Sen. Robert Byrd Dies at 92
Sen. Robert Byrd, who served in the Senate for 51 years and in the House for six, representing “his home state of West Virginia in the Senate for more than a third of its 144-year existence,” died this morning in the hospital. He was 92. Byrd’s legislative record includes votes for and against adding sexual orientation to hate crimes and voting for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, which he said “reflects a demand for political correctness that has gone berserk. We live in an era in which tolerance has progressed beyond a mere call for acceptance and crossed over to become a demand for the rest of us to give up beliefs that we revere and hold most dear in order to prove our collective purity. At some point, a line must be drawn by rational men and women who are willing to say, ‘Enough!’”
Please, he regretted his membership in the KKK, and voted for the Matthew Shepard Act and the conditional DADT repeal. The FMA vote is a blemish, no question.
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There’s the problem right there. He calls it “demanding acceptance” when people are only demanding equality under the law. And “beliefs” sure as hell are not the same thing as law. When beliefs are the law, that’s a theocracy.
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Gee, he stayed around just long enough to insert another hurdle into the DADT repeal.
As for people saying “Oh but he regretts his membership in the Klan”….yeah, most politicians regret anything that could have an effect on them politically. This is a guy who lied to a police officer to get out of a speeding ticket by saying that he couldn’t stop a Senator on Senate Business….problem was, he wasn’t on Senate business. Just a typical burned out old bigot who should have retired 20 years ago.
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@Cam:
AMEN, Cam!
Despite our advances, and we have had some, nothing better exemplifies, 41 years after Stonewall, how much the mainstream still considers both our rights and our humanity secondary to their own than this quote from the NY Times obit, the icon of “liberal” media:
“Mr. Byrd’s perspective on the world changed over the years.”
Of course, they mean the world in which no gays exist, for there is no evidence Byrd died any less of a rabid homophobe than he lived, and was “in the news” for it barely a month ago [which apparently the gais mourning him ALSO forgot].
HE WAS SOLELY TO BLAME for the fact that, even if a miracle happens and SECDEF Gates does let Obama affirm not just “repeal” but actual unequivocal open military service after the phony “study” is completed in December, another two months will have to pass before a single discharge can be stopped….and clearly was meant as a second chance for bigots like him to keep the ban. That he failed to notice that he failed to put any teeth to do anything but delay in his amendment to the amendment is beside the point.
Yes, all the mainstream cares about is that Byrd finally got over his rabid racism which caused him to declare in 1944,
“I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds,”
and filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
But his last minute arm-twisting of the Senate over DADT indicates that, when it came to us, the 2010 edition of Byrd was no more “changed” than the 1993 edition:
“Senator Byrd took a harder line than Nunn. He believed homosexuality was a sin; said he would never let his grandson, whom he adored, join a military that admitted gays; and asserted that one reason the Roman Empire fell was the acceptance of pervasive homosexual conduct in the Roman legions from Julius Caesar on down.” – Bill Clinton.
Or the 1996 edition:
“The drive for same-sex marriage, is, in effect, an effort to make a sneak attack on society by encoding this aberrant behavior in legal form before society itself has decided it should be legal. Let us defend the oldest institution, the institution of marriage between male and female as set forth in the Holy Bible.” – Robert Byrd.
For us, the only thing “changed” about Robert Byrd were the sheets.
[img]http://www.unconfirmedsources.com/nucleus/media/3/20081014-KKK_joins_LDS.gif[/img]
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Picture above should be:
[img]http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs080.ash2/37314_1210266756463_1822575019_407306_8040412_n.jpg[/img]
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It’s at times like these that I wish I could believe in god so that I could enjoy the thought of bigots like this burning in hell.
This democrat was the grand fuck’n poobah of the KKK (I’d regret it too but it wouldn’t make it less true!), filibustered the civil rights act of 1964, fought against integration of the armed forces and hates gays.
I hope I can care enough to find out where he gets buried so that I can go piss on his grave.
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Members of Congress should be like pilots and have madatory retirement ages.
——–Or has the FAA scrapped that along with other safety rules?—–
I’m gonna leave my opinion on term limits for another day…..
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It did bring a smile to my face when I read that Byrd’s rank in the Klan was “Exalted Cyclops”. Why does the Klan get all the awesomely cheesy titles? I want to be a Bodacious Pegasus.
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@Baxter: I was almost sure you were on some mighty hallucinogen until a quick trip to the googles proved you right :-D.
By the powers vested in me by the Great State of West Dakota, I hereby annoint thee: Bodacious Pegasus with all rights and honors associated with that splendid title…..
Be fruitful, and multiply !
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p.s. I grew up in K K K territory, and all I can say is that you learn to trust no one there until you’ve seen their book collection and their linen closet. No kidding.
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He sure looked like the Eagle standing next to him.
Say hi to your fellow bigots Jesse Helms and Strom Thurman when you get to Hell, Senator Byrdbrain.
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No. 8 ยท Mike wrote, “This democrat was the grand fuck’n poobah of the KKK” … bad choice of words?
Poobah is a character in Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado. When the Mikado decreed that the penalty for a man leering or winking at a women (unless “connubially linked”) was to be beheaded, the villagers took a lowly tailor named Koko, who was next to go to the block, and made him Lord High Executioner, also decreeing that you had to execute people in first-in, first-out order. Since Koko couldn’t cut his own head off, executions stopped. But with such a nobody in such an exalted position, everyone else except Poobah resigned. So Poobah became “The Lord High Everything Else” taking over all the other posts. When a bribe was necessary, Poobah expected each of his positions to be paid.
At the end, as the whole mess gets resolved, they all cry, “Mercy, even for Poobah.” It didn’t sound like people here are calling for mercy for Senator Byrd!
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The lovable old bigot, may he rest in peace (NOT).
You failed to mention he was a KKK member for years. I’m sure crosses are being burned across the country in remembrance.