DOWNLOADS: (1637)

PLAYS: (12942)

Embed

Number 15 in our countdown is a tie between several related videos. We like to call it "debate hate."

The video at the top is from the September 22, 2011 debate, where a gay soldier asked Rick Santorum whether he would roll back the repeal of DADT and the progress gays have made in the military under President Obama. Before Santorum could answer, some in the audience booed the soldier loudly. No candidate spoke up.

But that isn't the first time debate hate has reared its ugly head. On September 7th, the audience cheered Rick Perry's record of executing a record number of prisoners in Texas, including at least one who was innocent.

Continue reading »

I swear, you just can't write this stuff...it's almost like The Onion is writing this election cycle. But as it turns out, Carl Paladino wasn't objecting to speedoed men grinding against each other, per se. He just objected to them doing it without first paying Paladino a cover charge:

New York candidate for governor Carl Paladino, notorious for gay-bashing, rented to two gay clubs in downtown Buffalo. One of the clubs was run by his son, William. Paladino criticized opponent Andrew Cuomo’s parenting for taking his daughters to a gay parade, because gays there “wear Speedos and grind against each other.” Who knew Paladino was in the gay bar business?

…a club named Cobalt operated as a gay bar in 2004 and most of 2005 and was run by Paladino’s son, William. It was housed in a building owned by one of Paladino’s many companies, Huron Group LLC…

That's actually just one of two gay bars that Paladino's company owned. And that kind of even capitalist approval of gays was enough for the rabbi who had Paladino read that prepared statement to retract his endorsement.

A Brooklyn rabbi who says he helped write the speech that Carl Paladino gave to Orthodox leaders on Sunday that contained anti-gay remarks is withdrawing his support for the GOP candidate for governor. The rabbi says it is because Paladino apologized for those remarks under pressure from his family. Paladino said he has a nephew who is gay.

It also turns out that Paladino's company owned a gay bar upstate and that Paladino's son ran it.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin says Paladino doesn't have any backbone and bowed to political pressure.

Also, racy pictures of Roger Stone, a key advisor to Paladino, have surfaced. The pictures show a shirtless Stone at the Gay Pride Parade, kissing a woman's exposed breast. And there is another pictureof her licking his ear.

I think I'm beginning to agree with Rachel Maddow. This cannot be a real campaign. This has to be some weird performance art piece.

I really want to know who came up with this brilliant idea - asking the military spouses what they think about their husband/wife having to work with homosexual men and women.

Feedback from military spouses is an important aspect in the review, Ham said. The panel wants to know if spouses will be less likely to support their servicemember continuing his service if the law changes, [Gen. Carter] Ham said.

“We know for our married servicemembers, the most important influence on whether or not that servicemember decides to continue his service is his spouse,” he said. “So we need to know what the effects would be if the law was changed.”
---------
“We know that for our married servicemembers, their spouses’ views, the spouses’ satisfaction with the quality of service and the family readiness directly attributes to military readiness,” the general said. “Secretary Gates was focused at the very start to make sure that we understood what impact a possible repeal would mean to our family members.”

Can you believe this? "Excuse me, wife of SGT Smith. We'd really like to know if you feel that your marriage is threatened by the fact that your husband may or may not be working with Teh Gays." Her response: "Gee, maybe I'll get the chance to talk to him about it, you know, when he returns between his third and fourth deployment to the Middle East. Thanks for asking."

Fraking morons. Yes, the spouse has an influence on a military servicemember's opinion, but I don't think this is the primary disruption of their married life. Are they wasting time to push a decision after the mid-term elections, or are they just deliberately trying to tank the issue?

Steny Hoyer's passion is moving in this speech. The compromise is imperfect in some ways, but it IS action, and it DOES repeal a policy that should have never been put into effect at all, and moves our country toward being more human, more compassionate, and more equal.

Update 6:54pm PDT: They're voting now. Also, one Republican, Susan Collins joined the Democrats to support the repeal in the Senate Armed Forces Committee.

Update 6:58pm PDT: They just crossed the 219 vote threshold. Two Republicans have voted yes; 23 Democrats have voted no. 17 votes haven't been cast yet.

