How Democrats can be pro-gay marriage AND to the right of the GOP on gay issues

[yurbud]

As I listened to the umpteenth story these last seven years on Republican torture it occurred to me that Democrats have a profound advantage on gay issues--we only support VOLUNTARY gay sex.

When the Abu Ghraib story broke, the defenses offered by the right in addition to the "few bad apples" lie was that it was no worse than a fraternity hazing or "Skull & Bones initiation" as Rush Limbaugh said (an inadvertent slip revealing what kind of people populate these 'elite' fraternities).

So I guess these republicans and their apologists think VOLUNTARY gay sex is bad, but COERCING likely heterosexuals to have gay sex at Abu Ghraib and in out of control police stations on "Guiliani time" where I seem to recall a guy in custody being sodomized with a plunger. Bush has fought tooth and nail to keep the power to do these tortures and only this week barred the use of sexual torture (and even then left some wiggle room so he could still authorize it). On a less trumpeted issue, it's not hard to figure out which side of the prison rape issue republicans fall on. Most have no trouble with gay rape of heterosexuals when it's part of punishing someone for selling a dime bag of pot or the like (truly violent offenders or big gangsters aren't in much danger).

The basis of right wing concern about gays is that they will somehow "convert" people to be gay. The vast majority of gays especially those who want to get married want to do their gay things with other gays.

By contrast, if you are a heterosexual and cross the GOP, you could be forced to perform gay sex acts.

There's got to be a way to boil this down to a bumper sticker.

I bring this issue up at all because I know some democratic candidates for president will be tempted co-opt GOP positions on gays like opposing gay marriage and or even civil unions.

This approach could give them a chance to appeal to right wing homophobes without kicking a loyal constituency in the nuts as supposed "centrist" Democrats seem so willing to do.

[EFerrari]

1. GOP: It's Not Gay When We Do It.

:)

[yurbud]

10. or when Jeff Gannon does it to us

[ClassWarrior]

2. Lakoff says we shouldn't make it about sex at all.

We should make it about love and romance. It's the sexual part, he contends, that makes the whole deal so unsavory to so many people. But who can object to love?

Here, he says it better than I ever could: http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/lakoff/samesex/view?searchterm=gay

NGU.

[EFerrari]

4. I found out something interesting early in my marriage, CW.

In American culture, a couple is often not thought of as a family. Isn't that strange? Another way to reclaim the moral high ground here is a defense of family because people are unprepared for the idea and they get caught flatfooted. Who can be against families?

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. You're right about the couple thing, but the family thing is exactly

how the Cons attack gays. When they say "between a man and a woman", what they mean is proliferation of the population. I've heard too many Cons (and not necessarily of the "values voter" demographic) who are that the marriage institution is the government's means of creating ...get this... future taxpayers. They claim since people of the same sex cannot create future taxpayers, government cannot endorse that union. "Values Voters" are essentially claiming the same thing (Quiverfull anyone?), but not through the future taxpayer route. Rather, it's a future "soldier of God".

And precisely where their argument falls apart is with couples who are either unwilling or unable to have children.

[EFerrari]

6. All the more reason to turn it on them.

Soldiers of God. Omg.

[Norquist Nemesis]

12. Yes, but not with the "defense of family"

because, like you said, "couples" are not perceived as a family. The "Values Voters" have already commandeered the term Family for their agenda. (The term 'Family' is utilized in a very cult-like manner, IMHO.) Changing the perception just isn't going to happen until you're able to change the frame.

One needs to start with how couple is perceived and take it from there on the merits of love, life together, soulmates, etc.

And yes, Soldiers of God. Scary but true.

[EFerrari]

14. There are three straight couples and one gay couple in this building.

Guess who the parents are? :)

You're right about the word "family". These people use the same ten words over and over. That hit home when I watched some young Republics being asked if they planned to fight in the war they all supported. Their answers were nearly identical slogans.

But what I found was, in practice, people are sort of flummoxed when you frame the couple as a family. When I was having to deal with the mental health system as Doug's advocate, I'd get asked over and over why I didn't just leave him -- as if that was a solution for Doug. (Morans!)

I got around that by simply saying, but he's my family. There's no sensible rejoinder to that, or at least, I never heard one.

/oops

[yurbud]

18. My favorite thing to ask righties is "If gay marriage is legal, are you going to be tempted to marry

the 'wrong' sex?" since their big argument is it will confuse people and tempt them to gaity.

They will of course say no, so I ask which of their friends or relatives would change teams, and they start sputtering about kids, so you ask them if they could have been converted as kids and so on.

No matter how retarded and gullible they are, they are certain someone else is even more defenseless.

[yurbud]

8. Lakoff's one fault is he ignore how central conflict is to making narrative gripping

Dems represent sexual choice, GOP represents rape as punishment. The most they could say in their defense is "we just changed that..."

[EFerrari]

11. That's a good point. But, isn't he going for church picnic

type conversations? I haven't read Lakoff but when I've listened to him, that's what it sounds like.

[yurbud]

16. that's not going to cut it on TV or speeches, and probably not even at the church picnic

after you've elegantly made your point, some righty will tell that person that Dems want to surrender to the terrist and have sodomites teach sex ed to pre-schoolers. And what would you remember then? The nice stuff or the horror?

[ClassWarrior]

15. Go see "Wicked." This is exactly what we're talking about here.

Changing perceptions to make the alleged villain the hero, and vice versa.

No lack of central conflict and narrative substance there. Just a shift in the commonly accepted protagonist/antagonist paradigm.

NGU.

[xchrom]

3. social conservatives attract and promote sexual deviants.

sexual deviants need for things to be conservative -- i.e. straight in order for them to get their PERSONAL nut.

it's not sex for them if sex is groovy and natural.

and not everyone stays within well defines sexual boundaries -- and that's ok too, btw.

we can get hung up around here on people staying in their tightly defined roles -- well, that's just another set up for disappointment.

sex has a way of leaking out all over the place.

[IndianaJones]

7. thats all well and good....if only the majority of Democrats were pro gay marriage. nt.

[yurbud]

9. well, this could get those people on the same page too--your party opposes gay rape

[Marr]

13. I've yet to have a Republican disagree me on gay marriage when I frame it this way:

If marriage is indeed sacred, then it's in the realm of the church. The government has no business telling churches what is or is not sacred. The government should recognize unions between two adults for bureaucratic reasons, but they have no power to tell churches who may or may not be *married*.

Ideally the gay marriage issue should be resolved in the church. People should either seek reforms there or establish a new church that's in line with their thinking, and that should be the end of it. But legal rights; property rights, visitation rights, all of it- that should be the decision of the couple involved an no one else. Not the church, not the government, not James Dobson.

[yurbud]

17. if gay marriage became as common as divorce, the church would change their position overnight

just as they did with divorce.