A great new David Zucker ad hammering the Democrats on taxes.   Does anyone know if these ads are actually running on television somewhere?   This man is my hero!

While we are on the subject, I’m not sure we can afford 3,000 more dead Americans to sacrifice for the Democrats to control Congress either.   But hey, that’s just me talking in a time of war — a war one American political party refuses to fight.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Speculation is rampant that retiring NJ Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Poritz will deliver a pre-Election day present to the GOP New Jersey’s gays and lesbians by issuing an order instituting court-mandated gay marriage to the Garden State.

Keep your eye on this website at 3pm today.

But “The Pot” (at The Pot and The Kettle) says not so fast!  Rumors around Trenton say Poritz ain’t got the votes.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This is a reprint of an email that I sent last evening to Patrick Sammon, Executive VP at Log Cabin Republicans (and Man In Charge there right now)….

Patrick-

It would be nice — just for a change, and perhaps to humor me — that the organization that supposedly represents me as a gay Republican would forcefully take on the Human Rights Campaign for their disgusting role in the Congressional scandal that has created such a bad environment for gay Americans.

First, there are undisputed HRC ties to the attempts to forcibly “out” gay Republicans on Capitol Hill. (http://gaypatriot.net/2006/10/05/human-rights-campaign-involved-in-gay-gop-witchhunt)

And now there is clear evidence that someone at HRC was sitting on the Mark Foley emails and potentially putting children at risk just for political gain.

(http://gaypatriot.net/2006/10/24/solmonese-must-address-evidence-hrc-is-behind-bogus-blog)

Please help Log Cabin finally grow a backbone and stand up against the slimy anti-American political tactics of the Gay Left! This is your Sister Soulja moment, Patrick!

Log Cabin Republicans cannot stay loyal to the HRC when they are clearly stabbing their own membership in the back for the sin of merely having differing political and moral beliefs than the HRC board.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Since Joe Solmonese was appointed executive director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) last year, we have been critical of his selection and of his leadership. He came from EMILY’s List, a partisan Democratic organization. At HRC, he has been quick to criticize the Bush Administration & the GOP and eager to ally himself with left-wing groups*, many of which have partisan Democratic agendae, few of which are active in promoting pro-gay policies.

HRC’s very selection process ensured that the organization’s new leader would be a Democratic partisan. In the aftermath of an election in which approximately one in four gay and lesbian Americans voted to reelect a Republican president, HRC included only one Republican on its 24-member committee to pick its new leader. And that ostensible Republican only gave money to Democratic candidates.

Under Solmonese’s leadership, the group removed the word “bipartisan” from its Mission Statement and removed a press release entitled, “Alito’s Gay Support Raises Hope.” While the release still shows up when one searches HRC’s web-site for Alito, when you click on the title of that press release you get this message: “HTTP/1.1 404 Object Not Found.”

Despite evidence that the President’s then-nominee for the Supreme Court, current Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr, was broad-minded on gay issues, HRC, likely removed its favorable release when they joined a chorus of liberal groups opposing his confirmation. His pro-gay statements and attitudes mattered less to this gay rights’ organization than his conservative judicial philosophy. (I have a copy of the release in my files.)

And now one blogger has uncovered evidence that suggests HRC may be behind a web-site, StopSexPredators.com, that attempted to capitalize on the Foley scandal. On Saturday, reader Brit noted a link in Ace’s blog to a new blog Stop October Surprises which traced the anti-Foley blog to HRC.

Despite Joe Solmonese’s liberal record, there is no evidence linking him to the blog. Still, there is some pretty substantial evidence suggesting that HRC’s employees have been involved in a dirty political campaign designed to hurt the GOP. Many on the gay left are up in arms that closeted gay people are working for conservative Republicans. Now, it seems that some on the gay left are behind a closet attempt to hurt the GOP. And so far, gay organizations have been silent.

As head of HRC, Joe Solmonese must order an immediate investigation to find who was using its ISP on behalf of the bogus blog. If it turns out they were employees of his organization, he must fire them.

HRC has every right to pursue a left-wing agenda. But, it should refrain from such underhanded political tricks. That is why Joe Solmonese needs to address the evidence that someone is using his group’s ISP to set up a bogus blog. He needs to make clear that he disapproves of such underhanded tactics, even when they’re used against his political adversaries.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

* via The Malcontent‘s Robbie.

A couple times over the past few days I’ve had what seems to be a recurring discussion with many of my contemporaries (the gay ones, not the military ones) about Iraq. The usual dialog goes kind of like this:

The Other Fag: Dude, we’re failing miserably in Iraq.
ColoradoPatriot: Oh? How so?
TOF: Are you kidding? All the bombings, all the death and destruction. The insurgency.
CP: You know that, by historical standards, that’s not really true. And also, when you think about it, the war’s only been going on for a few years. It’s probably a little too soon to say we’re “losing”, don’t you think? So if we’re failing, what’s your definition of “victory”?
TOF: Well, we should never have gone in there in the first place. WMD, bla bla bla, Bush LIED!, 9/11, yadda yadda, scare-tactics, etc., etc.
CP: (Silence, and a look of puzzlement.)

