Former President Bill Clinton employed his lovely voice to record a robo-call going on to California voters urging them to vote “no” on Proposition 8.
Here’s what he had to say for himself:
This is Bill Clinton calling to ask you to vote NO on Proposition 8 on Tuesday, November 4th. Proposition 8 would use state law to single out one group of Californians to be treated differently —
discriminating against members of our family, our friends and our co-workers.If I know one thing about California, I know that is not what you’re about. That is not what America is about. Please vote NO on 8. It’s unfair and it’s wrong. Thank you.
You go, Bubba!
Ryan K.
This is really great! Thanks President Clinton! I hope this helps to counter the terrible lies that the Yes on 8 campaign has been spreading for weeks. Please get out there and volunteer or donate!
Paul Raposo
From the man who gave Americans DOMA and told John Kerry to go anti-gay to win the 2004 election.
crazylove
Yes Paul we know history. Its 2008. Some of us want to fight this battle now rather than the prior ones.
ILOVEZ
Well, now he doesn’t have any politic ambition to risk. Anyway! Great to hear those words!! :):)
jack jett
Is this the same Bill Clinton that Queerty was throwing under the bus a few months ago?
Lauren
Well thanks Bill Clinton, but maybe you should’ve said that back in 1996 instead of signing the Defense of Marriage Act, which makes same-sex marriage illegal on a federal level. He should take a stand against that law now AS WELL AS prop 8.
John
I like Bill Clinton. I like Al Gore. And I think the Democratic Party is certainly better than the alternative. But the Democrats always do this little post-mortem song and dance. They always wuss out when they’re in office. Then after they’ve retired and have absolutely no power, they say: “well, somebody ought to do something about these inequalities.”
Gee, Bill, if only you were in some sort of position with power, right?
Brian
John — and others — I totally understand your frustration. I’m mad as hell that Barack hasn’t taken a leadership role on this.
But remember that Clinton tried to do right by us. One of his first acts as President was to issue an executive order lifting the ban on gays in the military. Then all hell broke lose, a lot of people, including other Democrats turned on him, and we ended up with DADT (a cure that in many ways was worse than the disease).
We need to move forward. Let’s take the help we can get right now. This fight is too important to get bogged down in old grudges or disappointments.
No On Prop 8
Thanks Bill! You rock as always. !
crazylove
People here are so fucking stupid it makes me want to spit. I can only hope you are being willfully ignorant in your own partisan way to pretend that Clinton would not be out there supporting No on 8, Biden wouldn’t be out there just last week supportin No on 8 and the No on 8 campaign wouldn’t be using Obama’s own words if Obama didn’t support this. I only pray you aren’t this retarded about how politics works. I am glad Bill did this, but Jesus you people are silly.
Chris
If it’s so “wrong and unfair” as Bill Clinton says–and I love Bill…then it sure would be helpful and honorable if Obama said something in support of No on 8 istead of his deafening silence. No one who could vote for Obama should be voting yes on this discriminatory Prop 8, and yet the polls in California are extremely and dangerously close. And Obama is going to win this state by a huge margin.
Instead, Obama will only publicly say that he thinks it’s okay if we’re allowed to visit each other in the hospital should one partner get sick. That’s real big of you, Barack. Thanks for nothing. Yeah, I read Obama’s website. We’ll see if he’s telling the truth should he get elected.
And yes, I realize that McCain would be worse. I don’t expect McCain to be fair. But I expect a whole lot more from Obama particularly now when millions of dollars are being poured into supporting this awful proposition. And yet Obama says nothing.
crazylove
Well, Chris, settles it- you people are retarded.
Dave
F@#K Bill Clinton! He should have had some balls 15 years ago instead of throwing us under the bus. Now he is brave because he has nothing to lose. Maybe some of you Queers can forgive him, but I cannot…only if he states publicly that DADT and esp. DOMA were wrong and should be overturned.
