Hey, there! Log in / Register
Flaherty, Yoon to lose gay vote?
By adamg on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 9:23am
Both marching in the Southie St. Patrick's Day parade. Tom Menino has boycotted the parade since 1995, following a Supreme Court ruling that organizers could ban gay groups. Bay Windows reports Kevin McCrea will not march, either; talks to the four candidates or their P.R. people.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
What is Yoon out of his
What is Yoon out of his mind??? With a name like Flaherty I can understand his marching in the parade, after all that is his base. Yoon on the other hand will most likely not pick up all that many votes from the Irish Catholic community versus the number of votes he could pick up from the gay community. No so smart.
st paddy's parade
wouldn't getting in on the parade organizers allow him to work with them to allow the GLBT community to march in the parade? I think he's more about trying to bring about change than purely boycotting and not doing anything about this discriminatory practice.
Its so ingrained the only
Its so ingrained the only person who could make such a big difference is a big time Irish politician from that area. Yoon isnt going to be able to convince them otherwise.
Cambridge St. Patrick's Day. New York St. Patrick's Day
What ever happened to the Cambridge St. Patrick's Day Parade. There was one years ago!
What's the St. Patrick's Day Parade like in New York?...
Very Disappointing -- Sad Even
I must admit to being a supporter of Tom Menino over the years--still I had been beginning to think perhaps it was time for some new blood.
I've been intrigued by Flaherty's ability to avoid marching in lockstep with the Southie powers-that-be (i.e. his support Gay marriage, Pro-Choice position. However the decision to march in the Southie Parade makes me think electing him mayor would be more "the second coming of Ray Flynn" than of an administration with new, progressive ideas.
More Menino is looking like not such a bad idea. Steven Lynch is my Congressman, that might be as much 'Old School' as I can take.
http://phelps-a-thon.com/Cambridge.html
http://phelps-a-thon.com/Cambridge.html
That gives me an idea..
Pete Nice pointed out an archaic (but still on the books as far as I can tell) MA General Law on Blasphemy. Phelps and his family from the WBC will be in the state to spit venom on The Laramie Project play production in Reading, MA. It'd be a nice happenstance if these two observations were to merrily collide.
Officers, please do your duty to enforce this law on these people...man, that would be so cool.
Phelps a thon?
Here and I thought a Phelps-a-thon would involve bongs.
*sigh*
Proceedings of City Council. City of Boston.
You've read and loved the useful information in the
"Agenda"
http://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/
You've read and loved the useful information in the
"Minutes"
http://www.cityofboston.gov/cityclerk/
Now read the City of Boston
"Proceedings of City Council"
Request "Proceedings of City Council" for any particular Council Regular Meeting by email from your favorite City Councilor, City Clerk or Assistant City Clerk
http://www.cityofboston.gov/government
Many people ask what's the difference between the Minutes and the Proceedings of City Council, what do you think?...
Note the semantic, the kind of language used. Do you prefer old fashioned legalese that lends authority to the documents?... Do you prefer plain vernacular language that makes clear what were the proceedings and transactions of our Boston City Councilors?...
I actually heard that Sam
I actually heard that Sam wrote a letter to the parade marshall, voicing his disagreement with their policy against allowing gays and lesbians to participate in the parade. And that got him bumped to the back of the line.
I know Sam personally and know where he stands on gay and lesbian rights--he is absolutely for them. There is no question about that. I would not support him if he weren't.
I don't think people should read too much into him marching in the parade besides the fact that he knows it's important to Boston and that it's important to know the people of Boston.
He lost my vote
He isn't truly an ally if he'll attend an event where our families are expressly not welcome. Being a true ally means not exercising your straight privilege when it's convenient. It means standing up any and every time and letting people know that you don't tolerate homophobia. It's not taking a true ally position to say "I don't like that this event doesn't allow GLBT people to march, but I'm going to march because I'm not one of those people." It's the equivalent of a straight person sitting there silently when someone makes a comment at a party about how they're glad none of those queer people are here. A real ally doesn't hide behind their privilege and let the comment slide by -- a real ally would suddenly become really uncomfortable being there just like a GLBT person would, and would say so.
Also, here's the quote from
Also, here's the quote from Yoon from the Bay Windows:
So, really, he's using the parade to make a stand to show his support for the LGBT community.
Yoon's the progressive!!!!
First of all, marching in the St. Patty's Day parade, and supporting the policy of Wacko Hurley (the parade marshall and life-long bigot) is not the same thing. Sam has publically admonished Wacko's policy since 2005. Secondly, Menino sits at the head table every year, yucking it up with Wacko and the other old school good-ole boys. Finally, Sam has marched with gay Bostonians (like me) in both the St. Paddy's Day Parade and the Gay Pride Parade for years. Sam has stood with, and up for, the GLBT community since his election in 2005. I am proud to support Sam, and proud to say, as a progressive, that Sam is the progressive choice!
For once, can't one Boston news outlet tell the truth, the whole truth, and NOT cozy up to Menino and his McCarthy-ist tactics? What a surprise! The Menino smear machine feeds you a story, and you dont even bother doing research!
I'll take that up with the smear machine
I'm in constant contact with them. 24 hours a day.
Honestly, I've never talked to anybody from the Menino campaign. Closest I've ever gotten is shaking his hand or saying hello at one of the 50 gazillion neighborhood things he shows up at.
I wrote this post based on a tweet from somebody who is a) somebody whose blog posts I've followed for awhile and b) was upset when she read about Yoon and Flaherty.
