The Nation: A Gay Debate?

[marmar]

BLOG | Posted 08/07/2007 @ 5:22pm
A Gay Debate?
Richard Kim



On Thursday at 9PM (EST), Logo (the gay network owned by Viacom) and the Human Rights Campaign are sponsoring a Democratic Presidential forum on gay issues. Barack, Hillary, John, Dennis and Bill will all be there. So will some guy named Mike who was so poor loves gays so much that he originally wasn't invited. Margaret Carlson, Jonathan Capehart, Joe Solmonese and Melissa Etheridge will pose questions. The whole queer klatch will be televised on Logo and streamed live at this website.

(Here at The Nation, we've lined up queer critics Lisa Duggan, Alisa Solomon and Tavia Nyong'o to watch the event from a safe, Melissa Etheridge-free location and comment. Their remarks will be posted after the forum.)

HRC (that stands for Human Rights Campaign in gaycronym, not Hillary Rodham Clinton) has been promoting the debate as an "historic" event, the "first time...the major presidential candidates will address a live GLBT television audience." As Chris Crain points out on his blog, this is a lie. In fact, HRC hosted exactly such an event in 2003, but this is presidential electioneering, so there goes accuracy.

Despite my qualms about HRC (again, that's the gay HRC, not the Wellesley graduate) and my general low expectations for the forum (marriage and gays in the military will likely dominate), I agreed to write up a short piece for Logo's website on what I think the most important issue in this election is for gay people. (Just to preempt sniping, I wasn't paid, and I was free to say what I wanted.) For those who've followed my take on same-sex marriage before, this will be nothing new, but it's cross-posted below. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15

[Chipper Chat]

1. My first thought is......can you imagine a forum on gay issues

with the REPUBLICAN candidates?
BWWWwwaahhHHHHAAaaaaahaahHAAAAAAAAA!

[marmar]

2. If the only issue was how to ban same-sex marriage, perhaps.....

:) Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo talking about gay issues? Now that's funny.

[NMDemDist2]

3. interesting they invite *NONE* of the Gay press to question the candidates

and while Melissa is gay, she's no journalist.

if you want REAL questions asked post them to the Logo website

http://visiblevote08.logoonline.com/