Year: 2008

Candace Gringrich to Newt: Quit Living in the Past on Gay Rights

Trish
Candace Gringrich

Only someone who really knows you can totally nail why you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Newt Gingrich’s half-sister Candace does just that as she lets her big (and we mean big) half-brother know why his position on gay rights sucks.

Dear Newt,

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News. I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, “There you go, again.”

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

“You give a pass to a religious group when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us ‘fascists’ when we fight back”

The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as — and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro. I can understand why you’re so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign. I can see why you’re sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever — and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don’t roll that way. 18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. And the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 — the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That’s an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

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Challenged Ballots Show the Problems in Franken Senate Race

Trish

A sampling of disputed ballots

Wondering just how clueless your fellow voters are? Worry every time you vote that you might be a dumbass too? There’s not much reassurance coming our way from looking at the ballots in the disputed Minnesota Senate race. A recount is nearing completion, to decide whether incumbent Republican Norm Coleman or Democrat Al Franken gets the seat.

Minnesota Public Radio has posted a series of challenged ballots, along with an instant poll for you to pick who you think should get the nod in each case. Divining voter intent isn’t as easy as it might seem.

In these samples, clockwise from top left, an idiot has put an “x” next to Norm Coleman’s name, then written in a vote for Rep. Michele Bachmann at the bottom; similarly, some wiseacre filled in the bubble next to Al Franken’s name but then added a write-in vote for Lizard People; somebody switched from pen for the presidential race to pencil for everything else, calling into question the validity of the entire ballot; and finally, someone seemed to accidentally vote for Coleman then realize their mistake and vote for Franken, then clarify/totally confuse things by writing “No” next to Coleman.

Bush Comparatively Popular in Florida, If By Popular You Mean Mostly Hated

Trish

A stunning 30 percent of Floridians approve of the job Pres. Bush is doing, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. That blows FOX News’ 29 percent and Quinnipiac’s own 23 percent national ratings out of the water.

Most of us are so eager for it to be over, we are pretending Bush is already gone

Oddly, Bush handmaiden Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who comes up for re-election in 2010, is only slightly more popular in the state than the Republicans’ standard bearer.

Although Sen. Martinez gets a somewhat favorable job approval rating, only 36 percent of voters say he deserves another term, while 38 percent say no and 26 percent say they are not sure. If the election were today, 36 percent say they would vote for Martinez while 40 percent would support his unnamed Democratic opponent and 24 percent are undecided.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen has given up on Bush altogether. Their “Daily Presidential Approval Index” lists only one set of numbers: those for Pres.-Elect Barack Obama. It’s as if Bush has ceased to exist. The poll show most folks think the Wish-He-Were-Pres.-Now is doing well. Rasmussen arrives at its index by subtracting the number of people who “strongly disapprove” from the number who “strongly approve.” By this measure, Obama has a +19 rating.

The Washington Post’s index shows that it was March of 2005, just two months after Bush’s second inauguration, that his “disapprove” numbers overtook his “approve” and never recovered. That’s a really long time for a country to have disliked its leader. No wonder Rasmussen, and most of us, are so eager for it to be over that we’re pretending Bush is already gone.

Idiocracy Watch: Hail, Redneck Nation

Buck Banks

idiocracy1.jpg

In a new series, which I just decided to start today called “Idiocracy Watch,” I plan to chronicle stories that expose the fact that the U.S. of A. is still a nation of stupid people who blend anti-intellectualism with racism to create ignorance and intolerance.

Today’s entry comes via Editor & Publisher, which has, since the election, been tracking stories of hate and bigotry related to our country having somehow elected a black man to the presidency. Here are some lowlights:

  • The Mount Desert Islander weekly in Maine reported [yesterday] that a third effigy of a black man had been found hanging from a tree in the area since the election.
  • An e-mail from a student on Iowa (a state Obama carried rather easily):

    • “I’m not sure who to email on this, but there have been several derogatory things said about Obama in our school, and one of them got a student suspended. I go to a school in a little town called Letts, Iowa. We are pretty down home, country road farm kids out here. But never, in my 11 years at the school, have I ever heard the conversation take such a negative turn.

