Category: Old Dish

My take on the holy holiday wars.

Won’t want to miss this.

IN BELFAST: The one thing that has always united the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland – as is the case with many religious extremists – is hatred of gays. I remember during the UK tour for “Virtually Normal,” the first book to argue for marriage rights as the central cause for the gay movement, that I was on a TV show in Northern Ireland. It was the first ever network show on gay issues in Northern Ireland ever, I was told. I was beamed in remotely. They asked ten gay men and women to come to give their side of the story. Only three turned up. The rest were that scared of the social consequences. Yesterday, the first civil marriage took place in Britain for two lesbians. In Belfast. Gay sex was a criminal offense in Ulster as recently as 1982.

Now, Cheney and Rumsfeld have to dismiss Vladimir Bukovsky on the central matter of what torture does to a country. Thank God for McCain.

Marty Lederman has not stopped being vigilant. Here are three must-read posts on what’s good, the arguably bad and potentially ugly in the amendment. A lot depends on how the executive branch handles the new clarity. If you think all our problems have just been solved, read the posts.

I’ll be doing minimal blogging the next three weeks as I try and finish the book I’ve promised my editors at Harper Collins. Its provisional title is “The Conservative Soul.” I’ll check in every day but I’ll be sharing the blog with two of the best young right-of-center bloggers out there, Julian Sanchez of Reason magazine and its blog, “Hit ‘N Run,” and Ross Douthat of the Atlantic and The American Scene blog. They have carte blanche for whatever they want to write. The transition to Time.com should take place in mid-January. The next two weeks will also see a round-up of this past year’s award-winners. So don’t go away.

A fascinating exchange – here from Greg and here from Glenn, who seems to concede finally that he did indeed avoid a subject that needed urgent attention. Why? Because I irritated him. Oh, well. I wish I hadn’t, and my passion might have been misconstrued. I hope we can now draw this spat to a close, be glad that torture is now legally over, and argue again about how best to win the war we all want to succeed. Let me add that I have a lot of respect for Glenn, which is why I was so saddened by his treatment of this over the last year. But we agree on so much, I hope we can bury the hatchet on this and move forward.

“Re: the charge that you were “unspecific” on torture — you took an absolutist position (which I imagine even many of your supporters disagree with) against torture. That’s not unspecific. That’s as specific as you can get. If they mean unspecific as to your allegations, that’s also incorrect. You specifically referred them to specific government publications and other reports, and sometimes specifically excerpted from those reports.

Re: the charge that you were moralistic — I’d happily accept that one, Andrew. It’s to your credit that you were being moralistic about what’s a very moral issue on several different levels: the intrinsic immorality of torture (as Krauthammer also pointed out), the immorality of continuing to engage in a general pattern of behavior that most knowledgeable people (e.g. Sen. McCain) believe undermines both the national security and honor of the United States. Your antagonizers were in denial, and then blasé about it. You were moralistic, partly in response to their denigration and condescension. Now they’re cheering the result, which they did nothing to bring about and you did a lot to bring about. Please be proud, and get rip-roaring drunk this weekend if that’s your thing.”

A young black gay kid commits suicide at the age of thirteen. Like so many others, he had been psychologically and spiritually brutalized by his culture and his church and his society into a pit of self-doubt and despair. But now a friend rallies to his aid, and this poem, spoken aloud, is a cry for justice and compassion and truth. This despair is particularly deep among many African-American gay men and women – triply burdened – and still yearning to be free.

A case for lengthy wars.

THE BUYING OF INTELLECTUALS: This has to be a new nadir for the intellectual right.

The control-queen in the Vatican continues his harrassment of local churches who do not subject themselves to the full control of his acolytes. Excommunication is a major deal. And to do it over the question of controlling a parish’s finances?