Why Ron Paul’s anti-gay newsletters don’t bother liberal gays.

[Dan82]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...eral_gays.html

If pollsters’ predictions hold, and Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul come out on top in Iowa, the Republican primary will boast two front-runners who’ve been pranked by Sacha Baron Cohen. Gingrich got off easy, years ago, with an irritating Ali G encounter. (“Ain’t there a problem,” Cohen asked in character, “that if there is a woman president, they’re gonna spend all their time on facials?”) Paul met with Cohen when he was disguised as the very gay, very Austrian fashion reporter Brüno, shooting his 2009 movie.* It didn’t go so well.

The congressman got to the meeting place—a dark hotel room that could have been decorated by Sasha Grey—and started to answer a question about who designed his suit. The lights blew out. Brüno invited Paul to a bedroom, where the congressman tried to distract himself as his host offered strawberries and grinded his hips to dance music. Then Brüno dropped his pants. Paul, already pacing, barreled past him and yelled “Get out of here!” A camera captured Paul ranting as he fled the hotel. “That guy is queerer than the blazes,” he said. “He took his clothes off. He’s queer, he’s crazy, he put a hit on me, he took his clothes off...




http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...eral_gays.html

[Revan]

Oh dear Lord, the man's such a joke.

[kiersten]

As hilarious as that was, & let's face it - guys like Ron Paul deserve to be put in their place sometimes - punking guys like him in the manner that SBC aka Brüno can sometimes only hurt the LGBT cause as well. God only knows that it will just serve to enforce sterotypes that Paul already has, plus it may even give him more ammunition when trying to sway voters who are conservative but also undecided & maybe even unsure about LGBT issues. An incident like that could be used to scare those kinds of voters into voting for Paul, not because they hate gay people, but because they are irrationally afraid of something like that happening to them. Comedy is fun, punking homopphobic jerks is funny, but sometimes caution needs to be used to, as it could end up unintentionally hurting LGBT issues, causes & most importantly people, in the process...

Just my opinion tho, & I encourage people to disagree with me! Unlike folks like Ron Paul & Newt Gingrich, I enjoy hearing other opinions & views, because I learn & become a better person for it! Hear that Newt & Ron!?!

[Kidd]

I guess the question I have is; if Paul didn't write the newsletters who did? They use first person pronouns throughout and then his signature is on the end, after asking for a pretty hefty donation.

I searched to see if he made any money off of it, and he made about $1,000,000 from the newsletters. He should put his money where his mouth is in my opinion. If he really does disavow what was said, prove it. He should donate money to GLAAD or the NAACP and put it behind him once and for all. If he makes it to the general election it won't just disappear. Liberals and independents are going to care about this more than anyone else.

A tax document from June 1993—wrapping up the year in which the Political Report had published the "welfare checks" comment on the L.A. riots—reported an annual income of $940,000 for Ron Paul & Associates, listing four employees in Texas (Paul's family and Rockwell) and seven more employees around the country. If Paul didn't know who was writing his newsletters, he knew they were a crucial source of income and a successful tool for building his fundraising base for a political comeback.

Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters? - Reason Magazine

[Olive]

Jesus Christ, are there any pro-LGBT rights candidates? It seems like the world just wants to fuck us over.

[Mogget]

There are. Many Democrats, some Republicans, and plenty of third party candidates are pro-gay rights. And Paul, even if his views on gays don't seep into his politics, would still be opposed to anti-discrimination laws.

[Bibliophile]

It boggles my mind that people are so worked up about what the man thinks of us and how he lives that they dont look at how he VOTES. I dont care if my Congressmen walks up and tells me I make him sick and he hates everything about how I live. Just so long as he keeps voting to protect my right to live that way.

[Emberstone]

I find it illogical that he is claiming he had nothing to do with the newsletters. he has stated such sentiments in person. Also, there is video of him actually taking credit for the newsletters: VIDEO: Ron Paul takes credit for controversial... - ShortFormBlog

now it seems that mulitple family members worked for the group that published the newsletters.

Even with all the lunacy (he named one of his kids, Rand, after a noted objectivist facist, Ayn Rand), I think the reason he doesnt bother liberal gays, and liberals ultimately is because he wont be elected president. He says some things that appeal to alot of people, left and right, but then you learn the foundation that underpins everything he says, and his lack of valid ideas, and you realize that he is not a libertarian, he just calls him that way while basically using the bullypulpit to set america back 80 years. Like all Randeans, he basically wants to turn goverment into a non-entity that has no roll in protecting the majority so that he, the minority, can basically control and profit off of the chaos that exists in a vacumm where there is no one to fight for the opressed majority, which is created by his views on what americas future should be.

that is why when you get down to it, his only real support is the tin-foil hat extreme right wing.

