Will the USA have an openly gay president,
Before an openly atheist one?
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Probably.
Well, hopefully at some point, it will sink in to all theists heads, that sexual orientation is genetic.
Gay president: James Buchanan, 1853
Atheist president: Abraham Lincoln, 1861
Not sure if "openly" applies to either of them, though Lincoln used to express unbelief openly until he realized it might hurt his career.
But what interests me is why do American voters today care so much about what politicians do in their bedrooms and whether they have imaginary friends?
@Relaltive Truth
"Will the USA have an openly gay president,
Before an openly atheist one?"
Probably. But perhaps a female prez first. (Some text removed by mod)
Here in Oz, atheist Prime Ministers have pretty much been the custom with Labor Party PM's since before WW2.**
Then of course the conservatives get in for a few terms. The incumbent is a happy clappy Pentacostal. A twit a bit before him was chronically Catholic . He blocked same sex marriages because of his Catholicism, which made me livid
Currently, we have one of our Shadow Ministers, Penny Wong, who is openly gay, with a wife and child. Pretty sure the are a few on the back benches of both parties. Australia remains one of the most secular nations on the planet, with the churches losing more members each year. Right now, baby boomers are our biggest demographic. Be interesting to see how many Christians are left standing once we have all died off. ca 2040 -ish.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
*SHADOW MINISTRY
A shadow cabinet is a group of politicians who hold a political post with their party, but whose party is not in government (that is, an opposition party). A member of the shadow cabinet is a shadow minister. The leader of a shadow cabinet is called the Leader of the Opposition.
Each minister of a Cabinet has a corresponding shadow minister. The Shadow minister provides an alternative to the minister in the government. The two of them will debate with each other on issues relating to their own area of jurisdiction. For example, the British Secretary of State for Health, Matthew Hancock, will often debate with his Shadow, Jon Ashworth, who is known as the Shadow Secretary of State for Health."
The current Australian Shadow Cabinet is made up of members of the Labor Party.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_cabinet
***ALTHOUGH, Americans are so bothered by the very Idea of a female president,a TV series featuring a female president didn't last one season.
We've already had one. Obama was about as gay as they come. James Buchanan was probably Gay too.
@Cognostic
"Obama was about as gay as they come"
You can prove that of course? Imo it shouldn't matter to anyone, but I'm pretty sure it does.
Ohhhhh, you're having a laugh in't cha.
@Sheldon.
Fascinating how people can have very different perceptions.
MY take on Jimmy Carter; As far as I can tell, a brilliant man. Also that rare thing in politics, a good man. Such make poor politicians. . IMO history may judge Jimmy Carter a great man for his work after politics. As I said, very different perceptions.
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Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
Hold the bus, Lincoln an atheist, Obama gay?
I seem to have missed a great deal from this side of the pond?
Jimmy Carter was nuts though right? Please tell me Nixon was a lying crook? Kennedy was a womaniser hooked on strong pain killers after a back injury, and Clinton was an amoral sexual predator.
I feel I may need to expand my reading again. First of all I'm going to Google, was Lincoln an atheist, and take it from there.
@Sheldon: Please tell me Nixon was a lying crook?
Tragically flawed but much underrated in my opinion.
Achievements during his presidency include the Moon landing, the end of the Vietnam War, the opening of diplomatic relations with China, and the start of the wind-down of the nuclear arms race with the Soviets. He also seems to have been faithful--albeit possibly abusive--to his wife. He also made important contributions to the development of the shredder industry.
Kennedy was a serial adulterer, but he wasn't half as creepy as his vile brother Teddy, the Chappaquiddik swimming champion.
@Algebe
"Tragically flawed but much underrated in my opinion.
Achievements during his presidency include the Moon landing, the end of the Vietnam War, the opening of diplomatic relations with China, and the start of the wind-down of the nuclear arms race with the Soviets. He also seems to have been faithful--albeit possibly abusive--to his wife. He also made important contributions to the development of the shredder industry.
Kennedy was a serial adulterer, but he wasn't half as creepy as his vile brother Teddy, the Chappaquiddik swimming champion.
An intelligent and perceptive post. Translation; I agree, with all of it.
Not sure how much we agree on JFK;
First there was the Bay of Pigs fiasco.Then the Cuban missile crisis, where JFK played brinksmanship with Khrushchev. Action of mind blowing arrogance imo. At school ,we all ( including the teachers) thought were going to die.
As an adolescent and chronic catholic, I thought JFK was just fucking dandy.
As an adult, I'm of the opinion he was a mediocre president . As a person, he was a privileged white man of questionable morals. His father Joe was a criminal who bought the presidency for his son.
That so many thought (and still think) he was a great man is imo because he had the luck to be assassinated before he could fuck things up.
But hey ,I'm only an ignorant foreigner, what do I know?
@ cranky47
"Then the Cuban missile crisis, where JFK played brinksmanship with Khrushchev. Action of mind blowing arrogance imo. At school ,we all ( including the teachers) thought were going to die ---then there was the Bay of Pigs fiasco ---"
I was living on a NATO base in North East France at that time. if it was going to happen, we were at ground zero. At least you would have had a 12 minute warning and enough time to kiss your ass goodbye.
@David Killens: At least you would have had a 12 minute warning and enough time to kiss your ass goodbye.
I was a 10yo in London then. We were only promised a four-minute warning. And they never taught us the all-important duck-and-cover maneuver, which was guaranteed to keep you safe in a hydrogen bomb attack.
@ David
How terrifying for you.
At the time, our opinion was , living in Australia , that it wouldn't much matter where one lived. We were all fucked.
