Is It Safe Now to Discuss our Nominee, Barack Obama, Without Being McClurkined to Death Here?

[David Zephyr]

Is it safe to wade back into the waters or is the venom against this good man still here?

[WillParkinson]

1. Still there.

For me at least.

I'll likely vote for him in November, but it's a vote against the Republicans, not for him.

By the by, Mr. Obama is the Democratic nominee, not mine. Until he proves he deserves my vote he won't be my nominee.

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. I second that n/t

I was planning to change my sig to a picture of Obama and the text, "Well, at least he's not McCain." I'm not feeling quite that hostile any more; he showed a great deal of grace these last two months as the Clinton campaign exploded into a desperate mess, and that deserves respect. However, his views on the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, his views on equal marriage and his pandering to homophobes all leave me feeling very unenthusiastic over his nomination.

I'm thinking now of, "Well, at least he's not Hillary."

[Rhythm]

2. I, for one, will vote for the "D" column in November, but...

In order to truly get behind Obama, i personally am going to have to see some action on his part that doesn't smack of being tossed under the wheels of the "CHANGE express." Reaching out to us instead of right-wing fundies (who think we're a plague that needs to be "cured") would be a good start.

The sarcasm and bile in your OP isn't going to accomplish that, though. If that's the best you can do toward fostering constructive dialogue, please keep moving. Nothing to see here.

[terrya]

3. I was reading, and please, please let this be a joke...

that Sam Nunn is near the top of the list of Obama's VP choices.

Please, seriously, let that be a joke. Because if Nunn is chosen, I'm sitting this election out. Fuck that. There is no way I would ever, ever, ever, ever vote for an Obama/Nunn ticket. Ever. McClurkin still rankles. But I'll swallow that bitterness I have about that and I'll vote for Obama. But Sam Nunn as VP is a dealbreaker. Fuck that bigoted asshole.

[Zuiderelle]

4. I'm with you on that.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. seconded. if its nunn, i am going to write in someones name.

possibly gore

[mitchtv]

40. You said It terry

If he is picked I will end my very long association with the DP. Otherwise I will hold my nose and vote,why not, I'm a Dem?. Also, to the new red guard , Don't tell me too many times that I have no where else to go.

[David Zephyr]

44. Sam Nunn won't be on Obama's ticket.

He's too old and, believe me, I would oppose it as strongly as you, if not more.

Actually, given Hillary's hawkish positions, Nunn would fit far closer to her than ever to Obama.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

52. except nunn virulently opposed bill clinton at every point

especially when bill was working for the gay community.

[David Zephyr]

56. And that exception is true.

We agree.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

58. yeah so no reason to even think hillary would have picked him. nt

[David Zephyr]

60. There's absolutely no way Hillary would ever have chosen Nunn.

No reason to even think it.

[Zuiderelle]

5. Venom? Not a great way to start out, if you ask me.

I believe we can still discuss how we would like our next president to support full equality, and how it might concern some of us that his religious views stand in the way of it.

[terrya]

7. You're absolutely right.

I wish the OP would have left the "ok, he's the nominee now, so it's time to get back at the Obama haters here" attitude in GDP.

As you perfectly stated, Barack Obama could very well be the next President of the United States. Whom he chooses as a running mate could have a major impact on his administration. We will never forget the role Dick Cheney played in the Bush White House. I bring up the name of Sam Nunn as a potential Obama running mate. If that goes down, that will be a complete, utter, disaster for the GLBT community. There goes any chance of enacting ENDA, the Matthew Shepard Act. And in spite of Nunn's statement that it "MIGHT be time to reconsider DADT", there goes any chance of repealing that discriminatory policy as well.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. i dont know why people think being condescending makes people like you more.

stupid, if you ask me.

start an OP off with snark, and all you will get is snark.

[Chovexani]

39. The OP is one reason why I don't come around here anymore.

I prefer BDSM in the bedroom and not on a message board, kthx.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

41. i adore you

:loveya:

[Chovexani]

78. Back at ya cutie

:hug:

[Zuiderelle]

63. !!

:applause:

[ccharles000]

6. I will be happy to vote for him.

If he ever does something like this again it would be very hard to forgive him.

