 120 federal prisons
    
    

RESPECT & INCLUSION

1. Endorsed
   the Baldwin-Lieberman bill, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and
   Obligations Act of 2009, to provide FULL partnership benefits to federal
   employees


2. Released the first Presidential PRIDE proclamations since 2000


3. Hosted the first LGBT Pride Month Celebration in White House history


4. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King, joining past recipients such as Rosa Parks


5. Appointed the first ever transgender DNC member


6. Testified in favor of ENDA, the first time any official of any administration has testified in the Senate on ENDA


7. Hired more openly LGBT officials (like these)
   in its first two years -- more than 150, including more than 20
   "Senate-confirmables" -- than any previous administration hired in four
   years or eight


8. Sworn in Ambassador David Huebner


9. Changed
   the culture of government everywhere from – among others – HUD and HHS
   to the Export-Import Bank, the State Department, and the Department of
   Education


10. Appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor and
    Elena Kagan, instead of conservatives who would have tilted the Court
    even further to the right and virtually doomed our rights for a
    generation.  To wit (quoting McCain): "I've
    said a thousand times on this campaign trail, I've said as often as I
    can, that I want to find clones of Alito and Roberts.  I
    worked as hard as anybody to get them confirmed. I look you in the eye
    and tell you I've said a thousand times that I wanted Alito and Roberts.
     I have told anybody who will listen. I flat-out tell you I will have
    people as close to Roberts and Alito [as possible]."


11. 
    

    
    Named open transgender appointees (the first President ever to do so)
    

    
    


12. Emphasized LGBT inclusion in everything from the President’s historic NAACP
    address (“The pain of discrimination is still felt in America.  By
    African American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues
    of a different color and a different gender.  By Latinos made to feel
    unwelcome in their own country.  By Muslim Americans viewed with
    suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray to their God.  By our
    gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied
    their rights.”) . . . to the first paragraph of his Family Day
    proclamation (“Whether children are raised by two parents, a single
    parent, grandparents, a same-sex couple, or a guardian, families
    encourage us to do our best and enable us to accomplish great things”)
    and his Mothers Day
    proclamation ("Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may
    be raised by two parents, a single mother, two mothers, a step-mom, a
    grandmother, or a guardian.  Mother's Day gives us an opportunity to
    celebrate these extraordinary caretakers") . . . to creating the chance
    for an adorable 10-year-old at the White House Easter Egg roll to tell ABC World News
    how cool it is to have two mommies . . . to including the chair of the
    National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce along with the Secretary of
    the Treasury and the President of Goldman Sachs in the small audience
    for the President’s economic address at the New York Stock Exchange . . .
    to welcoming four gay couples to its first State Dinner


13. Recommitted,
    in a televised address, to passing ENDA . . . repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t
    Tell  . . . repealing the so-called Defense of Marriage Act


14. Spoken out
    against discrimination at the National Prayer Breakfast ("We may
    disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is
    unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether
    it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely
    in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.")


15. Dispatched the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to call on the Senate to repeal Don't Ask / Don't Tell


16. Launched a website to gather public comment on first-ever federal LGBT housing discrimination study


17. Appointed long-time equality champion Chai Feldblum one of the four Commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission


18. Produced U.S. Census Bureau PSAs featuring gay, lesbian, and transgender spokespersons


19. Appointed
    Retired Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, an early public champion of
    open service in the military, to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women
    in the Services


20. Publicly invited the shunned MIssissippi high school prom student to the White House


21. Successfully fought
    for UN accreditation of IGLHRC (the International Gay & Lesbian
    Human Rights Commission) -- against Republican attempts to block it


22. Convened the first-ever anti-bullying summit to craft a national strategy to reduce bullying in schools


23. Launched stopbullying.gov


24. Awarded $13.3 million to the LA Gay & Lesbian Center to create a model program for LGBTQ youth in the foster care system


25. Tweeted to 5.7 million BarackObama followers and nearly 2 million WhiteHouse followers the President's "It Gets Better" video


