Hillary Clinton’s dishonest spinning of her gay rights positions received an endorsement today, as the U.S.’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization chose her as its choice for President. The Human Rights Campaign’s board of directors, made up of community leaders nationwide, voted to endorse Clinton, and said in a statement:
“All the progress we have made as a nation on LGBT equality — and all the progress we have yet to make — is at stake in November…Despite the fact that a majority of Republican and independent voters today support federal protections for LGBT Americans, the leading Republican candidates for president have threatened to halt progress as well as revoke, repeal, and overturn the gains made during President Obama’s two terms…”
This statement means, in essence, that the largest group of LGBT advocates have openly endorsed the Joy Behar approach to civic responsibility. Behar, on “The View,” you may recall, said brazenly (well, she says everything brazenly) that she’d vote for a proven rapist as long as he “voted” for issues that were important to her, a.k.a. abortion rights. Single issue voters of this low ethics threshold are irresponsible and breach their civic duties by making democracy itself incoherent and too easily manipulated—by cynical, ethics-free, power-mongers like Hillary Clinton. Are they even aware, I wonder, that openly associating a group with a candidate of proven ethical bankruptcy—even on the issue they think she embraces!–calls into question their own integrity, trustworthiness and values?
The disconnect between conservatives and LGBT Americans stems in part from a false belief that gays and other Americans of non-traditional sexuality aren’t as red, white and blue as they are. Being American means caring more about, say, the economy, unemployment, the debt, the collapse of schools, the miserable state of colleges, terrorism, racial distrust, the still burgeoning cost of health care and the welfare of your neighbors, children and fellow citizens than about narrow, single issues of special concern to you or your “tribe.” I think this way; so do most of the LGBT people I know. It is the ethical value of citizenship in action. Could I respect someone who found Donald Trump appropriately nauseating, knew he would be a human and cultural disaster for the nation, but supported him solely because he swore he would protect LGBT interests? No. Of course not.
This endorsement of Hillary Clinton is exactly as irresponsible.
As a start, I will note that the endorsement is irresponsibly stupid, because it is stupid to trust Hillary about anything. That is a historical fact. She flipped on these issues before, and makes her determinations based on careful, calculated readings of polls and her own interests. I can’t see a likely scenario where she would turn on the LGBT community, but observe, please: this is a woman who claims to be an advocate for victims of sexual harassment, abuse and rape, who probably undermined untold numbers of such victims to ensure that her ticket to power via Bill stayed punched. Who could the The Human Rights Campaign endorse instead? Gee, I don’t know: how about anyone who has not undermined victims of sexual abuse while posing as their champion?
Then there is the fact that the The Human Rights Campaign is scare-mongering. The rights of LGBT citizens are not going away, nor is there any credible threat to them. Once any Republican candidate, including those who are making the naked appeals to anti-gay bias, gets out of states with large lumps of primary voters marinated in anti-gay mythology and into the general population, we won’t be hearing very much about the issue at all.
Then there is the fact that a President couldn’t halt or reverse progress in this area if he wanted to. The scare tactic is based on the theory that the Supreme Court is at risk: a conservative President would appoint more conservative justices, and Obergefell v. Hodges would be reversed. Anything is possible, but to call that scenario remote is still giving it the benefit of the doubt. Major Supreme Court decisions, regardless of their vote (that one was 5-4), are virtually never reversed. Nor are rights articulated by the Court ever taken away, though they can be refined. When a decision leads to something as national and substantial as hundreds of thousands of couples getting married and starting families based on the quite legitimate assumption that a Supreme Court decision is final, the Court does not court chaos by trying to turn back the clock.
The principle of stare decisis is, as it always has been, very, very strong. It is Latin for “to stand by that which is decided,” and is an ancient and general maxim that when a point of contention has been settled by a decision, it creates a precedent will not be contradicted except in the most extreme and unusual circumstances. I doubt that enough conservative justices with sufficiently valid credentials could be found who would advocate over-turning Obergefell, and if they could be, they would not be confirmed.