[summersforecast]

Originally Posted by kiersten

As hilarious as that was, & let's face it - guys like Ron Paul deserve to be put in their place sometimes - punking guys like him in the manner that SBC aka Brüno can sometimes only hurt the LGBT cause as well. God only knows that it will just serve to enforce sterotypes that Paul already has, plus it may even give him more ammunition when trying to sway voters who are conservative but also undecided & maybe even unsure about LGBT issues. An incident like that could be used to scare those kinds of voters into voting for Paul, not because they hate gay people, but because they are irrationally afraid of something like that happening to them. Comedy is fun, punking homopphobic jerks is funny, but sometimes caution needs to be used to, as it could end up unintentionally hurting LGBT issues, causes & most importantly people, in the process...

Agreed. It was funny as hell, but it kinda reminds me of how I feel about the "fuck h8" campaign. It's just not the way I would aproach it. We're trying to convince people that we're no different from them. It's hard to do that with the use of exadurated stereotypes and extreem pranks.

[anatta]

A lot of people of Ron's age have changed their minds over the last several decades, it's quite possible that he's one of them. If you listen to certain 1980s recordings of Howard Stern's show he seems quite homophobic and now he's very pro-gay. Knowing LGBT people is one of the things that makes you more likely to be supportive, and many who grew up in times when schools warned teenage boys that all gay men were threats to them have slowly come to realise that all their conditioned reactions are unjustified.

Originally Posted by summersforecast

Agreed. It was funny as hell, but it kinda reminds me of how I feel about the "fuck h8" campaign. It's just not the way I would aproach it. We're trying to convince people that we're no different from them. It's hard to do that with the use of exadurated stereotypes and extreem pranks.

Well... no worse than them. Some of us are proudly different. Sexually harrassing a married man is indeed not helpful in my opinion, but I'm sure Ron Paul found out quickly that it was all a stunt and that Sacha isn't even LGBT.

[WeirdnessMagnet]

Although the side of me that wishes that sending bobcats instead of office chairs* was a reality cheers for this... I agree that this isn't activism, this is a prank... Modern activism is about building connections and finding common grounds, with going in guns blazing reserved for emergencies. And this clearly isn't either.

*I know, I'll never knowingly risk a kitty's!!!! life. and black hat guy isn't really my role model... But his point about life being made better by chaos is very dear to me. And that series about meeting one's dream-self is a masterpiece.

[Emberstone]

is it just me, or does Ron Paul seem like a establishment anarchist? That should be a oxymoron, but it does kinda seem to be what he is behaving as lately.

[WeirdnessMagnet]

Originally Posted by Emberstone

is it just me, or does Ron Paul seem like a establishment anarchist? That should be a oxymoron, but it does kinda seem to be what he is behaving as lately.

Never heard about Libertarian Party, Austrian School, Milton Friedman, Objectivism, etc? Or a group of leftie anarchists writing a huge document/rant/FAQ about their differences with these guys? [link removed, just in case]

Yeah, they're for real, although really believing in their doctrines, in my opinion, requires amounts of plusgood doublethink that aren't quite healthy for you.

[ANightDude]

“That guy is queerer than the blazes,”

So much lolz.

[Jonah 4]

Supposedly, these newsletters were written by Lew Rockwell who had quite a lot of influence over Ron Paul. Don't really know the guy's views, but in the early 90's there were efforts by a few libertarians to court white supremacist type groups in hopes that Libertarians could get enough votes to get elected to office.

That in itself bothers me. But, people are blowing these newsletters out of proportion a bit. For one, while some inflammatory newsletters were published from 1990-1994, he published newsletters from the late 70's to late 90's. So the vast majority aren't. And secondly, Ron Paul's record, personal acquaintances(gay, hispanic, and black), and public speeches suggest he doesn't hold the viewpoints in those letters.

The thing that troubles me about Ron Paul is the influence some of his friends have on him. I don't like some of the people in his inner circle and wouldn't want a president to have people like them in his inner circle.

As to the article, its right. Of the republicans, Johnson(who is going to run as a Libertarian), Karger and possibly Huntsman are the only ones that are going to be more open to gay rights and fairness. I mean Ron Paul switched his DADT vote after listening to his gay constituents. That should say something.