Not until the end of the article reporting (something of which I had heretofore been aware) that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, “the federal judge who will decide . . . the landmark trial over same-sex marriage” is himself gay, does the reporter see fit to quote anyone critical of the judge.  Instead, he first cites two left-wing gay activists praising the judge.

Now, I know very little about the judge, certainly not enough to call his overall impartiality into question–though the way he has conducted this trial certainly sets off some alarm bells.  It strikes me as odd that he has allowed the plaintiffs to bring in certain witnesses whose commentary on gay marriage would certainly be relevant were the issue debated in the legislature or presented to the people, but is entirely irrelevant to a court considering whether a popular provision in the state constitution violates the federal constitution.

All reports (at least those I have read), for example, show that Jerry Sanders is a fine Mayor of San Diego, but he is no legal scholar.  His remarks on gay marriage belong in a political campaign, not a court of law.  That Judge Walker allowed his testimony as well as other personal stories suggests poor judging.  But, many straight judges would also allow in such “witnesses.”

As a gay man who believes the Judge should have dismissed the case before it even came to trial, I know it’s not his sexuality that’s the issue, but his jurisprudence.*  All that said, should this one man rule to overturn the will of seven million, you can bet the proponent of the Proposition will make an issue of his sexuality.  Indeed, some already are.  Ed Whelan, offering some sound criticism of the judge’s questionable judgments, point outs: (more…)

Yesterday, when I saw an e-mail from “Equality California” (EqCA) entitled “Prop. 8 supporter’s TV ads start today” in my inbox, I thought the missive’s text might provide fodder for a post allowing me to agree with that left-wing gay group. I mean, why would a Prop 8 supporter run ads for an initiative that voters have long since approved?

The body of the e-mail, however, had nothing to do with Proposition 8. You see, Geoff Kors, Executive Director of EqCA is upset that Meg Whitman, a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of this great state has, in his words,

. . . launched a multi-million dollar media blitz. She is trying to buy the governor’s office with ads that fail to tell the true story about who she really is – an anti-equality candidate who has fought to eliminate the rights of LGBT people in an attempt to drum up conservative support to win an election.

In other words, this accomplished CEO has started running ads promoting her candidacy and she’s not talking about gay marriage.  And while that may get Mr. Kors panties in a bundle, well, I think it’s a good thing.  I don’t think candidates for Governor should make opposition to gay marriage the focus of their campaigns.  Instead, she’s talking about the state’s problems and putting forward her ideas on how to make California golden once again.

Yeah, Meg Whitman supported Prop 8.  And while I like much of what she’s been saying, I’m not ready to endorse her, remaining undecided in the gubernatorial contest.  Before I make up my mind, I want to hear her stand on the state’s landmark domestic partnership program.  I’d be more likely to support her if she addressed that program as Scott Brown addressed gay marriage in his state:  calling it “settled law.” (more…)

As I’ve reported before (indeed, alluded to the phenomenon in my previous post), in the aftermath of the passage of California’s Prop 8, the individuals and organizations spearheading the various postmortems failed to include gay Republicans or conservatives on their panels.

In fact, during the campaign, they didn’t seem much interested in soliciting our opinions on how to appeal to “movable” conservatives.  At a West Hollywood meeting for gay Republicans, the “No on 8″ folks seemed more interested in enlisting us in their campaign than in hearing our ideas on how to improve it.  The were decidedly cool to my suggestion that they ask Ward Connerly, well regarded by California conservatives, to cut a TV commercial against the initiative.

They thought he might offend people on the left–not realizing of course that (most of) the people he might “offend” were already dead-set against 8.

Despite the coolness of the gay organizations to conservative input, I’m going to put forward my ideas on how best to overturn Prop 8.

