Gay Rights Extremists Open Lobbying Front at U.N.

Get a load of this: "In a First, Gay Rights Are Pressed at the U.N.":

An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize pedophilia and other “deplorable acts.”

The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration “challenges existing human rights norms.”

The declaration, sponsored by France with broad support in Europe and Latin America, condemned human rights violations based on homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal declaration of human rights.

Anyone familiar with the workings of the U.N. recognizes that the protection of "rights" at that organization is nothing less than a despicable farce. The real purpose of this declaration is revealed further down in the piece:

Ms. Yade [the French state secretary for human rights] and the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, said at a news conference that they were “disappointed” that the United States failed to support the declaration. Human rights activists went further. “The Bush administration is trying to come up with Christmas presents for the religious right so it will be remembered,” said Scott Long, a director at Human Rights Watch.

There you have it. Gay rights activists hope to use this U.N. declaration as another wedge to break down traditional values and resitance to gay marriage rights in the U.S. federal system.

The Human Rights Campaign [HRC] has "the backstory" on the French sponsorship of the declaration at the U.N. Note, of course, that the HRC is the lead pressure group on the extremist left that's now raising an outcry over Barack Obama's selection of Pastor Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation.

The left's radical gay agenda is all coming together, as I've noted previously (see, "Gay Radicalism Key to Left's Agenda Under Obama"). The radical gay rights lobby is up in arms over Obama's sensitivity to the moderate middle of the American electorate. But they also know that Obama has pledged to restore American trust in and reliance on international institutions. So, by going to the U.N. and raising a big public relations battle on the issue, the episode represents a chance for homosexual activists to "multilateralize" the push for gay marriage rights, providing one more avenue for activists to intimidate cultural traditionalists.

Meanwhile, criminal states like Iran, which has been identified as among the leading violators of human rights by the U.S. State Department, get a blind eye from the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.

If this new declaration at the U.N. is to have any legitimacy, U.S. gay rights groups and Western NGOs should be protesting the refusal of a majority of the members states of the U.N. General Assemby, who refused to endorse the resolution, rather than the U.S., where gay Americans enjoy unpredented rights and liberties under American constitutional law.

Gay Marriage is Not a Civil Right

The debate on homosexual marriage continues to rage after the passage of California's Proposition 8 on Tuesday.

As we saw yesterday, gay rights activists have turned against black voters in the state, who voted in overwhelming numbers to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as that between one man and one woman. Well, it turns out that today's Los Angeles Times offers a look at black views on same-sex marriage, "For Many African Americans, It's Not a Civil Rights Issue":

For Trebor Healey, a 46-year-old gay man from Glendora, Tuesday's election was bittersweet.

He was thrilled that the nation elected its first African American president. But he was disappointed that black voters, traditionally among the most reliably liberal in the state, voted overwhelmingly to ban same-sex marriage.

He understands that there are differences between the civil rights battles of blacks and gays: For one thing, he notes, gay people have a much easier time blending in. Still, he says, he thinks it's sad that "people do not equate one civil rights struggle with another."

Many black voters didn't see it that way.

"I was born black. I can't change that," said Culver City resident Bilson Davis, 57, who voted for Proposition 8. "They weren't born gay; they chose it," he added ....

Los Angeles resident Christopher Hill, 50, said he was motivated by religion in supporting Proposition 8. Civil rights, he said, "are about getting a job, employment."

Gay marriage, he said, is not: "It's an abomination against God."

One of the common attacks on supporters of Prop 8 is that they're bigots, and folks on the left are incredulous that the same voters who supported Barack Obama could in turn reject homosexual marriage rights.

The truth is that if we recall the original foundation of marriage as a union of man and women for the central purpose of procreation, it makes sense that Yes on 8 supporters resist expanding a definition of rights to those who make a lifestyle choice.

Indeed, the effort to change the language of traditional civil rights to include gay marriage has been one of the most clever yet sinister elements of the same-sex marriage movement this last few years. Yet, as Eugene Rivers and Kenneth Johnson indicate, the equation of gay rights with the black feedom struggle - and the traditional civil rights agenda - is a fraud that cheapens the historic legacy for equal treatment under the law in the United States:

There is no evidence in the history and literature of the civil rights movement, or in its genesis in the struggle against slavery, to support the claim that the "gay rights" movement is in the tradition of the African-American struggle for civil rights ....

The extraordinary history of the United States as a slaveholding republic included the kidnapping and brutal transport of blacks from African shores, and the stripping of their language, identity, and culture in order to subjugate and exploit them. It also included the constitutional enshrining of these evils in the form of a Supreme Court decision--Dred Scott v. Sandford--denying to blacks any rights that whites must respect, and the establishment of Jim Crow and de jure racial discrimination after Dred Scott was overturned by a civil war and three historic constitutional amendments.

It is these basic facts that embarrass efforts to exploit the rhetoric of civil rights to advance the goals of generally privileged groups, however much they wish to depict themselves as victims. Whatever wrongs individuals have suffered because some Americans fail in the basic moral obligation to love the sinner, even while hating the sin, there has never been an effort to create a subordinate class subject to exploitation based on "sexual orientation."

It is precisely the indiscriminate promotion of various social groups' desires and preferences as "rights" that has drained the moral authority from the civil rights industry. Let us consider the question of rights. What makes a gay activist's aspiration to overturn thousands of years of universally recognized morality and practice a "right"? Why should an institution designed for the reproduction of civil society and the rearing of children in a moral environment in which their interests are given pride of place be refashioned to accommodate relationships integrated around intrinsically non-marital sexual conduct?

One must, in the current discussion, address directly the assertion of discrimination. The claim that the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman constitutes discrimination is based on a false analogy with statutory prohibitions on interracial marriages in many states through much of the 20th century. This alleged analogy collapses when one considers that skin pigmentation is utterly irrelevant to the procreative and unitive functions of marriage. Racial differences do not interfere with the ability of sexually complementary spouses to become "one-flesh," as the Book of Genesis puts it, by sexual intercourse that fulfills the behavioral conditions of procreation. As the law of marital consummation makes clear, and always has made clear, it is this bodily union that serves as the foundation of the profound sharing of life at every level--biological, emotional, dispositional, rational, and spiritual--that marriage is. This explains not only why marriage can only be between a man and a woman, but also why marriages cannot be between more than two people--despite the desire of "polyamorists" to have their sexual preferences and practices legally recognized and blessed.

Moreover, the analogy of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage disregards the whole point of those prohibitions, which was to maintain and advance a system of racial subordination and exploitation. It was to maintain a caste system in which one race was relegated to conditions of social and economic inferiority. The definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman does not establish a sexual caste system or relegate one sex to conditions of social and economic inferiority. It does, to be sure, deny the recognition as lawful "marriages" to some forms of sexual combining--including polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, and same-sex relationships. But there is nothing invidious or discriminatory about laws that decline to treat all sexual wants or proclivities as equal.

People are equal in worth and dignity, but sexual choices and lifestyles are not. That is why the law's refusal to license polygamous, polyamorous, and homosexual unions is entirely right and proper. In recognizing, favoring, and promoting traditional, monogamous marriage, the law does not violate the "rights" of people whose "lifestyle preferences" are denied the stamp of legal approval. Rather, it furthers and fosters the common good of civil society, and makes proper provision for the physical and moral protection and nurturing of children.

I have no illusions that such rigorous argumentation and logic will convince homosexual rights advocates that gays face no discimination on the question of marriage rights.

But as we can see, the homosexual movement is attempting to create a right to marriage that has no basis in historical practice, and such attempts trivialize the bloody march to equality Americans have endured and overcome.

This is a lesson gay activists should consider, for when 70 percent of blacks in California - the nation's most liberal, trend-setting state - oppose the demands of an extremely vocal radical minority, it's a pretty good indicator that the movement for same-sex marriage rights falls outside the bounds of both traditional law and universal morality.

Stop Shaming Me You Freak Homophobic Pink-Washers!

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so deeply troubling.

It turns out that the astonishingly stupid "queer" Muslim woman photographed at Toronto's homosexual parade picked up my post in a response to being called out for her sheer mendacity, not to mention disgusting anti-Semitism. This passage caught my eye:

Let me make this clear - my political views cannot fit on a sign, nor can my religious views. You want to talk about Muslim intolerance? Let’s do it. But don’t defend your support of Israel with “well, it’s the lesser evil.” And really, I’m not so sure about that. Despite Israel making an effort to advocate gay rights, they also take away the rights of Palestinians.

The woman's link goes to Sarah Schulman's op-ed from last year at the New York Times, "Israel and ‘Pinkwashing’." Remember Schulman's piece? I'm frankly perpetually astounded by the psychological contortions that progressives go though these days to uphold the mountains of ideological lies that are at base nothing more than the ideological program for the extermination of Israel. I've blogged about that many times, but the "pinkwashing" meme is so world-class stupid I think I just laughed at the time. But reading the Toronto "queer" Muslim's morally confused response, it's obvious that the left's progressive poison of anti-Semitism has twisted some minds beyond repair.