Moreover, it is a slur on the GOP to say that all of the leading candidates say they would seek to reverse LGBT rights. Carson suggests that, but he is irrelevant. Cruz does, but he knows better: it is more concerning to me that he misrepresents the limits of Presidential power. Trump? Who knows what he’s thinking.
And who knows with Hillary? Endorsing her diminishes the credibility and respect due to any group that falls into her circle of aiders, abetters and familiars, and is a surrender to ethics corruption, or as, may be true in this case, an admission of it.
Ethics Alarms 
LGBT supports the message and the messenger who delivers it. I can understand one part but not the other.
Sadly, the system dictates the lesser of two evils, Jack. It seems to be the best we can do which is a sad commentary on our system and how we choose leadership. In a contest on this issue, this is the devil we know.
Better to keep looking for a non-devil. They exist. I’m sure of it.
only if you don’t have the integrity to vote for someone else.
“Behar, on “The View,” you may recall, said brazenly (well, she says everything brazenly) that she’d vote for a proven rapist as long as he “voted” for issues that were important to her, a.k.a. abortion rights.”
I do remember that. Wasn’t that a direct reference to BIll Clinton?
I think this is a trap the GOP got itself into. America is a Christian nation, despite what anyone wants to say, more than 70% of the population purports to being Christian. That means that even assuming a 100% correlation between Christians and Republicans, 20% of Democrats are Christians. But for some reason Democrat Christians don’t tend to be so… I don’t know what the appropriate word here is. Unfriendly. I’ll be PC. Democrat Christians don’t seem to be so unfriendly to gay people. There’s nothing inherent in conservatism that requires religious adherence, or a literal reading of one passage in the bible to the detriment of others, but for some reason a certain demographic of Christians found fertile soil in the GOP and grew like cancer. If I were slightly less engaged and slightly less informed, I could see myself on the other side of the aisle. As it is, I struggle sometimes. There has to be some kind of fallacy involved here, but I find myself looking at someone who is a perfectly intelligent human being the vast majority of the time suddenly turn into a raving lunatic at the mere mention of buggery, and I think to myself… That’s my team, huh? Fuck.
I think that’s a somewhat simplistic way of looking at it. Different denominations have different ways of looking at different kinds of sin, depending not only on doctrine, but on where they draw their membership. Southern Baptists, for example, drawing a large amount of their membership from the south where folks tend to be…a bit less tolerant of those who are not with the prevailing culture, tend to be very anti-gay. The Episcopal Church, based mostly on the coasts, is doctrinally ok with gay people. Guess where the two major political parties are strongest.
There is a certain view among traditionalists that those oriented different are by nature corrupt or bad. This has been fed by two things: one, the deliberate defiance of traditional culture by the gay fringe. Sorry, but there’s no denying engagement in certain visible behaviors that were intended to shock – cross-dressing, bizarre costumes, sexually explicit floats, etc. Two, the driving of gay people underground by intolerant elements, resulting in concentrated “gayborhoods,” meetings in bars that cand only be described as sleazy, and other things that make the belief that this element is bad or corrupt a self-fulfilling prophecy. I myself did not hate gay people for any particular religious reason, but only because I was at the bottom of the social ladder as a kid, with gay people the only rung below.
Unfortunately, the forefront of advancement of LGBT rights has also included elements of the fringe and members who were vengeful, hence the recent attempts to weaponize marriage and try to use the new-found advancement to tear down previously traditional institutions. That can’t help but create the perception that once this group got a seat at the table, it was determined to take over the whole table.
On the other sides, the traditionalists lick their wounds and prepare to fight the next battle for religious freedom and against political correctness, which is probably a more defensible one. Both sides know it. The Human Rights Campaign also knows they will be the darlings of a Hillary administration and will lose their access under a GOP one. The traditionalists see a chance to regain access and possibly make some reconquests, or at least stop the continued destruction of all they hold near and dear.
