Hillary: Don't Ask, Don't Tell about my speech at HRC

Disgraceful!

This is as disgraceful as Tony Snow saying, when the first questions came about responsibility for Walter Reed, "You'll have to ask the Pentagon."

Thank you, Hillary, for making clear what you think of us: you want our money but you want our support to be closeted. 

And you think you're supposed to be annointed as opposed to win primaries.  Your team has recently bitched out Elliot Spitzer for not declaring his support for you.  Way to go!  Smack down a rising star in the Democratic Party and show how high-handed you are.

I don't care that people I respect have met you and said you're warm and witty as well as fiercely intelligent.  You are arrogant and haven't we had enough of arrogance in government the last six years?

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

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by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 06:59:29 AM CST

Nice job, Pam. . .:-)

You were great on the Agenda. . .articulate and direct with your commentary. And I'm impressed that, apparently, someone at HRC reads the Blend and has respect for the discourse here. Even when we all don't agree, I think people here make an effort to bring some passion and some thought to the issues from our own unique perspective. It is gratifying to think that maybe some of our organizations try to read and understand our experiences here in the trenches.

By the way - I don't know where this site is off the top of my head, but there is one place where you can have readers (members) use their screen names to log their location and it shows up on a map. . .it might be an interesting thing to explore one slow news day.

As for Hillary, there just isn't any excuse for closeting here appearance before HRC - which smacks of her own campaign implementation of a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy about her association with our community. While she may be skilled at political tactics in the Senate, I'm not trusting of any politician who views representing my interests as something to wear like a trenchcoat and dark glasses while attempting to sneak into a gay bar unnoticed in the back alley of a midwestern city.

After all of the abuse our community has suffered at the hands of the clowns of the "religious" Right and insecure con-servative con-artists, we need leaders unafraid to be visible with their support and their insistence that we are full citizens of the United States - not conditional citizens subject to the whims of the heterosexually hysterical. If she doesn't understand the importance of principled leadership based on protecting the constitutional rights of every American, its rather hard to trust her support on many other issues.

It is ridiculous enough that DODT is still standing as a policy, years after the Pentagon didn't implement remedies to their own damned study about harassment in the military, and years since case after case has pointed out how the obsessed homophobes in this society have continued their witch hunt to ruin the good service and name of gay military personnel. When our armed services are still provided access to brothels and strip shows along business strips near bases - when straight servicemembers, despite policy, are still obsessed about the sexual orientation of each other and every member of the general public they come across, it is obvious that the problem is NOT about having gays in the military. . .it is about the failure of our government to enforce the inherent rights of every citizen in this nation to serve their country.

But it is also about a basic employment issue. The military is not supposed to be a hotbed of sexual union - nor, despite the insecure whining by the Right, a place where devotion to country is supposed to be based on fantasies of fucking someone of the opposite sex. That isn't serving your country - that is serving your damned wet dreams and doing it for taxpayer money and benefits. There are poor members of the GLBT community who should not be subjected to this hetero obsession or abuse simply to access what may be his/her only chance of escaping poverty by joining the service - and yet the military's seeming endorsement of sexual obsession by heterosexual males is exactly the governing factor in being allowed to successfully serve our country. The whole concept is ridiculous and smacks of a horrific double standard which goes against every basic principle this nation was founded on.

Of course, we rarely see any discussion of this when DADT is brought up. . .just the demand by the morally superior in the Right that gays should either lie about their sexual/relationship orientation or never talk about romance or sex at all. And yet the military seems unwilling and incapable of enforcing that same standard on straight men, who would view such a restriction as an assault upon their fundamental right to worship their golden peepee desires as an abridgement of "free speech."

Just as in the Right's bogus little marriage argument that image is more important than substance, the government claims that gays who pretend to be straight are entitled to equality and can serve their country. . .if you aren't willing to lie, you are too "immoral" to live your life as a full citizen.

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by: kevinbgoode @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 07:34:30 AM CST

Frapper maps, and Cluster maps

Frapper tells you who and where and is powered by Google Maps, Cluster just says where.  I've got Cluster.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson

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by: Daimeon @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 09:55:22 AM CST

[ Parent ]

exactly, Kevin.

I'm not trusting of any politician who views representing my interests as something to wear like a trenchcoat and dark glasses while attempting to sneak into a gay bar unnoticed in the back alley of a midwestern city.

Note that as of 8:45PM on 3/7, there's still no video or mention on her web site. We're officially invisible (or in that backally gay bar).

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 19:44:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Hold on a Minute

I agree, Hillary's not the friend and ally we fervently wish for. But -- holy shit! -- she's way ahead of where any of the 2004 Democratic candidates were.

We ain't going to hear everything we want to hear from any viable candidate. Not in 2007, and not in 2008.

