So regularly do gay liberals (not just gay people, others on the left as well) misrepresent gay conservatives that I often forget how social conservatives also engage in the same sort of deception.  While it seems those on the left misrepresent this blog (and its bloggers) on a regular basis, it’s been a while since a social conservative has so misunderstood us (or at least since a reader has drawn their criticism to my attention).

That changed with an item yesterday’s Inside Blogotics column in the Washington Times. Writer Victor Morton reported that Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, took issue with Morton’s defining me as a “conservative blogger” in a previous post:

Conservatives understand the central importance of family and the threat that gay activism poses to the freedoms of speech, association and religion. Just ask the Boy Scouts. Or the pastors in Canada who have been hauled before human rights tribunals for daring to publicly criticize gay ‘marriage’ or taxpayer-funded promotion of homosexuality. A gay activist from West Hollywood, whatever else he writes about, is not a ‘conservative’ but a libertarian.

WOW. Where do I start? I ask Knight the same thing I ask some of my liberal critics: do you even read my posts? This guy hasn’t a clue about my ideas.   

It’s amazing how many errors I can find in that short quotation.  What drives Mr. Knight’s need to paint all gay people with such a broad brush, assuming we are anti-family or favor “taxpayer-funded promotion of homosexuality”?

How eager Robert Knight is to deny my conservatism at the same time he misrepresents my ideas.

While I do lean libertarian (with a small “L”), I am definitely a conservative.  I would hardly call myself a gay activist. I do write about gay issues, but don’t militate for political action, not seeing government as appropriate institution to promote the social changes I seek.

I oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for a great variety of reasons (link solution in search of problem), including a recognition of the dangers it poses to freedom of religion and association. It may make it difficult for social conservatives to exclude gays from their groups, just as it would make it difficult for gays to exclude non-gays from our groups. I may disagree with such exclusion, but do believe citizens should remain free to associate with whomever they choose.

I’m a member of a gay group which filed an amicus brief on behalf the Boy Scouts.

Knight’s notions notwithstanding, I recently wrote a piece defending the right of Canadian pastors to express their views of homosexuality, even when I disagree with those views. I took a Canadian Human Rights (sic) Panel to task when it punished a pastor for saying things I thought were just plain wrong. That wasn’t the only time I defended the right of a prominent person to make anti-gay statements.

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In my humble opinion, Tony Snow had as much — if not more — impact on the American political landscape as Tim Russert.  Both were kind, big-hearted family men with a unbridled passion for the country they lived in and tried to make a better place from their positions of influence. 

One was a life-long liberal (Russert) and received the lion’s share of fawning media coverage from the entire MSM establishment upon his death; the other a reformed liberal-turned-conservative (Snow) and the newspapers, cable networks and rest of the MSM nearly overlooked his passing this weekend.

But Tony Snow achieved something few others in American politics ever will — he was both in and out of journalism and was at the highest position of government public affairs:  White House Press Secretary.  Had cancer not taken him away from that job, I believe Snow would have re-set the standard for WH Press Secretary in the model of Jim Brady & Larry Speakes — and away from the Mike McCurry and Scott McClellan model.  I will leave you to compare the differences.

I once had dinner with Tony Snow.   He never knew it of course, as my table was next to his at a local hangout in Alexandria, VA called Bilbo Baggins.  But I remember feeling like I was in the company of a just a normal (and very tall!) guy and his wife and friends even though I knew he was one of the “biggies” in American journalism at the time.

The differences between Tim Russert and Tony Snow are many, including how the MSM handled each death much differently.  In my mind, a key difference is that we all probably completely understand what we lost in Russert’s premature death; but few people outside of the FOX family and those in the White House staff will fully appreciate what future void Tony Snow’s death is to our nation and its public discourse.

Tony Snow, RIP.

