itwalksboyfriend wrote:Metal Sludge wrote:itwalksboyfriend wrote:
LOL @ REFERRING TO ME AS A NEOCON BECAUSE I DON'T SUPPORT LAZY AND UNKEPT SELF-ADMITTED METH/CRACK HEADS/DRUNKS, LIKE YOU, WHO OFFER NOTHING TO SOCIETY, WHO ARE ABLE BODIED BUT REFUSE TO HOLD A JOB, AND ARE CONSTANTLY TROLLING FOR THEIR NEXT GOVERNMENT HANDOUT/FREEBIES BECAUSE OF YOUR BOTTOMLESS SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT.
SORRY - YOU EMBODY EVERYTHING THAT EVEN HARDWORKING LIBERAL-MINDED PEOPLE ARE DEEPLY DISGUSTED BY.
AND TO RESPOND TO "METAL SLUDGE" - IT DOES CONCERN ME THAT LGBT RIGHTS (MARRIAGE EQUALITY, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE, ETC.) COULD POTENTIALLY BE OVERTURNED. SOCIETY HAS COME A LONG WAY, EVEN IN THE LAST 15 YEARS, IN PROTECTIONS, LAWS, AND PUBLIC OPINION. I GREW UP IN THE 80'S AND SOCIETY WAS NOT KIND TO GAY PEOPLE. FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS OF LGBT YOUTH, IT WOULD DEVASTATING PERSONALLY TO SEE A CULTURE OF HATE AND DISCRIMINATION RETURN AND NORMALIZED/ACCEPTED AGAIN.
IT WAS SLIGHTLY HEARTENING TO HEAR FROM DONALD TRUMP ON 60 MINUTES THAT HE CONSIDERS MARRIAGE EQUALITY AS "CASE CLOSED" PER THE SUPREME COURT RULING AND HAS NO DESIRE TO CHALLENGE IT. IN THE SAME BREATH, HOWEVER, HE STATED HE DOES NOT BELIEVE ROE VS. WADE AS CASE CLOSED - ANOTHER SUPREME COURT RULING. SO TAKE THAT FOR WHAT'S IT WORTH.
Well, his VP thinks you can be "cured" by conversion therapy.
Trump also said it should be left to the states.
What would your state do?
Currently I live in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis). Minnesota was one of the few Midwestern states that remained blue during the election. From the standpoint of a gay person, I do not believe MN would reverse marriage equality. MN legalized same sex marriage on the state level two years before the Supreme Court ruling and has remained a progressive beacon/melting pot of the north. That said, I am against it being left up to the states. The idea of marriage being legal in one state and nullified in another is absurd IMO and one I would volunteer my time to and support organizations that fight it.
Marriage equality is important to me for future LGBT kids who will (hopefully) be able to grow up in a society to be the best person they can be without their sexuality weighing them down. Where they can go to school and not feel ostracized, bullied or endure cruelty by others because of their sexual orientation or perceived preference. It symbolizes, to me, that every person is on equal footing in their pursuit of happiness in a loving partner - a basic desire so ingrained into most people whether straight or gay, and gives LGBT people hope and something to strive for as there isn't a conversation therapy in the world that will make a gay person straight (or a straight person gay).
Please understand, I grew up in a time where words like "faggot" and "queer" echoed my school hallways and classrooms, where certain kids were singled out and routinely bullied and sexually harassed (myself included), all under the "watchful" eyes and ears of administration and staff that did/do nothing. So contrary to the snide remarks of a certain poster, I am
especially sensitive to the wanting to protect LGBT gains in societal acceptance and equal rights. Gay people aren't going away - it's straight people who keep replenishing the supply. And for every parent that has hopes and aspirations for their children, this should be a bipartisan issue. Nobody plans to have gay children...it just happens and is what it is...nothing will change them because it's so woven into the fabric of who we are...so embrace them for the person they are and give them a chance to live without prejudice.
Donald Trump’s More Accepting Views on Gay Issues Set Him Apart in G.O.P.
By MAGGIE HABERMAN APRIL 22, 2016
Elton John and his longtime boyfriend, David Furnish, entered a civil partnership on Dec. 21, 2005, in England under a law the country had just enacted granting recognition to same-sex couples. The congratulations poured in as the two men appeared at a joyous ceremony at Windsor Guildhall, amid a crush of paparazzi. Donald J. Trump, who had known the couple for years, took to his blog to express his excitement.
“I know both of them, and they get along wonderfully. It’s a marriage that’s going to work,” Mr. Trump wrote, adding: “I’m very happy for them. If two people dig each other, they dig each other.”
Mr. Trump is now the leading candidate for president in the Republican primary, which has traditionally been dominated by hopefuls eager to show how deeply conservative they are on social issues like gay rights and marriage.
But Mr. Trump is far more accepting of sexual minorities than his party’s leaders have been. On Thursday, he startled some Republicans by saying on NBC’s “Today” show that he opposed a recently passed North Carolina law that prohibits people from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to the gender they were born with, striking down a Charlotte ordinance.
Transgender people should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate,” Mr. Trump said, putting him at odds with a majority of Republicans in North Carolina.
