I Didn't Say It ....

Coca-Cola, a Sochi Olympics sponsor, on removing a social media tool from its website that banned the use of the word “gay”:

"We are aware that the Share a Coke promotion we are running in South Africa has generated an unintended outcome. We apologize for any offence caused. The Share a Coke programme was created to allow consumers to take the iconic “Coca-Cola” script and replace it with their name on the can. In South Africa, the digital version of the Share a Coke promotion did not properly limit the customisation to individuals’ names. We’ve taken down the site and are in the process of revising the digital tool immediately...As one of the world’s most inclusive brands, we value and celebrate diversity. We have long been a strong supporter of the LGBT community and have advocated for inclusion, equality and diversity through both our policies and practices. Again we apologize for any offense this has caused."

Don't apologize for "any" offense, apologize for "the" offense.
Apologize, and then shut up.

Queen Latifah, on officiating the 33 marriages at the Grammys:

“I look forward to the day when presiding over a historic wedding ceremony like this is just the norm. To me, it was special to all the couples we married today and I look forward to dashing off to go sign their marriage certificates. It’s awesome. I had to get sworn in as a commissioner for the state of California, so I’m not an ordained minister like I said, but I’m a commissioner. So you can call me to commish – Queen Commish!"

Mmmm, I have all kinds of reservations about Latifah and her gay-friendly, but gay-silent attitude.
She'll use us as a crowd for a performance, and she'll marry us, but she doesn';t want anyone to know she's one of us.

Tim Graham, of the Media Research Center, on the Grammy weddings:

“They can say this is not a stunt, but that's exactly what it is, a piece of musical agitprop to mock the traditional values of conservative American Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others. Entertainers never want to have a debate, just a series of arrogant 'statements' with no opportunity for a conversation as they flush the Bible on national TV."

So, love and marriage, mocks traditional values? And if they do, so what? Are traditional values the only kind anyone can have?
As I've said before, if you don't wanna witness a same-sex wedding don't go to one -- or turn the TV off when it comes on.
But don't mock my values, asshat.

Bill McElvaney, a Methodist pastor for 40 years, on being pro-marriage-equality:

“I think we need to take this position. It is long overdue in the United Methodist Church...This is a justice matter, but it's not just an issue. It's about people; it's about people being loved and accepted, and about the church being what it's called to be."

Gay folks are getting married, and if churches and ministers want to keep refusing, that's their right. But I imagine they'll change their tune when their memberships drop and the collection plates dry up because The Gays and The Gay Friendlies have walked away.

Lance Bass, on The Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis’ gays are "perverted' comment:

"I don't hate him at all. I still think he's cute...Of course it's disappointing, because you don't want someone who (you) actually love to have those thoughts. ... When you grow up in a place like that, you get brainwashed into thinking that way, you know, you can't help what you grow up with...I mean, I grew up in Mississippi, so I know how people can get brainwashed into thinking really, really awful things. So hopefully, he will learn from this and get educated."

I don't hate Juan Pablo either, I just think he needs a little education, and a little more time to think before he opens his pretty little mouth again.

Queen Latifah, in 2008, on rumors she is a lesbian:

"I don’t have a problem discussing the topic of somebody being gay, but I do have a problem discussing my personal life. You don’t get that part of me. Sorry. We’re not discussing it in our meetings, we’re not discussing it at Cover Girl. They don’t get it, he doesn’t get it [she gestured toward her manager Shakim Compere’s office] — nobody gets that. I don’t feel like I need to share my personal life, and I don’t care if people think I’m gay or not. Assume whatever you want. You do it anyway."

I still say, what about all the young girls, especially young Black girls, who would see her as a role model if she came out?
Wouldn't that be great if, by saying she was gay, Latifah could help just one young girl accept herself?

John Aravosis, from Americablog, on Latifah’s refusal to discuss her ALLEGED gay-ness:

“One big problem with Latifah’s position is that she’s sending a message that there is a problem.  She’s signaling that there’s something wrong with being gay. … People can defend Latifah’s choice, claiming that she has a right to privacy.  And Latifah can talk all she wants about her desire to protect her “private life.”  But straight Americans – and particularly celebrities – don’t invoke the right to privacy when you simply inquire about the well-being of their spouse.  And they don’t rail about their “private life” when you ask, “how goes the girlfriend? ...The only time celebrities try to hide who they’re dating is when it’s someone else’s spouse, an underage child, an animal, a corpse, or a gay.”

Silence in speaking about your sexual orientation or your dating life, is totally tour business, but Aravosis is right that, in keeping silent, you feed the notion that the religious right and the conservative political zealots have, that being gay is something to hide, to be ashamed of, and it's not.
We don't want to know the intimate details of Latifah's private life, but since she keeps wading into our lives -- appearing at Pride fests, officiating same-sex weddings -- the least she can do is come out.

Steve Palazzo, a Mississippi Republican, in his campaign on Facebook in response to the Grammy wedding:

"Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn't value the same conservative beliefs we do in Mississippi. Last night's demonstration at the #Grammys is a perfect example of their disconnect."

Oh, I think you'd be surprised at how many people in  Mississippi had no problem with those marriages.
It's only goose-stepping Republicans who got their hate riled up.

Michele Bachman, wingnut republican and beard, planning to sue the President:

"He’s the president of the United States — he’s not a king. He may think he’s a king, he may declare himself king, but that’s not what he is under our Constitution. We’ll sue the president of the United States and force him to no longer act unilaterally. If he wants to go forward with his unilateral activity, he better be prepared for the lawsuit that the United States Congress will bring. Obamacare is the passed law of the land and yet the president has changed Obamacare at least 17 times on his own, unilaterally, without going through the legislative action that he’s required to do under the United States Congress. That’s just one. He also said that he would refuse to uphold the [Defense of Marriage Act], which he is required by law to uphold. He’s done this multiple times and he’s also threatened — we can’t say we weren’t warned — he’s threatened us tonight that he’s going to act unilaterally."