Jake
I still am angered by Clinton’s support of DOMA, especially when one considers that no matter how many states change their laws to allow same-sex marriage, there is still that big Federal hurdle to overcome. I suppose the “bright side” is that DOMA isn’t an Amendment to the US Constitution. (Only 1 Amendment has ever been overturned so far.)
crazylove
You do realize that the federal issue of DOMA is unrelated to the state law? I don’t like DOMA either. It will be overturned with the new Congress, but to pretend it has any relevance to what happened at the state levels is to suggest you don’t understand how our governmental structure works. I don’t need to forgive him. I want anyone’s help who can guarantee the failure of Prop 8. If you want to sit around bitching about 15 years ago a) that tells you are probably old since only old men do that and b) it won’t do shit for Prop 8.
chuck
Thanks Bill. We need to hear many more voices like yours saying how wrong this proposed measure is.
crazylove
Oh please writing as a sock puppet isn’t convincing.
rigso
Some of you are not remembering HISTORY! Yes, Bill Clinton signed DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, but you forget a HUGE part of it, he had a solidly republican congress for most of his time in office, and these were often compromises that needed to be made to avoid something larger and worse! It’d be nice to see them be a little more courageous, but Bill Clinton was at least adressing the Gay community and made it more OKAY to do so back in 1992! Now we have a candidate that won’t even address the issue of Prop 8.
Mr C
No one says that he would’nt. And all you need is for him to say publicly
YES I’m against Prop 8
And John McCain becomes President in a Landslide.
Don’t any of you think? Or should he sacrifice all just say something in public?
allanf
Does anyone have the actual audio posted?
crazylove
well- his campaign has already sent out another statement saying they think people should vote no on 8. I am really not sure what more people want Obama to do. I suppose personally come to CA to deal with the issue, but that’s not how Presidential politics works. It didn’t work like that for the Democrats in the 1960s with the black civil rights movement and it didn’t work like that when Lincoln supposedly freed the slaves. I know he actually did free the slaves, but it wasn’t for the slaves that he did it. It was a political decision at the time. I just find many people here terribly naive. I am not saying we should give up, but I am saying that we need to realize who our allies are and just how far we can expect them to go. A lot of this will happen in steps, not leaps. The way we have already won is that the Democrats feel the need to pander to us on gay rights issues from DOMA to DADT to having Bill Clinton do an automated voice ad. This is politics as reality and getting things done for real change. Getting a Democrat in office will do more to change most gay people’s lives because it will move us steps closer to our goals of equality under the law. What I sense most people want, and I always say this isn’t what the law does, is emotional acceptance. Politics isn’t about those sorts of things.
crazylove
by the way- people keep posting outright lies such as Rigso above. Rig- lie to yourself, not to others. Obama’s position on gay issues are very clear, and you are the one lying to pretend otherwise.
Brian Miller
I guess it shows that society is progressing when Bill Clinton — one of the most prominent and urgent supporters of the anti-gay DOMA law back in 1996 — has since shifted with the political winds and now decides to oppose a state version of the federal law he so enthusiastically signed.
Brian Miller
Clinton tried to do right by us
No, Clinton said he’d still respect us in the morning if we’d just get into bed with him.
Then, in the morning, after he got what he wanted (votes and campaign donations), he kicked us out of bed, went home to his wife, and swore that he’d never met us before.
Brian Miller
And all you need is for him to say publicly
YES I’m against Prop 8
And John McCain becomes President in a Landslide.
Nonsense. Utter nonsense.
Brian Miller
The way we have already won is that the Democrats feel the need to pander to us on gay rights issues
They’re not pandering.
They’re saying they love us and want our votes and money.
Then they tell us that the only reason they beat us and make us sleep in the garage is because they love us so much.
crazylove
Brian your comment would kind of make sense if the Democrats weren’t the primary reason why we have the money to fight Prop 8. Or do you think your fellow gays are behind the money surge? Let me help you with that. I know the answer to the question I asked. I am just giving you the chance to be honest.
