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The meaning of Mike Gin’s election

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When I updated my post on Log Cabin member Mike Gin’s election as Mayor of Redondo Beach, I noted that I would have more to say on this as soon as my guests left town. Indeed, it seems that in my post on their visit, I expressed thoughts similar some of my thoughts on Mike’s election. Just like most people at Disneyland took my friends’ public display of their sexuality in stride, my sense is that most people in Redondo Beach took his sexuality in stride.
In a post on Mike’s election, BoifromTroy links to a column in the LATimes where Steve Lopez notes that when Mike campaigned for mayor, he listened to his would-be constituents and focused his campaign on items of concern to them such as “creative partnerships between the city and schools, public safety and well-managed growth.” The mayor-elect concluded that his election showed that his fellow citizens “judged me on my work and my service to the community and not on the basis of my sexual orientation.” He pointed out that his sexuality is “not the type of thing that I wear on my sleeve.”
This seems another sign of the basic tolerance of the American people. In urban and most suburban areas, most voters could care less about a candidate’s sexual orientation. They’re paying more attention to how the candidate addresses issues of concern to them. Since Mike focused his campaign on such issues, he won a big victory.
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Holding Hands in Disneyland

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While my French friend (whom I shall heretofore call “Pierre” though that is not his real name) came to visit me this past weekend, his boyfriend (also French whom I shall call “Jean-Paul” though that is not his real name) joined him. I had not previously met Jean-Paul. While it was tough accommodating guests in my small apartment, it was great having them here, not only for their company, but, well, when you have guests in LA, you do things that you keep promising yourself to do, but keep putting off because since you live in LA, it’s a hassle to get to Disneyland and it’ll still be there next week and the beach isn’t going away.
This weekend, I finally made it to Disneyland. While at this fun theme park, Jean-Paul and Pierre often walked (and conducted themselves) as lovers do, holding hands, walking with their arms around each other and even kissing in line.
It didn’t occur to me until we were in line at the Alice-in-Wonderland ride where most of the other people waiting were families with young children that, well, some people might not “approve” of such public displays of affection. But, no one said anything. One woman did roll her eyes and look away.
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Another leftist “defects”

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Dreams into Lightning, a great blog I have just discovered, links a thoughtful piece by Keith Thompson, a man who began his “activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy,” who backed George McGovern in 1972 and worked on the staff of then-U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-0H) on his estrangement from the left. Read the whole thing, then check out Dreams into Lightning.

AOL News, just as biased as the MSM?

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Today, when I logged to check my e-mail on AOL, I was met with a welcome screen bearing the “Top News” headline: British Lawmaker Blasts ‘Republican Lynch Mob.'” (Here’s a link to a similar article on Yahoo as not all readers can access AOL’s news page.) Yes, the headline was accurate. But, it accented the charges the “lawmaker” made against Republicans without addressing why he had been called to testify. Kind of like headlining a trial of a little-known murderer by identifying the criminal by his profession coupled with his worst insult of the prosecutor.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee, George Galloway, a Member of the British Parliament lashed out at Senators looking into the United Nations’ oil-for-food scandal where former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein paid off various international figures, including himself, “to reward them for their opposition to sanctions.” Galloway denied the accusations.
Both subcommittee chair Norm Coleman (R-MN) and ranking Democrat Carl Levin (D-MI) “questioned Galloway’s credibility.” The very Senator Levin who has often criticized the Bush Administration. No GOP partisan he. The headline only mentioned Galloway lambasting Republicans. It ignores the charges against him to focus on his attack on Republicans.
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Log Cabin Member elected Mayor of Redondo Beach

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Bridget Johnson just informed me that Log Cabin member Mike Gin has been elected Mayor of Redondo Beach, California. Congratulations, Mike!!
UPDATE (05-19-05; 6:17 PM PST): I will have more to say on this later (but am now entertaining guests from France and have little time to write), but encourage y’all to check out this article in the “LOS ANGELES TIMES.” Attempts to attack Mike for being gay backfired–indeed, they may well have increased his margin of victory.
My guess is that people looked at Mike’s record saw that in his two consecutive terms on City Council he had done a fine job. And they, like an increasing number of Americans, realize that a candidate’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with his ability to serve a city or indeed with his ability to serve a county, state or any other jurisdiction.

