GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Continue Gayly Forward

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The first gay-topic book I ever read was titled, The Homo Handbook: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Homo: A Survival Guide for Lesbians and Gay Men, 1996 by Judy Carter. It was a humorous book, typical of the era, that approached the reality of being gay in the late 90’s with optimistic charm and energy. One of the memorable passages which today would read as proto-woke humor was about changing everyday language to be more gay and fun.

‘When giving directions, instead of saying, ‘Go straight ahead,’ say, ‘Continue gayly forward!’

25 years later the message seems more relevant than ever. When I think on what it means to be a gay person on the right, conservative, Republican, libertarian or wherever one finds themselves on the spectrum, it has become the very nature of gay identity itself that has become necessary to reaffirm. Long past are the days of American Dad style Log Cabin Republican ubiquity with the larger gay world, separated only by views on taxes and gun rights. Today we find ourselves considering an entirely new kind of gay rights movement.

Gender Identity has overtaken the LGBT world to such an extent they can no longer remember what being gay means. Being gay for modern privileged gays seems to mean activism for trans identity and rights, mixed in with a healthy dollop of intersectional racial identity. To be gay is to be a progressive activist and to be anything other than a progressive activist is to be guilty of bigotry, self-hatred and community shame.

Of course, that has always been an aspect of the gay community, long before it became the LGBT community and longer still before it deformed itself into the LGBTQQIAAP+ Federation of Identities. However, being progressive in 1996, as Carter lovingly described, was about personal acceptance and using that inner sense of love to encourage creative tolerance in those around you. It wasn’t about ideological domination, but merely a seat at the table.

Today we have the whole table and have mean girled everyone else away, as long as the BLM kids don’t need it to stand on for a protest.

Somewhere along the way being gay on the right moved from ‘I’m gay but that isn’t why I’m here’ to the last place in American society a person can freely and proudly be gay without judgment. Ironically its the conservatives who seem to be holding up the last remnants of 90’s gay flamboyance, drag culture and the golden rule of individuality and freedom of expression. The gay movement has come to rely on the conservative movement for survival.

In many ways I think we have mutually benefited one another. When looking across the conservative spectrum, we see many more prominent gay people than you’d otherwise expect, several trans people too. Many of the most vocal rightwing voices are gay voices. We offer access to the contemporary world in a way conservatives have struggled to sustain, even if that world is becoming less and less hospitable.

So when I begin to wonder what purpose gay conservatives have any longer, considering every policy goal from the early Log Cabin movement well into the 2000’s has been accomplished, it comes down to the idea of survival of the individual. In many ways there is no gay community any longer. Only gay people exiled from the Cyber Punk 2077 dystopian wasteland of LGBTQIAP/BIPOC misery and fear. There is no conservative movement either, only what’s left of humanity that still believes individuality and freedom mean something more than symbolic equality or positive statistical social outcomes.

We find ourselves stranded outside the city together, not wishing to return, but having nowhere else to go. Our ‘movement’ is one of personal liberation from Puritan progressive authoritarianism and it doesn’t matter who we are married to any longer. We just want to be free and we need each other to rebuild a society that values freedom over safety and superficial social equality.

My message for all of us has come down to ‘Continue Gayly Forward,’ as we all must refuse to be personally or publicly forced back into a closet of hiding who we really are. Whether that means feeling safe to homeschool your child to attending church to declining to participate in gender identity madness, we are all fighting for our right to free expression and independence, together.

Continue Gayly Forward, my friends. If I have to put on a wig and heels and march down the street waving the new flag of freedom to get us there, I’ve already got the perfect dress for the occasion.

Fun with polls

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You remember how in 2016, Establishment pollsters would over-sample Democrats to conclude that Hillary was “ahead” and “a lock to win”.

The charitable interpretation is cognitive dissonance: the Establishment simply couldn’t believe that Trump had real support, and accordingly, their pollsters adjusted-down his numbers. A cynic would go further, saying the Establishment pollsters were out to drag Hillary across the finish line by making her seem inevitable (depressing Republican voters).

Either way, Breitbart says they’re still at it.

