On Monday, left-wing blogger Joe.My.God labeled it “wingnuttery” when the Campaign for Children and Families urged its supports to boycott McDonald’s because of the corporation’s “support of homosexual ‘marriages’.”

Let’s see a group with a political agenda urges its supporters to boycott a corporation which supports a cause it opposes. Is that wingnuttery or the free market at work?   In our economy, consumers weigh a number of factors before choosing to purchase a product from a particular supplier. These social conservatives are just exercising their freedom.

But, to Joe, it’s wingnuttery when people reject a corporation for the political stands it takes. So, I assume he’ll be taking Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate to task given his group’s call:

for a boycott of two prominent San Diego hotels because their owner, Doug Manchester, contributed more than $100,000 to the campaign for Proposition 8, the ballot measure that would amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Here, we have the same pattern at work, a group with a political agenda urging its supporters to boycott a corporation whose owner supports a cause it opposes.

They’re both right. If a corporation (or its owner) takes a stand on a controversial political issue, then consumers remain free to consider that support when they choose whether to buy the corporation’s product. That’s called freedom. And ain’t it grand?

But, alas, some liberals call it wingnuttery when conservatives exercise theirs.

Me, I’ll make sure to double my order of Chicken McNuggets next time I’m in McDonald’s.

Shortly after learning last night how advocates of gay marriage intend to contest California’s Proposition 8 (focusing on how the number of the initiative rhymes with “hate”) I learned that some of those supporting the initiative, particularly those behind the website, ProtectMarriage.Com represent the most extreme Christian conservatives.

On the one hand, you have those who refuse to understand some people’s legitimate opposition to gay marriage (see e.g., this post). On the other, you have those who refuse to consider the legitimate religious beliefs of those who do not accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

Doesn’t look like we’re going to get a very substantive debate on one of the most serious issues of our time (indeed of any time).

I had intended to blog on that, noting that similarity on both sides of the issues–a refusal to understand the arguments of their adversaries. David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch seem to be two of the noble exceptions in this debate.

Not just that. There seems to be a dichotomy between the leaders of each movement and the people they claim to represent. While sensible people offer serious objections to gay marriage, the leaders of the movement seem to have a problem with any who do not accept Jesus as their personal savior. When most gay people who seek to have their relationships recognized as marriage understand the meaning of the institution, the leaders of the movement for gay marriage do not.

Anyway, I have already said more than I had thought I would be able to write today.

Since getting back from Cincinnati, while my mind has been aswirl with thoughts, ideas and images, I’ve really not been in much of a mood to do any more than scribble them down on a piece of paper as a reference for a future e-mail, post or other writing.  That is, I haven’t really felt up to organizing them into a post.

Perhaps, it’s that I’ve been blogging so intensely since March that as per this post, I need to take a break to focus on other things and recharge my batteries (so to speak).

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Shortly after posting my piece wondering if the sensible Andrew Sullivan were returning, I checked his blog a little more regularly as had been my wont in recent months. It seemed I had a little premature in heralding the return of the blogger who was once my favorite.

While Andrew still did occasionally offer insightful observations from time to time, he was too often cheerleading Obama or demonizing W, seeming ever careful to avoid offending his new left-wing fan base. Today, he seems to be trying to split the difference.

When checking the referrals on our sitemeter, I found we had a lot of incoming links from Andrew’s blog; he had linked my first Heller piece. While at his blog, I was delighted to see that he had taken on General Wesley Clark for attacking John McCain’s military record, calling the one-time Clinton supporter’s comments “revolting” and “repulsive.”

He’s right. Clark’s attack is that low. It shows how far the left will go to demonize John McCain, seeking to destroy any chances that good man has to win the presidency.

Unfortunately, Andrew call Clark’s attacks “swiftboating” to compare them to the ads the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth aired in the 2004 presidential campaign criticizing then-Democratic nominee John Kerry. Theirs was hardly a hit job as Kerry and his supporters have yet been able to to disprove anything in those ads.

So, while we see some signs of the old Andrew Sullivan returning, the “new Andrew” is careful to couch his criticism in terms that shows his continued commitment to castigating conservatives.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds disagrees with charges that John McCain is being “Swift Boated:”

For this to be a “Swift Boating,” people who stayed at the Hanoi Hilton would have to say that McCain was lying about what he did there — or perhaps that his repeated claims that events there were “seared, seared” in his memory are false, and he was never actually there at all — and those people would have to be telling the truth.

