Jebus Teetotalin’ Christ. That’s the best we’ve got from Obama? Seriously? It’s taken him this long to “evolve” to the point where he can take a personal (not even a political) stand on civil rights?
I am not impressed.
Those few words were the bare minimum I’d have expected from a Democratic candidate running for office last century — they are so self-evident, so clear and obvious to any decent human being that I’m appalled that anyone thinks this is a remarkable achievement. Our standards are apparently so low for our politicians that we clap and applaud when they make even a token declaration against bigotry.
Hey, maybe if he’d taken a stand a few years ago, we wouldn’t have had debacles like the recent anti-gay ballot in North Carolina.
He might as well have. In response to that tepid and qualified and ineffectual statement, American hate groups like the American Patriarchy Association, the Patriarchy Research Council, and the Catholic League are already denouncing him furiously. In for a penny, in for a pound, I say — I dare Obama to now stand up and fight for this right. None of this pussy-footing around — he’s going to get screwed by the haters already — so he might as well take a strong stand and earn the goddamned liberal/progressive vote.
He might earn a little respect, too.
at a certain point, I just decided, for me, personally, that African Americans and women should be allowed to vote.
I don’t have to justify that, just an opinion.
*sigh*
My standards sank that low over a decade ago. Dunno where you have been, man.
From the discussion on TET, it’s even worse than this, as he seems to be affirming it’s a state issue, rather than a federal one.
“Personally, I’m all for it. But if NC wants to make it illegal, I support that even more strongly.”
Hey, maybe if he’d taken a stand a few years ago, we wouldn’t have had debacles like the recent anti-gay ballot in North Carolina.
there are now no less than THIRTY states in the US that have amended their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage from being recognized.
the votes are NOT just split demo/repub. there are plenty of demo districts that overwhelmingly supported these amendments.
My conclusion is what it always has been:
this is an issue of RWA manipulation, and political and religious labels are secondary to that.
you won’t fix this shit by voting for a favored candidate, IOW.
you MUST get the people who are relied on as authority figures for information purposes to change the messages they spew.
no other way.
There’s so much bullshit thrown about that few people think long enough to realise this; there’s no good reason to not support same-sex marriage. None.
At least Obama’s gone this far. We in Australia still have an atheist Prime Minister who has reaffirmed (since Obama’s speech) that she opposes gay marriage. Go figure.
Yeah, I kinda feel that way to. OTOH, I guess beggars can’t be choosers and whatnot… This is a (sadly) significant step in the right direction, so I’ve refrained from publicly saying anything negative about it. But I haven’t really publicly said anything positive about it either because it’s like… That’s all ya got?
IMPORTANT PZ: It’s way worse. He actually said it’s a “states’ rights” issue.
Go figure.
is it really so puzzling?
again, all you have to do to predict what a political response will be any more, is to figure out what will motivate the RWA’s as a voting block.
period.
it’s an amazing predictor; over 80% accuracy over the last 30 years.
Sounds like for some people, when we lose we lose, and when we win we lose. Me? I’m proud of the President.
Fuck you galaxy. It’s not “winning” when the President says my civil rights are a “states’ rights” issue.
Me? I’m proud of the President.
Bleak Expectations FTW!
oh, wait, you weren’t kidding?
To paraphrase what I said in TET:
It is twenty-fucking-twelve.
If you are not willing to give your full support to ensuring that I get all of my rights – meaning that you are willing to support and agitate for laws and policies that fill gaps in the rights I am afforded as well as opposing laws and policies that strip me of rights, then:
I have no fucking time for you.
The time for pussy-footing around this is OVER.
I want my full rights, and I want them right the fuck now.
Fuck realpolitik! These are people’s lives – my life, the lives of all of my LGBT siblings. I WILL NOT submit quietly to calls for slow, cautious progress.
If you are on my side FULLY, then you are my ally. If you aren’t, you are AT BEST in my way.
So either step up or GET OUT OF MY WAY.
So is it kinda neat that Obama – the President of the United States – has said that he personally supports same-sex marriage? Yeah. That is kinda neat.
It’s also an opinion shared with over 50% of the country. This is not daring. This is weak.
I want him – TODAY – to call for Congress to pass a law banning states from discriminating against LGBT people. Don’t tell me that it isn’t possible, or that it is unconstitutional (Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act speak otherwise).
I am DONE compromising. I want my rights. All of them. And I want them NOW.
RWA – Republicans With Attitude?
*gags*
Carlie:
Right Wing Authoritarians.
But, as a straight white person with a Suburban Home ‘N Family™, I’m very proud of the President for standing up for our brand. Now, with new Obama: You Can Use His Bathroom!™ I can hold my head up at PTA meetings as a Good Liberal. Thank you, Mr. President.
It is a state issue, given that there’s no federal marriage. Once DOMA gets overturned, I don’t believe federal law will even define marriage but being whatever the various states say it is.
Ah, thanks Brownian.
So, I wonder if the next state vote will be to decide whether gay people get to count as 3/5 of of a person, under the full blessings of Obama leaving it up to them to decide.
Jonshier, you dumb fuck. It’s already a federal issue. See the Full Faith and Credit clause of the constitution.
Not impressed, PZ? Meh. I doubt any politician could impress you. Very few, if any, are ideologically pure enough for you on any subject.
As you’ve noted in the past he’s no progressive. To me he’s barely in the center, leaning right not left. It took him a long time to come to this? Yes, it did. And it seems to me that he dithered on it for far to long. What did you expect of him? He’s a politician being a politician.
Disappointing that he said it’s only a personal issue to him and that it’s just peachy for the states individually to decide the issue. Maybe that viewpoint will evolve too.
Still, it’s an election year. It’s going to be close. Very close. I am willing to give him props for making what is, for him, a tough decision. I suspect it’s going to hurt him politically and I suspect he knows this. People are going to whine that he was forced to make this call and that it is therefore somehow tainted. Whatever. He did it.
Because of who he is, the narrative is now going to change. It may cost him his next term, but the landscape is now irrevocably changed.
Now, with new Obama: You Can Use His Bathroom!™ I can hold my head up at PTA meetings as a Good Liberal. Thank you, Mr. President.
lol!
perfect.
Fuck that noise.
Discrimination, especially rampant discrimination is totally a federal issue, jonshier.
The federal government has stepped in before to prevent states from being discriminatory. Fuck, they’ve done it multiple times.
A federal law saying, “It is unlawful in the United States to deny LGBT citizens any of the rights, privileges, and obligations of straight citizens,” sounds like just the ticket for me.
I’m touched you care.
Asshole.
Can one of you fuckers please explain to me what your fetish with state government is? Why do you cum yourself with glee at states imposing restrictions, but the same or less impactful issues on the federal level you wet your pants over? Why do you like smaller governments having powerful influence over people’s lives over a larger government? What honest difference does it make to you?
It already is defined by the fucking state. Hence places where it’s illegal and places where it’s legal. People’s rights are not up for a fucking vote. It needs to be legal across the fucking nation by Federal standards.
Fucking a.
RWA – Republicans With Attitude?
no.
Right
Wing
Authoritarians
have you never read Altemeyer?
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
if you haven’t, you need to. It pretty much, as a single descriptor, explains the vast bulk of politics, period, and certainly what’s been happening in the states for the last 40 years.
A tough decision to do absolutely nothing.
As I said Obama has been the best on the gay rights issue, which is a condemnation of politics not praise of him.
Barack Obama’s Bullshit Gay Marriage Announcement
Pretty much what PZ said, only more of it. I agree wholeheartedly. This is little more than Obama’s usual seeming to say something profound while actually weasel-wording it so hard it ends up saying not much at all.
It’s going to be close. Very close.
bet you 5 bucks it will be well over 5 points difference in the end.
PZ:
Oh, not all of us. Some of us are angrier than all hells. However, the idiots who dare to consider themselves our allies, who are all impressed with the Bread and Circuses are fueling that anger.
see_the_galaxy @9:
The president has become incrementally less mealy-mouthed on an issue where he’s clearly known the right answer for years but has been too cowardly to say it. He hasn’t become any more politically effective. I guess this mainstreams the issue a bit, so it’s technically a “win”, but it’s not something to be proud of. Obama’s lagging behind the majority of voters and the big majority of his base, and yet he’s still half-assing around, claiming no moral authority at all, and committing the egregious fuckwittery of calling it a “states’ rights issue.” (For the record: unless New Hampshire and Vermont finally want to get hitched, the states’ rights have fuck all to do with this.) I’ll be proud of Obama when he acts like a president instead of a whiny five-year-old dipping his toes in the water because he’s afraid to get in the pool.
you want to understand how Obama works?
read Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/2011/04/13/obama_147/singleton/
Ing – Please see American Civil War. Gawd loves us.
Greenwald’s conclusion:
this was published over a year ago.
Thanks Ing, I’ll read it.
“Disappointing” is an emotional luxury afforded only to those who don’t have to worry about being barred from the hospital room of their loved ones as they lay dying.
Ichthyic, thanks for the Greenwald quote. He’s right. We are so fucking mesmerized by the new normal in this country that people who think of themselves as liberals literally cannot wrap their minds around the fact that the most liberal US politician would be regarded (rightly) as a fascist waiting to happen in the rest of the civilized world.
Ichthyic
I won’t take the bet. I am lousy at picking winners. Srsly, if I ever say who I think will win the NCAAs be sure to pick whoever they are playing.
Anyway, I hope you’re right. Mittens would be an utter disaster, irrespective of four more years of Bush III.
I assume you meant you think Obama wins by >5.
We are so fucking mesmerized by the new normal in this country that people who think of themselves as liberals literally cannot wrap their minds around the fact that the most liberal US politician would be regarded (rightly) as a fascist waiting to happen in the rest of the civilized world.
…and now you know why I left.
You know, I tried. I tried really hard to be understanding about the fact that there are people for whom this is a little spark of needed hope and acknowledgment. I tried to be happy for those people who felt that way.
But fuck it. This is not fucking good enough. “Thinking same-sex couples should be able to get married” is a necessary but not sufficient condition of basic fucking human decency. If you care to get in people’s faces for having the spine to demand more than that from the fucking President of the United States, you can go fuck yourself.
Someone:
Which totally ignores the following:
Bah.
I assume you meant you think Obama wins by >5.
yup.
It was clear to me 2 years ago that the GoP wasn’t planning a real push until 2016.
Yeah, I’ll give you disappointing:
1. My friend Tim being barred from accessing his own husband’s bank account the minute my sad, unfortunate dear friend Michael wheezed his last breath, mercifully, from the morphine that killed him before liver cancer could.
2. The many gay couples I’ve tried to help in my professional capacity whose evil religious families literally stole the dead spouse’s body away from the other spouse specifically to spite him/her and ensure they got to insult their relationship in death.
3. The transsexual woman in San Francisco whose family is, right now, trying to drag her body into a macabre funeral where they dress her up as a man and bury her under a headstone with her assigned boy name so she can “go back to God the way he created him.”
Ichthyic, believe me, I think about leaving. If it weren’t for a secure job and a home where I’ve put down roots. . .
This is not fucking good enough
+1
in fact, that should just be repeated as THE response.
loudly.
everywhere.
copy paste it in your emails, on blogs, on twitter. Make a fucking tag of it.
get it out there.
THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Some of what I’ve already said about this on TET:
[About the ‘bigger picture’ and having to vote for the weasel]:
Josh…that last one…I completely believe that it is happening, but do you have a link with more info? If there’s anything I can do I’d like to.
Let’s see, we have a President who made a great show of how he struggled over the issue of LGBT marriage and finally came out for it but left it as a state’s rights issue. And all the right wing groups that already think that the current President is a threat to their existence condemns him.
How shocking.
Those fuckers should be applauding the fact that Obama is for state’s rights. Instead, they will whine at even higher decibels that their religious freedoms are about to be quashed.
I fucking hate all of this.
Sheesh. Calm down. We get the “mad” schtick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
Not impressed either. I call it DON’T ASK (fed govt to discriminate), DON’T TELL (the states what to do). But I DO (support same-sex marriage).
mr. person:
FUCK YOU.
Take a porcupine and get the fuck out.
@48 mr.person
Were Obama’s statement in fact “good enough,” you’d have a point, but it isn’t, and that’s why people are angry.
Esteleth—
It really is happening. I wish there were something you or anyone could do. I’m not comfortable linking to the news stories because I’m working with an advocacy group privately to try to sort out this horrible situation, and I don’t know that they want the sordid funereal details public. Believe me, I wish I could.
Cipher:
Sing it, Sister! As TLC pointed out on TET, if this was a personal opinion from a bigot on the street, yeah, it would be good news that a bigot was showing signs of having a brain and figuring out basic ethics.
However, we aren’t talking about Joe Bigot on the street. We are talking about the President of the United States, FFS. Someone who has an obligation to lead, someone who has an obligation to uphold what is right.
jonshier, even if the fed gov couldn’t make a direct law it could say require all people in all States that don’t allow gay marriage to pay taxes as single folks only. These kinds of strings are ok and part of why the recent obamacare going to the POTUS was such a joke.
Ichthyic, believe me, I think about leaving. If it weren’t for a secure job and a home where I’ve put down roots. . .
I was “fortunate” to not have any roots.
maybe I saw what was coming.
*shrug*
you see the same thing happening everywhere, even here in Hobbiton.
but HERE the numbers are relatively so small, it just kinda fizzles on impact. Even still, I see enough RWA manipulation for example, so that John Key was voted into office as PM overwhelmingly (moreso than anyone in the last 40 years), and yet his primary economic policy is to sell of public assets.
now, I asked around, EVERYWHERE, and I cannot find a single group of people here that actually supports selling off NZ public assets.
so how did Key get into office?
hotbutton issues; people thinking in downward economic times that they need a “Strong” leader…
sound familiar?
yeah.
I speak with people here who talk about how socialist run NZ was the envy of the fucking world in the 70s…
but the right wing message machine has gradually filled the message space with the idea that socialism=bad, progressivism=bad…
yes, even here.
Why am I here then? Because HERE, there is real hope that the message can be influenced in the opposite direction; that the damage can be reversed.
I’m working on it personally.
no shit.
If I have any success with it at all, I can die fucking happy.
Mr. Person, shove your head up the ass of a dead porcupine.
This is not schtick, this is our fucking lives.
Our rights remains the playthings of the most hateful and closed minded of the ignorant.
And you fucking yell at us?
Wrote PZ:
56 (to date) comments in, no critic has yet endeavoured to address the basis of PZ’s contentions.
(I am not surprised)
mr. not a person:
Take your privilege, paste it on a decaying porcupine and slam it up your ass, Cupcake.
Again the issue isn’t that Obama isn’t perfect, it’s that he’s not even our ally.
Really? You’re going to rip on Obama for saying he favors legalizing marriage for all, and then commenters are going to thrash anyone who thinks it’s a step in the right direction? Come on! It is a step in the right direction! It’s not even close top perfect, but what’s the guy gonna do and still be elected this fall.
OK, call me an asshole too, but you’re being unrealistic to think he’s going to change laws during an interview on ABC.
Besides, something that gets the religious “family” groups this worked up can’t be all bad.
mr.person @48:
How exactly is our anger moving the situation further away from perfection? Do you think it would be helpful to reduce the pressure on Obama to act like he’s a liberal?
Oh for fuck sake. Hey I’m in favor of world peace! How praise me as a saint while I see how my stock in MurderCo Weapons Inc has been doing
One has to love the concept of rights that are up for a vote.
Can one say that is a fucking contradiction?
What do you say, mr person?