crazylove
Oh, and one of the things that I can tell about people in commenting is whether they are looking for love or the bottom line. My bottom line isn’t that they love us or even like us. Its that they give us what we want. If that is money to defeat prop 8- great. 10 years ago that wouldn’t have happened. Nor would they have had a robo call with Clinton or Biden going on any show saying he would vote no on 8. You people are silly in your need to reinforce your belief system. The Democrats aren’t perfect. They are politicians, and like all politicians, you have got to hold their feet to the fire. BUT, while hey aren’t perfect, they are allies we can work with. They are allies, and they aren’t going to fight o ur battles for us. Politicians never do that. Now, you can cut a phrase or two out of all of my comments or you can get the big picture point. The pandering is because they want our support. Our support is condidtion on us getting what we want. We aren’t going to get that by throwing every prior battle in their face. We are going to get it the way we’ve been geting it. Through money to fight our causes, through surrogates, through legislation that favors us. The later by the fact of reality check can’t happen until after they are office, not before. You can go on and on like now in like 1995 allyou want. But that’s jus t retarded. That’s like the people who attack Sen Byrd for being a bigot in the 60s and then ignore all he’s done since then in the 1990s and this decade for the cause of black people. There’s your approach which is to assume they won’t do anything. There is mine- which is to realize they are politicians so we got to work with the ones that will get us closer to what we want. One approach works as per the experience of having dealt with minority issues. One does not. Again I will leave it to you to figure out which is which.
dzerobc
Finally a politician who is willing to put his name on the line and put his support behind something he knows is right. If only he held some sort of position of power. Perhaps if he held some sort of office in the west wing of the white house.
Why to the leaders wait until they are not in a position of power to truly take the stances they need to do as leaders.
Personally, I like John McCain. I would NEVER vote for him, at any time in the past or now. McCain SHOULD lose because he has compromised on his beliefs to get ahead in polls.
I have no doubt that Obama is hundreds of times better that almost anyone from the right for human rights. Gay or Straight. I just don’t like the idea of voting against something. I don’t like that Obama wins the “gay” simply because he isn’t the republican candidate.
What I want is a leader who truly supports gay rights as basic human rights. A leader who does not pander to any political group in order to win.
I want a leader who will truly say how he or she will govern and lead the country and not view the election as a roadblock on the way to leading. Some of the Obama speaches verged on this ideal, for this I was VERY excited.
Why is it that sometimes the most inspiring leaders during an election cycle are the ones who don’t have a chance. They can say what they really think, and we can agree with them, and then vote for the candidate we think has a chance of winning. The primary process is NOT about selecting the BEST candidate, it is about selecting a candidate who has the best chance of winning in the general election. This is already a failure of the process.
I hope Obama wins, and takes his 4 years to truly lead the country in a way it really needs. It seems that a lame duck president can have the best social effects on the country. Once there is no need to run again the President can then stand out on a limb and say the things that need to be said.
Being a leader is NOT telling the people what the focus groups tell you they want to hear. Being a leader is about telling the people what they NEED to hear, what it can be hard to hear for some. The latter is leading, the former is simply following.
–end rant
dzerobc
I am an out and proud gay man, I am very proud of being gay. To win the rights that we deserve we need to identify as a part of the human condition. There is a reason why the majority of our friends support our rights, it personalizes the discussion.
Pride has become less about gay pride, and more about being proud of who we are as individuals, and as a part of the human condition. Being proud of where we land in the wonderful spectrum that is human sexuality, which is all just a part of being human.
The right wing are very good with the war of words. They know how to name things. This is about “Family Values”.. the kind of “Family Values” that deprive people of rights and treat them as separate group. The only thing that protects marriage is fighting divorce. The divorce rate in California is 60.8% for first marriages. There are WAY more people getting divorced in California that people who simply want the right to get married.
In fact, divorce rates amongst Conservative Christians are higher than many other groups.
I hope we don’t have to fight this hard for the right to get divorced.
daelish
It’s great having Bill Clinton out there again, speaking out.
Brian Miller
Brian your comment would kind of make sense if the Democrats weren’t the primary reason why we have the money to fight Prop 8. Or do you think your fellow gays are behind the money surge?
Yes.
I don’t know a single heterosexual person who has donated to No on 8 — Democrat or otherwise.
Every gay person I know in Philadelphia, however, has donated at least $100 to the No on 8 campaign.
