But either way it goes, it seems, gays and lesbians get screwed. Black and Latino voters drawn to the polls in California because they were excited about voting for Barack Obama boosted the “yes” vote on Prop 8*. But Democratic voters who stayed away from the polls in Arkansas because they couldn’t brings themselves to vote for Barack Obama—dumbfucking crackerass racist piece-of-shit voters—helped to pass that state’s new anti-gay adoption law.
Strong opposition to the candidacy of Barack Obama in Arkansas may have helped conservatives pass a measure blocking the adoption of children by unmarried couples.
The measure, which voters overwhelmingly approved Tuesday and which prevents unmarried cohabitating couples from adopting or fostering children, won strong support from conservatives, exit polls found. The ban affects all unmarried couples but was written with the intent of preventing gay couples from raising children in Arkansas.
Unlike most states, Arkansas shifted to the right politically in this election. Senator John McCain won the state by 20 points compared with President Bush’s nine-point victory in 2004.
“I think white Arkansas Democrats felt cross-pressured in this race,” said Jay Barth, a political science professor at Hendrix College, in Conway, Ark. “They didn’t want to vote for what they viewed as Bush’s third term, but they also couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Barack Obama.
“One response was just to bow out of voting, and their absence probably helped this proposal succeed.”
Before the election polls showed Arkansas anti-gay adoption law failing—by nearly 12 points. Bill Clinton urged a “no” vote, as did the state’s current governor, as did the state’s major newspapers, and its adoption agencies. But evangelicals fired up the bigots in the pews and bigoted Democratic voters stayed home and the ban passed. Good work, bigots. Arkansas has about four thousand children in state care right now, kids who need foster parents and adoptive parents yesterday.
* I don’t say this to place blame! African American and Latino voters only helped to pass Prop 8! But it’s ultimately the gays who are to blame for Prop 8! It was something we did! Or didn’t do! Either way, we’re to blame for Prop 8! Totes our fault! And no one is talking about this except for that awful Dan Savage! Thank you for playing Slog!
@49: Bad John Bailo impersonation. Put a little effort into it next time.
Yes Kelly You’re right. A straight black man has never protested injustice against, whites, women, jews, gays, animal cruelty. It has never happened. Its important that we not lose sight of that.
@47:
You wont be receiving any answer from gossip mongerer kerri harrop, regarding DJ Riz’s supposed firing from a (wink wink) gay bar.
1) Because that not’s how it went down.
2) kerri harrop’s locally known tendency to speak from her ass.
Jus’ business as usual in cherrycanoe/General Bonkers land.
Some more poll numbers on churchgoers:
Cheer up. The terminator is on your side: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest10-2008nov10,0,4939340.story
…are we all getting on Dan for just stating the obvious?
Everyone knows of rampant homophobic rhetoric in minority communities so why exactly is it all news?
Dan’s not the least bit racist for pointing it out. It’s just a fact.
Not all minorities are homophobes but as a community, they sure did vote that way, didn’t they?
In other news, the vast majority of white people are also homophobes!
Hey Bobo
Do you think you could arrange for more Asian homophobes to vote yes on proposition whatever the number is next time so black folks can catch a break? (You do know all Asian homophobes in the State of California, don’t you?)Yes indeed we are tired of getting called nig uh I mean names by our LGBT brethren in the struggle and it would be wonderful if you could get enough hateful Asian people to the polls to reach the blame — or ironic– threshold. I think its 65% give or take a point. Ask Dan Savage for details.
If you don’t think you can turn out enough Asians (Philipino bigots can be so unreliable!) maybe you could work on getting Asians to identify themselves as Latino to the exit pollsters. Hey, I’m liking that idea! What do you think? Whichever path you choose, I and many others will owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude.
Good Luck!
Why – If the vast majority of white people are homophobes then when did 51% of them vote against Prop 8?
