In the 20 days since the Pentagon sent out DADT surveys to 200,000 active duty and 200,000 reserve troops, just 40,000 questionnaires — or 10 percent — have been completed. Why such unimpressive stats?
Despite earlier concerns about difficulty accessing the survey, now even civilians have managed to figure it out, so it can’t be an accessibility problem. So maybe it’s because research firm Westat is asking for 32 pages (and 100+ questions) worth of responses, and troops already have a enough paperwork to deal with.
Or maybe a sizable number of personnel realize how ridiculous the survey is — and how offensive in nature. Or they already reviewed the Army’s comic book about DADT and decided that’s enough material they need to review.
Or maybe they went through the entire thing, realized there was no place to talk about how great it will be to have troops serve openly, and sent the thing to their spam folder.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
There are another 20 days to fill these things out. Let’s see if we can get any servicemembers to ask for theirs back.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Maybe the majority of our soldiers realize that they already sleep,eat,shower and shit with Gay soldiers and they know the Gay ones will have their backs and can depend on them in battle as well as straight soldiers which is really quite frankly the only thing that most soldiers care about………
Jeffree
Gosh, maybe it’s cuz 100+ questions is a horrible survey design, when maybe 9 could of worked?
christopher di spirito
Maybe because 90% of the troops realize they’re being used as political pawns in a vicious game of Pentagon-sponsored homophobia?
Adam Wood
Here is what the survey should look like:
1. Should gay and lesbian people be allowed to join the armed forces
It’s that simple. It would be a simple policy change, deleting any references to homosexuality in the current rules and treating gay/straight in exactly the same way.
Robert
Polls already show that a majority of soldiers either want to get rid of DADT or they don’t give a fuck if it stays or goes. If the Tony Perkins’ of the world consider sexually integrated military to be such a threat to “unit cohesion” and the military as a whole, then 100% of these surveys would have been submitted in the first week.
Though the best case scenario would be to have our soldiers actively want to get rid of DADT, nonchalance and a “who care” attitude is better than the fantasy world the FRC lives in that thinks our military is made up with school yard children.
Enron
Or maybe, just maybe, the other 60% are gay and refuse to submit to such nonsense. O.o
Brutus
@Adam Wood: It should only look like that if this were a survey about WHETHER DADT should be repealed. It’s not. It’s a survey about trying to get a better picture of what’s likely to happen once DADT *is* repealed.
Cam
Wouldn’t 10% of 200,000 be 20,000?
That said, only people who care about the issue in a major way, one way or the other are going to respond. This should tell them that they have a massive amount of people in the military that don’t care that much if gays start serving. Not even enough to bother filling out some paper. The only people that seem to care are geriatrics like McCain.
Brutus
I’d wager a 10% response rate only halfway through the survey period is pretty good. Soldiers are people too; most of them will submit at the last minute.
tjr101
It means the majority of soldiers just don’t give a fcuk about this.
reason
Well hopefully all of the GBLT soldier filled out the survey, ignoring the fools that told them not to. If the majority of the non-respondents didn’t respond it could mean that repeal of DADT is not a big enough deal to spend the time required to fill out the survey. The people that hate the idea, most likely would have spent 8 hours if needed to voice their bigotry. If the gays filled it out the survey will come back positive and the pentagon will be able to implement the new policy in an expeditious manner. If the gays and their friends listened to the fools, then likely only the select few who are against repeal would have filled it out: thus, the military will have skewed info about were the force stands which is going to cost more money for preparation and more time to implement a smooth transition for no reason which would be negative for the force, the government, the taxpayer, and the gay soldiers. Too many clowns were thinking with their heart, telling gays not to fill out the survey, instead of their heads.
reason
@Brutus: You could be correct that people are just procrastinating, I missed the part that there a 20 days left. If the 10% were people that held strong views on the issue it would be a good sign that the force has a minimal problem that can be handled with fewer safe guards. If six to eight people in a room out of a hundred have really negative views about the open GBLT they will be less likely to do anything with the other 93% around and fewer safe guards would need to be implemented. If it was 30-50% then there would be a larger problem on hand that is going to need to be addressed beyond keeping the troops safe and increasing recruitment. What ever the case, it would be best to get everyone to respond so the military would have the best information possible to provide illumination on how to precede with repeal that will happen regardless.
Bill Perdue
A sham survey in aid of a sham compromise.
GLBT servicewomen and men will continue to suffer until Bill Clintons DADT is repealed.