What’s going on in my head as I stare blankly is, “If you think we should have never gone there in the first place, why the hell should I give a rat’s ass what you think of our ‘victory’ or ‘failure’? Seems you’d never be satisfied with any outcome, you know, since we’re, um, there and all.”

These folks have no solution for “winning” the war, because their vision of “winning” is so drastically different from reality. As far as they’re concerned, simply our being there is a failure. From their perspective, there can be no winning because their view of victory (us never having been there) is simply unattainable. I call these people Time-Machine Strategists. Their best hope for success in Iraq (as they see it) is to invent a time-machine, go back to 2003, and never have gone in in the first place. This is not a strategy, it’s a science-fiction novel premise. Whatever we may see as victory, they never will.

It’s not that, as some say, they’re seeking our defeat. It’s just that they have a completely different definition of success…one that just so happens to be completely impossible.

We can talk about schools being built and people going to work and hundreds of newspapers and internet cafes. We can talk about progress with infrastructure, politics, and self-policing. All of this falls on deaf ears.

It reminds me of my new favorite online cartoon: “How Superman Should Have Ended“…Basking in the glow of his most recent victory over Lex Luthor, the Man of Steel is chatting it up with his buddy Batman in a coffeeshop. The Caped Crusader is going on about how he‘d have handled the situation, using tools on his ubiquitous utility belt. Not even realizing how outdone he is by Superman, he lays out how he’d have done it just as well. Annoyed, Kal-El quips back, “It’s cool…just, whenever you get a Fly-So-Fast-It-Reverses-Time-Itself gadget on your belt, let me know.”

Not sure if the detractors have anything on their belt to succeed in Iraq. But based on the way they like to frame the debate, I’d just as soon leave it to those who take actually winning in Iraq seriously…criticize their plans all you like (and there certainly is room for criticism); at least they know that they want to win.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot)

In just a few hours, I will be heading to a meeting of Log Cabin of Los Angeles with something I usually don’t bring to such gatherings. My checkbook. For at this meeting, I intend to do something I haven’t done in at least five, possibly six, years, join Log Cabin.

Now that the man who supported the group’s decision not to endorse his party’s nominee in the 2004 presidential election, who attacked that nominee after claiming to remain neutral in the race and who even refused to indicate whom he had voted for after that good man had won a decisive reelection, has stepped down as head of the organization, I am joining in the hope that the group’s new leadership will spend more time building bridges to the party whose very name is in the organization’s name and less time trying to get along with the left-leaning gay groups.

Over the course of the two-years that I have been blogging, I have delivered a largely mixed report on Log Cabin. Even if it meant delaying my bedtime, I have made sure to post items showing the group in a good light, most recently praising interim leader Patrick Sammon for condemning “outing” in his statement on the Foley affair.

My greatest criticism of immediate past Log Cabin Executive Director Patrick Guerriero has been his dedication to improving Log Cabin’s “standing among liberal national gay rights groups.” This commitment seemed odd given how frequently these groups criticized President Bush and the GOP — and how regularly they allied themselves with a variety of left-wing organizations.

I understand it’s no easy task to lead the Log Cabin Republicans. A prominent gay Republican who lives in DC described the job as “thankless.” That said, the new leader must reach out, not to gay organizations (though he (or she) should be cordial to their leaders), but to broad-minded elected Republicans and to those in think tanks — and advocacy organizations — concerned about the GOP’s departure from its Reaganite principles.

The new leader of Log Cabin needs to do what House Republicans did in 1994, that is, make clear where his organization stands on the key issues of the day. To show that they are committed Republicans, Log Cabin leaders should forward an agenda, not limited to gay issues, indeed, an agenda that focuses on conservative ones, supporting the President in the War on Terror, promoting a strategy for victory in Iraq, cutting the size and scope of the federal government, supporting judicial restraint and above all, returning to rhetoric which has defined the GOP since its inception 160 years ago — stressing that freedom is the motivating for our involvement in politics and the goal of a truly republican government.

It is in the hope that as Log Cabin’s new leadership will return to these noble principles that I will be rejoining the organization tonight.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

The last time I devoted an entire post to the 2006 elections, I suggested that the GOP would Hang on by the Skin of Its Teeth. Now, I’m wondering if the Democrats could nudge the GOP out of power. Fred Barnes, normally one of the most optimistic (about the GOP’s prospects) pundits, predicts that the Democrats will win 18 seats, enough to capture the House.

While I still hope (and believe) the GOP will hang out, it’s entirely possible that the Democrats could win just enough seats to garner a majority in the House for the first time in twelve years. And while I think the Democrats will make gains in the Senate, it seems increasingly likely that the GOP will hold that house, even if the Vice President has, once again, to cast the deciding vote for control.

