It’s not just gay people who face the wrath of a hateful ideology in the Islamic Republic (sic) of Iran.  Women too are treated as second-class citizens.

Oscar-nominated actress Shohreh Aghdashloo appears in The Stoning of Soraya M, a movie to be released next month (June 26th).  This film tells the story of an Iranian women stoned to death because her husband, who wanted out of their marriage accused her of adultery when she started cooking for the widowed husband of a friend.

If you live in Southern California, you don’t have to wait until June to see this compelling film. There will be preview screening at the Roxy in Camarillo on May 19th at 7 PM. Sponsored by the World Affairs Council, admission is $20 for WACA members, $25 for non-members, and $10 for students. RSVP to Ashley@paladinprinciple.com.

As college tuition skyrockets, the debt of recent graduates increases.   As I pondered this after following two Instapundit links, something struck me about our left-leaning university faculty.  I was wondering if any of them had taken a pay cut as have many in the private and nonprofit sectors.

It seems that these recent graduates will be spending a number of years paying off those who promote a left-wing ideology.  Is this, I then wonder, emblematic of what is happening in America at large, with Obama burdening succeeding generations with debt to pay off those who implement the left-wing ideas taught on university faculties?

Just a thought.

ADDENDUM:  Jim Hoft speculates that the reason these graduates “can’t live on credit is because [the President] needs them to pay off his loans.”

In three parts over at Ramble Redhead. Very interesting with Choi telling of his growing up, life at West Point, his service in the US Army over in Iraq, and of course coming out. Well worth listening to and I hope that the good Louie will join the fight against the unjust DADT law with a worthy group of gay vets like Servicemembers United. His voice is certainly a powerful one in this debate and his work with Knights Out should go a long way to helping bring DADT to the demise it so richly deserves.

You can find these podcast interviews here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Enjoy!

Spoiler: Choi’s first-generation Korean parents were oblivious to his being gay, so much so that when they suspected their older son of being gay they sought his advice on how to “change” him. Ironically the son they thought was gay is actually straight while the “straight” son they sought advice from is gay. Priceless.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

When future historians start to seriously consider the record of the immediate past President of the United States, George W. Bush, they will wonder at how a man so moderate in temperament could have attracted criticism so vicious.

They will certainly rate him above many of those who preceded him in the late Twentieth Century, well above Jimmy Carter, LBJ and Nixon and slightly above Gerald R. Ford, but well below the the Gipper.   They will wonder why, in 2005, after his reelection with expanded majorities for his party in the House and Senate, he failed to push any significant conservative reforms while having promoted the need to mend Social Security and to deal with problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  (Though it can be argued that he can and did “push” reforms of those two Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).)

And they will wonder why he hesitated to shift strategy in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 when it would have been far easier for him to do so, both in terms of his own political capital and his party’s control of Congress than it was when he did change course in 2007 when he faced more of a challenge.  The war had then become increasingly unpopular.  The Iraq Study Group (led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III) proposed policy changes which were popular in our nation’s capital.  The Democrats had taken control of Congress.

Yet, he ignored that group’s recommendations and undertook a bolder course, with little support even from his own party.  And that course, the “surge,” succeeded.

Those historians will wonder why he waited so long when it would have been far easier for him to shift course immediately after his reelection or in the year or so immediately following.

Pelosi says Bush team misled her on waterboarding.  Trotting out the standard Democratic response.  When caught in a lie or facing a problem, blame Bush.  Nancy’s only making things worse for herself and better for Republicans.

Waiting in the wings, Steny Hoyer must be smiling.  He’s licking his chops at the prospect of an investigation. For the record, he’ll say it’s to clear her name (UPDATE:  well, it’s not clear what he’s saying for the record), but deep down, he knows it’s about taking her job.  She should have known better than to run her scandal-plagued man against him for Majority Leader.

*See this post.

UPDATE: Karl Rove: “The political persecution of Bush administration officials [Pelosi] has been pushing may now ensnare her.”

UP-UPDATE: Jim Geraghty doesn’t think Mrs. Pelosi will face any consequences for her dishonesty:

Are House Democrats going to lead the charge to remove her from the speakership? A push from the Obama team? Calls for her resignation from the mainstream press? I am skeptical. The Post editorial board will rough her up a little, the Times will write that the lack of evidence “raises troubling questions,” and Time and Newsweek will conclude that they don’t have enough space to get into it.

