Jeff’s post the other day about the questionable workshop at Brown University came to mind recently when I saw a very far-left Facebook friend link to this article by a professor named Warren Blumenfeld who had just retired from a position as a professor of education at Iowa State University.  The article contains the professor’s reflections and gives voice to both his lamentations and his indignity about those students who took his class who were not won over to his worldview and who had the temerity to announce that fact in their final papers.

The course was entitled “Multicultural Foundations in Schools and Society,” and Blumenfeld describes it in the following terms:

I base the course on a number of key concepts and assumptions, including how issues of power, privilege, and domination within the United States center on inequitable social divisions regarding race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sex, gender identity, sexual identity, religion, nationality, linguistic background, physical and mental ability/disability, and age. I address how issues around social identities impact generally on life outcomes, and specifically on educational outcomes. Virtually all students registered for this course, which is mandatory for students registered in the Teacher Education program, are pre-service teachers.

In other words, this is a required course in “multicultural studies” indoctrination.  If the course were voluntary, it would be a slightly different situation, but as a required course, it amounts to an example of the sort of thing that conservatives can easily point to as illustrating the left-wing biases of academia.

Professor Blumenfeld is particularly alarmed by the case of two female students who tell him quite boldly that the course has not changed their socially conservative Christian worldview:

On a final course paper, one student wrote that, while she enjoyed the course, and she felt that both myself and my graduate assistant — who had come out to the class earlier as lesbian — were very knowledgeable and good professors with great senses of humor, nonetheless, she felt obliged to inform us that we are still going to Hell for being so-called “practicing homosexuals.” Another student two years later wrote on her course paper that homosexuality and transgenderism are sins in the same category as stealing and murder. This student not only reiterated that I will travel to Hell if I continued to act on my same-sex desires, but she went further in amplifying the first student’s proclamations by self-righteously insisting that I will not receive an invitation to enter Heaven if I do not accept Jesus as my personal savior since I am a Jew, regardless of my sexual behavior. Anyone who doubts this, she concluded, “Only death will tell!”

Now while we might question the wisdom of both students in advertising the heresy represented by their beliefs so boldly in a graded assignment,  I think we might also be heartened by their courage in being true to their faith, even if we do not agree with all of the particulars of their worldview.

The professor, however, is shocked and appalled, and the rest of the essay is his attempt to reconcile–through reference to one leftist theory and tract after another–what he calls “our campus environment, one that emboldens some students to notify their professor and graduate assistant that their final destination will be the depths of Hell.”  Notice his word choice, there.  The problem is with the “campus environment” which “emboldens some students.”  It seems like a foreign idea to this professor to think that a university could be a place for the free and open exchange of ideas, especially those ideas that are unpopular.  I trust we will not find him quoting Voltaire or Jefferson anytime soon.

No, instead what we get is a description of and a reflection on a course that sounds like it could have been lifted straight from  the pages of Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, albeit with a more contemporary reading list.  While the professor uses the (more…)

So, if a man working in the “news” industry (who happens to be gay) concedes a conservative’s point about the president’s whining he is betraying gay people?

Earlier today, Bruce e-mailed me, alerting me to Ed Morrisey’s post where that one-time CPAC blogger of the year reports:

On Sunday evening, CNN’s Don Lemon told viewers that “people like Sarah Palin have a point” when they say that Barack Obama needs to stop blaming everyone else for the shortcomings in his own performance, including the economy.

Read the whole thing.  Note that the telegenic CNN anchor was not conceding a conservative’s point on a gay-specific issue. Still, as Morrissey reports, several bloggers to reference his sexuality in attacking him for his concession:

@donlemoncnn If you think the Right will make you their Pet Gay, they won’t. Obama is standing up 4 U & don’t forget who you are.—
Kees Valderol (@keesvalderol) April 24, 2012

@theosmelek @Lezlie61 @DonLemonCNN He’s a black gay man and a RW tool for a buck. His boyfriend is a CNN higher up too.—
Annie Lawton (@CurlynDoris) April 23, 2012

@donlemoncnn Little Gay kids are committing suicide because of the Right Wing. You could make an impact. You’re a wimp.—
Fritz Alverez (@FritzAlverez) April 24, 2012

Guess to these folks when you acknowledge a conservative critique of Obama you are somehow betraying gay people.  We gay conservatives have heard such notions before.  Seems that’s what happens when you have so politicized your sexuality — that any departure from left-wing ideology must needs make a gay man a “tool.”

