_Deborah_ Gibson defeats gargantua, moves on to fight H8
I finally got to watch ‘Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus’ on Friday with friends and it was possibly the most brilliantly cheap and deliberately awful monster movie I've ever seen - and that says a lot. Miss Deborah Gibson was scintillating in her role as an Asian-loving marine biologist, and the two headline gargantua were genuinely spiteful and mean. Did you know that an enraged prehistoric megalodon shark can leap into the air - above the cloudline - and take a bite out of a large passenger jet?
Anyway, not only is Deborah Gibson a STAR, but she has a blog and recently attended a Prop 8 rally.
On that note, I'd like to draw your attention to the latest wave of HRC-related criticism and commentary from Andrew, Chris and That Other Bugg Gurl. A journalist has accused HRC of backdoor deals and deliberate delays on various gay rights efforts, which HRC denies. Meanwhile the gays are becoming impatient with the Obama administration who promised the world and haven't yet delivered, much like Bill Clinton did.
I say we grow impatient with both HRC and the President and stop waiting for them to deliver. They are not delivering, so we must make our demands heard and act ourselves. Our major organizations are spineless and ineffective in addition to being a financial drain. Unless you're content with galas and balls that allow you to have your gay prom of course. I think it's way past the time for these things to happen. And I think HRC is premature in thinking they're so adept with the system that they are an effective, active participant in the legislative process. Clearly they are not.
I have a whole tirade about this that I'll deal with in another entry, but it has to do with the levels of awareness, knowledge, attitudes, skills and participation any movement can have on a particular topic. We are past the awareness stage with most people, they know what the issue is, and many have decided upon their attitude about the topic. Some gays and groups have the right skills to demand change, but we are certainly not yet an effective and active participant in our government institutional processes. We are not part of that game yet.
Our efforts need to focus on changing people's attitudes, and that involves sharing our stories with our friends, neighbors and coworkers, and being out. We're beyond the point where screaming is effective, so we need to talk instead of shout. Once we get more allies and it is uncomfortably apparent by the administration that it's time to change, they will. But right now they're not necessarily compelled to change much of anything, despite what our major money-sucking organizations may say. Our major organizations are content with where we are, and so is the Obama administration. Are you content with how things are?
While I'm on this roll, while national marches are fun, I thought the Join The Impact protests were much more effective at the state level than a national march could be. If there is a march here in the fall of coruse I'll go, but I'd rather see more local efforts which I think brings the story closer to home more effectively than a march in Washington ever could.
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I wholeheartedly agree with your political sentiments Jimbo. I am tired of hearing Obama's defenders stress that this country has more pressing issues than GLBT rights. We have been patient enough. Give us some hope that there IS a brighter future for us!
I say we march on Washington, HRC Headquarters, and that crackhead Marion Berry's church.
It's not even been 4 months and "The Gays" are already pouting over a lack of earth shattering progress. Never mind that nearly half the population has no health insurance, somewhere between 9 and 15% are unemployed (depending on how you count) and many are trying to figure out how to pay for their elderly parents and their kids at the same time.
To me the issue of health care is just as important as anything some perfectly well off bloggers have decided is important. Gay issues are important, but they are no more important than most of the other things on the table. It's not as if gay people are the only people with concerns to advance, it's not a world of unicorns and chocolate pudding for everyone else. There's a pretty big backlog of work to be addressed, a lot of it even from the "sainted" administration of the Great Bill C.
It will take time. That doesn't mean that we can sit back and relax, but it also doesn't give people the excuse to throw everyone else under the bus, including the person most likely to not veto every single advance that comes out of Congress, or to waffle (Bill!) on about it and then do nothing to help.
It's actually been a little over four months, but that's irrelevant. The idea that just because I'm concerned with gay issues means I don't give a crap about other, non-gay issues is bullshit. I voted for Obama because I was exhausted from 8 years of constitution-shredding, torture and lying the country into war. The fact that Obama said unequivocally that he would end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a big, big cherry on top.
