At the Netroots Nation conference yesterday Bill Clinton responded forcefully when heckled by gay activist and blogger Lane Hudson on the topics of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Watch.

Full transcript available at Blabbeando.

On the same day Harvey Milk was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, SaveCalifornia.com president Randy Thomasson held a press conference outside San Francisco City Hall denouncing Harvey Milk and the honor he was bestowed.

Thomasson and SaveCalifornia.com has also been very vocal in opposing a bill that would proclaim May 22 as Harvey Milk Day. From the SaveCalifornia.com website:

Please veto SB 572, “Harvey Milk Day,” due to major problems with this bill:

NO PARENTAL PERMISSION: While schools and school districts get to choose whether to hold “Harvey Milk Day,” SB 572 does not let parents choose whether their children will participate. The bill has no opt-in or opt-out. Yet polls show most parents oppose their children participating in “Harvey Milk Day.” Fathers and mothers deserve your respect and your veto.

INDOCTRINATES CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS 5 YEARS OLD: Harvey Milk Day would promote the “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender” agenda of Harvey Milk to up to six million children in public schools, including kindergarteners. These kids aren’t old enough to be taught about sex, but now they’ll be taught about same-sex “marriages,” cross-dressing and same-sex desires? This is highly inappropriate.

OVERLY BROAD: SB 572 is written so broadly, the pro-Harvey Milk “exercises” could include gay-pride parades on campus. The “exercises” are not defined, so the sky is the limit. Under SB 572, what will children in public schools be taught and how will children’s minds be “exercised?” The answer is whatever Milk believed or is said to have believed about religion, sexual experimentation, marriage, politics, etc.

OPPOSED BY A STRONG MAJORITY OF CALIFORNIANS: In March 2009, San Francisco TV station KPIX commissioned a poll, which found that a majority of Democrats, independents, Republicans, liberals, moderates and conservatives all opposed a statewide “day of significance” honoring Harvey Milk in schools or in any other state observance. Only 19 percent supported an official “Harvey Milk Day.”

Just a toybox full of hate… isn’t it?

John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods, has jumped head first into the healthcare debate by penning an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, opening with the Margaret Thatcher quote “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” More of the typical anti-healthcare reform pablum below…

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Later Mackey then goes on to espouse the benefits of a healthy lifestyle by eating more fruits and vegetables.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

The irony is how can anyone afford a regular diet of fruit and vegetables from one of the most expensive grocery chains in the country? Me thinks that many of the customers who shop at Whole Paycheck, will not be amused. And they are not. Just check out a few of the forums over at the Whole Foods website. And there is already a call for a boycott.

A San Francisco Muni train dedicated to the late Harvey Milk has been taken out of service due to anti-gay graffiti discovered inside the trolly. Muni officials believe the defacing took place near the end of Pride Month in June. From the Bay Area Reporter:

Muni officials did not learn of the homophobic graffiti, however, until this week. The news came just days prior to President Barack Obama posthumously awarding Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony Wednesday, August 12.

Following calls by the Bay Area Reporter inquiring about the graffiti, Muni officials removed trolley car #1051 from the F-line late in the afternoon of Monday, August 10. Transportation officials said they had ordered the car to return to a storage yard so it could be inspected.

“It is disturbing to see that the panels had the slurs for some time without us removing it. We will do what we can to see what happened to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Judson True, spokesman for the SFMTA. “Especially in this historic week we want to be sure to honor Milk’s legacy on this streetcar so we will do everything we can to remove any graffiti and get the dedication panels back in place as quickly as possible.”
…

Openly gay Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who chairs the countywide San Francisco Transportation Authority, also expressed disappointment this week at learning the placards had been left aboard the trolley car.

“I will certainly pursue it with Muni. It shouldn’t be that difficult to get something removed, repaired, and replaced. You don’t leave this stuff up or leave it unaddressed,” said Dufty, who joined a delegation of San Franciscans that traveled to Washington D.C. this week to see Stuart Milk, the former supervisor’s openly gay nephew, accept the presidential honor on behalf of his family.

Thanks to Jamison Wieser for drawing attention to the graffiti by posting photographs online. It’s really sad that no one in our community reported the defacing sooner.