Why is that so hard to understand Brutus? I bet you’d have a different view if you were in the military. Well, mayboe not.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
@reason:
[img]http://www.newsfromme.com/images6/clarabell.jpg[/img]
You keep drooling about the alleged serious intent of the “study” and, then, have the gall to call others “fools” and “clowns,” Clarabell?
Just what kind of “safe guards” are you imagining they might put in place? Armed butch lesbians to escort the nelly bois everywhere they go? A moat around the lavender camo tents?
You demonstrate again how drinking too much Obama Barry Kool Aid can cause brain cancer.
REALITY CHECK: it ultimately matters not how many participate in the “study” nor where they fall on the Kinsey Scale; nor how much time it takes nor how much money it costs. The “results” of the “study” will “be” exactly what the person who will announce them to the “Commander-in-Chief” and Congress and the mewing MSM wants them to “be,” and that person is President Gates, excuuuuuuuuuuse me, SECDEF Gates.
Out gays allowed? Some out gays allowed? Out gays banned? Please STOP wasting your time imagining any other fairy tale ending.
[img]http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/gates.jpg[/img]
axos
Since when does the military ask the soldiers for permission or how they feel about things? Let’s have a survey asking: “Is it OK if we send you out to die, or would you rather we don’t?”
I thought you had a chain of command in the armed forces and that those guys in the top made the decisions. Now, first they have this cowardly sissy DADT policy, and then this survey. How about just doing once and for all what they know they’ll have to do in the end anyway – stopping the discrimination of gays.
Brutus
@Bill Perdue: Where did I say that LGBT servicemembers won’t continue to suffer until DADT is repealed?
Brutus
@axos: Really? You’re going to hurl “sissy” as an insult?
Kyle412
This low response is not good news. If military officials use such a small sampling to determine policy and thinking that those most passionate about the topic are the only ones responding means that we run the risk of some pretty scarey results.
B
No. 15 · axos wrote, “Since when does the military ask the soldiers for permission or how they feel about things?”
Can’t tell you “since when”, but I can tell you that the military does ask how they feel about things – check out http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/surveys/commandclimate.shtml …
(1) CCS-TO&E – for surveying military personnel
• Contains 24 preset questions, for example:
* “Officers in this unit care about what happens to their Soldiers.”
* “What level of conflict/stress are you experiencing in this unit?”
* “To what extent do the persons in your chain of command treat you with respect?”
* “How would you rate your current level of morale?”
… so they do ask such questions. Corporations run similar polls to evaluate how management is doing in keeping workers motivated. The military is undoubtedly using the same technique.
Bill Perdue
@Brutus: I didn’t say you did.
Bill Perdue
@Brutus: I didn’t say you advocate the harassment and unfair treatment that’s built into DADT but that you’re not for immediate repeal. You depend on the lies and promises of fake defender and that thinking is fatally flawed.
Your support for this sham compromise means more violence, harassment and unfair treatment.
The ongoing fight for immediate and total repeal is the best answer.
Bill Perdue
@B: Leave it to ‘B’ to defend and support military bigotry in the form of polls.
He also makes excuses for der Papenfuehrer when he refuses to hand over predatory priests to the police, and for Jeters, Ashburn and McCain.
B
In No. 22, Bill Perdue lied again (but what else is new). Axos had said, “Since when does the military ask the soldiers for permission or how they feel about things?” I did a quick google search and found http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/surveys/commandclimate.shtml describing a U.S. Army poll where in fact the Army did ask soldiers how they felt (these questions were completely unrelated to discrimination).
Perdue’s also lying about what I said about the Pope. See http://www.queerty.com/pope-benedict-xvi-had-the-power-to-stop-priest-molestations-he-ignored-it-its-just-that-simple-20100702/#comment-319746 where I wrote, “As an institution, the Roman Catholic Church put its self interests, avoiding embarrassment, above the welfare of children to the extent of covering up criminal behavior. And Ratzinger helped enable that.”
In that comment, I also wrote, “What he [Ratzinger] could have done is to reduce the extent of the problem by ordering that all evidence of criminal conduct be turned over to civil authorities and keeping these priests (the ones whose abuse was reported) away from children. The Bible says, ‘give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ and in this case ‘Caesar’ (i.e., the state) had a right to the evidence.”
Bill Predue lies so much that it is pathological – what you are looking at is his furtherance of a vendetta. This guy Perdue is simply sick.
Brutus
@Bill Perdue: “Bill Perdue
A sham survey in aid of a sham compromise.
GLBT servicewomen and men will continue to suffer until Bill Clintons DADT is repealed.