All that out-of-state money is coming from concerned gay people who are rushing to defend our right to marry.
Its that they give us what we want.
I don’t see a repeal of DOMA in the works.
At this point, the California fight is symbolic. The reality is that the biggest issue for gay Americans today is that people married in CT or VT or MA or other jurisdictions still won’t have their marriages recognized by the federal government.
And no, Billy C. and his wifey-poo aren’t rushing to deal with that.
On this issue, as ALWAYS, gay people led — with a lawsuit — and politicians were forced to grudgingly follow. Bill Clinton “speaking out” with less than a week to go is welcome, but it’s no big feat or “act of bravery” worthy of the verbal fellatio some are rushing to award the DOMA President.
The right wing are very good with the war of words.
No they aren’t. They are awkward, stilted, and forced to continually lie to even stay in the game.
Gay people are TERRIBLE at the war of words because so many of us are partisan Democrats and unwilling to fight for our own rights if it damages The Party.
Proposition 8 would be losing by 70-30 margins if, from the beginning, we’d described it as what it is — a Morman Church law designed to impose the religious views of the Mormon Church on California. But some touchy-feely liberal Democrats in the campaign thought that would be “divisive” and hurt The Party with Mormons… so we got the present campaign that is so inept that leaders in San Francisco and LA are openly screaming about it and the polls show the results as “too close to call.”
The right wing is NOT good at communicating. They simply have chosen to communicate, while so many gay “leaders” are self-loathing and have internalized that passionate and unapologetic advocacy for our rights will hurt our so-called “allies” who have done little to nothing during most of this campaign.
Until those “leaders” decide — and fully accept — that we are equal and will not sell our rights down the river for The Party, it will remain the central issue in this debate.
crazylove
Brian
You are just factually wrong. I don’t know how to respond to people who are just making shit up . The fact is the bulk of the money for the No on 8 comes from straight. 1 million alone comes from Daily Kos and Act Blue. Do you even know this? Clearly you do not. Bing , Speilberg and multiple other Democratic contributors have also put in several hundred thousand to a million dollars. The Teachers Union of CA gave somewhere around 1.2 million dollars. Your ignorance on this considering the length of your post is astounding. There are an estimated 1 million gay California. I’ve heard only 30,000 gave to No on 8. These are the numbers, but anecdotal stories confirm this as well. Then there is the reverse engineering which confirms my point- if you look at the public record of who has donated (again these are public records Brian not your imagination or mine) they show from where the No on 8 is deriving financial support. The numbers across the country isn’t going to be much different due to the reality of public breakdown.
RE DOMA
What you see Brian isn’t an indicator of reality. You just gave what they call the flat earth argument. No amount of evidence will convince the flat earthers that the earth isn’t flat. And yes, Brian, there are people out there who still believe the earth is flat. Therefore, like them, especially, as you made the silly claim about the donations, I am thinking you got a problem with reality. Here’s some facts- every Democratic nominee- Clinton, Edwards and Obama both during the primary and in GE has said that they will repeal DOMA and DADT. There was indeed hearings on the subject of DADT I believe this year or late last year. Indeed, several military men have come out against DADT. You don’t have to believe Brian- look it up.
RE STATE VERSUS FEDERAL
You are inaccurate about it being symbolic Brian. It’s actually on the state level in the states in question very real for those who live in the states. I am a lawyer. I could go into details, but I think you can do the research yourself.
You are correct about the federal level. But, this goes back to whether your beliefs are correct about DOMA. I believe if we are smart we can win on that at the national level,b ut that would require a gay community that doesn’t exist right now to come into existence. One that is political savvy and that is more interested in winning its rights than in apathy or partying. Like I told one of your fellow posters- you can look the numbers up regarding how this apathy works. yes we vote, but we don’t tend to do much about pushing our agenda. I thank God as a black gay guy, that the NAACP didn’t take the attitude that most gay groups do about race struggles. They fought for it every step of the way. They even won converts over the years like Sen Byrd of West Virginia. They could have taken the attitude of giving up too.
No politician will stop being politicians Brian- most of this will be own our community to grow up a bit about addressing issues effectively.
