First published in the Chicago Free Press on September 10, 2008
I've recently discovered something about myself: I'm not a partisan.
I thought I was. I'm a stalwart Democrat. I have strong opinions.
But even though there are issues I feel strongly about - gay civil rights, universal health care, abortion rights, the role of government in society - I tend to believe that a person's political party doesn't define them as a person.
And that means that a person's political party doesn't necessarily reveal their positions on political issues.
Sometimes they do.
In the way that you can generally guess that if someone is gay they are also a Democrat, you can guess that if someone is a Republican they are more likely to be socially conservative.
The company we keep does define who we are, to a limited extent. After all, who among us hasn't found that our views on some issues were influenced by the political party we choose to support?
But not all gay people are Democrats (hence the Log Cabin Republicans), not all Republicans are socially conservative, and not all Democrats believe in gay civil rights.
Americans like labels.
I'm thinking about this because I work in a mostly gay office, where almost everyone follows politics closely and has strong opinions.
Last week, during the Republican National Convention, many of my colleagues dropped by to ask me what I thought of the speeches, what I thought of Sarah Palin, what I thought of John McCain.
And one of them said: "I just don't understand the Log Cabin Republicans. How can someone be both gay and Republican?" Someone else, commenting on a news story on the web, compared gay Republicans to Jewish people who worked for the Nazis.
I understand the feeling here.
Many Republicans have proven themselves to not be friends on our issues. John McCain, for example, has never voted for any gay rights bill. Sarah Palin's church is one that tries to convince gay people that they can become ex-gay - and that this would be healthier, more fulfilling and more pleasing to God.
But just because some Republicans feel this way, and because the party as a whole does not accept the fight for gay civil rights as part of its platform, doesn't mean that Republicans are de facto evil. Republicans are not, in fact, Nazis, and it is offensive to call them so.
I grew up with Republicans. My mother, my father, most of my neighbors, the parents of my friends - pretty much all Republican. Only a few of my high school teachers admitted to being Democrats.
I myself thought I was a Republican until just before my 18th birthday, when I registered as a Democrat.
Most Republicans, I think, want what most Democrats want: a country that is prosperous, with people who are able to work, own homes and have families. A country where everyone has an equal shot at the future they choose for themselves. A democracy where we can criticize the government, make fun of our president, and choose the leaders who best represent us.
Republicans and Democrats just have different visions for how you get to that place. As for socially conservative issues - well, the Log Cabin Republicans are clearly on the right side of those. It's not an oxymoron to be a socially liberal Republican. Think Abraham Lincoln. Or think of my mother, now canvassing for Obama because it makes her sick to think of her party not allowing her daughter to marry.
There are times when it is worth staying in a party or a city or a country in order to help it move forward.
If I had to define myself politically, I'd say I was a pragmatic centrist. I believe that to advance our civil rights, we need to work with everyone who will work with us. I believe that we need visionary idealists to set goals that are high above us and far away, but that change itself is often slow and incremental. Large successes are built on a stepladder of smaller ones.
Republicans are not the enemy. They are not crazy and misguided by definition, though there are crazy, misguided Republicans just as certainly as there are crazy, misguided Democrats.
Republicans are just members of a party we have not converted yet. But we will never convert them to the support of gay civil rights if we dismiss everything they say as being idiotic and morally wrong.
No, Republicans are not the enemy. They are simply Republicans. They comprise about half the country. And if we want our rights, we need to work with them to show them why they should want our rights, too.
Corvino, John
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Truth is my constant companion, ET; you run from it at all costs. Like here:
ET phones in: “McCain demeaned Mark (Bingham)”
Fact Checked: McCain said this at a memorial service for Mark Bingham, a 2000 McCain supporter:
“I never knew Mark Bingham. But I wish I had. I know he was a good son and friend, a good rugby player, a good American, and an extraordinary human being. He supported me, and his support now ranks among the greatest honors of my life. I wish I had known before September 11 just how great an honor his trust in me was. I wish I could have thanked him for it more profusely than time and circumstances allowed. But I know it now. And I thank him with the only means I possess, by being as good an American as he was.”
Yep, those evil GOPers are just demeaners first, patriots second… right?
ET still phones in: “McCain demeaned Mark”
McCain said this last week: “I spoke at the memorial service for one of them (the heroes of 9/11), Mark Bingham. I acknowledged that few of us could say we loved our country as well as he and all the heroes of September 11 had. The only means we possess to thank them is to try to be as good an American as they were. We might fall well short of their standard, but there is honor in the effort.”
