the only thing that needs to happen is that we be allowed access to it.

From a speech Obama made the other day in Medford OR



Okay, Barack, take it back 50 years. The Russians are kicking our ass in the space race. Not only that, but they've got The Bomb and they're building them as fast as they can. They also own Eastern Europe and the Hungarian Revolution showed what happens to Soviet client states that try to break through the Iron Curtain. Nor are they playing nice in divided Germany and the situation in Berlin is getting tense.

Meanwhile, we have already had to fight the Red Chinese in Korea and now they are making threating noises in the direction of Taiwan. And god only knows what the French have gotten themselves into trying to retain their grip on Indochina. Closer to home, someone named Fidel Castro is causing problems for our puppet government in Cuba.

So with all this going on do we have time to worry about about the rights of Negroes? In the great scheme of things, how important is it really that there are states in which Blacks can not marry Whites? This country is facing serious challenges right here right now and to waste our energy on peripheral stuff, well, that doesn't make any sense.

To be against Obama doesn't mean to be for Clinton. I dislike them both and am not supporting one over the other in the primary. I suppose I will hold my nose and vote for whoever is picked to run against Grampy McC in the general But it is naive to think that as president either one is going to do any more than slow our slide into corporatism and Big Brother government.

And if this was GD-P I'd be a cinder within seconds of posting this.

Disclaimer
My lack of enthusiasm for Obama should in no way be construed to mean that I'm a Clinton supporter. A concept that Obama supporters with their either-you're-with-us-or-you-love-Hillary mentality seem unable to grasp

It is impossible to ignore how closely the establishment of separate institutions and the leaving it up to the individual states to grant us our rights and to what extent (or not at all) mirrors the conditions under which Blacks the South lived up until the last third of the 20th century.

How much this will resonate with straight Americans depends on the degree to which they see us a "true" minority, co-equal with racial minorities, that deserves to be mainstreamed into society on equal terms with everyone else.

The analogy loses most of its power if they think of us as simply a special interest group, albeit one with which they might sympathize, that is employing the language of civil rights in an attempt to achieve a status that we don't really warrant. In the latter case, you can see how civil unions would seem to them to be a perfectly adequate accommodation.

he believed that marriage could only be between a man and a woman, but that he supported some sort of civil union arrangement, the details of which should be left up to the states.

He and his followers need to explain to us how this represents full equality for gays and they need to explain it without reference to what Hillary says or thinks. It's unfortunate that whenever they are presented with a question like this they always take cover behind Clinton.

And that gays really are deserving of full equality then Obama can claim to support our civil rights without being a hypocrite. Until then all his speeches before the Fundies are essentially one hypocrite talking to the hypocrites assembled.

you're not suggesting GDP are you? My only concern would be that my asbestos suit is a little threadbare from heavy use elsewhere.

This comes as no surprise at all. "A New Hope" the cover reads. And there he is firm, purposeful, almost steely. A little more animation and he could be the lead comrade in one of those onward-to-the-future posters from 1950s China.

I haven’t read it yet because reading hagiographic articles about Obama provokes much the same response from my stomach that listening to George Bush does. Sooner or later though I’ll have to see what they have to say. And knowing Rolling Stone, I don’t think they’ll give him a totally free pass.

Or maybe I’ll just put it away until we are about three years into the Obama presidency. It might be interesting at that point to see how all the hoping and dreaming of 2008 stacks up against the reality of 2011.

By the way, I know this belongs in GDP, but I also know what will happen if I post it there and it will not be…. productive. But if the mods want to move it they can feel free.

Postscript
I had to read it. It’s worse than I expected. These two quotes sum it up…





Lincolnesque? Sticking to his principles? Wenner has obviously drunk long and deeply. Obama's attitude toward gays represents a crack in his vaunted principles big enough to drive a Humvee through yet even Rolling Stone doesn't see fit to point this out.

If God had told Obama that I donno, say, Asians, did not have the right to marry RS would probably have said something about it. But when it's directed at gays, silence. Is there any doubt that when it comes down to it we count for very little?

The real danger in stuff like this is that it usually contains factual information, generally carefully cherry-picked, along with all the distortions and outright lies and this gives it a degree of credibility that it wouldn't have otherwise.

Obama has made it clear that he personally doesn't. In this respect he is no different than Catholics who support gay equality, or use birth control for that matter, even though the Church they attend every Sunday condemns these things. It is Obama's personal views that are the issue here.

His core views on us are rooted in his fundie religous convictions and are not subject to debate or discussion. As far as I know Hillary is not similarly in thrall to regligious dogma and RW interpretation of the Bible.

(good name by the way ) But I can think of no other explanation for the behaviour of some of these people. And while I don't have links or cites at my fingertips there are some heavy-duty LCR types who I believe have actually said that gays are not a true minority in the sense that people of different races are and do not warrant equal treatment when it comes to thing like marriage.

Obama has made it clear that much of his attitude toward us is rooted in a version of Christianity that has a lot in common with that practiced by those same Fundamentalist denominations that have attempted to deny us rights at every turn. We are in his view sadly but undeniably flawed. Almost but not quite the equals of straight people.