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It’s been fun watching FOX News twist themselves into a pretzel to exclude gay presidential candidate Fred Karger from the debates they’ve broadcast: they’ve changed their criteria, and then simply ignored them when Karger met the bar even as it was raised. Now FOX has a Federal Election Commission complaint on its hands.
Not pretty, not even for a fake news network.
But now an actual news organization is on the spot: NBC News will broadcast a GOP presidential debate — you remember, that Wednesday conflict that required President Obama to move his JOBS speech to the following evening before a joint session of Congress. And still Fred Karger won’t be permitted to participate.
Please sign this petition to get Fred Karger on the GOP stage: won’t it be great to hear the other GOP candidates talk about their opposition to SB48, which requires social studies curriculum in California to include the contributions of LGBT Americans to our country’s progress? I also want to hear them talk about how gay marriage is like Pearl Harbor Day, and the paper towels & napkins jihad, and why we can’t have “special rights” for homosexuals.
Fred Karger is giving lots of American kids hope that they, too, can grow up to run for President, if they are LGBT. He’s not a perfect vessel — who is? — but he deserves a podium on Wednesday’s stage.
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no better way for any party to screen their field than to let all the candidates have their say.
Here’s the text from the petition, if you want to read it before you click over to Change.org:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
Throughout his career, Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns and served as a senior consultant on campaigns for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
He retired after 27 years and has since become an activist for gay rights causes, including his organization Californians Against Hate (now Rights Equal Rights) to investigate the LDS Church and the National Organization for Marriage in their campaigns against marriage equality in California and Maine.
During California’s Proposition 8 campaign and ever since, I brought that same passion and dedication to the fight for equal rights.
“There are still far too many people in this country who feel the need to look down on their neighbors and discriminate against them. They feel that certain people should not have the same rights as they do.
I will fight the fight for full equality!”
(Quote from Fred Karger, Fred Karger for President)
Karger is the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major political party in American history.
Signed!
(recc’d too.)
You may have heard first of Fred Karger during the Prop 8 battle when he ran Californians Against Hate, and obtained the first ruling ever against the Mormon Church for violated Fair Campaign Practices.
Thanks, Kelly!
Signed and rec’d.
NBC fired Cenk of the Young Turks and Keith Olbermann.
Try a petition that states
WE WILL NEVER WATCH NBC again and educate our friends on why they should not.
Then start watching Link TV and let NBC know it.
Thanks, Kurt!
That would be a fine petition.
signed. recc’d.
Thank you, jayt
The Republican Presidential candidate who’s been declared longer than any of the others is also being kept out of the debates, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, also supports Gay Rights and Gay Marriage:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7341179n
Activists can plan ahead now to join the Freedom Bus Caravan, which will blanket New Hampshire during the Primary season (probably December or January): The FBC will picket anti-freedom candidates and demonstrate in support of Johnson and Karger.
http://freedombuscaravan.org/
The Gay Right comments begin at 1:53 of the clip:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7341179n
Republican Presidential candidate Jimmy McMillan fully supports Gay Marriage Rights. He is the former candidate for New York Mayor, New York Senator, and New York Governor with his own The Rent Is Too Damn High Party.
As always, thanks Teddy.
Signed, tweeted, recommended.
I am all for gay equality, the right to choose, etc. However, this stuff is and has always been used as a distraction. It is used to divide the people and pretend we have a two party system. As we an see with Obama treatment of choi this is an illusion.
These issues are used to keep the people focused on the social stuff while both parties through a bunch of policies collectively rob and rape them. That is where the focus needs to be and this, while important, is a side show, and used to keep the population divided while the rich bankers, corps, and the war machine steals from us.
Fred Karger, who has been in the race longer than anybody else, had seemingly met the organizers’ criteria of polling an average of at least one percent in five national polls.
And they call him a long-shot?
I see you have redefined “all for” as in “I am all for gay equality”
Try “I’m somewhat for gay equality”
what?? I am a strong supporter of gay rights. That said I believe these kind of issues have been used to promote the false left vs right paradigm. While the people are focused on the micro issues our politicians are raping us and sending millions into poverty. I guess for now i choose to keep my focus on the bigger issues, because what is the point of equality if all it means is we are all equally poor and indentured serfs?
Karger declared himself the “Anti-Romney” candidate, and later stated that he “plans to run a campaign specifically designed to throw a wrench into Romney’s run
If the slobs at Fox succeed in keeping him out of the debate, what can be done to raise the volume on this fact and on speculations for the reasons (especially the obvious ones)??
To me, nothing busts the false left/right frame over social issues better than a GOP who is gay and running for president. Keeping him off the stage allows the party bosses and the media owners to pretend that this social issue, LBGT full human rights, fits neatly into the left-right Dem-GOP frame.
I agree that ownership, inequality, and wealth are the biggest issues in America today, but I think the “special rights” frame of LGBT issues gets deflated when a GOP gay gets on stage with the front-runners.
Besides, Fred Karger gets the kind of letters from the heartland gay kids that Harvey Milk used to get. And we ‘gotta give them hope.’
Yes, he’s a long shot.
But, polling-wise, he’s actually less of a long shot than either Santorum or Huntsman. Both of whom get a podium at every debate, despite their dismal poll numbers.
The ‘slobs at Fox’ DID succeed in keeping him out of their debate. Now we’re asking the slobs at NBC not to act like the slobs at Fox.
Thanks, Boo!
Karger successfully got the California Fair Campaign Practices Board to fine the LDS church for their in-kind, unreported contributions to the Prop 8 campaign. He wants Romney to disavow his church’s involvement in that campaign. He has also challenged Romney’s Massachusetts residency, hitting a stone wall in his very fair question: “Did you really live in your son’s unfinished basement in the 18 months after you sold your own home in Belmont and voted for Scott Brown for Senate?”
I don’t think Romney’s address will be held against him: Dick Cheney claimed a Wyoming P.O. Box rather than his Texas estate when first elected Vice President; he had to claim the Wyoming address because Bush was claiming Texas, and both Pres. & VP can’t Constitutionally be from the same state.