Comments

1
Hear, hear.
2
well, he's not going to do it. he's not going to hand the right a culture war club to bludgeon him with. he's not going to mention gun-craziness, and he's not going to withdraw from afghanistan before november, either (and yes, this means more will die for nothing). he is a cautious man. he knows that this country is filled with fucking idiots, and he needs a lot of their votes.
3
It was absurd and totally unfair of that guy to accuse Dan of "bashing black voters", too. Of course, Huffington Post isn't known for its exercise of editorial wisdom and restraint.
4
Pam Spaulding has a pitbull.
5
Maybe gay marriage isn't the greatest issue facing the nation...OH SHIT! I THINK I JUST COMMITTED A THOUGHT CRIME!!
6
"and thin in the ground in red states that he has no hope of carrying"

Wait, they're already dead and buried? There's some Chicago joke here that I can't quite put my finger on.
7
I couldn't agree more. A little nuance is good exercise for the brain.

Obama really is a centrist democrat. He has never ever been a firebrand uber-liberal. With all of his hope and change rhetoric during his first campaign, I think a lot of liberals perceived him to be far more liberal than he is. His position on marriage equality is exactly the same as many centrist democrats. This should be no surprise.

Just because he hasn't fully "evolved" does not mean all gays should hate him, or vote for Romney instead. Obama has done more for gays than any recent president, and will do far more than any of the current republicans. I fully support getting Obama re-elected.

That does not, however, mean he gets a pass. I think Aravosis gets a bit shrill at times, but I think it is perfectly reasonable for gay activists to pressure the president to do more. I want to see him do more. But my criticism of Obama and my desire for him to do more does not mean I want to replace him with any of the current republican clowns.

And, like Dan, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Obama has a sudden conversion a short time after he gets re-elected... when it is politically safe to do so. Some may call that cowardice. I call that smart politics.
8
The controversy over contraception being what it is now, the right would use an official Obama pronouncement supporting gay marriage to do more dramatic chest-pounding and unfurl another religious-liberty flag. As ridiculous as it is, Obama doesn't need that.
9
Well-behaved gays aren't the ones who win us equality.
10
What #1 said.
11
Well, it must be flattering to be among such distinguished company, you targets of this striver trying to further his reputation by taking you all on. Poor fellow's not a very good writer at all, is he?
12
@9...actually , it takes all kinds
13
This has always been a second term issue. Dan's right, here - if he had made or does make it a first term issue, there will be no second term.

I have faith in this man, and I think he will come through on this and other issues, if we give him the opportunity to do so.
14
@7 Aravosis gets a bit shrill because he isn't a particularly good writer and he's not super smart, so he gets in rhetorical ruts. He is, in many ways, effective because of his tunnel vision, though.
15
How much exactly?

Must be nice having so much disposable income laying around.
16
Agree with Dan. He should come out and support marriage equality. That would put him on the right side of history.
17
Applause, Dan. I'm glad you've finally put the "Fuck you, you pack of co-opting cowards" attitude toward the White House behind you. NLGWTFT.
18
Jesus, Confluence, if you're just now figuring out that Dan makes a lot more money than most people, you're even more clueless than I thought. He works his ass off for it, though.
19
Hi Dan. Thanks for the clarification. It's nifty to see some sense coming from this column and I appreciate your more nuanced view towards Obama and the 2012 election. Nonetheless, you remain, perhaps, the biggest example of institutionalized racism the LGBT movement has ever produced -- which makes it hard to take you very seriously. Account for your post-Prop 8 anti-black witch-hunt, re-post the vile-filled items you so cravenly deleted and apologize for your seriously bad behavior and maybe then folks like myself can take you more seriously. Sadly, with people like you around -- it will NEVER get better!
20
Dang, David, I have to disagree with how you are characterizing Dan. I don't think Dan was anti-blacks after the Prop 8 fiasco, as much as he was anti-Prop-8, which included (as well as some black & Latin American churchgoers) out of state Mormon funding & NOM. Dan was fairly merciless towards all of the folks who were on the wrong side of the Prop 8 fight. Should he not call out one group or another, for fear of being labeled racist..?

