Sunday, October 17, 2010


HRC Silent on Dem 'Lifestyle Choice';
Slams GOPer as 'Extremist' for 'Choice' View

This essay is about the corrupt partisanship of the Human Rights Campaign, but allow me to tout my own horn for a moment. According to writer Jon Ward at the Daily Caller political site, I was the first to raise the issue of outrage over senior Democratic White House adviser Valerie Jarrett using the phrase "lifestyle choice" in an interview about recent gay teens bullied into suicide.

Sure, it's gratifying to get some recognition, but it's even more smile-inducing watching the ripples from my blog post help deliver an apology from Jarrett and then watch the issue bubble up to President Barack Obama having to address the choice question at his MTV town hall on Thursday night. Plus, this "nature versus nurture" story seems to have some muscular legs.

On Wednesday when Jarrett's comments roiled the gay community and progressive bloggers, thousands of words were spilled from all sides about her remarks, but America's largest gay Democratic advocacy org, the HRC, had not a peep to say about it all. Of course, no sane person would expect HRC, after slavishly avoiding even the mildest and meekest bit of criticism against the Obama administration's screwing of the gay community without a rubber or any lube, to issue a rebuke to Jarrett. She is after all, a Democrat and HRC executives would rather walk barefoot on glass than slam a Democrat.

That Daily Caller column today points out that this gay choice question is an "October Surprise," and reports something new to me:

Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck looked surprised and uncomfortable when asked Sunday whether homosexuality is a choice or not. But nonetheless, he said he thought it was.

“I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically you have a choice,” Buck said when asked by David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” [...]

Sure, this is several degrees stronger than the incredibly poor, um, choice of words by Jarrett on Wednesday, a normal business day, but for me, the basic issue is the same: a top Democrat or GOP operative or pol is expressing the lie that sexual orientation is a decision one makes, like whether to wear a blue or green shirt one day.

Sheer curiosity led me to the HRC site this Sunday, a day when most businesses such as HRC, are taking the day off, just to see if they had anything to say about Buck's stupidity earlier today. I wasn't at all shocked or surprised to see the org was pouncing hard and thick on the Colorado Republican:

Today on NBC’s Meet the Press, Colorado Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party darling, Ken Buck called homosexuality a choice and compared it to alcoholism – a theory debunked by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association. Buck’s extremist views and prior lapses of judgment show he is not worthy of representing the citizens of Colorado in U.S. Senate. The Human Rights Campaign – the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization – in partnership with One Colorado, call on Mr. Buck to correct his dangerous statements immediately. [...]

HRC used more than 400 words to condemn Buck, and I'm pleased they did so, but they also should be spanked for failing to hold Jarrett to the same standard. If HRC expended even a single sentence over the Jarrett comment, I'm unaware of it. This is just the latest example of HRC proving what good Democratic Party lapdogs they truly are.

4 comments:

Paul Barwick said...

If you wanna work in the big house instead of out in the fields, you don't piss off the boss.

Anonymous said...

Uh, maybe it's just like you said -- Ms. Jarrett's comments were less offensive and she's not running for public office.

I don't know who told you that HRC is biased against Republicans, but it's not. In fact, in my experience, the opposite is true. And what HRC is most considered with is...money...and feeding their own egos.

Bucky said...

HRC is useless. I realized that years ago. They raise lots and lots of money, and in all these years, they have accomplished absolutely NOTHING.

Except for erecting a shiny new building for themselves.

They are more concerned with going to fancy parties with important people than with actually getting anything done. Let's not forget it was the effing Log Cabin Republicans that got DADT overturned.

Shameful.

I haven't given them a dime in well over a decade, yet every month I get some fundraising letter from them in the mail. They spend more money on raising money than they do on working for gay rights.

Rick and Gary said...

The problem isn't so much that people but a bracelet instead of a cocktail. It's that they buy a bracelet and believe that they have actually accomplished something.