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Friday Linky Open Thread

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I think these open threads are working out.  Hope you enjoy them.  Here are a few thoughts.

• This is a week old, but Nick Kristof’s column about Prop. 2 (the farm animal safety measure) is well worth your time.

• It’s still up in the air whether or not we’re going to have Alan Keyes on the California Presidential ballot in November.  There’s a lawsuit between two members of the American Independent Party over who should be their nominee.  It seems to me the very definition of “frivolous,” but as someone who deeply enjoys mocking Alan Keyes I have a dog in this fight, so do the right thing, Sacramento Superior Court!

• The Log Cabin Republicans, who I also like to call “gluttons for punishment,” rolled out their No on 8 campaign last week.  The website is Republicans Against 8.  It’s the libertarian thing to do to get government out of the bedroom, so hopefully they’ll sway some folks.

• This is absolutely revolting and someone needs to go to jail:

For hundreds of homeless people, posing as phony hospital patients provided them a clean bed and cash. For the hospitals that processed them, it meant a full patient-load and a paycheck from the government.

Now some of those allegedly involved in what authorities say was a massive scheme have been charged with billing government programs for millions of dollars in unnecessary health services.

A hospital CEO was arrested Wednesday after federal agents raided three medical centers. City attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s office has also sued the hospitals, saying they used homeless people as “human pawns.”

It’s kind of the flip side of homeless dumping, or who knows, it was run in concert.  Either way, sickening.

• Jerry Lewis is trying to get a bunch of lobbyists to fund his Congressional portrait.  The worst part about this deal is that Jerry Lewis will have a Congressional portrait hanging in our nation’s capital.

Add whatever you wish in the comments.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California

Arnold to meet with the Log Cabin Republicans

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The Governator is attempting to curry favor with the state’s LGBT population by attending the Log Cabin Republicans national fundraiser in Hollywood:

In what may be his first appearance in front of a LGBT audience since he took office in 2003, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to headline a fund-raiser for a national gay Republican group in Hollywood next week.

Many LGBT Californians have not been happy with the governor after he vetoed an historic same-sex marriage bill in September, the first to be approved by both legislative chambers without a court order. But the Log Cabin Republicans are defending Schwarzenegger’s scheduled appearance at their June 29 event.  “There is a better than 50-50 chance this man will be the governor of California for the next four years, and for the gay community to label somebody based on one veto is shortsighted,” Log Cabin President Patrick Guerrero told the Associated Press.
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“We thought allowing him to address these issues in a friendly setting — as well as giving him a chance to get another look at who gay and lesbian families are — was important both for him and for us,” Guerrero said.
(PlanetOut 6/20/06)

The Log Cabin Republicans long ago stopped speaking for the LGBT community.  And while I can’t understand why LGBT Americans would want to vote for all but a handful of Republicans, they did play a useful role in the 90s.  Bob Dole’s returning their donation to his campaign exposed the fallacy of the GOP “big tent.”  And their support of McCain’s candidacy in the 2000 primary was understandable.  Personally, I wouldn’t vote for the guy, but McCain, at that point, was a good alternative.  The New Republic published an article in 2002 describing LCR’s collapse (TNR’s words, not mine). 

Cheering blatantly anti-gay policies and appointees has become LCR’s modus operandi. When the press reported a White House deal to allow the Salvation Army to discriminate against gays and still compete for anti-poverty funds, LCR put out a press release parroting the administration’s dubious defense. After the Bush administration signaled its opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the executive director of LCR–which spent eight years helping draft the legislation–backed away from their long-held position, saying that since “only 15 percent of Americans” claim they would discriminate against a gay man or lesbian in their employ, ENDA is no longer crucial. And when Bush nominated John Ashcroft, one of the Senate’s most consistently anti-gay members, to be attorney general, LCR supported the appointment.
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“[Log Cabin is] not effective in lobbying for a whole variety of issues–on ENDA, on AIDS, … on adoption, on the Boy Scouts,” sighs Schmid, who bolted LCR for the HRC. “They just talk. And issue press releases.” In other words, the Log Cabin Republicans are becoming irrelevant. And they deserve to be. (The New Republic 4/18/02)

So, Schwarzenegger is going to speak to a group that has no resources, few members, and exists only so that the GOP can point to some element of a “big tent” before they tell the Right how evil the gays are.  How can LGBT voters vote for the GOP? Are these the same people who enjoy being told that they are terrible human beings are?  Or as Mary Cheney says, she can’t afford to be a single issue voter in these times of terror.  Au contraire, Mary, we don’t have to be single issue voters.  The administration has managed to make the place a far more dangerous place.  And is it even a “single issue”?  It’s your ability to live your life in equality.  It’s your dignity.  Seems to me that’s something worth voting for.

Also, the SF Pride Committee has given Schwarzenegger their Pink Brick Award for “having done significant harm to the interests of LGBT people.”  This is due in large part to his veto of the gay marriage bill.  Schwarzenegger today said that he supports domestic partnerships, which is better than nothing…but not good enough.  Near equality is not enough.  Separate but equal is inherently unequal.  Schwarzenegger can have his party with some self-loathing gays, but the LGBT community, like other California progressives, see through his “moderate” persona.