Could Disgruntled Gay Voters Impact Close Blue State Elections?
If these reliably Democratic voters choose to sit out the election, it could mean Democratic losses in tight races, including the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, where many members of the gay rights outfit Equality Illinois told volunteers phone banking on behalf of the organization that they “won’t vote or will vote against incumbents, regardless of their party affiliation or stance on gay issues.”
And while such gay organizations as Equality Illinois and its counterparts in other states across the nation, as well as the national organization, the Human Rights Campaign, have been pushing hard for Democratic candidates, many gay voters, as Equality Illinois’s volunteers have found, are not very enthusiastic about supporting the Democrats.
There seems to be a divide between the gay organizations, which many gay people believe have become little more than mouthpieces for the Democratic Party, and the gay “grassroots.” While gay conservatives have long been critical of these organizations, gays on the left are becoming increasingly critical — or at least the rise of blogs has made it easier for disgruntled gay liberals to get their message across.
Left-of-center lesbian blogress Pam Spaulding takes the groups to task for failing to take a hard line with the administration. She says that Brian Bond, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and former executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, “muzzled” gay groups from discussing the “DADT legal cases” at a recent White House meeting. She added in an email to me: “It’s terribly hard to see how there’s any leverage these people [gay groups] have. Honestly, when are they going to step away from [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Jim Messina and [White House senior advisor] Valerie Jarrett and say, ‘No deal — you made your promises, now march up to the Hill and deal.’”
And this failure to deal may well cost the Democrats some votes on the gay left.
Longtime gay activist and San Francisco-based blogger Michael Petrelis told me in an email that he’ll actually be voting Republican for Congress, opting for GOP candidate John Dennis over Nancy Pelosi. He says he’ll be doing as he’s “always done … voting my conscience.” While he will be voting for two Democrats, he says he’s “proud” never to have
been a “battered gay Democratic Party voter” who gets bashed or ignored by that party, which in my adult life has never delivered much on gay issues, other than to say, “the GOP is worse.” I will not now become such a voter. Democracy is too important to waste a vote on Democratic Party candidates I don’t believe in.
Now, to be sure, Petrelis has never toed the Democratic line, but other gay bloggers who worked hard to elect Barack Obama two short years ago aren’t showing as much enthusiasm for his fellow Democrats in this year’s congressional elections as they did for him in the presidential contest. While some will make it to the polls and vote for the Democratic candidate either out of party loyalty or animus against the Republican opposition, others just won’t feel voting is worth the effort this time around.
In close races like Illinois — and maybe even California — they could make the difference.
Should gay Democrats make up a lower share of the electorate than they have in years past, then perhaps Democrats should reconsider their strategy of avoiding gay issues out of fear they might offend swing voters.
Another sign of madness “Gay Voters”. Why not poll the opinions of Obsessive Compulsives
as a group? Homosexuality is what it has always been, a pathology. An emotional
dysfunction originating in a highly predictive family/emotional structure. Not all families with
weak absent fathers and over controlling mothers produce homosexual sons, but all homosexuals come from such families. Of course part of homosexual pathology is
to block any recognition of this. While homosexuals demand that society question and overturn every value, marriage, education, sex, religion, politics,military efficiency..etc no matter how
destructive such a revolution might be..it is intreresting to note that for homosexuals
homosexuality is NEVER to be questioned. EVER. It just is. And woe be it to those
who suggest otherwise. Tolerance in the Gay Community is nothing more than an ideological weapon. The homosexual mantra “progress” is another such weapon. Similarly every other political movement originating in the Gay
Community needs to be viewed with great suspicion.
Dude, give it a rest. The social conservative obsession with “homos” is just getting tired. You guys just wrecked this party for so long, and now look where the country is. Instead of focusing on the economy, the budget, the deficit, entitlement programs, public pensions, the role of the government in our lives, our foreign policy, etc., the Republicans (and America) wasted decades on idiotic distractions like fighting gays.
So as one conservative to another: Please STFU. The last couple of years have opened my eyes. We’ve been fighting over stupid crap while the real problems have been piling up at the doorstep. Is the country going to fall apart over gays or abortion? No, but it sure will if we spend ourselves into insolvency.
This country has enough issues–REAL ISSUES–without you wanting to ignite some ridiculous culture war because you’re scared of manlove.
