Friday, August 10, 2007

Morning Sweep

It’s pretty much all about last night’s Logo/HRC Presidential Forum in today’s news so let’s get going.

Watch the forum on Logo’s website and read a number of special guest responses from leading LGBT bloggers, activists and members of our community. (There's one from us here, but more on that later.) Logo’s been great to provide a number of options on how to watch the forum – in full – by issue – by candidate. It’s all here.

Read what a number of the major news services say here, here, here, and here. The New York Post brings together several LGBT residents of NYC to watch the debate and provide their thoughts about which candidate impressed them most. Read here.

Ben Smith of The Politico and Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend both live blog from the Presidential forum. Read Ben’s ongoing account here and his overall thoughts about the candidate performances. Ditto here for Pam’s minute-by-minute and here for today’s Winner’s and Loser’s piece.

And for news on other things unrelated -- Gay City News gives us an update on Hepatitis C and a growing body of evidence that it can be sexually transmitted -- and we learn that the Reform movement of Judaism has a new prayer book that includes a blessing for those who are transitioning.
Posted by Joe at 10:47 AM
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2 comments:

J.Friedman said...

Did anyone feeling satisfied with the Presidential Forum on Logo last night? I for one am very disappointed at this historic “debate”. This was our chance (the LGBT community) to shed light on the moronic argument that promotes discrimination and hypocrisy. The three front runners for the democrats (Clinton, Edwards, Obama) all stated they were in favor of civil unions but not marriage equality. Moreover, all the candidates were in favor of granting same sex couples all the legal rights associated with marriage but not not entitled to civil marriage. Interestingly, they all stated they were against discriminating and for equality for the LGBT community. I assumed that after watching this forum I would get a better understanding of why these candidates are in favor of barring same sex couples from marrying. The “why” question was not really asked and when it was the candidates were allowed to ignore it, or state personal reasons effect their decision without stating why.

This is analogous to me stating that neither Clinton nor Obama can run for president. They can be the Civil Leader of the U.S. We can even grant them all the rights of our president but they will never be president. (Historically our country only has white male presidents.) I will not tell you why I am not willing to allow them to be president. I will treat them equal! Listen, they will have all the same rights and responsibilities of a president. I will also profess that this is not discrimination towards people of color or woman. It is not that I am against them becoming president, I am for Clinton and Obama becoming Civil Leaders. What do you think?

The reality is marriage is not just about rights and responsibilities. Marriage is about ones public declaration of love and the public acknowledgment of that love. Marriage is about commitment and is the basic building block of family. Our love and commitment as LGBT people is no different than those families in the straight community. Marriage is about being perceived by society as a cohesive unit. This is what helps creates the stability within marriage. Civil unions, by its name alone can never equate to marriage.

To HRC and Logo I say shame, shame on you. You had an opportunity to get to the bottom of this more subtle discrimination. You decided to give each candidate a pass on this pressing issue. As a gay father in a 22 year same sex “marriage” it should not be necessary to continually explain to our four year old that his family is equal to other families even though his parents are not allowed to marry. We are not a second class family. My point is LGBT people can easily express why a civil union is not marriage, we need our candidates to explain why they are refusing same sex couples the right to join the institution of marriage.

August 10, 2007 at 11:57 AM
Anonymous said...

Hat's off to J. Friedman for a fabulous comment. It was so good that I "stole" it to mention it on Daily Politics -- the Daily News' political blog. Click on my name to check things out (Odds & Ends comments).

Thanks again, JF.

August 10, 2007 at 7:20 PM

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