DC Dakotans group forms to raise money, and fight Marriage Amendment
(Click on image to enlarge)
A group in Washington DC calling itself "DC Dakotans" has formed and is raising money to defeat Amendment C on the 2006 South Dakota Ballot. Aside from Jon Hoadley of South Dakotans against Discrimination, it also includes notable South Dakota politico Steve Hildebrand, and Ross Buntrock who was in the same fraternity as I was during our time at SDSU.
They're hosting a fundraiser at $35 to $200 a head tomorrow in their quest to defeat Amendment C. I have to recognize that this group has been organizing and doing their work as they prepare to go to war on this issue.
DC Dakotans also has a website under construction at http://www.dcdakotans.com as you can see below.
On the other side of things, I'm told that the South Dakota Family Policy Council is taking the lead on promoting the measure, but since they're just starting, it doesn't seem that they've built up a lot of steam at this point.I'd attribute it to the fact that South Dakota is standing as the battleground state on abortion this year, and many of the ground troops are involved on that front.
But there's still a lot of time left before the election, and the winds can change at a moment's notice. Even the South Dakotans Against Discrimination group recognizes that the polling stands at 49% at the moment. They note that "49% of voters are not fooled."
That puts them in a close position to the 51% who either support the amendment or are undecided and while they've been working hard to defeat the issue, the other side is only starting.
Comments
(Sorry for the redo. Dang typos.)
now that's something you don't see every day
Or, how about, "[what I wrote above].com"
PP, it's time that you post the truth about Steve Hildebrand. You owe it to your readers. The liberals cannot attack you for just posting the facts, and they cannot call you a bigot for posting the truth about Steve Hildebrand.
Why was it introduced in both 04 and 05 legislative sessions? Simple, it was on the agends of the national Concerned Women For America, of which Elizabeth Kraus is a dutiful soldier.
The American Family Association is hoping to raise megabucks with a recent doomsday letter painting SD as the root of all evil.
Focus on the Family (Action), the Promise Keepers, the Traditional Values Coalition and Gary Bauer all had their hands out for anti-marriage donations at their "Stand For the Family" Let's Burn Daschle In Effigy (Though We Can't Officially Endorse Thune) Rallies in '04.
As with the abortion ban, which the legislature seems to care about more strongly than the populance, perhaps the likely voters of SD just aren't buying efforts to change SD law and Constitution, with bills that might have passed more easily without the second sentence of each.
No exceptions? No sale.
Quasi-marital? Nope.
Have you seen billboards or TV ads for Amendment C? Nope. It's key to success thus far has been door to door conversations. And the SD Family Policy Council, like the propaganda non-newspaper The Dakota Voice has had a platform in the same fundamentalist churches that have "offered" the allegedly non-biased Focus on the Family How to Vote Guides whose intensely-framed "surveys" which make politicians less likely to answer legitimate questionaires like Project Vote Smart.
Suggesting the pro Amendment C forces are behind in public support (the argus/kelo poll numbers being 49% against, 41% for, and 10% no opinion/not sure) for lack of fundraising and campaigning is merely spin.
If David beats Goliath, it's because for the first time in SD history, the GLBT are politically reaching out to other progressive groups and circling the wagons as the Right wing have done for the last 30 years with the NRA, anti-labor/worker, anti-abortion, anti-environment, pro-Rapture, anti-public school groups.
Groups which exist to ensure that the side fighting Amendment C remains seperate and unequal.
OK, here's the truth - he's a liberal Daschle Democrat.
What else were you looking for? Because in my book, that's enough reason to oppose what he stands for.
If you're looking for what I think you're looking for, go look somewhere else. Because that type of name calling lacks dignity.
It's true, SD is a "battleground state" this year, but conservatives are the ones sponsored both HB 1215 and Amendment C. If they're spread too thinly, then they have no one to blame but themselves.
If anything, since the pool of people working on the "no" side of both of these issues is much smaller (after all, this is South Dakota), they're spread much more thinly than their opponents. That makes it all the more incredible that the Argus/Kelo poll showed the "no" side of both issues winning.
Lesbian
Bisexual
Transgender (?)
Yeah, you've cornered the market on dignity, what with your "babies on a fork" cartoon and all.
