Gays should never fear or avoid confronting the religious right [View all]

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http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2011/12/08/gays-should-never-fear-or-avoid-confronting-the-religious-right/

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s monumental speech on gay rights yesterday has gotten a lot of reaction. However, none is as strange, at least to me, than that of Jim Downs, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies, Connecticut College.

He seems to think that Clinton’s speech did a disservice to the American gay community. His piece in The Huffington Post, Hillary Clinton Is Not Helping the Gay Civil Rights Movement, leaves little to the imagination.

Basically, Downs is saying that Clinton’s speech is emboldening the religious right and conservatives in America, such as Rick Perry in a recent anti-gay ad, to target gays as the means to motivate the Republican base. The gist of his piece can be seen here:

'Clinton’s clumsy language enables Perry to get even clumsier. It also allows him to open the door and let the religious right and the Tea Party loose on gay people. Clinton is worried about violence against gays abroad, but how does Perry’s language provoke the religious right to launch a crusade against “gay” Americans at home? Perry exclaims, “Investing tax dollars to promote a lifestyle many Americas of faith find so deeply objectionable is wrong.” In the stroke of a sentence, Perry calls on Tea Party advocates with his references to “tax dollars” and he summons the religious right with his reference to “faith.” All of which ends up with both groups tying gay people to the whipping posts in a symbolic gesture to broaden the Republican base. Put another, gay people once again reenter the election season as a political football in order to rally the right against the left.'

There is a certain degree of abject cowardice in Downs’ piece which I find incredibly distasteful.