I hope that I'm posting this story of my wondeful son in the right forum.

I gave thought to putting this in Politics 2012 or GD, but I feel most comfortable placing it here. I hope that you'll see why and agree.

Tonight was the first night of the Maine State Democratic convention. I am a delegate and my son, 12 years old, handsome as hell (like a young Denzel Washington) and very bright and articulate with a big generous and open heart is a page for the first time.

I couldn't get to the convention until pretty late tonight and we saw NONE of the proceedings due to having to register and not even arriving until almost 7PM. We saw and met some of our State Reps and Senators, candidates and dignitaries and had the opportunity to meet many fellow Democrats. One thing that was clear is that this year's Maine Democratic Convention will be a unified and harmonious affair, as opposed to the paulista vs romney bloodbath that was the republican exhibition of dirty tricks and bitterness that took place here recently. We are eagerly looking forward to the events of tomorrow and Sunday.

The reason that I post here in the LGBT forum is this. We stopped at the Knox county table to pick up some bumper stickers and buttons. My button shows a photo of the President with the caption "GM is alive. osama bin laden is dead". I just LOVE pissing off teabaggers. My wife's button is the Obama symbol as the top of the female symbol because yes, the republicans ARE waging a war on women. My son, whom I've reported earlier here was ROYALLY PISSED OFF when I told him that same sex couples do not (yet) have the right to mary in the state of Maine, selected a button with the slogan "Some People Are Gay. GET OVER IT!"

I am SOOO proud of this wonderful young man that my wife and I are so delighted to call our son.

As I've mentioned before, this is the boy who will suggest that we buy something to eat for any homeless person we may see outside of a restaurant. This is the young man who wants to volunteer at the local churchs' free dinners for the poor & homeless. This is the young man who told his gay friend that he would stick by him when he decided to come out late in their 5th grade year.

I told him that I didn't want him to wear the button unless my wife or I are with him. I say this because, at 12, he doesn't know how to give a bigot or homophobe a verbal smack-down. Yet! He learns fast but we want to make sure he knows what to do before he's on his own.

However...

This is the young man who realizes that the romney/teabagger vision of an Amercia for the white, rich and male ONLY is a nightmare. He believes, as my wife and I do, that for the dream of AMERICA to be true, there has to be freedom, equality and justice for EVERYBODY!

My wife and I will be proud and happy to stand with our LGBT friends, neighbors and allies, as well as our President and Vice-President, 5 months from tomorrow and vote to bring marriage equality to all of Maine. We are doubly proud and happy that our son will be standing there with us. He can't vote yet, but he knows what "family values" truly are!

More after the convention is over.

PEACE!

Which Democratic non president do you most regret and why?

In this poll I'm limiting the question to those Democrat nominees or those who came very close to the nomination and either lost, had the election stolen or died. I am also not including past candidates who may run again in the future, such as Hillary Clinton.

I have many choices. I believe that John Kerry, Al Gore, Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy or many of the others would have been great (or at least very good) presidents.

For me, I think that I have to say Bobby Kennedy. I say this not only because I believe he'd have been a great president but because he was also the first candidate for whom I volunteered. I was 12. I stuffed envelopes and ran coffee errands. I helped o close the office down after Bobby was assasinated just 2 weeks before my 13th birthday. Seeing a candidate you admire lose is awful. Seeing
a candidate you admire murdered is worse.

BTW, I'm going chronologically.

Also BTW, Boy Howdy have I ever missed the polls and am I ever glad to see them back!

If you say that this poll/thread is somewhat depressing given whom we didn't have as presidents and given whom we did, I'll say that you're right.

Thank you for participating.

PEACE!

My wife and I put our money where our mouths are yesterday!

A few months ago, I got my ear pierced and, for the first time in my life, now sport an earring. The first 2 earrings I got were 1 gold plated and 1 silver peace signs. I didn't want just stubs in my ear and I liked the idea of making a statement that would piss off the right wingers.

Yesterday, my lovely wife and I went to Claire's and got a set of rainbow peace sign earrings. I am now proudly wearing it in my left ear lobe. My wife also has hers on, too.

Our family firmly believes that for the promise of America to be real for anyone, it has to be real for everyone. For us, wearing the rainbow peace signs are a small sign that we stand with our GLBT friends and allies for marriage equality for ALL. We are standing also, with our President!

Nobody would mistake me for an African American or other ethnic group because of my support for them. Nobody will mistake me for a woman because of my support for equal rights.

Maybe someone will think I'm gay because of the rainbow in my ear. Maybe they'll think less of me because of the rainbow in my ear. Maybe they'll think that I'm going to go to Hell, am a lousy parent, an immoral person, or that I'm going to try to get into their shit stained boxers because of the rainbow in my ear.