Should the Democrats win, they — and the MSM — will of course spin this as a repudiation of President Bush and an affirmation of liberalism. That analysis will be based less on the actual election returns — and the dynamics of this year — than on their own wishful thinking. Outside of some very “blue” regions, Democrats this year have, by and large, eschewed ideology while many Democrats is tight races have moved to the center.

A Democratic majority with a number of freshmen Democrats from “red” districts looking forward to their first re-election in a presidential election year, are not likely to join a House Speaker from America’s most liberal city in pushing forward a left-wing anti-Bush agenda. These freshmen will join those centrist Democrats who have voted with the GOP on a number of controversial issues this session. Thus, given the dynamics of this election, while a Democratic majority would not be a good thing for President, it would not be the disaster some are forecasting.

Expect instead a Democratic majority at least as fractious as that voted out in 1994. Today’s Democrats lack the “philosophical glue” (such The Contract with America, the set of policy proposals which helped the GOP win that year) that held the GOP caucus together for the better part of its first year in power in forty years.

That said, given the extreme leftism of a number of potential committee chairs in a Democratic House, I’m supporting my party this year despite is failure to live up to the ideas which brought it to power just twelve years ago. It’s a choice between a Republican Party which sometimes gets things right — and a Democratic Party interested primarily in preventing the GOP from getting anything accomplished.

(more…)

One of the most amusing things about the aftermath of the Foley affair is the number of leftists, Democratic activists, MSM reporters and pundits and other Bush-haters speculating about what this means for the GOP. I mean, you’ve got people who have never attended a Republican meeting, who don’t spend much time with rank-and-file Republicans, who only know about the GOP from what they’ve seen in the media, trying to explain the party’s attitude toward gays.

And while outside of various urban and coastal areas, the GOP has not exactly embraced gay people with open arms, except in a few jurisdictions scattered across the country, various GOP committees and auxiliaries haven’t been rejecting us either. It seems that, by and large, most Republicans are willing to accept gay people into their organizations, but are unwilling to support gay marriage and, in some cases, wish we weren’t so open about our sexuality.

Last Wednesday, Johanna Neuman headlined her piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Some Seek ‘Pink Purge’ in the GOP.” Only it seems the “some” in her title refers not to Republicans, but to enemies of the GOP. She quotes one such enemy as seeing a “huge schism on the right,” leading a conservative pundit to ask “Isn’t it a bit unwise to use an enemy to the GOP as a source for about what is going on IN the GOP?“

And despite what the MSM has said about social conservatives, even the most anti-gay among them “deny they are interested in removing gay staffers from the party.” Their concern is more where an elected official stands on their issues.

To be sure, things are not ideal for gay Republicans. The gay Republican staffers whom Ms. Neuman contacted for her article would not “speak for the record.” While we still have a ways to go with our own party, the GOP is hardly the anti-gay institution as defined by its enemies on the gay left — and their allies in the MSM. More often than not, they paint a picture of party that does reflect the party as it is, but as they have perceived it in their imagination.

While there’s no pink purge going in the GOP, there are still many places where gay Republicans cannot be all that open about their sexuality. For my part, I’m eager to work with the new leader of Log Cabin to address that problem, not through confrontation, but through gentle suasion.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

PatriotPartner (John) has joined Rush Limbaugh in howling at “Cut and Run Conservatives” who may sit out the upcoming Congressional elections.  So here he is, guestblogging for a Saturday morning….

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

*********************

Well I’m tired too….tired of having to fight the terrorists and even more tired of having to fight the terrorist supporters that do indeed exist on the Democrat side of the aisle. Lefties will call that demagoguery, but certainly their actions speak louder than their words.

But any battle worth winning will take LOTS of energy and time and will be tiring. That doesn’t make it worth less of a fight. It means no matter what, you do what you must to win.

I have been distressed by the President and the Senate over the past two years myself. There is no question that they have turned their back on those of us who have been fighting for the conservative cause for decades. This all started with Harriet Meirs, by the way. It was the stupidest mistake of this presidency and it is when Bush’s approval numbers finally started heading south big time.

Still, I will be voting the GOP ticket this year again. If you have problems with the party, you had your chance to rebel in the primaries and state conventions. That is when you get to spank the party leadership, not in November.

Those who think that two years “in the wilderness” will do the GOP good better hope the can live with that for 40 years because that’s what happened the last time. The Democrats took over the House unexpectedly during Eisenhower’s administration. Hell, the Democrat House leader expected to be turned out 2 years later, so he never even moved into the Speaker’s much larger offices. It took 40 YEARS for the Republicans to finally win the House majority back. There is no way that the disgruntled mob can guarantee a mere two-year hiatus.

If you are willing to risk that and all it entails, including the terrorist-coddling and cuddling that will ensue, sit this one out.  But if you think that you, your family, your friends and your country are still worth fighting for, stop whining, suck it up and get the hell out there and vote for the Republicans again. Then be prepared to hold the party’s feet to the fire afterward. Of course if that party is the Dems, count on your opinion truly no longer mattering to Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid (or whoever) and Chairmen Kennedy, Rangel, Conyers et. al.