Here's the key absurdity at Schulman's piece:

The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation has named these tactics “pinkwashing”: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life. Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, argues that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.”

Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations. Homosexuality has been decriminalized in the West Bank since the 1950s, when anti-sodomy laws imposed under British colonial influence were removed from the Jordanian penal code, which Palestinians follow. More important is the emerging Palestinian gay movement with three major organizations: Aswat, Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. These groups are clear that the oppression of Palestinians crosses the boundary of sexuality; as Haneen Maikay, the director of Al Qaws, has said, “When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldier is.”

What makes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies so susceptible to pinkwashing — and its corollary, the tendency among some white gay people to privilege their racial and religious identity, a phenomenon the theorist Jasbir K. Puar has called “homonationalism” — is the emotional legacy of homophobia. Most gay people have experienced oppression in profound ways — in the family; in distorted representations in popular culture; in systematic legal inequality that has only just begun to relent. Increasing gay rights have caused some people of good will to mistakenly judge how advanced a country is by how it responds to homosexuality.

Now, check James Kirchick's response at The Tablet, "Sarah Schulman's Pinkwashing Op-Ed Is Nonsense":

While accusing the government of Israel and pro-Israel activists of deceiving well-intentioned progressives, Schulman and her ilk are in fact using the issue of gay rights to forward an ulterior agenda. So consumed are they by hatred of Israel that they are willing to distort the truth about the horrible repression of homosexuals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If there’s any cleaning of dirty laundry going on here, it is Schulman’s whitewashing the plight of Palestinian gays.

Schulman’s assertion that homosexuality has been effectively “decriminalized” in the Palestinian territories since the 1950s when Jordan revoked colonial-era sodomy laws, will come as cold comfort to the countless gay Palestinians who have fled to Israel after being tortured or receiving death threats by Hamas or Fatah agents. Schulman’s claim would certainly come as news to Maen Rashid Areikat, the PLO’s ambassador to Washington. When asked earlier this year if homosexuality would be tolerated in a future Palestinian state, Areikat replied, “This is an issue that’s beyond my [authority].” Hamas strategist Mahmoud Al-Zahar was blunter. In comments directed toward Westerners, Al-Zahar told Reuters last year that “You do not live like human beings. You do not (even) live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?” And whatever law might be on the Palestinian Authority books has yet to persuade the leaders of Aswat, a Palestinian lesbian organization, to relocate their headquarters to Ramallah from Haifa. By making the absurd claim that the issue of gay rights is being “manipulated” by the Israeli government, Schulman ends up making excuses for people who kill homosexuals.

Recognizing the enormous gap between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on their respective gay-rights records, critics of the Jewish state have gone to tremendous lengths to propagate a massive lie in order to win over Western progressives....

Introducing the term “pinkwashing” into the mainstream debate about the Arab-Israeli conflict is edifying in at least one respect: It lays bare the delusion, paranoia, and cynicism of the Jewish state’s most earnest detractors. In their minds, any positive statement made about the country is necessarily part of a propaganda campaign in the service of a far-right agenda. For an increasingly large swath of the international left, there really is no good Israel can do, short of disappear.

Word.

Sure makes the Toronto "queer" Muslim woman look even more dense --- and fundamentally wicked.

PREVIOUSLY: "Toronto's Homosexual Muslims Would Be Hanged in Tehran and Beheaded in Riyadh."

And keep in mind, this is exactly what the radical homosexual left is all about. Anti-Semitism, pedophilia, racism, and hatred for tradition, decency, and values. People of faith and decency should be appalled that the progressive left foists off these sick depredations as human rights. It's literally criminal.

Gay Activists Go Ballistic on Warren Invocation

Barack Obama has asked Pastor Rick Warren to deliver a religious invocation at the presidential inauguration. Perhaps this is an effort by Obama to "transcend partisanship" and end "the politics of division," or some other mushy sentiment to that effect.

I'm a little disappointed in Warren, actually. In the end Obama will satisfy the radical gay rights constituency by pushing all the big homosexual demands, eventually caving on gay marriage as well; in turn, getting chummy with folks like Warren won't help much on the conservative side, especially as Obama's administration proceeds to dismantle the right's substantial achievements on the pro-life agenda over the past three decades.

Already, as the Politico reports, gay rights groups are flipping their wigs over the announcement:

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to perform the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.

Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals’ staunch support for economic conservatism. But it’s his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday.

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle. Last summer gay groups complained, but were rebuffed by Obama, when an “ex-gay” singer led Obama’s rallies in South Carolina. And many were shocked last month when voters approved the California ban.

Folks should read some of the full responses themselves, for example, the Human Rights Campaign, which states:

Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.

There's lots more unhinged gay outrage at Memeorandum.

This is the next battle of the renewed culture war unleashed by Yes on 8 in California. Gay rights groups will not rest until they browbeat and intimidate all sides, ultimately forcing Obama to capitulate on homosexual marriage and God only knows what else.

I don't see the upside for anyone here, neither Obama in the short run nor Rick Warren altogether; but there's no doubt the gay-haters are thrilled by another chance to launch a new wave of intolerance against mainstream Americans.

Since When Did 'Homosexual' Become a Bad Word?

I blogged the gay marriage controversy for months following the passage of Proposition 8 last November. With the California Supreme Court's ruling last May, some activists argued for an appeal to the U.S Supreme Court (an unfavorable venue, given the Court's current conservative majority). And just this week gay rights activists submitted a ballot proposal to the Secretary of State's office. A group called "Love Honor Cherish" filed the measure, but other groups have argued that 2010 is too soon for a new gay marriage push. Some fear that a failed campaign could set back the cause.

Meanwhile, voters in Maine, Michigan, and Washington State will have a chance to vote on gay rights initiatives this fall, just one year after the contentious California gay marriage fight. In Maine, it turns out there's a big controversy over at a conservative advertisement that apparently changes an AP news headline to include "homosexual." According to AmericaBlog, "That headline only exists on anti-gay sites. It's not from the Associated Press." The orginal story is here, "Gay Rights Group: Maine Diocese Violating Tax Law. "

It's not immediately clear why the Yes on One campaign would alter the headline for the ad buy. Perhaps "Homosexual Advocacy Group" has more negative connotations than "Gay Right Group." No matter, the campaign should be criticized if they've dishonestly altered an AP report for political purposes.

Having said that, what's even more interesting is the reaction on the left. Darleen Click points us to a Feministing post on the controversy, which includes this blast of hatred:

Truly fighting for equal rights requires a social change and public pressure. Why did textbook companies begin to consciously include photos of students of color in their course materials after the civil rights movement? Because diversity--of ethnicity, of community, and of culture -is the norm, not the exception. The idea of an "other," of a "minority," or even the implication of a same-sex marriage being "non-traditional," alienates and isolates queer individuals and families worldwide.

Teach children about same-sex marriage in schools. Never refer to queer-identified individuals as "homosexuals." Treat churches who refuse to perform same-sex marriages like those who refuse to perform interracial marriages.

But if Maine's Question 1 is defeated, churches will remain the same, school curriculum will retain its heteronormativity, and "homosexuals" will still fear living openly. Maine conservatives have nothing to worry about.

Never refer to individuals as "homosexuals." But in fact, that's what they are. A look over at Wikipedia turns up this straightforward discussion:

Homosexuality is a sexual orientation. A homosexual person is sexually and romantically attracted to people of their own gender. Men who are attracted to other men are called "gay." Women who are attracted to other women can be called "gay" as well, but are usually called "lesbians". People who are attracted to men and women are called bisexual. Together homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people make up the "LGBT community." It is difficult to say how many people are homosexual. Homosexuality is known to exist in all cultures and countries, though some governments deny that homosexuality exists in their countries.

That's how I would explain what a "homosexual" is to my own kids. There's nothing discriminatory about it. Perhaps the Yes on One campaign sought to tap into "homosexual" as synonomous with "homo," which is an anti-gay slur. That said, the outrage among gay rights activists is even more cynically exploitative, and pushing "queer" as the acceptable postmodern terminology is bound to alienate traditional families. Certainly families in Maine have a right to be concerned that schools will ram down politically-correct notions of gay marriage as "normal" on children.

More honesty all around would be helpful. But if anything, this battle shows what the gay-rights ayatollahs are all about. Just like last year, anyone of traditional orientation is likely to face Stalinist show trials should they deviate from the radical left's "queer" rights agenda.

What a disgrace.

Supreme Court Justices View Homosexual Marriage with Doubt

Well, oral arguments aren't a particularly good predictor of how the Court will rule.

And Justice Anthony Kennedy's the flaming leftist who wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which many observers claimed foreshadowed a Court ruling establishing a right to same-sex nuptials.

