Let’s file this under the category: “If This Nominee Was President Bush’s…”

OutServe-SLDN Statement on Hagel Apology

(Washington, DC) Army veteran and OutServe-SLDN Executive Director Allyson Robinson released the following statement in reaction to an aplogy issued today by former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel for remarks made in 1998. The apology was reported by Washington Post.

“We are pleased that Senator Hagel recognized the importance of retracting his previous statement about Ambassador Hormel and affirming his commitment to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal and LGBT military families. We look forward to learning more about his commitment to full LGBT military equality as this nomination and confirmation process unfolds,” she said.

The hypocrisy of gay groups and their lickspittle use of kneepads when it comes to anything-Obama is more than revolting at this point.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

Now I’ve seen everything…

Three women identified by their lawyers as lesbians were arraigned yesterday on a hate crime charge for allegedly beating a gay man at the Forest Hills T station in an unusual case that experts say exposes the law’s flawed logic. (emphasis added)

“My guess is that no sane jury would convict them under those circumstances, but what this really demonstrates is the idiocy of the hate-crime legislation,” said civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate. “If you beat someone up, you’re guilty of assault and battery of a human being. Period. The idea of trying to break down human beings into categories is doomed to failure.”

Prosecutors and the ACLU of Massachusetts said no matter the defendants’ sexual orientation, they can still face the crime of assault and battery with intent to intimidate, which carries up to a 10-year prison sentence, by using hateful language.

Are you KIDDING me?!?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In a letter to the New York Times explaining why Israeli Prime Minister Binnyamin Netanyahu “respectfully declined” to write an op-ed piece for the old gray lady, his senior advisor Ron Dermer provides his correspondent with many examples of the paper’s bias, including this one:

Yet instead of trying to balance these views with a different opinion, it would seem as if the surest way to get an op-ed published in the New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel. Even so, the recent piece on “Pinkwashing,” in which Israel is vilified for having the temerity to champion its record on gay-rights, set a new bar that will be hard for you to lower in the future.

Pinkwashing, as Matthew Ackerman reported last month

. . . refers to the efforts by the state of Israel and Israel advocacy organizations to promote Israel’s liberal treatment of its gay population, which is certainly the freest, by an extreme long shot, in its region and perhaps in the entire Western world, where even San Francisco may not be as welcoming to gays as Tel Aviv.

The attractiveness of this kind of argument is easy to see. Because Israel is seen most harshly in the West by the left, it is the “progressive” case for Israel that must be made. (Evangelicals and conservatives, presumably, will go on loving the Jewish state no matter how large or, shall we say, exuberant, the Tel Aviv gay pride parade becomes.) Since the left today reflexively voices its concern over gay rights, the thinking goes, highlight sexual freedom in Israel.

Despite the facts on the ground, many “progressive” voices, including those otherwise sympathetic to gay causes, bend over backwards to fault Israel, even creating the term “pinkwashing” to fault those who would highlight the rights openly gay people enjoy in the Jewish State, freedoms denied them in most nations in the Middle East. (more…)

On Monday, realizing that nearly 500 e-mails had accumulated in my blog and personal e-mail accounts, I started wading through them, going through nearly 200 e-mails.  I did catch a few personal ones I missed, but most (fortunately!) were just links to (or summaries of) news and opinion pieces which I mostly skimmed over.

A number caught my eye, including this one from the globe-trotting Jamie Kirchick:

The subtitle struck me even more than the title, “The political legacy of opposition to apartheid has devolved into hostility toward the West — and sympathy for anyone else engaged in ‘anti-imperial struggle’”. It’s almost as if that statement defines many facets of American liberalism — and other left-wing ideologies — particularly since the Civil Rights movement.

All too many on the left saw segregation not as an ugly stain on a noble experiment, but instead as a defining aspect of America. In opposing that heinous system, many became hostile toward the United States and, by extension, the West. Their animosity is often furthered by the way the legacy of the Civil Rights’ movement is taught on college campi. Western civilization, our teachers tell us, is fundamentally hostile to “the other.”

No wonder some left-wing outfits show support for the ostensible representatives of other oppressed groups, even when those representatives are themselves hostile to those supposedly represented by the groups themselves. Witness Codepink. Or “Queers for Palestine.”

All too few (alas!) recognize that Dr. King drew on the very best of the Western tradition in crafting his (successful) movement to end segregation, frequently citing, in his speeches, our country’s founding documents and national hymns and regularly referencing Scripture and lessons drawn from his education in Christian theology.

