From the Petrelis Files, here’s Valerie Jarrett talking to gay journo Jonathan Capehart:
Capeheart: One of the things you’ve put a spotlight on, and to veer sharply away from infrastructure, and that was on the rash of suicides of gay youth. You gave a speech to the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner, where you named the victims. You talked about the President’s commitment to making a more inclusive, tolerant, accepting country. Why did you feel it was important to deliver that message, and deliver it there?
Jarrett: Well, I think what we’ve seen over the last few months are some very tragic deaths of young people, our children. And avoidable deaths. They were driven to commit suicide because they were being harassed in school, and driven to do something that no child should ever be driven to do. And in many cases, the parents are doing a good job. Their families are supportive. Before I spoke at the HRC dinner, I met backstage with Tammy Aarberg, her son Andrew. These are good people. They were aware that their son was gay. They embraced him. They loved him. They supported his lifestyle choice.
[emphasis Petrelis]
If a whiteboy GOP staffer made a comment like that, I’m thinking the gay community would be out for blood. Here’s Petrelis:
What an outrage to claim that the 15-year-old Aarberg made a choice to be gay, and that sexual orientation is a lifestyle. Did she get her talking points from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council? It’s doubly offensive that Capehart makes no effort to point out how dangerous Jarrett’s thinking is.
It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.
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isn’t it obvious yet that the barack administration knows little to nothing about our gay citizens??..not to mention the fact that they have been fighting in the courts AGAINST equality under the law for gay folks at every turn. as they say, with ‘friends’ like these….
And these are the people who are on the right side of gay rights history?
“Lifestyle choice”? Really? Really?
Well, this is what they get for heckling Caesar at rallies. If they keep it up, they might even get a stern lecture from Robert Gibbs.
I left a comment there and i guess the same comment applies here.
For my gay friends,
Why does anyone get so wrapped around the axle about choice/genetics? This is America, a free country. If you make the choice to have sex with a person of your same gender, who exactly gets to tell you no? (As long as the other person says yes, of course)
genetics/choice, who cares. No one should have veto power on that part of your life. It’s a sophisticated version of playing the victim when you blame your genetics instead of standing up for your choices.
which is the stronger argument?
1. It’s not my fault, God made me that way.
2. My body, My choice, who the hell are you to tell me no?
Now go forth and make the stronger argument. And stop letting your detractors set the terms of the debate.
There is a possible explanation of her comment, although who knows if that is what she meant: That sexual orientation could be inborn, but deciding what to do, who to hang around, where to go, what to wear, etc. is the lifestyle choice being referred to.
I think that makes a lot sense and it’s the most likely meaning behind “lifestyle choice†when used by the speaker in that context. Being homosexual may or may not be a choice but what you do about it definitely is.
_”Given the rather small percentage of world population that has kept to pure chastity over an ENTIRE LIFETIME, this is a rather silly expectation.”_
Have you met the Catholic Church?
Seriously though, I’m a bit torn on how to view The Church in this regard. In one respect I appreciate that _at least_ they are bothering to acknowledge the homosexuality isn’t something you decide is a great lifestyle choice because you’ve been exposed to a Harry Potter book. Not every christian church can claim as much.
On the other hand, their stance on how gays should behave is absurd and ultimately destructive.
And before anybody lauds the church too much for their worldliness (such as it is), they apply the identical rationals to pedophile instincts. This is exactly the logic they used when shuffling accused priests around- they have a deep seated if unnatural urge which will be combated with chastity.
_This is exactly the logic they used when shuffling accused priests around- they have a deep seated if unnatural urge which will be combated with chastity._
And if chastity didn’t work the first time, try try again. After all, what harm could it do?
Back to Obama…
While I think the above comment is just a terrible gaffe, I think they’re trying to thread a needle here. They’re trying very hard to not alienate social-conservative independents/democrats.
I think it’s a bad plan: I think social-conservatives have already made up their mind on obama: he’s not getting them back. He should just do what needs to be done.
I’d rather have a one-term president who got some things accomplished than a two-term president who hedged his bets at each corner.
alchemist:
Obama wouldn’t notice a social-conservative independent/democrat if one jumped out of a bush and bit him in the ass.
Obama doesn’t know what he’s trying to do. If he did know, he would realize that he is trying to straddle the racial gulf that divides his base – one half deeply rooted in black churches, the other half aggressively secular. Two halves that are in harmony on economic issues, but widely divergent on social issues, notably homosexuality and abortion. Racial politics will not allow these differences to even be acknowledged, let alone reconciled.
Early on I had some sympathy for Obama, recognizing how difficult it must be for a black politician to rise to national leadership from the badly flawed political culture of Jackson and Sharpton. As you might guess, that sympathy is gone like the wild goose in winter. Obama doesn’t transcend, he just exploits. He’s a taker, and just another symptom of the times.
