Like his politics or not, Obama is cool as fuck

[Dr. Medulla]

Aside from the racism, homophobia, and misogyny, tho, he's cool, right?

[Wolter]

Aside from the racism, homophobia, and misogyny, tho, he's cool, right?

My ears are burning.

[Dr. Medulla]

Heh, because my post is at the top, it looks like I'm calling Obama a racist, homophobe, and misogynist. Oh fuck, I'm Glenn Beck!

[Marky Dread]

Aside from the racism, homophobia, and misogyny, tho, he's cool, right?

[JennyB]

In honor of today's great news:

[Dr. Medulla]

In honor of today's great news:

He just lost the asshole bigot vote. Oh, right, he wasn't going to get them anyway.

[Rat Patrol]

In honor of today's great news:

He just lost the asshole bigot vote. Oh, right, he wasn't going to get them anyway.

Clearly a pivot off yesterday's devastating North Carolina vote, but really...the hemming and hawing was only him spending 2/3 of his 1st term tilting at that pointless centrist, reach-across-the-aisle windmill when it was clear as day what a fruitless exercise that would be. He's belatedly--and limitedly--freeing himself from some of those shackles. This at least is at least an issue where he's not bottled up by his own special-interests conflicts, and thus an "easy" one. Public opinion has hit the tipping point where the majority doesn't care and the base's enthusiasm is > the drag of the bigot vote he never had in the first place. When Biden telegraphed his statement the other day and nobody cared except the insider-ball Washington press corps, that was the test balloon to finally get it over with.


Think about that..."easy one." I must say amidst my boundless cynicism that I'm in awe at how quickly the tide turned on this issue to "Meh...doesn't bother me" with a plurality of citizens. Like...actual inevitability taking hold in real-time before our eyes instead of we predict this will be an eventual inevitability...someday...after a couple more bigot counterinsurgencies. Even with NC's vote being a really terrible one for being so much more binding by amending the state constitution, does anyone think Maine's GOP wave election about-face on its civil unions or Prop 8 are even going to last to the end of the 2010's before they're wholly corrected? It's almost...heartening?

[Dr. Medulla]

Think about that..."easy one." I must say amidst my boundless cynicism that I'm in awe at how quickly the tide turned on this issue to "Meh...doesn't bother me" with a plurality of citizens. Like...actual inevitability taking hold in real-time before our eyes instead of we predict this will be an eventual inevitability...someday...after a couple more bigot counterinsurgencies. Even with NC's vote being a really terrible one for being so much more binding by amending the state constitution, does anyone think Maine's GOP wave election about-face on its civil unions or Prop 8 are even going to last to the end of the 2010's before they're wholly corrected? It's almost...heartening?

As many, many people have suggested, a generation from now the claims that society will collapse and god's fire will rain down upon us if we let the sodomites be treated as equal will be understood as shameful and inane as we regard those in the 50s and 60s who argued against integration and interracial marriage.

[Flex]

As many, many people have suggested, a generation from now the claims that society will collapse and god's fire will rain down upon us if we let the sodomites be treated as equal will be understood as shameful and inane as we regard those in the 50s and 60s who argued against integration and interracial marriage.

No doubt that society will have collapsed, and god's fire will have rained down upon us, but it won't be because we let some gay dudes buttfuck each other while wearing wedding rings.

[matedog]

As many, many people have suggested, a generation from now the claims that society will collapse and god's fire will rain down upon us if we let the sodomites be treated as equal will be understood as shameful and inane as we regard those in the 50s and 60s who argued against integration and interracial marriage.

No doubt that society will have collapsed, and god's fire will have rained down upon us, but it won't be because we let some gay dudes buttfuck each other while wearing wedding rings.

God, I'm seriously considering posting that on facebook.

[Rat Patrol]

[Flex]

Thoughts on Obama's announcement, and gay marriage, and marriage:

While I think Obama's declaration in support of gay marriage should be applauded, it should be noted that it was conditional support. He included an important caveat, one more bit of meaningless tacking-to-the-center-ism, which renders most of his support confused if not downright inane. He articulated that gay marriage was a personal decision, one that should be left to the states. Now, I can appreciate that it may be tactically preferred to win the battle for equality at the state level, but as a statement of principle this is simply nonsense. By definition, a "personal decision" is something decided, well, personally. To leave such a decision in the hands of your neighbors and legislators deprives such a decision of the singular quality of being personal. Alternatively, one may consider that Obama doesn't consider there to be a meaningful distinction between the individual and the state. That makes his position make more sense logically speaking, but it moves his statement from the well meaning but mildly inane to the downright insidious. So, pick your poison.

It's also worth noting that, given his belief that gay marriage is an institution to be allowed or banned by government, he most certainly doesn't (publicly) consider said institution to be a right. Rights, essentially by definition, cannot be denied to people in the normal course of affairs (we may deny a person certain rights if they commit a crime, I would imagine it's not Obama's suggestion that we should consider being-gay-while-in-North-Carolina to be a legitimate crime) and Obama seemingly has no taste for suggesting that gay marriage should fall under the conditions of an inalienable right. Again, in some sense this is fine (it's still more than any other president has ever supported, to be sure), but it's a rather fundamental error to suggest that Obama supports the right of gay marriage.

Both those things said, Obama deserves some obvious kudos. Cynicism about the politics aside, this declaration from Obama still represents a kind of bellwether for the American public, and a step forward in leaving behind - perhaps shrieking most of the way - the kind of repugnant and backwards thinking that has dominated the American discourse until quite recently.

For myself, I simply hope one day not just for a president who will affirmatively support equality for an institution, but call for the destruction of the institution itself. The move for marriage equality is, in some ways, pernicious and suspect. Andrew Sullivan articulated it perfectly (in his support of gay marriage), by calling for marriage equality as a way to get more people to "buy in" to the predominant social paradigm. But, friends, I come to bury that paradigm, not praise it. I long for a time when the struggle for freedom tackles the essentially shackling nature of marriage as normative, rather than the folk tradition for certain people of that bent and interest, as it should properly be considered.

Institutions are better when they are equal, they are best when they are destroyed.

[Flex]

God, I'm seriously considering posting that on facebook.

DO EET

[Dr. Medulla]

As many, many people have suggested, a generation from now the claims that society will collapse and god's fire will rain down upon us if we let the sodomites be treated as equal will be understood as shameful and inane as we regard those in the 50s and 60s who argued against integration and interracial marriage.

No doubt that society will have collapsed, and god's fire will have rained down upon us, but it won't be because we let some gay dudes buttfuck each other while wearing wedding rings.

So, you assume Obama will win and his immediate declaration of sharia law will include raising the top income tax bracket by 1%?

[Flex]

So, you assume Obama will win and his immediate declaration of sharia law will include raising the top income tax bracket by 1%?

Asalamu aleikom, motherfucker.