Did Gavin & Gay Marrage Kill Kerry's Bid for the Presidency?

I could not belive my eyes&ears when I heard finestine blame the kerry loss on gay rights.


who is ever voting for her again

As Diane Finestine and Nancy Pelocy attack gay sf
we will not be the whipping boy on this one. this is an outrage

they need the excuse for losing, and they'll move to the right on it too.

and most gays will still vote for her.

remember, people are voting against their own interests out there, for emotional reasons.

Holding him responsible for making a point and having moral values? Silly, silly! That's like saying he's responsible for the presence of stupid people in the world. (Which, by the way, he's not.)

Feinstein is practically a Republican anyway. Screw her.

But it's all in the timing. Would we have stood a better chance and not had anti-marriage laws passed in 9 states if there wasn't a backlash against what Gavin did?

What he did was right, when he did it was not politically advantageous for his party winning in the general election. And it was not politically advantageous in November for gay rights in 9 other states. I know having a strategy for things like this is wrong in the eyes of many here. Flame me, I don't care.

Now the DemoCRAPS are playing the blame game and look how quickly they turn on their base. How about this for a novel idea, blame the DemoCRAPS for running a weak candidate such as Kerry. How about blaming Kerry for not doing a better job of appealing to more Americans than Bush. That's the real sad statement, that more people found Bush more appealing than Kerry. Instead the DemoCRAPS are showing their true colors with their homophobia and their willingness to turn their back on members of their own parties.

it is not "blaming gays" to say that gay community leadership, yet again, picked the wrong issue for the wrong battle at the wrong time. some of us tried to tell them so, but they listen to their donors not their roots. they thought they'd sail in with kerry and secure their own privileges. instead, they got us all burned. none of them will lose their jobs, it's ordinary gays and ordinary everyones who will pay for their fuckups. they may well have helped swing the election, because they were busy trying to be church people for gay marriage instead of fighting for human rights and against theocrats. the real church people won. and yes, the price is not very right.

there really needs to be a reckoning in the gay ghetto. but that will never happen because gays, speaking of church, tend to worship the dollar. now, whose fault is that?

did not put those anti-gay marriage ammendments on the ballot. You want to call 50 million people you disagree with names? Fine, no coalitions for you I see.

well put the blame where it belongs, who was that last night on prime time news saying that the gay issues sank Kerrys
chances for the the Pres.

to separate our idea of our rights from any given issue.

how have gay rights and the marriage thing come to be one and the same?

we're not all fans of that hegemony, and that doesnt make us phobes.

As a straight person who lives in San Francisco I can say that sticking up for everyone's rights is more important than what two-party system candidate is in office. Who cares if Kerry lost because the majority in America is so blatantly closed-minded in religious zealotry, bigotry and homophobia? The fight has just begun.

i would assert that the fight for gay rights would be better served by a vehicle other than the "gay marriage" one. in fact, a significant minority in the gay ghetto has said so all along.

it's the reduction of this point of view to some kind of internal homophobia, that shows your blind spot. i would hope that what happened tuesday night will open your mind to a reconsideration of your point of view.

it's the reduction of this point of view to some kind of internal homophobia?

excuse me but who was that on the news last night making those statements? and you avoid the larger question.......
what are we going to do about it?

maybe the pathetic simpering for acceptance of our transgressive selves into the matrix of normalcy is a lose.

maybe we should instead campaign on the fundamental right of all humans to be different.

just an idea.

Anna Eshoo <annagram [at] mail.house.gov>;
Barbara Lee <barbara.lee [at] mail.house.gov>;
Nancy Pelosi <sf.nancy [at] mail.house.gov>
Diane Finestine ?????????

here's a lengthy exchange of comment and article posting that I had with a friend today

if you find all of it too boring, please read the Sidney Blumenthal piece from Salon.com near the bottom, as it hits the nail on the head about what's really happening, it's about eliminating the separation of church and state, substituting fundamentalism for rationality and recasting the US as some kind of theocracy

if you can read all of it, start from the top and go through to the bottom

--Richad Estes
Davis, CA

First message by RE:

[From: restes60 [at] earthlink.net
To: affirm-l [at] ucdavis.edu
Subject: Mom Guess What?: the Democratic Party Prepares for the Abandonment of Gays and Lesbians


Mom guess what, Nader the 2000 scapegoat has been replaced by a new one: gays and lesbians!

Confronted by an upsurge of religious fundamentalism that challenges the fundamental assumptions of a republic based upon the separation of church and state, the Democratic Party ponders the need for a dialogue with evangelicals, as the article set forth below indicates (it is not posted here).

No doubt the Democratic Leadership Council and its corporate donors will enthusiastically adopt this strategy as they personally probably never felt that comfortable socializing with gays and lesbians anyway.

After all, like in the Maltese Falcon, someone has to take the fall, and it can't be any of the actual perpetrators of this disaster. And, it may not be just corporate DLC types. Note specifically the willingness of the union organizer mentioned in the SF Chronicle article, Bill Burga, to try to reach out Christian conservatives, suggesting that he can change on issues like homosexuality because they will not. {note: again, I did not post the article here, but Burga mentions "homosexuality" as an issue that is unacceptable to them, and says if they can't change, he can) Given that gays and lesbians, like people of color, have been historically suspicious, and sometimes lukewarm in their support of unions in the past because of discrimination, his comments have all the earmarks of another generational labor political
error, like its hostility to the civil rights and antiwar movement in the 1960s.

Personally, I don't see much hope for the Democrats if they are going to pursue an approach of remaking themselves as the party of moderate Christian evangelical values (gay people can live on my street, as long as they don't talk to my kids) in contrast to the Republicans constituting the party of evangelical extremism (gay people should be denied any rights to housing and employment and the schools should be ordered to teach my kids creationism right after the morning Christian prayer). But I suspect that the party will take some tentative steps down this road, because the alternative, trying to reach middle and lower middle people with an agenda
of true economic populism (as opposed to the saccharine variety peddled by John Edwards), is anathema to the corporate donors who funnel their money to the party through the DLC.

So, just as I watched a Republican and a Democratic lawyer speak about "vote suppression" and "vote fraud" issues on PBS Newshour on Monday, without mentioning the words "black" or "African American" once, gays and
lesbians may soon find themselves in the same verbal quarantine zone. As for abortion, maybe it's time for people to start breaking out in a cold sweat, because, when people start implying a need to put distance between gays and lesbians and the Democratic Party, the prospect of "compromises" on abortion can't be far behind. And, there is a longstanding bond between Christian evangelicals, race and nationalism, as Christian fundamentalism of the American variety seems to be pretty adverse to dealing with people of color. Just look at the churches themselves, overwhelmingly white preserves against the exponentially multiethnic world of most large American cities.

The 2004 election has exposed the contours of the struggle in America, and it mirrors one occuring in much of the world. Low income, poor, desperate people around the world have abandoned failed leftist social movements to embrace a "political Islam" that was initially supported by the US as an
alternative to socialism. Victimized by an economic process of globalization that impoverishes them, with the left either useless or complicit, political Islam has filled the void from the Phillippines to Morrocco, with symbolic support among youth in other parts of the world. Political Islam provides food, shelter, clothing and education to many poor people in countries like Pakistan and Turkey, basic necessities that the left promised, but could not deliver in the face of American opposition.

Here in the US, the drivewheel is similar. Corporate interests, wanting to divest themselves of the responsibility of financing public sector health, education and housing, need an ideology that will persuade the populace to accept it. Pure free market economics, while alluring to well educated
people with four year university and post graduate degrees, has never been sufficient to persuade the general public to go down this road, too much history and personal experience runs counter to it. But, combine the economics with a religious philosophy that states that it is spiritually
appropriate for the church to provide these services, indeed, ideal in comparison to the cold, soulless state, and there is spontaneous combustion.