I agree with those gay organizations who want to wait until 2012 to repeal the measure at the ballot box, but we need the proper ballot language.  With the intention of working toward that goal, I put forward here my draft initiative. While I believe this measure could pass muster with Golden State voters, I want to hear your opinions before I send it out to the various gay organizations.  I particularly want to hear from those with legal backgrounds on how I can improve language:

This replaces Article 1, §7.5* of the California Constitution with the following:

(a) the legislature shall determine the qualifications for recognizing marriages in California;

(b) Each religious organization, association, or society has exclusive control over its own religious doctrine, policy, teachings, and beliefs regarding who may marry within their faith.

(c) The state may not require any such organization, association or society to perform or accommodate a marriage at odds with its religious doctrine, policy, teachings, and beliefs

I adopted subsections (b) and (c) from the New Hampshire law recognizing same-sex marriages.  I debated also including section 2 of the Granite State legislation, but don’t believe the constitution is the appropriate place for such lengthy provisions. (more…)

In a post today, the left-of-center (I think he calls himself a socialist) blogger and gay activist Michael Petrelis offers the same sort of criticism of what he deems “Gay, Inc.” (the various establishment gay organizations) that we’ve been offering, taking those organizations to task for their “collective failure to regularly provide open, on-the-record, unfiltered community engagement.“

In his post, he excerpts Bay Area Reporter Cynthia Laird’s editorial broadside against Freedom (sic) to Marry’s Evan Wolfson for closing a “marriage institute session” at the Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s annual Creating Change conference to the media:

Anyone who was following the federal Proposition 8 trial via Twitter or on numerous blogs knows full well what the community is up against regarding opposition to marriage equality. And for goodness’ sake, if progressive activists and others can’t articulate their views in a public forum, how are they ever going to accomplish the hard, on-the-ground work of talking to people – in public and private settings?

(Well, technically, it wasn’t closed to the media, just off the record which Laird finds is a distinction without a difference.)

Now, while I quibble with the term, “marriage equality,” I think Ms. Laird is on the money.  We need open discussions, not just among progressive activists, but also with moderates and even sympathetic conservatives.  Petrelis and Laird fault “Gay, Inc” for an absence of, to borrow the leftist blogger’s expression, “unfiltered community engagement,” we fault them for not excluding conservatives, even gay conservatives.

Such open conversations might not only expose “Gay, Inc” to the diversity of views in our community, but also provide insight into the diversity of views in American society at large on same-sex marriage and relationships.

At times, it seems, gay activists are like the movie Avatar, where characters are caricatures, cardboard cutouts, with one side “good” and the other “bad.”  In this case, either you’re for “marriage equality” or you’re a “H8er.”  There is no middle ground. (more…)

Given the recent discussion on this blog (notably in the comment thread to my post on Joy Behar) about whether monogamy is essential to marriage, let me draw your attention to a post Glenn Reynolds linked today on a site that is hardly at the vanguard of the marriage movement.  Among her “Secrets to a Long Happy Marriage,” Wendy Atterberry includes some tips on “keeping faithful.”  Yes, she acknowledges that people may stray, but leads off her list with this point:  ”Be aware of the dangers and recognise the urge for what it is: a temporary itch, not to be scratched.”  (Emphasis added.)

She thus acknowledges that fidelity is key to a happy marriage.  And that once that fidelity is compromised, it takes a lot of work to restore trust, requiring both husband and wife to “work through the problem together, with professional help if” necessary.

In case you miss my point, let me repeat, fidelity is essential to marriage and gay people are capable of monogamy.

It’s just too bad the leaders of gay organizations refuse to say as much.

For well over a year now, I have stopped paying attention to the left-wing blogs which distort my views and seek to cast me as something I am not.  It’s just not worth my time to attempt to engage with people more interested in belittling conservatives than in understanding–and countering–our arguments.

