Gay Patriot

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Are You a “Born-Again Gay”?

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One of my favorite “homo-con” bloggers is Chad at Cake Or Death? Since I began reading blogs via FeedReader (again, I highly recommend doing that!), I’ve neglected sites that don’t have RSS or XML feeds. Most Blogger.com sites don’t.
Anyway, I drifted by Chad’s joint this morning and caught a great posting he did last Friday called “Food for Thought“.

My roommate likes to talk…. A lot. He’s a Louisiana Southerner and it’s in his blood.
…tonight, he spewed forth probably the most prophetic thing I’ve ever heard him utter. It was in regards to a former roommate of ours who is gay. I’ve gotten permission from him to hijack it and blog about it – the reason being is that I feel that it pertains to the majority of the gay population and their obsessiveness with being and attaining all things “gay”.
She wasn’t born the day she was born. She was born the day she figured out she was a lesbian.

So my question this morning… are you a “Born-Again Gay”, or like me are you an American who happens to be gay (among other countless genetic traits)?
[Related Story – The Party Crasher asks a similar question in a bizarre case of “great minds thinking alike.”]
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

TIME: Miers Backed ‘Full Civil Rights’ For Gays

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Hat Tip: Hotline On Call
From TIME.com – A Sampling of the Writings of Harriet Miers

An indication of her stance on gay rights comes from this questionaire from the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas Miers filled out while running for the Dallas City Council in 1989. In it, she supported full civil rights for gays and lesbians and backed AIDS education programs for the city of Dallas. (Source: Quorumreport.com)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

PrismWarden’s Take On TIME’s ‘Gay Teen’ Cover

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Blogger-in-crime and outstanding writer, PrismWarden, has an excellent review of this week’s TIME Magazine cover story “The Battle Over Gay Teens”. PW notes about the article…..

Time pulls off a near media impossibility in this article. It presents both sides of the issue, introduces both pro and anti gay figures as complex individuals rather than chariacatures, and reveals sexuality as a complicated social and familial issue rather than a mere label. People are allowed different beliefs and opinions without being labelled unmitigated human evil for having a disagreement.

Read the entire piece here!
UPDATE: Robbie, aka PrismWarden, has now joined TheMalcontent.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Welcoming Tammy Bruce to the Blogosphere

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According to Pajamas Media (of which this blog is a member), one of my favorite talk show hosts, the author of two smart books (The Death of Right and Wrong & The New Thought Police) and a third on the way, Tammy Bruce, a lesbian and former president of the National Organization for Women’s L.A. chapter, officially launched her blog today. While she remains a pro-choice liberal, she frequently finds herself at odds with the left today because of what she calls its “malignant narcissism.”
I enjoy listening to Tammy’s show Saturday afternoons on Talk Radio 790 KABC and welcome her voice to the growing chorus of gay & lesbian bloggers challenging the left-wing orthodoxy which all too often defines our community.
I’ll be keeping an eye on her blog and encourage all GayPatriot readers to do the same.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Media Neglects Rita’s Gay Angle

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In an excellent column on media bias and the coverage of Katrina, Jonah Goldberg has also noticed bias in the coverage of Rita which even your humble blogger missed, but then again, so did the gay media:

The questions raised by unlovely Rita are as painful as they are obvious. Will gays stay behind in disproportionate numbers in this disproportionately gay city? If so, Why? If gay marriage were legalized, could some of this disaster be avoided? Would George W. Bush have responded more quickly if the victims were just a tad less stylish? And, of course: Will the federal government help keep Key West festive?
Why weren’t reporters standing at the ready to caterwaul about the wreckage at their feet? Cher albums and the collected writings of James Wolcott strewn about like beer cans and pizza boxes in an apartment yet to be transformed by the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Now, just read the whole thing for Jonah’s broader points on media coverage of Katrina.
HT: Polipundit’s Lorie Byrd
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Corporate America Improving Gay Equality