Sean,
I don’t take the ‘gay white racist’ issue so lightly, although I don’t view choice of sexual partners as racism as some people do. If you want a truly ludicrous read, then check out Keith Boykin and his ramblings on ‘sexual racism’. What I do find disturbing is the willingness of groups to exploit race.
For example, there is a statistic out there purporting to ‘prove’ that gays are less racist than straights because their rate of interracial relationships is somewhere around 10%. Aside from the fact that sleeping with another race is no indicator that you aren’t racist (think Strom Thurmond or Andrew Sullivan), the data were used in such a way as to showcase a diversity that just isn’t there.
If I’m not mistaken, the data is drawn from “The Gay Census”– http://www.gaydemographics.org/USA/USA.htm–under ‘PUMS’. Breaking down the data by race, it seems that 10.9% of gay couples intermarry–a rate trumpeted as four times the rate of straight couples. But, as you can see from a few of the comments, the overwhelming majority of those relationships are between Latino and white men.
The interesting point here is how the figures were manipulated. Until 1980, Latinos were listed as “white” on the census, a fact that changed during the Reagan administration.
This unique position, as you may have already ascertained, represents a rather large opportunity to dishonestly portray gay relationships as more diverse than they necessarily are. What if Jews or Catholics, for example, were listed as non-whites? Why, you could use such creative accounting to say that gays had ‘interracial relationships’ at a rate tens of times higher than your average hetero couple!
In addition, several of my Latino friends have been rejected by those “white/Latino only” members of gay chat sites for–their words–not looking white enough. Gays prefer Latinos who look like Ricky Martin as opposed to Tito Puente. That is, those with little to none of the indigenous, Amerind ancestry of which the majority of Mexico and South America are composed.
Accounting for factors such as these, it would be no surprise to find that the census figures on interracial couples fall more closely in line with those of their straight counterparts. That the figures would be manipulated in this way suggests a rather blithe and flippant attitude towards the entire idea of ‘equality under the law’; rather the attitude seems to be ‘the ends justify the means’.
But it goes deeper. If you look at the friends lists in profiles on a site like gay dot com, you will see that gays not only tend not to date outside of their race, but also tend not to even *associate* outside their race within the virtual community, one in which you would assume people would find it safest to do so. Not to mention that a significant minority of these profiles are accompanied by pictures stolen from the web, so as to purposefully misrepresent how the chatter looks.
In the real world, this translates to de-facto segregation of bars, events, neighborhoods and even Pride parades. Not just black/white, but bears, twinks, muscle, elderly…. Is it any wonder, then, that many find it so easy to demonize members of minority groups for voters who had ostensibly little to do with them?
So no, Sean, I don’t find the phenomenon of gay white racism to be ‘bullshit’, any more than gay black racism, or hatred of any other kind. I find it symptomatic of the fact that there really isn’t a gay community, and that the fracturing of identity and subsequent loss of momentum that it represents could well translate to a much greater loss of civil rights than was previously supposed.
Here we go….
“I am organizing with other gays in my state to start a data base of all christian and black owned businesses and income properties. It will be published on a website called BoycotBigots.Org, which will be a community based list so that No On 8 supporters can be informed when they choose how and where to spend their dollars.”
That’s just great, no? Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is a brilliant plan. Perhaps a more constructive discussion could be had regarding upping Mormon and fundamentalist patronization of black stores. What kind of deal could we make there, hmmm? You’ll notice that they don’t punish Latinos. Perhaps blacks could ally with conservatives on immigration in exchange for increased conservative business. I mean there is a problem between blacks and Latinos in California anyway, right? Does everyone really want to go this route?
i really dont believe that folks in arkansas who were too racist to vote for obama were going to be progressive enough to let gay people adopt.
Hmmmm. I don’t think it’s *completely* the fault of gay people that this thing won. But the poorly run No on 8 campaign combined with other issues related to outreach certainly played a part, don’t you think, Dan? Not THE part, but a part.