Religious intolerance, and the violent conflict that comes along with it, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is one of the dominant forces in the world today. If Democrats cannot defend the secular state against the well financed, well organized longterm assault of fundamentalism (*combined w/neo-liberalism!), they have no reason for existence. If they try to accomodate it with a "moderate" embrace, they will have crossed the line over to the enemy side.]

2nd Message: RESPONSE BY FRIEND

[Original Message:
-----------------
From: RE Friend
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 14:01:35 -0800
To: restes60 [at] earthlink.net
Subject: RE: Mom Guess What?: the Democratic Party Prepares for the
Abandonment of Gays and Lesbians

One must admit however that the spectacle of gay marriages in San Francisco and Massachussetts during the past election year turned out to be a tactical error of huge proportions. Regardless of one's stance on gay marriage, the
voting public at large was neither prepared for nor accepting of that leap in legal status for homosexuals. It was a stance that neither Bush nor Kerry supported, and the fact that eleven states used the fear and loathing of legal homosexual marriage as a referendum on their state constitutions
doomed the Kerry campaign like no other issue. Much like the gun control initiative of 1978 doomed the anti-Prop 13 campaign by bringing out more conservative voter in California, the anti-gay marriage referendums allowed
the Repubs to bring to the polls people more likely to include a vote for Bush along with their vote for the constitutional ban on gay marriage. This issue, as meritorius as may seem to progressives and lesbian and gay activists, is still part of the overall disconnect the left has with the more conservative American electorate. Secondly, there is yet no evidence
that non-voting Americans (that 45% of the registered electorate that bothered not to vote) see this issue as compelling enough to get them to the polls and vote for a progressive agenda. In a campaign looking for issues
to electrify its base, the Democrats obviously felt that this one was not the one to pursue. It is obvious that the merits of an issue, be it war, the economy, or the rights of marginalized groups, is of little concern to the supporters of Bush, who voted more out of fear and intolerance.

The Democrats purported abandonment of lesbians and gays would be a disastrous choice on their part. That would amount to confusing a political tactic for a political policy. The Democrats dropped the ball on many issues in this election. No one group or individual should be singled out for some sort of retroactive punishment when the blame rests in a sense with all of us. That being said, it doesn't change the fact that Democrats should be more mindful of their tactical advantages and disadvantages when dealing with an opponent as crafty and sophisticated as the Republicans.
Throwing red meat to the wolves on the evangelical right is not good strategy regardless of the issue. Just think of the consequences for the Democrats if Harry S. Truman had declared his support of interracial marriage in 1948. Dewey would have won by a landslide, and the photo of Truman holding the premature newspaper headline proclaiming his defeat would not be part of American history. That being said the struggle to ensure the rights of all groups in this country should continue without fail.]

Response to FRIEND by RE, including Blumenthal article from Salon.com:

[if there was a hidden issue in the election, I tend to believe it was that many Americans have a racist attitude towards Arabs generally, and therefore thought that any violence and brutality inflicted on Iraqis was just fine, with Kerry standing for a kind of misguided multiculturalism that even included Islam

there is a suggestion of something close to homophobia in the willingness of the mainstream media, and major figures in the Democratic Party, to seize upon this explanation in Ohio, when they will not even insist upon the counting of all the ballots, and an inquiry into ballot spoilage

there's also a hint of a perverse wish fulfillment in all this, as if the Democrats are giving the appearance of being pushed in a direction that they have already decided that they want to go, a sort of after the fact rationalization for a decision already made

one sees an echo of it in the media, a Weimaresque contempt for the own culture, education and personal experiences

unfortunately, I think that the problem is much more acute, with the gay and lesbian issue merely a minor aspect of a more profound, more chilling problem, as Sidney Blumenthal's piece from Salon indicates:

(and note, Blumenthal makes no specific mention of the anti-gay marriage initiatives, while commenting upon a parental notice measure in Florida)

[A moral dilemma

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday November 4, 2004
The Guardian

"This country is going so far to the right you are not even going to recognise it," remarked John Mitchell, Richard Nixon's attorney general, in 1970. Mitchell's prophecy became the mission of Nixon's College Republican president, Karl Rove, who implemented the strategy of authoritarian populism behind George Bush's victory.

