As our readers know, we here at GayPatriot define a diva as “a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.”   A conservative blogress diva need not be conservative  per se; all she must do command the respect (or have otherwise earned the admiration) of gay conservatives.  In the past, as I noted back in 2006, some of our nominees have been

libertarian. And others, while more centrist, distinguish themselves by their iconoclasm and the manner in which they take on the silliness of certain leftists — and conservative pretenders, i.e., those who, in the words of one of our [past and possibly future] nominees, “drive . . . liberals nuts.”

This year, our readers have already submitted the names of blogress divas new to the contest, including, we believe, only the second lesbian ever nominated, Cynthia Yockey, aka a Conservative Lesbian.   Will she perhaps replace that other dyke diva Tammy Bruce by capturing this year’s Endora and reigning a Conservative Blogress Diva Regent or will she join Sondra K and Pamela Geller as only the third woman to become the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva?

Other names drawn to my attention this year include Cassandra of Villainous Company, Nic Deb, Megan McArdle, Phyllis Chesler and Karin Quade (of anti-anti-Americanism.com).

Also in contention are reigning divas Pamela Geller, Tammy Bruce and neoneocon as well as Amy Alkon, The Anchoress, Ann Althouse, Little Miss Attila, Dymphna of Gates of Vienna, immediate past Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Sondra K of Knowledge is Power, Mary Katharine Ham of The Weekly Standard, Rachel Lucas, Michelle Malkin, Camille Paglia, Virginia Postrel of The Dynamist, Jennifer Rubin of Commentary’s Contentions, Sister Toldjah, Debbie Schlussel, and Fausta Wertz.

Please submit your nominations (or seconds) in the comments section below or via e-mail.   Bruce and I will review the submissions (and the seconds) and choose this year’s roster, posting a poll as soon as this coming Friday with balloting continuing for at least a week.

So, if you want your favorite diva to appear on the ballot, make sure to second her nomination below.

While I have been outspoken in my support of Carly Fiorina’s bid for the United States Senate, this blog has yet to endorse either of the two Republican candidates vying for the opportunity to take on one of the Senate’s most liberal and ineffective members.

In the contest for Virginia’s Eighth Congressional district, however, we here at GayPatriot are now prepared to make our first endorsement in the 2010 elections, supporting a principled conservative who happens to be openly gay to defeat one of the House’s most liberal and ineffective members, that is, if you don’t count how effective he has been in sucking up campaign cash in exchange for political favors.  Along with his fellow Democrats John Murtha and Pete Visclosky, Jim Moran,the incumbent in that district “received hefty campaign contributions from [lobbying firm] PMA and its clients and who approved millions of dollars in earmarks for those companies.”

Matthew Berry is a far different sort of man than this corrupt Democrat.   Unlike Moran, Berry sees politics are an arena in which to promote his ideas rather than an environment in which to enrich himself.  I have known Matthew for nearly fourteen years and in that time, have been impressed with his intellect and ideas. He has long believed in the principles of small government, not just on their philosophic merit, but also for their practical benefit.  He knows that with less federal regulation, industry can more readily prosper, leading to a better and cheaper products, a more efficient delivery of services and more rapid creation of jobs.

Matthew also knows, as he has written on his campaign website, that the “current explosion of government spending and debt is not sustainable and imperils our nation’s future.”  And he has been a strong voice against Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, opposing greater government control over health care. Instead, he has put forward a 5-point plan for health care reform, favoring policies which reduce government intervention in this growing sector of our economy and do not impose additional costs or mandates on the American people.   Nor do they deprive senior citizens of Medicare benefits.

In short, Matthew Berry is running the kind of campaign we hope Republicans will be running across the country in the coming year. (more…)

In a further example of bias at the AP (in the guise of journalism critical of a Democratic politician), “reporter” Kevin Freking covers how the two Republicans vying to replace Barbara Boxer in the United States Senate have been making much of her “reprimanding a general for calling her ‘ma’am’“.   After detailing how Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore are using video of that encounter to raise money for their campaigns, Freking quotes some professor of communications who informs him that this is “not the kind of thing that plays well in California”.