I was thinking back to 2004 when Michigan passed Prop 2, which outlawed marriage equality. I had forgotten just how ANGRY I was with straight people, supposed allies, who were just shocked that it had passed. But had they helped in the cause? Had they done abso-fucking-lutely anything? Nope. Nine times out of 10 they had not. It wasn’t really on their radar at all. It seemed like those of us fighting Prop 2 were a lonely band of homos screaming into the wind.
Is that their fault? Ours? Not sure. Most likely it’s a combination of things, like in CA.
But I’m consistently amazed that we keep fighting the same battles in state after state, and we keep losing and doing the same stupid shit while our opponents trot out their winning formula every fucking time and win again and again. Something has got to change.
Ah, my home state, always willing to hurt her own children in order to step on gay people just a little more.
Bitching about the voting habits of religious people is stupid and pointless. Religious people will ALWAYS vote for “Biblical principle” over equal rights, you can bet on it.
The path to getting marriage equality lies with the judicial system, just as it has for every other battle for equal rights in this country.
Hmm, seems white Catholic surge made the difference, Dan, moreso than African Americans:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/09/MNU1140AQQ.DTL
Money quote:
“The last Field Poll, conducted a week before the election, showed that weekly churchgoers increased their support in the final week from 72 percent to 84 percent. Catholic support increased from 44 percent to 64 percent – a jump that accounted for 6 percent of the total California electorate and equivalent to the state’s entire African American population combined.
The shift in Catholics alone more than accounted for Prop. 8’s 5 percent margin of victory.”
Your thoughts, Dan?
Dan isn’t going to attack the big dogs. He has been concentrating his energies on easier targets. Reading comments here and elsewhere, my own opinion on the matter is starting to shift. People want revenge, not dialogue.
@67:
Wha’s wrong with revenge?????
Savagelogic.
The most amazing thing is how he spurs all these smart people to actually bother arguing with his silliness. He’s either brilliant – using logical fallacy after fallacy intermixed with simple angry declarative outbursts appropro of nothing, purposefully to stimulate hits and comments OR he really is this weak minded.
For now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s all a brilliant farce, including his most recent impersonation of a cat scratching about his litterbox covering up little cat turds.
He’s not the first to play stupid to engage discussion but he may be the most consistent and earnest.
@59 and @60
“Aside from the fact that sleeping with another race is no indicator that you aren’t racist (think Strom Thurmond or Andrew Sullivan”
When you equate Andrew Sullivan with Strom Thuraman you lose all credibility. If you are going to dismiss him based on a few statements that you find off-putting, do that with everyone else too. Then tell me how many people are left.
As far as boycotting black businesses, again the irony is too thick. AA civil rights leaders have boycotted asian and jewish busineeses when they perceived these groups as getting upity with them. There were talks amoung Cynthea Mckinney supports of boycotting the democratic ticket in 2000 (when Liebermann was running as VP) to “punish” jews for voting against Mckinney. Why are you falsely accusing gays of using abhorent tactics they have never used? Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Mckinney supporters have encouraged these tactics in the way you are accusing gays of.
What’s wrong with revenge? Because it’s against people of color. The vast majority of comments here and elsewhere show it. It isn’t anger anymore than what Mel Gibson did was due to him being drunk. That is the general character of gay people regarding other minorities. How can Dan go after Mormons? They’re on his beefcake calendar. I’ve read his column since it was in the Onion, and he’s NEVER addressed any minority issues. Insinuating as he did was all too easy, and that, combined with what I’ve seen in every part of gaydom makes me feel like shit. Hundreds of people request an apology, or SOMETHING, but he won’t give it because it will make him feel like less of a man. And he wonders why he gets threatened. If the civil rights leaders of the Original movement had been like Dan, then blacks still wouldn’t be able to vote. And guess what? 95 percent of gays would be too cowardly to come out were the road not cleared, hammered down, and paved for them by somebody else. And they have always treated the people who sacrificed for them like shit. That’s a fact.
That is the general character of gay people regarding other minorities.
OMFG. change the word “gay” to “black” and the same person who wrote this (along with 600 other post-ers) would be using it as proof of racism.
