Laura Flanders: To Beat the Right, Clinton and Obama Need to Be Clear About Supporting Gay Rights

from AlterNet:


Laura Flanders: To Beat the Right, Clinton and Obama Need to Be Clear About Supporting Gay Rights

By Laura Flanders, AlterNet. Posted April 9, 2007.


Democrats will keep getting attacked on sexuality, marriage and abortion for as long as they dodge the discussion.

The following excerpt is adapted from Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians by Laura Flanders (Penguin, 2007).

In 2004 it was Swift Boating. In 2008 will it be gay-baiting that skewers the Democratic candidate? It's not too late for Democratic contenders to start thinking about the so-called culture wars. Indeed they'd better do more than think, if the campaign so far is any indication of where it might be headed.

Ann Coulter's not going anywhere. There was tut-tutting in the media when she told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that she couldn't talk about John Edwards without using the word "faggot," but the crowd in attendance roared. I suspect her trial balloon's not burst yet.

When General Peter Pace, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Chicago Tribune that homosexuality was immoral and should be prosecuted, the response of the Democratic front-runners was worse than weak. Asked to respond to Pace's assertions, both of the Democrats' lead money-raisers prevaricated.

Is homosexuality immoral, an ABC reporter asked Hillary Clinton point-blank: "I'm going to leave that to others to conclude" she answered. When asked by Newsday, repeatedly, if same-sex relationships were immoral, Barack Obama changed the subject: "I think traditionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has restricted his public comments to military matters...That's probably a good tradition to follow."
...(snip)...

Unfortunately, traditional political calculus takes people of color, sexual minorities, and abortion-rights defenders for granted because they're unlikely to defect to Republicans. The result is that Democrats have limped through two elections hammered by the Right on "hot button" issues like abortion and gay marriage, and the only strategic response they've come up with is to dismiss those issues -- and those groups -- as "special interests."

It's appealing to believe, as Thomas Frank does, that the "culture wars" can be trumped by talking about class or, as Wallis seems to, that one can flee false dichotomies by changing the subject. But the fact is, Democrats don't have a choice about whether to tackle gay issues or abortion or immigration. In this respect politicians find themselves in the same position as queer people: sticks and stones do actually break bones. You can take every high road all the way to the hospital, but it's better to fight back. In politics that means getting out front with a message that works -- on class and national security, yes, and also on the "cultural" issues.

The truth is that Democrats, progressives, and fair-minded Republicans will never be anti-gay or anti choice or anti-racial justice enough to quiet their opponents. The only people left with any doubt about where Democrats stand on cultural issues are those whose lives are at stake. Those inconveniently irreverent and striving real people -- whom pundits dare not mention by name but allude to with the code name "culture" -- those Americans are the Democrats' base, whether the party likes it or not. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/50316/