UP-UP-UPDATE John Hinderaker wonders if Pelosi can survive and cites the Washington Post’s Chris Civilizza who contends the Spaker “would not have held this sort of press conference unless she and her inner circle believed that she was losing altitude — politically — on the issue.”

You can measure a politician’s principles by his willingness to do something which he believes to be the right thing, but which carries a political cost.

Before he was ever elected President, Ronald Reagan did just such a thing, showing political courage in standing up against anti-gay bigotry.  In 1978, he came out publicly against the Golden State’s Briggs Initiative which would have banned gay people from teaching in public schools.  At the time, that pernicious proposition led in the polls.  Not just that, the Gipper was gearing up to run for the Republican nomination for President in 1980.  Opposing that initiative would have hurt him among social conservatives, then beginning to migrate to the GOP.

And yet gay people prefer Bill Clinton to the Gipper, even though when that Democrat had the choice between keeping a promise he made to us during his successful campaign for the White House (repealing the ban on gays in the military), he cut and run because of the political cost.  Unlike Ronald Reagan, when it came to gay people, Bill Clinton showed no political courage.

And now where does the current President stand?  As Andrew Sullivan, dewy-eyed for the Democrat during the campaign and well into the first hundred days of his Administration, is now beginning to wake up and smell the coffee.  He’s figured out who the rubes are.  And it ain’t the true gay conservatives who backed John McCain.

The left-leaning blogger laments:

But I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away. (more…)

Join me and the Westside Republicans this coming Sunday, May 17 at 3 PM at the Federal Building in Westwood 11000 Wilshire Blvd @ Veteran (just e of the 405) for a Tea Party to protest Proposition 1-A.  If passed, that measure would create a convoluted process to “address” the state’s budget.  Instead of dealing with process, the state legislature should be looking for ways to trim the bloated budget and stand up to the public employee unions who all but control this state.

While the upcoming ballot measures will be the focus of this particularly rally, we’ll be standing strong not just for budgetary restraint at the state level, but also in Washington.

Perhaps, we could gather before the rally for Tea (& Coffee) at Westwood watering hole?

Recall the “insane rage of the same-sex marriage mob” in the immediate aftermath of the passage of Prop 8?  Back then gay marriage advocates mocked Mormons, knocked a cross out of an old woman’s hands, boycotted a restaurant because on its employees cut a check to the “Yes on 8″ campaign, forced the artistic director at the California Musical Theatre out of his job and otherwise insulted and vilified those who supported the successful referendum.

In our blog, we have several readers support such tactics, saying that those who sign a petition to overturn one state’s statute recognizing same-sex marriage or beauty queens who state their support of traditional marriage “have to live with the consequences” of what they say.  If such consequences included civil criticism of their positions (similar to the response I outlined here), I would agree with my erstwhile critics.  A person who makes public his opinion should expect it to be challenged.

But, he should not expect to be intimidated for those views.

The same logic they use to defend the tactics of “the same-sex marriage mob” could be used by intolerant anti-gay bigots to justify baiting gay people.  They could say that by “flaunting” our sexuality, we’re just asking for ridicule and vilification.

Just as it’s wrong to intimidate or insult gay people who are open about their sexuality so too is it wrong to so respond to those who oppose state recognition of same-sex marriage.

Given the ridicule gay people faced in previous generations–and still alas today in some pockets of the country–when they came out, we should be the first to condemn anyone who publicly expresses a politically incorrect opinion.

Just had lunch with a reader who has become a friend. Noting how nice it was to be able to hobnob with fellow conservatives in this politically correct town, we discussed an idea I’d been considering, having monthly dinners for gay conservatives in Tinseltown.

If there’s enough interest, we could start meeting the week after Memorial Day.

E-mail me if interested.

And yet another sign of MSM bias, via Glenn:

Most journalists were aware of influential blogs on both sides of the political spectrum, such as Daily Kos and Talking Points on the left and Michelle Malkin andInstapundit on the right. Despite equal awareness, journalists spend more time reading posts in the liberal blogosphere.

For example, more journalists know about Michelle Malkin than Talking Points. Yet twice as many journalists actually read Talking Points than read Michelle Malkin.

That they would read more left-of-center blogs suggests a liberal point of view, unless of course, they’re like some of those who comment to this blog, delighting in the posts of those whose ideas they claim to revile.

But, then again, the article quoted above said they “actually read” (emphasis added) the left-wing blogs whereas all too many of our critics don’t actually read our posts, they just use our comments section to respond to their own prejudiced opinion about what a conservative believes.

