(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Rob Anderson at The New Republic has a must-read column on the hypocrisy and silence of the American gay “establishment.” Many of these points have been echoed at this site ad nauseum.

How America’s Gay Rights Establishment Is Failing Gay Iranians: The Quiet Americans – The New Republic Online

When it comes to the oppression of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries, gay activism hasn’t died; it never really existed. Gay activists have used two types of excuses to justify their failure to aggressively mobilize for the rights of gay Muslims–moral and strategic. The moral argument is that Americans are in no position to criticize Iranians on human rights–that it would be wrong to campaign too loudly against Iranian abuses when the United States has so many problems of its own. Then, there are two strategic rationales: that it is better to work behind the scenes to bring about change in Iran; and that gay rights groups should conserve their resources for domestic battles.

The strategic rationales are not especially compelling, but it is the moral argument that is particularly troubling, because it suggests that some gay and lesbian leaders feel more allegiance to the relativism of the contemporary left than they do to the universality of their own cause. Activists are more than willing to condemn the homophobic leaders of the Christian right for campaigning against gay marriage; but they are weary of condemning Islamist regimes that execute citizens for being gay. Something has gone terribly awry.

But gay activists need to come to a consensus sooner rather than later because, while they argue, Iranian lives are on the line. For now, mainstream gay organizations have made clear where they stand. As President Ahmadinejad, a man who is partially responsible for these brutalities, passed through New York last month, gay activists failed to confront him. Now he has returned to Iran, where those who are proven to be gay are thrown in jail, tortured, and executed on trumped-up charges. When it comes to the Muslim world, gay and lesbian leaders are evidently uncomfortable talking in moral absolutes. But if this is not absolute evil, then what is?

The problem for the American gay community is that our “establishment” no longer recognizes right from wrong. Only Red from Blue. And we know where their allegiance, money and time goes. It is not on behalf of moral absolutism, but political hackery.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): Now in his new perch at Malcontent, my buddy Robbie looks into this matter. Noting how Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Program at the Human Rights Watch, excused Muslims for gay bashing in Holland, he wonders:

If a gay couple had been assaulted by poor, Christian evangelicals in Alabama, I highly, highly suspect Mr. Long would not be waxing sympathetic about the effects of poverty or single motherhood. I am reasonably certain his condemnation would have been swift and furious, and rightfully so. Instead we are treated to an apologia, brazen excuses, and a reluctance to condemn the Religion of Peace.

Now, that I’ve whet your appetite, read the whole thing!

(Hat tip: The Malcontent)

David Crary of the Associated Press has done a story about the “outing” of public figures.

NEW YORK (Oct. 4) – Though decried by many gay-rights leaders, “outing” – the practice of exposing secretly gay public figures – is expanding into new terrain as Internet bloggers target congressional staffers, political strategists, even black clergy whose sermons and speeches contain anti-gay rhetoric.

Few issues are as divisive within the gay community. Numerous gay organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign and the Log Cabin Republicans, staunchly oppose outing, yet many other activists support it when the targets are public figures – or their aides – who work against gay rights or condemn homosexuality.

Malcontent points out there is a survey associated with this story where you can make your opinion known on the subject.

Full Article and Vote Here!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

(Hat tip: The Political Teen)

Just a reminder that we are indeed in a world war against a political movement that declared war on America many years ago. And what is at stake. Some of us have forgotten. The terrorist political movement has not.

The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our War on Terror.

Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 — and al Qaeda attacked us anyway. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan.

The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers. They have been sheltered by authoritarian regimes, allies of convenience like Syria and Iran, that share the goal of hurting America and moderate Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West and America, and on the Jews. These radicals depend on front operations, such as corrupted charities, which direct money to terrorist activity.

I would ask you to consider if the American news media and elements of the Democratic Party are part of the “helpers and enablers.”

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent. Zarqawi has said that Americans are, quote, “the most cowardly of God’s creatures.” But let’s be clear: It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque. It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people. It is courage that keeps an untiring vigil against the enemies of a rising democracy. And it is courage in the cause of freedom that once again will destroy the enemies of freedom.

The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we’ve ever faced. They’re unconstrained by any notion of our common humanity, or by the rules of warfare. No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead, nor should they overlook the advantages we bring to this fight.

Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self- defeating pessimism. It is not justified. With every random bombing and with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters — they are murderers at war with the Iraqi people, themselves.

Full video here.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

To read the full text of the President’s speech…. click here… (more…)

While the blog celebrated its first blogiversary over a month ago, today marks my blogiversary. Shortly after I e-mailed Bruce (whom I then only knew as “GayPatriot) to praise him for telling Log Cabin to stick it (for withholding its endorsement of the president in last fall’s campaign), we exchanged e-mails and soon he invited me on board.

Bruce, I am grateful for the opportunity you gave me to share my thoughts with your audience, pretty substantial even back then for a blog so young.

Since then, we have gotten to know each other and frequently found it uncanny how similar our thoughts are on certain issues. And I met Bruce and his Partner John last fall when they were in LA. We made a pilgrimage to one of the most sacred spots in Southern California–the Reagan Library.

I am also grateful to those of you who read us regularly and those who comment, particularly those who take the time to express their disagreement in a civil manner. While I know (and regret) that some critics misrepresent our ideas and call us (and our supporters names), I appreciate those like Patrick who help further the kind of debate, I believe, a blog should promote.

As I am busy writing two papers and engaging in introspection appropriate to the Days of Awe, I will not be able to post much in the next few days. I’ll try to dash off a thought or two. So, as I did when I celebrated my six-month blogiversary, I reference my “virgin post” and quote again the words of the great Albert Camus with which I entered the blogosphere:

Something in us has been destroyed by the spectacle of the years just past. And this something is the eternal confidence of man, which has always made him believe that one could draw human reactions from another man by speaking to him in the language of humanity. We have seen lying, debasing, killing, deportations, torture, and each time it was not possible to persuade those who were doing it not to do it, because they were so sure of themselves and because one cannot persuade an abstraction, that is to say, the representative of an ideology.

The long conversation of mankind has just ended. And, of course, a man whom one cannot persuade is a man who frightens us….

We live in terror because persuasion is no longer possible, because man has been delivered entirely to history and because he can no longer turn to that part of himself, as true as the historical part, which he discovers in front of the beauty of the world and of human faces…

“The Century of Fear” from Combat, November 1946 (my translation). If I have a personal motto as a blogger, it is those words.

I seek always to remain open to persuasion and to keep open as well that long conversation which too many, on both sides of the political aisle, would rather keep closed.

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