Political Homophobia Kills
04 July 2009 3:33 pm by psychodrew
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6510578.html
Joe Sudbay of AMERICAblog describes the political homophobia infecting the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats.
The political homophobia that allows the Obama adminsitration to argue that it must enforce the laws of the land out of one side of its mouth and order an end to enforcement of an inconvenient immigration law out of the other may have contributed to the death of a soldier. Seaman August Provost was found murdered earlier this week at Camp Pendleton in California. According to his family, he had been the victim of harassment from other soldiers because of his race and sexual orientation, but did not report the harassment because of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.Political homophobes aren’t gay-hating in the traditional sense. In fact, publicly, most are strong supporters of LGBT equality. But, behind closed doors, many Democratic leaders, consultants, Hill staffers and the rest will vociferously argue that there is no political benefit to actually supporting LGBT rights. Political homophobia is rampant among some Democrats. In some ways, it’s worse than blatant homophobia, since we think most Democrats are on our side. And outwardly, they are.
Political homophobia dictates policy in DC more than we’d like to think. I believe it’s happening in the West Wing right now. I’ve been told by several people that while the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, isn’t a homophobe in the traditional way (he always voted the right way when he was in the House), he is always the first person to suggest that his colleagues (and now boss) avoid gay issues. He’d rather not deal with them because he thinks they’re bad politics.
According to the LA Times, two members of Congres, Rep. Bob Filner and Rep. Susan Davis have formally asked the military to investigate the possibility that Seaman Provost was the victim of a hate crime. Even if neither racism nor homophobia played a role in this crime, his family has pointed to another major problem with this policy, that sexual minorities who are harassed by other soldiers cannot report the harassment for fear of expulsion from the military.Rose Roy of Beaumont said her nephew, Navy Seaman August Provost III, had complained a year before about being harassed for being gay.
SNIP
Roy told The Associated Press that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discouraged her nephew from asking for help.
“That phrase is just stupid because it tells them they have no one to speak to,” she said.
Many American cities have policies that allow illegal immigrants to report crimes without fear of being reported. Such communities are known as sanctuary cities. The idea is that it is better for the entire to have such crimes reported than to allow a segment of society to be victimized by hatred, powerless to stop it. It’s a shame the administration isn’t as sympathetic toward sexual minorities honorably serving their country.
But there is good news for gays! Obama is going to end the HIV travel ban (a process that actually began under the last administration). This is great news for gays because as we all know, AIDS is a gay disease!
This post was submitted by psychodrew.
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Look, they GOT yer votes already, just shut up and go back inta the closet till they needz ya next election!
Well… it’s hard to argue with secularh’s stark verdict, but it happens to be true.
If we have three more years of this bullshit, I won’t vote for him in 2012. I have too much dignity.
as I’ve said before:
djjl says:
30 June 2009 at 12:52 pm
He has NEVER shown that he really cares anything for this beyond the votes he could get from the gay community when it fit his story line and the votes he could get when it didn’t (a’la Donnie).
Here’s what even syncophant in chief Richard Wolffe says while touting Renegade on NPR (remember, based on his inside access to Obama during the campaign – “Why can’t you write a book about [the campaign]? Like Theodore White. Those are great books,” Wolffe writes that Obama asked him on March 20, 2008,)-
Because he doesn’t necessarily believe in it. And he thinks that base has nowhere to go.
This is what Richard Wolffe had to say on NPR – from the transcript:
So, all those warning signs were there if – again, people needed to listen closely, not just listen to what they wanted to hear.
snip
ALLEN (Caller): Yes. Hi. I am disappointed. I think an area where Obama has failed to deliver is with regard to gay issues and gay rights. And I d like to know your take on his feelings, his personal feelings, if you have any sense of that, about gays and why he hasn t done anything or what he kind of promised to do or has insufficiently dealt with gay rights.
Mr. WOLFFE: Well, he would talk about his gay friends a lot. But to me, though, the red flag in all of these was his position his opposition to gay marriage. I mean, I think that was a warning sign to anyone who thought that this was going to be a sort of champion of gay rights from the beginning. And I don t think he s going to shift that position. So, his rhetoric really didn t match what was going to be if anyone thought this is a priority for him, it clearly wasn’t.
ALLEN: Not so much gay marriage, but other issues like don t ask, don t tell, you know….
CONAN: He did…
Mr. WOLFFE: You know, I think gay…
CONAN: He did promise to change that.
Mr. WOLFFE: He did. But I think gay marriage is a more live, more important statement of principle, and…
CONAN: But that s the promise he made, and he hasn t done it.
Mr. WOLFFE: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I – look, he I imagine he will come back to it – later, but their model right now is, don t do what the Clinton s did. Everything is shaped by the fact that they don t want to get into the mess that the Clinton s did early on. I wouldn t be surprised if he comes back to that later. But again, it s just not a priority, and it wouldn t be a priority if you don t actually support gay marriage.
ALLEN: Well, I don t agree with that. I think there are issues that are very important that can be dealt with and should be dealt with if – without dealing with gay marriage. And I think that this is a failure on his part.
snip