[hulklogan]

8. My vote for Obama will be a vote against McCain.

Nothing more.

[MountainLaurel]

26. Pretty much n/t

[Tyo]

9. I'm not voting for Obama

any more that I'd be voting for Clinton if she were the nominee. I'm voting against McCain.

And the OP was pretty snarky if you ask me and completely minimized the many valid concerns about Obama that have been raised here over the past several months.
I have to say that my concerns about Obama are far outweighed by my concerns about his blindly worshipful and fawning supporters.

[cloudythescribbler]

11. Good question, well put! Another question: where's there a GLBT forum of equal size & scope .....

so hard on Obama on the McClurkin issue as DU?

Amen and REC to the OP!

[Zuiderelle]

14. When exactly was McClurkin brought up here last? And how many people have even mentioned it lately?

Because this sounds like a lot of noise signifying nothing. I've seen zilch about McClurkin here lately.

[Tyo]

15. It's not enough that we have moved on regarding McClurkin

I think we are expected to apologize for ever having brought him up in the first place. The Obama folks demand not just that we vote for their candidate but that we love him as uncritically and unconditionally as they do.

[Zuiderelle]

16. It certainly seems that way, doesn't it?

Well, that unconditional love won't be coming from me even if he does get my vote.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. yup nt

[David Zephyr]

45. No demand from me. I'm wondering if Obama supporters are welcome now in this forum.

No demands. Just wondering if there's a welcome mat here.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

59. you dont want a welcome. you want a red carpet.

no one stopped you from posting here earlier. other obama supporters posted regularly.

[David Zephyr]

61. Like a real red carpet like in Hollywood events?

LOL! Actually, I'd be happy with a worn old straw welcome mat and I'll sit in a corner quietly if needed.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

62. sorry, i just didnt like the tone of your post. regardless as a gay duer this forum

is as much yours as is mine.

[David Zephyr]

69. Thanks.

Much appreciated.

[Toasterlad]

66. Nailed It.

Rarely have I seen such non-charming smarm as the OP. Unlike my own ineffably charming - AND endearing - smarm.

[cloudythescribbler]

27. true, but OPer was wondering what if they started supporting Obama outspokenly in GLBT

the expression of a sense of 'chilling' is noteworthy in and of itself.

[Zuiderelle]

28. The OP was asking if we were going to be venomous. Hard to read past that.

[cloudythescribbler]

30. there HAS indeed been venom in the past, & for MONTHS, but I suppose better to be quiet UNTIL ...

a problem arises. And we can leave it at that

[Zuiderelle]

32. Oh right, now I remember, you're the one that kept claiming that people were treating Obama badly

here without ever backing it up. Now it makes sense.

There has never been any venom here. There has only been criticism, and there will continue to be criticism, as there should be.

[cloudythescribbler]

34. There wasn't "venom" against Obama re: McClurkin? and I'm the Virgin Mary ...

[Zuiderelle]

35. No, there was no venom. There was objection, reasonable objection.

[cloudythescribbler]

36. if I went into the archives & brought out say a 1/2-dozen posts by different posters, would THAT...

make ANY difference to you? If it would, I'd take the time to do just that.

I don't remember it ever being necessary to show that there was REAL hostility to Obama over McClurkin, not mere "criticism", but instead, that hostility was considered justified by many ...

[Zuiderelle]

37. I think that you and I interpret hostility very differently.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

29. please, the OP is passive aggressive at best.

[David Zephyr]

48. Thanks. I'm just testing the waters here.

I'm glad to see that things are changing.

[Zuiderelle]

64. It's posts like yours that actually encourage hostility.

Why did you post it? I've seen plenty of Obama supporters posting here, there's never been a lack of them. Most of us are planning to vote for Obama, so why the tiptoeing?

[David Zephyr]

76. Anyone with the moniker of PelosiFan can not ever, ever upset me.

I only had my head re-stitched on after my last visits here and the scars presented quite a cosmetic challenge at the plastic surgeon center in Palm Springs. Still, tiptoeing is only an instinct. I keep flashing on someone with an axe crashing through my proper Obama door screaming: "Here's Donnie!"

