From The Economist:
Although California's major pollsters reckon the gap is closing, they have never found a majority of residents in favor of same-sex marriage. Whites are evenly divided on the subject, whereas Latinos are opposed and blacks are fiercely opposed. February's primary election suggests turnout among both minority groups will be high this November.
It's altogether possible that a huge African-American turnout for Obama (who believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, just like the wording of the ballot initiative) could doom marriage equality in the nation's most populous state. But that's a scenario you won't hear discussed by Obama's LGBT supporters.
More. Since one commenter charges that my remarks about Obama's views on same-sex marriage are wrong, here are some facts:
Obama says: "I do not support gay marriage. Marriage has religious and social connotations, and I consider marriage to be between a man and a woman." (From the Human Rights Campaign's 2008 Presidential questionnaire)
Proposed California marriage amendment says: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
Furthermore. Reader "avee" predicts:
Obama says he is against the CA marriage amendment [sic], but he also says that he is against gay marriage because marraige can only be between a man and woman. Expect his anti-gay-marriage quote to be reproduced in ads in the African-American media by amendment supporters before the election.
Actually, Obama apparently has not come out in opposition of the amendment, unlike GOP Gov. Schwarzenegger. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, supports civil unions and equal rights for same-sex couples, but he has said repeatedly that marriage itself should be reserved for a man and a woman.
With an amendment outlawing same-sex marriage on the California ballot in November, Obama will probably be called to defend his carefully nuanced position when he campaigns in the state.
McCain, regrettably, endorsed the state amendment while continuing to oppose a federal amendment, but one would certainly expect more-much more- from Obama, who is and will be receiving droves of gay dollars and gay votes, and the adoration of LGBT activists throughout the land.
More still. It's now on the ballot. And it's unclear whether same-sex marriages performed over the next five months would be nullified if the amendment passes. Also, New York State's recent executive order instructing state agencies to recognized same-sex marriages performed elsewhere is being challenged.
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I liked McCain on Ellen. I thought he genuinely wanted to embrace her marriage, but couldn’t because he was part of a party which won’t let him. Obama would have to say the same thing–but he’d be all smarmy and elitist about it. Plus, he has all those homophobic pastors around him and the largely homophobic African-American community to placate. I think McCain, in his heart, is fine with gay marriage and will probably support whatever the states do.
I really, really don’t like Obama.
ash – “I really, really don’t like Obama.”
Then you should fit in just fine in Nebraska. As white as the pure driven snow.
Nebraska is the birthplace of Malcolm X. Many ex-slaves came to Nebraska because it was a free state. Also, we have the largest growing Hispanic population in America due to meatpacking. Perhaps on your next visit you could drive up and down 24th St. from South Omaha to North Omaha and see how diverse we are. Girlfriend.
No thanks, I know what hayseeds look like. No need for a re-education.
Richard contends: “… have never met a liberal or consrevative, Republican or a Democrat who supported the old Ba’athist regime.”
Ummm, you may not have met them personally, Richard, but that’s just being disingenious (again) and highly partisan for one so devoted to polishing the banner of “independent”.
You know of lots of liberals and gayLefties and Democrats who supported Saddam while he was in power… back then, they were called “Human shields” against American capitalist hemegony… they sided and stood by their man of the hour, Saddam, in the streets of Baghdad before the Coalition troops began the air attack… they were standing on top of Iraqi buildings sending eyewitness reports back to their adoring fans in the liberal MSM about how Coalition bombs were missing targets and taking out schools and hospitals… killing indiscriminately… killing almost exclusively children holding dolls or pregnant women.
Does the former CNN star reporter and darling of the Democrat Party cocktail circuit in DC –Mr Peter Arnett– ring a bell? He was a liberal, working for a liberal MSM cable outlet begun by an uber-liberal Ted Turner, married to a former anti-VN War activist and Democrat Party stalwart Jane Fonda… surely, Richard, even you can recall liberals standing up and making political love to Saddam… just like they did to Ho Chi Minh… and Pol Pot and Hitler and… well, the list is as long as history.
“… have never met a liberal or consrevative, Republican or a Democrat who supported the old Ba’athist regime.”
Right, Richard. Time to put that head back in the sand and rewrite some more history for the Left.