RE DEMOCRATS
I find this argument just plain bizzare. You blame gays because too many of us are Democrats as to why we are losing rather than the bigots who are bringing up the efforts to enshrine discrimination against us into the law? Well, that’s certainly a battered wife way of looking at the world. “I am sorry for putting my hand in the way of your fist , and I won’t do it again. Please love me.” This is at the core of what you write here.
The problem isn’t that gays are Democrats. It’s that we aren’t willing to go outside of comfort zone. A personal example- I am from the South. My high school didn’t desegregate until the 1960s. This was years after Brown v board. It required a court order to desegregate. When it did, my principle talked about going into an all white high school, and having people spit at her and her team of girl basketball players. They did it anyhow, and they kept doing it. This grit is the difference between the gay movement and the black civil rights movement. One understood the struggle required the williness to struggle. THe other still doesn’t quite get it.
I have another friend who works as a gay guy (he’s white) for a non profit. This non profit refused to do anything about gay issues so what does he do? He throws his hands up in the air and go “oh well I tried. ” I pointed – no, he didn’t try. Trying is realizing you got to keep fighting until you win. That’s what also separates the right until recently from the left. The right will keep trying until they win because they are dedicated. I can predict right now that even if we win on Tues with blocking Prop 8, this won’t end the battle in CA. They will try to bring it up again. How do I know this? Because the parental notice (prop 4) that they have the ballot now in CA was brought up 2 years ago by the conservatives. This is their second try at it. They are dedicated. We are not. This is the reality.
crazylove
PS
DOMA
My comments shouldn’t be seen as saying I trust politicians because I don’t. It means that I understand which one at least opens the door, and which one doesn’t. As Ann Richards used to say I am dancing with the one what brung me to the party. The Republicans offer us nothing in the way of our civil rights. The Democrats do. We need to hold their feet to the fire in a smart and organized way. Build coalitions with unions, black organizations and others. Timing it correctly for maximum impact. I don’t see that happening because so many gays, a lot of them Republican, are delusional about where we can draw political power.
Prop8
“Crazylove:
That’s what also separates the right until recently from the left. The right will keep trying until they win because they are dedicated.”
You were right to nuance that with “until recently”, because I think voters on the left were more dedicated, passionate, and dare I even say more ‘agressive’ than those on the right this election cycle. I’m sure it has caught a few by surprise, I know it did me..It started right back when Ann Coulter called John Edwards a ‘faggot’ at the beginning of the primaries : the overwhelming way people responded back to her set the tone with how the left would conduct themselves for 2 years non stop. That’s a long time to carry such intensive political action. What really changed for the base on the right was the nomination of Palin, but still I don’t consider that they’ve done enough to formulate an argument for themselves as to why they want this change/or more of the same, except maybe for the fact the US has to win the wars.
Prop8
In regards to gays not being as willing to fight for their rights as blacks, there might be a point to that to some extent, but there’s also a fact that the marriage issue is not a primordial one for all, and it can be perceived as a ‘luxury’ of sorts, given the fact that the institution of marriage is in shambles even for straight people. If gays were fighting for equal pay, or the right to attend college, or vote it might be a bit different..
Also there should be such thing as “too much struggle”, which I’ve often felt is the case for what’s going right now. When people are assaulted from all parts, they either prioritize or they simply throw their hands up and live for the day. I’d like to think people, including the gay community, has made its pick and decided for the former. Meaning they’ve put their individual rights on the back burner and thrown their support behind the Democrats in hopes to save what we all view as a sinking ship.
crazylove
Prop8
No particular order:
a) I wish that you were right Prop8 about us gays and why marriage isn’t important to a lot of them. I just don’t sense any issue of great importance to gays other than fucking and partying. What I see mostly is apathy, and then a lot of lip service with nothing backing it up.
b) Sure, there is a such thing as too much struggle. That’s not my point. My point isn’t that we need to accept that life should always be a struggle. It’s that we need to get outside of our comfort zones. Things are stagnant as far as gay because gays are stagnant. Not everyone, but a large percentage seem to be to me when I read gay press. One size doesn’t fit all, but I do see too many who see stuck at not even trying. I know there are reasonsf or this- the society regularly assaults us emotionally and mentally as well as physically at times. There are no existing long term structures (Not to be read marriage). But all of this does make change harder.
