(Freedom to Marry executive director Evan Wolfson pimping himself out for a losing campaign.)
A nail was driven into the coffin of harmful LGBT identity politics this week, when out New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn received a measly 16% of the Democratic primary vote on Tuesday. Many gay Democratic dollars and muscle were expended on Quinn's quest to climb the political ladder, but the voters rejected her and the policies she embodied.
When Mayor Bloomberg representing Wall Street, the 1% of the 1% ruling class and their privilege, not to mention serious pocket change to throw around, told Quinn to jump on giving him a third term by overturning a vote and the will of the people, she wasted little time putting on her athletic shoes and jumping high.
She and her LGBT friends of privilege, including longtime A-List lesbian Kate Clinton opining in the Blade, failed to grasp the depth of anger over this. Clinton, who donated $500 to Quinn, wrote "Yeah, yeah, third term. She didn’t make New Yorkers vote for Bloomberg each time."
Yeah, yeah, no first term as mayor for Christine.
So much for Clinton's sympathy with New Yorkers fed up with Bloomberg, a frustration that easily derailed Quinn's City Hall hopes into the ditch. Hello Bill de Blasio, who skillfully used that frustration of the people to come in first among Democratic hopefuls.
Clinton and her wife Urvashi Vaid, another member of the gay 1% in good standing, and a bunch of their power-hungry friends at the L-PAC threw their money and prestige into Quinn's electoral campaign. Vaid kicked in a total of $5,000 for Quinn's campaign.
Did I miss these lesbians and other gay funders and backers of Quinn at least acknowledging how she not only played a key role in a third term for Bloomberg, but she also pledged to retain New York Police Department Commission Ray Kelly, the architect of the racial profiling tactic of stop-and-frisk?
The concerns of people of color, including queers, subject to stop-and-frisk policing were overlooked by Quinn and her LGBT friends. Much of her engagement, pun intended, regarding gay voters and gay issues seemed to start and end with marriage, while economic disparities and racial divisiveness were barely a footnote.
Quinn very adequately embodies Gay Inc's embrace of law and order policies, whether it's expanding hate crime laws that don't prevent attacks and bashings or stop-and-frisk searches and humiliations they visit upon innocent persons. That embodiment was soundly rejected by a large majority of LGBT voters in New York City.
Lou Chibbaro of the Washington Blade noted key facts I cite to back up my claim:
The New York Times reported that an exit poll showed LGBT voters comprised 9 percent of the Democratic primary electorate on Tuesday. According to the Times, the exit poll showed de Blasio beating Quinn among LGBT voters by a margin of 47 percent to 34 percent.
Chibarro also sheds lights on some of Gay Inc's push for for Quinn:
The national LGBT groups Human Rights Campaign and Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund contributed thousands of dollars to her campaign and dispatched volunteers and field organizers to help in locations throughout the city.
Earlier this year, Quinn was at Victory Fund soiree on her behalf and she said something full of hubris and ego, according to a report by Metro Weekly's Justin Snow:
Quinn said there is nothing more powerful than elected LGBT people as role models.
Oh, sister, get over yourself!
2 comments:
The old paradigm doesn't work anymore. DeBlasio is fully supportive of the LGBT community and fully supportive of the African-American community and so on and so forth. He's a real political force -- not a "symbol"
For the gay community I would say that "there is nothing more powerful than elected LGBT people" who fight for social justice for all. Role models? What are those?
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