Light blogging with an eye on Newsweek

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I expect blogging to be light for the next few days as I’m off to classes and then will be entertaining some French friends for the balance of the week. As I am now busy polishing a paper on what I previously described as “perhaps the most touching scene in all Greek literature,” I will not be able to comment as much as I had hoped on the bad reporting at yet another outlet of the MSM.
But, other conservative bloggers have done a fine job covering Newsweek‘s woes. Over at Polipundit, Lorie notes that Newsweek is suffering “the consequences of trying too hard to make Bush (and America) look bad.” The magazine has admitted that “it erred in a May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.”
Glenn Reynolds weighs in here. Powerline has two posts: here and here. There’s good stuff on Roger Simon’s blog and at Captain’s Quarters. Michelle Malkin chimes in here and links to a number of bloggers who have further thoughts on the topic.
I was going to comment on this earlier today, but then, when perusing National Review Online came across Mr. Henricks’ piece on “sexual license” and well, his narrow-minded attitude toward gays got me thinking . . . .

The social conservative narrative on “homosexuals”

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In a piece posted Friday on National Review Online, the Family Research Council‘s Jayd Henricks finds it significant that “Homosexual groups frequently advertise pro-abortion events on their websites and publications, and abortion groups often support activities promoting homosexual causes.” I find it significant that he uses the word “homosexual” to describe gay men and lesbians. It shows that he sees us only in a sexual light. He can’t bring himself to understand that maybe gay men and lesbians seek some of the same things social conservatives seek, including long-term monogamous relationships. Only we seek such relationships with individuals of the same-sex while he (and most people) seek relationships with individuals of the opposite sex.
Henricks makes much of HRC‘s appointment of former EMILY’s List CEO Joe Solmonese as its new president as EMILY’s list, a PAC whose purpose is to elect (as he puts it) “women abortion advocates to public office.” He asks why this “unlikely coalition” between “a population that by definition does not procreate” and groups which advocate “the ‘right’ to end a pregnancy” came together. Without apparently talking to any “homosexuals,” Mr. Henricks answers his own question: “Homosexuals are often strong advocates of abortion not because they need access to it but because homosexual activists are driven by the same philosophy that drives abortion rights: sex without restrictions or consequences.” No wonder he has to call us homosexuals. He thinks the only thing driving us is the pursuit of sex.
Indeed, he believe it’s “critical to recognize the ideology of absolute sexual license that drives and unites abortion and same-sex-marriage advocates.” Whoah! Now, I have faulted same-sex-marraige advocates for not talking about marriage as most Americans talk about the institution, for failing to use “such words as ‘values,’ ‘commitment’ and ‘responsibility.’” I have said repeatedly that we need to talk about monogamy an essential aspect of marriage (here for example). But, when Mr. Henricks claims same-sex-marriage advocates favor “absolute sexual license,” he becomes like Frank Rich writing about conservatives, defining his ideological adversaries by the opinions and prejudices of his ideological allies.
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Gay-bashing in Europe’s most tolerant city

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When I first reported that “WASHINGTON BLADE” Executive Editor Chris Crain was bashed in Amsterdam, a number of readers commented that I had failed to indicate that the assailants were “Morroccan-looking.” One reader noted that the “Dutch problem with tolerance is not a Dutch problem…it is a Muslim problem.” It looks like he may be right.
Another reader just e-mailed me this article from the London Times which reports “a disturbing rise of gay-bashing, as conservative Islamic culture clashes with Dutch liberalism.” “[I]ncreasingly fearful of holding hands in public,” many gays are “moving to rural areas for safety.”
Even as such harassment increases, some, including a number of gay activists, dismiss the problem. The “TIMES” reports:

