Remember when DNC asked the gays to donate cash at a June fundraiser? And we handed them a reported (but not verified) $1 million? Some of us remained supportive of the DNC, while others criticized it for, like the White House, refusing to forcefully act on LGBT legislation. And then just this week, the DNC, once again, failed to live up to its commitment to LGBTs when it purposefully omitted any mention of Maine’s Question 1 from a series of email blasts to supporters. To make matters worse, not only has the DNC so obviously been turning its back on queers, but now it’s been caught lying about it.
Hoping to generate support for the re-election bid of New Jersey’s Gov. Jon Corzine, the DNC sent out an 11th hour plea — including to Maine residents — hoping activists would put in calls to drum up votes. But now DNC treasurer and vociferous Obama defender Andy Tobias reveals his org lied about who those emails were sent to, according to information gleaned by John Aravosis. The blasts not only went out to New Jersey Democrats, but Mainers as well, who clearly had a more pressing issue on their hands: marriage equality. So how come that very issue went unaddressed in those emails, while an election in another state was given priority?
Not only does Tobias own the DNC’s misleading information about what happened with its Election Day outreach, he admits the DNC dropped the ball in Maine.
He writes to DNC donors: “A different email [from the Corzine-related one] went out to Mainers urging them to vote. As the only thing of substance anyone was voting on in Maine was Question One, and as Democratic activists vote our way, this was a small but positive effort to be helpful. I would have liked to see that email discuss No One One directly, in case there may have been an email-enabled Organizing for America activist someplace in Maine who did NOT know where Maine Democrats stood on this issue. (Out of the country without Internet access until the night before the election?) But I’m told there was concern that advocating specifically for a ballot initiative, whether LGBT or otherwise, would set a precedent for every other ballot initiative. Bureaucracies are nervous about setting precedents.”
Democrats helped lead to this
Yes On 1 victory celebration
Nervous about setting precedents? Moronic, but fine. But what’s all this anxiety about encouraging people to vote for civil rights and against discrimination? (Meanwhile, Aravosis points out that the DNC does have precedent for targeting specific ballot initiatives.)
Would Question 1 have failed, as we hoped, if the DNC’s emails addressed it directly? Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to tell. But what’s evident is the DNC completely ignored the issue, and only afterward admitted its gross mistake.
This is an organization that, like the president, repeatedly treats the queer community with lip service, but when our rights are on the line, when it matters most to us, disappears into the . And what’s the point of amassing a huge network of supporters if you refuse to mobilize them on something so basic as civil rights?
We can already hear the criticism of our position: “What, you think the GOP is better?” No, it isn’t. But at least Republicans aren’t lying to our faces, pretending our issues are their concerns, begging us for cash, and then failing miserably to support us.
When it comes to fingerpointing in the wake of Maine’s marriage loss, perhaps it’s time to point the finger at each of us — if you’re among those supporting an organization actively trafficking in lying to and manipulating the LGBT community.
J.P.
There was also an entry from AMERICAblog’s Gay Blog that mentioned that the DNC was asked for money in support of the No on 1 movement in Maine. The DNC refused.
Mike
Another example of why I always vote third party.
jason
It’s time for the gay community to give the Democrats the shaft. No ifs, no buts.
Chitown Kev
Let me be clear.
Throw no shade at the Maine Democratic Party; they were very supportive. (The equipment I used was from the Maine Democratic Party; that’s just one of a few examples that I know of.)
The national Democratics are a disgrace. And Tobias? A house gay, obviously…
wondermann
Okay., let’s leave the Dems. But seriously what will that really accomplish?
We need to know what the DNC plans are for using the million dollars they raised from us.
They should explain their stance to us (LGBT community) and why they didn’t help. Now to be fair, the RNC was not apart of the Yes on ! campaign so maybe the issue is ballot measures.
However, with most of our orgs in jeopardy (EAA) and a weak 3rd party, we shouldn’t so quick to jump ship yet.
PopSnap
Democrats in general are much more of a huge umbrella conglomerate of various interests. We have people who are more liberal than the Communist party, and people more conservative than fascists.
As such, they are very inneffectual, just like this whole health care fiasco proved. We’re getting a wishy washy, watered down bill tommorrow, and its all because of the 20% of right wing nutjobs yelling loudly and waving ridiculous signs.
The Dems. need to grow a set. They have greatly outnumbered the Republicans since at least the fifties in terms of party membership. People wont go anywhere if they gave to marriage equality. Independants are the ones who swing back and forth between Dem and Republican; if voting were legally required by law, we’d never elect any more than 5 Republicans to congress.
