Flibbertigibbet

I Hate to Say It

But watching Hilary Clinton at the Logo HRC Presidential Forum last night... my blood did not immediate freeze in my veins.

She came off as the most personable, normal, and -- if you can believe this -- non-politically motivated of the bunch. I didn't catch whiff of what I usually see as her cold political maneuvering. (much.)

The Presidential Forum was a joke though.

I liked the format of the candidates coming out one by one to field questions, but having a forum hosted by a bunch of homos lends itself to a single issue discussion.

Yes, they did talk about things other than gay marriage, but not much.

And if one more candidate says that we need more love in America, I want someone to slap them in the face.

I found the softball questions they lobbed to the candidates to be extremely frustrating.

"Senator Edwards, if one of your staff were transgendered, would you fire them?" Seriously? Is any human being who is even remotely considering a campaign for pubic office going to go on national television in front of the LGBT community and say yes?

Well, Bill "Maricon" Richardson did take the unpopular position that homosexuality is a choice. The room was already uncomfortable before that and it visibly chilled at that response and to his squirming to get away from it.

When is someone going to nail Edwards to the wall over his position on gay marriage? Or any of those people who don't support marriage but support civil unions?

Clinton managed to position her support of civil unions as a next step in the movement, leaving support for gay marriage open as an option for the future. She aptly demonstrated her interest in progress by explaining the environment in which "Don't Ask Don't Tell" came about and why she supported it for the first five years of the policy's existence and then in 1999 turned against it. I did find her excuse of not changing it for lack of opportunity to be a bit weak even if plausible. All in all, she really rocked out.

Gravel and Kucinich are the only two candidates who support full-on same-sex marriage.

The other candidates apart from Clinton didn't really say much about same-sex marriage itself or why they do not support it for favor of civil unions.

I'm getting back to Edwards. He did have the balls to say plainly that he doesn't support gay marriage. But no one had the balls to nail him to the wall and ask why. He says it's a personal issue. So? What are his reasons for his personal view? He says it's his religion. So? Does he feel that his personal view is rational and proper? If so, how does he think his support for inequality in marriage any more or less offensive than that of his Republican counterparts? *crickets*

Why doesn't anyone ask these people what purpose they think it serves to call same-sex marriage something different from different-sex marriage? Is it to pander to a bigoted and irrational voter base? Is it like Edwards who panders to his own bigoted, religion-fueled emotionalism? Or is it the infinitely more impressive point that they want to make ALL unions civil unions?

Back to Clinton: Marriage is a states rights issue? Odd given the Federal Government's explicit endorsement of those unions. Face it, lady: marriage is an issue at the federal level.

So, anyway, more on this later. I'm late for a meeting.