the homo election

Are we stoked about Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House or what? Yay, holler, wowie zowie, cool dinkums....blah blah. What price did Democrats across the nation pay for that? And more specifically, at what cost to the cause of gay rights? Mark Foley's smug little Florida sunshine face damaged Democrats way more than it did Republicans when all is said and done.
Not only did his stupid penile-mails further the fear, disdain and hatred which gays face every day inland of the coastal cities most of us populate, but the broader push for spousal rights just took a thrashing.
Democrats had already figured out that to make a dent in these mid-terms, they had to offer up candidates nationwide that were barely distinguishable from the  opposition but in some cases we lost socially progessive Republicans in the Democrats rush to cannibalize themselves.
Just watch the Democrats move to the right to try to capture the Big House in 2008 and watch Pelosi have to steer a course which will make us all say  'Nancy, we hardly knew ye'. And then sit back stunned as the Dems squander all these gains in an orgy of self implosion. And where was IRAQ in this election?

I don't even like the concept of gay marriage - beyond the right to have decision making powers in matters like health care - and I have some really good friends who are in the forefront of the political movement to legalise our unions. To me, if it walks like a heterosexual model, sounds like a heterosexual model and explodes like a heterosexual model, chances are it aint what we want to be fighting for. Aren't civil unions enough?  Aren't private arrangements between individuals setting out the terms of a settlement enough? And before all you lawyers jump down my throat, aren't most Congress people and Senators lawyers - so keep it zipped.

Comments

[belledame222]

Yeah to most of it. I will say that as i'm witnessing the freaking out of two friends who are trying to figure out how to stay together--their eight year relationship, being same-gendered, isn't enough to keep the Hong Kong born guy in the country, of course (and having seen similar stuff with my best friend, who was lucky and wily enough to figure out how to stay on regardless)--i feel a bit more urgently about the marriage issue.

but yeah, the campaigning wrt Foley was repulsive. "We are SHOCKED, SHOCKED." this -right after- the habeas corpus, of course. habeas who? o, that's too hard, for the American voters. ..

yeah.