Freking concludes by quoting the arrogant woman who “reprimanded” a general; she faults her opponents for focusing on trivialities while she is focused on the issues. The journalists so shows the three-term incumbent as the season legislator rising above the fray.  Referencing Fiorina, Boxer, who has seen unemployment in her jurisdiction jump by nearly 33% since her election to the Senate, “If this is what she thinks is the most important issue as people are struggling to get jobs, and housing, and health care, it’s fine”.

Actually, Ma’am, she doesn’t.  She’s also been talking about jobs, so, yes, Ma’am, fine, let’s talk about jobs.   And why don’t you tell us just why it is that, after you voted to spend $787 billion dollars of taxpayer money (as well as that of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren), one in eight Californians are out of work?

Ma’am may give a pretty good talk about jobs (heck, that’s how she justified the “stimulus”), but has hasn’t backed any policies which have actually helped create job here in the Golden State.

“Waaah” is Not a Constitutional Right.

I wish I could be as sanguine about the the election of the firmly openly gay Speaker of the California Assembly as I am about the first openly lesbian Mayor of the City of Houston.  And while I have met Assemblyman John Pérez, an openly gay Latino Democrat from Los Angeles elected by his fellow partisans to preside over the state’s lower house, I don’t have great hopes that he’ll initiate the kind of reforms we need here in the Golden State.

Pérez is certainly a very  nice man with a polished presence, but he’s also the favorite of the state’s unions. According to the biography on his his campaign’s web-site, he spent the 15 years prior to his election to the General Assembly “working for labor unions, most recently serving as UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers International Union) political director.“  Wikipedia identifies his as a “union organizer“.  Just what we need another “organizer” in a position of political power.

Don’t think he’ll be standing up to those public employee unions who, while one in eight Californians are out of work, with employees in the private sector taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, continue to fight for higher wages for the already highly paid state employees.  Those unions will continue siphon off a hefty portion of their members’ salaries to fill their coffers, replenish the war chests of state Democrats and campaign for higher taxes.

I would wager that Pérez was elected to such a powerful position so early in his legislative tenure (he was first elected only last year), in large part, due to backing from public employee unions who wield the power behind the various Democratic Party thrones in Sacramento.  They know that a man who cut his political teeth in union activism would not join the growing chorus of Californians upset at that power.  Indeed, thanks to that power–and the unwillingness of California politicians to challenge it, our state is in one heck of a fiscal mess.

His election may be a historic milestone for gay Americans, but it’s also a sign that Democrats in the California Assembly are in the pocket of the state public employee unions and a guarantee that the fiscal problems which have plagued this state won’t get any better.  In fact, they are likely to get worse.  Much worse.

With the president’s poll numbers plummeting, Peggy Noonan contends he “appears to be attempting to move toward the center, or what he believes is the center.”   (Appears to be attempting . . . . hmmm . . . . that’s quite a qualification.)  And while she is correct to note that in his jobs speech last week at the Brookings Institute, he did acknowledge the role of small business in creating the bulk of new jobs and that he propsed a new round of tax cuts for up-and-coming entrepreneurs, he remains addicted to government spending.

While the “stimulus” may not have created the jobs that he and his team promised it would, he has proposed yet another such program, spending even more taxpayer money (as well as that of our descendants) on “infrastructure investment” and “aid to state and local governments.”

Doesn’t sound like a move to the center.   Sounds more like he’s standing firm on the left.

The president would show that he is really moving to the center if he vetoes the bloating spending bill that Congress just passed and abandons his support for a radical overhaul of the nation’s health care system.  That bill increases federal spending at a rate far above inflation and includes “an estimated $3.9 billion . . . for more than 5,000” earmarks.  Alas, that Republican legislators, apparently not aware of the election results of 2006 and 2008, have also included their pet projects in this budget boondoggle.

When the LA Times called Annise Parker, Houston’s Mayor-Elect “conservative,” I thought that maybe this lesbian is a Republican, but, alas, she is not.  In the Space City’s mayoral runoff yesterday, she “defeated former City Attorney Gene Locke on an austere platform, convincing voters that her financial bona fides and restrained promises would be best suited in trying financial times.”

Seems the main issue which propelled her to victory wasn’t her sexuality, but her fiscal common sense.  While she was “opposed by conservative religious groups and anti-gay activists“,

Houston voters [were] concerned less with lifestyle issues and more with bread-and-butter issues like the budget, public safety and city services, said Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

She wasn’t running as the lesbian candidate for Mayor, but as a prudent manager of the city’s finances who happened to be lesbian.  Her victory seems to be emblematic of the changing attitudes toward gays, that if gay and lesbian candidates run for office on issues of concern to voters in their jurisdiction, where their sexuality is incidental to their political philosophy and campaign platform, voters will look past their sexuality and consider the merits of their person and their policy proposals.