I agree, its a different intersection of democratic core groups- blacks and gays. Despite assumptions to the contrary, Obama _isn’t_ from the limousine liberal, NYT reading Ivy League wing of the democratic coalition, being a millionaire Harvard lawyer notwithstanding. He took on those trappings, but long before that he came from the urban coalition, community organizer background and that’s where his heart and his ideology are. And statistically, African Americans are much more dubious of gay rights than the rest of the democrats.
A lot of people didn’t look very deeply into Obama before the election, and I suspect there are a lot of surprises. The folks in Manhattan are scratching their heads wondering why Obama is making so many accommodations for social conservatives when they should be realizing he’s actually nodding to what he believes his true base is, and they are not real hip on gay marriage and gays in the military. The accommodation is to the ‘white left’ by trying to kick the can down the road a bit and not abandoning gay rights entirely.
I disagree with Obama on this, but I don’t think it makes him a monster any more than a Republican president is for the same stance. Moreover I don’t think there is nearly as much political calculation in it as people are assuming. This is who Obama is.
_Fred: I fail to see how your post contradicts. Drogo._
Alchemist,
Actually, it quite clearly contradicts Drogo. His comment clearly implies that the only reason Christians reject homosexuality is a bigoted, simple-minded Biblical literalism. I believe I demonstrated clearly that, at least as far as Catholicism is concerned, that is simply not the case. Also, you can dismiss the concept of natural law (I assume that’s what the scare quotes mean) but even you must admit the concept has a long, rich intellectual heritage. The founding fathers of this country adhered to a version of natural law. In the Church, the tradition goes back through Aquinas and Augustine to St. Paul. You may believe that the founding fathers and Church Doctors were mistaken (it must be nice to be smarter than Jefferson and Aquinas) but surely, you don’t consider them irrational or simply bigoted? And the origins of homosexuality are in fact not completely explained. A simple-minded “geneticism†doesn’t cut it any more than a simple-minded Biblical literalism. There is a continuum from, say, otherwise perfectly straight prisoners who have sex with other male prisoners because that’s what’s available sexually (clearly a choice) to those who do seem biologically different from the average heterosexual. It also, as far as I know, hasn’t been established that homosexuality is strictly genetic, environmental, psychological, or some combination. As for lifelong celibacy being silly, I’m sure it seems that way to you, being a modern American, but it can be and has been done for millennia going back at least to the Vestals of Ancient Rome. I don’t believe it’s any sillier than expecting a person with a disordered desire for alcohol to go his ENTIRE LIFE without a drink or someone with a disordered desire for tobacco to go his ENTIRE LIFE without a smoke (an imperfect analogy as all analogies are, but still an appropriate one).
_And before anybody lauds the church too much for their worldliness (such as it is), they apply the identical rationals to pedophile instincts. This is exactly the logic they used when shuffling accused priests around_
Mark,
Can you point me to anywhere this is explicitly stated by anyone in the Church? As I understand it, the moving around of pedophile priests was done by flawed, negligent, perhaps even evil, human beings to avoid embroiling in scandal the institution from which they made a living and derived power. In some cases, it may have been from a misguided desire to protect the Church they loved without reflecting on why they loved it and what it was supposed to represent. But if you have any links or references to anyone claiming that they moved pedophile priests around for the reason you cite, please share.
Fred, the Churches _policy_ was to treat pedophilia as an issue of psychology, fix them enough to remain celibate, and return them to work while keeping it all quiet. This was far from isolated incidents.
“This”:http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6740 article documents three particular clinics where literally thousands of priests were treated, often multiple times. Obviously this cost tens of millions of dollars. The idea that this was independently done by a handful of leaders and no-one higher up was questioning where this money was going or where thousands of priests were hiding stretches credulity beyond its breaking point.
This was clearly an orchestrated policy that continued at least into the 80s and 90s when the church opened up their own psychiatric hospitals… and if you care to argue the Vatican wasn’t aware of that I don’t know what to tell you.
And obviously this involved at the very least not reporting crimes. According to this article the Catholic hospital they established was conducting tests on priests by collecting data on their arousal levels and showing them kiddie porn. I’m pretty damn sure that’s illegal no matter what the intention.
_””Psychiatry and psychotherapy has been misused by the church in this crisis,” Sipe said. “Bishops oftentimes did not give the whole story, but kind of dumped the priests there and just let the psychiatrists `puzzle it out themselves.’ They kept the transgressions silent under the guise of confessional material.”_
I see little difference between this and treating homosexuality as a deep seated physiological abjuration that can be solved with prayer, psychology, and celibacy. That was the same formula they gave pedophile priests for better than 40 years while continuously exposing children to them.
BTW, regarding AL’s “Maybe it isn’t just politics” – it IS just politics.
Obama likes to talk tough against DADT, but then he washes his hands of it by insisting it’s all up to Congress. Fair enough, but somehow DADT has endured, in spite of an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress full of people who have already committed political suicide for the Chief.
But he’s working on them, right?
So when Congress turns Republican in two weeks, guess who’s fault it’s going to be that DADT is not repealed? I can hear Obama now: “I was down in the muddy, dusty ditch, working to repeal that DADT while the Republicans stood around drinking Slurpees, and then you folks came along and gave them the car keys.”