I'm glad you are giving Obama a chance. So am I. He may let us down and he may make us proud, but we'll never know if McCain becomes President.

And I am a proud Pelosi fan, too. I've defended her on the big boards when many were mad because she wouldn't impeach Bush. There might have been a time to have done that, but by 2007 it was too late. She is focusing on governing and that's what is important.

Finally, my mom (now 91) had a heart attack and developed pneumonia in December and January of 2007. There she was on oxygen, pumped through and through with anti-biotics and blood thinners demanding that her television be turned on in the hospital so she could see Nancy Pelosi sworn in as Speaker of the House. Nancy will probably never know that there was a hospital room full of nurses and LVN's gathered around my mom watching that historic moment. That makes me proud.

[David Zephyr]

77. Thank you, loudythescribbler.

Your name makes me think of the Simon & Garfunkel song "Cloudy" which I love as well as "Both Sides Now" by Join Mitchell.

Thanks for your kind comments throughout the thread. I did notice. :hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. whats there to discuss?? we'll vote for him.

a lot of us will never love him unless he proves otherwise. so lets discuss him next year

[David Zephyr]

47. That's fair enough.

:)

[closeupready]

19. I think that most of the "venom" comes from younger people

and that as you age, you become more patient and learn to compromise a little. It's good to keep the pressure up, but I feel that many here refuse to acknowledge times when he spoke out in support of gays and lesbians.

Obama is a better candidate for gays and lesbians than Hillary is/was/would be.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. i though young people unanimously voted for obama?

[closeupready]

21. Yeah, I guess so. I guess what I mean is,

there have been a lot of petulant things posted about him, which seems more characteristic of young people, it seems to me. Then again, we have people like the woman in that video that made it to the greatest page, Harriet something or other. :rofl:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. i disagree. a lot of people even on this thread are significantly older than me

i think mcclurkin hasnt really been mentioned in months, however people want us to feel EMBARRASSED that we could ever malign their candidate.

[closeupready]

23. Do you think so?

I've never gotten the sense that anyone is trying to shame Obama's detractors into silence. Do you recall any examples where this happened?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. this thread for instance. also thread after thread of people saying NO ONE

aside from GLBT du'ers cares about mcclurkin. thats bullshit. anyone who knew cares. most people, including myself, have gotten over it.

[kdpeters]

75. Could you link to that post that said that, please?

At first glance, it looks close to something I wrote, but that's not what I said. Either you are referring to my post and there's been some misunderstanding, or you are referring to someone else's post that actually did express that.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, but to save time, just in case you are referring to my post, I'll go ahead and clarify what I meant. What I was intending to say, is that the level of hostility on DU toward Obama has been exceptional. The intensity, the persistence, the ubiquitousness, the futility in even attempting to discuss a different viewpoint, the months and months and months it went on and on and on, and how it just would always pop up infecting completely irrelevant threads and topics and turning them into yet another McClurkin flame fest. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know of anyplace else that even came close to DU in the amount of emotion and bandwidth devoted to McClurkin.

Sorry if I didn't make that more clear originally. I wasn't saying that "NO ONE aside from GLBT du'ers" cared about the McClurkin incident. Of course people cared. Heck, I cared about McClurkin. Not as intensly as most people here, but I found the story and some of the discussions compelling and enlightening -- for almost a month. Then two months. OK, I'll admit it, after the third month, I was no longer interested in the same McClurkin rehash day after day after day popping up in completely unrelated threads. By the fourth month, there was nothing more about it to take seriously. It had entered the realm of farce.

For a bit of perspective, think about what did you do for Halloween last year? Do you remember? Does it seem like a while back? Well, we started going off on McClurkin BEFORE Halloween last year and we are still discussing it. If McClurkin were a pregnancy, we'd be giving birth to it any day now. So after nearly eight and a half months of McClurkin rehash, I'm starting to have my doubts that there will ever be any new developments in the story.

