Yeah, what is with President Obama trying so hard to get religious conservatives on board with his pro-gay policies — when, arguably, they never will? Last night on Countdown, Dan Savage outlined Obama’s lose-lose strategy in sacrificing support from gays by pandering to “fundamentalist Christians,” who may never be for equality.
strategy
WATCH: Obama Keeps Pandering to Religious Conservatives. Why?
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SM
Obama is playing the Religious Right to get Health Care reform passed. If he does not and starts going to the left…it could blow up in his face. He needs Democrats in the House and Senate to get reelected. He is not a Dictator- he has no choice.
I will bet any amount of money that when he can swings the axe down, it will be against them and for you. That’s why he keeps saying to go out and work to change minds to help.
SM
Also, I don’t really think Obama cares that much about what the Religious Right thinks. He had them all mad a month back because he did not make a big deal about some Religious Function Bush did. Is he even going to church on Sundays? I’ve never seen a President do that.
He will walk right into the belly of the beast with his Democratic head held high -Notre Dame – while you never see Republicans having the spine to meet liberals face to face.
Those students at Notre Dame loved him and cheered him, even when they did not agree on every issue. He will get you equality.
Bill Perdue
If all Obama did was pander to christer loonies we could dismiss him as just another vote hustling jackass politician like Clinton or Bush.
But the facts are that he’s surrounded himself with theocrats like Dubois, Daughtry and Kaine and he holds the same bigoted positions on GLBT rights they do. He’s not just pandering to the religious right, he’s part of it.
He’s bribing them with hundreds of millions of our dollars in the fake ‘faith based’ charity scheme run by his Minister of Pandering Joshua Dubois. Dubois got that plum as a reward for stealing a big chunk of the christer bigot vote away from Karl Rove’s Republican camp.
Obama was given a big boost when he used southern baptist grand wizard Rick Warrens Saddleback debate to simultaneously torpedo our chances to defeat Prop 8 and increase the number of christer loonies who voted for him by shoulting out “gawd’s in the mix.” Obama rewarded him with a spot at the Inaugural, exposing an audience of billions to Warrens cracker/christer con game. Then Obama appointed a Board of bigoted Spirit Advisors opposed to SSM.
With those open wounds still festering he did some more back stabbing, comparing SSM to pedophilia and incest!
Obama and most Democrats are not just fair weather friends. They won large amounts of bigot votes away from the Republicans last fall and they mean to keep them. And we’re paying the price no matter what shills for the DNC are paid to tell you.
Can you guess what the DNC wants from the LGBT communities? Yep. Money. Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. The want your money and want you to shut up and pay like the other dupes and Obots.
The DNC is run by openly bigots like Tim Kaine. Its day to day operations are run by an ordained pentecostal minister/bigot named Leah Daughtry who opposes same sex marriage who was sued, and paid the claim, because of the DNC’s discriminatory hiring and firing of GLBT folks. Likewise, Joshua Dubois, who does the bribing and the interface with bigots like Donnie McClurkin and Warren is also an ordained pentecostal minister/bigot. (No one should be surprised to learn that anti-SSM jackasses like Jimmy Swaggart and the Anal Roberts Klan are also ordained pentecostal bigots and ministers. The only difference is that these bigots are Republican theocrats.)
For info on theocrat Joshua Dubois click on http://www.religiousrightwatch.com/2008/08/wsj-profile-of.html
SM
@Bill Perdue:
You are completely wrong. Obama is not part of the Religious Right. Give me a break.
The Religious Right thinks he is the devil for his stance on abortion and want him gone.
InExile
Dan Savage is probably the best public speaker our community has, beats all the others hand down! Dan Savage should be our leader/spokesperson.
Obama is pandering to the religious right, not to the gay community. Obama not only allowed faith based initiatives to continue, he strengthened them. Faith Based Initiatives are just a way for the government to funnel money to religious extremists who use our own tax dollars to try to destroy LGBT citizens.
Obama has allowed the continued EVANGELISM OF OUR SOLDIERS to continue, no wonder he has stalled the repeal of DADT. Take a look at this website: talk2action.org
Next week Obama will meet with the POPE another enemy of LGBT citizens who preaches to Africans with no HIV medication to not use condoms.
Do not take him at his word. Continue to withhold donations, write your representatives, demonstrate, and demand EQUALITY NOW.
SM
@InExile:
If Obama is pandering to the Religious Right, then why has Pat Robertson and company been tied up in a knot all month over Obama giving Federal Benefits to help your Equality Fight and the White House hosting a gay pride event? Its an odd day in the United States when I can see Pat Robertson and LGBT both being mad at Obama for the same thing.