Democrats are not avoiding gay issues to avoid alienating swing voters; they are avoiding them to avoid alienating the Obamist base: black racists (truly and horrifying anti-gay), big-city machine politicians (only less anti-gay than the racists), and hard-core Marxists (who are quite willing to throw gays under the bus — or into the ovens — to keep the peace in the Obamist cabal).
Gays were never part of the Obamist cabal. Never; no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention other secretions (and money) they spent on Barry’s campaign, nor what the Judas goats posing as their leaders told them.
I was going to write on the same point but you beat me to it. You are absolutely right. One of those “truths that must never be told” is the fact that a good portion of the Dem base is vehemently anti-gay. It gets absolutely no media play at all but African-Americans are, shall we say, skeptical about the gay movement. One of the major reasons that Proposition 8 won handily in California in 2008 was that those black voters who turned out in droves for Obama also voted for Proposition 8.
And it’s not just the black community. Two weeks ago we had that horrifying incident where a latino street gang in New York imprisoned, whipped and tortured several gay men after finding out that two of their applicants were gay. It’s just anecdotal but my observations of young hispanics is that they are violently anti-gay.
Yet none of this is ever going to be explored, certainly not by our decrepit media. The Democrats are probably aware of this and they deal with it by focusing on the “leaders” of these communities who say all the right things and make nice at diversity rallies. I suspect that a lot of the African-American reverends and Latino community organizers who are always on the platforms for these events go back to their constituencies and say, “Look…I didn’t mean any of thatn pro-gay stuff but I have to say those things to maintain our clout with other Democrats.” Gays can’t tak about any of this stuff because then that would endanger their place in the liberal coalition.
[As a conservative Australian] I’ve never quite been able to figure out what it is with Americans and the prohibition on gays in the military.
They’ve been there for a gazillion generations. We all know it. We, or our fathers or our grandfathers served with these guys, and they never really had a problem with it.
How come it is such a big deal in the US? Its not a problem in Australia, or England, or Israel, or Europe. How come it is such a big deal with you guys?
I really don’t understand it.
Greg:
The problem is that the kinds of people in the USA who go out marching to make these demands are not usually the kind of people who would make good soldiers and sailors.
And as far as “having always been there”, to the best of my knowledge, HM’s Armed Forces always had some very severe penalties under military and naval law for the practices of homosexuality, so to survive in uniform, those who WERE so inclined needed to practice discretion and circumspection at all costs.
The entire “minority model” in this country is one that is prima facie divisive, and I think that this was far more by design than by happenstance.
That divisiveness doesn’t make for healthy politics, and it makes for absolutely lethal,(to our own),warfare.
Show up in an infantry platoon on patrol in “Indian Country” with the mentality of the aggrieved and oppressed minority of your choice and see how long you would survive.
Out where it counts, where it’s played for keeps, there are no such things as laws…no judges or cops or minority outreach officials of any kind.
What keeps you alive is the tolerance of the other tweenagers with loaded automatic weapons for you to remain alive.
That’s IT.
And if you ain’t with us, then you will simply cease to be.
The lads have enough on their plates without some narcissistic fool inflicting his “Me! I’m SPECIAL!” mentality upon them.
It is a hallmark of abysmally ignorant and incredibly arrogant people who think that they can craft a law to impose their will where there are NO laws.
Somewhere between garrison and the Forward Edge of the Battle Area, all that nonsense just evaporates…and that is where you learn that “democracy” was born in the No Man’s Land separating groups of heavily armed men, (phalanxes of hoplites), who simply wanted to know which side had the bigger army, (elections).
I’m Australian too, and I still don’t get it.
Your arguments are the same as those used against desegregation in the 40′s – that while n1ggers were alright in their place, they didn’t want uppity ones in the army. An argument that has some merit – for everyone’s supposed to be a professional, not white, not black, not hindu, not baptist, but a soldier.
The original intent of DADTDP – Don’t ask, Don’t tell, Don’t pursue – appears from some accounts (e.g. Colin Powell’s) to have been to allow Gays to serve as long as they didn’t engage in “I’m So Special” behaviour while in uniform.
Instead, there’s been numerous examples of anonymous tip-offs leading to investigation and discharge of even the most effective personnel. Even having someone of the same sex – a brother or sister – farewell you as you leave for the sandbox resulted in investigation in some units, according to sworn testimony.
Lunacy. And Lunacy that compromises military effectiveness. Not even in the 60′s was the virulently homophobic Australian Armed Forces doing that.