When, however, a blogger, well, in this case, a blogress whom I generally respect gets my views wrong, I do take notice.  Last night, just before bed, I chanced on an incoming link from the normally sensible and sharp, Cynthia Yockey (AKA a Conservative Lesbian).  In her broadside attacking me for my alleged views on gay marriage, she misrepresents my recent critique of Joy Behar:

His latest assault on gays and lesbians who are seeking equality in every aspect of their lives, especially marriage equality, is founded on siding with Joy Behar, of “The View,” who recently opined that homosexuals do not deserve marriage equality because she says we are not monogamous. Or somehow, straight people who marry are monogamous, but gay people, who cannot marry, are not monogamous and therefore never deserve to have marriage equality.

I did not side with Joy Behar.  I believe gay people are capable of monogamy.  In my post, I faulted gay leaders for their silence in the wake of Miss Behar’s recent comments on gays and monogamy.  I did so to show my skepticism of their “understanding of the responsibilities and purposes of marriage.”  I did not challenge the fitness of same-sex couples to fulfill the obligations of matrimony. (more…)

In my previous post, I linked a piece at the left-wing site, “Think Progress,” but should perhaps have included the opening line of their piece, “During the Senate special election in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown was criticized for his lack of support for LGBT rights.”  Note the passive construction.

Now, I’ll grant that that good man probably doesn’t support every item on HRC’s wish list, the standard measurement for determining one’s support of “LGBT rights,” but then again, I don’t support most items on that list, as I dare say would a fair number of gay Americans, at least the majority of those of us on the right side of the political spectrum.   So, technically, Amanda Terkel, who penned the post, was right.

That said, his absence of support for HRC’s agenda does not make Brown “anti-gay” (as some gay activists have suggested).  Indeed, in his interview with Barbara Walters, not only did he show a great deal of flexibility on Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell*, he has also repeated recently a position he made clear in the campaign.  He believes that gay marriage is settled law in the Bay State:

And on the marriage issue that you brought up, it’s settled here in Massachusetts, but I believe that states should have the ability to determine their own destiny and the government should not be interfering with individual states’ rights on issues that they deal with on a daily basis.

California and other gay leaders may denounce Scott Brown and he may not be the HRC ideal (well, to do that, he’d have to change his party affiliation), but he has not criticized gay people and has shown an openness on gay issues (consistent with conservative principles)  that I wish we would see in all Republicans.

———–

*If people know ways I can lobby him to support repeal, I would be delighted to do so.

One of the main reasons I find it difficult to embrace the gay marriage, er, marriage equality movement, is that its proponents seem more interested in the abstract notion of “equality” than in the real institution of marriage. Its advocates are less interested in promoting marriage than in winning, to borrow an expression from my friend Dale Carpenter, a “trophy in the cultural wars.“

We see this again this week when none of the national gay organizations took issue with those in the media who contend that gay people are incapable of meeting one of the primary obligations of matrimony:  monogamy.  Last Tuesday, January 26, on The View, Joy Behar said that gays, “don’t take monogamy and infidelity the same way that the straight community does.”  Two days later in the New York Times, Scott James reported approvingly on the number of gay couples trying “to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony.”  Many are omitting monogamy:

New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area.  The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

Now, I don’t know what percentage of those couples consider themselves married.  And to be sure, while it wouldn’t be my choice to be part of an open relationship, I do believe individuals should be free to design their relationships as they see fit.  Open relationships may well be fulfilling to the individuals involved, but they’re not marriages.

Given that marriage is based on sexual exclusivity, to call a nonmonogamous union “marriage” is indeed to subvert the meaning of the institution.

By refusing to criticize those who see gay people as incapable of monogamy, gay organizations lend credence to social conservative arguments that gay marriage advocates seek to subvert the institution they’re ostensibly trying to promote.  I could find nothing denouncing Ms. Behar on the web-sites of the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Lesbian Rights or even Freedom (sic) to Marry.  Even my various google searches turned up no commentary from the head of these organizations taking Ms. Behar to task for her prejudice against gay people.  I could find none addressing the New York Times article.