With Mayor-Elect Parker’s background in financial management and commitment to sound budgetary policies, it looks like, come January 1, the City of Houston will be in good hands.

(H/t for news of election Instapundit.)

Here we are twelve days before Christmas and Democrats want to overhaul our nation’s health care system before members adjourn to celebrate the holiday with their kith and kin.  Problem is they don’t have a draft of the bill they can share with Senate Republicans, indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hasn’t even shown a copy to his own deputy, Richard Durbin, the Number Two Democrat in the United States Senate:

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin admitted Friday that he is “in the dark” about the national health care bill currently under construction by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In an exchange on the Senate floor, Republican Sen. John McCain asked Durbin, “Should we not at least be informed as to what the proposal is that the Senate Majority Leader is going to propose to the entire Senate?” Durbin’s answer: “I would say to the senator from Arizona that I am in the dark almost as much as he is, and I am in the leadership.” Durbin explained that during a Democratic caucus, Reid and the small group of senators involved in crafting the bill turned to their fellow Democrats and “basically stood and said, ‘We are sorry, we can’t tell you in detail what was involved.’”

They haven’t even told their own partisan colleagues what’s involved.  Maybe Reid can’t share a copy with Durbin because even he doesn’t know what’s (to be?) included.

Let’s see, then, our elected representatives haven’t seen the bill and don’t really know what’s in it. And in the fewer than two weeks before Christmas, they want to vote on this while the American people are busy doing their holiday shopping and otherwise preparing for various religious solstice festivals.   Seems like a way of slipping one past us.

Kudos to Senator McCain for pressing his Illinois colleague on the contents of this legislation.  And kudos to Mr. Durbin for his honesty.  He has helped expose an emerging reality  of this past year of Democratic governance.  Keeping us all in the dark. A more transparent government, this ain’t.

As many of our readers know, CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) is one of the premier, if not the premier, annual conservative gathering.  Slated to begin on February 18, 2010, it will draw leading conservative intellectuals and activists from around the country.  Among the group’s many sponsors with be our friends at GOProud.

Announced that his organization will be “a cosponsor of the single most important conservative gathering in the country”  Jimmy La Salvia, the group’s Executive Director pointed out that the “gathering of the nation’s most influential conservatives gives us an incredible opportunity to deliver our message.”  When the various conservatives assembled for this shindig see gay Americans speaking out against Obama’s statist policies while calling for smaller government and more personal freedom, some may reconsider how they view gay people.

At the same time, by allowing this gay group to cosponsor their marquee event, the American Conservative Union (the leading sponsor of CPAC) shows that it welcomes gay people.  Left-wing misconceptions notwithstanding, most mainstream American conservative organizations don’t discriminate against gay people.  And while there remain many in the conservative movement who continue to harbor unwarranted prejudices against gay people, their attitude is not–and never has been–central to American conservatism.

As gay individuals becoming increasingly visible on the right, we can help correct those prejudices still present in pockets of our movement.  Indeed, some groups, as one of our readers points out, who continue to promote such prejudices are also cosponsoring the conference.  Let us hope the presence of GOProud alongside them at the conference helps wean them of their prejudice.

By cosponsoring CPAC, GOProud is doing something other gay organizations refuse to do:   establish a gay presence an environment where prejudice persists.  If we really want to change attitudes toward gays, we need to work in environments where attitudes need to be changed.

If Obama’s Pay czar were limiting his meddling to only the salaries of executives at companies bailed out with taxpayer dollars, his role could prove to be a largely beneficial one.  But, as Michelle reports, the “power-grabby pay czar wants his limits to be adopted industry-wide.”

You see, with such excessive regulation the cost of accepting federal funds, many financial companies ave an added incentive to raise private funds to stay afloat.

Bank of America did just that, using it available cash and raising $18.8 billion in capital to repay the TARP money, “it received during the height of the credit crisis last year and after its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. earlier this year“.  As a result, it’s having an easier time finding a new CEO:

Bank of America Corp. has been having a tough time finding a new CEO willing to accept the restrictions that came as a condition of bailout funds. But recruitment is sure to be easier now that the bank plans to pay back its $45 billion in aid in just a few days to free itself from government oversight and pay restraints.