“Occasionally,” writes Tina Korbe, a woman who feels Howard Dean’s party patronizes those of her sex

. . . Democrats give me the distinct impression that their positions on, say, gay marriage or immigration are based more on the desire to win votes than cohesive principles. It’s suspicious, for example, that the president’s official position is against gay marriage but “evolving.” It’s almost as though he’s just waiting for an overwhelming majority of Americans to be in favor of gay marriage before he switches his position. Reducing gays, Muslims, Latinos, immigrants and women to their concerns over gay-specific, Muslim-specific, Latino-specific, immigrant-specific and women-specific positions reduces them to something less than a whole, entire, complex person. But no person is reducible to the tiniest sliver of himself — his sexuality, his religion, his ethnicity, his immigrant status, his gender. We all care — broadly — about human flourishing. That’s what Republicans want — a prosperous, flourishing, fully human society.

She says this in response to former chair of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean who, in his latest rant, accused the GOP of engaging in “Gay-bashing, Muslim-bashing, Latino-bashing, immigrant-bashing, women-bashing every day”. Sounds like he got his information from the left-wing blogs which supported his 2004 bid for the White Rather rather than from actual interaction with actual Republicans.

Korbe acknowledges she “cannot speak for gays, Muslims, Latinos or immigrants”, but she contends that as a woman, she has

. . . found the Democratic Party’s approach to my vote far less loving and far more insulting than the Republican Party’s approach to that vote. While Democrats reduce me to nothing more than my sexuality and assume that I cannot even pay for my own birth control, Republicans appeal to me as a whole person, to my ability to take personal responsibility for myself, to work hard, to reap the benefits of my labors and to voluntarily share those benefits with whose who truly aren’t able to be responsible for themselves.

Well, Tina, you speak for me.  And, I would dare say, for a good number of our blog readers.   (more…)

The media narrative notwithstanding, many conservatives would be willing to support a gay or lesbian candidate for public office if he or she advocated sensible policies.  Note for example the California Republican Party’s recent endorsement of Brad Torgan.  You can join me in supporting his bid to represent the citizens of California’s 50th Assembly district by donating to his campaign.

Scanning the blogs before bed last night, I chanced upon Seth Mandel’s piece in Commentary Contentions about the upcoming (next year) contest for Mayor of New York.  He reported that frontrunner City Council Speaker Christine Quinn whom he described as “openly gay, and planning to marry her partner this year” supports a police policy (controversial in some liberal circles) that has helped reduce crime in the Big Apple.

With identity politics often placing “New York’s Finest, the NYPD, at the center of attention”. Mandel writes, the “police department’s stop-and-frisk policy has come under fire from minority advocates claiming racial profiling”.  As other candidates favor firing the popular police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, Quinn offers a different approach:

While [former city comptroller Bill] Thompson [also running for Mayor] responded to the stop-and-frisk policy by threatening to fire Kelly, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is also likely running for the Democratic nomination, lashed out at both the possible profiling element and the efficacy of the policy, Quinn took a more thoughtful tack. She suggested some changes to the policy in a letter to Kelly, but did not advocate scrapping it. She also included some praise for the policy: “We understand the vast majority of the lives saved were men of color and that part of the NYPD’s policing strategy that led to this decline is based on stop, question and frisk.”

Mandel believes that Quinn’s respect for the city’s police force has put her at the “front of the pack” in the race for Rudy Giuiliani’s old job.  Sounds like the kind of gal around whom his supporters could rally.

