Barney Frank lashes out
The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that Rep Barney Frank "ripped into what he called self-defeating ideological purists on the left who are unhappy with the Democrat-led Congress over issues such as the Iraq war and dropping transgender people from a job discrimination bill."
Frank said
The question is: Can we govern responsibly? And governing responsibly means working with everybody, listening to and exchanging views with the people who care passionately ... but then as you go forward with the goals, taking reality into account. People who then denounce those who take reality into account ... make it impossible for us to govern.
This raises the question: how was the political reality that gays and lesbians deserve protection from employment discrimination but transgendered people don't created? Is this Frank's own reading of the body politic? Did some co-sponsor say to him "I'll sign on, but only if you remove that clause about transgendered people"?
I have no way of knowing what went on in Frank's head, or what corridor conversations occurred. But the effect of inclusion of transgendered folks in such a bill on its chances of passage strikes me as marginal. What is more likely to happen, as we've seen over and over with Congresses over the last eight years, and even longer, is that a liberal-sponsored bill gets watered down more and more with amendments, and then goes down to defeat anyway, or gets filibustered, or in the best case, gets vetoed and the attempt to override fails narrowly. If that is what's going to happen here, why not do not only part of the right thing, but all of the right thing?
In fact, it may be the case that transgendered people are more accepted by society than gays and lesbian, not less. By certain (misguided) standards, some of them are attempting to conform to "nature's dictate" that sex only occur between men and women, by changing their gender to conform to their attraction.
As for the "reality" that the electorate wants the Congress to back down from challenging the Bush administration on the Iraq war, this so-called reality was created out of whole cloth by Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush, et. al.
Sorry, Barney, I like and applaud the work you do, but the "reality" of politics is that you have to fight for what is right.
I believe what Frank is saying is that he can get a bill passed that would be a landmark in protection of gay rights. Even if, maybe especially if, Bush vetoes it, that's an achievement. I say especially if because it makes the division between the inclusive party and the marginal fanatics that much clearer, and it all but ensures passage of it (or perhaps even a stronger bill) under the next president. And you want to sacrifice that for transgender rights? Did you speak out against the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s or the ERA when it was close to passage because it didn't include enough protection for transgendered individuals?
And we're talking about Barney Franks here, for goodness sake. Now, a couple of blog posts down, cscs and others are trying to pick apart Obama. He didn't really mean it about the war. It was too easy to oppose it. He'd surely have sat out a real vote. .... I swear, what the hell does a Democrat have to do to get accepted, much less to get his courage noted? Are you waiting for him to fly in wearing a blue suit?
I normally wouldn't give a hoot about this kind of thing, but I still remember how the outcome of a certain election in 2000 damaged life in America and the world affecting, well, me.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
October 12, 2007 4:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
So is no critique of Democrats acceptable?
Only on certain topics?
Not sure where a line is supposed to be drawn, unless you're saying never say bad things about Democrats.
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
October 12, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
cscs:
"So is no critique of Democrats acceptable?"
Of course it is appropriate to criticize Democrats. But isn't the point that sometimes we just have to get a grip on reality? Seems to me that opposing an initiative that would provide unprecedented protection for gays because it doesn't do anything for the transgender population is simply counterproductive and violative of the age-old, weathered but apt proposition that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Bruce
October 12, 2007 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
By that same line of logic, we should support a bill to strip blacks of the franchise, because it is superior to the competing bill that would disenfranchise both blacks and Jews.
October 13, 2007 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yea, you're right I guess. That is the same line of logic.
October 13, 2007 1:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think there's a big difference between a bill removing people's protections, and one providing them. Some feminists opposed the 15th amendment because it didn't include women... and it wasn't until 1920 that the 19th amendment was ratified.
Those feminists had a point, but passing the 15th amendment wasn't akin to "stripping women of the franchise," because women were already disenfranchised. Passing the 15th amendment in the meantime was a good thing, I think, and paved the way for more inclusion for everybody.
October 13, 2007 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
John Donne said it so much better than I could. To make a very slight paraphrase of his Meditation XVII:
The bell is tolling loud and often, my friends. Will you hear it? Will you respond?
October 13, 2007 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
This attitude of what you would call compromise and I would call sellout is very closely akin to the idea that we should vote for the lesser of two evils. Vote for Clinton because she's more liberal than Giuliani. Vote for Giuliani because he's less corrosive than Cheney. Vote for Cheney because he kills fewer people than Stalin. Vote for Stalin because anybody's better than Hitler. Vote for Hitler because he's not as crazy as Amin. Vote for Amin because Satan is simply unacceptable.
Until everybody has rights, nobody has rights. Haven't the USAPATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA debacle taught us that we're now in the process of pouring grease on the slippery slope to tyranny? Personally, a future Democratic autocrat is NOT superior to a Republican one.
Christ, when are we going to wake up to the fact that the best is not just the enemy of the good? It's also the enemy of the completely obscene.
October 12, 2007 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think what Barney is talking about is the difference between ideological purism and actually getting something good done. Advances in human rights are always going to be incremental. Trust Barney that he knows how the system works and that in the current climate getting the transgendered included is too much of a push. For God's sake,his heart IS in the right place. Yes, he should do the "right" thing and in his highly informed view, he is.
“I despise idealogues masquerading as objective journalists.” - Bill O'Reilly, March 30, 2007
October 12, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hope no one construed my post as an attack on Barney Frank, although I can understand how it could be construed as such. I do like Barney Frank a lot. And I really don't know what the right thing to do about this employment discrimination bill is. The real point of my post was to highlight that Frank is lumping ideological purists on the gay rights question in with the American mainstream on the Iraq war question.
On one hand it is argued that this "landmark" gay rights bill, which he hopes will pass despite an almost certain veto (and a veto that would almost certainly be sustained) is a worthwhile battle. Maybe so. But then why is Frank defending the actions of Congress on the war? Polls overwhelmingly show that Americans want the Congress to be tougher against the war. What exactly is the reality that war opponents should acknowledge?
October 12, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink