Dan is clearly now the NYT's go-to gay.

Love it, great op-ed piece. And no, gay rights aren't in the news here as much, because they're a lot more comprehensive, as Dan says, but it isn't perfect. There are still wingnuts who insist on cloaking their bigotry in their religion, like our own Catholic Bishop of Calgary, Fred Henry. On the bright side, these dinosaurs, like the earlier ones, will eventually die out.
(sorry, Mary...)

He should apologize for the joke this past week was. Commie Hu shows up and pimp slaps Bammy all around, even mocking him at a press conference. Then, Bammy commends Hu for what China is doing in Africa, despite the fact that they're colonizing, enslaving the people and raping their resources, and those are Bammys people! And despite the fact it was announced days in advance that some piano player would be playing an anti-American, communist song at a state thrown function, no one in his administration noticed and it ended up getting played. Or, maybe they did notice, and it was just a tip of the cap to Bammies hero, faggot commie Saul Alinsky who loved Mao. His administrations performance to this point has been as ugly as his wife.

@4, give it up, there'll never be a nickname for Obama that was as successful as Dubya.

Obama won't do anything of the sort in this SOTU address.

His approval is up, the moderate independents of the country are seeing him as more moderate, and the republicans are burning their own political capital like wild.

He's going to be matter-of-fact, and extremely moderate. He'll focus almost the entire address on jobs and the economy (and maybe a little foreign relations stuff). I suspect it will be very much the "no-drama Obama" from the primaries.

I never would have thought that I'd see that skeezy sex advice columnist who I started reading in the back of the Onion when I was 11, mainly for the dirty words, writing in the new york times. Really, I couldn't think of a better spokesman, no one else combines political balls, overt sexuality, and family values so well.

I would also say that Obama bringing up gay rights, while it would be the morally correct thing to do, would ultimately harm the democrats.

The democrats don't want to give the repubs anything else to attack. The repubs are focused entirely on repealing health care, which is not only completely futile because it's a numerical impossibility, but the majority of Americans want it now.

Don't let the repubs shift their focus. Force them to attack Obamacare, something the people want. Meanwhile, Obama can focus on another thing people want: jobs. The repubs will shoot themselves in the foot attacking an already done deal and the dems will address the primary concern of the country.

Urgutha, from the layout of the page with eight topics altogether, it's pretty clear the NYT wasn't asking any of the contributors to assess the political costs and benefits of using SOTU as a platform for their area of interest. Rather, they were asked, if the president were to weigh in on your topic of interest, how could he do it best?

What 7 said. I'm so proud of you dear.

Also, GO PACKERS!

Gus is right. This wasn't an "article".

Obama should and will talk about jobs.

@ Gus,

Ah, yes, you're right. I initially just sort of skimmed Dan's response and didn't read anything else on the page and then commented.

I do like what Dan wrote, and it's a nice feeling to know that marriage equality and LGBT rights really are inevitable, it's just a waiting game. Like christmas morning.

Can somebody please translate @4 for me? Thanks.

@14: Let me help: "I AM A TROLL."

Hu is a commie as much as America is a capitalist, Christian nation.

Urgutha, in looking at the other contributors, I was very glad Alice Rivlin's bleating about the deficit was knocked out of the park by Robert Reich's economic suggestions.

psst, @4 is just the latest Dennis Dale/Supreme Ruler/John Bailo/Seattleblues etc troll name

Hard to imagine that a guy who is directly involved in the regular and predictable violent deaths of impoverished men, women, and children in Afghanistan sincerely cares about much of anything besides what it takes to stay in power.

I wish gay equality in all matters happened yesterday, but it's sad when we look to someone as amoral and shallow as Obama for progress in that, or any, arena.

And, yeah, hey, jobs and, uh...the economy. He really ought to say some important sounding stuff about that. I'm sure the people whose relatives he's helped to maim and kill will be on pins and needles.

In countries like Canada — where the fight over gay rights is essentially over, where there is gay marriage, open military service and employment protections — homosexuality hardly ever makes the front pages of newspapers.

Gay Rights Now!

It is exactly because "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice” that Conservatives will decline to heed Mr Savage's insipid limp-wristed advice...

While
Whatever...
and
if it feels good, do it!
and, especially;
grab the short-term pleasure and let someone else sort out the consequences
are popular diligently adhered to precepts of Mr Savage's HumanistHomoLiberal co-religionists (who have the STD and suicide rates to prove it...) they are not philosophies that guide the actions of Real Men seeking Moral Justice.

The struggle for abolition our forefathers in the Republican Party waged was long and bitter but we did not shirk from seeing it through, even at appaling cost.

The struggle for the most basic Right to Life of the youngest most innocent and helpless members of society continues.

likewise,
the fight to preserve
the moral and legal framework of the Family
in order to foster a nurturing enviroment
in which the nation's children can grow up
learning the moral values
that will give them the best chance
to acheive whole full lives
will also be long.
Ultimately it will be lost
But every day by which it is delayed
and every community which chooses
the better path for itself
despite of the national tide
of decadence, deviancy and perversion
represent young lives spared
the despair
and soul-sucking spiritual numbness
that Savage etal offer.

no.
We will not give up.
We will not surrender.
We will not go quietly....

Court rulings will not silence us.
Legislative losses will not discourage us.
defeat at the ballot box
(tho we've yet to see any- )
will only inspire to greater effort.

The Struggle for Moral Justice is the victory.

bring it on......

You know, Period Troll, the only people who are allowed to use the royal "we" are Queens and people with Multiple Personality Disorder. Which are you?

PS Glad you approved of abolition! Equal rights for all, right?

@22: Girolamo Savonarola.

Hear, hear! And as soon as FIRE, Big Energy, the Defense and Internal Security Complex, Big Health, and the media oligopolies conclude that equal rights for gays are in their best interest, Obama will boldly lead by stepping aside and letting their lobbyists and representatives in Congress work out the terms. Don't stop believing. As long as it doesn't cost the top 1% any money, it could happen!

@28:
What a day, what a day,
For an auto de fe!
What a lovely summer sky!
What a day, what a day,
For an auto de fe!
It's a lovely day for drinking
And for watching people FRY!

@31: Oh come on! Bonfire of the Vanities? Use your google-fu! And Seattleblues should take note; things did not end well for Girolamo.

Clearly Dan should have ended the piece with "Conservatives should bend over and take it for justice." Since the words "bend" and "gay" occurred in the piece, that's all the 'phobes were thinking about anyway.

@31: One of the key pieces from his wikipedia article:

In 1497, he and his followers carried out the Bonfire of the Vanities. They sent boys from door to door collecting items associated with moral laxity: mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan books, immoral sculptures (which he wanted to be replaced by statues of the saints and modest depictions of biblical scenes), gaming tables, chess pieces, lutes and other musical instruments, fine dresses, women’s hats, and the works of immoral and ancient poets, and burnt them all in a large pile in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence. Many fine Florentine Renaissance artworks were lost in Savonarola’s notorious bonfires — including paintings by Sandro Botticelli, which he is alleged to have thrown into the fires himself.

He also changed sodomy into a capital offence (before that, it was punishable by fine).

Within four years of his coming into leadership of Florence, he was both excommunicated and executed. Religious zealots tend to be fickle.