West Virginia Blue
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Some interesting news from the Values Voters' summit in Washington D.C. this last weekend.
Aside from Mike Huckabee winning the straw poll of preferred candidates, it seems as if the issue of 'gay marriage' is quickly fading as something Values Voters deem especially important.
I find the following quote especially provocative:
These are not the tea-partiers, who have a libertarian bent. This is a forum, rather, sponsored by the Family Research Council, an organization which continues to insist that homosexuality is curable and to link it to pedophilia. But the actual attendees at the forum -- religious conservative activists from around the country -- just don't seem to be all that riled up about the prospect of two men getting married.
This is significant for a few reasons in West Virginia. First, the West Virginia Family Policy Council, one of the main organizations behind lobbying efforts to "define marriage as between one man and one woman," are directly affiliated with the Family Research Council and their right wing agenda. If they cannot maintain excitement for this political issue from within their base supporters, and it seems they cannot, then the issue is in trouble.
What could this mean for the future? While I seriously doubt the recent news will keep West Virginia's political right wing from pushing the ludicrous idea of holding an election to determine the definition of marriage, the overall results of the forum may push any serious efforts regarding that issue to the wayside whether the political operatives behind it like it or not.
Remember, the Values Voter summit in D.C. is put on by the Family Research Council and is attended by their staunchest supporters. If those supporters are telling their leadership that gay marriage is no longer a serious issue, then that leadership is going to have to adjust their advocacy to match what the rank and file want or risk losing them. Right now, the political right, especially this flank of the political right, is in such a position that it can ill afford any serious turbulance.
What was supposed to be a 'debate' between myself and Executive Director of the WV Family Policy Council turned into a deabte between me and Mr. Carey, and despite his needling, I feel our side was well represented.
Admittedly, Dys was repeatedly tossed softball question after softball question and more or less regurgitated his standard talking points. Other than that, it was almost as if he wasn't even there.
I have friends who have done this show before, so I had an idea of what to expect. I knew Mr. Carey would be more aggressive with our position but managed to get our points in. Granted, sometimes I had to talk right over him in order to make our points, but that is just fine with me. I thought it went well, and will go back if asked.
Some things I would like to clarify:
The proponents of this legislation do not want a special election, and it is downright disingenuous for them to suggest so. Their goal is to put this on the general midterm ballot so they can drive out voters for candidates in what has been documented already as a purely partisan political manuever.
The cost of the last special election in West Virginia was 1.67 million dollars. They know this and the fact that the state would never shell out that kind $$$ for something this ridiculous.
Majorities are not hard to come by. That's why individual rights should never depend on them, ever. How about a referendum on your individual right to counsel? How about an up or down vote on a woman's right to choose or your right to a trial by jury? Tribunals, after all, would save the taxpayers a great deal of money.
The show is interesting to watch. I highly recommend Senator Dan Foster's (D-Kanawha) discussion on municipal pension debt that was featured during the first session. Our debate is on the third segment. There is also a link to additional footage a little further down the page.
The vast majority of American's (75%) feel gays should be able to openly serve in the military. Obama campaigned on a promise to repeal current policy. Senior military commander's have said the policy is a bad one. What is Obama waiting for?
Via David Corn (guest-blogging at Mother Jones) comes news that Obama can repeal DADT with a simple five step process.
1. Signing an Executive Order banning further military separations based on DADT and sending a legislative proposal on DADT repeal to Congress.
2. Forming a presidential panel on how to implement the repeal
3. Repealing DADT in Congress and changing the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, or UCMS
4. Changing other necessary military guidelines to conform to the new policy
5. Following-up to ensure that the armed forces implement the policy changes
There's never a bad time to do the right thing. Obama should go ahead and sign that executive order.
This blog has consistently been the authority on calling out right wing hypocrisy in West Virginia. I will point to the instance in which Heath Harrison's story detailing the self-styled WV Family Policy Council's not so subtle ties to Republican operatives from out of state.
