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I was out of town last weekend, so I missed most of this, but there was a pretty horrible beating of a gay man (who ended up in a coma). The suspect is in custody, but his friend is now speaking to the news claiming that it was not a hate crime, and they didn’t target the man because he’s gay. Sorry bud, it’s kinda hard to take you seriously when you have a GIANT Leviticus tattoo on your arm.
You New Yorkers may have seen the Bloomberg/Thompson mayoral debate where the candidates were asked whether Obama has done enough on gay rights. Bloomberg responded ‘no,’ while Thompson seemed almost astonished that the question was even being asked, and replied that Obama has only been in office for 9 months, so yes.
As you can imagine, there’s been some backlash, and today Thompson ‘clarified’ his remarks. Apparently Thompson felt that the question was ‘dumb’ because it was supposed to be answered with yes or no. Thompson thinks the question required a longer answer. OK fine, yes or no questions are hard for politicians to answer. But this is simple, either the president, in his nine months, has done enough on gay issues, or he hasn’t. Thompson can backtrack all he wants, and I’m sure he is very supportive of gay rights. But his original answer shows that he is not very concerned/knowledgeable about gay issues, since anyone who pays any attention to gay rights knows how frustrated people are with Obama’s movement on this issue.
