Tulsi Gabbard has announced that she’s running for the Presidency in 2020 and she’s now got an interesting problem – her past comments upon gay marriage and what she then called “homosexual extremists”. The equivalence being made is that to state that there are such homosexual extremists, that they exist or that they’re pushing a particular legal claim, is to then insist that all gay people are such extremists.
This is not, obviously, so. To change examples, it’s entirely possible to be vegetarian, vegan perhaps, and still think that Peta are extremists on the issue of animal rights. A little closer to home it’s entirely possible to be Hindu and think the BJP, or that gang in the black shorts, are extremists, or that the Jains are a bit over the top in their view of animal rights again.
Note that this is not to insist that Gabbard is right about anything at all, instead it’s to insist that this critique of her is over the top to the point of unfairness:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Tulsi Gabbard’s Homophobic Remarks Surface After 2020 Presidential AnnouncementThe Hawaii Democrat’s previous stance on same-sex marriage has come back to haunt her after she announced her bid for the White House.[/perfectpullquote]
Being anti-same sex marriage is not to be homophobic. Even if that’s a regular claim these days. It’s this though:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Those come in the form of homophobic remarks the congresswoman made over a decade ago. At least twice the Hawaii Democrat publicly called the LGBTQ community and supporters of same-sex marriage “homosexual extremists.”[/perfectpullquote]No, she didn’t. What she said was that there were some people out there who were homosexual extremists. Hey, that may be true, may not be, although given what human beings are like we can probably find extremists for absolutely any point of view.
I realized Tulsi Gabbard was anti-gay, but didn’t quite realize how anti-gay she was in the 2000s. This is next level: pic.twitter.com/kTjQUGWee3
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) 12 January 2019
Loos like reasonable enough advice to a political party to me. There are people with extreme views over here, there’s the mass of the people over there, we’re a political party, let’s go with the mass.
Whether this is being anti-gay or even homophobic isn’t the point to be made here. Rather, her comments aren’t calling all gay people extremists, they’re just saying that there are some extremists out there on this issue. And the untruth of that is what?
Gabbard has enemies. Anything will do nowadays to paint an enemy as beyond the pale. The left of the Dems don’t want any kind of electable nominee while so many of their own are competing already/. They seem determined to pick someone unelectable.. Don’t I recall Gabbard being in disputer with the DNC during the last nomination phase? Was it she who forced that annoying woman to resign the leadership of the DNC. They don’t forget.
I have remembered the annoying woman (a description which doesn’t narrow it down much) is called Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Gabbard is right. There are ‘homosexual extremists’. ‘Over a decade ago’ those calling for same-sex marriage were then seen as extremists. These days, not so much. Public opinion has moved hugely on that in the US. But the ‘LGBTQ community’ is almost nothing but extremists. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, ‘LGBTQ’ is not merely an umbrella term to describe non-heterosexual people. It is a political movement with an agenda. To start with, the ‘T’ (transgender) is an anomoly. ‘LGB’ has to do with sexuality. ‘T’ is to do with gender. It’s the old Sesame Street ‘One of these things is… Read more »