As can be expected, it was only on blogs where gay people defended the ability of their fellows to meet the same conditions of marriage expected of our straight peers. The folks at Queerty responded that conversations about gay monogamy are best left in hands other than The View gals. Over at Good As You, Jeremy Hooper was astounded that Behar “could have such an uninformed opinion about gay relationships as a whole“: (more…)

It was not the arguments of pro-choice advocates which caused me to shift my view on abortion, no longer favoring laws banning the practice out right.  I found it all too easy to tune out the case they made as all too many dismissed the arguments of their pro-life adversaries as “anti-woman” or “rooted in the past.”  Or some such.  Ironic that they’d label a movement overwhelmingly female as “anti-woman.”  Guess those pro-life women are really, to borrow an expression from Gloria Steinem, just plain ol’ “female impersonators“.

It was in talking to women who had abortions that I began to understand the complexity of the issue.

And so it was with gay marriage, at least as it relates to my vote on popular initiatives in the Golden State.  As I have expressed frequently on this blog, I’m pretty ambivalent on the issue, content with domestic partnerships, not beholden to having the state call our unions “marriage.”

Ever since the proposition which would come to be numbered as 8 qualified for the California ballot, I expected I would vote against it.  While opposed to the state Supreme Court’s decision mandating state recognition of same-sex unions, I also did not think it appropriate for a state constitution to define marriage.  In large part because of my ambivalence on the issue and the mean-spirited attacks of gay marriage advocates on the Proposition’s proponents, I did waver in the last few weeks before the election.

My resolve to defeat the proposition strengthened when I saw two friends of mine together, lesbians who gotten married in the window between the court’s decision and Election Day.  I knew from following their example (and that of another lesbian couple) that they understood what marriage meant.  I voted, “No.”

In many ways, the attacks of the gay marriage advocates on their adversaries resemble those of the pro-choice zealots.  Each side bristles at any expression of opposition to their cause  Via Mark Tapscott, we learn of another example of pro-choice zealotry.  The National Organization for Women (NOW) is “mounting a campaign to force . . . off the air” a TV spot slated for the Super Bowl telecast where University of Florida football star Tim Tebow and his mother talk “about the fact he might have been aborted had she listened to a doctor who encouraged her to have an abortion due to complications in her pregnancy.“

They are, says Tapscott, paraphrasing CBS News legal reporter Jan Crawford, “trying to stifle debate on an important issue“. (more…)

Last night, with Andrew Sullivan’s solipsistic 2008 essay and other “rights”/personal validation arguments on gay marriage in my head, I recalled a scene, 3 seconds actually, from the movie Fiddler on the Roof* which defined marriage better than any of the “feel-good” arguments put forward by the gay marriage movement. At 2:51 in the clip below, Motel (Leonard Frey) promises Tevye (Topol) that should he wed his daughter, Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris), she “will not starve.”

To be sure, there’s more to this scene that those telling three seconds.  A few moments earlier, the meek tailor had earned the admiration of his beloved when he stood up for himself.  How much is said with Tzeitel’s astonished expression as she witnesses the gentle boy she loved becoming a man.  Motel has moved from talking about his feelings for Tevye’s daughter to talking about what he’s going to do to take care of her.

Only when he promises to make sure Tevye’s daughter has enough to eat (at a time when starvation was a daily concern) does the father realize that his eldest’s intended is “beginning to talk like a man.”

Now, I don’t mean to suggest by this post that gay marriage advocates ignore this aspect of marriage, of one spouse taking care of another.  But, in the current debate, this point takes a back seat to personal validation, equality and “rights” arguments, yet is more central to the notion of marriage than most arguments put forward in defense of extending the institution’s government benefits to same-sex couples.

That said, I would dare say that the better part of gay couples who seek to have their unions recognized as marriage get that aspect of the institution, at least the ones I know do.  There is a dichotomy between gay marriage as promoted and same-sex unions as practiced.