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…)

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…)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Blogress diva Ann Althouse has a smart post on U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s “likely” run for Joe McCarthy’s seat in the United States Senate.  The Madison-based law professor wonders at her Congressman’s fund-raising appeal where said Democrat chided those “cynical voices” who doubted her “from the very beginning”, dismissing her as an outspoken lesbian:

I think the problem is that she’s too liberal. But I understand the strategy of disparaging those terrible voters by calling them homophobic and sexist instead of facing the reality that they aren’t as far left as she is. Speaking of “cynical voices.”

Does seem Ms. Baldwin is aping the strategy of all too many gay Democrats.  It’s all about her sexuality, not her policies.  Note, she’s the one bringing up her sexuality.

We don’t need another big-spender in the U.S. Senate, another politician enamored with Obama’s big-government policies.  We need someone committed to cutting the size and limiting the scope of the federal government.  And that individual is not the Obama loyalist from Madison.

To be sure, it would be great to have a lesbian in the Senate.  So, let’s draft Cynthia Yockey to take on Ben Cardin and Tammy Bruce to take on Dianne Feinstein.  Both women would be vast improvements on the incumbents.

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?

On Friday, a friend posted an icon on Facebook asking, “I was born gay, were you born hateful?”

What struck me was the assumption inherent in this question — and how it parallels the attitude of many in the gay community to those offering views at odds with their own.  Advocates of California’s Proposition 8, they claimed, did not favor traditional marriage because they saw the institution as defining a union between individuals of different sexes, but because they hated (or, h8ed) gay people.

Disagreement, one of her friends wrote, “does not equate to hate in any of the studies that I have looked at lately.”  Liking his comment, I told my friend, a wise a kind lesbian that I agreed with this friend of hers:

Having spent a good part of my adulthood as an openly gay men among conservatives and Republicans, I have found much disagreement on gay issues and even some (oftentimes crazy) criticism of what some deem the “homosexual lifestyle,” but very little actual hatred. I’ve found more hatred, far more hateful attitudes, among left-of-center associates, including, indeed, especially among gay and lesbian left-wingers.

I wonder (and not for the first time) why those who use such venom in their criticism of conservatives and Christians, must themselves label their critics as haters and their arguments as hateful.

UPDATE:  As the friend who posted the icon has since commented, I wanted to make clear that in the first ¶, it is the icon which asks.   Here’s a screenshot of that icon:   

When reader V the K e-mailed a link reporting that “75 percent of religious persecution being carried out against Christians,” I sent back a hasty response, edited for clarity:

Shhh. . . don’t tell the left.  It’ll upset their narrative.  Remember, white male Christians are responsible for the most persecution in the world.

One day, someone will have to examine why so many on the left have decided that the only oppression that matters is that done by white Christians or Jews.  Why do so many in the West, those with a European Jude0-Christian background, assume the victim always be the “other”?

Well, it seems one of our readers has.  Writing on his blog, he looks at how these Westerners have turned out society’s tradition of self-correction against itself:

Part of the trouble with this noble self-criticism, based as it is on the multiculty prescript that one may critique one’s one people but not another’s (especially if brown), is that the other groups are not doing this. While Westerners flagellate themselves in this ongoing and interminable White Lent, the other tribes are flexing their muscles, singing their virtues and heartily agreeing with us that we do not deserve to live. This is a part of why Obama’s repentance and apology tours provoke me so much.

A lot of liberal behavior reminds me of two particularly female psychopathologies: bulemia and self-cutting.   Liberals, especially the comfortable classes, alternately gobble up the pleasures of the West and then, guilt ridden, vomit them out. And it seems that they are happiest when they are cutting up their own bodies.

Read the whole thing.

RELATED:  DOJ to white male bullying victims: Tough luck

*or Jews.

It seems for some gay activists, everything is political.  Mark, one of our readers, alerted me to a story about which he, while regularly disagreeing with yours truly, offers commentary that I find spot-on:  ”stunts like this make gay people look like idiots”.  Well, fortunately, most Americans (or so we hope) won’t judge all gay people by the juvenile antics of this one man who wallows in his (perceived) victimhood:

A gay man was excused from jury duty in New York last week because he said that discrimination against gays makes him a second-class citizen and therefore he couldn’t be impartial.