This election is critical. So now is the time for Conservatives and those who think that the idea of America still matters to decide if they are winter soldiers or “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots” (Thomas Paine, American Crisis).

-John (PatriotPartner)

When I was coming out as a gay man in the early 1990s, I searched in vain for books which could help me deal with my difference. With the possible exception of Andrew Tobias’ (then published under the alias John Reid) The Best Little Boy in the World, I didn’t find a single book where the ideas or anecdotes corresponded to my ideas, my feelings or even my hopes. To be sure, there were a few novels I read and enjoyed, but too many included some notion of a gay consciousness, sense of some sort of abstract group identity, defined by the community rather than individual gay men and women.

That is, until 1993, when I discovered Bruce Bawer’s A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society. That wonderful book comes to mind today primarily because of its subtitle–the Gay Individual in American society. The other books developed an abstract notion of gay identity, based on the sociopolitical values of the gay community. As if merely by coming out, we abandon the values and ideas of those around us.

Given the focus on a community identity, it’s no wonder that so many gay activists — and their allies on the left — have difficulty grasping the notion of a gay conservative. So, so many on the left show so little sympathy for the lives of those individual gay men and women whom they would out to advance their partisan agenda.

Not only do they lack sympathy for these individuals, but it seems that some of those involved in the “outing” campaign want to punish them for not being “good homosexuals,” that is, by not adopting the party line on what it means to be gay. It almost seems that they want us to suffer. And their notion of coming out is not to promote the well-being of the individual gay man or lesbian, but so that her or she can become part of an interest group which promotes a left-wing agenda and works to elect Democrats to office.

They see us not as gay individuals, but as members of yet another interest group advancing the left-wing cause. No wonder they treat us as apostates.

While many of the leaders of the gay movement see themselves as part of a broad “progressive” force to change society, gay conservatives know that the modern American conservatism developed in opposition to the growth of the secular state. At least since Barry Goldwater, their focus has been on freedom, the right of the individual to live his life as he sees fit. Individualism has been at the core of American conservatism since its very early days. For example, in the 1960s, at the dawn of the American conservative movement, Chicago students called their quarterly journal the New Individualist Review.

It is this no wonder as Bruce noted yesterday that American conservatives are sticking up for Gays. They respect the privacy of gay Republicans, not necessary because we’re gay or Republican, but because we’re individual citizens. They may not agree some of our choices, but they respect our right to make them.

And that is really the difference between contemporary American conservatism and the ideology that defines the American left. Most of those on the right see us as individuals who should be left to live our lives as we see fit. While too many of those on the left see us as members of a group who should have the attitudes they deem appropriate to that group.

They may claim that they are for gay people and promote legislation which is supposed to advance our cause, yet when it comes to individual dealings with particular homosexuals, too many of them are no different that their social conservative adversaries — for they have a fixed notion of what it means to be gay. And that is why, in most debates, I side with the conservatives for as has been made manifest in numerous blog posts and even Op-Eds, the thinkers on the right, the true heirs of Abraham Lincoln, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan nor interested in bashing gays or even in using the state to advance their interests, but in treating us as individuals and letting us alone to live freely as individual Americans.

Since George Washington, the rallying cry of Americans has been liberty, freedom. And that freedom extends to gay people, whether they’re conservative or liberal, even if they want to live in the closet. We may not agree with their choice, but we support their right to make it. It’s their lives we’re talking about, not ours.

It’s time for gay leftists to stop being such nosy busybodies and learn to appreciate the diversity of our community. And take the time to understand why some gay people may not share their political ideology.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

I’m not shocked by this, but since some of you who think America is the enemy might be, I post this for your education.  This comes courtesy of an email from a real gay civil rights group — Outrage – based in London.

Manchester’s leading Imam has confirmed that he thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified. Mr. Arshad Misbahi, who is based at the Manchester Central Mosque, confirmed his views in a conversation to Dr John Casson, a local psychotherapist.

Dr Casson said: “I asked him if the execution of gay Muslims in Iran and Iraq was an acceptable punishment in Sharia law, or the result of culture, not religion. He told me that in a true Islamic state, such punishments were part of Islam: if the person had had a trial, at which four witnesses testified that they had seen the actual homosexual acts.”

“I asked him what would be the British Muslim view? He repeated that in an Islamic state these punishments were justified. They might result in the deaths of thousands but if this deterred millions from having sex, and spreading disease, then it was worthwhile to protect the wider community.”

“I checked again that this was not a matter of tradition, culture or local prejudice. ‘No,’ he said, ‘It is part of the central tenets of Islam: that sex outside marriage is forbidden; this is stated in the Koran and the prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had stated that these punishments were due to such behaviours.’”

I don’t recall ever hearing a leading American Christian leader calling for gays to be executed.  But let’s not let the facts get in the way of the blind rage of the American Left that would rather use the US Constitution as a “suicide pact” than stand up for and protect this nation.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

LMAO….

