Ever Notice… – Part 2: I Hate the Smell of Marriage Derangement Syndrome in the Spring

I generally like Michelangelo Signorile.  His OutQ show is the only thing on that ridiculous channel that I can stand in the least. (And that’s not a backhanded compliment to him.  His show really is good.  Derek and Romaine?  Not so much…or even at all.)

However…

Michelangelo Signorile, Sirius OutQ radio host and Huffington Post Gay Voices editor-at-large, said Thursday that President Barack Obama seemed to fear the political repercussions of fully supporting same sex marriage.

“Why can’t he simply be with the rest of the country with this?” he wondered during an appearance on The Young Turks. “I think there’s an irrational fear in the campaign and the White House.”

Seen recently on Facebook:

Seen a few minutes after that:

A good question.

My question, however, is this: If President Obama is a “political homophobe” for not willing to callously and carelessly negate the current anti-RepubliRush tidal wave by going whole hog in for something that may cause some or even many of the Independent/Republican women who are currently itching to vote against Republicans over the RepubliRush’s War on Women to vote against an incumbent Democratic president over, are all of the Democrats who have caved over the years on trans-inclusion on ENDA, SONDA, whatever the hell Maryland calls its gay-only actrocity, whatever the hell New Hampshire calls its gay-only actrocity, whatever the hell Delaware calls its gay-only actrocity, and whatever the hell Massachusetts calls its new-Jim Crow actrocity political transphobes?

No, not just St. Barney.

All of them.

Or does that only run in one direction?

Inquirin’ minds want to already know, but we’d like to hear all of you say it anyway…

just for the record.

This blog post is peaceable activity intended to express a political view and/or to provide information to others.

How Many of the People Who Are Complaining About Sam Arora’s Flip-Flop on Marriage in 2011-12 Were Okay With St. Barney’s Flip-Flop on Trans-Inclusion in 2007?

After all, St. Barney did co-sponsor the 2007’s legitimate ENDA, HR 2015.

That would appear to be some sort of crossing-of-the-rubicon, no?

What distinguishes Arora from other no voters is that Arora campaigned 2010 not only on the promise of voting yes, but even going so far as to promise to sponsor the bill.

And for a time, he delivered. He was among the introductory sponsors in 2011.

…

Friday when marriage equality finally did reach the floor of the Maryland House of Delegates, Arora voted no.

At this point, I’d like to run out and grab some White Castle hamburgers…

…but, I forgot: restaurants – even White Castles – are public accommodations.

John Aravosis is a Disingenuous Transphobic Shyster

But we already knew that, didn’t we? 

Well, if there were any doubts, take a look at a paragraph of prototypical gay-primacy legal ‘analysis’ three-card monte that he slipped into a post about Frankenphobe’s year-in-advance exit interview with Queer Channel Media:

As for the [Massachusetts] trans bill, they got a lot more protections at the local level than we have at the national level, so it’s hardly “nothing.” And even the bill that’s a “sell out” offers a lot more protections than ENDA would offer us – so would passage of ENDA at the national level be a sell out too?

This is both the disease and the result of having the disease.

It is the disease in that this compact, seemingly-inoccuous, gay-male-with-money-approved nugget of anti-knowledge can be tramsmitted as easily as a virus – often without evil intent even if there was evil intent with the transmission of it in that AmericaBlah post.  People eager to believe it will think its true – the way that people are willing to believe that anyone eager to hop in the sack with them is safe. 

And we know how that usually turns out, eh?

Even people who have no eagerness to believe bullshit will believe it because, to anyone with anything else also on their minds, it sounds reasonable.

You know…

Muslim terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, so we have to go to war against Saddam Hussein…

Lowering taxes on the job-creators will cause them to be more willing to create jobs…

HRC hring one trans woman actually means something…

Just like the swisscheeseification of the American collective brain that Fox ‘News’ has worked upon America, this latest fit of Aravosisism is the result in that previous generations of gay-rights-industry transphobic circle-jerkery has not only unleashed people who actually believe this insanity but has actually unleashed some people who not only believe it but think that they’re really, really, really, really, really doing right by trans people when they re-ejaculate it into the civil rights discourse.  (I hereby refer thee to the comments to a posting about the St. Barney interview over at Towleroad.)

