Our guests this week were Rob Schlein, president of Log Cabin Republicans Dallas; and Dru Rivera, 2011 Voice of Pride winner. Tune in live next Friday from 4 to 5 p.m. at RationalBroadcasting.com. You can also subscribe to Pink Noise on iTunes, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. The video version of the show is below.
Pink Noise: The Dallas Voice Radio Show
Log Cabin lauds candidates for ‘focus on jobs’
R. Clarke Cooper
Shockingly, the GOP presidential candidates weren’t specifically asked about LGBT issues during Wednesday night’s two-hour debate in Simi Valley, Calif. Which prompted Log Cabin Republicans, the gay GOP group, to issue a press release this afternoon lauding the candidates for their “focus on jobs.”
“Americans tired of President Obama’s failed leadership tuned in to the GOP debate looking for an alternative to the gimmicks and empty rhetoric they will hear in tonight’s speech before Congress,” Log Cabin Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper said in the press release. “They were not disappointed. While the candidates onstage represent a broad cross-section of the Republican family, all were united in the belief that our government is spending beyond its means and making too many promises it can’t keep. Despite our differences, Republicans today are united in our mission to send Barack Obama back to Chicago and get our country back on the right track.
“Several of the candidates acquitted themselves well in the debate, such as Governor Huntsman’s declaration of independence from documents like the National Organization for Marriage’s anti-federalist marriage pledge,” Cooper said. “Log Cabin Republicans urge all candidates to be relentless in their focus on the Obama’s greatest weaknesses — jobs and the economy. Divisive special interest pledges like NOM’s only distract from that message and turn off the voters we need to be including to win the White House.”
Rob Schlein accuses Rick Perry of using wildfires as excuse to dodge presidential debates
Rob Schlein
Rob Schlein, president of Log Cabin Republicans Dallas, clearly doesn’t put a lot of stock in natural disasters.
In an op-ed for Dallas Voice last week, Schlein downplayed the threat of a federal marriage amendment, saying it is “as exaggerated as the the reported threat of Hurricane Irene.”
Then on Monday, after Texas Gov. Rick Perry skipped a presidential forum in South Carolina so he could return to Texas to deal with the wildfires, Schlein took to Facebook to question the governor’s motives.
“So is Rick Perry afraid of debating?” Schlein wrote. “Seems he’s discovered that the fires need his attention. Why is this a sudden priority just a few days before your debut on TV?”
In addition to Monday’s forum, Schlein was referring to Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate in California, for which Perry now says he’s undecided.
Why I will vote Republican in 2012
If LGBTs really want to win equality, we must back the candidates that will help our pocketbooks, even if they take anti-LGBT positions
Robert Schlein
Special Contributor
I always give a five-minute speech at our monthly Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas meetings, and I was recently reviewing some of my remarks from July, 2008, when I asked the question, “What political price would my critics pay to resolve all of their gay civil rights issues? Would they accept any political doctrine, if it was bundled with promises of improvement in gay civil liberties?”
I said to our group that I didn’t want an America that looks like Europe: one that can’t generate enough jobs for its younger workforce, whose immigration policies have created many social ills and whose government-controlled socialized medicine results in less availability of care for all, and with the best care for only those who can afford to travel to another country.
America answered that question in 2008 — and unfortunately got it wrong. While the LGBT community finally secured some victories, what we got in exchange was bigger government, bigger debt and a much-worsened economy.
ObamaCare is an impending disaster that threatens our quality and availability of health care. The economy is stagnating because Obama and his administration seem to know little about capitalism or how to inspire confidence among those with cash to invest.
So again I ponder my question from 2008, because we Republicans will likely have a GOP candidate for president that saber-rattles his or her threat for a federal marriage amendment, or the reinstatement of “don’t ask, don’t tell” to placate the social conservatives.
Let’s be realistic, we Republicans need SoCons to win elections.
However, despite this pressure, our next Republican president will more than likely follow through instead on fiscal efforts to repeal ObamaCare, neuter the EPA’s hard work to shut down power plants that will severely hamper our economy (many in Texas), allow us to explore for oil domestically, steer us to a more balanced budget and get rid of the Dodd-Frank Banking bill that has caused cash-for-title loan stores to spring up like Texas ragweed.
For those who are upset at Rick Perry’s decision to sign the National Organization of Marriage’s pledge to move forward on an amendment to the Constitution, I say I’m willing to pay that price — a danger, in my view, that is as exaggerated as the reported threat of Hurricane Irene — in exchange for fiscal conservatism that is more likely to win the day and return us to prosperity.