Gay campaigners are outraged that sensitivity about intolerance towards Muslims is blinding people to intolerance from Muslims. Scott Long, the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender programme at Human Rights Watch, the human rights group, caused outrage when he declared: “Gays often become the victims of this when immigrants retaliate for the inequalities they have to suffer.”
Mr Crain, who has been deluged with e-mails of support from Dutch citizens, thundered back: “Long’s ‘blame the society’ political correctness is a distraction from the very real cultural clashes happening in Holland and elsewhere.”

He’s right. We can’t excuse violent acts merely because they were perpetrated by minorities.

A pleasant Saturday, with an evening on the air

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What a difference a week makes. Last weekend may have been “emotionally trying,” but this weekend makes me feel glad to be alive, even though I woke with a headache (coffee and Excedrin helped ease the pain) and even though the format of this radio talk show I was on did not allow me to present my ideas as I would have liked. Still, I had fun on Harrison’s show.
I took the day pretty easily, reading for class, checking blogs, tidying up a bit, then went out to a late afternoon barbecue hosted by a new friend (a man I met when dining with a blog-reader) and his partner. The food was great and the conversation was just as good. And no one called me names when I came out as a Republican, even though the guests were (as far as I could tell) all gay.
I regretted that I had to leave early for my radio appearance. While I had known Harrison before, I was not familiar with his program. I had assumed it would be like some of the conservative talk shows (albeit with a different angle) I have listened to, where the host asks pointed questions and then allows the guest to reply. If he was like Sean Hannity, he would cut me off before I could make my case and then repeat his talking points. If he was like Larry Elder, he would let me have my say and then tear apart my arguments.
Harrison was different, more an entertainer with a left-wing (he might say “progressive”) edge than a conversationalist. (At least on the air.) Oftentimes he would interrupt me with some sound effect, usually the chimes of a cash register.
Because they had billed me as a Log Cabin Republican, assuming that a Log Cabin Republican was merely a Republican who happened to be gay, I was able to distinguish Log Cabin from rank-and-file gay Republicans, noting that despite Log Cabin’s failure to endorse the president, an overwhelmingly majority of gay & lesbian Republicans voted for Mr. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, in last fall’s election.
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GPW on the radio

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A liberal friend has invited me to appear on his radio show, Harrison on the Edge, tonight, SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2005 @ 8:15 PM on LA’s KTLK, AM 1150. Harrison’s a good guy and we have sparred before, so this should be a great show. Be sure to tune in.

The president’s failure to follow the Gipper’s vision of federalism

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My friend David Boaz has recently published an excellent piece on federalism where he contends that even though Republicans control both the White House and Congress, they

have forgotten their longstanding commitment to reduce federal power and intrusiveness and return many governmental functions to the states. Instead, they have taken to using their newfound power to impose their own ideas on the whole country.

David does an excellent job of outlining how present-day conservatives have ignored the Gipper’s commitment to federalism. I encourage you to read the whole thing. David sees this move away from federalism “most notoriously” in the proposal to amend the constitution to “ban gay marriage in all 50 states.” The president himself seems conflicted on the issue, at one time, backing this amendment, but later saying that civil unions “should be left up to the states”
I agree with the president on the latter point: let the states, through their elected legislatures and through the referendum process, decide on civil unions. We are already seeing a great variety of proposals to recognize gay unions from court-mandated marriage in Massachusetts, to the court-mandated legislative enactment of civil unions in Vermont, to legislative enactment (without judicial coercion) of civl unions in Connecticut and domestic partnerships in California. And now some conservatives in Oregon are considering “reciprocal benefits” for unmarried adults.
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Foreman’s blindness to the reality of the situation of gays in America in the wake of last November’s election

