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On the merits of George Clooney’s Indifference

March 5, 2012 by B. Daniel Blatt

I’m no fan of George Clooney; he’s not a very good actor, bland in (most of) his movies and smug in his personal appearances.

That said, in one aspect, he is far superior to many celebrities.  He remains pretty upfront about wanting to remain single.  He doesn’t dissemble for the sake of his image.  I had heard that he tells his girlfriends not to believe the media hype about their relationships and to trust instead to his own commitment to avoid attachment.  He doesn’t want to lead them on, encouraging them to enjoy dating, but not to get their hopes up about marriage.

On that score, he’s a man of integrity.

It is perhaps his reluctance to marry and his single status which has lead some to speculate about his sexuality.  But, the guy isn’t gay.  That said, the rumors don’t bother him:

He’s long been the subject of rampant tabloid speculation over his sexuality, but George Clooney says he doesn’t mind.

. . . .

“I think it’s funny, but the last thing you’ll ever see me do is jump up and down, saying, ‘These are lies!’ That would be unfair and unkind to my good friends in the gay community,” Clooney said. “I’m not going to let anyone make it seem like being gay is a bad thing. My private life is private, and I’m very happy in it. Who does it hurt if someone thinks I’m gay? I’ll be long dead and there will still be people who say I was gay. I don’t give a sh*t.”

It’s commentary like this that make me warm to the guy a bit.  He wants to keep his private life private (which is at it should be) — and is content enough with his own life that he doesn’t care what other people say about him  — an indifference to which we all should aspire.

Filed Under: Integrity, Movies/Film & TV

Why Tyler Clementi Still Matters

July 8, 2011 by B. Daniel Blatt

It has been nine months now since Tyler Clementi’s suicide dominated the news.  And I fear many of have forgotten that sensitive young man’s difficult transition to college life.

While it has become easier to come out America today (than it was twenty years ag0), it will always be difficult to be different, even if we do achieve the “full equality” to which many gay activists aspire.  To be sure, young gay people currently have a plethora of places to go for guidance and support.  Through the “It Gets Better” videos and other social (as well as traditional) media, they have testimony and images of older gay people who are open about and comfortable with their sexuality.

They still, however, face the challenge of being different at a period in life when many aspire to conform to their peers.

One concern I’ve had with those videos, the most enduring legacy of the suicide, is that they lack the personal contact that many young people need at difficult moments as they take their first steps on their path of adulthood.  They have just a face and voice on a screen and not a hand on their shoulder or a kind word directed to them personally.

It’s important that we always remember that for as much good as those videos may accomplish, we must also always pay attention to the personal.  We may feel good about recording our experiences for such a video, but we do better when we take the time to listen and respond to a young person in need.

If my experience as an uncle has taught me anything, it’s that an older adult’s encouragement of and interest in a child, adolescent or young adult can help give them the strength to weather life’s storms.  And this applies most particularly to those who differ from the social norm.

RELATED: On Tyler Clementi & the Importance of Mentors

Filed Under: Gay America, Individuation, Integrity, Leadership

Even gay liberals fault HRC for endorsing Obama so soon

May 27, 2011 by B. Daniel Blatt

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.

Filed Under: Blogging, Gay Leftist Lickspittles, Gay Politics, Integrity

Seeing gay people as individual human beings rather than defining us by group stereotypes

January 8, 2011 by B. Daniel Blatt

In a post on ice skater’s Johnny Weir’s comment in coming out as a gay man about “pressure” being “the last thing that would make me want to ‘join’ a community“, Ann Althouse gets at something that many, particularly gay activists, in conversations on coming out:

Some people think of themselves as, above all, individuals, and when others think the most important thing is their membership in a particular group, they resist. They don’t want to be defined by a single quality, especially when it’s a quality that makes other people see them in terms of the group stereotype, and not personal uniqueness.

There is a lot in which this diva says, so I recommend you both read her post and ponder these words.

It often seems that the gay rights’ movement pursues the notion of group rights rather than individual ones.  That is is why I believe we need develop a conservative message on gays, independent to that developed by the left-leaning gay groups, organizations which are helmed by men and women who with a background in Democratic politics and liberal ideologies seem beholden to statist theories of rights.

Hopefully more on this anon, much more in the coming year.

