Daddy’s Roommate, a book that helps kids understand same-sex families.
Laura Chase, the campaign manager during Palin’s first run for mayor in 1996, as well as Palin’s mayoral predecessor John Stein, both confirmed that she pushed to have the book removed from the library because it “didn’t belong there.” Ms. Chase read the book, found it inoffensive, and suggested Palin read it. Palin’s response was that she “didn’t need to read that stuff.”
With little more than 50 days to go before election, we are coming down to the wire in being able to reach out to friends and families about why this election is so crucial to the LGBT community. The information that gets shared here on LGBT for Obama is a great resource to help explain why a vote for John McCain is a vote against LGBT people and our families.
You may have heard the reports that as mayor of Wasilla Sarah Palin considered banning books from the local library. Now the traditional media is finally picking up on the story. Among the book she may have looked into banning was Pastor, I am Gayby former PFLAG regional director Reverend Howard Bess.
Palin, now the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 with strong support from the Wasilla Assembly of God. The Assembly of God is well known for preaching anti-gay rhetoric from the pulpit.
Good Morning America aired this investigative report into the controversy:
Here is a new McCain-Palin ad in which Barack Obama’s usage of the old “lipstick on a pig” cliché is being unfairly decontextualized so that it’s made to sound like a pointed reference to Palin:
But beyond the “lipstick” comment itself, there are several other points of opportunistic impropriety here. Like, for instance — what campaign was Katie Couric actually talking about when referencing sexism? Was “that campaign” referring to Obama’s, as Team McCain implies, or was it referring to…
I thought the Log Cabin Republicans would withhold their endorsement of John McCain. Maybe I just hoped they would. After all, they withheld their endorsement of President Bush in 2004. So I thought it was possible.
In making its endorsement today, the group pointed to the Arizona senator’s opposition to a federal constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as being a man and a woman. The group also indicated that it had honest disagreements with Senator McCain on the subject of same sex marriage. The Log Cabin gang has traveled to St. Paul to carry the message that Republicans are on the “wrong side of history” when it comes to the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry.
In this must see video Joan Garry, co-chair of the Obama campaign’s LGBT Finance Committee and former Executive Director of GLAAD, Log Cabin Republican Executive Director Patrick Sammon and Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff discuss the presidential elections. The video is featured on Logo.
Garry gives an impassioned rationale for why LGBT voters and our friends and families must vote for Sen. Barack Obama. As expected, Sammon made excuses for Sen. John McCain’s failure to include LGBT people in his convention speech or even express any support whatsoever for LGBT civil rights.
One of the things I hoped for when Michelle Obama spoke at the Democratic convention, was that she would introduce people to the America that she came from, and that was the setting of her story. One of the biggest shames in the campaign — aside from the fact that political realities required this intelligent, accomplished woman to effectively bite her tongue for the last couple of months — is the lack of any honest discussion about the reality that we don’t all live in the same America. It’s one reality that both progressives and conservatives must grapple with between now and November, and beyond
Delivered on a night that carried the theme “One America,” her speech should serve as a reminder that if we are to be America, we have to first acknowledge that what we have are three America’s: yours, mine, and ours.
There was more than a little jaw-dropping political spin flying around last week during the Republican Convention. The blog team at LGBT for Obama is here to help cut through that spin and get to some of the real issues impacting the lives of LGBT Americans during this election cycle.
We are now less than 60 days away from the most important presidential election in a generation. To show your support for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, donate directly to the Obama campaign while having your contribution tagged as coming from the LGBT community.
Andrew Sullivan on John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate:
John McCain has demonstrated with this insane decision that he is unfit to be president of the United States. This was an act of near-criminal negligence. If he can behave this recklessly and impulsively with this decision, the idea of allowing him to become president of the United States is only a smidgen less terrifying than thinking of Palin in that position.
It is no secret that John McCain is completely out of touch with mainstream America. I mean seriously he can’t remember how many houses he and his wife own? But I had forgotten about this tidbit from Andy Towle a while back:
“Another student asked McCain what he would do on ‘LGBT’ issues and on ‘workers’ rights?’ McCain, paused, confused by the question. Someone in the crowd shouted out ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.’ ‘I had not heard that phrase before,’ McCain said of LGBT.”
More information is coming out about Palin and her quest to ban books from the Wasilla Library during her time as Mayor. A New York Times article details disturbing information about Palin’s push for censorship of books she considered “immoral”. Care to guess the focus of her ire?