Richardson to appear on the Mike Signorile show today

Michelangelo

Keep making up new Yahoo screen-names, and you can keep signing up for new 3 day Sirius trials, letting you listen to Signorile every afternoon. Sure beats Randi Rhodes if you ask me. He covers politics in general, not just as it relates to gay rights.

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by: Johnny @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 15:20:07 PM CDT

Love Mike

But can someone PLEASE tell me how to pronounce his last name?

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by: Donica @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 15:43:01 PM CDT

Mike is the best!

I love Signorile. He always knows how to get right to the point. I wish he had been on the panel at the debate. I don't feel Richardson really helped himself in Signorile's interview. At one point he even claimed that 'maricon' does not specifically refer to gay men. At that point, I he lost all credibility with me.

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by: Ralph4159 @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 16:47:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Pronounce it like: Senior-elly

I listened to the interview, as Mike is my favorite radio host--and a big reason why I have Sirius Radio. I have to say that Richardson does indeed seem totally clueless as to what he really does think and why he thinks it.

Mike did an admirable job of trying to allow Richardson to expalin himself, but Richardson simply could not do it very well at all, which was kind of sad, in a way. 

The one thing that stood out to me was both Richardson's adherence to pointing out his record in defense of queer people as govenor--that actions speak louder than words, and Mike's defense of this truth. And to this I definitely agree. You don't have to be articulate to be a champion of what is right, and Bill seems to have done that. But you can't keep falling all over yourself verbally either..........although, look at our current president. Doesn't seem to bother him any.

A society without religion is like a maniac without a chainsaw.

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by: Jen @ Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 14:42:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Richardson needs to just do the work and not talk...

I really feel bad for the man.  He, without question, has the best RECORD of support for gay rights through legislation he has championed in NM.  However, EVERY time he opens his mouth he shoves both of his feet in right up to the knees. 

Even in the quote above he says, "What I believe is that this is an issue that you're born with." 

An "issue" that you're born with? 

For God's sake someone please teach the man how to articulate his thoughts in a way that doesn't come off as ignorant and offensive.  Unfortunately I think Richardson is a kind and thoughtful man who TRULY supports full equality for GLBT Americans (I even think he supports marriage equality but believes it is only achievable through incremental steps) but he just isn't very good at putting his thoughts and beliefs into words.  Even more unfortunate for Richardson, articulation of one's opinions, ideas and policies is a VERY important, even crucial, aspect of being president.

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by: Zeke @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 22:09:25 PM CDT

Sounds Like the "Blame Game" of Victims

While I am thoroughly convinced that homophiles are biologically constituted as such, and I cite Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson's "On Human Nature" (1978) wherein he states homosexuality in Homo sapiens is "biologically normal," and homophiles may be evolutionarily-selected as genetic carriers of altruism . . .

What difference could it possibly make if otherwise? What if individuals freely choose homophile relations, for no other reason than they enjoy them?

The Nature/Nurture Hoax has long been repudiated by biologists; they are synergistic and interdependent. So, what if Nature tweaked earlier than Nurture, or Nurture tweaked earlier than Nature, and since no one will ever know, why does this issue persist?

If homophiles harmed each other, harmed society, or were a threat to human civilization -- as some homophobes audaciously claim, then maybe the aetiological dispute would remove "culpability" for homophilia, but to what avail? What effect?

Do we ask these inane questions about left-handers or right-handers? Do we ask whether it was Nature/Nurture than Johnny prefer dolls and trucks? Who cares? What does it matter.

By pandering to these inane questions, they are given credibility, when they are incoherent, inintelligible, and irrelevant. If homophilia was this great sociopathology that prescinds the End of Times, the End of Civilization, it sure has not succeeded in 10,000 years of human history. So, why give these nonsensical questions are credibility. They are absurd, inane, and irrelevant. They answer no coherent, intelligible question, and even if one could answer either/or, what difference would either have over the or?

Persevering in this type of exercise in abstraction of incredulity must satisfy someone's self-loathing homophilia -- as some EXCUSE that s/he could not help himself becoming a homophile -- s/he's just an accident of nature, so BLAME Nature. NO! Blame self-loathing homophiles who think it necessary to ascribe a homophile aetiology to exculpate their "condition."

This WHOLE line of inquiry and pursuit only perpetuates the myth that homophilia is a problem, or morally suspect, and that one is not to be blamed for same-sex attraction, because "Nature Made Me Do It." Talk about perpetuating the Victimhood Motif, when no damn good reason exists for it, and it plays into the very "damaged goods" crap of homophobes everywhere. 

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by: The Gay Species @ Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 02:08:16 AM CDT

Born with an 'issue'

thanks for clarifying, Richardson.

It pretty obvious that Richardson's real problem isn't his bigotry -

it is that the poor thing is just totally clueless. 

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by: tiponeill @ Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 11:23:32 AM CDT

We don't need PERFECT allies

And they certainly don't have to read perfectly from the script in our heads.

Richardson has said something stupid on Imus, and answered kinda awkward, but he is still a decent man, and a friend to LGBT people.

Keep our real venom for true enemies, and let's start with the KAPO traitors hiding in their closets like Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, David Dreier, Charlie Christ, Larry Craig, Dennis Hastert.

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 16:26:31 PM CDT

THANKS JEN!!

:)

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by: Donica @ Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 21:29:47 PM CDT

Does it really matter??

Who cares if he thinks it's a choice? Really what does it matter if he does? The only thing that matters is his record and that he believes in equality regardless of orientation or gender identity. Which is more than can be said of the other canidates. Yes, he's an idiot for saying some of the things he's said but really.. who cares.. at least we know he's not trying to bamboozle us like Clinton.

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by: Jujub @ Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 23:46:24 PM CDT

THERE IS NO AGREED-UPON "PARTY LINE" ABOUT WHETHER IT IS HARD-WIRED OR A FREE CHOICE

As a lifelong lesbian, and a radical lesbian-feminist who is NOT an essentialist, I absolutely believe that homosexuality is a choice.  As is heterosexuality.  It's simply a choice that is often made very early, based on the information we have available at the time.  People come out, they go "back in" -- those are both choices, and deserve to be given the respect deserved. 

I find the notion of "I can't help it, I was born this way" to be profoundly disempowering.  I personally find it far more radical and meaningful to say "I chose this, and what of it?"  I don't impose my belief on other folks, and I try not to laugh in the face of all those who claim a scientific proof for "gayness" being in our genes (I mean, where's the CONTROL GROUP in those studies, someone who was not born into presumptive heterosexual culture?).  As human beings, we've proven countless times we exercise free will over any genetic predisposition, and it's a damned good thing we do.  But to castigate a candidate who has got it right in so many other areas because he's not toeing the HRC line? -- give me a break.

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by: Maggie @ Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 08:19:36 AM CDT