…a Washington Post/ABC News poll show[s] Mr. Trump’s approval ratings languishing at 36 per cent…

The poll was performed by AbtAssociates…[whose] board members include former [staffers of] Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Planned Parenthood, World Bank, and Deloitte…

WaPo/ABC polling obviously predicted the U.S. election incorrectly…

Since this time last year they have over-represented Democrat voters in their studies. For this latest one, 35 per cent of their respondents were Democrats, 23 per cent were Republicans, 35 per cent were Independents (who in turn lean towards voting Democrat)…

[other] demographic questions they asked are not included in the data…[except it’s clear that] Young cell phone users made up the dominant part of the poll, and cell phone-only households made up nearly half the interviews.

So, the poll was skewed to younger, trendy Democrats. Yet this same poll still shows the Democrats’ weak appeal:

…just 37 per cent of respondents think the Democrat Party “stands for something” while 52 per cent say they simply stand against Trump. WaPo buried this in paragraph 12 of 19 while CNN didn’t mention it at all.

Breitbart’s article goes on to quote the late Christopher Hitchens at length, about how polling is a racket and the power elite’s tool to manipulate public debate (for example, stigmatizing certain leaders or viewpoints as “unpopular”).

P.S. – Related vaguely: I don’t follow Bret Easton Ellis much but apparently, he and his boyfriend (who are hardly conservatives) are sick of Fake News and equally, sick of liberals who make no sense because they never get outside their bubble.

My dinner partner on Saturday said she had never heard that Comey admitted the NY Times had gotten a series of stories wrong. She thought I had made that up. When I told her the world isn’t this — gesturing around the dark opulence of The Sunset Tower — and that the divide is real, she dismissed it with Trump’s approval ratings without acknowledging the media’s approval ratings are lower than Trump’s. She pointed out that MSNBC was killing it in the ratings and I told her that Maddow and Hannity are basically neck-and-neck any given night–and yet I was thinking, ‘I don’t watch either one!’ So why am I even engaging in this?”

Antifa is pro-Islam, anti-Constitution, anti-gay

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Now we know for sure.

Protesters campaigning against Sharia Law were met with a number of counter-demonstrations on Saturday…

Sharia is the law of Islam…The rules of sharia come from Quranic commandments and the hadiths…Sharia significantly restricts the freedom of women and allows for extreme punishments for violations such as adultery, blasphemy, and apostasy. [ed: and homosexuality] Sharia is the basis of laws in Islamic countries, both Sunni and Shia.

A press release from the ACT! for America website reads: “This is a march against Sharia law and for human rights…”

However, many marches were disrupted by counter-demonstrators, who accused participants of “Islamaphobia”…

The article makes clear that the counter-demonstrators were lefties in masks, many associated with Antifa. One threw urine on Lauren Southern (of The Rebel Media).

Let’s summarize.

  1. Sharia is a legal system. Like any legal system, it must be supreme within a given territory or it doesn’t work. In the U.S. context, Sharia’s advocates basically want it to replace U.S. law.
  2. If you march (demonstrate) in favor of U.S. law over Sharia, Antifa protestors are going to physically attack you and call you “Islamophobic”.

It follows that Antifa protestors favor Sharia and want it to replace U.S. law. Which of course is based on the Constitution; which Antifa therefore must also oppose.

If it isn’t so, it’s up to Antifa to clarify it – by denouncing Sharia. In the meantime: Gays, women, and patriotic Americans everywhere ought to find it alarming.

He’s Baaa-aaaaaack

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After Milo’s trouble in February, I knew he’d be back. He has a lot to say, he needs the attention, he’s fun and the camera loves him.

Via Breitbart.com, it’s MILO’S FREE SPEECH WEEK. (I think the all-caps are part of the shtick?)

In light of recent controversies, I am planning a huge multi-day event called MILO’S FREE SPEECH WEEK in Berkeley later this year. We will hold talks and rallies and throw massive parties, all in the name of free expression and the First Amendment. All will be welcome, regardless of political affiliation.