[terrya]

68. In my case, "significantly" is correct.

:-)

[mitchtv]

42. petulant eh?

petulant yo mama What's next? Ypu tell us we have no where else to go? . The reason I did not vote Obama on my primary day was largely due to the venom spewed by his minions here in DU toward Clinton and the Faux outrage at everything the Clintons said. I am an old line Dem who remembers the Clinton years fondly and listening to the New red guard spout every Tom Delay /Newt talking point was frankly enough to delete my Obamamania. This should in no way infer that Hillary was my choice, she was one above Obama,in a very rich selection, It was a good year for us

[David Zephyr]

55. It wasn't petty, mitchtv.

I have to agree with you. What happened back last fall was not petty and the reactions many had were not petulant. I posted the bigger forums because I was so upset about it.

That said, as it goes with human beings, some of us saw Obama's actions and acknowledgments after ward in a different light than others. And some did not. And some, who were ardent supporters of Hillary also worked this against Obama in the GLBT community. I don't hold that against them. It's politics and the mistake cost him.

I may be wrong, but I believe that while Obama may not be the full loaf, he push for and sign into legislation equal protection under the law for the GLBT community and will allow our brothers and sisters to serve openly in the armed forces.

If I am wrong, I will be the first to admit it, just as I did when Bill Clinton betrayed us twice in the 1990's and I was among the nearly 500,000 who marched past the White House in D.C. when he and Hillary quietly slipped out of town to avoid being there on our big day.

I can't ask anyone to trust Obama. That's too much. But I'd ask you to consider giving him a chance...for our own sake.

And regardless, you know that I always respect you and, even more than that, like you.

DZ

[mitchtv]

70. David , dearest

I remain a Dem, you know that The nuclear power issue is for me probably a bigger issue than the gay issue. I hope you are right. The disgusting behavior of some DU'rs supporting Obama virtually guaranteed that I would pick another candidate. sometimes it sounded like Newt's blog around here. His choice of VP will be interesting to me.The mcClurkin affair , to me was evidence that Obama is just another politician, and we are a small constiuency. I don't blame him really, but don't ask me to like or respect him, until he does something for me.

[David Zephyr]

73. That's fair enough.

And I like you calling me "David, Dearest"...But am I Joan or am I Faye?

[sui generis]

25. us old farts are tired of voting for the least worst though

we do what we have to, but wouldn't it be nice to vote for a real leader on equality issues?

Unfortunately, that would be neither of the late running candidates.

I am just reminded that Hackett and Feingold both said unambiguously that if you are an adult, you pay taxes and you're an American you have every right to make decisions about your own life and property in America, including who you want to marry and spend your life with regardless of gender and any other POV was discriminatory and un American.

That's leadership. I by gods wish we had it in this candidate.

[closeupready]

79. Sui, you and I both know how homophobic this country is, and always will be.

It's not a reality I enjoy thinking about, but it is the truth. That will not change in our lifetimes.

I agree that Obama is imperfect, but there is no alternative. We've got to try to work with him.

[sui generis]

80. of course. This is the way I see it:

Nobody is going to just throw a perfect candidate in our lap.

If you want something you have to work for it, ask for it, plan and execute for it, or else take up investing in the lottery.

With a political candidate we are voting for a representative. If we have a case to make for representation of our point of view then we have to present it and demand that it be considered and responded to in clear language. We have to also expect that if it's reasonable to expect and if we get an irrational answer we have done what we can and were supposed to do for posterity.

I don't think Obama is irrational, and I also don't think we have ever pushed him in any significant way to understand that we are EXACTLY alike as fellow Americans. We are not "gay" Americans until they put it on our drivers licenses and passports.

So it is not unreasonable to expect that we will be addressed with the same terminology as every other American.

I will work hard to try to get him to earn my vote. I hope that's fair. If I believe he won't vote against us under any circumstances, that would be second best.

But if he says he would veto including us in federal marriage, or if he continues to say that we do not have a right to be married unless we call it civil unions, I will have to think very hard about the rationality of this person in the bigger scheme of things.

I can't condone a candidate that does not listen to his constituents about the issues that impact them directly. His "gay" constituents actually do have a greater right to make decisions about our own lives than his "anti-gay" constituent do about our lives - and vice versa. I'm not going to insist opposite gender couples must bear natural children or divorce. That would be just as crazy as telling same gender couples they can't get married because they can't consummate natural children between them.