As an adult, I've always wanted to be at ground zero in case of a nuclear holocaust, drinking a bottle of excellent cognac .
My view has been formed by films such as' Threads' .,'The Road' and "The Book Of Eli" , but also by the first film (I think) of the genre. 'On The Beac' (1959) filmed in Melbourne. Its star a Ava Gardner endeared herself to locals by saying Melbourne was a perfect
place to make a film about the end of the world .Aunty Adelaide , then and now would be a far better place.
@Cranky47: it wouldn't much matter where one lived. We were all fucked.
My father read somewhere that the safest place in the world in the event of nuclear war would be Christchurch, New Zealand. It's politically insignificant and not worth the price of a missile. If you look at the world maps in villains' lairs in spy movies, New Zealand is usually missing.
Christchurch is in the rain shadow of a 3,000m mountain range to the west and therefore shielded from fallout. Its water supply comes from aquifers that are filtered for years through gravel beds across a 90km plain. Plus Christchurch is the market town for highly productive pastoral, agricultural, fisheries, and horticultural industries. So we moved there from London in 1965.
Then the US Navy put Christchurch back on the map by building its Antarctic Base next to our airport.
I was seriously considering a year or two ago, of moving to New Zealand. Even mentioned it on these threads. Of course the reality of such a massive move had me put it off. Now I kind of wish I was living in New Zealand. Of course I doubt I would be a citizen yet. So my rights would of been very limited in this time. And increasingly, worldwide there is general negative attitude towards "foreigners" we are starting to see it a lot in africa I read today.
And yeah a Hydrogen fusion bomb? Just one could easily send the entire world into nuclear winter. In many ways, the people at ground zero of a hydrogen fusion bomb attack are the lucky ones. (They die before they can even understand what happened to them.)
@Cranky47: But hey ,I'm only an ignorant foreigner, what do I know?
Likewise. But then we aren't the ones who keep electing lunatics, crooks, rapists, and war-mongers to the highest office. They give these crackpots control of their armed forces and nuclear arsenal for four years, and the only way to get rid of them is to shoot them.
Algebe "the end of the Vietnam War, the opening of diplomatic relations with China, "
Christopher Hitchens took a more cynical view in his book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger.
The Hitch was always worth a read, even when you disagreed with him. Though he makes some compelling and damning arguments in that book.
Larry Sinclair wrote a book about having two homosexual encounters with Obama in 1999, when Obama was state senator. (Not a reliable source by any means but there are other rumors.)
I saw the actual interview. I think 20 minutes did the entire story or some organization like that. (Yes it is all unfounded woo woo .) Same as Joan Rivers telling us that Michelle is a transsexual and Obama actually calling him Michel on several occasions instead of Michelle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JynPIhKcVX4
Oh the conspiracy theories :-)
https://www.vice.com/da/article/5gavex/this-man-has-proof-that-obama-is-gay
I think both Obama and Trump are atheists although neither could admit it politically, both actually for the same reason, unlimited egos, both were their own gods, although that perhaps refutes my opinion.
@Newskeptic I think both Obama and Trump are atheists although neither could admit it politically
Why would any politician throw away the magic ticket that allows him to win the votes of a ready-made mass of people who've demonstrably abandoned their powers of reason and rational thinking?
What's the point in going for the atheist vote? Atheists will pick holes in every policy and demand evidence and reason. They won't take anything on faith, or wear red hats proclaiming their blind adoration.
@Algebe Re: "They won't take anything on faith, or wear red hats proclaiming their blind adoration."
If they were rational atheists who came by their positions via skeptism, I would agree. However, in the case of those two, my opinion on the basis for their atheism has less to do with reason (none in Trump's case) as more to do with runaway egos.
You think both trump and obama were atheist, due to their run away egos?
While being president of USA, certainly is an ego trip for anyone, do you think ego is why they are also atheist? Trump I could maybe see but he is about the most obvious case of narcissism I can possibly think of. Obama, not so much. (Or at least he and his administration did a really good job of hiding that sort of thing.
@Logic
Also just how insincere and uncomfortable each always looked when talking about religion. Also Obama's talking about guns and religion, his disbelief right below the surface.
@Relative Truth
I suspect we will have an openly atheist president before we have an openly gay president. Fundamentally, I don't think anyone can say we have had a gay or atheist President. There may be evidence to more or less extent that a previous President may have leaned toward homosexuality or atheism but if you look at them in totality, the case is not easy to make.
For example, I read once that nearly 50 percent of the population had one or more isolated homosexual encounters at one time or another. Are they gay or lesbian? I doubt it. In another example, how many theist have doubts about their God? Are they atheist?
If Bernie Sanders gets in, we will have another atheist president. And he is the one I will vote for if he's running for president, as he also wants to legalize marijuana.
I like the idea of an atheist president.
I don’t care if a President is a/theist...I just want them to uphold the constitution.
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Can I expand on my original post?
I would like to add a third candidate.
A woman.
So which of the three is more likely?
Now we have (at least) NINE possible scenarios. I added the words 'at least' because some may find my words imprecise.
From a female, admitted gay,admitted atheist
To male straight theist.
As Joe Biden has already stated that he wants a female VP
does that increase the odds of the first one on my list?
@Relative Truth
Posted: "As Joe Biden has already stated that he wants a female VP
does that increase the odds of the first one on my list?"
Definitely increases the chance for a female President. If Biden is elected and he picks a female VP, she will run for President. I doubt Biden's cognitive functions will see him through a second term so he may step down to allow her to run.