How sad. Iinstead of reaching out and forging broader alliances with those who are real or potential allies on the right, many on the LGBT left would rather serve their partisan masters. A particularly blatant case in point: the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, once again doing what so many LGBT activist groups do—working to keep conservatives and Republicans as anti-gay as possible.
Fox News anchors were courted by GLAAD to attend the group’s annual media awards hoop-la, and when they did, GLAAD issued a stinging denunciation of Fox News and its anchors for, among other things, attending the event. If the anchors hadn’t shown up, GLAAD would have issued a stinging denunciation. Which is all the more shameful, since the views expressed by Fox News anchors and commentators aren’t monolithic and are becoming better on gay issues. Or actually, maybe that explains GLAAD’s (and Democratic front group Media Matters, to which GLAAD seems beholden) going into attack mode.
Hint: For Media Matters, and through it GLAAD, it’s all about maintaining the power of the party.
More. GLAAD could learn a thing or two from John Corvino and Bruce Bawer, who actually care about winning over conservatives. Via this week’s Washington Post book review of Corvino’s “What’s Wrong with Homosexuality?“:
Many gay-marriage opponents sincerely believe their own rhetoric that they want to protect marriage rather than stigmatize gays. And taking this rhetoric seriously is one asset of Corvino’s book, resulting in a level of civility whose absence in our culture wars is not only unpleasant but often ineffective in changing minds.
25 Comments for “Un-GLAAD”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“ … many on the LGBT left would rather serve their partisan masters …”
Uh, this sounds like you are time-traveling back to the 1950’s for a little vacation from reality.
posted by Lori Heine on
No, in the 1950’s those on the LGBT left would have had no partisan masters. Neither of the two dominating political parties would have had anything to do with them.
Now many in the Democratic Party do, and a few in the GOP. Though I belong to neither party, I see nothing wrong with that. Apparently a few of the Democrats’ little minions do.
posted by Walker on
Tom: Miller gave an example of current partisanship. Do you disagree with him?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I was making fun of Stephen’s over-the-top use of “partisan masters”, presumably a sinister force who pull the strings behind the scenes, controlling the LGBT left.
The closer we get to equality, the wilder Stephen gets in his denunciations of the LGBT left. He’s sounding like Glenn Beck, more and more, recently.
I don’t pay much attention to GLAAD (or HRC or any of the other left/liberal lobbying/media groups that Stephen despises), as I’ve indicated in comments to earlier posts. I pay attention to Lambda Legal, the ACLU and other groups that are moving the ball.
I’ve got to tell you, though, that I don’t think that GLAAD was far off when it described Fox News’ coverage of LGBT issues as “biased and misinformed” and, in general, “abysmal”. Looking back over the last decade, Fox News has been anything but “fair and balanced” on our issues, and that’s a fact.
posted by Lori Heine on
They’ll go at their own cowardly-cautious and opportunistic speed. Which is to say, not very fast.
I know very few conservatives who think that every word issued forth from FOX news has been handed down from Heaven. Most find it, like Glenn Beck, alternately amusing and irritating. Or, as one Republican friend explained to me, they watch it the way they might a particularly action-packed and gruesome car wreck.
I suspect the number of hard-core loonies who ingest everything they hear there as gospel is dwindling. Which is why, however gradually and with whatever cowardly slowness, FOX’s coverage is changing.
O’Reilly still takes a gratuitous slap at gays when he thinks he can get away with it. On which he is sometimes called, even by those who appear on his program.
