a bit of a counterweight to the Bernie Fever…

a bit of a counterweight to the Bernie Fever…

Originally shared by Steve S

You know idolization is going on when people start with their notion of perfection and project it onto their target to fill in all the blanks in their knowledge.

Reality:

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But on his home turf in Vermont, … gay rights advocates say Mr. Sanders was less than a leader, and not entirely present, on the issue.

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In 1996, his office explained that he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act because it infringed on states’ rights, traditionally a conservative argument.

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“I don’t think anybody thought about Bernie Sanders,” said Jan Backus, a state senator at the time who called Mr. Sanders “invisible on the issue.”

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But getting the state’s congressman to express his position on gay marriage was like “pulling teeth … from a rhinoceros,” wrote the Vermont publication Seven Days.

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Mr. Sanders was not “a real active participant in the fight” for civil rights, said David Moats, the author of “Civil Wars,” who won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials on the issue in The Rutland Herald.

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When it came time for Mr. Sanders to speak, he deplored the demonization of gay people but complained that the virulent opposition to civil unions diverted attention from prescription drug costs, health care and other economic issues.

“There are a dozen other issues out there that are as important or more important as that issue,” he said.

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Asked in a debate against his Republican opponent whether the federal government should overturn laws on same-sex marriage, he argued that it was a states’ rights issue. When asked by a reporter whether Vermont should legalize same-sex marriage, he said, “Not right now, not after what we went through.”

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In 2009, the Vermont legislature overrode a governor’s veto and passed legislation that explicitly recognized same-sex marriages and extended more rights to same-sex couples. That year Mr. Sanders articulated his support for gay marriage.

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But as Mr. Sanders tells it, he was a champion on the issue for decades. “Twenty years have come and gone, and as the conservative Supreme Court said, everybody’s entitled to get marriage,” he said in the interview. “So what does it mean to be 19 years ahead of the curve?”

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Look, it was only recently that politicians could openly support same-sex marriage without shooting themselves in the foot, so this isn’t really about whether, all things being equal, he supported same-sex marriage. Even Obama had to pretend to “evolve” on the issue, and then only after Biden’s rainbow balloon was floated successfully.

The real issue is that Sanders is a real person, and a real politician, not some fucking leftist unicorn. When I speak with his supporters, I often feel that I’m comparing an actual human being in the form of Clinton with an imaginary idol named Sanders, and this disconnect from reality is unhealthy.

(Oh, and a shout-out to that asshole, +Ole Olsen, who’s done his level best to prop up the myth and hide the man. He’s the GOP’s best friend among progressives.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/us/politics/as-gay-rights-ally-bernie-sanders-wasnt-always-in-vanguard.html