When I first reported that “WASHINGTON BLADE” Executive Editor Chris Crain was bashed in Amsterdam, a number of readers commented that I had failed to indicate that the assailants were “Morroccan-looking.” One reader noted that the “Dutch problem with tolerance is not a Dutch problem…it is a Muslim problem.” It looks like he may be right.

Another reader just e-mailed me this article from the London Times which reports “a disturbing rise of gay-bashing, as conservative Islamic culture clashes with Dutch liberalism.” “[I]ncreasingly fearful of holding hands in public,” many gays are “moving to rural areas for safety.”

Even as such harassment increases, some, including a number of gay activists, dismiss the problem. The “TIMES” reports:

Gay campaigners are outraged that sensitivity about intolerance towards Muslims is blinding people to intolerance from Muslims. Scott Long, the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender programme at Human Rights Watch, the human rights group, caused outrage when he declared: “Gays often become the victims of this when immigrants retaliate for the inequalities they have to suffer.”

Mr Crain, who has been deluged with e-mails of support from Dutch citizens, thundered back: “Long’s ‘blame the society’ political correctness is a distraction from the very real cultural clashes happening in Holland and elsewhere.”

He’s right. We can’t excuse violent acts merely because they were perpetrated by minorities.

What a difference a week makes. Last weekend may have been “emotionally trying,” but this weekend makes me feel glad to be alive, even though I woke with a headache (coffee and Excedrin helped ease the pain) and even though the format of this radio talk show I was on did not allow me to present my ideas as I would have liked. Still, I had fun on Harrison’s show.

I took the day pretty easily, reading for class, checking blogs, tidying up a bit, then went out to a late afternoon barbecue hosted by a new friend (a man I met when dining with a blog-reader) and his partner. The food was great and the conversation was just as good. And no one called me names when I came out as a Republican, even though the guests were (as far as I could tell) all gay.

I regretted that I had to leave early for my radio appearance. While I had known Harrison before, I was not familiar with his program. I had assumed it would be like some of the conservative talk shows (albeit with a different angle) I have listened to, where the host asks pointed questions and then allows the guest to reply. If he was like Sean Hannity, he would cut me off before I could make my case and then repeat his talking points. If he was like Larry Elder, he would let me have my say and then tear apart my arguments.

Harrison was different, more an entertainer with a left-wing (he might say “progressive”) edge than a conversationalist. (At least on the air.) Oftentimes he would interrupt me with some sound effect, usually the chimes of a cash register.

Because they had billed me as a Log Cabin Republican, assuming that a Log Cabin Republican was merely a Republican who happened to be gay, I was able to distinguish Log Cabin from rank-and-file gay Republicans, noting that despite Log Cabin’s failure to endorse the president, an overwhelmingly majority of gay & lesbian Republicans voted for Mr. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, in last fall’s election.
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A liberal friend has invited me to appear on his radio show, Harrison on the Edge, tonight, SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2005 @ 8:15 PM on LA’s KTLK, AM 1150. Harrison’s a good guy and we have sparred before, so this should be a great show. Be sure to tune in.

My friend David Boaz has recently published an excellent piece on federalism where he contends that even though Republicans control both the White House and Congress, they

have forgotten their longstanding commitment to reduce federal power and intrusiveness and return many governmental functions to the states. Instead, they have taken to using their newfound power to impose their own ideas on the whole country.

David does an excellent job of outlining how present-day conservatives have ignored the Gipper’s commitment to federalism. I encourage you to read the whole thing. David sees this move away from federalism “most notoriously” in the proposal to amend the constitution to “ban gay marriage in all 50 states.” The president himself seems conflicted on the issue, at one time, backing this amendment, but later saying that civil unions “should be left up to the states”

I agree with the president on the latter point: let the states, through their elected legislatures and through the referendum process, decide on civil unions. We are already seeing a great variety of proposals to recognize gay unions from court-mandated marriage in Massachusetts, to the court-mandated legislative enactment of civil unions in Vermont, to legislative enactment (without judicial coercion) of civl unions in Connecticut and domestic partnerships in California. And now some conservatives in Oregon are considering “reciprocal benefits” for unmarried adults.
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In the wake of last fall’s election when no national gay group endorsed the victor of the presidential election, when voters in eleven states approved referenda defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, it would seem that gay leaders would be re-evaluating their organizations’ strategies. They would hold conferences to ask where they went wrong. Some leaders would resign, others would be fired. Fresh blood would be brought in. The new leaders would offer conciliatory gestures to the political party which strengthened its majority in our nation’s capital.