Brian NJ
Dems need to grow balls, and gays need to held them by being very critical of their failure to end the Federal hate laws on the books while democrats control the house, senate and white house.
It is in the DNC interest to vlow off gays because they need a fired up base. They should not be afraid of the gay issue, but take ownership of it. It is American patriotism itself – all men are created equal; life liberty pursuit of happiness.
Gay activists need to be blasted for being too closely aligned with the party. New Jersey is a great example. Democrats controlled everything, and somehow it never got done. I think there was this back-end back room promise that they would get to it in the lame duck session. Who knows if that will happen now.
STOP THE HRC BSDM PROSTITUTE TIE ME UP AND THROW ME IN A CLOSET NOW BUT PAY ME WHENEVER “STRATEGY.”
InExile
If Obama was LEADING his party we wouldn’t have such a mess on our hands! He is NOT LEADING, the tail is wagging the dog.
Cindy
I am done with the Democratic party. Just done. I will be spending my time and money searching out the best Green Party candidates I can find to support. Even if they lose, at least I won’t continue to live with this awful feeling of realizing the Dems just pandered and lied to me while taking my check. It happened with Clinton, it’s happening with Obama and I just can not do it again.
Cam
They didn’t forget about it…they made a coldly calculated decision to ignore it. The party is angry that they can’t blame our lack of rights on the GOP being in the majority anymore, they don’t seem to actually want to help us and yet don’t know how to keep making excuses for why they aren’t.
Attmay
Democrats and the left treated us like a cheap date from day one.
So I say it’s time for gays to abandon Democrats and the left. For good.
InExile
#10 Cam – You are correct, they knew exactly what they were doing. They just try to appear as though they support our equality but the fact is they do not.
wondermann
Technically, it wasn’t a “lie” to the gay community. In fact this finger pointing a bit over dramatic.
We should be bothered by DNC actions, but we shouldn’t fall in foolishness every time John Aravosis has a tantrum.
andy_d
And one of the saddest facts is that Mr. Tobias is GAY! Cabn you say “Quisling?”
Not Surprised
Gee, Queerty, speaking of owning up to failure, where are you on the subject of the Queerty-backed and promoted “Equality” circuit party in Washington? True, it never drew anything close to the 250,000 that Queerty claimed (lies, anyone??) but it still siphoned off people and money from the effort in Maine.
Yeah, Queerty, point the finger everywhere but at your own selves.
mark
DNC and Obama are going to get a lesson in FIERCE.
A fierce apathy to nutless spineless faux allies who couldn’t even say the f*cking words MARRIAGE EQUALITY.
Time for Progressives to kick that USELESS tool Tim Kaine to the curb. He makes Michael Steele look shmart.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
The Democrats are creating a landslide against themselves by marginalizing gays and women who are their largest voting blocs. You can’t win elections on African-American votes alone who didn’t even turn out in the same numbers as the Presidential election to elect a black Mayor of NYC! Youth will sit it out because Change didn’t come fast enough and there ain’t no jobs, women still feel cheated out of the glass ceiling, including the continuation of the good old boy’s club and Latinos are expected to rally behind Sarah Palin’s 2012 run as they are the more “values based” of voters and hello? No jobs! It is important that we support third party gay-inclusive candidates beyond mere lip service. Otherwise, we will not see Gay Civil Rights in our lifetime, much less Marriage Equality. Watch New York go down in flames next without Federal Protections to overturn these unconstitutional voter-driven anti-gay Propositions on the Ballot. As Maine and California goes, so goes the Nation. Clearly, we are screwed with this strategy. I will be voting anti-incumbency until I get the right result and I’m far from alone in that thinking. What a shame that President Obama will have one term where the tide turned against him because he is clearly out of his league with amateur advisers and will lose about a dozen congressional seats in 2010 and really get nothing done. At what point do we stop blaming Bush and man up to our own leadership failures where the Department of Labor puts unemployment at 17.5% and the Democrats treat US like the Swine Flu instead of treating the Swine Flu?
Daniel
Just remember, every year more old Maine voters who oppose equality die of old age than the margin of this vote. The same thing happened with the civil rights law that added sexual orientation in Maine, first vetoed then passed. So at least find comfort in knowing 47% of Maine voters are decent people and the remaining 53% who voted are croaking, and they go to their graves having willfully voted to violate the human rights of millions of children, something achieved by only the greatest of criminals in history like the Nazis, and which in any universe, means they will no doubt burn in hell for all time.
