Since I was driving to Denver yesterday, I was unable to participate in the “Kiss-in” at the Hollywood Chick-fil-A.  Had I been in town, I may well have joined in, having fun by finding a fetching fellow to kiss in front of the franchise, then walking into the restaurant and buying him a nice chicken meal, while ordering a nice cup of their most refreshing lemonade for myself.

Given some of the photos (via Instapundit) I saw from the “Kiss-In”, it seems that most protesters were more interested in expressing themselves than in presenting a positive image of same-sex affection. Yeah, a three-person kiss and signs like “Eat More Carpet” will go a long way to changing social conservative attitudes toward gays.

Now, these folks were surely having fun.  One thing that’s great about America is that they are free to express so flamboyantly their opposition to the views of the chicken chain’s president.

But, just as such flamboyant displays of disagreement likely will make it more challenging to change minds, so too is labeling opposition to gay marriage as “hate” little likely to foster dialogue.  According to the Los Angeles Times, the Rev. Sarah Halverson of Fairview Community Church did just that, saying she

 . . . respects [Chick-fil-A President Dan] Cathy’s right to free speech, she said, but also exercised her own right to speak out against what she considers hate speech.

“We have the right to stand in disagreement with another’s speech,” she said.

At a Chick-fil-A in Torrance where vandals painted the words “Tastes Like Hate” on the side of the restaurant Thursday night, the “National Same-Sex Kiss Day” was off to a slow start.

She’s does have the right to stand in disagreement.  That said, we should also consider whether the way we stand causes those with whom we disagree to reconsider their views.  Calling those views “hate speech” is not likely to effect such reconsideration.  If anything, it may cause them to double down in disagreement.

NB:  Tweaked the conclusion to improve its flow.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Just Me finds it to be a shame that some utilize the confrontational tactics, “because I think gays would get much further by engaging in legitimate debate than the in your face, deliberately provocative displays that don’t pay any respect to the other opinion or with any attempt to find common ground.”

Although we have yet received no report that a gay employee suffered mistreatment while woking at Chick-fil-A or that any gay customer was denied service at one of the Christian-owned chicken chain’s many franchises, the folks at HRC have described the company with a word gay activists delight in deploying to describe a a person or policy with which they disagree:

Why do some gay activists, including this, the largest gay political outfit use the word, “hate,” to describe people they disagree with — or policies at odds with their own.

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*despite its failure to provide any evidence that said company mistreated gays.

NB: Keep tweaking the title to make it less clunky, more accurate and able to fit on one line.  Apologies for the confusion.

Just a reminder. Today is Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.  You can go to defend free speech or just to spite those who demonize anyone with whom they disagree.

A week ago today, in response to a reader’s e-mail, I had begun a post on the Chick-fil-A hullabaloo.  I agreed with Mark Hemingway that the media had invented the story that Chick-fil-A’s president had condemned gay marriage. That said, I wasn’t comfortable with what that president had said about traditional marriage:

Dan Cathy, the president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, said in a radio interview this week that same-sex marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation.”

Appearing on “The Ken Coleman Show,” Cathy spoke of his company’s pride in its socially conservative character, but then offered an assessment of same-sex marriage that might lose the popular fast food chain a few customers.

“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’” said Cathy.

I decided to scotch the planned post.  I wouldn’t join my fellow conservatives in castigating the chicken chain’s critics nor would I join my fellow gays in branding the Christian businessman a bigot.  I would simply refrain from buying chicken there.  The story would soon fade.  It is not a matter of pressing national interest.

While I was celebrating a friend’s birthday yesterday at the happiest place on earth (with seemingly fewer happy people this summer than in past years), Glenn Reynolds linked and quoted from a blogger who offered a nice succinct, synopsis of an emerging consensus on the Chick-Fil-A hullabaloo:

Among pretty much everyone with a civil libertarian, or just plain libertarian, background, the verdict on the Chick-Fil-A furor is the same: while private persons and groups are within their rights to boycott a business, it’s outrageous and dangerous for government officials to threaten to use regulation to keep the fast-food chain out of their cities because they disapprove of its president’s anti-gay-marriage views.

Exactly.  Exactly.  Read the whole thing.

Do wonder yet again why Democratic politicians were so eager to attack this private company for the opinions of its president.  And to do so when they had no evidence that the company had ever discriminated against an employee because he was gay or denied service to or otherwise denigrated a customer because of his sexual orientation.

When I learned that upon the merger of Exxon and Mobil, the newly-merged company had decided to “cease offering health-care benefits to its employees’ domestic partners“, I resolved to stop filling up at Exxon or Mobil stations. ExxonMobil is a private company and should have the right to set its own employment policies. I am a private individual and have the right to choose where I buy gas for my car.

In a similar manner, two years ago, a private advocacy outfit, the American Family Association (AFA) announced a boycott of Home Depot, a private company like ExxonMobil, because, unlike said oil company, that home improvement superstore offered benefits to the same-sex partners of its employees.  This was not the first time the AFA had tried to boycott a private enterprise offering such benefits.  Sixteen years ago, the social conservative group launched a boycott against Disney.

We may not agree with their decision to boycott, but social conservatives should remain free to buy their home improvement supplies where they choose or seek recreation at destinations they select, just as I should be free to buy gas where I want and gay activists should be free to buy fast-food chicken at companies whose presidents have social views not averse to their own.

Interestingly, during all those AFA boycotts, you didn’t once hear a Republican politician try to curry favor with social conservatives by  vowing to keep Disney out of his jurisdictions or Home Depots out of her neighborhood.  They weren’t trying to impose their social views on the rest of us.

Why do so many liberals turn to government when they want to right something they believe to be wrong?

NB:  Tweaked the title so it would more accurately reflect content of post.

