When I got a release from city council at-large candidate Cameron Runyan today inviting me to look this Web page, thinkpink.org, I was puzzled — several times.
Before I even opened it, just looking at the headline, I thought "The Pink Pigs are back!"
Then, I was puzzled by the logo at the top of the page that said, "Feeling Blue in a Red State? Think Pink." For a moment, I thought it was a Democratic Party thing, and I was all set to get huffy on the blog about a blatant injection of party identity into an election that is supposed to be, and ought to be, completely free of all that partisan garbage.
Then, I thought, "think pink?" Maybe it’s talking about an UnPartylike rejection of "red" and "blue," suggesting an independent Third Way, or a blending of the two. But if so, wouldn’t it be "think purple?"
Then I clicked on the video (see above), and saw Nancy Pelosi and thought again, "Dang, this IS a bunch of lousy partisan encroachment!," and my dudgeon rose precipitously.
But a moment later, I said, "Wait a minute… is this…?"
Yes, it was. This was about mustering gay and lesbian support for some of the city council candidates.
This being an entirely new sort of ball game for me — on the local political front, anyway — I called Mr. Runyan to make sure I was reading it right. I was. He wasn’t hosting the event himself, but "I went to them and asked them to do this party."
He seemed surprised that I was surprised. After all, he said, his opponent was just as openly pursuing the same part of the electorate, although perhaps in a lower-key way. He forwarded me an e-mail that named named a dozen or so folks and said they:
Invite you and the LGBT Community to a
Meet & Chat
with
City Councilman Daniel RickenmannWednesday, February 27, 2008
5 until 6:30 p.m. at Mo Mo’s Bistro2930 Devine Street, Columbia, SC 29205
Please join us for food, fun and festivities at Mo Mo’s!
Please Forward & Invite Your Friends!
So I forwarded it to Daniel and asked if it was legit and he said sure it was, and where had I been?
I don’t know where I was. But this was all new to me.
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The gay voters may be thinking pink(what a passe stereotype that perpetuates),but the candidates are thinking green$$$$$.
Oh this is completely true, much to the chagrin of Columbia’s conservative elements. Columbia has a vibrant and (key word) growing population of gays and lesbians. The Mayor has known how key the support of the gay community in town has been for years, but now the rest of the council has taken notice, especially when the LGBT community on the whole has prospered under the cities leadership and push for progressive yet sensible development. And as far as the community being a more vocal and visible group – you can thank that on not only the fact that numbers are increasing and pocketbooks are growing but as a collective backlash against the mischaracterizations of our state government and the vocal anti-gay lobby over the past several years. Consider it an effort of “rebranding” by the LGBT community, especially after it has been learned that the only way to combat prejudice is to be known – to family, friend, neighbor and in this case to city officials
Of course, that takes us to what bill said. If you’re rebranding, why go with "think pink?"
Because that’s the word — brand. bill’s term, "stereotype" — doesn’t describe what "think pink" plays to. "Pink" is a shorthand, symbolic thing, like Target’s red bullseyes. Saying, "think pink" is like Target saying, "think red," which they do — I have a Target credit card, and they refer to it as the "REDcard." In fact, I think that name’s registered.
Sorry about the digression there. I’m just into words. Maybe I should start a voting bloc of people who are similarly attracted to words. Our brand: "Think Logos."
but then you’d get into semantics – Logos of course means Word, but it’s implications are deeper becuase of greek philosophy with Logos meaning “order” as in rationality, reason, order beyond chaos. But then again, as a journalist that’d go well with you as your words are intended to not only elucidate but bring order out of chaos – show reason and rationale to a world without. But enough armchair philosophy – let the debate continue on the topic at hand!
Exactly, Mattheus — I used the Greek word because its connotation included all those concepts. Thanks for picking up on it. Sort of like if I say "grok," I mean more than "drink," even though that’s the original Martian meaning, according to Heinlein.
Golly, don’t you feel all smart and learned just BEING here? Here we have a discussion with a guy with a Latin pseudonym over the layers of meaning in a Greek term. Cool.
