Who's tent's not big enough......

[Perky]

Why is it nullifying bigotry to suggest as a matter of personal belief that Homosexuality is a choice? You may utterly disagree with McGlurkin, but I suspect that if this view was expressed in scientific, rather than religious terms, that the hostility would be far less.

I would respectfully submit that it is not that Mr. Obama tent is not big enough, it is that for some of you the tent he is weaving is way too big.


I would respectfully submit the hostility we have seen over the last several days has less to do with McGlurkin's shallow and pietistic statements then it does with the fear of allowing people of differing views to your own into the Big Tent of the Democratic Party.

Many of you, for reasons know only to do you are deeply suspicious or fearful of anything religious somehow contaminating the fabric of the party or the progressive identity.

I would respectfully submit that for some of you the statements made in the last few days are just as bigoted and intolerant of religiously-centered views as you suggest both McGlurkin and by extension, Obama are of the homosexual community.

We have to find a way to be more tolerant of divergent views.

I offer this not as a means of excusing McGlurkin views, but as a challenge to all of us to be more accommodating of other views, whether they are scientifically based, religiously reasoned, politically motivated, foolish nonsense, factually accurate or strongly held opinion.

[Colobo]

1. Obama's Big Tent is the Dialogue Tent

We fight intolerance by confronting it, not by running away from it.

[Solon]

15. I don't see people confronting it, I see them excusing it, and that's disgusting! n/t

[FredScuttle]

18. Confronting it?

Or is it giving it a microphone and the MC slot at your fundraising concert in a crucial primary state, leaving plenty of opportunity to clown it up about God saving him from homosexuality?

Confrontation? Good Lord..I'd hate to see him confront Al Queda.

[CyberPieHole]

20. TRANSLATION: Obama's Big Tent is ALL TALK!

Obama has sided with bigots and homophobes...no matter how you spin it.

[Maven]

52. Yet, strangely, no dialogue with racists.

Only homophobes.

Careful, Obama's hypocrisy is starting to rub off on you.

[MH1]

2. You nailed it.

Now I expect this thread will soon be overrun with posters proving your point.

[rusty quoin]

3. I think if you dilute the Democrats too much, we will not know what we stand for.

But, it is politics after all. (need the votes)

[Perky]

6. Completely Parenthetically

The Domocratic Party has never agreed with itself on much of anything. It is the nature of coalition politics.

[Solon]

4. More tolerant of divergent views? Does that include Aryan nations or the KKK...

How about the Knights Party or the CCC? Some views shouldn't be in the tent at all, they are too damned offensive to hold. These are people whose beliefs are an affront to people who are different than them. Why the fuck is that so fucking hard to understand?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. Because people consider gay a choice. It's a merry-go-round

We need to welcome a theory that renders orientation completely different from race, sex or even class.

Then everything will be better.

It's like when Milhouse said, "When Lisa sees I'll do anything she asks, she'll be sure to respect me!"

[Chovexani]

17. Hey don't you know when they burn a cross on people's lawns

It's because it's too cold and dark and they're just trying to be helpful!

[Solon]

19. I thought it meant "Welcome to the neighborhood"...

isn't that nice?

[Chovexani]

24. Such good neighbors!

Just like those fundies that vandalized my locker shrine to Athena in high school. They were just helping me do some spring cleaning! How thoughtful.

[Solon]

29. Offsarcastic...

Ha! I think I just created a new term. Anyways, I'm sorry that happened to you, I know how mean kids in high school can be, had kids who painted the street in front of my house with big letters: "Don McBee is Gay". So I can sympathize with how much that hurts. :hug:

[Chovexani]

34. High school was the worst time of my life

Actually, to get back on topic, when I dropped out of HS due to the harrassment I got from the fundies over being queer and Pagan (in New York Fuckin' City, of all places), I was depressed and suicidal. I cast a spell to get myself back on track.

Then I got a random flyer walking down St. Marks Place for the Hetrick-Martin Institute and Harvey Milk School, the self-same GLBT high school McClosetcase bashed on the 700 Club interview I posted downthread. This was in 1999, before it was a full-fledged HS, and it was just an alternative school program. They helped me find free counseling and also helped me to get my GED. In a lot of ways I owe my life to that school.