Why is that so hard to understand Brutus?”
“Brutus
@Bill Perdue: Where did I say that LGBT servicemembers won’t continue to suffer until DADT is repealed?”
“Bill Perdue
@Brutus: I didn’t say you did.”
I’ll just let that stand.
I am for immediate legislative repeal. But I am also for delaying implementation of that repeal until there is a plan in place for doing so. This survey is intended to provide information for the basis of such a plan by helping to highlight, in advance, any potential problem areas. Methodical, careful, nuanced progress is boring and frustrating. I’m sorry about that. But I believe it’s desirable.
Bill Perdue
@Brutus: If you are for delays you are not for immediate repeal. How is that so difficult to understand. The same bs about “methodical, careful, nuanced progress” is what got us DADT in the first place. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM8AeWMWsLQ (there are two parts).
@B: ‘B’ uses his familiar divorce court tactics of dissembling and changing the subject. I didn’t comment on what Axos said but on ‘B’s odious support for the sham compromise and the sham poll as a tool to maintain military bigotry.
Will the bigots in the military use the poll to maintain bigtotry? Is the pope a Nazi?
“B” is a proven compulsive liar who defends der Papenfuehrer when he refuses to hand over predatory priests. Der Papenfuehrer is a bit more than an enabler. He’s an accomnplice who should be arrested and tried.
If it’s ugly and rightwing ‘B’ likes it, supports it and defends it.
B
In No. 25 · Bill Perdue lied again. In No 22, his “@B” linked to comment No 19, and thus Perdue dishonestly claimed that in No 19 I had somehow managed to “defend and support military bigotry in the form of polls.” In reality, in No 19 I had merely replied to Axos by showing the existence of polls (which Axos doubted) that asked how soldiers felt about their officers with an obvious goal of measuring how well the military is motivating its soldiers. Perdue lied by pretending I had said something about DADT.
Bill Perdue then repeats his bald-faced lies regarding the Pope in spite of No 23 providing links to other posts proving that Bill Perdue is lying through his teeth.
With one lie after another, it is obvious what Perdue is – a pathological liar. Seems he’s been caught lying about what others said too (see his exchange with Brutus above).
B
In No. 25 · Bill Perdue wrote, “Der Papenfuehrer is a bit more than an enabler. He’s an accomnplice who should be arrested and tried.” LOL. This moron Bill Perdue is whining that I used a general term “enable” rather than a term that explicitly denotes criminal responsibility in a legal sense, “accomplice”.
So what did Ratzinger do?
1. He dragged his ass, but we have no idea as to the size of his “inbox”, which would typically get served in FIFO order.
2. He said something about secrecy rules applying, but there is a Catholic religious requirement that forbids priests from divulging what a “penitent” says in a confession. You can get a quick overview (including legal recognition of this religious practice ) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest-penitent_privilege or by simply watching the film “I Confess” staring a gay or bisexual actor Montgomery Clift, playing a priest charged with murder but who cannot point to the real murderer, someone who had confessed the crime to him, for religious reasons.
3. He almost certainly put the interests of the Vatican first. But then, the Vatican (technically “The Holy See”) has a status in international law similar to a state. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See . If every head of state who covered up an embarrassment involving criminal activity by a subordinate in another country was sent to jail, nearly every head of state in the world would be in the hoosegow.
Given all that, whether Ratzinger is legally an “accomplice” is far from clear. The most you might be able to do is to declare him persona non grata at your private dinner party.
You may not like it, but don’t blame me – I didn’t make up the rules.
Bill Perdue
@B: More divorce court tactics from ‘B’, who pimps for everything vile and rightwing, including his own brand of ‘kinder and gentler’ racism. Except for the vatican, which provided shelter to SS officers after WWII and is now home to runaway accomplices and abettors of clerical rapists like Bernard Law, former cardinal archbigot of Boston, canon law is trumped by state law virtually everywhere.
Der Papenfuehrer, aka gawd’s Rottweiler, is a criminal.
“Pope accused of failing to act on sex abuse case… Pope Benedict XVI failed to act over complaints during the 1990s about a priest in the US who is thought to have abused some 200 deaf boys, victims say. A Church trial of the priest was halted after he wrote to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pleading ill health.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8587082.stm
There are similar stories from Munich and cities in Austria.
The pope should be arrested and tried as an accomplice and abettor of rapists.