Andrew Sullivan published the Bell Curve in his magazine. I’m not the only one offended; his entire staff threatened to quit. It was a calculated, dirty trick, not based on truth, but designed to directly undermine funding for educating black youth. He was concerned about his taxes. The racism is less overt, but we are more subtle these days. The policy applications of that document are myriad, all of them heavily biased against blacks. And now he pretends to be an ally in his support of Obama, again calculated with a view towards him remaining in the country. Because up until recently, HIV+ people weren’t allowed to emigrate here. Say the Bell Curve were applied against blacks with HIV, and the findings of that study were to shift policy against African HIV+ immigration due to some notion that blacks would spread AIDS due to lower intelligence. Would he stand up to that with equal fervor? No, not if it didn’t affect him. But he sleeps with blacks, bareback, in spite of his certainty as to their inferiority. And hey, he endorsed Obama! What a gem of a man.
As for Lieberman, he’s a tool. McKinney is crazy, and she is no more effective at using the race card to stir up anger than SLOG and Sullivan were in using it to silence the opposition during Obama’s run. If the machinations and ulterior motives in supporting him have become glaringly obvious, then no one should be surprised at the anger that is erupting.
I don’t deny the racism and homophobia of blacks. Perhaps now it can be used to gain political clout instead of being leeched off by people who make sweetheart deals with corporations instead of FIGHTING for their rights.
And they have always treated the people who sacrificed for them like shit.
You are referring to gays? I can think of a group this description fits to a T. But I can’t say it or you’ll call me racist. Yup, there are people who have directed the most virulent hate speech, and some henious hate crimes, against people who died for their right to vote. Wans’t gays though.
Gay rights would be nowhere without the civil rights movement, which they did not participate in. You sold out. You now lack the infrastructure to successfully defend your rights against attack without corporate endorsement. Read what Larry Kramer has to say about the gays. And the people who died for our right to vote were the idealistic tools of demagogues who enriched themselves while using Affirmative Action as a front: teacher’s unions, mortgage brokers, etc. Go ahead and slur away, if you so desire. You can’t buy back what WeHo lost for you. It’s a game and a scam, and everyone knows it now.
@73 and @74
As for Lieberman, he’s a tool.
Not relevant at all. There were AA’s who were boycotting him not becuase he was “a tool” but to “punish” jews because Cynthea Mckinney lost the election. These abhorent tactics you accuse gays of using against AA’s have never been used by gays BUT have been openly used by AA’s again and again.
I don’t deny the racism and homophobia of blacks. Perhaps now it can be used to gain political clout instead of being leeched off by people
Typical whinning and scapegoating. No one leached off you….. exactly the other way around. The leaches are people who steal money that is supposed to go to poor blacks but keep it to live like kings in Egypt. Need me to name some names? Those are the blooksuckers who leech off the black community. Babydadism drags the black community down more than those big bad companies. This knee jerk cry from many AA’s “we are being exploited” is why many people have thrown in the towel with the civil rights movement. When businesses don’t move in to black neighborhoods they are accused of racism and that they aren’t doing their civic duty. When they do they are accused of exploitation. Even companies like Starbucks which donates a huge amount to inner city charities still has to put with extortinists who demand more.
Oh, and here’s some newer figures from another thread on the percentage of blacks who voted against you, Kelly. Larger sample:
“1,200 voters from 50 precincts in Los Angeles in Tuesday’s election, estimating that 50 percent of Latinos voted for Proposition 8 and 39 opposed it, while 47 percent of African-Americans voted for it and 40 percent against it.”
http://www.dailynews.com/ci_10910908
Again, WRONG. Latinos beat out the blacks in a larger sample. But those polls, and your resultant about-face on race issues, spread fast, didn’t they? You royally fucked yourself. I am not a criminal, have never been on welfare, and have volunteered extensively for your cause, including at a clinic for HIV. But these last few days tears it. Look up the figures. You fucked YOURSELVES.
