Come out as a gay conservative who supports a Republican candidate who opposes “marriage quality” (whatever that is) and some left-wing critic will call you self-hating.  But, if a Democrat (or other approved public figure) opposes same-sex marriage, he gets a pass from the guardians of proper opinions on gay people.

Try to explain that all those who oppose state recognition of same-sex marriage do not do so out of animosity for homosexuals, but out of a belief that marriage represents a union between two individuals of different sexes and have someone act as if they’re covering their ears and repeating in an ever louder voice, “I’m not listening.  I’m not listening.”

So, finding that “Elton John and Rush Limbaugh share the exact same opinion in regards to gay marriage [as] do a majority of Americans,” Steven Crowder asks if “everyday Americans, politicians (both Republican and Democrat), Rush Limbaugh and –gulp– Elton John all hate… the gays?”

At least that’s how mainstream media would try and spin it. Most leftists in the press have simply tried to bury those less than “typically gay” quotes. Why? Well, when Elton John speaks the truth, it disrupts the sensationalized narrative that the media and Hollywood have been setting for years; If you don’t support gay marriage, you must secretly despise gay people.

It’s Hate Vs. Gay. Period.

Clearly there are some people even in the gay community tired of the blatant pandering and simple-mindedness.

(Via Instapundit.) And some of those people blog on this very site.  :-)

Crowder quotes Elton John’s views on state recognition of same-sex marriage–which are nearly identical to my own.

What Crowder’s post really points to is the difficulty of having a good conversation on gay marriage when its most zealous advocates define their adversaries in such harsh terms.  Either you’re with us or you’re a hater.

When Barbara Boxer joined a unanimous Senate Democratic caucus in voting for their party’s “stimulus,” unemployment in her jurisdiction (AKA the (once-)Golden State stood at 10.7%.  She quoted the President as saying the policy would create (or save) 400,000 jobs in California.

Now, she’s running for reelection, telling us it created (or saved) 150,000 jobs (that’s 250,000 fewer than the president advertised).  Yet, nearly 400,000 fewer people* are working in California than were employed when Mrs. Boxer voted for the big-spending boondoggle.  Unemployment now stands at 12.6%, a full three points higher than it was when she first took office (during a recession).

Quoting an “email she sent“, the fetching David Fredosso says the 28-year Washington veteran is “now operating out of the David Plouffe playbook, running on the stimulus package.”

I am proud [Mrs. Boxer writes] of my record of fighting to create jobs for California. I have met construction workers, law enforcement officers, teachers, scientists, and many other hard-working Californians who are working because of the Recovery Act — a bill that has saved or created 150,000 California jobs. Yet Carly Fiorina…opposed that critical bill…

According to Recovery.gov, the stimulus has already sent $27.7 billion to California. So if you take Boxer’s number at face value, that translates to $186,000 per job. That’s more than Boxer makes annually as a senator. In fact, $27.7 billion would have been enough to hire 750,000 new staff assistants for her office. (Just imagine the constituent service you’d get!)

Even by Mrs. Boxer’s own wild claims, the “stimulus” has not yet provided the jobs she promised us.  And more Californians are out of work than were when she first took office and when she voted for the stimulus.

And she has the cheek to campaign on the jobs she’s created.

Hey, Ma’am, government doesn’t create jobs.  The private sector does.  We’d be better off turning to someone who actually knows how the private sector works to fix the problems created by an out-of-control federal government.

* (more…)

Among the many topics touched upon last night in the most marvelous Boston dinner (great food and amazing conversation), we discussed Sarah Palin.  We all admired the former Alaska Governor (though to varying degrees), but also agreed that she’s not positioning herself well for the White House.

That said, another woman we GayPatriots all admire, the magnificent and munificent (with her wisdom) Tammy Bruce has interviewed that accomplished woman.  And if two such talented women appear together in the same podcast, it surely merits your attention.

One notion that comes up frequently on conservative blogs, including this one, about the president’s agenda is that it is nothing new, merely the codifying of various items which have been on various items on the Democratic wish list for the past generation or two (or three).

Just, look at health care, Obama pushed through an overhaul whose unpopularity seemed to grow in direct proportion to the attention he gave to it.  And yet even after Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, largely on public opposition to said legislation, the president persisted in pushing it through Congress — even though the American people made clear they didn’t want it.  

He seeks to move public opinion after the legislation has passed, not pass the legislation in response to public outcry.  For the president and his Democrats, their agenda trumps the popular will — and the current needs of American society.

A real leader addresses the concerns of the people and responds to circumstances with solutions appropriate to the problem at hand.  When crises emerge, he turns his attention to them, working relentlessly at meeting the needs of the day, even putting aside other items on his long-term agenda to do so.  See George W. Bush and the attacks of 9/11 or Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Second World War.

“Presidents,” David Paul Kuhn writes at RealClearPolitics, “are hostage to events“:

But that’s a half-truth. Presidencies rise and fall far more by their response to great events than to the event itself.

“Presidents are ultimately judged by how they handle the unexpected,” presidential historian Richard Norton Smith wrote in an email exchange. “JFK may have blown the Bay of Pigs but more than recovered a year later in Cuba. … Just as he moved away from his cautious approach to civil rights as newspaper pictures and TV reports from Birmingham — the equivalent of today’s unstopped pipe at the bottom of the Gulf — made him realize that the presidency is, indeed, ultimately a place of moral leadership.”

Via Instapundit.  Emphasis added.

But, when facing the unexpected, Obama has been slow to shift course, preferring to keep his focus on his legislative agenda rather than focus on the unexpected crisis.   (more…)