    “The remark that the student was suspended for was this, “Well, it’s called the White House for a reason. We need to get that God damn N—– out of there.”

    “There were other remarks, mostly by students who hunt. They were discussing how far a shotgun could shoot, and decided that they could get to a high enough vantage-point to shoot Obama from at least 2 miles away, without anyone ever knowing where the shot came from. ‘Another Kennedy’ they were saying.”

  • In Buchanan, Michigan, members of the South County Democratic Club woke up Saturday to find their building vandalized with swastikas and racist comments, spray painted on the side of the structure.
  • The Frontiersman weekly based in Wasilla, Alaska, which boosted hometowner Sarah Palin throughout the election campaign, provided column space this week to a local student who alleged anti-Obama racial comments the day after his election:

    • Finally the campaign was over and I was actively supporting our new president, even though I knew I would be vastly out numbered at school. I expected complaints and qualms about the new president, but I was not prepared for the flat-out racist remarks said openly in the halls and classrooms. I was appalled. While I sat at my desk trying to do my work I could hear my fellow classmates:

    “I think we should kill Obama,” one said.

    “I hope someone comes up and shoots him in the head,” another would say.

    “I hate Obama … he’s black.”

    On went the racist words for the full 80 minutes of that class. Angered, I began to think of the injustice of it all and the ignorance of the students I was surrounded by. I wondered where they learned to be so hateful, and I wondered why the teacher never stepped in – why no adult, no student, including myself, had the guts to cut in and say it was not OK. Because it’s never OK for intolerance.

E&P quoted an editorial from the paper in Ossining, in the oh-so-blue state of New York, that pretty much says it all:

Anyone naive enough to believe that Barack Obama’s landmark victory would mean an end to racial bigotry and stupidity need look no farther than Ossining for proof positive that we still have a ways to go. Americans made history by electing Obama the first black president; what they didn’t do, by any stretch, is wipe away years of ingrained racial prejudice, insensitivity and, once again, stupidity.

Welcome to my idiocracy.

Palin Gives News Conference at Turkey Slaughterhouse — As the Birds are Killed

Trish

Holy moly. I haven’t watched this video and don’t plan to but I did listen to the audio, knowing what the contents of the video were. Was that one reporter making a very black joke by asking the governor about issues on the chopping block? Either way, the tone-deaf top executive of Alaska is amazingly clueless and self-absorbed. And this video makes me so glad I’m a vegetarian.

File this one under “A” for “Absurd.”

Florida Republicans Dine While Democrats Pine

Trish

Perhaps nothing so clearly illustrates the positions of the two parties in Florida as the locations where each held its post-election/planning meeting this year.

Democrats likely reviewed the fact that they only picked up one seat in what should have been a year of sweeping victories while passing around a bag of chili-cheese Doritos

The 76 Republican House members met at the luxurious, gulf-front Water • Color Spa & Resort in Santa Rosa Beach. The 44 Democrats booked a teachers’ union conference room a block from the Capitol building in Tallahassee. Both meetings were financed by the parties, not the taxpayers.

As the Republicans discussed their solid victories in the recent election and debated how best to rape and pillage the state in the coming year, they enjoyed such entrees as, “Grilled Petite Filet Wrapped in Applewood Smoked Bacon and Fresh Gulf Fish with Citrus Beurre Blanc Served with Roasted Potato Medley and Seasonal Vegetables.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats likely reviewed the fact that they only picked up one seat in what should have been a year of sweeping victories while trading halves of the sandwiches they each brought and passing around a bag of chili-cheese Doritos.

What the Democrats should have been talking about is their party’s vote on Dec. 20 for a leader. They can either choose to stay the course with the ineffectual Karen Thurman, who not only subcontracts for a Republican lobbyist but oversaw a boycott of the state by Democratic presidential candidates, or they can pick somebody new. There are a couple of hats in the ring so far and our only preference is this: Anybody But Thurman.