In the aftermath, the Democrats will form their ritual circular firing squad of recriminations. But, finally, the loss was not due to the candidate's personality, the flaws of this or that adviser, or the party's platform. The Democrats surprised themselves at their ability to raise tens of millions, inspire hundreds of thousands of activists, and present themselves as unified around a centrist position. Expectations were not dashed. Turnout was vastly increased among African-Americans and Hispanics. More than 60% of the newly registered voters went for John Kerry. Those concerned about the economy voted overwhelmingly for him; so did those citing the war in Iraq as an issue. But the Democrats' surge was more than matched.

Using the White House as a machine of centripetal force, Rove spread fear and fused its elements. Fear of the besieging terrorist, appearing in Bush TV ads as the shifty eyes of a swarthy man or a pack of wolves, was joined with fear of the besieging queer. Bush's support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was underscored by referendums against it in 11 states - all of which won.

The evangelical churches became instruments of political organisation. Ideology was enforced as theology, turning nonconformity into sin, and the faithful, following voter guides with biblical literalism, were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture. White Protestants, especially in the south, especially married men, gave their souls and votes for flag and cross. The campaign was one long revival. Abortion and stem cell research became a lever for prying loose white Catholics. To help in Florida, a referendum was put on the ballot to deny young women the right to abortion without parental approval and it galvanised evangelicals and conservative Catholics alike.

While Kerry ran on mainstream traditions of international cooperation and domestic investments, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for "the right God". During the closing weeks, Bush and Cheney ridiculed internationalism, falsifying Kerry's statement about a "global test". They disdained Kerry's internationalism as effeminate, unpatriotic, a character flaw, and elitist. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," Cheney derided in every speech. They grafted imperial unilateralism on to provincial isolationism. Fear of the rest of the world was to be mastered with contempt for it.

This was linked to what is euphemistically called "moral values", which is social and sexual panic over the rights of women and gender roles. Only imposing manly authority against "girly men" and girls and lurking terrorists can save the nation. Above all, the exit polls showed that "strong leader" was the primary reason Bush was supported.

Brought along with Bush is a gallery of grotesques in the Senate: more than one new senator advocates capital punishment for abortion; another urges that all gay teachers be fired; yet another is suffering from obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's. The new majority is more theocratic than Republican, as Republican was previously understood; the defeat of the old moderate Republican party is far more decisive than the loss by the Democrats. There are no checks and balances.

The terminal illness of chief justice William Rehnquist signals new appointments to the supreme court that will alter law for more than a generation. Conservative promises to dismantle constitutional law since the New Deal will be acted upon. Roe v Wade will be overturned and abortion outlawed.

Now without constraints, Bush can pursue the dreams he has campaigned for - the use of US military might to bring God's gift of freedom to the world with no more global tests and at home the enactment of the imperatives of "the right God". The international system of collective security forged in the second world war and tempered in the cold war is a thing of the past. The Democratic party, despite its best efforts, has failed to rein in the radicalism sweeping the country. The world is in an emergency, but also irrelevant. The New World, with all its power and might, stepping forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old? Goodbye to all that.

· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com]

on these hacks to save us.

maybe we should save ourselves.

Some exit polling (nationally) that I saw indicated that 23% of folks identifying themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual voted for George Bush.

Yes gays were the problem -

They Won it With Gay Marriage Current rating: 2
by James Trimarco
(No verified email address) 05 Nov 2004
Modified: 12:23:35 AM
Gays and lesbians who were married this past year exercised bad strategics and bad timing.
People will expect me to preface this piece by saying "I'm not blaming gays and lesbians." But I'm not going to do that because I think the relatively conservative, tiny minority of the gay and lesbian community that thought the leadup to this election was a good time to head to the chapel in fact deserves a portion of blame for what just happened.