That post played a part in creating lot more coverage of that group's real agenda All Journalists involved in exposing those facts should take some of the credit for defeating House Joint Resolution 5 (The Marriage Amendment) during the past regular session of the legislature. (Props also to Lawrence Messina for his coverage.)
In the spirit of continuing that narrative, I want to pass on an excellent piece from the Reader's Forum of today's Charleston Gazette. Mike Harman from St. Albans hits the nail on the head: (Author's note: I ordinarily would not post the entirety of an article. This one is just that good and must be posted all at once.)
Family Policy Council should refocus aims
Editor: Jeremiah Dys, a Republican political operative serving as the president of the Family Policy Council of West Virginia, wants to advance a conservative political agenda in West Virginia, even if it means fabricating false ideas about the Christian Bible in order to do it.
The organization called "The Family Policy Council" was known as the "West Virginia Values Coalition" in 2005. This organization, fully embedded with the national Republican Party throughout its existence, thrives on big-time Republican money but uses a so-called "Christian" religious front to advance its political agenda.
When you consider an authentic family-focused organization, such as the Family Advocates program based in Boise, Idaho, you see a non-political organization dedicated to keeping abused children out of danger and in safe homes, while partnering with parents to build strong families. They do this by raising money from a variety of businesses and individuals, and operating two programs, one of which is the Court-Appointed Special Advocates program (CASA) where a trained volunteer works with a child who has been placed in foster care due to suspected abuse or neglect. The other program is Families First, where parent educators work closely with parents to create an individual support plan, tailored to the needs of the parents. Together they work to help the parent feel more confident about parenting and prepare their children for success in school. All services to parents are free and voluntary and take place during home visits.
Jeremiah Dys and the Family Policy Council of West Virginia consistently ignore the extremely pressing needs of families in West Virginia who are desperate for trained and motivated volunteers and professionals, like the ones working for Family Advocates and for West Virginia Child Protective Services. These fine, dedicated folks are on the front lines every day working to prevent and lessen the trauma of child abuse and neglect.
Instead of being obsessed with withholding the legal status of marriage from gay couples, it would make more sense if the Family Policy Council addressed why so many children in traditional mother-father homes are victimized and abused by their "traditional" parents. But of course such a change of heart would not advance their political agenda.
Amen. To second Mr. Harman's comments, I would refer the Family Policy Council to a few members of the Senate Bill 238 Coalition.
It is easy to throw the words "family values," "in the heart of God," and other bombastic rhetoric around when you are pushing a partisan political agenda. It takes real courage to get into the trenches and heal people who have been broken down by abusive relationships, have issues with war time post traumatic stress syndrome, or have been left alone and need a legal advocate to represent them in front of the state.
"If this trend continues, no one could discriminate against anyone for any reason." Del. Kelli Sobonya (R-Cabell). source.
13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Jesus Christ as quoted in John 13:1-34-35
God bless gay-bashing, bigoted, Republican Del. Kelli Sononya. Blessings come in many guises as we know from the Book of James. Many people like Sononya are ignorant of the Bible except the portions they can use to "justify" their own bigotry stemming from fear of "others."
"Where's the tolerance for those with true, deep-seated convictions based on Bible teachings relating to homosexuality?" Sobonya wondered after the meeting.
Conceivably, under the bill, she said, a cross dresser could demand to put on whatever he pleases while teaching in a public school to express "sexual orientation."
"Homosexuality is an abomination to God based on the teaching of the Bible," she said. source
There are four passages in the Bible regarding homosexual acts and more than 3,000 passages about caring for the poor. Do you think Kelli Sononya has ever stood and railed that the state is not doing enough to help poor people? Has she ever railed against the sins of greed? Of course not.
So when Sononya pleads for "tolerance for those with true, deep-seated convictions based on Bible teachings" she ignores the log in her own eye. I can quote passage after passage of Jesus condemning hypocrites, but none where Jesus condemned homosexuality.
My blogmate Wabi-Sabi pointed out this great YouTube clip.