Piss on them.

I had a boss in an old part time job who put it best. She was a young African American woman who had one hell of a good mind of her own. On one occasion, she was on the phone and a guy who wanted to be her boyfriend was telling her how to live her life. She eventually said "Listen, when you f*** me three times a week and pay all my bills for me, THEN you can tell me what to do".

If someone thinks less of me or thinks that I'm Gay because of a rainbow in my ear, than they can kiss my very big, pudgy & puffy round Irish ass. It is LONG past time to hold our fire on what is right because of what assholes like limbooger and hannshitty might say.

News flash! if you're not another teabagger/fundie bigot, they won't like you! The teabagger who defeated dick lugar made that perfectly clear when he defined bipartisanship in his view.

In short, yesterday I took about $10. My wife and I used it to make a very small purchase that we believe makes a very large statement that THIS heterosexual couple stands with the GLBT community and with our President for Marriage equality for all and to make a statement that loving families come in all shapes, colors, religious belief ans sexual orientations.

I don't give 3/10 of a rat f*** if bagger/fundie bigots hate us for it. In fact, I'd take that as a badge of honor.

GLBT folks and President Obama, we stand with you!

Rightists, screw you!

That's my 2 cents and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

I'm straight and I was bullied in grade school.

To give you a little background, my father took off in the Spring of 1962 a couple of months before my 7th birthday. I was in the hospital at the time having just had my tonsils taken out. No great shakes normally, but my sister and I were severe bleeders. When my sister had hers out around 1950, she damn near bled to death. The only reason I didn't was because my parents warned the doctors.

While I was in the hospital, my father told my mother that he was going on a retreat, flew down to Alabama for a quickie divorce, flew out to LA and was married to my step-mother before my mother even knew that she was divorced. Given the terms of his Alabama divorce, my father was technically a bigamist and my mom could have put his ass in jail whenever she pleased. Since this was the early 60s, a "deadbeat dad" was called an "up & coming take no prisoners young business executive".

In 1962, Irish Catholics DID NOT get divorces. Any divorced woman was automatically considered to be a "hot to trot hoochie mama".

I tell you this to set up what happened to me. When I was in Catholic schools, nuns would occasionally make the snide remarks that for the longest time I didn't understand. From about 4th grade I was called names (including some hateful homophobic terms that we all know and that I won't repeat). I had some verbal fights and arguments because I would always talk back. The worst offender was an asshole in my 5th grade class named "clint" (fictional name, changed to protect the shit head that I haven't seen since 1970).

"clint" liked to constantly needle and nag me about my "dead father" & "slut mother". At recesses and lunch and on the way to and from school, he and his cronies were on me constantly! There were only a few sporadic physical scuffles, but I was always being verbally badgered and tortured. I had a level of hatred in my heart that no child should have ever had.

The blow up came during this awful tradition that Catholic schools had at the time called the May Procession. We were all lined up by size and side by side. As we were walking the route to the church, "clint" was behind me over my right shoulder. The SOB wouldn't stop badgering me about, you guessed it, my "dead father" & "slut mother". My mother's boyfriend took a photo as we were walking by. The look on my face was a look that I can only get when I am far and away beyond rage. My mother later told me that she almost crossed over to take me out of line then and there because she knew I was close to blowing.

Now I don't claim to be a particularly unique person, but what happened next is probably something very rare in the unstoried lore of the May Procession. I finally exploded going up the center aisle of the church. While there were 2000+ school children singing "Ave Maria", I turned around, jumped on "clint" and started to beat the living shit out of him. While the nuns were running toward be like a troop of black robed rambos, I was punching "clint's" face and banging his empty of anything but shit head against the side of the pew while calling him a "M***er F***er" at the top of my lungs.

The nuns, I'm sure with good reason, wanted to throw my ass out of the school. In their view, "clint" was a poor innocent victim who was going to get a totally free pass.

They didn't count on my mother. Believe me, you would never have wanted to have my ass after she got through with it that day, but she threatened to sue the school, the parish and the archdiocese if I was expelled and poor little "clint" got a pass after tormenting me for almost 2 school years. There was a meeting with the mother superior, the pastor, my mother and "clint's" parents. According to her, they were trying to browbeat and intimidate my mother into backing down. Eventually there was a compromise reached where it was agreed that we wouldn't be in the same class again and we were both under pain of expulsion if we associated at all for the rest of the time we were in school. For me, there was no loss in that. I always considered "clint" to be an asshole. I didn't care what his opinion of me was. My mother frequently told me, almost until the day she died, that I have a way of ignoring people that will make them feel as if they're being physically assaulted. I first learned how to do that as I completely ignored his very existence and drove him crazy.

