My response to Kip Tew’s e-mail
My response to Kip Tew’s polite e-mail to me. Although he was nice in not chastizing me about the harshness of my remarks, I do still disagree with his position on this issue.
An e-mail from the Former Chair of the Indiana Democratic Party
Last week I commented here on an IndyStar article about the Indiana Democratic Party, and how some Democratic candidates took money from the gay rights organization the Indiana Stonewall Democrats, and then sent out mailings that were anti-gay in nature. I included a quote from the article by Kipper V. Tew, the chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party (who resigned Nov 16th), and I reacted negatively to that quote.
Last night I received an e-mail from Kip Tew regarding my post, which was very gracious considering what I said about him, and umm… his horse. 🙂 Here is the e-mail he sent:
I was out last week and did not see any press, but I checked this week and noticed that you told me to fuck off because of comments that were attributed to me.
If you will indulge me the opportunity to respond in my defense I would like to say the following.
The quote, as people like to say, was taken out of context. Let me tell you how I feel. I was trying to insure that we had a Democratic Majority in the Indiana House of Representatives. Why? Because with a Democratic Majority Speaker Bauer could continue to bottle up the attempts by the Republicans to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, as he did in the 2004 session. Not everyone in his caucus agrees with him. However, as long as he was speaker, we could keep that from happening. It is my belief that if that happens it will stop the progress for Gay equality for many years. The point of my quote was not that I was unwilling to stand up for a principle, but that I was willing to help elect someone who is not as forward thinking about this issue in order to not go backwards. I am sorry that we did not win this year. I think we will suffer setbacks because of it. I hate that. I hope that soon the American people will change their opinion about these issues. I think it is happening but it is a slower process than either you or I would like. But we must continue to fight for what we think is right and continue to argue with the other side. And occasionally we have to retreat a little to move forward. The civil rights struggle took over 100 years from the end of slavery until the civil rights and voting rights act were passed. Then it has taken two generations to effect real change after the laws were changed. The Gay rights struggle won’t take that long but the struggle will be hard and folks like you need to continue to hold politicians’ feet to the fire. Thank you for giving a damn!
More about Fallujah and Pictures of War
From a heartrending article on Salon Magazine:
The photograph, appearing on the BBC’s Web site, was from some street or another in Fallujah, Iraq. The caption, although gruesome enough, was a comparatively bland statement that “Bodies have been left uncollected for days.” Yet what the picture depicted was testimony to the unmitigated and unavoidable tragedy of war. In the picture we see the “uncollected” body of a man lying in the street, his arms still clutching yet another uncollected body, that of a child. The child’s body was clasping the man’s shoulders, holding on for what was dear life to the now headless corpse of, who knows, his (or her, you cannot tell) father, uncle, brother, someone he trusted to protect and shelter him. The picture can be seen here.
…
I cannot help but think of the argument many made, and I myself considered: that this war would ultimately be for the betterment of the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator after all. Yet these two lives were certainly not improved. To them the spreading of democracy brought only terror and death.
Study says gays and lesbians have as well adjusted kids as straight couples
According to a study by Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville:
Adolescents who have two moms as parents are no different from teens growing up with a mother and a father, a new study finds.
On measures of psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and romantic relationships and behaviors, the teens with same-sex parents were as well adjusted as their peers with opposite-sex parents. The authors found very few differences between the two groups. A more important predictor of teens’ psychological and social adjustment, they found, is the quality of the relationships they have with their parents.
Fallujah in Pictures
Fallujah in Pictures is a website that prints the photos that our American media will never show you — of the casualties of war in the current attacks on Fallujah. The November 14 picture of the 2 year old child who lost a leg in the current battle says pretty much all that needs to be said.
Violent Rhetoric from Republican Adam Yoshida after Election 2004
From blogger Adam Yoshida, [deprecated link – http://www.adamyoshida.com/2004/11/four-more-years-revisited.html] who quickly revised his post after he was linked to by some 50,000 sites because of his hate rhetoric:
“”If anyone needs to work to ‘bring the country together’ it’s those on the left who have divided it so badly. Those who sought to destroy this great man should get down upon their knees and beg the victors for mercy. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a few of them linger on for the simple reason that they amuse us. My life’s goal is to see the Democratic Party virtually obliterated and left as a rump of people like [Democratic Rep.] Stephanie Herseth [of South Dakota] who both mostly agree with us anyways and are easy on the eyes.
“That’s the future of the Democratic Party: providing Republicans with a number of cute (but not that bright) comfort women”
“Let’s face a hard truth: this was the bitterest Presidential campaign in living memory. The Democrats and their allies staked everything on the defeat of this President. All of the resources they had accumulated over a generation of struggle were thrown into this battle: and they have failed. Despite all of their tricks, despite all of their lies, the people have rejected them. They mean nothing. They are worth nothing. There’s no point in trying to reach out to them because they won’t be reached out to. We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and out [sic] boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards.”
We Are Fucked.
Alberto Gonzales is the new Attorney General? Oh, god. We are fucked now. This is the guy who used to write up the cases notes for death penalty cases for Texas Governor Bush to read before he decided whether to pardon them or not. And in all of the case notes, he would never put any information about the defense arguments. Which is part of the reason why people believe that Bush executed a number of innocent people.
And in other news… Fuck the South. Yeah, what he said.
Sorry Everybody
Sorry Everybody is a hilarous site that posts pictures of the sane 49% of America that voted for John Kerry, with notes of apology to the rest of the planet for the load of totally crap that’s about to hit them because Moron Bush was re-elected. I haven’t had a chance to submit a photo yet…
Daily Mirror: God Help America
The cover of the U.K.’s Daily Mirror. And the article that accompanies it is even more hilarious.
“Were I a Kerry voter, though, I’d feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin’, military lovin’, sister marryin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport ownin’ red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land “free and strong”.
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