I am sick of being used as a weapon by the Right WingNuts.

[mourningdove92]

I am a lesbian. My partner and I will celbrate our 18th anniversary next month. For now, I would just a soon see the whole GAY MARRIAGE issue drop off the radar screen. After we get back in power, we can start again trying to increase our civil rights, but for now, we are playing into the Repugs hands. Sorry if this is offensive to some of our more militant brothers and sisters. I am willing to wait a while longer. To me, gay marriage is not at the top of my agenda.

Getting my country back is.

[ray of light]

1. Congratulations

Yes, they're being used and the militants both help your issue and hinder your issue. I think there is always a way for compromise. But I'm not sure that the 'fundies' will ever have the maturity to admit to their blatent discrimination. What if suddenly Catholics were not allowed to get married? Or baptists? Or people with blue eyes?

[FreedomAngel82]

13. I agree

I think it's disgusting what they're doing. All the rightwingers have to do is say "gay" and people will vote for them. Who cares nobody has jobs or proper schooling education and the enviornment isn't being cared for? :eyes: Oh and congrat's on the anniversary. :)

[wmills551]

2. I agree

You are brave to make this point, but only those who do not understand how politics work in this country, or do not care how they work, would disagree.

[newyawker99]

14. Hi wmills551!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Poppyseedman]

3. It's all about framing the issues

When you talk about increasing civil rights, it is playing into their hands.

Most people don't believe gay people are having their civil rights infringed upon individually except concerning marriage.

Frankly, I'm a little perplexed myself when people use that terminology.

I know their are issues with insurance and death benefits, but besides that, what other civil rights issues are there that aren't given to individual gay people what heterosexual people already have?

I have always wondered why gay marriage is being framed in a civil rights terminology when it would be a much cleaner message as individual rights.

[mongo]

5. Aren't individual rights Civil rights?

I would consider it the same thing.

The OP is right that the most important thing is taking our country back, but I'm not going to tell anyone that it's "too much too fast" or they really aren't being discriminated against.

I don't really care if we are "playing into their hands" - it is a human rights issue.

[Poppyseedman]

8. Did you miss the part about framing the issue?

Civil rights and individual rights are different sides to the same coin.

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendment typically are implied in dealing with issues concerning "civil rights" as "individual rights" or maybe better terminology would be "individual liberty" deal with natural rights granted in the preamble and body of the Constitution.

All I am saying in my previous post was gay marriage is a easier message to consume to the American people as "individual rights" rather than a "civil rights" issue.

We can agree to disagree

[applegrove]

4. Spend your dollars on tourism in places that are gay friendly, and

buy politically. Bill Gates showed us that nobody is immune from the power of a buck. And that at least half of us who are not gay, are right with you, and behind you. And I weep that the words 'gay & lesbian' get used at all. Nobody should have to face that every day.

[billbuckhead]

6. It's all about counting the votes, We need to change BBV before

we think about changing ourselves, changing how we present ourselves to the world or to estrange ourselves from longtime allies. BBV=end of democracy

[applegrove]

9. I think Bush won that election by stealing hearts & minds of Americans.

I agree that there is lost trust in the voting system and it should be made more transparent. But bush won by creepy deals with the Vatican, Religious right, starting a war that would last into the election season, not solving problems, lying, growing down his followers into be selfish assholes, etc. etc.

I don't agree that a single vote was stolen by some machine. That is for people who have not grieved and accepted that you actually have to put up with the putz and his wedging and tribalism for 4 more years. And then the USA will be bankrupt.

That is a hard pill to swallow. However, I hope you do grieve and can step back away from 'diebold' machines long enough to look at the big picture. It is bad. And we have work to do to rebuild a coalition.

The fact of the matter is that someone on this thread was talking about being a lesbian while homosexuals are being scapegoated to win elections. In every single election that Rove has won, he has used the gay thing. In texas, even with Kerry. So it is an important issues as well as a heartwrenching one that the thread starter brings up.

