Thursday, July 21, 2016

‘Why Am I Even Here?’

"First Openly Gay Republican on GOP Platform Committee"
Over the last two days, Rachel Hoff has considered leaving the Republican Party for the first time in her life.
The think tank defense analyst from Washington, D.C., who is the first openly gay Republican to serve on her party’s platform committee, sat through a slow march of disappointments that led her to that point days before the 2016 convention. Her peers voted down every amendment that offered softened or inclusive language about the LGBT community, instead doubling down on the belief that marriage is between only one man and one woman and other socially conservative positions.
On Monday, Hoff made an emotional appeal asking the committee to replace some of those sentiments with language she had crafted, stating that marriage is a fundamentally important institution and that “there are diverse and sincerely held views on marriage” within the party. “We are your daughters. We are your sons, your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, the couple who sits next to you in church,” she said. “Freedom means freedom for everyone, including gays and lesbians … And all I ask today is you include me and those like me.” By an unofficial vote of about 30 to 82, the amendment failed.

28 comments:

ampersand said...

“Freedom means freedom for everyone"

Unless you disagree with her.

edutcher said...

She's looking for a headline.

She knows the party. She knows the base.

She knew the job was dangerous when she took it.

Amartel said...

The GOP is one big circular firing squad.

Amartel said...

The DNC, OTOH, has all their guns pointed in the same direction.
At America.

Amartel said...

So this is an easy decision.
But, DAMN, we make it hard on ourselves.

Jim in St Louis said...

Not a Republican, so the slow march of your party over the cliff is no skin off my butt, but this is a mistake, GOP would be wiser to take a principled stand on religious liberty, and to give an example of true tolerance.

NB Party Platforms are non-binding and just theater and show.

edutcher said...

Amartel said...

The GOP is one big circular firing squad.

And this is so, how, exactly?

The Demos pander to the Dan Savage homosexuals, the Rs don't.

The Rs are against avowed homosexuals in the military. They're against, same sex marriage. They're against strange people who insist they use the opposite sex's bathroom.

Along with most of America.

If you want the Rs to go along with all the Lefty nonsense, you probably like the Whigs. That seems to be a losing proposition.

If you want the Rs to be a clear choice that most Americans like, that has a better chance of winning.

And you really need to stop cribbing April's talking points. I'm sure Erickson's website is getting very few eyeballs these days.

Synova said...

"She's looking for a headline."

Someone is. It's all about headlines and not about communication and I think this is causing some fundamental problems for everyone. Meanwhile the activists are making it harder on people and making it harder to just decide to live-and-let-live. They push one way and I think they know that if they push people will push back and then the push-back will be proof they were right. They *need* the push back so they make sure they get the push back.

So many conservatives are unconscious Statists. They'd like an inexpensive government but they really have no conceptual place for a *small* one. Sometimes I think they're probably right, anyway, because when everyone else is also a Statist you can't assume that their "freedom" isn't going to directly translate into your government coercion. So you end up with these platform bits affirming stuff that's no business of the State in any case, but it's hard to make a case that they shouldn't have done it.

And since I don't see a comment from April, what's up with that?

edutcher said...

Julie Pascal said...

So many conservatives are unconscious Statists. They'd like an inexpensive government but they really have no conceptual place for a *small* one.

That's the Libertarians' all purpose fall-back.

As with a lot of things, the devil is in the details.

For them, like the Dan Savage homosexuals, "freedom" or "liberty" translates to give us our way, usually no rules at all. Especially for them.

So much for Statism.

Synova said...

About all we know for certain is that journalists don't try very hard to report the truth, they're after "stories".

For all we know the woman agreed to the interview to show that homosexuals are welcomed and part of the process even if she wished that people would have been willing to change stuff, but hey, she tried.

The interviewer asks her "do you ever feel like leaving?" and she says, "Yeah, a little bit, sometimes,"

And there you go. Headlines.

Synova said...