Of course, the "Martian" thing may have brought it down a peg or two, intellectually speaking. But then, I do that compulsively when I feel we’re getting a bit pretentious. I don’t like to "top it the nob," to use an early-19th-century British expression.
haha – nice pun on BEING….
Back to the issue at hand though, I can’t remember who it was, it may have been Rickennman or perhaps Finlay that actually opened this past years Pride celebration in Finlay Park here in Columbia because the mayor couldn’t due to scheduling conflict. It was suprising to many present to see someone generally thought of as not “pro” gay issues speaking so welcomingly to a large crowd of gay and lesbian persons. Even at that event though comments were already circulating that council was finally wising up to the fact that the LGBT community while not being constricted to one strata of the socio-economic scale in columbia was a group willing to put out the money, and many times that means lots of it. The most excellent example – Dining with Friends – while certainly not strictly an LGBT event, it’s well organized and well funded thanks in no small part to the LGBT Community of Columbia.
I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone could wonder where you have been on our issues in this century or the last. Only an editorial board with the collective shortsightedness of The State could overlook the economic impact and other contributions of the GLBT community in South Carolina. Never forget that this group of editors took the Neanderthal stand of supporting the denial of basic rights to its taxpaying citizens who are gay or lesbian in the name of family values. Where have you been, Mr. Rickenmann asks? Where you typically are. Out of touch. Local political candidates have been courting GLBT money and votes since the early 90s. The State newspaper is, as usual, the last to know. And, most assuredly, the last to offer cutting edge journalism.
A dear friend of mine sent me the following (it was sent to her by her very straight father):
HERE IS THE BIG GAY AGENDA REVEALED!
THE HORRIFYING SECRET PLOT TO HOMO-AMPLIFY AMERICA.
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, January 27, 2006
I have spoken with my gay friends. I have been to yoga classes and men’s health spas and Restoration Hardware, chic rug shops and the Castro Starbucks and really cute restaurants featuring mixed baby greens that cost $12. I have observed. I have taken notes. I have checked the fashions and the cars and the skin-tight T-shirts, the newsletters and the bumper stickers and the secret codes hidden within the rainbow flag.
It is time to come clean. It is time to admit the truth. After all, the religious right has been hammering it for years, the pseudo-Christians and the homophobes and the sexually terrified all fully and truly believe that there is a plot, a massive, deep-seated agenda among the gay community not only to decriminalize and demystify homosexuality but to actually coerce and cajole and actively lure the innocent white babies of America into the sordid and well-dressed “gay lifestyle,” so much so that, much like aliens living in underground cities in Area 51, well, there must be something to it.
Just look. Look at the wanton slew of nasty e-mails I received — intermixed like bloody shrapnel amid a huge stack of gorgeous e-mail enthusiasm, mind — in response to my recent column extolling the virtues of the heartbreaking, perspective-altering “Brokeback Mountain” phenom, wherein I dared to suggest that this spare and potent little film might actually help deflect the savage karmic pain of people like Samuel Alito and move the human experiment forward, just a little. What nerve I had.
Mark, gay films move us back. To tell society, which includes children, that to stick a penis inside someone’s anus, a wholly unnatural act is ok and normal is absurd. I don’t hold anything against gays, I’m not one to judge people, they can do what they please, but to shove there perversions down everyone’s throat, and to try to make it mainstream and teach children homosexuality is a normal thing for people to do is sick. — Steve W
Or this:
It Is really hard to believe that people like yourself are gloating over this film and are so proud of the degradation of our country (USA) that you have joined the masses and are HELL BENT on the destruction of Christianity, family values, and everything that is decent and what our forefathers have fought and died for in this country. Your kind are the real BIGOTS! You are the enemy of everything that is decent and good, you love death and destruction (that is what the homosexual lifestyle will lead to)… — Larry L
Isn’t that sweet? Doesn’t it make you feel good to me an American? Sure it does.