Yes, two gay leaders, GLAAD‘s John Garry and HRC‘s Cheryl Jacques have since left their jobs, but they left not because of policy differences, but for other reasons. It doesn’t seem that the elections of 2004 have changed anything for national gay organizations. Gay leaders continue to lash out at the president and the GOP. And they have not yet come up with a new strategy to present gay concerns to the American people.

Nothing manifests this more than NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman’s statement released this past week, included in the Task Force’s latest newsletter (which you can download here). He accuses those who say gay leaders need to take responsibility for last fall’s defeats as having a “blame-the-victim mentality.” Mr. Foreman got it exactly wrong. They’re not blaming the victim; they’re criticizing the strategy.

As Another Gay Republican put it so eloquently in his comment to my first post on Foreman’s letter, “Our political strategies, with minor exception, have failed spectacularly, and to say that we shouldn’t be re-evaluating those strategies and looking for ways to convice people of the rightness or morality of our cause seems outright stupid.” Exactly. Since initiatives that gay leaders opposed passed in a number of states last fall, those whom Mr. Foreman mocks are saying that gay leaders need to find new means to make their case.
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Democrats and their allies in the MSM are so eager for the minority party to keep filibustering the president’s judicial nominees that they have even misrepresented the views of a conservative jurist. Once again, CBS News is deceiving its viewers, using the filmmaking techniques of Michael Moore to edit its segment on judicial filibusters.

In the segment which aired Monday night, CBS made it appear that former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr was faulting the GOP’s effort to end the filibuster when he said, “This is a radical, radical departure from our history and from our traditions, and it amounts to an assault on the judicial branch of government.” But, in fact, Judge Starr said that he had addressed that comment “specifcially . . . to the practice of invoking judicial philosophy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience.” In other words, he was speaking out against the Democrats’ opposition to the presidents’ judicial appointees and not against Republican attempts to end the Democrats’ filibuster of them.

It doesn’t look like things have changed much at CBS since Dan Rather stepped down as anchor.

Hat tip: Powerline and Polipundit, both of whom believe that CBS should release the unedited video of the entire interview with Judge Starr. I agree.

Other bloggers weigh in here, here and here.

UPDATE: While Mickey Kaus is not so sure that CBS distorted Judge Starr’s remarks, Patterico disagrees. JustOneMinute offers his thoughts here. Hat tip (for the update): Instapundit.

In a post today on Powerline, Paul shoots down the Democratic argument that the reason the minority party has filibustered so many of the president’s judicial picks is due to the “president’s uncompromising approach to his appointments,” that they are blocking the confirmation only of “extremist” nominees. He noted that the president renominated two judges appointed by President Clinton (Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker) who had not been confirmed by the Republican Senate in that Democrat’s second term. And while Democrats joined Senate Republicans in confirming these appointees, they, from the first days of the Bush Administration, blocked many conservative appointees.

I can’t remember any of the first President Bush’s nominees whom President Clinton renominated when he took office in 1993. That’s because there were none. The current President Bush was the first president in history to re-nominate “a failed circuit-court nominee originally nominated by his predecessor from the other political party.” After a divisive election, he renominated those two Clinton appointees as an olive branch to Democrats.

But, as Bradford A. Berenson in a post on National Review’s new Bench Memos blog who writes

The Democrats took the olive branch the president extended and slapped him in the face with it. They immediately held hearings for, and confirmed, the two Democrats among the nominees and then held up the rest, refusing even to hold hearings for a long time on most of them. They then complained incessantly (and, for the most part, falsely) about not having been adequately consulted by the White House with regard to these nominations. And they executed the play suggested by Professor Tribe, Marcia Greenberger, and others at a Democratic strategy session on how to block Bush judicial nominations — a session held before the president had even taken office — when they scheduled hearings under Senator Schumer to try to legitimize the notion that judicial nominations could be blocked on ideological, rather than competence grounds.