c) Democrats– I don’t think the gay struggle is the opposite of the struggle for putting this country on the right track. One grows out of the other. Part of the issue with us gays is that we don’t see that. A society that doesn’t believe in equality produces a Bush or Chenney or McCain or Palin. A society that does produces equality for gays and starts to solve the other issues. These values aren’t incompatable. They are part of the same values we are fighting to achieve. I believe others are starting to get this. This is why you see on daily kos people donating over a million to fighting prop 8. They get this is about our society as we want it to be. That’s why ther eare straight allies.
I think John Cho- the asian dude from movies like the new Star Trek who said it best here:
http://www.angryasianman.com/2008/10/john-cho-against-prop-8.html
This is a first generation Asian guy in America who gets it. It’s about his kids and what AMerican they will live in. The point is what kind of society do want to live in- one of equality or not? Gay marriage is just a response to that bigger question.
Its not about putting individual rights on the front or back burner. It’s about how all of that links into what kind of society we live in. Discrimination against gays may seem to be about gays, but its about also what door is being openned. Who next? What next?
Prop8
You make some valid points about progressive issues being linked together in a global vision of what America could be…But if we’re trying to understand why gays in particular don’t fight more vigorously for their rights -something I’ve pondered for a long time- we have to look at facts more fairly:
For many gays rights cannot yet signify marriage; not in society with a puritanical history like the USA. I know from being on the blogs that one issue that ignite a greater spark with LGBT is seeing more (positive) representations of gays and lesbians in mainstream TV shows and music and media and sports etc…which has yet to receive adequate answer. So truly, how backward does it feel fighting for marriage equality when to many the concept of the ‘gay couple’ is still in its infancy and not part of the mainstream realm and consciousness yet?
The other thing to consider, and it’s a direct consequence of the above point, is that gays do not have any real leaders who could inspire them to any kind action. I recall that at some point last year Larry Kramer came out of retirement following General Pace’s unfortunate remarks, and he made a brilliant speech for Act Up’s 20th Anniversary, calling for the establishment of a new “Gay Army”. I was SO excited about this prospect, not because we might have a chance to win, but because it was a chance to finally debate *ideas*, which I think is as vital a factor to progress as laws/rights are. But then Kramer organized a protest in NYC alongside former governor Jim McGreevey and Matt Foreman of the Task Force where the police chose to arrest many, and that was it. He was not be heard of again (http://www.towleroad.com/2007/03/post.html). The same thing happened to Rosie O’Donnell, who has been reduced to the relative silence of her blog, and as for Ellen she’s considered as ‘straight-washed’ as can be.
Then you also have sites like myspace, where many of the super groups where gay youth used to chitchat while introducing themselves to the topic LGBT politics have been but decimated when conservative Rupert Murdoch took over.
So, really we can’t have it both ways and one hand say gays ought to be engaged, yet when they do so in a decent and tangible way their voices are stripped away. Quite frankly, I’m quite surprised to hear 1 million $ has been raised to fight Prop 8, but then I have to remember it comes from…Kos. And that’s the lesson to be drawned as far as I’m concerned: what’s left of the gay community is mostly straight allies and celebrities speaking for & in our name, and politicians deciding what’s good for us.
Snoodle
That’s really great to hear 🙂 I just wish I lived there to vote!
Hoping it all goes well, from Canada.
crazylove
Prop8:
Let me answer as clearly as I can:
a) My discourse and those of other progressives (I spend most of my time around progressives after spending too much of my earlier life around conservatives) isn’t about replacing one orthodoxy with another. Therefore, the whole construct of puritanical thought is irrelevant to my formulation of equality under the law. If someone doesn’t want to get married, that’s their choice. The problem is where like with the Christian right, what you call a “fact” (afterall it’s a fact they believe what they believe too) becomes not a matter of choice but a matter of this is how all gays must be. Not all gays want to marry. Not all gays want to live lives outside of marriage. Both are valid choices. That’s the society I want to work toward legally. Equality under the law. That to me is the core fact, and the rest if just orthodoxies.
b) You do what I often say gay people do. You bring all this emotional hurt which you want the law to solve first before addressing what the law does. The law can provide you equality under the law. Not acceptance. If gays are waiting to be accepted before the law changes, then they don’t understand , and this too is a fact, how these things work.