Remember how sanctimonious the Democrats were back in 2006 finding it easy to run against Republicans who had then controlled Congress for a dozen years?  As the then-majority party was abandoning its conservative ideals, scandals were accumulating on a seemingly daily basis.  Democrats called it a “culture of corruption”

Well, Democrats haven’t needed a decade in power to rack up the scandals.  It seems that as soon as they regained the majority, they began to act like the Republicans they had so recently replaced.  We didn’t get that “most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history” that the Democratic Speaker promised.

With evidence increasing that the very Speaker, San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi, lied about her knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques of the previous Administration, it seems the Democrats will not merely do anything to benefit from the fruits of power, but also to destroy and otherwise discredit the opposition.  With Mrs. Pelosi leading the way, this is anything but the “most honest” Congress in history.

Can you imagine how the media would react if a Republican Speaker were caught in a lie?   Or if the Repubilcan Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee sought donations from companies receiving federal bailouts (and lied about it) while failing to disclosing rental property he owned?   Of if the ex-wife of the Republican Chair of the Energy & Commerce Committee had been an Executive for ExxonMobil (whild said Congressman worked to ensure that the energy giant received kid glove treatment from the federal government)?  Of if the nephew of a Republican chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee gets millions in non-competitive defense contracts?  And if the GOP blocked an ethics inquiry “into campaign contributions to House lawmakers by recipients of pet project money and their lobbyists“?

And if that were just scratching the surface of the GOP’s scandals . . . . 

There would be a media firestorm.   Look how the media worked itself into a lather over e-mails a Republican Congressman sent to pages.  But, Democratic scandals just don’t generate the same interest.

Maybe that’s because in the eyes of the media, they’re fighting the good fight, so a little corruption in pursuit of noble ends is an acceptable byproduct of liberal idealism.

The whole Carrie Prejean hullabaloo has revealed a fault line in American culture, between the politically correct purveyors of information and ideas in our mainstream media and left-leaning blogs on the one hand and social conservatives, their occasional allies on the secular right and others who favor civil discourse of controversial issues on the other.  Some indeed who, on this issue at least, find themselves on the social conservatives’ side,  do not share their ideological agenda, indeed often quite strenuously oppose it, but do believe in their right to express their opinions, particularly when they do so in a civil manner.

Donald Trump today, in an example of leadership which should inspire the President who won that office promising to change the partisan tone in our nation’s capital, attempted to bridge that gap in American culture while strongly defending Miss Prejean’s right to express her opinion, reminding us that she gave the same answer on gay marriage “that the president of the United States gave. . . . She gave an honorable answer. She gave an answer from her heart.” 

Trump refused to criticize anyone by name, parrying a question about Perez Hilton by saying effectively, “That’s just what he does.”  He wisely refused to express his own opinion on gay marriage.

His was a masterful performance.  He stood by a woman who had been maligned in the media and made a plea for civil discourse.  Would that more prominent public figures do the same.

The issue here is not gay marriage per se, but how we debate it.  Let’s learn from Donald Trump and show some respect for those who express their opinions in a civil manner.  

This whole hullabaloo has shown that there is a fault line with those who would debate this issue and those who would smear the defenders of the status quo.  Until today, it appeared that the maligners were winning in the media while the great majority of Americans sat silent, stunned at the attacks. 

Let us hope that Donald Trump’s defense of Miss Prejean will cause others who favor a serious discussion of this controversial issue to speak out against name-calling and to engage in a real conversation about the meaning of marriage, its place in our ever-changing society and government’s role vis à vis this ancient institution.  We would all benefit from that conversation.

Kudos to Donald Trump for doing something to further than exchange.

Kudos to CNN for featuring Lt. Daniel Choi on its American Morning program.  The more people see this great American, the more they’ll see the folly of the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) policy barring gay people from serving openly in our nation’s armed forces.

As you may recall, Lt. Choi is a West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran about to be dismissed from the military because he came out publicly as gay.

In his letter to the President, this soldier writes:

My subordinates know I’m gay. They don’t care. They are professional.

Further, they are respectable infantrymen who work as a team. Many told me that they respect me even more because I trusted them enough to let them know the truth. Trust is the foundation of unit cohesion.

After I publicly announced that I am gay, I reported for training and led rifle marksmanship. I ordered hundreds of soldiers to fire live rounds and qualify on their weapons. I qualified on my own weapon. I showered after training and slept in an open bay with 40 other infantrymen. I cannot understand the claim that I “negatively affected good order and discipline in the New York Army National Guard.” I refuse to accept this statement as true.