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In the wake of last fall’s election when no national gay group endorsed the victor of the presidential election, when voters in eleven states approved referenda defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, it would seem that gay leaders would be re-evaluating their organizations’ strategies. They would hold conferences to ask where they went wrong. Some leaders would resign, others would be fired. Fresh blood would be brought in. The new leaders would offer conciliatory gestures to the political party which strengthened its majority in our nation’s capital.
Yes, two gay leaders, GLAAD‘s John Garry and HRC‘s Cheryl Jacques have since left their jobs, but they left not because of policy differences, but for other reasons. It doesn’t seem that the elections of 2004 have changed anything for national gay organizations. Gay leaders continue to lash out at the president and the GOP. And they have not yet come up with a new strategy to present gay concerns to the American people.
Nothing manifests this more than NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman’s statement released this past week, included in the Task Force’s latest newsletter (which you can download here). He accuses those who say gay leaders need to take responsibility for last fall’s defeats as having a “blame-the-victim mentality.” Mr. Foreman got it exactly wrong. They’re not blaming the victim; they’re criticizing the strategy.
As Another Gay Republican put it so eloquently in his comment to my first post on Foreman’s letter, “Our political strategies, with minor exception, have failed spectacularly, and to say that we shouldn’t be re-evaluating those strategies and looking for ways to convice people of the rightness or morality of our cause seems outright stupid.” Exactly. Since initiatives that gay leaders opposed passed in a number of states last fall, those whom Mr. Foreman mocks are saying that gay leaders need to find new means to make their case.
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CBS News pulls a Michael Moore

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Democrats and their allies in the MSM are so eager for the minority party to keep filibustering the president’s judicial nominees that they have even misrepresented the views of a conservative jurist. Once again, CBS News is deceiving its viewers, using the filmmaking techniques of Michael Moore to edit its segment on judicial filibusters.
In the segment which aired Monday night, CBS made it appear that former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr was faulting the GOP’s effort to end the filibuster when he said, “This is a radical, radical departure from our history and from our traditions, and it amounts to an assault on the judicial branch of government.” But, in fact, Judge Starr said that he had addressed that comment “specifcially . . . to the practice of invoking judicial philosophy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience.” In other words, he was speaking out against the Democrats’ opposition to the presidents’ judicial appointees and not against Republican attempts to end the Democrats’ filibuster of them.
It doesn’t look like things have changed much at CBS since Dan Rather stepped down as anchor.
Hat tip: Powerline and Polipundit, both of whom believe that CBS should release the unedited video of the entire interview with Judge Starr. I agree.
Other bloggers weigh in here, here and here.
UPDATE: While Mickey Kaus is not so sure that CBS distorted Judge Starr’s remarks, Patterico disagrees. JustOneMinute offers his thoughts here. Hat tip (for the update): Instapundit.

Senate Democrats–the real extremists on judicial nominations

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In a post today on Powerline, Paul shoots down the Democratic argument that the reason the minority party has filibustered so many of the president’s judicial picks is due to the “president’s uncompromising approach to his appointments,” that they are blocking the confirmation only of “extremist” nominees. He noted that the president renominated two judges appointed by President Clinton (Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker) who had not been confirmed by the Republican Senate in that Democrat’s second term. And while Democrats joined Senate Republicans in confirming these appointees, they, from the first days of the Bush Administration, blocked many conservative appointees.
I can’t remember any of the first President Bush’s nominees whom President Clinton renominated when he took office in 1993. That’s because there were none. The current President Bush was the first president in history to re-nominate “a failed circuit-court nominee originally nominated by his predecessor from the other political party.” After a divisive election, he renominated those two Clinton appointees as an olive branch to Democrats.
But, as Bradford A. Berenson in a post on National Review’s new Bench Memos blog who writes

The Democrats took the olive branch the president extended and slapped him in the face with it. They immediately held hearings for, and confirmed, the two Democrats among the nominees and then held up the rest, refusing even to hold hearings for a long time on most of them. They then complained incessantly (and, for the most part, falsely) about not having been adequately consulted by the White House with regard to these nominations. And they executed the play suggested by Professor Tribe, Marcia Greenberger, and others at a Democratic strategy session on how to block Bush judicial nominations — a session held before the president had even taken office — when they scheduled hearings under Senator Schumer to try to legitimize the notion that judicial nominations could be blocked on ideological, rather than competence grounds.