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Is West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, quite possibly the most anti-gay member of the United States Senate, losing it? Check out the audio on Radioblogger. Once there, just click on byrdesther and judge for yourself.

Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

Because I once (as a favor to a friend) attended a fundraiser for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), I now regularly receive their e-mails. (If NGLTF is like HRC, they would consider me a member.) Yesterday, NGLTF sent out a Statement from its Executive Director, Matt Foreman (which appears in their Winter/Spring 2005 newsletter which you can download here).

What struck me about Foreman’s statement was not merely his angry tone, but also his claim that “it is not our job or burden to show straight people that we can be good neighbors, good parents, that gee whiz, we’re people too.” (The text in the newsletter differs slightly from that in the e-mail; I’m quoting from the newsletter.) He does want us to talk to straight people, but he seems to think that the burden of changing minds should fall onto sympathetic straights.

I disagree. It is very much our job to show straight people what kind of people we are. For one of the few times in history, gay and lesbian people are moving from the margins of society into the mainstream of society. And many well-meaning straight people don’t know yet what to make of us.

As we move into the mainstream, we must confront stereotypes which are usually wrong and often ugly. When I was involved in the Arlington (Virginia) GOP, I frequently encountered Republicans who claimed never to have talked to a gay person before. Many were surprised to learn that I sought the same things in life that they did, including a long-term monogamous relationship with one person.

Perhaps, it is too burdensome to Mr. Foreman, but the only way we can change the negative anti-gay attitudes is to make it our burden to show straight people that, by most measures, our lives are pretty much the same as theirs. If Mr. Foreman is loath to work to change societal attitudes towards gay people, what is he doing heading a gay advocacy organization?
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Because I’ve been a little under the weather today (suffering from a “summer cold”), I did not check the blog as often as I normally do. When I did check it this afternoon, I found, amidst the usual banter and sharp-tongued exchanges in the comments section, a number (of comments) containing sexual references. Because I welcome open debate, a free exchange of ideas, I am reluctant to delete comments, but realized that, for the sake of the blog, I needed to do so today.

Nearly all of those who comment, including some of my most severe critics, do not make such references and do not make ad hominem attacks. Thank you for keeping the debate civil. But, I ask those of you who have made sexual references in the past to please desist from doing so in the future. And to refrain from attacking others who comment. Not only do I have the power to delete comments, I also have the power to ban people from commenting. This blog has only banned one person because he repeatedly attacked others who comment. I hope I do not have to do so again.

A number of teenagers read this blog, some straight, others struggling with their sexual identity. Consider when you post, how your words will appear to that individual still shaping in his mind an image of gays. And consider as well the numerous straight conservatives who check this blog from time to time. Some of your comments might reinforce stereotypes they may have about gay people.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

With new allegations surfacing that he offered jobs to young men he met in Internet chat rooms, Spokane Mayor Jim West announced yesterday that “he is taking a leave from office to give himself a few weeks to gather his thoughts and prepare a defense against ‘false accusations leveled against me.”

The FBI is now investigating “allegations that Spokane Mayor Jim West abused his office by offering jobs to young men he hoped to entice into sexual relationships.” The Spokane City Attorney is also investigating “West’s internship program and his use of city computers for personal business.”

West has asked that people reserve judgment on him until (as he puts it) “the newspaper is done persecuting me” and after he has had “the fair opportunity to respond to each of the allegations.”
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In its Mission Statement, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) claims to be “America’s largest gay and lesbian organization.” Thus, many have turned to this D.C.-based group as the voice of the gay community. But, now that we know that HRC’s has inflated its membership, we need to ask, who, if anyone, really speaks for gays?