Update 7:10pm PDT: Final count: 234-194. Thank you, House.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is feeling bullied by gays. Not because they want equal protection under the law, not because they object to institutional discrimination against them, but because, well...they act gay.

Doesn't this seem a little bit similar to those folks who look illegal? Rep. King thinks they do it to entrap good people into discrimination lawsuits and things.

Raw Story:

If people wear their sexuality on their sleeve, then they want to bring litigation against someone that they would point their finger at and say “you discriminate,” it is an entrapment that is legalized by the ENDA Act, it appears to, and its a violation of the individual rights of employers to, at their own discretion, decide who they want to hire and who they want to fire. We don’t need more federal mandates. And we surely don’t need a political statement, and that’s what this is, too. This is the homosexual activist lobby taking it out on the rest of society. They are demanding affirmation for their lifestyle. That’s at the bottom of this.

OH, that must be why axe murderers don't wear bloody rags on their sleeve. They don't really care much about affirmation for their lifestyle. Or serial killers. They probably don't either.

I mean, come on. This is about as stupid, ignorant and wrong-headed as it gets. What I pull out of King's little rant is that he thinks gays are second class citizens, they're united in some kind of subversive plot to distract us all from matters of concern to their own agenda, and if they'd JUST KEEP THEIR DAMN GAYNESS IN THE CLOSET IT WOULD BE JUST FINE.

You know what? People who make stupid statements like King's are usually in the closet themselves and hate their own reluctance to come out. People are people. I don't care who they love, sleep with, have coffee with or work with, as long as they add something to this collection of human beings we call society.

More fundamentally, because they ARE people and they ARE citizens they are entitled to equal protection and treatment under the law, because that, Rep. King, is what being true to the Constitution really means.

And while we're on the subject of stupid comments about being gay, can someone please explain to me why the question of Elena Kagan's sexuality is relevant to her qualifications for the Supreme Court? (Yes, I *am* looking over at Andrew Sullivan)

Be gay, look gay. Be gay, look straight. Be gay, be single. Be gay, be married. But please, whatever it is, let it be an individual's choice.

The Advocate:

To avoid Constance McMillen bringing a female date to her prom, the teen was sent to a "fake prom" while the rest of her class partied at a secret location at an event organized by parents.

McMillen tells The Advocate that a parent-organized prom happened behind her back — she and her date were sent to a Friday night event at a country club in Fulton, Miss., that attracted only five other students. Her school principal and teachers served as chaperones, but clearly there wasn't much to keep an eye on.

"They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them," McMillen says. "The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to."

Last week McMillen asked one of the students organizing the prom for details about the event, and was directed to the country club. "It hurts my feelings," McMillen says.Two students with learning difficulties were among the seven people at the country club event, McMillen recalls. "They had the time of their lives," McMillen says. "That's the one good thing that come out of this, [these kids] didn't have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom]."

What a despicable place to live in. Are these people actually Americans? The cruelty TeH adults inflict on TeH Gays is very sad. American Exceptionalism, indeed.

Pam Spaulding has more.

Itawamba Agricultural High School student Constance McMillen is a hero. She's paid a tremendous cost at the age of 18, no less, for standing up to the bigotry in her hometown over this debacle of attending the school prom with her girlfriend.

How many of our professional gays have put themselves on the line for equality like this? Not to take away from the work orgs do, but it's acts like Constance's that show how one individual can expose and challenge ignorance and fear. The average gay person living in flyover country is bolstered by courageous efforts to simply be treated equally in a hostile environment. It's a sobering thought that she stood up to fight against an ENTIRE TOWN. No one stepped in to tell her about the fake prom, not even any of her peers. That's immense peer pressure to avoid any support of TEH GAY at any cost in Fulton, Mississippi.

She lost, but she actually won - respect and support from around the country, as well as legal help from the ACLU. She didn't back down or hide.

Maybe Haley Barbour can explain to us why Mississippi is the unhealthiest state in the union and DC as he's trying to block HCR again.

The Agonist: Wake up and smell the drug war

Pacific Views: This type of frenzied opposition has been seen before

The Monkey Cage: Did Gays in the military lead to the fall of Srebrenica? Of course not!