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Every year, the Human Rights Campaign (you know, that “bi-partisan” gay organization) issues a report card on corporate America’s treatment of their GLBT employees. The report ranks companies on seven criteria:
1. Include “sexual orientation” in the non-discrimination policy…
2. Include “gender identity and/or expression” in the non-discrimination policy…
3. Offer health insurance coverage to employees’ same-sex domestic partners company-wide…
4. Officially recognize and support a GLBT employee resource group…
5. Offer diversity training that includes sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the workplace…
6. Engage in respectful and appropriate marketing to the GLBT community…
7. Do NOT engage in corporate actions that undermine the goal of equal rights for GLBT people…
In 2005, 101 companies scored a perfect 100% on the index.
I am pleased to say, I work for one of those companies.
Full press release can be found here.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

A Warm Reception from Conservatives, a Colder One from the Gay Left

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I had intended to blog yesterday on a National Review fundraiser I attended Saturday night in Studio City, but decided to delay my post until after I had attended a gay party in the heart of West Hollywood later in the afternoon. And in contrasting my reception at these two gatherings, one where I was openly gay among conservative, the second where I was openly conservative among gays, I experienced nearly exactly the same thing I had when I attended two such events back to back last fall.
This time, however, I actually had a good discussion of gays and the GOP with one guy at the gay party. I had quite a blast at the NR shindig Saturday. The hostess (a former liberal and fan of the magazine) told me that she had never seen so many straight people at her place at one time. She regularly socializes with gay men. More evidence that conservatives are not so narrow as our critics (and some readers of this blog) claim.
I met a number of writers and editors whose columns (and Corner “chatter) I enjoy and got to talk to Peter Robinson, newly installed as a trustee of Dartmouth and author of the wonderful book, How Reagan Changed My Life (which I bought when I visited the Reagan library with Bruce). Jonah Goldberg was much taller than I imagined and most gregarious. A Lord of the Rings fan like me, he is, alas, not so keen (as I) on The Silmarillion.
Ramesh Ponnuru proved to be an excellent conversationalist, well-read and familiar with the details of legislation in this Congress (and past Congresses). K-Lo (i.e., Kathryn Jean Lopez), witty and smart, informed me that my Athena reads the Corner. And even though he once considered running for Mayor of New York, Rich Lowry looks like he’s still a student at America’s finest state university.
I introduced myself to each by indicating the blog (with which most were familiar). Kate O’Beirne was the only one who raised an eyebrow when I identified myself as gay. And that may have been because I reminded her of an exchange we had at the Cato Institute in the mid-90s (which she did not remember as well as I–if she remembered it all).
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Living Together In The Gay Household

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Another great gem from PrismWarden — Tell Me Lies And I’ll Love You Forever.

No matter what our disagreements, we are forced through various pressures to live in the same homosexual house, and we all have different ideas about how that house should be run. Studying this, I have come to a conclusion:
Gay conservatives are the parents, and gay liberals are the teenagers.

Nailed it!

The problem with the gay liberal mindset is that it is infested with a naïve idealism and penchant for wanting to see the world as how they wish it to be, not how it objectively is. The Democratic Party is their first true high school love, and like all true loves, the warts and faults have been smudged to a blurry shadow cast by their perceived Adonis.
Gay conservatives, on the other hand, are generally cynical adults. While some decry it as nothing more than jaded bitterness, cynicism is a characteristic wrought of experience and the wisdom that accompanies it. The Republican Party is not our true love, nor particularly a love. They are a friend we generally respect without feeling a need to be inexpressibly loyal to their every belief. We realize grown adults may reasonably disagree with one another without destroying a friendship and indignantly declaring, “You don’t love me!” before flouncing out of the room.