[RELATED STORY: The Character of Optimism - Bill Kristol, The New York Times]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Senator McCain:

In his Op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, your longtime supporter Bill Kristol contends that your campaign has “largely frittered away” your “ three-month general election head start.”  While I don’t think you entirely wasted those three months, the conservative columnist does have a point.  You didn’t do enough in those three months to solidify your base and establish a unifying agenda for the fall campaign, one which can bring together conservatives and independents eager for change.

In those three months, you did do some things right.  I think your biography tour was a stroke of political genius, helping to define who you were by what you’ve done (and experienced).

Not just that, in a series of speeches, you’ve put forward several pretty solid policy proposals, offering remedies consistent with conservative principles to some of today’s problems.  While your Democratic opponent may run on the mantra of change, you’re the one who has come up with the most new ideas.  (He just offers the same-old, same-old from the Democratic stock of state solutions, increased government spending, higher taxes and less freedom.)

That said, Kristol is on the money he writes that your “campaign this year desperately needs a message and a narrative that is both appropriate for the candidate and for the times.” I think he must be referencing Yuval Levin’s piece which he published in the Weekly Standard: A Theme for McCain’s Pudding.

That, I believe, is the first thing you need do, develop a campaign theme. Below the “jump,” I provide some other ideas which, I believe, will help prepare you for the fall campaign:

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Commenting on my post calling the Supreme Court’s Heller decision a victory for gay rights, a reader points out that the plaintiff (joined by the National Rifle Association and the Washington state-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms) suing the San Francisco Housing Authority “in a bid to overturn a rule forbidding gun possession in public housing units” happens to be gay.

Cites a New York Times article on the various challenges to bans on handguns being filed in the wake of Heller, Tom Maguire calls this is a “clever choice of plaintiff.” In addition to providing details on the San Francisco ban, Times reporter Jesse McKinley observes:

In an interesting turn in a city known for its embrace of gay rights, the chief plaintiff in the suit against the city is a gay man living in a public housing development, owned by the federal government, who wants to have a gun to protect himself from potential hate crimes.

A gay man wanting to protect himself from potential hate crimes. While this decision on its face may not seem a victory for gay rights, it does make it a lot easier to defend ourselves against those who would assault (or otherwise attack) us because of our sexual orientation.

Glad to see the Times picking up on this angle, even if perhaps elliptically.

I wonder how many gay websites will address this issue, particularly given the sexuality of the San Francisco plaintiff. Or how this many gay organizations will consider the gay angle.

Let’s hope the court rules in favor of this gay man so he can feel just a bit safer in his own home. And so gay-bashers become aware that gay people are taking measures to defend ourselves.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!! — While you are visiting, check out the election news GayPatriot broke earlier this week.

While Ann Althouse finds in yesterday’s Supreme Court Heller decision overturning the District of Columbia’s handgun ban a victory for women’s righsts (via Instapundit) as the overturned law banned certain guns which are easier for women to use, I see it as significant advance for gay rights victory .

Indeed, I believe this decision is the best ruling for gays in many years, perhaps even more significant than Lawrence v. Texas, the decision overturning sodomy laws. Few states enforced those laws whereas many jurisdictions enforce gun bans. Both these pro-gay rights’ rulings were handed down on June 26, Heller this year, Lawrence in 2003. Given that day’s proximity to the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, we can celebrate all three events during Pride month.

With these ruling, gay people will have greater and more ready access to handguns and so be better able to defend ourselves against gay-bashers. With such a victory for gay rights, I thought I’d check the sites of the various gay organizations to see how they’re celebrating, acknowledging how the constitutional freedom enshrined in the Second Amendment benefits us. Nothing on the websites of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) or the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).

Silence on such an important victory for gay rights?!?!?

Log Cabin, however, devoted the better part of its homepage to a press release heralding the ruling. At least one gay group gets it. (Note to self: renew Log Cabin membership.) Organization President Patrick Sammon understands how this decision benefits gays:

Unfortunately, too many LGBT Americans still face the threat of anti-gay violence. . . We’re happy the Supreme Court has affirmed the right for us to protect ourselves and our families from harm. Self defense is not a privilege, it’s a right.