What is your problem?
I’ll explain it for you.
We send only our good guys to fight. They have to be completely healthy. They also have to be men of good character. When the bullets start flying, one’s character gets tested. To persevere requires great uprightness.
Adultery is a crime in the military. When we send our guys to war, they shouldn’t have to worry about soldiers left behind taking advantage of their lonely wives. That’s just one reason. The main one is the moral strength to fight.
You can be drummed out for conduct unbecoming. Things the civilian world takes for granted, like posting nude pics of yourself, is not tolerated in the military.
You MUST say Sir and Ma’am, salute, show respect to superiors in word and deed, remove your cap indoors and wear it outdoors. These may seem like outmoded concepts to libertine folks today, but they were standard fare only 50 years ago for all of society. Are we as a society really better off, as well-behaved, as we were 50 years ago. The military is the last bastion of the upright.
Homosexuality is a choice, not inborn (not like being black). All the junk-science claiming otherwise has been completely refuted. There is nothing natural about it. It is merely a sign of a weak spirit. There are some gays who serve quite admirably, and we every good swinging **** we can get, but these are the exceptions to the rule. It saddens me to see them booted, but they are the necessary casualties.
DADT is wise policy. It is a wise compromise. Go ahead and serve. Do NOT wear it on your sleeve (don’t tell), and we will look the other way at the more obvious signs (don’t ask). It’s not like we don’t know you’re gay, but we have to draw the line somewhere, or it gets totally out of hand. If you can handle that, then perhaps you have what it takes to fight. Just blend in and don’t make waves, and you’ll be fine.
They are not forbidden to serve. There are simply conditions to their service.
“What is your problem?”
My problem is that I was an infantryman in the Marines who had a homosexual section leader.
I know whereof I speak, and on many different levels.
Since my ‘toonie could not seem to keep from flirting his funkhole around the platoon and company, and playing favorites with the lads he was mooning over, had we been sent into harm’s way, he would not have been mine, or anyone else’s, “problem” for long.
Do you get me? Do you need it spelled out for you?
FWIW, he also seemed to have issues with the black Marines, so once those AK bullets start flying, no-one can ever really be sure who fired what at whom, or why.
And what are you going to do about it?
Send in CSI to the scene of every firefight where a homosexual was killed?
Good luck with that.
“Your arguments are the same as those used against desegregation in the 40’s – that while n1ggers were alright in their place, they didn’t want uppity ones in the army. An argument that has some merit – for everyone’s supposed to be a professional, not white, not black, not hindu, not baptist, but a soldier.”
Uh-huh…don’t think for one minute that ALL the names on the Korea or Viet Nam walls are up there because of “designated enemy” actions.
“Lunacy. And Lunacy that compromises military effectiveness. Not even in the 60’s was the virulently homophobic Australian Armed Forces doing that.”
I’d wager that you are quite wrong in that assumption, but no-one is likely to ever know, are they? (In fact, I do believe that homosexuality was held to be a mental illness by Australian medicine in the 1960′s. It was a mental illness in American psychiatry up until 1974, you know).
And that’s my point. That is my main problem. You are arguing your case from a place of laws and policies and minority group identity politics.
I’m telling you what it’s like in a squad or platoon of men who have been thrown into a human meat-grinder and who have to decide who is going to walk point across a suspected anti-personnel minefield covered by enemy snipers or mortars.
I “get” where you are coming from, but you don’t seem to be able to relate to the reality that I am laying on you.
If you don’t send them where they are not wanted, others won’t have to kill them…unless having them killed by their own is your goal.
I wonder if this will spell the end of Barney Frank in Massachusetts? One can only hope.
The gay vote will come out for the Democrats, because in their eyes a bad Democrat is really just a good one hiding in the closet waiting to come out and is always better than any Republican
Completely untrue. There was a time when there were a lot of gay republicans — back in the good ole days when the party was filled with principled intellectuals. Once the party was hijacked by the social right, it did (and does still today) continue to bleed smart people. Sorry but I don’t want anyone who thinks ‘God told me to’ to be in charge of the button.
There is the gay vote and the gay sympathy voters. Both could not deliver California in 2008. Nationally the gays are just a donor group for the Democrats. DADT was enacted by the last fully Democratic congress and we just saw the first Democratic congress in 14 years do absolutely nothing for gays.