Earlier today, reader ILoveCapitalism e-mailed me asking why I hadn’t blogged on the fake lesbian blogger controversy.  In suggesting that I didn’t have “to gloat or anything”, he got at part of the reason I have yet to comment on the matter, at least not in a public forum.

I mean, when I first heard that ostensible lesbian “Paula Brooks” was really a man, I smiled in amusement, given how she, er, he and I had tangled in our comments section.  Seems he felt he only had the moral authority to take on gay conservatives in the guise of a lesbian.

Bill Graber who masqueraded as Ms. Brooks was not the only straight man to play a lesbian on the Internets, “Tom MacMaster, the editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real,” where “Paula” also blogged, acknowledged that “he was behind the persona of” Amina Arraf AKA “A Gay Girl in Damascus”.

MacMaster and Graber seem to have understood something about the mentality of the left today, that a lesbian has greater moral authority by dint of her minority status, or as, Maureen Dowd might put it, moral authority of those who belong to victim groups is absolute.

RELATED:  Michael Petrelis reports that “straight married Anglo-American Tom MacMaster, the hoaxer behind the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, is very upset with blogger Max Blumenthal“, so upset indeed that he’s thinking of suing.”  Petrelis welcomes the lawsuit as it could “bring a lot more scrutiny to MacMaster and his hoax”.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  ILoveCapitalism offers:

- Straight white men who support a form of politics (“progressive”, politically correct) that made them feel ignored and marginalized to the point where they had to go into a closet just to be taken seriously, hiding their real selves. Umm, what’s that expression that leaps to mind… “self-hating”? (more…)

Despite the adulation that President Obama enjoys in most gay circles, he has refused to address the persecution of our fellows around the world.  It is particularly striking that while he has delivered two speeches in the past four days on the Middle East, citing in his speech this past Thursday at the State Department, our promotion of “political reform and human rights in the region“, he did not mention the plight of homosexuals suffering under Islamicist oppression.

Nor had he mentioned their suffering in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo.

Perhaps, it’s because on gay issues, he takes his cues from the gay left, all too many who fear losing their sense of solidarity with the broader “progressive” movement for whom alliance with some of America’s enemies is paramount.  All too often they lose sight of the individuals who suffer under the rule of anti-American regimes.

Over at Commentary Contentions, Jonathan S. Tobin wonders at “David Kaufman’s bizarre and confused article in Time magazine that focuses on ‘pink washing’—the term used by leftists to describe the discussion of Israel’s stance on gay rights.” Kaufman, Tobin finds, is concerned that some cite Israel’s exemplary record on gays as a “cover to stop people from denouncing Israel for its alleged abuse of the Palestinians”:

The reason why Israel’s gay rights record is relevant to the broader discussion about the conflict in the Middle East is not a matter of mere public relations. The point here is one of understanding the difference between an open society and a culture rooted in fundamentalist Islam and irredentist nationalism, which sees all minorities as objects of hate. The drive to isolate and eradicate the one non-Muslim majority country in the Middle East is rooted in the intolerance that is at the core of the culture of Israel’s foes. The equal rights enjoyed by gays in Israel and the oppression and violence they face in Palestinian society as well as in much of the Arab world is a perfect example of the difference between liberal democracy and intolerant Islam.

Read the whole thing.

If the president is such an ally of gay people, why is he so unwilling to hold up Israel as an exemplar of how a nation in the Middle East should treat gay people?  And to encourage its Arab nations to follow that example?

(H/t:  ThatGayConservative.)

My friend Rick Sincere just alerted me to an interesting post over at Truth on the Market.  There University of Missouri law professor Thom Lambert takes University of Pennsylvania law professor Tobias Wolff to task for contending that, as Lambert puts it, “if you’re gay, you should support expansive collective bargaining rights for labor unions“:

The three reasons he articulates for equating labor union rights with relationship rights are far from convincing.  The first — the fact that “LGBT Americans come from the same economic and demographic origins as all Americans” – proves too much.  If gay people are really representative of all Americans, then some gays — say, public school teachers – benefit from expansive rights for public sector unions, and other gays — say, business executives in high tax brackets — are harmed by them.  To be fair, Wolff does suggest that gay people may be disproportionately impacted by reduced employment benefits because they lack various legal protections affored to others, but doesn’t that suggest that the real problem, the place where gays should focus their energies, is the lack of equal protection?  Moreover, one could make a strong argument that gay people, who have fewer dependents on average than straight people, have less need for lucrative employee benefits.  In any event, Wolff’s initial argument is hardly compelling.