The issue is making that argument to gay marriage skeptics and opponents.  And maybe some of the couples are making that case in that San Francisco courtroom, but that’s not the place they should be making it.  Had they instead made that case to the people of California in 2008, they wouldn’t be pleading their cause to a sympathetic judge today.

* (more…)

To understand the decline in quality of the debate on gay marriage from its early potential to its current name-calling, you can start by reading two pieces by Andrew Sullivan 19 years apart.  In the first, “Here Comes the Groom,” he outlines a solid argument on the merits of extending the institution of marriage to same-sex couples.  In the second, “My Big Fat Straight (sic) Wedding,” he rhapsodizes about how wonderful state recognition of gay marriage makes him feel.  With said recognition, his “wedding”* “shifted a sense of our own identity within our psyches and even our souls.”

That later form of “argument” is currently on display in a San Francisco court room where lawyers are making a 1970s case for gay marriage, it’s all about feelings, nothing more than feelings.  These lawyers have, in the words of my friend Charles Winecoff, turned gay marriage advocates’ “fetish for state-sanctioned self-esteem into a federal case.“

In the trial, Perry v. v. Schwarzenegger, a lesbian couple from Berkeley and a gay couple from Burbank, seek to overturn California’s Proposition 8.  And in so doing, Charles reports, they’re trying to make federal law out of a saccharine ’70s song:

[Attorney Ted Olson] Olson opened the show by declaring that “domestic partnership has nothing to do with love” – essentially admitting that the two couples are seeking legal recognition of their feelings. Then the complainants took to the stand to deliver a string of what even theLos Angeles Times called “emotional accounts,” proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that non-celebrities no longer need Oprah (or Jerry Springer) to validate their existence.

First, Jeffrey Zarrillo testified that ”the word marriage” would give him the ability “to partake in family gatherings, friends and work functions as a married individual standing beside my parents and my brother and his wife.  The pride that one feels when that happens.”  Does he mean that, like Michelle Obama and her country, he never before felt pride being with his partner?  In their nine years as a couple, did they never attend any of those events together?

If “the word” means so much, why not just call yourself married? (more…)

Perhaps the most annoying (and counterproductive) thing about the most active advocates of state recognition of same-sex marriage is their tendency to paint all those who support the traditional definition of marriage with a broad brush.  They define them as “haters,” with Cindy McCain apparently joining their ranks by posing for a picture with duct tape on her mouth and a “No H8″ tattoo on her cheek (or agreeing to have said accessories photoshopped in).

As if someone somewhere is preventing her from speaking out on gay marriage. Yet, this very image is the inversion of reality. If someone speaks out in favor of gay marriage, they instantly earn the accolades of the PC powers that be and are often heralded for their courage. But, if they dare challenge the politically correct view on this controversial topic, they are frequently branded as haters and their livelihoods threatened.

Larry O’Connor reminds us of “Scott Eckern, the Artistic Director of Sacramento Music Theatre [who] was forced to resign after the public revelation that he donated $1,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign.”  It is the gay marriage activists who wish to silence those opposed to state recognition of same-sex marriage.

Shouldn’t they want to hear their arguments so they can better challenge them in the court of public opinion?  But instead, they seek to ostracize them, punishing them for their point of view.  Via Glenn, we learn further details of this “new blacklist,” no, not against advocates of same-ex marriage, but against those of traditional marriage:

A $26,000 contribution to the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California appears to have cost a 96-year-old former Mormon temple president his seat on the board that oversees Oakland’s historic Paramount Theatre.

Now, if this Mormon used his position on said board to advocate traditional marriage, the City Elders of Oakland would have a point, but if he happens to hold the view he does, while attending, without prejudice, to his duties on the board, then there is no problem.  Instead of punishing such an individual for his position on gay marriage, they should learn to counter, in a civil manner, his argument. (more…)

Back in the mid-1990s when I worked on Capitol Hill, I found that certain Congressman stood out because of the manner in which they treated staffers.  Some seemed to turn away if it looked like you were about to talk to them.  Others would respond courteously to your greetings, but in a regal manner, as if that were the response owed to polite peons.