Ted at Charging Rhino is right that HRC’s new President Joe Solmonese needs to come clean and release an accurate tally of its membership. But no matter how big that number, we can now say for certain that while HRC speaks for a large number of gays, the very fact that it fudges its numbers indicates that its base is not as large as its leaders, present and past, would like it to be.

I don’t think anybody really speaks for all gays. We do not have a leader, nor do I think we need one, to whom a majority of gay and lesbian Americans turn to for inspiration, leadership and ideas. Yet, there are a variety of gay and lesbian individuals and groups to whom many of us look for these qualities. For some, it’s Larry Kramer. Andrew Sullivan has a substantial following. A number of us get inspiration from entertainers Ellen. While others turn to organizations, including HRC. A few even turn to Log Cabin.
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A few months ago, maybe a year, perhaps more, a college classmate e-mailed the gay and lesbian alumni of our alma mater about his Ph. D. dissertation, research on gay models and, as I recall, their effect on the coming out process. While I was delighted that he would be doing such important research, his topic struck a nerve. It reminded me of one of the greatest difficulties I had coming out.

In high school, I met a man whom I would later learn was gay. He was an arrogant self-centered man who looked down on heterosexual couples and even belittled gay men not as “cultured” as he. He did not take advantage of me sexually, yet his very presence in my life complicated the coming-out process.

This man came to mind this weekend when, on Saturday morning, instead of facing some difficult emotions I alluded to below, I attempted to escape them. Finally, I pulled myself together in the evening and ended up, on the invitation of an acquaintance, going to Trunks, a gay bar in the heart of West Hollywood.

I’m not one to frequent gay bars (or any bars for that matter). Often I claim it’s the loud music and the attitude of many of the patrons. But, I wondered Saturday night, if I have often avoided bars because, when I was in my early 20s, that man, the only older gay man I then knew, scoffed at the mere mention of gay bars. He had never been to one; he didn’t much care for the “types” who went there.
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Two readers e-mailed me this morning to note this post and this “WASHINGTON BLADE” article) pointing out that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has fudged its membership numbers. HRC has claimed that its membership shot up from 20,000 in 1990 to 650,000 today. But, according to “THE BLADE,” that’s because

HRC membership numbers include the name of every person who has ever once given at least the minimum amount — currently $1 — and provided an address, said spokesperson Steven Fisher this week.

“The GLBT movement is unique. When we come out of the closet, we commit for life,” said Fisher, defending the membership count.

“We’re an advocacy organization and our intent is to be inclusive of everyone and never let our members go uncounted or be invisible,” he said.

Give me a break, Steven. You’re including far more than is your due. Just because someone comes out of the closet and joins an advocacy organization doesn’t mean that individual continues to support the advocacy organization even if he or she becomes increasingly open about his or her sexuality.

I joined Log Cabin in the 1990s, yet left when I no longer felt the organization spoke for me. Under HRC’s “inclusive” standard, LCR would still claim me as a member.
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While there have been many positive developments coming from 24-hour news networks and the blogopshere, there have also been a few negatives as well. Perhaps the worst is the tendency for the media, particularly the TV news networks, to “swarm” on any allegation of wrongdoing by a celebrity or political figure. Such swarms have existed since the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle. In the early 1980s (just as Ted Turner was launching CNN), the news media breathlessly reported allegations of corruption against President Reagan’s first Secretary of Labor, Raymond J. Donovan. After he was acquitted of all charges, Donovan famously quipped, “Where do I go to get my reputation back?”

It is recalling his history, a good man besmirched by reports by media reports of his corruption, that I initially approached the story of Spokane’s Mayor. Since writing my initial post, I have followed the comments (frequently interjecting my thoughts) on Friday and Sunday evening, read a good deal more about the story on the web. As I’ve considered the allegations, I knew that when I first blogged on this, I did the right thing by bolding and italicizing the word, “But,” to distinguish “normal circumstances” from this one.