So, while I take this with some skepticism, it's nevertheless pretty ticklish how the homosexual rights attorneys got all beat up during the arguments yesterday. It's good to keep the leftist ghouls guessing. They've been freakin' aggressive with entitlement this last few years. Damn.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Supreme Court weighs gay marriage; Justice Kennedy unexpectedly expresses doubt":

Gay rights lawyers went to the Supreme Court hoping to find a majority of justices ready to support a historic ruling that would declare same-sex couples had an equal right to marry nationwide.

Instead during Tuesday’s arguments, they heard words of hesitation that suggested the outcome is less certain than many expected.

The most important and surprising doubts came almost immediately from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who openly wondered whether the court should intervene in an institution so deeply rooted in history and religion.

The word that keeps coming back to me is millennia,” Kennedy said in the opening minutes of a 2 1/2-hour argument, prompting looks of concern from gay rights attorneys.

Kennedy’s apparent struggle over what is perhaps the court’s most important civil rights question in a generation was welcomed by state attorneys opposing gay marriage and by his four fellow conservative justices. They emphasized that marriage has been limited throughout American history to a man and a woman, and that the issue is better left to voters at the state level, rather than to federal judges.

Despite his comments, Kennedy — who will probably have the deciding vote — may still rule in favor of marriage rights for same-sex couples when the court announces its decision in June. Kennedy in the past had similarly voiced doubts during an argument, only to discard them when the time came to make a decision.

More important, Kennedy has written the court’s three important rulings in favor of gay rights, including an opinion two years ago that spoke glowingly of the “equal dignity” of same-sex couples who had married. It was that decision that led to a string of rulings by federal courts over the last year that invalidated states’ same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional.

To the relief of gay rights advocates, Kennedy later in Tuesday’s argument returned to some of his more familiar themes about equality and at one point chided a Michigan state lawyer for insisting that marriage was chiefly about biology and procreation, and not recognizing the dignity derived from being in a committed couple.

“Same-sex couples say, 'Of course, we understand the nobility and sacredness of the marriage. We know we can’t procreate, but we want the other attributes of it in order to show that we too have a dignity that can be fulfilled,’” Kennedy said.

With an estimated 250,000 children that are being raised by same-sex couples across the nation, Kennedy also questioned the harm same-sex marriage bans have on such families.

Kennedy’s colleagues seemed less ambivalent about the question before them.

The court’s four most conservative justices, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., left little doubt they would vote to uphold the state bans on same-sex marriage. Roberts said gay rights proponents were seeking to redefine marriage.

“You're not seeking to join the institution,” he told attorney Mary L. Bonauto, who is representing two Michigan nurses who have been unable to marry and jointly adopt the four abandoned foster children they are raising. “You're seeking to change what the institution is.”

Roberts also warned that a ruling from the high court at this time would prematurely shut down the national debate over the issue.

But Bonauto emphasized that the rights of gays and lesbians were being compromised in many states and that it was unfair to tell gay couples to “wait and see.”

The four liberal justices said they saw no valid legal justification to deny marriage to same-sex couples, questioning how such recognition would harm heterosexual marriage.

“We are not taking anyone’s liberty away” by allowing gay couples to marry, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

They attacked the argument that marriage is intended chiefly to encourage child-rearing, and noted that many heterosexual spouses do not have children and a growing number of same-sex couples do, either through adoption or surrogacy.


Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the court had repeatedly ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to marry, and he questioned whether “purely religious reasons” can justify a ban on same-sex marriage.

“There is one group of people whom [some states] won't open marriage to,” Breyer said. “So they have no possibility to participate in that fundamental liberty. That is people of the same sex who wish to marry. And so we ask, why? And the answer we get is, ‘Well, people have always done it.’ You know, you could have answered that one the same way we talk about racial segregation.”

More.

EHarmony Bullied to Offer Same-Sex Dating Services

If folks don't think that the gay marriage movement is about radically transforming America's traditional culture, think about the implications of EHarmony's decision to offer same-sex dating services to gays:

The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches.

EHarmony -- known for the mild-mannered television and radio advertisements by its founder, psychologist Neil Clark Warren -- not only must implement the new policy by March 31 but also must give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription.

Note that EHarmony broke no laws and decided to settle rather than face years of litigation from unruly same-sex activists that just gotta have it!

Robert Stacy McCain sent me the link to his artcle, "Gay Rights, Gay Rage," which is worth quoting at length, especially the notion on the left that there's a "right" to everything. Robert picks up on the theme in the wake of the No on H8 protests in Los Angeles following the passage of Proposition 8:

As the California activists spewed their fury -- allegedly vandalizing Mormon temples, making terroristic threats toward Catholics, and hurling racial epithets at African-Americans (who voted 3-to-1 in favor of Prop 8, according to exit polls) -- their vitriolic rage highlighted how the progressive rhetoric of "rights" undermines and destabilizes political consensus.