Exactly.

Tammy Bruce celebrated the decision on her blog, calling it “good news,” but warning that the 5-4 decision “is far too close for anyone’s comfort.” (Make sure to check out this piece where she builds on her celebration — and her warning.)

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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.

One of the great things about Barack Obama’s success in this year’s contest for the White House is that less than a half-century after the height of the Civil Rights’ Movement, an African-American has become a serious contender for the highest office in the land.

It will be a great day indeed when race no longer plays a factor in how we evaluate an individual, when we have realized Martin Luther King’s dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.“

In the way he answered Geraldo Rivera’s question whether he considered himself a “person of color” Saturday night on FoxNews, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a man of Indian heritage, took a big step toward realizing that dream. He didn’t respond directly to Rivera’s query. When Rivera pressed him, noting the governor’s “non-response,” the Bayou State Republican replied, “the only color that matters is red, white and blue.”

Sounds like a man who could truly bring us together.

Tonight I both gain a deeper appreciation of Stephen Green and a better understanding of why I feel more comfortable at conservative confabs than gay ones.

I’m in Santa Barbara now, semi-drunk blogging, actually the buzz is wearing off from the two delicious dirty martinis (the beverage which honors Goddess Athena) I had before dinner at the annual retreat of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

It is the very name of David’s center (which I emphasized for the benefit of some of our critics) which explains why I am comfortable here. Conservatives today, at least the serious ones, those committed to a tradition begun in Philadelphia more than two hundred and thirty-two years ago, continuing through the founding of the GOP in the 1850s, the election of the first Republican president in 1860, the intellectual fervent engendered (in large part) by Bill Buckley in the 1950s, spearheaded by Barry Goldwater the following decade, championed by Ronald Reagan in his speeches and political campaigns of the 60s, 70s and 80s, (culminating with his electoral success in the three presidential elections of that last decade) see freedom as the defining idea of our movement.

We seek to preserve freedom at home and defend it abroad.

While conservatives promote freedom, the gay groups, even the ostensible Republican one, have become obsessed with equality, with the largest among them adopting the equal sign as its logo.

Perhaps, I should talk with the organizers of this event about supporting a gay group committed to advancing freedom, understanding that the greatest enemies of gay people are not social conservatives in the West who may question (what they call) our lifestyle and oppose legislation benefiting us, but Islamic theocrats who execute gay people in jurisdictions where they predominate and seek to destroy the nations with political systems which allow us to live freely.

And for those who think all conservatives are narrow-minded anti-gay troglodytes, well, you should know that when I have identified myself to my fellow participants, I have named this blog (which gives them a good idea of my sexuality) and they have treated me better than the average denizen of West Hollywood upon learning I am a Republican who voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Heck, they even have a lesbian moderating the first panel tomorrow morning. And I’m not the only one psyched to see Tammy tomorrow. A number of people here have expressed admiration for that gun-toting talk show hostess.

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One of the greatest things about attending the University of Vriginia School of Law was the school’s collegial atmosphere where conservative students regularly interacted with our liberal peers, often engaging in thoughtful discussion of political and legal issues in a most civil atmosphere.

A law student during the 1992 election, I had some great conversations with my (Bill) Clinton-supporting peers, many of whom pointed out that with their man’s election, the Reagan era was over and conservatism was in decline. I thought of those conversations earlier today, I read National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru’s Time column, “In Carter’s Shadow” where he wrote, “conservatism is fading now as liberalism was fading in the ’70s.”

But, is it fading, I wonder, or does it merely appear to be fading as my classmates contended in 1992 due to a president named Bush who while a conservative in name, governed as a moderate? Would conservatism have been perceived to be in disarray if both Presidents Bush had been more principled conservatives?

That is, would conservative still be perceived as fading if the unpopular incumbent president were not perceived to be a conservative?

From the 1930s until 1968, liberalism was in the ascent and the federal government grew ever larger, expanding its scope and increasing its role in American society. But, even with conservatism in the ascent (at least) since 1980, we have not achieved the successes liberals achieved in the half-century prior to our rise.

