Month: July 2004

“Great! Thank you to the theocrats and religious extremists who’ve shown that they’re great at dividing our party during an election year. What genius! I can just see them thinking this out: “Oh, we’ll force a vote on an intensely divisive issue, and make our party look like fools. This way to electoral success!!” Argh! If I didn’t know that Kerry would be a disaster against the Islamofascists, I’d seriously be reconsidering my vote right now. However, it looks like GWB will be getting a grudging vote from me, just like he did in 2000. Boy, and I had thought things had changed since then.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Rich Lowry objects to my use of the shorthand phrase, “Santorum theocrats and old-school conservativess.” Perhaps I should have been clearer about what I meant. By “old school,” I mean simply those who think the states should have primary responsibility for dealing with family law, that the federal Constitution should not be amended for social policy or electoral reasons, and that everyone – including gays – should be asked to live up to the same levels of responsibility in America. The Santorum wing, in contrast, is a relatively new one in conservatism. Its origins lie in the Dixie Democratic party and the Francoite conservatism embraced by Opus Dei founder, Monsignor Escriva. It beieves in the literal application of Biblical or Vatican views to the civil law of the United States – and amending the very Constitution to achieve this hardly troubles them at all. And yes, in my view, writing into the constitution a measure that would deny gay couples not just marriage rights but also domestic partnerships and civil unions is indecent. And using fear of homosexuals to galvanize a party base is indecent. And passing laws, as in Virginia, that try and take away even the right of private contract from homosexual couples is indecent. And tolerating outright bigotry, as Lowry does in his own online magazine by publishing John Derbyshire’s rants against gays, is also indecent. If that’s preachy, so be it. I’m not denying Lowry’s right to say or publish anything. I am eager and happy to defend his civil rights and First Amendment rights, and have often defended the right of individuals and groups to uphold private discrimination against gays and voice hate-speech without fear of the law. But I also believe that gay citizens should have equal rights as well. Lowry doesn’t. That’s the difference between us. I support his civil rights; he opposes mine.

Tim Perry has the goods: “ultra-ultra-ultra conservative.”

THE FMA COLLAPSES: Even I didn’t anticipate quite how humiliating the FMA debate would be for the religious right. They cannot agree on amendment language, they have managed to make the GOP look exclusionary and intolerant, and they look likely to lose by a big margin. Meanwhile, not only Lynne Cheney and John McCain have been standing up for conservative principle. Here’s Richard Epstein from CATO, making the obvious case; even the Wall Street Journal has balked at the Allard-Musgrave language; and the conservative Chicago Tribune has also come out against. Maybe the Rove strategy – to use fear of homosexuals as a rallying cry for his fundamentalist base – will pay dividends. But maybe the abject failure of this measure, the splits it has opened up among Republicans, and the way in which many leading figures in the party just cannot go along with the far right’s agenda, will only anger the religious right sufficiently to stay home in November. All I can say is that, from one perspective, that of the gay community, president Bush has done what no Democratic candidate has been able to do for a couple of decades: he has united the entire community around the Democrats. The effort by many of us to persuade gay voters to consider the Republicans, to give Bush a chance, has been rendered almost comically moot this fall. Bush won a quarter of gay votes in 2000. I wonder if he’ll even get a tenth of them this year. He deserves fewer.

Here’s Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blaming the terrorist violence against civilians in Iraq on … Americans and Israelis. “We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.” Try not to burst out laughing.

BLAIR ON THE BRINK: Johnny Freedland is a pretty good indicator of where the liberal chattering classes in London now are on the question of Tony Blair. Here’s the money quote from his column:

The plain truth is this: British troops went to kill and be killed last year on a false premise. We were told Saddam had WMD and he did not; we were told he was a threat to us and he was not. So far that act has brought no consequences on its perpetrators.
Those who made bad errors in shedding light on the act – at the BBC and the Daily Mirror – have paid for their errors. But for the act itself, there has been no punishment. This suggests a failure of our very system of governance: it allowed a government to go to war in defiance of its people and on a false pretext and get away with it. The system needs to prove that it can correct itself – and to do it soon.

The knives are out for Blair, but he remains Labour’s best electoral asset. My bet is that he will survive, but that, alas, is no longer certain.