B
In No. 28 cyberstalker and thread hijacker Bill Perdue is up to his old tricks, now trying to turn a thread about DADT into a thread about one of his silly pet peeves. Perdue is lying through his teeth – there are in fact so many lies in No 28 that it would be simply tedious to list them all. As examples, Bill Perdue is repeating his “racism” lie to cover up his own racism (as evidenced in http://www.queerty.com/obama-will-let-some-gay-federal-workers-share-gym-memberships-20100603/#comment-309753 where he blames our first African American President for Proposition Eight).
His statement about the SS and the Vatican is dishonest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODESSA describes what probably went on, “Sereny attributed the fact that SS members could escape to postwar chaos and the inability of the Roman Catholic Church, the Red Cross, and the American military to verify the claims of people who came to them for help, rather than to the activities of an underground Nazi organisation. She identified a Vatican official, Bishop Aloïs Hudal, not former SS men, as the principal agent in helping Nazis leave Italy for South America.” I.e., the Vatican and a number of other organizations were fooled. At worst, one single bishop may deserve some blame, but he might have been fooled along with everyone else.
Regarding Bernard Law, read http://www.slate.com/id/2075831 : “Almost a year ago, Slate’s ‘Explainer’ answered the question: Why isn’t Boston’s Cardinal Law in jail? The question was somewhat rhetorical. Since Massachusetts didn’t have a mandatory reporting law, the answer was that the cardinal was under no legal obligation to come forward with information about sexual abuse of children by priests he’d supervised.” I.e. Bernard Law did not commit a crime because the state of Massachusetts had failed to make what he actually did illegal. It should have, but it didn’t.
It seems that Bill Perdue gets nearly everything wrong and then turns into a vicious attack dog, a proverbial pit bull in a bad mood, when anyone says anything he doesn’t like. Perdue is simply a cyberstalker on a vendetta with no compunctions about lying.
Michael
I wouldn’t read too much into the early no-returns. Filling out a 100 question survey with no chance of winning an iPod or a cruise would not be big on my list of priorities either. Besides, what are you expecting the survey to do – change people’s attitudes?
Occasional Queerty
I regret coming to Queerty and having to endure Bill Perdue, Michael@LeonardMalkovitch and “B.” Childish pests.
Brutus
@Bill Perdue: Which part of “legislative” and “implementation” don’t you understand?
Drake
Most soldiers realize that the survey is not confidential, and do not wish to take a chance of offending a superior who is responsible for their recommendations for promotions, commendations, etc.
Bill Perdue
@Brutus: It’s a sham and a scam. Listen to the Misner tapes and then answer your own question and tell us why you support delaying or compromisng repeal.
Bill Perdue
@Occasional Queerty:
When he gets cornered ‘B’ begins to lie and make personal attacks. ‘B’ a proven racist trolls Queerty defending rightwingers from McCain to the pope. It’s OK to disregard his comments because of his agenda. Except for playing Bill O’Reilly he has nothing to add except endless, baseless personal attacks on those who disagree with him.
Here is B’s racist viewpoint. He cooks the stats, comparing the African American to 2% of the total vote instead of 52% of the total vote to exaggerate its importance, echoing the racist reaction in the days after of election. He says “Proposition Eight passed by 52% of the vote, and Blacks accounted for nearly 30% of that 2% margin in favor of Proposition Eight. That isn’t enough to “tip the scale”, but it is a pretty significant chunk of it.” Jun 17, 2010 at 11:23 pm at http://www.queerty.com/did-olson-boies-just-secure-the-death-of-prop-8-20100617/
Now he describes me as a racist for criticizing Obama and warning about the eurocentric abandonment of the fight in ‘minority communities’ Only a ham-fisted, and understandably anonymous rightwing racist like ‘B’ would accuse critics of Obama of racism.
He picked on the wrong anti-racist when he lied about me. It does’t matter if Obama willfully did it or not, but when he pandered to the bigot vote with his bigoted battle cry ‘gawd’s in the mix’ he wrecked our chances to defend same sex marriage in 2008.
Here’s a comment I posted at another site, the one run by Bil in September 2008. “I lived in California for 20 odd years and participated in the fights to defeat right wing propositions, beginning in 1978 with the Briggs Initiative, which would have made it illegal for GLBT folks to be teachers.
The people I’m in touch with in GLBT left and GLBT Labor groups in California are afraid that the No on 8 campaign will not have as one of its primary goals an orientation towards the African American and immigrant communities, who comprise a huge part of California’s population and which are infested with bigoted christist cults.
We can’t afford to abandon this key battleground to the cults. We have to offset the damage done to us by the bigot-pandering of Obama and McCain, who never fail to mention that they (and god) agree that were second class citizens not worthy of being married.
