Comments on: Mark Sanford, Sexual Liberation and LBGT Equality

By: Reggie Greene / The Logistician

Reggie Greene / The Logistician — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 05:03:16 +0000

As for Mark Sanford, from my perspective, the issue is quite simple. Rightly or wrongly, he has lost a substantial number of people who are willing to support him, place confidence in him, and trust him. A leader needs as many people believing in him or her as possible.

As for resignation, http://www.tinyurl.com/n3vlg3

By: B99

B99 — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:13:28 +0000

Just to bring up the subject of Sanford – the guy perpetuated fraud against his constituency for personal and political gain. Sanford’s crime, or one of them, is to lie to his conservative and Republican supporters about his moral/ethical beliefs. Further, he defrauded his voting base by undermining the Clinton presidency while secretly advocating a position precisely the opposite of what he was selling to his voters. Too bad, he’s about to be history – we won’t be able to use him much longer to expose the Republican platform of lies.

By: ron

ron — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:09:58 +0000

lichen,
i think you would find yourself more in agreement with Sherry Wolf than in disagreement.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:03:26 +0000

Lichen: Understood. Thanks for dropping info, I hadn’t heard of the Prop 6. Again, that smacks of egregious constitutional violation. How are they defending that firing? -I can think of no defense.

By: lichen

lichen — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:57:52 +0000

Ron, no, perhaps you nor the author said such things, but they were hinted it, which is why I expressed my overall opinion of some people who have indeed probably gone much farther in making criticisms than the author did–saying that basically gay rights issues should be thrown aside completely in favor of socialism; even when there is a law forthcoming such as prop 6, which would have fired all gay and gay-friendly teachers in California; even then to some of these people it was not enough and we should have been working on socialism instead. And personally I do have a broad politics beyond just gay issues, but I don’t completely ignore one over the other. And at least for me personally,I’m not very interested in fighting culture wars, but the ‘working class’ on the political right is, and they would rather put down gays, black people, immigrants, socialists, vegans, etc. then bring about real changes that would improve their daily lives; and it certainly isn’t my fault that they do so.

Melissa, that was a very courteous thing to say, and I appreciate it, though I was commenting on bigger trends than just your comment.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:49:05 +0000

It all fits under the Human Rights umbrella. That’s the avenue we use in my city and when we build platforms as delegates.

Lichen: I apologize if my questions and genuine interest feel like attacks, or an effort to “pull the rug”. I can see how my personal viewpoint of state-sanctioned marriage can, and likely is, used as a veiled attempt to undermine the reforms being sought. I’ll be more thoughtful about that in the future, thanks to this exposure.

Peace,
Melissa

By: ron

ron — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:27:54 +0000

one more thing–since you are a tru minoroty, doesn’t it make sense to work towards building a borad-based movement that is based on more than just whatever makes you a minority?

By: ron

ron — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:26:39 +0000

Lichen ,
It seems to me that it would be useful if one read a book before dismissing it. Nowhere in my review and nowhere in the Wolf’s book is it suggested that LBGT people would or should build a socialist movement on their own. Instead, the book looks at the history etc of sexuality and sexual repression under US capitalism (esp.) and calls for a working class effort across sexual, gender, racial lines to build a socialist movement. The issue of intersex is addressed as is the marriage equality movement. It is Wolf’s (and many others) contention that the marriage equality movement (and other civil rights movements) can be starting points to building a radical, even revolutionary movement. Working for reforms is not the desired end result but a beginning. It’s time to end the squabbling about whose movement is whose and wrest the movements that are about liberation away from those who whould make them just another part of the capitalist lie. I urge you to read the book or at least hear Wolf speak before you reject the ideas she presents.

By: lichen

lichen — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:42:00 +0000

The book does not sound interesting to me, and since us lgbt people are a true minority, the logic of exactly how and why we are apparently going to be responsible for engineering and laying out some big socialist movement all by ourselves has yet to be explained. Why can’t the heterosexual community itself, with their vastly larger numbers, do this? And why is the non-minority of women never singled out for this sort of criticism–no indeed, I never hear people arguing against the ’socialism and overall kind, generous policies for women, capitalism and cruel, repressive policies for men.’ In fact, the sexuality of boys is often repressed just two days after birth in the US, when their genitals are mutilated–and much further by parents, regardless of capitalism, who generally hate and think it their right to abuse and control children and their bodies.

Likewise just as stupid are the people who wish to co-opt the message of marriage equality for lgbt people to basically pull out the rug; they are so homophobic that they would completely destroy marriage itself before sharing it, or just so arrogant that they see nothing wrong with hijacking another person’s movement instead of building their own.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:55:52 +0000

Sounds like a good read, Ron.

Weren’t the origins of state recognized/sanctioned marriage in the immediate aftermath of Civil War? I need to read the book to see if/how the author deals with that, and the implications.

I think the left should consider dismantling all marriage. Let couples recognize those intentions with their families and communities, keep the state out. Tax breaks for marriage and kids? Higher tax bracket for people who opt to remain unwed or childless?

I think the incentives are a little messed up. Better to stop asking for permission to live one’s life, and insist on living it our own way.

Melissa