You can’t lead where the people are not going – and get elected. Over 30 states are already going in the other direction, by constitutional amendments. If obama takes too strong a stand too early, you’re looking at Romney, Santorum, et al as president. As shown by his actions with the gays in the military, Obama is leading in the right, er, I mean left, no, the proper direction. Of course this is an important issue, but why help the republicans make this the most important wedge issue? If this becomes the dominant issue, the republicans win and we get nothing.
When the people elect a president that can appoint more liberal judges to the Supreme Court, the above mentioned amendments will be declared unconstitutional at the federal level. Then federal laws will be written to give gay marriage the status it deserves, across all states. It appears to me ‘the people’ on this issue are on the verge of becoming a majority. Compared to five years ago much progress has been made.
Yes. Obama is a wimp, nth edition. I wish he would actually *do something*. Guess I shouldn’t get too excited. Hopefully. As esteleth said,
.
Maybe by the time I grow up, the times would change. I hope.
So we’ve got tepid friends and vicious enemies. Cherish your victories and play to win. What will reduce the chance of more Amendment 1s? Reducing the power, influence, and credibility of the Right wing in general and of Republicans in particular…inch by inch when we have to, and mile by mile when we can.
oh no?
Hey here’s a scenario. Obama does Jack + Shit practically but his little show of solidarity works up the “Family” groups into another funding frenzy.
Hows that for moving further away from good?
Read the article linked. He is doing something…that something is just not in your interests.
He’s not a wimp, he’s just not your friend
You’re an asshole.
jakeschmitz – Overton Window.
I’m going to copy myself from the other thread:
For everyone not understanding why people are so upset, try substituting atheism in for gay in all of this, or evolution. It’s the same kind of accommodation that you’re arguing for (or covering for) now that I know a lot of you argue against when it comes to those other issues. And fine, maybe you’re happy with focusing on just the happy angle of it, but as Josh said, somebody has to keep saying that baby steps are not enough, or else nobody is going to move any further. The Overton window doesn’t shift if nobody is doing the shifting. Obama has barely peeked out of the right-hand side of the window, and it still needs a huge lurch further left. If everyone just pats him on the back for peeking out the right side, the movement will stop.
Do you fucking think that all of these groups howling over Obama’s mouthful of mush would have been supportive of his re-election campaign if he did not say this?
How would he have lost coming out treating this as a right instead of a state’s rights issue?
Thank you, Straight White Man™ for educating me on all the ways of the world that my people neglected to tell me. I am humbled and honored to learn at the knee of so wise a teacher as you, Mr. Sir.
What will reduce the chance of more Amendment 1s?
Not this.
because…
IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Of course! It’s just like how we treat religious zealots kindly and give them big kudos and pats on the back whenever they say anything remotely reasonable, because being nice to them and never being mad about their viewpoints is the way that we win. Oh, wait…
And wise Mr. Galaxy Sir, please as I kneel here, accept this gift of a sacred glow stick on behalf of my people. It is a symbol of our ancestors who died in discotheques past, and it carries with it all our hopes and best intentions.
Exactly. Those votes are already lost to him. They’re lost to him because he’s a Democrat, and because he’s black, and those votes are never coming back to him. Chasing after them is a lost cause, and doing so will allow many, many more to slip through his fingers. This country is screaming for someone who actually has conviction for their own beliefs, and for beliefs that value actual people and their rights. Why else do you think “flip-flop” is still the kiss of death for a campaign? He has nothing to lose by taking a strong stance on this, and a lot to gain. But he refused to do it.
jakeschmitz:
Have you seen said interview?
I quote consciousness razor at TET:
We-the-people spoke before Lyndon Johnson spoke. See #64 above.
I like how civil liberties go flying out the fucking window in North Carolina and all people can talk about on sites I visit are state rights and how it’s a “victory for freedom.”
Amendment One is absolutely disgusting, and so are the people who want to take away LGBT rights.
You cannot seriously still be fucking pretending this is a victory when people in this thread have pointed out exactly why it’s not. Sure, great, I’m glad that the environment in this country is such that the President feels it’s politically possible/expedient to air this “personal” feeling of his. That counts as a step in the right direction. But that’s not due to his hard work, and it doesn’t count as hard work on his part. What did he actually do? Gave the right more ammunition for their states-rights bullshit which is actively destroying queer people’s lives right the fuck now. Sorry if I’m not cherishing that shit enough for you.
He favours legalizing marriage for all? Really? I have news for you, oh hard of thinking one. He’s not in favour of it at all. By going the “personal opinion” route, and confirming that it’s a state’s right issue, he has tossed us onto to the tracks to be demolished by a train. These are people’s lives, you fucking moron. He can take his condescending, half-assed ‘affirmation’ and shove it up his ass.
As soon as they have a little think, they are going to be lining up to hug his weaselly ass. Why? Because the weaselly ass confirmed that it should be a matter of state’s rights. Are you even aware of what just happened in NC?
Take your rose-coloured glasses and shove ’em, asshole. Try using your brain to actually think about what has happened.
Erm SCOTUS not POTUS**.
Arghhhhh! Why must Obama keep chickening out at the last minute? Darth Cheney is for it FFS.
#64 ramaus:
If you just plop yourself down and let the people drag you along, it can’t be fucking called “leading”, can it?
That’s what Obama did.
Thank you, Professor. Well said.
Ah, I see we’re chasing the fallacy that if we are very, very nice and ask for our rights very politely, we’lll get patted on the head and maybe someday, if we’re very very good we’ll get our rights.
Fuck that noise.
The thing to do is to LOUDLY assert our claim. Now. Shift the Overton window!
Shala! :tackles and hugs and hugs and hugs:
Obama’s statement right now is the equivalent of saying “Well I think it’d be nice for gay people to get married but I’m not going to interfere lol”. It’s actually amazing how much of a non-statement it really is.
Imagine that kind of logic applied in other scenarios? “Well I think slavery should end but I’m not going to actually interfere.” Like, what the fucking fuck?
see_the_galaxy @66:
Yeah, sure. But if that was Obama’s plan, he’d have at the very least said things that, y’know, actually reduced Republicans’ credibility. It’s not like the man doesn’t know how to talk. If he said “for me personally it is important for me,” it isn’t because he didn’t know the words “fundamental,” “inalienable,” or “clear moral imperative.” In fact, I have reason to believe that even the phrase “I commit the full power and authority of this administration” is within his vocabulary. He said what he said because he chose not to directly attack the respectability and moral authority of the religious right. Why, exactly, was that a good move? To protect his electability among bigoted moderates, he should have kept his mouth shut entirely. And to get a significant groundswell of support from the left, or, Athe forbid, to actually effect real change, he should have taken a fucking stand.
Whee! :D
I’ve missed Pharyngula, work keeping me away from here way too long!
Might as well bitch when someone finally comes out, leaving religion and admitting they are agnostic but not yet an atheist. This is progress. What the fuck is wrong with some of you, including you, PZ? This doesn’t mean we don’t keep pushing or that we bow at his feet, but simple acknowledgement of progress is above you? Shit. This mentality is pathetic.
Carlie – I thought whole idea of the window was to move it in the right direction, and I think his statement does that.
What, you mean it is not already?
Where the fuck have you been?
And, oh yeah, when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, that fucking settled the issue.
Suck my big gay dick.
Heya Shala!!!
So, Obama comes out with a position, pretty much in favour of what we like. It’s not perfect, but it is guaranteed to send the right into a foaming frenzy. And what does he get on the Liberal/Progressive side?
Growling, snarling, us vs. them, if-you’re-not-with-us-100%-you’re-against-us diatribes.
For goodness’ sake people! You like portraying the right wingers as intolerant nutbags (and goodness knows they make it easy sometimes) then whine like petulant children when you actually get something you wanted!
This is something good. It’s not perfect, but we’re not going to GET perfect, now or ever. And you’ll get a hell of a lot more support from politicians – ANY politicians – if you give them a bit of a slap on the back once in a while rather than ripping them down even when they’re, for once, at least trying to be on your side. Yeah, push for more – but don’t be surprised if you don’t get it when all a politician sees is criticism. They WILL give up on you and look elsewhere for support.
Esteleth:
Fuck that noise with cleats on. For Christ’s sake, just how long are we expected to wait to be treated like human beings? It has been decades already. The mere notion that it was “brave” of Obama to express a personal opinion? Fuck that noise with a case of decaying porcupines. He’s had time to grow a fucking spine and show he has what it takes to lead ethically.
The last few years (particularly here) have really opened my eyes to the depth and extent of straight privilege I have, and this is just taking my breath away. Anyone who is straight and going on about how good this is and how gay people should just be happy about it already, do you have any idea how breathtakingly entitled and shitty you sound? God, I feel like I’m in an 1800s period piece watching the lord of the manor wax eloquent on how the serfs really do need to stop moaning about how he just cut their firewood allotment for the winter, since he did have the gardener plant a few nice flowers outside the hovels for them to look at. Christ, what more do those people think they ought to get, anyway?
I’ve been angry and depressed ever since I read about Obama’s statement, and I think I’ve figured out why.
Ever since he started campaigning for the presidency, every few months, Obama has promised to take the LGBT community to an amusement park. Instead, we always end up at the dentist’s for a cleaning, or at the doctor for more shots. All for our own good, of course. The only times we really did end up at an amusement park was when the van had a flat tire across the street from one; he really couldn’t say no at that point.
Today, Obama promised to take us all to Disneyland. And everywhere I look, I see people who should damned well know better talking excitedly about seeing Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and getting their picture taken with Mickey Mouse, and watching the wonderful parade down Main Street, USA.
Then run along. You weren’t an ally to begin with, and better not to have you underfoot.
Bye.
Thank you, Carlie.
No thanks, Josh, but I appreciate the level of complexity of your argument though.
It’s not perfect, but it is guaranteed to send the right into a foaming frenzy.
you’re a fucking idiot for not seeing that this is EXACTLY the problem with it.
In fact, if it was a STRONG statement, with support, and citing the history of say, the civil rights movement in support, maybe it actually might have had some impact.
but this?
all it will do is act to mobilize the RWA’s, and the GoP will take full advantage of it to create even more hatred out there.
no, this sets us BACK, you fucking idiot.
You are not very lucid, brazenlucidity. Look up the battle between state’s rights and civil rights. It has been almost fifty years. While their has been progress made, those battles are still being fought. This is not just about voting in the right people, this is about education.
And some folks fear education.
brazenlucidity:
I quote eigenperson @84:
Citation needed. For the claim that kissing a politician’s ass will get them to help you, and for the claim that Obama is trying to be on our side rather than trying to play both sides.
sundoga:
We did not get what we wanted – we did not get anything at all.
Just how stupid are you? Obama just handed every anti-gay bigot in the U.S. a free card to enact laws to fuck GLBT people over, hard.
All Obama offered was an utterly worthless personal ‘affirmation’. It’s worth the paper it’s printed on.
jakeschmitz – the window is moved by those on the furthest edge of the position. That gives the cover for someone like Obama to take what would formerly have been a radical position, but is now viewed as centrist (or even barely in the window).
Obama’s statement doesn’t actually say anything other than he personally is in favor of same-sex marriage. However he’s not going to push for a federal law legalizing same-sex marriage. Instead he’s going to let each state decide. He made this statement the day after North Carolina voted in a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage or even civil unions.
My argument isn’t complex. I think you’re a douchebag and a waste of air, and I want you to fuck off.
@jakeschmitz #92: No, it doesn’t. Saying “in my personal opinion marriage should be allowed, but in practice I’m okay with states banning it” is well on the right-hand side of the Overton window.
If he wants to shift the Overton window (something Obama has never come close to doing in his term), he should demand a law giving gay couples the right to marry in every state in the union.
ramaus | 9 May 2012 at 9:07 pm :
Perhaps you should have looked where the people are going before making an ass of yourself.
Right, sundoga, because the right-wingers, especially the theocrats, are totally going to listen to us and give an inch?
Stop deluding yourself. They will not.
We need to speak up – openly and loudly – about why LGBT rights are IMPORTANT. We need to make the right-wingers look like the ignorant bigots they are so that they LOSE THE RIGHT to be catered to, to have their bigoted opinions influence law.
Their victory would feature me shoved into the closet or dead, and they aren’t willing to compromise on that. Scratch the surface, and that is what you will find.
Stop pretending otherwise!
Make them irrelevant. Shift the conversation and make them irrelevant dinosaurs screeching in the back of the room.
Just how stupid are you? Obama just handed every anti-gay bigot in the U.S. a free card to enact laws to fuck GLBT people over, hard.
Oh but Caine it’s totally alright because this means we can have small governments decide things! FUCK YEAH LIBERTY!!11!1!11shiftone!1! Fuck civil rights!
(now wait and see North Carolina enact a Two Minutes Hate law with regards to LGBT folk!)
I wonder if all the people who can’t figure out why this isn’t good enough, ever read anything about the suffragette movement?
it’s like they have zero knowledge of the history of civil rights.
Get this through your fucking thick skull!
We do not want rights being put up to a vote!
Please, try to understand why some of us queers do not like this.
And please read want carlie said in #98 and understand what she said.
Yes, being told “shut up and vote Democratic or you’ll get your rights taken away”, and then following that advice, has worked out SO WELL for protecting abortion rights and getting an equal rights amendment and all. There is such a long list of how going along and not rocking the boat gets people what they want.
Josh – i’m just sorry it took so long in my life to see what I should have been fucking angry about.
@jakeschmitz
You’re an asshole. @brazenlucidity So are you. As people have pointed out endlessly above, these are our fucking lives, assholes. Leaving aside expecting actual principle and decency, political considerations militate for it as well. Democrats kissing bigot’s asses isn’t going to do anything to move the Overton Window left, and taking an actual fucking stand on something will help wonderfully to energize the people who are currently apathetic nonvoters because there’s no one to vote for who’s not a cryptofascist. It’s highly likely that anyone for whom supporting equal rights is a dealbreaker would not vote for a Democrat in general or Obama in particular in most cases. Therefore, it behooves Obama to simultaneously push Romney farther right and to provide strong moral leadership in a leftward direction. Romney going right will drive moderates away from him, and Obama going left will energize the left, and likely pick up many people who had no strong feelings previously.
#99 Gregory in Seattle:
Obama didn’t promise to take gay people to Disneyland.
He said that he has been thinking about it for some time and that he has evolved to the point of personally believing they have the right to go to Disneyland if they want, but he isn’t going to personally take them and if someone else refuses to let them go to Disneyland that’s okay, and they’ll have to hash it out with that person because Obama sure as heck is not going to intervene.
Eigenperson: The the goal for the next six months is to get elected, not to lose the election on a gay marriage issue. Progress is being made on the gay rights front. Obama is not sitting down.
[necessary repetition]
sundoga:
Perhaps you’ve not yet read the comments against which you rail.
I quote consciousness razor at TET:
Which is effectively an endorsement of Amendment 1, not same-sex marriage.
ramus, Obama is shuffling along after the crowd, complaining that they’re moving too fast.
Have you missed the fact that support for same-sex marriage has crossed the 50% line?
These people are so goddamned ignorant of history it’s a frightmare.
Well, I’m not. I recognize you for what you are: enablers. Go along to get along Kapos. You’re just as bad—nay worse—as the right wingers. You give them cover. You spend your time upbraiding people like me, Caine, Esteleth, and the rest of the queers for not being grateful enough. You fucking run interference for people who hate us and want us dead and disenfranchised.
You better keep the fuck out of my way. Seriously.
Josh:
Preach it, brother!
*fist-bump*
“I personally believe that interracial couples should be allowed to marry, but the issue should be left for the states to decide.”