@73 and @74
As for Lieberman, he’s a tool.
Not relevant at all. AA’s who were boycotting him not becuase he was “a tool” but to “punish” jews because Cynthea Mckinney lost the election. These abhorent tactics you accuse gays of using against AA’s have never been used by gays BUT have been openly used by AA’s again and again.
I don’t deny the racism and homophobia of blacks. Perhaps now it can be used to gain political clout instead of being leeched off by people
Typical whinning and scapegoating. No one leached off you….. exactly the other way around. The leaches are people who steal money that is supposed to go to poor blacks but keep it to live like kings in Egypt. Need me to name some names? Those are the blooksuckers who leech off the black community. Babydadism drags the black community down more than those big bad companies. This knee jerk cry from many AA’s “we are being exploited” is why many people have thrown in the towel with the civil rights movement. When businesses don’t move in to black neighborhoods they are accused of racism and that they aren’t doing their civic duty. When they do they are accused of exploitation. Even companies like Starbucks which donates a huge amount to inner city charities still has to put with extortinists who demand more.
I think all liberal minded people should flee Arkansas so we can board the place up and keep the nuts in their place.
#78 thank you interest troll. I knew this would come to light some day. It is amazing the speed and ease that folks of all colors like to find the scapegoat.
Kelly, have you thought of Greenland? I think they have gay marriage there and no Black people. I think you’d be very happy.
Interest troll I don’t agree with everything you’ve said but my it’s a refreshingly critical perspective and fairly restrained relative to some of the angry confused racist crap you’re responding to.
One of the dilemma’s in this whole debate is that there probably really isn’t a gay community as such. And as much as I typically disagree with Andrew Sullivan, I think he has said as much. You’re right– gay people are no more or less prone to interracial marriage or socializing than the larger community. I have nothing whatsoever to base this on, but my admittedly biased experience tells me that if anything, gay social networks are more segregated than straight ones.
Another piece of realpolitik. Is it really worth gay people’s time to solicit support from the black religious community or even the black general population in California? One of the effects of this misleading exit poll is that its convinced people blacks are somehow at the heart of the problem in securing gay rights. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but if the issue is to get 50 plus one would time be better spent soliciting those votes where they are abundant?
HDS,
Five posts into it, the figures change. No apologies, nothing. They’ve already forgotten about it. Let them court Latinos. Blacks face an undue amount of risk for very little return and the fundamentalists allow the larger black community to keep its options open. Lies to appear more diverse, racial slurs from an exit poll, but that’s all water under the bridge. That should tell you something. Now they are ignoring the homophobia of Latinos. Don’t take a risk for them when they are not even willing to apologize. There are better things to do with your time.
Kelly, have you thought of Greenland? I think they have gay marriage there and no Black people.
You put 2+2 together and you get 49,673.
Really, this is why people begin tuning out when someone is accused of racism.
Your logic is that to state facts that a black person, who feels the need never to hear a negative word uttered about another black person, doesn’t want to hear is the same as virulent racial hatred. I noticed your posts are filled with this rhetoric. NO ONE TAKES IT SERIOUSLY ANYMORE. Yes, HDS, this is a horribly racist country when a black man may, on occasion, hear another black person be criticized, by a white gay man no less! I’ve met plenty of black people (and whites, asians, hispanics, arabs, jews, christians, gays, etc) who can hear a criticism of someone in their group without starting to scream and go bezerk the way you seem to.
Perhaps you should write to Charles Mugagbe and ask for asylum. I can live fine with black people. You apparently should move to a place where you can live in peace, which would mean a place no one would who dare speak ill of a black preson. President Mugabe would definately understand and support your plight.
What do you expect when that is exactly how the gay community responded to that fraudulent exit poll? Homophobia elicits similar derision, but Latinos outvoted blacks on that measure and they received no coverage (or slurs) at all. Just count out a significant amount of black support, that’s all. Including mine.