The Religious Right cannot stand Obama because of his views on abortion. It is a fact.
No offense…but MSNBC spins the news too.
InExile
@SM: I do not have MSNBC, wish I did! I think the religious right has to give their lip service to cover Obama’s tracks, he cannot afford to lose the liberal part of the party, but they know he is looking out for THEM not us.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: Could not agree more, he is one of them.
SM
@InExile:
MSNBC is the video on this thread.
You all are more whacked out in your views than the Religious Right to the point of paranoia.
The Religious Right HATES him…and you all are too spineless yo have his back. OF COURSE HE HAS TO SET IT UP TO TAKE THEIR BACKLASH BECAUSE IT IS COMING.
ARE YOU ALL THAT STUPID!
Bill Perdue
@InExile: Some Obots and DNC shills cite his previous support for SSM as evidence that he’s a “conflicted politician just doing his best to govern”.
He briefly ran, I believe it was in ’96, on a platform supporting SSM, got whomped and moved over to the bigot side. He began pandering big time in his senate race and he’s hasn’t stopped since then. It doesn’t matter in the least what his ”secret” thoughts on the matter are; what matters is that he acts like a bigot and talks like a bigot and all he’s got for us are season tickets to ride under the bus.
The next excuse is always that he’s too busy, and that one has some merit. He has two wars to run, one a genocidal campaign to steal Iraqi oil and another in Afghanistan and Pakistan whose goal seems to be to kill as many children as possible. Vietnam Redux. Nixon Redux.
When he’s not overseeing genocide he has to confer with the Wall Street insiders who run Treasury and see to it that the trillions being handed out to the looter class gets to them on time. And on top of everything he has to browbeat unions in making concession after concession so as not to unduly upset the profit ratios of the looter class. He is a very busy guy, doing exactly what McCain would have done if he’d won.
InExile
@SM: Why has he not asked congress DIRECTLY to draft the repeal of DADT?
Why has he not DIRECTLY asked congress to draft the repeal of DOMA?
Why was a vote on Hate Crimes delayed?
Why was such abusive language used in his defense of DOMA, maybe a wink, wink to the religious right?
I just do not have blind faith in any politician. This man’s actions do not match his words. Waiting until the end of his term for action on these issues is too long. All he needs to do is ask congress DIRECTLY to move on the legislation, that is it, and you know it. If he did that, the ball would be in the hands of congress, not his. We are waiting.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: I am beginning to wonder if we would have been better off with McCain? The fact is all the liberal wing of the party is very upset with this man. He has done for the religious right, Wall Street, not kept his promise on returning to the Clinton era of taxation for the top 5% wage earners, literally nothing for the common man or the LGBT community.
Some may buy all the words for words are his gift, I do not!
Like you said years ago he reportedly was for same sex marriage, but now he is not. The fact is the jury is still out on exactly what this man does and does not believe. It was not even clear in the primary exactly what this man’s beliefs were. The primary was full of mixed signals, which is what we have now. I just do not trust mixed messages. A wink, wink to the religious right here, and a wink , wink to the LGBT community there. It is impossible to be all things to all people which is exactly what his actions say. So what does he stand for? What does he believe? The proof will be in the actions he takes or does not take.
Bill Perdue
@InExile: I don’t think we’d be better or worse off with McCain. We’d be just about the same.
Neither of them have a clue about ending the recession wannabe depression except to toss buckets of money at the rich while imposing an increasingly unpopular set of austerity measures on working people, consumers and unions.
The rich are getting richer with a vengeance.
Both Obama and McCain would stay in Iraq to secure their oil, although the Democrats are much craftier about it. They’re leaving the cities to let their puppet regime take the heat for giving away their national oil wealth to Chevron etc, but they’re only minutes away if they want to fry some more civilians. This time their fire may be directed at the Iraqi oil workers union that’s organizing mass rallies to fight giving the oil to American companies.
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/
The two parties have little more than cosmetic differences. The Republicans have become such a fringe group (temporarily) that they don’t even bother lying to us. As the Republicans move right the Democrats are in lock step with them. The Democrats are now the party of big business, militarism and holding back the fight for equality.
For hustlers like Clinton, Bush and Obama I don’t think it’s a question of what they believe in so much as a question of what will make them rich and powerful. Every President I can think of ‘inexplicably’ became a gazillionaire while in office, except for the ones who were already rich. I think it’s as simple as that.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: It is a very sad situation we find ourselves in. Now that the democrats have reached their 60 seat so called filibuster proof majority, there should be no excuses, but we all know there will be. The LGBT community is at the bottom of the list with the democrats. They give us lip service to get our money and votes, then the excuses start like “oh, we have more pressing issues”, or “the centrist democrats will not support this”, or “this HAS to be bi-partisan” or whatever.
