Now nearly fifty years ago, in one of the greatest speeches any American has ever delivered, Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed his vision of how to treat people who differ from ourselves, “I have a dream that my four 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.”

It’s not the color of their skin which defines them, but the quality of their character.  So too should it be with sexual orientation.

It seems, alas, that we’ve gone for the vision of a society where we evaluate each individual according to his qualities of character to one where his difference becomes paramount.  Two weeks ago, I blogged about a proposal being floated in the University of California system to ask “incoming freshmen to identify their sexual orientation, a move that might cement such declarations as an emerging topic in the college admissions process.”

That story is getting more legs, with an LA Times report yesterday on the matter:

California’s state colleges and universities are laying plans to ask students about their sexual orientation next year on application or enrollment forms, becoming the largest group of schools in the country to do so. The move has raised the hopes of gay activists for recognition but the concerns of others about privacy.

“The negatives of this,” writes, Tina Korbe,

. . . vastly outweigh the potential benefits. Not only could the information be improperly used — say to either discriminate against or give preference to LGBT students — but it also suggests sexual orientation is somehow relevant to education. The college admissions process should aim to determine what students would be able to meet the rigorous academic requirements of a university experience.

Read the whole thing.  Knowledge of an individual’s sexual orientation won’t help determine whether or not he has that ability.   (more…)

Back in 1998, Chris Bull published a very good book, Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s, about how social conservatives opposing gay rights and gay activists were made for each other.  Every time Rick Santorum opens his mouth and says something silly and gay activists, clutching their pearls and reaching for their smelling salts, respond (in the highest of dudgeon) behaving as if the former Senator has just demanded his legions go out and convert gay people — or threaten them with the hell-fire — it seems such folk were made for each other.

A silly statement is not (necessarily) a hateful one.  Nor does it amount to bullying, but it is often revealing.  ”Even in the most private, apolitical moment of the day,” Jennifer Rubin reports,

Santorum couldn’t suppress the urge to judge.” This year it was publicly chastising a boy for using a pink bowling ball. Seriously. The world according to Rick must be preached to all of us.

I couldn’t find video of this, and maybe (as the person who alerted me to the story speculates) the former Senator “was being playful in a pseudo-macho way”, but Rick Santorum is not known for his jocular gestures.  More than anything, this comment betrays a certain insecurity — and a failure of discipline.  What does it accomplish for a man who knows he’s being followed by a gaggle of press to say such a thing?

Even though press reports provide no evidence that Santorum linked the pink ball to gay men, the folks at HRC found the former Senator contending the former Senator’s comments could harm gay people.  Really.

Almost out of breath, HRC Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz said, “This is another example of Rick Santorum intentionally making ignorant statements that have a real impact on LGBT people“.  Give a break.  Most gay people who hear of this will laugh at the former Senator’s strangeness.  Only those who have this need to be perpetually aggrieved will feel threatened by his quip. (more…)

When it comes to gay people in the Mormon faith — or in evangelical denominations — you can count on our friends in the media to detail the oppression they suffer even if the only evidence of said oppression is the narrative the journalists provide.

Our friend Sonicfrog caught the Advocate peddling this very narrative in the story of the death of a Gay Mormon man.  The headline contends that his suicide “points up tensions“, but the tensions they write about come not from the details of the man’s life, but from the commentary of “some”:

As friends mourn the death of Chris Wayne Beers, a gay man and former Mormon missionary and church employee who took his own life Sunday, some are noting tensions between LGBT people and the church, which opposes gay relationships.

The only person quoted in the Advocate’s piece didn’t even know Beers: “While struggles with his faith may not have been the direct reason he took his own life,” this man said, “I’m hard pressed to imagine that there isn’t an indirect cause, at least. . . .” This leads Sonic to quip with a question, “Project much?”

There is no indication in the article that he was very devout, or that his family had dis-owned him. The main interview of the article didn’t even know the guy. Mitch Mayne does not give any indication of knowing any of the details of this mans life.

Read the whole thing.  My blogging pal notes further that on Beers’s “memorial page, there is a reference to the fact that his own brother Jeff had also passed away. That could be just as much or more of a weight on Mr Beers than the conflict between church and being gay.” (more…)

There seems to be a pattern among gay activists and their supporters in the legacy media, to define as “hatred” any opposition to their views on homosexuality.  Now, I do not share Kirk Cameron’s view that homosexuality is “unnatural” and believe this view shows an incredible ignorance of the history of human behavior and of artistic and mythological representations of human relationships.