But you know what? Adorably rabid, misguided homophobes like Steve and Larry, they might have a point after all. Because after all my observations and when I really allow myself to be honest, I become convinced of the existence of a truly shocking gay lifestyle, an actual gay agenda far more sinister than even desperately misguided and morally lost people like Steve and Larry can comprehend. Do you know what it is? Do you want to know the real gay agenda, what 96.8 percent of all gay couples wish for every single day including Sunday? Here it is:
From what I can glean and above all else, the gay people of America seem to want this simply inexcusable level of boundless, unchecked normalcy. It’s true. For some reason, they believe the utterly disgusting idea that they should be able to live their lives in peace and trust and health, with full support and assistance from their schools and hospitals and governments, just like everyone else. I know. Shudder.
It is, in fact, remarkably similar to what hetros want. And women. And black people. And immigrants, and dwarves. That is, to be able to fall in love and maybe even get married (or atleast have the option) and have decreasing amounts of sex and raise a family and hold down a good job and pay their taxes and argue with their lovers over who the hell spent 200 bucks on long distance to their mother, all while not having to worry about getting the living crap beaten out of them with tire chains by Arkansas and Alabama and most of Texas, or secretly loathed by small-minded pseudo-Christians who wouldn’t know Jesus’ true message if it bit them on the other cheek.
Ah, the deviousness of it all, the sheer nerve to desire the same sort of lives as everyone else. But do you want to know the kicker? The true aspect of the “gay agenda’ that makes the religious rights’ skin crawl? Here it is: When all that normalcy is in place, when these repulsive gay beings who like to walk around in public and eat at restaurants and drink their lattes and laugh out loud and stick things in each others bodies for sexual pleasure, well, they want the most appalling thing of all: They just want to be left alone.
I know. It’s hideous. How dare they! How dare most gays ask not to be harassed and not really care to flaunt their sexuality or convince anyone that homosexuality is cool or righteous or the only way to be, beyond reassuring children that it’s OK to be whatever religion or sexual orientation your mind, body, heart, and soul guide you to be. Can you imagine? What horror. Ignorant, intolerable schoolteachers should protest that nasty idea right now. Oh wait.
This is, in fact, the most sinister gay agenda of all. Normalcy. Lack of fear. Happiness. The right o be miserable in love just like everyone else and have it recognized by the culture as, well, no big deal. Safe. Healthy. Beautiful, even. What nerve.
To Steve and Larry’s great dismay, gay people do not seem to care in the slightest for converting anyone to homosexuality, which of course would be the equivalent of converting a frying pan into a doorknob. It simply cannot be done. It’s bitterly sad that this must be repeated so frequently in terms so simple that even Steve and Larry can comprehend, but gayness is no more a lifestyle choice than is blonde hair or blood type or that knowledge, deep down in your skin, that Bush is raping the soul of the nation. It just is.
Much can be learned from this shocking revelation. Much can we glean from the gay agenda’s “true” motivations — Most notable in how it contrasts with the famed and beloved Christian neoconservative heterosexual agenda, the one that instructs that you please keep your mouth shut and blindly believe in the same bitter God as everyone else, and by the way please bury your true sexuality and get married at 23 and pop out six kids and become quickly and quietly miserable and gain 30 pounds and stop having sex entirely and get divorced at 50 and wake up just in time to watch yourself die. Oh my yes, That has proven to be just so much better, hasn’t it? Steve? Larry?
Wonderful.
AIDS infection rates (per 100K in population) in this state are among the highest in the nation according to data published by CDC, and we have politicians like Rickenmann who think it is a good idea to curry the favor and support of homosexuals. This, I suppose, is Daniels’ idea of a good thing if it furthers whatever agenda he may be about, and health and morality be damned.
Isaiah 5:20 is a verse that springs to mind.
David
Mr. Warthen,
I suggest you and the editorial staff at The State read Richard Florida’s book, “The Rise of the Creative Class.” These days, cities, states, AND newspapers are judged by their ability to attract “the creative class” and the economic growth that this force brings with it. One indicator of this ability is the Gay Index, which tests openness to different kinds of people and ideas.