I want Obama to clarify his thinking into a razor sharp and fair leadership view on this topic.

[mitchtv]

81. You say it soooo much more clearly

than I, thanks

[closeupready]

82. Perfectly said.

:hi: I think you are being very fair. We have long since earned a place at the table.

[David Zephyr]

46. I agree.

I think they both would have been good for the GLBT community. Either would have been far better than any McCain administration.

[ksdemo]

31. I am over McClkurkin.

I think Obama was just trying to court some voters and other voters and pissed one group of people off. He really has talked about us at mainstream events a lot and I give him credit for that.

His name is on the back of my car, he will get my vote and I may volunteer for him if possible(I live in Kansas, obviously), and he IS my nominee and I am proud of him!

[David Zephyr]

49. Welcome to the DU, ksdemo

:hi:

[xchrom]

33. obama is not a good man and the four anti-gay gospel acts that did a very

good job for him in south carolina proves it.

[David Zephyr]

50. Then you will be worth waiting for, xchrom.

And I won't be happy until Obama makes you proud. That may take some time, but I am confident that it will happen. And you are worth waiting for.

[xchrom]

57. you will wait a very, very long time.

i hear in your message that you will give obama credit for the things that gay people have been getting for them selves.

[David Zephyr]

67. I can wait.

If that's what you heard in my message, then I said it wrongly.

Barack Obama was six or seven years old when I first volunteered as a teenager at the L.A. Free Clinic and began my first gay activism which later took me to working on Highland Boulevard at the then-called the Gay Community Service Center ("GCSC Serving Our Community!" in the early 1970's long before it became the grand and wonderful mega-organization it is in West Hollywood.

When we marched back then, our marches were not "parades" and there were no "festivals" either. We marched on Hollywood Blvd, not Santa Monica Blvd. and the crowds along the street were very hostile and hardly cheered when we walked by. The police, under Chief Ed Davis, were bullies then.

And Barack Obama was probably beginning to learn to write and to read, so he certainly gets no credit for what our community has done or is still doing today or for any credit of those that went long before us either.

I do think he will push for greater protection under the law for us and to allow us the tax benefits in home ownership and the same "union" benefits that Hillary would have extended to our community and will allow our brothers and sisters to serve openly within the Armed Forces.

All of that said, I am coming to believe that there exists a very great possibility that he may not be our next president at all.

Even here in progressive California, the anti-gay marriage bill has now qualified for the November ballot which was not created to stop gay unions, but rather to drive right-wingers to the polls in November and to vote for John McCain.

So, in the end, we may not even know what either he or Hillary would have done, could have done, because the very same machine --- the one that had been laying the ground work for 1 year prior to the 2000 election in Florida to purge voting rolls, create butterfly ballots and more --- will be around this November. That's the same machine that surprised Americans (not all) with the paperless, programmable Diebold Voting Machines to steal an election, especially in Ohio, in 2004 and they are not asleep at the wheel even now.

So, sadly, maybe a lot of our misgivings here, may have all for naught because the glaring fact is that Republicans work hard at stealing elections and manipulating voters to vote even against their own better interests.

[Chovexani]

38. Not when you come out swinging like that.

God you guys are going to be in for a very rude awakening in Nov. if you insist on continuing to treat people this way (in fact, it's probably already too late).

[Lyric]

43. Which "good man"? Obama or McClurkin?

'Cause if you're trying to paint McClurkin as a "good man", don't count on those of us who know better to remain quiet.

[David Zephyr]

51. Certainly not McClurkin.

He's not a good man. In fact, Mr. McClurkin is a tragic figure. His upbringing or something has ingrained such a homophobia and hatred of himself right into his central nervous system that he only preaches against himself.

He's pretty much stuck where I was at 12 and 13 years old in dealing with who he is and can't accept it because of all that fundie religion and institutionalized homophobia has cemented into his psyche.

He's obviously homosexual which means he is part of the GLBT community regardless of what he professes, regardless of how much he hits back at us, regardless of how much he tries to "change", regardless of what religious monsters like Exodus tell him...he is homosexual.

We are learning more and more that many, many times the most homophobic boys and men are actually homosexuals and their hatred is really self-hatred.