Given Secretary Donovan’s experience, I’m wary of jumping to conclusions. We shouldn’t condemn someone merely because he exercised very bad judgment. But, as I pondered the fact that more than one man has alleged that Mayor West molested them when they were minors, I heard a line of Colonel Pickering’s (Wilfred Hyde-White) from “MY FAIR LADY” in my head, “I fear you’ve picked a poor example.” If these charges are true, then this story is indeed a poor example of the case against “outing.” Because then it would no longer a question of alleged hypocrisy, but of one of criminality.
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I had an emotionally very trying weekend (hence the light blogging). If I could find a way to write about it without appearing as a victim, but instead as a single person, like so many singles, who occasionally experience emotionally trying times, I just might have something to say about it here.

On the bright side, I did discover a gay bar in the heart of West Hollywood where guys actually had conversations and even smiled.

The “SPOKESMAN-REVIEW,” the paper of record in Spokane, Washington, has broken a story that the city’s Republican Mayor Jim West has a secret gay life, chatting with 17- and 18-year-old boys on line–and with a “forensic computer expert” posing as a teenager.

I don’t have time right now to detail all that the “SPOKESMAN-REVIEW” has reported. You can access the full package of their stories here. They mayor said, “My private life is my private life.” I agree with the statment. I believe a person’s private life should remain private.

Under normal circumstances, I would wonder why a city’s main paper has put as much effort as the “SPOKESMAN-REVIEW” has on a story like this. The mayor claims there is a “strong wall between my public life and my private life.” As long as he maintains that wall, it isn’t the public’s business to know about his online conversations as long as they are on a private computer on his own time.

But, it appears that, in all this reporting, there may be two newsworthy issues, one of concern to the citizens of Spokane and the other for criminal prosecutors.

The first, for the citizens of Spokane who elected him in 2003, is whether or not the mayor used city computers or city time to access gay chat sites.

The second issue for criminal prosecutors is whether or not he was involved (as has been alleged) in child molestation in the 1970s. If so, he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. West has denied the allegations. He should also be prosecuted if he used Internet chatrooms to solicit sex with minors.

Otherwise, this is a story of a man’s private life and should thus remain private.

There are evil people even in the most tolerant societies. A reader e-mailed me this post where Washington Blade Executive Editor Chris Crain tells how he was bashed in Amsterdam, “arguably the “gay-friendliest” place on the planet.

When Chris and his boyfriend were walking through central Amsterdam, a man spat in the face. He turned around and asked him why. Punches flew and before he knew it, seven men were kicking and punching him. While he got some nasty bruises, he suffered no broken bones. He wrote, “Standing up for yourself can have consequences, but not standing up for yourself can, too.” He concludes his post:

we all know that we cannot legislate away the hate some people feel about us for openly and honestly living our lives. For as long as I live, I will never forget the looks on the faces of our attackers. What I saw was more disgust than hate, but it was there, and it was chilling.

I hope our gay friends in Holland realize that it’s a bit too soon to declare victory and go home, now that they’ve won their legal battles. Winning the hearts and minds of the people will be a much more challenging task.

Read the whole thing and join me in wishing Chris a speedy recovery from the injuries he suffered.

As I am busy writing two papers this week for my program in Mythological Studies, I expect blogging to be light. I may offer some comments from the paper from my Ritual class–where I am studying homosexual initiation rituals in Melanesia (New Guinea and surrounding islands).

But, I do have some thoughts on the battle brewing in Oregon over civil unions. While the Oregon Senate considers a bill, sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats, creating civil unions, conservative Republicans in the House are preparing an alternative which would offer certain “reciprocal benefits” to two unmarried adults. Such benefits include

preferential hospital visitation privileges, protection from eviction from a shared home upon the death of a partner, the right to inherit a deceased partner’s assets if a will was not drawn up, and the right to make medical and end-of-life decisions on a partner’s behalf.

To be sure, offering only such benefits falls far short of recognizing same-sex unions. But, they mean that gay couples in the Beaver State would gain privileges that they currently lack in all but three states. It seems that even the worst case scenario is a big step in the right direction.

Those Oregon conservatives who won’t recognize our unions are at least willing to offer them some benefits. This could become a model for other states where there is strong opposition to civil unions. Let’s keep our eyes on Oregon.