They should cross examine and ask aren’t there LGBT republicans in politics?if there is no discrimination why are NONE of them openly gay?

They coulda waited for an openly gay Presidentto say that batshit.
At least they gave us black folks that courtesy.

via Chino Blanco

Just Because We Have ‘Will & Grace’ & ‘BrokeBack Mountain’doesn’t mean we LIKE it.
I’ve only watched W&G a handful of times, and the only characters that appealed to me were Rosario and that drunk chick – and they weren’t even gay characters in the show!
I hated BrokeBack Mountain – the only positive thing I can say was the country scenery was pretty.  Whoever wrote the score should be taken out and shot.  And a friend of mine had to sit beside me and translate what the blonde guy was saying throughout the entire movie.

They also might mention those films had STRAIGHTS playing gayPhiladelphia did actually try to cast actual gay men with AIDS as extras,to have the LOOK of being gay/and PWAs.Where are all the openly LGBT actors if there is no discrimination?

celluloid closet, cont’dI didn’t like “Brokeback” either. In a way, “Brokeback Mountain” proves how little progress we’ve made in Hollywood if we have films with LGBT characters who still are either (1) not protagonists who drive, rather than suffer, events, or (2) end up as victims in the end. It seems to be the same thing whether it’s “Brokeback,” “Philadelphia” or “A Single Man.” Oscar-worthy stuff, but not upbeat.
Not many films that fill both criteria, and I usually recommend, instead, “Victor/Victoria,” Merchant/Ivory’s “Maurice,” or “My Beautiful Laundrette,” or perhaps the Australian “The Sum of Us.”
“Celluloid Closet” had it right. Hollywood, at best, wants to feel sorry for us.
You have to understand the way I am, Mein Herr,
A tiger is a tiger, not a lamb, Mein Herr …

OK – here goes….

Thompson, the smug attorney for the Proponents of Prop 8, is taking the position that gays are not being discriminated against any more and so that cannot be the reason that Prop 8 passed.
He makes a point and then asks Professor Chauncey if that is correct.
He’s mentioning Will and Grace, the movie Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain as evidence that LGBT people are not being discriminated again.

Given that the proceedings aren’t being televised (yet), I have to ask: Was “LGBT people” the term that was actually used – either by Chauncey or the Pro-8 hack? Or was it “gay” or “gay and lesbian”?

Probably not a descent into madnessIf I had to guess – and I do have to guess b/c we can’t see the video or read the transcript – the pro-8 attorney is asking these questions not to get to the motive behind Prop 8, but to get to the issue of whether gays are a “suspect class” entitled to the highest level of judicial protection.  Determining whether a group constitutes a suspect class involves an inquiry into whether that group lacks political power and is subject to a systemic discrimination.  These questions all seem to go to that issue, which is one of the issues that the court said it would have to address.  
Basically, he is trying to show that gays now have their own elected officials, many legislator allies, and have achieved legislative successes, so they are not politically powerless and thus are not entitled to the highest level of judicial protection.  It is a pretty ridiculous position, but asking the questions is not a descent into madness.

Woo-Hoo!Nothing to see here, now, people! Let’s just go about our business!
Going to the link and reading about the whole friggin’ mess, he uses a clip of Rick Warren referring to our “lifestyle”. I may have been born, but not just yesterday. I mean, I’m recent to outing myself and could say that I lived my life previously under a priveleged white umbrella, but I know where this reasoning is leading. I know I’m bisexual; I didn’t just decide one morning that my fantasies about men while I was het married was just some kink I should kinda experience!
Is there a psychologist coming along as witness, because I think their professional acumen might be needed here after the display of this logic?!?

Yah, right! So that means… Yah, right! So that means… that having the “Cosby Show” and “Everyone Hates Chris” that there’s no more racism now ether. What a bunch of BS!  

“I didn’t like ‘Brokeback’ either”Count me in on this.
My partner and I have tried watching it on a couple of occasions, but, in each instance, fell asleep probably a third of the way into it.

“Celluloid Closet” had it right. Hollywood, at best, wants to feel sorry for us.

