Gay High School students in Irmo, South Carolina need your help.  

A firestorm has recently erupted over the formation of a Gay/Straight alliance, the school's compliance with anti-discrimination law, and the resignation of a popular principle.  

The students of Irmo High School need your help today to draw attention to their situation, because, I fear, they are about to receive the brunt of a backlash from this conservative Christian community.  Please read on after the jump.

A few brief words, after a frustrating afternoon of watching the news.  

I say frustrating because I have been telling friends and family that Hillary Clinton should probably get the Vice Presidential spot this year, as a recognition of the tenacious campaign she has run, the amazing new vitality she has inspired in the feminist movement, and for her ability to round out a winning coalition.  

Frustrating also because my last diary here was an earnest attempt to get my fellow Obama supporters to recognize the blatant sexism that Clinton has faced in this primary.  I wanted everyone to realize that sexism is just as real as racism, and that no-one deserves the sort of negative gender stereotyping that Clinton has suffered from at the hands of many in the media and in the blogosphere.  

Has anyone noticed the recent explosion of solidarity and outrage among women Democrats over the sexist treatment in the media of Hillary Clinton during this primary season?  MYDD regulars would say this is something that has been an issue among Clinton supporters for a long while, but in terms of national coverage, we seemed to have turned some kind of corner, reached critical mass.  There was an excellent discussion with folks from Emily's List and NARAL Pro Choice America yesterday, for example, on Talk of the Nation, the NPR program.  There was the New York Times article earlier this week, and now all the morning shows are talking about it today.

In my advocacy for Barack Obama, here and among my friends, I've always tried to keep a cool head about the nature of this primary, remembering that Clinton is not some kind of evil enemy, but a fellow Democrat.  Sometimes, I've been very frustrated with Clinton tactics, things that made me want to lash, and in some cases to actually lash out in anger.  But I've also always tried to refrain from the type of casual sexism (and the not-so-casual, bordering on vitriolic kind) that one often hears thrown around about powerful women.  

As much as I often regret the sort of "gotcha" PC atmospherics which surrounds our public discourse on matters relating to identity politics, I'm also quite aware of the utility of this line.  Yesterday on Talk of the Nation, Elizabeth Shipp eloquently made the point that open sexism is one of the last frontiers of public bigotry in this country (though, I'm quite sure that heterosexism ought to be included in that category as well).  One in five Kentucky and West Virginia voters notwithstanding, America has by and large become a place where--at least in mainstream public discourse--open racism is frowned upon.  We have a ways to go before we get there with sexism and heterosexism, I'm afraid.  

Geraldine Ferraro, the former Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate and fundraiser for Hillary Clinton gave the New York Times an interesting little tidbit over the weekend:  

Ms. Ferraro, who clashed with the Obama campaign about whether she made a racially offensive remark, said she might not [vote for Obama] either. "I think Obama was terribly sexist," she said.

A superdelegate and a party leader who says she might not vote for Obama come November.  How did we get here?  

Some West Virginians are racists.  Some people in my state, South Carolina, are racists.  There are racists in San Francisco and Racists in Burlington, Vermont.  

And some of those people are also Democrats.  Many of them did not and will not vote for Barack Obama.  Because they are racists.  

Hard to argue with that, right?  Well, Jerome's front-page threat diary suggests that you could get banned for saying it.  Maybe I will, who knows?  

Despite all of the negative energy in the air, especially in the past few months, I'm inclined to think that the long nomination contest has been a good thing for the Democratic Party.

Between the Obama and Clinton campaigns, Democrats have invested millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours in dozens of states across this Union.  I worked for Obama in South Carolina, and I know that so much of that time and effort is spent in voter identification and outreach.  I can only imagine that the Clinton campaign does the same.  

As a party, we haven't just been fighting with one another, we've been locating our supporters, door-by-door in States that almost never see the light of day in a Democratic primary  

What seems clear this morning is that no-one knows yet whether the recent gaffe (a beer lover, I like to call it the Extra Special Bitter gaffe)  will be the undoing of Obama's candidacy.  Right now there is only an unease that comes from uncertainty in the media outlets.

The irony is that these same media commenters will be the very people who decide whether it will hamstring Obama for the next few weeks. It exists as long as they choose to talk about it.   When they wonder aloud, "will this destroy Obama's chances?", they aren't really wondering.  But neither are they engaging in conspiratorial insinuation.  

It strikes me that they are trying a new narrative on for size.  Will it be a comfortable one?  How long will we enjoy talking about it?  In the new world of internets and 24-hour cable news, a campaign this long ceases to be (if it ever was) about any substantive coverage of the race, and instead becomes a frenzied search for new narratives.  One imagines reporters, desperate not to return to amber alerts and gas price stories, jumping for joy at the chance to write one more chapter in the ongoing saga.

In my previous diaries I've tried to strike an evenhanded tone of reconciliation, based on the belief that the differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, in the scheme of things, really quite small.  I still believe that, and I am increasingly confident in the ability of good Democrats to eventually come together, even after a hard-fought primary.  

There have been plenty of fine discussions here about substantive policy differences between the candidates.  As an Obama supporter, I am willing to concede that Hillary has a marginally more palatable health care plan (of course, neither plan is as satisfying as that mythical beast, the single-payer system).  

And we should not forget the useful non-policy discussions.  Excepting blatant lies and over-the-top ad hominem attacks, I'm pretty sanguine about what some might consider to be sideline issues (Jeremiah Wright or the Clinton tax returns) if, in our discussion of them, we can come to some fuller understanding of the prospective candidates.  But one trend, especially in the comments sections, is troubling to me.