Here, we have an American who wants to serve his nation and help protect his fellow citizens.  His very record shows him to be qualified.  His colleagues don’t find his sexuality a detriment to his service.

He asks the President not to fire him, telling his commander-in-chief that he loves his job:  ”I want to deploy and continue to serve with the unit I respect and admire. I want to continue to serve our country because of everything it stands for.”

We should want more men like Lt. Choi in our armed forces.  But, DADT means that we get fewer.  Repealing this law would strengthen our armed forces by increasing the pool of qualified men and women from which they could draw.  Not just that, it would save the military from wasting time rooting out gay service members when it could be training them to better defend this great nation.

“If more gays were like GayPatriot, they’d probably have a better shot at all of the goodies they want.”

The contest continues! Find me in Key West for $100. Details and a timely clue at GayPatriot at Twitter

Find me! Find me!!

Advance Clue: We will be watching American Idol at Bourbon St. Pub on Duval Street tonight.

Just watching Donald Trump address a press conference in New York City; he has said that despite efforts of the politically correct to strip her of her crown, Carrie Prejean will remain Miss California.  The Donald said she has taken a large amount of abuse from people “who shouldn’t be handing out abuse.”

(more…)

Perhaps because I only watch local television when I’m doing cardio at the gym, I have yet to see an ad urging California citizens to vote against the budget measures on next week’s state ballot.  I have seen a plethora of publicity promoting the six propositions, including (snail) mailings I’ve received.

Despite all that, all but one of the propositions trails in the polls.  And that proposition, 1-F, would “bar legislative and statewide constitutional officers from receiving pay raises when the state is running a budget deficit.”  Despite the contentions of the Governor (who favors the measure) and his publicity team, the people know the remaining measures, if adopted, would not restore responsible budgeting in the Golden State, but would instead cede greater power to legislators and other officials in Sacramento.

Passage of these propositions, particularly Prop 1-A, given its confusing language, would likely mean further tax hikes in the Golden State, but without any significant budgetary restraint.  Should these propositions fail, it would sign that the issues which motivated those of us who participated in the Tea Party protests resonate with voters.  

As such, next Tuesday’s balloting will be the first real electoral test of the Tea Party Movement. This is the first time since people started rallying last February to protest the ever-increasing size of government that voters have a clear choice about bloated government budgets on the ballot.*   

As Hugh puts it:

If the tax hikes are rejected by large margins next week, the country’s political elite ought to study that result closely.  Despite huge spending margins and despite a thin veneer of bipartisanship, the tax hike gang is getting thumped because the electorate is saying –no, shouting– “Enough!” . . . .

 

On social issues, the California [electorate] is evenly split, as the narrow victory for traditional marriage this past fall demonstrated.

 

But there is a sizeable majority in favor of a radical change in the way government operates.  The anger directed at Arnold and his tax-raising, free-spending pals is fueled by the genuine hardships brought about by the panic in the fall and the drop in home prices.  Every business and almost all families have had to make painful cuts and downsize or postpone dreams.

But not the state government.  And that has ignited the voter revolt underway that will culminate next week.

Should these measures fail, as polls now indicate they will, we’ll have tangible evidence of that revolt, evidence that the issues which fueled the Tea Party protests over the past few months resonate with voters in one of the bluest states of the union.

They’ll have no choice but to hear us in Sacramento, but will they hear us in other state capitals and in Washington?

* (more…)

I should perhaps link blogger/activist Michael Petrelis more often on this blog.  Michael is a lefty whom I first met at Marvin Leibman’s 70th Birthday Party in 1993.  I was surprised then that someone so radical could be so cordial to all the gay Republicans in the room — as well as to some of the straight Republicans. 

Unlike all too many of his ideological confrères, Petrelis is a man of integrity.  He has criticized the gay left, heaping particular scorn on Joe Solmonese and HRC.  In the wake of Prop 8′s passage, he called for Geoff Kors to resign as head of Equality California.  As have we here at GayPatriot.  Also like us and unlike the national gay organizations, he has focused on the plight of gay people in Iran.

Lately, he’s been standing up for gay Iraqis increasingly facing persecution.  

Unlike all too many on his side of the political aisle, Petrelis actually commends conservatives when they do the right thing.  He did just that in a blog post yesterday, singling our for praise a man he described as “a hard-right blowhard self-declared heterosexual,” Big Hollywood’s John T. Simpson:

In a May 8 post, framed by the argument that Ronald Reagan was more of a friend to LGBT citizens than Barack Obama, Simpson segues into a diatribe about the troubles and slayings of LGBT people in Iraq.

