The Gay Left has decided that the ideal choice for Honorary Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade is convicted traitor Bradley Manning.

Today, the nation’s largest Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Celebration Committee announced on its website that WikiLeaks whistle-blower traitor (-Ed) Chelsea Manning has been chosen to represent the event as a 2014 Honorary Grand Marshal.

Manning thanked the San Francisco Pride Committee from Fort Leavenworth military prison, declaring, “As a trans* woman, I appreciate the Pride movement’s significant role in bringing together diverse communities and elevating the public profile of the fight for queer rights. I have always enjoyed attending Pride celebrations given the opportunity, and I’m deeply honored to receive this title.”

Obviously, he was the only gay person in the military worth honoring.

Then, I remember this article from The Onion, and Bradley Manning seems perfect: Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years

The powerful Democrat Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives resigned this weekend as Federal Agents and Rhode Island State Police raided his home and office collecting evidence of corruption in state Government.  Gordon Fox was the first openly gay statehouse speaker in the United States and a champion of the cause of same sex marriage; also a crook, apparently. Fox was once hailed by the media as “courageous” for his stance on gay marriage. “Courageous” is a word the media use to describe politicians who agree with the majority opinion of the media and the Democrat left.  As he once described himself, in a weird sort of self-victimizing compliment:

Fox once summed up his unlikely rise to become one of the most powerful figures in Rhode Island government this way: “I’m a biracial gay kid that wasn’t supposed to be speaker.”

Giving people high office and power on the basis of their being “Historic Firsts” has never worked out well, has it?

Robert S. McCain ponders that question in considering the Lesbian Left’s defense of women who have sex with underage girls.

 Those who rallied to the defense of Kaitlyn Hunt argued that enforcing age-of-consent laws is homophobic if the accused offender is gay. (ABC will feature “Free Kate” again on 20/20 Friday.) And in case you haven’t noticed, there have been several recent cases where older lesbians decided to “liberate” pubescent minors from oppressive patriarchal heteronormativity:
- Arizona physical education teacher Nicole Wooten was arrested last February on charges that she had sex with a girl in 2005 and 2006, when the victim was a 12-year-old eighth-grader.
- Texas music teacher Linda Wallace was sentenced to prison in September after pleading guilty to having had a four-year sexual affair with a female student that began when the girl was 13.
- South Dakota teacher Tonya Drueppel was arrested in January on charges that she had sex with a middle-school girl beginning in October 2012, when the victim was 13.

I would posit this is more of a progressive left thing than a gay/lesbian thing; Woody Allen and Roman Polanski get similar passes because they are men of the left. The progressive left prizes sexual license above freedom, above liberty, above sound economics.  There is a neurotic impulse to defend any sexual deviance because not accepting a sexual practice is seen as a concession to the socially conservative right.

It’s not just Teh Gheys who like to engage in victimhood cosplay and wear the mantle of African-Americans; white women from well-off families also play that game. It has also provoked a sort of backlash within the Twitterverse.

“Everything is like slavery. Except slavery. Get it over it already.” #WhiteFeministRants

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) February 1, 2014

You’re oppressing & scaring me by disagreeing with my opinion about what I think is best for your community #WhiteFeministRants

— IAMCLB (@IAMCLB) February 1, 2014

#WhiteFeministRants “I went into a Black community to do charity work & they didn’t have a Starbucks & suddenly I knew how the slavery felt”

— Camara Throws Shade (@Pundit_AcadEMIC) January 31, 2014

This sort of victimhood one-upswomanship is one of the odder products of the progressive collectivist mentality. It strikes those of us who identify primarily as individuals not as members of a group as ridiculous; because it is.

One may have noticed a propensity among gay rights advocates to compare their “civil rights” struggle to the civil rights struggles of the descendents of slaves. Mr. Adam Thomason provides five reasons why the comparison of the struggle is invalid. The article is worth a full read and thoughtful consideration… which is more than many of those in the comments section have given it… but the short version is this:

1. Laws have never mandated “heterosexual only” and “gay only” water fountains, diners, buses, schools,
2. Homosexuals have never been snatched away from their families at birth for the purpose of division and dehumanization.
3. Homosexual men/women have never been targeted for slavery  because of their sexual orientation
4. Homosexuals have never been denied their citizenship by laws of the United States  because of their sexual orientation.
5. Homosexuals have never been as a matter of law treated as property because of their sexual orientation

And the takeaway…

To compare the struggle of homosexual men/women to that of African Americans is more than offensive. It’s wiping out 300 years of historical fortitude that saw a people fight to maintain the identity-legacy that was stolen from them on day one.