Though it isn’t something to watch if you’re looking for absolute truth, FOX can be interesting as a weather-vane of what’s happening on the Right. That is, to those who don’t have a vested interest in one-dimensionally demonizing everyone on that side of the political divide.
posted by Houndentenor on
It must be nice to know conservatives who aren’t as batshit crazy as the ones I encounter daily here in Texas. There are a LOT of people who believe that only Fox News is telling them the truth. I have even had a number of people tell me that “Glenn Beck is right.” About what? I asked. “Everything.” I’m not making that up or exaggerating. I realize that well-educated libertarian-leaning or country-club style conservatives don’t believe that anyone is so moronic as to take some of this stuff seriously, there are a great many who do.
posted by Houndentenor on
Don’t be silly. His problem isn’t that the comments were unfounded or untrue. After all, truth matters not the least on the right these days. It’s that they said it at all. In Stephen’s world we should be kissing the ass of Fox News hoping that will make them hate us a little less.
posted by Houndentenor on
ROFLOL
First, are you admitting that Fox is nothing more than a right-wing propaganda tool?
Second, Fox News sent people to the GLAAD media awards? Who from there would want to go to such an event. It’s hardly a gay-friendly place. Well, the do have one (closeted I think) gay anchor. Other than that, they are no friends to the gay community.
Third, is what they said about Fox News untrue? Unfair? If so they should be called out on that. But if it’s just about having to be nice to people because they showed up, that’s a big pile of crap.
And finally, GLAAD is completely irrelevant. it’s a big glitzy party for gay people to fawn all over celebrities. It’s probably fun if you’re there but it’s hardly as important as you’re making it out to be. You have some bizarre idea that the liberal gay groups are anything more than excuses to throw parties and for A-listers to provide jobs for their romantic partners. That’s about all most of them are, especially the high profile ones like GLAAD and HRC.
posted by Lori Heine on
I’m no stranger to the frustrations of dealing with conservatives — some of whom are gay, and should know better — who greet any change on the Right with loud hosannas. Because I deeply enjoy making a pain in the ass of myself and pissing people off, I love to tease them about this.
Were I to appear on FOX as a commentator, they’d cut my mic within the first two minutes. I’m well aware that some of those people are troglodytes.
I’ve lost gay conservative friends because I refuse to be complacent about the tortoise-like progress of the GOP. But it’s one thing to simply state the truth — which is that the Right is crawling along only very slowly — and another to do what some Democratic flunkies do, and simply pretend it isn’t happening at all.
If I were a Republican, maybe I’d want to believe this slow-as-molasses change was cause for great joy. I’m a Libertarian at least partially because I don’t.
posted by Houndentenor on
Change comes slowly. It took a long time to drag the Democrats kicking and screaming to supporting equal rights for gay people. Jimmy Carter was very careful not to be photographed with any gay people. Reagan came out against the Briggs initiative in 1978. I’ll take any progress I can get. It’s not the slow pace of the GOP that bothers me, it’s the backwards movement that the religious right demands. Unfortunately I think many Republicans, especially the pundits and the gay conservatives, live in deep blue territory and don’t deal with the religious conservatives on a daily basis. They discount their impact on the party even though the southern state conventions look like tent revival meetings (complete with “high hands” and speaking in tongues). The GOP had gotten itself into quite a dilemma and I don’t see how they get out of it. As much as I want to be gleeful about the problems the Republicans are now having in dealing with their lunatic fringe, I’m not stupid enough to see that they are hurting the country, not just the party.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“If wishes were horses …” is what comes to mind when I deal with “conservatives — some of whom are gay, and should know better — who greet any change on the Right with loud hosannas“.
I get frustrated because supposedly pro-equality Republicans don’t seem to be the least bit interested in actually fielding any horses on the Republican battlefield. I just wish that a few of them would get to work instead of bemoaning the fact that the left/liberals have done a lot of work over the last three decades and, for the most part, have turned the Democratic Party on equality.
If we’d sat on our butts and voted for anti-equality Democrats like they did in the Republican Party, Democrats would still be back in the Jimmy Carter days, or worse, instead of where they are now, and we’d probably have 50 states instead of 30 with anti-marriage amendments.