[Solon]

36. I'm glad you got help...

Back in Middle School, I was so afraid of school and was suicidal, my parents sent me to a teen "stress center", padded rooms and all. I scared them badly, and ended up there for two weeks. Of course, for me, it was just being the shy fat kid, got harassed, beaten, etc. on an almost daily basis. The shrink I was supposed to get counseling from didn't help, I think I saw him twice in those two weeks, mostly it taught me that I did NOT want to go back. The group counseling helped a little and the other kids were cool.

I just hate this poisonous atmosphere of intolerance that McClosetcase is a proponent of.

[Chovexani]

38. Oh god, that sounds awful

:hug: I'm glad you made it out. So many don't.

This is what the Obama defenders don't understand. It's about more than a candidate or a campaign. It's about our character as people...it's about standing up to this culture of hate that is REALLY killing our kids.

People like McClosetcase are bullies and fascists. They want to make life a living hell for anyone who is different...and of course we should "tolerate" the bullies because they are beating us with Bibles instead of fists.

Eff that noise.

[Solon]

39. Bullies, that term is a very accurate description of him...

and this "culture of hate" is something that I stand against. I just can't stand these coddlers of hate, like Obama.

Also, another :hug: for you, I'm glad you were able to get your GED and some help. Once in a while its good to be able to talk to people about what hurts you, and how to deal with it. I would say "get over it" but that's not true, we don't, we learn to deal with it, to learn that the problem isn't with ourselves, but with the bullies, whether they are bullying us from the pulpit or in the hallway at school.

[dbackjon]

58. Thank you for sharing that

And putting a personal connection to the evil that McClurkin promotes/represents.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. You are absolutely right

This is all about our fear of other viewpoints.

The well-dressed women who spat "faggot" at the pitiful handful of peaceful protesters outside the concert hall were just offering their different, and equally valid, viewpoint... that those guys were faggots.

[Chovexani]

7. ...

:spray: :rofl:

[FredScuttle]

8. ZING!

well played....well played

[CyberPieHole]

11. Bravo!

:applause:

[mondo joe]

9. When Obama has Imus and Michael Richards emcee for him and spew racit crap, then

I'll give your idea credence.

[Solon]

10. In addition, you do NOT accomodate bigotry, period, I cannot believe you post this shit! n/t

[FredScuttle]

12. These fine religious folks want in on the Big Tent with their "divergent views"

Rev. Freddie's asking if he can get a prime time spot at the Convention....guess we'll have to give it to him right? Out of "tolerance"?

[Chovexani]

14. Of course, it's just another valid point of view

:puke:

[Mojambo]

22. "Religiously reasoned" divergent views, I'm sure... n/t

[hedgehog]

45. Link?

Seriously, my mother doesn't understand my daughter being gay. That doesn't mean my mother is Fred Phelps. In fact, Go
Od help anyone who hurt my daughter because she is gay if my mother finds out.

[Democrats_win]

16. The big tent will be in Denver next August. Now we have politics. Obama needs this to go away.

My take on this is that Obama made a mistake in allowing McGurkin on his stage--an indication that he isn't ready to be president?. I agreed with Obama on his call to go into Pakistan and get the 9/11 murderers. Hillary and the pundits were wrong to criticize him. That was forgotten and replaced with Bushler talking about going into Iran. WTF? Why isn't Hillary saying that this proves Bush isn't ready to be president? Of course that would be after the fact, but it shows that Bush STILL isn't ready to be president after his 7 years of on the job mistakes and attacking the wrong countries--STILL.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

21. Serious question:

Does your view apply to theorists of genetic racial inferiority and holocaust deniers.

And if not, why not? Simply because second-class status for homosexuals is a popular idea, or some other reason?

[Solon]

23. Don't expect an answer, looks like a hit and run post. n/t

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

25. from the tin-pan alley kids...

And if you got that reference you are really-truly gay!

[Perky]

28. If you can show me factually that McGlurkin has said that

Gays were inferior or second class human beings then I would be interested in seeting the details because at that point, he should neither be called a member of the Democratic Party or the Christian religion.