In those five decades, the Democrats (often with Republican help) erected a great variety of social programs which, even in the period of conservative ascent, Republicans failed to dismantle even though there was strong public support for smaller government.

So, I wonder do the American people still favor smaller government, consistent with conservative principles, or are they now comfortable with the status quo? Or do they favor even more state control of society? Or are they just unhappy with the current Administration?

Folks, there ain’t nuthin I can argue about Sean Hannity’s “Top 10 Items for Victory”.   Well, except the title… (Items?)

Anyway, ask your candidate for Congress if they have signed onto this pledge for America’s future.

1) To be the Candidate of National security:
a) Victory in Iraq
b) Fully support NSA, Patriot act, tough interrogations, keeping Gitmo open
c) A Candidate that pledges to NOT demean our military while they are fighting for their Country. eg Harry Reid: “the surge has failed”, “the war is lost”
d) Candidate that promises to ensure that our veterans can live out their lives in dignity.

2) The Candidate who pledges to oppose Appeasement:
a) The Candidate will oppose any and all efforts to negotiate with dictators of the world in places like Iran, Syria, N.Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela without “pre-conditions”

3) The Candidate Pledges to support Tax CUTS, and fiscal responsibility:
a) The American people are NOT under taxed, Government Spends too much
b) The Candidate who Pledges to ELIMINATE and VOTE AGAINST ALL Earmarks
c) The Candidate pledges to BALANCE the budget

4) The Candidate Pledges to be a supporter of “Energy Independence”
a) supports Immediate drilling in ANWR and the 48 states
b) Building new refineries
c) Begin building and using Nuclear Facilities
d) expand coal mining
e) realistic steward of the environment
While simultaneously working with private industry to develop the new energy technologies for the future, with the goal being that America becomes completely energy independent within the next 15 years.

5) The Candidate pledges to secure our borders completely within 12 months:
a) build all necessary fences
b) use all available technology to help and support agents at the border
c) train and hire agents as needed

6) Healthcare:
The Candidate will look for Free-Market solutions to the problems facing the Healthcare industry, and will vigorously oppose any efforts to “nationalize healthcare”.
a) The Candidate will fight for Individual health savings accounts, that includes “catastrophic insurance” for every American, so people can control their own healthcare choices.

7) Education:
a) The Candidate pledges to “save” American children from the failing educational system
b) The Candidate will fight to break the unholy alliance of the Democratic party and teachers unions, which at best has institutionalized mediocrity, and has failed children across the country
c) fight for “CHOICE” in education and let parents decide
d) fight for vouchers for parents

8.) Social Security and Medicare:
a) The Candidate will “save” social security and medicare from bankruptcy.
b) Options will include “private retirement” funds so people can “control” their own destiny.

9) Judges
a) The Candidate vows to support ONLY judges who recognize that their job is to interpret the Constitution, and NOT legislate from the bench.

10) American Dream:
The Candidate accepts as their duty and responsibility to educate, inform, and remind people that with the blessings of Freedom comes a Great responsibility. That Government’s primary goal is to preserve, protect and defend our God given gift of freedom.

That Government’s do not have the ability to solve all of our problems, and to take away all of our fears and concerns. We need their pledge that we will be the candidate that promotes Individual liberty, Capitalism, a strong national defense and will support policies that encourage such…

It is our fundamental belief that limited Government, and Greater individual responsibility will insure the continued prosperity and success for future generations.

We the people who believe in the words of Ronald Reagan, that we are “the best last hope for man on this earth,” “a shining city on a hill,” and that our best days are before us if our Government will simply trust the American people.