Lori, I’ve gotten to know you a bit over the years on IGF, and you are a stand-up. You probably did more work to turn the Republican Party back in the days when you were active in the party than GOProud and LCR put together. If there had been more like you, the Republican Party might not be in the fix it is in.
But most of them, like Stephen, preferred to pound on Democrats than do anything to change the Republicans.
I think that the game is over. The country is moving so fast now that the Republican Party doesn’t have time to get into the game, even if it wanted to do so.
posted by Lori Heine on
Actually, Tom, I used to be a Democrat. But I appreciate the shout-out. I have tried to do my part to speak sense to my friends who are gay Republicans.
Sometimes, I find I make more headway with straight Republicans. How very odd.
I think the party is basically over for the GOP. I’m not sure they can re-brand themselves, either.
Last week at Gay Patriot, I actually asked a “socially-responsible conservative” (that’s what he’s calling himself now) what their philosophy of government is. I never could get an answer, because he didn’t want to admit it’s the same as it ever was. They still dream fevered dreams of theocracy.
posted by Houndentenor on
If all the Republicans who tell me that they disagree with the party on gay rights would tell the party that, it might make a difference. I don’t get any sense that they say anything. They will vote the straight Republican ticket no matter how anti-gay the platform or the rhetoric is and then explain to their gay “friends” that it doesn’t reflect their views. That’s who is going to have to make the change and I don’t doubt that you make more headway with heterosexual conservatives. Keep having those conversations. The public has moved on gay rights amazingly quickly in the last couple of decades, including conservatives, especially younger ones. I believe that’s mostly due to the very sorts of calm reasonable conversations that you have with neighbors and coworkers. If you aren’t so bad, maybe the rest of gay people, like you, just want to take care of work, family, etc just like they do. Other than what you do with your junk you’re not all that different from them and they can see that if they aren’t too deeply indoctrinated in fundamentalist theology. (and even then sometimes they can get it)
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think the party is basically over for the GOP. I’m not sure they can re-brand themselves, either.
We went through this in Democratic Party years ago. The party charged off to the left during the post-Vietnam era, getting farther and farther out of touch with the American people. In the aftermath of the Dukakis debacle, the party had to come to terms. The process was predictable: The establishment talked and talked about messaging. It wasn’t enough. Moderates like Bill Clinton and other “New Democrat” moderates on the Democratic Leadership Council forced a change in the party’s positions. The left wing of the Democratic Party has had their noses out of joint ever since, but the party is now center-left, which is where it should be, rather than out on the left fringe.
Watching the Republican Party right now is like deja vu all over again. The party has moved too far to the right, and is out of sync with the American people on a lot of issues. It has to move toward the center, and become a center-right party, if it is going to get back into sync with America.
Ron Priebus and the Republican establishment commissioned an “autopsy” of the party’s inexplicable loss to President Obama. The report goes on and on about “tone”, but says nothing about changing policy positions. The Republican establishment is doing exactly what the Democratic establishment did post-Dukakis. Nobody yet is doing anything visible to force a change in the party’s positions.
Equality is a glaring example of what I’m talking about.
Two days after the “autopsy” was released, much ballyhooed on this blog and other places as a sign of hope and change on our issues, Priebus told the National Republic editorial board this:
I’ll grant you that Mike Huckabee sounds a lot more “reasonable” than Tony Perkins and the rest of the vipers who were invited in to write the 2012 Republican platform on our issues (he has a nice smile, for one thing, something Tony Perkins has never mastered), but his positions are cut out of the same cloth. If there is any daylight, it isn’t showing through.
Changing “tone” wouldn’t have done it for Democrats post-Dukakis, and it won’t do it for Republicans now. Sounding reasonable is a good thing, but being reasonable is what counts.
posted by Houndentenor on
I have this conversation with liberals all the time. Neither party cannot get to and maintain a majority without appealing to and compromising with moderates. it can’t be done. I think there are extremes in both parties that would rather lose an election and be politically pure, than compromise a little and actually win. They’d rather have no bill passed than one that only gives them 3/4 of what they want. it’s not just naive; it’s insane.
posted by JohnInCA on
Checked that article linked under the guise of “Fox getting better” and… seriously? Two Fox people go off script and acknowledge which way the wind is blowing and get on “thin ice” for it, and that’s “getting better”?