Banks, David Zaring observes, “will go to great lengths to avoid limitations on compensation, a trend that reached its amazing culmination when Bank of America, far from being awash in liquidty, paid back Treasury its $45 billion extremely quickly”  (H/t for Zaring comment: Instapundit).

Provided Mr. Feinberg limits his endeavors to those private enterprises receiving federal funds, his regulation could serve a world of good.   Too bad we didn’t have a fellow like him overseeing Fannie and Freddie.  Wonder who it was who helped blocked reforms that would have placed additional oversight over those Government-sponsored enterprises?

At least one conservative blogger is making much of CBS’s Charles Cooper’s promotion of a debate between former Vice President Al Gore and former Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin on global warming.

Personally, I think Sarah should do it.  Her increasingly improving ability to withstand ridicule will stand in stark contrast to the self-righteous Democrat.  And while Cooper (as fits the bias of his network) explores the charismatic Republican’s apparent reluctance to debate the pompous Democrat, he all but assumes that the man, who has heretofore refused to debate his pet issue, will, all of a sudden, shift course should Mrs. Palin prove willing.  Perhaps Katie Couric’s sidekick thinks Gore will readily accede to the clamor for such a debate just ’cause he’s so smart and she’s so dumb.

But, he forgets what a “quick study” this accomplished reformer truly is.

The real question, however,  should not be whether or not Palin will debate Gore, but why Gore won’t respond to Lord Monckton’s repeated invitations to debate.

Please note that the British peer issued this challenge before the publication of the Climategate e-mails.

Monckton and Gore have much in common, both born to prominent fathers and educated at prestigious universities.  While living on opposite side of “the pond,” they find themselves on opposite sides of the global warming debate.  Neither is a trained scientist.  Both have a background in journalism. It seems a perfect pairing, one that a thinking man’s thinking man should eagerly embrace.

Wonder why the mainstream media isn’t making much of Lord Monckton’s challenge, choosing instead to focus on Sarah Palin’s hesitation.

Writing earlier today about the censoring of an anti-Olympic mural in Vancouver, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Glenn Reynolds quipped, “The little people shall not be allowed to get in the way.”

Sounds like he just articulated David Frum’s problem with the GOP base, you know those Republicans whose concern for increasing government spending and exploding deficits, has forced Washington Republicans to obstruct the work of the current majority party in our nation’s capital.  Recall how he inveighed last Wednesday against those citizens in in the hinterlands:  ”But it’s the rank-and-file who are the problem here!”

Those little people who refuse to be silent do get in the way of the statist visions of representatives of the statist wings of America’s political parties.

Remember back in the 2008 presidential campaign when then-candidate Barack Obama promised a “net spending cut,” matching each increase in funding with a corresponding reduction?  Remember when he promised to rein in earmarks?

Well, the Democratic Congress has now given him a chance to show that he is a man of his word.   In the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, 2008, “we need earmark reform . And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”  And now the Democratic Congress is set to pass a budget-busting spending bill, stuffed with earmarks, more than 5,000 earmarks to be precise “totaling $3.9 billion“.

Will he, as promised, go line by line through this budget and eliminate those 5,000 earmarks?

And the bill with each of them is headed for his desk.  Just this morning, Senate Democrats defeated a GOP filibuster of a budget bill not just with a surfeit of earmarks, but also with a steep increase in spending:

The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday cleared away a Republican filibuster of a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.

The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year’s unfinished budget work – only a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure would remain – into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.

Emphasis added.  Far exceeding inflation?   ar exceeding inflation?  At a time, when the president has been reiterating his campaign promise to control deficits.  Well, here’s your chance, Mr. President, veto the bill and ask that Congress return with a cleaner bill, adjusting the increases to inflation and eliminating all earmarks.

Just saw this on the Corner and it got me thinking.  Commenting on the CNN poll showing 61% of Americans opposing the Reid health care bill in the Senate (a bill which most Democrats “admit they don’t know much about“) Lamar Alexander, Tennessee’s senior Senator said

Friday, December 11 may turn out to be a seminal day for the health-care debate. . . .  The majority leader has been trying to create a sense of inevitability, but this debate is beginning to feel a lot like the 2007 immigration debate. The sense of inevitability is rapidly diminishing. Every new survey shows public support fading . . .