Well said, Ann. (H/t: Reader Leah)

Filed Under: Blogress Divas, Gay America, Gay Politics, Individuation, Integrity

Doing the work Gay, Inc. won’t do

October 12, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

While HRC President Joe Solmonese sits comfortably ensconced in his fancy office in downtown D.C., jetting off occasionally to hobnob with Democratic donors across the country, some gay activists, organized by GetEqual are reminding president of the promises he made on the campaign trail:

A group of LGBT equality activists working to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” launched an elaborate protest early Monday evening as President Barack Obama attended a private Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fund-raiser in Miami at the home of NBA star Alonzo Mourning.

There’s lots more on Pam Spaulding’s page, including numerous links to GetEqual’s Twitter (& Facebook) feed, among them this clever quip, “President Obama got our message loud and clear. He waved as he was passing by — but we need more than a wave!” It seems Joe’ll settle for air kisses — and a few visits to the White House.

Pam’s co-blogger Keori reminds us . . .

. . . discharges continue, as two of our own are experiencing. DNC Vice Chair Ray Buckley flipped off GetEqual’s message of concern this week. Once again, President Obama is hobnobbing with basketball stars rather than live up to his promises to LGB troops. Tonight, he’s getting an earful.

It does seem the activists and leftie bloggers are doing all heavy lifting that Gay, Inc. won’t do.

NB:  Tweaked the post when Pam reminded me that one of her co-bloggers had written the post.

Filed Under: DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell), Integrity, Obama and Gay Issues

A Note on the “It Gets Better” Video

October 8, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

Well before I posted last night on the “It Gets Better” video, I had received e-mails from several readers alerting me to Dan Savage’s project, each with an almost identical recommendation, “Even though Savage is a partisan jerk,” they said is in so many words, “this is a good idea.”

I write today, fearing some might misconstrue that prior post on the project.  I’m not calling it a bad idea, merely questioning its effectiveness (as I believe Sady Doyle was also doing).

Simply put, I don’t know how effective this project will be.  To be sure, it does no harm  — and has the potential to do some good.  It sets exactly the right tone — an optimistic, upbeat one, that instead of gnashing their teeth and bewailing their fate, young gay people can look forward to a brighter future.

That’s not the only good thing about the video.  It doesn’t dwell on the evil of our oppressors (as do so many of the missives and ministrations of the various gay organizations), but on promoting a forward-looking attitude.

All that said, what teens need most is nurturing human contact.  And we must never lose sight of that.

Filed Under: Gay America, Individuation, Integrity

Can a (web) video make it better for gay teens?

October 8, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

If Sady Doyle had not decided to use a word other than “queer” to describe gay youth at the end of her essay addressing the question, “Does [the Web Video] ‘It Gets Better’ Make Life Better for Gay Teens?“, I would highly recommend her piece.   Semantics aside, it remains a thoughtful contribution to the conversation on what to do in the wake of the suicides of Tyler Clementi and other young gay people.

So, let me just recommend the piece, wondering at the same time if the use of the term, “queer”, to describe people like us, increases the sense of marginalization that young people in our situation feel when they start coming to terms with their difference.

In considering the benefits of the video, Doyle gets at the issue which has been at the top of my mind since I first read of Clementi’s suicide:

However, if we keep telling suicidal people that their situation will “get better” without actually taking any steps to improve it—if we don’t provide support and medical care for people with depression; if we don’t help people who are being abused to find a safe place; if we don’t make sure that the systematic, community-wide abuse of GLBT youth is eliminated—then belief alone can wear thin. And this seems to be one of the main contentions of Savage’s critics.

“There is actually no path to change in this vision,” alleges blogger Zoe Melisa, in a post from her personal blog which was re-published at Queerwatch. “Promoting the illusion that things just ‘get better,’ enables privileged folks to do nothing and just rely on the imaginary mechanics of the American Dream to fix the world.”

Now, much as as I’d like to see the disappearance “the systematic, community-wide abuse of GLBT youth”, I don’t know that we can ever eliminate it.  More on this anon.

That said, I particularly like her focus on providing support to young people in need.  I believe that if such young people find a place where they belong and mentors and friends who can help them find their own inner strength, they will be better situated to deal with their difference, even in a hostile environment.

