The Dish

Pejman takes on the moral abdication of the Western left. On his own blog, he also has some useful tips on what to do to help.

A FUNDAMENTALIST WRITES: “I wish you would quit mischaracterizing the views of the Religious Right. It’s fine that you disagree with religious conservatives but you should be more honest in your assessment of their viewpoints and motives. Our opposition to many aspects of the homosexual agenda (marriage rights, etc.) is based on principle. Not fear, ignorance, hatred or even puritanism. We simply believe what the Bible (both Old and New Testament) has to say about homosexuality.” – more dissent on the Letters Page.

BIG SPENDING BUSH: Blogger Porphyrogenitus sticks the boot in.

If this Saddamite leads us to Saddam and/or WMDs, it’s a huge coup.

A charming column that actually reads fresh. I agree with all of it.

The latest tactic from the far right in opposition to gay marriage is that it will somehow destroy free speech. Huh? This is now David Frum’s gambit. All of these arguments rely upon the enforcement of oppressive hate crime laws. But the problem here is the hate crime law, not equal marriage rights! You should certainly be able to live in a country where marriage is available to gays and straights alike and in which some straights are perfectly free to express how repulsive they find the notion of homosexuals having legally protected relationships. I’m for equality and free speech. But the issues should not be conflated. Andrew Stuttaford also makes an obvious numerical point. Let’s say that the gay presence in the population is 3 percent. Let’s say that marriage will be half as likely for gays as straights. Out of 1000 marriages, around 15 are therefore likely to be same-sex. Of those fifteen, ten will probably be lesbian. What Stanley Kurtz is trying to argue is that 5 gay male marriages are more likely to affect the 995 other marriages than the other way round. To put it politely, this is highly implausible. The almost certain effect of same-sex marriage will be to mainstream gays, not radicalize straights. Only the truly paranoid could think otherwise. Yet Kurtz and others would actually doctor the U.S. Constitution to prevent this tiny conservative social reform from happening.

THE LIES OF MICHAEL MOORE: Even in Europe, they’re catching up with him.

It was good to see two stories intersect today: the president’s move to ban federal racial profiling in domestic policing and Canada’s decision to grant marriage rights to gays and straights alike. The reason they intersect is that they both affirm the same principle: that the government should treat its citizens as citizens, not as part of some ethnic or sexual group. The government should not treat blacks any differently than whites; and it should strain to treat gays exactly the same way as it treats straights. No special rights for anyone. Just equality under the civil law. Same principle again with regards to affirmative action. What, one wonders, has become of classical liberalism that this principle should still be so widely ignored or misunderstood?

AFTER CANADA, BRITAIN: The Canadian decision is indeed a watershed. I’m still elated about this breakthrough for civil equality. But it isn’t the end of the story. The Blair government is now accelerating plans for de facto marriage rights for gay citizens. They’re not calling it “marriage;” but the new unions will have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual marriage. Both Blair and Chretien are Christians, by the way. Like many other non-fundamentalists, they seem personally committed to extending governmental recognition of gay dignity and humanity. And until gay people are accorded civil recognition for their relationships, no such equal dignity can exist. How long will it take before this country – whose Constitution enshrines freedom and equality – follows suit? As the Canadian Justice Minister put it, “We’re talking about essential freedoms here.” Yes: an essential freedom. Some of us are still fighting for it.

Here are a few more Iran-centric blogs and sites I’ve checked out: Iranmania is good place to start for news. Iranvajahan is more explicitly connected with the democratic opposition. (For a personal view, check out Oubai Shahbandar, whose blog has the wonderful name “rightwingarab”.) While I’m at it, here’s a recent Wired story on the role blogs have played in Iran’s nascent democratic uprising. And for an update, this BBC story is inspiring. The Beeb has, in fact, been exemplary in its coverage so far – better than most American media sources. Here’s how they relay the views of one young female protestor:

“When the time is right we will all join. I can smell it in the air. This time is different. I despise Islam and the mullahs even though I am officially a Muslim now. I don’t have the right to change my religion in Iran. I despise the regime and so do 90 percent of the Iranians. All the people who elected Khatami despise the regime and they thought he’d bring change. We fight for a referendum conducted by the United Nations. The masses support the students and are waiting for the right time to make the final impact.” She said she agreed with US President George W Bush’s comments that the demonstrations were “the beginnings of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran”. “Even though we wish for change without the need for war we need your support by not negotiating with a dangerous regime,” she said.

Amen to that. Another score for the “axis of evil” clarity of George W. Bush.

LEAVE IRAN ALONE: “It is a fact, like it or not, that the world of Islam regards the West and its intentions with the deepest suspicion. With that in mind consider the following conversation I had with an Iranian colleague. We were talking about the events in Teheran and I was ‘boosting for Britain’ criticising the government for not doing more, saying we should do this we should do that, we should do the other. He looked me straight in the eye and said “Does it never occur to the West just to shut the f–k up? Afghanistan is still a mess, Iraq has is fallen apart and now you want to screw us over too.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Bob Kagan and Tim Ash duke it out on British television. GavinsBlog has the transcript.

NPR’S BLINDFOLD: Check out NPR’s ombudsman, Jeffrey Dworkin, with regard to claims of liberal bias:

“There are certainly those who object to what they perceive as liberal bias on the radio. That is something of a constant these days. But my own view is that NPR has been quite careful to present voices from both sides of issues. If anything,” he says, “we may have put more conservatives on in recent months. I think what some people are reacting to is that when the Clinton administration was in office, we put on critics of those policies. That is normal. But we were accused of being too conservative. Now, with conservatives are in power, when our reporting includes critics of the Bush administration, we’re accused of a liberal bias.”

What planet is this guy on?

“Sexual eccentricity raises difficult philosophical issues for conservatives. On the one hand…we all have friends whom we know to be, or suspect of being, sexually odd in one way or another, and we do not want to say or write things that would hurt their feelings. On the otherhand, conservatives remember what much of the rest of society has forgotten: that even the most private of acts can have dire public consequences, as witness the epidemic of bastardy that has ravaged the United States over the past 40 years, and also of course the AIDS plague, spread in this country mainly by promiscuous homosexual buggery.” – John Derbyshire, lamenting buggers and bastards, National Review, June 30 print issue.

THE NOOSE TIGHTENS: On British anti-war campaigner, George Galloway.

O’REILLY AND THE EU: What do they have in common? A loathing of free speech on the web.

Gay marriage arrives in Canada, as the federal government declines to appeal the Ontario Court ruling.

Andrew Wilson has some sober reflections on campy, gay seminarians; and how they ended up leading far more serious and godly lives than he.