They played into the hands of Rove & Co. so perfectly that it's like a coreographed ballet. In 11 states, including the key battleground states of Ohio AND Florida, amendments to the state constitution banning "gay marriage" appeared on the ballot to ballot. This drew massive voter turnout from social conservatives, who showed up to support bigotry and voted for Bush on the way.

These people were mobilized and politicized, not by the outrageous civilian war casualties, environmental devastation, and economic fantasyland that marked the first term of Bush II, but by images of gays and lesbians getting married. So, to those who engaged in that movement, I say the following:

I support your right to the benefits of marriage and to equality with hetersexual married couples. But your timing was terrible. We on the Left MUST LEARN to play the game to win. That's what the Right does. We think too much about ourselves and too much in the short term. We're going to have to change that in the years to come if we want to survive.


GAY and WOMEN”S RIGHTS are the issues tearing apart the world. They are the reason that W Bush won the election. Of course the gross (intentional?) incompetence of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY (wanna-be Conservatives all…) over decades is the institution to blame. The evil underlying gays and women rights is that these are selfish and greedy pursuits – GO Ahead and reject this with the typical American Knee jerk-off mentality – it is much easier than thinking or learning or listening or being outside of your little spoiled Middle Class bubbles!

For one, Gays and women could have slowly pushed their issues or investigated whether these issues were alienating others on a large scale and disrupting society. Gays could have been content with civil unions or discreetness – but NO! the old egos and greediness and hurriedness drove them to push their little selfish values and desires onto everyone else and thus created an issue for Bush and created a division in society that need not have grown so quickly or so inopportunely.

It was the anti-Gay Marriage ballot initiatives that brought out the church and right wing voters to defeat Kerry.

When I say Women’s rights – I am not talking about the right to vote, the right to divorce or the right to work – all rights absent in much of the world. I am talking about abortion and pushing the whole package (from women’s sports to jail for non-paying fathers) of women’s issues – again – too quickly and too stridently.

But this is just the surface dilemma – the real catastrophe here is Single issue activism. The right wing – the Republicans have a fairly tidy little package of core values and demands (economic growth, imperialism, and God). This is why it is easier for them to organize and mobilize and win. The left – or the center now (since the left is long gone and brainless in the US) - thanks to the stupid Democrats and the greedy Gay/Women fanatics thinks that issues never have to tie together – Do Your Own Thing!

I was an environmental activist for years until I discovered that the holistic, systems and interconnected philosophy inherent in Green thought somehow didn’t apply to anything except green egos and Greeny pet projects (old trees, a few US-based species and recycling for more capitalism). If women’s rights and environmental concerns are not part of a general solution – like a non-capitalist economics – then they are evil and dangerous.

You won’t listen to this – happy, rich little liberals and assorted fools – Most likely you cannot listen because the education that you get from the narrow and dysfunctional liberal sources like Amy Goodman, the Sierra Club/Cult and Mother Jones magazine (NPR, Greenpeace, et al.) is worse than Fox news.

Sorry to hurt your fragile little feelings – but your selfishness and ignorance is killing 100,000;s of Islamic people and is leading to the ecocide of the planet. At least one can understand Bush and the people who vote for him – their faith and greed is out on the table – but Gays and other narrow issue slacktivists – had better slap themselves beyond horniness or else join the Iraqi insurgency – if they want to avoid the divine or global punishment they so well deserve.
Of course voting for Kerry was fascists anyway, but that is a debate that few in the US can make - or keep up with (it takes a 10th grade education and I only know a dozen people that advanced - none of them from the USA(
Peace Bro – Have a nice Global Warming Day

of exactly what I was talking about

"there's also a hint of a perverse wish fulfillment in all this, as if the Democrats are giving the appearance of being pushed in a direction that they have already decided that they want to go, a sort of after the fact rationalization for a decision already made"

