General: August 2006 Archives

A US politician tipped as the next US President and known to flavor state power to define gay marriage laws will address the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth next month, according to reports.

John McCain, senior Senator from Arizona, who voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and has been praised by gay lobby group the Log Cabin Republicans, will speak at the opening evening of the Tory annual gathering. [...]

He has previously been critical of President George W Bush’s stance on gay marriage, but more recently has fallen in line with Republican policy as seen in his support of the more recent Federal Marriage Amendment, in what commentators describe as political pandering to cement his candidacy.

He was recently criticized for endorsing the actions of anti-gay activist Jerry Falwell after agreeing to keynote the spring graduation of Liberty University. (source)

Well, if I were being crude and flippant about this, I would say, “gay friendly my ass”. But I would never say such a thing. The fact is, John McCain is just like any other Republican candidate for President. He has to appeal to these right wing whackos just to get a place at the poker table. Otherwise, he’s out. We all know that.

And besides, who am I go criticize him when we have our own gay whackos (yes, I know... some would say that I’m one of them) within our own community. I won’t mention any names because that would be indiscrete of me (Log Cabin Republicans). I can understand that they think he’s wonderful because he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004, but you know, that’s just really not enough.

And more recently, he now supports the Federal Marriage Amendment in an effort to be more in line with his bigoted Party, along with keeping company with the likes of Jerry Falwell, when he gave the keynote address at Liberty University.

So, why on earth would the Log Cabin Republicans support this man? Because in the Republican Party, this is the best they can do. What they should be saying is, “Please, now that you’ve knocked us to the ground with that sucker punch, please kick us some more so that we know our place in society.” It’s pathetic, and the Log Cabin Republicans are pathetic.

How on earth are we going to come to a place where we can demand equality when we endorse someone who has no interest in giving us equality? I’m not a single-issue voter, but to me, if a candidate starts out with this view, the only way he would get my vote is if he really could come through with a plan to end our part in Iraq, solve the problem in New Orleans, and feed the people in this country who are homeless and unemployed. Then, I would be able to vote for him because my own desire for equality would be outweighed by the good of the country.

Oh, and while he’s at it, maybe McCain can fix this “immigration problem” that has been a problem for the last fifteen years, but has only become “an issue” in the press in the last year or so (President Bush to the rescue). I’m sure politics have nothing to do with that since everything seems to be going so well in Iraq (2,855 coalition deaths, 2,628 Americans).

It’s all about diversions, all of it. I just wish more people could see through this stuff. We can hope that the voters will see through it this November.

For the past two weeks, top Republican party officials have spread the word that they wouldn’t mind seeing Joe Lieberman win re-election.

Monday, President Bush for the first time spoke publicly about the Connecticut Democrat’s bid to win the seat as an independent, telling a nationally-televised news conference: “I’m staying out of Connecticut. You know, that’s what the party suggested, the Republican Party of Connecticut, and plus there’s a better place to spend our money, time and resources.” [...]

“It seems like a de facto endorsement of Senator Lieberman to me,” Lamont said Monday. “Here we are, ten days after the primary, and President Bush and Dick Cheney and [Republican National Committee Chairman] Ken Mehlman and an awful lot of others are saying that Joe Lieberman is, in effect, our guy.” (source)

If it walks like a Republican, talks like a Republican, votes like a Republican, it probably is a Republican. Of course the Republican Party and the President want Joe Lieberman reelected to office -- he votes Republican most of the time. And on the issue of the war in Iraq, that goes up to 100% of the time. The problem for the President is that an endorsement from him could be the kiss of death for most any political candidate these days. I wish the President would give him full endorsement. Hell, maybe even another photo opp of them kissing again.

I have a few issues with Senator Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman doesn’t have a single opinion of his own. Every time he votes, he sticks his finger up in the air to see which way the political wind is blowing.

He’s been in Washington too long. He’s lost touch with the people of Connecticut. I could say the same for most all of them in Washington. I believe they should have term limits. They go to Washington and, over time, I believe they completely lose touch with the concerns of The People.

He overwhelmingly seems to vote Republican. He claims to be for the environment saying that his record on the environment is second to none. That’s not saying a lot today. The Republican Party in power today didn’t exactly raise the bar very high on environmental issues.

There’s only so much mileage you can get from non-war-related issues today. And for goodness sakes, steer clear of important issues such as how the average American family is going to be able to afford to heat their homes this winter, let alone afford the gas to get to work. No one is offering a solution to that, other than the President dipping into our oil reserves to “ease the burden”. That’s the same reasoning that says that it really doesn’t matter that this war will end up costing our country YOUR kids a trillion dollars when everything is said and done. We don’t have to pay it off today, so all is good. We can dip into the oil reserves and ease the burden for... three months. All is good.

But then what?

Finally... am I the only one that has noticed the comparison between Senator Lieberman and Senator Palpatine, who went on to become the evil Darth Sidious?

Liberman photo credit, CNN

Two of the four Republican candidates for governor are courting an unlikely constituency in their long-shot bids to win the hearts of Republican voters:

Gays and lesbians.

Scottsdale businessman Mike Harris and Gilbert resident Gary Tupper questioned what Harris called their party’s “holier than thou religious attitude.” They said independent voters, including gays and lesbians, could help turn the tide in an election where most Republican voters still are undecided. Both candidates trail in the polls just weeks before the Sept. 12 primary.