“I personally believe that women should be allowed to vote, but the issue should be left for the states to decide.”
“I personally believe that atheists should be allowed to be parents, but the issue should be left for the states to decide.”
“I personally believe that cephalophiles should have freedom of speech, but the issue should be left for the states to decide.”
I personally believe that Obama’s as much of a bigot as anyone who’d utter any of these statements, and that damn well isn’t something that’s subject to the whims of a state government.
Obama is not sitting down.
no, he’s bending over.
This isn’t Obama’s progress. The fact that Obama felt safe making this virtually meaningless affirmation that yeah, he’s pretty sure gays are human and should have rights, although he’s not going to try to force that idea on anyone else… that’s progress made by queer people and their allies. Not by him. There are millions of people in this country with more decent views than the qualified, mealy-mouthed bullshit Obama just deigned to throw out there. He, as TLC pointed out, stated publicly a view that would sound fucking fantastic coming from a regressive bigot who was in the process of slowly changing his mind. Fucking joy. How dare we complain?
#120 ramaus:
What the fuck is he getting elected for, if he thinks basic human rights are a fucking states’ rights issue?
ramus #120
Tell us what this progress is. I see a mealy-mouthed statement that doesn’t actually say anything positive. I also see a bunch of ignoranuses deluding themselves into thinking Obama is actually moving to the left in some small fashion.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!
Ich, I have an opening for yet another Fake Husband should you care to apply:)
Have you missed the fact that support for same-sex marriage has crossed the 50% line?
and yet, 30 states now have amendments banning sam sex marriage.
…exactly what one would expect if left to individual states to decide.
@eigenperson #119 – I sit corrected. That does not change the fact that people who should damned well know better are talking excitedly about seeing Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and getting their picture taken with Mickey Mouse, and watching the wonderful parade down Main Street, USA.
Hehe! I’ll continue to fight for LGBT rights as hard as ever. Have done so for years and years. I won’t fuck off though. I’ll leave that up to you, Josh. And to the rest? Yes, I wish Obama would lead more, as I noted. However, as a professor myself, I’ve learned you don’t get better results for castigating students because they didn’t get things perfect. Usually lauding them for what they got right and pointing out and penalizing where they’re wrong works best. This simplistic attack method is shortsighted and ultimately not effective.
I have an opening for yet another Fake Husband
an opening… you say.
no, I won’t go there…
wait.
The President = a student?
Did you vote for your students?
FFS
This isn’t “perfect” it’s “acceptable”.
if he has just said “I support gay rights” period and not given a fucking OUT then we might be able to talk about progress.
I for one never said it was good enough, or anything else. What I’m saying is I don’t want another Amendment 1, and I remember very well the Nader debacle of 2000. United, we could have beaten Bush and avoided the war on terror, Alito, the war in Iraq, Roberts, the Great Recession, etc.
You can complain all you want. You have plenty of right. To not acknowledge his claim as something positive isn’t very intellectually honest though.
Scratch that this isn’t acceptable.
It’s the fucking party line of the GOP when they have to put on their big kids pants and talk to non-crazy people!
You stupid, smug, privileged asshole. We’re not dealing with students here, we’re dealing with peoples’ lives.
You can shove your head right back up your lily white straight asshole until you’ve had to spend decades fighting for your right to exist without physical violence, job threats, and being deprived of basic familial rights.
Don’t you DARE lecture me.
Sundoga, Ramus, Fuck you too. And any of the rest of you assholes whose names I may have missed; you know who you are. It’s time to pick a fucking side, and anyone who isn’t wholeheartedly in favor of equal rights is a fucking bigot. There is no middle ground.
#134 brazenlucidity:
OBAMA. IS. NOT. A. FUCKING. STUDENT.
He is a professor (literally and figuratively). He knows better. In 1996 he proved that he knew better.
When you’re dealing with naive and unprepared students who are as lost and confused in the world as twelve-hour-old kittens, as I’m sure you deal with every day as a professor, you may need to have a gentle hand.
Obama is no kitten. He is an adult person and should be able to handle GETTING A FUCKING FAILING GRADE FOR TURNING IN FAILING WORK.
You know, except how his claim may have actually done harm on the balance. And people have made that argument in this thread. And you have ignored it in favor of getting up in queer people’s faces for not being grateful enough.
Cipher, OM, an imperfect analogy, for sure. However, I don’t think that invalidates the idea. Is the idea of giving positive reinforcement to good actions and negative, bad any less relevant if it isn’t in a formal school setting?
brazenlucidity:
So… you contend that one does not castigate students for not getting things perfect, but also one penalises them where they’re wrong.
Care to elucidate in what sense the pushback here is the former and not the latter?
(Perhaps even read the comments hitherto before proceeding)
Wow, I can’t believe it. I made up my mind now. We liberals are always losing because so many of you liberals are SUCH LOSERS! Really? This is something to be praised? No wonder the right wing are crushing us. Because some of you are willing to be happy with pathetic stances like these, instead of fighting all the way.
Not for not being grateful enough, for not even acknowledging it.
Janine – get THIS through your halfwitted headbone – IT IS AND IT WILL BE! Your rights ARE up for vote, in the federal race, in the state politics, even at the local level. And they do NOT give a good goddamn about whether you think that’s fair, right or even legal. So you can sit back in your oh-so-comfortable little smug-nest and babble about your rights OR we can give it a go at actually winning those rights for you and everyone like you. And yes, that includes pushing FOR those politicians who might actually be willing to take your side, if they think they’ll get something for it. If Obama thinks he’ll get nothing but shit from you, he won’t support you, but if he thinks he can get support and votes..? But don’t worry about that. Just sit back in your den of righteousness until they send us both to the wall.
If the title quote had been said by Newt Gingrich or Pat Robertson, sure, that would be progress. Obama was meant to know better already. He had a mandate to know better.
And how many widows/widowers have to be left penniless and without a home, and how many have to be denied the right to make decisions about their partners’ healthcare, and how many have to be financially penalized in every aspect of life, and how many have to watch their kids be handed over to someone else to raise, and how many have to be denied healthcare at all on their partners’ plans, all while we’re taking the time to pat people on the head for making the most rudimentary connections that people are people? Because that head-patting has been going on for a long, long, long time, and the body count is really piling up here.
I swear to God, I’ve never done a violent thing in my life. But I’m awfully glad I’m not sitting in a bar with some of you because I want to beat your faces in so bad I can taste it. I can’t believe how many callous assholes have come out of the “closet” tonight.
Fuck you. Fuck you for alleging you care about equal rights. Goddamned smug frauds.
Hmm. Did you ignore the actual argument again?
“It’s okay that Obama took a step forward and then immediately took two steps back. That’s progress for us!”
christ
brazenlucidity #139
The only thing positive about his statement is his personal acceptance of same-sex marriage. He isn’t going to do anything positive. It’s like saying he’s for motherhood and apple pie and against the man-eating shark.
Please pardon me if I’m completely unimpressed by his personal acceptance of the idea of basic rights for all citizens.
Slow, inexorable surrender: a surefire path to victory!
How fucking dare you? What in the fuck is wrong with you? You’re slime and you ought to be fucking ashamed of yourself.
@sundoga
Those are words of losers who have already given up.
Shala:
You know what’s scary? That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Especially as we have a wonderfully weaselly president endorsing that sort of shit.
(pause to take nightly blood pressure meds)
that includes pushing FOR those politicians who might actually be willing to take your side
you’re dreaming.
you seem to think that Obama’s comment wasn’t carefully crafted, and was instead an invitation to those who fight for civil rights to persuade him or something?
FUCKING IDIOTS.
I’m telling you, if you don’t want to listen to us, listen to Greenwald.
Obama has clearly shown he is NOT a progressive, NOT a champion for civil rights.
stop looking to him like he even could be. He’s a shrewd political animal, nothing more.
Dammit, you people are making the FUCKING SAME ARGUMENT that you rail against when it comes to religion. THE SAME FUCKING ARGUMENT, except now you’re on the side of oh, we have to be so nice to them, because we can’t hurt their little fee-fees, and if we give them lots of praise and applause and lollipops that will encourage them to agree with us, and nobody EVER got their mind changed by a good solid slap of logic and reason upside the head, oh no! Seeing one’s pissant stupid beliefs mocked and ridiculed and told they’re wrong has simply never worked, you say. It’s like I’ve wandered into a thread on the Intersection or something. You simply cannot simultaneously say that being confrontational is good for one social issue and bad for another.
What rights, you smarmy wipe of shit? We are not accorded the rights of other human beings, we are not yet considered to be full human beings.
If you aren’t angry, you are badly broken and you are not a decent human being.
Slow, inexorable surrender: a surefire path to victory!
indeed; so sayeth the accommodationists, too.
@Sundoga
With friends like these…
Esteleth – we’re not talking about the right-wingers. You’re right, they will NEVER be on our side, or give an inch.
What you have to realize is that OBAMA isn’t on our side either. Never was. But he HAS held out an olive branch in our direction at times.
And had it slapped back in his face.
WE CAN’T CHANGE THE DEBATE IF WE HAVE NO VOICE. And right now the White House at least isn’t opposed to us. We CAN bring the more moderate politicians around – but not if we offer them nothing but crap even when they try to engage us.
Carlie, that’s exactly it. They’re all confrontational with religion but they become all Chris Mooney Accommodationist when it comes to queer rights.
The fuck is wrong with y’all?
Oh. I know. It doesn’t affect you personally so you can’t bother to empathize.
Bastard fuckers.
How fucking dare you?
+1
it really is both outrageously naive, and condescending.
Dalillama – If you can’t see what side I’m on you best go take a nap or get an education, whatever it fuckin takes.
My standards have always been that low. It comes from being born during the Nixon administration.
[OT]
Josh, I too was thinking about your blood pressure.
(Kudos, because I suspect PZ picked up on this via TET, and you were a major driver there)
And you’re advocating silencing our voices you Neville Chamberlain appeasing cowardly quisling. I spit on you.
#166 sundoga:
Perhaps you weren’t watching carefully enough. What actually happened was that Obama held out the olive branch and when we reached forward to accept it he pulled it back and yelled “PSYCH!”
(I realize that isn’t what one does when offered an olive branch, but whatever.)
LOSERS, Obama is not your messiah! He is a right wing authoritarian in the same veins as Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II! Your worship of Obama has blinded you to that!
*sigh* Fine. Let your anger rule you for now. I’m on your side. Always have been, always will be. Just like you get to bitch, so do I. Glad we both got the chance.
I’ll continue to fight for LGBT rights as hard as ever.
you know, watching you smack your head with a brick doesn’t really fill me with confidence.
I actually would like to say one simple thing: we should try and really see who are our friends, and who are our enemies. I believe that today Obama is a little bit more my friend.
Also, on the issue of state rights vs federal mandate: just think on the other way, and see what you would think if you were to hear from Obama that he (who is _not_ a lawmaker_ nor a supreme court judge) would push and force his power over other branhces of government and the states.
I think Obama’s record is far from exemplary, but on the issue of LGBT rights he is better than many others.
You know what’s really great? How you’re still ignoring the argument that this may have actually made matters worse.
sundoga:
Carlie is quite right, IMO.
(A clearer exposition of accommodationism, I’ve never seen)
Really? We have no voice?
Not supporting LGBT rights is increasingly a shockingly minority position within the Democratic party. Increasing numbers of LGBT people across the country are telling the party that they have a choice: they can support LGBT rights or they can stop receiving support in the form of money.
We HAVE a voice. We are USING it.
<blI actually would like to say one simple thing: we should try and really see who are our friends, and who are our enemies. I believe that today Obama is a little bit more my friend.
Also, on the issue of state rights vs federal mandate: just think on the other way, and see what you would think if you were to hear from Obama that he (who is _not_ a lawmaker_ nor a supreme court judge) would push and force his power over other branhces of government and the states.
Come back and tell me that when your family’s legal security is threatened by a state vote.
Are you fucking brain-damaged?
Well, I think you should have this olive branch, but it’s more important to me that that guy over there should get to decide whether or not you get this olive branch, so I’m going to let him make the decision. But if he decides not to give it to you, don’t blame me, I think you should have it!
One more fucking time: Do you really think we don’t know this? Do you understand why that makes me even angrier at Obama’s weaseling out and tossing every single GLBT person firmly under the bus? Hell, he didn’t even toss us under the bus, he threw us on the tracks to get demolished by a train.
Oh FFS, how in the fuckety fuck can you possibly say this with a straight face and a shred of honesty? Tell me, specifically, what progress has been made on the gay rights front? Tell me just what Obama had to do with it, too.
Obama is not sitting down? No, he’s not. Honey, he’s stripped naked and kneeling in front of the bed. In this case, that is not a good thing.
News: Politician doesn’t “go far enough”. yeah. I’m fucking shocked. Next, someone will explain how they developed a method for how to suck eggs, and someone else will explain later how they just hit on a method to create fire.
Of course Obama didn’t go far enough. He wouldn’t. no politician will This doesn’t mean you stop pushing.
Perfect :)
oh, and brazenlucidity:
Your use of the word “bitch” is not acceptable, either. Stop it.
Oh, uh, thanks, Carlie. Today I believe you are a little bit more my friend.
Thanks, John – I thought your summation of the statements earlier was spot-on, too.
Yep. He’s sacrificing our rights for his sins.
This was no olive branch. At best, Obama gave us the URL of yelp and told us to look up nurseries that sell olive seeds.
Cipher:
How do I fucking dare? How dare I not? I want to change things, make them better. And the ONLY way that’s going to happen is if we can get people on our side. And use the fucking system to OUR advantage.
You can step up or you can step aside. Slime? Maybe. But if it gets full LGBT rights, I can be slime. Can you?
[meta]
brazenlucidity:
Third strike, O tone-troll.
(My #146 was not wasted, since I note you’ve (predictably) evaded it))
Holy fuck. I had to stop reading at comment #98 when a heterosexual began straightsplaining why I should be righteously angry about this.
Stop. Just stop.
I’m posting this as a queer person who is a) not wholly satisfied with Obama’s remarks but b) encouraged by them.
When did Phargyngula comments take on this vicious, internecine tone? Josh, Esteleth, et al, I’m looking at you.
Just, wow.
A strong endorsement of legal same-sex marriage wouldn’t hurt his re-election chances any more than the lame statement he made today. If anything it would hurt him less.
@topaca
Once again, the words of a loser without any determination to fight for even the maximum rights. It’s thanks to people like you why liberals are always losing in the US.
All I have to say about this, is that at this moment, on this year of 2012, in this reality, Obama is the best we’ve got on this question. And it is rather important to make sure that this, little though it is, gets promoted and preserved, because the alternative is Romney and a federal constitutional amendment outlawing marriage equality.
We can work on improving this (with our without Obama) AFTER November 2012.
Perhaps you weren’t watching carefully enough. What actually happened was that Obama held out the olive branch and when we reached forward to accept it he pulled it back and yelled “PSYCH!”
and then snapped it in half.
Claiming that a queer person is sitting back in a comfortable nest of smugness because she has the gall to voice the fucking opinion that she has rights that shouldn’t be subject to a vote is going to get us our rights how?
And I’m looking at you. With a raised eyebrow.
Fuck off.
@leahr
Yeah, because anger has never been a driver in changing society. /snark
Joining a chorus of queer people making the same argument.
Try not to take that out of context.
Drop the “we” and stop fucking lecturing me about what we should do. Seriously. Shut your damned mouth.
I fucking well know this! This is why I think that rights are not given, they are taken. They are fought for in the streets and they are gained by making people know that you exist and will not back down.