Church-Sponsored Web Site Outs Anti-Gay Marriage Supporters

Trish

All those Mormons who are upset that their support of Proposition 8 in California — which took away the right of gay people to marry — is causing uncomfortable scrutiny of their quote unquote religion should take note. KnowThyNeighbor.org is going a step further by publishing the names of those who signed the petition to allow Florida’s version of Prop 8 (which also passed) on the ballot.

Some of those who gleefully supported this ill-conceived and backward amendment are crying foul. They never dreamed anyone would find out, they say.

The database is searchable, allowing you to see if your state senator or representative or governor signed. You can also check your own name for petition fraud. And if you suspect your disagreeable neighbor or homophobic boss signed, now you can find out.

Predictably, some of those who gleefully supported this ill-conceived and backward amendment are crying foul. They never dreamed anyone would find out, they say. But voter petitions are, quite properly, public record.

Sister sites spotlight similar efforts in Oregon and Massachusetts. The Florida site is sponsored by Jacksonville’s Christ Church of Peace.

Christ Church of Peace believes that all people are created equal by our loving Creator. Further, we believe that all tax-paying citizens, regardless of sexual orientation, deserve full equal rights, including the right to enter into civil marriage. And as such, are in agreement with our Florida Constitution.

This is about real, tax paying people being denied fair access to equal rights. Civil marriage is a legal institution, and confers more than 1,000 rights to couples.

Also listed are the five biggest financial contributors to the effort. While the California initiative was funded largely by Republicans and Mormons, Florida’s anti civil rights campaign was waged by Republicans and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family front groups. Note: I suspect there is a typo in the “as of” date, which lists March 31, 2006 instead of 2008.

Republican Party of Florida — $300,000.00
Florida Family Action — $70,946.86
Florida Baptist Convention — $25,000.00
Focus on the Family Action — $23,391.17
Judge Bill — $10,000.00

No, I have no idea who Judge Bill is.

This site is a goldmine of interesting information. Even more important, it sends a message that those who would deny others their rights can’t expect to shoot from the darkness.

Rationalizing the Anti-Gay Vote

Buck Banks

Despite its seemingly liberal-esque name, The Tallahassee Democrat is anything but. So it’s perhaps not surprising that one of its columnists wrote a piece that seems on the surface to be a well-considered view of the other side of the coin on Florida’s own recent vote to enshrine anti-gay bigotry in our state constitution.

Bill Coterell, who writes as the “Capitol Curmudgeon,” penned “Gay-marriage defense faces an uphill battle” for publication in the state capital’s newspaper today. He begins by alleging that economic boycotts such as those being proposed by gay activists in California don’t work, or if they do, they hurt the “little guy,” those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, rather than those who made whatever mischief is being protested.

The huge difference between the civil rights movement and the marriage controversy is that, at least in the backs of their minds, the segregationists knew they were wrong.

Then he slips in a little zinger that provides the first clue to where he’s going in the article:

In one ominous bit of modern McCarthyism, the artistic director of the California Musical Theater was forced out for donating $1,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign. Opponents of the ban announced that they would scour campaign-finance records for names of any other donors whose employers might be sensitive to picketing and boycotts. (emphasis added)

Well, there’s a reason campaign-finance records are public, and anyone donating to a campaign should know that they are making a public statement with their checkbook, and they must be prepared to take responsibility for it.

After musing about whether “provisions of constitutions [should] be for sale, via boycotts of states that won’t enact them or retaliatory firing of people who support them,” Cotterell mounts a classic non-sequitur argument:

Economic reprisal probably won’t amount to much, because people supporting gay marriage tend to be liberal. Liberals believe in church-state separation. Punishing a state for what some prominent members of a church did seems contradictory.

Whoa, there, Billy-boy, let’s examine your argument:

A) People who support gay marriage are liberal.
B) Liberals favor separation of church and state.
c) Therefore, liberals won’t punish an entire state for what some church does.

That doesn’t seem contradictory, just illogical and kind of dumb, Bill.

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