¡Si, se putea!
May. 10th, 2012 06:40 amSo I've been engaging in lots of bits of dialog concerning Barack Obama's "fully evolved" "embrace" of same-sex marriage: all the whirl in the press yesterday. I am, I discover, not sufficiently agog at the amazing fact that for the first time in history a sitting president has come out in favor of equal marriage rights for queer people. Oh, yeah, except for all those other countries' presidents who have already legalized same-sex marriage while we Americans are still thumping our bibles like the paranoid, primitive subspecies we by and large are. But, ok, this is the first AMURKIN president to so opine, so... OOOOH! AAAAH!
There, happy now?
Sorry. This is a bullshit historical moment whose historicity is built solely on Obama—and probably at least two of his immediate predecessors—having lied or withheld their true opinions on the matter for fear of political repercussions. Barack Obama publicly supported same-sex marriage as an Illinois state senator in 1996, so this whole charade about his views "evolving" and just now coming around to supporting marriage rights is precisely as horseshit as everything else the man says. As my friend Glaucon suggested, Mr. Obama seems at least partially to have been shamed into voicing a decent human sentiment by the jovial and somewhat goofy sentiments his veep expressed on Meet the Press Sunday. Of course, others have suggested that Biden's remarks were a calculated test drive of a new White House policy, but if that's so, the job the entire WH press staff did in acting flustered under fire was masterful.
(Aside: Dana Milbank at WaPo is a fucking asshole—starting with calling Biden's remarks a "gaffe" and sinking from there into a slimepit of his own making. He should only get cancer.)
The goodhearted folk around me insist on being optimistic, in many cases stating explicitly that they choose to believe the president's sincerity—which I find a remarkable admission—whilst chiding me for my cynicism. But I truly don't understand why people are lined up around the block all eager to suck Obama's dick with gratitude for making a statement that was a bare-minimum vocalization of support. He might as well have had a fucking Muppet on his wrist and spoken in a funny voice for all the weight of conscience and/or ethics and/or rhetorical power he put into his remarks. Here's a man who, we know perfectly well, could give us a pithy, morally compelling soapbox speech worthy of Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart in the last reel (cf. his sermon on race relations in March 2008)... but in this case, what do we get? Gary Cole in Office Space: "Why don't you go ahead and say you support gay marriage this weekend?"
But after all, I do understand why the president voices his personal support. Because he cannot articulate the central argument against the religious objections to same-sex marriage. He cannot say to America what desperately, life-or-fucking-death-desperately needs to be said to America right the fuck now: Opinions based on the imagined will of an unsummonable deity have no business affecting human rights, federal law, or public policy. Instead, he throws in some awfully vague (and well-worn) aphorisms about treating all Americans fairly and equally. I'm surprised he didn't take a leaf from Bill Clinton's notebook and assure us he was bestowing his equal rights mitzvah only on such faggots and dykes as work hard and pay their taxes.
Next. In explaining his reticence to articulate his support (think Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn from The Music Man: "I am reticent. Oh, yes, I. Am. Reticent.") Obama says he thought civil unions would suffice for them second-class LGBT citizens, because "I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word 'marriage' was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religions beliefs and so forth"—and for a second time in as many minutes, he cravenly fails to make another rhetorical point that desperately needs to be made by somebody that matters at the national level: that as far as the federal fucking government is concerned, marriage is a legal contract, entered into willingly by two adults, with certain attendant rights and responsibilities, and not one fucking thing more. If your Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Assholes or your Psychotic Bastard Religion doesn't want to marry same-sex couples, that's your wretched affair; meanwhile, what we the people call "The Law" is just a little more recent than fucking Leviticus.
Sigh. So having missed these two golden opportunities to say something real to the citizenry of this fine nation, what kind of rhetoric does the president get up to? Oh my: Fucking God. In addition to the historicity of prez-oks-fagspice, this interview was also the first instance in MY memory (can anyone else cite a precedent?) that a sitting president has made explicit reference to Jesus of Nazareth "sacrificing himself on our behalf"—the central tenet of the Christian faith, of course, but WHAT IN THE BLISTERING FUCK IS IT DOING IN OBAMA'S JUSTIFICATION FOR SUPPORTING MY RIGHTS? YOU'RE REALLY FUCKING SAYING THAT I DESERVE THE RIGHT TO MARRY A GUY BECAUSE CHRIST DIED FOR MY FUCKING SINS?
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
So that's it. I cannot begin to tell you how much I hate the fucking people who run this country. They are all just as screamingly wrong-thinking as they could possibly be... or worse: they pander to the screamingly wrong-thinking to enrich their fortunes. Don't you fucking dare tell that's the way it has to be: there are other countries NOT enmired in this superstitious bullshit, not pandering to the stupidest and most hateful elements of their society, and not shoveling the wealth of their citizenry full-steam into the coffers of the most obscenely rich fucks on the planet. But here? OMG, in spades. And they're not going anywhere, and they're not getting any better. That's what really and truly pisses me off about Obama's performance yesterday: it represented ZERO real progress in any way that matters. It established ZERO principles in the president and provided ZERO progressive or even common-sense rhetoric. Like Alice's recitation to the Caterpillar, Obama thought he knew what he was saying, but he was wrong from beginning to end.
