Howard Dean Foot-In-Mouth Disease Strikes Again

Howard Dean just cannot seem to take Abraham Lincoln's advice on speaking. It's as though he's continuously compelled by some cosmic force to "remove all doubt."

Consider his latest swipe at the Republicans:

"They can't become more diverse," Dean said at a speech at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Tuesday. "Who in their right mind, if they were African-American or Hispanic or Asian-American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?"

This quote was apparently enough to motivate Log Cabin Republicans' Patrick Sammon to take a break from his abortive modeling career to angrily decry Dean's commentary:

"It’s unfortunate that the chairman of the Democratic Party would rather divide people than engage in a thoughtful debate about policy ideas or a vision for our country’s future."

Now far be it for us to defend the GOP, whose anti-gay record is indisputable to all but the most partisan Republican Party hack, but once again, Howard Dean has stuck his foot in his mouth.

After all, it's pretty crazy to be a gay Democrat these days too.

Their chief of staff is sending pricey lawyers to threaten the gay press for covering the DNC's anti-gay activities.

Their two front runners for the presidential election are both opposed to UAFA as written, marriage equality, taxation equality, and equality in law enforcement. On the few issues where they do take a pro-gay stance, such as military service, they have consistently refused to sponsor or co-sponsor legislation on the issue.

Howard Dean embarrassed himself with an earlier foot-in-mouth disease outbreak on Pat Robertson's anti-gay 700 Club, bashing gay marriage and pandering to anti-gay right-wingers for votes.

And on and on it goes.

So once again, Howard embarrasses himself and his employer by more or less declaring "the Republicans get an F- on gay issues, while Democrats have a much better record with a mere F!"

Perhaps when Kenneth Cole finish with their Log Cabin Republican line of shoes, they could create a new line for Howard Dean Democrats -- flavored shoes. After all, Dean has become quite the frequent connoisseur when it comes to tasting his own foot -- perhaps he'd appreciate some variety!

Utah Libertarians Oppose Anti-Gay Standard Bearer

This post from GLAAD says that Utah Libertarians are trying to certify "None of the Above" as their nominee for Governor to keep anti-gay Dell Schanze from being their nominee.

Now it looks like, regardless of his high profile, the Libertarians don’t want him. One of the few Libertarians successfully elected to office is former Big Water, Utah Mayor Willy Marshall – who served as Mayor as an openly-gay man. Former Mayor Marshall and other Utah Libertarians are trying to certify “None of the Above” as the party’s nominee for Governor, instead of Schanze. They say this is in a large part due to Schanze’s anti-gay views.

I'd just rather see Willy Marshall as the nominee.

Gay Media Calls Out Democrats

We're pleased to see the Washington Blade -- the New York Times of the LGBT press corps -- take on the hypocrisy of do-nothing Democrats. After being handed the absolute power they demand from LGBT people, they continue to fail in delivering even basic equality under the law:

MEANWHILE, MARYLAND’S POLITICIANS continue to betray their gay constituents. After the state’s high court, in a 4-3 ruling, upheld a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, gay residents looked to their elected officials to right a judicial wrong. And once again, they are being let down.

While gay couples in committed, long-term relationships are still viewed as strangers under the law and remain desperately in need of a legislative remedy, lawmakers have turned their attention to more pressing matters, like banning cell phone use while driving and upholding a ban on online wine sales. This is not the behavior of courageous political leaders; it is the hallmark of cowards so desperate to hold onto power that they fear creating a ripple on the pond.

And this is in Maryland, a decidedly “blue” state where Democrats control both houses in the Assembly and the governor’s mansion. It’s become apparent that a full marriage rights bill is doomed and the state’s lawmakers aren’t even embracing the cop-out of civil unions. That’s not surprising, considering the powerful Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller, a Democrat, opposes civil unions.

And what of the DNC, whose anti-gay meltdown we chronicled in January?

Apparently, they're now using pricey lawyers to threaten the LGBT press:

In the piece, I wrote that the DNC’s response to anti-gay remarks made by Gen. Peter Pace, President Bush’s former chair of the Joint Chiefs, was insufficient and weak.

In response, Daughtry sent two lawyers to the Blade’s offices to berate me and our publisher, Lynne Brown. The meeting was beyond contentious and featured lots of red-faced cursing and threatening of lawsuits. They claimed to represent Daughtry and not the DNC. But DNC officials have gloated behind the scenes that since the confrontation in the Blade’s offices, the paper has stopped writing about a gay man’s lawsuit against the party, his former employer. Donald Hitchcock accuses the DNC of firing him after his partner, Paul Yandura, publicly urged gay donors to think twice before giving money to the Democratic Party.

...

This is what happens to gay people who challenge Democrats to be better on our issues. Dean and others at the DNC have derided the Blade as right-wing birdcage liner. Both criticisms are absurd; no fair-minded person could reasonably consider the Blade a conservative publication and judging by the innumerable references to the Blade in the Hitchcock case depositions, DNC officials spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about what we write. They may line their birdcages with our pages, but not until they’ve read them cover to cover.