Does this excuse his acting out, his participation in a message that can and does hurt our community? No way.

Does this excuse his taking advantage of Obama's outreach to black churches, churches where he has in the past and continues even now to lecture that gays and lesbians are their brothers and sisters? Of course not.

No one will be more vigilant than I will regarding Obama and our issues.

I was among a handful of GLBT activists along with ACTUP delegates in 1992 that pushed David Mixner to make Bill Clinton include the word "gay" in his formal acceptance speech at the National Convention in 1992 in Madison Square Garden. My dear friend, Rod Bourland, now passed away got right up into Mixner's face. In the end, Mixner (to his great credit) got Bill to add our community for the first time into an acceptance speech. Of course, Bill later truly let Mixner down and Mixner wrote how "betrayed" he felt of DADT and DOMA and this cycle endorsed Senator Obama.

What a tragic, sad character Donnie McClurkin actually really is. And he is not alone. There are still millions of self-hating homosexuals just like him trapped in a horrible mental zone that, fortunately, many of us were able to overcome.

Having been tossed out of my home in the 1960's in the deep south by christian, conservative parents because of my homosexuality (in spite of the fact that I was an Honor Student), having grown up living on the hard streets of Los Angeles and NYC as a teenager, I came to my epiphany at an earlier age than most in my generation. I didn't have the luxury to cling to the homophobic society that had been my "nest" and "harbor" in childhood. Donnie McClurkin is a grown man and still can't make that transition. Maybe he never will be able to. Religion can be a very, very toxic thing.

Barack Obama is hardly a perfect man. But the fact that includes us in most all of his speeches, the fact that he has time and again spoken out within black churches how that we are his brothers and sisters, and the fact that he sees us as part of the American family is encouraging. I wish that he and Hillary had both been as progressive as Dennis Kucinich, but with all I've seen in my long life, I will certainly welcome him as my president.

Give Obama a chance. He knows a lot about discrimination, how it hurts, how it wounds, how it marginalizes, how it dehumanizes a soul. And he knows it first hand.

[Solon]

72. If Obama were so fucking aware of how discrimination hurts, why did he legitimize it in his...

campaign? Since you brought it up, this is a question Obama should be forced to confront. So far there is no apology, and basically the message was that he got what he wanted(Homophobic votes), and to hell with everyone else. Frankly, I find you to be a condescending ass, but that's just me.

[Tektonik]

53. I'm voting against McCain, if I HAVE to vote for Obama, so be it

I dislike Obama, I hate McCain.

If Obama chooses a bigoted veep, I'm not voting at all.

[mitchtv]

54. The "venom " was extracted

from DU Obama supporters.On of the major reasons I would not support him (or should I say Him) was the behavior of his adherants. Totally un civil.

[Toasterlad]

65. Don't Ask Questions You Don't Want the Answers To.

Your "good man" has a long way to go to win my good will. If you regard his securing the nomination as a moral seal of approval, you are sadly, DEEPLY deluded.

[kdpeters]

71. Good to see you posting in GLBT David Zephyr.

What a way to make an entrance!!

I like McClurkin used as a verb. It's destined to enter the political lexicon just like swift-boat. ex. "Awww, jeeesh. We were having a really interesting chat about transgender authors and fiction and until the "Barbarabots vs. Cheristas" totally McClurkined the thread.

[David Zephyr]

74. And I like this kdpeters.

You are a darling and I'm keeping you in my pocket from now on, kdpeters!

Well, as the old saying goes "when you are chased by an angry mob through a town, get out in front of everyone and tell people you are leading a parade."

I thought I'd visit the old neighborhood, see if it was safe to visit again. I really get far more respect on the big boards, but I guess its just the way family is.

I'd offer up the official definition of McClurkin as a verb, but since I just braved visiting here again, I'll leave it to the imagination, but the example that a certain kdpeters gave was was spot on. I think everyone knows what it is signifies, don't you?

Entrance? LOL! Well, lionesspriyanka says I was expecting a "red carpet". That would have been nice actually with a few Klieg light lights and lots of heavy pancake make-up. Bit seriously, it's good to be back.

How lovely to chat with you.

DZ