Breakfast at Tiffany's – Because I Do Not Know

With Friends Like These

Catching up on some reading ... an article in June's (yes, June!) OUT magazine by E.J. Graff points out that gay people are ever-increasingly becoming the scapegoat in politics. Not by the right -- but by the left.

Unfortunately, I can't find the article online, so I'll have to offer up only some portions:

On the right and on the left, American pundits have been saying that because of us the world is going to hell. Either (a) God's about to destroy civilization because of our wanton, sinful desires, or (b) Republicans are now in a position to destroy the globe because of our irresponsible lust for marriage. Since those on the right have been after us for decades (see Anita Bryant et al), their stance is hardly a surprise. But the "liberal" version is really starting to get under my skin -- especially since I have the strong suspicion that it has only just begun."

Graff then recalls the hand-wringing following the 2004 presidential election, when Dianne Feinstein, the liberal editor of The American Prospect and other pundits said the same-sex marriage issue -- not that lame-ass (my words, not hers) John Kerry or the America-haters like Michael Moore -- handed George W. Bush another term in the White House.

So why are the Democrats picking on us? Because they're cowards, that's why. Torie Osborn, former executive director of both the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, notes that Democrats have pointedly avoided picking on some other key constituencies. "They can't scapegoat the black community's position on school vouchers or the increasingly conservative bent on some African-American churches," she says. "They can't scapegoat the Jews who peeled off to vote for Bush because of Israel. And so it's us." As Sue Hyde, New England field organizer for the NGLTF, says, "The Republicans energize their base. The Democrats screw their base."

Which is what I've said for the last 10 years, as I've watched the Democrat Party lose its core following of middle-class people and instead become a party of special interests and so-called intellectuals. Attend a Democrat fundraiser sometime. You never seem to meet anyone who first says, "I'm with the Democrat Party." Instead, it's, "I'm with the ACLU" or "I'm with the Teamsters" or "I'm with Greenpeace." Quite the opposite is true when attending a Republican event (and I went to both this past election cycle). They are on-message and they are publicly united behind one thing: their candidate.

Agree or disagree with their politics, the Republicans have this game figured out. Even when they've had their own bumps in the road (Jimmy Carter's election following Watergate and allowing Pat Buchanan and Co. drag them too far right in '92, opening the door for another triangulating Southern governor in Bill Clinton).

Meanwhile, the underrepresented minorities -- yes, that's us -- continue to ride the tired, old mare. And in the gay community's case, we don't even get to ride. We get to walk behind and try to dodge the shit.

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