Just over two weeks ago, I asked, “Where is the conservative candidate at this conservative moment?”

If this election were held on which party had the best vision for the future of America, the Republicans, should they hew to Reagan’s ideals, would win hands-down. Polls show a continuing, if not growing, distrust of the federal government and a skepticism for the types of solutions President Obama has been offering.

Note that his biggest political victory of 2011 was outmaneuvering Republicans on a tax-cut.

We need someone, as I wrote in January, who can take the fight to Obama–who can stand up for conservative principles.  Rick Santorum, despite his absence of real accomplishment in the Senate and lack of executive experience, has, since Newt’s meltdown, done that better than anyone else in the race.  No wonder he did so well last night.

Let us hope Mitt Romney learns from his defeat.

Santorum may be able to articulate conservative principles, but he didn’t when he was in Congress, he didn’t lead the fight to stem the growth of federal spending or limit the scope of government regulation.  And he comes with baggage that will not endear him to independent voters.  As Jim Hoft reminds us, in April 2003, the then-Pennsylvania Senator

. . . stated that he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. Santorum described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states’ ability to regulate other consensual and non-consensual sexual behavior, such as adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual.

Just over five years ago, in the wake of his Senate defeat, I wrote

The lesson for Republicans in Santorum’s defeat is that expression of anti-gay sentiments will not help advance a candidate’s cause. Most Americans, while opposing gay marriage, don’t harbor much, if any, animosity against gay people. But, on the whole, they do seem to seem to have an antipathy to politicians who readily express anti-gay bias. (more…)

. . .  or, is his opposition to gay marriage just, as he says, a “public policy difference”?  I have my differences with Santorum and cannot support his bid for the Republican nomination, but tend to the latter view.  I don’t think he hates gay people.

Joel Gehrke at the Washington Examiner posted about a woman in South Carolina supporter who asked him how to address her support for him.   Interesting how that wife answers first (before he follows up):

Can a public  policy difference, as the Senator puts it, be seen as a personal assault?

Reminds me I do need blog asking if social conservatives hate gay people.  Some do, but most, it seems, do not.  More on that anon.

“Anti- gay rhetoric,” contended the friend of a liberal friend in a recent Facebook thread, “is one of the main points of all of their [i.e., Republican] campaigns.”  Really now?

By and large, Republican candidates have steered clear of gay issues (save when the media bring them up).  And for good reason.  Making such rhetoric the core (or even a peripheral) aspect of your campaign won’t help a candidate muster a majority (or even a plurality in a crowded field) in Republican caucuses and primaries.

Now, to be sure, Rick Perry did raise his opposition to gays serving in the military in a campaign ad* and the media helped made Michele Bachmann’s opposition to gay marriage well known.

A lot of good that did them.

Perry finished fifth in Iowa, Bachmann sixth.  In New Hampshire, he slipped into sixth – barely breaking into single digits.  Rick Santorum’s focus on inability to avoid harping on social issues may have contributed to his failure to translate his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses to a better position in New Hampshire.  He finished fifth, behind Newt Gingrich and ahead of Perry.

As Philip Klein reported in the Washington Examiner:

After coming off of his come from behind near-victory in Iowa, instead of pivoting to his economic populist message, Santorum got sucked into fights about social issues. In Concord last week, he mixed it up with a college audience who opposed his views on gay marriage and drug legalization. It may have been admirable in the sense that it showed he has true conviction, but it wasn’t helpful for competing in a state in which 51 percent of the electorate turned out to be either independent or Democratic.

Factoring out those independent and Democratic votes, Santorum only bumped his tally up slightly to 13% (of Republicans voting in the Granite State’s GOP primary).  Now, to be fair articulating your opposition to gay marriage is not engaging in anti-gay rhetoric.  But, even as polls show that majorities of Republicans oppose state recognition of same-sex marriage, making that the focus of your campaign doesn’t move the dial, even among Republicans.

* (more…)

Earlier today, I had the chance to sit down for a pleasant lunch with Fred Karger, a one-time political consultant who has tossed his hat in the ring for the GOP presidential nomination and contends he is the first openly gay candidate for a major party’s nod.

He is nice guy and our conversation was wide-ranging.  I pressed him on the numerous emails I have received from his campaign attacking his fellow Republicans  – and even the faith of two of his rivals.

Today, he said that his primary issue is balancing the federal budget.  He also pointed out how most of the gay groups in Washington have been entirely indifferent to his campaign, saying that the “Republican Party has been more hospitable than the D.C. gay groups.”

Hmm. . . . not where have we heard that before?