If South Carolina was being evaluated according to these standards vis-a-vis reading The State, we would not be found worthy. Especially after The State endorsed voting “yes” on the 2006 Family Discrimination Amendment to the SC Constitution.
Wherever you have been, it’s time for you to wake up and join the world community . . .
…stick things in each others’ bodies for sexual pleasure….bitter God…
???
Wow.
David
Mr Faust,
You do yourself a disservice by insisting on a link between South Carolina’s AIDS infection rates and an effort on a local politician’s part to court the gay community.
Firstly, HIV/AIDS long ago stopped being a uniquely “gay disease” (in fact, it never really was). Statistics, including those published by the CDC, have demonstrated for years that the community now most affected by HIV/AIDS is, for any number of reasons, the black community.
Secondly, you seem to suggest that an elected official who seeks to represent the needs of the gay community is going to somehow contribute to an increase in HIV/AIDS cases in the state. How does that even follow? I admit, I could have misinterpreted your statement, so I invite you to clarify yourself if I have done so. And you seem to ignore the historical trend illustrating that the greater visibility and legitimacy that the gay community receives, the less they tend to engage in the risky behaviors that propelled AIDS to crisis status in the first place.
I can only assume from the scriptural citation that your views are informed by a Christian faith, so I don’t expect to convince you of anything. I would only hope that your arguments in the future would be better constructed.
Eric
Eric, I appreciate your civility. Many on your side don’t seem very civil. I fully understand that many on mine do not either. Your polite demeanor is refreshing and appreciated.
My point was a simple one, even though I probably didn’t present it very clearly. I believe homosexual behaviour is aberrant and immoral. Given that belief, I think that politicians/government officials who ingratiate themselves with and embrace homosexuals for the purpose of gaining political favor and financial support from them do a disservice to the wider community that elected said official or otherwise put him in office. Put simply:
I don’t think that the homosexual lifestyle is a good thing, and so it follows that I don’t think that the encouragement and nurture of it by government is a good thing either. I have a similar problem with abortion. I have a similar problem with government support of pornography that is called art.
I understand that my quaint beliefs make me a pariah in todays’ society. I also want to make it clear that I don’t have a problem with any specific person who wishes to speak, associate or otherwise pursue happiness. However, when fairly large groups of people collaborate with government officials to move the community or the country in what I consider a wrong direction, may I not also speak my mind? David
…you mean they let gay people vote in columbia?…replied a rush limbaugh listener…
It would be interesting to see a legitimate poll of how many homosexuals vote for Obama and how many vote for Hillary. Lesbians were big supporters of Hillary and Bill in 1992.
garbage
garbage multimedia news.
I’m not surprised that The State is once again clueless as to what is going on in the City and the State. Despite the continuous ostrich head-in-the-sand behavior of The State, the gay community in Cola is getting stronger, and having a bigger impact. You can’t stop what’s coming.
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Hello my name is Merle Dean Shamblin and I would like to be your new friend. I sure could use somebody to chat with. I am a 47 year old long haul truck driver who currently lives in Duncan Oklahoma. Dec 8th 1960 I was born in Fairview Oklahoma. Moved to Caddo and Washita counties where I attended school at Colony Hydro and Weatherford. My parents Malvin and Wanda Shamblin were cotton and peanut farmers. Dad died in 99 from lung cancer. Graduated from SWOSU with a business degree. My two sisters are LaDonna Hubert and Malva Burrahm. Dennis is my brother. I have been a truck driver for 14 years and have driven 2 million paid miles. I have received many safe driving awards over the years. I am single and have never been married. I have a wide range of interests and am pretty much an open book. Currently I drive a 2006 Freightliner for a major carrier. I dont go to Canada very often. I dont have a dedicated route so I run the entire lower 48. I enjoy reading cinema music sports travel etc. I am gay and versatile.