I am gay for McCain hahaha too funny :)

Lol those are great. I've got to crosspost those.

Obama says he doesn't support marriage, and that pisses me off royally, but he is our guy with everything else. HRC gave him an 89%. And he's certainly not going to try and STOP gay marriage. Hell, he even publicly opposes Prop 8, which if you were going to take the bullshit "state's rights" position, you would need to support.

McCain by contrast is HORRIBLE on gay rights issues. The only good thing he did was vote against the FMA. But he actively supports state bans on same-sex marriage and civil unions.

@ artdyke:

a lot of liberal politicans are afraid to step out and say they support gay marriage. Obama needs all the votes he can get from liberals, moderates AND conservatives. He doesn't want to alienate anybody so it's important for him to be "moderate" and have a bipartisan platform that everyone can agree on.

it sucks, but that's how American politics work.

if you think about it, you can be pro choice or pro gay marriage and expect to win an election. the largest voter demographic in the US in christian concervatives at nearly %40 of the US voting population. if you want to win you have to impress them.

Is it by the same people who made the I'm voting Republican video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQJ9Xp0xxU

I support equal pay for men and women... in theory. But in practice, I don't deserve to be paid as much as men.

Shouldn't that be, "I support equal pay for men and women, but don't think the government should dictate how much money private citizens give pay each other for services."

Alice, I'm not sure what you're getting at there?

What I'm getting at is that the questions of what people should do or should be encouraged to do through peaceful means, and what they should be forced to do by threat of violence are completely different topics. Since she's talking about a political candidate's positions, this falls into the latter category. A person can oppose sexist effects on wages without believing in government price controls.

"Threat of violence"? "Price controls?" None of those are involved in equal pay. The government wouldn't "control" what price you have to give any of your employees (aside from minimum wage of course). It just requires that you pay equal pay for equal work. Whatever you pay men working forty hours a week for working in your laundromat you pay the woman who also works for forty hours a week in your laundromat, unless there are legitimate reasons for pay differences, such as one employee having worked at the firm for five more years than the other.

Alice-
There are ways for the government to promote fair pay without price controls. The Ledbetter (sp?) Fair Pay Act was one of them. One McCain opposed.
And no one is threatening violence, I'm not sure how you saw that in the video.

Alice is getting at the fact that supporting equal pay for equal work does not equal supporting government intervention.

Her point is well-taken. The equal pay issue is often presented as a false dichotomy: you're forced to choose between “I hate women” and “I endorse a profound injection of government into the economy”.

I see the equal pay issue as being most salient in private-sector, white-collar jobs. (If you're working at McDonald's, for example, you're probably getting paid the same rate regardless of what genitalia you have.) But that's exactly where the lines are fuzziest: for instance, how will the government oversee the mucky salary negotiations that often accompany such jobs? If a female employee gets out-negotiated by a male employee, how do we determine whether it was due to her sex, and not some other (personality-based) defect in her bargaining power?

Not only that, but how can the government even decide what constitutes “equal work”? Remember they'd have to weigh experience, performance, differing job responsibilities, etc. — everything that could contribute to a difference in pay.

In order for the government to do its job correctly, you almost have to accept the existence of an inherent correct wage — which raises a whole host of problems about economic theories of price and value — and then believe that the government is capable of discovering that wage.

We also need to remember that onerous regulation makes the labour market less flexible and discourages hiring. And low skilled workers typically bear the brunt of the damage, which is never a good thing.

The violence comes into play from the fact that all government action is coercive, as their authority to impose conformity to law comes from the "monopoly on legitimate violence." It's what defines the state, in fact. Most call it a necessarily evil, but still being evil, we'd presumably want to minimize it.

While the proposals don't involve price floors or ceilings, they nonetheless grant the government privilege to pass judgment on private transactions in which there is no legitimate state interest.

Does anyone have a problem with the fact that they appropriated the "I'm John McCain and I approved this message" bit at the end?

Even though the positions they present in the videos are representative of the McCain/Palin ticket, I'm fairly certain that the presidential hopeful didn't fund these videos.

Just a thought on media ethics.

joyful dinosaur, I thought the same thing. I thought these were great videos, but I have a hard time with using that insignia. I think we would all understand it was representative of the ticket without them try to make this look "authentic."

This has gotten to be a really nasty election, and if we're going to hold the media accountable when they do dumb stuff and cross ethical lines, I think we as individuals need to practice what we preach...

Actually, when I was working in a video store, my male coworker who was hired the same day I was (with the same lack of experience) got paid more than I did because he's a "family man" and I am... I dunno, chopped liver? 50 cents an hour more because he has a wife. I have a husband who was in school at the time and I was working to support his education, but I guess I'm not a "family woman".

Also, my mother was once turned down for management of a gas station because (and she was told this outright) she doesn't wear make up and thus looked "unprofessional". You know, the guy they hired instead also didn't wear makeup, but I guess that's different.

So yes - the service industry jobs also have unequal pay type things going on.

Cheezwevs, Do you mean by "defect" the fact that women who actually bargain in the same way that men do are penalized for being shrews? Yes, I thought so.

Also, do you believe that bargaining means something other than stroking of other white male penises? Yeah, no.

Nope, laurylevs, in fact I was thinking of myself when I wrote that, since my “negotiation” style is to acquiesce and not argue in order to avoid conflict.

But, I admire your straw-man arguments. Had I actually said those things, you definitely would've got me there.

Cheezwizard you are implying that the government does not interfere in the setting of wages because it doesn't prevent sexists from imposing their vision of value on women and their labor.

