Tag: Gay Politics

Guess What Percentage of Americans Is Gay

Jon Ponder

If you guessed that 25 percent of Americans are gay, you would be wrong, but you would be in agreement with a majority of the country, according to a new poll from Gallup:

Anti-gay activists debunk assertions that 10 percent of the population is gay. They claim it’s more like 2 percent — which prompts the question: If there are so few gay people, why all the fuss?

U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52 percent) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35 percent who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15 percent.

The adult population of the United States is about 225 million. If a quarter of them were gay, that would be 56 million people — that’s a lot of gay people. That’s roughly the number of Catholics in America. No way.

The fact is, nobody really knows how many gay people there are in the United States or anywhere. The conventional wisdom used to be 10 percent, a figure that probably came from the Kinsey Report in the 1930s.

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Clinton Supports Same-Sex Marriage

Trish

Our nation’s permanent mission is to form a ‘more perfect union’ – deepening the meaning of freedom, broadening the reach of opportunity, strengthening the bonds of community. That mission has inspired and empowered us to extend rights to people previously denied them. Every time we have done that, it has strengthened our nation. Now we should do it again, in New York, with marriage equality.

— Former Pres. Bill Clinton, supporting same-sex marriage. Both the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy were codified under Clinton.

Boehner Kills Jobs, Focuses on Abortion But Chides Obama for Ignoring Jobs with ‘Divisive’ DOMA Shift

Jon Ponder

When the Obama administration announced this week that the Executive Branch would no longer defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act at trial, they effectively lobbed the ball into Speaker John Boehner’s court. It will be up to the Legislative Branch, which is to say Boehner and his tea party bosses in Congress, to defend the act in upcoming trials.

Boehner’s only accomplishment is a budget bill that would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and hobble gross domestic spending by 2 percent.

It refreshing to see the White House playing hardball with the speaker. In offloading to Boehner the responsibility for defending DOMA — which is unconstitutional on its face — the administration has unilaterally forced Republicans to shift from arguing their case against gay marriage from the court of public opinion, via their in-house media outlets on Fox and AM radio, into the court of law, where their illogical, Bible-based rationales are immaterial as testimony:

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Young Gay Stockholm Syndrome Victim at CPAC Says He Doesn’t Like Gays

Jon Ponder

I don’t really like gay people that much. Gay people frustrate me, the stereotypical gay people, it frustrates me…someone who puts on a total act. I understand that some guys are feminine, which is fine. But some guys, at some point, are normal, straight-acting, whatever and the next minute they’re jumping up and down. It just frustrates me. The whole conservative thing is just be yourself, be an individual and just don’t be someone you’re not. If someone does or does not accept you, that’s fine but don’t change who you are to look different to others.

– Matt Hinsey, 22, GOProud member speaking to a reporter at the CPAC clown conclave in Washington, D.C., this week, suggesting that the next generation of right-wing gays will be just as twisted by self-loathing as their antecedents. Hinsey also said he supports Sarah Palin for president because she reminds him of his mom.

Banned Video Explains What Love Without Limits Really Means

Trish

The video rejected in The Ruth Institute’s “Reel Love Challenge.” The contest asked for college students or young adults age 18 to 30 to answer the question, “What makes lifelong love possible?” Apparently it has to be man-lady lifelong love only.

This video was first accepted, but after someone at the “Institute” actually watched it, it was thrown out. The Ruth So-Called Institute is a project of the National Institute for Marriage Education Fund, which is just another Focus on the Family spin-off that claims these bizarre “core values:”

  • Respect for the contributions of men to the family Marriage as a lifelong commitment between one man and one woman
  • Lifelong spousal cooperation as a solution to women’s aspirations for career and family

Verbatim

Trish

The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don’t want anything distracting… I don’t want to permit that opportunity to happen and I’ll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You’ve got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs.”

— Sen. John McCain, explaining his opposition to allowing gays to serve openly in the military by referencing Marines with no legs (none). How this figures in, or why allowing openly heterosexual men and women to serve is not also affected by Marines with no legs, was not clarified.

Verbatim

Trish

If John McCain gets any more hostile toward his Senate colleagues, they might consider having him go through the metal detector before he enters the Capitol.

— The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, summing up Sen. John McCain’s bizarre behavior during the debate over rescinding the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Milbank added that, “McCain’s statement on the floor was roughly one part argument, four parts tantrum.”

John McCain on Repealing DADT: Gay People Aren’t Fit to “Live, Eat, Sleep, or Fight’ Alongside Straight Service Members

Trish

If you’re wondering what very poorly disguised homophobia sounds like, check out John McCain. And a little newsflash for the senator: no amount of “studying” and holding hearings will turn back time. The world has changed, Pops, and your opinion of gay people, which apparently includes the idea that they are inherently less able than straight people to control their sexual urges (maybe like the situation you’re more familiar with, being married to one woman but screwing another?) and force themselves on straight people who are not interested in them, is sheer biogotry. And one last thing: I wouldn’t want to live, eat, sleep, or fight alongside you either.

Verbatim

Trish

I urge all faith leaders and politicians to stop persecuting people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Every day people live in fear because of who they love. We are talking about our family members, our flesh and blood, our humanity. LGBT people are in our villages, towns, cities, countries — and our whole world…those of us who have freedom must speak out for those whose freedom is under attack. We can and must make a difference.

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, writing in Essence magazine about his impending retirement from professional life but not from fighting injustice.