Earlier today, I learned via Instapundit that a Nation of Islam official served on the Illinois hate crimes commission. I could not imagine an elected official appointing an active member of that anti-gay, racist and anti-Semitic organization to such a commission. Not only did Governor Rod Blagojevich’s administration appoint this woman, but a few days ago, the Governor himself “expressed support for Claudette Marie Muhammad, director of community outreach for the Nation of Islam, a black Muslim group led by the Rev. Louis Farrakhan.” Blagojevich saw no reason to dismiss Ms. Muhammed although she had “recently invited commission members to attend a Farrakhan speech in which he accused ‘Hollywood Jews’ of ‘promoting lesbianism, homosexuality’ and other ‘filth.’”

The Malcontent‘s Robbie reports that this is the “top story in Chicago today.” So, given the prominence of this story and the fact that Ms. Muhammed is a member of an anti-gay organization, I was certain that such national gay groups as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) and Log Cabin would denounce the Illinois Governor and demand that he remove Ms. Muhammed from a commission whose work is central to their mission.

But, after I picked up my car from the dealership, I returned here and checked their websites, eager to read their strongly-worded statements, but could find no such statements on their websites — or via google searches. It didn’t make sense. I mean, a representative of an anti-gay group invites hate crimes commission members to a speech where a man whom a leftist blogger calls a “hate monger” preaches hate, lumping gay men and lesbian in with filth. (She didn’t invite them to investigate this man’s hate-filled rhetoric, but because she was a member of the speaker’s organization.) And the Governor expresses support for the woman who issued the invitation!

The gay groups should be rushing to condemn him — and her. It would seem they would want it on the evening news while they clamored for a commission to investigate how the Governor could have appointed such an official of a group which promotes hate to a commission which investigates it.

But, as I wondered at their silence, something occurred to me. Governor Blagojevich is a Democrat! And according to the gospel of HRC, NGLTF (and even occasionally Log Cabin), Democrats, by dint of their party affiliation, can’t possibly be anti-gay.

I mean, even though the Republican of Governor of California signed five pro-gay bills, HRC attacked him because he vetoed one which would mandate gay marriage in the Golden State. Meanwhile, that group failed to fault the Democratic Governor of the Old Dominion who, while joining his California Republican colleague in opposing gay marriage, departs from this good Republican (and his noble Connecticut Republican colleague) in also opposing state recognition of same-sex civil unions.

That a Governor would appoint a member of this anti-gay (and anti-Semitic) group to a state commission, particularly one on hate crimes, is troubling (to say the least). That the Governor would stand by her after she invites her colleague to a speech by a hate monger is appalling. That gay groups would remain silent while all this is going on is inexcusable. Given the political affiliation of the Governor, however, this is something we have come to expect from national gay organizations, even the one that calls itself Republican.

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

UPDATE: In his post on some of the twists and turns in the case, John Ruberry provides links to his previous posts on the topic. Check it out!

UP-UPDATE: While Log Cabin’s national office remains silent on this topic, Erik Linell, president of the Chicago chapter of Log Cabin writes to inform me that his chapter has asked Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to Remove Farrakhan Adviser from Hate Crime Panel. Linell say that the Governor is “wrong” and “needs to be held accountable” for failing to dismiss Ms. Muhammed:

He expects the LGBT vote and then makes such an insulting appointment. You can bet no Republican governor would ever get a free pass if they made an appointment of this nature. It makes a mockery of the fight against hatred and intolerance in Illinois.

Just as it was when I was involved in Log Cabin, it’s the local chapters doing all the work and standing up to Democrats. Kudos to Linell and his chapter!