I try when scanning the comments and reading my e-mail (as well as listening to friends and others who chance upon this blog) to take seriously any and all criticism. Sometimes that requires me to try to parse the logic of those who take issue with my writings but who aren’t really interested in engaging my ideas.

These people seem more interested in baiting us or in proving their own theories about gay conservatives (see e.g., the reaction to Bruce’s post breaking the news of the meeting between presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon) than in actually considering our points.

But, sometimes, our critics, even in comments where they misrepresent our arguments, do have something serious to say. One such critic is Houndentenor who, in esponding to my post, Straight Writer Decries “Islamist” Intolerance of Gays, writes, “Any number of gay publications and bloggers regularly either cover the problems of gay rights abuses in the Islamic world or link to sources that do.“

He claimed I was “dishonest” not to acknowledge that. I wasn’t dishonest.  In the post, I didn’t claim gay bloggers failed to address the issue.  I only referenced the silence of gay political organizations.  In fact, I did cite one left-of-center gay blogger, Michael Petrelis, who regularly posts on the persecution of gay people in Islamic lands.

He, however, is not the only one.

Chris Crain routinely addresses this matter on his blog Citizen Crain. As does Andy on Towleroad. Just four day ago, that latter linked a report of a mass arrest of gay men in Saudi Arabia

Normally, when I scan the gay blogs, I find silence on such matters. But, some have spoken out, a number (notably Petrelis and Crain) on a regular basis. Please alert me to other gay bloggers who do this on a regular basis with links to their post and I will update this one accordingly

Last week, as I was reading my review of Julie Andrews’ memoir to a friend who likes my speaking voice, I found I often had to pause to mark a typo on the printout.  I have since fixed those errors.

In the past few days, as I’ve been reviewing my posts on marriage, I found a similar number of mistakes.  I guess I’m not the greatest proof-reader of my own work.

In this medium, our readers are often our editors.  If you catch a mistake in any of my posts, would you please alert me to it?  

Thanks! 

Shortly after I first discovered Andrew Sullivan’s writing in the New Republic in 1989, i started reading his work with great alacrity. As I was then struggling with coming out, I appreciated his unique perspective on the gay world. He did not subscribe to the orthodoxy which was making it difficult for me to believe I had anything in common with other outspoken men with whom I shared an attraction to our own gender.

When I started law school in 1991, I found it difficult to keep up with outside reading, such that I didn’t read Andrew’s stuff as regularly as I would have liked. When I had more time after I graduated in 1994, I found he had lost some of the acuity he had had when I first discovered him. He seemed to be trying to appeal to the gay ideology which in so eloquently and effectively opposing, he had helped secure his own standing in the world of political punditry.

Tired of the increasing mushiness of his writing, I stopped reading his stuff, only to resume again in 1998 when I picked up his book Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival in a Washington, D.C-bookstore and started reading. Unable to put it down, I bought it. That very month, I read his piece Sex, lies, and … us - criticism of gay and lesbian support for Bill Clinton in the Advocate, delighted to discover a gay writer taking issue with the prevailing gay political orthodoxy in our nation’s capital, that the then-incubment president was a hero to our community.

I would read Andrew regularly for the next five-and-one-half years, even donating to his blog when it became, in 2003, the first I checked daily. But, by the 2004 campaign, he had become so emotional when discussing the president, I no longer paid him much heed, only reading his posts when other bloggers linked him, usually to mock him for his hyperventilations.

Perhaps, he still had some sensible things to say. I just didn’t see them all that regularly, for, as with Glenn Greenwald, I tended only to see his blog in those moments of excess. On Friday, when searching his blog as part of the research for my post on gay marriage advocates and monogamy, I chanced upon two posts which showed he had retained some sense. In one, he acknowledged he was wrong when he predicted the failure of the surge. In another, he expressed concerns about the “soak-the-successful” aspect of Obama’s tax proposals.” He he has normally been an overenthusiastic cheerleader for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

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My pal, Dirty Harry, one of the best commentators on movies on the web, has just started a new blog, Dirty Harry’s Place. Check it out.