But this is a democracy, not a theocracy despite the desires of Sononya and Del. Mel Kesser, D-Kanawha, who said, "It's my right. I'm not going to discriminate against gays. I'm not going to line any of them up and shoot them. I've said this in church before. I should have the right to exercise my religious beliefs, and my religious beliefs are that the Bible says it's an abomination."
The irony of his claiming his rights while seeking to deny a group of people the same rights because of his narrow views was not lost on me.
But it is not just ignorance of the Bible and religious views in support of anti-discrimination measures against gays. Opponents to the bill showed a remarkable lack of knowledge of U.S. history and of scientific research.
Echoing the sentiments of other critics, Delegate John Pino, D-Fayette, said the bill attempts to reward behaviors of choice rather than birth determinations such as gender and race.
"This country was founded on certain principles, and one of them is that I've never known that any behavior of any individual deserves special recognition or status or grace that's to be blessed by the majority of the country," a somber Pino reflected.
Really? Did Pino choose to be heterosexual?
Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?
No, human beings can not choose to be either gay or straight. Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed. source
Even in periods when enforcement increased, it was rare for people to be prosecuted for consensual sexual relations conducted in private, even when the parties were of the same sex. Indeed, records of only about twenty prosecutions and four or five executions have surfaced for the entire colonial period. Even in the New England colonies, whose leaders denounced "sodomy" with far greater regularity and severity than did other colonial leaders and where the offense carried severe sanctions, it was rarely prosecuted. The trial of Nicholas Sension, a married man living in Westhersfield, Connecticut, in 1677, revealed that he had been widely known for soliciting sexual contacts with the town's men and youth for almost forty years but remained widely liked. Likewise, a Baptist minister in New London, Connecticut, was temporarily suspended from the pulpit in 1757 because of his repeatedly soliciting sex with men, but the congregation voted to restore him to the ministry after he publicly repented. They understood his sexual transgressions to be a form of sinful behavior in which anyone could engage and from which anyone could repent, not as a sin worthy of death or the condition of a particular class of people. See Richard Godbeer, "The Cry of Sodom": Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England, 3.52 WM. & MARY Q. 259, 259-260, 275-278 (1995); Eskridge, 1999 U. ILL. L. REV. at 645; JOHN D'EMILIO & ESTELLE B. FREEDMAN, INTIMATE MATTERS: A HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN AMERICA 30 (2d ed. 1997).
The relative indifference of the public and the authorities to the crime of sodomy continued in the first century of independence.
So why do they support bigotry and intolerance? Fear and hatred. The two are often combined.
You see, they might not know anyone who is gay. It is hard to discriminate if you learn your favorite niece or nephew comes out of the closet and is gay. It is hard to hate those you know in your family or in your circle of friends, no matter how much you have been told that "homosexuality is an abomination."
Here is a diary I wrote on Daily Kos on Nov. 14, 2004.
God bless gay-bashing Rev. Fred Phelps. Why? Because his hatred and bigotry against gays has united a very conservative church and community in Oklahoma to rally around a 17-year-old gay man, Michael Shackelford.
The story here at the Washington Post should give us all hope that American progressive values of tolerance and "Love thy neighbor," shared by Christians and atheists alike, are alive and well even in the red-state heartland.
The Washington Post did a story on the young man growing up gay in a red state in a community that openly despised him.
After Phelps read about the young man, Phelps brought his oxymoronic "God hates fags" campaign to the young man's community. (Oxymoronic because if you believe God made everything and God doesn't make mistake then God's not going to hate anything he made.)
What happened next shows that real life is much more than blue or red and black or white.
"There is darkness and there is light and we are in the middle of the light," Eubanks said, to more thunderous applause. "Say it: God loves us all. All of us!"
After the service, several people came up to hug Janice. One woman held her in an embrace that lasted two minutes, whispering to Janice the whole time.
A burly man with a crew cut gave Michael a thumbs-up. "Man, you be who you are," Shannon Watie said, holding his Bible. "We got your back."