What’s not to support here?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In his essay “The Hubris of Politics,” (which I discovered to my delight in his new book The Politics of Freedom: Taking on the Left, the Right, and Threats to Our Liberties), my friend David Boaz talks about the problem of a Sunday paper asking students to write to a Cabinet member to address a pressing social problem:

. . . the real mistake here is thinking that all problems have a political solution. In fact, most of the social problems that people have faced throughout history have been ameliorated or solved through the voluntary workings of civil society and the market process. We didn’t relieve ourselves of the burden of backbreaking labor, or bring the world closer together through a series of transportation revolutions, by passing laws; we worked, saved, invested, and created economic progress.

in noting how the “voluntary workings of civil society and the market process” have helped ameliorate social problems, David offers (though I’m sure he’d disagree with the adjective I use) a good synopsis of a conservative approach to “gay rights” (which Bruce and I have blogged about).

While gay activists have been wrangling whether to include transgender individuals in the Employmen Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), a growing number of corporations has been adopting nondiscrimination policies and offering benefits to same-sex domestic partners of their employees. With discrimination against gay people on the wane in the private sector, such legislation is becoming a solution without a problem.

As David might put it, the market process has ameliorated whatever problem there was. With gay people becoming increasingly visible in contemporary society, corporations understand that is makes good business sense to treat us fairly. Some might say that this is a crass policy designed to increase profits, but the fact remains that gay people enjoy better treatment in the private sector than they do in most (supposedly more noble) governmental agencies.

Even the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) acknowledges this, writing in its most recent State of the Workplace:

Today, nearly 90 percent of the Fortune 500-ranked corporations include workplace protections based on sexual orientation, going beyond the patchwork of states and localities that ban such discrimination.

A conservative approach would combine a Burkean regard to the circumstances of the situation with a libertarian belief that the private sector can more readily address social change than can government at its various levels.

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When I drove cross country last fall, I often turned off my CD player so as to better let my thoughts wander. A number of ideas came to me, some of which I have addressed on this blog. One of the first notions which which popped into my head, somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico on the first day of the journey, was to wonder if my ambivalence on gay marriage was related to how many gay advocates approached the issue.

As I read David Blankenhorn’s book this past week, his description of some of these advocates reminded me of my own encounters. They saw marriage as just a relationship between two people, nothing more than a “right.” They scorned monogamy and delighted in the institution’s decline.

Few saw the conversation on gay marriage as part of a means to strengthen the institution. Indeed, some expressly sought to weaken it.

I found it difficult to take seriously advocates whose understanding of marriage as a right defined by the Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 decision Loving v. Virginia, banning “miscegenation” laws, as if the concept originated in jurisprudence and its social and ritual aspects irrelevant.

That all changed when I started reading Jonathan Rauch’s Gay Marriage: Why It is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, particularly the chapter, “What Marriage is For” (which I have praised numerous times on this blog). He got at the meaning of this institution.

As fate would have it, at the same time I was reading the book, Jonathan was in LA. I went to hear him speak at A Different Light bookstore where he offered two anecdotes which showed that like Blankenhorn, he understood the debate on gay marriage involved the issue of marriage itself.

First, he mentioned a straight couple who came up to him after his talk and thanked him for reminding them what marriage was all about it; his words thus served to strengthen their marital bond. Then, he mentioned how when he presents the very same issues to gay activists, many who had a similar positive reaction, while his words caused others to question their own support for gay marriage. If marriage involves retreating from sexual liberation, they didn’t want it.

Given what that institution entails and some of the mores of our community, a real conversation on marriage is likely to trouble many gay people who favor a more libertine approach to sexuality.

If we really want gay marriage, we need to address that attitude.

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In yesterday’s Powerline, Paul Mirengoff, grateful that he doesn’t have to participate in the selection of the Democratic presidential nominee argues why, he believes, Obama would make a better president than Ms. Hillary:

It’s hard to see Clinton being a good president, at least from my perspective. However, there probably are limits as to how bad she would be. Hillary seems to understand that the world is a dangerous place; that our enemies make it so; and that therefore, at a minimum, we should not be in a rush to accommodate them.

Obama may or may not grasp these basic realities. If he does not, then he will be another Jimmy Carter.