In our class this week, “Archetypes in Cinema,” the professor assigned an article to help us understand the father archetype in films. But, as I read Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig’s, “Sinister Fathers–Healthy Children” (from his book, From the Wrong Side: A Paradoxical Approach to Pscychology), I occasionally felt I was reading about Bush-hatred. Here he seems to describe many afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome (B.D.S):

I have met many people who experienced only the loving father in the outer world. They were, therefore, never forced to grapple with the murderous side of the archetype in their environment or in themselves. These young people subsequently projected the destructive portion of the father archetype onto the world around them, using the smallest of hooks on which to hang their projections. Every mildly authoritarian or domineering male figure became a murderous inhuman father. Because they had not learned to deal with the destructive side of the father, they became existentially insecure when they met anything that even resembled it.

It would be interesting to study those evidencing symptoms of Bush-hatred to see if, as children, they experienced only positive images of the father for it is clear that many are projecting onto the president images of the destructive father. We see him depicted as a monster whose fangs drip with blood and akin to Adolf Hitler, the worst human monsters of the last century. His alienated adversaries describe him as a man who delights in destruction and who cheerily countenances cruelty while his policies mandate murder.

Such descriptions say little, if anything, about the president, but say a lot about those offering them — and about the demons which lurk in their imaginations.

UPDATE: Just corrected a sentence. In the original, a clause had read: “those evidencing symbols of Bush-hatred,” I had meant symptoms not symbols and have since corrected the text above.

Because of our political beliefs and unabashed love of America, Dan and I (and probably Nick and John, too) have been called many things here @ GayPatriot and before we launched this blog. A sample is the tired, old epithet: “Gay Republicans are like Jews working for the Nazis”…. you get the idea.

This knee-jerk, simpleton and ignorant attitude comes mostly from hard-core liberal gays who think with one mind and never depart from the Gay Party Line or the Leftist Mantra on any issue. I now have the pleasure to expose hypocritical these people are and how their true colors are quite easy to illustrate.

Thanks to one of our commenters, RightWingProf, for tipping me off to a very interesting exchange of postings between Tim Blair and Cathy Seipp.

Tim Blair picked up on a column Cathy wrote in the LA Times called “The fascists of free speech.” It is similar to the thought behind this posting I did earlier this week. It is a paradox that the charges leveled against President Bush and conservatives are actually committed by those complaining the loudest. Those who scream how Bush is quashing free speech are the very ones who are actually doing it.

Cathy’s money quote that Blair highlights is this:

But let’s also say that one of the great paradoxes of our time is that two groups most endangered by political Islam, gays and women, somehow still find ways to defend it.

Tim Blair adds this gem in his post:

A tip for pro-Islam leftists: when next you feel the need to defend political Islam, just imagine you’re defending anti-gay, anti-abortion, Darwin-opposing southern US creationists. You may be surprised at the change in your thinking.

Let me add a new thought to the dialogue…. before you toss out stupid bumper sticker-like insults and accusations that the Human Rights Campaign creates using your unaccountable money, look in the mirror and ask yourself how our community was better served when Democrats controlled Congress for 40 years and when a Democrat President implemented DADT and signed DOMA in the dark of night.

And how can any self-respecting gay or lesbian American be on any side of the War On Terror except on the side of those of us who want to defeat Islamic fascism that directly murders (not passes legislation against) gays and lesbians.

Paradox check, indeed!

PS — I love being called a picnic ant! ROFL!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Seven years ago, when I decided to move to LA to pursue a career as a screenwriter, I wanted to write (& sell) good scripts with gay characters as I believed (and still believe) that the best way to improve the lives of gay and lesbian people is to promote a more positive image of us. I had hoped to show that just like the overwhelmingly majority of Americans who seek intimate relationships with those of the opposite sex, those of us who seek intimacy with our own gender have similar longings (for affection, understanding and lifelong commitment) and suffer similar sorrows (when we cannot find love — or lose that love). But, as I watched movies and studied the box office, I realized that not many straight Americans would go to see a gay-themed movie regardless of the power of the story or the quality of the filmmaking.