Please read the entire piece. PrismWarden gets to the heart of something I’ve been thinking a lot about since beginning this blog. Why are gay liberals so hateful toward gay conservatives?
The parent/kid relationship is a great way to explain it. Another way is that Gay Conservatives have figured out how to be gay within the American mainstream and even among those who tolerate but disapprove. Gay Liberals want to be there, but are too busy throwing stones and having temper tantrums and demanding instant and total gratification to figure out how to do it.
In short, Gay Liberals are jealous of Gay Conservatives. Discuss…
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

The Education of a Man who was Once “Nothing but Gay”

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In the comment section to my piece on Joe Solmonese’s liberalism, reader Mike alerted me to this excellent post by a new gay blogger.
Reflecting on a gay man who “seems to believe all homosexuals are liberal,” Prismwarden writes

Still, doesn’t he realize by assuming gays are liberal that he is unconsciously reinforcing the systematic social oppression of a world that pressures us to be liberal?! How insensitive and close-minded, no, how hateful to place those kinds of expectations on us.

Upset in November 2000 at the victory of George W. Bush, this open-minded man has since

aged beyond adolescent self-identity politics to the wider world of free-thinking adults. I am free of the shrieking homosexual activism and its filthy, grime-ridden claws of insecurity and self-loathing.

From a man who was once “nothing but gay,” he began to realize that “No shared sexual orientation could ever bind” him to the “twisted beliefs” of gay leftists who “hated too much and too easily.”
There is much to commend in this post and rather than rewrite it here, please read the whole thing and keep an eye on this blog!
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

BREAKING NEWS: Rev. “GodHatesFags” Phelps Picketing Rehnquist Funeral

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A quick-on-the-trigger GayPatriot reader got this shot of Rev. Fred Phelps (his website here) and his followers just finished picketing at the funeral of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in downtown Washington, DC.

They had set up camp between the offices of the Human Rights Campaign (at 17th & Rhode Island) and St. Matthews Cathedral where the funeral is taking place.
Our GP Correspondent reports:

They just packed up and left since the C-SPAN cameras were leaving, but they were there for a good two hours until the funeral got started. Not sure if you’ll be able to make out the second sign from the right, but it says “Thank God for Katrina.” Other signs not pictured included “Thank God for AIDS,” “Too late to pray,” and “God is America’s Terrorist.” That’s Phelps in the middle with the red, white and blue windbreaker and red cap.
They’re also dragging American flags all around on the ground and spitting on them.

What does all this hate actually accomplish? A lot of people in America need to ask themselves that question. There isn’t a lot of distance between the ignorant hatred expressed here, and those we see leveled against the American troops in harm’s way. Need I go on?
Oh yeah, Phelps is an avowed liberal Democrat.

In the 1980s, the Phelps family were strong political allies with then-senator Al Gore. The home of Fred Jr., Phelps’ eldest son, located in the Westboro compound, acted as Gore’s campaign quarters for one of his senate races, and the Westboro compound was host to a fundraiser. Numerous photos exist on the internet of Fred Phelps Jr. and his second wife, Betty Phelps-Schurle, posing with Al and Tipper Gore in Phelps Jr.’s home. Phelps also served as a Gore delegate on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988. (link with photos.)

Just to put hate in perspective.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

CO Gov. Bill Owen and Gay Leader Unite To Help Katrina Victims

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Thanks to GP Reader Jennifer for this very interesting story. Tim Gill, featured in the article, gives a TON of money to Log Cabin Republicans, Human Rights Campaign, and other gay rights organizations. He and Republican Governor Bill Owen stood side-by-side at a press conference this week to raise money for the hurricane victims.
Red Cross Collects $4 Million from Coloradans – 9news.com

Software pioneer Tim Gill and his Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado was one of the million-dollar donors. To encourage small donors, Gill is offering to match individual donations from Coloradans up to $250 dollars through September 25th.
Gov. Bill Owens (R – Colorado) urged Coloradoans to take advantage of the offer. “Today, we’re not Republicans or Democrats. We’re standing together, shoulder to shoulder, as Americans eager to help Americans in need.”

LINK HERE for the video of the press conference.
Thanks Jennifer!!
-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Sunday GP Mailbag

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I received this email on Saturday and was quite moved. When I was interviewed by the Philadelphia Gay News, the reporter asked me what kind of “mix” of readers/commenters the GayPatriot blog had. I responded that my sense was about 50% supportive/like-minded gays, 30% violently opposed/leftist gays, and 20% straight, conservative and curious about a gay Republican.
I’m not sure if this reader falls precisely into that last category. But one of the main reasons I kept this blog going was to reach out to straight conservatives to make them see that not everyone in the gay community thinks America is bad, is against capitalism, is anti-religion, and is supportive of pro-terrorist/anti-war groups.