26. Embraced that campaign with heartfelt messages from, as well, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Agriculture (aimed particularly at rural youth), the Secretaries of Education and Health & Human Services, the Secretary of Labor (in English and Spanish), the Director of OPM and LGBT members of the White House staff


27. Issued a Department of Justice video urging kids to call a Justice Department toll-free number if their school is aware of bullying but taking no action


28. Held the first ever White House conference on bullying prevention, led by the President and First Lady


29. Hosted first-ever White House transgender policy meeting


30. Emphasized the positive value of Gay-straight Student Alliances (GSAs) and advised the nation's school districts of their legal responsibility to allow establishment of GSAs


31. Appointed the first openly gay man to serve on the federal bench


32. Nominated the first open lesbian US attorney


33. Nominated the first openly gay US attorney to serve Texas


34. Forced the Tehachipi Unified School District to prevent and respond to gender-based harassment 


35. Acknowledged in federal court the U.S. government's "significant and regrettable role" in discrimination in America against gays and lesbians, arguing that DOMA is unconstitutional.
    
    Source: E quality giving.
    

The other interesting news this week was a leaked internal GOP talking-points memo by circulated by Jan van Lohuizen, who was President Bush's 2004 pollster and highly respected within Republican circles suggesting that Republicans need to evolve fast on gay marriage, or as Andrew Sullivan puts it, "risk their brand for an entire generation." Citing rapid acceleration on this subject by participants in both parties, Lohuizen suggests Republicans support gay marriage, citing it as a conservative value.

As people who promote personal responsibility, family values, commitment and stability, and emphasize freedom and limited government we have to recognize that freedom means freedom for everyone. This includes the freedom to decide how you live and to enter into relationships of your choosing, the freedom to live without excessive interference of the regulatory force of government.

Lohuizen's polling closely follows what other polling consistently shows.

In view of this week’s news on the same sex marriage issue, here is a summary of recent survey findings on same sex marriage:

1. Support for same sex marriage has been growing and in the last few years support has grown at an accelerated rate with no sign of slowing down. A review of public polling shows that up to 2009 support for gay marriage increased at a rate of 1% a year. Starting in 2010 the change in the level of support accelerated to 5% a year. The most recent public polling shows supporters of gay marriage outnumber opponents by a margin of roughly 10% (for instance: NBC / WSJ poll in February / March: support 49%, oppose 40%).

2. The increase in support is taking place among all partisan groups. While more Democrats support gay marriage than Republicans, support levels among Republicans are increasing over time. The same is true of age: younger people support same sex marriage more often than older people, but the trends show that all age groups are rethinking their position.

3. Polling conducted among Republicans show that majorities of Republicans and Republican leaning voters support extending basic legal protections to gays and lesbians. These include majority Republican support for:

a. Protecting gays and lesbians against being fired for reasons of sexual orientation
b. Protections against bullying and harassment
c. Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
d. Right to visit partners in hospitals
e. Protecting partners against loss of home in case of severe medical emergencies or death
f. Legal protection in some form for gay couples whether it be same sex marriage or domestic partnership (only 29% of Republicans oppose legal recognition in any form).

Recommendation: A statement reflecting recent developments on this issue along the following lines:

“People who believe in equality under the law as a fundamental principle, as I do, will agree that this principle extends to gay and lesbian couples; gay and lesbian couples should not face discrimination and their relationship should be protected under the law. People who disagree on the fundamental nature of marriage can agree, at the same time, that gays and lesbians should receive essential rights and protections such as hospital visitation, adoption rights, and health and death benefits.”

Other thoughts / Q&A: Follow up to questions about affirmative action:

“This is not about giving anyone extra protections or privileges, this is about making sure that everyone – regardless of sexual orientation – is provided the same protections against discrimination that you and I enjoy.”

Why public attitudes might be changing:

“As more people have become aware of friends and family members who are gay, attitudes have begun to shift at an accelerated pace. This is not about a generational shift in attitudes, this is about people changing their thinking as they recognize their friends and family members who are gay or lesbian.”