I don’t think it will be Gay voters this year I think it will be all of the old ladies that have aluminum foil on their heads under the knit hats. What were you reaching for when you wrote this?????
A poll here or there claiming a majority of Americans want gays serving openly in the military belies the fact every time gay marriage has been on the ballot it has been soundly defeated. In short, they have been worded to predetermine the outcome — just like the gay marriage polling before the actual vote. Aside from the political generals and admirals who owe their positions to the Obama administration, the people who serve are opposed to this plank in the gay agenda. I suppose some day this kind of comment will fall under the heading of “hate crime.”
A poll here or there claiming a majority of Americans want gays serving openly in the military belies the fact every time gay marriage has been on the ballot it has been soundly defeated. In short, they have been worded to predetermine the outcome — just like the gay marriage polling before the actual vote. Aside from the political generals and admirals who owe their positions to the Obama administration, the people who serve are opposed to this plank in the gay agenda. I suppose some day this kind of comment will fall under the heading of “hate crime.” In any event, homosexuals constitute only three per cent of the population.
So then tell me, what is the population percentage that a class of people must attain before that group is protected by the Constitution without caveats? Apparently its higher then three percent?
Some of us homos did not vote for Obama, or any other democrat in any recent elections. Voting on one tightly-knit set of issues (assuming each and every homo DOES agree with repeal of DADT, ENDA, Hate-Crimes, and federally recognized gay marriage, which is not true) is a stupid way to vote. I know I’ll be pushing the buttons for Toomey and Corbett this Tuesday. Down with Obama, his cronies, and his whole stinkin’ anti-American agenda.
Angle’s Angle vs. Reid’s Reactionism “by Kate Evans”
If nothing else, Democrats are consistent.
Their consisistency in this case can be traced back at least to 1964. Prior to that, Dwight Eisenhower was treated somewhat benignly and was merely called a dolt. By ’64, Democrats had moved on to their current demonization tactic and Barry Goldwater was labeled an extremist who planned to blow up the planet. Ditto with Ronald Reagan. With slight variations, ditto Sarah Palin, ditto Christine O’Donnell and ditto Sharon Elaine Angle.
Now, in the stretch drive to November 2nd and with Angle running at 50% to Harry Reid’s 46% according to the latest Rasmussen poll, Reid’s storm troopers are bound to intensify radical, extremist charges against the Republican candidate who can in large part credit ROCPAC, a nascent Political Action Committee, for winning that nomination last June against Sue Lowden.
Today, thanks to her stance as a leading opponent of Obamacare, Angle may almost be considered the poster child for the GOP surge in popularity over recent months at the same time public opposition has grown immeasurably.
How best could Reid and his Democrats do battle against Angle? Why, by calling her an extremist, of course.
But, who is really the radical, who the extremist? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2134)
Who’s the extremist?
Let’s look at Sally Kearn on homosexuality:
“I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam… If you got cancer or something in your little toe, do you say, well, you know, I’m just going to forget about it because the rest of me is fine? It spreads. OK? And this stuff is deadly, and it’s spreading, and it will destroy our young people, it will destroy this nation.”
She’s on record as blaming the economic crisis on Gays too.
From Tulsa World, and what her opponent is saying:
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“For six years, we’ve had someone who has not represented her district, has been ineffective on problems, and is bad for business,” she said.
Novotny said Kern is pushing her personal agenda instead of focusing on issues that are important to House District 84, and because of that, the state and Kern’s Oklahoma City district have suffered.
“She focuses on things that aren’t critical issues to the district, like education,” Novotny said, adding that that leaves many constituents feeling disconnected.
In 2008, Kern made national headlines when she said that homosexuality is a greater threat to the United States than terrorism.
In a 2009 ceremony at the state Capitol, she sponsored a signing of a morality proclamation that declared that the country’s economic decline was a result of a decline in moral values.”
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The SoCons (both Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans) have allowed, and in some cases encouraged, massive increases in the waste of tax dollars.
Could disgruntled gay voters impact close blue state elections? Of course they could. But then again, so could every group that is experiencing O-vote Regret. I have a very good friend who happens to be black, and she says that while she voted for O the first time around, if he was up for election on Tuesday she wouldn’t vote for him.
This ain’t confined to just gays, folks. There’s lots of people that could “defect” from the Democrats this year, even some of their core constituencies, either by voting for someone other than the D candidate or just sitting home.