August 15, 2010 archive

On Daily Kos, a tempest in a teapot has erupted over the word “spitting”.  As in,

Obama: Stands up for Muslims, spits on gays? (5+ / 14-)

Quite a combination. If he was a courageous leader he’d come out for gay marriage, unless he really does think they should be second class citizens.

I am going to, in this essay, attack Daily Kos, and the denizens that inhabit it, because of this reasoning:

“Spits” is hyperbole. Not HR worthy, but if (2+ / 0-)

you want to make a point, you can do it without pissing off the people you are trying to convince.

Because you do have a real point…

No sir, it’s not that we have a real point, it’s that you have no point.

The spirit of resistance sometimes requires hard, accurate portrayals and words.  Even if it’s only arguably accurate.

It’s time to resist the President on gay rights.  Gently asking is not enough.  Humbly requesting is not enough.

Whatever language is used, the President’s heart has been hard on gay rights, and the human toll of suffering, based on what has happened to date, has not been enough to convince him to soften it.

I am not in this world to re-elect the President, or to support him, whatever that means.  When his re-election is imminent, I will evaluate his actions over the past four years, and decide what to do, not before.  But that is not and has nothing to do with resisting the President’s policies vis-a-vis gay rights.

What do you expect the LGBT community on this blog, or any other, to do?  We ought not have to convince you.  If you are allies, if you still believe in civil rights as a cornerstone of Democratic policies, you ought to be right there with us all — without us even asking you to be there.

At some point, we simply cannot sit back and hope and dream for the President to make success for us.  We have to make our own success, and if that involves, sometimes, saying bad things about the President, well, that is the least of it.

Saying we should not say bad things about the President?  Really?  Not saying we should have violence, but wars have been fought over less than the fundamental human liberties of an entire people.  The zeitgeist on places such as Daily Kos IS material in the sense that arguing over a trifle like the word “spitting” masks the dire nature of continuing to put our human rights in a box.

And now history itself is beginning to be masked.

I don’t care that certain liberal people wish to lionize the President.  But to do so in a manner that erases history — this I have a problem with.  There is a pattern of anti-gay actions on the part of the President.  That people are ignorant of this history is unacceptable, and, yes, let the chips fall where they may and let people draw their own conclusions.

If the President won’t veto a gay rights measure, that is not because he’s a good guy when it comes to gay rights — it’s because we put him in a box.  And it’s time to put him in that box, and the people who do not wish him put in that box are wrong, not the other way around.  His political career, and the political fortunes of all Democrats in America, are not worth the loss of one gay life due to bigotry and fear.  That certain people don’t say so, but act as if the opposite is true, this deserves to be confronted, finally, and confronted loudly, if other things don’t work.

I don’t have to resort to the word “spitting” to make my point — but my point is, the point has already been made, in action.  Making outrage over this kind of wording, frankly, is what is despicable — not the other way around.