In general that’s a good book, but Vito Russo, to say the least, struck out on a couple of the movies he ‘analyzed.’
I sometimes start the semester in my transgender history class by having students read his take on Clint Eastwood’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges appears in drag in a couple of critical scenes near the end of the movie) that appears in Celluloid Closet and then actually watch the movie.  The general consensus always is that Russo was a vicious transphobe and/or he never actually saw the movie himself.  I’d like to think it was only the latter but, sadly, given the degree to which he was willing to rely on some other vicious criticism of the movie I don’t think it was.

so…

gays now have their own elected officials, many legislator allies, and have achieved legislative successes, so they are not politically powerless and thus are not entitled to the highest level of judicial protection.

So do religious folk. But they receive “suspect class” status…in fact, religious folk receive severe scrutiny, as far as I know.
And I would also bring up the record of these ballot initiatives as well…  

actually, I think it’s whether a groupis subject to historic systemic discrimination. The historic part is critical.

Re: So that means…I was just thinking…the mere appearance of the TV mini-series “Roots” (but I like Tamara Jeanne’s mention of “Cosby Show”) means that we don’t have racism or discrimination anymore…hey, I’m just using the same criteria Thompson used for “Will and Grace”.

Well, that solves everything!I understand the reasoning here: They’re trying to support their claim that we’re not suspect-class material. If we are on a level playing field politically, then it’s inappropriate to apply strict scrutiny to Prop 8.
However, it’s just another example of the insulting, dismissive wall of hate that they think shouldn’t count because it’s done apathetically rather than in foaming, screaming violence.
Guess all I have to do at the ER is bring a DVD with me–that should get me the same access to my dying not-spouse as a marriage license would have!
Excuse me, but when do we get to call out the reality that legal marriage is more important in the face of widely diverse social attitudes than it was 30 years ago…when the ER clerk wouldn’t have even ASKED but assumed that I must be the sister/cousin/other relative.
Our success in gaining social acceptance has had a disastrous impact in that it’s taken away the capacity to choose the closet as a tactic in emergencies, but not provided a clear and consistent set of rights.  

As I said at FDL…I cannot believe Thompson tried to say that because gay people can go to bars and because movies are made about gay people (who are suffering, dying, tormented, miserable and oh yeah, played by straight people) that homophobia is over. Sure, we can go to any bar we want to – so long as we pretend to be straight. Christ, has he missed the last few years, when lesbians have been kicked out of IHOP for a peck on the cheek? They were told, “this is a family restaurant,” which speaks again to the whole horrid meme of Teh Gays Will Hurt Teh Chyldrun. Oh noes, two ladies smooched on the cheek! **heads explode** What about the men kicked out of Chicos Tacos after a smooch on the lips in July of last year? The police told them two men kissing is illegal, and tried to cite them for homosexual conduct, six years after Lawrence. Meanwhile, christians who loudly pray in restaurants, who boldly wear big gold crosses around their necks, who openly flaunt their lifestyle choice in public, are welcomed with open arms.
I really hope this comes up on re-direct. Thompson is having a serious case of oral diarrhea, and it is going to come back to bite him in the ass. No wonder all the defenders in the suit keep withdrawing, and begging SCOTUS to not televise. Having their idiocy and bigotry on display for all to see is the worst thing that could happen to them.

it’s interesting that media images NOT created by gays come to symbolize us

From the Iowa Supreme Court

we next consider each of the four traditional factors
and assess how each bears on the question of whether the constitution
demands a more searching scrutiny be applied to the sexual-orientationbased
classification in Iowa’s marriage statute.
1. History of discrimination against gay and lesbian people.
The first consideration is whether gay and lesbian people have suffered a history of purposeful unequal treatment because of their sexual orientation. The County does not, and could not in good faith, dispute the historical reality
that gay and lesbian people as a group have long been the victim of purposeful and invidious discrimination because of their sexual orientation.
The long and painful history of discrimination against gay and lesbian persons is epitomized by the criminalization of homosexual conduct in many parts of this country until very recently. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 578-79,
123 S. Ct. 2483-84, 156 L. Ed. 2d at 520 (invalidating criminalization of
homosexual sodomy in 2003).
Additionally, only a few years ago persons
identified as homosexual were dismissed from military service regardless of past dedication and demonstrated valor (still true, if they are identified KB). Public employees identified as gay
or lesbian have been thought to pose security risks due to a perceived risk of extortion resulting from a threat of public exposure. School-yard bullies have psychologically ground children with apparently gay or lesbian sexual
orientation in the cruel mortar and pestle of school-yard prejudice. At the same time, lesbian and gay people continue to be frequent victims of hate
crimes. See Criminal Justice Information Servs. Div., FBI, Hate Crime
Statistics 2007, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2007/… (according to FBI-collected data, the only hate crimes occurring more frequently than sexual-orientation-motivated hate crimes are crimes based on race or
religious bias).