I guess the only “real gay bashing” is one that involves gays of a Leftist persuasion? (h/t – Peter Hughes)

Via The Daily Caller:

Just learned from Michael Petrelis‘s blog (and confirmed via the Sacramento Bee/Associated Press) that Equality California’s (EqCA) new Executive Director Roland Palencia will be stepping down later this week:

The leader of California’s largest gay rights group is leaving his post after only a few months on the job.

Equality California announced Monday that Executive Director Roland Palencia will step down on Friday.

Palencia’s decision comes less than a week after the group said it would not lead a campaign in 2012 to overturn Proposition 8, the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages.

I had meant to blog on the last item, but with the Jewish Holy Days and other stuff on my plate, I haven’t had time to blog.  (And well, in the past few days, haven’t been thinking about politics as much as most of us political bloggers normally do.)  Quickly, don’t think it’s a good idea to put off repeal of Prop. 8.  Given the current polls, a campaign to overturn the ban on state recognition of same-sex marriages could succeed if its leadership included Republicans.  Maybe Mr. Palencia wasn’t willing to work with gay Republicans.

I had refrained form commenting on Palencia’s selection to head EqCA because I had hoped to arrange a meeting between gay conservatives and Palencia and didn’t want to compromise that process.   I had reached out to several individuals close to and involved in the organization.  They were optimistic we could arrange a meeting.  Given that such a meeting seemed possible, I thought we might be more effective if we communicated our concerns privately before criticizing the new leadership publicly.

Perhaps, at a later date — as time allows — I may offer my thoughts on his selection and my hopes for his replacement.

I have no clue why Palencia is stepping down.  All I can say is that it is an interesting development and that I wish him well in his future endeavors.

This is interesting:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was peppered Sunday with questions about her thoughts on gay rights, but largely refused to engage them, arguing that those issues aren’t on the front of voters’ minds.

“I am running for the presidency of the United States. I’m not running to be anyone’s judge,” Bachmann said on “Meet the Press.”

The winner of the Ames straw poll this weekend faced aggressive questioning in several of her appearances on the Sunday morning talk show circuit related to her opposition to same-sex marriage and controversial past statements toward gays and lesbians.

. . . .

She’s ducked most questions about her personal opinions toward gays and lesbians, staying on message with a jobs and economy-focused message.

Do like the line about her not running to be anyone’s judge; would be nice if she could build upon that as Herman Cain has.  If she wants to win the votes of socially moderate suburbanites, in both the Republican primaries and general election, she’d going to have to balance her attitudes toward gay people with the public’s increasing social tolerance.

This sidestepping suggests she recognizes how her beliefs could detract from her economic message.  But, she has yet to embrace a live-and-let-live policy consistent with her that message.  A sidestepping step in the right direction perhaps, but not far enough.

in a piece comparing responses to the riots in London and Los Angeles, Joy McCain gets at the essence of liberal support of gun control:

The left is right to fear firearms, since exercise of that particular freedom and experience of that self-sufficiency (however limited it is in scope) can be a “gateway drug” to other forms of independent thought and action.

It’s all about wresting control from individuals and delivering power to the state, an entity which, they believe, will run by those better and brighter than the common man (or woman) and so better able to tell such commonfolk how to run their lives.

Perhaps that is also why gay leaders refuse to embrace policies (e.g., concealed carry) which would give gay individuals another tool to protect ourselves.

Guess it’s part of that equality notion for the gay community rather than that freedom ideal for gay individuals.  To have equality, they contend, you must needs have a stronger state.

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.

As I’m sure you can imagine, I have a good deal to say on my governor’s signing legislation “requiring public schools to include the contributions of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender in social studies curriculum.”

But, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.  And a lot on my mind.   So, I’ll just offer some quick thoughts and excerpt a post that pretty much echoes my thoughts.  Basically, we shouldn’t include such contributions just because they were made by gay and lesbian people, nor should we exclude contributions just because they were made by gay and lesbian individuals.

The issue is not the group to which the individual who made the contribution belonged, but the value of the contribution.

That is, we shouldn’t include some minor, insignificant poet in school curricula just because he’s gay, but, shouldn’t exclude Walt Whitman because he was drawn (emotionally, sensually, sexually) to individuals of his own sex.  We should study Whitman because he’s a great poet (perhaps indeed the greatest American poet).

And when teaching Whitman’s poetry or the prose of Oscar Wilde, teachers could reference these artists’ sexuality so that students can better appreciate their work.  Indeed, knowledge of these two writers’ sexuality provides both a window into their creative process and a means to deepen students’ understanding of the stories they tell, the imagery they use and the ideas they convey.