After all, the process for amending the Constitution of the United States is so burdensome and so difficult, it seems to me the pledge to NOM is as empty as most men’s promises to stay monogamous until “death do us part.”
That said, I don’t believe that Rick Perry is our party’s best hope to beat Obama.
In the swing states that really matter — Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania — Mitt Romney, who has never been a great friend of Log Cabin’s, polls better. He’s one of them, and his dad was a very, very popular Michigan governor.
And if Jon Huntsman can organize some support he would be a brilliant choice, too.
But, we don’t get to decide in isolation who our nominee will be. By the time the candidates reach Texas, we will likely have our winner.
And, if that winner is Rick Perry, he can count on my vote and my vocal support.
We say in Log Cabin that “inclusion wins,” and we appreciate and welcome those with ideas that differ from our own.
All we can do is to try to elect people that can win who are most compatible with our views, and try to exert influence on those who differ, who do win.
For the LGBT community, economic power is the most liberating one. Paying your debts down, burning up your mortgage and having, pardon my language, some “screw you” money in the bank — that stands the best chance to obtain the equality we seek.
For if it weren’t for a handful of very wealthy billionaires in New York who were with us, their Republican senate majority leader would have never passed gay marriage in that state.
Let me be clear on this: It wasn’t just Log Cabin. It wasn’t just the Human Rights Campaign. It was former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlmen, PayPal founder Peter Thiel and their very rich allies that really got this done!
Because, at the end of the day, money is power. And we need to vote on the party that will best give us a chance to prosper, to accumulate wealth and, hence, all the power we need to accomplish our goals.
Obama has shown that he does not stand with those who seek economic prosperity and to accumulate wealth, and for this reason I will vote Republican — even if Rick Perry is our nominee. And I hope you will, too.
Rob Schlein is president of the LGBT Republican group Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 31, 2011.
Dallas Log Cabin President Rob Schlein explains why he’d support Gov. Rick Perry for president
Rob Schlein
A few weeks back we reported that Rob Schlein, president of the Dallas chapter of Log Cabin Republicans, plans to support Texas Gov. Rick Perry for president if he’s the Republican nominee — despite Perry’s anti-gay record.
Schlein says he used his regular remarks at the start of Log Cabin’s monthly meeting Monday night to explain why. Below is a transcript:
Gay Dems fear Perry would be ‘major step back’
ENTERING THE FRAY | Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during the Red State Gathering, where he announced his run for president, on Saturday, Aug. 13 in Charleston, S.C. (Associated Press)
But Dallas Log Cabin president says group would back governor
JAMES BRIGHT | Contributing Writer
editor@dallasvoice.com
Gay Democratic leaders in Texas fear that if Rick Perry becomes president, it would be a “major step back” for LGBT equality.
But the president of the Dallas chapter of Log Cabin Republicans indicated that the gay GOP group would support Perry if he wins the party’s nomination.
Perry, who hasn’t been supportive of the LGBT community during his time as governor, ended weeks of speculation when he formally announced that he’s running for president on Aug. 13.
And for the most part, LGBT leaders in Perry’s home state weren’t receptive to the news.
“He will regress everything we have accomplished and take us many steps backwards instead of the many steps forward we’ve taken under [President Barack] Obama,” said Omar Narvaez, president of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas.
“He is a top-tier candidate in that party with its radical right evangelical emphasis,” said Dan Graney, president of the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus. “He loves little government and low taxes, so he plays right into their hands. God forbid if he were ever elected president. We would take a major step back for equal rights.”
Rob Schlein, president of Log Cabin Republicans Dallas, said the group likely will back the GOP nominee whoever it is.
“Rick Perry has been less of a friend to the LGBT community than we’d like, but on the issues that affect us all I think he is better than what we have in the White House,” he said. “We are all looking for a robust economy and he is going to make our national economic policies a lot more conducive to hiring, and that’s where I am concerned.”
Dennis Coleman, executive director of the nonpartisan Equality Texas, said the group will look at all candidates from both parties, but is unlikely to back Perry.
“As an organization we would to be more supportive of the governor putting a bid in for president, but we know where he stands on marriage for same-sex couples,” Coleman said.