That said, there is a difference between expressing a view colored by a fundamentalist faith and manifesting animus to those who do not live by the strictures of that faith.  In expressing his (very) un-PC views (and, in my mind, narrow) opinion on homosexuality, Cameron has never adopted a hostile (or hateful) attitude toward gay people.

In her interview with the actor, however, the Today show’s Ann Curry asked if his remarks were “hate speech” and wondered if he were “encouraging people to feel hate towards gay people“.  Later, she speculates that his words might make others feel it’s okay to “mistreat gay people”.

The question is not so much why Mr. Cameron holds these views, but why Ms. Curry would compare them to “hate speech.”  Couldn’t she have questioned them using different language, asking instead why he believes homosexuality to be unnatural, possibly rebutting him with evidence of social tolerance for homosexuality in, say, the ancient Near East and classical Greece?

Seems she’s more interested in reducing his views to animus than in actually understanding his opinion–or changing his mind.

Commenting on the interview, John Nolte contends, “Ann Curry and Leftists like her don’t give a damn about gays. If they did, you would see the same amount of hostility directed towards Muslims.“

When, in 1981, the Dartmouth Review published the names of the officers of that college’s “Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) along with material that had been taken from the GSA’s confidential files“, the college was in an uproar over this breach of privacy.  Students protested, incensed that the grandfather of one of those students learned about his (closeted) progeny’s sexuality from the Review.

Three years later, when a Review staffer secretly taped a meeting of the GSA nad published a portion of the transcript, the college was (as well it should have been) up in arms, with its administration only reluctantly choosing not to bring charges.  Then-Dean Shanahan, however, did send a letter to “the Dartmouth community calling on them to ‘censure’ the Review for its ‘insensitivity.’”

Now, such “insensitivity” comes not from conservative campus papers, but from colleges themselves, at least here in politically correct California:  ”Officials of the University of California system have proposed asking incoming freshmen to identify their sexual orientation, a move that might cement such declarations as an emerging topic in the college admissions process.”

Ann Althouse whose post reminded me about the article (had previously seen a link on a Facebook page) quipped:

It’s for their own good. The university has services it wants to provide. All the government’s intrusions into your private life are for your own good. You will be given what is good for you, so come on now, tell us all about everything.

How far we’ve come and how backward we’re moving.

Now, I agree we’re all better off if we come out, but it the business of a university to ask us about our sexual orientation.  Nor to judge us by that difference.

Many of us, including yours truly, often challenge our liberal friends’ comments and links on Facebook, generally engaging in intelligent exchanges, but sometimes in exchanges of insults.  In a handful of cases, we suddenly find a partisan adversary has silently “de-friended” us, other times we finds ourselves subject to a barrage of insults accusing us of narrow-mindedness, self-hatred or even racism.

The other day, a gay conservative lamented on Facebook that it had . . .

Been a rough year with politics! Lost friends of 20 years and more because of Obama. Went from everybody liked being around me to the outcast with very few gay friends. Attacks have been very personal. Kinda blue here.

And he’s not the only one — as indicated by the comment thread. One man reported that a friend had told him he “deserved [his] heart attack for opposing Obamacare.” Another wrote that at a gay and lesbian film festival (not in LA), he and his partner sponsor:

People will be openly hostile to me and my partner (we’re both conservative). Very few are what I would even call tolerant. I continue to be a sponsor of the film festival because it is my last remaining tie to the gay commnunity. Without it, I have ZERO contact with the gay “community” – and my circle of gay friends is only a few. When I was a lib I had literally dozens of gay friends and was quite known in the gay community at the time.

Interesting that with a few notable exceptions, I have had almost the exact opposite experience at Outfest, the gay and lesbian film festival here in LA.  Most folk there continue to treat me with respect even after learning of my political leanings.

Another participant in the thread had not been so fortunate.  Three “so-called good friends” of another gay man told him “they could not be friends [because of his] dislike of B.O.”  From their attitude, he gleaned “they were not true friends, because all of my true friends, while we do not agree politically, we accept it, and move on” — which is what most of us experience. (more…)

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)

Last night, I had planned a followup post on the Sheriff Babeu hullabaloo quite different from the one I am about to write.  I changed my mind when most of the stories I tracked down boiled down to “he said/he said” versions of events; I did not want to delve into the man’s private life.

So, instead, I’ll wonder at the media coverage of the matter.