But, is legislation necessary to do that?  I’m skeptical.  So too is my pal Sonicfrog who knows what it’s like to teach students.  He thinks ”this is absolutely NUTS!”

What exactly are they going to teach?

Harvey Milk?

OK. I have no problem with giving him a mention. That was a somewhat landmark election.

Stonewall Riots?

That’s already taught in the Civil Rights curriculum and was included in the text book I was using while student teaching my social sciences classes.

Read the whole thing.

Over at West Hollywood Patch, Scott Schmidt, the civic activist once known as BoifromTroy wonders at the outrage over GLAAD and “Equality California” “sending out letters in support of AT&T and its position on Net Neutrality and/or their proposed merger with T-Mobile.”  While left-of-center gay bloggers have faulted the groups for sending out letters ostensibly to please corporate donors, they have not criticized them for their alliances with left-wing interest groups.  Scott writes:

On the other hand, gay and lesbian groups scarecly come under criticism when making similarly-tenuous links to liberal causes, such as the labor movement. Gay rights activists continue to target Hyatt Hotels, not over Doug Manchester’s bankrolling of Proposition 8, but because the labor unions want to avoid secret ballots for union certification and are targeting Hyatt through a “sleep with the right people” campaign.

Do hope they will take the groups to task for such alliances with liberal groups whose agenda has nothing to do with the average, everyday concerns of most gay Americans.

Such alliances may prevent gay organizations from reaching out to private companies, eager to develop policies benefiting gay and lesbian employees, but wary of union influence, influence which often leads to decreased productivity in private companies.

Matthew Boyle reports at the Daily Caller:

The Daily Caller has obtained two photographs from inside the Department of Labor (DOL) elevators where Obama administration employees have again defaced photos equating gay rights with civil rights.

A worker or group of workers in the DOL ripped off a portion of these posters that compared gay rights to African American civil rights.

It is one thing to disagree with the notion that the gay rights movements is comparable to the civil rights movement that culminated in the 1960s, quite another to deface posters saying as much.

This isn’t, Boyle adds, “the Obama administration’s first experience when it comes to vandalized posters promoting gay rights.”

I could find nothing on HRC’s web-site about this incident.  Guess when you endorse the president, you don’t pay attention to actions such as these which take place under his nose.

Following the gay marriage debate in New York, Stephen H. Miller observes:

What’s going on in the New York marriage struggle shows why winning over Republicans (even just a few!) matters greatly. But those who run our leading LGBT political lobbies still seems to be firmly committed to a one-party strategy. Their identity politics is all bound up in being Democrats.

Indeed.

(Emphasis added.)

With Steve’s words in mind, I was wondering how HRC’s leadership thinks they can influence members of the majority caucus (you know those who set the agenda, chair the committees) in the U.S. House of Representatives now that the group has endorsed Barack Obama for reelection before the first ballots have even been cast in the contest for the GOP nomination.

I mean, isn’t part of their work lobbying our federal legislators?  And showing just how eager you are to back one party’s standard bearer is not likely to endear your organization to the opposing party’s leadership.  Just sayin’, ya know?

One of the most heartening things about blogging is not just that it provides the means for gay conservatives (a minority within a minority, as we have been dubbed) to publish our ideas, but also for disgruntled gay liberals to make known their discontent with the gay establishment (or Gay, Inc as it has been dubbed).

In reading blogs like Pam’s House Blend, Queerty and Americablog, to name but a few, I have learned that many gays on the left do not march in lockstep with the Democratic partisans at HRC.  Nor, as we have learned in recent days, have they accepted the word of the increasingly partisan GLAAD as gay gospel.

While we here at GayPatriot have taken the ostensible media watchdog to task for honoring a man who spews the type of hate speech against one segment of gay people they would excoriate had he directed similar speech against all gay people, gay lefty bloggers (and blogresses) have faulted the organization for its “public statements supporting AT&T’s merger with T-Mobile” as well as their letter “to the FCC opposing possible net neutrality rules.”  GLAAD received money from AT & T.

Gay leftie bloggers are concerned about what one calls, “the corporate hijacking of our movement.”

Now, for the record, we here at GayPatriot oppose the FCC’s attempt to impose net neutrality rules, so we did not wade into the controversy.  Yet, what stood out to us (well, to me, at least) was these bloggers were using this new medium to criticize a gay group.

And now we see that, just as in federal legislation action on DADT repeal, their efforts have had a real world impact, “Jarrett Barrios,” as Pam Spaulding reports, “the executive director of GLAAD, has resigned.”  At that link and this, Pam has more on the controversy.