There, happy now?
Sorry. This is a bullshit historical moment whose historicity is built solely on Obama—and probably at least two of his immediate predecessors—having lied or withheld their true opinions on the matter for fear of political repercussions. Barack Obama publicly supported same-sex marriage as an Illinois state senator in 1996, so this whole charade about his views "evolving" and just now coming around to supporting marriage rights is precisely as horseshit as everything else the man says. As my friend Glaucon suggested, Mr. Obama seems at least partially to have been shamed into voicing a decent human sentiment by the jovial and somewhat goofy sentiments his veep expressed on Meet the Press Sunday. Of course, others have suggested that Biden's remarks were a calculated test drive of a new White House policy, but if that's so, the job the entire WH press staff did in acting flustered under fire was masterful.
(Aside: Dana Milbank at WaPo is a fucking asshole—starting with calling Biden's remarks a "gaffe" and sinking from there into a slimepit of his own making. He should only get cancer.)
The goodhearted folk around me insist on being optimistic, in many cases stating explicitly that they choose to believe the president's sincerity—which I find a remarkable admission—whilst chiding me for my cynicism. But I truly don't understand why people are lined up around the block all eager to suck Obama's dick with gratitude for making a statement that was a bare-minimum vocalization of support. He might as well have had a fucking Muppet on his wrist and spoken in a funny voice for all the weight of conscience and/or ethics and/or rhetorical power he put into his remarks. Here's a man who, we know perfectly well, could give us a pithy, morally compelling soapbox speech worthy of Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart in the last reel (cf. his sermon on race relations in March 2008)... but in this case, what do we get? Gary Cole in Office Space: "Why don't you go ahead and say you support gay marriage this weekend?"
But after all, I do understand why the president voices his personal support. Because he cannot articulate the central argument against the religious objections to same-sex marriage. He cannot say to America what desperately, life-or-fucking-death-desperately needs to be said to America right the fuck now: Opinions based on the imagined will of an unsummonable deity have no business affecting human rights, federal law, or public policy. Instead, he throws in some awfully vague (and well-worn) aphorisms about treating all Americans fairly and equally. I'm surprised he didn't take a leaf from Bill Clinton's notebook and assure us he was bestowing his equal rights mitzvah only on such faggots and dykes as work hard and pay their taxes.
Next. In explaining his reticence to articulate his support (think Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn from The Music Man: "I am reticent. Oh, yes, I. Am. Reticent.") Obama says he thought civil unions would suffice for them second-class LGBT citizens, because "I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word 'marriage' was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religions beliefs and so forth"—and for a second time in as many minutes, he cravenly fails to make another rhetorical point that desperately needs to be made by somebody that matters at the national level: that as far as the federal fucking government is concerned, marriage is a legal contract, entered into willingly by two adults, with certain attendant rights and responsibilities, and not one fucking thing more. If your Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Assholes or your Psychotic Bastard Religion doesn't want to marry same-sex couples, that's your wretched affair; meanwhile, what we the people call "The Law" is just a little more recent than fucking Leviticus.
Sigh. So having missed these two golden opportunities to say something real to the citizenry of this fine nation, what kind of rhetoric does the president get up to? Oh my: Fucking God. In addition to the historicity of prez-oks-fagspice, this interview was also the first instance in MY memory (can anyone else cite a precedent?) that a sitting president has made explicit reference to Jesus of Nazareth "sacrificing himself on our behalf"—the central tenet of the Christian faith, of course, but WHAT IN THE BLISTERING FUCK IS IT DOING IN OBAMA'S JUSTIFICATION FOR SUPPORTING MY RIGHTS? YOU'RE REALLY FUCKING SAYING THAT I DESERVE THE RIGHT TO MARRY A GUY BECAUSE CHRIST DIED FOR MY FUCKING SINS?
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
So that's it. I cannot begin to tell you how much I hate the fucking people who run this country. They are all just as screamingly wrong-thinking as they could possibly be... or worse: they pander to the screamingly wrong-thinking to enrich their fortunes. Don't you fucking dare tell that's the way it has to be: there are other countries NOT enmired in this superstitious bullshit, not pandering to the stupidest and most hateful elements of their society, and not shoveling the wealth of their citizenry full-steam into the coffers of the most obscenely rich fucks on the planet. But here? OMG, in spades. And they're not going anywhere, and they're not getting any better. That's what really and truly pisses me off about Obama's performance yesterday: it represented ZERO real progress in any way that matters. It established ZERO principles in the president and provided ZERO progressive or even common-sense rhetoric. Like Alice's recitation to the Caterpillar, Obama thought he knew what he was saying, but he was wrong from beginning to end.