Kelly I don’t know you from a can of paint and mercifully we’ll be able to keep it that way for the rest of our days. My problem isn’t with white gay people criticizing black people. I do it all the time myself and if you had really read my posts you’d see that I’ve said that black people blaming white people for their problems is a dead end, that black people can be provincial, and that their tendency to cling to antiquated religious nostrums is obnoxious. My issue is with the contempt for black people simmering just beneath the surface that the prop 8 debacle has brought to the surface that is reflected in the unquestioning eagerness with which people latched onto to a half baked exit poll and have ignored anything that contradicts it, and the racist stereotypes and half truths that fill yours and others posts.
Oh! I’ve been to Zimbabwe (and a few other countries in Africa). Beautiful game parks, dreadful political situation. And Morgan Changerai (a black man)is fairly critical of Robert Mugabe (another black man). I and many other black and non black people around the world join him in that criticism without being stupid and racist about it. And so may you. Happy Now, Kelly?
The original post by Dan Savage was the first time I visited this blog. (I followed a link over from Racialicious.) I am very sad to read of many of the comments to this and the original post.
First, many folks here seem to be purposefully ignoring statistical facts, for example reciting over and over again the magical “70%” figure even though it was based on an exit poll of less than 250 Black people and is in contrast to every other, more statistically sound poll on the issue. I suppose facts do not matter since “everybody knows” that Black folks are more homophobic than everyone and anyone else–by virtue of us just being Black, apparently. (Not based on the same demographic factors–age, education/income level, religiosity, etc–as everyone else.)
Second, the implication that I have read from some of these comments that voting for a man who self identifies as Black is a favor that was given to “The Black Community,” and that Blacks have betrayed by not voting against Prop 8 and other draconian referenda is just bizarre. I would hope that the LGBT folks who voted for Barack Obama did so because they wanted him to be the President–just as the, by some reports, 27% who voted for Sen McCain did so on the basis of their political convictions.
Third, the notion that Black people or any other group of people will have a magical ability to automatically understand the oppression of others because they themselves experience it just goes against human psychology. Surely Black people are humans and individuals. Those of us who are also heterosexual are subject to the same biases, homophobia, heterosexist privilege and the same influence of institutional heteronormativity as anyone else. It would seem to me, then, that “revenge” is not the most effective strategy to employ to change hearts and minds.
Surely any LGBT folks who could now sling the n-word around at rallies or employ other of racist memes that other groups have been using for hundreds of years did not suddenly become racist last Wednesday. And surely marriage equality movements that do not actively recognize intersectionality will suffer the same fate as some mainstream feminist movements that seem to have similar blindspots.
This election has made me more politically active than I have ever been in my life. News about the passage of Prop 8 and similar measures has prompted me to seek out more information on how to become more active in this and other progressive causes. I will not let the comments on these threads dismay me or make me hesitant to find ways to get involved, even as hurtful as many of them are.
All the best to all here as you continue to find ways to channel your anger and frustration into effective coalition building and future progress.
Seriously, Savage, grow up! I asked you to consider the way that your careless posts on this subject have fueled a racist firestorm in the comments section of the SLOG and all you can do is pitch sarcasm and express your own sense of victimization? I am still waiting for you to say, “These comments are outrageous and have to stop!” No one is blaming gays for the passage of Prop 8, and no one said you were the only one blaming black people. We’ve just said that placing blame like this is simplistic, unproductive, and likely to deepen divisions between white gay leadership and LGBT people of color. If you can’t take that kind of mild criticism with a modicum of dignity, you’re really not fit to edit the paper.
I am still waiting for you to say, “These comments are outrageous and have to stop!”
Maybe he doesn’t believe in censorship. Looking over the comments I see nothing that is truely disturbing. Some people, such as yourself, seem to have a very low tolerence for listening to people who view things different than yourself and seem to expect anything that doesn’t conform to your narrow definition of “acceptable” be treated as though it were hate speech.
If you can’t take that kind of mild criticism with a modicum of dignity, you’re really not fit to edit the paper.