Fables of the reconstruction: McCain and Lieberman propose bill to strip U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism of all rights

Seeing the Forest: China's currency manipulation manipulates the world. This is not a small issue

Prairie Weather: A solid foundation of lies may be cracking

In the UK there was a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights on gays serving in the military which said this in 1999:

The ban on gays in the UK armed forces is a breach of human rights, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. The Strasbourg judges said the ban broke the Human Rights Convention, which safeguards the right to privacy. Gay rights campaigners say it is a landmark case, and they hope the government will lift the ban by the end of the year.

What happened?

Did high-ranking officers stage a massive walkout?

Did the UK military all turn gay from contact?

Did the Royal Family refuse to send Prince Harry to the military?

Er, no.

BBC News has the results:

When the UK took the step of allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the armed forces 10 years ago, public opinion was in favour but the armed forces themselves were not. The situation is very similar in the US today.

Landmarks

Some 10% said they would leave the armed forces if gays were allowed to serve openly. Large-scale resignations from the UK armed forces were widely expected in some quarters, when the ban on gays was lifted - but in practice they did not materialise.

At least one British army brigadier publicly resigned in protest, citing "strongly held moral and military convictions" but most observers were surprised at how smoothly the new law - which was forced on the UK government by the European Court of Human Rights - was implemented.

"There was this expectation that there would be problems, but it just didn't happen. People just got on with their work," said Dave Small, who was in the Royal Navy at the time, but now works for the Stonewall Diversity Champions Programme helping the three armed services to adopt best practice in the area of sexual diversity.

--

Fears that allowing openly gay soldiers to serve on the front line would lead to a breakdown of discipline and cohesion within units also proved unfounded.

--

British Security Minister Lord Alan West, a former head of the Royal Navy, told the Associated Press in July 2009 that allowing gays to serve openly was "much better".

"For countries that don't do that - I don't believe it's got anything to do with how efficient or capable their forces will be. It's to do with prejudices, I'm afraid," he said.

It's always about hate when it comes to teh Gays. Maybe all the gay-bashers in America going to the media should read this and grow up. But that's asking a lot from the religious community in our country.

Last night while browsing the other side of the blogosphere, I noticed this posted on Red State:

Shirt? Check. Shoes? Check. Acceptable Body Mass Index? Ummm.....

They are talking about the proposed legislation in Mississippi to make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers. I agree that is an absurd law, but they also posted this update:

Update: For another entrant into the below-mentioned department of legislation, check out this oldie but goodie from 2006: a Democrat State Senator from Ohio filing legislation that would make it illegal for registered Republicans to adopt in that state.

Sounds like some more absurd legislation, except for the fact it wasn't. This was actually from a "tongue in cheek" memo set out to colleagues in 2006, as a way to spoof the Republican attempts in Ohio to ban gay couples from adopting.

In a tongue-in-cheek memo to his colleagues, Hagan spoofs a bill from House conservatives that would keep gays from becoming adoptive or foster parents in Ohio.

He counters that adopted children raised in Republican households have told him it's just plain boring most of the time. Hagan also writes that the kids are more at risk for developing -- as he puts it -- "an alarming lack of tolerance."

Now it looks like the joke is actually on the wingnuts, who thought this was actual legislation.

At the GOP debate on Wednesday night, several candidates said then when it comes to gays in the military, they'd rely on military leaders for advice. "I'm going to listen to the people who run the military," Mitt Romney said.

Good idea.

Marking the 14th anniversary of legislation that allowed gay men and lesbians to serve in the military but only if they kept their orientation secret, 28 retired generals and admirals plan to release a letter on Friday urging Congress to repeal the law.

“We respectfully urge Congress to repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” the letter says. “Those of us signing this letter have dedicated our lives to defending the rights of our citizens to believe whatever they wish.”

The retired officers offer data showing that 65,000 gay men and lesbians now serve in the American armed forces and that there are more than one million gay veterans.

“They have served our nation honorably,” the letter states.

It's time to embrace common sense and let these men and women serve.