But it is his views on gay rights and gay people that most distinguish Mr. Trump from previous Republican standard-bearers. He has nurtured long friendships with gay people, employed gay workers in prominent positions, and moved with ease in industries where gays have long exerted influence, like entertainment.
“He will be the most gay-friendly Republican nominee for president ever,” said Gregory T. Angelo, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group that supports gay rights.
Of course, Mr. Trump is not as embracing of gay rights as the Democratic candidates are; he said during this campaign that he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, a position he has held since at least 2000, when he briefly flirted with a bid for the presidency. But he does not emphasize marriage as an issue, and he makes no mention of it, for example, on his campaign website, which focuses on issues like immigration and trade.
And Mr. Trump, who has inflamed tensions with almost every group, from Hispanics to women to African-Americans, has avoided attacking or offending gay men and lesbians during the campaign.
His history with the gay community is a long one. He donated to charities focused on the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early ’90s. In 2000, when he briefly considered running for president, he gave an interview to The Advocate, a gay magazine, in which he supported amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to “include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
“It would be simple. It would be straightforward,” Mr. Trump said in the interview, adding, “It’s only fair.”
Sixteen years later, gay rights advocates are still trying to persuade Congress to pass a similar measure, but they have struggled to win support, especially from Republicans. The last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, opposed similar legislation in 2012.
Mr. Trump declined to be interviewed for this article.
His ease with gay people does not seem to be the result of deep soul searching, but, rather, the product of the Manhattan social and political world he has inhabited the past five decades.
“I live in New York. I know many, many gay people. Tremendous people,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in 2011.
He has been playful at times, such as in 2000, when he and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani appeared in a skit for a political roast, during which Mr. Trump nuzzled and caressed the mayor, who was dressed in drag.
Friends say he also views gay rights through the lens of a bottom line-minded businessman.
“His key concern is, Are you capable and able to do the job I hired you for? And if you are, very little else matters,” said Abe Wallach, an openly gay executive at the Trump Organization in the 1990s. “Very little on a social level will make Donald excited — if it was money or something else, he might get excited.”
Mr. Trump was believed to be the first private club owner in Palm Beach, Fla., to admit an openly gay couple, according to Laurence Leamer, the author of “Madness Under the Royal Palms,” a book about Palm Beach society. Mr. Trump made his club, Mar-a-Lago, more open partly out of disdain for the restrictions that barred Jews and African-Americans from joining exclusive clubs in Palm Beach.
“It’s one of the best things he’s done in my view in his life,” Mr. Leamer said. “He really changed the nature of Palm Beach.”
Rand Hoch, a gay activist who founded the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council in 1988, recalled bringing dates to Mar-a-Lago on two occasions. Both times, he said, Mr. Trump, who loves to play the role of greeter as guests arrive at his club, was pleasant and approached the two for chitchat.
“He treated us no differently than everyone else who was going through that door,” Mr. Hoch said, adding that it was not possible that Mr. Trump was unaware they were gay. “He’s perceptive, so I’m pretty sure he didn’t think we were brothers.”
Mr. Wallach said that he and his husband would fly on Mr. Trump’s jet to Florida or Atlantic City on weekends. “I found him to be very friendly to my spouse,” he said. “He would often ask about my spouse, how his dental practice was doing.”
Mr. Trump’s foundation has given over the years to groups like the AIDS Service Center and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Some of those donations came more recently in connection with his reality television show “The Celebrity Apprentice,” whose winners got to select the recipient charities. But as early as 1987, Mr. Trump made a $25,000 contribution to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, from profits generated by his company’s operation of the Wollman Memorial Rink in Central Park. And in 1992, the Trump Taj Mahal held an event that raised $60,000 for AIDS research.
Mr. Trump’s recent alliances with social conservatives such as Jerry Falwell Jr. and Pat Robertson have alarmed people like Mr. Angelo, whose group, the Log Cabin Republicans, is eager to meet with the real estate mogul to discuss his positions in detail.
And some gay acquaintances of Mr. Trump find it puzzling that he cannot support same-sex marriage, given his comfort with gay relationships.
In 2012, Mr. Trump attended the wedding of Jordan Roth, a Broadway producer, and Richie Jackson, in a ceremony at the Al Hirschfeld Theater.
Months later, Mr. Trump went to lunch with the actor George Takei, who is openly gay and was fired by Mr. Trump from “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Mr. Takei approached Mr. Trump at a news conference for the show, saying he would like to try to change his views on letting gay people marry. “He said, ‘George, maybe I could learn something from you,’ ” Mr. Takei said in a telephone interview this week from his home in California.
The lunch, at Trump Tower, opened with Mr. Trump mentioning the wedding he had attended, which Mr. Takei later learned was that of Mr. Roth and Mr. Jackson.
Mr. Takei walked Mr. Trump through the benefits of supporting same-sex marriage, particularly for a business owner. Gay couples would celebrate in his hotels, and their guests would dine in his restaurants, Mr. Takei said. Mr. Trump agreed with that view, Mr. Takei said, but he would not budge, saying he supported “traditional marriage.”
“I was tempted to say, marrying multiple times is not traditional marriage,” Mr. Takei said of Mr. Trump, who has been married three times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/us/po ... .html?_r=0