Ian
It’s obvious that the current (D) party looks at us with distaste like finding some s**t on your shoe, unless of course we have some $$$ to give for their re-election campaigns of course. So since they mostly (there are SOME good Dems in there) could care less about us & the only thing they care about are their kick-backs and re-election to continue to GET those kick-backs, this is what I propose:
At the time of re-election cycles THIS is when we make a MAJOR shout and get together in LARGE numbers to call them out on their almost complete lack of committment to the gay community, as THIS is the ONLY time they get scared and will pay attention to us if we are shouting LOUDLY enough. Second to that is the major importance of creating our OWN media arm through using camera phones, etc. with video of our large numbers and (D) politicians reactions when questioned and called out on their two-faced lack of support, so the likes of CNN, FOX, etc. can’t try to censor us out of the news like they did when they created the almost complete news black-out of when Stephen Colbert skewered them at the Press dinner when Bush was in office. We then send that video to progressive and supportive bloggers, Rachel Maddow & Keith Olbermann, etc. so what we are attempting to do will actually get seen by the American masses.
An idea like the above is a start at any rate and would finally make (D) politicians STOP taking us for granted since “we have no other party to go to.”
glennmcgahee
Not only money, but workers were pulled from Maine to he put heavier focus on the New Jersey race. When are we gonna admit we are being battered ( as in Battered Wife syndrome) and used by Obama and the DNC. Seems we keep coming back for more.
glennmcgahee
Daniel, get a grip. You might really believe that this is a generational thing but we lifelong Democrats have been fighting for this since before you were born. Its the old and young being collared by the religious thugs that we are fighting against, not older folk.
Patrick T
As a life-long Dem, this was the last election for me. Let someone else play “Redcoat”. I’m tired of being harrassed for money and time simply so I WON’T be Attacked. Being a Gay Dem is like living in a Gang neighborhood. You pay “Protection”….or else.
Time has proved that Voting for the Lesser Evil is still supporting Evil.
Markie-Mark
I received a request for money from the DNC. I mailed back with the note: The gAyTM is closed and signed my name. I’d like to encourage everyone to do this because if they get enough of those notes it will scare them.
And please, please vote for the Green Party (check out their stand on gay marriage which they have had in their national platform for 16 YEARS!). We really need to make the Democraps lose. We lived through 8 years of the Republishits and activism was stronger than it is now.
Bill Perdue
The recent history of the DNC, the Obama campaign and the Congressional Democrats explains their hostility towards us.
The leadership of the DNC are homophobes and bigots.
Obama chose Time Kaine of Virginia to nominally run the DNC. Kaine, like Bill Cinton, is a Dixiecrat. Kaine’s ‘faith based’ program is against reproductive choice and stem cell research and for funding abstinence training. He was an early and hardnosed supporter of the genocide in Iraq and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. He ran a gay-baiting campaign to become governor and has the same bigoted attitude towards same sex marriage as Obama, McCain and Hillary Clinton.
The real power in the DNC is Leah Daughtry who runs its day to day operations. Like Obama she’s a Jebuzocrat, someone who caters to the christer right. She’s an ordained pentecostal bigot who opposes same sex marriage. Daughtry used DNC funds to pay for anti-GLBT and anti-choice campaigns by other Jebuzocrats. Daughtry was sued, successfully, by the DNCs own director or LGBT outreach for antigay discriminatory hiring and firing practice.
Obama liked Daughtry so much she was promoted to running the Democrat national convention in Denver. Obama’s campaign catered to the christian right from beginning to end, from Donnie McClurkin to Rick Warren and ‘gawd’s in the mix”. Obama chose another ordained pentecostal bigot, Joshua Dubois to run his ‘faith’, read bigot, outreach and made significant inroads into the Republicans bigot outreach.
With Democrat ‘friends’ like Obama, Daughtry, Kaine and Dubois who needs Republican enemies like Bush and Rove.
constructionworker
Slow down people….the DNC is worried about the mid-term elections and getting Obama reelected after that; besides, not all of us even want marriage equality. I’ll never understand what all the fuss is about among a group of people that can’t even get to the 2nd date.
Charles Merrill
Bill Perdue
It’s Rahm Emmanuel’s economy and his sock puppet Obama. They can’t keep blame Bush now that they are in control. Geitner should be fired and Barney Frank’s mouth duct taped. Corporations layoff workers to cut losses showing a false increase in profit. Unless Obama can create jobs (a miracle), he and the DNC are out on their ass in 2012, nevermind their theme, Faith and Hope. Those two Christian “faith based” words have become turds to the unemployed and homeless.