(more…)

Fresh from its “victory” over Duck Dynasty, the Fascist, Christian-Hating Bully-Boys and Bully-Womyn of GLAAD successfully threatened and intimidated old comedian Bob Newhart into canceling a scheduled appearance for a group of Catholic Businessmen. Ace comments:

GLAAD demands that Christians (fundmentalists, Catholics, those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible) renounce a core part of their selves in order to join polite society. If they refuse, they will be excluded from society, by use of social pressure to harass, insult, humiliate, ostracize, and economically marginalize those Christians who do not fall into line.

Is GLAAD’s position so weak, so intellectually indefensible, that it cannot prevail in reasoned debate, and therefore all opposition must be bullied into silence? This is how America becomes divided and balkanized; because groups like GLAAD make civil disagreement impossible. “I disagree with what you say, but I will fight for our right to say it,” has become, “I disagree with what you say, and I will fight to see that you lose your job for saying it.”

And some will say, “Well, it’s all right, because the Government isn’t doing it, it’s just a private group.” No, it’s just technically legal for a private group to do it, that doesn’t make it right. The end result is a divided nation where civil debate is impossible.

Hey everyone. I’ve been away from here for a LONG time.  Thanks to Jeff & VtheK for holding down the fort.    My story: massive life changes in 2013.

Now onto the outrage of the day: Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson.

My take on it:  I DO NOT CARE.

PS – follow me on Twitter for my regular musings on an hourly basis.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

Ace takes note of a lefty setzpinkler who thinks he’s figured out why Conservatives have been making fun of Obamacare spokesmodel PajamaBoy. It’s because Conservatives hate gays.

I had no idea that left-wing pundits had Professor Charles Xavier-level telepathic abilities and were able to read the minds of all Conservatives everywhere all the time!

Also, GLAAD is throwing a hissy-fit because one of the stars of Duck Dynasty expressed an opinion about gay people that hurt their feelers.

GLAAD has condemned “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson in the wake of inflammatory remarks about gay people.

On one level, I don’t get the mindset that says you can’t be happy if someone, somewhere doesn’t approve of your lifestyle. What’s the Big Deal if a guy on a cable TV show doesn’t like you? Obsession that someone, somewhere might disapprove of you seems like a cripplingly neurotic way to go through life. (We’ll leave aside, for the moment, the obsession secular leftists have with judging what “true Christians” should and should not believe.)

On another level, I understand it completely. Faux outrage generates publicity. Publicity generates donations. Donations ensure that Wilson Cruz can keep his cushy job as an outraged spokesperson for GLAAD and not have to get a real job in the miserable Obamaconomy. Such generosity is what earned Alec Baldwin a pass from GLAAD for his repeated use of anti-gay slurs.

Update: A&E caves to intolerant bigots.

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A panel of left-wing groups (including the Human Rights Campaign) meeting in Washington DC declared that religious liberty is a threat to the leftist social agenda, and must be stopped at all costs.

The audience received a similar narrative of religious beliefs functioning as a Trojan horse for discrimination from ACLU senior counsel Eunice Rho, who denounced attempts to pass a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in various states.

“These are very dangerous because they can allow religion to be used to harm others,” Rho said.

You see, religion, like all else in a progressive, secular society, exists only to serve the needs of the State.

And, of course, what left-wing panel would be complete without the hackneyed recitation of grievances and tiresome cliches.

“People [are] using the term ‘liberty’ when they really mean ‘my liberty, your slavery,’” the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said during the discussion. Gaddy compared Christian florists who don’t want to provide service for gay weddings to employers who posted “whites only” signs in their windows.

Yeah, the Jim Crow persecution of blacks is precisely and equally identical to gays having to go across the street to a different baker to get a wedding cake because… feelings!

And if you open a business, you give up your Constitutional Rights to Free Speech, Free Association, and the Free Exercise of Religion. So sayeth the left.

R.S. McCain Reports on Michelangelo Signorile’s typically hypersensitive, overwrought response to a wee incident of what he perceives as an affront to gay political correctness.

