Blogcabin California

Jon Fleischman at the Flashreport posted this on the Flash Report and I thought it worth correcting.

“A quick update from the State GOP Convention… Delegates overwhelmingly re-adopted a strong, conservative pro-life, pro-family platform.”

Actually, the voice vote was so close on the floor and sounded as if the no side prevailed, so the Chairman, Ron Nehring had to call for the vote twice. The result was the same even though the yes side yelled a bit louder than before.  But Ron Nehring wanted to get this over with since the meeting was already hours behind schedule so he simply declared in favor of the yes side without counting the actual votes.  Some women behind me noted that they were surprised at how many people opposed the platform and wondered what was so bad about it. They sounded worried.  Again, victory belongs to those who show up.

Like all groups, I send out statements, news items, commentary and the like. One of the main ways to get that information out is through the LGBT Politics Group on Yahoo.  While intended to be strictly about LGBT news, there are some in the group who send out something everytime a Democrat (usually Obama) says gesundheit to a lesbian if she sneezes.  I sent out this tidbit below, showing how the California Republican electorate is becoming more mainstream on social issues as demonstrated by which candidates got the majority of all votes cast.  I just got notice today, weeks later, that this wasn’t approved by the moderator of the group. This happens frequently.  Now, call me cynical, but why is that a group that is supposed to be LGBT first, reports news that affects how we’re being treated for good or for bad can report on every good thing a Democrat does, but fail to report anything that reflects poorly on Dems or well on the GOP?  Perhaps because while Log Cabin is up front about being a partisan organization, these others are simply there to pimp us out to the Democratic Party under the guise of human rights? 

These “leaders” jobs are not to secure equality for us, but to securely tie our votes and money to the Democratic Party with the eternal promise of “someday.”   All you have to do is to give us Congress, they told us and we’ll secure ENDA and an end to the ban in the military. Well, we’re waiting… and waiting…and waiting.  But I’ll bet these leaders of ours won’t try to hold Democrats accountable. It will all be Bush’s fault. And we’ll be told, we can’t do anything without the Congress AND White House in Democratic hands. And then, we’ll be told, not until we get a Democratic Congress, President AND Supreme Court. But in the meantime that won’t stop them from passing bills on other issues like taxes or Iraq they know will be vetoed or overturned by the Supreme Court.  Why does this strategy sound so familiar? Oh yeah!  It’s what the GOP has been telling Pro-lifers and Anti-gay partisans for years now.  And they have as much to show for their continued loyalty and support to one Party as we will if we listen to our LGBT leaders on this “the Democratic Party is our saviour” strategy now.

The statement that the LGBT news community refuses to approve to be sent to LGBT media:

Statement by James Vaughn, Director California Log Cabin Republicans on the GOP Presidential Primary in February.

“The primary results in California showed that candidates who pander to social conservatives can’t get a majority in a Republican Primary, so why do they think it can win in General elections? John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul – candidates from the mainstream/moderate/libertarian wing of the party – collectively polled 51.5% of the vote at current count. The candidates who most actively gay-bashed like Huckabee and Romney failed to win a majority of Republicans. The tide is ebbing for religious conservatives.”

CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY NARROWLY VOTES TO ADOPT THE SAME VIEW ON MARRIAGE AS CLINTON AND OBAMA

The California Republican Party this weekend voted to keep language in the platform that states marriage is between one man and one woman. The platform does not call for a constitutional amendment. This is the same position taken by Sens. Clinton, Obama, Boxer, Feinstein and McCain. The vote to strip this restrictive language from the platform completely narrowly failed by only nine votes.

The California Republican Party (CRP) adopts a new platform every four years. This weekend, the CRP is meeting in San Francisco. The committee was faced with two platform drafts. One draft - the green platform (so called because it was printed on green colored paper) eliminated all references to social issues and thus the anti-gay language. The second platform draft - the white platform - was a slight rehash of previous platforms. The attempt to start with the green draft more inclusive platform was defeated by only eight votes. (The Platform Committee has about 200 members).

Attempts were made to amend the platform draft to strike some of the language, such as the vote on the marriage language. Those efforts failed by the same 8-10 votes in each case. The attempts to eliminate or change the “pro-life” language in the platform failed overwhelmingly 2-1.

So, apparently the GOP is less anti-gay than it is anti-choice/pro-life. Major kudos to Len Lanzi of Los Angeles for leading the charge to change the platform. A switch of 4 or 5 votes could have made the difference. Those of you who are on the committee and didn’t show up now understand why we say the way to win is simply by showing up.

The important thing about the Platform is to remember that no candidate really runs on the Party Platform. The media does stories and as I told them often today, the Democrats use the CRP Platform more than the CRP does — mainly against Republicans in swing districts and in statewide races. Changing the platform would not have changed the words or actions of anyone on either side in future campaigns. It just makes it harder to win races so we can stop the liberal agenda of raising taxes and government burden on business. And remember, if the vote was this close in the Party everyone knows is completely dominated by religious conservatives, just imagine how supportive the real voters of the Republican Party are for equality.

 If you thought you couldn’t make a difference, just ask yourself how things might be different if just 4 of you had put your name on the ballot as the Republican in one of these seats and had the vote on this committee. We can do this, but only if you help. (The deadline is next week to file and run)

Again, we’re winning the fight for the heart and souls of the mainstream of the Republican Party. Now, if the anti-gay conservatives would realize it, we’d be able to get back to electing Republicans again… Four years ago there were no votes even allowed to change the language. The rhetoric was worse. And we were defeated almost overwhelmingly in any attempts to affect the platform. We all applaud the efforts of Len Lanzi, Mark Patrosso, Shane Patrick Connelly and Ralph Denney — Log Cabin GOP Candidates who sat on the Platform Committee and showed up - for taking this fight to the Committee.

One reason why organizations like Log Cabin are still needed…

OXNARD, Calif. —  Prosecutors (last) Thursday charged a 14-year-old boy with attempted murder and said he committed a hate crime in the classroom shooting of an eighth-grader who was declared brain dead.

Prosecutors would not say why they filed a hate-crime enhancement with the attempted murder count, but several classmates said the 15-year-old victim, Lawrence King, sometimes wore makeup, high heels and other feminine attire.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330728,00.html

This is a very sad story.  Why are so many of our citizens infected with hate and intolerance?

Kevin Broadwater was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the State Independent Living Council yesterday. He is the 14th commission or board appointee and is one over over 30 openly LGBT staff, commissioners and other appointments made by the Governor.  Kevin is my partner. I was appointed to the California State Bar Board of Govenors Examining Committee last year. This, we think, is the first time a gay Republican couple has served in an administration.

Domestic parnterships are closer to marriages in California than ever before.  if you click on the link for “”DP”s, you can see that you have the opportuity to take one name.  I am writing this because I recently had a debade with a couple who do not believe in Domestic Parnterhsips because it is not not a marriage.  They are willing to risk not getting each other’s pensions (both work for the government) and community property, and associated health and medical rights.  The name change is optional.  I could not persuade them but i would like to have the debate with them if Prop 22 is trhown out and they could get married in Mass.  I wonder how many so called couples say they do not believe in Domestic partners because they are not marriage but in reality are not ready to legally commit and are just afraid to state the honest truth.  Some people do not want a legal commitment and that is fine but don’t use marriage as a pretext to your real argument.