D\\’/UMP offers: “No thanks, I know what hayseeds look like. No need for a re-education.”
Gee, D\\’/UMP, you sound exactly like BarryO when he presented the typical Left liberal elite sneer by contending that people displaced by the global economy just cling to their guns, gods and beer blaming immigrants and boogey-man for their collective plight.
MichiganMatt, I did not support, by any means, those who went to Iraq as human shields. I certainly don’t know the motivations of all of them, but the one that I did know did NOT go there out of any love or hero worship of Saddam Hussein. Far from it. It was more for the citizens of Iraq who were going to be caught in a middle of a war. She did not see the Iraqi invasion and virtual civil war as a solution to the problem. She was right, IMO, on that.
MM – Gee, D’/UMP, you sound exactly like BarryO when he presented the typical Left liberal…blah blah blah.”
Do you really not know what “exactly” means? Dummy.
Northdallass quotes this from his link in an attempt to prove that things were worse for gays under Sadam than now:
?In the late ?80s and early ?90s there were a couple of gay clubs in Baghdad,? Hili explained, ?but they were all shut down in 1993 after sanctions were imposed against Saddam?s regime and Iraq. We had a weekly gay nightclub in the Palestine Hotel that became the gathering place for gay people, especially for actors and others in the entertainment world, but it, too, was shut down. I was arrested three times for being gay, and tortured. After several attempts, I finally was able to escape the country, going first to Dubai, then Jordan, then Syria, and finally reaching England.?
Laughably and conveniently he leaves out the very next line which says “Now, Hili says, he is heartbroken to see that, three years after Saddam?s fall, life for gay people in Iraq is even more unbearable than before.”
Impressive, Northdallass, as is often the case your very own link is your undoing, proving the opposite of what you claimed it would do – gay Iraqis were better off under Sadam than they are now.
D\\’/UMP said “Then you should fit in just fine in Nebraska. As white as the pure driven snow.”.
If you had ever melted a pot of that “pure driven snow” you’d see its anything but pure.
Northdallass said “Just as a start, perhaps someone can explain to me how the death of 100,000 Iraqis is better than 500,000 Iraqi children alone starving to death.”
As of Sept 2007 an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78
And this is a far shorter time period than the reign of Sadam during which Northdallass alleges 500,000 children starved to death. Things are much worse for Iraqis since the U.S. invasion then they were during the time of Sadam.
Did I miss anything? I was out clinging to my guns and religion.
Impressive, Northdallass, as is often the case your very own link is your undoing, proving the opposite of what you claimed it would do – gay Iraqis were better off under Sadam than they are now.
Actually, the amusement value comes from what gay liberals were previously saying, Priya Lynn.
Complete and total bullshit. There was a healthy gay community in Saddam’s secular Iraq before USA’s illegal invasion. Don’t lie.
But again, perpetuating Saddam in power was what liberals and Democrats wanted, so, given their definition, what he was doing was not in any way homophobic or harmful to gays and in fact was creating a “thriving” community.
Simply put, what invalidates the comparison of before and after by liberal gays is the fact that they quite obviously did not consider it a problem that Saddam’s regime arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered gays, and considered the fact that his regime did so to be creating a “thriving” community.
And ah yes, the Lancet study; partially funded by leftist George Soros, timed to release right before the US elections, and radically higher than every other verified number in Iraq, but of course, automatically considered an “impartial judgment”.
And as for the “alleged”, go ahead and state publicly that the UN was lying.
Of course, the whole thing going on here is that gay liberals could really care less about the Iraqis, inasmuch as they said nothing when Saddam was murdering, torturing, and imprisoning gays as well as millions of other Iraqis; it’s merely a matter of being able to bash the United States and to bark on the command of the liberals and leftists who lost billions of dollars in kickbacks when Saddam was put out of business.
D/\\’UMP, thanks for the compliment but I think you’re missing a few bricks if you think your condescending sneer isn’t exactly the same condescending sneer that BarryO presented to his liberal, classy, SF-values pol-pals at that infamously taped fundraiser…
Speaking of condescending sneers… I’m wondering if D/\\’UMP is just Charles Wilson parading as someone new now? Hmmm, he does have a long record of getting banned, barred and blocked… only to come back with a different name… same act, same guy? Hmmmm.
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