Considering that neither Mr. Holtz nor Mr. Gregory are (to my knowledge) LGBTQ persons, and also considering that neither are members of Outright Libertarians, I fail to see how either individual can claim literally any expertise on the area of LGBTQ issues.
Mr. Holtz, in particular, has been particularly tone deaf on the issue of same-sex marriage equality, and only recently switched over to the Libertarian side of the issue in the platform debate after concerted lobbying from Outright's membership -- and a clear signal from the Outright membership in California that there would be near unanimous opposition to efforts floated on the LPSF list to remove our party's support for marriage equality from the platform, at convention if necessary. It's hilarious indeed for Mr. Holtz to now be claiming some sort of expertise on LGBTQ issues, when he was so thoroughly wrong on his prior convictions about LGBTQ issues (and thus enjoys such limited esteem in the community at large). The LP's queer membership doesn't need a bunch of uneducated folks "explaining" our issues to us, nor does it need persistent attacks on our platform. I can assure you that from the delegates on the ground all the way up to the Libertarian National Committee, we are fully prepared to defend both our party platform AND honest dialogue on Republican and Democratic candidates from such attacks. Cheers gents, Brian ----- Original Message ---- From: Brian Holtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 1, 2007 12:28:12 AM Subject: Ron Paul a "homophobic bigot"? Message Anthony Gregory wrote to Brian Miller on lpradicals (from which I was expelled after my No First Force Pledge challenge was censored there): BM) the Republicans (including Ron Paul) are such homophobic bigots that [...] (BM AG) Ron Paul is not a homophobic bigot. What on earth are you talking about? (AG Anthony, here is some context for you. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marketliberal/message/2107 is my unrebutted response to Miller's untenable attacks on Paul in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ca-liberty/message/5181, where you can see the previous messages in that thread. More context is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13332, to which Miller's only response was to complain that Ron Paul, a candidate for the GOP nomination, did not answer a survey from the Outright Libertarians. Quelle homophobia! I was soon expelled from lpsf-discuss, where one is not allowed to document Outright leaders issuing serial misrepresentations about somebody like Ron Paul. Nevertheless, Miller's claims are a smoking cinder, but good luck trying to get a reference to my rebuttals past the censors at LPradicals. My postings are filled with Paul quotes that contradict Miller's claims, but you probably won't be allowed to post such evidence there even if you keep my name out of it. :-) (For example, see all the unanswered Paul quotes I transcribed for Miller from the Values Voter debate: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13297.) In Miller's universe, the only reason to be a radical constitutionalist and skeptic of central federal authority is if, despite all of one's public statements to the contrary, one secretly favors oppression of gays by states and localities. I told Miller: You don't have to like Paul's position that the federal government should not be -- and textually isn't -- entrusted to do for gay rights what it's done for our rights concerning substance use and political expression and self-defense and "hate crimes". I don't either. But you don't get to pretend that's not his position -- at least not without seeming illiterate. The fact remains that you cannot produce a single quote from Paul saying that he "believes that government -- not individuals -- should be the final arbiters of your sex life and the sexual activities of consenting adults." You can run from that quote as far as you want, but I've got a brand-new laptop and its copy/paste keys are a long way from wearing out. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