Neither is his second argument.  Surely the fact that a group expresses support for gay equality and offers gay people various resources does not create a “reciprocal obligation” on the part of gay people to support all that group stands for.

Read the whole thing.

Yes, all too many gays on the left believe they must find common cause with other left-of-center interest groups.  Their real concern is advancing their liberal agenda.  Look, gay men and lesbians should be free to associate with and offer support to various Democratic interest groups and auxiliaries, but they should make clear that this is primarily out of partisan preference or agreement on certain issues.  They shouldn’t try to dress it up as advocacy for gay individuals.

Calling Lambert’s post “worth a read“, Dale Carpenter adds

. . . that Wolff’s argument comes from a long political tradition, going back at least to the 1950s, which maintains that gay rights are inextricably tied to a host of causes supported by self-styled progressives — everything from abortion rights to various left-wing revolutionary movements.   (more…)

When reader V the K e-mailed a link reporting that “75 percent of religious persecution being carried out against Christians,” I sent back a hasty response, edited for clarity:

Shhh. . . don’t tell the left.  It’ll upset their narrative.  Remember, white male Christians are responsible for the most persecution in the world.

One day, someone will have to examine why so many on the left have decided that the only oppression that matters is that done by white Christians or Jews.  Why do so many in the West, those with a European Jude0-Christian background, assume the victim always be the “other”?

Well, it seems one of our readers has.  Writing on his blog, he looks at how these Westerners have turned out society’s tradition of self-correction against itself:

Part of the trouble with this noble self-criticism, based as it is on the multiculty prescript that one may critique one’s one people but not another’s (especially if brown), is that the other groups are not doing this. While Westerners flagellate themselves in this ongoing and interminable White Lent, the other tribes are flexing their muscles, singing their virtues and heartily agreeing with us that we do not deserve to live. This is a part of why Obama’s repentance and apology tours provoke me so much.

A lot of liberal behavior reminds me of two particularly female psychopathologies: bulemia and self-cutting.   Liberals, especially the comfortable classes, alternately gobble up the pleasures of the West and then, guilt ridden, vomit them out. And it seems that they are happiest when they are cutting up their own bodies.

Read the whole thing.

RELATED:  DOJ to white male bullying victims: Tough luck

*or Jews.

Someone should alert Gary Bauer and others who seek an end to gay pride parades.  Gay activists in the UK want to cancel a march because it might offend members of a particular religious group.  So, maybe ol’ Gary should just follow their lead claim offense; gay groups on this side of the pond will surely capitulate.

Fearing that a gay pride parade in London’s East End “will cause tensions between gay people and Muslims“, some activists want to cancel a march scheduled in response to “to anti-gay stickers plastered around the East End“:

An open letter signed by Out East chair Thierry Schaffauser and Terry Stewart of the Hackney Community Engagement Board claims that the Pride march may “divide our communities” or be used “to oppress other marginalised groups”.

Out East organises Hackney Pride and the letter has also been signed by Denis Fernando of Unite Against Fascism and the Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils.

It says: “We believe that the most appropriate response to the stickers is to liaise with Muslim communities and others to create bridges and communicate with each other.

“We want both homophobia and Islamophobia addressed as a collective problem and not feed one against the other, we do not recognise these as distinct categories.

“We will refuse any attempt to divide our communities or take the risk that an LGBTQ event is used to oppress other marginalised groups, in particular LGBTQ Muslims who will be the most affected by this rising antagonism.”

That’s rich.  These folks have the view that all victims are alike; if you’re an approved victim of Western straight white male hegemony, then we need address animosity (or perceived animosity”) as a “collective problem.”  Wow, just wow.  These guys are more concerned with offending Muslims than they are with speaking out against anti-gay bigotry.

If Muslim groups have a problem with a gay pride march, wouldn’t that indicate that they harbor, um, well, politically incorrect sentiments about gay people?  It seems that some gay activists are so desperate to be part of this coalition of the oppressed that the ignore how many Islamist regimes oppress gays — while other Islamist organizations, even in Western countries, favor our marginalization if not persecution.

Meanwhile back on our own shores,

A group of gay lefty organizations who CLAIM they exist to work on behalf of gay people actually put out a press release on Friday attacking Rep. Peter King’s hearings on Islamic radicalization. Nevermind that radical Islam teaches that the penalty for being gay is DEATH. Honestly, the Onion couldn’t have written this release. (more…)