Watie later said that he respected Michael for having the courage to come out. "I have the sin of pride, the sin of lying sometimes," said the 37-year-old father of two. "The reason why Jesus was on the cross was because we all do."
Watie voted for Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage. Civil unions? He might have considered those. Homosexuality? "That's between the person and God," Watie said.
I'm a happily married heterosexual who has had a vasectomy. One could say I don't have a stake in either the fight for gay rights or reproductive rights.
But I do. Because I'm an American and a Democrat. And Americans are supposed to look out for each other like the people in this community did for one of their own.
I saw this story as hopeful. Sure things look dark right now with George Bush's election (stolen or otherwise), the defeat of all the gay marriage amendments, and the control of Congress in the hands of the worst group of politicians since the pre-Civil War era.
This community rallied around a gay man when outsiders challenged him. It may have helped him that the outsiders came from Kansas and they're from Oklahoma, but they embraced him as one of their own.
The America of the individual cowboy or lone gunfighter embraced by George Bush and his capitalist cronies is a myth. The strength of America is in being united, not divided. It wasn't an individual* that held the line at Bunker Hill, stormed Normandy beach or died at the Alamo. Martin Luther King didn't march alone. John Glenn may have orbited the earth alone, but rose on the efforts of many. And Neil Armstrong may have took the first step on the Moon, but our hearts were there with him.
Let's remember Michael and Sand Springs, Oklahoma when we talk about the differences between red states and blue states. So even if the Phelps family is a hopeless cause, God bless them for reminding the people in Sand Springs and elsewhere that the rest of us do share many of the same values.
This fight is not over and in West Virginia gays are not alone. As I reported before, Fred Phelps said West Virginia was 'by far the worst' in countering his bigotry.
There are people who in their ignorance want to divide us instead of unite us. We need to love those who oppose us and lead them into the light. They can't claim to follow the Lord's word and then hate people and they can't discriminate and love at the same time.
SB 600 made it farther than in the past. We should remember those who opposed progress and those who tried to advance it, such as the West Virginia State Senate for passing SB 600 out unanimously, particularly Senators Kessler and McCabe. There were also 13 members of the House Judiciary who voted in favor of sending SB 600 to the floor for a vote, Delegates Clif Moore and Fleishauer tried to reason with the unreasonable as did Del. Carrie Webster, who stood up against the worst hyperbole and slurs.
It doesn't always come easy and it doesn't come at the pace we'd like, but they cannot hold back progress with their hate. The Bible also tells us love is the greatest of all.
Our friends at Texas Kaos have an excellent diary entitled, "Why Gay Voters Must Keep Asking About Gay Rights!" It's a poignant reminder of the importance of gay marriage for securing basic rights of gay couples.
It should really be called "Why All Voters Must Keep Asking About Gay Rights." Read the tragic story and remind yourself this might have been about your daughter, your sister or, even, your mother.
And, really, does it matter if it is a family member who is the one suffering? Does not every member of society -- a loved one and a stranger -- deserve to live and die with dignity?
Will 2008 be the last full year of the wretched "don't ask, don't tell" policy of discharging openly gay/lesbian members of the United States military? TPM summarizes this week's 60 minutes report showing the DADT policy is being ignored in at least some parts of today's military:
"60 Minutes" is scheduled to have a report [last Sunday night] on gays in the wartime military, and the apparent trend to occasionally disregard "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," in the face of recruiting difficulties, retention challenges, and a severely overstretched fighting force. In one instance, CBS's Lesley Stahl spoke with a gay solider who not only disclosed his sexuality to his superior officers, but "even offered graphic proof." He was neither discharged nor reprimanded, DADT be damned.
This is a no-brainer issue for Democrats to get out in front of.
It is clear the country is growing more and more tolerant. It is increasingly clear that openly gay members serving in the military pose no threat to unit cohesion, morale, or discpline. In this time of recruiting challenges, we should openly welcome all qualified individuals who wish to serve in the United States military.
It's long past time for the flawed don't-ask-don't-policy to be rescinded. Here's hoping the next Congress and the next President will do just that.
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