Honey, your time in Congress is nearly up, and you must be tired from acting the fool for all these years, exhausted trying to remember all the idiotic notions you spout.

Take a seat, Michele, and be quiet.

It’s Time To Out Lindsey Graham

I read this piece on AmericaBlog and was going to talk about it, but all I could think was that John Aravosis already said it all, and a helluva better than I could. So, I'll just post the entire piece, verbatim. John Aravosis, writing for AmericaBlog:

_________________________________

IT'S TIME TO OUT LINDSEY GRAHAM

It’s time to finally out Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Graham has had it coming for a while now. Not because he’s a Republican. But because he’s an anti-gay Republican. And while it’s one thing to be gay and a closet case, it’s quite another to be a hypocrite, an anti-gay gay, someone who uses his power to harm others in the name of morality, all the while knowing secretly that he is one of the others.

In this case, Graham’s hypocrisy that broke the camel’s back is immigration reform. I have it on good authority from someone intimately involved in the immigration reform process that Lindsey Graham is the central reason that the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would help stop the forced deportation of foreign-born gay spouses, is being blocked from being added to the immigration bill. While other Senators might be bluffing about their opposition to addressing the immigration needs of gay binational couples in immigration reform, I’m told Graham isn’t bluffing.

The obvious question arises as to why Graham is holding gays hostage in the immigration bill.

One theory is that UAFA is Graham’s legislative beard. A beard is a woman a gay man socializes with in order to throw off suspicions that he’s actually gay. In this case, the theory goes, Lindsey Graham is using UAFA in order to throw off the suspicions of the Tea Party voters back home who are challenging him in a high-profile primary. Their suspicions are that: A) Graham is a liberal; and B) he’s gay.

Graham’s support for immigration reform is hardly helping him dispel the closet liberal image.  But his opposition to UAFA, the theory goes, is a two-fer: It let’s Graham oppose something, anything, related to immigration reform (his support for the measure has been a thorn in his side with the far-right back home), and it has the added benefit of bashing gays.  Everyone knows that a closeted gay man wouldn’t bash his own people, right?  So bashing UAFA “proves” that Graham is straight.

Roy Cohn, a closeted gay man who destroyed the lives of other gay men. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection.)

And that is why it’s finally time to out Lindsey Graham.

If Lindsey Graham thinks an open discussion about the evils of homosexuality is necessary to further our country’s, or his own, best interests, then let’s have at it.

Lindsey Graham voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, because he believed that gays should not be serving in the US military.  Yet Lindsey Graham himself is a colonel in the Air Force Reserves.  If Lindsey Graham thinks gay are unfit to serve in the US military, and he were in fact gay, then he’d be unfit to serve in the US military by his own definition, would know it, but would still be serving in spite of that knowledge.  That would make Graham a hypocrite, a liar, or both. (And let’s not even talk about the security risk people with dire secrets, and Senatorial security clearances, pose.)

The question facing us is not whether you or I think Lindsey Graham’s sexual orientation is relevant to a public policy debate.  The question confronting us is whether Lindsey Graham thinks one’s sexual orientation is relevant, and he does.  So by the Graham Standard, America deserves to know if Air Force Reserve Colonel Lindsey Graham is gay.

Lindsey Graham celebrating the anti-gay Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

And the same goes for Graham’s position on UAFA.

And it’s not just those two issues.  Graham has been terrible on gay issues for years.  In the last three Congresses, the Human Rights Campaign scorecardgives him a 0, a 13, and a 15 out of 100.  Graham also famously participated in Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, in order to show solidarity with the chicken-chain’s anti-gay views.

Lindsey Graham clearly doesn’t believe that sexual orientation is a non-issue.

Graham is a queer duck. He’s what I like to call a closet heterosexual: Somehow who avers to being straight, but does so in such a diminutive, and odd, manner so as to lack all credibility.

Straight people aren’t normally shy about being straight.  Usually, they don’t even realize the degree to which they“flaunt” their heterosexuality.  They bring dates to public events, go on vacations with their significant other, and more generally have a public record of people they’ve gone out with.  Everyone does, gay or straight.  So you start to ask questions when you find someone like Lindsey Graham, who’s 57 years old and says he’s straight, but for whom the entirety of his Wikipedia “Personal Life” section reads:

Graham has never married.

It makes a girl wonder.

I don’t know if Lindsey Graham is gay.  But I’m having a difficult time believing that he’s straight (and I’m clearly not the only one). And what’s more, he seems to be having a difficult time proving it, or even explaining it.  Even Graham’s full-throated denial came off to many as incredibly gay:

During a South Carolina Tea Party rally this spring, one speaker created an uproar by postulating that Graham supported a guest-worker program out of fear that the Democrats might otherwise expose his homosexuality. (Graham smirked when I brought this up. “Like maybe I’m having a clandestine affair with Ricky Martin,” he said. “I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men — I’m sure hundreds of ’em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge — but I ain’t available. I ain’t gay. Sorry.”)

Lindsey Graham decided long ago that one’s sexual orientation was fair game for politics, then so be it.  It’s time someone did an in-depth investigation of whether Lindsey Graham is gay, straight, or asexual, because under the Graham Standard, America has a right to know.

If Lindsey Graham wants to make his primary about being gay, then it’s time to click his heels three times and give him his wish.