Lets parse John Aravosis’s disingenuous bullshit (and in doing so, decide for yourselves if he’s worthy of any benefit of any doubt as to where he fits into that dichotomy) shall we? 

Okay, step one:

they got a lot more protections at the local level than we have at the national level

Wow…

This is one really industrial-strength-ugly hydra. 

Well, here goes…

1. “they” got a lot less protections at the local level than you
2. “you” (standing in for all of you through the ages) have had that superiority of protection for over 22 years now at that local level
3. “they” have no more protections at the national level than you
4. for quite some time (the era of the “sexual orientation”-only executive order), “they” had less protections than you at the national level

Moving on…

so it’s hardly “nothing.”

That actually remains to be seen.  Once entities that, at first glance, appear to be covered by the bill realize the true significance of clear legislative history of public accommodations being purposely and deliberatively excluded from the bill, most if not all employment protections will, in practice, be erased (and, with no job, renting much less buying some form of housing becomes just another illusion – you know, like trans employees at NGLTF.)  Moreover, that same clear legislative history of public accommodations being purposely and deliberatively excluded from the bill will at some point be used by some court in Massachusetts to declare that all of the amorphous decisional law-based “sex” decisions that we were supposed to bend over and say ‘thank you’ for and be satisfied with were overturned as to public accommodations.  In short, it may well not be hardly nothing; it quite possibly may be worse than nothing.

even the bill that’s a “sell out” offers a lot more protections than ENDA would offer us

Refer back to the little fact that in the relevant jurisdiction – Massachusetts, not the federal level – that means that some people (care to guess who?) have more than rights than others.  If the Massachusetts trans bill had included employment discrimination protections and, say, a handful of puppy treats, then that would indeed be broader in scope for trans people than even a legitimate version of the federal ENDA would be and if the 1989 Massachusetts gay-only rights law had not provided for puppy treats then we’d even have something under Massachusetts state anti-discrimination law that you don’t. 

But my dogs – who tell me that they’re licensed to practice law in Massachusetts (though I have my doubts; I think they’re just trying to impress me to get some puppy treats) – tell me that not only did gays not get any puppy treats in 1989 but, after a thorough reading of the 2011 trans bill, it appears that trans people didn’t get any either.

Of course, if the Massachusetts trans bill had included employment discrimination protections as well as all other protections that gays and lesbians grabbed for themselves and themselves alone back in 1989 – thereby making gays and lesbians in Massachusetts live with the painful indignity of knowing that trans people are actually fully equal to them – then that would be broader in scope for trans people as well as gays and lesbians than the federal ENDA would be. 

No puppy treats for you John.

Now, in addition…

You don’t really want me to continue the above analysis via comparison to the sort of federal ENDA that you were trying to ramrod into federal law back in 2007, do you John?

so would passage of ENDA at the national level be a sell out too?

I’ll ask again: You don’t really want me to continue that analysis via comparison to the sort of federal ENDA that you were trying to ramrod into federal law back in 2007, do you John?

Well, screw you.  I’m going to.

If it is a legitimate version of ENDA, then yes it is indeed a sell-out – but (1) a sell-out that was engineered by St. Barney, et. al. back in the early 1990s by deciding to go for employment only, and (2), by virtue of it being a legitimate version of ENDA, a sell-out of not just LGBs but also of Ts – but it would be a sell-out that would result in all LGBTs having the sole nugget of employment anti-discrimination protections.

On the other hand…

If it is the type of ENDA bill that you championed – just as disingenuously as you’re doing now – right along with St. Barney of Strife, the, once again, it is indeed a sell-out – but (1) a sell-out that was engineered by St. Barney, et. al. back in the early 1990s by deciding to go for employment only, but (2), by virtue of it being an illegitimate version of ENDA, an additional level of sell-out – of Ts – resulting in all LGBs having a federal, statutory right to discriminate against trans people in any private employment context given that any relevance that the Vandy Beth Glenn decision might have to Title VII sex discrimination law would be wiped out via Congress knowingly, purposefully and openly ejecting trans coverage from ENDA’s scope.