I am not advocating violence here. I have respected my wife's wishes, even though I don't always agree with them, that I not teach our son to defend himself. It is a fact however, that once the bullies in my school knew that I was willing to knock their f***ing teeth in, they found a way to live with my the reality of my single parent family.

I wonder if some of the gay bashing bully assholes would have badgered some of these poor young gay people into suicide if even some of those children had broken the noses of their tormentors.

I do know this. When I see romney's phoniness about his conduct in high school, I see the same detestable type of human being as good ol' "clint". This is a man who seriously NEVER needs to be in any position of power.

If he was able to terrorize a weaker person with a pair of scissors and a posse of thugs, what the hell would he be capable of with the power to give the order to drop the bomb and the armed forces under his command?

I shudder.

"The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them" Maya Angelou.

I say again, you've shown me what you are, Mr. romney.

I say again, I believe you.

I say again, no thank you.

PEACE!

Does it really matter that romney was a high school bully?

I saw a headline much like this one on Google news. It was from the Christian Science Monitor. I didn't read the article so I'm not going to attack or defend. I'm not a republican. Like our President, I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak. My motivation in writing this is merely to answer the question. Anyone from their late 40s and older will recognize my "Laugh In" inspired response.

You bet your sweet bippy it does!

This is the "man" who gathered a posse and forcibly cut the hair of a young man he thought to be gay. He shows his contempt for anyone he pleases in his school. He issues a weak assed apology "IF" he offended anyone for being the perpetrator of a "Lord of the Flies" environment in his school. He does this only after the story comes out and is verified by several of his "friends" of the time, including a former republican official. He then tries to imply that this is a dirty trick by the Obama campaign. SICK!

bain romney is one of the most detestable human beings I've ever seen run, not only for high office, but for ANY office.

This is the man who put a dog on the roof of his car and thought it was an endearing moment.
This is the man who identifies with the working class by saying his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs.
This is the man who shows that he's a regular guy because he knows some Nascar owners.
This is the man who claims to identify with the unemployed by saying that HE was unemployed, too. Shit, while I was out of work for 10 months I was sure as hell glad that I had my quarter of a billion dollars to fall back on.
This is the man who decries the state of the economy while offering another candidate a $10,000 bet. If he'd done this to a candidate who wasn't a moron, that candidate would've run this for miles. Couldn't the dumb bastard have at least said "Payable to the charity of your choice"?

Of course, that was a stupid question. We are after all, talking about republicans here.

When I was in grade school, I was bullied from first grade to fifth grade. It was due to my being in a Catholic School as the child of divorced parents. In the early and mid 60s, Irish Catholics didn't get divorced. It stopped when I pounded one of the bullies faces into the back of his stupid assed head. Unfortunately and tragically, too many young children choose to harm themselves or take their own lives.

People like bain romney don't care. He is a bully. That makes him a coward, a liar and a totally unreliable and untrustworthy person. That isn't someone I want as the leader of my country.

Maya Angelou said it best:

"The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them"

You've shown me what you are, Mr. romney.

I believe you.

No thank you.

PEACE!

My Wife, Son and I would like to ask something of our GLBT friends and allies at DU & elsewhere!

May WE share in your joy tonight?

We wife and I are heterosexual and my son's hopping 12 year old hormones give us a pretty good indication that he is, too.

We do, however, FULLY support GLBT rights and marriage equality for ALL Americans. We support basic human dignity and civil rights for ALL Americans. We believe that for there to be real freedom and justice for us, there has to freedom and justice for ALL Americans.

Today our President took another step toward making this happen.

Tonight, our hearts are FULL. I believe that we may have witnessed the dam break today. We certainly hope so. We sure as hell know that a little piss-ant cypher like bain romney can't hold back the waves of that breaking dam.

We would like to believe that the joy of the GLBT community today is our joy too, if only in some small way.

We will happily stand with our GLBT friends here in Maine this November and vote to bring Marriage equality to our little corner of New England.

PEACE!

An invitation to our GLBT friends in North Carolina!

Move up here to Maine. After this November, there will be marriage equality up here. All of the polling indicates that we will approve human rights for all this year. We can NEVER have too many good people.

The TEMPERATURES of our state may be a bit colder, but the CLIMATE of our state will certainly be much more welcoming and accepting.

PEACE!

An outsider's view of the Maine state republican convention.

Hi everybody. As some of you know, my family and I live here in Augusta Maine (though for work and school reasons we're considering a move to nearby Winthrop this summer). Our city has the "honor" of hosting this year's state conventions for both parties, as we usually do.