And then, there were the just plain decent ones.  And they didn’t divide themselves along partisan lines.  Phil Crane may have been haughty (would later lose his seat), but Eleanor Holmes Norton was amicable, often chatting with staffers in the elevator and thanking those who waited for her to exit before doing so themselves.

Two members, however, stood out for their decency, then-Reps. Joe Scarborough (now of MSNBC) and Harold Ford, Jr., the former a Republican, the latter a Democrat.  I believe their offices were right next to each other.  Each had a great smile and a pleasant manner.  Perhaps, it’s because of Ford’s friendly manner that I’ve been cheering him on as he contemplates challenging New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in their state’s Democratic primary.

But, alas, as I learned in a post linked by Glenn Reynolds, that good man has attracted the animus of New York’s “Angry Gays.”  And we know they’re not easily placated.  ”Their beef seems to knows no bounds: Ford’s dismal anti-gay voting record back in Tennessee.”  Yet, the post provides no details of said voting record.  Still, gay activists in the Empire State have been quick to condemn this young man, with their “rapid-fire” response to his talk of challenging Gilibrand confirming “the potency of their furor — and newfound commitment to taking on politicians deemed enemies of the gay state.”

Enemies of the gay state?  Huh?  Sounds like the attitude of defenders of Communist regimes.

Guess it’s not enough for the gay thought police if someone changes his mind on gay marriage (as Ford has done, now supporting it).  There is no placating some gay activists who demand complete subservience to a set ideology, including adherence to the social justice code of the “progressive” elites.

An e-mail from Geoff Kors, Executive Director of Equality California, sounds a lot like some of our critics in the wake of Scott Brown’s resounding victory yesterday in the Bay State. Whining to his list, Kors revealed (yet again) his considerable anti-Republican prejudice:

Yesterday, in the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts voters elected a right-wing, anti-equality candidate to the U.S. Senate seat held by Edward Kennedy since 1962. And the group behind Prop. 8, the National Organization for Marriage, played a major role.  The volatile electorate, coupled with fierce opposition determined to deny us equality, makes 2010 a critical year to preserve and expand our right to legal equality.

With the leading gay group in the Golden State helmed by a man who spews this kind of rhetoric, you have an idea why Prop 8 passed.  He really does seem to hate conservative Republicans.

Please, Geoff, please, tell me where the constitution guarantees us a “right to legal equality” (whatever that means).  I’m more concerned about our rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you know, the inalienable ones.  As were the voters in Massachusetts.

If you want to overturn Prop 8, you’re going to have to stop demonizing guys like Scott Brown who called the Bay State’s law recognizing sex marriage as “settled” even as said recognition was mandated by a court, not enacted by an elected legislature.  And you’re going to need to figure out how to reach out to folks who responded to his message of smaller and more transparent government.  (And may well have shared his concern that the people of Massachusetts didn’t have a chance to weigh in on said law)

In a few days, I’ll be outlining my strategy to overturn Prop 8, complete with a draft initiative for the Golden State ballot.  But, given my political affiliation and his prejudices, I don’t think Mr. Kors will listen.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  John (AKA AverageGayJoe) nails it:

Who cares what NOM thinks of Brown? SSM wasn’t a part of Brown’s campaign and he will have minimal impact on the issue as US Senator. This is the same BS that special interest groups on both sides try to tar political opponents. If Geoff wants to know why Brown was elected, NOM had squat to do with it but an adage from over a decade ago most certainly did: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

So late today the Senate in New Jersey, one of the blueist of blue states (based on recent Prez elections), defeated a gay marriage proposal.

Gay rights advocates were confident of a legislative win and they pushed for passage while defeated Gov. Corzine was still holding his bill-signing pen.

So WTF? What has happened to the gay marriage movement? If you lose in CA and NJ, where do you go now?