and, apparently, it goes beyond Democrats, as Trimarco's piece is a classic illustration of pre-existing hostility towards gays and lesbians, attached to the current political fad (gays and lesbians cost Kerry the election) to proselytize for his viewpoint, without any proof

it's reminiscent of the person the other day who posted that left hostility towards Israel somehow cost Kerry the election, a resentment, a grudge, looking for a political event to manufacture some new kind of pseudo-legitimacy to attack their long time opponents

for example, you'd think that if the anti-gay marriage measure in Ohio cost Kerry the election that it would have likewise resulted in the loss of some Democratic seats in the House of Representatives, but I've heard no indication of it

as a straight person, I leave it to gays and lesbians to decide their lifestyle, as I do with everyone else, but they should be able to make that choice, without having straight fundamentalists make that choice for them, hence I have no objection to gay marriage, and I really object to a bunch of moderate Democratic opportunists evading their responsibility for this election disaster by playing upon homophobia


--Richard Estes
Davis, CA

>Some exit polling (nationally) that I saw indicated that 23% of folks identifying themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual voted for George Bush.

Which means that 77% (or close to, counting third parties in this election) voted for Kerry. Red herring. Next!

"there's also a hint of a perverse wish fulfillment in all this, as if the Democrats are giving the appearance of being pushed in a direction that they have already decided that they want to go

so now that the election is over we are kicked to the curb.
next election we need to remember these attacks and with hole our votes

make them address the issue!

gavin.newsom [at] sfgov.org

board.of.supervisors [at] sfgov.org
Tom.Ammiano [at] sfgov.org
Sophie.Maxwell [at] sfgov.org
Gerardo.Sandoval [at] sfgov.org
Bevan.Dufty [at] sfgov.org
Tony.Hall [at] sfgov.org
Chris.Daly [at] sfgov.org
Matt.Gonzalez [at] sfgov.org
Fiona.Ma [at] sfgov.org
Aaron.Peskin [at] sfgov.org
Michela.Alioto-Pier [at] sfgov.org
Jake.McGoldrick [at] sfgov.org

make the elite accountable for their statements

can't recall where I saw it, but it turns out that the percentage of people who cited "moral values" as a major issue in the 2004 presidential election was actually LOWER than in both the 2000 and 1996 ones

hence, the connection between gay marriage, "moral values" and the 2004 election result was non-existent

but, at least we discovered the closet homophobes inside the Democratic Party

--Richard

it's funny that the two imc's here in the bay area backed off this story. like they where told to....

hummmmmmmmmm.

for shame indy for shame

tonight ktvu-2 is doing this story, that indy-bay& nessie are scared to touch. I guess they know they don't have what it yakes for reporting real news. better leave it to professionals!

we can all watch it on channel-2 :-)

it's funny that the two imc's here in the bay area backed off this story. like they where told to....

Newsom's economic agenda is pretty right-wing and gay marriage wasnt that risky a stand for him to take as long as he doesnt plan on eventually running outside of California. But... trying to condemn gay Newsom for losing Kerry he elections is stupid. Kerry lost the election for the same reason as Gore. He came across as stuffy, elitist and boring. It had nothing to do with his political views or Bush's political views. This is America and style always matters over substance and until the Democrats can choose someone who seems more like an average person they wont win. Dean would have been less stuffy as would just about anyone else.

even ktvu is now saying that we los the election for kerry

everyone did, except for Kerry and the Democratic Leadership Council

(see my earlier posts about the lack of any statistical substantiation of the pre-packaged claim made by moderate to conservative Democrats right after the election that gays lost it)


[but it seem to be true
by kim Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 at 1:15 AM

even ktvu is now saying that we los the election for kerry]

Gavin Killed
our hopes for a liberal in the whitehouse. gavin YOU SUCK

if you ponder it you will come upon the correct answer

to be or not to be