Publicity about a relationship between 39-year-old Hollywood screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and 19-year-old British diving champion Tom Daley has inspired criticism even from some gay rights activists. Joshua Epstein, a blogger who identifies himself as a gay progressive Democrat, reacted to the Black-Daley affair on Twitter: ”He could be his father. Yuk.“

That reaction was condemned by Huffington Post columnist Michelangelo Signorile, who said only “internalized homophobia” could cause gays to criticize such relationships. “There is an undercurrent in these comments — the ‘chicken hawk’ charge — that suggests that gay men are more likely to sexually abuse underage teens, the ugliest lie about gay men out there,” Signorile wrote Friday in Huffington Post’s “Gay Voices” section. “Hardcore homophobes are predictably pointing to Black and Daley as supposed proof. But many gay men too, so defensive about the charge and deathly fearful of how it’s used, overcompensate by saying ‘yuk.’”

Signorile specifically defended sites that promote “intergenerational” gay sex. ”Some younger people are attracted to older people, and vice versa,” he wrote. “There’s even a gay website called Daddyhunt.”

Oh, there’s a website promoting that sort of thing and that makes it OK. Michelangelo, let me introduce you to Boychat; a website for pedos.

OK. So, depending on your point-of-view, a relationship between a guy who’s pushing 40 and a guy who’s too young to drink legally can run from “Yuk!” to “You go!” At least in this case, the younger man is an adult (unlike the boys who got involved with Democrat Gerry Studds, Democrat Mayor Sam Adams, and Safe School Czar Kevin Jennings).  But because Michelangelo Signorile believes that any criticism of gay behavior is tantamount to collaboration with the hated Christian Right, only the latter response is considered politically correct.

Never mind that if it were a heterosexual intergenerational pairing, a lot of people would still be going “Yuk!”

As if Oberlin‘s 2013 race hoax wasn’t enough, now we have the Vassar bias hoax:

Reports of bias incidents at Vassar College that involved hateful messages left on students’ doors were actually elaborate hoaxes — and the perpetrator is none other than the student member of the Bias Incident Response Team…

This fall semester at the liberal arts college in New York saw a curiously high number of bias incident reports…The task force had one student member…who is transgendered and was also a vice president of the Vassar Student Association (VSA)…

The DC has learned that one of the perpetrators was none other than [that student].

Via Ace, who goes along with Damn Dirty Rino in suggesting that Münchausen syndrome may be at play.

I’ve made my own assumption that the student must be politically “progressive”; if it’s incorrect, let us know in the comments.

The New York Times has noticed that bareback sex is a thing gay people are doing, which is breaking news from about the mid-1990′s when (according to Wikipedia) gay publications like The Advocate first took note of the phenomenon of gay men having unprotected sex and, in some cases, deliberately seeking HIV infection.

Anyway, the Times, perhaps after failing to find a celebrity to comment on the issue, goes to the next best source for information on epidemiology and behavioral psychology… an English professor from SUNY-Buffalo. Who provides this analysis:

What I learned in my research is that gay men are pursuing bareback sex not just for the thrill of it, but also as a way to experience intimacy, vulnerability and connection. Emotional connection may be symbolized in the idea that something tangible is being exchanged. A desire for connection outweighs adherence to the rules of disease prevention.

And some guys are apparently getting intimate, tangible, emotional connections 10-20 times a night in bathhouses.

It also seems that the readers of the NY Times, based on the comments, are in complete denial that this phenomenon exists, and think the author is just making it up to attack the gay community. Liberals choose to blame the recent dramatic increases in HIV infection rates on “the stigma attached to HIV.” Um, excuse me, but don’t stigmas usually make people avoid those things to which stigmas are attached?

In the real world, stigmatizing a behavior results in less of it: Which is why people don’t use the N-word in public any more and smoking has declined as a social activity. When the social stigma is removed … as with HIV infection and teenage pregnancy … you get more of those things.

Bareback sex has major health complications vis-a-vis the transmission of HIV and other STDs that contribute to the high cost of health care. Make you wonder why Bloomberg didn’t try to outlaw it. Hooking up for raw sex with strangers is at least as dangerous as a Big Gulp. Probably.

On November 14, a friend linked this article about a lesbian waitress in New Jersey who had claimed that a patron refused to tip her, scrawling on the credit card receipt that he “not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life.”  I replied that I was dubious about the story, given a recently discredited report from a waitress leveling a similar accusation, in that case, alleging that a patron refused to live a tip because of the color of her kin.  (To be sure, I did write, “ If this is true, it is a sad sign of an insecure person.”)

Turns out that my skepticism was warranted.  The story has been debunked, with the patrons providing an actual copy of their credit card receipt, including a generous tip — as well as a copy of their credit card statement showing a charge in an amount #18 higher than the original $93.55 bill.

