Why aren’t they “honoring” the GetEqual woman who harassed Michele Obama? Does this woman think she is the first one to be concerned with the issue? And: many of us do not necessarily want ENDA. It has caused more harm than good for older people seeking work.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
For the right purpose, a little disruption can go along way. Why not demand the President immediately pardon gay soldier Bradley Manning ? Let’s demand Human Rights for one of our own.
No one has the right to use another persons’ or groups event to push their own agenda. That was an event sponsored by private individuals—and just paying to attend did not give this woman or Get Equal the right to push their own agenda. Why do not THEY have an event to push their agenda, and I will attend and shout about some other issue I am concerned with. Let’s see how they feel then.
When ONE/Tangents/HIC held an event, it was not the right of some other homosexual person or group to come and take over the meeting. If you feel your cause is worhtwhile, and you are not just seeking publicity, then hold your own event, and see who comes.
But with the case of Bradley Manning, we need to act immediately to end this charade of a fair trial from
military courts. We see what they have done with the majority of cases involving cases of sexual abuse/rapes.
Manning has already suffered enough, three years for being a truth teller. What he's done was like when Daniel Ellsberg told the revealed lies on the Viet Nam war. Ellsberg has championed
Bradley's case linking it to his own case 40 years ago.
What that woman did was shameful and disrespectful.
Excuse me folks: We as Americans have the absolute right, indeed, the duty, to disrespect our leaders in pursuit of redress of grievances. That right is embodied in the Bill of Rights (note the name). Her actions may make YOU feel uncomfortable, but agitating for full recognition as an equal member of society goes nowhere when done politely.
You can judge her negatively for ACTing UP, but decorum never got any oppressed group anywhere but more oppressed.
I agree with you, Ryan. To quote an old civil rights song:
It isn't nice to block the doorway
it isn't nice to go to jail
there are nicer ways to do it
but the nice ways always fail
I may be mistaken but I thought Obama issued this E.O. for federal employees a long time ago when he instructed the EEOC to prohibit gay dismissals. As I recall he has always favored legislative policy over E.O.s because E.O.s can be overturned by future presidents with differing political views. That is why he refused to issue an E.O. over DADT, preferring it be undone by Congress so the reversal would be politically strong and difficult for any president to unilaterally challenge. Strikes me as the same would apply to ENDA... though I am certain he did issue some LGBT employment-related E.O. early in his first term. There are a number of activists who have resented the community's focus on the DADT and DOMA/Prop 8, and they are trying to put Obama on notice that ENDA should be the real focus. Shaming and attacking either Obama on this strikes me as petulant, but is no doubt an expression of frustration with national LGBT leaders whom they feel have let Obama off the hook for ENDA.
The folly, of course, is that if they truly want ENDA to pass they must elect a Democratic majority in the House. Any E.O. would surely be overturned by the next Tea Party occupant of the Whitehouse as political payback to his/her constituents.
For what it's worth, I'd like to add my 2 cents in support of what Mark has just written.
Yes, sometimes disruption can be good but there
is a fine line. ACT Up, for example, carried out many disruptive actions that did a great deal of good. However, disrupting Sunday service at St.Pat’s was in retrospect, over the line and did more harm than good. The Obama administration can be severely criticized on a number of grounds, including attacks on freedom of the press, vastly increased surveillance (like this Verizon thing) an insane refusal to budge on marijuana laws, no evident concern over the growth of the “prison-industrial complex.” I confess to being more than disappointed with Obama on issues like that. Shocked might even be a better term. However, the one area he has delivered on to a far greater extent than any other president has been LGBT equality.
President Obama did NOT create the Verizon snooping. Go back to Shrub and the damned Patriot’s act!!!
After the secret snooping by the Bush administration, they proposed the FISA act, which retroactively legalized it, and also granted immunity to the telecommunications companies that had--illegally--provided the administration with all the info they wanted. Candidate Obama promised to filibuster the FISA act. He then did a U-turn and voted for it, without a whimper. That was an eye-opener for me—I knew what he was made of, and nothing he has done since has changed my mind.
Sure, he’s done more for LBGT rights than any other President. He has also arrogated the right to kill people without so much as a judicial hearing, to indefinitely detain people without allowing them to have contact with an attorney. He has declined to prosecute torturers. He put bankers and Wall Street execs in charge of the economy and hasn't done squat to help the unemployed or homeowners who were defrauded by the banks. Many of those unemployed and dispossessed are my neighbors. He pushed through Obamacare, which is a huge giveaway to Big Pharma and the health insurance companies, and wouldn't even utter a peep in favor of single payer, or even a public option. He has prosecuted more whistle blowers than all other administrations combined.
Having the right to enlist, to kill or be killed in order to enrich the corporations, doesn't buy my support. Neither do federal rights re gay marriage, although I will personally benefit from them.
I campaigned for Obama 2008. In 2012 I voted for Jill Stein.
If I may weigh in: And I did vote for Obama because I wanted us as a nation to get past the complaint that a black American could never get elected.
I also think the Democratic Party finally pushed their president to support gay issues. And I do really hope that Obama goes down in history as a great president, but he isn't looking all that smart to me and I don't believe in letting him get away with things we ragged Bush about.
I dislike hypocrites and I am afraid that the gay and lesbian liberals are looking like ones.
This I understand, BUT I think some people are judging him by/on a double standard. We HOPED for more since we didn’t even expect Bush to do things for us.
AND it is ok to fuss about Obama doing, or not doing something, if we also fussed at Bush for the same thing.
FUSS at Bush? I was in the streets demonstrating against his wars.
That is what good citizens do. But some people judge an issue by WHO proposes it, and even the color of their skin.
Even though this may be another cutting edge issue in California, look ahead guys, Bradley is a hero in our eyes. Parade or no Parade: doesn't matter.
The debate has started and THANK GOD it did.
Why aren't we punishing those that dropped bombs filled with depleted uranium???
I think this is an issue we also need to think about. Just because someone is gay does not make them a gay hero, or villain. What if the person has done a terrible thing and is gay? He chose to do something that is not a gay issue, but a human one of course, and just happens to be gay—his sexuality had nothing, as far as I know, to do with it.
What Harry Hay would say is that because he or someone is gay it makes them see a problem earlier and so can inform and educate and make the rest of society aware of the problem and get busy trying to deal with it.
Post a Comment