It doesn’t matter a bit if Obama pretends to oppose Prop. 8 if continues repeating that pandering garbage and if his campaign competes with us in fundraising. If he’s serious he ought to donate $5 or $6 million to No on 8 so we can catch up with the amount raised by the bigots, who are, as always, cheered and emboldened by his and McCain’s pandering.”
On the day after the election I posted this comment at a site run by Pam. (You’ll have to Google it.) “Pam is right but There’s more to this story.
No On 8 did not make a serious effort to engage minority communities, including Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders, African Americans and others. There were a few last minute radio and TV ads but that won’t cut it. They never made a serious attempt to engage the homophobic institutions in minority communities.
They left the field of battle as if those communities didn’t count and that explains the vote. If you don’t fight you don’t win.
The bigotry of Obama and McCain, the timidity of people like Feinstein, Schwarzenegger and others combined to allow bigots to galvanize a vote against us. The No On 8 leadership simply defaulted, just as similar people did in 2000. They should have known how powerful the message ‘god’s in the mix’ would be, and probably did, but they refused to call Obama and McCain on their open and often repeated bigotry.
Bill Perdue
@Occasional Queerty: I don’t know what to tell you except that Queerty has always been infested by racists and rightists and that when cornered they engage in flame wars.
Just ignore comments you don’t like without trying to censure the flow of comments.
Bill Perdue
@Brutus: I understand that by ‘legislative’ you mean your childlike faith that the Demobots and their GOP cousin-brothers, who gave us DADT and DOMA and refuse to pass ENDA, will somehow do right by us.
And the same applies to ‘implementation’. The US officer corps is a hotbed of christer bigots. Only you would trust them to implement in our favor.
Listen to the Mixner tapes and answer your own questions. That is, if you’re acutually open to new ideas. Scary ideas like not trusting bigot pandering politicians and bigoted generals and admirals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM8AeWMWsLQ (In two parts)
B
In No 35 (and obscure hints in 36) Bill Perdue is continuing his stupid vendetta, and specifically lying about what I posted. In fact, it is Bill Perdue who responds to statements he doesn’t like with childish personal attacks that consist of nothing but lies.
Perdue whines about being called a “racist” hypocritically given how he accuses others repeatedly. Yet, what Bill Perdue posted in http://www.queerty.com/obama-will-let-some-gay-federal-workers-share-gym-memberships-20100603/#comment-309753 contains statements that sound pretty racist, for example, “The defeat came because the bigot you adore, Obama, mobilized and galvanized the mainly Eruoamerican roman catholic, moron and southern baptist (like those from Rick Warrens sty) vote. Obama led them and they defeated us.” Perdue didn’t like it when I pointed out that Obama stayed out of the Proposition Eight campaign (if only because he was spending all his time running for president at the time).
Meanwhile Perdue has been calling http://www.queerty.com/obama-will-let-some-gay-federal-workers-share-gym-memberships-20100603/#comment-309977 “racist” when it is anything but that.
Bill Perdue
@B: Quit lying ‘B’. Your have almost a years history of trolling Queerty as a rightist and now a racist. Lies won’t help you anymore because people have you figured out as shown by this tread:
Posted: May 14, 2010 at 6:50 pm • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 2 • WalkderDC
The point is, Rekers is claiming Jovani advertised as a travel companion. Yet not only has he not produced any other ad, nor the website where he found him. But Jovanni has said that he only advertised on Rentboy. B you have now been on 4 threads defending Rekers. What is your agenda?
Posted: May 15, 2010 at 10:03 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 3 • romeo
Yeah, B, I’m for freedom of speech and all, but you really need to stfu. Rekers is indefensible.
Posted: May 15, 2010 at 11:44 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 4 • schlukitz
@WalkderDC: “B you have now been on 4 threads defending Rekers. What is your agenda?”
@romeo: Yeah, B, I’m for freedom of speech and all, but you really need to stfu.
Gentlemen, B sees himself as a self-appointed moderator whose agenda is to make everyone who posts on these threads, including Queerty.com look dumb, while attempting but failing to make himself look smart, flag posters he disagrees with and trying to get folks like 1EqualityUSA and myself banned from this site.I have no doubt that B is the person responsible for every post that 1EqualityUSA and I make being moderated for the past several months now.
B apparently believes that he alone is entitled to freedom of speech but that is all other posters on this site that should stfu. For that reason both 1EqualityUSA and I rarely post on Queerty anymore.
