The Dish

San Rafael, California, 3 pm.

Too many gay activists do stellar work fighting against anti-gay marriage amendments and laws. But they are too often crippled by self-censorship and, well, politics. Evan Wolfson, one of the heroes of today’s civil rights movement, expains why this is counter-productive here:

So far, too many of our state campaigns‚Äîboth the short-term election efforts and the longer-term public education work‚Äîfail to offer the voting public real content and an authentic engagement. Too often they have not used the airtime of an election battle to talk about gay people and marriage ‚Äî the two things these ballot measures are most about ‚Äî instead relying on generic appeals to fairness. Too many of our side’s campaigns have chosen to emphasize collateral effects on non-gay families, as if voters will really be persuaded that what the media will always refer to as "the marriage amendment" is somehow not about gay people’s freedom to marry. Worst of all, many campaigns and activists have gone with the message that people should vote the measure down simply because it is "unnecessary" or "goes too far." That subliminally suggests ‚Äî unintentionally, but in a way that is still damaging to our long-term movement ‚Äî that some discrimination is okay and that it would indeed be a problem if we really did have gay couples marrying.

We will not win until we are unafraid. I believe civil marriage for gay couples is moral, it is right, it is good for society – and anything less is immoral, wrong and bad for society as a whole. (My fundamental case is made in my 1995 book, "Virtually Normal.") Let us make this case – calmly, honestly, openly. And we will win – for one reason only. Because we are right.

"In a recent interview with Vice President Cheney, Time magazine asked, "If you had to take back any one thing you’d said about Iraq, what would it be?" Selecting from what one hopes is a very long list, Cheney replied: "I thought that the elections that we went through in ’05 would have had a bigger impact on the level of violence than they have … I thought we were over the hump in terms of violence. I think that was premature."

He thinks so? Clearly, and weirdly, he implies that the elections had some positive impact on the level of violence. Worse, in the full transcript of the interview posted online he said the big impact he expected from the elections "hasn’t happened yet." "Yet"? Doggedness can be admirable, but this is clinical," – George F. Will, the best conservative writer in America today.

(Photo: David Burnett for Time.)

A reader writes:

I’ll admit that I was growing wary of the constant book plugs on your blog. Then, for some reason this morning, as I was reading your site for the first of what will undoubtedly be many times today, the realization dawned on me that I’ve been missing an obvious point – it’s your blog. Post whatever the hell you want on it; your readers are none to complain. If I want straight-up news I’ll go to a news site. I come to you for analysis from your point of view, and right now that is heavily influenced by your thoughts from the book. So I say keep doing what you’re doing.

Well, to tell the truth, the real reason I keep plugging the book is that everything I am writing on my blog right now – and have written for six years – is better explained in the book. That’s why I wrote it. Many of the quick points I make on a blog beg lots of other questions. I’m not easily described as a ‘ conservative’ or ‘liberal’ or what-have-you in today’s climate and I get exhausted explaining myself in emails to readers. So I decided to sit down and actually write out my political and religious beliefs in as coherent and accessible a way as I could. I call these ideas "conservative" in the classical sense. But I’ve been stunned how many liberals I’ve met on the tour who have actually read the book say they agree with almost all of it. The times they are a-changing.

In other words: I’m about promoting the ideas I believe in, whatever label you want to put on them. I do this on the blog every day. But the book is a chance to go deeper, to go back to first principles and question them and explain where I’m coming from. I’m sure few will agree with all of it. But I sure hope they will better understand why and where they disagree or agree with it after reading it. I’ve written it in the same conversational tone as the blog, and although it’s about philosophy and, in part, theology, I’ve really done my best to make my case in the plain English I try and use here.

I don’t have much of a pecuniary interest in this. I’ve already gotten the advance. Most of the money will go to Harper Collins. But I want people to understand the points I’m making and they just cannot be fully elaborated in a blog post. So if this blog has prompted you to rethink your positions – political or religious – the book might do so in a deeper, more interesting way. Hence my plugs. Ideas matter. I really believe that. And today, ideas matter as much as they ever have. Hence my hope you’ll read it, and that it prompts you to more thoughts and we can continue that conversation and debate here as the days and months go by. You can buy it online here and here or in any major bookstore.

"’I am a Republican and have traditionally voted that way,’ Tony Schuler, an operations services manager at Microsoft with a Harvard M.B.A., said as he sat with his wife, Deanna, in their home above Lake Sammamish. But Mr. Schuler abhors what he sees as a new Republican habit of meddling in private affairs. ‘The Schiavo case. Tapping people without a warrant. Whether or not people are gay,’ he said. ‘Let people be free! It‚Äôs not government’s job to interfere with those things.’" – from the New York Times today.

American freedom and Bush-Rove Republicanism are increasingly at odds. Don’t let them intimidate you. If you’re a conservative who actually values the constitutional freedoms these people are stripping away, vote Democrat or abstain. If today’s GOP wins, they will take it as vindication for their authoritarian streak. And the path we have already embarked upon will only get darker.

Round II: the most recent one. Sorry for the mix-up. It’s been a long book tour.

"And let this always weigh down your feet like lead,
to make you move as slowly as a weary man,
to refrain from ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when you do not see …

because hasty opinion too often
points the wrong way and then affection
for one’s own opinion binds up the intellect."

Dante, Purgatorio XIII: 112-114, 118-120. He puts these words into the mouth of Thomas Aquinas, the thinker now purloined and abused by the theocons.

Here’s what i consider a basic moral value. You do not leave your children and grandchildren the debt that you have accrued to buy yourself a few votes. That is what this administration and Congress have done. The debt the next generation had to pay off – the unfunded future liabilities of the federal government – was $20 trillion in 2000. After four years of Bush Republicanism, it is $43 trillion. Bush won’t face the consequences. He never has. But he is immorally shunting the costs of his profligacy on the next generation. It is profoundly immoral and dishonest. Which is why values voters among Republicans and Democrats need to demand reform and honest debate about the real fiscal trade-offs we need to confront. The current GOP leadership won’t do that. Because they are immoral and corrupt. Which is why change in this election is essential. the longer we wait to deal with this, the more brutal the reckoning.

A fascinating exchange, if you missed it.

Laurie Anderson’s "O Superman." Its lyrics seems eerily prophetic twenty years before 9/11:

"This is the hand, the hand that takes/
Here come the planes/
They’re American planes. Made in America/
Smoking or non-smoking?/
And the voice said: ‘Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers/
From the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

And oddly appropriate for our time now, under this administration:

"When love is gone, there’s always Justice.
When Justice is gone there’s always force.
When force is gone, there’s always Mom."