Health care is not the only issue at work here. . . .  Health care has become a proxy for public restlessness and anger about bailouts, spending, and debt. All of these issues are tied up.

A proxy for public restlessness about big government programs. . .  Hmmm. . . .  Has public opinion finally jelled?  Is it that now that the American people are used to having Obama as President, they don’t automatically assume his proposals represent the kind of change they were looking for in last fall’s election?

Leads me to wonder. . .  Had the Democrats delayed the “stimulus,” maybe Americans would have seen it for the big government boondoggle it was?  No wonder Pelosi, Reid & Co been rushing all their legislation.  But, now the American people have caught up with their game and are no longer playing along.

It may not be a very merry Christmas for some Democrats if this bill continues to totter.

Well, the end of the year is soon upon us and Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Pamela Geller must either prepare to surrender her crown — or fight to keep it.  As you know, we here at GayPatriot consider a conservative blogress diva any blogress who commands the support of gay conservative men.

And this past year, I have discovered many blogresses meriting the honor of being a blogress diva that I will wait and see the names our readers submit before submitting my list (as we have in years past).

I will, however, kick off the context by placing in nomination the name of an Obama supporter who has long commanded my respect:  Camille Paglia.  As we receive submissions and seconds, Bruce and I will determine which divas compete for the crown.  We expect to honor not only a Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, her prize hereinafter to be known as the “Ethel” in honor of that Republican most beloved by gay men–Ethel Merman.

She will be helped by at least one Conservative Blogress Regent, a title now held by Tammy Bruce and neoneocon and known as the Endora (or Agnes) in honor of the Lavender Lady herself, that “staunch” conservative, Agnes Moorhead.  This year, we may also be establishing the Lucy Award in honor of another star of the small screen and famous friend of Ron, that lifelong Republican Lucille Ball.

We will accept nominations until midnight Wednesday, December 16.  Shortly thereafter, we will alert the nominees and announce the beginning of the cat fight balloting.

The more we learn about Kevin Jennings’ past and his leadership of GLSEN, the more questions we have.

The other night, when finishing this post, I wanted to confirm two things I had seen on the web earlier in the day.  For one, the question of whether GLSEN had stopped the seminars on “fisting” after 2000, I could find no confirmation in my browser’s history, realizing only later that I had read that information via a comment in a Facebook thread.  (A reader would later confirm that in a comment.)  I could not confirm the second, that GLSEN regularly prohibited parents from attending events in which their children participated (having evidence that they do so only in 2001).

Further research may confirm the initial views of this blogger–and other conservatives–that Jennings is not fit to serve in the Department of Education.  Or it may contradict the emerging picture of this man, showing him to acknowledge the importance of promoting the complex nature of human sexuality and discussing its emotional aspects, perhaps even encouraging high school kids to wait until they find romance for their first sexual experience.

Some bloggers and other independent researchers have looked into this matters on their own, often at great personal expense.  (Not to mention the sacrifice of their own uncompensated time.)  Much of the information we need is several years old, often only readily accessible via databases requiring paid subscriptions. Other information remains in the “dead-tree” archives of schools and non-profits and not yet uploaded to the web.

Most of us lack the resources to conduct research (it would involve travel to Boston); some might have difficulty gaining access to school archives and need help to file Freedom of Information requests.  And right now, we’ve only got bloggers and their amateur allies looking into this.  The mainstream media, by and large, seems indifferent to a story which includes some of the same elements which made a recent scandal in the Catholic Church a national, if not international sensation.  Why, we ask, isn’t the media doing the followup they would do were this story to involve priests or Republicans?

There are questions that need be asked. And the answers just might put Jennings (and GLSEN) in a better light. (more…)

I did not hear the president’s speech yesterday in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, so cannot comment on his delivery.

When I started reading snippets on conservative blogs, most singing the speech’s praises (with slight quibbles for some of the language), I thought I was reading something from a speech by John McCain or Joe Lieberman.  So, I printed it out to read at my leisure.