Bah Ed... I'm less than impressed with the old anarchist straw man... floppy old fart that he is.

edutcher said...

"straw man"?

Again?

Jim in St Louis said...

I read that the GOP is on the verge of a crack up, but maybe it’s not a fatal fracture, but more like a perennial plant that has gotten too clumpy and needs to be split so that it can propagate and multiply and flower.

The Evangelicals can push creationism and that infidelity should be a crime, and the small got types can merge with the libertarians. That would leave the big government spending types beholden to the chamber of commerce. Is there any other sub-group that would split off?
Then maybe they could all come together in a loose coalition for things like immigration and homeland security.

But if I was going to place a bet I would think the Dem party would be more ripe for a disintegration. Wow think how many parts are comprised within that whole.

edutcher said...

If you were around then, it's no different than '80.

You're thinking more like '64 where it was war to the death and we ended up with the great society, the War on Poverty, 'Nam, and rioting in the streets.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Why is she there? Looking for drunk convention delegates to pick up?

AllenS said...

Right on, AJ.

Trooper York said...

Isn't she there to impose her views on the Republican Party?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

“We are your daughters. We are your sons, your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, the couple who sits next to you in church,” she said.

Nah, they don't care about any of that or about you. They think you might as well not exist. Go away, you are not fit to be a part of America. That's the Republican attitude toward the things and people they don't understand.

edutcher said...

Sounds more like Democrats.

BTW Ailes is out at Fox. Wonder how long before the exodus?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

For them, like the Dan Savage homosexuals, "freedom" or "liberty" translates to give us our way, usually no rules at all. Especially for them.

edward - what do you care if two homosexuals get married? How does that threaten you?

And also, I'd ask what the hell a "Dan Savage homosexual" is. But then I thought, no. Better to leave this as one of the many categories that edwin needs to imagine in order to make all the non-conservatives seem that much scarier, more diversely arranged, and disgusting.

ed would unfortunately lose much of his purpose in life if it weren't for new and creative ways to demean most of America.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The Rs are against avowed homosexuals in the military.

I think I see why ed never comments at TOP or any place, really, where he would wilt under challenge. I mean, this latest, ridiculous nonsense about "avowed homosexuals... what the fuck does that even mean? Do homosexuals take vows to their orientation? Do they hold rituals in forests with guns and recite oaths, saying, "I, edwin dutcher, do solemnly swear to like and only be attracted to men and males of any other species which seem to align with my features. I will promise to love, honor, cherish, lust after and pork men and men alone, be they in the bunghole or the piehole, and to only take it that way from other men, in return. I promise to caress, massage, cuddle and tickle my male lovers, as they will do to me. And I will let other people poke their heads into my business and promise to knock it off it offends them."

That's the ed "vow."

Trooper York said...

What's wrong with wanting them to leave us alone and imposing their lifestyle on us? Is that so terrible?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Tell me of any gay that's forcing you to be gay or to be in a gay marriage, Trooper.

Accepting other people's rights is not an infringement of anyone else's rights. This sounds like a king saying it's an infringement of his rights to allow people to vote and to govern themselves. I have no idea anyone could confuse this.

What it sounds more like is that fictional "right to not be offended," that keeps cropping up. There is no such right. Praise be for that.

There is no right to control society.

ndspinelli said...

I would want to get an EKG and stress test on fatso Ailes before I followed him anywhere.

edutcher said...

Rit, you know.

Trooper York said...

Tell that to the bakers and the flower shops that lost their businesses.

And before you tell me that it is discrimination you should know that I don't care. Discrimination means choice. It's not just for killing babies anymore.

rcocean said...

The problem is the Gay activists don't want tolerance, or even acceptance. They want to ram it down our throats and if we don't ask for more, brand us as homophobes and haters.

Wait, was that too graphic?

The Dude said...

Charo was on Peewee's Christmas Special. Can't we set aside our petty squabbles and think about Charo's talent?