I think it is a dead issue. Dead.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Today, Michelle Malkin is making much of Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker “unprecedented ruling” to videotape the federal trial challenging California’s Proposition 8.

Michael Kirk, the lawyer for Prop 8 proponents “argued that allowing the proceedings to be viewed outside the courthouse would violate their right to a fair trial by intimidating their witnesses.” Citing former federal district judge Paul Cassell, who finds it “highly unusual for a judge to authorize televised proceedings for this particular case as part of some new ‘pilot’ project to see how televised proceedings work“, Michelle contends:

This isn’t a sincere educational effort to provide transparency to the public. It’s a flagrant attempt at making Prop. 8 a show trial — and intimidating Prop. 8 backers who will be called to testify.

Just based on the antics of those Michelle dubs the “anti-Prop. 8 mob,” there is much merit to her argument. Members of this “mob” seem more interested in political theater than in rational argument. Among the advocates of gay marriage, Jonathan Rauch stands out, largely because he prefers level-headed persuasion to self-righteous chest-thumping.

Just yesterday, “Equality California” sent out an e-mail blast encouraging people to rally at a San Diego hotel owned by a man who made a generous contribution to the campaign to put Prop 8 on the ballot. They’ve even chartered vehicles to bus people from West Hollywood to the rally. Yeah, that’ll help.

Instead of engaging in political theater, they could better use their resources by taking the time to understand the arguments of gay marriage opponents and developing counter-arguments.  There’s no need to televise this trial nor to boycott a hotel, but there is a need to argue effectively. As the gay leadership has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to do just that.

I’m writing this on my iPhone with a new WordPress app. If it works, I’ll be blogging more!!

Yesterday, Human Events declared Dick Cheney to be the “Conservative of the Year.” (read the whole thing!)

In Washingtonian “inside the Beltway” terms, the most amazing aspect of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s new clout is that he is achieving it the old-fashioned way: talking about public policy. He is not running for President or any other office. He has not formed a PAC or a D.C. lobbying firm. He is not dishing on former colleagues, not spreading gossip, not settling scores. He is, instead, writing a memoir about his extensive career in public service, and giving occasional speeches and interviews, mostly on national and homeland security policy, long his central focus.

How is it, therefore, that someone who has no political ambitions can cause so much angst at the White House and in the mainstream news media? The irrefutable answer is that what Cheney is saying, primarily on foreign policy, defense and anti-terrorism, makes sense to more and more American citizens growing increasingly worried by the Obama Administration’s insouciance when U.S. national interests are threatened, both at home and abroad.

I’ll go one further. Cheney is without doubt The Conservative of The Decade and perhaps the most important and influential true American Conservative since Ronald Reagan.

Cheney proves again and again that he has core values and principles that are TRULY conservative and mirror the Founding Principles of this nation.

His devotion to individual American freedom and liberty is so pure that he becomes a progressive on the issue of gay marriage.

History will judge Cheney well. He helped make decisions that needed to be made to save the Republic. And I am confident that by 2012, a majority of Americans will only wish that Dick Cheney was our President or Vice President.

- Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  The former Vice President is not only, as Bruce noted above, devoted to his country, but also to his family, including his lesbian daughter.  He has treated Mary as we wish all parents to treat their gay children, loving her for who she is, welcoming Heather, her partner, into the family as he has her elder sister’s husband, including that same-sex couple in official events, including three inaugurations.

It is unfortunate that more gay Americans, including the heads of various gay organizations, don’t give this good man his due.  They may not share his politics, but they should at least appreciate his example.

The Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) best efforts notwithstanding, criticizing the organization does not mean you harbor anti-gay attitudes. If such were the standard, gay bloggers of all different stripes, from Trig truthers (& Obama apologists) to principled leftists to yours truly would all be anti-gay. And while I have not minced my words when talking about the gay auxiliary of the Democratic National Committee the liberal gay rights organization, left-of-center bloggers have used language far more choice than mine to describe HRC.