Anyone who's been paying attention to the White House maneuvering on this has to be concerned with the significant shift in tone and rhetoric on this. Since some people apparently think that being gay means your unworthy of having an opinion on gay issues, try checking out Ana Marie Cox's piece outlining precisely what is going wrong with the administration's DADT "strategy" at the moment. Hey, she's straight, so her opinion counts double! (http://www.playboy.com/articles/ana-marie-cox-20090608/index.html?cm_mmc=Social%20Networking-_-Twitter-_-Editorial%20Feature-_-Forum%20AnaMarieCox)
There's nothing wrong with being impatient for repealing DADT, especially if you care about other issues like national security.
Wow, I'm cranky tonight.
@Sean: Actually you put together the best reasoned post on the topic, without the "I'm going to " that is floating around the A-list bloggers comment sections and has been for every moment since the primaries. That is what I have grown tired of hearing. I've read your stuff, and you're coming at it from a different angle, but no less valid.
I take no issue with keeping the administration on its toes and engaged, I just think it can be done without the odious and often hate-filled tone a lot of bloggers have been engaging in. I also don't want to see the use of parliamentary procedures or executive orders to circumvent the law, since I've had enough of that from the last 8 years. There are a number of ways to do it, they're just very Cheney-esque.
Ana Marie Cox I can appreciate, because she knows her stuff and she always has. If gay men paid more attention, they'd know that DADT is actually used just as often to pressure women into sex, or undue command influence or creates an environment in which sexual harassment is OK. That's what pisses me off: gay men are blind to the obvious alliances to be made.
President Obama knows that the GLBT community has rising concerns about his committment to our civil rights. He enthralled us with campaign promises, got elected, and then nothing. Surely he can find the time to publicly reassure us of his committment to making good on those promises at some time in the future. It would go a long way in easing our impatience. His silence speaks volumes. It makes him appear as if he doesn't care.
Copperred, I couldn't agree with you more on your first comment, and I thank you for saying it so concisely. But at the same time I like the passionate enthusiasm that the detractors have, because as George Bernard Shaw said, "Unreasonable men attempt to change their environment to suit themselves. Therefore all progress is the work of unreasonable men".
I know the topic is DADT, but one other thing I'd like to throw on the table is a quote from Seattle's Dan Savage:
"We have to remember that this is a long game, folks, and despite the California Supreme Court decision setback, we are winning. We've heard a lot about Prop 8 over the last week, and we're going to hear a lot about the fight to overturn it over the coming months, but let's not forget about Proposition 22.
In 2000, California voters approved a law banning same-sex marriage. It was a ballot initiative, like Prop 8, but just a law, not a constitutional amendment. And it was that law, Prop 22, that the California Supremes struck down in 2008, in their historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. And voters in 2000 approved Prop 22 by a 22-point margin. Eight years later, the same voters approved Prop 8 by just four points. That's an 18-point shift in favor of marriage equality in just eight years. That's extraordinary progress. A loss is still a loss, and a loss sucks, but the trend is so strongly in our favor that we cannot lose hope. The anti-gay bigots know that they're losing this debate, and it's why they're so hot to amend state constitutions now, while they still can, while they can still count on the votes of the old, the bigoted, and the easily manipulated.
But they are losing and they know it.
Gay marriage will be back to the ballot box in California in 2010 or 2012, and voters are going to repeal Prop 8. Fundamental civil rights should not be subject to a popular vote, of course, and the California Supremes had an opportunity to reaffirm that ideal. They chose not to, they buckled, and so gays and lesbians, unlike other minority groups, face the challenge of securing our rights at the ballot box. That seems like a daunting prospect until you recall Prop 22 and compare its margin of victory to that of Prop 8. Again, we witnessed an 18-point shift in favor of gay marriage in California in just eight years. We can gain another two points in two. We just have to stay in the fight and constantly remind ourselves and each other—and Maggie Gallagher—that we are winning."