To that end, I was greatly helped by reader Peter Hughes who e-mailed me a link to this post critiquing Don Lemon’s commentary on the matter. Despite his political angle, the late-coming out CNN anchor got a few things right in his attempt to use the story against the GOP. He, for example, pointed out that the Sheriff “has never denied being gay, or to our knowledge has he ever pushed for anti-gay measures.”

And, to be fair, he reminds us that “there are Democrats like Jim McGreevey who were pushed out of the closet.”

McGreevey, as you will recall, stayed on as Governor of New Jersey even after acknowledging using his position to promote a young man he was interested in romancing.  Not long thereafter, he emerged on the cover of the Advocate, a new hero to our friends in the gay media.  He received a largely sympathetic treatment, with many worrying about the struggles a gay politico has to face.

It’s too bad Lemon only referenced McGreevey in an aside; he could have performed a real service by comparing the media treatment of McGreevey to that of Babeu.  The men are in similar situations–though the evidence of the Democrat’s wrongdoing was far more clear cut.

Our friends in the media did give the Democrat a benefit of the doubt — a benefit they don’t seem to be offering to Sheriff Babeu.

ADDENDUM:  There is an error in the article linked.  Colorado Congressman Jared Polis is a Democrat, not a Republican.  And they left one openly gay Democratic Congressman, Rhode Island’s David Ciciline.

In his review of Wanted Women, “a new joint biography of two Muslim women [which] refuses to distinguish between an al-Qaida terrorist and a feminist intellectual“, historian Andrew Roberts provides one example of the author’s twisted sense of moral equivalence:

Writing of a speech that [Somali-born campaigner for Muslim women’s rights, Ayaan] Hirsi Ali was set to give, [author Deborah] Scroggins alleges that “some of the anti-gay Islamic attitudes she planned to criticize weren’t very different from those of some conservative Republicans.” Really? Show me a bill in which conservative Republicans have attempted to change the law so that homosexuals are hanged, as happened to three gay men in Iran this past September. Those innocents were only the most recent victims of that country’s blood lust against homosexuals.

Via Instapundit.  Sometimes it seems that some on the left harbor more animus against conservative Republicans than they do against radical Islamicists.

Sunlight, I’ve always believed, is the best disinfectant.

We should not hinder people from voicing their opinions, no matter how hateful because only when they voice them can we counter them.  Today, in her inimitable style, Amy Alkon, an Angelena diva who quips that if she “were any more gay-friendly,” she’d “have a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend”*, takes a school superintendent to task for labeling “a column in a school newspaper that criticized homosexuality as ‘bullying.”

Why should people be scared of someone voicing such an opinion?  Shouldn’t their silly commentary provide an easy target, a jumping off point for an argument in defense of homosexuality?   Why do some folks wish to suppress opposing opinions?

Basically, Amy tells this superintendant to grow a pair:

Look, I was bullied. Girls followed me through the halls in junior high and taunted me with anti-Semitic epithets. When it started to get serious (when they started throwing chairs in my path), I told my dad, and he went to the principal and it stopped.

The point is, there are measures that can be taken before we start crumpling up the Constitution. And sorry, but you don’t have a right to not be offended, not even if you’re in high school. What you should learn to do is think and write and debate well so you can see that your point of view wins the day. And if somebody throws a chair at you, and there’s nobody to go to the principal’s office for you…maybe that’s the real problem we should be dealing with, but…

Emphasis added.  Seems Amy’s got more balls than the school superintendant who has a man’s name (Todd Carlson).

A gay couple had called the school and complained after they had read the “offensive” column.  Carlson responded to their complaint.  They would have done better to have written a strongly worded letter intended for publication in the journal.

Via Instapundit.

* (more…)

All gay and lesbian conservatives seem to have one experience in common, that of facing the hostile prejudice of our liberal peers.  Some (but fortunately not all) of our ideological adversaries ever so quick to deem any opposition to their agenda as “hateful” seem to harbor themselves a lot of hatred toward individuals who do not share their political predilections.

And although we read much in our culture about the animus social conservatives have for homosexuals, we see little coverage of the animus some gay leftists feel for gay conservatives.  In the seven years (and three months) I have been blogging, I have received nearly twenty times as much hate mail from liberals than I have received from social conservatives.  Why do these people hate so much?

One gay conservative addressed this hatred in a rant that has gotten some attention in the gay media.  Now, we may find his tone and rhetoric a bit overblown, but we do share some of his sentiments, having experienced the same intolerance from our supposedly very tolerant peers.  And a certain point, you become immune to their taunts and amused by their absence of imagination.  Just finding a different means of expressing the trite expression, “Jewish Nazi,” doesn’t make you original.

