(via babyslothsandpuppysizedelephants)

fsufeminist:

dionthesocialist:

thedailywhat:

Awkward Denial of the Day: The Washington Post is out today with a deeply reported piece on Mitt Romney that paints him as a privileged bully who picked on classmates he suspected of being gay. A particularly horrific story is that of classmate John Lauber, a new kid at the exclusive Cranbrook prep school whose long, bleach-blonde hair offended Romney’s conservative sensibilities.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

Confronted about the incident this morning on a radio talk show, Romney tried in vain to save face.

I’m not gonna be too concerned about their piece. I played a lot of pranks in high school, and they described some that, uh, well, you just say to yourself that, uh, back in high school, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended by that, obviously I apologize. But overall, high school was a long time ago, and I’m glad I’ve got some good friends from those years.

Pressed further, he responded:

I don’t, I don’t remember that incident. And I certainly don’t believe that I, or, I can’t speak for other people, of course, but thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from my mind back in the 1960s. That was not the case.

[washpo]

Oh Romney, you can’t say you don’t remember it and then claim you didn’t think the kid was gay, because that means you remember it, man.

Scumbag

(via cassandrapowers)

tayloriusrex:

Obama stepped out and supported gay marriage. Now we have to step out and support him. For every independent and conservative vote he just lost, we need to make up for it with an independent or progressive vote.

I am fucking serious as fuck right now. Please don’t think this was easy for him. You’re going to have to get out there and vote in November, or this doesn’t mean shit.

If Obama is going to bat for the LGBT community then everyone in favor of gay marriage needs to go to bat for Obama.

You may feel lukewarm about him. You may not like him. But I can tell you for a certainty, his opponents do not support you. They do not have your interests in heart. And they are going to try to stop you, from getting the rights you deserve as a fucking human being.

If you want to be horrified, consider this: they took DOWN the comments section, on the FOX news page that reported on this, because it was so rife with racism and homophobia. Fox. Took it down. Because it was too disgusting.

THIS is the original title to their article, which they later edited at 4pm:

Here are some important quotes from his interview:

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

and

“It’s interesting, some of this is also generational. You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same sex equality or, you know, believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it. You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”

In a time where a man can go on the news and say that letting women vote was a mistake (don’t believe me?), this, I feel, is something we really need to pull together on.

Please. Do not underestimate your power as a voter—politicians are counting on the fact that young people has atrocious turnout for elections, especially local ones. Donate to his campaign here. Do not wait to register to vote—you can register at rock the vote. And most of all, pass it around to your friends. To your family, to everyone you fucking know. This is important. We have to make it understood that we support the person who stands with us. If we don’t, then he will have put himself on the proverbial chopping block in the media for nothing. Supporting marriage equality has historically been political poison. No more. It needs to end here, with us. We need to be the ones to make the change happen. And we can. Yes we can.

(via beatrixspoke)

onlyanorthernsong3110:

So anyways Barack “The Hopemongerer” Obama has announced he is in favor of marriage equality. Which isn’t exactly shocking given that he was one of the first politicians to be openly for it way the hell back in 1996. But then in 2008 he backtracked, only to un-backtrack and declare his support again today. (Now Barack,  if you could only tell us your actual true opinions about this “God” fellow…)

Questions:

1.  Will this hurt or help Obama’s reelection chances?

A: Overall I think this HURTS his chances more than helps them. I don’t think this is so overwhelming that it sinks his reelection. But it will certainly re-energize the right wing. The evangelicals who where iffy about voting for a human excel spreadsheet (and a Mormon  human excel spreadsheet at that) will now fill up their church buses and ride them to the polls. 

Of course this is also re-energizing to the left. But don’t fool yourselves, the right outnumbers the left in this country by a a factor of at least 2 to 1. The voters in the middle wont care either way. 

2. So … should Obama have done this?

A: YES. ABSOLUTELY. I will not approach this from the moral/ethical/”justice” side of the argument. The  moral ethical  argument for gay marriage is so overwhelming, and the argument against it so downright non existent that I wont rehash that fight here. (But if anyone wants to go toe to toe with me I am more than happy to take that challenge up) 

So two reasons why he did the right thing. One political. The other historical. 

The Political Reason: 

Though as I said above this will probably energize the right more than the left, Obama’s Statement today returns some of that magical glow, that feeling of “let’s make history” that was so fundamental to Obama’s campaign in 2008.

If you were an Obama supporter in 08 you remember that feeling very well, and how so many of his major speeches seemed to contain in them something grander, inspirational, which felt like your very heart was being tugged on.

When Obama’s victory was announced, I was riding home on the Atlanta subway. The Atlanta subway ridership is maybe 85%-90% black at that time of night, and I knew Obama clinched the deal because you could hear the cheering from the upcoming station. people started dancing in the train wagons while the train was in  motion. I danced and embraced dozens of utter strangers, tears streaming down all our faces. It was, in its way, a moment in which  you saw some impossible dream become reality, like watching the Berlin Wall come down, or maybe even the Moon landing. 

It is that magic Obama recaptures through this act.

Secondly and more importantly is the perspective of history.

Obama once said he would rather be a good one term president than a mediocre two termer. The one thing presidents worry about even more than being re-elected is their “legacy” that is how history and historians (and ultimately, future generations) perceive them. This is where Obama’s move today seems really wise. The Gay Marriage issue is even more of an age issue than it is a left/right issue. The overwhelming majority of young people approve of it, and the  overwhelming majority of middle aged and older people oppose it.  

In many ways gay marriage’s main opponent is inertia. Old people are against the idea because it was literally unthinkable throughout their lives, and society did not collapse, so why change things now? 

You see in order to embrace gay marriage you have to think about it (or be gay I suppose, but I digress). When I first heard about the gay  marriage movement (in 2002 or there abouts) my knee jerk  reaction was against it not because I found gays immoral, but because it seemed ridiculous: A man couldn’t marry a man, so I thought, any more than a man could get another man pregnant.

But then I thought about it

And I realized I could come out with not a single rational or logical reason against letting gays married.

In a democracy, ideally, you are allowed to do anything you want provided it does not cause harm to a third party or infringe on their rights.  

In other words the default state for anything in a democracy is “the law allows it.”

The burden of proof rests on those who wish to make something illegal. They must prove that the thing they wish to make illegal causes concrete identifiable harm. 

This burden of proof cannot be met by those wishing to make gay marriage illegal, and thus believers in democracy should side with allowing it. 

But the thing is you have to think about it.

Younger people, due to social and cultural changes have thought about it, and thus, overwhelmingly, support gay marriage.

Which means that in 50 years, anti gay marriage laws will look every bit as ridiculous as anti interracial marriage laws look today. And Barack Obama will look very good indeed.

(via neornithes)

think-progress:

From the North Carolina’s Charlotte Observer. The last time North Carolina amended its constitution on marriage, it was to ban interracial marriage.

(via maggieblueberry)

occupy-my-blog:

North Carolina: Then and Now

Harsh. But fair.

(via luisosaurus)

barackobama:

On a pillar in HQ.

(via violetlanguage)

(via collegehumor)

barackobama:

“Same-sex couples should be able to get married.”—President Obama