As irritating as some of Simpon’s writing and rhetoric may be, he’s saying some important things we ought to listen to. His heated words used to emanate from Queer Nation types, and, more cool comments about this subject might have come from professional homosexual advocates at HRC, NGLTF and GLAAD in the 1980s.

But now the m.o. is to basically keep a shut mouth about the atrocities faced by LGBT people in Iraq. Except for a damn straight GOP loud-mouth, stirring up the pot.

He thanked Simpson for “asking the troubling questions HRC, NGLTF and GLAAD are supremely uninterested in posing.”  Calling what’s happening in Iraq a pogrom, Simpson wonders at the latest media obsession of the gay left:

And somebody wake up Perez Hilton. Bigger problem here than Miss California, methinks. See if she can’t get the Prop 8 crowd as rabid on the horrific slaughter of Iraqi and Iranian gays as they are with the Mormon Church and us!

In his post, provides ample evidence for his claim that the Gipper was better for gays than the incumbent President of the United States.

Kudos to Simpson for pointing out this horror.  And Kudos to Petrelis for praising a conservative for standing up for gays.  If more left-leaning gay bloggers did that, more broad-minded conservatives might speak out on our behalf, knowing they’d be acknowledged for their good words.

As recently as five years ago, even gay marriage advocates didn’t think it possible to move legislation recognizing same-sex marriages through elected legislatures.  Knowing that polls were against them, their preferred route was through courts.

While they won in the Hawai’i Supreme Court in 1993 and 1997, they lost at the ballot box in the Aloha State in 1998 and would lose all but one referendum and initiative in the following decade  And that one victory, Arizona in 2006, would turn into a defeat two years later when citizens in the Grand Canyon State voted on a proposition would allow the state only to recognize traditional marriage, but not bar same-sex civil unions (as had the earlier initiative).

Given the popularity of initiatives defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and given the fact that until very recently, sexual difference has been central to nearly everyone’s understanding of marriage, you’d think those trying to expand the definition to include same-sex couples might have a little respect for those who favor the longstanding status quo.

And yet, when a politically incorrect person (as opposed to a politician with the appropriate partisan immunity) states her support of that traditional definition, she faces the wrath of the left.  Witness the reaction of the director of the Miss California pageant, Keith Lewis, to Carrie Prejean’s affiliation with Maggie Gallagher’s National Organization for Marriage (NOM):

(H/t Townhall via reader Peter Hughes.)

Why must he so attack Maggie Gallagher? And why do so many gay lefties use the word “shame” to describe the actions of their ideological adversaries?  His tone was harsh the opposite of the women he’s attacking.  He would have better better served to follow my advice.

Why can’t these people show some class, some grace, in confronting their adversaries?   Why must they adopt so harsh a tone and so vitriolic a vocabulary?

They need to learn from others who have pushed so massive a social change, focusing on the virtues of that change and not the deficiencies of those who defend the status quo.

Few in the media or left-wing blogosphere seem to be heeding my advice to ignore Carrie Prejean. Just yesterday, while doing cardio at the gym, I looked up to see the bleach blonde beauty queen featured in a segment on CNN.

Has any beauty queen received as much attention as she?

Given the hysterical reaction of many outspoken gay marriage advocates to her statement supporting the traditional definition of marriage, I decided to offer a rational response to that civil statement:

We’re delighted you responded in a civil tone:

Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage.

She’s right that we can choose same-sex marriage, the difference is that only a few states recognize those unions.  Yes, we have that freedom, but same-sex couples in most states don’t get the benefits which accrue to those who “choose” traditional marriage.

And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.

We respect that you stated this belief without denigrating gay people.  Let us hope that those social conservatives who now herald you for articulating a position near and dear to their hearts will follow suit.  Instead of attacking gay people, they will defend the longstanding definition of this ancient and honorable institution.

You needn’t worry, however.  We’re not asking you to change your beliefs.  With religious liberty provisions like those in the Vermont and Maine legislation recognizing same-sex marriages, your church would remain free to continue define marriage as it has always defined it.  These laws are only about civil marriage and do not impact the practices of particular religious institutions.

Once again, we appreciate you responded in such a civil manner.  While we don’t agree with your views, we certainly support your right to express them.  It’s unfortunate that after posing his question in such a civil manner, Perez Hilton chose to personalize this issue by insulting you personally.  He was wrong to do so.

(more…)