Jonathan D. Lovitz, an actor, model, and singer who will be on Logo’s upcoming show Setup Squad, wrote on his Facebook page, “I raised my hand and said, ‘Since I can’t get married or adopt a child in the state of New York, I can’t possibly be an impartial judge of a citizen when I am considered a second class citizen in the eyes of the justice system.’”

And instead of criticizing the man for this self-righteous stunt, the Advocate reports that some activists are encouraging “others to use the strategy”.   Such individuals have so internalized the victim mentality that they define themselves as second-class citizens.  Wonder why they need convince themselves of such status.

This is not to say that things are perfect for gay Americans, but the notion that we’re second-class citizens suggests we lack the fundamental rights and privileges associated with citizens, many denied African-Americans in certain states until federal legislation in the mid-1960s overturned discriminatory laws and practices. (more…)

Reader Peter Hughes alerted me to Ann Coulter’s latest column, one of the simultaneously funniest and most insightful commentaries on current events I’ve read all year.  Currently finishing her next book and is thus

. . . only able to catch bits and pieces of the news this month, but, based on what I’ve heard from the mainstream media, I’m pretty sure the conservative movement is now being led either by Jared Loughner or GOProud’s president, Chris Barron.

Pretty  much sums up their coverage of the first six weeks of this year.   A deranged Tea Party member shot up a rally featuring a Democratic Congresswoman while CPAC is all about GOProud.  Then, she joins Sarah Palin, albeit in a much different tone, in welcoming gay conservatives into the movement:

No, we don’t generally care for identity politics of any sort, much less hearing about people’s sex lives, even Nino Scalia’s. (And judging by the number of children he has, it’s pretty active.) Conservatives believe in individual rights, low tax rates, fighting terrorism and punishing criminals — so do gays! They also happen to believe Judy Garland was the most underappreciated and misunderstood person in the history of show business. I don’t think most gays care about gay marriage; they like going to the gay marriage meeting because it’s a good way to meet other gays.

Read the whole thing.

Comes interesting news this week that an internal Democratic poll shows strong support for President Obama among gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered. Of note, this poll was done before the repeal of DADT last month.

Some serious concerns about the interpretation of this poll. First of all, the poll was released only to the Huffington Post blog and only “on the condition that the full survey not be published.” Whenever a) the internals of a poll are not released and b) the results are sent only to a partisan publication for dissemination, it’s clear an agenda is being advanced by the numbers, that might not be borne out by the actual findings.

What’s more, in such an instance, plenty of questions arise: 64% either “approved” or “strongly approved”. So was that 10% “strongly” and 54% simply approving? Perhaps that’s splitting hairs, but it’s still significant. That the original results aren’t released suggests the depth of support might not be as impressive as its breadth. Another question: Where are these folks? There are no comparable approve/disapprove numbers from the same poll to indicate this demographic is any more supportive of Obama than the population (from which the respondents were separated as being “LGBT”) overall. Point being, poll gays and lesbians in San Francisco, you’ll likely find the same level of overwhelming support for Teh One as you would from that city’s overall population. Bottom line, this poll leaves many more questions than answers, if you’re willing to ask them.

But one great thing it does is offer up once again the opportunity to discuss the following thesis:

As more “gay” issues are settled by democratic means (as opposed to court mandates and decrees), and are therefore taken off the table, do you suppose gays and lesbians will begin to concern themselves with more important issues like the economy and national defense when it comes to picking their representatives? When HRC, Equality Matters and the slew of other left-wing advocacy groups don’t have things like DADT, ENDA, and marriage to flail about, do you think gays and lesbians will start to vote on more universal issues, and therefore gravitate more toward those who share American values of small government, low taxes, individual liberty, and a strong national defense?

To expand on the point to which Dan alludes directly below, the caricature of conservatives being ogres who simply hate gays and want to keep us all down and “would send us all to an island if they had their way” may be useful in this (and previous) day and age when some are still so animated about certain “rights”. But take away those “struggles”, and who would you vote for?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

One of the best arguments I’ve heard against the repeal of DADT (which, as we say in the business is now OBE) is that it will lead to a new level of mamby-pambyness vis-a-vis gay troops demanding they be treated “fairly”. Often as we’ve noticed, when any “rights” group is looking for “fairness” it’s often simply code for “special rights”.

