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[SalmonGod]

You can complain about things like(taken from the linked letter):
*universal free public college
*cancelling student loan debt
*restore the right to vote for all formerly and currently incarcerated people
*Medicare for All and universal childcare
*demolished homes
*boycotting for political reasons
*cap credit card interest rates
*guarantee a job to everyone who needs one
*increasing of defense spending

Those are all legitimate issues to be worried about. And issues that if they bother you enough are reasons to not vote for Buttigieg.

But they are not LGBTQ issues, and framing them like that makes it seem like every LGBTQ person has to be on the side of the people who wrote that letter and completely silences LGBTQ people who might be more moderate or even conservative.

These are LGBTQ issues, though.

Someone who gets disowned and tossed out on the street by their parents after coming out of the closet needs economic security.
Someone discovering they're trans later in life leading to a divorce needs economic security.
Someone incarcerated under discriminatory laws deserves their vote restored after those laws are removed.
Boycotting businesses with discriminatory labor practices or that support discriminatory organizations who directly harm people is an LGBTQ issue.

Economic hardship prevents people from taking care of themselves.  It locks people into bad situations that they need to escape.  It makes it too dangerous to risk openly being who they are.  These are universal issues, but they effect vulnerable people in a way that the general population doesn't experience.  They prevent LGBTQ people from being able to exercise their rights to be who they are.  They prevent people from escaping abusive households.  Etc.

[Folly]

Who is Stone? Sorry. I should probably be paying more attention to this stuff

Roger Stone is an old associate of Trump who was found guilty of lying to and obstructing Congress during the Mueller investigation, along with several other related crimes. Federal prosecutors recommended a 7-9 year prison sentence. Shortly after the recommendation was made public, Donald Trump tweeted his opposition to the severity of the sentence. Almost immediately after that tweet went out, the Department of Justice announced they were reversing the recommendation of the prosecutors and allowing the courts to decide Stone's sentence. This prompted the resignation in protest of all 4 federal prosecutors who had worked on Stone's case. This also prompted more than 2000 former Justice Department employees to sign a petition demanding the resignation of Attorney General William Barr for his role in the decision.

So yeah...Stone is just the center of the latest shitstorm in American politics.

[Rolan7]

You can complain about things like(taken from the linked letter):
*universal free public college
*cancelling student loan debt
*restore the right to vote for all formerly and currently incarcerated people
*Medicare for All and universal childcare
*demolished homes
*boycotting for political reasons
*cap credit card interest rates
*guarantee a job to everyone who needs one
*increasing of defense spending

Those are all legitimate issues to be worried about. And issues that if they bother you enough are reasons to not vote for Buttigieg.

But they are not LGBTQ issues, and framing them like that makes it seem like every LGBTQ person has to be on the side of the people who wrote that letter and completely silences LGBTQ people who might be more moderate or even conservative.

These are LGBTQ issues, though.

Someone who gets disowned and tossed out on the street by their parents after coming out of the closet needs economic security.
Someone discovering they're trans later in life leading to a divorce needs economic security.
Someone incarcerated under discriminatory laws deserves their vote restored after those laws are removed.
Boycotting businesses with discriminatory labor practices or that support discriminatory organizations who directly harm people is an LGBTQ issue.

Economic hardship prevents people from taking care of themselves.  It locks people into bad situations that they need to escape.  It makes it too dangerous to risk openly being who they are.  These are universal issues, but they effect vulnerable people in a way that the general population doesn't experience.  They prevent LGBTQ people from being able to exercise their rights to be who they are.  They prevent people from escaping abusive households.  Etc.

Shame on me for failing to explain this, but yes.  It was something I was struggling with all day.

Look- any one part of L,G,B,or Q and T and + can perhaps enjoy a relatively nice time.  For example, Christianity doesn't have anything against Lesbians.  So should Lesbians stand with us?

Bisexuals (like me) can deal.  Should they stand with us?

Gays have strong energy.  I, for one, welcome them into our coalition.

We are all queer.  We have formed a coalition.

...And that coalition must address the fundamental issues which affect the vast majority of us.
Yes, there are gays who are now valid citizens, who are allowed to marry.
They didn't really need to marry.

Yes, Lesbians are also allowed to marry.
The Bible doesn't say they are abominations.

People unite together under a coalition.  You might argue it's wrong, to come together in such a way, but it's definitely natural.  And this coalition includes all minorities.  Ethnic included.

I stand with all my friends.  Queer, minority, or dispatriated.