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During MILO’S FREE SPEECH WEEK, we will give out a new free speech prize — the Mario Savio Award — to the person we believe has done most to protect free expression at UC Berkeley and its surrounding area. Each day will be dedicated to a different enemy of free speech, including feminism, Black Lives Matter and Islam.

If UC Berkeley does not actively assist us in the planning and execution of this event, we will extend festivities to an entire month. We will establish a tent city on Sproul Plaza protesting the university’s total dereliction of its duty and encourage students at other universities to follow suit.
I intend to return Berkeley to its rightful place as the home of free speech — whether university administrators and violent far-left antifa thugs like it or not.
– MILO

Mario Savio was, per Wiki, “a key member in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially the ‘put your bodies upon the gears’ address given at Sproul Hall…on December 2, 1964.”

P.S. I respect and admire Ann Coulter, but do you want to know the difference between her and Milo? A penis and $20,000. (My understanding is that she charges 20K to speak to College Republicans, while he charges them zero. If that’s incorrect, I would be happy to hear it in the comments.)

“Climate of Hate” update again

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I hope future readers (if any) realize that the title is ironic. Left-liberals claim that we’re living in a climate of hate. If we are: It’s the hatred that is spewed by America’s Left.

First: Yesterday, President Obama clarified that he will NOT call off the anti-Trump protestors.

“I would not advise people who feel strongly or are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised over the course of the campaign, I would not advise them to be silent,” Obama said during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Obama said protests are just something Trump would have to get used to as the leader of the free world.

“I’ve been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years,” he said. “And I suspect that there’s not a president in our history that hasn’t been subject to these protests.”

…Obama [said] that the right of free speech should be exercised…

Let’s be clear: This is beyond baloney. Obama never faced protests where conservatives smashed windows, set fires, and physically attacked his supporters in the streets. Destroying property and people isn’t “free speech”.

As lefties told everyone last spring, when the Left’s paid agitators were trying to foment violence at Trump rallies: The leader’s duty to denounce the violence and insist on peaceful speech/protest from his supporters. That is Obama’s duty, now. Once more, the clown Obama disgraces America and himself.

And by the way: Obama didn’t face protestors in any number, until long after he was sworn in and did some (bad) things. While we’re at it, Merkel’s Germany does not let German citizens have free speech. The article describes Germans who were threatened with jail for criticizing Germany’s refugee influx on social media. Pathetic!

Some other items:

Why Hillary Lost

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I think this “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” clip is a window into the soul of our dear Lady Bug Eyes. Turn off the sound and watch for what’s in her heart.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qDpF2Phb5Q[/youtube]

You may have a different impression, but I see something in her that could have started as frustration except it took a dark turn, into malice. To me, she looks like she wants revenge on the world. Mind you, this is pre-election and how she asks for some people’s votes.

On to a couple of articles.

  • More on Hillary’s conference call with her rich donors.

    V touched on this earlier. Camp Bug Eyes’ spin is that the media “eviscerated” Hillary, with the connivance of stupid FBI Directory Comey who kept the email scandal alive. Of course the opposite is true: the media was super pro-Hillary, with the connivance of sleazy FBI Directory Comey who did whatever he could to deaden the email scandal.

  • Victor Davis Hanson on Why Trump Won. A good summary. The man can write.
  • Democrats head for civil war. Seething Bernie-ites want to purge the Clintonites; who in turn, blame the Bernie-ites for general childishness and not turning out to vote.

UPDATE: Trump on gays – He gets it. I had missed the following clip. Here it is, for anyone else who missed it. [Read more…]

The Book of Matt – and how myth is made (and unmade)

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When President Obama signed a federal “hate crimes” law in 2009, many people at the time were calling it The Matthew Shepard Act. There was just one problem: The murder of Matthew Shepard, while horrible and grotesque, wasn’t a hate crime (i.e., crime of bias). It had nothing to do with anti-gay bias until after the fact, when it suited many persons’ interests to make it seem like it did.

Matthew Shepard was a methamphetamine addict – and possibly a small-time meth dealer/courier – who was well-acquainted with his chief killer, Aaron McKinney. “Well-acquainted” meaning that McKinney and Shepard had done meth together more than once, had conducted business as small-time meth dealers/couriers, and yes, had occasionally even had sex with each other.