For the majority (based on my experience) of gay troops, our lives will likely not change much on a day-to-day basis. I, for one, am not planning to “come out” to anybody save a few close friends where I work. I’m expecting, in fact, that they likely know about me anyway. (After all, such a devilishly handsome man with so much going for him my age not married? He must be gay! Har har, but anyway…) Inasmuch, I don’t expect most gay troops will be demanding anything much more than simply not getting kicked out if we forget to use the gender-neutral pronouns when speaking of our dates.

This is not to say there won’t be a few (which will likely seem like much more than a few) flamboyantly unprofessional troops whose conduct will surely be seen as unbecoming and hopefully will be counseled right away. That will be a touchy subject I’ll save for another post.

For now let’s talk about “special rights”.

Many have argued this is a stepping-stone to a larger “gay rights” agenda. I’ve never seen it as such, and I regret that there will definitely be many gay “rights” champions who will misuse this to further their own agenda (much as those opposed to gay “rights” will also use it to further their agenda). They have no concern necessarily about the defense of the Nation nor about the military. We are a tool for them to use and they should be ashamed, if they knew any such thing as shame in the first place.

There’s another thing that I think might come of this which would be a good sign. Check out this quote from the DoD’s report on the repeal of DADT:

We do not recommend that sexual orientation be placed alongside race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, as a class eligible for various diversity programs, tracking initiatives, and complaint resolution processes under the Military Equal Opportunity Program. We believe that doing so could produce a sense, rightly or wrongly, that gay men and lesbians are being elevated to a special status as a “protected class” and will receive special treatment. In a new environment in which gay and lesbian Service members can be open about their sexual orientation, we believe they will be accepted more readily if the military community understands that they are simply being permitted equal footing with everyone else.

(emphasis added)

This is a sentiment I (as most libertarian conservatives) have long espoused: Equal treatment, not special treatment. Which leads to the next logical question: Why should “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin” be the basis for special treatment either? If gays and lesbians “will be accepted more readily” if not treated differently, wouldn’t that also be the same for members of these other groups? What an interesting outcome of this whole episode if the entire concept of “special” categories of troops went by the way-side?

For all the talk (and legitimate, I might add) of “unintended consequences” surrounding the repeal of DADT, what a happy accident it would be if, by virtue of this new policy change, we had to rethink how we treated everybody. Because if there’s no good reason to treat gays and lesbians as “diversity programs” (and there isn’t), then why do we need them in the first place? This could be a whole new chapter in respecting each other as individuals and as part of a larger team rather than the social balkanization the Left so often loves to use to drive us apart.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

This is the kind of data I’ve been waiting to see…

According to CNN, 31% of self-identified gay voters supported Republican candidates for the U.S. House. This number is a dramatic increase from the 19% GOP House candidates won among gay voters in 2008. “Exit polling makes it clear gay voters played an important role in bringing conservative leadership to Congress,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies. “It also proves something we have been saying for months now – that the Tea Party’s message of limiting government is something that appeals to many gay Americans.”

That my friends, is a huge shift.  It also marks a high water mark of self-identified gays voting for GOP as I believe McCain got 27% in 2008 and Bush got 24% in 2004 (don’t quote me on those numbers, I’m using my memory).

How will the professional Gay Leftists handle the fact that one-third of the gays & lesbians in America vote conservative?   For example, will they back off of their position of abortions-for-all when genetic advances are leading to the days of selective aborting gays & lesbians before they are born?

And that’s just one issue where the Gay Progressive radicals are on the wrong side of 60% of America and 30% of gays & lesbian Americans.  What does this say about gay America’s eroding support of President Obama?

