Month: November 2008

From the New Yorker:

When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ”

Prop 8 has helped unearth the seething homophobia in much of black America. Even for a dandy, feminized midget like Prince. (Actually, black dandy, feminized midgets need to express more homophobia than most.) Joe vents:

The irony, it burns. The pop star who made his name on his effete, androgynous "Is he GAY or not?" persona – now he hates us. Here’s a guy who made zillions on some of the most deliciously filthy music in history (Head, Sexy Motherfucker, Erotic City, Darling Nikki) who now says that "people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever" were justifiably wiped out by God.

Ta-Nehisi points to a post by Steven Teles. I think Clinton at State is the best way to use her talents and neutralize her threat. And if it helps uncover some of her husband’s sleaze in the vetting, great.

A reminder. I wonder if Bill’s big donor shenanigans could actually prevent Hillary from getting to State.

Nate Silver doesn’t think Secretary of State makes sense for Clinton:

If Hillary Clinton’s goal is to become President of the United States in 2016, would she improve her odds by accepting the Secretary of State position?

My answer to this is a qualified ‘no’. If the Obama administration is perceived as successful, that will likely make Clinton’s road to the White House easier. But this is probably true whether or not she serves in Obama’s Cabinet.

If the Democratic brand is strong in 2016, Clinton will have little trouble riding that wave and presenting herself as a safe, trusted, capital-D Democrat (which is essentially her brand to begin with), almost no matter what she had spent her time doing.

On the other hand, it would probably be easier for Clinton to extricate herself from an unpopular Obama had she avoided serving in his Cabinet. This is particularly the case if Obama loses in 2012, in which case Democrats would inevitably want to go in a "new" direction in 2016. Clinton would find it easier to present herself as that alternative if, say, she served as Governor of New York, rather than as a member of Obama’s cabinet.

Dan Savage:

When political attacks are launched from churches, political responses will be delivered to churches. If goddamned McDonald’s had organized and paid for Prop 8, we’d be marching on goddamned McDonald’s.

I strongly support civility in this struggle. Religious services and practices should be scrupulously respected. But when a church, like the Mormon church, makes a concerted effort to enter the public square and strip a small minority of basic civil rights, it is simply preposterous for them then to argue that the Mormon church cannot be criticized and protested because they are a religion. I have never done anything – nor would I do anything – to impede or restrict the civil rights of Mormons. I respect their right to freedom of conscience and religion. In fact, it is one of my strongest convictions. But when they use their money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then they have started a war. And I am not a pacifist. I do not intend in any way to remove a single right from Mormons. I do intend to protest their imposition of their own religious dogma – that marriage is always between a man and a woman and it is eternal and will be replicated in heaven by the couple physically present – on civil rights protections vested in a civil constitution.

I should add that I dated a Mormon man for a few months a while back. What he told me about the LDS church’s psychological warfare on their gay members, the brutality and viciousness and intolerance with which they attack and hound and police the gay children of Mormon families, would make anyone shudder.

They hounded my ex for having HIV and for being gay. They followed him secretly, outed him to his family and persecuted him for his illness. When he was diagnosed with HIV at Brigham Young, he had to run out of the college clinic to escape those who wanted to sequester and punish him. He died a few years ago. Most of his Mormon family didn’t show up for his funeral. You want me to love these people? Let me say it’s my Christian duty to try.

The Mormons are not unique in this persecution of their own gay folk. My own church has recently capitulated to bigotry in its own hiring practices, even as the Vatican is run by so many psychologically scarred gay men. But the Mormons are particularly vicious homophobes. Gay people are rendered invisible, their personhood erased in this church. The cruelty the Mormon church inflicts on its gay members is matched only by the Mormons’ centuries-long demonization and hatred of black people. That African-Americans would seek common cause with a church that only recently still believed they were the product of Satan shows how profound homophobia can be. But this shared hatred can be exploited by the Hewitts and Romneys of this world. And what we have just witnessed is a trial run for much larger ambitions.

If we don’t resist this now, we will not be able to resist it later.

… and Buckley is fired, and Parker flees, and we are left with adolescent bilge from Kathryn-Jean Lopez and spittle-flecked postings from Mark Levin and Andy McCarthy and Mark Krikorian and Mark Steyn, it may indeed be time to call the era of National Review as a repository for intellectual debate over. Parker and Frum were about the only voices of skepticism on the insane Palin nomination.

Let’s be frank: the place is now a choir for a church. What matters is maintenance of dogma, not pursuit of ideas. The election year proved it beyond much doubt. When its editor can write embarrassments like this, it’s not an intellectual forum, it’s a fanzine. Some interesting people still write from what feels like a place of intellectual honesty: Manzi, Stuttaford, Derbyshire, Brookhiser, Ponnuru (on a good day). The rest is propaganda.

A reader writes:

Put it after the jump if you must.  But as a mother, it is cruel to subject me to such imagery that I purposely go out of my way to avoid seeing.  Much less cruel than that father’s suffering, I realize.  But I don’t need to see a picture to sympathize with the atrocities that are occurring.  And now you have rendered me completely unable to work – the rock wedged in my throat is too big, and I am weeping at my desk with supervisors passing by.

This blog does not protect its readers from reality. If it’s too much, I’m sorry, but there are other blogs to read. My job is to counter the cowardice of much of the MSM, not to replicate it.

A simple question. How much of the paltry $3.4 million that the Human Rights Campaign says they gave to No On 8 was from their normal funding, and how much from online donations? How much money did HRC siphon from Californians this year for its general funding? Why wasn’t all of it returned for Prop 8? I’d email HRC but, like the McCain-Palin campaign, they refuse to provide information to this blog or respond to my emails. Their view of the gay press – especially a blog with this many readers – is that they need to be kept at bay.

Chris Crain compiles a pretty comprehensive set of links to coverage of the day of protest against the anti-gay Mormon initiative in California. The Dish covered it extensively. If you missed it, just go here and scroll down for a view of the day from the ground up – from Montana to San Diego. It was a beautiful day.

Strange Maps overlays cotton production in 1860 with the 2008 presidential results.

(Hat tip: Bainbridge)