He has a sense of what Iraqis want, according to Christopher Dickey. Top priority: order. I think it’s safe to say now that you’d be a fool to under-estimate the new Iraqi government.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “Many, if not most, Americans have reasoned that there is no overriding urgent need to act at this time. And they are right to do so. The legal definition of marriage has always been left to the states to decide, in accordance with the prevailing standards of their neighborhoods and communities. Certainly, that view has prevailed for many years in my party where we adhere to a rather stricter federalism than has always been the case in the prevailing views among our friends in the Democratic Party. Some fear that the decision in Massachusetts will ultimately result in the imposition of different views on marriage in communities where the traditional view of marriage is considered singular and sacred. But there really is insufficient reason presently to fear such a result.” – Senator John McCain, on the religious right’s Federal Marriage Amendment.

Here’s the latest bluster from the religious right as they face a potentially crippling defeat in the Senate on their anti-gay amendment:

Any senator of either party who votes against traditional marriage will be opposed for reelection by the Campaign for Working Families Political Action Committee. If a dozen or more Republican senators jump ship on this fundamental issue it will be a sad day for the Party of Lincoln and Reagan and it could go a long way to causing an electoral disaster for the party in November.

By “vote against traditional marriage,” he means vote against putting a ban on marriage for gays into the Constitution. His apparent inability to see the distinction is partly what got him into this mess. Others are getting paranoid. Here’s Senator Wayne Allard, using the kind of language often deployed when speaking of a despised minority:

“There is a master plan out there from those who want to destroy the institution of marriage to, first of all, begin to take this issue in a few select courts throughout this country at the state level.”

A “master plan?” By people who want to “destroy” the institution of marriage? Who on earth is he talking about? But few, as usual, come close to the hysteria of Senator Santorum. Again, listen to his description of those of us who fought for so long for equality in marriage:

“Marriage is hate. Marriage is a stain. Marriage is an evil thing. That’s what we hear.”

From whom? Certainly not from anyone I know of in the marriage movement. The only possible justification for his remarks is the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court’s description of an arbitrary bar against gays being a “stain” against the notion of equal rights in the Massachusetts constitution. But that is not the same as saying that marriage itself is somehow a stain or evil. Why do these people have to demonize and lie about their opponents? Because if they accurately described us, the hysteria and ignorance that fuel this amendment would be even plainer to see.

MBEKI AGAIN: Yes, it’s not crazy to worry about drug resistance using a monotherapy for HIV. But when you can reduce the chances of passing HIV from mother to child by fifty percent, and when other medications are not easily available, it makes no sense at all to keep nevaripine back. But that’s what the South African government is now doing. Their obtuseness in the face of a massive crisis keeps beggaring belief.

But pictures of priests having sex with each other and downloading child-porn is just a “childish prank.” The Vatican has no comment. But allowing committed gay couples to marry will cause the downfall of civilization.

The anti-Semitic attack on a woman in the Paris metro was a hoax. My apologies.

It could be worse.

“About a week ago I went to my in-laws house for dinner after work and was greeted with a petition. A petition to try and put the FMA into reality.
I told my mother-in-law that I could not sign their petition. She promptly says, “Oh, you’re one of those.” I don’t know if she meant a gay-backer or someone who doesn’t hold their wacky Christian views. I responded with “I cannot sign a petition that puts something discriminatory into the Constitution.”
She proceeded to tell me that whether I sign it or not it is going to pass. (Clearly I don’t think she pays attention to the news, but just the rhetoric of a few.) I said, “Well at least I’ll take pride in knowing that I had nothing to do with a horrible policy.”
Now I personally am indifferent if homosexuals or heterosexuals marry. I am married myself, but what one couple does is their choice and it won’t affect me either way. I have gay friends, I have worked with gays & lesbians, I have gone out with gays & lesbians, and funny… I’ve never felt like their life-style was being forced on me. Go figure, regular people…
I love my in-laws and they are truly good Christians. They help people, take care of people, all the things most Sunday-Christians DON’T DO, they do it 24×7. They are firm in their beliefs and it bothers the hell out of me that they can hold a discriminating view point. They don’t watch “Will and Grace” and turn up their nose to anything homosexual in nature, yet feel free to make gay jokes.
It really bothers me that people who live their lives in accordance with the teachings God and Jesus can’t see the flaw in what FMA means. These people also need to remember that when it comes to this great United States of America that our founding fathers, who were mostly Christian, did not want this country to become a religious nation, that is why they came here.
This may be a ‘nation of Christians,’ but not a ‘Christian Nation.’ Very different.” – More feedback on the Letters Page.