I loved his reviews and film comment when he was over at Libertas. With new digs comes a new mission statement, to:

. . . promote, aid, and encourage those in the entertainment community doing right by liberty and America.

. . . [to] shame those in the entertainment community still capable of feeling shame into doing right by liberty and America.

. . . [to] expose and ridicule the shameless who seek to do harm to liberty and America.

Sounds like a site this movie buff will turn to with frequency and alacrity.

To get a flavor of Dirty Harry’s work, just check out his posts honoring the great Chuck Heston when he passed two months ago: selecting some choice words from the star himself, providing a list of the Ten Best Heston films and noting what others are saying.

With posts like those, he’s sure to offer continued insight from his new space.

I had thought I would resume blogging today, but then again, had also assumed I would have had a chance to blog this weekend.

On Friday, a good friend from grad school and I headed to Utah to help the wife of another grad school buddy surprise her husband on his birthday.  As that friend often checks this blog, I didn’t want to mention anything that might tip him off to my trip.  Sure enough he was totally surprised.

While in Utah, I spent the better part of my time engaged in great conversations with my friends (and my Utah friend and family) about politics, mythology, graduate school and faith — not to mention superheroes.  I also had fun being an “uncle” to his kids, playing Justice League with his sons and taking his daughter to see Kung Fu Panda, a fun flick I cannot recommend highly enough.

As a result, I didn’t have any time for blogging, indeed, didn’t even have time to check the news.  I only knew that the great Tim Russert had passed (perhaps the most even-handed Sunday talk show host/broadcast journalist) of our day because a friend texted me the information.  Truly a great loss.

Russert was a man unwilling to bow to the liberal tenor of his colleagues, frequently asking tough questions of Democratic politicians as well as Republican ones.  While some of the far left may berate him, he was the first to ask truly challenge their nemesis in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination–Hillary Clinton–when he pressed the New York Senator on whether she supported the then-New York Governor’s plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Perhaps he became such a classy guy because he got his political start working for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a liberal New York Senator who had a deep understanding of and respect for conservative ideas.

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Welcome Instapundit Readers!

UPDATE:  Please note that I have changed this piece slightly to include the name of my source, the woman who translated the articles, once I received her permission to do so.

Within thirty-six hours of my posting on the April gay bashing in Amsterdam, a variety of websites, conservative, libertarian and gay, picked up on the story, including the blog of a leading Australian newspaper and the website of (the self-proclaimed) “largest gay news service” in Europe. That latter used language identical to that in the translations we provided, suggesting our post was their source.

We believe we were the first English-language source to cover this.

The publication (in the original sense of the term, “making public) of this story shows how powerful and necessary the blogosphere has become. Had I not met a Evelyn Markus, a Dutch Jewish lesbian, last weekend at the Santa Barbara Retreat of the Horowitz Freedom Center, few in the English-speaking world would have known about this event, yet another in a series of attacks on gay people n the Dutch capital.

Learning I was a blogger, Evelyn alerted me to the incident and asked me to write about it. I told I could do so only with evidence, i.e., links to other articles or a police report. She told me about the articles and then (on her own dime) offered to translate them for me.

We are particularly grateful for her efforts. They have helped making people increasingly aware of what Mark Steyn called (in linking this post) a “Dutch gay-bashing spree.”

All to many gay news sites seem indifferent to this phenomenon. If it weren’t for that chance meeting, this story might not have come out.

No wonder the MSM is in decline. When news outlets paid to cover this thing don’t uncover such stories, especially given that they’re part of a disturbing trend, we’re dependent on unpaid bloggers (and other regular citizens) to make public such information.

Where we would be without the blogosphere is beyond me.

I have often noticed how big things happen when I’m out of town, or at least, things of significance to the scope of this blog.

I recently learned that Deborah Kerr, one of my favorite actresses, died while I was driving cross country last fall. Some of my friends from graduate school picked SuperDuper Tuesday as the night to see a modern theatrical representation of the Arthur myth/Grail Legend in Vegas.

Well, while I was away with some of those same friends socializing and doing research for my dissertation, we received confirmation that California would be voting on amending the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, thus overturning the recent California Supreme Court decision.