The Real Problem Here
As a member of the LGBT community and a supporter of Sam Yoon my take on this is simple: the real problem is the parade's policy of exclusion and discrimination.
On every substantive issue, both Yoon and Menino have made clear their support for the LGBT community. And they are actually making a very similar choice here: each is registering his opposition to the parade's discriminatory practices and choosing to participate in various parts of the parade festivities. Menino may not be planning to march but he will play a high profile role in events surrounding the parade.
This isn't a real issue, and we shouldn't treat it like one. Not when there are issues as serious as an economic recession and a youth violence crisis to address. Yoon has a new vision and concrete plans for steering the city through these times, and that's why he has my support.
i agree
Non-issue. I'm not entirely aboard the Yoon bandwagon, but it's fine with me if he wants to walk with Wacko.
Oh, right, the straight people have REAL issues!
Nevermind how the economic recession is even harder for families who aren't allowed to be married on their federal taxes, and who have to claim their spouse's employer's health insurance plan as taxable income. Or all the transgendered people who can't even get a job or keep one very long because it's still legal to discriminate against them in most places in this state.
Or how many victims of youth violence are GLBT youth, and how this is seen as acceptable by many folks who don't condone other violence, because our society tells them that GLBT people aren't really people, after all, the government and society don't give us the same rights as straight people, so we can't really be just as good.
Yoon as an Obama wannabe?
Robert David Sullivan writes:
You just can not be friends
You just can not be friends with everybody, plain and simple. Theres a difference between being polite and being friends. Obama is going to see some splintering when the shit hits the fan and his base starts asking questions when he doesnt deliver for them.
Luckily Obama has the benefit of being in the White House and all the glamour that comes with that. Yoon does not have the same benefit of the doubt and should be cautious.
Yoon would be wise to keep foreign policy out of this.
Yoon would be wise to just keep foreign policy out of this whole thing, as it's totally unrelated to the subject matter at hand. Acting "like another Obama" might well do him more harm than good in this situation.
It was a metaphor
Foreign relations is Chuck Turner's role.
I realize that, adamg, but sometimes I wonder if
a city councilor really has any business getting as deeply involved in foreign policy and foreign relations as Chuck Turner seems to do on a regular basis.
If you realize that, why did you bring it up?
You referred to Yoon, in a discussion about Yoon, in response to a metaphorical post about Yoon's actions, at a time when nobody has ever suggested that Yoon is making foreign policy an issue in his campaign for mayor, if you get my drift.
I brought it up, because it sounded as if Yoon was
going to start injecting foreign policy into his mayoral campaign, and the Southie St. Patrick's Day Parade, which, imho, he'd be wise not to do.
Only he's not
Let's try again:
Robert David Sullivan wrote a post in which he compared Yoon's rationalization for marching in the parade to Obama's justification for talking to Raul Castro. Yoon is NOT attempting to inject foreign affairs into the Boston mayor's race. You're just reading too much into one author's use of a comparison.
History lesson
So which is it? 'Cause sorry, you can't have it both ways.
The Bay Windows article quotes Yoon: "When I’m elected mayor I will invite the GLBT community with rainbow flags to march behind me, and we’ll see what happens." Swell, but how about this Sunday? Has he invited his openly-identified gay and lesbian supporters to march with him in this year's parade and "see what happens"? If so, I'll acknowledge his political courage. If not, he's pandering.
In the same article, bar manager and Flaherty supporter Bill Svetz "said he believes enough time has passed that few LGBT Bostonians are concerned about who marches in the parade... South Boston has become much friendlier to the gay community since the mid-1990s." Completely beside the point -- the fact remains, gay organizations are prohibited from participating.
Will Flaherty's and Yoon's convenient complicity affect my mayoral vote? You bet it will.
Just like in 1992*, this IS a real issue; it's ugly, shameful stuff. South Boston Online still gloats that, even though this is Hurley's final year as the parade's organizer, "he’ll always carry the memories of that 9-0 Supreme Court decision with him." Nice. They haven't forgotten, and neither should we.
* Photo credit: Marilyn Humphries, GLAD
Yoon looks befuddled
Mike Ball analyzes the comments from the four mayoral hopefuls, concludes Yoon's supposedly nuanced stance comes off looking weak and adds:
I read the link with much interest & enjoyment.
The sentence "South Boston is no longer poliltically monolithic" imho, contains a certain amount of irony, because, from what I understand, South Boston never really was politically monolithic. There've always been differences in opinion within the community, even though Southie politicians have long pretended otherwise. Funny how things often don't come to the light until many, many years later for many, if not most people.
If Flaherty has been
If Flaherty has been marching in it since childhood then he should be compelled to boycott it. While they would not listen to Yoon because he is a new comer (remember this part of Boston is the oldest of the old school) Flaherty could really drop a bomb on them and make everyone think twice about their discriminatory stance.
Good point, ShadyMilkMan,
but he can't be compelled to boycott anything. No one can.
Sam Yoon is my candidate.
Sam chooses to march in the parade because he is Councilor-At-Large for the whole city. He also goes to Gay Pride, and he recently attended the Mass Equality benefit last month. He's been forthright about same-sex marriage and I don't see this as an equivocation or as pandering.
Plus after watching Flaherty
Plus after watching Flaherty eating a whole bowl of spaghetti with his hands at Via Matta is a real turnoff! I'm so tired of Menino and his troupe of thugs it's time for a change with Yoon.