I’m going to try again!  Maybe third time is as a charm for live BlogTalkRadio convention coverage from GayPatriot’s America??

I’m on some medium level painkillers for the torn muscle in my side (see earlier post about that drama….) so I’m going to be doing a live broadcast of the DNC from GayPatriot Central Command in Upstate SC tonight.  I have some call-in guests lined up, but I also plan to switch to the audio of the DNC for speeches by Sandra Fluke, Elizabeth Warren and Bill Clinton.

And then switch back to me so I can snarkily rip them apart.  Plus YOUR calls, please! 

The show will air from 9PM to 11PM Eastern tonight.  Here’s the link to GayPatriot’s America on BlogTalkRadio. Note that the player below will not air tonight’s show until it begins.

If you’d like to call, please do so after 9:30PM.  The call-in number is (646) 716-8574.

Cross your fingers for NO technical problems!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Doing my mid-morning blog read and caught this in presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s speech this morning to the “annual NAACP convention in Houston”:

With 90 percent of African-Americans voting for Democrats, some of you may wonder why a Republican would bother to campaign in the African American community, and to address the NAACP. Of course, one reason is that I hope to represent all Americans, of every race, creed or sexual orientation, from the poorest to the richest and everyone in between.

Emphasis added.  Interesting that he chose to add in “sexual orientation.”  Good sign that he chose to include that expression.

Just caught Jennifer Rubin’s Sunday post, “Anti-gay voices should be rebutted“, which included this tidbit:

There plainly is a debate generationally, as I have reported, within the GOP on gay marriage. But while this goes on, there should, one would hope, be a consensus that animus toward gays and toward hiring gays to work in government (or anywhere else) is beyond the pale.

Seems to reflect an emerging consensus within the GOP. Read the whole thing.

Consistent with conservative principles as articulated by the Republican Party at least since its founding — and particularly in the post-Civil War era as well as in the last third of the preceding century (roughly synchronous with the rise of Ronald Reagan), we should favor laws which do not distinguish based on race, religion, sexual orientation or any other similar factor differentiating one human being from another.

We shouldn’t ask government to sanction our sexual orientation, but do ask that it not condemn it.  We don’t need validation from the state to live freely.  And it is not warranted for the state to punish us for our difference — nor for acting upon our sexual/emotional longings for affection and intimacy.

We ask simply to be treated as human beings with each individual retaining the right to determine his destiny.

And by not asking for privileges based on our difference, we make clearer our commitment to freedom (and indeed to the ideal of equality under the law), to the state leaving each man, each woman alone to determine his, to determine her own destiny.  At the same time, we reaffirm the principles which have made this nation great, have made it strong and made it a shining example for those seeking freedom from oppressive regimes and seeking to replace such regimes with more equitable administrations.

In short, by not asking for anything from the government, we lead by example, reminding all Americans that we don’t need favors from the state in order to seek out opportunities, fulfill our own destines and pursue our own happiness, on our own or together with individuals with whom we choose to associate as part of groups we choose to join.

More on this anon.

NB: Tweaked the text to make it a bit bolder.

Twelve days ago, I posted the first, of what I expect to be, a series of pieces on gays, the GOP and the 2012 election (now a new category).  I return to that theme today, asking perhaps the question least considered by gay activists, but perhaps most important to the achievement of their (ostensible) goals:  can government make life fair, or even better, for people like us.

Last month, Glenn Reynolds linked John Stossel’s post on Reason.com where the latter asked the broader question (about whether government can make life fair):

President Obama says he want to make society more fair. Advocates of big government believe fairness means taking from rich people and giving to others: poor people; or people who do things politicians approve of, like making “green” energy equipment (Solyndra); or old people (even rich ones) through Social Security and Medicare.

The idea that government can “make life fair” is intuitively appealing to people—at least until they think about it.

Once government gets into the business of making life fair, politicians and bureaucrats enter into the business of determining fairness.*  And they do that by taxing and regulation.  To create economic “fairness,” they take from some of the most productive people in society (er, the rich) and give to some of the least productive (er, less fortunate).  Now, to be sure, some of the least fortunate have indeed suffered some bad breaks in life while some of the most fortunate have gained their good fortune through, say, the luck of being in the right place at the right time or circumstance, being born into a productive family.

Sometimes, that is, things in life just aren’t fair, but once government starts adjudicating that it often penalizes the more fortunate members of society (many of whom, aware of their good fortune, have generously supported causes which help the less fortunate).

In the gay context, we ask, is it fair that some companies still discriminate against gay people?  No, it’s not.  But now to their credit, many (if not most) private companies have sought to redress that unfairness by adopting non-discrimination clauses in their employment policies or developing “diversity” policies to recruit gay and lesbian employees. (more…)

On Thursday, Tina Korbe helped lay the ground work for  series of posts as I have been planning on gays, the GOP and the current presidential election.  In a post where she took issue with former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean’s mean-spirited anti-Republican rant, which I excerpted and linked here, she articulated a preference for the Republican appeal to the “whole person” over the Democrats’ pandering to the differences which divide us.

And so it is, in some ways, for gay Republicans.  We may not like that our party has yet to embrace even state recognition of same-sex civil unions, but we are put off by the Democrats’ patronizing approach.  We recognize that there are larger issues at stake than same-sex unions, particularly a president unwilling to address a federal debt than has increased by a greater amount in the past three years and two months than it had in the preceding eight.

Now, expect to hear increasingly harsh rhetoric attacking the GOP not just for the Democrat-declared war on women, but also for its hostility to people like us who differ from the societal norm.  Democrats aren’t doing this just to keep gays voting Democratic, but they’re also seeking to appeal to straight suburban voters who have gay friends — or who are just uncomfortable with anti-gay rhetoric; such suburban voters may not be pro-gay per se, but do tend to be anti-anti-gay.

I endorsed Jon Huntsman for President in part because of his, as I put it three months ago, “solid statement on civil unions” in the ABC News /Yahoo!/WMUR-TV New Hampshire Republican primary debate.  Although he thought marriage should be “saved for one man and one woman,” he also advocated “reciprocal beneficiary rights [as] part of civil unions”, encouraging states “to talk about this.”

His answer was much better than that of Mitt Romney, now the likely Republican nominee.  Still, that former Massachusetts governor did offer a most decent reply which, for the purpose of this post and my intended series, I quote in full.  He recognizes the capacity of gay people to form loving and lasting couples and even parent children.  He shows no animus against people like us.  He, like the man he seeks to replace, just believes marriage to be a union between individuals of different sexes.

In response to Diane Sawyer’s question how he would respond to a gay couple sitting down in his living room and asking about the right “to form loving, committed, long-term relationships”, he began by praising couples:

Well, the answer is, is that’s a wonderful thing to do, and that there’s every right for people in this country to form long- term committed relationships with one another. That doesn’t mean that they have to call it marriage or they have to receive the — the approval of the state and a marriage license and so forth for that to occur. (more…)