So late today the Senate in New Jersey, one of the blueist of blue states (based on recent Prez elections), defeated a gay marriage proposal.

Gay rights advocates were confident of a legislative win and they pushed for passage while defeated Gov. Corzine was still holding his bill-signing pen.

So WTF? What has happened to the gay marriage movement? If you lose in CA and NJ, where do you go now?

I think it is a dead issue. Dead.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Just five days ago, I blogged that “anti-gay” has become an “all purpose slur to silence politically incorrect opinions on gay issues“.  We’ve seen that in the current contest to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat.  Last month, a reader from New England alerted me to an article on gay Boston website identifying Scott Brown, the Republican nominee in that contest, as “anti-gay“.

The editors of the site did not respond to my e-mail requesting information on how they reached that conclusion.  And my research turned up no evidence to support their claim.  To be sure, Brown “opposes gay marriage and supports the Defense of Marriage Act”, but so too do a lot of Americans who do not harbor animus against homosexuals.  They just believe marriage is an institution (which should be) reserved for couples of different sexes.

Indeed, despite his opposition to gay marriage, Brown has not dwelled on the issue in his campaign, telling editors of the Boston Herald that gay marriage in the Bay State is “settled law“:

Gay marriage, which he once wanted to put up for a referendum? “This is settled law” in Massachusetts, he said. “People have moved on.”

Just the other day, in fact, he chatted up two lesbians at Doyle’s in Jamaica Plain. They were so wowed, they asked for a “Brown for Senate” sign.

Doesn’t sound like an anti-gay fellow to me.   Guess the editors at the Edge believe any Republican opposing gay marriage must necessarily be anti-gay.

In most of the “blue islands” which dominate our nation’s coastal regions (and are scattered throughout its interior), we openly conservative gay folks regularly experience the prejudice of our gay peers and other well-educated leftie types.  Seems their undergraduate (and postgraduate) education (coupled with a healthy dose of media bias) has given them a skewed view of the American right.

As one of our readers offered in a comment to a recent post:

While you are busy supporting conservatives, they are busy trying to take away your civil rights as a gay American. I am certain that you are aware that the forces on the right side of the aisle have as a centerpiece of their attempts to conserve traditional values a certain contempt for people who, in their words, “choose the gay lifestyle”

Yeah, there are folks like that on the right, but they hardly define the conservative movement.  An aversion to homosexuality, however, is hardly the centerpiece of American conservatism, even of those social conservatives promoting traditional values.

It would be nice if our ideological adversaries could at least take the time to understand those they claim to know so well, but about whom they maintain an incredible ignorance.

UPDATE: AllahPundit notes that this level of conservative self-identification is “back to same level as post-9/11.”  Interesting.  Perhaps a one-night stand with Obama was enough to give America The Hangover Of The Century?

STILL. From Gallup today:

PRINCETON, NJ — The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup’s initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009.

More broadly, the percentage of Americans calling themselves either conservative or liberal has increased over the last decade, while the percentage of moderates has declined.  [GP Ed. Note: So much for Obama being "post-partisan" and a "uniter", eh?]

<..>

Thus far in 2009, Gallup has found an average of 36% of Americans considering themselves Democratic, 28% Republican, and 37% independent. When independents are pressed to say which party they lean toward, 51% of Americans identify as Democrats, 39% as Republicans, and only 9% as pure independents.

Ideological tendencies by leaned party affiliation are very similar to those of straight partisan groups.  However, it is worth noting the views of pure independents — a group usually too small to analyze in individual surveys but potentially important in deciding elections. Exactly half of pure independents describe their views as moderate, 30% say they are conservative, and 17% liberal.

Conservative Republicans hold the mainstream views in America.  The governing coalition in the US has been, since 1980, Conservative Republicans, Conservative Democrats, Conservative-Leaning Independents.  That all adds up to the magic 40% Conservative.  Then all you need is two swing 11% moderate Independents and you have your governing coalition.

Liberals had their wad shot in 2008.  Now the Conservative Governing Coalition of America is coming back and uniting around our Founding Principles.  Obama had better wake up and realize he ain’t the Premier of the United Soviet States of America anymore.

The problem of course is that liberals have infested the academic and media worlds and they whine, shriek and holler louder than the other 79% of America.  We need to change that.  NOW.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Today, Michelle Malkin is making much of Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker “unprecedented ruling” to videotape the federal trial challenging California’s Proposition 8.

Michael Kirk, the lawyer for Prop 8 proponents “argued that allowing the proceedings to be viewed outside the courthouse would violate their right to a fair trial by intimidating their witnesses.” Citing former federal district judge Paul Cassell, who finds it “highly unusual for a judge to authorize televised proceedings for this particular case as part of some new ‘pilot’ project to see how televised proceedings work“, Michelle contends:

This isn’t a sincere educational effort to provide transparency to the public. It’s a flagrant attempt at making Prop. 8 a show trial — and intimidating Prop. 8 backers who will be called to testify.

Just based on the antics of those Michelle dubs the “anti-Prop. 8 mob,” there is much merit to her argument. Members of this “mob” seem more interested in political theater than in rational argument. Among the advocates of gay marriage, Jonathan Rauch stands out, largely because he prefers level-headed persuasion to self-righteous chest-thumping.

