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Does The LGBTQ Community Blame The Black Community For Gay Marriage Losses?

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HuffPo’s David Kaufman Needs To Learn How To Play In The Civil Rights Sandbox

Let me make a few things perfectly clear:

  • No one, and I mean no one, owns the patent, trademark, or copyright on civil rights. Not blacks, not gays, not anyone.
  • No one, and I mean no one, owns the patent, trademark, or copyright on civil marriage. Not the Catholics, not the Jews, not the Christians, not the Muslims, not anyone.
  • It is unacceptable that an oppressed minority would turn tables on another oppressed minority. For blacks to not support the LGBTQ community (and vice-versa,) for the LGB community to not support trans people (and vice-versa,) is unacceptable as we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Now, having laid that groundwork, let me respond to David Kaufman’s ill-considered Huffington Post piece, “Co-Opted: Marriage Equality’s Civil Rights Rip-Off.”

The very title exemplifies my three bullet points above.

You may consider the remainder an open letter to Mr. Kaufman.

* * *

Mr. Kaufman, your statement, and the basis of your piece, that “LGBT Inc. demands the right to appropriate the Civil Rights struggle wherever and whenever possible” is incorrect and offensive.

Civil rights are not owned by African-Americans. In fact, just last week, as she cast her vote for marriage equality, New Jersey Senator Nia Gill (who, herself, is African-American) had this to say on same-sex marriage:

“It is a civil rights issue – not because African-Americans own the copyright to civil rights, it is a civil rights issue in the analysis of the equal protection of the fourteenth amendment in the constitution. And maybe some in my community want to hold on to it, because it’s ours. Because our blood has been shed for the right to vote, and we jealously guard that as a re-affirmation of being American. And so we hold it, because no one can do civil rights and have civil rights better than we do. That’s emotional, but it is certainly not an analysis of the constitutional imperatives that face us. It’s a civil rights issue.”

(Senator Gill’s speech, which I recorded, was historic and beautiful, and wise. You can read it, and listen to it in its entirety, here.)

You go on to accuse “LGBTQ Inc.” (which, let me state, you neglect to define as our leadership organizations or the community as a whole — which is so fractured that getting even a plurality of us to agree on much of anything would be a strong achievement,) of “constantly blaming Black folks for every same-sex marriage set back.”

Um, in a word, “no.”

Not New York, not New Jersey, and no, not even Maine.

I don’t believe the majority of, as you so disparagingly put it, “LGBT Inc.” – be it HRC, or David Mixner (whom you quote) or the larger LGBTQ community – is blaming “Black folks for every same-sex marriage set back.” That’s just plain false.

You write,

“…somehow a mere 13.5 percent of the population is responsible for 100 percent of the problems.

“The math alone should render this philosophy farcical.”

Elections (and that anyone is actually voting on our rights is an abomination, but a conversation for another day,) aren’t won or lost on 13.5 percentage points; they’re generally won or lost on two or three or five, maybe eight percentage points. Prop 8 passed by a 4.48 percentage point margin. So yes, while no one is “blaming” African-Americans for Prop 8, 13.5 percent of the population can have an adverse – or positive – affect on a vote. But it could be any 13.5 percent of the population. Or eight percent of the population. Or, yes, 4.48 percent of the population.

That 4.48 percentage margin didn’t just come from the African-American community. And after the media dropped that slant, so did the American public.

If you have an issue with the numbers, talk to the people who designate the all-to-simplistic categories to which we are assigned.

By the way, who can we “blame” for Prop 8 passing? Aside from ourselves, here’s what I wrote the day after the election,

“Looking at exit poll data, a composite of the person who voted “yes” to ban same-sex marriage in California is someone who is married (60%), and has children (68%), attends church weekly (84%), does not work full-time (57%), is an Independent or Republican (66%), and voted for Bush in 2004 (80%). This person also is likely to live in the suburbs (59%), and is very worried about another terrorist attack (65%).

“None of these results should be surprising. Nor should these, given what we know about voting groups overall. 75% of black women, 54% of latin men, and 51% of white men voted to ban same-sex marriage. Overall, 70% of blacks supported the ban.”

Numbers don’t lie, Mr. Kaufman. BUT – and this is extremely important: How we, as journalists, explain them, how we present them, how we shape them, IS important. Equally important is doing the work to make those numbers change, in our favor.

Yes, immediately after California’s Prop 8 vote, the media unfairly focused on the narrative that black voters who came out to vote for Obama, voted for Prop 8 as well. That said, and despite your attempt to ignore the facts, there is a larger percentage of the overall Black community that is against marriage equality than is the average American. That is a fact that is undeniable, as polls show.

And that it is a fact merely means the LGBTQ community hasn’t succeeded in reaching out the the black community – just as we did not succeed in California in reaching out to the faith-based community. Yes, we all have work to do.

I’m sure, sir, you are doing your part in that regard. And I am doing mine. It’s a pity you’ve chosen to lash out at such a wide swath of the very support, the very community we both have to improve our chances of winning our common battle.

I appreciate your attempt to liberate the overlapping groups that comprise what we so easily refer to as the African-American community. Yes, as we all work to achieve equality for everyone, we see how deep centuries of oppression and inequality go.

I’ll leave you with yet another response to your own misguided missive. You write, “The most tragic element of Marriage Equality’s Civil Rights rip-off is that it’s simply so unnecessary.”

Rip-off? No. Categorized differently, perhaps as “shared commonality,” then, unnecessary? Still no. Listen to the words of none other than NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, who, like Senator Gill, spoke at the New Jersey State Senate’s Judiciary Committee to support the same sex marriage bill. His words, as well as Senator Gill’s, were historic and beautiful, and wise.

A few quotes:

“I believe gay rights are civil rights.”

“As my late neighbor and friend Coretta Scott King said in 1998, ‘homophobia is like racism and anti-semitism, and other forms of bigotry…'”

(I recorded Mr. Bond’s words also. You can listen to them here. I hope everyone does. They are inspirational.)

Bottom line, Mr. Kaufman, the LGBTQ community and our supporters are not proffering that there was a “Civil Rights movement [that] battled to allow Blacks to marry Whites.” We’re saying (if I may be so bold as to convey what I see as the feelings of many in our community) that our struggles for civil rights share an inherent commonality with the African-American struggle for civil rights. Yes, our battles are different. Yes, the injustices our communities have endured are different. But, there is commonality. And it is that commonality we need to focus on, if both our communities are to grow and grow away from our injustices.

You begin by attacking Andrew Sullivan; I’ll end by offering this: If Mr. Sullivan, for whom I have great respect, claims, as you write, “the Civil Rights movement battled to allow Blacks to marry Whites,” (and did you, Mr. Kaufman, challenge him on that point?) then your issue is with Mr. Sullivan’s understanding of American history, not with the LGBTQ community. I hope in the future, you will pick your fights where they belong.

If, as you write, “everyone loses in the battle for ‘most-oppressed’ status,” I welcome you to work with all the oppressed, not against us.

I welcome your – and everyone’s – thoughts.

Update:

Pam Spaulding has her own take on Kaufman’s piece. Here’s a taste:

Who’s the Homo-Tom? (Personally, I think that’s a bit harsh.)

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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