Their comments appeared in Aug. 10’s Echo Magazine, a statewide gay publication that devoted its most recent edition to gay Republicans. The two candidates said there’s a place in the Republican Party for gay men and women.

“When two people are in a loving relationship for a long time, God bless ‘em,” Harris said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. “Who are gay people? They are our brothers, our sisters . . . They are our family. The Republican Party is on the way to imploding with their holier than thou religious attitude.” (source)

The Republicans are reaching out to gays and lesbians huh? And just as we gear up for the November election. How predictable. I understand that this is happening in Arizona, but I won’t be surprised to see this sort of thing spring up here and there as we approach the November election.

“The two candidates said there’s a place in the Republican Party for gay men and women.”

There is no place in the Republican Party for us as it stands today, unless you are a self-loathing homosexual who cares nothing about equality. The Republicans of today say they are “defending marriage”. Fair enough. I don’t agree with that, but as a reasonable man (and voter), I can understand that.

But why is it that I keep seeing on every single state constitutional amendment that is being pushed by their party language that ALWAYS defines marriage as “one man, one woman” AND ALWAYS goes on to say that civil unions or “anything that approximates marriage” will also be unlawful? If they were only defending what they consider to be marriage, why go that extra step to ensure that gay couples will get no protection under the law? Do I smell a “moral values” agenda going on? Or perhaps its just old fashioned gay bashing wrapped around the cloak of “moral values”?

All of this aside, I believe that, as much as the Republican Party loves to call the Democratic Party the party of “special interests” that have “no direction”, the Republic Party is fast becoming the party of spend spend spend, and war war war. And here I always thought that they were the party of “smaller government”, “less government spending”, “controlling the deficit”, and “being less intrusive” in the lives of every day Americans. That’s their party line. That’s what they claim.

How long do they think we will actually continue to buy that line? Well, if the polls are any indication, not much longer. I also believe that their push for “moral values” will back fire. All that is serving are the deep divisions in this country against certain groups of people. That will never build a strong America.

And this from a student at Arizona State University.

Prop. 107 isn’t changing the law, it’s changing the language of the law to exclude any and all domestic-partner benefits. Both straight and gay couples take advantage of the benefits.

Most people don’t realize that if the initiative becomes law, it will hurt far more straight people than it will gay people.

To give you the numbers, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, there were 118,196 unmarried couples, which totals 10.7 percent of all couples in the state.

And of those 118,196 people, only 12,000 were same-sex couples.

Therefore, about 10.2 percent of all unmarried couples in Arizona were same-sex couples in 2000. If you do the math, you can figure out that in 2000, roughly 90 percent of Arizona’s unmarried couples were straight in and would be hurt by Prop 107.

Got that? This is a straight issue, not a gay one.

Actually, it’s all about caring for people. I understand what she is saying, but we have to get away from this “us” vs. “them” mentality. We are all Americans. We all deserve equal rights. End of story.

The Defense Department discharged 726 service members last year for being gay, up about 10 percent from 2004, figures released by a gay rights group show.

The group, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Act request. A spokeswoman for the Defense Department, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, confirmed that it had released the information.

On Monday, the legal group released a breakdown of discharges by installation. A sharp increase occurred at Fort Campbell, Ky., where in 1999 a soldier was bludgeoned to death in his barracks by fellow soldiers who thought that he was homosexual. In 2004, 19 service members from the base were discharged, a number that climbed to 49 last year.

Fort Sill, Okla., had 27 dismissals last year, up from eight in 2004. Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., had 60 dismissals, up from 40 in 2004, and the Marine base at Parris Island, S.C., discharged 22, up from 12.

The Army, by far the largest branch, discharged more gay personnel last year than the other branches with 386, the figures show, followed by the Navy with 177, the Air Force with 88 and the Marines, the smallest force, with 75. [...]

More than 11,000 members have been discharged for that reason, the legal group said. (source)

I’m to a point where I’m laughing at this whole comedy of errors. Today in the Hartford Courant, there was a headline called Military Recruiters Faulted For Overly Aggressive Methods, which stated in part....

Military recruiters have increasingly resorted to overly aggressive tactics and even criminal activity to attract young troops to the battlefield, congressional investigators say.

Combat in Iraq, a decent commercial job market and tough monthly recruiting goals have made recruiters’ jobs more difficult, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. [...]

More than half the recruiting crimes reported in 2005 were by the Army, which is bearing the brunt of the war in Iraq. The Army announced last week it was on track to meet this year’s recruiting goal of 80,000 applicants, pulling itself up from a severe shortfall last year.

And if this isn’t bad enough, they keep sending troops back tour after tour. And for these troops from Alaska, they will be staying in Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Brian Bock learned a mere two hours before boarding a flight for home that his tour in Iraq had been extended at least four months.

He may not have made it back to Alaska -- but many of his belongings did. The boxes the 172nd Stryker Brigade officer had mailed home in advance kept showing up at the Fort Wainwright post office.

I think at this point I’m going to stop worrying so much about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The military is compounding this problem by the dismissal of gay military personnel who want to serve. Why they would want to serve under this administration who apparently has such little regard for them is beyond me. I think it speaks to their conviction and patriotism for our country. But if it were me, I’d tell the military to take a hike until they got serious about fairness.

Still, I read that some gays are pressing the issue by signing up for service and on their application stating that they are gay. They are prepared to serve, if accepted. Of course, they won’t be accepted, but it does bring attention to the policy which is being viewed by more and more Americans as unfair and too costly to maintain.