Works both ways…Liberace, Paul Lynde, Marlene Dietrich, Tony Randall, etc, etc, etc. used to be able to be exactly who we saw on screen and were presumed to be straight.
Because there was absolutely no popular media imagery of gay people, or at least gay people who were not mincing and prancing and lisping.
People were able to assume that Paul Lynde was straight. Think about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that there are more and more gay people showing up on screen, and not always as child molesters and deviant monsters, but it also makes people far more aware of us. The closet doors are breaking down from both sides, and it puts a lot of people who once could have chosen to hide in the closet in the position of being unable to.
That’s a net good thing, I truly believe. But in the face of federal and state anti-gay laws, constant church haranguing, workplace discrimination, social stigma, and actual gay bashing, Will & Grace hardly indicates that gay people aren’t (and haven’t been) hugely disadvantaged politically. The Republicans have anti-gay points in their official platform, for God’s sake!

No excuses here, but …. I’m starting to believe that the laundry list of horrors that afflict LGBT Americans slides ignorantly under the radars of these people.
 Like with our own little biases that at some point a friend awakens us to, and we realize just how long we’ve been guilty of said bias, how our judgement was slanted in such a way that we didn’t even notice.
  Not making excuses (AT ALL) for the most idiotic statement to come out of this trial thus far, just noting that sometimes when things don’t effect us personally, we don’t always see it. It slides right by ….
All the more reason why this trial should be televised.  America needs its dirty laundry aired, live for all to see (but tape delayed would suffice).  

lol, yeah,the whole ‘post racial’ meme was the first thing that came to mind when i saw this.  got a black president?  racism must be a thing of the past!  got a movie that shows gay men sympathetically (even though their lives are hell), homophobia must be a thing of the past!  

And for W&Gthey actually passed over a gay actor for a straight actor — because the gay actor didn’t play the character “gay enough”.
(And when that means they were complaining that John Barrowman didn’t play the role “gay enough”, that says something.)

Golden Girlserased ageism…
Sex and the City removed mysogeny…
What next? Taco Bell commercials erase hunger?

Following “Tam’s” comments on twitterhe really said

Tam’s answer: “Right,” agreeing that part of ‘gay agenda’ is legalizing underage sex

Wow. Let the bigotry hang out, why don’t you?

Perhaps because of their party platform, namely the followingThe below shows that the 55 million registered Rethuglicans hate us.  They need to trot this out at the trial:
Directly taken from the http://www.gop.com/2008Platform
Preserving Traditional Marriage
Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems. We support the courageous efforts of single-parent families to provide a stable home for their children. Children are our nation’s most precious resource. We also salute and support the efforts of foster and adoptive families.
Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex “marriages” licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.
As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.  

I miss Harvey.

California has LGBT as a protected classThe national hate crimes bill lists sexual orientation, so how do the come up with discrimination is over from a TV series and 2 movies?
But I see this sh*t ALL THE TIME at Deseret News who think they are SO original saying “gays have equal Rights they can marry someone of the opposite sex, just like they can.”

it is sad and patheticthat the white, christian, heterosexual males of the country-club set naively convince themselves  that we actually  live in a colour blind society where racism, sexism, and homophobia no longer exist

The Score To BrokeBack Mountain:Ready?
1: Plays the first 2 bars on an acoustic guitar.  Immediately stop.
2: Three minutes later, play the same 2 bars of music.
3: Five minutes later, play the same 2 bars of music.
4: Repeat throughout the entire movie, MAYBE playing an extra bar of music here & there.
You get the idea.  
* Grabs the acoustic guitar and busts it over Ennis and Jack while they’re fooling around in the tent *

I know, it is not a logical resultArguably, there should be a sharp distinction between adherents to minority religions, such as Judaism or Islam, and adherents to the majority religion – at least when considering this particular factor of political power.  

“suspect” not what it seemsIn American jurisprudence, a suspect classification is any classification of groups meeting a series of criteria suggesting they are likely the subject of discrimination. These classes receive closer scrutiny by courts when an Equal Protection claim alleging unconstitutional discrimination is asserted against a law.

