Electoral death disputed

It was in a special election in 2009 that GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava lost a seat in the House. Now that the marriage equality is before the state legislature NOM is working hard to scare senators into voting their way. They claim that gay friendly = electoral death. They use Dede as an example as she had voted for marriage equality when it came up in NY state Assembly in 2009.

As with a lot of what NOM says, the truth is at least stretched and perhaps actually broken. There were a lot of reasons why Dede was defeated and most of them were her progressive views that made her a poor fit with the Fundie driven GOP. Then there was her inept campaigning.

Another bit of stretched truth is that there were five GOP members of the Assembly who voted for gay marriage -- and the other four were reelected. And attitudes towards gays have changed a lot since 2009.



New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gay a stirring speech yesterday in support of gay marriage, which is currently before the NY state legislature. Thanks, mayor. The link will take you to the text.


Bloomberg's speech is quite welcome because of a shift in the debate on NY. Just a couple weeks ago the support for gay marriage seemed overwhelming, in spite of a few (well, enough) stubborn GOP senators. But NOM has funneled in $1.5 million and the area Catholic Archbishop gave a speech and the support has softened a bit.



It is just under 18 months until the prez. election and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has already made its endorsement. Of course, it is for Obama, and they have some nice things to say about the man. But that has left a lot of people puzzled. Why now? Why so early? What if the GOP candidate is Fred Karger, who is gay? Some respond by saying it proves HRC is simply a tool of the Democratic Party. Others say it implies the entire gay community is in step, which it isn't. More say HRC has given up any bargaining power -- we'll endorse you if you …. And that lets Obama off the hook for making a public declaration in support of gay marriage.



I've written before about how the anti-gay forces in Calif. got their knickers in a twist over confirmation that the judge in the gay marriage case is gay. Timothy Kincaid suggests the real issue behind their noise (and lawsuits) is the belief that straight people should not be subjected to the ruling of a gay judge. The reasoning is simple -- homosexuality, they say, should be illegal, so if someone is doing illegal things he should not be a judge except for others doing the same illegal things.

Fortunately, it is no longer acceptable in polite society to actually say that. Instead we get a bizarre legal filing filled with twisted logic.