December 2011…

Its the new October 2007.

One More Reason that the World Will be Better with Barney Frank Gone from Congress

And this one doesn’t even require you to take an opinion on trans-inclusion (in ENDA or anything else); it simply requires you to recognize a professional hack who has no real interest in solving any real problems – someone who, within seconds of first being elected to Congress in 1980, spewed out an intention to stay there for 30 years and then ultimately couldn’t even keep his word on that – when you see one.

“People on the left and people on the right live in parallel universes,” [St. Barney] mused. “No longer do people get their information from a common media source, and then diverge in how they interpret it. The left is on MSNBC and on the blogs. The right is on Fox and on talk radio. And what happens is, people know different facts. These are echo chambers. People hear agreement with themselves.”

How thoroughly full of shit was St. Barney on this?  Well, its another of those rare instances where I have to agree completely with The John:

The progressive blogs and MSNBC are opinion journalism.  Fox and Limbaugh are partisan disinformation and misinformation in the proud tradition of the Soviet Union (who raised lying to an art).  And yes, there’s a huge difference.  Opinion journalism is the op ed pages on a good day.  Disinformation and misinformation is the garbage “journalism” that Rupert Murdoch reeked on the rest of the world – think British tabloids at their worst –  before he imported his filth to America, under the warm embrace of the Republican party.

…

Disinformation is what Cong. Frank tried to sell his own community after he first denounced the administration’s abominable brief [defending DOMA], and then just a few hours later proudly defended it, claiming (incredibly) that he hadn’t actually read the brief when he first spoke out against it, but now that he had read it, he thought it was just peachy.

The world would have been a better place a lot faster had Barney Frank acted more like a blog and less like Fox News when his own community needed him the past three years.  So spare us the false comparisons.

And then, of course, there’s ENDA – but I promised I wouldn’t pile on with that.

I wouldn’t want to upset the real inhabitants of Oz, now would I?

Hilary Rosen: Consumate Substanceless Spinmeister and Corporate Lobbyist

Shillary at HuffPo:

 As long as I have been trekking to Capitol Hill to seek fairness for the LGBT community…

Okay, lets stop right there.  The next time that Hilary ‘Recording Industry Mouthpiece Most Responsible for the File-Sharing Legal Troubles of Anyone Who You May Know Who Had Legal Troubles Over File-Sharing’ Rosen does anything to seek “fairness” for “T” will be the first.  Now, the rest of the sentence:

…Barney [Frank]’s office was always my first, last and middle stop.

Well, that pretty much proves my point.

For the next 25 years, Barney fought for us.

I want to see the definition of “us” in the ex-Mrs. Elizabeth Birch lexicon.  Actually, I don’t need to; history tells me it doesn’t include T-anything – and that it doesn’t include anything LGB that doesn’t also have a $ attached.

When he burst out of the closet door in 1987, the splinters went flying.

Funny, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen “splinters” used as a synonym for “male prostitutes” before. That is what she meant, no?

It was because of Barney that the Americans with Disabilities Act protected people with HIV in the workplace. It is because of Barney that countless amendments taking away civil liberties for LGBT people did not pass the Congress ….

Of course, those clauses in the ADA that affirmatively discriminate against trans people – and which helped to wipe out existing trans-positive precedent under the Rehabilitation Act – did pass Congress.  I wonder if St. Barney even noticed them?  Or was he too busy dealing with the Stephen Gobie scandal at the time to, if by some chance he actually isn’t the transphobe that his career shows him to be, expend any energy on those?

Over the years, some in the LGBT community resented his all-powerful hold over our political agenda. They mistakenly thought that he was too unwilling to push his friends. I never felt that way.

Funny what money allows you to feel, no?