B takes all the fun out of it.
Posted: May 15, 2010 at 11:49 pm • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 6 • Bill Perdue
If it’s rightwing, if it defends bigotry and religion, if it denigrates the LGBT communities – then B is for it.
Posted: May 16, 2010 at 12:45 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 8 • Bill Perdue
@B: There are dozens of us who say the same thing and we’re pleased not to have your respect. If you liked us it’d be very damaging to our reputations.
Posted: May 16, 2010 at 12:52 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 10 • Bill Perdue
@B: It’s simply an accurate description. If you see it as damaging then the solution is to modify your behavior. I suspect you can’t so people will continue to oppose you. Deal with it and stop trying to cut off discussion with lies about our motives.
Posted: May 16, 2010 at 1:18 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 12 • Bill Perdue
@B: Oh, now I’ve gone and upset you. Awful me. Get used to it. As ye sow so shall you reap.
Posted: May 16, 2010 at 3:05 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 14 • WalkderDC
No B You aren’t Just trying for accuracy. What you are doing is inventing scenarios to pretend that he isn’t lying. First you attack the reporters for not contacting him, then when it was pointed out to you in another post that he was contacted you immediately scramble and say “But maybe he didn’t understand what they were talking about!” So you are desperately trying to find any reason as to why he is somehow the victim here, and I am curious as to why.
Posted: May 16, 2010 at 10:47 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 17 • Bill Perdue
@schlukitz: Glad to see you comment got uncensored. ‘B’, pro bono lawyer for racism and any self loathing scum that comes down the pike must not like you much.
Posted: Jun 15, 2010 at 7:00 am • @Reply • [Flag?] No. 19 • schlukitz
@Bill Perdue:
Truth be known, I never got the impression that ‘B’had any special love for me (or anyone else on these threads, for that matter), from day one. And that’s what I get for having the unmitigated gall to disagree with “B’. Who do I think I am? ;P What I find particularly noteworthy, Bill, is the fact that ‘B’ has never once denied that he might have had anything to do with getting OneEquality1 and my comments moderated on this forum”.
B
In No. 39, cyberstalker Bill Perdue is once again cutting and pasting from his other posts as part of his long-standing vendetta and trolling.
See http://www.queerty.com/did-olson-boies-just-secure-the-death-of-prop-8-20100617/#comment-315566 (Comment No 18) with his additional “contributions to that thread being baseless personal attacks (Comment Numbers 20, 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 34, 37, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105, 108, 110, 112,and 114 in that other thread so far). Many are simply repeats or near repeats of the same garbage similar to what he posted in No 39 above.
He is simply obsessed to the point of it being pathological.
Bill Perdue
Keep it up ‘B’ It’s an honor to cut you down to size. As George Santayana said “To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.
Poor ‘B’. Things don’t look good for trolls like you. The Demobots and their Repugnant brother-cousins keep proving that the left and anti-racists are correct and that you’re a simple minded attack chihuahua and lawyer for everything rotten, religious, rightwing and racist.
That’s all been proven over and over, as even you recgonize by citing comments 20, 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 34, 37, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105, 108, 110, 112,and 114 at http://www.queerty.com/did-olson-boies-just-secure-the-death-of-prop-8-20100617/#comment-315566 and on a dozen other threads where non-trolling honest activists take you on and demolish your putrid apologias and personal attacks.
reason
@Bill Perdue: VS.@B: Really guys, this is one of the most epic arguments I have seen on this site. Traveling back through months of data to attack one another! The both of you should be working on someones campaign for the November elections, with your penchant for spinning facts that are in plain sight, particularly McCain’s. Okay the McCain thing was a joke, but where I am getting confused is using the prop 8 thing to pin each other as racist. From what I extracted from yawls argument was that the both of you were against blaming African Americans for the prop8 debacle. Am I correct? But then it seems like both of yawl are trying to spin the words into making it seem like the other one is trying to pin the prop8 thing on the African Americans in a race fueled vendetta.
Bill Perdue
@reason: No, it’s not ‘the’ epic.
That was between me and several others and a christer obot whose main joy in life was adoring her secret lover, jebus, and insulting gay men. Peoplke like her have a right to their opinions and the rest of us have a right to criticize them because they debase and sidetrack the political goals of the movement.
When ‘B’ cooked the stats to overstress the role of African Americans in our defeat in 2008 he may have been a ‘kinder, gentler’ and sneakier racist but a racist nonetheless.