DaveO
The Democratic party has no incentive to follow through on gay rights, and in fact a rather large one to not follow through. Many gays (and their allies) disagree with the Democratic party on big government, but vote for Democrats anyway in the misguided hope that they will come through on gay rights issues. If the Democrats ever DO come through, those small government gays who vote Democrat anyway no longer have any incentive to do so, are free to consider other issues, and will no longer support Democratic party. Thus the situation we’re in is the one most favorable to the Democratic party – championing our cause but not actually doing anything about it.
Chitown Kev
@DaveO
Or the defections can happen much sooner, as is the case with New Labours and the Tories in Britain.
1EqualityUSA
The appointing of Supreme Court justices will rule the day. Right now it’s four and four with Kennedy teetering in the middle. One, (John Paul Stevens?) opted for fewer assistants this coming year, a sign that he’ll be retiring. Ginsburg might boogie too. Consider the big picture before bailing on the bags of s**t Dems. I want fair judges without God complexes, not the Pope’s puppets deciding our equal rights cases for us.
Brian NJ
The relationship between gays and the democrats is the relationship between shop owners in the old Italian neighborhoods and the Mob. They come by and shake us down for money and patronage, all the while threatening that if they didn’t have us, the cops would shake us down.
Well I am sick of living in a Sicilian State with the fucking bloodsuckers. It is like that scene in Interview with a Vampire where Claudia goes mad because every time she cuts off her hair, it grows right back. It is a rancid and sick relationship. I have been a lifelong democrat, but they have just been so abusive I am walking out. I say skuttle the ship and let’s start with something fresh and younger. If I have to wait, I will wait for some new people instead of this illusory promise crap. BYE OBAMA, BYE NANCY, BYE HARRY!!
Bill Perdue
No. 26 · Charles Merrill
Take a look at the rise and fall of unemployment percentages and the GDP during the Great Depression to get a feel for where we are. Those are the key statistics for deciding whether or not this recession is a depression. 17.5% percent unemployment is well with the statistical range of the Great Depression.
In late 1929 the first bank panic begins the Depression. Unemployment is at 3.7 percent.
In 1930, the first year of the Depression unemployment jumped from 3.2 to 8.7 percent.
In 1931 unemployment rises to 15.9 percent.
In 1932 over 13 million Americans have lost their jobs since 1929 and unemployment is 23.6 percent.
In 1933 unemployment rises a little, to 24.9 percent, nears it’s highest level.
In 1934 unemployment drops a little to 21.7 percent. Sweden uses deficit spending on social programs to end their depression.
In 1935 the Democrats fund huge public works projects like the Works Progress Administration, and the Rural Electrification Administration and unemployment dips to 20.1 percent.
In 1936 unemployment falls to 16.9 percent. German depression ends as Hitler rearms.
In 1937 the GNP rises 5.0 percent, and unemployment falls to 14.3 percent, it’s lowest level during the depression.
In 1938 the depression deepens in spite of the WPA and REA – the GNP falls 4.5 percent, and unemployment rises to 19.0 percent. As England rearms their depression ends.
In 1939 the GNP rises 7.9 percent and unemployment falls to 17.2 percent. The US depression begins to end because of war spending. Hitler invades Poland.
December 7th, 1941, 0700 hours – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – the Depression ends. The truth is that all FDR’s programs did nothing to end the Depression. They were band aids at best. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto ended it.
For anyone who wants to track the real, as opposed to the Reagan version of unemployment go to the Dept of Commerce, Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
Bill Perdue
No. 11 · Attmay says “Democrats and the left treated us like a cheap date from day one.”
Democrats have never been part of the left. Your rightiwng buddies, Republican or not, and the Democrats have always had similar views about us. They oppose our agenda. They cater to the religious right, especially Obama. They oppose any measures to stifle the open and dangerous bigotry of the cults. Their differences are cosmetic.
The want to retain Clintons DADT and DOMA, continue the war from Palestine to Pakistan to steal oil and give the rich whatever they want.
We have to abandon both parties and build a leftwing party based on the trade unions.
Republicans are Democrats in drag.
Supporting either of the two right centrist parties is idiocy.
Bill Perdue
No. 30 · Brian NJ – “The relationship between gays and the democrats is the relationship between shop owners in the old Italian neighborhoods and the Mob.”
