The Dish

A small but distinguished band of men and women joined me in Ptown for an hour this evening. The beagles came, rendering the vigil less than completely silent, but we made our quiet point. A constant stream of street traffic kept stopping to look, frown, gasp, and occasionally asking for information. Writer Michael Cunningham came; the artists Chet Jones and Denny Camino and photographer Norma Holt came. And then a few of us wandered up to the tea dance to remind the revelers that others aren’t so lucky. Below is a photo of a more boisterous rally in Vienna.

Here’s a scene from Moscow:

If you have other blog reports from the other 24 vigils, please send them to me with info. Meanwhile, the plight of gays in Iraq worsens.

Why the strange alliance endures.

Here’s what debate in a secular country has now come to:

"It’s part of God’s plan for the future of mankind," explained Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.).
Rep. Bob Beauprez (R- Colo.) also found "the very hand of God" at work. "We best not be messing with His plan."
Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) agreed that "it wasn’t our idea, it was God’s."
"I think God has spoken very clearly on this issue," said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a mustachioed gynecologist who served as one of the floor leaders yesterday. When somebody quarreled with this notion, Gingrey replied: "I refer the gentleman to the Holy Scriptures." …
Gingrey, the floor leader/gynecologist, posited that the debate was "about values and how this great country represents them to the world." After the vote, he elaborated: "This is probably the best message we can give to the Middle East in regards to the trouble we are having over there right now."

Target gays to appease Islamists? And people think I’m exaggerating when I write that large swathes of the GOP now fuse religion and politics as if there were no difference between the two.

Hugh Hewitt loses it today – against the treacherous bourgeois revisionists on the right. He urges that the Politburo have them in for a talking-to. He seems to believe that many conservatives’ dislike of massive spending, a huge increase in the welfare state, politicization of the Constitution, an untrammeled, often illegal executive branch, torture, and a spectacularly botched war is due to … being excluded from power-lunches! Oh, how I wish I could leave Ptown for a few minutes with Karl Rove. All would be forgiven. Then we get this Malkinesque flourish:

The front rank of the round-heeled commentariat are in a way far worse than the left’s pacifists or the Chomskyite America-haters.

So now reality-based conservatives are "in a way worse than Chomskyite America-haters"? Later on, Hewitt calls former war supporter Jon Chait a "blind pig." This is what he’s reduced to, when he isn’t ascribing my entire worldview to my sexual orientation.

Many of us are still committed to winning a war against Islamist terror. We just don’t believe we have to suspend all independent criticism of the administration as a price for doing so. And we also believe that anyone who retains exactly the same views on what to do in the Middle East today that he had three years ago has – how to put this politely? – stopped thinking. Have we learned nothing from the chaos in Iraq? Nothing from revelations from inside Pakistan and Afghanistan? Nothing from the shifts within Iran? Nothing from the Bush administration’s often-bizarre methods of policy-making? Nothing from the blowback from our abandonment of the Geneva Conventions? I’m still as philosophically opposed to Islamism and terror as ever. Today, I’m attending a small vigil to remind people of its evil. I don’t recall my "appeasement" of Islamism during the Danish cartoon affair, or during the vile attacks on London last year. My concern is with the manner of the administration’s conduct, the incompetence of its war-management, its refusal to correct itself until it is too late … and the appalling consequences of its arrogance and hubris in Iraq. If Hugh Hewitt thinks face-time with Karl Rove will persuade us from the evidence in front of our lying eyes, he’s projecting.

George molests Angela.

An open email from the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization:

With this letter and on behalf of the society of Iranian Homosexuals we declare our support for your act of protest on July 19 (28 of Tir) and wish you success.

Our dear Worldly Friends, 27 years passed from the Islamic revolution in Iran. It is 27 years now that the execution of homosexuals in Iran has been legal. It is 27 years now that women in Iran have been considered secondary citizens. It is 27 years now that the basic rights of students, workers, ethnic and religious minorities in Iran have been denied from them. It is 27 years now that in Iran oppositions and thinkers has been oppressed. For 27 years now the storm of censor has been affecting thinkers and intellectuals and our writers and journalists have been arrested, jailed or lost their right to publish their thoughts and ideas. Because of their ideas millions of Iranians left Iran and emigrate from their homeland. The Islamic Republic has isolated Iran and insulted our people‚Äôs intelligence, pride and honor. They have driven our country toward international crises, sanctions and war…

To our friends all over the world once more we send our support and appreciation for your protest on July 19th and we believe that freedom and democracy in Iran is achievable throughout efforts and struggles of the Iranian public and actions of different social groups. The Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization attempts to join its efforts with other social movements of the country in order to create a strong social right movement. We need your support and the support of all other groups and countries and we highly value all international supports.

We are honored by your attention to the human rights situation and the issues around ignorance of homosexuals by Iranian government. We will try our best to publish your message widely and we will join you by all means on July 19th even if it is only a symbolic act of lighting a candle next to our window. The hope for the better world will be always in our hearts.

Know hope.

"I watched in horror as [Nasrallah’s] maniacal speech unfolded in which Nasrallah actually threatened the Israelis with releasing chemical gas from local factories on civilians in Haifa. Despite fighting them for all those years, he clearly does not understand the Israelis’ psyche or the trauma of the Holocaust. A threat like that. The Israelis don’t like being caught in a quagmire any more than the next person, which is why Nasrallah could get them to leave southern Lebanon. But his victory appears to have given him megalomania, and he has now gone too far.

Hizbullah’s attacks on Israeli civilians are war crimes. The killing of the civilians in Haifa at the train station was a war crime. And threatening to release chemicals from factories on civilian populations is probably a war crime in itself, much less the doing of it.

Obviously, I do not accept that Hizbullah’s actions justify the wholesale indiscriminate destruction and slaughter in which the Israelis have been engaged against the Lebanese in general. But they do have every right to defend themselves against Nasrallah and his mad bombers," – Juan Cole, Monday.

It’s great to see the Advocate publish a truth-telling essay like this.

"He’s working it. He’s working it harder now," – a Ralph Reed campaign staffer on Reed’s future business operations after his humiliating defeat in Georgia.

More visual response to the bombardment can be found here.