Friday, August 10, 2007
Logo's Democratic Non-Debate
The homochannel isn't established enough to host a proper debate. Owned by MTV, the network essentially created a different category, a fairly undemanding forum, to lure Democratic candidates (and, though none, not even the "socially liberal" Giuliani, rsvp'd with a yes, Republicans too). If debates are like marriage, this event was a civil union; one is supposed to marvel at the political clout wielded by the LGBT community in its ability to rise to the second-class occasion by having a one-on-three chat that glancingly engages the different candidates' positions. (It's okay that the results did not mirror perfectly the current hierarchy, but it is somewhat strange when preening for acceptance produces Dennis Kucinich as the winner.)
It was therefore foreordained that this forum would be about marriage, marriage, marriage. The narrative last evening shaped is essentially that "since everyone opposes 'don't ask, don't tell,' their position on same-sex marriage is the only item that differentiates one candidate from another, with respect to the LGBT community and its interests." Well, with an audience stacked with well-dressed, mainstream people, some of them veterans (plus a few C-listers like Neil Patrick Harris), that's basically what one would expect.
John Edwards, anguishing at a literal hair's breadth from openly supporting gay marriage, finagled in vain to connect his uphill-fight campaign theme of eradicating poverty to the equal signs splashed across the stage. Obama and Clinton, bookending the six attendees, won the most applause for their honesty, but still fell short of marching in lockstep with our community's apparently monolithic demand to enshrine our incomes in the bosom of the State. That Hillary Clinton attracts such enormous support from gay men is strange. Perhaps it's a groundswell desire for someone, anyone, who looks like a front-runner to acquire runaway momentum and sweep away the nonsense after the colossal failure to eject Bush in '04. But the woman displays almost no leadership qualities on this or, frankly, any issue. She'll eventually oar her way over to the right side, but for now, a group still mired in quasi-outsider status really shouldn't flock to the ultimate insider candidate in such droves. It's just unseemly, considering the alternatives. I don't think 1970s activists would be gaga for Scoop Jackson.
But there weren't gay activists here. The event was moderated by a Washington Post correspondent, a media executive, and a Mom-rock musician. Kind of top-down when, again, the purpose of the event is to highlight what the supposedly liberal candidates will do to ameliorate the legal situation of a widely reviled segment of the country. It would not have killed the gravity of the forum to invite someone who works in AIDS advocacy or research, or with any number of the largely invisible LGBT populations (the elderly, the homeless, the gender non-conforming, or people of color). Welcoming the wealthy doesn't make you a vanguard.
That said, in the end I came away with the sense that any one of this people, in the Oval Office, would be a vast improvement over any Republican. A Hillary-Obama ticket (which, honestly, seems likelier than any other combination I can think of) would not only sweep to victory. Bill Richardson, the best candidate on paper, suffered a near-total collapse when after deploying the infuriatingly condescending and cowardly term "realistic" to describe his preference for civil unions over marriage, he was asked what he would do if the New Mexico legislature produced a marriage bill for him to sign. Busted, bitch! He also looked busted, being a fat man in a wrinkly suit who speaks in a monotone voice while palavering on an on about what's realistic, when in fact what he really means is, "my aides didn't prep me well," because he apparently thinks transgender people frequently want to marry one another and that homosexuality is a choice--although to be fair the heteronormative crowd offered only genes or birth as an alternate etiology. He's also "not a scientist," which is not what a former Secretary of Energy ought to be crowing. You fucked it up, sir.
One positive thing, which I almost don't believe, is this statistic: over 90% of gay people vote. In 2004, 9 million out of 122 million votes cast were "gay" votes. That makes fags and dykes 7% of the electorate, or twice their proportion of the general population. Even weirder is that slightly more gay men than lesbians vote. I thought all lesbians voted. I mean, I just did.
It was therefore foreordained that this forum would be about marriage, marriage, marriage. The narrative last evening shaped is essentially that "since everyone opposes 'don't ask, don't tell,' their position on same-sex marriage is the only item that differentiates one candidate from another, with respect to the LGBT community and its interests." Well, with an audience stacked with well-dressed, mainstream people, some of them veterans (plus a few C-listers like Neil Patrick Harris), that's basically what one would expect.
John Edwards, anguishing at a literal hair's breadth from openly supporting gay marriage, finagled in vain to connect his uphill-fight campaign theme of eradicating poverty to the equal signs splashed across the stage. Obama and Clinton, bookending the six attendees, won the most applause for their honesty, but still fell short of marching in lockstep with our community's apparently monolithic demand to enshrine our incomes in the bosom of the State. That Hillary Clinton attracts such enormous support from gay men is strange. Perhaps it's a groundswell desire for someone, anyone, who looks like a front-runner to acquire runaway momentum and sweep away the nonsense after the colossal failure to eject Bush in '04. But the woman displays almost no leadership qualities on this or, frankly, any issue. She'll eventually oar her way over to the right side, but for now, a group still mired in quasi-outsider status really shouldn't flock to the ultimate insider candidate in such droves. It's just unseemly, considering the alternatives. I don't think 1970s activists would be gaga for Scoop Jackson.
But there weren't gay activists here. The event was moderated by a Washington Post correspondent, a media executive, and a Mom-rock musician. Kind of top-down when, again, the purpose of the event is to highlight what the supposedly liberal candidates will do to ameliorate the legal situation of a widely reviled segment of the country. It would not have killed the gravity of the forum to invite someone who works in AIDS advocacy or research, or with any number of the largely invisible LGBT populations (the elderly, the homeless, the gender non-conforming, or people of color). Welcoming the wealthy doesn't make you a vanguard.
That said, in the end I came away with the sense that any one of this people, in the Oval Office, would be a vast improvement over any Republican. A Hillary-Obama ticket (which, honestly, seems likelier than any other combination I can think of) would not only sweep to victory. Bill Richardson, the best candidate on paper, suffered a near-total collapse when after deploying the infuriatingly condescending and cowardly term "realistic" to describe his preference for civil unions over marriage, he was asked what he would do if the New Mexico legislature produced a marriage bill for him to sign. Busted, bitch! He also looked busted, being a fat man in a wrinkly suit who speaks in a monotone voice while palavering on an on about what's realistic, when in fact what he really means is, "my aides didn't prep me well," because he apparently thinks transgender people frequently want to marry one another and that homosexuality is a choice--although to be fair the heteronormative crowd offered only genes or birth as an alternate etiology. He's also "not a scientist," which is not what a former Secretary of Energy ought to be crowing. You fucked it up, sir.
One positive thing, which I almost don't believe, is this statistic: over 90% of gay people vote. In 2004, 9 million out of 122 million votes cast were "gay" votes. That makes fags and dykes 7% of the electorate, or twice their proportion of the general population. Even weirder is that slightly more gay men than lesbians vote. I thought all lesbians voted. I mean, I just did.