I found your blog a few weeks back, and have added it to my list to read on a regular basis. I’ve found your writing to be precise and your opinions quite reasonable and fair, and usually pretty accurate as well. It’s always refreshing to see someone who can see the big picture.
As to myself, I’m a very straight man, with a wife and three kids. I’m also a life member of the Disabled American Veterans. I was an aircrewman in the US Navy, and have a little over 4,000 hours of Combat Aircrew time in P-3 Orions, and some hours in helos. But I digress.
My interest in the gay community has grown over the years because two of my shipmates were gay. They were fine men, with whom I spent many hours, both on missions, and just on liberty. They trusted me with their lives, and I trusted mine to them. Both loved life, and died far too early from HIV/AIDS. That was nearly 20 years ago, when so little was known about the disease and how to combat it. I think of them from time to time, and can still see their youthful faces, so full of life, with such good souls. I miss them, as I do other shipmates who died in service to their country, lost in their youth fulfilling a promise to the nation to be there if it called.
Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt, or maybe just waxing nostalgic for my own youth. Not that I’m old, mind you, just older (I turned 50 this past February). It might be that I was left behind to tell their stories. If so, I’m a poor choice for that. Perhaps though, I might yet give it a shot. We’ll see.
Anyway, enough rambling. I just wanted to say thanks for the work you are doing. It’s important to cut through the politics and the shrill voices of the victim-cults. We are all under attack by a cunning and devious enemy, who on one hand proclaims the moral rightousness of his cause, while his other is smeared with the blood of innocents. Folks who cry the loudest about oppression and the loss of “rights” haven’t a clue as to what life is like under the Taliban, which is where our enemies want to drag us.
You fellows get it. For that, you have my thanks and my respect. If you are ever up in Maine, feel free to drop by. I don’t have much, but what I have is there to share. I can only promise you a good cup of coffee, a good meal, and a warm welcome.

Thanks for the kind thoughts! But more importantly, thanks for your service and sacrifice to your nation. We are proud of you.
-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Republican Named to Head Leading Gay Organization

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Here is some very promising news in the “Maybe the Gay Community Is Seeing The Light” Department. Neil Giulano, the former mayor of Tempe, AZ, who also happens to be openly gay and Republican, was named earlier this week to be the President of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
Neil G. Giuliano Named GLAAD President – GLAAD.org
This is an important step as it appears to be the first time since the November 2004 election that a major gay organization is actually *taking action* to adapt to the reality of America’s perceptions about gay America. Rather than the useless platitudes and phony outreach promises coming from the Human Rights Campaign, and the outright aggression against the will of the people by the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force….

MATT FOREMAN: Well, fundamentally human rights should never be put up for a popular vote. Even today if we put the freedoms that we take for granted, like freedom of press or religion or speech, up to a popular vote, we would lose them in most of our states — maybe not most, but at least half of them.

GLAAD has actually done something.
Congratulations to Neil, who I have communicated with before wearing another hat, and perhaps we will have the chance to interview him here at GayPatriot in the coming weeks.
Related Story: Log Cabin Invades GLAAD – The Malconent
-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Is The Left Homophobic?

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Reasoned Audacity notes a “whisper” campaign among the Left targeting Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.
Who’s Homophobic Now? – Reasoned Audacity
As I’ve said many times on this blog… there isn’t a lot of distance between the Political Religious Right fanatics and the Secular Leftists/LibDem fanatics.
Now they both seem to use the label “gay” as a four letter word. Huh.
-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Acceptance Cannot Be Legislated

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Sadly, Dale Carpenter is right on the mark here with his column, Heart of Darkness. (Please read the whole thing!)

