The Patriotism Card

Bill Kristol doesn’t waste time in using it. Yes, there’s an artful attempt to explain that he’s actually talking about Obama’s self-regard. But I’d actually forgotten about the Obama flag lapel story. That’s the brute politics Kristol knows beneath the urbane exterior; and when your main task is defending the occupation of a Middle Eastern country for the next century, it’s a diversion worth trying, at least. Meanwhile, the AP does a story on Obama’s "patriotism" question and CNN delivers a Clintonian push-poll. I’m actually fine with this. The only way to overcome this kind of politics is to endure and transcend it. If we want to say "goodbye to all that," you need to say hello to it for a while.

Face Of The Day

Griffincategillongetty

Ben Griffin, a former SAS soldier, attends a press conference to speak out on rendition, on February 25, 2008 in London, England. Griffin claims that individuals detained by UK special forces, who were handed over to Americans, would have been tortured. It was revealed last week that two US rendition flights had landed in the UK territory of Diego Garcia in 2002. By Cate Gillon/Getty Images.

Gays And Social Conservatism

The entire point of today’s "social conservatism" with respect to gay people is not to encourage responsibility, fidelity, marriage or love among gay people; it is to tell gay people to marry straight people and suppress or "cure" their sexual orientation. In fact, do yourself a favor and see if you know any social conservatives who actually favor social conservatism for the three percent or so of humanity that is gay. It’s a useful test, no?

And, of course, we know the actual consequence of such policies: they undermine and destroy family life. Here’s one story of a woman who realized she had married a gay man eleven years previously:

There are so many obvious questions for a wife like me: Didn’t I realize he was gay? Did I ignore red flags? And if I had suspicions, why didn’t I confront him earlier or divorce him?

I suppose I was always suspicious, but I was in denial. Early in our relationship, Chris told me he’d had homosexual experiences as a teenager but assured me it was youthful curiosity. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with being gay — I have an openly gay cousin. And I didn’t care what went on behind others’ closed doors. But I also didn’t believe that a gay man would ever be attracted to a straight woman, and I was naive — too naive to see why a homosexual man would marry and spend years lying to his wife, his friends, his family and himself.

It’s time to realize that social conservatives who oppose equality in marriage, who defend the closet, and whose main response to emerging gay identity is to block its integration into the family are actually fostering divorce, disease, distrust and social disintegration. If it’s not merely driven by bigotry and discomfort, why?