Strict scrutiny is applied to regulations that affect groups that fall under a “suspect classification.” To be considered a suspect classification in the United States, the statute at issue must target:
- a “discrete” or “insular” minority who
possess an immutable trait (except in the case of religion),
- share a history of discrimination, and
- are powerless to protect themselves via the political process.

Any group can be singled out by a law. If a law singled out left-handers as unsuitable for Top Secret clearance, that would engage the lowest level of scrutiny, the “rational basis test.” It may be the reason that “rational basis” is so loose. A “suspect class” is one that has met the higher criteria and trigger an intermediate- (gender) or strict-scrutiny (race, nat’l origin, religion). So if the other side shows that we have elected a county clerk in a few jurisdictions, or if Oprah is nice to us on her show, we’re not “powerless.”
At some point they’ll be alleging that we have higher disposable incomes (try telling THAT to lesbian, trans, or child-raising couples) or have this ability to induce or seduce whole blocs of the population to our view, and thus, on maybe a subliminal level, the jurists will not see us as a suspect class. The fact that we’ve lost 31 of 31 ballot initiatives probably won’t come into it.

yes, but –The easy comeback is that (1) Brokeback was set in the 1960s and 1970s, not now, and (2) it was a work of fiction. You know, “None of the characters or events depicted in this film …” &c. You might have a better argument with “Milk” but even then, that was then. The Fox News demographic, which I presume includes certain jurists, has a very short memory.
The fact that Hollywood won’t show us as anything but victims, or will smudge over our identities (see, e.g., “Alexander”). No one is ever going to make a film about the Sacred Band of Thebes, for instance. Never.

Or even within the majority religionJehovah’s Witnesses. Maybe you could make a case for the Mormons.
Now I am interested in excatly how religion attained the highest level of judicial scrutiny. I ran across this humdinger:

To make “sexual orientation” a “suspect class” is to corrupt the fine bread of civil rights protections with a dangerous mold. Legally, it creates an unavoidable clash between religion and homosexuality. Religion opposed to the behavior is eventually unable by law to contend the practice is immoral and thereby exercise forms of justified discrimination commensurate with its teachings. Moreover, because “sexual orientation” essentially shares nothing in common with the other enumerations, other than the experience of various forms of maltreatment, it produces inefficiencies and demoralization of the concept of greater judicial scrutiny.

http://www.christianpost.com/a…
And of course, you can go on a lot of websites and find that religious denominations that think that it’s OK to discriminate.
http://www.religioustolerance….
Which I don’t have a problem with them doing in their church. My problem is the political power that they have nowadays (Rick Warren is a Southern Baptist as, of course, is Jimmy Carter). And the fact that they want to institutionalize discrimination in the citizen body as well as their own church.

define powerless…the ballot initiatives do come into it because we are an insular minority and the fact that we have not won those initiatives and are dependent on the majority to do so…

Gay persons have been subjected to and stigmatized by a long
history of purposeful and invidious discrimination that
continues to manifest itself in society. The characteristic that defines the members of this group-attraction to persons of the same sex-bears no logical relationship to their ability to perform in society, either in familial relations or otherwise as productive citizens. Because sexual orientation is such an essential component of personhood, even if there is some possibility that a person’s sexual preference can be altered, it would be wholly unacceptable for the state to require anyone to do so. Gay persons also represent a distinct minority of the population. It is true, of course, that gay persons recently have
made significant advances in obtaining equal treatment under
the law. Nonetheless, we conclude that, as a minority group that continues to suffer the enduring effects of centuries of legally sanctioned discrimination, laws singling them out for disparate treatment are subject to heightened judicial scrutiny to ensure that those laws are not the product of such historical prejudice and stereotyping.

This was actually the Connecticut Supreme Court which the Iowa Supreme Court used also.
Again, I ask the question, what is the difference between Tam’s bigotry today in Court and the stuff said 30 years ago about the Briggs Amendment?

valid question

Again, I ask the question, what is the difference between Tam’s bigotry today in Court and the stuff said 30 years ago about the Briggs Amendment?