The RNC was quick to issue Howard Dean’s Top Ten Excuses for Refusing to Debate.

10. Dean Wants To Break A 25 Year Tradition Of Dialogue And Debate Between Party Chairs.

9. Dean Is Ashamed Of His Fundraising And Resource Disadvantage.

8. Dean Is Second Guessing Whether He Still Believes All Republicans Are “Brain-Dead.”

7. Dean Is Too Busy Debating Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) And Other Democrat Leaders About Strategy For The Midterm Elections.

6. Dean Is Still Trying To Figure Out How Chairman Mehlman Fits Into His Theory That All Republicans Are “Christian” And “Monolithic.”

5. Dean Doesn’t Want To Discuss His Outsourcing Of Microtargeting Operations To Harold Ickes And George Soros.

4. Dean Is Too Busy Frantically Filling Out Loan Applications.

3. Dean Is Still Trying Really Hard To Assemble A Ground Game.

2. Dean Doesn’t Want To Use The Talking Points Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) Sent Over On The “Culture Of Corruption.”

1. Dean Hates Republicans.

I think Number 11 is that he is too busy abusing using gays to elect Democrats this fall.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

There are two very good blogs that have come to my attention recently.

The first is a new blog from former Washington Blade editor, Chris Crain — CitizenCrain.  Chris has always been a reasoned voice especially in the bile of the American gay media.  He has a realistic, yet balanced view of gay American politics.  It is just too bad we lost him to South America!

Chris takes on the Gay Outing Witchhunt in many his most recent posts (here and here).

But there’s another, even more plausible theory, that the mainstream media is afraid to suggest and the lefty blogosphere is too busy salivating for Hastert’s blood to be bothered with.

So far, there are five individuals who’ve been named as having substantial information over the years about Foley’s misconduct: Palmer and Van Der Meid on Hastert’s staff, Trandahl, former Foley Chief of Staff Kirk Fordham, and retiring Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona.  Three of the five — Trandahl, Fordham and Kolbe — are openly gay, though only Kolbe was truly “out” in the media.  The other two — Palmer and Van Der Meid — are widely rumored to be gay. And, as the world learned earlier this month, Foley himself is gay.

These six mostly-closeted, gay Republicans, if in fact they are all gay, would form the “thin pink line” I’ve written about before in the early days of this blog.   

******** 

Part of the problem lies with [Mike] Rogers if he “refuses to name his sources,” as the Spokesman-Review reported. Even if Rogers made a deal to protect the anonymity of those sources, he should encourage them to talk to the Spokesman-Review on the same condition. If the evidence is so overwhelming, as Rogers claims, then let it speak for itself — or, in this case, them speak for themselves.

The next pick is one that Dan brought to my attention — The Western Seminarian.

Blog Profile: The Western Seminarian

Location: Somewhere, North East, United States

I am ‘in process’ with a mainstream American denomination. I work in the financial industry. My education, up till now, has been in the hard sciences. You might find I look at some things differently.

You have to love a guy whose blogroll includes categories like “Rainbow Republicans” and who also counts Michelle Malkin, Atlas Shrugs and Little Green Footballs on his “daily reads”.

Both will be officially added to the GayPatriot Blogroll today!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I find one element in our post-Foley world very encouraging.  In this atmosphere of Radical Gay Liberals hunting down gays and rooting them out of public service, it is conservatives sticking up for gay people and their privacy. 

And while the Gay Leftists continue to pursue a “mutual assured destruction” campaign against gay people our national gay groups are silent.  Our “gay leaders” are also allowing the nutty gay fringe to be the face of the gay community in the national media.  One exception — Patrick Sammon from Log Cabin on Larry King Live last night (which I was unable to watch).

First example…. Dean Barnett at Hugh Hewitt.com — “Who’s Really Being Outed?”.

More interesting is what this line of attack tells us about the left’s beliefs regarding the right. The left strongly believes that conservatives detest homosexuals and will be disgusted by the presence of a Lavender Mafia in the GOP tent. I can understand how they would reach this conclusion – certain chronic right wing embarrassments like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have historically fed such a notion.

But if those on the left actually knew more practicing Christians, they would know that the stuff about condemning the sin but loving the sinner isn’t mere lip service. If the members of the left actually knew the people that they so casually and easily defame, they would also understand that infinite forgiveness is a hallmark of America’s Christian community.

In short, this entire offensive rests on notions hatched in the left wing echo chamber without any dissenting voices available to disabuse the strategists of the their faulty assumptions. If the left actually took the time to understand the dynamics of the community they so loathe, they would know that professional Outing Scumbag Mike Rogers will inspire the Republican base, not the opposite.

BUT MOST DAMNING OF THE LEFT is the casual assumption of group-think that this exercise demonstrates. The logic is that if you’re gay, you must therefore support gay marriage. What’s more, you must support everything that someone like Glenn Greenwald supports. To do otherwise evidences self-hatred and a betrayal of the cause.