Is support for the LGBT community in good hands in Congress? We have a great Minority Leader Pelosi in the House, many friends and three smart and committed openly gay members of the House (one of whom, Tammy Baldwin we hope will be in the Senate next year). And in the Senate, Leader Reid has proven to be loyal and steadfast in his commitment.

Doesn’t it just give you goosebumps when a totally-out-of-touch-with-the-real-lives-of-non-millionaire-LGBTs shill for HRC uses words like “loyal” and “steadfast”?  It just makes me want to go by a used car from her.

But Barney is in a class by himself.

For that we should be ever so glad.

Time will tell of the impact of his leaving

I stand by my prediction – and I stand by my decade-plus opinion that St. Barney was as much of an impediment to any version of ENDA passing (even the version that transphobes such as himself claim that they wanted) as the corporatist christianist party.

There won’t be another like him.

Y’know…

Maybe Dubya’s opposition to human cloning wasn’t so ludicrous after all.

ENDA – a Legitimate ENDA – Now Actually Has a Chance to Become Law

From TPM:

Boston.com, citing various media sources, reports that Barney Frank will not seek reelection.

CNN has confirmed the news, citing a statement from Frank’s office, but did not post the text of his statement. National Journal reports that Frank will make the announcement at the Newton City Hall this afternoon.

From the National Journal:

He won a closer-than-expected re-election bid in 2010, taking 53 percent of the vote, his lowest total since first winning his Newton- and Tauton-based district in 1980.

Maybe all of his other usual supporters ran off to Oz.

A Congress without St. Barney is a Congress that will actually give serious consideration to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act – and a Congress without St. Barney is a Congress that actually might not be predisposed against a legitimate (read: non-trans-exterminationistic) ENDA.

Good riddance to the “asexual blob” of institutionalized gay male transphobia.

Perhaps he’ll leave quickly enough that the munchkins won’t have time to hit him in the butt on the way out…

or not.

Kettle, Pot, Yadda Yadda Yadda…..

Matt ‘SONDA – yes, that SONDA, the still-gay-only-SONDA nine years later’ Foreman is over at Shillerico pretending to constructively oppose HRC:

The reality is that we are two separate movements: the Human Rights Campaign and everyone else.

Imagine if we could get past these divisions and present a truly united front in the fight for complete equality for LGBT people. There is a chance to do this right now, as the HRC Board of Directors works to name a successor to its president, Joe Solmonese, who will be stepping down in March.

…

[T]he cause of LGBT equality has suffered because of a deficit of trust and a surplus of ill will between HRC and the rest of the movement.

That last sentence will appear to most to be a neutral encapsulation of the history of the LGBT movement over the last few decades.  In reality, however, its as much of a dodge as Herman Cain’s press conference was yesterday or the typical Boner-Cantor-apologist claim that both major parties are equally responsible for the state of the economy. 

Every last ounce of ill-will directed at the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool has been earned by the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool – whereas, the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool has yet to amass even one quintillionth of the moral capital necessary to even think about legitimately expressing any ill-will against any LGB and/or T individual or group.  (Four years after ENDA 3685 and, still, the only trans woman to ever be allowed to earn a living as an employee of the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool is someone whose primary pre-HRC experience consisted of being a preacher in Europe?  I rest my case.  No appeals.)

The cause of LGBT equality has suffered not only because of actions taken by HRC that simply are not in the best interests of the vast majority of the LGBT people that it claims to represent but because of actions taken by HRC that actively and substantively harm trans people.

You know, Matt…

The way that the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) – under your control a decade ago – acted in a manner that has actively and substantively harmed trans people not simply in the state of New York (via SONDA) but by neutering what was left of the National Gay-Lesbian Task Force once you got bumped up there from the back benches of state policy advocacy.  Maybe you don’t remember the gay transphobes who, for all of their transphobia, were actually historically accurate in 2007 when they called you out as a toothless hypocrite for claiming to support a national trans-inclusive gay rights law when you folded like an onion skin tent on the issue at the state level – but I do.