At a time when the media was focused on remembering 9/11 and GOP candidate John McCain was standing in the bright light of truth and honor in the fields of Pennslyvania (and BarryO was on his knees begging SlickWilly for help), McCain took the moment to again pay tirbute to one 9/11 hero –singularly. Mark Bingham.
The guy you said no one knew was gay. The guy you said was only honored because he couldn’t refute the evil of GOPers. The guy you said was only worthy of tribute by McCain because he was dead and gone.
I said his family didn’t think being dead was “being gone” and being reduced to worthlessness. You did, though, ET.
Wild Dancing Dervish spinning might help you trance out of reality, but at some point you have to come back to reality and face facts -be held to account.
McCain didn’t demean Mark Bingham and he certainly has never demeaned gays –but you go ahead and keep saying it because your whirling Dervish Dance needs a chant zippier than just “OH-Baam-AH, OH-Bamm-AH”.
You know what, Sarah Palin would have loved Mark Bingham unconditionally –just like she does all gays, without judgment, without derision.
It’s telling that you would demean this century’s greatest gay hero because he didn’t supp at your gayDemocrat table… that you’d demean him and those who honor his brave sacrifice because, for you, it’s all about self, self-interest and making others sacrifice for you, worship your agenda, praise your OneTrueGayCreed.
It’s apparent you’re as tolerant and open as Margaret Cho toward Republicans because you can’t even acknowledge that for one moment, standing in the sun on that Pennsylvania field, John McCain helped move the public’s perception of gays forward… rather than in reverse as all your militant gay activists would prefer.
I know you can’t comprehend this, ET, but you are the perfect personification of why the gay civil rights movement is still stuck in reverse after 20+yrs of gayDemocrat leadership.
Just like the do-nothing Congress headed by all those pro-gay Democrats who promised would lead us from the plantation and slavery and into the promised land… if just voted for them in record numbers.
Stuck in reverse, ET. That’s not the gear you need to take that spacecraft back home.
If people would just give up the theistic god delusion we’d be better off. I mean, really, haven’t we progressed enough as a species that we don’t have to resort to fantastical celestial dictatorships in order to understand our own existence? Why rely on faith when we have reason? It is superfluity at best and an ignis fatuus at least. It is OK not to have answers to everything. What is more likely, that the meaning of life is in the pursuit of knowledge and awareness, or in divine revelation? Irrationality is the sine qua non of religious belief. There is no substantive difference between Yahweh, Allah, Quetzalcoatl, Amun-Ra, Ahura Mazda, Zeus, Wotan, Bhrama, Jesus, Amaterasu, Jupiter, Viracocha, or any other deity invented by man. The greatest weakness in the GOP is their reliance on such an absurd demographic as devout religionists. This perpetuates their ridiculous political influence. The Republican Party needs to trash theology and theodicy as it tarnishes their ideology. Let’s move past this unfortunate phase in human psychological evolution and into the beckoning brave new world. The future awaits us.
I don’t want to burst your bubble, but the minute the Republicans do that, the Democrats will take their place on religion.
Michigan Matt;
Truth is the transsexual mistress that you kidnapped, serially raped, chain to a wall and put duck-tape on its mouh to keep it shut. Yes, it is certainly, your “constant companion”.
McCain did demean Mark Bingham. You know and I know it. He does so every time that he voted against gay rights legislation, even when it had mainstream, tri-partisan support.
He does so every time he opposes gay couples, like Bingham or his boyfriend, having any sort of legal equity. He does so when he endorsed the type of judges who oppose Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas.
Did McCain say in his speech, that he was gay? No. Did he note the he left behind a boyfriend? Nope. Did he say that, in light of this hero, he was changing his views on gay rights? Nope. Does he support treating gay people, like Mark or his lover, as equal citizens? Nope.
You keep on lying, claiming that I ‘deamned’ Mark or that I said his life had no value. Both are your lies. You do not honor someone by treating them as an animal. You do not love them by showing them disrespect. You do not thank someone for saving your life, by denying their right and dignity. Unless, of coarse, you care more about your career then you country or your morality.
i like this part most because it points out the deception of ETB throughout this discussion
MMatt “At a time when the media was focused on remembering 9/11 and GOP candidate John McCain was standing in the bright light of truth and honor in the fields of Pennslyvania (and BarryO was on his knees begging SlickWilly for help), McCain took the moment to again pay tirbute to one 9/11 hero –singularly. Mark Bingham.