Commenting on this copy-cat fraud, Elizabeth Scalia laments that she and her husband may have to forego the practice of leaving tips in cash (even when they pay with credit cards), adding that she hopes

. . . that when people appear to be falsely accused of doing awful things (like leaving a gay-hating lecture in place of a gratuity) our friends in the gay community will also speak up, and denounce these fraudulent scenarios that play upon the sympathies of people of good will — whatever their creed, their race, their sexual orientation — and which only end up stoking the fires of resentment and distrust between people, where none should exist.

(Via Instapundit.)  The words scrawled on both receipts are ugly words.  And those who use them to describe people different from themselves are truly insecure and mean-spirited individuals.  And when individuals with different insecurities stage these media-generating stunts, they risk numbing others to real animus.

Scalia is right.  Her friends in the gay community should denounce this.  And this gay man does — as I would daresay do many of our readers, on both sides of the political aisle.

Let us hope we are not alone.  For those who stage such stunts do more to compromise the ever-improving image of gay people in American society.  And they should apologize not just to the individuals they malign, but also to their fellow gay men and lesbians as they draw public attention away from our real concerns and toward their own insecurities.

John Hayward at Human Events reviews all three. Here’s the state of play:

• Persecution of lesbian NJ server still a hoax
• Knockout Game still all too real
• and the World Health Organization (WHO) still muddying the waters about people who self-inflict HIV, as there have indeed been some cases (just nothing like half of all new HIV cases in Greece, as the WHO had originally told people).

As to the Knockout Game, Hayward links Thomas Sowell, who says:

The New York authorities describe a recent series of such attacks and, because Jews have been singled out in these attacks, are considering prosecuting these assaults as “hate crimes.” …this “knockout game” has been played for years by young black gangs in other cities and other states, against people besides Jews — the victims being either whites in general or people of Asian ancestry. Attacks of this sort have been rampant in St. Louis. But they have also occurred in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and elsewhere. In Illinois the game has often been called “Polar Bear Hunting” by the young thugs, presumably because the targets are white…

“White Girl Bleed A Lot”…a book by Colin Flaherty…documents both the racial attacks across the nation and the media attempts to cover them up, as well as the local political and police officials who try to say that race had nothing to do with these attacks. Chapter 2 of the 2013 edition is titled, “The Knockout Game, St. Louis Style.” So this is nothing new, however new it may be to some in New York, thanks to the media’s political correctness.

Sounds like a ‘social phenomenon’, to me. At any rate, many of the attacks are on video (and/or documented in police reports) and, as such, are facts that can’t be wished away.

Hat Tip: Rob TGC

The story of the lesbian waitress who claimed a family denied her a tip and left her a note disapproving of her lifestyle red-lined my BS detector from Day 1. Well, surprising no one, it turns out she most likely made the whole thing up. (Warning: Annoying Autoplay Video.) (No annoying video at this link.)  The diners deny her allegations and have presented evidence that corroborates their story, unlike the “aggrieved” waitress.

The husband and wife, who asked to remain anonymous, showed NBC 4 New York a receipt that appeared to be printed at the same minute, on the same date, for the same $93.55 total, except with an $18 tip.
…
A manager and the restaurant owner insisted they had the original ticket for the $93.55 charge, but would not produce the receipt for NBC 4 New York and could not explain why the family’s credit card was charged for more.

(Emphasis not in original)

They have evidence to refute her story, she doesn’t have evidence to support it. A reasonable mind must conclude she was probably making it up. [Bear in mind, "Lesbian Waitress Gets Rude Note" was a national news story. Multiple "Knock Out Game" Assaults by gangs on innocent victims documented by police reports; apparently just an urban legend according to the MFM.]

Even if her story turns out to have no merit, she’ll get a pass. Lying is SOP for the left to advance its agenda, and playing the victim can be a lucrative con. (Apparently, thousands of people have sent her money to show support. She would not be the first to run this con.) Her story, though apparently made up, advanced a narrative of gay victimization exploited by politicians and left-wing gay rights groups to gain money and power. But if there were real incidents of rampant anti-gay hate to report, the left would not have to make up this stuff.

From New American Media (via Creeping Sharia in Bruce’s Twitter stream):

Arab Americans comprise more than 40 percent of Dearborn’s population, which according to a 2010 U.S. Census report was 98,153.