How the fuck do you know what I have done and have not done. Fucking answer that, fuckface.
Yeah, as it have been pointed out numerous times already, he is so on our side, he is willing to let it be a state’s right issue.
Yeah, sungoga, I fucking feel that support.
Assclam.
Josh:
Seriously? They don’t think not being able to marry is a big deal. They obviously haven’t thought about how big of a deal it actually happens to be. They also don’t know that isn’t the only problem.
They think any condescending, meaningless pat on the head is *fanfucktastic*, because it doesn’t matter to them if the push for rights is glacially slow. “You got a pat on the head, be grateful! What’s wrong with you icky ingrates? See, this is why no one likes you.” *Huff*
Instead, we get Obama making a moderate statement – something Dick Cheney said years ago – and allowing the right to portray it as radical.
Cain #183 – Since your frustration and rage blinds you now, I’ll mention a big one to see if you recognize it or deny it. I claim as sign of progress in Obama administyration: Gays in the military are now accepted. This is a test!
@Amphiox
What little we have will actually drive things backwards. Obama fell right into the hands of the right wing.
“You got a pat on the head, be grateful! What’s wrong with you icky ingrates? See, this is why no one likes you.” *Huff*
damn uppity…
oh, wait, what are we talking about again?
So sorry, leahr. Didn’t mean to burst your bubble. Please, be happy. I never said you shouldn’t be. In fact, if you’re gay, I was very specifically NOT talking to you @98. Did you notice where I addressed it to “anyone who is straight”? So no, I wasn’t telling you anything about how you ought to feel.
Also, not that it matters, but having straight privilege doesn’t always equal heterosexual. That’s an assumption based on simplistic categories.
FTFM.
Actually, it’s not that he fell into the hands of the right wing. He wanted it to happen.
Obama fell right into the hands of the right wing.
NO.
you assume this was a mistake.
Do you know Obama’s background?
you know he used to TEACH law, right?
you seriously MUST not believe this was a slip.
it wasn’t.
Amphiox:
Jesus fucking Christ, Amphiox. Did you miss my response to you on TET? Because if you did, I suggest you find it, read it and think about it.
I’ll thank you to drop the damn ‘we’, too. You sure as fuck don’t speak for me.
And you’re advocating silencing our voices you Neville Chamberlain appeasing cowardly quisling. I spit on you.
Truly inspiring invective, there, Josh. Amazing lucidity.
Who said anything about silence? I certainly didn’t. But all you’re doing with it is whine, whine, whine. What good are you doing? How are you convincing those who are NOT already convinced? Are they seeing a REASON to support us?
Or just whine, whine, whine?
To all those saying that we have to support Obama’s tepid statement because otherwise (his delicate feelings will be hurt/he will lose the election/he will stop trying to support us):
THAT IS NOT HOW POLITICS WORKS.
The Republicans know how to play this fucking game. Every time Obama does something the Republicans call him a socialist and the antichrist and the thing that is destroying America. Then say what they want, AND OBAMA GIVES HALF (OR MORE) OF IT TO THEM, BECAUSE THAT IS HOW POLITICS WORKS.
I’m not calling Obama a socialist, or the antichrist, or the thing that is destroying America. But I am at the very least going to say that he is not giving us what we want, and that if he doesn’t do it, he is failing as a leader. He is not worthy of praise for failing slightly less than he was failing yesterday. If calling him the antichrist is enough to get half of the policy you want, I hope that calling him a failure as a leader is enough to get a quarter of it.
Your accommodationist crap is enough to get zero. We’ve seen that over and over again.
Hey Heteros!—
Is this seriously the first time any of your queer friends have taken you to task on your previously unexamined privilege? On your condescending and conditional support? Really?
Well get used to it. You didn’t really think you got a free pass for dumb-assery just because you think of yourself as an ally, did you?
And if you did, are you stupid?
Twig to this: We know you can be on the side of right and good, and we know you love us and we love you. But when you’re full of shit, a nd when you’re working against equal rights with tepid mealy-mouthed bullshit, we’re going to call you on it.
You’re capable of being enemies even though you think you’re not. And you’re not getting away with it. We’ll be no less ruthless with you than with anyone else.
If you really are our friends and compatriots you’ll get that and take it on board. Lord knows I’ve been in the wrong on these issues and have had to eat crow many times.
But if you double down, if you deny it, if you pull ANY smug shit about how we ought to more politically grateful I’ll fucking rip you up.
Full stop.
Your bigotry is noted.
Actually, it’s not that he fell into the hands of the right wing. He wanted it to happen.
ah, your correction came before mine.
yes, this was not a mistake, this is carefully constructed language.
@icthyic
I corrected my statements. Unfortunately, this thread went too fast. ^_^
This dumbass assumption is almost as shitty as the shit you said to Janine! You’re on a fucking roll!
Darn it! See what I am talking about?
Ramaus, I saw what you said, and you appear to have ignored my and everyone else’s explanations of why it’s bullshit. You have made it perfectly clear what side you are on, and it isn’t the side of equality.
Or just whine, whine, whine?
funny, I thought we were vehemently explaining WHY this is a bad thing.
you, OTOH, are apparently working hard to try to convince us you’re dense as a brick.
What the hell do you think we’re doing here? We’re pointing out where Obama is wrong.
Yeah, Caine. How dare you be angry.
*blinks* Are you new here?
Darn it! See what I am talking about?
yup. leeway granted to all of us on that front.
You mean where Gore went out of his way to alienate liberals, so they voted for Nader?
Yeah, I’d like to have had a bit more.
On the other hand, PZed must be one hellava awful guy to have sitting in the back seat when you’re driving somewhere at highspeed over an uncertain track populated by a large number of road-rage prone idiots.
Obama’s been a great disappointment, but at least he’s OUR disappointment.
Does anyone (not insane or vicious) want Mitt as pResident? Much less another Bu–sh–? Worst-human-ever Gingrich? Batshit insane Bachmann or Stantorum?
America evidently needs to take baby steps towards sanity and good government, and President Obama certainly has managed that.
[meta]
ramaus:
Such a specimen, you are.
I note that you dare not address Caine’s justification for her wrath.
(I am not surprised; all bluster, no substance)
Can you flesh this thought out as a full blog post, Josh?
I think it hits the nail on the head.
put it on your blog, and send it to PZ as a guest contribution when it is fleshed out.
seriously.
ramaus:
Gays in the military are *not* accepted. If you think they are, you don’t know much and you certainly don’t know any gay, lesbian or bi people in the military.
I’ll tell you something, ramaus – you not being angry about this means you are a fucked up person swimming around in your own damn privilege. I am sick to death of all the straightsplainin’ going on around here.
Why don’t you try something novel – listen to people who are explaining, over and over and over and over and over why this is a bad thing? It’s bad to the point of evil. It’s blatant, open disregard for the humanity and lives of GLBT peoples.
Well, if anyone wants to despair a little more, Fox “News” has declared Obama’s statement to be a “war on marriage”.
So, thanks to conservative double-speak, I now know that any weak-assed, positive sounding statement that doesn’t actually support/advance gay rights is OMG A THREAT!!! to so-called “traditional” marriage.
This is why I love you.
Okay, actually, this is just one of many reasons why I love you.
but at least he’s OUR disappointment.
what the fuck does that even MEAN?
do YOU even know?
Well, if anyone wants to despair a little more, Fox “News” has declared Obama’s statement to be a “war on marriage”.
I’d like to note, for the record, that I called that precisely, upthread, not more than an hour or so ago.
I’ll say what I said earlier:
Those adamantly opposed to LGBT rights were lost to Obama ages ago. There is literally nothing he could do to get their vote.
He had a fucking GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to get his BASE – genuine progressives – HAPPY AND FIRED UP and he whiffed it.
Not my fucking disappointment. I never supported Obama.
Oh, I should flesh it out more, but I’m afraid I’m blowing my discursive wad on this thread tonight. This is exhausting.
There was a time that I was happy and supported Obama.
It was 2004. I was an Illinois resident, and he was running for Senate.
2004 was a long time ago. He may have “evolved,” but he hasn’t done so enough or fast enough.
@ imagenieicandoanything:
What I want is a liberal. Right now the Democrats are in the center and the Republicans are to the right of Genghis Khan, and since this country is set up so as to effectively forbid third parties, I’m never going to be franchised again until and unless we drag the Democrats kicking and screaming back to the left. Which we cannot do by praising this middle-of-the-road bullshit.
100% of people knew there was a 100% chance that whatever Obama said about marriage equality the reaction from FOX and the anti-gay hysteric right would be the same. “War on Marriage,” yadda, yadda, yadda.
Politically speaking there’s no benefit to Obama in half-assing this, which is one thing that makes it so extremely disturbing: there’s no reason to believe that Obama isn’t simply saying what he believes: gay rights are nice and all but they don’t really matter and should be left to the states.
you know the really sad thing…
If anyone had gandered at the early primaries, there WAS a real progressive that threw his hat into the ring against Obama on the democratic side.
I’ll bet 90% of you don’t even know who it was, because the media typically never bothers to cover primaries for the re-electing party, since it’s rare any money goes to any candidates that aren’t already up for re-election.
but there WAS a choice in this election.
It was entirely fucking ignored.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart,
I feel the urge (to which I evidently yield) to once again quote from the OP:
Janine:
Oh you know me, ever the uppity ingrate. Yeah. What I don’t understand is all the idiots who aren’t angry about this. Obama couldn’t have handed the anti-gay, homophobic, right wing, religonist crowds a better gift. He might as well have said “Well, I don’t like lynching, but I won’t stop you.”
I’m sorry you think Obama has taken us TOWARDS sanity and good government!?
I fucking well know this! This is why I think that rights are not given, they are taken. They are fought for in the streets and they are gained by making people know that you exist and will not back down.
Good!
But you’re missing the fact that they may be fought for in the streets, but they’re WON in the houses of Congress or Parliament, the courts and the halls of power. History is littered with good things that fell by the wayside because the powerbrokers chose not to support them, however much the public did. If we don’t get some of that power working for US, we could lose.
How the fuck do you know what I have done and have not done. Fucking answer that, fuckface.
I don’t, shit for brains. Any more then you know me. I only know your words, and yeah, they show me a person who’s got their own litle niche of smugness, deep in the knowledge of your own rectitude and righteousness, with nary an allowance for an offending alternative thought.
And no, Obama isn’t on our side. And if you get your way, he never will be.
Which is what makes this no real, tangible, legal support at all.
Dalillama #222 – OK, what side am I on? Show me your evidence, or have you not been paying attention. This is your opportunity to display your perception, or stupidity, a test.
Please don’t attempt to speak for everyone. That’s the bandwagon fallacy.
After Obama belatedly and half-assedly decided to try to get DADT repealed, several years in his term.
Oh, the to the “Fuck you!” atheists’ pitchfork and torches mob here, please proceed with more of your typing out of outrage.
Or call an immediate meeting of your version of the People’s Front of Judea. Or are you the Popular Front?
I’m far more angered and embarrassed by such comments thatn the President’s soft-pedalling, but throw your rotten fruit, etc. until you get outraged about something else.
See you in the Funny Papers…
And no, Obama isn’t on our side. And if you get your way, he never will be.
LOL
that, right there, is what I will judge you by on this forever more.
I know you don’t even realize how stupid this makes you look, which makes it even funnier.
or more sad.
Also, ramaus, I’ll clue you in on your little ‘test’ – gays are accepted in the military just like atheists are. Let’s see if you can figure that one out.
#247 sundoga:
The pathetic thing about you is that when Obama isn’t on your side, you move over to his side and congratulate him on how much progress he is making.
Yes, congratulations, the President is now on your side. Because you switched sides.
And you’re right, the President may never be all the way over here on my side. But at least my method might cause him to move his ass a little bit in that direction.
Wow! You fucking stupid little spleen weasel, you went for the double down!
Fucking waste of meat.
Online poll on equal marriage rights here :
http://ninemsn.com.au/?ocid=iefvrt
Currently running :
VOTE Do you support same sex marriage?
Yes : 12370
No : 14533
& in dire need of pharygnulation, please.
***
As for Obama well at least he’s better than Julia Gillard, Australia’s athiest PM who inexplicably and so frustratingly is opposed to treating all loving couples equally. She’s in a (straight) de facto relationship and yet still follows the religious homophobe line.
See : http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8465164/gillard-still-opposed-to-gay-marriage
for more via Nine MSN online news.
I feel the urge (to which I evidently yield) to once again quote from the OP:
good idea.
keep doing that, because it’s still 100% correct, and there appears to be a large enough number who are not getting this yet.
I read these comments, and i shake my head. No future Democratic candidate for national office will be able to oppose marriage equality, and fewer and fewer on the state level will, either. It’s not all you want, but it moves the ball forward. Instead of greeting this with gnashing teeth and horror, look around and realize that most straight and gay folks in the real world are pretty happy about this. It is a small win, but an incremental one. Do I need to review the politics? Obama can read polls as well as anyone else. The Amendment lost 60-40 and it was always going to, because it was timed for Republican primary day. So should Obama have come out against the Amendment and then had several news cycles repeating the mantra that he lost? Or should he have come out in favor of marriage equality the day after, shifted the narrative, and put some energy back into the movement? Because, besides right here, that’s what he did. You may think speeches mean nothing. But now he gets to go to NC for the convention, and put the GOP on notice that marriage equality is coming, and place LGBT rights in the context of civil rights. Remember, he’s speaking to the entire country and not just you. I know you wanted him to do that three years ago. So did I. But politics is the art of the possible, and the ball is a little farther down the field, and at least we are on offense instead of licking our wounds over the NC Amendment – which was an inevitable outcome anyway.
And before you go off on me, I actually work on this issue in the real world. So I’ll take your “porcupine”, or whatever your silly expression is, and “stuff it up my ass” myself. There. Done. It didn’t hurt a bit – did I really need to tell you all here that it was imaginary all along?
Ichthyic
9 May 2012 at 10:16 pm
Or just whine, whine, whine?
funny, I thought we were vehemently explaining WHY this is a bad thing.
you, OTOH, are apparently working hard to try to convince us you’re dense as a brick.
You’ve been explaing. Esteleth has been explaining. Most of the others have.
Josh has been whining.
Truthspeaker #250 – Nobody said it was pretty. But you agree, it did happen?
Fixed that for you.
Do you really think that criticism of a politician by regular citizens will make that politician change his stance, just because his feelings are hurt?
There are only two ways to influence Obama, or any other American politician, and those are money and votes. We don’t have the millions of dollars required to write Obama’s policies for him, so our only recourse is to discuss his actions with other voters, hoping to get enough critical mass that his advisers will take us into account as potential votes.
Criticizing Obama does not give aid and comfort to his opponents. I don’t know where people get this ridiculous idea.
Will someone please stuff the genie back in the bottle.
Great argument! I’m glad you’ve so deftly refuted the concern that this has actually made things worse!
No wait
Actually
You’ve ignored it! Cool! That’s pretty much just as good!
Ichthy:
I’m still catching up, but I’m not surprised that you called it well before I posted the link. Republicans have moved so far to the right that when Obama makes a conservative fucking statement, to them it’s the most liberal thing that anyone has ever said.
E,
Not only that, but the Republican machine has already whipped this up into an attack on conservative values. So while Obama is further alienating liberals, Rmoney will be able to use this to motivate the whack job extremist Republican base.
Who wants to bet that Obama ends up being a one term president?
Yes, and it was Gore’s fault. The party could have learned from it too, but they chose not to.
