If I were no so deep in dissertation mode right now, I would devote more attention to the George Rekers story because there is far more to it than the bloggers covering it have considered.  First and foremost, the story reminds us of the pseudo-science behind much of the “scholarship” folks like Rekers use to address the causes and supposed “cures” of homosexuality.

It’s unfortunate that all too many of those who have written about it have been determined to focus on the tawdry aspects of the relationship.  And unfortunate that gay bloggers have taken it upon themselves to track down the young escort, make public his profession and torment him with their questions.  They should have left him out of this — or at the very least not made public his name.

The (very) young man is caught in the crossfire, so to speak, while Rekers acts out one of the oldest pathologies in the book, seeking solace with a younger companion to fill the emptiness in his own life.

The real story here is not just the contrast between Rekers’ public life and his private passions.  It’s too easy (though, in this case, not entirely inaccurate) to call him “self-loathing” (as at least one person has done) or to dwell on his hypocrisy.  The real story is what human beings do to address their loneliness, to feel connected with our fellows.

George Rekers is, by all evidence, a very lonely man.

As I have been reading about his European travels with a young escort, I am reminded of a passage describing such loneliness John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.   (more…)

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

The U.S. jobless rate rose to 9.9% in April, the first increase in three months, but the government’s broader measure of unemployment ticked up for the third month in a row, rising 0.2 percentage point to 17.1%.

The comprehensive gauge of labor underutilization, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. Though the rate is still 0.3 percentage point below its high of 17.4% in October, its continuing divergence from the official number (the “U-3″ unemployment measure) indicates the job market has a long way to go before growth in the economy translates into relief for workers.

The 9.9% unemployment rate is calculated based on people who are without jobs, who are available to work and who have actively sought work in the prior four weeks. The “actively looking for work” definition is fairly broad, including people who contacted an employer, employment agency, job center or friends; sent out resumes or filled out applications; or answered or placed ads, among other things. The number ticked up this month as more people came back into the labor force to look for jobs. (Read a more in-depth explanation for the rise in the unemployment rate.)

The U-6 figure includes everyone in the official rate plus “marginally attached workers” — those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that’s all they could find.

A U-6 figure that converges toward the official rate could indicate improving confidence in the labor market and the overall economy. This month pushes convergence even further away.

Hopeandchange continues to kill us by 1,000 cuts.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

All of us who read the Democratic healthcare legislation and warned that this would result in employers dumping health benefits and forcing us into the Exchanges/Public Option…. well, we were right.  As reported by Fortune Magazine.

The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans — coverage they know and prize — will react to the new law’s radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes.

Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill’s critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.

That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama’s statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them. And as we’ll see, it would hugely magnify the projected costs for the bill, which controls deficits only by assuming that America’s employers would remain the backbone of the nation’s health care system.

Obama Lied, Your Healthcare Benefits Died.

Hence, health-care reform risks becoming a victim of unintended consequences. Amazingly, the corporate documents that prove this point became public because of a different set of unintended consequences: they told a story far different than the one the politicians who demanded them expected.

What does it mean for health care reform if the employer-sponsored regime collapses? By Fortune’s reckoning, each person who’s dropped would cost the government an average of around $2,100 after deducting the extra taxes collected on their additional pay. So if 50% of people covered by company plans get dumped, federal health care costs will rise by $160 billion a year in 2016, in addition to the $93 billion in subsidies already forecast by the CBO. Of course, as we’ve seen throughout the health care reform process, it’s impossible to know for certain what the unintended consequences of these actions will be.

Welcome to the Brave New World of Total Government Control.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This is just added good news from the Tory majority election win in the UK (despite the hung parliament thingy). (h/t – VictoryFund)

Three openly gay Conservatives in party leader David Cameron’s shadow government are set to become ministers if the Tories are able to form a government with the Liberal Democrats.

National elections held yesterday saw a swing of nearly 100 seats from Labour to the Conservatives, but no party controls the requisite 326 seats needed to form a government.  Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg, who today finds himself in a kingmaker role, said this morning he would give Cameron (pictured) the first shot at an alliance with his party.