I am a black guy. I am more than just a little bit familar with the black civil rights struggle. Brown v Board preceeded some of the gains we see in racism today by several decades. Does that mean blacks should have waited for whites to accept them before taking down Jim Crow? Here’s the problem with that- what preceeds what? You are making a chicken or egg argument. Acceptance versus the law. My view is that I can’t change other people’s hearts. I can make sure their actions, however, don’t affect my choices. If I want to get married then I should have that right as an American. If want to sleep with 20 guys tonight- that is also my right. but the later has nothing to do with whether the law prevents the former. Get my point?
c) Contrary to popular belief- leadership is not the problem. Followship is. Or to put another way, the black civil rights movement got stuck later on with the idea of finding a messiah like a MLK or Malcolm X rather than continuing the efforts that in reality were a product of all African Americans of which MLK and Malcolm X were only symbols. You said the things of which you are saying are facts. That may be true. Here’s another one. If gays dont’ change to fight for better lives, the society around them won’t either.
d) You can’t blame myspace for our own inaction. Again, this seems like scapegoatism to me.
e) By the way, apparently I was wrong about the numbers. Its true a lot of straight allies donated money. But according to the LA Times I believe it says that much of it also came from small donors of 100 dollars or less. Therefore, I can’t be sure the numbers I oringially saw were accurate or not.
If it seems like I am being harsh about my fellow gays, I should point out that my issue with other gay folks is actually my issue with America as a country in general. I truly hope Obama works out. But it is not going to be up to him to change this country. Thats our job. We were the ones who got ourselve shere. Our “leaders” only did what we allowed them to do to us. Bill Moyers had this guy on discussing that the real problem is the American people a few months back. His point was that no leader can tell the American people the truth anymore. It’s like that Jack Nicholson line from “A Few Good Men”- “we can’t handle the truth.” The truth is that we are dwindling superpower in our twilight years, but that’s not the subject here. I just see gays acting in the same manner as everyone else except the crazies (but in actuality the crazies are yet more proof of our dwindling society). On the one hand , that’s a good thing, but on the other the way it which it is happening isn’t. Instead of replacing puritanism with choice we are replacing it with a different orthodoxy.
Prop8
I’m not really disagreeing with much of what you’re saying, except I had a different perspective as to why gays don’t engage more. Just a point:
I do not think that the ’emotional’ is necessarily irrelevant to the discussion of gay rights. The command of heart is indeed important in the emergence of any leader. Excessive fear and distress can lead to inaction -a form of social stagnation-, and that is seen in many countries around the world..What can restore that broken faith comes through ’emotions’ in many respects, and that is inspiration and hope which we all need to go on. And that often comes through a leader or several of them who have the ability to speak to and for the community.
crazylove
Prop8
I’ve never seen anyone express hope or fear. Just orthodoxy. I suppose the orthodoxy is an expression of fear since that’s what people are afraid use to survive, but hope? Maybe it’s just a defensive mechanism, but most gay men I know aren’t even capable of not being jaded much less hopeful about anything even with their friends. You would think in my 13 years of being out and talking to them I would see these underlying hopes of which you speak rather than hear about orthodoxy (which by the way is a long list of things they say from rote about what gay men are and are not that seem more an adoption of the community standard which itself seems to be a long list of defensive stances about how straights perceive being gay).
seitan-on-a-stick
Set your alarm early and VOTE No on Proposition 8 or be prepared for Long, long lines.
NO on HATE!
Katie
Woot Woot! I’m so happy my favorite man in the world is for gay rights! (I know about don’t ask don’t tell, but the majority of congress was republican; so his enitial plan went down the toilet, and he had to chage it. I’m proud he’s sticking up for you guys 100% on prop 8!