Edit: Just because the main issues have been addressed doesn't mean that we have to abandon the disenfranchised groups which helped us along.

[hector13]

Who is Stone? Sorry. I should probably be paying more attention to this stuff

Roger Stone is an old associate of Trump who was found guilty of lying to and obstructing Congress during the Mueller investigation, along with several other related crimes. Federal prosecutors recommended a 7-9 year prison sentence. Shortly after the recommendation was made public, Donald Trump tweeted his opposition to the severity of the sentence. Almost immediately after that tweet went out, the Department of Justice announced they were reversing the recommendation of the prosecutors and allowing the courts to decide Stone's sentence. This prompted the resignation in protest of all 4 federal prosecutors who had worked on Stone's case. This also prompted more than 2000 former Justice Department employees to sign a petition demanding the resignation of Attorney General William Barr for his role in the decision.

So yeah...Stone is just the center of the latest shitstorm in American politics.

Also, William Barr essentially told Trump to butt out, to stop making tweets about the things he does because it makes it impossible to do his job when he says something and Donny contradicts him with a tweet later, and that he didn’t have the authority to interfere in justice department cases. Even Mitch McConnell voices support for Barr in regards to this.

There was some talk that it was coordinated though, to make it look like William Barr was not just another stooge of Trump’s. Trump later tweeted that he does, in fact, have the authority to interfere in justice department cases, ‘cause he’s the president.

Barr apparently has considered resigning over this, according to a bunch of news media.

[Truncatedurist]

(removed)

[Rolan7]

(removed)

Yes.
We're asking for equal treatment of all people.  Regardless of sexuality or ethnicity.

This is seen as extreme leftism
I guess we have extreme leftist friends, but like
they are the ones who admit the problems exist

[Trekkin]

I think we're operating under two dangerously different definitions of what qualifies as an "X issue." There is the sense in which, for example, abortion used to be called a women's rights issue with the explicit, loud corollary that everyone who was not a woman "does not get an opinion", modulo the local flavor of (literal) radicalization. Gay marriage was in some circles a later example, with the argument that straight marriage was unaffected and therefore the opinions of heterosexuals were unimportant and/or offensive. Naturally, this leads to only the people intent on being offensive voicing their opinion and starts a vicious cycle.

There is the other sense, of course, in which it is modally used to convey that an optimal solution to a given problem must equitably meet the needs of X group in addition to others. While more inclusive, it uses the same syntax as the form above, leading to endless cases in which someone asking for a seat at the proverbial table is perceived to be demanding that everyone else leave -- at which point the above self-sorting into the silent and the douchey means that table will be flipped in short order.

While phraseological solutions are conceivable, now that it's no one's job to educate anyone and the unaware are nearly as big a problem as one's immediate ideological allies, attempting any would inevitably create another Shibboleth for negligible benefit.

[Reelya]

I think there's been some over-reading into the manifesto mentioned previously. A LGBT group can promote whatever issues they like, and that doesn't automatically mean they're saying they are "gay issues", and it doesn't make much sense to say or expect that the group should only stick to "gay issues" just because they happen to be gay. That view is extremely reductionist.

Additionally, the argument "but some other gay people might disagree" doesn't mean that the LGBT group in question can't have their own opinions. Just don't join that specific group if you disagree. It's just a group of people who happen to be gay, and also share common political beliefs. Really, this isn't that hard to process. A bunch of people who happen to be gay don't have to represent "all" gay people, that's a made-up criteria.

An example here: imagine a group made up of specific Colorado Democrats. If they list issues they care about, does that make those issues automatically "Colorado issues" or "Democrat issues"? Not really. Also, does that mean they can only have opinions on things that affect people from Colorado or fellow Democrats? not at all. Additionally, there can be Democrats or Coloradans, or even other Colorado Democrats who disagree with that group, but that doesn't invalidate that group's existence or their beliefs. They speak for themselves.

This is not really any different from the group in question who wrote the thing about Buttigieg. They're a group of Progressive LGBT Democrats. The existence of Progressives who aren't them, LGBT people who aren't them, and Democrats who aren't them doesn't invalidate the group and what they believe, nor are they required to stick to only issues that affect Progressives, LGBT people, or Democrats. "Progressive" "LGBT" and "Democrat" are all identify factors that describe this group, but people have decided that LGBT is the important one and they should stick to issues about LGBT stuff and not discuss broader things. Would we make the statement about a group of Progressive Straight Democrats?