Two Arabs from Dearborn said in parts of Beirut, Lebanon it can be less difficult for an Arab to be openly gay than it’s here. Lebanon is one of the few Arab countries on the forefront of organizing for LBGT rights…

Ryan ["a 23-year-old gay Arab from Dearborn"] says people who support gay Arabs often fear speaking in support of them publicly because conservative Arabs and Muslims will commit hate crimes, or incite riots against them…

Ramozotti ["the executive director of Al-Gamea"] has been threatened because of his sexual orientation…

The article is mainly about gay Arabs in Dearborn – but Arab or white, I don’t care (plus, I doubt that white gays have extra safety there). By the way, guess what Middle Eastern country is even more gay-progressive than Lebanon? Israel.

UMM, RELATED? Newtown, CT (Sandy Hook) residents have been applying for gun permits in record numbers. How could that be related? Simply this: An armed populace is a polite populace. To let law-abiding people have guns (which wrong-doers are going to have anyway) is to let law-abiding people defend themselves from violence. Newtown or Dearborn doesn’t matter. Neither does straight or gay or lesbian.

From Reuters:

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Monday opposed a bill to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, dimming the chances of the White House-backed measure becoming law.

“The speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement.

Your thoughts on this topic are welcome in the comments. Here are mine. I agree that ENDA should be rejected, for the following reasons.

CA has had an anti-gay discrimination law for decades, which I supported, only then to see it mis-used. Without getting into details, I saw one friend use it to shake down employer after employer every couple of years, as each new one found out that he wasn’t a very good employee (regardless of his being gay). I also saw a good person suffer an anti-gay discrimination lawsuit whose allegations were wholly, boldly invented. (The suit failed in the end, but the lengthy process itself was a form of harm.)

Perhaps there are real cases of discrimination against good employees that these laws help to redress; but I’ve seen more that these laws empower lawyers – and grifters, liars and con artists. The broader point would be that these laws violate rights to property and to free association.

Just as an employee should be free to quit and move on to any employer who may want them, an employer should be free to fire any employee who works for them. The employer-employee relationship should be a private relationship between consenting adults; a relationship that either side can end at will. Laws which burden/restrict that are laws which violate people’s rights, opening the door to injustices of the kind I’ve outlined (and more).

Now, the reasons for opposing anti-discrimination laws (which might better be called “lawyer empowerment laws”) that I’ve just laid out, are not gay-specific. They work against these laws in general. Catching onto that, some people will respond: OK, but we do have these laws covering race, gender, religion, national origin, age, etc…why not add sexual orientation? As a longtime believer in equality-before-the-law for gays and straights, I don’t think that’s a terrible response. I am sympathetic to it.

But I keep coming back to the fact that two wrongs don’t make a right. That we have these laws to begin with, is a wrong; and we won’t escape the wrongness by broadening these laws to cover more and more categories. We should be looking, if anything, to reduce the categories.

RELATED (from Dan):  I had been planning on post on ENDA largely along the lines of the arguments Walter Olson makes here.  Just read the whole thing.

(And from Jeff): The heart of Olson’s argument is his last paragraph:

…At what point do we say no to future demands that protected-group status be accorded to employees based on political and controversial systems of belief, physical appearance (the “looksism” issue), family responsibilities, résumé gaps because of unemployment or other reasons, or use of lawful products or engagement in lawful activities in off hours—to name just a few…? If we say yes to all, we introduce a new presumption—familiar from the prevailing labor law in parts of Europe—that no employer should be free to terminate or take other “adverse action” against an employee without being prepared to show good cause to a judge. That is exactly the goal of some thinkers on the Left, but it should appall believers in a free economy.

Great point. ENDA is, in the end, just the next small step in the Left’s incremental strategy to make a society where no economic actions are private or unfettered; the politicians, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats rule all.

Matthew Shepard was a gay 21 year old college student, who was beaten to death in a terrible hate crime because… homophobia.

Status: False.

Stephen Jiminez – not a right-wing Christian apologist, but a gay investigative journalist who values the truth above ‘The Narrative’ – has published a book: The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard.

Shepard’s tragic and untimely demise may not have been fueled by his sexual orientation, but by drugs. For Shepard had likely agreed to trade methamphetamines for sex. And it killed him.

And for daring to undercut the narrative with inconvenient little things called “facts,” Jiminez has been vilified by those who profit from promoting a narrative of imaginary hate.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog recently accused Jimenez of serving as a lapdog of “right-wing pundits, radio hosts and bloggers.” In Washington, DC, gay activists pestered bookstores to cancel Jimenez’s appearances.

