Month: October 2009

And Scozzafava, blasted with negative publicity, falls into third. What would be worse for the GOP – a Hoffman or Owens victory?

Chris Dierkes, who has both Catholic and Anglican roots, notes an irony in the Pope's recent actions:

If personal experience and lifelong immersion in a sub-culture is any form of persuasive evidence, I can tell you that conservative Anglo-Catholicism — at the clerical level — is totally dominated by gay men.  Mostly repressed.  What used to be called when I was in seminary, the pink mafia.  And the thing that is the initial trigger for this decision is the upcoming very likely to happen decision to ordain women as bishops in the Church of England (there have already been women priests there for about 15 years or so).  Which has a certain irony in this case.  If these Anglo-Catholics join the Roman Communion they can join up with very conservative Roman Catholic groups like Regnum Christi and The Legionaries of Christ, also totally dominated by closeted gay fellows.  You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to see the awesome tragic humor in a bunch of non-wife-having grown men wearing pink dresses (and in the Pope’s case super expensive fabulous Prada shoes!!!) telling everybody else they shouldn’t be gay.

We're not supposed to talk about this aspect of the drama in the Vatican. But there is as much an overlap of closeted gay priests and bishops with liturgical and theological orthodoxy as there is of closeted gay politicians finding ways to oppress other gays who are out and open.

Part of this is a function of generations.

If you had based your life – and sacrificed much of your emotional health – on the "intrinsic disorder" theory, you aren't exactly happy to reverse yourself in your old age. It suggests you gave up your life for an intrinsic illogic. Part is also just mysterious. But the fact that gay men have a disproportionate talent for order and theater and detail seems pretty obvious to me. No surprise then that among the best liturgical organizers are gay men – from choirmasters to priests to altar assistants. There is something very gay about a High Mass – it's almost the religious equivalent of a Broadway musical. So Benedict's sisterly outreach to the closet case smells-and-bells brigade among the Anglicans makes total sense. It's partly about keeping all the queens under one roof – and surrounded by incense and lace. 

Weird, I know. But true. And I might as well admit it: I too love the old liturgies and ceremonies and drama of Catholicism. But for me, it's not sublimation but celebration of gay men's contribution to our churches. One day, we'll be able to offer our talents without having to sacrifice our integrity as human beings. One day, when all this fearful nonsense is blown away and the church can return to the Gospels and the sacraments, and gay people can be treated as, you know, the sinners that everyone else is as well.

(Hat tip: Drum)

"If somebody tells me they want me to pay an appearance fee, it tells me they’re not very serious about running for president,” – Ed Failor, Jr., Iowan GOP insider, on Palin's demand of $100,000 to speak at the The Iowa Family Policy Center banquet next month.

"I'm also pleased that the bill includes a public option offered in an exchange. As I've said throughout this process, a public option that competes with private insurers is the best way to ensure choice and competition that are so badly needed in today's market. And the House bill clearly meets two of the fundamental criteria I have set out: it is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit in the long term," – president Obama, today.

Is the Beltway consensus on Afghanistan shifting?

A reader writes:

While the new hate crimes bill may not be a deterrent in the short term, it will encourage victims to report the crimes–knowing that something might actually be done.  (Just wait to see the rise in reported cases).  Once more crimes are investigated and prosecuted, it could eventually raise awareness.

There was a time when young, black children were snatched off Southern streets and never heard from again.  Lynchings were all too commonplace.  But, enforcement of the Civil Rights act and subsequent laws against racially motivated hate crimes have been virtually eliminated what was once a too frequent scenario. It's easy to be cynical, but the law is a first step in the right direction; not to mention it is the first time "transgendered" has been included in federal legislation related to sexual orientation.

Another writes:

While I understand your philosophical objection to hate crime laws, this isn't purely about thought crime. NPR had a story this morning prominently mentioning some of the practical impacts of this legislation like federal resources for expensive forensics and prosecutions as well as improved crime statistics. Bringing hate crimes out of the closet matters too.

Another:

To paraphrase Dan Savage, it is true that hate crimes legislation will not create a force field around gay people and instantly provide them with new levels of protection from anti-gay violence. Hate crime legislation does, however, allow the federal government to provide resources to local governments as they investigate and prosecute hate crimes. In the Shepard case, prosecuting Matthew's two killers cost the county $150,000, forcing the county to furlough five employees (according to the Matthew Shepard Foundation's website). While hates crimes legislation would not have protected Matthew from the rage of his killers — nor would it have added more time to their prison sentences — it could have provided much-needed resources as Laramie struggled to deliver justice. I think this last point should not be dismissed so out of hand.

Another:

Hate crime laws: they're like when your mother buys you a Christmas present you can't stand and you have to say thank you anyway.

All I can say is that the Dish pledges to revisit this issue in a year's time – to assess the evidence that this law was more than mere symbolism. Given the vast amount of gay community resources and money that went into passing this – a decades' long effort – a little productivity check is in order.

The anti-gay forces in Maine are ramping up the “gay conspiracy to get your kids” angle in the latest wave of ads. The pro-gay forces continue on the high road. I hope this ends well. Both ads after the jump. They are, in a way, almost poignant examples of the politics of fear and the politics of hope:

North Bend, Washington, 11 am

In a rare and welcome sign that the WaPo editorial board is responsive to readers, Fred Hiatt's outfit published the following editorial last Saturday:

A reader recently challenged us to explain what he sees as a contradiction in our editorial positions. We support the goal of universal health care, but argue that President Obama must keep his pledge not to pay for it with borrowed money. We have also backed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's request for additional troops and other resources for Afghanistan — but without specifying how the reinforcements should be funded. Why is it okay to finance wars with debt, asks our reader, but not to pay for health care that way?

Good question, no? Here's their short version of the answer:

Wars end, and the spending for them tapers off; entitlement programs must be funded in perpetuity. Wars compel decisions, like the one now at hand; new entitlement programs can be phased in or delayed. And the nation's security must be the president's first priority.

But the war on terror has been defined as unending. And although the Cold War is over, American troops remain all over the globe, in vast numbers in Germany and South Korea, and still – remember! – in Iraq and now more and more in Afghanistan. The truth is: wars are for ever, or at least as for ever as any budgetary process can determine. And secondly, the question of whether a war is vital for national security is an open one in any particular case.

Just because a president says it's necessary – as Bush did with Iraq – doesn't make it so. Assume that, say, that the war in Afghanistan could prevent another 9/11 attack (I'm not sure exactly how, but bear with me). Such an attack killed 3,000 people. As Greenwald points out, plenty of studies find that as many or more people die each year in the US for lack of health insurance. Are deaths from terrorism somehow more of a problem than deaths from lack of healthcare? Especially when the federal government actually has a feasible plan for saving those lives but has no convincing plan for victory in Afghanistan, whatever victory might now mean?

I think the WaPo is right to insist that universal health insurance be budgeted so that taxes are either raised or other spending cut to accommodate it (unlike the last actual entitlement, the Republican Medicare Prescription Act). But it seems to me essential that warfare not continue to be treated as some kind of rare and one-off expenditure. An empire that is running an annual deficit of over $1 trillion cannot make decisions about national security without also assessing the economic and fiscal costs. The time for delegating this to deciders is surely over. And the time to give deference to mere mentions of the words "national security" is surely over as well.