Also, if you want to point out some inconsistencies in Dan's writing..he's an author, & used to it. But that's twice you've used the phrase "it gets better" in a dismissive, toss-off way. Problems w/ the political writing? Fine, a point by point takedown is what writers do who disagree. But I can't see a single thing wrong with the It Gets Better campaign, which has brought more attention to the problem of GLBT suicide & bullying, & likely helped some gay kids feel less isolated..? How about not going for the cheap shot, & leaving the charity for kids out of it..?
21
@19
...you remain, perhaps, the biggest example of institutionalized racism the LGBT movement has ever produced...

You are now officially 100% discredited. Move along.
22
@19

Jealous, are we? As #'s 20 and 21 said, your hyperbole about Dan being a racist and your attacks on the It Get's Better Project totally discredit you.

While Dan Savage is known by more than half of Americans from the ages of 16 - 35, you are not known by anyone. Like it or not, Dan Savage has done a lot for the LGBT movement as well as the Sex Positive, Poly and separation of church and state movements.

Next time, try making your point without tearing down people that have done a lot of good.
23
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." -- President Theodore Roosevelt, editorial in the Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918.

These words were true when Bush was President, and they remain just as true with Obama as President.
24
@19

Wow, you really are as hateful and arrogant as you came across in your original piece. To take the time to come over to another column and attempt another assassination of a writer who actually agreed with you but is more famous. Petty and jealous much?

For the record, disagreeing with Pres Obama doesn't amount to racism. This is perilously close to a "for us or against us" argument used by conservatives. I think that perhaps you should get out of New York and go on a listening tour across the country, emphasis on LISTENING. This would give you an opportunity to see how your "wait and see" attitude affects real people's lives.
25
Assuming #19 actually *is* David Kaufman, he needs to learn to act more like a professional and less like a grumpy internet troll.
26
@19

Wow, you really are as hateful and arrogant as you came across in your original piece. To take the time to come over to another column and attempt another assassination of a writer who actually agreed with you but is more famous. Petty and jealous much?

For the record, disagreeing with Pres Obama doesn't amount to racism. This is perilously close to a "for us or against us" argument used by conservatives. I think that perhaps you should get out of New York and go on a listening tour across the country, emphasis on LISTENING. This would give you an opportunity to see how your "wait and see" attitude affects real people's lives.
27
Yeah, gays, telling the president what to do. Who do you think you are, AIPAC?
28
One of these cycles, it might be rather nice to have a new President who only has four years to live. I don't think the concept of Second Term Issues has a positive effect on officeholders. Perhaps a system that didn't advantage incumbency so much might do as well. Rather a shame that the default assumption of a second term will likely prove so costly this time.
29
I think he's referring to this piece: http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/11/blac…
He already called Dan a racist in the first piece so he just repeated himself a bit and lets face it, it happened in the US so allot of racist and homophobic nonsense was tossed around.

I think I've said this before but the US is sometimes very strange. Especially when it comes to stuff like homophobia and racism, its so wierdly torn apart and treated like these two magical subjects where you have to be a member of the minority to either comment or complain. You can't be a tiny bit racist or a tiny bit homophobic (like allot of people are but handle on their own) but you have to be some kind of crusader of pure heart and never falter... its wierd.
31
Even though he has been publicly against gay-marriage, good for guns, good for hawks (bombing Libya, killing Bin Laden, okaying assassinations and detainment of US citizens), implemented health care reform patterned after the Republican frontrunner's own plan, and has let the Bush tax cuts persist, the Right continues to campaign on the baseless fiction that Obama is a socialist, secular radical who will take your guns, turn you gay, destroy your religion, and, I dunno, eat your babies.

How many Republican voters actually believe all that, despite three years of evidence to the contrary, I guess we'll find out in November. I'm guessing quite a lot do, because even though none of the Republican candidates seem very credible, there are many who will vote for ANY Republican over the fictional tyrant Obama.

So no, I don't want marriage equality endorsed by Obama right now. Obama endorsing marriage equality in an election year is a good way of mobilizing the Right on a national level. That will probably affect state races too in the form of anti-gay marriage amendments and state legislators. Get ready for a possible rollback of the progress we've made in the last few years.

