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.
Sigh. Commenter said “a” centerpiece, not “the” centerpiece, so basic reading fail.
And what do you call Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, the American Family Association, and the innumerable state-level groups, most cleverly and misleading labeled with the word “family” in their name (because gays don’t belong to or like families, I guess)? Isn’t aversion to gay rights and opposition to gay rights bills and court cases a (and maybe the) “centerpiece” of their efforts?
And we’ve already covered (not that the blog answered, but the issue was raised) that some state GOPs themselves – as in, the entire state GOP apparatus – have as a plank in their party platform the opposition to more and the rollback of existing gay rights. Perhaps, BDB, you’re ignorant of the movement you’re defending?
And last, just to show how little this blog goes for consistency, did or did not the head of CPAC’s main organizing group say the following, “…in fact, since opposition to gay marriage, etc are consensus positions (if not unanimous) among conservatives, these topics are not open to debate.”
Get that? Not just gay marriage (the one issue they stick on because they still barely have plurality support for), but opposition to gay rights etc are all “consensus positions” to conservatives. Is he wrong? Did he lie? What other gay rights topics are off the table and decided on? (This is where AE tells us that conservatives, unlike Dems, don’t fear new ideas – LOL!)
BDB: “An aversion to homosexuality, however, is hardly the centerpiece of American conservatism…”
How about “pretty-close-to-the-centerpiece, right behind the gravy boat?”
Basic reading fail, huh? No matter what the article, torrent, that attitude is not a centerpiece of the modern American conservative movement. A plank in a party platform does not a centerpiece make.
Go read conservative blogs, attend conservative confabs, spend time with mainstream conservatives, follow the legislation conservative lawmakers introduce and you’ll see that, save for some of the extreme social conservatives, they don’t talk much (if at all) about homosexuality, much less register contempt for it.
But, thanks for you comment, it does help confirm the point of my post.
Whoa, whoa, whoa….back up.
Let’s not concede to false premises. WHERE are ANY conservatives trying to take away civil rights?
I want the name of the organization, I want the jurisdiction, and the name or numbers of the laws they are pushing the will “take away our civil rights”
Its a bald faced lie and Dan, if you are going to concede such a falsehood, then you should also have to cite where conservatives are trying doing so.
And just to be clear, neither I, nor anyone else considers the electorate’s of California or Maine to be “conservatives” or gay marriage to be a “civil right”. So where exactly are conservatives trying to take away our civil rights?
torrent – I’ve made this point before… I acknowledge that there are some on the right for whom gays are an issue just as there are those on the left for whom Christians are an issue.
It’s my view that my rights are far more secure under a conservative system that will stand up for liberty than they are under a leftist regime that, in the service of multiculturalism and soft tyranny, have no problem with depriving people of free speech, property, and the right to self-defense.
A gay man in Topeka is far more likely to be left alone than is a gay man in Amsterdam or, for that matter, Dearborn.
AE – don’t forget the rabid, gay-hating right-wingers in New Jersey.
Happy to! Anytime! We love new ideas. We embrace new ideas! Nuclear energy! Genetically modified crops! vaccinations! pesticides! The Constitution of the United States of America, the idea that the people themselves and not some elite governing class should be the ultimate authority from whence power is derived…
ALL new and radical ideas that conservatives love and liberals HATE with every fiber of their beings.
The only ideas conservatives fear are DUMB ones. Unfortunately for us all, those are the ones liberals love the most!
Amen!
To the contrary, anti-Christian bigotry IS the centerpiece of the Gay Leftist agenda and many liberal/progressive policy positions.
“A gay man in Topeka is far more likely to be left alone than is a gay man in Amsterdam or, for that matter, Dearborn.”
Huh? Explain that one, please….
Oh wait, I think I know what you mean – are you referring to the fact that their is a slightly different flavor of religious conservatives in the latter two places?
If so, then how does the fact that conservatism is multi-culti absolve conservatism in general?