[FredScuttle]

31. "God delivered me from homosexuality"

That his exact quote from the Sunday Homophobia Tour.

Defend that

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

32. Here's the strongest brief on the topic I can offer off the top of my head (it's rather persuasive)

He publicly allied himself with the "war on the curse of homosexuality" ("Not a war of violence, but a war of purpose" of course) in before playing at the 2004 Republican convention over the protests of the Human Rights Campaign and, coincidentally, the African-American version of the HRC.

I don't see how anyone can read this letter ( http://www.hrc.org/issues/2031.htm ) and say, "Gee, why would this guy be inappropriate for a national democratic candidate's fundraiser?"

When a class of people's identity is said to be "curable" and that we need a war against that identity, and the vessel for that war is George W. Bush in 2004, then it's way over any line I've heard of. Particularly since McClurkin was preaching this war on homosexuality in the midst of the republican party's project of getting gay marriage referenda on ballots in swing states, like Ohio... a wedge issue that may well have cost Kerry the election.

McClurkin is not the harmless ex-gay eccentric the Obama camp has spun him to be. This guy went on the 700 Club and said "we need to take off the gloves and close that school" referring to the Harvey Milk school in New York. And he has also said on the 700 Club that "homosexuals are killing our children"

If he were just some religious guy who thought god cured him of being gay it would be distasteful, but this is a whole different deal. This guy has served as an anti-gay ally of republicans who would genuinely just as soon put GLBT in camps... for real. He has a political activist anti-gay history.

Many on this board supported the HRC call to remove the guy from the Republican convention line-up in 2004, so many folks were genuinely SHOCKED that Obama selected the guy to do the same damn performance at an Obama fundraiser. Actaully, Obama's event was worse, since the guy spoke about his cured staus on stage, not in newpapers or on the 700 club before the performance, as he did in 2004.

If Bush had peddled the inclusion line to defend McClurkin at the RNC convention nobody here would have bought it, so why is it better coming from our own?

It is WORSE coming from our own. The Democratic party is supposed to be a refuge... GLBT don't get gay marriage, but at least they don't get gratuitously spit upon by national democratic candidates... or at least not until recently.

[Chovexani]

35. That is why I hate Donnie so much

I posted this upthread but I'll say it again: the Harvey Milk School is why I'm still here. I dropped out of HS because the fundies were making my life hell, I was depressed and suicidal.

I randomly got a flyer for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, and the Harvey Milk School. At the time ('99) it was not yet a full fledged high school, but rather an alternative school program that was part of Hetrick-Martin. I went to Harvey Milk and the people there helped me find free counseling, and also helped me get my GED.

So this shit is extra personal for me. People liek Donnie are the ones who are killing our children. The Harvey Milk School and programs like it save lives...I am living proof.

[FredScuttle]

37. Good for you

Donnie McClosetCase is "just a gospel singer", don't you know :sarcasm:

[hedgehog]

46. Did Donnie ever have the opportunity to attend Harvey Milk?

If you'd had Donnie's life, would you be the same person you are today?

[Chovexani]

33. McClosetcase on the 700 Club in 2003

Here is the transcript of Donnie's 700 Club interview in 2003, which has since been removed from the cbn.org website.

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2007/10/mcclurkin-i-was.html

Some choice quotes:

The recent limelight on the homosexual agenda has Donnie stirred. "The gloves are off," he says. "And if there's going to be a war, there's going to be a war. But it will be a war with purpose."

"I'm not in the mood to play with those who are trying to kill our children. Someone has to be the voice for them, and our children are only hearing one voice right now."

He has declared war on us because we are child killers. Later in the same interview, he thanked God for the 700 Club and "telling it like it is".

[FredScuttle]

26. "expressed in scientific, rather than religious terms, that the hostility would be far less."

Only because we'd be laughing too hard.

There are many truisms in this world - the world is round, the earth revolves around the sun, HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A CHOICE

Anyone who says differently should be laughed out of the discussion, pronto, because they are clowns and ignorant troglodytes

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

27. Hey Fred, I've been meaning to say to you...

If it was you I snapped at over Elvis Costello a while back it was because things were so tense at the time, and I read it as an obama troll setting up a predicate for smearing Clinton for appearing on stage with a racist who was much worse than McClukin, etc. etc.

