Episode 19 - GLBT News transcript
GLBT News transcript
Host: phaballa


So, I tried to watch the Presidential forum on LGBT issues last Thursday, but the Time Warner Cable company said no, no, no. Fortunately for all of you, the internet provided me with everything I never wanted to know about just exactly how little our next President, whether he be democrat or republican, man or woman, black or white, will be working for LGBT rights. Not that any Republicans accepted the offer to be involved in the forum, of course, but as far as I'm concerned, the democrats maybe shouldn't have bothered, either.

The forum was exactly what I expected: a bunch of democrats politicking around the issue of same-sex marriage and trying to pretend that civil unions equal equality and that it's not all a symbol regardless. Obama and Clinton and Edwards can go on and on about state's rights and marriage just being a word and how what really matters are the actual civil rights that go along with marriage, but you can see it in their faces when they're talking—they're just hedging their bets. They know, absolutely, the way that Kucinich and that other random guy from Alaska do, that it's only partly about the civil rights. Moreso, it's about the amorphous idea of equality; it's about what the denial of that one small word does to the spirit and the will and the confidence of an entire group of citizens.

A year ago July, Lance Bass came out of the closet. At the time, he was making statements about how the LGBT community probably wouldn't like him much because he wasn't going to lead any pride parades or get political. The day before the Logo Presidential forum, he wrote a special celebrity blog for the occasion, stating that:

"Many politicians have said that allowing gay marriage would somehow threaten the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, essentially saying that allowing gay people to marry tarnishes the institution of marriage. The underlying message is that gay people should be treated differently, aren’t worthy enough to share the title of marriage, and that the love shared between gay couples is somehow less than the love between straight couples.
My main fear is for the LGBT youth in America and around the world who, for one reason or another aren’t able to cope or can’t escape their prejudice cities, towns and communities. I often wonder how many teens have committed suicide because they’re struggling with their sexuality and feel the incredible weight of the shame their community puts on homosexuality? I am hoping in this election we have Democratic candidates who feel as passionately about this issue as I do."
Now, if Lance Bass, who finished high school on a tour bus with the same tutor who made Justin Timberlake think that "my heart bleeded, girl" makes grammatical sense, can understand this fundamental reasoning behind why gay MARRIAGE, and not just civil unions, is so important, I think that Obama and Clinton and Edwards, who are all lawyers with advanced degrees, certainly understand what's at stake for the LGBT community and why we're pushing marriage so hard.

It's not just about equality of rights. It's about equality of perception, and they know it. They just don't want to say so, because doing that would be losing the middle, and as Bill Richardson said at least one million times during his question and answer session, the American public isn't ready, and neither is he.

Which brings me to an important point, which is—Bill Richardson is an asshole and I really hope he's not our nominee, because that might actually force me to vote for John McCain, which would then drive me to commit suicide just like Lance predicted. Because Richardson doesn't support gay marriage and further, doesn't think that the LGBT community should be reaching for something so obvious unachievable. Okay, Bill. So I guess that in the 1960s, blacks in America shouldn't have been reaching for the end of Jim Crowe, Apartheid in South Africa should've been allowed to continue, and the Tutsis in Rwanda should've just left their country to the Hutus because fighting for what they know is right? UNACHIEVABLE.

Bill Richardson voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and told Melissa Etheridge to her face that homosexuality is a choice, to which she responded, "I don't think you understood the question. Do you think a homosexual is born that way, or around seventh grade we say, 'Oh, I want to be gay!'"

Richardson is loathsome and horrible, but on the other hand, at least he has to balls to say that he just doesn't believe in something and doesn't think the American people believe in it either, rather than politicking around the issue with talk of states rights and the separation of religion from marriage and so on. He doesn't get the gay thing, but he doesn't lie about it either, and I have to respect that.

Not, of course, that I'll vote for it, but I respect it.

Unfortunately for Lance Bass, our next president will not be someone who fully supports gay marriage in the public eye, regardless of who gets elected, unless by some freak accident the entire country is taken over by pod people like some horrible FOX television show that gets canceled after ten episodes and miraculously elects Dennis Kucinich. In lieu of a nation-wide invasion by super-liberal socialist gay aliens, however, I think I can safely say that regardless of who gets elected, they will not support gay marriage.

But that doesn't mean we don't have some good candidates who will fight for LGBT rights. Obama and Clinton, for sure, play lip service to the civil unions-states rights angles, but this is pure politics and if they didn't have 75% of the country to convince, they'd say that gay marriage is awesome and straight people have already fucked sanctity all to hell. Edwards won't say he believes in gay marriage because of his faith, but he also says that he refuses to push his faith on the American public and he firmly believes in the separation of Church and state. They'd all get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA, even Richardson, who voted for it.

They're not perfect and they're not everything I could hope for. I want a candidate who believes in equal rights for all, period, without caveats or word games. But in a country where nearly half the states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage or civil unions for gays completely, I think the fact that this forum even existed and that all the major candidates from the democratic party came is a very large step forward. It's not enough, but it's a good start, and I commend them for recognizing the importance of the LGBT community by participating.

In the end, after watching the forum and reading their views on the various LGBT issues, I still haven't decided who I want to be the democratic candidate for president. I think Hilary is sharp and strong and smarter than the rest of the candidates combined, but Obama is so good-looking on the cover of GQ and his wife is a total hottie. Edwards is amazing-looking for a fifty-something year old man, plus his wife has cancer so that earns him some sympathy votes.

And that's what it is, really. It sounds shallow, but it's important to recognize the fact that these candidates aren't just issues and politics and voting records, but they're people with personal histories and present struggles and some of them, I really do think, believe in their hearts that equality in all things is the only thing that's right and true. Maybe I don't particularly like the way they express that belief, but I don't think it's settling, either. I like to think of it as hope that someday, not too long from now, we'll live in a society where the preamble to the constitution that states all men are created equal will be completely self-evident to all Americans, the way it is to me.