As Georgia voters prepare to head to the polls on Feb. 5 to take part in what’s been dubbed Super Duper Tuesday, when more than 20 states hold their presidential primaries, many local gay leaders are speaking out with public endorsements.
With Hillary Clinton fresh off a crucial win in New Hampshire and Barack Obama still riding on his win in Iowa, local gay voters acknowledge they are torn between the two.
Both Democratic presidential candidates claim nearly the same stance on gay issues such as repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as providing legal protections for gay couples. But John Edwards, also a strong gay rights supporter, seems to have lost his footing in the race, according to University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock.
Even if he doesn’t win the nomination or the oval office, Thursday night Barack Obama stepped into history, and basically took the rest of the country with him.
Someone asked a co-worker of mine yesterday, “Did you ever think you’d live to see the day?” Well, I was pretty sure I would. (And will.) But last night was a pleasant surprise, not to mention inspiring.
Like I said, he’s not my first choice as a candidate, but I can see what draws people to support him.
No big surprise here. I stumbled on to GlassBooth.Org [via Living the Scientific Life] and took their quiz, which basically matches you up with three candidates from the current presidential field whose positions are most similar to your own. Here’s what I got.
Sure, these quizzes are often overly simplistic, and don’t ask enough questions. (This one was interesting in that it asked you weigh a list of issues according to their importance to you.) But for what it’s worth, the results for me are pretty accurate.
Just out of curiosity, I decided to see how well matched I am with the rest of the Democratic field. Read the rest of this entry »
Michael in Norfolk points out an article about Obama’s latest statement on DOMA.
In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter Monday, December 17, Tobias Wolff, a gay man who’s chair of the national LGBT policy committee for the Obama campaign, called the Illinois senator a “fighter” who will stand by his principles.
…Wolff, 37, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, also noted that while he disagrees with Obama on the issue of same-sex marriage, he nonetheless believes that Obama is the better candidate. Obama, as well as the other leading Democratic candidates, support civil unions. Wolff supports marriage equality. But Wolff drew a distinction with Obama’s and Clinton’s position on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Obama supports repeal of all DOMA, while Clinton is on record supporting repeal of only part of the legislation. President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law, as well as the anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy that prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces.
At the Logo presidential forum in August, Clinton said that she would repeal Section 3 of DOMA, which states that, for federal purposes, “marriage” can mean only marriage between a man and a woman, thus it essentially denies same-sex couples more than 1,100 federal benefits enjoyed by married heterosexual couples. Section 2, however, says that states do not have to recognize same-sex relationships, and Clinton has not gone so far as to support repeal of that provision.
What that part of DOMA means, Wolff said, is that gay couples could have problems should they move to a state that doesn’t recognize their relationship. That section of DOMA could also come into play regarding custody or wrongful death issues.
“States can disregard judgments,” Wolff said, referring to the problems that could arise. “Senator Obama from the start said this is wrong and we shouldn’t be making excuses.”
I’ve already made it clear who I’m supporting during the primaries. I’m voting my hopes until I have to settle for what I can get. And while I’ve been critical of all the rest of the Democratic field, Obama’s statement on DOMA does underscore a distinction that should become more important as the field narrows. Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven't yet, take the time to stop by Box Turtle Bulletin, where they have been doing a great series of day-by-day posts on the Matthew Shepard murder. Today's post is a particularly heartbreaking one, about the moment ten years ago when Dennis and Judy Shepard walked into their son's intensive care room and saw him for the first time since the attack. It also links to the earlier posts in the series.
Its sounds like a joke, but it's true. You know the economy has gone South when folks around in Macon (or anywhere else in the south) are going to restaurants and not ordering sweet tea.
Big news. Clay Aiken is gay. Bigger news. So is Lindsey Lohan. Or, at least, she's been dating a woman "for a really long time." I don't know what counts as "a really long time" for Lohan. But kudos to Aiken, at least, for finally coming out. The closet is no place to raise a kid.
See, stuff like this is the reason I don't use Google Ads already. I tried it for a while, but I kept getting advertisements for James Dobsons' books on my posts, and I never found an easy way to block them other than entering the URL into the Google Ads filter every time I discovered one. No thanks.
If you want just one reason to vote for Obama instead of John McCain — and you're someone who cares about reproductive freedom or the right to privacy — the words "Supreme Court" should be enough. If not, consider that George W. Bush appointed more than 300 federal judges during his term, and ask yourself how many more like these you want to see on the bench.
Watching: "Constantine's Sword (2007)", about the evangelical takeover of the United States Air Force Academy, and wondering... ( http:/ ... 1 week ago
Reading: A guy who got 10 years in a mortgage scam that sounds an awful lot like what some financial firms were doing. Difference? Nobod ... 1 week ago
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