And you jumped in with the BBV (I didn't know what that stood for the first time I read your post). Until there is proof or you witnessed it yourself, I would step away from the issue. Especially when the thread is about something important that is really, really happening out there. And of which there is much proof.

Rove wins elections by going 'gay' in the end. Every single time. He plays on the brain stem of freepers and forces something they find sexually distasteful in their faces. And he teaches people that it is okay to hate and to last out.

Sociopaths do do creepy things and mess with your personal stuff. I know about it from my own personal experience. But Rove got that out of his system in Texas, when he was subject to an FBI investigation.

You should have seen the PBS documentary on Rove. It showed his pattern of winning elections by 'going gay' over, and over and over and over again.

This was an important thread on that issue. An issue in which there is much proof. We have to work on that issue and how to appeal to the better part of humans..than their brain stems.

[etherealtruth]

7. Congratulations!

I want my country back, too. I don't feel I can weigh in on surrendering someone else's rights...

I find it more than a little ironic that I could legally marry my former husband ... and that we were able to wreak havoc and destruction in each others lives in seven years. Yet two people that can love and commit to each other for eighteen years can't marry... doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

May you have many more (happy) anniversaries!

[Dr Fate]

10. I'm sick of using you and others as a weapon AGAINST Right Wing Nuts

These are private matters and we should be SO over them by now.

These Rightwingers are scape-goating gays and non-Christians- I constantly feel the need to "use" your plight and that of others as a way to alarm Libertarian leaning types into being against Bush.

I'm sick of this too- it's evil and it need to stop.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. I respect your bravery and applaud you, but the fact is .....

The issue's on the table and a part of the 'national debate" (I have to laugh at that. What debate? We have no fucking voice anywhere! Anyways ... I digresss .......)

We need a rational and palatable position on this ..... not some palaver that essentially sidesteps it. There have been a few interesting threads about this that are still current. It seems to me the overheated rhetoric on our side that we faced around this issue has morphed into an actual, thoughtful, and thankfully internal, debate.

Whether we want to or not, the fight over this will rage. We'd better be prepared to fight for what's right .... once we all come to agree with each other on what we feel is 'right'.

[minnesotaDFLer]

12. I agree

:yourock: but right now we dont have a hole lot of "ammo" to use agaisnt them

[cestpaspossible]

15. The issue won't go away.

It will be divisive, difficult, and not always popular, but I believe equal marriage rights for all are inevitable (sooner rather than later if we have judges willing to interpret the 14th amendment honestly).

[Hosnon]

16. Congrats on the 18 years...beat out my parents...QUIT RUINING

MARRIAGE...:eyes:

[mourningdove92]

17. One of the things that I found

especially frustrating in the 2004 election is that both Kerry and Edwards both stated out right that they did not approve of Gay marriage. But Rove was still able to hang the Gay fear on them.

Personally, I think my SO and I do more to advance the Gay rights cause than all the activism, parades and other things. We do it by example. Almost everyone we know envies us for our relationship. My bosses at work adore Lynn. Now, when the issues of the , gasp, GAY AGENDA, come up, these people must first think of us.

That helps.

[SnowBack]

18. There's nothing radical about wanting equality ....

Speaking as someone who has been with his partner for 18 years also, (and married last year), I want the same rights as every married straight person in the U.S.

When we moved here from Canada, our relationship of 11 years (at that point) meant NOTHING. My partner had a green card, and I had to fight for over 7 years to finally become a permanent resident. If we had been a straight married couple who had been married the day before in a quickie marriage in Vegas, when he got his green card, I would have been allowed in - no questions asked.

If we lived in most states in the U.S. and something happened to one of us, the other would have less rights than the straight couple married in Vegas.

We pay into Social Security, but if he dies, I am not recognized by the Government - I receive nothing.

We could be forced to testify against each other in court, we do not have a legal right to spend our final days together in a nursing home, and about 1075 other rights that married people receive automatically.

So you may think marriage means nothing, but in many ways it means EVERYTHING...