The late historian Christopher Lasch was the first to identify (and Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon later examined in depth) how "rights talk" insinuated itself into American culture as a dominant mode of political discourse in the decades following World War II. Because Americans are taught to think of "rights" as something sacred in our civic religion, those accused of violating "rights" are easily demonized, while those who advocate "rights" are sanctified.

Seizing on the triumphant narrative of the black civil-rights movement, liberals adopted the habit of framing political debates in terms of minority "rights" versus majority "discrimination." That this tactic involves a species of moral and emotional blackmail should be obvious. To disagree with a liberal, to oppose his latest policy proposal, is to invite comparisons to Bull Connor and Orval Faubus, so long as the liberal can make "rights" the basis of his argument. (Witness, for example, how Keith Olbermann addressed himself to Proposition 8 supporters, casting their position as morally equivalent to segregation and slavery.)

"Rights talk" allowed liberals a means of preemptively delegitimizing their opponents and thereby to avoid arguing about policy in terms of necessity, utility and efficacy. If all legal and political conflicts are about "rights," there is no need to argue about the specific consequences of laws and policies. Merely determine which side of the controversy represents "rights" and the debate ends there.

The gay rage in California can be traced directly to the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, which voided a Texas sodomy law because, as Justice Anthony Kennedy declared, "our laws and traditions in the past half century…show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex."

The Lawrence ruling was the culmination of what Justice Antonin Scalia called "a 17-year crusade" to overturn the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision (which had upheld Georgia's sodomy statute) and, as Scalia noted in his dissent, the Court's "emerging awareness" argument was a disingenuous way to avoid actually declaring a "fundamental right" to sodomy. The legal effect was the same, however, and Lawrence was repeatedly cited in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision five months later mandating the legalization of gay marriage in that state.

If homosexuality is a right, and denying legal recognition to same-sex marriage is a violation of that right, then the rage of gay activists against their opponents is entirely justified. Proposition 8 does not deny tolerance, safety and freedom to gays and lesbians, whose right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is as secure in California as anywhere in the world.

Tolerance, safety and freedom are not the same as equality, however, and equality is the freight that liberals seek to smuggle into arguments via "rights talk." Gay activists do not construe their "rights" in terms of liberty, but in terms of radical and absolute equality. They insist that same-sex relationships are identical to -- entirely analogous to and fungible with -- traditional marriage.

Common sense resists this assertion, perceiving something fundamentally false in the gay marriage argument. Yet it seems common-sense resistance can only be justified by resort to religious faith, through the understanding that men are "endowed by their Creator" with rights. Eliminate the Creator from discussion, and it becomes impossible to refute the activists' indignant demand for equality.

Gay Marriage Victories May Signal Larger Shift

Perhaps broader social acceptance of homosexuality is genuinely breaking through. The gay marriage movement saw some of its first state-level victories on Tuesday night. Progressive depravity is getting a pass at the polls.

At the Los Angeles Times:

Four years ago, opponents of gay marriage celebrated a winning streak, having persuaded California voters to end marriage rights for gays. If courts or legislatures bowed to the pro-marriage forces, the opposition figured it could just go to the ballot box to restore marriage bans.

But all that changed Tuesday, when gay marriage supporters succeeded in the four states where the question was on the ballot. Until then, voters had consistently opposed marriage rights, most recently in May in North Carolina.

The opposing sides differed on the significance, with Christian conservatives considering the election a blip and gay rights activists describing it as a monumental sea change. But the results emboldened activists to target other states for marriage rights and left their opponents reeling.

Gay rights activists singled out President Obama's change of heart in favor of same-sex marriage as a key ingredient in Tuesday's victories. Just four years ago, the sponsors of Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage made robocalls to California homes with a recording of Obama saying he opposed gay nuptials.

"His shift caused a lot of other politicians to feel free to change their positions as well and made it easier for African American churches to change their positions," said Jon W. Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization.

With election victories in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, gay rights activists said Wednesday that they would focus next on winning marriage rights both in the federal courts and in state legislatures, which could include states such as Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii and Illinois.

"When you have momentum on your side, it's the time to double down," said Chad Griffin, who launched the legal fight against Proposition 8. "That's exactly what we've got to do: We've got to take this momentum and move forward."