So don't compare Hillary or any of the other Democrats to the "perfect" advocate for LGBT rights; compare them to all the Republicans out there, most of whom are arguing about who will do the most to block our legal prospects and reduce what few civil rights we have today.

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by: S1 @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 09:48:53 AM CST

not the best

Actually she's not way ahead of where other Demo candidates were in 2004.  Kucinich, Sharpton and MosherBraun were 100% for equality and said so with the M word.

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by: Karen in Kalifornia @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 09:52:34 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I said "viable" candidates

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by: S1 @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 11:41:41 AM CST

[ Parent ]

why measure from the least common denominator?

that only allows the repubs to keep us back.

Lurleen on Twitter

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by: Lurleen @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 10:01:17 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Perfect?

Of course she's not perfect, none of the candidates are.  But she's being dishonest, and that should count.

As for comparing her to the Republicans, that goes without saying.  A ham sandwhich would be better than any of the Republicans.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

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by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 11:22:08 AM CST

[ Parent ]

who's saying perfect

No need to worry about "perfect," she's not even willing to publicly acknowledge meeting with gay orgs on her campaign site (or even if more ambitious, issue a press release about the importance of the meeting).

A public acknowledgment is a pretty damn low bar to clear, and she couldn't even do that.

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 19:46:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

"You'll have to ask my campaign" is just so lame

It's bad enough that she felt the need to sneak in and out to talk to us, but that answer, in which she lays the responsibility on her campaign is just so G.W.Bush.

Her "My campaign" excuse just sounds so much like the current administration as captured so well in the Daily Show clip that you will find at http://tinyurl.com/2...

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by: Paul In SF @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 10:10:43 AM CST

Not enough

When a candidate, even from my party, does not cae enough to value me as a gay person, then it is time to refrain my vote.  I don't care if she's the "best", I refuse to be treated as a 2nd class citizen by my own party.

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by: Juan @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 14:54:33 PM CST

Show her the money $$$ !

Oh yeah, Hillary, she's supportive, as LONG as there is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ involved!

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by: Juan @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 15:18:45 PM CST

When "support" is worse than bigotry....

With "support" like Clinton's who needs bigotry?  Apparently, Hillary wants our money but is too ashamed to even confirm that she even deigned to speak to ho-mo-secks-shoo-uls.

What a piece of work she is!  Obviously we are so sick and dirty that she can't even MENTION us.  With friends like Hillary, we don't need enemies.  And, shame on the Human Rights Campaign if they ever have her as a speaker again after this.  Fool me once is OK, but if they invite Clinton back after this outrageous display of bigotry, this 20 year member will never again donate a cent.

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by: Storm @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 15:47:25 PM CST

Hillary's Pink Triangulation

Gosh, Hillary embarrased to be seen with gays and lesbians?
Who would ever have thought?  Recommended reading: "Stranger Among Friends" by David Mixner.  He was a major supporter/fund raiser for Bill in the run-up to his 1992 win.  Bill promised Mixner and others an executive order ending the military ban on gays and lesbians, period.  Once the gay checks cleared, and the gay votes came in, Bill acted like, well, Bill after a one-night stand with a cocktail waitress/intern/wife of a donor/Miss America/fill in your own.  Bill never says, "Goodbye, nice knowing you," he says, "This never happened."  There's no better proof of Hillary's intention to leave us humped and dumped than her answer about her appearance before the HRC.  "You'll have to ask my campaign," is the mother of all red flags that we'd have to be idiots to ignore.

=>The truth usually isn't pretty. Don't blame me for telling it.<=

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by: Chadster @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 16:17:35 PM CST

Hillary campaigning to us on the DOWN LOW?

Pam thanks for pointing out this issue, and I passed it along to Joe Solmonese blog at Huffington Post
  http://www.huffingto...

If Hillary wants our funds, campaign workers, and votes, she can damn well ask for them in broad daylight. Or she is also welcome to say she doesn't want our support, But this get in the back of the bus sh*t and shut up...uh....HELL NO!

btw. Hateful conservative sites and newspapers are already publishing hillary's HRC speech and using it against gay adoptions.

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by: underbear1 @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 00:42:55 AM CST

STILL no mention of HRC speech

I blasted her site, and most especially Mark mentioned in her speech as joining her campaign. I get angrier each day there is no mention on either of Hillary's sites.

Who the hell do you think you are dealing with Hillary?
Think we can't smell an oppurtunistic politician who ONLY talks to us on the down low?,,,,honey we've dealt with this sh*t for over 25 YEARS........(to quote Sen Byrd on Iraq)"ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH!"

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by: underbear1 @ Fri Mar 09, 2007 at 11:55:21 AM CST