But, it seems the Advocate editors have drunk the HRC Kool-aid, having headlined their report on the Maine journalist fired for sending an intemperate e-mail to the liberal organization, “Reporter Fired for Antigay E-mail to HRC“.  Here’s the text of that e-mail:

Who are the hateful, venom-spewing ones? Hint: Not the yes on 1 crowd. You hateful people have been spreading nothing but vitriol since this campaign began. Good riddance!’”

Hmmm.. . .  doesn’t sound anti-gay to me.  I’ve heard gay friends (not all Republicans) use equally harsh language (albeit with different words) to describe HRC.

Now, maybe the good folks at HRC think that when Larry Grard (the journalist in question) modified the epithet “hateful people” with the pronoun you, he was referring not to just the recipient of the e-mail, but to all gay people.  That would then be mighty presumptuous of HRC to assume they speak for all gay people.  They certainly don’t speak for me nor for most readers of this blog nor for countless others American gays, including a good number of left-wing bloggers. (more…)

Earlier today, in the wake of yesterday’s vote in the New York Senate rejecting gay marriage, the folks at AOL asked me to write about about gay leadership.   Shortly after I sent the completed post it, they published it.  Let me whet your appetite with the first three paragraphs.

In the immediate aftermath of the passage of California’s Proposition 8 last fall — where voters amended the state’s constitution to recognize only marriages between one man and one woman — there was a lot of finger-pointing in the gay community, but no bloodletting.

Leaders of all the major gay organizations kept their jobs, including the leader of the one organization dedicated to promoting gay marriage and the head of the leading gay rights group in the Golden State. Well, Patrick Sammon, head of Log Cabin Republicans, did announce his retirement, but he was resigning for personal reasons and no one was blaming him for Proposition 8’s passage.

Last month, when Maine became the 31st state to reject state-recognition of gay marriage at the ballot box, gay leaders put on their best game face, pointing to voter approval in Washington state of domestic partnerships, but didn’t wonder, at least not publicly, if their own leadership was to blame.

Click here to read the rest.

A reader alerted me to a strange piece on David Frum’s site in which Jeb Golilnkin said that the GOP will thank conservative lawyer Ted Olson for, together with liberal attorney David Boies, appealing “the constitutionality of California’s ban on gay marriage“:

If they were to succeed in showing the California ban to be what it is, an unconstitutional law that is, in Olson’s words, “utterly without justification” and that brands gays and lesbians as “second-class and unworthy” in the eyes of the law, Republicans will owe the two a debt of gratitude for saving the party from twenty years of supporting a position that 20 years from now men and women will view as utterly abominable.

Um, not so fast, Jeb.  Before you instruct our fellow Republicans on being “on the wrong side of history” (while borrowing a liberal talking point to say as much), take heed to the results of a little 1973 Supreme Court decisions, Roe v. Wade.  There, the court removed the issue of abortion from elected legislatures and overturned their bans on the practice.  And as a result, for the past thirty-six years, abortion has become a divisive social issue.

And back then, some states were already moving to legalize the practice (just as some are moving today to recognize gay marriage).  If federal courts mandate state recognition of gay marriage, gay marriage will become a political football like abortion, forever dividing us.  Mr. Frum should recall that gay marriage first became a political football in the 1990s shortly after the Hawai’i Supreme Court ruled that its state “statute limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples is presumed to be unconstitutional“, remanding the case to lower courts to see if there were compelling “state interests” which justified the ban.  Three years later, a trial court found that there were none.

The same year, Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Two years after that, Hawai’i voters amended their state’s constitution to limit marriage to opposite sex couples.  A raft of state referenda with goals similar to the Aloha State initiative followed.   In this century, the Goodridge decision in Massachusetts mandating that the Bay State legislature recognize same-sex marriages led to a similar flood of state initiatives limiting state recognized marriage to its traditional definition. (more…)