While we engage in the blame game, the right is laughing
by: Pam Spaulding
Sat Nov 08, 2008 at 11:00:00 AM EST
http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8089And I don't blame them. Our tattered LGBT coalition, exposed in full flower in the wake of Prop 8, is fodder for bloggers on the right. While we bitch and moan about who's to blame for it passing, the fact of the matter is we should focus on why our coalition is frail and how it can be strengthened rather than further damaged. Otherwise, we have only ourselves to blame for being vulnerable to this.
Another thing that conservatives and libertarians can do to advance their agenda while retarding the progressive agenda was suggested to me by reading Pam Spaulding's observation of events in the aftermath of Prop 8 in California. (Hat tip: Instapundit). During the primaries, we saw one of the key weaknesses of the coalition the Democrats have put together, and here we see another example of it. The Democrats have embraced thousands of small groups, defined by their racial or gender or issue or sexual preference or some other identity. You see this in such events as the Seattle globalization protests of a few years ago, or for that matter any protest that people show up to called by some or another part of the Democrats' coalition. It doesn't even have to be a protest: there were all kinds of interesting groups, even openly Communist groups, at Obama's election night party in Grant Park. But the weakness is that different identity groups do not always have congruent interests.