In a world with a properly functioning moral compass, Matt Shepard’s story would be a cautionary tale with the moral: “Don’t leave a bar with strangers to have sex and do drugs.”

But in the twisted world where only ‘The Narrative’ matters, Shepard was a complete innocent whose death is useful in villainizing people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

GUEST POST from GP Commenter V the K:

I’ll begin by stipulating that the Westboro Baptists are despicable people. I will also stipulate that their stated beliefs are obnoxious and appalling.* But as horrible as the Westboro’s are to all decent people, I grant them one thing: They have never threatened anyone with bodily harm nor wished death on anyone’s children. (If you take them at their word, ‘Turn or Burn’ is merely a warning of the consequences of what they see as sinful behavior.)

Contrast the relative non-violence of the WBC with our friends on the progressive left:

• Gay activist/Democrat Party official Allen Brauer wishes death on the children of a Ted Cruz staffer.
• Gun-hating liberal professor David Guth wishes death on the chidren of NRA members.
• Liberal university administrator wishes death to “nonbelievers” of ObamaCare.
• Gay activist (and complete d-bag) Dan Savage calls for the death of all Republicans.
• Obama mentor Bill “Kill your parents” Ayers called for the death of 25 million people in order to install socialism in America.

There you have it. Progressive Left – Advocates murdering opponents and their children. WBC – has never advocated murder or violence toward anyone. Moral Advantage – WBC.

(Sidebar: For the record, I don’t believe the WBC is sincere, I think they’re trolling on a massively successful scale, but that’s a topic for another time.)

Update BTW, if this tweet is genuine, the Westboro Baptists hate the Tea Party as much as the Progressive Left does. How does it feel to be on the same side?

…or else it’s just a pretense, a lie.

Reporter James Kirchik, known from TNR and The Advocate, was cut off last week on Russia’s RT network for denouncing Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay law. I’m with Kirchik in opposing the law, which puts speech restrictions on Russian gays.

Don’t get me wrong: As RT were ‘paying for his mic’, they had every right to cut off Kirchik. They have no obligation to provide him with a platform. Still, Kirchik deserves our cheers and thanks for publicly thumbing his nose at a State-funded propaganda network and for defending free speech.

Actions to support free speech, yay! But free speech isn’t free speech, unless disagreeable/bad views may also be expressed. The principle is that anyone advocating bad politics is to be answered by more speech; never to be silenced by law.

And that brings us to the case of the Rev. Scott Lively. In a blog thread last week, rusty brought up Lively, who is being sued in Massachusetts at the behest of a Uganda gay group, for his advocacy of the criminalizing of homosexuality in Uganda.

Criminalizing homosexuality is anti-gay (a term that the Gay Left otherwise uses too much) and a violation of individuals’ natural rights. As such, it’s wrong. But natural rights include free speech and conscience. For someone to merely advocate that homosexuality be criminalized is not a violation of human rights; it is an exercise of them.

See the problem? The pro-gay side is out there using the law to restrict opponents’ political speech, in the name of human rights (which ought to include free speech). So wrong!

Sure, Rev. Lively advocates something dumb and bad. But he has the moral right to do it, which means he ought to have the legal right.

That a U.S.-based court presumes to deal with a Ugandan matter seems odd; but that it does so in order to punish anyone’s political advocacy is a disgrace, a sign of how dangerously low our once-great country has fallen.

SMUG (the Ugandan gay group) is wrong to try to silence Lively with a court case. Given that they are, the MA court should have refused to play along, on the grounds that the MA and U.S. Constitutions guarantee Lively his right to free speech in all political issues, even gay issues, even when international law fails to guarantee it and even, or especially, if Lively’s views are objectionable.

It’s the objectionable views – the ones that the government’s Court itself dislikes – that courts are most obligated to protect. By now, we are used to the Gay Left forgetting such basic principles of freedom and justice, but – “et tu, Massachusetts?”

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that the MA court, and others who blame the Rev. Lively for what Ugandan legislators do, might be infected with a racist premise: the premise that the Ugandans are mere children (intellectually and morally), influenced too easily by the white man (Lively), who is thus accountable for their actions. If true, it would support my earlier post on the racism of the Left in 2013.

NB: I had originally said that Lively was being “prosecuted” in MA, when of course I should have said “sued”. Mistake fixed.