Of course, we wouldn't even consider going into that gathering of loons and idiots. The one thing, however, that my wife, son and I all noticed was the dearth of campaign signs supporting romney and the plethora of paul signs. I saw that the paulistas basically took over the offices of the convention officers, partly aided by some supporters of little ricky santorum. The interesting thing is that, according to a post on the Portland paper's on line article, many of little ricky's supporters WERE going to support bain romney's delegates until a really stupid and venomous message from the state chairman attacking paul and his supporters. Apparently, the santorum supporters saw their votes for the paul people were the biggest way to thumb their nose at the party chair.

IF this is true, than charlie webster, the republican chairman who put the fix in at the statewide caucuses to insure a romney "win", may have just cost romney a majority of the Tampa delegates with his big mouth.

It seems that this convention is, to borrow the title from one of my least favorite books ever, truly a confederacy of dunces.

I love to see republican division. As much as I see paul and his supporters as a bunch of asses, I wish them much success in their efforts to piss in the republican soup as much as possible this summer. Given the state of the republican party in 2012, it's not only very entertaining, but it just might improve the quality of the soup!

There's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

An early parallel between republicanland 2012 and 2008. It is NOT flattering to bain romney!

As we all know, in 2008, john mcsame wanted his old pal joe lieberman to be his running mate. When he was told in NO uncertain terms that lieberman was unacceptable to the far right of his party, he showed his total lack of conviction, courage and leadership and submitted to the pressure from his campaign manager and made the disastrous choice of sarah palin(comparison) as his running mate.

So, instead of standing up to the religious right zealots and showing the leadership that we SHOULD expect from a president, he folded like a poker player with a 7 high hand who is looking at 3 aces from a competitor.

Fast forward to this year and bain romney's handling of the grenell situation. Now, I'm sure that most of us agree that grenell is an ass. His Twitter account is chock full of idiotic and misogynistic rants and he was one of the architects and apologists of the horrendous foreign policy of the most inept and incompetent mis-administration in history.

That's ok with the faction of the republican party that has evolved (oops, I mean "intelligently designed&quot into the teabagger movement. grenell is unacceptable because he's a "hummasechel". bain romney and his handlers caved to the baggers. I don't give a rat's ass that romney said that he wanted grennel to stay on the job. You don't want someone to stay if you've told him NOT TO SPEAK in a conference call. You sure as hell don't do it if that conference call is in this individual's area of alleged expertise.

Both men had the opportunity to stand up to the extremists in his party. Both men had the opportunity to show the American Public what a PRESIDENT looks like and how they would lead. Neither man would EVER have gotten my vote, but both men had the opportunity to earn at least some level of my respect. Both men showed that they were essentially cowards. Both men showed that they not only didn't have the courage of their convictions, but that they (especially romney) had no convictions in the first place.

At least mcsame didn't speak out of both sides of his mouth. Even after palin(comparison) turned out to be such an awful selection, he still continued to speak highly of her and show her respect. At least he did in public. I'm stunned to find myself saying that john mcsame showed more leadership in his situation than bain romney has in his.

bain romney 's handlers told grennel that his sexual orientation was a non-issue. They then cow-towed to the rightist fundies. They didn't confront the homophobes, they were attempting to let it "blow over". They were too stupid to realize that to their fundie/bagger base, homosexuality NEVER "blows over".

The romney campaign, continuing their lack of awareness that in the 24 hour news cycle and the availability of speeches and appearances through the "tubes" of the internet, fails to realize that every thing is out there and preserved for all to see. They've further pissed off the LGBT community by their surrender to the religious right bigots and their shabby treatment of "the gay guy". Their statements that grennel's sexuality is a non-issue and then romney's statement that he wanted him to stay on the job only make the bagger base distrust him further. Talking out of both sides of your mouth when you have a tin ear rarely works out well.

The parallel is, to me, very clear. Two nominees for the republican party have shown that they are afraid of the bigoted and deliberately misinformed loud mouths of their party. The party that loves to act as though America is never safe unless one of theirs is in power, puts forth"leaders" who can't stand up to bullies. We are expected to believe that the people who won't protect their own staff will defend a nation of some 360 million people. Obviously they can't correct 2008, but it amazes me that they are so ready to name as their "standard bearer", someone who has no "standards" at all and can't "bear" 3 pizzas all the way into a fire house. This is what has become of the party of presidents like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ike. The party of the likes of Everett Dirkson and Margaret Chase Smith and Henry Cabot Lodge.

One primary word comes to mind when I think of this.

Shit!

This party deserves to be soundly repudiated from president to dog catcher this fall.

That's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

Please keep this WONDERFUL thread K&R'd!