@ sundoga:
How about your way? Would your way be “let’s redefine what ‘our side’ means so that Obama is on it”? We know and he knows and everyone knows that he’s still better than Romney. He was better yesterday and he’ll still be better tomorrow. The liberal vote isn’t going to swing on this, whether we’re happy or angry. So what the fuck do we gain by sitting down and shutting up and not saying what we actually want?
All of you who say you’re more upset by my outrage than you are about what Obama did:
I hate you. You’re scum. You don’t care about people like me or about anyone less privileged than you are. You’re not allies, you’re enforcers who care about your place in the pecking order and resent the fuck out of whiners like me who cry “no fair.”
I can’t wait to watch your generation die out because that’s the only thing that will bring lasting change.
Oh, the to the “Fuck you!” atheists’ pitchfork and torches mob here, please proceed with more of your typing out of outrage.
and our benediction to you:
“May you someday pull your head out of your ass.”
ta.
Well, will wonders never cease.
I posted a slightly edited version of my comment @12 on my FB.
My very Christian aunt “liked” it and commented, “You go, girl.”
If that isn’t proof that the country is READY for this discussion, it is another drop in the bucket that is swiftly becoming an ocean.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
9 May 2012 at 10:31 pm
I don’t, shit for brains. Any more then you know me. I only know your words, and yeah, they show me a person who’s got their own litle niche of smugness, deep in the knowledge of your own rectitude and righteousness, with nary an allowance for an offending alternative thought.
Wow! You fucking stupid little spleen weasel, you went for the double down!
Fucking waste of meat.
Truth as I see it. No apologies.
@Janine
At first I was disappointed at Obama. But then, I realized I should have been disappointed at myself for being so stupid. I wish I could have read Krugman’s blog back then because apparently it was obvious to him that Obama wasn’t a real progressive.
I’m far more angered and embarrassed by such comments thatn the President’s soft-pedalling, but throw your rotten fruit, etc. until you get outraged about something else.
I’m not sure why anyone would be more embarrassed by righteous indignation felt from comments on a science blog as opposed to a damnation of civil rights by one of the leaders of the free world.
Please tell me more.
I can’t wait to watch your generation die out because that’s the only thing that will bring lasting change.
sadly, no.
you still have to change the message, or their RWA kids will just pick up the same banner and march with it.
#250:
FTFY
Truth as I see it. No apologies.
may you someday pull your head out of your ass.
Then I want their generation to die before their kids can pick up their bullshit.
Didn’t need your permission before. Still don’t.
We all look the same to you, do we?
I’ll look around for some Band-Aids™.
Well, there is a lot to be outraged about in this world. That’s the beginning of the awareness that the bad shit needs to get changed.
You know that everyone you know just humours you, right? That awkward chuckle, the change of subject? That’s how you know you don’t really have anything useful or interesting to say.
I’m embarrassed for you.
Josh, you sure has been shown your place just like sundoga showed me my place.
All you do is whine, you have never done a thing.
*eyeroll*
Yeah, okay everyone, I’m a little slow this evening. I’m working on it, geez!
The the goal for the next six months is to get elected, not to lose the election on a gay marriage issue.
The goal has never been anything but to get elected. Does anyone seriously think that Obama, at age 50, hasn’t made up his mind long ago about what he believes? He believes he’s in love with power and he’ll do or say whatever it takes to get to the top. That means he’ll flirt with the glbt if it will get him some votes and he’ll flirt with the more “moderate” right-wing homophobes if it’ll get him some votes. People who ever mistook a politician for someone who gives a shit are exactly the kind of fools he’s doing this dance for.
Keep on outing yourselves, fair weather friends. I want to know who you are so I can know whom to work against politically.
[meta]
sundoga:
So, rather than objecting to his not being on your side, not only should he should be praised for not being on your side, but you should cavil at those who do so object?
Such hypocrisy!
(Your allowances for offending alternative thoughts are duly noted)
For those who are surprised that Obama’s statement isn’t being met with champagne, ticker-tape, and applause, and is, in fact, receiving strong criticism, I hope this interview with Thurgood Marshall will provide some perspective.
The following two paragraphs reference a different interview than the one linked. Back when Marshall was legal council for the NAACP during Brown v. Board of Education he was interviewed as he emerged from a day of hearings. The interviewer asked something along the lines of:
“Many are wondering why the NAACP is pushing so hard and so vocally about this issue. I mean, if things are changing, shouldn’t they just go ahead and change, it may just take a little longer, don’t you think?”
Marshall replied, “It’s been 90 years since the Emancipation Proclamation. How much longer do you think it should take?”
Again, the interview I linked above is not that interview (I haven’t been able to find that interview), but Marshall’s sentiment in the interview with Mike Wallace linked in my opening paragraph above is cut from the same cloth, and very relevant.
Over in one of Stephanie Zvan’s threads I reflected briefly on one of the ways I have been wrong in my past on a particular human rights issue: the human rights issue of equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans women and trans men, and queer people. I’m pretty much a poster child for many levels of privilege.
Pharyngula (and fuck me but it took forever to get back here, and that’s all on me and my own neuroses currently in play) has been instrumental as just one forum, just one community, just one sounding board of scalpel-precise voices, in helping me learn more about things like privilege. I was first challenged on issues of GLBTQ rights and marriage equality 20 years ago (but was 18 years of privilege insularity before that), and I wish the light bulb had gone on overnight, but it didn’t, and that’s on me, too.
I’ve been wrong about so many things in my life, but I’m grateful for this forum and its voices demonstrating with eloquence, passion, intellect, and uncompromising integrity, that Obama’s statement today does not mark victory in the quest for equality. The issue of human rights for GLBTQ people has been shunted even more into the path of opponents long-vested in seeing those human rights subverted and crushed.
It’s been 100,000 to 200,000 years since the branch of anthropoid evolution that arrived at homo sapiens sapiens.
For those of you that insist that Obama’s statement today should be celebrated, Thurgood Marshall’s question remains:
“How much longer do you think it should take?”
Still learning,
Robert
Fuck off, Cupcake. A lot of us work on this issue in the real world. I’ve been working on it for 30+ years. If you had a working brain cell or three, you wouldn’t be straightsplainin’ to us uppity ingrates that we should be all happy and grateful, ’cause this is such a good and remarkable move.
It was nothing except a giant move backwards. If you are incapable of figuring that out, please, do us all a favour and stop working on this issue in the real world. Ta.
Yes, politics is the science of the possible. And it would have been possible for Obama to come out much stronger for same-sex marriage. He would have lost nothing. But, as has been typical for him, he decided to give lukewarm acceptance of something most Democrats – and some Republicans – accepted years ago.
That’s following, not leading.
And it’s disgusting, but typical of American politics.
It doesn’t mean I won’t vote for him, but it does mean I will criticize him for it.
Well Janine, that’s why you and I are just Fake spouses. We’re too damned dumb and ungrateful to get real-married.
Fuckface is not smart enough to use blockquotes, bolds or italics.
Also, if that is truth as you see it, you either need a seeing eye dog or corrective surgery.
Desert Son,
Know how much I heart you. You’re good people.
Robert B.
9 May 2012 at 10:33 pm
@ sundoga:
How about your way? Would your way be “let’s redefine what ‘our side’ means so that Obama is on it”? We know and he knows and everyone knows that he’s still better than Romney. He was better yesterday and he’ll still be better tomorrow. The liberal vote isn’t going to swing on this, whether we’re happy or angry. So what the fuck do we gain by sitting down and shutting up and not saying what we actually want?
NO! My way would be to try to use this to start him talking about it MORE! Give him the kudos for bringing it up, then hit him with “and what have you done for us lately?” PUSH him with the need for more votes come November and PULL him with the possibility of good press. He’s not a friend, but we CAN use him, but not if all we’re giving him is grief for “not going far enough.”
He’s a politician. He’s a good one. Let’s use that.
leahr (#193)
If you’re encouraged by them, then you don’t understand them. I’m more encouraged by the words of Maureen Walsh, a state rep. for Washington who voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage:
“I shudder to think that if folks who have preceded us in history did not do that [stand up against the majority for the rights of the minority], frankly, I’m not sure I’d be here as a woman, I’m not sure other people would be here due to their race or their creed—and to me, that is what’s disconcerting. And someone made the comment that this is not about equality. Well, yes it is about equality. And why in the world would we not allow those equal rights for individuals who truly were committed to one another in life to be able to– to show that by way of a marriage?”
Guess what? Walsh is a Republican. It’s the opposite of encouraging when Obama’s statements are, in courage and progressive values, miles behind the position Republicans are taking.
I saw an interview with Ruth Bader Ginsberg awhile back.
The interviewer said, “How many women have to be on the Supreme Court for it to be enough?”
Ginsberg replied (in a tone suggesting she thought the question was utterly moronic), “Nine.”
How many rights for LGBT people is enough?
ALL OF THEM.
When is soon enough?
NOW.
You know what? Even if this were true (spoiler: it’s not), it would be a shitty, assholish thing to complain about in this context. I’m inspired by people’s will to get up and get angry and do something about this, but that doesn’t meant that just complaining and being upset would be an unacceptable response. Sundoga, the stench of your fucking unexamined privilege is making it difficult for the rest of us to breathe.
What the hell do you think gay rights groups have been doing for the last three years?!?!?!?!?
We’ve already talked to Obama on this issue. He knows the facts. But, as you say, he’s a politician. And one of the ways to influence politicians is to criticize them and threaten not to vote for them.
Josh, Janine, in all seriousness, I have a question for you.
*gets all sniffly*
Honey, you’ve been the best, on this threads and others.
Will you become my Fake Husband?
Janine, will you become my Fake Wife?
Robert! :pounces, hugs and hugs and hugs: You’ve been missed.
Caine – In the military:
Before Obama – gays out, atheists stay
Today (with Obama) – gays stay, atheists stay
Yes, now gays are like atheists in the military
I never claimed anything about atheists. Changing the question is ‘Strawman’ fallacy.
You’re a dumbass. Caine was making an analogy.
ramus, and you know Obama had almost nothing to do with DADT getting repealed, right?
Praising Obama for repeal of DADT is almost as stupid as praising him for getting out of Iraq on George W. Bush’s timetable.
Remember, Dick Cheney supports same-sex marriage.
Dick Cheney. Not a liberal. Not a moderate. Not a centrist.
First, carlie was straightplaning. Now the long lost Desert Son is doing it.
Damn, they are even worse straight allies than Obama.
(Am I laying the sarcasm too thickly?)
Of course, Cipher. See me in the hat room for your Certificate, then visit Caine for your Commemorative Toaster.
Let’s just make it one big Fake-Spouse Pig Pile.
#290 sundoga:
Please learn to use quotes.
Oh, dear, are we offending Obama by giving him grief for being against gay rights? I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize his tender feelings were being hurt!
We ARE pushing him with the need for more votes. Right now Obama thinks our votes are sewn up. We need to show him that our support is conditioned on his doing the right thing — if he doesn’t, he can go to hell.
Your way offers him unconditional support, and has already been a proven failure.
The fuck?
Obama is alienating his base. How is alienating the progressives that would normally vote for him going to win a fucking election? (And if you even fucking dare say anything about fucking “swing voters” Imma start whaling on something.)
I am extremely pleased by your acceptance of me as a Fake Spouse, but it was Esteleth who proposed ^.^;
No it’s not. For fuck’s sake.
Sometimes you have to work together to avoid disaster. If it’s worth 100 million to the Koch brothers to beat Obama, Obama has to be doing something right. Romney just reaffirmed his anti-gay-marriage stance, going out of his way to not only piss on us but be seen doing so. If you can’t tell that our enemy is movement conservatism, the religious right, and the tea party, you’re just not helping secularism or gay rights or anything else. You might as well sign up with Edwina, drink the republican koolaid, help the koch brothers, and hope you’re the last one they feed to the crocodile. And all this parroting of GOProud=Republican anti-Obama talking points is not smart, or edgy, or impressive, or anything else good. And as far as being grateful, or content, and silent, or that it has to do with heterosexual privilege, or anything else…it’s not. It’s about how coalition politics actually works.
Esteleth, how dare you insult the sanctity of Fake Marriage™!
Oh ha ha ha ha haaahahaha! *snort!*
Wow.
Well.. I was happy that this was at least going in the right direction even if it was mostly political theatre.
I do wish someone would explain how Obama could single-handedly change Federal Law with a Republican Controlled House and a Senate that is not, at all, fillibuster proof.
When Lyndon Johnson got the Civil Rights Act passed, the previous–and pretty beloved–young President had just been assassinated and the Democrats owned the Senate 67-33 and held the House by 258- 176.
This is not the situation today. So.. since most people here seem to believe in science and dealing with reality AS IT IS rather than just how they want it to be–I would prefer that people clarify how they expect the President to do anything more here politically than just give his preferences.
Does anyone here actually think that any sort of Federal Same-Sex Marriage Bill would ever pass the current Republican controlled house? If they do–I’d like some evidence for how…
This does not, in any way, mean that I don’t think same-sex marriage should not already be legal. I think it should have been legal since the beginning of time, but I do register that reality does not nec. conform to my wishes.
Show me the data and the path to make it happen in concrete forms. Otherwise, what the President did today was no more and no less than a positive symbolic statement that is relatively positive towards liberal ideals. This is not proof that he is somehow at the forefront of this quest–something that I don’t think he claimed at all–but it is true that he is the first standing president to espouse these beliefs. Perhaps that will help culturally in that it will further cement the reality that homosexuality is no less normal than heterosexuality or anything else.
Finally–if people are really so fed up with all of the politicians out there–and I agree that a lot of them suck balls and all of them suck to some extent–then I urge you to go become the next generation of politicians and make your political dreams true. Fix the situation rather than just bemoaning that everyone sucks.
aww, can I throw rice?
The fact that other people are evil as fuck and are doing things that are evil as fuck does not make this a more progressive or praiseworthy move. Don’t move the goalposts.
Ramaus
Bandwagon fallacy my ass. Name me one group that ever got their rights recognized by kissing ass and knuckling under. There is the right position, and there a variety of flavors of bigotry. You appear to be flavor #328, Unacknowledged Privilege with a tantalizing Straightsplaining swirl.
Hmm, maybe it’s time to start pestering him via email again. With more vitrol this time.
I certainly did. The thread moved so quickly that I missed it.
Now that I have found it, there is absolutely nothing in that post that I disagree with.
But I think you misunderstood what I meant. I probably didn’t express as well as I could have.
I’m not talking about “waiting some more” in a general sense. I am referring specifically, and only, to this year, this election, these next few months. I think that right now, this year, we only have two choices, and as Obama is demonstrably the better choice by far on this issue, tepid as he might be, that is the choice that we should be making, even as we also search for another, even better choice. But there is no realistic possibility of that better choice coming to fruition until after November 2012, no matter what we do right now.
Additionally I am of the opinion that this particular election is special and different from any other election in recent memory (and perhaps I am blinded by the privilege of being too young to remember far back enough)- the danger represented by the possibility of the wrong side winning is greater by several orders of magnitude than anything I can think of back to Nixon.
The Republicans simply cannot be allowed to win, anything, in 2012. Their victory in 2012 would vindicate their hateful obstructionist strategy, and that would put democracy itself at risk in America. So for purely practical strategic considerations I think the best course right now is to support Obama to ensure he wins in 2012, and the Democrats win back the house and a large enough majority in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, and THEN, once the republican threat is pushed back, work to force the Overton window back to the left by pressuring Obama and/or the rest of the Democrats through a variety of means, including primary challenges to incumbent Democrats.