Conservative fundamentals:

“As people who promote personal responsibility, family values, commitment and stability, and emphasize freedom and limited government we have to recognize that freedom means freedom for everyone. This includes the freedom to decide how you live and to enter into relationships of your choosing, the freedom to live without excessive interference of the regulatory force of government.

And for some lulz, immediately after President Obama's interview, Fox Nation's website had this on its front page:



The histrionics of yet another Obama war on values, prompting some mocking from folks on the Internet, and has become a meme. Here's a few of them:

Comments

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

It certainly looks like many conservatives are very ignorant on what the president has actually done in the form of policies and statements, at least the positive ones.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Well the Dempocrats haven't exactly been trumpeting them.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Conservatives and evangelicals do seem to have each other in a death grip.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Do you think the GOP is a "big tent" party?

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

You forgot not pushing legislation for banning it on a federal to try and distract us from the Iraq War.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

I also find it interesting that, a few years ago, being against gay marriage and/or painting your opponent as for gay marriage was a viable way to get single-issue voters on your side.

The reason why conservatives are trying to turn Obama's stance into a non-issue is because they recognize how ineffective it is at getting single-issue voters to go against Obama in regard to this social position. If the Republican Party believed that they could just go "BOMBSHELL: OBAMA SUPPORTS GAYS AND HE'S GOING TO GAY UP YOUR KIDS INTO GAYDOM WITH GAY GAY GAY" in order to cause droves of Democratic Party members and Independents to vote Republican, they would. But did you notice how little of that is happening so far?

They're backed into a corner on this. The GOP doesn't want to look like homophobic lunatics, because that would turn off independents, but at the same time they can't say something similar and appeal to those very independents, because that would turn off their own base and possibly split the party in half.

Once the views on abortion turn similar to how the views against gay marriage turn, the GOP is going to be incredibly fucked. While they may have economic policies that appeal to the right, they know that unless they turn the declarations of "leftist socialism" up to 11 very soon, they won't have people running to the voting booth in a god-fearing panic like they do when it comes to homosexuality and abortion.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Not quite in half.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Where's the recommended tag?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Somewhere on the eQualityGiving.org or the TheNewCivilRightsMovement.com website.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Why isn’t anybody recognizing that the religious purposes of marriage are completely separate from the civil purposes?

Religious:

1. To form a spiritual bond between the partners
2. To promote the proliferation of the religion through reproduction
3. To rear the offspring in the principles of the religion
4. To indoctrinate the offspring with the beliefs of the religious brand

Civil:

1. To create a property partnership
2. To promote the propagation of the citizenship
3. To provide for the safety and physical needs of the offspring
4. To rear the offspring as lawful and productive members of society

As illustrated, the gender of the parents is inconsequential to the civil purposes of marriage. Because the two are not mutually exclusive, they can coexist harmoniously.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

First, people do recognize that. Second, your lists are wrong.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Is it your contention that California is run by Republicans?

It's not just Republicans that aren't keen on gay marriage.

The Republicans just aren't being silly and saying marriage is gender neutral. Marriage in America was never understood to be gender ambiguous and Democrats need to pass laws if they want it to be.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

No, a consensual marriage is never something that "the Law" should have any part in. Bureaucrats on *all* sides need to get the fuck out and stop butting into people's romantic and sexual freedoms. It does not concern them in the slightest and they have no authority over how we do it. Period.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

What is your theory?

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

It doesn't make being gay the cause of the disease, just that it's more prevalent in gay men?

It's kind of like (though maybe for different causes) that depression is more prevalent in women, from what I heard.

Does that make being a woman the cause of depression?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

"Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome" is the full expansion of the acronym, so "AIDS" is the correct usage, not "AIDs".

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

Simple biology. Women are not well suited to give AIDS to a partner, because they're unlikely to penetrate the partner and create the small tears that allow HIV to get in the bloodstream. So even if they get HIV, they have to engage in a lot more sex to give it to a partner than a male does to continue the cycle. Two penetrative partners in a coupling spreads the disease faster, even with the same amount of promiscuity. The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani is a good read to break the epidemiology down to a non-science reader.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

I haven't read into the subthread, so forgive me if this has already been answered, but their are lots of reasons.