Will anything change among the Gay Street crowd?  Doubtful.  They are bought & paid for by the Democrats and George Soros-funded organizations.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Barbara Boxer isn’t the only California politician with a sense of entitlement.  While she may think she deserves her Senate seat because of all her (self-professed) hard work, another Golden State Democrat thinks she deserves her seat on account of her ethnicity and political affiliation.

Don’t believe me?  Take a look at this video:

So, an election should be decided not based on one’s qualifications to serve and her record in office, but on the fact that she’s a Latina Democrat?!?! Now, there are many fine Latinas in America today, indeed, I’m rooting for one to be the next Governor of the Land of Enchantment, but it’s not her ethnicity which qualifies Susana Martinez to serve.

This video leads John Hinderaker to wonder:

It will be interesting to see whether a single prominent Democrat will denounce, or even distance himself from, Sanchez’s racism. My guess is that the number of Democrats who do so will be zero. If that is the case, what can we conclude about the Democratic Party, historically the party of slavery and Jim Crow?

Meanwhile, Allahpundit asks, “Does she talk this way in front of English-speaking audiences too, counting on her Absolute Moral Authority as a Democrat to shield her from criticism“?

Just as there are many fine Latino candidates, like the next Senator from the Sunshine State, so too are there many fine Vietnamese candidates.  California’s Van Tran (Sanchez’s replacement) appears to be one of them.  You can support his campaign here.

UPDATE:  I just found this post that is nearly a year old.  It still seems to fit (even MORE so now, perhaps). 

Take the very worst personal and leadership traits of these Presidents:

Combine the Socialist, statist and world-view philosophy of this one:

And add the big-spending ways of this one:

And you get this big mess:

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Gay conservatives have been so critical of the national gay groups, in large measure because these organizations seem more beholden to the political left in general and the Democratic Party in particular than they do to their supposed constituency.  With the Service Members Legal Defense Network (SLDN) being the notable exception.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 elections, after a Republican president was elected to a second term in the White House and with Republicans making gains in both the House and the Senate, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), instead of picking someone who could work with Republicans, tapped a Democratic partisan (who had most recently worked for a group committed to electing pro-choice Democratic women) to helm its operation.

Guess they were more interested in playing to the left than to influencing the (then-)party in power.

That choice came to mind when I received a recent e-mail from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.  When I saw the name Glenn Beck in the subject line, I thought maybe they were going to praise the conservative polevangelist* for acknowledging the obvious that gay marriage isn’t a threat to the country.

Instead Executive Director Kate Kendell (she who devoted her most recent 9/11 letter to ranting against conservatives) included a piece by the group’s Federal Policy Attorney Maya Rupert on Beck’s “Cynical Invasion of D.C.”  Now the timing of his “Restoring Honor” Rally may well have been cynical, but, well, what does criticizing this timing have to do with advancing “lesbian rights”? (more…)

Remember how, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a number of voices in the chattering classes, in the highest of dudgeon, inveighed against a coming backlash against Muslim Americans, with a skyrocketing number of anti-Muslim hate crimes?

Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case:

Hate crimes directed against Muslims remain relatively rare, notwithstanding the notoriety gained by incidents such as recent vandalism at the Madera Islamic Center.

Jews, lesbians, gay men and Caucasians, among others, are all more frequently the target of hate crimes, FBI records show. Reported anti-Muslim crimes have declined over recent years, though they still exceed what occurred prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Such crimes did jump right after 9/11 but, as Jonah Goldberg reminds us, have since begun to decline considerably.  

Regardless, 2001 was the zenith or, looked at through the prism of our national shame, the nadir of the much-discussed anti-Muslim backlash in the United States. The following year, the number of anti-Islamic hate-crime incidents (overwhelmingly, nonviolent vandalism and nasty words) dropped to 155. In 2003, there were 149 such incidents. And the number has hovered around the mid-100s or lower ever since.

(Read the whole thing.  Jonah asks a great question about the rush of some on the left to find intolerance in America.)  Guess Americans just aren’t the vindictive, bitter people who cling to their antipathy to people who aren’t like them as a means, you know, to express their frustration.  

Now, catch this anecdote (from the first article I quoted); it gets at the real problem with defining certain crimes hate crimes: (more…)