It’s probable that Shepard didn’t know the other convicted killer: McKinney’s then-recent acquaintance, Russell Henderson. But there’s evidence that Henderson wasn’t homophobic and, on the night of the killing, may have even taken a knock from McKinney as Henderson spoke up for Shepard (against McKinney’s raging, meth-fueled violence). Which, if true, would make Henderson’s *murder* conviction unjust. (He would still deserve a lesser conviction as an accessory.)

Shepard’s killing was most likely a criminal-style ‘debt collection’ by McKinney that went wrong because McKinney was a troubled and cruel person coming off of a multi-day meth binge. So, who fabricated the myth of a hate crime perpetrated on Shepard by two homophobic total strangers, and why? It was a combination of personal and political interests.

  • McKinney’s higher-up meth connections wanted to remain hidden, and they would be able to kill McKinney (even in prison) if he squealed on them. Which meant: McKinney would desperately need to avoid naming them. Which meant: McKinney needed to hide his own meth dealings, and therefore, the true nature of his relationship with Shepard.
  • As a short, little guy (135 lb) headed for prison in the late 1990s, McKinney also needed to hide his own bisexuality. Which, again, meant: hiding the nature of his relationship with Shepard.
  • McKinney, his girlfriend and his lawyers all thought (at the time) that a “gay panic” defense, however unfaithful to reality, would be McKinney’s best shot at acquittal (or reduced charges).
  • Certain friends of Shepard may have also wanted to distract people from their, and Shepard’s, meth use and dealings.
  • Gay activist groups – ranging from GLAAD and HRC to what is now the Matthew Shepard Foundation – obviously gained benefits, both political and financial, from the myth.
  • The media gained a big “story”.
  • Once the public/media frenzy started over the (perceived) Shepard hate crime, Bill Clinton got involved in it – at least partly to try to blunt the impact of his Monica Lewinsky scandal. Shepard was attacked on 10/6/1998 and died on 10/12/1998 – roughly around the time Kenneth Starr released his reports and the House of Representatives opened its impeachment inquiry on Clinton.

All this, and more, is cited or documented in The Book of Matt, by Stephen Jiminez. It was published in 2013 and V the K posted on it. I had the book and recently, after talking with liberal friends who were still unaware of the revelations about Shepard, I finally read it.

Despite the horror of its subject, the book is a powerful work of investigative journalism. No such book can get everything right. But this one is readable, gripping, and honest about Jiminez’ own fears and doubts as he slowly comes to understand the falseness of the Shepard “hate crime” myth. The book weaves together a wealth of recollections and coherent detail from dozens of sources who knew Shepard or his dealings, including two of Shepard’s more important boyfriends. The book evaluates the credibility of its sources and, where that may be lacking, provides multiple sources for key claims. [Read more…]

Who disapproves of homosexuality?

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Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has come out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

“Let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he wrote in a column in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Congratulations, Tim! And it’s great to see you acknowledge, along the way, how America has changed and become gay-positive over the last several decades:

The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant…

Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender.

Although it’s not so great, Tim, that you still couldn’t stop yourself from playing the Gay Victim card like a drama queen:

Being gay has given me…a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with…

…there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay…

I challenge GP’s readers to post in the comments, any examples of U.S. / State “laws on the books” that positively or specifically authorize “employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation.”

As for the bit about landlords and tenants: It’s also known as freedom of association, Tim. It’s a good thing because *you* get to have it as well; or at least you *should* get to have it (I am aware that the State of California unfortunately denies everyone that freedom).

All of this got me wondering: How do Americans compare to the rest of the world, in attitudes toward gays/homosexuality? Pew Research has the answer (hat tip, Zero Hedge):

Note how, in the above list of 40 countries for 2013, all of the Islamic or Muslim-majority countries were at 78% disapproval or higher (Egypt at 95%). Compared to 37% or much less, for the U.S. and Western Europe (Spain at 6%). Fascinating.

Boehner rejects ENDA

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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 Martyrdom Story Gets Snoped

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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.