Kudos to these folks for standing up to their principles, even if it meant exposing a rift in the gay community.  We may not agree with them in their criticism of GLAAD, but we do agree that it is better for our community that Barrios no longer heads one of the leading gay organizations.  Now, if only they could be as successful in influencing the board of HRC. . .

UPDATE:   On Facebook, Scott Schmidt asks, “Why is it wrong for gay rights groups to side with corporations that support them but not wrong to side with labor unions?”

Good question. Do hope some of those left-of-center gay bloggers use their web-sites to ask it.

Perhaps, we might be able to get to the bottom of the Barack Obama’s changing stance on gay marriage if some leading gay rights’ activists were more interested in advocating for gay people than in agitating for Democratic politicians:

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE, ME OR YOUR OWN LYING EYES? Senior White House aide: 1996 Obama gay marriage questionnaire is a fake, even though Obama signed it. Presumably the White House is demanding release of the original long-form questionnaire.

While HRC is silent, gay bloggers and blogreses are asking questions.  At Pam’s House Blend, Autumn Sandeen feels like she’s “watching a denial from the Obama Administration of Barack Obama’s 1996 position on marriage equality in the face of documentation that makes the denial appear to be a lie. It looks to me to be an attempt at a history rewrite“:

I can’t imagine that this isn’t going to cause problems between the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and the Obama Administration, and it will require someone more senior to White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer in an attempt to straighten this out.

Once again, gay and lesbian bloggers (and blogresses), working on a shoestring, are doing the work the national gay organizations, with multi-million dollar budgets, fancy offices and expense accounts refuse to do.

Does seem Obama arrives at his positions on gay issues, not on their merits, but on their politically expediency.

It seems he supported state recognition of same-sex marriage in his first campaign, yet subsequently never marched in any gay pride parade — or otherwise participated in such celebrations.  You’d think national gay groups would be asking questions, especially given the president’s aggressive solicitation of gay money and votes.

Kudos to the gay leftie bloggers unwilling to serve as lickspittles to a Democratic president with whom they are, by and large, ideologically in sync.  Would it we could say the same thing for the national gay groups.  But, for them it seems, fealty to the Democratic Party — and its standard bearers — remains the highest bond.

With that inside knowledge of conservatives’ governing philosophies prevalent among our critics, Sam, in commenting on my Herman Cain post, informs us that it is “naive and self-hating to think that a politician who says he thinks being gay is a sin will actually not push for legislation to limit our rights.”

He bases his knowledge not on any evidence of Mr. Cain’s past actions as CEO of a small corporation, but, well, on what must be some unique insight he possesses.  Another of our readers, Ted B. AKA Charging Rhino, actually took the time to learn a little about the Republican presidential candidate’s record, informing us that the company Cain once helmed, “Godfather’s Pizza does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Perhaps Cain’s critics should investigate the candidate to find out if when he helmed Godfather’s pizza — or in any of his corporate work, he advocated discriminatory policies or took discriminatory actions, that is, did he fire (or fail to promote) any employee because of his sexuality?

Yesterday, Stacy McCain sees this kerfuffle as part of Cain’s appeal:

Cain’s appeal is his plain-spoken nature and, when asked about homsexuality, he stated (a) his personal belief as a Christian, and (b) his libertarian understanding that people have to live their own lives according to their own choices.

So far the evidence indicates the former CEO was speaking honestly when he distinguished his personal views from his policy intentions.

Sometimes, when we face off against our adversaries in the blogosphere, we become less civil than we might be in the real world because here we’re just see words on the computer screen, whereas in person we can see an actual human being.  In blogs, it becomes easier to reduce each person to his political views (and sometimes views as misinterpreted by the critic).

Last night, at the launch party for Outfest, I chanced upon (if chance it was) one of my initial internet sparring partners and found David Ehrenstein to be an excellent interlocutor.  We both sung the praises of the gay and lesbian film festival.  And that wasn’t the limit of our agreement. We also agreed that there has been a cultural shift resulting in an increasing social acceptance of gay people.  Whether or not it was the the TV series Will & Grace (as I suggested in a recent post) or some other cultural event, something else altogether or (more likely) a combination of these (& other) things, it’s a different world from the one men of his generation — and my own — knew when we came out.

Unlike some of his left-of-center confrères, he recognized that there has also been a change on my side of the political aisle.  He attributed it to Ken Mehlman’s coming out, I to Mary Cheney’s.

We also discussed the changes in culture as homosexuality becomes more socially acceptable, with him wistfully recalling the live of poet Frank O’Hara and sharing stories about gay Hollywood stars of the past — and their lovers.  It was a most delightful conversation.  And a reminder that you can often have the more civil of discussion with your ideological adversaries, something which alas this medium sometimes seems to discourage.