If this really is a Steve Hildebrand organization, wouldn't his name have probably been somewhere on something (website, report, etc) from the beginning?
My decision to live in DC has little to do with being gay and everything to do with my career.
Besides, you should be happy that we're helping. We're doing it for people like you who are still back home. And, of course, for the greater good...
As for this being a "Steve Hildebrand" group, nothing could be further from the truth. Obvisously Steve still has friends and colleagues in DC and as such chose to list himself as a host for the event. Steve supports the efforts of the group and has offered to help spread the word to former colleagues and friends.
The group began informally several years ago and as the group has grown to well over 30 people, from various political and personal backgrounds, we try and stay connected as much as we can with home.
We see this event as a way to show our support for what's still happening back in South Dakota and to make sure that it's still the welcoming, live and let live attitude that we love and that will be there when we move back.
There is absolutely no way that this will NOT pass in South Dakota by anything under 65% "yes."
I'm betting 70%.
This lobby would gain more credibility if it would try to pass LAWS rather than go through liberal judges to accomplish their goals.
Is Tom Daschle still running for President? He's worse of a choice for president than George Pataki. Daschle would get clobbered in his home state.
>will NOT pass in South Dakota by >anything under 65% "yes."
>I'm betting 70%.
So why not sign your name to the comment so that we can collect should you be incorrect?
Tolerance. Liberals don't apply tolerance both ways (I'll let the jokes begin here...)
Do you speak the way you type?
WOW!
You liberals would have more credibility if you'd admit the state of the present situation.
Who is it that made the issue of marriage an issue: conservatives or liberals? If you guessed "conservatives," you would be "Wrong-o."
It is LIBERALS who made this an issue by going around lawmakers and going through the courts.
What conservatives are doing is RESPONDING to you liberals.
And it bugs you that WE'RE WINNING.
Is he still funding an imaginary staff somewhere?
Planning to run for UN Secretary General?
And if I want to be the thought police, I can.
Alternatively, I can also turn on mandatory registration for posting, or pay the $6 to get the full IP address and identity of those posting.
If you wouldn't say it in a public forum, and put your name to it, don't say it here.
What's forward thinking is that we as a society want to protect the bedrock of society, traditional marriage.
And while being a homo has been around for just as long, it is not the stuff that propels successful societies forward in a progressive and constructive manner.
So, gay marriage = stone age
abortion = stone age
Allegations of conspiracy theories about this group being some subversive arm of Daschle’s or Hildebrand are amusing – but untrue.
Same attitude as David Newquist (blogger who is married to a big wig in the FORMER Senator Daschle's office).
"born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates."
"the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt."
From
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/31/walking_the_walk_on_family_values
Walking the walk on family values
By William V. D'Antonio
October 31, 2004
The state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation is Massachusetts. At latest count it had a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.
But don't take the US government's word for it. Take a look at the findings from the George Barna Research Group. George Barna, a born-again Christian whose company is in Ventura, Calif., found that Massachusetts does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states. More disturbing was the finding that born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.
The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people." The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
How to explain these differences? The following factors provide a partial answer:
* More couples in the South enter their first marriage at a younger age.
* Average household incomes are lower in the South.
* Southern states have a lower percentage of Roman Catholics, "a denomination that does not recognize divorce." Barna's study showed that 21 percent of Catholics had been divorced, compared with 29 percent of Baptists.
* Education. Massachusetts has about the highest rate of education in the country, with 85 percent completing high school. For Texas the rate is 76 percent. One third of Massachusetts residents have completed college, compared with 23 percent of Texans, and the other Northeast states are right behind Massachusetts.
The liberals from Massachusetts have long prided themselves on their emphasis on education, and it has paid off: People who stay in school longer get married at a later age, when they are more mature, are more likely to secure a better job, and job income increases with each level of formal education. As a result, Massachusetts also leads in per capita and family income while births by teenagers, as a percent of total births, was 7.4 for Massachusetts and 16.1 for Texas.
The elite liberals think they are superior to the average South Dakotan.
They are welcome to believe that and we are welcome to continue to vote against anything the DC residents believe in.
The right wing theocrats are fond of this statement, but they never provide any support for it.
One of you explain to the rest of us why man/woman marriage is the "bedrock of society."