As you can imagine, I have much to say on this topic, primarily noting how that decision impacts this fall’s vote. I had long believed the proponents of this amendment would gather enough signatures to place their initiative on the Golden State ballot. Before the unfortunate ruling, the issue would have been simple: does such language belong in the state constitution? I believe it doesn’t. At the time, I thought the amendment had a good chance of being defeated.

Now, the issue has changed. A vote against the amendment now becomes a vote to keep that decision in place and hence in favor of gay marriage. Back in 2000, when we Californians voted on Proposition 22, many people opposed to gay marriage joined those in favor and ambivalent on the issue to vote against the Proposition because they believed it superfluous, given state statutes already defining the institution as the union of one man and one woman.

As the debate now moves from the court room to the public square, gay marriage advocates need retool their strategies. In the past, they have tailored their arguments to sway judges eager to issue landmark rulings, so earning themselves a place in history books while winning accolades from the media. Now, the task is to convince a populace less concerned with impressing liberal opinion makers, but familiar with the reality of this ancient institution.

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Commenting on my recent Pajamas piece, McCain’s Straight Talk Express Stops in Beverly Hills, Eric Scheie singled out a number of paragraphs, including the penultimate one wherein I acknowledged my bias as I praised the presumptive Republican nominee for the manner in which he fielded reporters’ questions. Wrote Scheie:

I also see myself as a blogger who, unlike the reporters there, acknowledges his bias. But I guess if reporters did that, there wouldn’t be any need for bloggers.

Exactly. (I was delighted to discover this thoughtful commentary on my post via an Instapundit link.) That’s really what distinguishes us from the MSM. We acknowledge our bias.

In another thoughtful piece in a similar vein (also linked on Instapundit), Evan Coyne Maloney suggests media outlets:

. . . should either embrace opinion journalism fully and drop the pretense of objectivity, or they should get out of the opinion business altogether if they insist on being seen as objective. . . .

But by mixing opinion with news while still claiming objectivity, the media sends a contradictory message that causes distrust of its product.

As Glenn, I encourage you to read the whole thing!

As an example of this bias, John Hinderaker at Powerline shows “how eager the conventional reporters were to lend the Obama campaign a hand” when the likely Democratic nominee made much of McCain statement that “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels” when our armed forces are only projected to draw down to that level later this summer.

During a conference call with Senator Jon Kyl and Randy Scheunemann of the McCain campaign “to respond to the Obama campaign’s attacks” on McCain’s statement, the reporters’ questions “dripped with hostility toward” the presumptive GOP nominee.

These articles (AP and Washington Post) show how that hostility has translated into articles slanted against the Republican nominee. Did the AP or Washington Post make as much of a fuss of Obama’s repeated errors, such as conception in Selma, Alabama three-and-one-half years after his birth or about his visit to all 57 states?

At least one MSM reporter doesn’t seem to have read the memo that reporters should only call John McCain on his errors. ABC News’ Jake Tapper has dubbed the likely Democratic nominee a “one-man gaffe machine.”

Here’s hoping Tapper does not remain an outlier, but, as the campaign heats up, sets the pattern for MSM coverage of the presidential campaign. Methnks, alas that hope may be just a bit too audacious.

But, then again, haven’t we been told to believe in the audacity of hope?

Wish I had more time to blog at this confab (Santa Barbara Retreat of David Horowitz Freedom Center), but we don’t have wireless in the meeting room.

After the first session this morning, I introduced himself to Michael Barone whose column I have enjoyed for about as long as I’ve been following politics.  I keep a copy of his Almanac of American Politics by my desk.  When I mentioned the blog, without prompting he identified me as GayPatriotWest (my blog moniker is not on my badge), then said, that we had a “terrific blog.”  Given my respect for this guy, as you can imagine, I’m bouncing off the walls.

He called “interesting” my idea that the presidential candidate of party out of power polls far better than the candidate of the incumbent party in power for eight years.  It seemed like he was going to look into it.

Flattering when perhaps the leading student of election polls and returns thinks you’ve offered an interesting analysis on politics.

I’d always been impressed with Barone because of the encyclopedic knowledge he has about elections and returns in various jurisdictions and his thoughtful analysis of politics. In person, he is even more interesting with a terrific sense of humor whose remarks kept us laughing while he offered his take on the election.

I will try to offer a few more details from the conference at a later date, should I get a moment, but have promised Tammy to join her for a cocktail later this afternoon, provided she doesn’t have to return to LA for her radio show.