While many conservatives, including my co-blogger are enthusiastic about Herman Cain’s candidacy, I have some concerns which I expect to address in short order.  Despite those concerns, I do appreciate that enthusiasm; the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO has been saying all the right things about big government and small business and saying them well.

Saying the right things, however, does not, in itself, guarantee that Cain, or any candidate for that matter, would make a good chief executive.  And while he may have said the right things about free enterprise, he has not, alas, said the right things about gays.

In a blog post earlier today, our friend Chris Barron addressed those comments:

The bottom line is that Herman Cain’s personal position on whether being gay is a sin or a choice has no bearing on whether the policies he supports would be good for gay and lesbian Americans.

Chris, to be sure, makes an interesting point.  Even so, I’m still not likely to back this businessman for the GOP nomination.  That said, Chris is right to differentiate a politician’s personal positions from his public policy proposals.

If you believe, as I do, that social change comes not from government, but from the private sector (by which I mean not just private enterprise, but also other non-governmental institutions), you would want a leader who refuses, as apparently does Mr. Cain, to impose his personal beliefs on the rest of us.

We don’t expect government to make our lives better for us, but to leave us alone so that we, together with individuals and groups, with whom we choose to associate, can make it better on our own.

For the moment in 1995 when I had my first leading role in Log Cabin, then in the Capital Area Club, my fellow gay Republicans approached me wondering why the organization didn’t take on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).  They all wanted to see an alternative to that left-leaning organization.  And even as HRC became increasingly partisan in the George W. Bush era with its then-President Cheryl Jacques producing billboards and stickers with the slogan “George W. Bush, You’re Fired”, the then-Executive Director of Log Cabin refused to criticize her, having “instituted a new policy inside Log Cabin: If you speak ill of another LGBT group, that is grounds for dismissal.’”

In order to curry favor with the gay groups, Patrick Guerriero was ignoring his own base — or potential base.   He could have grown Log Cabin if he showed that his organization was the HRC alternative for which many gay Republicans (and a good number of gay independents) were clamoring.

And because R. Clarke Cooper, the Executive Director of Log Cabin, has been so quick to criticize HRC for prostrating itself before the president, I have decided that come next Tuesday at a Log Cabin/LA event, I will renew my membership — which had lapsed.  I encourage you all to join Log Cabin even if you, as I, disagree with them on a few issues. We need to show that they benefit by criticizing HRC’s partisan pandering.

Now, if we could only get them to call out GLAAD for countenancing hate speech against gay conservatives.

* (more…)

It’s not just GOProud and Log Cabin, right-of-center gay groups, which are criticizing HRC for endorsing President Obama’s reelection more than 17 months before Election Day.  Left-of-center blogress Pam Spaulding, who has long found Joe Solmonese to be little more than a cheerleader for the administration, calls the endorsement “odd for an allegedly non partisan org.”

Over at Queerty, Daniel Villarreal is asking whether HRC is screwing us by endorsing Barack Obama a year before the election.  He poses the question that anyone who has read couple pages of the CliffsNotes version of Machiavelli, sat in on a few hours of PoliSci 101 or studied the legislative process would ask,

HRC! Didn’t your mother teach you anything about flirting?! Don’t put out before the courtship even begins. Wait a little, make eyes, blow kisses, feign disinterest, drop your hanky and wave your fan. Make him earn the golden ticket.

As John Aravosis puts it,

HRC clearly hasn’t learned the lessons of the first two years of the Obama presidency. You don’t get anything for being nice to the man (well, anything of substance – I’m sure that HRC dinner invite is now locked in). If anything, he looks down on people who are nice to him. The only thing this President respects are people who stand up to him. The President didn’t finally start moving on DADT, and finally stop defending DOMA, because HRC was nice to him. He did it because this blog, GetEqual, Dan Choi, the larger Gay Netroots, and a very few organizations like Servicemembers United and SLDN stood up to the man. (Had HRC had its way, we’d still be debating the DADT repeal legislation in the Congress today.)

He got that right.  And John’s aggressive stance on his blog (as well as Pam’s on hers), threatening a boycott of the DNC, also forced the president’s hand.  John acknowledges that, in the long run, HRC may well have to endorse the Democrat, but he first wants Obama to work for the endorsement.  It’s not that they’re opposed to Obama, it’s that they’re appalled at HRC’s eagerness to give the goods away.

At least some gay lefty bloggers do get it, understanding that just wanting to be liked by the Democrats is not enough.  They know that sometimes to get what you want you have to play hard to get.