A number of readers (on both sides of the political aisle) have e-mailed me or otherwise messaged me to ask my opinions on or whether I would post about the Chick-Fil-A Hullabaloo.  To be sure, earlier this week, I had planned a post on the matter, but, as I started writing it, chose not to finish the post and leave the story alone.  The fast food chicken restaurant is, after all, a private enterprise, one of which I have patronized only occasionally (like maybe two or three times) in my life.

But, thanks to Democratic urban politicians eager to patronize the gay community (in response to activists suddenly upset that the chicken chain’s president had expressed support for traditional marriage), the story is not going away.

Last night on Facebook, my friend Rick Sincere (check out his blog here) offered a nice succinct statement on the story in which this smart libertarian summarized my basic response to the kerfuffle:

Property rights are human rights. Customers should be able to boycott a business; the government should not make that decision for them.

If you don’t like the fact that Chick-Fil-A’s president is a “devout” Christian who supports traditional marriage, then don’t buy his company’s product, but don’t attempt to impose your views on the rest of us by demanding that cities not grant permits to further franchises.

If cities determine to grant no business licenses to companies because of their management’s controversial politics, then we’d have to demand that cities grant no further licenses to Ben and Jerry’s franchises.

That said, the left-wing politics of that company won’t stop me from stopping by one of their stores on those occasions when I have a craving for a dish of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

NB:  Tweaked the post to fix a clumsy sentence.

RELATED: You can favor gay marriage and still believe in the right to oppose gay marriage

FROM THE COMMENTS:  MV asks some questions that this story should cause us to consider: (more…)

This is a screen capture I just made of my search on HRC’s blog for “Dan Savage“:

It has been a full month (and three days) since Mr. Savage used “faggot” as a derogatory slur.  And still HRC still hasn’t spoken up.

And yet when Sarah Palin’s grandson used the same slur and his mother said (on her reality show) that this suggests she’s “doing a terrible job disciplining Tripp. I know he’s going to continue to push the boundaries and push the limits.” Seems she’s acknowledging this is not a good term to use.

Maybe she should talk to Dan Savage.   Someone’s been doing a terrible job disciplining that bully; he continues to push the boundaries, push the limits.

The folks at HRC’s blog found the Palin episode worthy of a blog post, reminding us “this isn’t the first time the anti-gay phrase has landed one of the Palin daughters in hot water. Two years ago, Willow herself used the same slur on Facebook.”  (H/t reader Just Me in the comments.)

When a three-year-old utters the word, “faggot,” HRC sees fit to issue a blog post.  When a grown man uses it to slur his political adversaries, the supposed gay advocacy outfit is silent.  Wonder why that is.

UPDATE: Did 3-year-old really use the gay slur? (Via Mark Steyn.)

Seems the conservative media is doing what the gay media won’t: call out gay organizations for their hypocrisy. Breitbart reports:

When CNN’s Roland Martin sent out a series of Tweets about an underwear commercial starring soccer standout David Beckham GLAAD snapped into action.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation claimed Martin’s Tweets were tantamount to gay bashing, and Martin had to undergo the standard public deprogramming effort to escape from future punishment.

Just ask film director Brett Ratner how that feels.

But when BuzzFeed’s Michael Hastings fired off a Tweet that questioned the masculinity of Richard Grenell, an openly gay political consultant who recently worked for Mitt Romney, the gay rights group went silent.

Breitbart News reached out to GLAAD’s PR arm twice over the last seven days for comment.

The group chose not to respond.

Maybe they should change the name of their outfit from GLAAD to GLAAD-EDACRGL (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation — Except for Defamation Against Conservative and Republican Gays and Lesbians).

By the way, it’s now been more than a month since Dan Savage uttered his “hateful remarks” in a public forum and still HRC hasn’t spoken up.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an outfit which bills itself as the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization should called on sex columnist and creator of the “It Gets Better” video project Dan Savage to come out against the kind of anti-LGBT bullying and name-calling sadly typified by his tweet two weeks ago. Willow Palin deleted her Facebook page (on which she had used the same slur Savage did) and Bristol Palin has apologized for that type of behavior, but Dan Savage has neither deleted his tweet nor apologized.

“Sarah Palin’s daughter seems to know when an apology is in order, why doesn’t she?” said HRC Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz. “As an adult gay man,” added another gay man in the spirit of Sainz’s commentary, “Savage should know not to make such hateful remarks, particularly in this cyber age. Anti-LGBT bullying needs to stop and Dan Savage should be a part of making that happen.”

According to media accounts, a gay conservative group, GOProud, endorsed presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney even while disagreeing with him on some issues. That prompted Savage to respond by saying, “The GOP’s house faggots grab their ankles, right on cue [sic]“.

That language is unacceptable. Over the past year a number of teenagers have taken their own lives after being the victims of anti-gay bullying or harassment by other teenagers. Mr. Savage himself has drawn attention to such suicides with his “It Gets better Videos.”  He thus seems aware that words hurt.  And still he has spoken as he had.

Given his recent tweet, Savage now has a prime opportunity to give the nation’s children — indeed to give all Americans — a lesson in tolerance – to let them know it is wrong to use such hateful language, but has so far remained silent. (more…)

Every now and again, you meet a gay ex-Republican who tells you that he left the GOP because of the party’s intolerance.

Events this past week, however, have made it increasingly apparent that such folks left not because of the GOP’s supposed intolerance, but because of that they experienced in the gay community.  They were simply tired of being ostracized — and otherwise marginalized — for their political views.
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*(or hide)

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FROM THE COMMENTS:  Redneck Fag answers the title question in the affirmative:  ”It happened to me when I was living in San Francisco during the Reagan years but it didn’t last long. I soon saw the problem: wanting to conform and be popular . . . .”

That does seem to be the problem.

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.

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