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The burden NGLTF doesn’t want and the moral values it ignores

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Because I once (as a favor to a friend) attended a fundraiser for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), I now regularly receive their e-mails. (If NGLTF is like HRC, they would consider me a member.) Yesterday, NGLTF sent out a Statement from its Executive Director, Matt Foreman (which appears in their Winter/Spring 2005 newsletter which you can download here).
What struck me about Foreman’s statement was not merely his angry tone, but also his claim that “it is not our job or burden to show straight people that we can be good neighbors, good parents, that gee whiz, we’re people too.” (The text in the newsletter differs slightly from that in the e-mail; I’m quoting from the newsletter.) He does want us to talk to straight people, but he seems to think that the burden of changing minds should fall onto sympathetic straights.
I disagree. It is very much our job to show straight people what kind of people we are. For one of the few times in history, gay and lesbian people are moving from the margins of society into the mainstream of society. And many well-meaning straight people don’t know yet what to make of us.
As we move into the mainstream, we must confront stereotypes which are usually wrong and often ugly. When I was involved in the Arlington (Virginia) GOP, I frequently encountered Republicans who claimed never to have talked to a gay person before. Many were surprised to learn that I sought the same things in life that they did, including a long-term monogamous relationship with one person.
Perhaps, it is too burdensome to Mr. Foreman, but the only way we can change the negative anti-gay attitudes is to make it our burden to show straight people that, by most measures, our lives are pretty much the same as theirs. If Mr. Foreman is loath to work to change societal attitudes towards gay people, what is he doing heading a gay advocacy organization?
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Of Comments and civility

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Because I’ve been a little under the weather today (suffering from a “summer cold”), I did not check the blog as often as I normally do. When I did check it this afternoon, I found, amidst the usual banter and sharp-tongued exchanges in the comments section, a number (of comments) containing sexual references. Because I welcome open debate, a free exchange of ideas, I am reluctant to delete comments, but realized that, for the sake of the blog, I needed to do so today.
Nearly all of those who comment, including some of my most severe critics, do not make such references and do not make ad hominem attacks. Thank you for keeping the debate civil. But, I ask those of you who have made sexual references in the past to please desist from doing so in the future. And to refrain from attacking others who comment. Not only do I have the power to delete comments, I also have the power to ban people from commenting. This blog has only banned one person because he repeatedly attacked others who comment. I hope I do not have to do so again.
A number of teenagers read this blog, some straight, others struggling with their sexual identity. Consider when you post, how your words will appear to that individual still shaping in his mind an image of gays. And consider as well the numerous straight conservatives who check this blog from time to time. Some of your comments might reinforce stereotypes they may have about gay people.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

As allegations mount, Spokane Mayor takes leave

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With new allegations surfacing that he offered jobs to young men he met in Internet chat rooms, Spokane Mayor Jim West announced yesterday that “he is taking a leave from office to give himself a few weeks to gather his thoughts and prepare a defense against ‘false accusations leveled against me.”
The FBI is now investigating “allegations that Spokane Mayor Jim West abused his office by offering jobs to young men he hoped to entice into sexual relationships.” The Spokane City Attorney is also investigating “West’s internship program and his use of city computers for personal business.”
West has asked that people reserve judgment on him until (as he puts it) “the newspaper is done persecuting me” and after he has had “the fair opportunity to respond to each of the allegations.”
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