(read the WHOLE thing!)

And this from Eric at Classical Values — “Which Party Persecutes More Homosexuals?”

In what will go down as one of history’s great ironies, in enlightened, modern America, there are still people engaged in exposing and persecuting homosexuals working in the government or in important positions, and they are activists in the Democratic Party. (Michael Rogers and John Aravosis are two notorious, longtime practitioners, and the latter was recently invited to lunch with Bill Clinton.)

The difference is that the Democrats doing the persecution today can’t fire gay Republicans directly; instead they are tracking them down and exposing them in the hope that the Republicans will be bigoted enough to fire them. Unfortunately, this has failed. Even Rick Santorum, supposedly the worst gay basher of the lot, refused to fire his gay aide after the man was outed.

What this has created is a huge (if ironic) double standard between the parties. Gay Democrats have a right to their privacy, but gay Republicans are hounded and live in fear of the new (Democratic) sexual McCarthyism.

The reason they are made to live in fear while their Democrat counterparts are not is because gay Republicans are said to be self hating hypocrites. According to this argument, because the Republican Party does not support same sex marriage, any gay Republican is by definition betraying himself — even if he disagrees with the Republican Party on that issue. For that, it is fair to invade his privacy and make his identity and sexuality known to the world, in the hope that he’ll be fired by bigoted Republicans.

Yet the outed Republicans are not being fired. Their only persecutors are on the left. And they’re redoubling their efforts in order to combat more “hypocrisy.”

I’m not saying that the Republican Party is free of bigotry, because it isn’t. But if the activists keep this stuff up and ordinary voters find out about it (I’m not sure whether they have) pretty soon someone’s going to ask which party has more bigots.

This awesome salvo from Captain Ed — The Left Hates Gays?…

These kind of slimy allegations have no way to be proven or disproven, leaving Craig with limited options to clear the air. How does one disprove a sexual orientation? He has three children with his wife Suzanne, and nine grandchildren. That seems to be proof that he has a heterosexual orientation, but Rogers and the scandal brigade will argue that Craig’s just in denial. It’s a no-win argument, and its use of anonymous sourcing is especially egregious and despicable. Rogers wants to ruin Craig politically, and yet he doesn’t produce a single source for his allegations to go on the record.

Once again, the Left shows its obsession with sexuality, but it’s really more than that. The Left obsesses over identity politics in all forms, and that obsession comes out in pathological terms. Rogers reveals this in his blog post, demanding that gay staffers on the Hill identify their orientation publicly, or else he will do it for them. Sexual identity is everything to him, and the concept of sexual privacy has no value to him at all. He wants to humiliate gays who prefer to keep their sexual activity private, forcing them to wear the virtual pink triangle against their will to experience obloquy and castigation.

However, the obloquy and castigation seems to only come from Rogers and his ilk. I couldn’t care less whether Craig is attracted to men or women; it’s really none of my business, and none of Rogers’ either. As long as he’s not importuning minors, then it makes no difference to anyone except Craig and his family, and that’s if the allegations have any basis in fact. The only time it becomes a public issue is if Craig insisted on an official government status of a same-gender relationship, which as a policy issue should be decided by the people. Most conservatives, moderates, and liberals share the same conviction that sexual orientation is a private matter. Only extremists like Rogers allow themselves to get worked up over it.

The only bigot who should be ashamed of himself is Rogers. And if he’s a libeler, he better get himself a damned good lawyer.

And finally, in one of the best written blog pieces I’ve seen in a while…. the incredible satirical “It’s the Homos, Stupid” — a letter from Howard Dean (in the form of IowaHawk) to the Conservative-American Community.

[T]his is just the tip of the GOP gayberg. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the mincing minnie who ran the GOP’s Foley coverup? A former high school “wrestling coach.” California governor Arnold Schwartzenegger? A curious fondness for flexing his oiled pecs while parading around in a pair of skimpy Speedos. “Dick Armey”? You do the math.

And if their rampant homoism weren’t enough, the GOP has further betrayed traditional conservatives by secretly nominating negros in races across the country. Yes, you read that correctly: actual negros. No matter how many times they try to hide the genetic truth from conservatives like you, GOP nominees like Michael Steele, Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell are black as the ace of spades. Imagine the devastating impact on US property values if the world learns that more of those types have moved into the Congressional neighborhood.

Are these Republican negros also gay? It is too early to say definitively, but much more will be revealed in the upcoming weeks. Our research teams are busy still digging up evidence, but what we’ve learned already should be enough to destroy whatever shred of faith you have left in the Gay Old Party. I have, in my hand, a list of of over 200 GOP insiders suspected of sodomy, locker room towel-snapping, dancing with fat girls, and open negroism. As Christians like you, we would rather persuade them to forfeit their election campaigns peacefully, but if necessary we promise to get the charges out in time for your November 5 Sunday sermons.