And even so, what evidence do you have that your statement is true. Do you have some stats regarding attacks on gays in Dearborn rel. Topeka? I ‘d love to see that…
“anti-Christian bigotry IS the centerpiece of the Gay Leftist agenda and many liberal/progressive policy positions.”
Not to sow dissension here, but I ask you Dan – do you agree with this? I mean you to go to some lengths to develop an argument that leftists are so damm intellectually lazy that they do not bother to understand conservatives, or if they do they willingly mischaracterize what conservatives actually believe – and then here comes Bruce bascially doing the mirror image argument of your caricature of the left. You buyin’ this? You realize doncha, how doing so would destroy the credibility of your own argument?
So I watched the President latest war on terror speech. When is the press going to ask ….
would the President please pause, and answer some questions? He keeps coming out….belatedly, with clips, and blather. Today after his remarks, the boobs and blunderers Napalatano and his non security chief were sent out to take a few arrows. Apparently our President went back to take a nap.
No heads rolled, apparently someone named Mr Systematic was responsible for a known terrorist almost killing 300 people on Christmas Day. Who does this Mr Systematic work for, what dept, and when will he be fired?
Bruce and Dans arguments are entirely consistent. The left’s anti-Christian, anti-religious bigotry IS entirely based on ignorance, intellectual dishonesty and intellectual laziness.
It was a point about liberty, you know, that freedom and self-determination thing you liberals despise.
So Tano, ever going to answer heliptrope’s challenge?
or maybe NDT’s debunking of your health care talking points here?
Or his exposing you as a liar (again) here?
Or here?
Or no rebuttal of this montage of “Tano gets his ass handed to him” here?
Or how about helitropes smacking of you here.
Think I’ll just save this and add to it as needed. Just post it in threads where Tano comes in, reads his script and leaves. This way any new readers can know he’s pointless, and save some time.
Hmmm. With all the names mentioned in 1.’s first paragraph, how many were actually founded to oppose gay mariage? Like the NRA and 2nd Amendment issues, it more developed from their general position. If you ever visit the FotF center in Co Springs, ain’t a lot of it by percent touch gay issues at all…
But there I go again, actually using facts and thinking… sorry. I try so hard to be a good liberal when up here in NE.
Ouch! @ Livewire! That’s gonna leave a mark!
Tano – I’m not inclined to do a statistical analysis but here’s someone’s look at one story.
http://gayandright.blogspot.com/2008/11/gay-bashing-in-amsterdam.html
Original story: http://www.365gay.com/news/anti-gay-violence-growing-problem-in-amsterdam/
SoCal,
Well, I see 67 attacks in a city of 750,000 (Amsterdam). Nothing whatsoever about Dearborn. I don’t know how that compares to anything, do you? Specifically, how does it compare to Topeka. And how many gays per capita are living out lives in Topeka compared to Amsterdam?
I think we would need to see some serious, non-hyper-partisan people sitting down and trying to do a well-thought-out analysis.
But I was thinking that must have been done, since you have not only formed an opinion on the matter, but seem quite certain of it.
Seriously, how did you arrive at this conclusion?
And what do muslim fundamentalists – especially in Europe – have to do with the conversation we were having here about American conservatives? I mean, I realize that fundamentalists of the various Abrahamic religions have a lot of similarities, but is that really fair to the American right, or relevant?
Tano – Did you go to publik skool? I mean dude, the spelling and grammar are horrible.
jus sayin’
Charlie75 started with a false premise: that conservatives are determined to take away civil rights from homosexuals.
There is no movement amongst conservatives to deny gay citizens the right to vote or run for elective office — the two principle political rights in our republic.
Nor is there any movement to stop gay people the right to speak out or worship as they please, or to bare arms, or to peacefully assemble. Conservatives do not want to subject gays to punishment for crimes without due process.
For Charlie75 taking away a gay persons “civil rights” means opposing any of the legal privileges and perogatives centering on a gay lifestyle that the gay left so strongly believes in. In this he is just like Edge Boston labeling Scott Brown as “anti-gay” for disbelieving in same-sex marriage.
In short, we have a reader who agrees that the only just way to look at cultural controversies is from the left’s perspective.