The reason we're winning public opinion on gay marriage, slowly but surely, is that gay marriage is legal in several states, and nothing bad has happened. People in those states and beyond are starting to look at gay marriage like it's no big deal. People they know may be getting gay married. Conservative rhetoric about the end of civilization doesn't hold up when the reality is far more mundane than that: just a couple of dudes or dudettes signing a contract that gives them the same privileges that straight people currently enjoy. President Obama publicly supporting gay marriage will help them more than it helps us.
32
What's this bizarre default position that Obama, a pandering corporatist warmongering right-wing hyper-superstitious automaton, should be elected?
33
David Kaufman is the guy who complained that gays were less deserving of civil rights because they hadn't "earned" them the way the blacks had. He is just one of these black guys who is a racist who has an impulse to see civil rights as a trophy or a thing, and not inalienable, something that belongs to everyone equally. He is a hoarder. He bristles at the though that a white guy lectures a black guy on the need for their civil rights. He should turn his attention to the bigoted black community, and complain that they have failed to learn the lessons of their own civil rights movement. But all he sees is the color of faces.
34
Damn, that guy really sucks. His sentiments echo the worst tendency in liberalism, which is to get outraged and shocked over nothing, making empathetic arguments with no substance. Outrage overload, you could say. Folks who are trying to truly advance progressive causes should raise themselves above such immaturity, because there's nothing inherent in progressive ideology that requires such immaturity.
35
Nothing like a good old-fashioned American minority fight:

"black culture, black churches, and literally black people themselves have borne the brunt of LGBT ire"

Boo hoo. A lot of American black culture is unapologetically homophobic. Should this not be called out when it occurs or does it get a skin-pass? In the case of Prop 8 it was totally legit to criticize black voters on their bigotry. Just as it was legit to criticize the Mormons, conservative Latinos.

Besides, don't fool yourself, Mr. Kaufman, it is minorities' favorite whipping boy "straight-white-males" that gets the most 'ire-brunt'. Can't take that away from us but try to think of it as a sign that you are now part of the mainstream.

"...but the notion that African Americans should be held to a higher standard than their white counterparts is the very definition of racism itself"

If you grew up on a farm in Iowa, I'd expect you to understand the struggles of farmers more than someone from a city.

The president grew up with the struggle of racism (which was part of his campaign rhetoric) it's logical to think he'd understand minority oppression. It isn't racist because the expectation is based on knowing his experience, not his skin color.

Besides, a lot of us took a chance on this president with his almost zero credentials and experience for the position (the one critique the GOP was absolutely correct about in 2008) because of what he represented: a huge step forward toward MLK's dream of a president who just happens to be black but represents all Americans.

So now we're a bunch of racists because we expect him to live up to that expectation? Pfft, talk about your double standards.

"But it's equally important that folks like Sudbay begin to rally LGBTs themselves rather than rely on Obama to do their work for them."

This seems intellectually unfair. Can't they do both? Can't they rally their supporters and publicly chastise the president when he's gone soft on a campaign promise? Kaufman conveniently forgets that Obama did make promises to gay-supporting voters.

If Obama can't connect with his base then fuck him, I'll take Santorum for a laugh and maybe it would wake up more women into taking politics seriously. They're the largest voting block in America and yet their rights are constantly under fire even with us fem-supporters.

"LGBT talking heads must abandon the undeniable race-based rhetoric that has defined their anti-Obama attacks. It's divisive, conservative, and a total turn-off."

I wish Mr. Kaufman would have provided an example here. As a third party observer I can't tell if he's crying wolf or has a point here. The earlier examples in the article don't seem so "undeniable" to me but maybe I just missed something.

I do thank Mr. Kaufman for his article and Dan for posting it here. It's good to know about inter-liberal clashes (how we screw ourselves) and since I don't read the trash that is HufPo I'd have missed this.

36
people really don't get what *activism* is, do they? it's not about telling politicians what to do, as though politcians actually listen to what activists say and then just do that. activism is about pushing the conversation in one direction or the other. remember when folks -- good folks -- would wring their hands about how ACTUP was just going to alienate people, not change their minds? but then lo and behold, thanks to the outrageous things ACTUP was doing, speaking the word "condom" on the nightly news was not so radical anymore. president obama isn't going to endorse marriage equality before the election because dan savage or anyone else tells him to, but if enough voices are out there telling him to, it might make some lesser step seem not quite so radical. the right is sooo good at pushing the center of the conversation way the hell right of center, and the left misses its chance every time because we start bitching at each other about who is "too radical" and who is "too ass-kissing" and oh good lord i get sick of it. we need all the voices. it's a conversation folks!

also, has he ever read "letter from a birmingham jail"? idiot.

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