The guy you said no one knew was gay. The guy you said was only honored because he couldn’t refute the evil of GOPers. The guy you said was only worthy of tribute by McCain because he was dead and gone.
I said his family didn’t think being dead was “being gone” and being reduced to worthlessness. You did, though, ET.
Wild Dancing Dervish spinning might help you trance out of reality, but at some point you have to come back to reality and face facts -be held to account.
McCain didn’t demean Mark Bingham and he certainly has never demeaned gays –but you go ahead and keep saying it because your whirling Dervish Dance needs a chant zippier than just “OH-Baam-AH, OH-Bamm-AH”.
You know what, Sarah Palin would have loved Mark Bingham unconditionally –just like she does all gays, without judgment, without derision.
It’s telling that you would demean this century’s greatest gay hero because he didn’t supp at your gayDemocrat table… that you’d demean him and those who honor his brave sacrifice because, for you, it’s all about self, self-interest and making others sacrifice for you, worship your agenda, praise your OneTrueGayCreed.
It’s apparent you’re as tolerant and open as Margaret Cho toward Republicans because you can’t even acknowledge that for one moment, standing in the sun on that Pennsylvania field, John McCain helped move the public’s perception of gays forward… rather than in reverse as all your militant gay activists would prefer.
I know you can’t comprehend this, ET, but you are the perfect personification of why the gay civil rights movement is still stuck in reverse after 20+yrs of gayDemocrat leadership.
Just like the do-nothing Congress headed by all those pro-gay Democrats who promised would lead us from the plantation and slavery and into the promised land… if just voted for them in record numbers.
Stuck in reverse, ET. That’s not the gear you need to take that spacecraft back home.”
stuck in reverse is exactly where we are as a civil rights movement and it is where we will be even if senator obama gets elected
we’ve got a better chance for greater change on gay issues with mccain
I can’t disagree with you Jorge. Though I think we both would agree that such being true doesn’t make pandering to superstition and asininity any more palatable.
Jake, nice try at bringing some reason and rational discussion to ET’s talking points, but he isn’t interested in discussion. He’s interested in keeping the gayVote down on the Masta’s Plantation… at any cost.
Wow, I was going to say that it was nice to see an opinion about the Republicans that wasn’t hate filled…and then I read the comments. I’m a republican and I support gay rights, all of them, believe that abortion should remain legal though I don’t think I would ever choose to have one because I think killing one’s child is not the right thing to do, etc…I agree with Drew and jake that the republicans will further the gay rights movement sooner than the dems who can’t seem to get anything accomplished.
Jen, welcome to the NewRevolution within the gay civil rights movement: gays of a moderate bent telling the radicals in our midst that enough is enough… BTW that’s a first-rate blog you’ve got there.
http://redheadranting.blogspot.com/
(Note to ETJB, check out what a real blog looks like… not a purported blog that, when I last looked, you only had generic links to Google, Yahoo, MySpace)
Some gay Republicans, it would seem, would rather promote their own spin, then deal with the truth.
John McCain demeaned Mark Bingham — a man who saved his life — by continuing to oppose LGBT-rights. By renouncing even the slightest bit of equity for this man or his longtime partner.
If McCain had an ounce of decency or honor, he would have actually supported mainstream, tr-partisan gay rights legislation.
Sarah Palin also feels that Mark and his longtime partner should not have any legal rights. No equity, no rights.
The LGBT rights movement has indeed moved forward in the past 20 years. Twenty years ago, circa 1988, we had no Romer v. Evans or Lawrence v. Texas.
Only one State, Wisconsin, had a anti-discrimination/equal opportunity law that included sexual orientation.
Their were few, if any, realistic LGBT characters in films, tv shows, comic books, or video games. The Internet did not exist, in the minds of most peope.
Their was little that could be done for people infected with AIDS/HIV but prepare for their funeral.
It is sad that gay Republicans seem hellbent to demean all the work, education and sacrifice that has occurred the past twenty years to make what progress — political, legal, social, health and cultural — has been made.
No one, except a fool, would assert that all the Democrats or Republicans in Congress are good or bad, when it comes to gay rights.