Some of them are...

Anal sex is a more efficient method of transmitting HIV, and gay men are more likely to have anal sex, than, say, lesbians or heterosexual men.

Also, Gay men represent a somewhat isolated transaction pool. (Not completely isolated, I know) but once HIV was introduced into the culture, its opportunities to spread within the group were large, and opportunities to spread outside of the group were small. Recognize that this is a quirk of American gay culture (maybe western in general, I don't have stats) but it is most definitely not the case in Africa.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

It would be nice to see Obama take things further, for example praising Israel for their military policy of allowing openly gay soldiers to join, even before the U.S. repealed DADT while at the same time reprimanding Palestine for their continued torture and murder of those in the LGBTQIA community. Especially since Israel is our ally. But of course, that won't happen.

It would also be nice if people remembered and recognized that bullying isn't just committed against those who are LGBTQIA.

There's a great blog from AMERICAblog Gay (http://gay.americablog.com/2010/05/draft-lets-examine-official-list-of.html) that debunks most of the points mentioned in the above list. For example:

Endorsed the Baldwin-Lieberman bill, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, to provide full partnership benefits to federal employees

BFD. Endorsed? With all due respect, WTF cares if the President "endorses" some legislation that he's never going to lift a finger to help pass? This is part of the "all talk" nature of the President's, and the Democratic party's, commitment to our civil rights. They believe that talking about giving us rights is the same thing as actually giving us those rights or at the very least, trying to give us those rights.

Obama hasn't really flipped on position. His position is that he'll do and say whatever he thinks people want to hear for him to be elected (or in this case re-elected). It's awfully convenient that his stance on gay marriage 'evolved' at the same time as the fabricated Romney bullying story.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

That guy is wrong on the extension of federal government worker benefits. Yeah, other administrations had extended those rights for some specific situations. But President Obama did expand some more benefits to several agencies that had not been covered before, and specially asked his staff on areas where his jurisdiction could expand them as far as possible without any legal conflict with the DOMA statue. And as mylaptopisevil pointed out (and I didn't notice this), many of the gripes about the bigger issues have been addressed.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

The thing that always bothers me about things like this is the fact that politicians don't operate from their own principles or ideals or what they think is right anymore (and when a few do they tend to be horribly warped and wrong)--they follow their corporate/global agendas and masters. Obama may not personally care whether gays get married or not (as in not be a right-wing fanatic about it), but he doesn't dare support it politically (or do much of anything really) without making sure it will not harm him too much politically (why didn't he do anything to stop the brutal and racist War On Some Drugs which many of his followers fervently hoped for and which he pretty much gave the middle finger to and laughed off after election? Same reason) None of them really care anymore about any of us, but only what they are expected to do by those who really hold power in the world--the elite interests--so every time a politician like him (FINALLY) step in and utter a little word of support or rights a very old wrong, it just makes me angry, because I know he's not doing it because he cares (just like with the politicized environmental initiatives--it's not because they care, it's because there is something in it for them).

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. It's been hard, honestly, to resist the calls to laud this action, if only for it's ~historic significance~, and for a minute here and there, I've felt a bit silly, even mean-spirited, clinging to my original perception of the action, so thank you for reminding me that yeah, I'm probably right: this action is nothing more than a demonstration of just how low Obama will go.

So to me, that's the only historical significance of it. Yes, I get it - no one's ever done it before - but when this one does it, and for the transparently obvious reasons for which he almost undoubtedly has, it denigrates, devalues and ultimately destroys even the ~historical value~ of such an act.

Perhaps, worst of all, it robs the future of the full experience of the actual historical act something like this when it means something more than ballots in the box.

LOL: I can't even say, "well, at least in the future, he won't be able to sign or otherwise endorse measures counter to this ~personal viewpoint~," because I know, like all words from his mouth, they mean nothing when it comes to actual actions.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

that's the most un-Obama-looking photo of him I've seen in a while.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Thanks for quoting me from a completely different topic addressing a completely different point.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Don't flatter yourself. The same meme is all over Livejournal conservative communities by other posters, as well as Facebook.