Excellent analogy. It’s a protection racket.
Check out the new guys at http://www.kclabor.org/ or http://labornotes.org
Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace
It’s time America. Onward to equality.
Cheers, Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA.
Re: Obama, and Dems: Just Bush with a nice tan……
Bill Perdue
No. 26 · Charles Merrill – “It’s Rahm Emmanuel’s economy and his sock puppet Obama.” The economy belongs to the looter class and is run by the uber rich.
Emmanuel and Obama are both lap dogs of the rich. Emmanuel’s a yapping biter and Obama is a cool, collected Pekinese.
Attmay
@31 Bile Perdue:
“December 7th, 1941, 0700 hours – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – the Depression ends. The truth is that all FDR’s programs did nothing to end the Depression. They were band aids at best. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto ended it.”
You just torpedoed your own case for eat-the-rich socialism, Bile.
And fuck the greedy labor unions. Labor is ground zero for homophobia. My friend used to be a projectionist in a movie theater, and the reason they stopped using union projectionists: union greed. They wanted more than what their job was worth, so the owners of movie theaters, who were already taking it up the ass from distributors, told them to take a hike.
And how fucking dare you support anti-gay Islamic nations and the wannabe KKK non-state of “Palestine”. If you want to stop the influence of the religious cults, then this is the one cult you should be trying to stop. They kill gays faster than you can say Jack Robinson. For that alone, I say we treat them just like we treated Germany and Japan: with bombs. End terror states that ban homosexuality. A pro-Islamist gay like you is the real Jew for Hitler.
What does someone have to do to get banned here? Anti-gay astroturfing: allowed. Stalinist and pro-terrorist propaganda: allowed. God how I miss the flag button.
1EqualityUSA
Dear Bill Perdue, It’s expensive to treat us with equality. Somebody crunched the numbers and said, “mmmmm, no, not yet.”
SusanC
When I think of Maine, I think of :
Dolores Claiborne (love her)
Rocky Coasts
Winslow Homer
and now,
Crypto Nazis masquerading as Democrats.
Where is the love for the Homo these days in politics?
Charles Merrill
Bill Perdue
There is always going to be the uber rich, it’s the nature of humans and other mammals to be greedy. Read DNC’s Andy Tobias books and tapes on how to get richer. lol
Kurt
Let’s see. Gays who never lifted a finger on Maine complaining because someone else (DNC) didn’t do the work they didn’t do.
Its back to children crying “Mommy fix it”
Brian NJ
The DNC and the gay elites have a mob protection scheme, just like Bill Purdue said. I was a lifelong democrat, but now is the time to stay home. Even when democrats control the entire Federal government, they just can’t bring themselves to pass two simple repeals. They can do everything else, much harder new legislation, but not DADT and DOMA, two fucking simple repeals.
They keep the hate laws on the books because they want us around for just one more election cycle. But change never comes because gays never change. They give Obama multiple standing ovations, like the wife with a black eye who thinks if the house were clean enough, the abuse will stop. But it never does because she does not have the courage to walk out on him.
All the brainwashed gays “leaders” know how to do is threaten the gay population. WORK HARDER! WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN! VOTE DEMOCRATIC OR ELSE! That’s all that happens in this sick scheme. Gays have to stop working to support the democratic party. They have created abuse dependency syndrome on the gays. Time to break they cycle.
1EqualityUSA
Brian NJ, With the Supreme Court so evenly divided, and one, possibly two liberal justices on the way out, isn’t it dangerous to bail now? I agree that Dems are jerks and deserve to be left by the gay community, but timing is everything and Supreme Court appointees will call the shots for decades to come.
1EqualityUSA
Rachel Maddow: Another Supreme Court Justice Retiring?
ttp://video.google.com/videosearch?q=maddow%2C+supreme+court+justice+leaving+soon&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#q=maddow%2C+supreme+court+justice&hl=en&view=2&emb=0
If Stevens leaves and Ginsburg leaves very soon, and a furious gay community abandons Dems for green party, we are risking having GOP pick the next justices for us.
1EqualityUSA
Rachel Maddow, Liberal Justice John Paul Stevens retiring?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/32666355#32666355
mark Segal
Glad to see the vigorous debate on this. Simple question could the DNC have done more? Answer yes. Reason. Priority was NJ. Now ask why. Marriage on the ballot has had a -0- record. Read that we have won zero out of over 30 races. Seems WE must do our homework and stop blaming others. Since while DNC puts it’s priority first we as a community must put ours first.
