Peddling Hate: From Sea to Shining Sea

On the West Coast, in Everett Washington, the anti-gay group known as the "Watchmen on the Walls" is convening for the weekend to brainstorm with other homophobes, hoping to come up with new and more effective measures to bribe lawmakers into enacting legislation that denies legal rights and protections to the LGBTQ Community.

If these folks were just some wing-nut fringe group that the mainstream media and politicians ignored, a gathering such as this may not be worth reporting.

Unfortunately, the "Watchmen" are just one of many other organizations with a similar purpose who largely control the Republican party and hold sway over many Democrats as well.

On the East Coast, (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida) the Values Voter Summit (also known as the Religious Right's Super Bowl weekend) is expected to help the wing-nuts hone in on which candidate best represents their convoluted and hypocritical pro-war, anti-stem-cell research, anti-contraceptive, anti-choice, anti gay adoption, anti-Marriage Equality, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, anti-children's health care, anti-welfare, anti-science, stance.

No wonder these people are having a hard time finding a candidate that is able to twist himself into such strange positions that he will be un-electable in the general election.

In order to woo these crazies, Republicans have to lie about supporting issues that will turn off all of the rest of us.

Take Romney, for example, who made the following statement when he was running for the Senate in Massachusetts against Ted Kennedy:

"I had a dear, close family relative who was very close to me [who died from an illegal abortion] and I promise I will not force my beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that.”

Oh, really?

How interesting... since Romney recently proclaimed:

“I am pro-family on every level, from personal to political... as President, I will oppose abortion in military clinics, oppose funding abortion in international aid programs and I will work to ban embryonic cloning.”

He's not only a liar, he's a flip-flopping liar.

Even though Romney and the other candidates are willing to lie through their teeth to win the Republican nomination, the wing-nuts are still not satisfied with the field of candidates.

Of the Democrats, only Kucinich and Gravel are in support of full legal equality.

Hillary, Obama and Edwards all say they oppose our right to be treated as full citizens.

What a sorry state we are in today!

As 50+ year old women, we are disgusted that we are treated like children -- forced to beg abusive adults for rights and privileges that should be ours simply by virtue of our citizenship!

It is humiliating and degrading to be put in this juxtaposition against a gang of thugs who claim the Earth is 6,000 years old, that God created the Earth in 6 days, that dinosaurs lived on the Earth with humans, and that Global War and Global Warming are all necessary precursors to the second coming of Christ at which time the believers will be raptured up and the rest of us will be "left behind."

We say, good riddance. Why wait for the rapture?

If these crazies really hate social and legal progress, they should flock together like the sheeple they are and found another country where they can create their Earthly utopia.

If that ever happens, we give them 2 years before they start to create cliques which eventually turn on others....

Sheesh.

Rights, Rites and Whites

Today marks the 87th anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Furthermore, August 6^th was the 43^rd anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress passed in order to enforce the then 95 year old 15^th Amendment giving Blacks the right to vote.

So happy anniversary to all of you who – not so long ago -- had to beg powerful white men to bequeath upon you rights that were already (according to the original Constitution) yours!

You would think – given the circumstances – that the greatest ally of the LGBTQ Community’s struggle for equality would be women and Blacks.

For who could better understand our cause than those people who only recently (historically speaking) were forced to organize, petition, picket, lecture, write, march, lobby, and practice civil disobedience to achieve rights that should have been theirs by virtue of their U.S. citizenship?

Unfortunately, some women and some Blacks make it their life’s work to deny full citizenship rights to us and our families.

But if we have learned anything at all over the last 7 years it is to be skeptical about simple, sloganeering-style explanations for complex issues:

• Why DO groups like Concerned Women for America and some Black churches resist equal marriage rights?
• Who benefits when disenfranchised minorities are pitted against one another?
• Who has a motive for causing fractures where there need not be any?
• Who needs to cause a distraction away from real issues of economic and social injustice?

Dig a little deeper into the issue and you will discover that equal marriage rights are fraught with racial politics.

For example, did you know that the anti-marriage crusade carried out by opposition groups (and churches) are -- in large part -- being financially backed by various right-wing Christian groups like the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council?

And also, were you aware that both of these groups have histories and overlapping staff ties to white supremacist/anti-feminist organizations?

And surely you are aware that even as they play up Christian allegiances regarding the equal marriage issue, these so-called “Christian” groups solidly oppose affirmative action, a woman’s right to choose, pay equity and more?

Since the Christian Right has loads of money and lots of access to corporate media, they help to set the racial/sexual paradigm that much of America gets in the equal marriage rights debate.

And their message to the Black community is simple: queers, fags and homos are rich, white sinners who want their dysfunctional sexual activity to be normalized, accepted and taught to children… oh, and, we do not need special rights, unlike Black people and heterosexual women, who are, (at least in this one little narrow case), morally superior, with the right kind of “family values.”

We haven’t even touched on the issue of “illegal immigration” or on the misinformation campaign on “Islamofascists.” These are just two more examples of ways in which we are made to be and feel afraid of each other, keeping us separate and apart and unable to organize a collaborative effort to overcome the stranglehold of our white, wealthy and mostly male oppressors.

Suffice it to say that there are multiple networks of right-wing organizations and “conservative” funders – some with altruistic agendas and others with missions that are intended to oppress one group and elevate another -- who support each other ideologically and financially. They have created a bizarre coalition of differing and sometimes competing agendas.

Why can't we -- their ultimate targets -- do the same?

Despite having the right to vote, only 79% of American’s who are eligible to vote are actually registered – and of those 79% of registered voters, only 55% actually DO vote!

Even when you factor in all of the problems with voting machines and ballots, voter suppression efforts, etc., can you imagine the power we could have if we could somehow cut through the smokescreen and organize together?

The lesson to be learned from the struggles of other groups who have “won” their rights (yet still await their deliverance) is that we need each other.

As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. so wisely said “Justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Until all oppressed minorities recognize our common (if not equal) oppressions, we are doomed to continue to unwittingly do the work of the powerful elite by oppressing one another on their behalf – leaving them with lots of time and money to continue to rape and pillage our communities and families.