Instead of taking the vote of African Americans as a part of the entire 52.1% Yes on 8 vote he compared it to 2% of the entire vote. When I called him on it he got defensive and began his vendetta. I guess he has a big problem being criticized. He calls his critics idiots.
I’ve had generally the same position on the racist concept that African Americans wouldn’t (and later weren’t) a big part of our defeat since the summer before the vote. it stated in hundreds of comments on half a dozen blogs because that notion is very popular with racists. Read at my comment 35. ‘B’s faux, defensive opposition began after he was called for being a racist.
I don’t look for him to give up until he learns that what works in divorce court doesn’t work in the court of public opinion. That may take awhile.
B
No. 42 · @reason: I’m responding to him and describing him accurately, not “attacking” him. He’s the one who is going around attacking me continually. While I’ve called him a liar quite a number of times, each one was a direct response to a lie he told about me – a response to one of his personal attacks.
He’s repeating his lies in No. 43, a baldfaced lie about “cooking stats” and “racism” when in fact I cited a report accurately and simply pointed out the numbers that were in it.
Read http://www.queerty.com/obama-will-let-some-gay-federal-workers-share-gym-memberships-20100603/#comment-309977 and look at how Perdue characterized that comment subsequently – that comment of mine quoted some statistics, pointed out that the African American contribution to the 2 percent margin by which Proposition Eight passed was just under 30% (that is, 30% of 2%), attributing it to (frequent) attendance at religious services, and concluded that “ignoring the Black vote and the reason for it is a recipe for losing when (or if) a repeal is attempted. It’s important to note the reason for that vote in order to improve the cost effectiveness of campaign advertising and ‘outreach’ for this particular demographic.”
A comment that we have some room for improvement in order to repeal Proposition Eight is in no sense a “racist” statement and any person who tries to characterize it as such is simply a liar.
reason
Fabulous. I understand a good argument when ones arguing on opposite sides of an argument. In that scenario as I have done many times on this site I come in with logic blazing. But when I get to the crux of both arguments I arrive at the same thing; B is saying that African American responsibility is 15% meaning their responsibility is to low to pass prop8 and they are not a big part of the defeat. Bill says that African Americans are not a big part of the defeat. So yall have drawn the exact same conclusion, in my eyes, which are not racist; for one to call one of the statements racist would de facto be calling the other one racist.
In any case yall can both agree with the statement that prop 8 would have passed if no African Americans voted. If so the argument is concluded and no one can be deemed a racist; other sniping would be tangentially based on substance and directly based on personal animosity. That just the word from your humble arbiter.
Blake J
That is kind of worrying, because what if it is the bigot forces that are taking the time to fill out the survey, while those that are allies (do not care) are not.
Bill Perdue
@reason: @reason: ‘B’ says “Proposition Eight passed by 52% of the vote, and Blacks accounted for nearly 30% of that 2% margin in favor of Proposition Eight. That isn’t enough to “tip the scale”, but it is a pretty significant chunk of it.”
Instead of taking the vote of African Americans as a part of the entire 52.1% Yes on 8 vote he compared it to 2% of the entire vote. That falsely exaggerates the impact of the African American vote andthe point of that concocted exaggeration is to excite racism. You’re perfectly within you rights to say that ‘B’s concocted stats, quoted directly above, which are not in the NLGTF report and that militate against its intent, are not racist. But if you agree with his basic premise then ease up on the ‘humble arbiter’ claim.
The actual NLGTF report was written well after my October 2008 comments warning of a defeat because of the same Eurocentric approach ‘B’ takes and after the post election debate where hundreds of us roundly defeated the racists attempt to blame the passage of 8 on African Americans. It was much more thorough than our earlier discussion because it was based a lot of new data. If ‘B’ would simply quotes the NLGTF directly, instead of supplying his own distorted stats no one would object in the slightest. But he won’t so we do.
All the whining, ‘vendetta-mean, bad man-liar-stalker-nazi-he hates me-you’re all idiots-you have flat feet, bad breath and spots’ bs in the world won’t stop his critics. He’ll just have to learn that the price of being a friend of Rekers, McCain, der Papenfuehrer and everything rightwing and religious is being called on it.
B
In No. 47, Bill Perdue lied some more – he is obviously engaged in a vendetta as evidenced by his continual cut-and-paste job from his file of “talking points”. Aside from that, his comment about the statistical data in question just shows his ignorance of the facts. Whether out of ignorance or malice, Bill Perdue has been continually ignoring the fact that, when trying to get votes from several independent ethnic groups, you minimize the cost of your campaign when the marginal cost per vote in your favor is the same across groups – the marginal cost is the cost per additional vote, and that is why you have to look at the excess votes, not the total vote.
