Florida: Sarasota County Democratic Party Hosting a Very Queer Event

The Sarasota County Democratic Party is hosting their annual King-Kennedy Dinner on March 1st. Featured are former U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, who is the keynote speaker, and Nadine Smith, Executive Director of Equality Florida, who is the guest speaker. These are two very queer choices for a King-Kennedy Dinner indeed.

I use the term queer not as a pejorative but rather to show how Dr. Martin Luther King, a Baptist minister, and John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, would react to associating their names with these two speakers.

First let’s look at how JFK viewed government and the private sector.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, in December 1962, JFK stated, “It is increasingly clear that no matter which party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.” JFK also said, “The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital… the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.”

JFK sounded then very much like today’s Republicans, whose focus is on job creation and the “mobility and flow of risk capital.” JFK understood that the only thing that truly creates a job is a profit. Take away a businesses profits and you kill jobs.

While in Congress, Barney Frank did much to help bring on the financial crisis of 2008. Frank was involved in passing legislation that raised taxes and increased government regulation (Dodd-Frank) in key sectors of the economy. Unlike JFK, Frank believes in higher taxes and government intervention in the financial and housing market.

Barney Frank is for restrictive tax rates. Frank in a recent CNBC interview called for increasing the federal gasoline tax, calling it “long overdue”:

Peter J. Wallison and Edward J. Pinto in their 2012 column “Free fall: How government policies brought down the housing market” wrote:

The affordable housing goals imposed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 1992 were the major contributors to both the deterioration in underwriting standards between 1992 and 2008 and the growth of an unprecedented ten-year housing bubble that suppressed delinquencies and stimulated the growth of a private securitization market for subprime loans. But other government policies are also to blame for the deterioration in the US housing market, including the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage, the mortgage interest tax deduction, the right to refinance without penalty, and the Community Reinvestment Act. Until Fannie and Freddie’s market dominance and the government’s role in the housing finance system are substantially reduced or eliminated, the United States will continue to have an inferior and unstable housing market.

Barney Frank supported and voted for these policies, which inextricably led to the housing crisis in Florida.

Now let’s take a look at how MLK and JFK looked at marriage and homosexual behavior.

Barney Frank is a homosexual who in 1989 was involved in a scandal. The Washington Post reported that Rep. Frank admitted to a lengthy relationship with a male hooker who ran a bisexual prostitution service out of Frank’s apartment. Nadine Smith is working to redefine marriage in Florida and is associated with the Human Rights Campaign. Jerry Bean, the founder of the Human Rights Campaign, along with his homosexual partner, were both indicted for raping an underage boy. Bean, 66, is a major donor to the Democratic party, friend of President Obama and a gay-rights activist.

CNN’s John Blake in the article “What did MLK think about gay people” wrote:

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was writing an advice column in 1958 for Ebony magazine when he received an unusual letter.

“I am a boy,” an anonymous writer told King. “But I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don’t want my parents to know about me. What can I do?”

In calm, pastoral tones, King told the boy that his problem wasn’t uncommon, but required “careful attention.”

“The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired,” King wrote. “You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.”

[ … ]

Rev. Bernice King led a march to her father’s graveside in 2005 while calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. She was joined by Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Church in Georgia, where she served as an elder at the time. Long, who recently settled out of court with four young men who filed lawsuits claiming he coerced them into sexual relationships, publicly condemned homosexuality.

John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic elected as president. The Catholic Church to this day supports marriage as between one man and one woman.

Perhaps the Sarasota County Democratic Party needs to reconsider these two as speakers at the King-Kennedy dinner? Perhaps they should listen to Billy Chrystal who said during an interview with the Television Critics association, “Stop shoving gay sex scenes in my face.” I would add to that – stop shoving bigger government in my face.

These, the words of MLK, ring true today more than ever:

Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.