The Clintons And Civil Rights

Hillary is out there comparing herself to Lyndon Baines Johnson on civil rights. But what is the real Clinton record on civil rights? Andrew Sulivan nails it - their record is horrible:

"In the 1990s, we saw a burst of grass-roots activism, protest and rhetoric
in defense of gay and lesbian equality. Out of the ashes of the AIDS epidemic,
the gay rights movement rose like a phoenix. And the Clintons, seeing a
fund-raising opportunity, reached out to some in the movement to finance their
own campaign. Those donors trusted them. I wrote the TNR endorsement. But as
soon as the gays had performed their role - financing the Clintons in power and
supporting their campaign - the Clintons turned on us. They dropped their
promise to end the military's ban instantaneously and then presided over a
doubling of the discharges of gay servicemembers under the hideous "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" policy. They then used the other emerging civil rights issue -
marriage equality - to triangulate against gay couples. They ran ads on
Christian radio stations bragging about the Defense of Marriage Act that
president Clinton eagerly signed. And the only gay people they embraced were
those willing to continue to trade money for access - and loyalty to the
Clintons. Who helped them devise this anti-gay strategy? Dick Morris. Who
recommended hiring him in the first place? Hillary Clinton.
Johnson risked
his entire coalition on the issue of civil rights - a heroic act that still
reverberates today. The Clintons wouldn't risk a smidgen of a percentage point
in a Mark Penn poll for the duration of a news cycle. That's the difference. "

Jim

Hillary's "Symbolic Insult" To Gays And Lesbians

Congratulations, Dan, on your successful participation in this year's Pines Biennial Art Exhibit. Dan sold four paintings, including this sensational beach scene.

I've been very critical of Hillary Clinton's refusal to call for the complete repeal of the hateful "Defense Of Marriage Act." Today I read that a respected advocate for gay rights, Professor Lawrence Tribe of Harvard, has also criticized Ms. Clinton for the same reason:

Sen. Hillary Clinton's, D-N.Y., opposition to completely repealing the Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA) was painted as a "symbolic insult" to gays by a
top adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., presidential campaign during a
Friday interview with ABC News.
"The federal statute books shouldn't be
filled with symbolic insults to part of the population," said Harvard law
professor Laurence Tribe. "I guess Hillary Clinton may have a complicated set of
agendas here because many people were troubled when her husband as president
signed DOMA."

Read the full article here.

You bet I was "troubled" when Bill Clinton signed DOMA. And I'm troubled that Hillary still supports parts of it. There is no way she deserves the support of the gay community until she completely renounces this homophobic piece of legislation.

Jim

Ms. Clinton. Gay Marriage, DADT, And "Dr. Death"

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law that prohibited interracial marriages. The Court said: "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Twenty years later this axiom still holds true, and provides the strong logic underpinning the argument in favor of gay marriage. Unfortunately, NONE of the major Democratic candidates running for president are willing to embrace the Court's logic and take a stand in favor of gay marriage. Ms. Clinton is so backward on the issue that until just recently she actually SUPPORTED the hateful "Defense Of Marriage Act" signed into law by her philandering husband. Ever the cunning political operative, she now says that a PORTION of DOMA should be scrapped in that gay and lesbian couples should receive federal benefits, but only in those states with legal gay marriage or domestic partnerships. Talk about unfair! The rest of us can just go take a hike, I guess. Now this is really political needle threading taken to the ultimate degree. Anyone who thinks that this woman and her husband will not throw gays and lesbians under the bus the first time they get put on the spot about gays is severely deluded!

I read that they released "Doctor Death" Jack Kevorkian from prison. At age 79, he has been paroled after eight years in jail for assisting about 130 terminally ill people to end their lives with dignity. Kevorkian had to make a lot of promises to get out of jail, so he won't be able to help anyone else die, even if someone comes to him and pleads for his help. He considers the U.S. a "tyrannical" country and he's right, of course. We live in a country that is more and more under the control of Christian cult tyrants who will not be satisfied until they impose their beliefs upon the rest of us. To me Kevorkian is a hero who helped a lot of dying people when they needed his help the most. It's not him who should be in jail, but the nut cases on the far religious right who are trying to rob the rest of us of our basic human right to die with dignity. Each any every one of us ought to be free to make our own decision about our quality of life if we are stricken with a terminal illness. I will allow no religious fanatic to make that decision for me and I will oppose their efforts to pass laws that interfere with my right to make my own end-of-life-decisions.

Returning to one of my favorite targets, Ms. Clinton, in addition to refusing to admit that her vote to authorize the war in Iraq was a mistake, she also refuses to admit that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a a costly mistake. No, it's a good "transitional policy," says Ms. Clinton. Now let's see, we continue to dismiss openly gay linguists from the military who know Arabic even though there is a critical shortage of these experts in the fight against terrorism. But no, DADT is not a mistake, and if another terror attack occurs against us somewhere due in part due to to the lack of trained Arabic translators, well, we'll just chalk it up to our "transitional" policy and that'll explain it all and make everyone just feel so much better about the body bags. Ah, Hillary, silly me, I just don't understand about political pandering, er, I mean "transitional" policies, do I?

Photo: this interesting little perennial blossomed again this year. I'll have to look it up because I forget what it is!

Jim

The Thompson Factor, Ms. Clinton, and DOMA

One of the flowers that I see here on Fire Island that I've enjoyed very much over the years is the Foxglove. This specimen I purchased at Bayport Flowers for my own garden. While you don't have to plant the Foxglove in a protected area away from where deer can eat them, I still like to have them inside the fenced garden where I can enjoy them up close. I'm hoping to establish enough plants so that they'll come back on their own each year.

In the news: the potential presidential candidacy of actor/senator Fred Thompson, a Southern Evangelical who is thought to be the darling of the Republican religious fundamentalist right wing. Just a cursory look at his voting record as a senator confirms his right wing extremist credentials. Is he another Reagan? I don't think so, but he may have enough appeal to really shake up the Republican field. He's no friend to the gay community, that's for sure, having voted against our interests on every bill from ENDA to DOMA.

Speaking of DOMA (The Clinton era "Defense Of Marriage Act,") when is someone going to ask Ms. Clinton if she is in favor of repealing DOMA and, if not, why not? Her husband signed the bill that says that gays and lesbians cannot marry all the while he was having an extra-marital affair with Ms. Lewinski. So much for gays hurting marriage.

Jim