As GOProud Board Member Lisa De Pasquale detailed the other day in the Daily Caller:

Dan Savage, the “It Gets Better” project’s co-founder, has been just as vicious toward gay conservatives as schoolyard bullies have been toward their gay classmates. In an MSNBC interview, Savage referred to the members of GOProud, an organization of gay conservatives, as “gay Quislings and useful idiots.” He said they were just “window dressing” for bigoted Republicans. Like a schoolyard bully, Savage ridicules people who are different from him.

And Savage is not alone.

Fortunately, he is not representative of all of his ideological confreres.  Many of us have strong friendships with gay left-wingers, some of whom respect us as individuals despite our philosophical and political differences, others who delight in needling us for our differences — as we needle them for theirs. (more…)

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…)

Via The Hill:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he is not seeking re-election, ending a 32-year career in the House.

Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010.

He is scheduled to hold a press conference at 1 p.m. in his district, according to a spokesman, who said the congressman would announce at that time the reason for his decision, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he is not seeking re-election, ending a 32-year career in the House.

Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010.

He is scheduled to hold a press conference at 1 p.m. in his district, according to a spokesman, who said the congressman would announce at that time the reason for his decision.

Hopefully his next stop will be prison for the economic crimes he has committed against the United States of America.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

A few days ago, Bruce alerted me to Pat Dollard’s tweet reminding us that current MSNBC host Al Sharpton once referenced “Greek homos.”  After a quick google search, I learned that the left-leaning pundit also used a term that caused the folks at HRC to get their panties all in a bunch when the daughter of a prominent Republican celebrity used it.

Although I could find no reference online indicating that HRC rebuked the bombastic Reverend for his use of the term, they did honor him in 2005 as one of their “Top 10 Straight Advocates for Gay and Transgender Rights“.

Now, people can surely change.  And perhaps HRC did fault Mr. Sharpton when he made these statements and their rebukes are no longer online.  But, that man did, in recent years, defend a prejudiced pastor who used anti-gay rhetoric.

Wonder why HRC and GLAAD are not calling for him to publicly rebuke his past statements in order to retain his post on MSNBC.  I mean, if they called on Sarah Palin to apologize publicly for her teenage daughter’s remark.

Just sayin’ . . .

Saw this on Jimmy LaSalvia’s Facebook page. We’ve all met guys like this short’s protagonist.

What is old is new again!  The alleged “gay Republican organization” known as Log Cabin has once again decided it is more important to tear down our candidates rather than defeat President Obama’s America-destroying agenda.

Log Cabin – a fully bought-off affliliate of the Radical Gay Left’s Tim Gill – attacked Cain after the GOP candidate appeared this morning on “The View”.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Cain chose to divert attention away from a solid platform of greater liberty and smaller government by indulging in anti-gay rhetoric. Log Cabin Republicans sincerely hope that Herman Cain is open to hearing the evidence and changing his mind on these issues.”

Chris Barron has an awesome, and gosh…. FACTUAL…. response to this Cain smear campaign by The Professional Gays.

 Cain specifically says on The View that he hasn’t seen enough scientific evidence to prove that homosexuality isn’t a choice and he admits that others have drawn different conclusions.

Finally, far from attacking gay people, Mr. Cain has made it clear that he is willing to be a President for all Americans – including gay people.  Mr. Cain does not support a federal marriage amendment, will not reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, supports policies like the Fair Tax, free market healthcare reform and social security personal savings accounts – all of which would benefit gay and lesbian Americans.

Back in June I wrote about the left, and in particular the gay left’s reaction to Cain:

For the gay left none of this will matter.  All that matters is the group hug.  For the gay left, it isn’t important whether the policies pursued by a candidate or a party actually improve the lives of gay people, all that matters is that they get the pat on the head – the assurance that they are ok.  I don’t need the group hug, nor do I need affirmation from the government that I am ok.  What I need is a President and a Congress that will pursue policies that will make life better for me and my family.

It is time the gay community put real policy before emotional theater, and that is exactly why gay people should be willing to listen to and consider the candidacy of Herman Cain.

The Gay Left, including their paid-off Log Cabin affiliate, are too invested in the Obama Democrats to have a rational response to the Cain candidacy.  Too bad.  But their hatred of conservatives is too blatant to ignore these days.  So at least there is that.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

If you want proof (as if proof is still needed) that most of national gay organizations are little more than front groups for the Democratic Party, who see their purpose not to try to change the minds of those with less than charitable views of gay people, just note how the silence of so many on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s commentary on gay issues.