And where should those priorities be. How bout non-discrimination where we do have a plan and which affects more LGBT people then marriage, DODT combined. And better yet we’ve had incredible victories in this area. we know how to do it!
Now, if you wish to make marriage an issue, and some rightfully feel strongly about this. Plan it right. First stop attacking the religious right during the campaign. All that does is make them stronger and get out their base. Best way to deal with that issue is to have a DIPLOMATIC piece that explains that marriage does not change anything with the beliefs or activities of any religion. Example. A catholic church will not allow a catholic wedding to a jew in a church. Similarly the Church would not have to marry gays even if the bill passed. BE CLEAR ABOUT THAT. Don’t assume that our natural allies are with us on this issue. Again outreach. In California the Black religious community was taken for granted and we lost that block. An outreach coming from Black LGBT community leaders and black elected officials could have changed the outcome.
Last of all our issues, marriage has the lowest numbers in every public opinion poll nationally. Some state where it has been an issue we fare better. But it is still the issue where we have little support, and spend our efforts, resources, and time and close our eyes to other successes. Example Tuesday’s election. While we lost Maine we had more victories in more categories nationwide then ever before in history.
Mark Segal
Bill Perdue
No. 36 • Attmay is a Bushite slugbrain.
And a liar. Unions are for GLBT rights on the job. Its management and business owners that want to preserve their ‘right’ to discriminate in hiring, firing and wages, which is why they bankrolled the opposition to ENDA.
And an idiot. The Pearl Harbor example shows that societies run by the looter rich can’t be reformed or fixed without war and the growth of a military industrial complex. In the current crisis US foreign policy is determined by a hugely bloated military industrial complex so that solution is not available.
And an islamophobe, aka a racist. In spite of his bloodthirsty pathology the solution for Palestine is the creation of a democratic, socialist, multiethnic state. To make that easier we should support the immediate and total withdrawal of all US forces, mercenaries and spy agencies from the region from Palestine to Pakistan and an end to supplying arms to the ‘brave’ zionists so they can engage in ethnic cleansing as they and their mercenaries did at Deir Yassin, and organized at Shatila and Gaza.
We should support the trade boycott against the apartheid zionist regime called for by the English equivalent of the AFL-CIO, the TUC.
Hugh Lanning, chairman of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, described the TUC move as a “landmark” decision which followed a wave of motions passed at individual union conferences this year because of “outrage” at Israel’s “brutal war” on Gaza…
Reiterating the union’s condemnation of the offensive, Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, told union delegates that they “have a part to play” in seeing an end to the occupation, a dismantling of the separation wall and the removal of the illegal settlements.
In the most controversial motion to be debated at the four-day conference in Liverpool, Barber told delegates: “We believe that targeted action – aimed at goods from the illegal settlements and at companies involved in the occupation and the wall – is the right way forward.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/17/tuc-back-boycott-israel-goods
Bill Perdue
No. 45 • Mark Segal makes some good points.
Marriage battles are not our priority and they are difficult to win. In Kalamazoo, where the question was about discrimination in housing and employment we won hands down, 35% bigot and 65% anti bigot.
And he’s right that No on 8 and EQCA ignored minority communities in California including African Americans, Latinas and Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders and immigrants. That was clumsy and racist at best and just plain suicidal in a state where ‘minorities’ are the majority.
I think what’s missing from Mark Segals analysis is that for the most part the battles over marriage have not been fights we sought. Right centrists and cultists, first organized by Rove and Bush and now by Obama, Dubois and Kaine have gone after us using SSM as a wedge to help themselves get elected. That is precisely what Obama did when he trumpeted “gawd’s in the mix.”
My opinion is that when LGBT folks who are married or want to get married come under attack by the right we have to go all out to defend them. And that’s in spite of the fact that I think that marriage as a way of partnering is a crock and that all partners and single people should have all the rights and tax breaks that married people have.
At the same time I think we need to fight for a 50 state law to end discrimination in housing employment and access to services that makes it easy to sure for compensation and applies harsh fines and jail time for bigots. ENDA, even if it’s inclusive is just the beginning of that fight.
Mark
@Constructionworker – My partner died after 5 years together. My best friends have been together for 19 years, another couple 32 years and yet another for 43 years – I think that qualifies as beyond the second date. You bet your sweet ass I want an demand marriage equality!
Mark
@40 I donated as much as I could Kurt – being overseas I couldn’t fly 11,000 miles to go door knocking.