I never claimed that Obama was my ‘savior’ — frankly, as a Jew I find such a concept a bit odd — nor do I believe that the Democratic party is my ‘religion’.
McCain and Palin oppose just about every single gay rights issue that exists and yet gay Republicans insist that if we vote for them, they will become our saviors and lift us up from prison…typical of them to support what they attack others for doing.
I’m sorry to have to keep disabusing you of your silly, self-protective thoughts, ET, but you’re as wrong now as you were when you first claimed this nonsense.
No one can deny that at a time when the media was focused on remembering 9/11 and GOP candidate John McCain was standing in the bright light of truth and honor in the fields of Pennslyvania (and BarryO was on his knees begging SlickWilly for help), McCain took the moment to again pay tirbute to one 9/11 hero –singularly. Mark Bingham.
The guy you said no one knew was gay. The guy you said was only honored because he couldn’t refute the evil of GOPers. The guy you said was only worthy of tribute by McCain because he was dead and gone.
I said his family didn’t think being dead was “being gone” and being reduced to worthlessness. You did, though, ET.
Wild Dancing Dervish spinning might help you trance out of reality, but at some point you have to come back to reality and face facts -be held to account.
McCain didn’t demean Mark Bingham and he certainly has never demeaned gays –but you go ahead and keep saying it because your whirling Dervish Dance needs a chant zippier than just “OH-Baam-AH, OH-Bamm-AH”. Because if McCain did demean gays, he’d have to look at his trusted, loyal staff in the eyes and demean them too.
You know what, I bet it was McCain’s staff and senior advisors that helped him pay tribute to Mark Bingham by speaking about unconditional love.
Sarah Palin, too, would have loved Mark Bingham unconditionally –just like she does all gays, without judgment, without derision.
It’s telling that you would demean this century’s greatest gay hero because he didn’t supp at your gayDemocrat table… that you’d demean him and those who honor his brave sacrifice because, for you, it’s all about self, self-interest and making others sacrifice for you, worship your agenda, praise your OneTrueGayCreed.
It’s apparent you’re as tolerant and open as Margaret Cho toward Republicans because you can’t even acknowledge that for one moment, standing in the sun on that Pennsylvania field, John McCain helped move the public’s perception of gays forward… rather than in reverse as all your militant gay activists would prefer.
I know you can’t comprehend this, ET, but you are the perfect personification of why the gay civil rights movement is still stuck in reverse after 20+yrs of gayDemocrat leadership.
Just like the do-nothing Congress headed by all those pro-gay Democrats who promised would lead us from the plantation and slavery and into the promised land… if just voted for them in record numbers.
Stuck in reverse, ET. That’s not the gear you need to take that spacecraft back home.
demean: to lower in status or character; to degrade. That fits the bill for John McCain.
His voting record, even his more recent campaign comments demonstrates that he does not believe that Mark Bingham deserves even a shred of equality.
He [McCain] degrades Mark Bingham and his longtime companion every time he refuses to support civil unions or even domestic partnership benefits.
Every time he voted against mainstream gay rights legislation, he was helping to pull Mark, his boyfriend and every other gay American down lower and lower from equality.
derision – a deriding or being derided; contempt or ridicule. Sarah Palin certainly fits that bill.
She campaigned on her support of the state law banning same-sex marriage and actively campaigned against domestic partnership benefits. Her acts demonstrate that she holds gay Americans in contempt.
My personal web page — separate from my blogger — has extensive links to various topics; government, law, elections, politics, voting, news, opinions, etc.
Along with some of my published opinions. One of which can be found on the SodomyLaws webpage.
http://www.geocities.com/edwardtjbrown
ET, congrats on getting a barebones webpage up and running… finally. It almost looks respectably legit except that nearly 95% of your purported webpage (which you claimed proved you weren’t a sockpuppet of King Richard’s even though you and he have a uncanny similarity in grammar, syntax, word phrasing and match 91% on “shared vocabulary” aspect of the U-Mich Microfilm assay program.
The real problem for anyone looking into your “claim” of legitimacy is that your webpage still is 95% links to other generic search engines, links and web outlets.
And your visitor stats indicate 9 visitors have looked at your site over the last 18 months.
Yep, sounds like irrefutable proof that you aren’t a sockpuppet like some IGF readers have proposed.