RELATED: "Bishop E.W. Jackson: ‘It Is Time For a Mass Exodus from the Democrat Party’."

BONUS: "Gay Marriage is Not a Civil Right."

Courts Granting Equality Between Same-Sex and Heterosexual Unions

If you read this piece at the Los Angeles Times carefully, you'll notice that gays are increasingly being afforded full family rights by the states (adoption, insurance, etc.) without changing the definition of marriage:

BUILDING MOMENTUM? Supporters of gay rights demonstrate in Philadelphia. Legal scholars expect several more states to legalize same-sex marriage this year.

When Maine's highest court ruled two years ago that lesbians Marilyn Kirby and Ann Courtney could adopt the two children they had cared for since 2001, the man who has led the state battle against gay marriage for 25 years got a glimpse of the defeat now looming.

"There's a sense people have -- a sense of inevitability -- and a tremendous sense of frustration because of the history of the gay rights fight in Maine," said Michael Heath, executive director of the Maine Family Policy Council.

He was referring to rights incrementally accorded to gay couples that have led to virtual equality between same-sex and heterosexual unions -- a significant trend occurring in Maine and other states where gay marriage remains banned, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

Those rights are expanding as legally married gay couples relocate to states that don't allow same-sex marriage, forcing courts, legislatures and employers to deal with the resulting issues of custody, divorce, inheritance and end-of-life decisions.

The adoption ruling in Maine had the effect of granting parental rights to same-sex couples. By the time the Legislature adjourns for the summer, experts expect Maine to become the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage -- 11 years after voters banned it.

In New York, which doesn't allow same-sex marriages but recognizes those conducted elsewhere, recent court decisions have granted a divorce to two gay men and surviving spouse benefits to another.

In California, federal judges have twice overruled decisions by the federal government to deny healthcare coverage to gay employees' legal spouses, teeing up a constitutional challenge to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids federal benefits for same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Massachusetts, which began the trend five years ago. (Iowa issued its first marriage licenses April 27, a few weeks after its Supreme Court gave approval; weddings in Vermont will begin in September.) Within a year, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York will probably follow suit, say sexual orientation scholars at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute; New Hampshire's Senate approved a same-sex marriage bill Wednesday.

And as more same-sex couples wed in places where it is legal, the administrative fallout in other states is expected to keep expanding.

There's a couple of things going on here: (1) Many courts and legislatures are moving to expand equal protections to same-sex couples short of legalizing gay marriage, but the article also shows, (2) how gay activists are playing up the "inevitability" angle for all it's worth. Actually, less than one-third of American nationally, and even fewer in recent Iowa polling, support full-blown same-sex marriage rights (supporting civil unions instead). So, gay radicals - seeking to change the definition of marriage even though states are expanding gay partnership rights - will continue to push in the courts and legislatures at the state level to create a jigsaw puzzle of conflicting laws and regulations, attempting to tie the federal system in knots.

Conservatives know exactly what's happening:

These are serious cases of widespread importance, where we see same-sex couples attempting to use the laws of another state to push their agenda in a state that does not recognize their union," said Jim Campbell, litigation counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization.

"This is a danger that will spread to all states but will not necessarily result in same-sex marriage in all states," Campbell said, noting that opponents will continue to press their elected officials to reject same-sex marriage initiatives.

Julaine Appling, executive director of Wisconsin Family Action, agrees, saying her group "has always taken the position that these kinds of decisions should be made in the Legislature, where they can be fully vetted and can have public opinion given."

Well, gay activists really don't want to have their views "fully vetted." The more we actually hear these people, the less inclined are we to support their case.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times, "Same-sex Marriages Gradually Gain Legal Ground."

Just 31 Percent Support Gay Marriage, Poll Finds

Just 31 percent of respondents supported "full marriage rights for same-sex couples," a new Newsweek poll has found.

The Newsweek survey finds across-the-board support for full civil equality for gay Americans, but on the key question of definining marriage as between one man and one women, the country is a long way from overturning what is seen by a majority as a divine union of spouses.

Here's the key question item:

Thinking again about legal rights for gay and lesbian couples, which of the following comes CLOSEST to your position on this issue? Do you support FULL marriage rights for same-sex couples, OR support civil unions or partnerships for same-sex couples, BUT NOT full marriage rights, OR do you oppose ANY legal recognition for same-sex couples?

For all Americans, 31 percent support gay marriage, 32 percent civil unions, and 30 percent want no legal protection for gay marriage or civil unions.