Dan was able to take criticism, apparently it is you that needs to threaten someones job in order to make them afraid to criticize others. You claim is that this should not have been addressed. That is your opinion, apparently many people, including Dan disagree. And if you are not capable of respecting this without threatening someone’s job it is YOU that lacks even a modicum of dignity. Take your histrionics somewhere else.
Dan helped to fuel this firestorm with his mindless race baiting. There are plenty of questions as to the validity of that exit poll on which he is basing his miraculous discovery of black homophobia. There isn’t a chance in hell that black people were 10% of the electorate as anyone who can add and subtract and stop to think can figure out for himself or herself
Savage hasn’t accepted any criticism. My sense is he never does. If you haven’t found anything truly disturbing or race baiting, you’re not paying attention or have selective vision.
Savage is a simple minded propagandist who has found a convenient scapegoat. No one is claiming that any particular issue shouldn’t be addrssed. Its the intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible way he chosen to construct the issue (really constructing a straw man is more like it) that people object to.
Sam,
First off, they do believe in censorship. I refer you to the censorship of the Stranger’s employees’ addresses from the comments section. I would also refer you to the post that Dan deleted which linked to a thinly-veiled threat to attempt to strip blacks of unnamed FEDERAL civil rights, but he, believer in non-censorship that he is, deleted it.
Second, Dan can’t take criticism. He offered those stats with no view towards their place in a cogent political strategy, and the blanks were filled in by a bunch of comments which trended towards vilification and revenge. The responses that suggested how to move forward were ignored and instead he posted that others had linked to the same figures, additionally implying “I’m a bad, bad man,” which is his usual response to criticism.
Finally, you seem to believe, along with the majority of the gays, that voting for Obama was strictly based upon quid pro quo, or self-interest in regards to this single issue. If this is indeed the case, doesn’t it benefit the blacks to ensure that gays are part of the Democratic voters for at least another couple cycles? After all, given the Republican talking points recycled by many of the posters here, it would seem that you intend to jump ship as soon as this particular issue is resolved….
@89: While I may occasionally fantasize about having the power to censor others (and threaten Dan Savage’s job), I am, alas, just a girl commenting on a blog. The histrionics are all yours, Sam.
Oh, and one more thing. This article (under a headline that sounds straight from the Onion) might give you a little bit of a refresher about what censorship actually is. It’s not the same as criticism — which is what I have asked of Savage. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31…
White folks voted to pass anti-gay legislation in Michigan in larger percentages (not just numbers)…. While you continue to flog this horse while letting your own white community off the hook for its racism–including the mainstream gay community and marriage equality movement, neither of which feel comfortable to me as a queer black woman–you might want to mention that.
Further, as an actual Californian with an up-close view into the No on Prop 8 campaign, I can say that there are many reasons for its passing, and the campaign itself was one of them.
Saw you on Larry King tonight. You were good. But it’s too late–this stuff that thinks racism is funny is exactly why the black pastor next to you was able to point to the “n-word” being yelled at the LA protests, something thhat happened within hours after your original “blame the blacks” column was scrawled.
There’s some kind of defense around these arguments that always goes like this: “I blame the mormons too!” But of course those groups aren’t categorized by race. That’s reserved for only the 6 percent of the population that also happens to be religious. Never mind that the majority of pro-8 votes were white.
Take a minute to breathe before you fix stuff in writing. If not because you don’t want to be racist–(I do understand you think that’s an over-sensitive reaction)–then at least to advance your own movement. On Larry King you just said it’s no surprise that anger has resulted from building an intolerant movement. Similarly, you need to realize the impact your words have as well. Now we are enshrined in the press as the “n-word-hurling protesters”–something your original column helped to foster.
Do you really want to solidify a division that isn’t actually as simple as the polls would have you believe? Do you really want to encourage the false idea that gays shouldn’t have supported Obama (and make it worse for us next election?)
This is not an appeal to ‘play nice’ by the way. I say “no more mr. nice gay” too. Just be a man about it.