(This is not the first time I’ve expressed an opinion on a political issue and gotten shredded on Pharyngula by someone whose opinion I considerably respect. My feelings on certain aspects of the Iraq war took a complete 180 as a direct result of a single such comment from Nick Gotts way back when. My position on this is soft enough that it could easily be changed.)
I do wish someone would explain how Obama could single-handedly change Federal Law with a Republican Controlled House and a Senate that is not, at all, fillibuster proof.
I do wish you would explain to us how this relates to the MESSAGE he sends with his statements?
Nice scarequotes. Should I take that to mean you think he actually has gone far enough? That’s not the impression you’re giving otherwise.
Once again – if he wants to court our votes and our good press, how is this made easier by not telling him what we want? By lying about what satisfies us and what does not?
And frankly, you’re assuming that this is a step in the right direction, which is a matter of some dispute in the thread. Come to think of it, has Obama said anything before now about states’ rights with respect to marriage equality? If he has, I don’t remember it. If he hasn’t, he’s just gone from “I have no position” to “States have the right to ban gay marriage.” Which would be a step in the wrong direction, and a big one, smokescreened by a brief discussion of his personal feelings of niceness.
Hmm, maybe it’s time to start pestering him via email again.
use your energies more effectively elsewhere.
seriously.
Fuckface is not smart enough to use blockquotes, bolds or italics.
Or I assume you can extract information from context, shit -for-brains. Pardon me if I was overestmating you.
Also, if that is truth as you see it, you either need a seeing eye dog or corrective surgery.
Really? All I’ve been seeing from you is an overactive sense of entitlement.
Yes, I went there. Yes, I am aware you are not straight. Now ask me if I give a damn.
You’ve managed to convince yourself that you’re absolutely, indubitably, correct. All the hard things in your life have just hammered your correctness into you. So anyone who opposes you is the metaphorical devil, no matter whether he’s your actual enemy or just someone trying to get to the same goal, maybe by a different means.
Because that’s the real problem here. I wan’t the same things you do. I think I have a better way to get there, but I’m willing to admit, I could be wrong. But because I’m not going along with your pre-designated assumptions of what your supporters should be, you’re not even trying to listen. Oh, and because I have the temerity to actually call you on it.
joshuakundert:
Such a straw dummy!
He need not actually achieve change, just state that he is for it, rather than merely saying it’s a States’ Rights issue, though he personally is sympathetic towards civil rights.
(Almost time to quote the OP again, I see)
You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you. Given that you can’t even figure out how to quote someone (or are too lazy to do it), why in the sweet fuck all would anyone get the idea you can actually think about an issue?
He’s a politician. He’s a good one. Let’s use that.
you don’t think many have tried?
you really don’t think anyone thought of this before you?
ROFLMAO
man, how naive.
Calling all Heteros and Obama-Bots! Please identify yourselves to the hosts at the front door so that we may recognize you and deal with your bullshit only once. Thank you for helping our efforts at efficiency and conservation of frustration.
It would be nice if the “preferences” he stated straightforwardly endorsed people’s rights without adding a bunch of qualifications and spineless bullshit and implications that this is something reasonable people can disagree about. For a start.
Lol. Yeah, that’ll work out really well. I ought to run out and become a politician! Thanks for the great advice!
#314 Amphiox: I agree with you about the importance of the 2012 election. However, if the choice is between “support Romney” and “support Obama,” it is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. A Romney win would be a complete catastrophe, but an Obama win would not be good either, because I do not believe he can be pressured into moving to the left in any effective way after this election, and every second he spends in office the Overton window slides to the right.
If we want to put pressure on Obama, our only chance to do that is RIGHT NOW. After the election he will be functionally immune to pressure from the general electorate.
We ARE pushing him with the need for more votes. Right now Obama thinks our votes are sewn up. We need to show him that our support is conditioned on his doing the right thing — if he doesn’t, he can go to hell.
PLEASE.
read the greewald article I linked to upthread.
Obama doesn’t need progressive votes. Never did.
Fuckface, anyone who oppresses me is the metaphorical devil. As well as anyone else who leaves the path open for me being oppressed.
Earlier, I was joking about carlie and Desert Son straightplaning.
You are a giant fucking example of it.
Now go away.
Bored now…
Queer people thinking they ought to have human rights: an overactive sense of entitlement! You heard it here, folks!
[meta]
sundoga:
Psychological projection is psychologically projective.
You admit you could be wrong, but you assiduously avoid considering (never mind confronting) the claims that show you to be wrong.
Right.
Amphiox #314
QFT:
Said perfectly. Floreat.
Cipher, it is almost like I am one of those Welfare Queens™ that Reagan used to rally against.
“Robert B.
9 May 2012 at 10:54 pm
He’s not a friend, but we CAN use him, but not if all we’re giving him is grief for “not going far enough.”
Nice scarequotes. Should I take that to mean you think he actually has gone far enough? That’s not the impression you’re giving otherwise.”
Then that was not the impression I wished to give. “Far enough” is when every single person in the country has full rights regardless of sexuality, race, gender, religion, or pretty much anything else.
But getting it all in one heap is unlikely at best. So we take steps. Small large, tiny – until we get there. No less.
For certain values of “perfectly.” Including “peace in our time.”
You really are pig ignorant about these things, aren’t you?
Queer people thinking they ought to have human rights: an overactive sense of entitlement! You heard it here, folks!
it’s amazing how people cannot recognize the exercising of their own sense of privilege, even when their words are right there, in black and white, staring them in the face!
I saw it with male privilege during “Watsongate”, and see it all the time with christians.
may they someday pull their heads out of their asses.
#325 Icthyic:
I have read the Greenwald article. I am well aware that Obama does not give a shit about the policy concerns of progressive voters — as Greenwald says, he is “content to acquiesce” to the conservative position.
But he does need the progressive votes.
That’s… hm.
Are you perhaps from some alternate dimension? In this universe, that’s kind of an assholish thing to say to a bunch of queer atheists. We’re about as electable as a moldy block of cheese, because of exactly the privileged power structures we have gathered here to yell about.
For one thing, it’s pretty hard to get elected to high office if you’re not married.
Quite right, Janine! I bet they had comfortable smugness nests too.
Bored now…
not bored, so much as can’t see the point of repeating the same arguments over and over again for those that refuse to see.
it does indeed feel a lot like arguing with creationists.
not surprisingly.
I love this image. It calls to mind unfortunately banal bower birds that decorate their lairs in beige and earth tones.
@ sundoga:
If we don’t tell him he hasn’t gone far enough, why should he continue to take any steps? And once again, explain why coming out in favor of marriage-banning state laws and amendments is a step in the right direction in the first place.
But he does need the progressive votes.
nope.
if every progressive in the country stayed home, he would still win.
it was the same in 2008.
you’re not going to get what you want with the way the political field is laid out.
you’ll have to either change the field, or play a different game altogether.
As I see it many of middle of the road heteros will see a headline of Obama supporting gay marriage. They will think “that’s nice. The gays are such nice people. Now Mr President is on the case I can sleep soundly at night knowing they are being looked after”.
People need to shout that this is not good enough.
On the subject of Josh “whining” – Please keep it up. As a hetero with limited interaction with LGBT people I value your comments as it makes me see my privilege. I am sure I am one of many.
“Ichthyic
9 May 2012 at 10:57 pm
He’s a politician. He’s a good one. Let’s use that.
you don’t think many have tried?
you really don’t think anyone thought of this before you?
ROFLMAO
man, how naive.”
Naivete, or accuracy? Grassroots movements succeed by co-opting the powerful. MLK pushed the White House with popular action, the White House pushed Congress.
It doesn’t matter if we tried before and failed. We only need to win – really win – once.
ramaus:
Are you actually proud of being such an idiot? No, changing a question is not a strawman – don’t attempt logic, it’s outside your abilities.
I did not say you claimed anything about atheists, fuckwit. I posed you a little test. I said, to you: gays are accepted in the military the same way atheists are. Now, figure that one out.
Obviously, it’s a little test you fail utterly. You seem to be absolutely clueless about the treatment of atheists in the military, just as you are absolutely clueless about the treatment of gays in the military.
Ichthyic, ask Buffybot what “Bored now…” means.
#340 Icthyic:
I am confused by this assertion. I think that at least 10% of the country’s voters are progressive. If Obama lost 10% of the country’s voters I do not think he would have won the election.
This is a pretty good argument. But there should still be leverage after the election. One would expect, for example, that Obama would still care about his party doing well in subsequent elections, particularly in 2014 ones which would determine how cooperative a congress he’s going to get for the last two years of his presidency.
But the other point is, Obama and Romney are not equally bad choices. Romney and the Republicans are monstrously worse. The principles of triage must apply. If your two choices are between very bad and bad, you settle for bad for the short term, and try to find some way to make bad less bad later. You don’t hold out of better and let very bad win/happen.
Strategically then, for the next few months it would mean pressuring Obama in way that moves him left but does not increase the risk of the Republicans winning in 2012.
@eigenperson
Not really. The democrats will support anything Obama does. They are like his pets. Plus, he knows we will all vote for him because the alternative is a descent towards fascism.
Koshka:
Thank you, sincerely. That means a lot to people like Caine, Esteleth, me and the assorted motley queers that inhabit Pharyngula.
nd the assorted motley queers that inhabit Pharyngula.
HEY!
don’t forget those of us who also care about those motley queers.
By the way, note that the religious right are lining up behind Romney, not threatening (much) to seriously withhold their support to “influence” him now. Because they know that if he wins, they’re on the winning team, and their loyalty will be repaid and their influence will go up. And the Repubs can count on them again. Remember: the religious right is not the whole republican party, as Edwina has tediously reminded us–but they’ve sure been richly repaid for their support. I used to go around saying things like, the Republicans are just using the religious nuts, the last thing they really want is to actually outlaw abortion…they just want to dangle the carrot and get the religious votes. Guess what? I was full of crap. Being on the winning team has increased the clout, stature, and influence of the religious right, and I’ve lost count of the number of misogynistic laws this tea party season. Not to mention the Tennessee creationism bill, the supreme court allowing rectal searches, overt McCarthyism again from Florida, and on and on.
Losing an election never helped a damn thing.
So we queers can swallow the slow acting poison and hope that we get the antidote.
How fucking encouraging.
joshuakundert (#309)
Bare minimum? By making a statement about marriage equality that is at least as strong as Maureen Walsh’s was. (See #291.) Clear enough?
Plus, he knows we will all vote for him because the alternative is a descent towards fascism.
wait…
*looks at Obama’s record on rights issues*
what do you mean “alternative”?
the US IS descending towards fascism…
or feudalism.
could be both?
can you have a fascistic feudal society?
Motley Queers, Josh? Seriously. I refuse to be part of a hair metal band!
Do you think that posing this question constitutes an argument for the latter all by itself? Because nothing else in your post does. All I can really think of is Invader Zim.
*bounces raising her hand*
Oo! I know! I know!
Pick me!
Then let me add my thanks to Koshka’s.
Obama and Romney are not equally bad choices.
based on, what, precisely?
seriously, don’t spew it here.
go research their individual voting records on rights issues, and figure out what is going on for yourself.
How could you possibly know what we want? You’ve ignored every single thing we have said about what we want and repeatedly called us all uppity ingrates. No, Cupcake, you don’t “wan’t” the same things we do.
“Ichthyic
9 May 2012 at 11:05 pm
Queer people thinking they ought to have human rights: an overactive sense of entitlement! You heard it here, folks!
it’s amazing how people cannot recognize the exercising of their own sense of privilege, even when their words are right there, in black and white, staring them in the face!
I saw it with male privilege during “Watsongate”, and see it all the time with christians.
may they someday pull their heads out of their asses.”
What privilege would that be?
As I agreed with Janine, we know each other only by what we write. I’ve just been trying to get people to do something construtive rather then destructive, and called her out on her smug superiority. I don’t know anything else about her or you. And you know nothing about me.
So shove your “privilege” where the sun don’t shine, sunshine. And you can shove your assumptions right there beside them.
@Icthyic
Err… now that I think about all the police state/anti civil rights crap he has put in place… Yeah, the alternative IS fascism.
*bounces raising her hand*
Oo! I know! I know!
Pick me!
uh, I think I will AVOID bringing this issue up with the Buffster…
if it’s all the same to you..
*EEEK*
Wasn’t he that nice black gentleman who was always polite and never made much of a fuss?
Cipher, that is one of two possibilities. But the other one is not on YouTube.
What privilege would that be?
ooh ooh, can I?
“bored now”
Obama has always been a centrist pragmatist with a slight rightward lean (by the definition of “right” for any and all modern liberal democracies EXCEPT the current United States).
He doesn’t “need” progressive votes because he knows that progressives tend to be more often realists than idealists and enough will always vote for him simply because the alternative is so much worse.
So one strategy for moving Obama leftwards would actually be to change the Republican party so that the alternative to Obama is not so bad that Obama can take progressive votes for granted.
Unfortunately, THAT is obviously pretty much impossible right now. But it could be a viable long term strategy for dealing with other similar centrist pragmatists in the future.
#347 ibyea:
For the next twenty to forty years, the alternative to the Democratic candidate will always be a (more) rapid descent towards fascism.
We cannot postpone the problem of fixing the Democratic Party, unless we are willing to postpone it twenty or more years, until a Republican candidate does not mean utter catastrophe.
I think our best bet is to play the game of chicken; to tell the President and others: “We will go to the very edge of the abyss, and risk falling in, in order to convince you that we are serious, if we have to.” It is not a nice option but I do not see another one (except to leave the country, which only foists the problem on those who remain).
Yes, that is constructive.
“Shut the fuck up you ungrateful queers. The master has said he tolerates you.”
“Caine, Fleur du mal, OM
9 May 2012 at 11:17 pm
“I wan’t the same things you do.”
How could you possibly know what we want? You’ve ignored every single thing we have said about what we want and repeatedly called us all uppity ingrates. No, Cupcake, you don’t “wan’t” the same things we do.”
Actually, I’ve simply pointed out that what you’re doing is fundamentally likely to be counterproductive. And if you had the half a brain required to actually read my posts and understand them, you’d see what I want, as stated earlier. Full rights, for everyone. No exceptions.
If that isn’t what you want, then please fuck off.
What do people expect from this man? He has gone further than any president has before. And the notion that his speaking out two or three years ago would have made any difference in NC’s vote is ludicrous. This particular legislation has been proposed every legislative session for the last five years. NC joins 30 other states that have already passed similar constitutional amendments. No other president has said a word about gay marriage and now this man finally speaks up and the whine is, it’s not enough? Obama made history today. The majority of voters still don’t believe in same-sex marriage as evidenced by the 31 states where citizens came down firmly against same-sex marriage by referendum.
Obama has been in office less than four years and in those four years it seems that people expected him to undo the biases and prejudices that have been firmly entrenched in this culture for centuries. Myers sounds like a petulant child and doesn’t offer any constructive criticism, only complains that Obama hasn’t done enough. For the 100th time, presidents don’t propose nor write legislation and an Executive Order is not a magic wand. Most of what the public believes can be done with an EO is based on a total misunderstanding of the scope of the president’s power.
Do you know how long it took to get a sitting president to speak out in support of civil rights for African-Americans? Nearly 100 years after the end of the civil war. What should Obama have said today?
How about you read the fucking thread?
You are just the gift that keeps on giving, fuckface. Based on how you see The Truth, you felt free enough to state that I am a smug do-nothing. And you think you are calling me out.
Feel free to drop off a cliff, spleen weasel.
