SOUNDBITES — “In fact, it’s the silly distractions – like weighing in on his friend Skip Gates’ arrest during a press conference on health care – that make the President seem unfocused and disturbingly cavalier about the gravity of our current woes, and the impact his sweeping policies will have on them. Drafting legislation to help out small special interest groups should be at the bottom of the pile until plans to help the vast majority of struggling Americans are put in place. Whether or not you support gay rights – and I do – directing attention to gay issues at a time like this is absurd. And any suggestion otherwise is merely myopia on anabolic steroids.” —Avid hunter and conservative pundit S.E. Cupp expounding on her distaste for your “special interests” in the face of real American problems
S.E. Cupp
Brian
Religion speaking. This one’s a Catholic.
InExile
Sounds like a gay Obot.
Mike
@InExile: What? Sounds like you agree with the above conservative pundit’s view.
Dave
@Brian: Actually, this one’s an atheist. http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=8570. Close though. Raised Catholic, then woke up. Maybe not all the way.
Bryan
Actually, she claims to be an atheist. I disagree with what she’s saying, of course, but I usually hear this from straight liberals and conservatives. I think that we can’t expect to see much action until the healthcare bill is at least through and some more action has been taken on the economy.
I think that we will see some action on LGBT issues within a year with ENDA and hate crimes going through sooner. It’s not right but it seems to be how politics work. We don’t want to let this be continually pushed down the road like with Clinton but the administration is being pushed and will probably take major action within the next couple years, if for nothing but to get donations for the next election cycle. We shouldn’t just wait on the sidelines but shouldn’t expect that it’s now or never.
On a side note, a universal healthcare program or at least affordable coverage for everyone regardless of prior conditions would be an enormous benefit to the LGBT community.
Rhydderch
cunt
Mike
Wait your turn, gays. We’ll get to you. Here, have a lolly while you wait.
merkin
In this instance, I think she has a point. The President only has so much political capital he can use to get the public behind his policies–and with his numbers down to 50 percent, its not a lot. Using that capital to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell instead of getting his economic policies or plans for N Korea or the Middle East is wrong. People need to stop being babies and grow up and face political realities.
Besides, what exactly is Obama supposed to do anyway, besides say some nice words? The power to give us marriage rights lies with Congress and the Supreme Court.
SM
Obama wants a strong public healthcare option for all Americans and the White House is now defending the fact Obama is being compared to Hitler by the wingnuts and townhall meetings have gotten violent.
Hillary wanted universal healthcare. She was the queen of universal healthcare. She would have put nothing in front of that fight…even you.
galefan2004
Until you deal with the inequality in this country you will never fix any of the larger problems. Societies that have unequal citizens never function correctly. Gay people don’t have special interests they have human interests. There is never a good or bad time to fight for equality there is just the fight.
galefan2004
@Bryan: Health care will not pass at all if it doesn’t pass by the December recess. Next year is a congressional election year, so all those needed votes will be busy on the campaign trail.
I also don’t agree that gay rights other than maybe ENDA, which the vast majority of this country is in support of, will be passed if we wait to long. When Obama is going for reelection he will be kiting the religious vote and staying away from gay rights. So, we will have to wait until after the election in 2012 to see any results on marriage on a national level if it doesn’t happen before he starts his 2012 campaign which will start in 2011.
Unfortunately, our elected officials enjoy having god in the mix when it comes to politics way to much.
galefan2004
@merkin: You are wrong. Obama will not lose political capital if he stop gaps military dismissals. He will gain it. The Democrats want him to do it. He won’t do it because he stupidly (I guess I can use that word for him seeing he can use it for cops that do their jobs) wants to believe in bipartisan politics. Bipartisan politics haven’t existed in this country since the first invention of a two party system and they never will. He needs to court the democrats and forget about the republicans. Instead he is courting the republicans and forgetting about the democrats. It just reeks of inexperience, because as the most inexperienced president we have ever had, Obama just doesn’t understand how to work the old boy network that is DC.
galefan2004
@galefan2004: Besides, he is losing more capital on health care than anything else because absolutely no one understands his 1000 page plan and he has been able to explain it. You really can’t expect the American people to get behind something they simply do not understand and thinking that you can is just going to make you look foolish. When you look foolish you lose your popularity.
jason
SE Cupp is misguided. It’s not a question of priorities. It’s a question of keeping to your word. Obama’s actions are not matching his words.
As for this majority/minority nonsense, I’ll remind Cupp that the status of each citizen is the same regardless of whether he/she belongs in a majority or minority. Moreover, I might be considered a minority as a gay person but a majority as a white person.
Andrew
The old “we can’t multi-task in the United States” argument. Blah blah blah. As if our government (local, state, and federal) doesn’t always deal with multiple important issues at one time. Maybe we should just make a big list and prioritize, like 3rd graders do: Let’s see… is transportation infrastructure more important than sanitation or libraries or pre-K or public housing or missile defense?
It’s silly and a waste of time to argue that civil rights (or anything else important, for that matter) should “wait” because we have a recession and a war going on. This is a false argument that’s used all the time. Truth is, all of the varied matters that we have to deal with are “polarities” — meaning, no one issue can be addressed at the complete expense of another. We have to learn how to manage all of the issues that compete for our time and resources — that includes the continuing civil rights struggles here and elsewhere. Otherwise, we’ll just keep getting more of the same. IMHO.
Cam
Could seombody please tell me when every complaint from every group larger than ours is supposed to be met? Because, um, you know they used this same line of reasoning when Clinton was President to excuse his not doing anything for us.
Just because a group is smaller in no way means that they are less deserving. Native American’s are a small group, Children with Cancer are a smaller group, Foster Children area a small group. Is everybody saying that none of the3se groups should have any of their issues looked at until the large marjority of Americans have nothing else to complain about? What a ridiculous comment. It again uses the flase argument that the govt. can only do one thing at a time.