Her left-wing class rhetoric notwithstanding, Melisa is also onto something.  Is promoting this video merely a feel-good project for well-being people?  It is nice to tell a kid that it’ll get better; it’s better to help him find the means to make it so, that is, to take the time to listen to troubled teens. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Gay America, Individuation, Integrity

On Tyler Clementi & the Importance of Mentors

October 4, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

Perhaps I’m wrong and it wouldn’t have made a difference if Tyler Clementi had had an older gay friend or mentor to whom he could turn in his moment of mental anguish.

To be sure, it’s not just this story that makes me think of mentoring.  The issue of mentoring has been much on my mind since I first started wrestling with my sexuality.  The first gay “role model” I had was perhaps one of the most negative influences on my life and on my family as well.  And I always wondered if my coming out would have been any smoother had I met an older gay man capable of showing any compassion for my particular situation.

It is perhaps due in large part to his (negative) influence that I was so drawn to the goddess Athene when I read, re-read and listened to the Odyssey in the years after college and in the course of my graduate studies in Mythology.  Her gentle guidance stood in stark contrast to his arrogant indifference.  She both helps the hero’s son Telemachus find his first (male) friend — and facilitates his reconciliation with his own father.  It’s as if Homer knew that we human beings need divine guidance to navigate the treacherous waters when we first leave home and find our way in the world.

This story has stirred up so much with so many of us, in large part because we see ourselves in this young man, recalling the awkwardness of our freshman year in college, our first year away from home, when our aspirations often (unbeknownst to us at the time) conflicted with one another, finding our way in the world while seeking to belong in a new (and often) foreign environment.

Perhaps, the mentor issue comes to my mind because of my own experiences.  And other things surely must come to mind to other individuals, gay and straight alike.

The bottom question we need to ask is what can we do to make that journey less treacherous for young men and young women who differ from the social norm.   [Read more…]

Filed Under: Academia, Gay America, Individuation, Integrity, Leadership, Mythology and the real world

In Mehlman Matter, Gay Left Blogger Prefers Principle to Revenge

August 27, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

Twice in blogging about Ken Mehlman’s coming out, I wrote that there would be some “decent gay lefties” who would not go for this good man’s jugular, treating him instead him with decency and “dignity despite disagreeing . . .  on matters political.”

Due to my busy schedule these past few days, I haven’t been able to check the blogs as much as I would like so am grateful for readers like Eva Young of Lloydletta’s Nooz who alerted me to one leftie who has been relatively kind to Mehlman.  To be sure, John Aravosis, while refraining from attacking Mehlman personally (as have some of his left-of-center blogging colleagues), does spew a good deal of vitriol against the GOP (and engage in a bit of overheated rhetoric), he welcomes Mehlman’s coming out, saying he’s “more interested in equality than revenge.”

Now, you all know I have trouble with that term; I’m concerned more with preserving the blessings of liberty and, as many libertarian and conservative philosophers and pundits, recognize the tension between that American ideal and the notion of equality.

That said, John sees Mehlman as a potential ally in pursuing his goals and challenges his critics, “If someone can explain to me how it advances our civil rights to spurn Mehlamn’s offer of help, I’m all ears.”

I simply want my civil rights more than I want revenge. It’s the way good politics works, I think – and it’s the way politics used to work in this country – putting the potential to move forward today ahead of your legitimate anger about yesterday.

Now, I may quibble with John about our supposed lack of civil rights.  But, he is willing to put his principles over personality.  And in my book, that should count for something. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blogging, Gay America, Gay Culture, Gay Politics, Integrity, Liberal Integrity

VICTORY IN IRAQ BY US FORCES

August 20, 2010 by GayPatriot

Under the command of two Commanders-in-Chiefs, our US Armed Forces have performed brilliantly since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.  The last full combat brigade left Iraq left Wednesday with little of the media coverage that began with “Shock and Awe”, “Baghdad Bob”, and eventually saw Saddam cowering in a spider hole.

When the men and women of Fourth Brigade, Second Infantry Division deployed to Iraq in April 2007 as part of President Bush’s surge, American soldiers were being killed or wounded at a rate of about 750 a month, the country was falling to sectarian mayhem, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had declared that the war was “lost.”

On Wednesday, the “Raiders” became the last combat brigade to leave Iraq, having helped to defeat an insurgency, secure a democracy and uphold the honor of American arms.