Are you fed up with the GOP’s miscegenation and gay bathhouse shenanigans? I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but maybe it’s time for conservatives like you to give Democrats a fresh new look. The Republicans like to talk about having a “big tent,” but we at the DNC are actually taking concrete steps to bring conservatives back in the fold. Just look at our innovative Iraq quagmire withdrawal plan, which has earned the praise and endorsement of rock-ribbed, traditional American conservatives like Pat Buchanan, Fred Phelps, and David Duke.

Like us, these no-nonsense mainstream conservatives know it’s time to bring US troops home where they belong, protecting our children from the clutches of the Republican congressional gay negro NAMBLA mafia. With our troops safely back, the people of Iraq can then begin building a faith-based society emphasizing the same traditional values that motivate conservatives like you: women at home, prayer in school, capital punishment for homos.

I am very proud of the excellent work by the conservative blogosphere by standing up for gay Americans while our own gay community turns on itself in a feeding frenzy.  I’d like to think our voices have had some impact in how conservative bloggers view gay issues and how their perceptions may have changed over the past two years.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I learned last night that I was quoted in a Times of London piece on the aftermath of the Foley sex scandal. In reading my words as reported I see once again the benefits of blogging.

You see, I’m not entirely sure the reporter reproduced the words precisely as I spoke them. Though he may have. According to the article, I said:

It’s harder to be a gay Republican in gay circles than it is to be a gay in Republican circles — gay activists are the most intolerant SOBs I’ve ever come across.

Had I read those words in the first draft of a blog post, I would have amended the second part of the sentence to read: “some gay activists are the most intolerant SOBs I’ve ever come across.” While I have encountered many intolerant gay activists, I have encountered many broad-minded ones as well, even some on the far left.

I write this post because I do not want what appears to have been a hasty comment to define my attitude toward all gay activists.

As a blogger, when I write in haste, I can quickly change the text if I realize I left out a word or two (or included a few words too many).

I don’t doubt that reporter Tom Baldwin reproduced the words as he heard me speak them. I e-mailed him and learned that he took notes via short-hand and did not tape record them. So, he may have made an error in transcription — or I may have spoken in haste.

Let me conclude by making clear that while some gay activists are indeed quite intolerant, others are not. And I need to learn to be more careful with what I say to reporters. Unlike writing on this blog, when I speak to them, it is more difficult to change what I have to say after I have said it.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

After reading Andrew Sullivan’s comments yesterday on outing and rediscovering the “old Andrew Sullivan whose blog I once very much enjoyed,” I have wondered if perhaps I had been too hasty in deciding not to buy his book when I saw it last week in the Barnes & Noble in LA’s Grove. I did page through it, but it did not grab me as had his previous book, Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival. I had not planned on buying that book, but as its first pages so engaged me, I quickly changed my mind.

It’s interesting because that book gave me a greater appreciation of Andrew’s writing — and thinking. While I had enjoyed his writing in the early 1990s, by the mid-1990s, his style seemed to become sloppier and he seemed to be borrowing increasingly from the trite cliches of gay activists. He seemed to have lost the unique voice that helped him rise to prominence at such a young age.

Similarly, in the past 2 years and 8 months, Andrew has, by and large, seems to have lost the voice that I grew to admire in the years after reading Love Undetectable. Too often, he seems to be mimicking the rhetoric — and anger — of the Bush-haters. While he claimed to be criticizing the president from the right, he sounded too much like the critics of the left. He even endorsed their standard-bearer in the 2004 election.

And he has used language that is just plain silly, calling circumcision, MGM (Male Genital Mutilation) and repeatedly using the word “Christianist.”

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Well, it appears that Mark Foley wasn’t making things up. “A Roman Catholic priest said he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with” the former Congressman “in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically remember having sex.”

While this certainly helps explain Foley’s fascination with teenage boys, it doesn’t excuse his behavior. Indeed, David Roth, his attorney said as much “Mark does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate [actions]. He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct.”

If Foley were a Democrat, you can be sure that many of those now demonizing him would show more compassion for his present woes, given his adolescent trauma. But, for political reasons, they apply a different standard to him because of that (R) after his name. It’s too bad they’re so partisan; they should hold all people to the same standard.

To be sure, Mark Foley was, as an adolescent, the “victim” of an irresponsible adult supervising him. But that past trauma does not excuse his adult behavior. It’s a good sign his lawyer recognizes as much. Now, let’s hope that gay activists and left-wing pundits come to similar conclusions should a Democrat do what Foley has done — or worse.

Greetings, my dear friends.
Been a while since I posted here (I promise, I’ll be better…is Kurlander still out there?).

This summer, I posed the question “Where’s the love?” when it comes to pop-culture.

Brandon Flowers, notorious loud-mouth and lead singer of one of my favorite new bands, The Killers, seems to be listening. He told an obscure industry magazine recently that he’s “offended” by Billie Joe Armstrong’s “really cheap” anti-American bent on Green Day’s most recent CD, American Idiot.

