(Cross-posted from The Bilerico Project‘s Alex Blaze)
The forum that the HRC and Logo are sponsoring for the presidential candidates (only the big money ones, of course, because we wouldn’t want poor people attending an HRC event) probably won’t produce anything worth much out of these candidate. We already know the focus-grouped and belabored policy positions that each of the major Democratic candidates is taking, the Republicans aren’t going to show up but we pretty much know where they stand on Lawrence, and the only Democrat who didn’t answer the HRC survey isn’t invited. I don’t imagine Melissa Etheridge and Joe Solmonese, the moderators, asking anything shocking or hard-hitting either. So I’m not expecting anything besides a few sound bites.
What is important is the fact that candidates are actually addressing non-straight people for a change. Every time they talk about their families, or how they understand how husbands want to provide for their wives, etc., they’re playing to a straight crowd. It’s just one more forum of many at which the presidential candidates will speak over the course of the next half-year.
But if you thought that no one would have a problem with this, then you thought wrong. Consider this from PoliPundit:
Edwards will have home-court advantage
Ah, questioning the sexuality of any candidate who participates in this. Well, that was expected, especially with Edwards, whom conservatives go to great lengths to portray as gay so that they don’t actually have to debate substance.
But how about someone make it seem as though Joe Solmonese is too big of a fag to be qualified to moderate? WorldNetDaily:
Solomonese, who also is a singer, said voters undoubtedly will….
Well, I looked up his bio here and here and here, and there’s no mention of him being a singer, so if he is then it wasn’t what propelled him to the head of the HRC. The only reason a possibly obscure, possibly tautological (everyone’s a singer!), possibly false fact like that would be included is to portray him as a screeching choir boy who has no place in a political debate. Ahem.
Well, now that we have that out of the way, is anyone out there going to compare gay rights to white supremacy? From the Stump:
Aren’t these candidates running to represent all people? Suppose a debate was proposed devoted solely to white issues? There never will be because it would be considered bigoted to ignore other groups and those who argued such a point would be correct.
Ah, yes. The poor, ignored white people. Because there can’t be a single debate not about heterosexuals. It goes on:
The issues facing America are not gay issues, they’re not Hispanic, Asian or Black issues either, they’re American issues.
This is the kind of top-down nationalism that makes me think: since when did Hispanic, gay, Asian, and Black issues stop being American issues? This argument implies that in order to have a proper debate, everyone who’s non-white, Hispanic, or queer has to keep their mouths shut and be invested in whatever interests white, straight America.
But the best comes from Pajamas Media’s own Gay Patriot:
Why isn’t Senatress Lucy Grah-amnesty (R-SC) invited? She gave the best hissy fit the Senate had ever seen a couple weeks ago, after all.
Of course, because disagreeing with someone entitles you to make misogynist and homophobic comments about them. And I don’t think that anyone told the Gay Patriots that Lindsay Graham isn’t running for president.
Oh, well. I expect a lot more, especially from the Religious Right, talking about how the presidential candidates, most (all?) of whom are Christian, are ignoring Christians. But they’re usually a bit slower on the uptake.