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
Fox News is basically the GOP version of the Kremlin. If you work for them or take anything these saw remotely being related to the “fair and balanced” truth, then you risk being sucked into Pravda-land.
I am not sure why the general public — gay or straight — should care one way or the other about a fancy GLAAD party for well paid (maybe over paid) “celebrities”. I understand the importance of smoozing (sic) and GLAAD has done some good work (and some not so good work), but caring that two Fox News employees went to the fancy party and were not invited to the cool kids table or invited, but given dirty looks, is well, nothing something I care much about.
Sometimes, not often, Fox News will cover a gay news story like an actual professional news organization. But, when you get more “fair and balanced” news reporting from say, “comedy” news like Colbert Nation and Daily Show…its pretty safe to say that Fox News had jumped the shark about a billion times.
When the Republican Party wants to appear ‘moderate’ it drags a a few libertarian-minded, educated country club types as if to say, “See!?” Before it quickly asked them to please go back into the political closet (which they are often too happy to do so)…..
Fox News seems to do that, now and again, with news coverage of gay rights. Now and again they get someone to show sympathy for a libertarian (which someone gets classified as ‘moderate’) view on gay rights. I recall how a Fox News interviewer (some time ago) was speaking with someone from the loony ‘God Hates F’ Church and (amazingly) showed the mean old church lady zero patience for her religious-theoecratic BS.
Most of the time, Fox News is designed much like Kremlin propaganda. So, its “How will this news story or interview or expose help the Republican Party?” With gay rights issues, its mainly to paint the Democrats as being “Aw, shucks, I am just a simple Joe plumber, but me thinks that you are a mighty, bit fuzzy-wuzzy-liberally-out of touch with mainstream America”.
Yes, I would agree that GLAAD should work to build relationships with worth-wild “celebrities” and “public figures” who affiliate with two (heck, why not three or more) political parties. No problem with the idea.
If the two woman that attended the GLAAD event have any actual say about Fox News coverage, then GLAAD had some reason to ask them to improve that coverage with specific examples and the like.
If the women went to a fancy party, simply for some free food/drink (maybe or maybe not some recreational stuff) and a chance to look hip by hanging out with some gay folk, well that is probably not the fault of the GLAAD.
posted by Houndentenor on
Agreed. this is like one of those celebrity feuds. I’m not sure why any of us should care which overpaid media figure feels slighted when there are real cases of discrimination that need to be addressed. Besides, Fox has a gay anchor (although one usually criticized by the GOProud bunch).
Also, I spell is schmoozing. I’m not sure if that’s the correct spelling but spellcheck seems to recognize it.
posted by Jimmy on
“Instead of reaching out and forging broader alliances with those who are real or potential allies on the right, many on the LGBT left would rather serve their partisan masters.”
Who on the right, and I mean someone who is a known commodity, has a hand open, waiting to grasp the hand that is reaching out for it? It shows how bad things are when a singular act of decency committed by a Republican-of-note is lauded as some sign from upon high that change is imminent. So Rob Portman changed his mind because he has a gay son. Good for that family. Portman is decent because he has the potential to be shamed. He decided not to be a bigot to his own son. We’d like to think that love won out. Clearly, Portman’s evolution was unimaginable for the Speaker of the House. So, there we are.
Rob Portman turned around on the equality issue because the issue was made personal. His son came out to his father. Some of that is owed to those LGBT folks who have been on the forefront of the equality movement, making the case that coming out is, perhaps, the most powerful action one can take.
posted by another steve on
Who on the right, and I mean someone who is a known commodity, has a hand open, waiting to grasp the hand that is reaching out for it
How about the Fox anchors who bought the table at the GLAAD event? Gee, not attacking them could be a start — but of course, that’s the last thing you’d want to see. How would that serve the one true party?
