"Ice-Cream Cone...Right in the Forehead!"

I still get emails from GLBT conservative groups like Log Cabin and Outright Libertarians. Now that I have been around a while and know the score, these people appall me. Ditto for websites like the Independent Gay Forum. I don't know where they come from, but it's got to be some planet other than Earth.

Whatever the problem is with this country, it is NOT (A) frothing-at-the-mouth extremist liberals or (B) the "liberal" media. I have come to the conclusion, watching the ongoing circus that is American politics, that MORE "extremist" liberals, and a genuinely liberal media. are exactly what we need.

Keep on drinking the Kool-Aid, Log Cabin and IGF people. And enjoy your fanciful little flight in orbit. The rest of us will just have to deal with the problems you won't.

I know -- "duh!" Or, as we used to say in high school, "Ice-cream cone...right in the forehead!" I was somewhat slow in coming around, but I have gotten here at last. And better late than never.

I have no idea whether Barack Obama will win the election or not. And, sad to say, I'm no longer sure it will make much difference if he does. He is, for sure, the "lesser of two evils." But he seems to have caught the same "centrist" virus that plagues most of the Democratic Party.

People, we've got to excommunicate ourselves from this cult of personality. I keep hearing people -- young ones, especially -- say they've gotten more politically active because of Senator Obama. They seem to be threatening that if he doesn't win, they'll crawl back under whatever rock they were hiding under before he came along.

I've got news for them. THERE IS NO QUICK FIX. This country is in such dire trouble that even if Obama is all that and a bag of chips, and even if he does get elected, there isn't much that he, as President, can do all by himself. He really does need us -- ALL of us. I don't think that's just rhetoric coming from him; I think he's smart enough to mean it. We all need to stay committed, keep active and stand firm.

I have gotten a lot of things bass-ackwards, in the past, from having listened too much to GLBT conservatives. This has caused some of my judgments about things to be real turkeys.

The flap about my former pastor is one example of this. After her betrayal of the GLBT members of her congregation, I spluttered that she was a "typical liberal." Well, no...she isn't. Her problem -- far from being "typically" liberal -- is that she is (no matter what she wants to call herself) no damned liberal at all.

Not everyone who claims to be a "liberal" or a "progressive" really is one. Most Democrats, these days, are neither liberal nor progressive in the least. Gay conservatives fail to understand this (or, in their eagerness to demonize their chosen political enemies, they simply refuse to). Not all Democrats are progressive. And, as I have said before, to defend one's Republicanism on the basis of the wishy-washy quisling-hood of many Democrats is absurd.

Real progressives -- who are not afraid, incidentally, to call themselves "liberals," either -- are pretty fed up with the Democratic Party. But they understand how utterly apeshit insane it would be for them to protest this by becoming Republicans or Libertarians. It is simply not logical to define oneself as a conservative because you don't think Democrats are liberal enough.

There -- I've said it again. No more ice-cream cone on my forehead. From now on, I'll put my ice-cream in my mouth. And I hope to enjoy a jumbo triple-scooper when Barack Obama becomes our next President.

At the moment, worry may be warranted. We're all still waiting for our champion to remember that the people who gave him the nomination were members of his progressive base, and not wishy-squishy "centrist" cowards. We're also hoping he'll stop crying about what a big meanie McCain is and ACTUALLY FIGHT BACK.

Hope is still a beautiful thing. Let's all pray it turns out to be justified.