"government intervention" in the Act and in most Equal Pay acts suggested is very american-style (focused on the individual), and requires people to sue for their rights - the question goes to a judge or jury. Do you see it as a "profound government intervention" to allow people to sue when their property rights are violated by theft? It is no more nor less than that.

Obama isn't that much better when it comes to a lot of gay-rights issues.
***********

Which gay rights issues are those, Feministing? I can't wait for the list.

Ripley, it comes down to a different idea of rights... You believe that equal pay is a right, so the employer is compelled to pay the same wage to both sexes, and they're stealing if they don't. Fair enough. I don't believe that equal pay is a right, so theft doesn't enter into it. (Unless, of course, there's something else going on, like the employer reneging on a previous agreement.)

I think that the employer ought to pay men and women equally, because I don't like sexism. But I'm with Alice on this one.

Obama says he doesn't support marriage, and that pisses me off royally, but he is our guy with everything else.
Posted by artdyke Author Profile Page | October 21, 2008 5:16 PM

Even on gay marriage, I hope you'll consider redirecting your wrath to the stupid electorate he has to convince he's not a radical. If Democrats endorsed gay marriage, we'd be governed by an endless succession of explicitly anti-gay Republicans, each to the right of the previous.

Part of why I love unions is that they negotiate the pay scales and help guarantee a leveler playing field.

I don't believe that any employee is engaging in a negotiation among equals when one is the employee and the other is the corporation.

Does anyone have a problem with the fact that they appropriated the "I'm John McCain and I approved this message" bit at the end?

Yeah, I thought that, too. They should have just gone the Jay Smooth route and done something like, "I'm John McCain, and I just don't care anymore."

I actually liked the fact that they cribbed McCain's endorsement for the end. If you're going to do satire, you may as well go all the way.

Is it even legal to use the "I approve this message"? I feel like that could be construed as libel (saying he approved something he clearly didn't) or violation of property rights or something.

It's "legal" in the sense that no one with standing is going to call them on it.

I like how economics/non-government intervention ideology can be twisted to make people who support an idea actually work to make sure it doesn't happen.

Sure employers *ought* to pay people fairly but it is proven in practice they do not. While equal pay may not be a right, not being discrimintaed against based on your sex should be.

Why are folks acting as if the government would be monitoring the books and payrolls of businesses if equal pay for equal work was a reality? This is ridiculous--Ripley's right, an individual who's being cheated out of wages has to SUE to bring this to light--the government doesn't do the discovering for them!

And even if equal pay legislation was enforced, businesses can easily get around it with "non-disclosure of income" contracts. Essentially, if you tell someone how much you make, they can legitimately fire you. And before y'all start bloviating about how "only X high paying job would have such a contract," my ex in college had to sign one to flip burgers at WENDY'S. Consequently, when he was talking to some coworkers, all of whom had been hired after him all with less experience, and found out that each of them made AT LEAST $.50 more per hour than he was, he couldn't do anything but quit because he (and all his coworkers, whom he liked very much) violated the contract. To make a stink about it would've gotten his coworkers fired too. Oh, and he was the only black employee, so I DON'T THINK THIS WAS A COINCIDENCE.

But hey, it's all good because the business was allowed to decide how much his work was worth. Protect businesses at all costs--to hell with justice for individuals!

So we don't have a right to fair compensation for our labor? Wow, why do businesses even bother to pay anyone, then?

Protect businesses at all costs--to hell with justice for individuals!

Businesses are owned by individuals, you know.

"Businesses are owned by individuals, you know."

Unless you're referring to corporations, which are treated legally as an individual person, but clearly are not. And since you're using a plural, a billion people are all individuals.

Government is made up by individuals, too. See, you're "logic" works both ways.

Even in the case of corporations, their legal personhood is mostly a useful accounting fiction. Any action for or against businesses is merely an abstraction for action for or against people who own businesses.

So we don't have a right to fair compensation for our labor?

Vis-a-vis private citizens, no, you have no rights whatsoever save for that they are obligated to refrain from force and fraud.

Just so we're clear on how you feel, Alice: would it be safe to say that you believe any and all workplace discrimination should be legal, regardless of what reason the corporation has for said discrimination? (race, religion, sexual orientation, etc)

How far does the legality of discrimination go? Can the same corporation refuse to serve black people just because they're black? Would you think it should be legal for a mayor of a city to allocate school resources such that those funds go only to schools with majority-white student populations? Should it be legal for a policeman to refuse to go to the home of a gay person who calls after his home is burglerized? Or would you just say that these scenarios "shouldn't" happen, but it shouldn't be illegal to the point of laws (the government) getting involved?

Just so we're clear on how you feel, Alice: would it be safe to say that you believe any and all workplace discrimination should be legal, regardless of what reason the corporation has for said discrimination?

Yes.

Or would you just say that these scenarios "shouldn't" happen, but it shouldn't be illegal to the point of laws (the government) getting involved?

The first example should be legal, but after that you're taking about actions by the government, which I think should be required to be impartial.

Awesome. Thanks for posting this, Ann. I agree that the Women for McCain video is spot-on - love the sarcasm. McCain's record definitely shows his total disregard for women's issues like equal pay, domestic violence and breast cancer research. His voting history speaks for itself - he's not going to do anything to further women's rights if he becomes president. Obama AND Biden, on the other hand, have proven that they're on our side. You gotta see the side-by-side comparison of their records for yourself - www.feministsforobama.org.