By your attack on Portman, you show what you’re really about, just as Steve says — working to keep the GOP as anti-gay as possible, in order to serve the interests of the Democratic Party.
posted by JohnInCA on
So if the GOP is anti-gay, it’s the Democrats’ fault? Big show of personal responsibility there.
Not to mention it’s like arguing that environmentalists are keeping the GOP pro-coal, atheists are keeping the GOP pro-Jesus, and the Tea Party is keeping the Dems pro-Social Security.
It’s a stupid argument that obfuscates responsibilities for one’s own actions.
posted by Jimmy on
“working to keep the GOP as anti-gay as possible”
Working? All I did was tell the truth. I didn’t attack Portman; I said he showed decency.
JohnInCA is correct, your argument is stupid.
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
OK let me try and summarize a bit;
1. If the two Fox News employees have done unprofessional news stories about gay people/gay rights in the past or have some sort of say (with their employer) about content, then GLAAD should certainly have had a conversation with them about that. Maybe, with a bit more tact (good/bad cop or flies with honey or whips and chains…or whatever).
2. Fox News does not control the Republican Party, but it certainly has promoted the more ultra-conservative-right-wing sentiment in the country (which tends to fear/hate gays, immigrants, Jews, Muslims and women who think for themselves), at the expense of the more moderate and classical liberal sentiment within the GOP. Certain elements of talk radio played a very similar role.
3. If the more moderate and more classical liberal (i.e. socially liberal, but pro-business conservatives) folk want to actually have a say within the GOP (about something like gay rights), then they need to take appropriate steps to do so. Blaming Democrats or progressives (or the Green party or the Libertarian party) is not such a step. Providing cover for anti-gay Republicans or Fox News is not such a step.
One thing that could — possible be a positive step — would be to actually run for partisan public office.
If you cannot be “bothered” to do the sort of internal legwork that gay Democrats did for decades to improve their own party, then maybe getting a bunch of LGBT Republicans to run for partisan office, as out candidates, could at least be seen as serious effort to give the moderate/classical liberal forces within the GOP more of a voice.
posted by Houndentenor on
My experience with the type of Republicans you mean (pro-business, small government, socially liberal) make apologies to their gay “friends” and family about voting for proudly openly anti-gay bigots, but make no effort at all to change the party’s stand on those issues. They make excuses to gays and do nothing to change anything while continuing to vote for and donate to anti-gay politicians. They are the ones who could make a change. Not me. I have no ability to make Republicans more or less anti-gay. None. They do. If they want, then you should blame them, not me.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
f you cannot be “bothered” to do the sort of internal legwork that gay Democrats did for decades to improve their own party, then maybe getting a bunch of LGBT Republicans to run for partisan office, as out candidates, could at least be seen as serious effort to give the moderate/classical liberal forces within the GOP more of a voice.
That’s a really interesting idea, TomJ. I hadn’t thought along those lines, but there is a lot of merit to the idea.
A thought for my Republican friends who might be interested in this tactic: Start at the Township/County/Municipal level, where the candidates are less likely to face stiff primary opposition from social conservatives. Let Republicans see gays and lesbian elected officials in responsible positions acting responsibly. Then run the best for Assembly and State Senate, and work up.
If you try to start at the Congressional/Senate level, your candidates will be creamed in the primaries, most of the time anyway, unless you’ve done the “legwork” to build a pro-equality voter base that will turn out.
Two outstanding LGBT elected officials from Wisconsin are an example of the path to take. Senator Tammy Baldwin was elected to the City Council, then the County Board, then Congress, then Senate. Congressman Mark Pocan did a lot of legwork as a College Democrat, then was elected to the County Board, the State Assembly and Congress. Build up.