Just yesterday, “Equality California” sent out an e-mail blast encouraging people to rally at a San Diego hotel owned by a man who made a generous contribution to the campaign to put Prop 8 on the ballot. They’ve even chartered vehicles to bus people from West Hollywood to the rally. Yeah, that’ll help.

Instead of engaging in political theater, they could better use their resources by taking the time to understand the arguments of gay marriage opponents and developing counter-arguments.  There’s no need to televise this trial nor to boycott a hotel, but there is a need to argue effectively. As the gay leadership has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to do just that.

Remember all the left-wing bellyaching about the supposed bias of the poll liberal blogger Nate Silver ranked as “the third-most accurate pollster in predicting outcomes of elections“?  Well, those folks might want to reconsider their attacks.  In a batch of polls Jim Geraghty linked this morning, Rasmussen (along with CNN) registered the highest support for the Democrats’ proposed health care overhaul:  42%:

Rasmussen: 52 percent oppose the health care plan, 42 percent support it.

CNN: 56 percent oppose the health care plan, 42 percent support it.

Quinnipiac: 53 percent oppose the health care plan, 36 percent support it.

NBC/WSJ: 46 percent oppose the health care plan, 32 percent support it.

Like yours truly, Martha Coakley is a graduate of the college currently ranked (by U.S. News and World Report) as the nation’s top liberal arts college.  But, unlike our fellow alum and her fellow Democrat, Chris Murphy, she doesn’t seem very interested in the concerns of her constituents who do not share her political point of view.

The Massachusetts Democrat, her party’s nominee for the Senate seat formerly held by Teddy Kennedy, has so far refused a one-on-one debate with her Republican opponent Scott Brown.   You’d think a Williams graduate would relish the chance to debate an ideological adversary.   After all, in many of our classes, class participation counted toward our grade.

Not just that, as a former District Attorney of Middlesex County and current state Attorney General, she should have perfected the art of public speaking and debate.

Even Brian McGrory of the liberal Boston Globe is asking, “Where’s Martha Coakley?”

Coakley, in exquisitely diva-like form, is refusing all invitations to debate her Republican opponent in the race, Scott Brown, unless a third-party candidate with no apparent credentials is included on the stage. She may also require a crystal bowl of orange-only M&Ms in her dressing room, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. Her demands have led to an astonishing result: there will be just one — that’s one — live televised debate in the Boston media market this general election season. . . .

This is all part of a Coakley pattern. When she ran for attorney general, she didn’t allow even the Republican candidate on a debate stage. In fact, she refused to debate at all. . . .

Here’s one problem with all this: When you’re a United States senator, you’re expected to get up on the Senate floor and forcefully debate the issues of the day. You’re expected to be a strong voice in hearings.

Both the man she’d like to succeed (the late Teddy Kennedy) and the man with whom she’d like serve (John Kerry) debated their Republican opponents.  If Mrs. Coakley can’t stand up to the Republican challenging her for the chance to represent the Bay State in the United States Senate, how will she be able to stand up for the Bay State in the United States Senate?

A Williams alumna should have the guts to take on a challenger in a battle of wits.  Now, she’s following in the footsteps of the most ignominious man in our college history.  Like Zephaniah Swift Moore, she’d rather turn tail than face the challenges of her job.

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Perhaps, it was because I so enjoyed Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side that I snapped up Two Weeks Notice in Costco on Sunday.  While the script is uneven at best, I liked the film when first I saw it on the big screen.  Bullock is outstanding throughout and she and Hugh Grant have great chemistry so we believe their romance.  It held up reasonably well on a second viewing.

The flaws in the screenplay are too numerous to mention, notably that Grant plays the heir to a New York real estate magnate without losing his English charm, manner or accent.

While Bullock’s Lucy Kelson has left-wing politics, the film tones them down so they never really become offensive and a conservative can enjoy the film without feeling the filmmakers are making fun of our politics.  Still, Kelson is a liberal type of activist who cried when Bush was elected.

It seems that liberal activists are a staple of films made since the 1970s and almost always portrayed in a sympathetic light as was Miss Bullock’s Lucy.  So that got me wondering:  can anyone recall a movie where a conservative activist is portrayed in a positive light–even if his conservative politics are only incidental to his character?

The Governor of the Golden State calls out Obamacare for what it is:

Health care reform, which started as noble and needed legislation, has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes. You’ve heard of the bridge to nowhere. This is health care to nowhere. California’s congressional delegation should either vote against this bill that is a disaster for California or get in there and fight for the same sweetheart deal Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. He got the corn; we got the husk.

For some reason, I just don’t think either of California’s Senators will be listening.  Nor for that matter will the great majority of our House delegation pay much heed to his sound advice.  So beholden are these Democrats to pass “historic” legislation that they overlook those provisions calling on cash-strapped Golden State citizens to fit the Medicare bill of the citizens of Nebraska, a state in far better economic shape than the one Mesdames Feinstein and Boxer were elected to represent.

(Via Gateway Pundit.)