In a post yesterday, I noted that I covered John McCain’s “Press Availability” for Pajamas Media. They just posted my report. Let me whet your appetite with the opening paragraphs:

One thing which distinguishes John McCain from his presidential predecessor as well as this year’s likely Democratic nominee is how frequently he makes himself available to the media, old as well as new. Just two weeks ago, he held a conference call with bloggers, including several representing left-of-center websites.

Yesterday, while in Los Angeles, his campaign also reached out to bloggers, inviting a number — including yours truly — to attend a “press availability” in Beverly Hills. Along with the local media there, we felt a bit out of place, given the camaraderie of the press corps which travels with the campaign. But the candidate treated us no differently.

Indeed, the Arizona senator seemed to relish the exchange. At one point when a staffer said they had time for just one more question, he overruled her, saying he’d take a few more. He responded quickly and deftly to all but one question, only occasionally failing to provide a direct answer. He stammered a bit when replying to a question about cluster bombs, stating that he hadn’t looked into the issue, but his decision on whether or not to ban them would “depend on the circumstances.”

Click here to read the rest and to understand why I titled the post as I did.

I just returned from Senator John McCain’s press availability at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. It was first such event I have attended. I found the whole process as fascinating as the content of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s remarks.

Having had to rush across town (as I needed to pick up my car from the dealership–perhaps more on that anon), I had to wait outside to gain admission. I did arrive well before the “availability” was set to begin, but not well enough before. Those familiar with such events said you typically need to arrive an hour in advance.

A few of us “latecomers” remained outside as they needed to bring in a bomb-sniffing dog to check our equipment for explosives residue or some such. As one person put it, “We’re waiting for the dog,” which seems to be the title of some bad essay or mediocre movie.

Once inside, it seemed we local press were outsiders while the traveling press corps had developed a certain camaraderie as well as a sharp tone when questioning the Republican candidate, as if that were part of their job description.  As I’ll be covering this for Pajamas, I’ll save my reporting on what the Senator said for that post.

As I left, I passed a familiar-looking man in the hallway near the parking garage. When he ended his cell phone conversation, I introduced myself as a blogger to Senator Lindsay Graham. I wondered if I could ask him a question. Of course, it’s easier to think of a question when you’re sitting at home than when you’ve been running around all day.

Recalling that he had spent the holiday weekend at McCain’s ranch in Arizona, I asked him about that. They had a good time, the South Carolina Senator responded.  They watched the new Indiana Jones movie which he enjoyed because, as he put, “I like it when the old guy wins.”

One of the things about blogging is that if, for whatever reason, you take a few days off from posting and then return, wanting to comment on something that happened in that time period, you find that when you do chime in, somebody else (or a number of somebody elses) has pretty much said anything you might have to say on the topic.

Such is the case with Hillary’s reference in South Dakota to the assassination of Robert of Kennedy. Asked why she was not dropping out of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, the former First Lady said:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it

My first thought was what a bone-headed comment. My second was somewhat sympathetic, understanding what she was trying to say and realizing that it came out differently than she had intended (wanting to point out that the 1968 contest for the Democratic nomination was still ongoing at the time of the California primary that year). My third thought was that the inartful remark would destroy the little remaining chance the former First Lady had to win her party’s presidential nod.

And this largely because of her family’s history, the rumors swirling about it, coupled with the pro-Obama blog and media machine, eager to cast anything she says in the worst possible light.

Click on more to read comments I found particularly insightful and the conclusion I draw from them. (more…)

What began as a little housecleaning noted in a previous post has evolved into a major project, indeed, the first major reorganization of my apartment since I moved here back at the end of the last century.

As I created more space by moving some furniture around, I started sorting through piles, both to reduce the clutter and to collect any and all notes I had written for my dissertation. In the meanwhile, I have discovered countless other notes, some related to movie scripts, others to my long-dormant fantasy epic as well as myriad ideas for blog posts.

I was delighted to discover a remarkable consistency to my thoughts on gay marriage, with ideas for posts in 2004 relevant to the current debate, a suspicion of courts deciding the issue and a concern that the debate focuses more on the “right” to marry than the meaning of the institution.