Sorry!

[FredScuttle]

30. No need to apologize

I posted that mostly in jest....I thought the comic juxtaposition of Elvis C. playing Hillary's concert right around Rev. McClosetCase's clowning it up was too rich to resist.

I'm glad you got the reference and I'm a huge E.C. fan.

[IndianaJones]

40. bwahaha. I love it. nt.

[PurityOfEssence]

41. Religion is not superior to or even equal to Science

The supernatural should not be allowed to be more important than the natural. To do so is to endorse extreme irrationality and chip away at causality and make everything subject to superstition.

Our senses are the only things we have to perceive the world with any demonstrable accuracy; to subordinate these to guesses and stories and such is the road to ruin.

As sentient beings, we are quite limited, but that's precisely the point: wise people are aware of their limitations and try to operate within them; fools have all the answers and dismiss evidence that doesn't fit the rutted prejudice.

This is why religion shouldn't be in the political realm: it creates an intellectual aristocracy, and it creates a ludicrous one, since the heart of the premise is certainty and the dismissal of change or reassessment.

We, as somewhat conscious beings, should operate within the realm of what we can perceive and prove; to do otherwise is to mock reality and flirt with insanity and self-indulgence.

Any takers?

[IndianaJones]

42. is this thread in re-runs? nt.

[Bluebear]

44. Must be the writer's strike

[Bluebear]

43. "Homosexual, homosexual, homosexual" - Just can't force yourself to type "gay", can you?

Holy moly.

[cuke]

47. Why is the question one of "Choice vs Genes"

when every other time we ask a similar question it's "Genes vs Environment"?

[Greyskye]

48. apostrophe apoplexy

"Who's" = whose

"Who is tent is not big enough?" It's certainly not big enough for the grammar police! :evilgrin:

[NMMNG]

49. Obama's tent is too big?

Where is the KKK?
Where are the Skinheads?
Where is Stormfront?

If he's going to invite rabid homophobes into his tent then why not other hate groups?


Many of you, for reasons know only to do you are deeply suspicious or fearful of anything religious somehow contaminating the fabric of the party or the progressive identity.


What I'm afraid of is people using their "deeply held religious beliefs" to prevent me from having the civil/human rights that are due to me, or to inflict harm on me or people like me. Is that wrong?

[Lex]

50. If one casts his or her racist views in religious terms (as was done in the past)

then should the Democratic party embrace those intolerant but "divergent" views?

[Maven]

51. Your fucking "personal views" on the matter are irrelevant.

EVERY GLBT person on the planet, other than delusional self-hating ultrareligious morons like Donnie McClurkin, who will be gay till the day he dies whether he "chooses" to be or not, has told all the rest of you, REPEATEDLY, that they did not choose to be gay and could not choose to be straight.

Yet you, as part of the majority, want to look at us and basically call us LIARS and delegitimize our very EXISTENCE.

That is bigotry. Period. Whether or not you justify your hate and denial on religious grounds, that's what it is. HATE AND DENIAL. AND THAT IS NOT A "DIVERGENT VIEWPOINT" I WANT REFLECTED BY MY PARTY. Just like I don't want my party to embrace racists, either. Thanks.

[NMMNG]

57. Don't take it to heart

He de-legitimizes atheists existence too. It's just his nature to do that to anyone he doesn't give a shit about, or anyone who might question his God-given evangelical right to implement a theocracy.

[JackBeck]

53. Taking your views into account, you believe that

Progressive Democrats should embrace the views of racists, sexists and homophobes?

Shouldn't we be embracing a party of change instead of a party slumming for votes? Rumor has it we won the popular election in 2000.

[Lucinda]

54. You forgot to include agists.

With the boomers out of the tent, there is a ton more room.

[NMMNG]

56. There could be yet more room

Who knows what group Obama will toss aside next? :shrug:

[cuke]

55. This "reaching out" and "big tent" lines are BULLSHIT

With more than 90% of blacks voting Dem, I don't see how Obama's gospel expanded the Dem's tent by one vote. Obama wasn't trying to get votes from repukes; He was getting votes from Dems