James Wagner

As long as we’re talking marriage and stuff, let me talk about Hillary, or rather let me report the noble Michelangelo Signorile talking about Hillary. Last week Signorile very efficiently answered a reader who was unable to reconcile New York’s junior senator’s very public statement’s opposing gay marriage with what many people imagine to be her private opinions.

It honestly doesn’t matter what Hillary Clinton really thinks, since, on the record, she is opposed to same-sex marriage, end of story. To cut her any slack because she might truly have no problem with same-sex marriage but is being politically pragmatic would be no different than cutting George W. Bush slack for having gay friends yet supporting sodomy laws or the federal marriage amendment because he has to pander to the religious right.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m in no way comparing Bush to Hillary, and she is light years ahead of him on gay civil rights. But politicians should only get points from us for what they’re willing to expend, not what they truly believe but don’t act on. In fact, they should get points deducted for not following through on their convictions.
I agree that Hillary’s opposition to same-sex marriage seems totally insincere. And I don’t believe for a minute that Bill Clinton believed in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—but he signed it nonetheless. It’s an annoying, sometimes enraging aspect of the Clintons, where they wimp out just when it really matters. And in the end, it usually turns out that they could have taken the chance with no repercussions. Does anyone really believe, in hindsight, that Bill Clinton would have suffered if he didn’t sign DOMA? If Hillary Clinton were truly a leader among the Democrats, as you describe her, she would be moving them on this issue. She has a lot of admirable traits, and she can count me as a fan in many respects. I also accept political pragmatism; sometimes it’s the way you have to go. But no, it doesn’t comfort me to imagine that Hillary does support same-sex marriage but is lying and in the process passing religious judgment—“It’s traditionally been between one man and one woman”—on us. And it shouldn’t comfort you either.

Lest I myself be accused of fomenting a one-note anti-Hillary campaign, can I remind all of us that she voted for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War resolution? Moreover, her responsibility, which her husband must share, for the failure of health care reform during President Clinton’s administration is almost as profound as that of the drug and insurance lobby.
I’m sorry, I can see absolutely no reason for her popularity with any groups or individuals today, just as I still cannot understand why she was once so viciously demonized when she was the wife of a governor and later of a president.

I’d vote for absolutely any donkey in sight if doing so would get rid of the missile-in-a-horse’s-ass sitting in the White house now, but there’s only one Democrat in the race I could support absolutely without any hesitation.
Dennis Kucinich appears to be so good it’s a little scary.
I’ll try to explain, and I’ll make it short and to the point, by pointing to Paul Schindler’s account [in an issue of Gay City News not yet on line] of Kucinich’s December 7 appearance before a group of Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID).
In his presentation in New York’s Lesbian and Gay Communtiy Center, Kucinich focused on only three subjects, same-sex marriage, healthcare and the war in Iraq, but both his choice of issues and the positions he outlined for himself were far bolder than what we have come to expect from any candidate for national office.
He declared unequivocal support for equal same-sex marriage rights, and is the only candidate to do so. He told Schindler: “The idea of being fearful of this issue, running away from it because you think George Bush is going to use it as a wedge issue – the pursuit of the White House should not for the faint of heart.”
He distinguished his own position on health care from each of the other “leading” candidates by saying that while they favor incremental change to the existing chaos [my noun] he favors Canadian-style, single-payer universal coverage. Kucinich told the GLID assembly, “Insurance companies do not make money providing health care, they make money not providing health care. Most people ask, my God, how are you going to pay for that? Well you know what – we’re already paying for it.”
Speaking to Gay City News after his speech, Kucinich said he is the only candidate with “a plan to end the occupation of Iraq. . . . It’s one thing to say you were against the war. But you know if it was wrong to go in, it is wrong to stay in.” The Ohio Congressman pointed to his website, which the article reports, “details a plan for bringing U.S. troops home within 90 days of winning a United Nations resolution for sharing the burden of restabilizing Iraq.”
For more on his platform, including detail on these and some 60-odd other issues, see his website.
I don’t think a progressive could even invent this guy. He seems too good to be true, and, in doing a pretty good job of ignoring him, the nation’s going to see to it that it never will be true.

[Photo by Eric Rife]

Lysistrata Defending The Acropolis

We have no “security” and we won’t be “secured”.
Last week we found out that the great and generous non-profit gallery space, White Box, is planning an important “political” show concurrent with the Republican National Convention to be imposed on New York late this summer.
Our first reaction was, yeah, Juan, like all the bold shows you assemble which aren’t political! Then I thought about just how specific and how useful the theme could be this time, because of the timing of course, but also the place! White Box is only about six blocks away from Madison Square Garden, which will be the scene of fascist rallies from August 30 until September 2, and it and many of the other Chelsea galleries are likely to be in a security lock-down zone.
A formal call will go out early in the year for proposals and submissions from artists. [I’ll post the details here when I get them] The challenge should be as irresistable for artists as anticipating the sudden descent into Manhattan of antediluvian lowlife obscurants is for activists generally.
For the honor of New York, if not that of the entire human species, I hope both the performing and visual art worlds really work the theme this summer, but I’m thinking especially of hot “destination” galleries all over the city. What I’d really like to see is Republican delegates’ wives go gallery hopping during slow afternoons and then head straight back to their hotels to lock their blackguard husbands out – or report them as the terrorists they are.

[Aubrey Beardsley image from House of Pain]