Given that I have written an average of three posts a day for the past two months, perhaps I needed this time off from blogging, so as to take a step back, gather my thoughts (as I’ve been gathering my notes) and let the ideas stew a bit before blogging at a pace similar to that of this spring.

I’ll segue from that thought to one (undated) note I discovered as it reminded me of something I had read Friday in the New Republic. A while ago, I had written:

[The] Left doesn’t even see their (sic) [own] hate even as many define their relation to the current president in such terms.

Writing about the HBO movie Recount, Jonathan Chait observes:

Yet the Democrats still believed in the power of the establishment and its ideals. This is a major theme of Recount. Al Gore and his lieutenants agonized about their reputation, their duty, and winning the approval of The New York Times, while Republicans saw the episode as a pure street fight. The Republicans were teeming with rage and paranoia, well-captured in the movie by the “Brooks Brothers Riot” and the bitter commentaries of GOP recount lawyer Ben Ginsburg. This was the political culture of the moment. Liberal editorial pages studiously urged both sides to fight fair, while conservative organs like the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard printed deranged conspiracy theories and urged Bush to do whatever it took to win.

Sounds like the movie’s theme is at odds with the facts. After all, it was Gore and his “lieutenants” who pressed for additional recounts when the first two did not yield the results they wanted.

What struck me most of all was not learning about the bias of the film (which given Hollywood is to be expected), but reading the article’s author, Jonathan Chait musing about the GOP engaging in a “pure street fight” while contending conservative editorials were “deranged.” This from the guy who, in September 2003, had written how much he hated President Bush.

This man doesn’t even see his own hatred. And it reflects even in his current commentary on a movie whose producers delight in demonizing the Republican players in the 2000 election controversy.

I guess it was for the best then that I chose to watch The Americanization of Emily on DVD last night instead of tuning in HBO. If I wanted left-wing conspiracy theories, I could just check out a few blogs, perhaps even a post or two by the self-profession Bush-hater Jonathan Chait.

UPDATE: According to Brent Baker of Newsbusters, despite the film’s implication “that the U.S. Supreme Court blocked an accurate vote count,” it did deliver “some anti-Democratic points rarely heard in the news media.“

Sometime this week (or was it last?), I sorted through the clutter of notes on my desk and made a list of posts I’d like to write on marriage. With yesterday’s California Supreme Court decision, the clutter has grown as I’ve been scribbling down myriad ideas for new posts to add to that list.

As soon as today, I hope to start fleshing out the ideas on that list and posting here on marriage. I do hope to promote a conversation more serious than we have generally seen on both sides of the issue where proponents of gay marriage accuse their adversaries of wanting to write “bigotry and hatred . . . into the California Constitution” and proponents of the traditional marriage accuse their adversaries of wanting to destroy the institution.

Let us hope (I fear this is a vain hope) that those coming forward to debate the issue are like Jonathan Rauch (for gay marriage) and David Blankenhorn (for the traditional definition), individuals who value the importance of the institution and understand (and oftentimes even respect) their ideological adversaries.

I hope to contribute to the debate in the manner that these two individuals have. Yesterday, I didn’t like having to write my Pajamas piece in haste because I wanted to take the time to think seriously about the issue.

Sometimes when we blog, we rush to get an idea out there because the nature of this medium is such that we need get these ideas out there as quickly as possible. People want to hear our ideas right away! But, with a potential social change of this magnitude, we need a more prolonged conversation.

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You know that old expression when it rains it pours, well such seems my life today. I woke this morning, anticipating blogging on the California Supreme Court’s ruling just after 10AM, then dialing in at 11 for a bloggers’ conference call with Senator McCain.

A couple hours before the call, I checked my e-mail on my GayPatriot account to find that Pajamas wants me to write a piece on the California decision, so I’ve been toggling back and forth, trying to work on both projects.

As soon as I finish this post, I’m going to work on my marriage piece, then, time permitting, will offer some thoughts on the call with the presumptive Republican nominee. I expect other bloggers to post on this right away, so just check some of the conservative blogs, notably Commentary’s Contentions and National Review’s Campaign Spot as bloggers form those sits, Jennifer Rubin and Jim Geraghty respectively, asked the first questions and got great responses (in my mind) from the Arizona Senator.

What impressed me most about the call was the Senator’s good humor and his ability to handle questions about a great number of issues, from the war in Iraq t