I’m sorry that you find it necessary to demean the memory of Mark Bingham and belitte the tribute that JohnMcCain paid to this Nation’s greatest gay hero of the Century.
But then, that’s all you.
M&M;
My personal web page has been up and running for several years. I have modified it, as I do about twice a year or when time allows. The hit counter was much much higher, but I deleted it, so it has started over.
My personal research and writing files have also been their as well — film reviews, legal research, political and social commentary, etc. I also was a common contributed to the Gay Politics message board at World Crossing along with several other notable message boards.
Sodomy Laws published my report on LGBT rights in Iraq (circa 2005), which I have since been in the process of updating. So, it would not be too hard for someone to copy my writings or words.
Frankly, I would care a lot more about what your thought about me if you had not proven yourself to be a malicious, hateful, deceptive and bigoted man. Your credibility has gone down the tubes, especially with your outright lies about what I said and did not say about Mark Bingham and the record of McCain-Palin.
McCain demeaned the memory of Mark Bingham, not me. McCain belittled his own tribute to a man that he had little respect for.
ET, you’re a little bit more like King Richard than even a sockpuppet has the right to expect with his master’s hand stuck up his backside.
We can go back and forth endlessly on Mark Bingham, John McCain’s tribute of Mark’s heroic sacrafice, Bingham’s and his ex-partner’s pride in McCain’s tribute and then McCain’s re-tribute to Bingham on the recent 7th Anniversary of that horrible day.
But for you, it would make zero difference because according to your bizzare judgment, Bingham didn’t matter, his memory is immaterial to gays because he supported a GOPer, and McCain’s twice played natl tribute to our Nation’s greatest gay hero doesn’t matter because you say so.
I guess IGF readers will never understand how you, who should have even modest self-respect for other gays and who ought to value of our march toward progress, can be so glib, so partisan, so closed-minded –you really defy reason.
Maybe we can leave the discussion with these two irrefutable facts:
1) Paul Holm, Mark Bingham’s partner, doesn’t think you are right in saying McCain dishonors Mark… Paul gave McCain $2900 so far this campaign cycle
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/paul-holm.asp?cycle=08
2) I guess you have more in common with those kooks in the “9-11 Truth Movement” who regularly trash Mark’s memory, family, his politics, his lover with all kinds of sleazy tabloid-like nonsense you seem to fancy.
http://forum.911movement.org/index.php?showtopic=3488
It’s a fine bed, ET, you’ve crawled into with those other kooks demeaning Mark Bingham’s memory and contributions to our world.
ET claims: “McCain belittled his own tribute to a man that he had little respect for”.
PlanetOut reports: “Speaking before a crowd of 500 people who gathered at the University of California at Berkeley for the memorial service, McCain praised Bingham’s heroic sacrifice that may have saved many lives. “It is now believed that the terrorists on Flight 93 intended to crash the airplane into the United States Capitol where I work, the great house of democracy where I was that day,” the senator said. “It is very possible that I would have been in the building, with a great many other people.
“I may very well owe my life to Mark and the others who summoned the enormous courage and love necessary to deny those depraved, hateful men their terrible triumph. Such a debt you incur for life.”
Sen. McCain flew from Washington to honor Bingham, a former star rugby player for Berkeley who was also an openly gay supporter of McCain’s presidential campaign last year. “I know he (Bingham) was a good son and friend, a good rugby player, a good American and an extraordinary human being,” the senator said. “He supported me, and his support now ranks among the greatest honors of my life. I wish I had known before Sept. 11 just how great an honor his trust in me was. I wish I could have thanked him for it more profusely than time and circumstances allowed.” Speakers at the memorial service also included Bingham’s friends, relatives and former partner, Paul Holm.”
Care to reconsider another replay of the refrain: McCain don’t know jack about Mark? “McCain demeaned Mark”.
Nawh, that’s a honor you now hold with the dishonorable kooks over at 9-11 Truth Movement” with Rosie, Joy Behar, Charlie Sheen, MikeyMoore, CindySheehan and the other farLeft kooks…
Who just happen to be Obama supporters; who’d have thought, eh?
http://freedomfighterradio.net/wearechangegeorgia/?page_id=164
People who demand fealty to the old parties, in the name of “progress,” are ultimately more detrimental to the movement for equality under the law than any homophobe.
After all, when Democrats and Republicans know they can pursue — and persist with — their homophobic policies sans meaningful criticism… they will keep doing so.
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