Guess these groups are uncomfortable with how a man like Dick Cheney challenges their prejudices about conservatives.

Instead of ignoring this good man, they should be celebrating him.  Just when he stepped down as Vice President, few (if any) singled him out for having dared to differ with then-President George W. Bush on the Federal Marriage Amendment and for treating his daughter as we would want every parent to treat a gay child.

Guess it’s just not right to praise one designated an official villain of the American left.

Reader Leah sends this clip of the former Vice President and his wife, once again, providing an example for all parents to emulate:

Elmhurst College, Nathan Harden reports in the National Review’s Phi Beta Cons,

. . . has become the first college in the nation to directly ask applicants if they are gay. The question, “Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community?” appears on the school’s new admissions application.

Students who self-identify as could could even “qualify for a scholarship worth one-third of tuition at the private, liberal arts school”.

Guess this helps promote the notion of sexuality as a protected victim class entitled to all rights, privileges and honors pertaining thereto.

This is absurd.  Colleges shouldn’t ask about such things on their applications and focus instead on the student’s merits, his accomplishments.

With a new executive at the helm of “Equality California” (EqCA) we at GayPatriot have hoped (indeed still hope) that the largest gay and lesbian organization in the Golden State will become less partisan than it has been in the past and less prejudiced against Republicans.

Despite the organization’s statist ideology, seeking a legislative solution to problems facing gay and lesbian citizens, and its alliances with a variety of interest groups allied close to the state Democratic Party, including public employee unions, the organization’s new executive director, Roland Palenica, told San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter that his group “represent[s] all LGBT Californians, whether they donate to us or not“.

No, Roland, no you don’t.  You don’t speak for the gay Republicans who bristle at EqCA’s alliance with state Democrats.  You don’t speak for gay libertarians who bristle at the statist “equality” ideology.  And you don’t even speak for all gay leftists who bristle as your alliance with corporate lobbyists.

Michael Petrelis, a man who bills himself as a socialist and who alerted me Palencia’s self-serving comment, has taken the new e.d. to task for assuming to speak for all of us:

My email invitation to the town hall meeting where the gay community was allowed to vote on permitting EQCA to speak for every one of us must have been sent to the wrong addy. When did we all get a say about EQCA being the entire community’s rep? Of course, we didn’t, just as we don’t see them holding regular public forums.

Recall EQCA’s board failed to organize any open sessions about the EDposition before Palencia was hired. . . .

EQCA does not represent me, and quite a few other LGBT people in California. We have major issues with the group and the elitists running it. . . .

And EqCA does not represent me either — and I would daresay the overwhelming majority of GayPatriot readers living in the Golden State.

Bowing “to pressure from gay activists who threatened a business boycott“, a gay South Florida business association has cancelled a meeting with U.S. Rep. Allen West.  Seems that that Republican’s views on gay issues don’t perfectly align with those of gay activists.  Or maybe it’s that (R) after his name which designates him (to some gay lefties) as a horrible, no good, very bad person.

With the Wilton Manors Business Association succumbing to the threat of a boycott, gay entrepreneurs won’t have the chance to meet West, a champion of deregulatory/small government policies which help small businesses, including gay enterprises.

After the group had invited West to a meeting slated for August 8, Michael Rajner, legislative director of the Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Caucus warned that a failure to rescind the invitation “would prompt gay ‘community leaders and other social justice advocates’ to call for [Wilton Manors Business Association President Celeste] Ellich’s resignation and launch a ‘boycott [of] any and all businesses’ that are members of the business association.”

Wonderfully tolerant fellow that Mr. Rajner, wanting someone to resign for reaching out to an elected official.  Guess for folks like him, the mere prospect of meeting with a Republican is akin to blasphemy.  Unfortunately of standing up to his intolerance and animus, the business association caved.

Well, some are taking these intolerant leftists to task for their narrow views.  Via our reader ThatGayConservative comes this piece from Javier Manjarres who find it sad that leftist leaders of the gay community would marginalize their community “by standing against anyone or anything that isn’t painted over with a big fat ‘gay pride flag’. ”

The Congressman’s wife Angela chimed in as well:

Perhaps it has become so important to brand people, especially in politics to make sure that you have someone to vilify and hate. It makes it easier to say and behave in certain ways. However, if tolerance were to be achieved by an evening of discussion, it would have been discovered that Congressman West’s close relative is gay and married to his partner — we love and adore them both. (more…)