According to Pink News, 20 Conservative Members of Parliament are openly gay, though the party has only named 11 of those.  The first out lesbian MP in the Tory party will be Margot James of Stourbrige, who was elected last night.

Cameron has sought to transform the Conservatives when it comes to LGBT issues, going so far as to issue an apology for the party’s anti-gay past.  Earlier this year one of his shadow ministers, Nick Herbert, traveled to the U.S. to speak at the Cato Institute about the place of LGBT people in the conservative movement.  During his speech he urged the U.S. Republican Party to embrace LGBT rights as a conservative value.

Now THAT is change you can believe in!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last month, I read that a left-of-center friend of mine, a decent person who shows great respect to her ideological adversaries, likened some of the Tea Party language to “hate speech”, with the rallies providing cover for racist rhetoric.

She has, like many critics of this dynamic, grassroots movement, not yet attended a  Tea Party and, like many busy professionals, doesn’t have time to look to as many alternative sources of news as do bloggers.  Thus, given the tilt of the media coverage of the Tea Party, it’s not surprising that the average consumer of news, has a jaundiced view of this phenomenon.

People busy with his work and family don’t have time to surf the web to confirm every story they read in such left-leaning dailies as the New York or Los Angeles Times.  Thus, it is no wonder, as blogging law professor William A. Jacobson observed, a Washington Post poll found that 28% of Americans find racial prejudice underlying the Tea Party.

. . . the fact that “nearly three in ten” Americans perceive the Tea Parties as racist is amazingly low considering how much time WaPo and NY Times columnists, Democratic members of Congress, and left-wing blogs spend calling Tea Partiers racist.

The only reason Tea Parties are “battling perceptions of racism,” as the Post puts it, is because of the prejudices of the reporters from papers like theirs as well as from various and sundry mainstream news outlets.

Since these journalists are predisposed to find racism on the right, they will play up the handful of nasty slogans they see on random signs at our rallies or the occasional nut-bag who happens to show up at the protests they cover.  As we (and other conservative and libertarian bloggers) have said repeatedly, there are nuts in every political movement.  But, somehow, the isolated extremists are supposed to define ours.

Nobody was asking Barney Frank to differentiate himself from the mean-spirited anti-war protesters in Bush era who likened the then-president to Hitler and wished for his death.  Why then are his ideological allies in the halls of Congress and the offices of mainstream news outlets then defining our movement by its fringe?

NB:  I cleaned up a few typos and changed a few expressions to improve the flow of the piece.

With such indecorous language does Bruce Kesler join me in backing former HP CEO Carly Fiorina to replace Barbara “Call Me Ma’am” Boxer.

Still, he remains critical of the candidate, saying she sometimes “sounds like a script of platitudes, and she lacks the experience in government to be truly effective.”  Actually, I think her lack of experience in government works to her benefit.  She make take a few months to find her footing in Washington, but at least she’s not a creature of Washington.  She’s a smart lady.  Once she learns the ways of the Senate, she’ll be an effective force.  A most effective force.

And if we’re judging by experience, Mrs. Boxer with 28 years in Washington should be one of the most effective Senators.  Yet, she’s only managed to pass three bills in her eighteen years in the Senate.

Kesler does find a silver lining Carly’s sometimes platitudinous rhetoric:

. . . her platitudes are conservative, she has the ability to spit venom, and she has the funds and temper to take on Barbara Boxer. Barbara Boxer has no record to run on, despite several terms, except for being a reliable vote for whatever Democrat programs are on the floor.  If Fiorina wins, at least she should be a fairly reliable Republican vote in the US Senate.  And, it will take a rich bitch to down a rich bitch. Californiaelections require tens of millions to be a competitive candidate.

He doesn’t mince words, does he?  And he articulates one of my concerns about Tom Campbell:  he doesn’t seem to have what it takes for a rough-and-tumble campaign with Mrs. Boxer, one of the nastiest partisans in the business.  (So, read the whole thing.)

I met Carly tonight at an event for supporters after the debate.  To this very diverse crowd, Carly didn’t mince words either:  ”We’re going to beat Barbara Boxer because she deserves to be beaten.”

That’s my gal