BTW, I did quote the survey exactly, stating that 58% of the Black vote was in favor of Prop 8, that it passed by 52%, and that Blacks make up 7 percent of the population. That implies that the marginal Black vote in favor of Proposition Eight makes up 28% of the 2% margin by which Proposition Eight passed, and the conclusion is obvious – the “No on Eight” campaign did an inadequate job of getting the African American vote (the 8% margin for the African American vote was due primarily to frequent attendance at religious services, not race or ethnicity per se, and the “No on Eight” campaign strategy apparently didn’t account for that).
The rest of Perdue’s whining is just due to his personal anger at having been found to be factually inaccurate in his statements.
Bill Perdue
‘B’ is a racist. Here’s the proof. ‘B’ says “Proposition Eight passed by 52% of the vote, and Blacks accounted for nearly 30% of that 2% margin in favor of Proposition Eight. That isn’t enough to “tip the scale”, but it is a pretty significant chunk of it.”
Instead of taking the vote of African Americans as a part of the entire 52.1% Yes on 8 vote he compared it to 2% of the entire vote. That falsely exaggerates the impact of the African American vote andthe point of that concocted exaggeration is to excite racist divisions.
‘B’lies when he tries to associate his racist drivel with the NLGTF report. Everything they have to say opposes his racist drivel.
shlong
@Bill Perdue: It is no secret that minority block vote on Prop 8 had a great influence. Why be scared and deny that fact when polls and political analysts have this irrefutable data that Prop 8 passed because of high turnout rate from minorities who don’t keep it a secret about their views on gay marriage.
We don’t need to resort to cheap accusations of racism which is easily hurled from the left when they are afraid to confront uncomfortable issues.
reason
@shlong: Bill Perdue is correct that if African Americans obtained from voting for prop 8 it would not have made a difference granted there just are not that many in Cali. As any intelligent person would do they went and researched the issue to find out why the AA vote was a higher percentage with in that block, and they found that religious affiliation was the primary factor. If you want to confront the uncomfortable issue then you need to be discussing how your going to reach out to the religious institutions to soften their views on equality. The religious issue was not just a problem as far as GBLT in the AA community. That is the uncomfortable issue, and the fact of the matter. The question is where do we go from here? As playing the blame game changes nothing.
B
No. 51 · reason wrote, “@shlong: Bill Perdue is correct that if African Americans obtained from voting for prop 8 it would not have made a difference granted there just are not that many in Cali. As any intelligent person would do they went and researched the issue to find out why the AA vote was a higher percentage with in that block, and they found that religious affiliation was the primary factor.”
When I provided the data (Perdue screamed ‘racism’ even though I attributed the excess vote to religious practices), I pointed out that nearly 30% of the margin by which Prop 8 won was due to the 8% margin (the value beyond 50%) by which Prop 8 won the black vote. See http://www.queerty.com/obama-will-let-some-gay-federal-workers-share-gym-memberships-20100603/#comment-309977 with the report at http://www.ncsu.edu/stud_affairs/glbt/pdfs/Prop%208%20Report.pdf . The other ethnic group listed with more than 50% support for Prop 8 was the Latino/hispanic group, again for similar reasons – higher levels of attendance at religious services. In any case, 30% is not inconsequential – it is too large a chunk of what we have to change to ignore.
Reason also said, “If you want to confront the uncomfortable issue then you need to be discussing how your going to reach out to the religious institutions to soften their views on equality.”
I offered a suggestion in another post, based on the hypothesis that preachers in predominantly black churches may have been tricked by the “Yes on Eight” propaganda into thinking they would have to perform same-sex marriages if Prop 8 failed. The truth (as given in the California Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriages) is that religious institutions would not have to perform marriage ceremonies that violated their religious beliefs. There should have been some one-on-one discussions with these preachers to make sure they understood that – complete with legal opinions and showing them copies of the court decision where this was explicitly stated. Even if they didn’t change their minds about same-sex marriage, without feeling personally threatened, they would have been less likely to preach against it, which would have meant more votes against Proposition Eight.
Unfortunately the same approach might not have workedfor latinos due Catholicism dominating that group in terms of religious affiliation – one priest who tried to oppose Proposition Eight was summarily fired by a church hierarchy centered at the Vatican (no doubt losing his retirement benefits), and once word got out, any others thinking along the same lines knew that they better keep quiet.