Josh:
Yes, it does mean a lot. It means a lot to all those who stand under our queer umbrella and shout loudly, adding their voices to ours. People like Carlie, Ichthyic, Brownian, Cipher and so very many others. To them, I offer my thanks, always.
He should not have said “Let the states, like North Carolina, decide for themselves.”
@ Ichthyic
Practically speaking, the differences between fascism and feudalism are largely cosmetic, so yeah they can totally coexist.
You’re another one very cheaply had.
When you’re done crying us a river can you please clean up after yourself and take your tissues and tiny violin with you?
I think that at least 10% of the country’s voters are progressive. If Obama lost 10% of the country’s voters I do not think he would have won the election.
ah, if only it worked like that.
the only thing that I can say in response, briefly, is:
Have you ever tried herding cats?
no, that 10% never votes as a block.
OTOH, he rightly knows that if he can present a “moderate” face, he’ll get much more than that 10% from the “middle”.
SoP for politics in the USA, post Reagan.
“Brownian
9 May 2012 at 11:22 pm
I’ve just been trying to get people to do something construtive rather then destructive, and called her out on her smug superiority.
Yes, that is constructive.
“Shut the fuck up you ungrateful queers. The master has said he tolerates you.””
So, my very much personal atack on Janine, which I think she very much deserved, is now a general attack on all LGBT individuals.
Interesting to know.
He has
gonebent over further than any president has before…just to continue a theme.
And I would also like to extend my thanks to the genuine allies here in the thread with us.
You attacked her for making the argument that our rights shouldn’t be subject to a vote. You claimed that was overly entitled.
Yes, it IS a fucking general attack, you fucking idiot.
Koshka, you must have noticed all the time the MLK put into getting Kennedy/Johnson elected.
so yeah they can totally coexist.
oh good. I would hate to have to change the new flag designs I’ve been working on.
Buffybot’s been spinning like mad to get the right colors.
@sheriareid
Gone further than other presidents? Are you kidding me? He never voiced a support until now, and when he does, it has to be states rights?
We didn’t expect him to undo the biases. We expected him to fight as hard as possible, which he didn’t do because he never communicated Democratic ideals to the public. Seriously, where was the president when the public option was going through congress? But that is assuming he was a liberal. He is not a liberal. Get that through your head. He wants the rightward shifts to happen.
Jesus fucking Christ, read the thread. What should he have said? He could have said that he unequivocally supports GLBT rights, that the current state of affairs is unacceptable and he will do everything in his power as the godsdamn president of the U.S. to push through laws until all human beings share the same rights.
Instead, he tied us to the train tracks and whistled for a train. He played Snidely Whiplash to our Nell, Cupcake.
#370 sheriareid:
Read Kennedy’s “Civil Rights Address” for the right way to handle this kind of issue.
Wasn’t he that nice black gentleman who was always polite and never made much of a fuss?
please tell me that’s satire.
Martin Luther King would never have countenanced the rude and disruptive behavior on display here. No sirree.
Oh, you wanna play that game? Fine.
Did you miss the part about the ‘ungrateful’?
Because I don’t really see how it’s any skin off of your, or anyone else’s ass, if some people see that Pilate’s washing his hands of the issue and letting the water trickle down to the individuals states, isn’t any real endorsement at all.
Jump for joy if you want. But who are you, or anyone else, to tell people who are aware of what happens with letting individual states, like North Carolina, decide for themselves that they should grin and like it
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You are a silly and deluded little person.
It is.
spleen weasel.
man, that would be one nasty critter.
really.
a weasel that burrows its way into your spleen?
OUCH.
“Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
9 May 2012 at 11:24 pm
As I agreed with Janine, we know each other only by what we write. I’ve just been trying to get people to do something construtive rather then destructive, and called her out on her smug superiority. I don’t know anything else about her or you. And you know nothing about me.
You are just the gift that keeps on giving, fuckface. Based on how you see The Truth, you felt free enough to state that I am a smug do-nothing. And you think you are calling me out.
Feel free to drop off a cliff, spleen weasel.”
And my your sock drawer be infested with fire ants, shit-for-brains (gee, this gratuitous insult thing is so easy!)
I called you smug necause that’s what I read. I am aware I probably come off as arrogant – I am working on toning that down.
However, you were right that we’re going around in circles.
It is.
thanks.
Ah, so I see the thread has come full circle!
sheriareid, what Obama SHOULD have said today is that he supports same-sex marriage rights, say that states enacting laws and policies to the contrary is WRONG, and then call on Congress to pass federal law to the effect of banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.
For every conservative vote he would have lost in so saying, he would have gained two progressive votes. Remember, the right hates him anyway. He could be revealed to be the Second Coming and they would still hate him.
You have attacked all LGBT individuals, you fuckwitted shit smear.
You are the one who said we’re all entitlement-minded ingrates because we don’t think human rights are a voting issue.
You are a fetid, pus-filled, infected pimple on the ass of humanity. Pop yourself, pumpkin.
Saw PZ mention the ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ strategy and saw multiple people echo that in the first hundred or so posts, saying that the people this pisses off weren’t going to vote for Obama anyhow so why didn’t he go farther.
I disagree with that argument.
Obama doesn’t have to get hardcore evangelicals to vote for him for this to be effective. Dobson/Donahue are and will continue to go crazy with this, and now on the frontpage instead of newsletters etc to a pre-screened audience. This could fracture some of the Joel Osteen crowd (for whom being anti-gay marriage is not super important) from the Dobson/Donahue crowd. If even a few thousand people in the right states tune out Dobson/Donahue in November and decide that Obama’s re-election won’t be the end of the world then this could be a huge win for him.
Obama could also get Romney’s views on gay marriage onto the front page. Those views, of course, are much worse than Obama’s, making Romney somewhat toxic to a number of swing voters. And worse (for Romney), social conservatives don’t actually trust Romney’s views. Again, a few thousand people here or there and this is a big win for Obama.
Had Obama made a more strong statement (or action) then he would have (potentially) divided fewer evangelics, enticed fewer swing voters, and solidified Romney among social conservatives. And yes, while Obama’s marginally positive but half-assed approach has angered a lot of people here, I’m guessing the Obama administration figures too many people who might be upset by this remember Nader.
Does any of this make Obama’s action right? Of course not. I just wanted to point out that the assertion that in for a penny/in for a pound was a good idea was probably not correct.
@ Brownian #374
I’m rarely shocked by stupidity on the internet anymore, but the number of people who seem unable to grasp the very basic point you make here, that’s been made over and over, is a bit of a shock.
My first reaction to what Obama had to say was “too little, too late;” then it sunk in that he’d said that it’s an issue for the states, which is just so obviously vastly worse than too little, too late. I really don’t understand how anyone, after reflecting on what Obama said, can miss this point.
Today Obama came out against marriage equality, and there’s no other fair way to characterize what he said.
Here is a quote from Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address. If you want to see what it looks like for a president to take a strong stand on an issue, read:
source
Sundoga.
Do us all a fucking favor.
To make a blockquote, frame what you want to quote with html tags, like this:
Delete the spaces, and you get this:
It is easy, it’s nice, and it MAKES YOUR COMMENTS READABLE.
Oh.. So Koshka wasn’t being sarcastic?
“Cipher, OM
9 May 2012 at 11:27 pm
So, my very much personal atack on Janine, which I think she very much deserved, is now a general attack on all LGBT individuals.
You attacked her for making the argument that our rights shouldn’t be subject to a vote. You claimed that was overly entitled.
Yes, it IS a fucking general attack, you fucking idiot.”
No, I didn’t. Please look at the post again.
I pointed out that her rights were in fact subject to a vote (they shouldn’t be, but they are). I also said she had an overbearing sense of entitlement. I did not link the two.
This site is a trip. It’s simply amazing how people go at each other here.
This expansion of civil rights will be as previous ones, with different coalitions, different interests, different strategies. And, as in previous civil rights movements, everyone’s going to be convinced that their way is the only way, and fling accusations back and forth, and assemble various circular firing squads. It’s all good.
I am of the opinion that while Obama’s statement is not all that we wanted, it is moving in the right direction and was intended for an audience quite different from most readers here. I think it opens opportunities for coalition building, which is one way politicians get elected. Others feel he is a coward, and he needs to be pushed or threatened or punished until he takes the position as they see it. That’s another tool to move an issue forward, and people certainly have the right. I suspect that insults, anger and rage tend to alienate politicians rather than motivate them, especially when coming from such a small constituency as those who post on Pharyngula. But anger and rage motivates those who hold those views, and it can provide messaging that migrates beyond the small group promulgating it. Look at the Tea Party. They are insane, but their rhetoric has certainly migrated. So maybe the saner arguments of those here who are pissed that Obama didn’t come out with some more explicit statement will migrate too.
But the insulting way y’all treat each other… I stand in awe. It’s like watching a bunch of ants and termites go at each other! What is that Shakespeare quote? “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”…
Brownian:
Powerful imagery, that.
Sundoga, your insults is marginally better than your arguments.
And, yes, you are fucking arrogant. What makes it worse, you have shown nothing that you can be arrogant about.
I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment, I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes You’d know what a drag it is to see you
That’s my understanding, R Johnston.
Bah.
Fuck all this. I’m going to bed.
Josh, Janine, Caine, all you fighting the good fight, best wishes. I’ll rejoin you in a few hours. But I’m falling asleep in my chair here.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferret
[9 May 2012 at 11:35 pm
Sundoga.
Do us all a fucking favor.
To make a blockquote, frame what you want to quote with html tags, like this:
[text you want to quote]
Delete the spaces, and you get this:
[text you want to quote]
It is easy, it’s nice, and it MAKES YOUR COMMENTS READABLE.]
OK.
Ichthyic
I don’t have the wit for satire.
I would just call it sarcasm.
I just don’t see Obama as being equivalent to a “slow acting poison” – to me it seems more fair to compare him to the ineffective sympathetic bystander doing nothing helpful one way or the other, while the alternative is equivalent to blowing your own brains out with a .47.
But, being someone who always thought I was sympathetic to LGBT issues, but not having ever been actively in the fight itself or LGBT myself, I’m going to shut up now and just listen for a while. I can just make out the outlines of all sorts of unrecognized privileges looming with the impending threat of foot-in-mouth syndrome, and there’s already an unpleasant sensation of something in the back of the throat.
@ltft:
you’ve made an excellent argument on what Obama needed to do to get re-elected.
unfortunately, that was never what our disagreement with him was about.
Trying again:
Either you’re very new and thus ignorant enough that you should realize you’re ignorant, or you are willfully obtuse.
With this?
I think so.
There’s a button on your browser that closes it. Use it, or contribute something substantial, you condescending fuck.
Speak for yourself. I LEARN things when I am insulted, and I expect to learn quite a lot when this one is done.
Halle-fuckin’-lujah. May your brethren similar shut their pieholes for one goddamn minute.
Okay, sundoga seems to be distracted, so I’ll address this to everyone.
The position, among those who disagree with the OP, seems to be that, although this isn’t the best thing that could have possibly happened, it’s still an improvement, and we should be happy about it and/or offer Obama positive reinforcement.
But Obama said that gay marriage should be decided by the states, that it is their right to decide. Given the current political momentum, this can only be read as an endorsement of the legality of Amendment 1 and laws like it. Even if he staples a weakly-worded personal opinion to the front of this legal capitulation… how is this helping? Can you tell me why this is even a small net positive?
Motley queers are teh awesome – especially this one.
Incredible how a person who lacks rights is entitled because she think that she should have them.
Also, fuckface, I told you that I think that rights are taken, not given.
Funny how you did not address that.
Oh, wait, you think you have me nailed because I am showing off all the entitlements that I have.
Smug little assclown.
You might have something legitimate to say if I were just insulting you. But, please realize, right now, I am just playing with you.
There is no positive, Robert, as you’ve recognized.
sheriareid:
Courage. Leadership. Conviction.
(Alas!)
—
[due again]
Or, as PZ puts it in the OP:
sc_d4e1ad9f8b2234f2307517e0f26175a6:
Jumped up Jesus, you are beyond thick. There was no expansion of civil rights. It was a massive step backwards. States Rights, you fuckwit. Figure out what that means.
And where did you get that idea? What exact post? What quote? What idea expressed by her? Because if you’re pulling it out of your ass (“just a feeling”), you need to get the fuck out of here with your silencing, shaming bullshit, and if it’s based on a particular idea she’s expressed here, you’re a bigot who still needs to get the fuck out of here with your silencing, shaming bullshit.
I am actually somewhat sorry you feel that way. Bt given your hostility to other points of view, I don’t think you’d last five minutes being me. Nothing to do with you, really – But I have to deal with assholes 7 days a week.
I like how you are ignoring the state’s right statement by Obama. The day after an other state banned recognizing LGBT marriage. Why can’t you see this?
See? Unexamined privilege. Fuck off.
It took me a little while, Josh. I didn’t pay enough attention to the “states’ rights” bit at first. (Why is arguing “states’ rights” still respectable? Shouldn’t the Civil War have Godwinned it out of the discourse?)
@amphiox
Expanding on Janine’s comment, Obama has proven to be a poison on other issues as well, especially when it comes to civil rights.
Amphiox:
Thank you. I mean that sincerely, because you were freaking me out more than a bit.
Right. Because I am hostile to any action that restricts my rights, I am obviously hostile to all points of view that is not my own.
You are a stupid little fuckface, you fucking over entitled straight male asshole.
@Robert B.
When I was in high school, my history teacher said that the civil war happened because Lincoln got elected because of states rights issue. In high school, it seems to be very respectable. I hope it’s not the same in universities.
ltft”
Your purported justification for your disagreement is a Non sequitur, and— worst of all—actually supports PZ’s OP.
@Robert B. #427
Because bigotry is still respectable so long as it’s thinly veiled. Very thinly in the case of “states’ rights.”
Cry a river, Cupcake. Lots of us get to deal with assholes 7 days a week, too. Plus, we get to deal with fuckwitted shit stains here. Fuckwitted shit stains like you.
I completely agree with the position that Obama is too smart to have not thought through every word carefully, and that this was deliberate. WTF?
I also agree that he is the only choice in November, but it gets harder all the time to accept that. My only hope has been that he might get the chance to do something with the Supreme Court. But I’m wondering now what he would actually do if he had the chance to replace one of the conservatives.
I want to add my thanks to those of you who’ve gotten me to look closely at my own priveledge — white, male, hetero. I’ve supported LGBTQ rights since I was in high school in the 70s, but was not as observant and uppity as I have become since coming to (mostly) lurk here. I’ve been in tears while reading this thread, and this isn’t the first time. The anger is rightious, and I feel it with you.
Possibly because of unrecognized Canadian privilege, the term “state’s rights” didn’t immediately trigger the requisite associations for me that it would in the mind of a politically savvy American, that would make me perk up and notice it.
As in completely not noticing it, despite the 8 hits on this very thread that the browser’s search function just brought up.
Ugh. The taste of foot is not pleasant.
Sorry everyone.
– Caine, Fleur de Mal…
Right now, it is a states’ rights issue, whether we agree or not. And it will remain that way until the issue comes before the Supreme Court. There is no way to get a law through the House or Senate, and certainly no way to get a Constitutional Amendment. Sucks, but that’s reality. Should Obama have come out and said “I propose federal marriage equality legislation”? Maybe… but there needs to be a strategic calculation behind calling for legislation that (a) won’t be introduced under current conditions and (b) even if it were introduced, will lose. We differ on the stragetic value of such a move. In the alternative, it’s state legislation until the older generation dies off. This is a battle over the supreme court, not the presidency, because there are no other options at the moment.