The classic lament about the war in Iraq is that it achieved little at a huge cost in American lives, treasure and reputation. That view rests on a kind of amnesia about the nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime, his 12-year defiance of binding U.N. resolutions, the threat he posed to its neighbors, the belief—shared by the Clinton and Bush Administrations and intelligence services world-wide—that he was armed with weapons of mass destruction, the complete corruption of the U.N. sanctions regime designed to contain him, and the fact that he intended to restart his WMD programs once the sanctions had collapsed.

Those were the realities when the coalition marched into Iraq. In supporting the war on the eve of that invasion, we noted that “the law of unintended consequences hasn’t been repealed” and that “toppling Saddam is a long-term undertaking,” while warning that “liberal pundits and politicians are fickle interventionists” who were “apt to run for moral cover” when the going got tough. As they did.

Their opposition might well have led to defeat had not Mr. Bush defied Congress and the recommendations of his own Iraq Study Group in favor of the 2007 surge, which history will likely recall as Mr. Bush’s finest hour. To his credit, President Obama has also delivered on the “responsible withdrawal” he promised in his campaign.

This admirable American effort has now given Iraqis the opportunity to govern themselves democratically. We supported the Iraq invasion primarily for reasons of U.S. national security. But a successful war also held the promise that it could create, in a major Arab state, a model for governance that would result in something better than the secular or religious dictatorships that have so often bred brutality and radicalism—which has increasingly reached our own shores. The fact that Iraq has a functioning judiciary, and that Iraqi voters have rejected their most sectarian parties at the polls, is cause for hope that the country is moving in that direction.

This is true despite the five months of political stalemate that have gripped the country since March’s parliamentary elections resulted in an effective tie between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his principal challenger Ayad Allawi. Political gridlock is frustrating, but it is sometimes a function of democratic politics. We will soon learn if Iraqi politicians can meet the responsibilities of the democratic moment that American and British blood and treasure have given them.

They will have to do so despite the continuing spoiler role played by Iraq’s neighbors—Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran—who fear a democratic, or Shiite-led, state in their midst. The withdrawal of U.S. combat forces will only increase their ambition to create more trouble.

That makes the mission of the 50,000 U.S. troops that will remain as trainers, advisers and special-ops forces until the end of 2011 all the more crucial. It should also provide incentive for Washington and Baghdad to negotiate a more permanent U.S. military presence, both as a balancing force within the country and especially as a hedge against Iran. Having sacrificed so much for Iraq’s freedom, the U.S. should attempt to reap the shared strategic benefits of a longer-term alliance, as we did after World War II with Japan and Germany.

On the eve of war in 2003, we wrote: “About one thing we have no doubt: the courage of the Americans who will fight in our defense.” Along with all of their comrades in arms, the men and women of Fourth Brigade, Second Infantry have fully vindicated that conviction. Somewhere down the road, we trust that August 18, 2010 will be remembered as Victory in Iraq day.

August 18 SHOULD be VICTORY IN IRAQ DAY if for no other reason than to mark then end of the success that our original mission, further supplemented by the brave decision by President Bush to launch the surge in 2007, is complete.  Yes, US forces will remain as advisors for another year.  But “The War” in Iraq is over.

Where are the homecoming parades?  Where is the outpouring of love of nation toward our brave men and women who were thrust out of their lives when this phase of the Global War began on September 11, 2003?

We’ve made mistakes.  We found no WMD that the entire world’s intel apparatus said we would.  As in past wars, America leaves no imperialist governance behind.  We helped formed a democratic state in the Middle East that now must continue to bloom on its own.  We stole no oil.  We will only leave Americans in Iraq at the behest of its people, or where the blood of the brave have fallen into the hot sand and are never to be returned to the homeland.

We should be celebrating this week.  But we are not.  There are many reasons why.  But when you see a uniformed member of our Armed Forces this Summer and Fall — please stop them and thank them for their and and their families sacrifices.  They are our Greatest Generation and will most likely be called on again to defend and protect the United States of America.

BE PROUD AMERICA:  We liberated a nation of 18 million oppressed people from a satanic dictator who hijacked the Muslim faith for his own glory and power.  BE PROUD!

Thank you to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretarys Rumsfeld & Gates, and General Petreaus.  You won the war as our leaders.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Filed Under: Integrity, Iraq, Noble Republicans, Post 9-11 America, War On Terror, World War III

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