For one thing, the Briggs initiative never got into court, but was defeated at the ballot. If it had gotten to the Supreme Court, in the early 1980s, the same court that decided Bowers v. Hardwick, it quite probably would have been upheld either on the substantive due process test (sodomy has no right of privacy, see Hardwick) or procedural due process (gay people don’t rise to strict-scrutiny level, and protecting the children is a “rational” basis for discrimination).
And Tam is being taken at face value. Till the court demands that they prove just how many Prop. 8 supporters have been bashed, their homes torched, their children taken away by the courts, or their wills invalidated, then Tam’s and Pugno’s lame excuses will prevail.
Odium duum metuant.

Now this is a good question

Till the court demands that they prove just how many Prop. 8 supporters have been bashed, their homes torched, their children taken away by the courts, or their wills invalidated,

Personally, I think that since there probably won’t be a clear answer on the immutability question that this will meet an intermediate scrutiny test. I mean, you can change your sex and gender…

Yes, although…

Personally, I think that since there probably won’t be a clear answer on the immutability question that this will meet an intermediate scrutiny test. I mean, you can change your sex and gender…

Interesting take, and gender might be an interesting test as to immutability. Traditionally, “gender” in these cases meant “women” but it would be worth a try, given the right plaintiff.
Trouble is, “suspect class” includes religion, which, as the Born Again people will tell you, can be volitional. Remember,

a “discrete” or “insular” minority who possess an immutable trait (except in the case of religion), share a history of discrimination, and are powerless to protect themselves via the political process.

The punch line, of course, is that “Christianity” is neither immutable (see Born Again, above), and while they claim a history of discrimination (which sort of stops with the emperor Constantine) they are hardly powerless these days.

Oderint dum metuant.– Seneca

well, yes of course, and …… most of them probably come from Paul Cameron.
And now we’re having to fight the presumption we’re not a discriminated class because fictional portrayals in cinema are nice to us. Following their logic, that would mean that women are not discriminated against because of Keira Knightley’s roles in “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement.” That would sound awful lame in a Title VII discrimination case, but, then again, there’s intermediate scrutiny there.

Sylvia Fowler: Ohh… What I go through to keep my figure and do I see red when some fat, lazy, dinner partner says: “What do you do with yourself all day Mrs. Fowler?”
– “The Women,” 1939

Not simply suspect classbut it receives severe scrutiny.
As pointed out above, some religions should receive severe scrutiny (black churches that were burned down…not to mention the Jews or even some minor Christian sects like the Jehovah Witnesses or maybe even the Mormons) but not others. Definitely not the Southern Baptists…

Jimmy Carter is no longer a Southern Baptist.He left the convention several years ago.

But he was a Southern Baptistwhen he was President. I should have specified that point.

The News Talk clip was fascinatingIf you told me that was filmed today, I could believe it, sadly.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Wow…Bill Clinton is also listed as a Southern Baptist…
http://www.adherents.com/adh_p…
You learn something new everyday.
Did not know that Dwight Eisenhower was a Jehovah’s Witness at one point.

of course you can’t pit gays against the religiousbecause the two overlap so heavily.  this notion that ‘gay’ means ‘not religious’ is as crazy as saying ‘black’ means ‘straight’.  

actually he still iswhat he gave up was his membership in the southern baptist convention, not his southern baptist faith (which he feels the sbc no longer honestly represents).  this is an important distinction.

our side better call Chauncey back on redirectBesides the question of whether works of cinematic fiction constitute documentary-level reality, there’s also the question of whether any of that is relevant. Or, if it is, just how much discrimination still exists in Hollywood.
Or, for that matter, why Hollywood still depicts us as victims, even now. Milk, Single Man, Brokeback Mountain, Philadelphia. They don’t hate us as much (see, e.g., “The Children’s Hour”) but feeling sorry for us is hardly equality.
Our side definitely needs to call the witness back and square this away.

Ennis Del Mar: If you can’t fix it, Jack, you gotta stand it.
Jack Twist: For how long?
Ennis Del Mar: For as long as we can ride it. There ain’t no reins on this one.
– Brokeback Mountain

The Defenestration of PlainsHe left before he was pushed. But he did find the SBC more and more loathsome, and certainly at odds with his own faith.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
– 2 Corinthians 6:14

Your Honor, the Plaintiffs summon the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New HampshireNow that would be an interesting battle, with religion on both sides. Diet of Worms, anyone?

If I now recant these, then, I would be doing nothing but strengthening tyranny.
– Martin Luther, at the Diet of Worms, 1521