At the zoo, walking down the street, and in the mall, we held hands at several points (always at my date’s initiative). Each time we got nasty looks. We would pass someone, then I’d turn my head and see that they were looking back at us and whispering to each other. A few parents turned their children away from us, as if we were contagious, harmful on sight.
Sad as I was about that, I was mostly stunned. Though I knew things weren’t perfect here, I had not experienced anything like it in the five years I’d lived in Minneapolis. Had all this really happened in my cocoon of tolerance and acceptance, my liberal bastion? Had it been a fluke, an unlucky weekend of chance encounters with the only ignoramuses around?
The truth is, there’s a deep aversion to gay people that will not be eliminated by enlightened laws. It’s a gut-level disgust that defies rationalization, that resists education, that fears without thinking. The laws that rule our lives are not written on statute books; they are written on hearts. And the heart of this country, in the heart of this country, is still darker than many of us had hoped it would be by now.

While this is an unfortunate reality, it also shows how flawed the court-forced gay marriage strategy has been… and why it backfired at the polls when America’s voters have their say.
Until the Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin Republicans and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force wake up to this reality, and get out of their inside-the-urban-beltway mentality… their flawed strategy of forced acceptance will continue to fail.
It is hearts we need to change first, not laws. Otherwise all that will result is resentment.
-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Belated Portland, ME Pride Festival Report

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Loyal GP Reader Noah from Southern Maine helped staff the Log Cabin Republican booth during the Portland Pride Festival (June 16-18). He recounted the experience in a recent email to me.

I ended up being in the parade (again), and then it was time for the festival, which was indoors due to rainy weather. The festival went from 1pm to 5pm, and I staffed the Log Cabin table from 3-5. For the first two hours I was able to enjoy the festival, and occasionally I overheard people making comments about Log Cabin being there, ranging from neutral to negative.
I was actually approached by HRC (or rather, a cute boy hired by HRC), and I politely explained to him I felt the organization?s words and actions countered any claim they made about being bipartisan, and they weren?t getting anywhere with the *majority* party. But yes, I?d love a sticker, thanks! I wore the sticker sideways to make a pause sign, and when people asked why it was sideways (or upside-down, as one genius put it), I said it was because HRC wasn?t getting anywhere. (GP Ed. Note: LOL!)
Then it was time to staff the LCR table. Amazingly, only once was I compared to a Jewish Nazi. The new thing I heard, and this really bugs me, is ?You?re too young to be a Republican.? One person actually ripped off my Log Cabin sticker and ripped it up! Anyway, the whole point of the table was a postcard campaign for the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would overturn DADT. We collected about 250 postcards, most of which will go to my local rep, Tom Allen (D-ME).
All in all, it was pretty good. James [Dozier from LCR National] said it was better than a lot of other places he?d been too, where people had been more hostile. Maybe my grassroots campaign to educate gay Portland one bar buddy at a time has actually paid off!
And now I?m back in the regular world, fully recharged and ready to face another year of minority complex. Yay for gay!

Keep up the fight, Noah!
-Bruce (GayPatriot) — gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Fascism or freedom? Thoughts on anti-gay Christian groups’ corporate boycott demands

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Yesterday, Hugh Hewitt linked a piece in the LA Weekly on what that alternative newspaper calls a “New Blacklist” in which certain corporations have bowed “to anti-gay Christian groups’ boycott demands.” Social conservative groups have successfully lobbied several corporations not to buy ads on such TV shows as Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or in gay magazines and on gay web sites.
One thing which struck Hugh about that piece also struck me. Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the Annenberg School of Communication, called these groups’ actions a move toward “theocratic oligopoly,” part of a “drumbeat of religious fascism.”
I wonder if, five years ago, Mr. Kaplan said the same thing about the successful attempt by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and other activists to lobby companies not to buy ads on Dr. Laura’s television show.
If it’s part of a “drumbeat of religious fascism” for Christian groups to lobby corporations not to advertise on TV shows and in media they find offensive, then it would also be fascism (but of a different sort) for gay groups to similarly lobby. No one is forcing the private companies to listen to such groups. Corporate boards (and executives) respond to such lobbying based upon what they believe is in their best business interest.
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