Heath Shuler Votes To Keep Discrimination Legal

hodi,

I always enjoy reading your comments. We’re not going for unanimity of opinion.

One funny thing I’ve noticed is that when I point out Shuler’s stance on civil rights as it pertains to his homosexual constituents, I’m often asked “Are you surprised?” or “What did you expect?”

The answers to those questions are (1) No; and (2) I expect my representatives to look out for the people that elected them.

The inference is that since we all know that Heath hates on homos we shouldn’t criticize it when it happens.

As to your Brownie, Robin, Holly observation, I don’t know what point you’re making. Expand or clarify?

Lastly, what’s “white stress” and while it’s painful to have our elected officials fall short of our ideals, it is vital to continue advocating those ideals. We must have our stars to steer by, or we won’t have any direction at all.

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We all knew that Heath Shuler would be with us on some issues and against us on others. This is simply the nature of the district he represents — rural, conservative, and one that elected Charles Taylor for 16 years. In short, there is much, much more to the district than downtown Asheville. I may not like Shuler’s vote on this issue, but I’d rather have 50% of the something he gives us than the 100% of nothing we got from Charles Taylor or would get from The Mumps.

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White stress is the type of stress you get when you have problems that are relatively fantastic, such as having a city that is so popular, so in demand and so pleasant to live in that your problem becomes how to slow it down. WNC Alliance may have white stress over a USFS timber sale while you have little concern over the same topic from minority groups who have more immediate daily problems. This is of course really more of a socio-economic description as loosly found in comments here: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/462/

I like your comment about “stars to steer by” and am frustrated that we have been beaten down to the point that our “stars” are basically the lesser of two evils or the best that we’ve got. While a vote on civil rights may not be suprising to you, there are a whole ‘nother slate of topics that run exactly the same way until you’re left with a representative who is too far away. I question whether or not he should be branded a hypocrite. I don’t side with him but I also don’t feel mislead by him.

This is all assuming that you actually listen to and quote the statements of poiticians. You have well proven the hypocrisy with his own quotes and actions; I guess I just wouldn’t listen to the quotes in the first place. That must be where the “suprised” part of my comment comes from.

It takes a lot less energy to say “Are you surprised by this?” than to properly phrase the question and ask “What is it about this guy that you were so enthusiastically supporting during the election?” ‘Cause now you’ve got to bring him down for basically voting his values. That’s a lot of energy coming and going.

Our seasoned council members now understand that they have to vote for these projects lest they be overturned in court for being arbitrary and capricious. You can’t simply vote against a project for posturing or because you feel like it. (Or I suppose you can, as Mumpower does, but he does it very carefully). We need a candidate who is going to start the onerous process of reworking the UDO. This was Elaine’s general idea but I think the call has already been made on whether this should have been announced in the form of a moratorium first – so I’ll shut up now.

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I could say something choice about McHenry but today I’ll be positive and copy my comment from your post at BlueNC:

I love that video. Me particularly likey John Lewis. I could listen to him all day.

He had me at:

. . . our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters

I never get enough of hearing that phrase.

But he got on a roll with these:

Call it what you may, to discriminate against someone because they are gay — it is wrong, it is wrong. It is not right. There is not any room in our society for discrimination.

It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. Let us do it. Not just for this generation but for generations yet unborn.

Now is the time to do what is right, what is fair, what is just. The time is always right to do right. Let us pass this bill.

But you really need to hear it.

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“‘Cause now you’ve got to bring him down for basically voting his values.”

When Shuler said “homosexuality is wrong”, I thought he was speaking to his values. If he said, “Those homos are just going to have to deal with second-class citizenship”, that’d be honest. But to claim to oppose discrimination and bigotry in all its forms then fail to actually oppose discrimination when the opportunity presents itself?

That’s dishonest, and it’s not acceptable.

Mumpower’s a nightmare, but he’s an honest nightmare. If Shuler’s not careful, I won’t be the only one questioning his veracity.

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By the way, the great news is that discrimination against homosexuals based on their sexuality was rejected by the majority. A step in the right direction whether Shuler liked it or not.

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I believe there are still serious legal ambiguities in the legislation, which could lead to protracted and onerous legal challenges.

C’mon, Andrew, you’re killing me here. Is this what we’ve got to do to show that Heath’s not tied to Pelosi at the hip? And he’s one of only 25 Dems (out of 233) voicing any such concerns? Except for Republicans?

It’s just a good thing there were no legal ambiguities and troublesome lawyers around when the Supremes ruled on Brown v. Board, when Congress set up the EEOC, or to prevent Democrats from voting for the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Act, Public Accommodations Acts, the Equal Pay Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, etc., etc.

Only one thing to do:
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” — Dick the Butcher, Henry VI, Part 2, act 4, scene 2.

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This was in my inbox today. It doesn’t have anything to do with civil rights. Shuler wants to make sure we don’t ship jobs overseas even though he doesn’t mind if domestic employers discriminate:

“Representative Heath Shuler voted against the latest unfair free trade agreement that would threaten American jobs when it was brought to the House floor today.

The Peru Free Trade Agreement, H.R. 3688, duplicates many of the core provisions and text of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). It includes provisions that promote the off-shoring of U.S. production and jobs and helps foreign corporations avoid longstanding Buy American and anti-offshoring policies.

“We in Western North Carolina have seen first-hand the results of unfair trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA. Rather than working for a truly fair trade agreement that protected American workers and the environments of the U.S. and Peru, this free trade agreement continued the CAFTA model,” Rep. Shuler said. “I will continue fighting for fair trade agreements that create jobs in the U.S. and protect America’s working families.”

As the U.S. faces increasing threats from imported foods, the Peru Free Trade Agreement also included CAFTA-like provisions that will limit food safety standards and border inspections on imported food.

“We need to be looking out for the safety of the American people,” Rep. Shuler said. “This bill will increase the risks we are facing from unchecked imported foods.”

The House of Representatives passed the Peru Free Trade Act despite these concerns. It now awaits action in the Senate.

“The people who support these CAFTA-like free trade agreements always say that there will be winners and losers, but the only people who have won are the big corporations. It is time for us to pass some trade agreements that allow the working families of Western North Carolina win,” Rep. Shuler concluded.”

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You’re right, Jessica. Barney Frank dumped Ts because he didn’t have the votes.

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Sorry Gordon. From what I’ve seen, the votes would have been there. I’ve spoken with Mara Keisling on several occasions, have been following this for quite a while. I was there at Southern Comfort when Joe Solomonese gave his stirring speach and then turned tail when Frank refused to support a trans-inclusive ENDA. On a local note, Asheville has a thriving Transgender community and has one of the oldest (21 years) open Transgender support groups in the country, Phoenix Transgender Support.

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John Aravosis at AMERICAblog has results of a poll:

“I finally got the details on the new poll showing that nearly 70% of gays support moving ahead with ENDA even if it doesn’t include gender identity, whereas only 16% of gays support United ENDA’s position of killing ENDA until transgender people can be included too. You can read the details in the attached 3 page memo (click the image), but one thing the memo doesn’t include, and I got the answer from HRC (which got it from the polling firm) is that the margin of error is +/- 5%, which is pretty good for a poll of gay people (polls of gays are notoriously difficult because we don’t know how many members of our community are closeted, so it’s hard to do a fair sample since you can only sample those who are willing to be identified as gay). Having said that, this is important data because up until now there was no real data as to how the community itself, rather than activists, felt about the issue. Now we know. And when the number is nearing 70%, in our community, where divisiveness nears a virtue, that’s a pretty large mandate.”

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