It shouldn’t surprise us that Charlie takes this attitude. Reacting to NDT’s assertion that Martha Coakley opposes several of his “civil rights as an American, codified in the Constitution and backed up by centuries of case law” Charlie75 had only this to say:
This is typical of the American Left. For them, the American Revolution was so deeply flawed it was at best a half-start. True freedom and democracy requires the rule of the left.
Tano – I will never change your mind. All I know is what I see in the news which, in Europe, is too often surrender by the self-hating leftist elites to Islamification. There are lots of books and articles on the subject that cover it far better than I can.
Also, I don’t see the right working behind closed doors to further enslave me in service to the insatiable Leviathan and it’s fast-growing client class.
As a member of the ever-shrinking middle class (defined by me as people who earn enough to pay taxes above per-capita expenditures yet who don’t make enough to not care), I’m fed up.
“Tano – I will never change your mind. ”
Well you certainly could. Just show me some actual evidence that supports your point.
“surrender by the self-hating leftist elites to Islamification.”
wow. may i suggest a slightly less tabloidy class of literature? I mean really SoCal, try to reconnect to the real world.
“I don’t see the right working behind closed doors to further enslave me…”
yeah, like,,whatever
“As a member of the ever-shrinking middle class…”
Well you can thank Reagan for that – that is the one enduring legacy of Reagonomics y’know
torrentprime @ 1:
The groups you mention, torrentprime, do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over the damage to society they think the mainstreaming of homosexuality has done or is about to do. So whether or not aversion to homosexuality is a centerpiece for the traditional values crowd is worth discussing.
Dan’s assertion that an aversion to homosexuality isn’t a centerpiece of American conservatism per se isn’t. The conservative movement is based on opposition to statism and socialism. These matters of political principle are not concerned with human sexuality.
Also, your comment ignores (or shares) the error in Charlie75 original: that opposing this or that “gay rights” measure amounts to depriving homosexuals of their civil rights. It is nothing of the kind.
“The conservative movement is based on opposition to statism and socialism.”
Part of it may be. But it is ridiculously inaccurate to claim that all of it is. Sounds to me that one faction is trying to airbrush another faction from the picture. But the truth is, or at least it seems to be from the perspective of an outsider like me, that the anti-gay voices have a very loud presence in the conservative universe. Maybe disproportionate to their numbers – I don’t know about that. But there certainly are a lot of loud people who claim to be conservative, who are present wherever conservatives gather, who vote conservative, and who are anti-gay.
Unfortunately, bigot Tano, we also know what the Obama Party’s base, which you fully support and endorse, is saying.
“God don’t like men coming to men with lust in their hearts like you should go to a female. If you think that the kingdom of God is going to be filled up with that kind of degenerate crap, you’re out of your damn mind.”
And who could forget:
I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.
And since the gay community and its leadership fully endorse and support bans on gay marriage, Tano, what you’re making obvious is that “antigay” in the minds of the Obama Party and its syncophants like you, Talkingpointsprime, and Charlie75 simply means “doesn’t worship Obama”.
Tardo @ #21 can add “historical” and “economic” to his long list of illiteracies.
That says very little about actual conservatives and makes clear instead what a misinformed, myopic echo chamber you live in.
Just as I posted, Tano can’t do more than parrot talking points… kind of sad really.
CLDave:
“Nor is there any movement to stop gay people the right to speak out or worship as they please, or to bare arms, or to peacefully assemble. Conservatives do not want to subject gays to punishment for crimes without due process.”
Funny typo, but my first thought was “bare arms, no. baring other things in public… um, yeah.” 😉
There was one more line from the reader which was not included in the blockquote in Dan’s post:
I post this, because this is really at the heart of the comment.
I am with American Elephant 100% about the canard that there is a conservative effort to take any civil right away from any gay person. I want the facts and I will join the fight against that group.
I do not worry about that pledge, because the ACLU would be all over it already and MSNBC would be 24/7 headlining it.