Yet, in contrast to Clinton, one can imagine Obama turning out to be a good president. That’s because there’s some evidence that he’s intellectually open to deviations from orthodox liberalism in ways that Clinton isn’t. In addition, there may be something to his (admittedly self-serving) claim that he’s temperamentally better suited than Clinton to working with his political adversaries. It’s difficult to see how he could be more poorly suited.

Paul’s analysis is remarkably similar to my own. Whereas Hillary dismisses Reagan’s ideas as “bad,” Obama recognizes them as significant even finding, finding merit in such conservative proposals as market approaches to reducing pollution and charter schools to improving education.

Just as smart as (if not smarter than) his brainy Democratic rival, Obama at least shows respect for the intellectual ferment on the right embodied in the Reagan Revolution. This is not to excuse the Illinois Senator for his liberal voting record or for his ever-changing explanations of his relationship to his angry former pastor, but it does show an intellectual curiosity and openness to new ideas that seems wanting in the wonkish Senator from New York.

It just seems that the Democratic frontrunner would sit down with his ideological adversaries for reasons other than political necessity.

For those conservatives still wary about supporting my man McCain this year, I suggest you take a gander at an article which appeared this morning in the Los Angeles Times. Here, we learn at the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is taking aiming at spending. Remember, this is the guy who in 2003, faulted his congressional colleagues for their spendthrift ways, accusing them of spending “like a drunken sailor.“

The Arizona Senator may have parted company with the GOP on several issues near and dear to the hearts of conservatives, but on two key planks from the Reagan platform, he has been remarkably consistent over the years: remaining steadfast on national security and holding the line on federal spending.

And this while other presumptive conservatives proposed their own earmarks and signed onto bloated budget bills. So, when the presumptive Republican nominee contends our party’s based “has been de-energized to a degree because of spending,” he’s got a point.

Contrast his commitment to fiscal prudence with the record and proposals of his Democratic rivals for the White House.

Glenn Reynolds reported on Tuesday that Ms. Hillary requested “nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year.” Her Arizona colleague has promised to eliminate earmarks.

While both Mrs. Clinton and her Democratic rival “champion fiscal responsibility on the campaign trail . . . , both Democratic presidential hopefuls are promising massive new spending without providing details on how they’d pay for it.” That quote wasn’t from some conservative blog, but from a news article.

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It ain’t Obama….

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As I read John Aravosis’ post on what he deems “Hillary’s gay problem,” I began to better understand the difference between gays on the left and gay conservatives (though not necessarily Log Cabin). Aravosis finds it problematic that the former First Lady’s almost never uses the word, “gay” in her speeches “to the public at large.“

He provides a video of her appearance on logo (the gay cable network) where she seems uncomfortable even saying the word. (I watched it and agree.)

By contrast, “Obama mentions us in his speeches, a lot.” He’s impressed — as is our friend Dale Carpenter — that the Democratic frontrunner brings up gay issues “and not just before gay audiences.“

To be sure, if Ms. Hillary’s logo appearance is emblematic of her attitude toward gays, she has a real problem. Her discomfort saying the word “gay” should be troubling to her gay and lesbian supporters some of whom act as if she has always been an advocate for gay people when the experience she cites (serving as First Lady to Bill Clinton) proves quite the opposite.

If it weren’t for that discomfort, I wouldn’t find her relative silence on gays all that troubling. It doesn’t really bother me that a candidate doesn’t mention gay people in his speeches or fails to push a particularly pro-gay agenda. Yes, I would like him to favor repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (and other discriminatory legislation which singles out gay people) and push for state recognition of same-sex unions, but just so long as he doesn’t engage in anti-gay rhetoric or promote discriminatory policies, i can feel comfortable supporting him.

This all boils down to my basic political philosophy that it’s not the government’s role to address social issues. I believe that if the government just leaves us alone, private institutions will effect the changes we need. We see that already in the increasing number of companies adopting non-discrimination policies and offering benefits to same-sex partners.

So, it doesn’t really matter to me that a candidate doesn̵