And right now I smell a gay neo-Armstrong Williams and a very inorganic, deceptively worded pile of criticism of HRC.

As the members of the HRC board weighs the next steps for the organization they lead, let’s imagine an alternative to the recent state of affairs…

• Imagine if HRC’s political donations were actually in sync with those of Gill Action’s Political OutGiving program and the Victory Fund’s work to elect LGBT people to office.
• Imagine if organizations with deep understanding of specific issues – the needs of gay families, bullying or anti-LGBT violence, work in communities of color or faith, marriage equality, etc. – could partner with, rather than compete with or work around HRC on their specific priorities.
• Imagine if the grassroots, grasstops and financial clout of the LGBT community was brought to bear in a focused way on our top priorities.
• Imagine if HRC partnered with Equality Federation organizations and local groups to build their collective power, lists, fundraising bases and expertise.
• Imagine if information and leverage points were shared honestly so that our community could start playing legislators and policymakers the way they play us now.

Can you imagine?

I can. Let’s hope that the HRC board of directors can, too. Because if they do, then we all win.

Especially the out-of-touch. marriage-derangement-syndrome-addled champagne-swillers of Rhode Island Avenue – for whom you’ve just mapped out what you and they can claim is a cooperative strategy but, in reality, is just a take-over strategy.  There is no such thing as Wal-Mart cooperating with locally-owned grocery stores and pharmacies, there is no such thing as Koch-owned officeholders cooperating with legitimately-elected representatives – and there is no such thing as HRC cooperating with state and local interests.  The illegitimate end of each of those truthful dichotomies has interests that are fundamentally opposed to and incompatible with the interests of the legitimate, productive masses at the opposite ends.

Deceptive piles of ‘analysis’ by feckless wonks-for-hire who have never had to live under the short end of the ‘compromises’ that they were rewarded with promotions for making won’t change that – and neither will whatever non-white-skin-clad and/or trans tom mouthpiece that the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool comes up with as Pee Wee Solmonese’s replacement in order to claim that it really isn’t what it is, what it always has been and what it always will be.

Current odds, courtesy of my imaginary transsexual bookie:

• Stampp Corbin – even money
• Jonathan Capehart – even money
• Diego Sanchez – 3:2
• Winnie Stachelberg – 3:1
• Generic non-gay (but, of course, non-trans) person (in order to claim the ‘post-gay’ mantle): 3:1
• Susan Stanton – 4:1
• Ken Mehlman – 4:1
• Hilary Rosen: 10:1
• An Elizabeth Birch comeback: 20:1
• Generic trans person who might have some experience that can be protrayed to the malleable masses as being law or policy-related but whose actual experience is the substantive equivalent of being a preacher in Europe: 1,000: 1
• Generic trans person who has actual law or other policy-related experience and will actually work toward the best interests of trans people: 1,000,000,000:1
• Generic trans woman who has law or other policy-related experience and will actually work toward the best interests of trans people: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000:1

Much of it Thanks to You Barney

Someone from the sockpuppet’s neck of the woods encountered St. Barney on a campaign junket:

ENDA won’t pass for several years, according to Frank. He talked about the need for more lobbying from the transgender community specifically, “People may not like to hear this, but there is still a lot of transphobia.”

Gee, Barn – a decade-and-a-half of you hyping the ‘trans woman penis panic’ wouldn’t have anything to do with that, now would it?

So Remind Us Again as to Why a Trans-Inclusive ENDA Wasn’t Used as an “Organizing Effort” From Jan. 1995 to Jan. 2007?

You do realize that ‘Equality’ Maryland has been Barney Frank’s farm team this spring, right?  To gauge just what sort of transphobic kool-aid language that just enough trans people will drink in order for him to act as though he’s introducing a trans-inclusive ENDA when he really isn’t?

Well, the end game is near on the anti-trans HB 235 – which means a new ENDA is afoot:

METRO WEEKLY: Are you going to be introducing ENDA this week?

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Yeah, we’re definitely going introduce it, [although the specifics regarding timing are still being worked out.]