“I’m a little concerned that based on his record he may follow the same rhetoric as [candidate Michele] Bachmann that may lead him to want to repeal the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’
“People get frustrated because things don’t happen as quickly as they’d like, but more mature members of the community remember a time when they could be arrested for going to a club,” Coleman said. “The White House has to continue a dialogue with LGBT leaders and people like myself in the movement and publications like the Dallas Voice to hammer down what he has done, and what needs to be done for the LGBT movement.”
Rick Perry hires campaign spokesman who once compared Log Cabin Republicans to the KKK
Robert Black (via Twitter)
The Texas Freedom Network notes that Gov. Rick Perry, who confirmed Thursday that he’s running for president, has tapped Robert Black to serve on his campaign communications team.
Black is a former Perry spokesman who’s currently an Austin consultant. He’s also the former communications director for the Texas Republican Party.
In 1998, after the party famously refused to grant Log Cabin Republicans a booth at the state convention in Fort Worth, Black called LCR a “deviant group” and likened them to the Klu Klux Klan.
“We don’t allow pedophiles, transvestites and cross- dressers, either,” Black said at the time, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Black didn’t back down from the statement when asked about it a few months later, according to the Austin Chronicle:
Black, still the party’s communications director, hasn’t budged much from his position in June: “Considering the traditional Republican principles against the homosexual lifestyle, we do not consider the gay vote to have that much of an effect on Republican politics.” What if a gay group wanted to back Republican candidates? Black: “I would guess, by and large, that most Republicans would not embrace an endorsement from a homosexual organization.”
WATCH: Ann Coulter says you CAN pray the gay away and we should bring back DADT
So-called conservative pundit Ann Coulter is at it again; now she has appeared on The Joy Behar Show on HLN where she told Joy that she believes it is possible to “pray the gay away,” that she is tired of hearing about same-sex marriage in New York, AND that she not only believes that gays shouldn’t be allowed in the military, but that women should be allowed in the military either.
You can watch the video below to hear her whole rant, if you have the stomach for it.
Joy Behar, bless her liberal heart, basically tells Ann she’s a dumbass (that’s my condensed version of what Behar actually did say), and Log Cabin Republicans‘ Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper released a statement today saying, basically, the same thing.
Here’s what Cooper’s statement actually said:
What’s Brewing: DADT update; new gonorrhea strain; Michele Bachmann’s ‘ex-gay’ clinics
Michele Bachmann
Your weekday morning blend from Instant Tea:
1. After ordering a halt to enforcement of “don’t ask, don’t tell” last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday gave the Department of Justice 10 days to state whether it will continue to defend the policy’s constitutionality in a case brought by Log Cabin Republicans.
2. Scientists have discovered a new strain of gonorrhea that is totally resistant to antibiotics. “This is both an alarming and a predictable discovery,” lead researcher Magnus Unemo, professor at the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria in Örebro, Sweden, said in a statement. “Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it.”
3. Christian counseling clinics owned by GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband have been conducting so-called “ex-gay” therapy, according to a report that aired on ABC’s Nightline on Monday night. In the wake of the report, Bachmann said she is “very proud” of the clinics and the jobs they’ve created, but refused to respond to the allegations about reparative therapy. Watch Nightline‘s report below.
Appeals court halts enforcement of DADT, but gay servicemembers warned to remain cautious
A federal appeals court has halted enforcement of “don’t ask don’t tell,” effective immediately.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous order today lifting a stay it had placed on an injunction handed down last year by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, who declared the ban on open military service unconstitutional.
According to the appeals court’s order, DADT cannot be enforced unless and until the government gets a stay from either the 9th Circuit Court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Congress voted to repeal DADT in December, but repeal has not yet been certified by the president, the defense secretary and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
“Today’s decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is most welcomed,” Servicemembers Legal Defense Network Executive Director Aubrey Sarvis said in a statement. “It’s the hope of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network that this favorable ruling will not be challenged by the Defense Department. In fact, this whole matter could have been avoided had we had certification back in the spring. It’s time to get on with that important certification, end the DADT confusion for all service members, and put a final end to this misguided policy.”
Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, warned that despite today’s order, gay servicemembers should remain cautious about revealing their sexual orientation. “The issue remains in a state of flux, although guarded optimism is certainly warranted,” Nicholson said in a statement.
Although the appeals court lifted its stay of the injunction, it has not ruled on the merits of the case, Log Cabin Republicans vs. The United States. The court set arguments for Aug. 29.
In its order, the appeals court cited the Obama administration’s position that it’s unconstitutional to discriminate against gays, which was laid out in a court brief last week.
To read the appeals court’s order, go here.