When you do not have equal rights, no other issue is more important than equality. All other issues become mute as I see it.
Bill Perdue
@InExile: “no other issue is more important than equality”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Mike K
I think it’s time Obama and Democrats stopped being afraid of the people who hate us and started being afraid of US!!!
Synnerman
@SM
Yes, they are that stupid. They want a king, not a President.
Bob R
Other than a small “stimulus” check I got in May, Obama has done nothing for me, my family, friends or neighbors. Homes continue to go into foreclosure and the banks are still not willing to cooperate with struggling homeowners. My sister, jobless now for over a year, is behind in her mortgage. She got the money to bring it up to date but AIG (who we bailed out)won’t accept her payment unless she includes “late fees”. She cannot find work in New Jersey and can’t get help from anyone except some religious charities. How about that! The government promised her job training as her unemployment benefits run out, but they have yet to come up with anything. I expect she’ll lose her home within the next six months and move in with me. Unemployment in my area surpasses 10% and those working are having hours or days cut. Forget benefits! I expect nothing in the way of Health Care reform, since Obama wants to compromise to please everyone and in the end will please no one. Credit card companies continue to run rampant, jacking up interest rates (Citibank, another bailoutee to 29.9% plus)to all time highs. Living in Appalachia and getting my power from local coal fired plants, I expect my electric bill to go up substantially to pay for “cap and trade”. I’m on Social Security Disability and will see no COLA next year, even though grocery, energy and medical costs are rising steadily. We won’t even get into DADT, DOMA, ENDA, et al. So, at this point all I’ve personally experienced is BS from Barry and the boys on Capitol Hill. It’s said that “all politics is local”, so on a local and personal level I feel a little better about the Presidency because Obama is literate and not as embarrassing as Bush. But as far as policy, I’m not doing any better than I did a year ago. Probably even worse. What hope for change I had is fading fast. The Democrats will lose seats in 2010 unless the economy greatly improves. At that point we’ll be in deadlock with the Fundies and the Party of “No” halting any progress. Obama should have struck when the iron was hot, it’s cooling now and will soon grow cold. What a disappointment he’s been for me, my family, neighbors and friends. Sorry for the diatribe, I just felt the need to vent.
Cam
He is pandering to the religious right because for years we have never held our politicians feet to the fire so why should they bother with us? He is pandering because politicians are like insecure 21 year olds and don’t feel right if they think anybody doesn’t like them. Pandering to the religious right isn’t going to get health care reform passed, they will never vote for it. he figures gays have nowhere to go, so why bother with us? We’ll still vote for him even if he spends all year pandering to the right wing is the thought of he and his advisors. Keep holding his feet to the fire.
Cam
@Synnerman: You said “@SM
Yes, they are that stupid. They want a king, not a President.”
___________________________________________________________
Very interesting, could you please tell me just when it was that the definition of “King” changed to mean “Somebody who keeps their promises and tells the truth”?
Martin Hollick
http://mhollick.typepad.com/homodox_a_blog/2009/07/its-time-to-trust-obama.html
SM
The Religious Right uses what Obama says at Saddleback against him. You all cannot handle the fact Obama is strong enough to talk with people he does not agree with. You all focus on the negative. It amazes me.
Obama did not make FRIENDS going to Saddleback and you all look like fools lashing out about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b22paou_gLs
InExile
@SM: Why did Obama keep the Faith based Initiatives which funnels our tax dollars to the religious right where they in turn use that cash to demonize the LGBT community?
Why has Obama not stopped our soldiers from being EVANGELIZED while serving in the military?
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/6/29/142514/200
SM
Pat Robertson and Company are mad at Obama for his moves on LGBT equality. LGBT are mad at Obama for his moves on LGBT equality.
Never thought I would see the day when you all would both be mad at the same President.
You all are crazy if you think the Religious Right would not get rid of him in a heartbeat…and still you do not have his back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQNu4EdjV0
edgyguy1426
you know what’s gonna happen, ypu’ve seen it a zillion times before. Obama will stand in front of these religious right groups and when asked about the gay marriage movement, will say “I have always believed that marriage is between a man and a woman.” Then He’ll stand in front of our groups and say he will work hard to get DOMA repealed. It’s politics as usual.
InExile
@edgyguy1426: The man has no soul.
edgyguy1426
I believe a lot of good things are going to come out of his administration, I just don’t like the lack of transparency that he promised.
Cam
@SM: you said “Pat Robertson and Company are mad at Obama for his moves on LGBT equality.”
___________________________________________________
which moves would that be?