While I continued to work on some gay scripts (completing one and now producing a lesbian-themed short while recently returning to a second (half-finished) gay romance), I have focused more on straight romances, while frequently bringing in a gay romantic subplot as the script’s “B” story. I just didn’t think studios would take a risk on gay-themed movies. And those that they did produce would only be released to a small number of theaters in a handful of cities. Thus, I was delighted when I read last year about the upcoming release of Brokeback Mountain. I hoped that a film helmed by a director as gifted as Ang Lee would prove me wrong and that a gay-themed movie would do well a the box office.

And while the film has done better at the box office (currently at $76 million) than any other film nominated this year for best picture, I, like Mickey Kaus, remain unconvinced that it has done as well in the heartland as some of its fans claim. While Michael Moore‘s movie topped $100 million at the box office in the summer of 2004, Byron York, in his book The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, found that the film “had done the vast bulk of its business in the usual blue state urban centers (and in … Canada).” Given the number of gay people I know who have seen Brokeback multiple times (and the stories I have read about others doing so across the country) as well as the reports I have heard (from friends and acquaintances) of sold-out (and near capacity) screenings in D.C., San Francisco, New York and L.A., it seems that this film is also appealing to a more urban crowd — and may not be experiencing as much crossover as the media has claimed.

(more…)

Perhaps the most frequent jokes about LA involve our car culture. I often point out that in LA, if you’re traveling some place that’s only one block away, it’s okay to walk, but if it’s any further, you’re pretty much expected to drive. We drive everywhere. I’ve even known people to drive 3 or 4 blocks (and have to admit that I have even driven to a Starbucks within walking distance (as defined by non-Angelenos) of my place). When my Dad was here recently, his hotel told him it was too far to walk to a restaurant that was fewer than four blocks away. Steve Martin makes delicious fun of this in his brilliant movie L.A. Story where his Harris K. Telemacher drives to his next door neighbor’s house.

So, it’s kind of an existential crisis in this town when something happens to your car. And today (Thursday), after returning from three days classes and setting off to run a whole mess of errands, my car, Mary Anne II (named for the great George Eliot) refused to start after I had stopped briefly at the ATM. The guy from AAA came soon enough, gave her a jump and she sounded good as new, but he thought that since she had started fine just moments before, I might want to have someone look at the battery.

Terribly nervous that Mary Anne would conk out in traffic as I drove to the dealership (where I needed to schedule some maintenance anyway), I imagined the nightmare if I couldn’t start her again right at some intersection. I could just hear the angry Angelenos cursing me, beeping their horns — or worse.

Well, I made it to the dealership and the estimate wasn’t as bad as I feared. As I waited for the guy from Enterprise to pick me up and looked over the list of errands I could not complete today, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed earlier. I had been in a decent parking lot when the car wouldn’t start; I could get the errands done on Friday (and over the weekend); the guy from AAA came quickly and told me that AAA would probably pay for a one-day car rental; the car didn’t die in traffic. And then, the battery “decided” to go out today instead of yesterday when I was driving a friend from school to the airport. Mary Anne held out long enough so that I could get him there on time to meet his flight and return home to his wife and kids.

Whenever something happens to our cars in LA, we always fear the worst because here we are so dependent on the automobile. And yet, it does seem that more often that not, even in such crises, things do work out in the end. Even when some moron decides to block traffic in a parking lot while he waits for a driver taking their time pulling out from a prime parking space — when the numskull could drive just 20 feet further (where there is ample parking) which would him require to walk a mere 12 extra paces to get to the store. Or when some ditz who has not activated her turn signal just stops in the middle of a busy intersection (right in front of you), waiting to make a turn (which you didn’t know about because she didn’t signal) and preventing you from profiting from the green light (because all of a sudden, all these cars that weren’t there previously just materialize in the right lane forcing you to wait ever longer). Had this airhead bothered to activate her turn signal when she was supposed to, you could have changed lanes and been well on your way. But, it was more important to talk to her friend Suzie on her cell phone about what shade of blue eyeshadow would make her look sensual but not slutty than to concern herself with others on the road.

I thought I was trying to end on a positive note, but then I ended up writing about driving in LA. Oh well. As Emily Litella used to say, “Never mind.”

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