…at the <snigger> Independent Gay Forum.
Here, the sticky-fingered aftermath of breathing too much Rostow comes from Stephen H. Miller, a neo-gay-con (What else should one call someone who brags about being a “recovering progressive“? Perhaps just a “con”?):
A gay non-discrimination act was first introduced in 1974 when Bella Abzug and Ed Koch were in Congress, and it still can’t pass when Democrats have overwhelming majorities in both Houses? Majorities that are certain to shrink come November. I’d say yet again it’s past time to revisit the pledges of free gay votes (and dollars) to Democrats just because they’re Democrats (both Webb and Warner received support from local and national LGBT lobbies — the HRC web site still brags how it “mobilized its members to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb”). But my beating that drum wouldn’t do much good, would it.
Then again, without the vague “gender identity” add-on that could require employers to add unisex bathrooms, the odds for passage would be much greater. That’s another self-inflected political wound that activists are intent on gouging deeper and deeper.
I do hate firing at someone who is willing to call out the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool for being less than worthless. However, when that calling out comes from a source even lower on the evolutionary scale….
Yes, the Democrats are pretty damn worthless themselves right now – but gay men shilling for the other option?
That’s so 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 dare I say, 1974??
Of course, as to the pro-elitist historical revisionism, Miller is backed up by Richard Rosendall, commenting:
[S]ome moderate-to-conservative Democratic senators failing to support ENDA might not be fatal if the Republicans were not so relentlessly obstructionist, putting their partisan interest before all else. On the other hand, Steve has a legitimate point. In the fall of 2007, I wrote three columns — here, here, and here — criticizing the all-or-nothing approach demanded by the vast majority of GLBT rights groups. They insisted that Congress either pass a transgender-inclusive ENDA or no ENDA at all. My own local advocacy group in D.C., the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, supported passing the best achievable bill, which at that point was Barney Frank’s gay-only version. The all-or-nothing crowd insisted that this option was a betrayal, that the Human Rights Campaign (which decided pragmatically to support the Frank version after a whip count had shown insufficient votes for the trans-inclusive version) was throwing transgender people under the bus and that the entire gay rights movement would immediately forget about transgenders the moment the less-than-perfect ENDA were passed.This was and is complete rubbish, and many of the activists who went along with it were just pandering. How in the world could hundreds of GLBT organizations around the country, who strongly support transgender rights, suddenly all drop their support because another group had been protected? Demanding all or nothing effectively demands nothing if your advocacy on all of the issues has not developed to the same stage of readiness.
But having beat my head sufficiently against the wall of we-want-everything-right-now-whether-we’ve-done-the-work-or-not, I am not going to keep fighting it. Let the all-or-nothing stampeders have it their way, and see what it gets them. Maybe, just maybe, some sensible voices will emerge from the ruins. If not, hey — my job is secure anyway.
The sad thing is: Rosendall and his ilk think that that last line is the H-Bomb arrow in their collective queer quiver. Yet, its the reality that actually justifies the demand by transpeople for RE-inclusion.
You people screwed us over thirty-plus years ago, manufactured a straight-acting, homosexually-pure political neo-reality in which – apparently – no gay men do anything illicit in public (much less public restrooms) yet every public sex evil imaginable can be lain at the feet of transsexual women, became safe in your jobs even where you don’t have anti-discrimination law, yet you now expect us to sit by obediently while you create federal and state gay-only anti-discrimination law that you don’t need and then – secure in your employment – you suck every last ounce of political energy and every last activism dollar into the vortex of insanity known as the gay marriage movement?
If you’re betting on that, may I suggest a safer bet?
Put a C-Note on the Detroit Lions to win the Super Bowl tomorrow.
As for me, I’m going to put an M-note on the Invertebrates Democrats making a fake push this summer to act as though they give a damn about some LGBT issue by trotting out an old all new and un-vastly improved version of 2007’s ENDA 3685 – probably including language that hardwires us out in yet another act of Rahm-ism appeasement to gain a Republican vote (that actually gets no Republican vote) - just to allow the Joe Solmoneses and the Stephen Millers and the Richard Rosendalls to trot out their varying styles of transphobia semantical wizardry to demonize all of those who most need a law like ENDA yet again. After all, little bits of gay transphobia such as these tend to accompany the always-so-regrettable need to expunge trans rights from acceptable political conversation.
What’s that I smell a few days down the road?
A brand new unsigned Washington Post editorial from Jonathan Capehart touting the unchallengeable god-like wisdom of Barney “Stephen Gobie” Frank and the insane scumminess of the just-arrived-on-the-civil-rights-scene-last-week trans rights activists?
I hate the smell of non-journalistic napalm in the winter.
Its the smell of…
gay male transphobia.
Posted by translegalhistorian 
