That such an organization would instantly become a popular hate-object on the Right is part of the business plan.

I refuse to accept a situation in which the Republican party gay baits freely and often falsely, but nasty gay Republican winger smear artists are untouchable. That’s the status quo, and I don’t accept it.

Part and parcel.

Saying that Republicans can bring up such things, but that we are too good to because we are moral, is morally corrupt.

Who said that?

Ridiculous. Making this an issue of personal privacy, as opposed to use of homophobia, is even less sustainable. Politicians voluntarily give up a good deal of their personal privacy when they become politicians. Edwards just torpedoed his career when people found out about his (heterosexual) affair. Saying that Republicans can bring up such things, but that we are too good to because we are moral, is morally corrupt. It indicates that you value personal purity far above the public business. It’s a betrayal of every Democratic voter who could care less about your manufactured crisis of conscience but who needs actual representation in Congress.

No, it’s about the right of everyone – even the odious – to use their genitalia as they see fit.

I strongly disagree. Any legislator who has secrets that he can be blackmailed with, has no right to those secrets.

I want the FBI to reveal all their blackmail material. But I don’t expect they will. When it’s a Republican president that blackmail material is very useful. When it’s a Democrat in office why would they show it to him?

Is this sarcasm? Are you playing dumb? I’m not a strategist. I have no advice and make no claims to know what Franken should have done.

No, it isn’t sarcasm. I’m genuinely interested in the details about how to do it and how well to expect it would work.

I’m just pissed off by the whole prissy, genteel, goo-goo tone of this thread and the one on LGM. My take on the Senate elections is that the Democrats missed their chance to gain decisive control of the Senate

I get that. You assume that this tactic would have worked, and the world would be much better off if it had been tried. You are upset that it was not carried out well.

I don’t see that it would have worked, but I’m ready to look at the details.

The first problem is that any attempt by any Democratic candidate to use out-and-out homophobia would have not only lost him support from gay and gay-friendly Democrats, but would have started precisely the sort of divisive argument you have started now—but before the election. I agree that this is a stupid way for Democrats to behave, but particularly from what you say and the responses you get it looks like that’s how they would behave. In the middle of a political campaign they’d split up and argue with each other about whether homophobic attacks are OK, and nationally Republicans would gleefully point and laugh. “Look at the stupid Dhimmis. They’re so upset about upsetting gay Dhimmis that they don’t do anything else! Their whole campaign is bogged down while they soothe their gays’ feelings. Their gays are more important to them than anybody else. Poor, poor losers.”

If that’s the reality we have to work with, then Frankin was right not to set that bomb off during the campaign. And you are right to try to fix it, starting right after the election. To fix it, having somebody fulminating about how the current approach doesn’t work is one good thing. But we also need somebody dispassionately looking at how to make the alternative work. As a first step toward that I claim that if you out somebody because they are a national security risk while they have a blackmailable secret, you are not being homophobic. A legislator who is secretly gay and who has a hydrophobic constituency, is open to blackmail. An openly gay legislator who has a nonhomophobic constituency is not. It isn’t anti-gay to out the former. And he has no right to personal privacy when he is a great big security risk.

No outing is real until it is reported by mainstream media. Franken could have forced the media to report on it by putting out a campaign ad on it. No one else really had the power to do so.

If Rich Puchalsky is right, Franken would have had to put his personal reputation on the line. He would have had to affirm what his standard of evidence was. Lots of ways to lose there. The details would matter a whole lot. It is, after all, unfalsifiable. No possible way for Coleman to prove he isn’t gay. Though if Coleman did claim he wasn’t and it could be proven he was, they could get him for lying.

When I think about it, Coleman could use the Jesus defense. He could say that yes, he used to be gay, and he knew all along it was wrong so he properly did homophobic legislation etc. But Jesus has come on to him and washed away his sins, and he isn’t gay any more. I expect that defense would work fine, and then they could go after Franken for being so mean.

Practically the only Democratic constituencies that have done well in the last two or three decades are the gay and choice constituencies. Environmentalism, labor, peace Democrats, and civil libertarians have broken even at best, but mostly lost.

Could the GOP have something to do with that? Two goals that they can’t make money on, that excite their base? So they make a big show about opposing those two but don’t actually accomplish much. And they make progress on the issues their strategists care about.

Obama gave up gun control as a useless goal. The gun nuts are numerous and passionate, the anti-gun-nuts are numerous and calm, it won’t go anywhere and it works for the GOP. Could we compromise abortion and gays? If states can forbid abortion within their borders, so all across the midwest you have to go to nevada or louisiana to get one, that would be bad but would it be worse than losing elections? If we put off nationwide gay marriage for another 8 years, is that worse than a GOP congressional majority in 2010 and president Palin in 2012?

No, it’s about the right of everyone – even the odious – to use their genitalia as they see fit.

Well, yes and Lewinsky Lewinsky Lewinsky.

Well I guess I disagree with the Minnesota gay biweekly. Is that permitted? We all make our choices.

We do and we don’t: you’ve said you’ve done nothing but wish others had. Democracy in action.

Typical me, unwilling to acknowledge that there exist bi-weeklies.

No, because you don’t think there should be any line. Naughty bits related activities are transcendent and taboo.