Maybe the primary motive in this announcement was to get re-elected, maybe not, maybe Obama really believes in marriage equality, maybe he doesn’t. I am more focused on making sure Romney doesn’t appoint the next justice to the Supreme Court. The politics seem smart to me. You disagree. Noted, and believe it or not, respected. Don’t appreciate the bullying tone, but that’s the way y’all get on and it doesn’t phase me.
[OT]
sundoga: Trying again:
—
You failed.
Here:
<blockquote>Quoted content</blockquote>→
Participating in Pharyngula threads, especially in subjects outside one’s immediate experience and expertise, can be very humbling experience at times.
(That’s a feature, not a bug).
Paul K:
Thank you, Paul. Your voice is important.
Thank you, Amphiox. Even though I try to keep in mind that there is an international readership, I am afraid that I still slip into American shorthand. At least you finally got it. It reflects well on you.
[erratum]
My hyperlink in my quote @432.
Amphiox:
It clicked, that’s what matters. It’s privilege blindness on my part to assume that everyone understands what something like state rights means and I’m sorry for being stupid and making that assumption.
Hi John @432,
Not quite on the Non sequitur, though I did write sloppily enough to make it unclear. The penny/pound argument presupposes that the only way conservative votes might benefit Obama is if they outright vote for him. This is incorrect. Additionally, the penny/pound argument ignores other potential political costs incurred by Obama in going from a penny to a pound. I had hoped to tie loose ends up with my last sentence (I was arguing against the penny/pound idea), but obviously edited my comments too much.
@sc
Lose? You think this is a losing issue? You are another one of those loser liberals who thinks not trying is better than trying. Because you know what happens when you don’t try? The other side gains grounds. Oh, and you know what happens when this stuff is framed under states rights? Everybody loses! In case you haven’t noticed, the states are leading in this bigotry lead infestation.
What sense of entitlement? The one that Janine is continuously displaying. That she is RIGHT. That she should be able to get what she (and I, really) want without having to get into the dirty politics business, that she believes we can win it on the small scale, that we can win just because we’re right.
IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. Rigteousness buys you nothing. You have to be willing to work with what you have, move with the flow, compromise in the short term to get what you want in the long term. Because there are a bunch of people over there who are just as convinced of their own righteousness, as absolute in their own sense of entitlement, who want to destroy any chance of our victory.
Call me a quisling, if you want to. Or an accomoationist. Or whatever you damn well want to. But please, when there’s a crack, a fracture, something we can maybe exploit to get just one more step closer to where we ALL want to be, can we MAYBE try to do that rather then screaming about how little it is? Because that might actually get us somewhere. (I don’t want you to shut up. Speak! But a simple acknowledgement that this may get us something could actually be useful.)
About being entitled to human rights that are not subject to a vote.
You understand that that’s the claim she’s making, and that you’re being so pissy about arguing against?
For the edification of the company, you can type ⟨ and ⟩ to make the browser display ⟨ and ⟩, without making it think you meant to use an HTML tag. (The letters stand for “left angle bracket” and “right angle bracket.) This lets you display how tags are written, like this:
⟨blockquote⟩
⟨/blockquote⟩
No, just the nature of my job. Many, many assholes.
@amphiox #436
These things happen. For some further edification:
—Lee Atwater, Republican National Committee Chairman and advisor to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush
BTW, you are still assuming Obama gives a damn. That it is part of his strategy to pass LGBT rights. It isn’t. Because he doesn’t give a damn except for his political calculation and money from big corporation.
Good god, you’re fucking stupid.
Stop trying to argue against things when you don’t understand them.
Fuck, perhaps I can show just how reasonable I can be by listening to homophobes explain to me why, as a queer, I deserve to be denied rights.
Fucking simpering over entitled straight male shit stain on the panties of life.
Do you actually read the entire post, or just the first line?
In a perfect world, Janine would be right. This isn’t it. I want to win this, and I don’t think we will unless we take this just as seriously as the other side does. Which inclues ditching this sort of position and operating pragmatically.
If you can prove me wrong, please do. It would please me immensely.
We’re not saying how little it is. We’re saying how negative it is. We’re saying it’s not a step closer, but a step further away.
sundoga @ #446:
The problem is that (as people have explained over and over and over), this is A STEP FUCKING BACKWARDS. Obama said he believes the issue is one of states’ rights.
States’ rights.
STATES’ RIGHTS. RIGHT AFTER A STATE PASSES AN AMENDMENT AGAINST MARRIAGE EQUALITY.
So one more time for the slow-on-the-uptake crowd*:
Obama just admitted that he is perfectly okay with the way the North Carolina amendment came out. An amendment that represents A STEP FUCKING BACKWARDS.
—
*Yeah, I know. Not really slow-on-the-uptake, more of a finger-in-ears-yelling-lalalala type.
brazenlucidity:
How fucking nice of you. I can’t tell which part of that statement I hate more: the moralizing against us or the implication that the president is just a wittle college kid who did bad on his PS201 essay. I think this is what I hate about it the most, though:
Do you know what it’s like, when you’re nine years old, to stand outside for hours in the pouring rain with your parents outside a great brick building, in a line that stretches all the way around a block, as they wait to get married? “Normal” people get to spend weeks, months planning their weddings. Making sure every detail is just right. They get to drag the families down from whatever corners of the country they’re hiding in for a day of festivity, of tears and joy. What did my parents get? Standing in the rain outside with their nine-year old kid, soaking wet, crammed in line with hundreds if not thousands of other gay couples, just to have the chance to briefly enjoy having their love recognized under the eyes of the law.
Yes, briefly. I think we all knew at the time it wouldn’t last long, and it didn’t. Our home state of Oregon passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage not that long after. How many ten-year-olds have to worry about that? About their parent’s marriage being annulled in the eyes of the law? Yes, Oregon has civil unions. No, that ain’t enough.
High and middle school (that’s junior high for you non-Oregonians out there :P) suck for a lot of people, and for a lot of reasons. Very few people get through without being bullied, and I sure wasn’t one of them. And you know what all the homophobic slurs and bullying did to me? They made me repress my own sexual orientation for years, to the point where I only came to terms with it this year, and I’m still not comfortable with it. That’s hardly remarkable. People are assholes, by and large. What is remarkable is that when I’d read the news, I’d see the government siding with the same people who called me gay, or a faggot, or any other number of names and school. And no, they weren’t calling me that because I was gay; they were calling me that because I was a socially-awkward, feminine boy with Asperger’s who didn’t fit well into social norms. That’s actually worse than if it had just been a slur against my sexual orientation; it’s the transmogrification of one form of sexual orientation into something inherently insulting, AND MY OWN FUCKING GOVERNMENT WAS DOING THE SAME DAMN THING, pretending that gays and lesbians were somehow inferior, lesser people because of whom they loved. How the hell do you think that feels?
And you know what? I’m not even gay. I’m bisexual. And beyond that, a white bisexual who (these days, anyway) can easily pass as perfectly gender-normative straight person. I’m a tiny fucking minority. The vast majority of LGBTQ people don’t have my luck and advantages. They’re far worse off that me.
So go right fucking ahead, and make this issue about the president’s poor fee-fees. Obviously, gently encouraging him to feel better about LGBTQ people is SO much more important than the millions of people like me and my parents. Because if one bigot makes some tentative steps towards being nicer to LGTBQ people, that’s soooo much more fucking important than silly, trivial little things like government policy. You must have a lovely view from that ivory tower of yours.
There’s a reason I’m planning on moving to Norway when I’m done with college.
– ibyea
It’s not a matter of whether I think it is a “losing issue”. It’s a matter of whether introducing such legislation would result in any sort of a gain, even if the legislation was not introduced or was defeated. Would doing so result in a more energized base that would result in a Romney defeat and a coalition that could get such legislation passed? Opinions differ, but I think not.
For the record, no, I certainly do not think this is a state’s rights issue. But nine other people get to decide that, and we had better be focusing on who gets to appoint the next vacancy. If someone articulates a cogent strategy by which Obama could have come out and said “full equality now, at the federal level” and increase his chances of making that next appointment, then I’m all ears.
Eesh. Did not realize that comment was going to be so long. Apologies for the great big wall o’ text.
[meta]
sundoga:
We all have to deal with ourselves.
Cipher, you take yourself entirely too seriously at times. I was being literal – I don’t think Janine would do well in my shoes because she would then have to deal with the assholes I have to deal with every day.
Do you understand, idiot, that “entitlement” is about ought, and what Janine has been claiming repeatedly is about ought, and arguing about is doesn’t actually make her ought claims an overdeveloped sense of entitlement?
Sundoga, you continue to be way too fucking stupid to have this discussion with. Why do you keep making arguments against what I’m saying to you when you very obviously don’t understand what I’m saying to you?
Swordfish @ #459:
From a straight guy who lived in blissful privilege for the first twenty-odd years of his life:
I don’t think you should apologize for the wall o’ text. I think everyone should thank you for sharing it.
I know I do.
My comment on 458 should have been:
“It’s a matter of whether proposing such legislation would result in any sort of a gain, even if the legislation was not introduced or was defeated.”
The sentence made no sense in the original.
There is no middle fucking ground here. You literally are with us or against us.
What’s middle ground on gay marriage? Gay men can get married but gay women can’t?
He could at least say he actually supports gay marriage. Not pull this state’s rights crap, because you know, states clearly don’t support gay marriage.
At. the. very. least.
ltft:
It’s based on outcomes (response) being no different due to the actual claim (stimulus), not on the proportionality of such.
(The cost-benefit analysis is implicit)
How utterly convincing.
If only you could understand what a drag it is to see your over entitled, straight, male ass.
Also, fuckface, seeing what you have decided what I am, I am not sure I trust your definition of an “asshole”.
Now, blow it out your ass.
Right now, it is a states’ rights issue, whether we agree or not. And it will remain that way until the issue comes before the Supreme Court.
huh, seems to me I recall more federal movement during the civil rights era, even WITHOUT support from SCOTUS.
amazing to think the US has actually gone BACKWARDS on civil rights issues since the 60s.
[meta]
sundoga blusters thus:
Nice of you to allow what has already occurred, but I note that you accept the claim, rather than refute it.
(Addressing the claims against you is ostensibly beneath you, but it sure seems you merely are being a coward)
Yes, I DO undertand that. It’s when a person’s sense of entitlement impacts the real world that it becomes noticeable. Like when white people’s sense of entitlement (in this case, entitlement to superiority over others) is used to deny services to others.
Janine’s is more subtle. Because she’s right she ought to win. I’d love it if that were true. But it isn’t, and her feeling that it is, is, I believe, reducing her ability to fight for it.
I second this.
@ Ichthyic
Yeah, that one surprised me, too, when I found out. But it’s true. Check out The Children In Room E4 – schools are racially segregated again.
Or made up by your dumb ass to justify talking down to a queer woman for being too fucking ungrateful and not going along with your shitty accommodationist strategies that pretend her rights are something to be bargained with.
Let me bounce a question back at you – what’s my entitlement?
Come to that, You seem convinced I am, in fact, straight, white and male. Well, you’re actually right on two counts…
Ze Madmax @ 464: Thanks. It was kind of hard to write. <3
I like this completely made up “feeling that it is” also, as well as the assumption that she is somehow impaired by it. Janine, I’m learning all kinds of interesting things about you that I didn’t know before! Hell, I bet you are too!
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
(Drooling on keyboard.)
@sc
Gay rights is a winning issue. Most Americans support gay rights. You know what Obama could do to twist Republican hands? Tell the public a clear message about support for gay rights, and mention the fact that most Americans support gay rights. Even if it a federal bill does get defeated, it would draw attention to this issue and put opposing politicians in trouble. Sometimes, you have to take risks. It’s called being a leader.
Swordfish:
Welcome to the bi club, there are a lot of us out there. You’re smack under the queer umbrella, too. Hang on a bit, I’ll get you your commemorative toaster. :D
By the way, your post was a post of beauty, don’t apologize for it. I thank you for it. It won’t make a dent in the brand of idiots showing in this thread, however, it will touch minds and hearts of all those who actually have minds and hearts.
R Johnston @450, you allude to the euphemism treadmill via your quoting of Lee Atwater, yet you speak not against it.
(Bah)
My thanks also Swordfish. People need to know about situations like yours. They need to read and understand them. Same sex marriage is surely not just about the chance to have that special day – it goes well beyond that.
Lay your cards on the table or shut the fuck up about it.
Fuckface, yet again you are making up shit. I said fuck all about race.
Reading comprehension, not really in your favor.
I know that I am shocked.
Considering I dealt with the actual attack in paragraph one, and you’re quoting paragraph three, it sure seems like you’re incapable of reading.
Is it wrong that I am highly amused by this?
@ John Morales #481
Hmm. I never encountered the term “euphemism treadmill” before. Seems like a useful term. I’ll have to remember it. Thanks.
Liar.
Hi John @467,
I think we mis-read each other. Since I’m not sure where you’re arguing from let me answer twice.
I looked at PZ as arguing that penny/pound was a good idea (or at least not a bad one) and that he supported this argument (only) by nothing that fundamentalists wouldn’t vote for Obama no matter how little he said. I was not arguing with PZ’s supporting statement but rather the penny/pound construct.
You also point out that PZ’s penny/pound is based on outcomes being no different due to the actual claim and not on the proportionality of such. That is exactly what I’m arguing against. Almost every statement Obama could possibly make would have a different outcome. I should have said that the penny/pound argument ‘ignores the very real potential costs’ rather than ‘ignores potential costs’
*falls apart laughing*
My apologies. You did indeed, say nothing about race, and I misread – twice. I offer you my unstinting and most abject apology.
I am too tired, and I do not want to insult anyone wrongly I will be back tomorrow.
Where the fuck is the race in there?
Oh, wait. Janine said fuck all about race.
Ichthyic @ 469
LBJ had supermajorities at the time of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and he also cobbled together a coalition that included many Republicans before they all went insane. Still, even with his own party in the majority and bipartisan support from GOP, he barely got the legislation passed. He also split the Democratic Party with that legislation. I’m glad he did – they were better off without the Strom Thurmonds of this world.
But Obama has a majority of one in the senate, and you know about the House. This really is going to be resolved in the Supreme Court, and if not, it will take a decade to get the overwhelming support needed to get legislation through Congress. And it really is a state’s rights issue under current law. I wish it were not so, but it is. I would have preferred that Obama not reinforce the states rights issue, though he’s a lawyer and knows very well that this is current law. We may be reading too much into his comment – he may well prefer a supreme court decision or federal legislation, but that’s not where we are at and not where the country is at.
We have a winner people. Sundoga just proved that I am a liar!
Ha! Ha!
But he is too tired to point out when I referred to his race.
What the fuck is this shit?
What the fuck is this?
Oh wait, he’s leaving. Maybe.
Caine: We get commemorative toasters? Perfect! I loves me some toast. :D
And thanks. I’m glad my post was appreciated. :)
Swordfish:
Of course, dahling! Your embossed leather bound Gay Agenda™ must not have arrived yet. It has all the details. ;)
sundoga:
Hm.
Paragraph 1:
Way to deal with it!
(Those of us who are lesser would have attempted to specify in what manner she is wrong, but for such as you mere assertion apparently suffices, and indeed it’s not entitlement that you imagine you’ve shown Janine wrong by mere assertiom)
@swordfish
Thank you from me as well, that was a beautiful post. My husband and I missed the opportunity in 2004, but we held a ceremony with family anyway, because fuck the haters.
Wow, Swordfish, just wow.
That was awesome.