[sluissa]

If a group of highly respected... let's say physicists together. Grab a hundred or so of them. A not insignificant number, but absolutely not enough to completely represent the entirety of physics. And then convince them all to start advocating for... let's say ranked choice voting.

What's the point? That's not their field. They're not experts in politics or anything relating to politics. There's not even a significant enough number to represent an important chunk of the electorate. They're essentially just 100 normal people at that point advocating for ranked choice voting. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they keep throwing out that "We're physicists, you should listen to us on this." and act as if their opinion on the matter means more than anyone else's... that's god damned insulting.

That's what I see going on there. And as much as I might want to support any given policy they're pushing, I'm having a hard time getting behind that message.

[SalmonGod]

If a group of highly respected... let's say physicists together. Grab a hundred or so of them. A not insignificant number, but absolutely not enough to completely represent the entirety of physics. And then convince them all to start advocating for... let's say ranked choice voting.

What's the point? That's not their field. They're not experts in politics or anything relating to politics. There's not even a significant enough number to represent an important chunk of the electorate. They're essentially just 100 normal people at that point advocating for ranked choice voting. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they keep throwing out that "We're physicists, you should listen to us on this." and act as if their opinion on the matter means more than anyone else's... that's god damned insulting.

That's what I see going on there. And as much as I might want to support any given policy they're pushing, I'm having a hard time getting behind that message.

With the LGBTQ stuff it's not about claiming to be experts, though.  It's about a group of people making it publicly known that a certain candidate doesn't represent that group on issues that are of high importance to them, which informs others who identify with or care about that group.  I don't understand your comparison.

[Teneb]

If a group of highly respected... let's say physicists together. Grab a hundred or so of them. A not insignificant number, but absolutely not enough to completely represent the entirety of physics. And then convince them all to start advocating for... let's say ranked choice voting.

What's the point? That's not their field. They're not experts in politics or anything relating to politics. There's not even a significant enough number to represent an important chunk of the electorate. They're essentially just 100 normal people at that point advocating for ranked choice voting. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they keep throwing out that "We're physicists, you should listen to us on this." and act as if their opinion on the matter means more than anyone else's... that's god damned insulting.

That's what I see going on there. And as much as I might want to support any given policy they're pushing, I'm having a hard time getting behind that message.

With the LGBTQ stuff it's not about claiming to be experts, though.  It's about a group of people making it publicly known that a certain candidate doesn't represent that group on issues that are of high importance to them, which informs others who identify with or care about that group.  I don't understand your comparison.

Especially since Bootykink has been trying to use his being gay to boost his popularity and pretend he represents the Queer community.

[sluissa]

If a group of highly respected... let's say physicists together. Grab a hundred or so of them. A not insignificant number, but absolutely not enough to completely represent the entirety of physics. And then convince them all to start advocating for... let's say ranked choice voting.

What's the point? That's not their field. They're not experts in politics or anything relating to politics. There's not even a significant enough number to represent an important chunk of the electorate. They're essentially just 100 normal people at that point advocating for ranked choice voting. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they keep throwing out that "We're physicists, you should listen to us on this." and act as if their opinion on the matter means more than anyone else's... that's god damned insulting.

That's what I see going on there. And as much as I might want to support any given policy they're pushing, I'm having a hard time getting behind that message.

With the LGBTQ stuff it's not about claiming to be experts, though.  It's about a group of people making it publicly known that a certain candidate doesn't represent that group on issues that are of high importance to them, which informs others who identify with or care about that group.  I don't understand your comparison.

It's not even about claiming to be an expert. That's the point. Remember the old "I stayed at a holiday inn express last night." commercials? The whole thing just feels that absurd to me.

[Rolan7]

If it's not about them claiming to be experts, then what is the problem?

And the situation is closer to a physicist running for president, and a group of Physicists Against Paul forming to explain that they don't agree with him on... say, healthcare.  Sure, healthcare isn't physics.  Yet it's a group of people who share his qualifications, have a lot in common with him, yet disagree with his message.

There's this assumption that people of X category will vote for someone X just to get some representation.  It's important to buck against that assumption, to demonstrate that we care about a lot more than that.

[Kagus]

Same reasoning we ended up with "Women for Trump" and "Mexicans for Trump" groups, to prove that "No no, he hasn't alienated ALL of us!"

[Teneb]

Apparently Trump offered a pardon to Assange if he would lie about the Russian election hacks. Reader beware and all that.