Notice that the commenter (Charlie75) is hung up on people who view being gay as a “sin” or a “defect.” Why would we have ever looked for “gay” genetic markers if somewhere, someone didn’t think that being gay was an anomaly? Why organize as GLBT if not to create power in numbers as you go forward dealing with the “differences”?
If there were any civil right at the centerpiece, it would come through loud and clear. So, gay activists have deemed “gay marriage” to be a civil right. But “gay marriage” is an adjustment in the marriage code. If a majority oppose the adjustment, so be it. The gay movement will just have to work harder to convince the majority that there are reasons beneficial to society as a whole as to why the marriage code should be altered.
But to object to people who view some types of sexual activity as a sin is to take on much of religion in full force. It is always necessary to separate the sin from the sinner, as true Christians do.
I can not imagine how divorced from reality a mind has to be to go from believing “gay marriage” is a basic right to assuming the Pope is going to nullify the sin of sex involving man with man, woman with woman, person with animal, and rooms full of people in orgy.
Talk about a children’s crusade, the whole idea of ridding the world of people who disapprove of the differences embodied in the GLBT confederacy has to be the most naive.
In my book, gay conservatives are realists who understand that life revolves around how we handle our differences. Too many liberal gays are too often shouters and strutters who handle their differences in an “in your face” way. They are very easy to ignore and to really, really dislike.
Tano, in #23, amazing how you try to lecture us about the makeup of our movement, one in which many of us have participated over a number of years.
In many posts, I’ve acknowledged the anti-gay forces within our midst, but you hit on the reason for the prejudiced view of the right: <<from the perspective of an outsider like me, that the anti-gay voices have a very loud presence in the conservative universe.>>
Fair point. As an outsider, you get your information filtered through the MSM (hence my parenthetical above about media bias).
The MSM, alas, appear to give more air time to right-wingers railing against homosexuals than to Republican legislators offering alternatives to Obamacare.
As a conservative person (conservative in outlook and politics) I do not have an aversion to gays. I have worked with gay men and women, and only one creepy person bothered me… (please note I said that person was creepy). In one particular case I had a lot of fun with the gay person.
Americans view things very differently from Australians. What I find very offensive are the following:
1. the Rainbow movement and their attacks on the Catholic Church.
It is offensive because these people know exactly what is taught in Scripture, and yes homosexuality is considered a sin. The Catholic response requires that the homosexual renounces the lifestyle and becomes “celibate” in order to be in good standing with the Church.
2. Secretly gay men who become priests and then turn out to be pedophiles. Here is where I should add the same thing for secret heterosexual pedophiles who become priests and then attack children. I make no distinction between each group because both are vile.
3. The push for gay marriage. Yes I consider this a matter between a man and a woman. The law of contract should cover the gay situation in the same way that it covers a common law marriage – when two people live together without the license. I am opposed to homosexual and lesbians “marrying” and trying to push themselves onto churches.
4. Gay parades. I am opposed to these parades because they are distasteful and the participants are pretty much disgusting and very much in your face.
If someone wants to live a gay lifestyle without making a song and dance over the issue then I am not opposed to such an arrangement. There are lots of people who live with a same sex partner and they do not advertise the fact. That is fine by me. I certainly believe that government should not be in the bedroom and that there should not be penalties for same sex relationships.
I think that Tano and Co are wrong about what they term “anti-gay” voices. People have a right to voice their objection to the issues being promoted by the gay left.
What is more I think that the real problem is the anti-religious, and anti-conservative attitude of these same leftist gays. The reason that there is a real problem relates to the threats of violence.
Even Hillbuzz who lean Democrat, are somewhat conservative yet liberal in some things find these people to be a real problem. They have acknowledged the times when they have been beaten up by these same leftists just because they support Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.
If these leftist loons like Tano have the right to speak out then so do those Christians who have a different point of view. The fact is that people like Tano want Christians silenced and on top of that they continue to persecute Christians, as well as Jews, giving a pass to Muslims – which I find to be strange.
In Muslim countries such as Iran homosexuals are punished by hanging. That is a fact. It is definitely not a good thing to be homosexual in a Muslim community.
Uh, someone forgot to turn the bold off.