Now, this seems to some observers to be a ploy on Flowers’ part to garner attention for The Killers’ newly released sophomore offering, but it’s something at least. To be sure, his criticism seems to be luke-warm. Perhaps saying, it’s not what their message is, but rather how they’re delivering it. To wit:

“Americans are getting a bad rap right now…It’s because of the war and everything that’s going on. It’s understandable, but to an extent it’s not fair because we’re just people who were born here.” (Emphasis added.)

He may be hedging a bit with his “it’s understandable” stuff, but, like I said, at least it’s something.

When I used to read Andrew Sullivan’s blog with great regularity, I would find that while I didn’t always agree with him, when I did agree with him, it sometimes seemed that he nearly perfectly expressed my own thoughts. Just today when linked to his post on outing (via Ann Althouse, via Instapundit), I discovered the old Andrew Sullivan whose blog I once very much enjoyed.

Andrew doesn’t mince words when taking issue with what he calls the “outing crusade:”

The fact that their motives might be good is no excuse. Everybody on a witchhunt believes their motives are good. But the toxins such a witchhunt exposes, the cruelty it requires, and the fanaticism of its adherents are always dangerous to civilized discourse. What you’re seeing right now is an alliance of the intolerant: the intolerant on the gay left and the intolerant on the religious right. The victims are gay people – flawed, fallible, even pathetic gay people. But they are still people. And they deserve better.

While I’m not so sure there’s an alliance between the intolerant gay left and the intolerant social conservatives, I do think that the intolerant gay left is trying to use the intolerance of those social conservatives to split the GOP.

I agree with Ann that this tactic will likely backfire, that “these creepy, gleeful efforts at outing will only make social conservatives more conservative, and they will continue to look to the Republican party to serve their needs.” Jonah Goldberg (also via Instapundit) agrees: “The sort of scorched earth attack liberals have mounted in the wake of Foley is creating precedents I guarantee will haunt them in unexpected ways in years to come.“

That there are those on the left who would attempt to play into the prejudices of the most anti-gay forces in our society in order to help defeat the GOP shows that they are more interested in advancing their own partisan agenda than in respecting the private lives — and personal choices — of individual gay men and women. For them, it’s all politics. (I’ve said this before. As have countless others.) While they may express noble sentiments about helping gay people, they could care less about gay individuals who happen to be Republican.

I can no longer count how many times those on the left have wondered how I could support a political party which has contempt for gay people. And yet while I don’t always agree with my party — or the attitudes of some of its members — I have never encountered the level of hate or vitriol that those involved in the outing campaign have directed against closeted gay Republicans.

On the one side, certain social conservatives criticize gay people in general. On the other, certain voices on the left, many of them gay, show no regard for the private lives of individual gay people. And demonize those with a political agenda at odds with their own.

It’s time to call these angry voices for what they are. I’m glad that Andrew has taken on those who would compromise the lives of individual gay men and lesbians to further their partisan agenda.

As I return from my high school reunion and reflect on all that happened this past weekend, I come away with a better picture of many of my classmates and an awareness of the limitations of, for lack of better word, nostalgia.

On Saturday, after lunching at Skyline Chili with some classmates, I decided to go out alone to see the school. In revisiting my old haunts, I might better recall what I had felt as an adolescent, my hopes and well as my fears, the excitement as well as the anxiety.

I experienced none of that.

You see, six years ago (or so), they tore down the building that had served as the Upper School when I was a student and replaced it with a modern monstrosity. They didn’t even spare the entryway which had a certain archetypal significance to many alumni. Instead of recalling my past, I became quite depressed, visiting a place where I had experienced much, but which had no physical resemblance to the high school I had once attended.

As I walked around campus, looking for familiar face, I saw only one, the teacher/coach I had least to wanted to see. I resisted the temptation to tell him off for never congratulating me or even encouraging me even after I had run much better than he had expected in my first Cross Country races in high school.

I hurried away from the school and found a certain comfort in helping my Dad hang pictures in his newly-repainted basement.

That night, at the dinner with my classmates — as at the cocktail reception the previous night — I saw a different side to my one-time peers. We had a small class (67) and with not everyone returning, there were too few of us to separate into our adolescent cliques. As a result, we all talked to one another; I learned that many of those whom I had assumed had just coasted through high school had also difficult times in their teenage years.

It seemed everyone had had some kind of difficulty and some who seemed part of the social mainstream, reported that they, like me, had felt outsiders in high school. In talking to them, I gained a greater appreciation for their difficult situations — even as they differed from my own. Perhaps I understood those who, in our high school days, had seemed so popular because it no longer mattered to me whether or not they liked me. I was no longer trying to impress them. As an adult with such an attitude, I could better see them as they were, as they are.

No longer envying their social success, I saw them as real people. No longer believing that happiness meant being like those with such (apparent) success, I was not afraid to come out to them as gay. Perhaps, I was a bit too forthcoming about my sexuality. I did talk about the blog — but I suffered no adverse reaction for it, not for my sexuality nor for my politics.

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