Now that I have read it, I agree that it is very strong speech, if a bit overlong.  My biggest quibble was that he didn’t acknowledge those great warriors throughout history who have secured the peace, whether it be generals like George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant or leaders like Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.  When the president mentioned the Gipper, he didn’t mention his arms buildup which put the U.S. in a position to promote peace through strength, but cited instead his “efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika“.

That said, the Gipper would have appreciated the better part of this address.

I absolutely loved his beginning when he acknowledged the “considerable controversy” of his selection.  He called “the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics . . . far more deserving of this honor than” he.

Then, he was wise to describe the war in Afghanistan as “a conflict that America did not seek”.   A great way to introduce the notion of a just war.  Then, in perhaps my favorite passage in the speech (because it relates to some of my dissertation research):

Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Well said, very, very well said.  Later, after expressing great admiration for Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., two advocates of non-violence, he reminds us that their strategy cannot always work:

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. (more…)

While David Frum frequently posts intelligent policy pieces advocating conservative reforms and regularly makes thoughtful comments lambasting big-government Democratic initiatives, all too often he buys into the liberal narrative, you know those Administration talking points, about the GOP.   One such talking point is that while President Obama reached a hand out to the GOP in an attempt to work with them, Republilcan legislators replied by turning their backs (or spitting in his face).

Yeah, to his credit, after taking office, the President did meet with House Republicans, but the Democrat also retorted, “I won,” when Republicans raised concerns about the cost of the “stimulus.”  Democratic intransigence notwithstanding, Frum buys into the Democratic narrative and blames Republicans for Democrats’ unwillingness to compromise.  He even blames the Administration’s decision to impose carbon controls by administrative fiat on the GOP’s efforts to block cap and trade.  (He fails to mention Democrats from coal-producing states who have raised concern about the regulatory scheme.)

What other conservatives liken to Mafia tactics, Frum ascribes to GOP rejectionism:

The furious rejectionist frenzy of the past 12 months is exacting a terrible price upon Republicans. We’re getting worse and less conservative results out of Washington than we could have negotiated, if we had negotiated.

If we had negotiated?  We? Huh?  Does anybody seriously believe the Democrats wanted to negotiate?  Let’s see, they crafted the “stimulus” package without seeking input from the GOP, then moved heaven and earth to get a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate.  Just last week, “no Republican lawmakers were on the list of attendees” at the President’s job summit.

Hardly evidence of an Administration eager to compromise. (more…)

In response to the debate in Uganda over legislation that would impose criminal penalties on gays and lesbians living in the African nation, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, has called on the President to speak out:

If the President wants to start earning the Nobel Peace Prize he is accepting, he can start by speaking out against this outrageous Ugandan law. . . .  President Obama’s lack of leadership on international human rights issues is appalling. . . From his refusal to confront the radically anti-gay regime in Iran to his refusal to speak out against this proposed Ugandan law – this President’s silence speaks volumes about his priorities.

While the president has been silent about a bill which, in some versions, has even called for the death penalty or life imprisonment for being gay, two Republican leaders have spoken out.  Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said she was “deeply saddened and troubled that such blatantly ignorant and hate-filled legislation would see the light of day anywhere in today’s world. It needs to be stopped in its tracks immediately.”

Even Tom Coburn, one of the Senate’s most conservative members has also weighed in:

Over the past two decades, political, religious, and community leaders in Uganda have united to promote a rare, winning strategy against HIV that addresses the unique and common risks of every segment of society. Sadly, some who oppose Uganda’s common sense ABC strategy are using an absurd proposal to execute gays to undermine this coalition and winning strategy. Officials in Uganda should come to their senses and take whatever steps are necessary to withdraw this proposal that will do nothing but harm a winning strategy that is saving lives.

Liberal blogger/activist Michael Petrelis asks that his readers “give the man his due on this matter“.  I agree.

Just got another piece of spam from “Equality California” asking:

“How are we going to win marriage back in California?” and “Why do we keep losing at the ballot box?”

Filled with a the same sort of mumbo-jumbo we hear from this left-wing organization, the e-mail was just another (of the all too many) fund-raising solicitations I regularly receive from gay groups.  So, I wrote back a hasty response:

Actually, you’ll win when you get a (sic)* leadership at Equality California that is not prejudiced against Republicans.

Wonder if the Advocate will count this as anti-gay and our critics will use this a proof of the oft-repeated slur that gay conservatives are self-hating.

—–

*I typed in haste and included an unnecessary, indefinite article.