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Sen. Feinstein's Post-election Analysis
Offend Her Support Base
David M. Ortmann
SPECIAL TO THINK & ASK
SAN FRANCISCO
I thought Sen. John Kerry's loss might have been attributable to the Democratic Party’s constant waffling on crucial issues in its traditionally passive attempts to keep up with the conservatives’ reactionary platform without losing liberal voters, and thereby allowing the Republicans to define words like “morality,” “security,” and “family.”
I thought it might be because the Democratic Party nominated a weak candidate who, in turn, mounted a fairly weak campaign. I thought it might be the fact that Kerry, though undoubtedly a better statesman than the incumbent, has the charisma of a grapefruit. I thought it might be due to the fact that the Democratic Party hasn’t had its act together since late President John F. Kennedy. I thought it might even be because a majority of the country, particularly the southern and mid-western “red” states identify with President George W Bush who, like many of them, also can’t seem to match a subject and a predicate without major support.
David Ortmann is a San Francisco based author and therapist. You may
reach him through his website: davidortmann.com
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But no. According to you, I am now to believe the reason Kerry lost the election was because of gay marriage. Huh? Does this mean Kerry supported gay marriage? If he did, I must have missed a meeting. According to you, and the slew of Democratic leaders endorsing the same belief, I am to believe the Democrats lost the election because of a faction of people whose civil rights they don’t even support!
Come again? Actually, please don’t.
Not only is your ascertation grossly untrue, it bears an illogical reasoning unworthy of a high school pothead let alone a United States Senator.
Please tell me someone wrote that speech for you and you didn’t read it beforehand. If so, fire them and apologize. If you were expressing your true sentiments you, and Democrats like you, have lost my support. For the record, I don’t want to get married, but I will fight for the legality of that right for all US-citizens and I look forward to not voting for you in upcoming elections with an excitement akin to opening a huge pile of birthday gifts.
Condemning San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for courageously marrying some 4,000 gays and lesbians until the Supreme Court ordered him to stop was just plain cheap and (I thought, until now) beneath you, as the gay community has traditionally been a supportive constituency for you. You owe your fellow gay and lesbian Democrats (if there are any left) an apology. I’d suggest you get on it soon.
“The whole issue [of gays pursuing equal legal civil rights] had been too much, too fast, too soon,” as you said, sounds a lot like the arguments against interracial marriages in decades past. Do you remember that?
Is the idea of a black woman marrying a white man a serious threat to family and country? It was 30 years ago, and the same arguments being used against gay marriage today were used, almost verbatim, against interracial marriages then: The sanctity of family and the purity of union, to name only two. I feel indebted to Mayor Newsom for being fearless and taking the step he did, despite the many slings and arrows. You can always tell the pioneers. They are the ones with those arrows sticking out of their bloody backs.
May I remind you that one of your greatest opportunities for quick political advancement came because an “upright Christian family man” spouting the same hateful rhetoric we hear from reactionary forces today. He murdered San Francisco’s most beloved, and at that time only, openly gay politician and then proceeded down the hall to pump a few rounds into the current mayor. Two dead men, and the President of the Board of Supervisors, a dynamic young woman named Dianne Feinstein, stepped in as Mayor of San Francisco, later to win the office on her own merit. Have you now even forgotten where you came from and who helped put you where you are now?
Really Dianne! I am ashamed to call you my senator. A figure head in the state I live and work in, a leader in a party I supported until today; I hope you are ashamed of yourself. California Assemblyman Mark Leno, as always, spoke with diplomacy and politeness in countering Democratic scapegoating of the gay community, and reframing the entire smoke and mirrors issue with a simple statement, “… either we’re considered equal under law or we’re not.” Simple, diplomatic, and direct.
I am a writer not a politician so I am not bound by diplomacy, but I will be simple and direct. Pull it together Dianne.