Scare-mongering is unfortunately nothing new. Not a single election goes by without the feminists pulling out the canard that a GOP president will appoint conservative justices and Roe v. Wade will be in danger or the NRA folks pulling out the worry that a Democrat will appoint liberal justices and the Second Amendment will be in danger of being rendered meaningless. Yet both are perfectly ok with pushing the election of either a proven liar or a loudmouthed bully respectively. That said, I’m not sure if they, or the HRC, are jealously guarding a single issue, or guarding their own power and access. Call me cynical, but I have come to believe that a lot of these advocacy groups, though they may spout poetic slogans, exist for more prosaic reasons after a while.
“Southern Baptists, for example, drawing a large amount of their membership […] The Episcopal Church, based mostly on the coasts, is doctrinally ok with gay people. Guess where the two major political parties are strongest.”
Truth. But I don’t think that there’s much in Southern Baptism that has much in common with traditional conservatism. They may have been driven to the right be an intolerant (to their views) left. And there’s a lesson there: If you drive people away, they don’t just disappear.There’s nothing inherent in being gay that would lead a person to vote Liberal, but the left sees the gay vote as relatively safe because the right is pushing those votes away.
“On the other sides, the traditionalists lick their wounds and prepare to fight the next battle for religious freedom and against political correctness, which is probably a more defensible one. Both sides know it.”
Truth Gay marriage was a loser issue, but here’s an issue where not only can conservatives win, they should win. Traditional Liberals are starting to look at their party in horror. Who would have thought thirty years ago that there’d be a time where conservatives would be defending free speech against Liberals? You have Liberals like Dave Rubin and Bill Maher starting to call the censorous asshat faction the “regressives” (A term I dearly love.) and they’re looking around shell-shocked by the friendly fire from the left.
“The Human Rights Campaign also knows they will be the darlings of a Hillary administration and will lose their access under a GOP one.”
Horrible branding. Who wants to be against Human Rights? The fact of the matter is that the crowd we’re talking about are looking for privileges that aren’t actually human rights, and that’s been true for quite some time. Looters, Perhaps?
“Yet both are perfectly ok with pushing the election of either a proven liar or a loudmouthed bully respectively.”
Speak for yourself. I’m still building my bunker in case of a Clinton-Trump battle down South. It will be protected by a moat full of acid (complete with acid-proof frickin’ laser-sharks) and fully stocked with Doritos and Mountain Dew.
The Human Rights Campaign is a partisan one issue organization, it’s no big surprise and completely expected since Hillary has been pandering to such organizations.
Whatcha wanna bet that Hillary wears this endorsement like a non-Soldier/Marine wears their stolen valor military uniform.
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman” -Hillary Clinton, 2008
“just the candidate for us!” – human rights campaign, 2016
“facepalm” – people of the world
What were the extreme and unusual circumstances that justified overruling Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972)?
As an aside, the Supreme Court once articulated a liberty to contract. And yet, today we have various laws limiting the right to contract.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York
As an aside, the HRC’s fears thaty states will try to scale back same-sex marriage rights is not wholly without merit. today, we ave states like New Jersey trying to do an end-run around the Second Amendment with “reasonable” restrictions on guns- and federal courts rejecting Second Amendment challenges to such laws. See e.g. Drake v,. Filko, 724 F.3d 426 (3rd Cir. 2013) What is to stop states from imposing “reasonable” restrictions on same-sex marriage the way New Jersey imposes “reasonable” restrictions on guns?
What about the overturning of Bowers v. Hardwick in Lawrence v. Texas? Sometimes today’s dissent IS tomorrow’s majority opinion, as we may find out when Chief Justice Kagan writes the decision declaring the death penalty unconstitutional because of “evolving standards of decency.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-7955