MW: What do you expect to accomplish this year with ENDA?

FRANK: It’s an organizing tool. Obviously, with the Republicans in power, you’re not going to get the bill even considered. But, we have work still to do and we have overwhelming – over 90 percent – support on the Democratic side for ENDA based on sexual orientation and we had, in the last Congress, about 30 Republicans that way. Unfortunately, there’s a drop-off from that number to transgender, and this is a chance to work hard to sway those who are committed to ENDA to support the full transgender inclusion as well.

This is an organizing effort. I’m going to be urging people to spend their time talking to those who have voted in the past for ENDA and are supportive of ENDA but where we’re not certain they’re still with us on the transgender issue. So, that’s what – having a bill before you makes it easier to organize people to do that.

I get that ENDA is DOA in the curent Congress.

So, yes, believe it or not that means I’m in agreement with St. Barney on something.

But if the 2011-13 Congress is an “organizing effort,” then what were the Republican-controlled House sessions from Jan. 1995 to Jan. 2007? 

Drag shows? 

BDSM parties?

Ronald Reagan film festivals?

Before anyone says it: Yes, in and of itself, asking why a trans-inclusive ENDA was never used as an “organizing effort” from Jan. 1995 to Jan. 2007 (or, for that matter, why it wasn’t openly used as a real bargaining chip to actually pass the type of gay-only ENDA that we all actually know that St. Barney actually wants) isn’t going to accomplish the goal of getting a trans-inclusive ENDA passed. 

But it should give people pause when hearing St. Barney announce what he claims is his strategy – not simply about whether he’s telling the truth but also about the competence behind such a strategy even if he is telling the truth.

MW: What do you say to the people who say this job should have been done in the 111th Congress?

FRANK: I would say to them: We got hate crimes done, and we got “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed, and you can’t do everything at once. And that, in fact, the problem was what I just said to you: There was a fall-off – a significant one on the Republican side and some on the Democratic side – because the votes may not be there for an inclusive ENDA.

Or maybe he’s just using the leftover dog whistle from Annapolis.

How Many People Currently Involved With Trying to Get Gay Marriage in Maryland Expressed an Opinion on (or were Otherwise Involved in) The Fight Against Prop 8 in California?

And, of those, how many are seething over us unwashed, non-Maryland-pure scum offering our analysis of the ‘Equality’ Maryland-consecrated, anti-trans HB 235?

I’m just curious.

Really – I’m just curious:  Why is it okay for gays and lesbians (and their supporters) from all across the country to fight against a law that established a ceiling on the civil legal status of same-sex relationsips in California but it is not okay for trans people from all across the country to fight against a proposal that, far from making trans people equal to gays and lesbians in Maryland, would establish not a floor for trans civil rights but a ceiling and act not merely as yet another form of gay-mandated ‘incremental progress’ in Maryland but as a limitation template for future trans civil rights proposals in other states and at the federal level?

I’m just askin’.

Amendment 2 in Colorado was a disease that had to be stopped – and it was stopped (by the Supreme Court, but stopped nevertheless.)

Anti-gay marriage amendments are a disease – but, of course, gays and lesbians haven’t yet figured out that the only way to stop them is to stop provoking them into existence.

Trans-othering proposals masquerading as civil rights bills whose purpose is to bring trans people up the point where gays and lesbians threw us out of a moving car are anything but what official gays and lesbians are representing them to be.  Oh, to be sure, the car that threw us out is headed back toward us – but with pedal to the medal, all brake lines severed and no intent whatsoever to actually stop to let us get in.  Maryland’s HB 235 is a petri dish for Barney Frank’s wettest anti-trans wet dream, the final politico-rhetorical excuse to never actually enact any form of inclusive ENDA and to only propose ones that are even more monstrously transphobic than either HB 235 or the only-released-to-trans-quislings-who-are-reliable-liars revised language of last session’s ENDA – because if even Maryland can’t pass what ‘those people’ want, Congress certainly can’t be bothered with actually thinking about the issue.