These people are those who claim to deserve your vote.

Given them absolute power as in Maryland, and they do nothing to advance equality under the law.

Criticize them in any way, and they send high-paid lawyers to curse, scream obscenities, and issue threats.

It's time for us to support candidates who stand for us -- and against these abuses of power. Outright's endorsed candidate for the Libertarian nomination, George Phillies, proudly embraces equality under the law and has a long history of fighting (and winning) battles for gay people and all Americans. If elected, he'll restore integrity to the White House and ensure that there's a place for gay people at the table beyond fundraisers and being the punching bags for wealthy Democrats' lawyers.

A Contrast in LGBT Leadership

Now, we at Outright Libertarians are not under the illusion of perfection. We have our flaws, our faults and our foibles. We cannot stay on top of every important LGBT issue. Sometimes we miss a news story or two.

But we can say we do our best -- mostly as volunteer activists -- to keep gay issues front and center in political life in America.

One benchmark that can be easily used is comparing our activities as partisan activists to those of other campaigns. Recently, a member of Barack Obama's LGBT leadership team, Maxim Thorne, was forced to step down after posting some inflammatory comments about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on a listserve.

Was the "LGBT leadership team" member attacking Clinton's position on DOMA? Nope, because Obama more-or-less shares it.

Was he pointing out Clinton's opposition to passing UAFA as written? Nope, Obama shares that position too.

Was he criticizing Clinton's failure to sponsor or co-sponsor Senate legislation to repeal the anti-gay military policy? 'Fraid not -- Obama shares that failure.

He was pushed to resign because his post was an attack on Clinton that had absolutely nothing to do with gay issues -- as in zip, zero, nada.

Where was she when Monica was having sex with Bill? 35 years of experience? When he was intimidating Katherine Wiley and Paula Jones? Where was the judgment on the cattle futures and white water. Do we forget Mark and Denise Rich? This was an impeached President who lost his license to practice law. He committed perjury. They settled with Paula Jones for the full amount of her lawsuit. I haven't forgotten and none of us should.

Monica Lewinsky. Paula Jones. Katherine Wiley. Whitewater. Cattle futures. Mark and Denise Rich. The Clinton impeachment. So much for us sometimes being slow to address news stories -- these "stories" are over a decade old!

Not to mention the fact that they have no relevance to LGBT issues whatsoever.

I suppose that when it comes to issues of importance to the LGBT community, you could say that Outright Libertarians hasn't forgotten and that none of us should. We wish the partisan Democratic Party LGBT "leaders" would take the same approach.

California Supreme Court to Hear Marriage Equality Case This Week

Sacramento's news reports that California's Supreme Court is finally hearing arguments on the marriage equality case first filed in 2004:

The California Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments Tuesday on lawsuits brought in 2004.

The suits were filed the day after the court halted a monthlong wedding spree that took place in San Francisco at Mayor Gavin Newsom's direction.

California is home to more gay and lesbian couples than any other state, and its Legislature and courts have a tradition of being pacesetters on gay issues.

The Sacramento channel also reports that:

But gay marriage opponents think the court will be reluctant to go against voters, who in 2000 approved a measure bolstering the state's existing one-man, one-woman marriage law.

We've been through all of this before. After all, the US Supreme Court "went against the voters" of Alabama (by overturning Jim Crow laws) and Virginia (by overturning racist anti-marriage laws) when both of those laws had far more popularity with voters in those states than the bizarre "Knight" initiative passed by a relatively small margin in California eight years ago.

As evolution continues on the issue, we hope the California Supremes choose a role upholding the values of the founders and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, rather than the anti-gay position embraced by all those has-been failed Republican presidential candidates.

Democrats Gay-Baiting (Again)

Remember the outrage from Democrats at the GOP's old "Hillary Clinton is a lesbian?" buzz?

It was scurrilous and baseless homophobia, gay-baiting at its worst, Democrats told us. And they were right -- it was.

Too bad that the Democrats themselves, through one of their largest lobby groups, are now gay-baiting Republicans:



"Marriage of convenience!" Tee hee. Get it? The targeted Republicans must be big old yucky queers! Ewwwwwww!

Those clever Democrats.

Not.

Regardless of what one thinks of McConnell and Cho's policies (Libertarians certainly aren't fans), the Democratic Party's willingness to engage in immature gay-baiting (and their partisan gay apologists' immature glee for such tactics) should serve to remind LGBT voters that Democrats simply cannot be trusted on gay issues.

Not only will they not take chances or risk political capital to advance equality under the law; not only will they be instrumental supporters of the anti-gay military policy, the DOMA and key supporters of the recent failed anti-gay marriage amendment in Congress; but they'll advocate segregation through "civil unions" and readily exploit high school homophobia to get cheap laughs from their base.

The best thing queer voters can do with these high-school kids is withhold their lunch money and send them to their rooms for a few election cycles.