Newsweek's essay stresses the growing tolerance for homosexuals in society overall:

When voters in California, Florida and Arizona approved measures banning same-sex marriage last month, opponents lamented that the country appeared to be turning increasingly intolerant toward gay and lesbian rights. But the latest NEWSWEEK Poll finds growing public support for gay marriage and civil unions—and strong backing for the granting of certain rights associated with marriage, to same-sex couples.

But on the controversy over same-sex unions, it all depends on how question items are posed: When respondents were asked if they supported some kind of legally-sanctioned gay and lesbian partnerships, 55 percent agreed. But when questions are broken down precisely on the issue of traditional marriage, less than one-third support the traditional conception of marriage for homosexual couples.

On every other measure of civil equality for gay Americans, the public showed majority support - for example, on adoption and inheritance rights for gay or lesbian couples; Social Security benefits for same-sex domestic partners; health insurance and other employee benefits, hospital visitation rights, openly gay service in the military; equal protection in workplace hiring and promotion; equality in housing opportunity; and gays and lesbians should be allowed to teach elementary and high school children.

On all of these items, a majority of Americans support homosexual equality.

The most striking finding, however, is that a majority of 62 percent of Americans say religious beliefs are central to defining marriage, with a plurality of 41 percent of Americans seeing marriage as exclusively a religious matter.

This is why radical leftists attack Americans who are religious traditionalists as "Christianists."

For gay rights activists to achieve their goal of full marriage equality under the law, they must marginalize Americans of faith who reject a redefinition of culture away from traditional or scriptural foundations.

See more analysis of the gay marriage controversy here.

Unethical Professor? Just Get in Line With the Agenda!

After a while, when a conservative academic gets into debates with radical leftists, they'll soon have their credentials challenged. I wrote about this earlier: "You're a Professor, Really?"

The "I can't believe you're a professor" line is one of the best indicators of the intellectual intolerance of today's postmodernists: There is ONE WAY to view things, and if you're not down with it, you're excommunicated from what these people believe to be respectable company among the thinking elite.

You see this in the media a lot as well. For example, take a look at today's New York Times piece on gay rights, "Political Shifts on Gay Rights Lag Behind Culture" (via Memeorandum). The article is a commentary piece disguised as reporting (which should be no surprise to those familiar with the decline of the Old Gray Lady). Public opinion polls on gay marriage nationally belie the argument that politics is "behind" the culture (a socially licentious culture of anything-goes-sexual abandon). We also see these polling trends in states whose courts have legislated gay rights from the bench (just 26 percent in Iowa favored full-on same-sex marriage rights when that policy became law earlier this year). For an example of this cultural lie, check out Matthew Yglesias' post on the Times piece, "Culture, Politics, and Majoritarianism:

The underlying dynamic here illustrates why it’s always been a mistake to try to draw a contrast between gay rights groups’ efforts to secure equality through the courts and to secure equality through the political process.

Shorter Yglesias: The political process is illegitimate in the absence of toeing the hardline gay rights agenda.

As for the academic angle, I noticed the comments of "Dave the Longwinded" over at Brainrage:

You know, I'm a college instructor by trade, I'm registered as an Independent, and hold a slightly Libertarian bent. I would love to see how he responds to students who write work Don doesn't like from a political standpoint.

His language on his blog with respect to certain topics could be called borderline unethical for a college prof. If you disagree with gay rights/marriage, yay for you. But to use it as a slur against opponents would really make some of my superiors take notice in a way that Don wouldn't like. And some of them hold definite conservative leanings.

This is really interesting.

I've been blogging for over three years. I've been attacked every which way, from this side to Sunday. My information's all public. I'm ashamed of nothing. It turns out that "Dave the Longwinded" is Dave Jones of University of Evansville. He's posted a syllabus from a "critical thinking" class at his blog. I'm gathering that Professor Jones is a remedial instructor, for I don't see him listed at the university's English homepage. He may not even be teaching any more, since he suggests life in academe is a "trade," not that different from drywall contracting or plumbing.

Interestingly, some time back James "Barebacker" Webb went to RateMyProfessors to check me out. He must have been disappointed not to find comments attacking me as a "neocon" or a "racist homophobe." Indeed, as he noted at the time, "you seem to be a fairly amiable fellow ..." (and that's because I had yet to hammer him on his nihilist hypocrisy).

A check over at RateMyProfessors right now indicates no complaints over ideology or intolerance in the classroom. In fact, it's probably the other way around. Check out this May 25th comment from a former student of mine at my Facebook page:

I wish you came out with some of the information you blog on in your lectures ...

And that's the thing. My blog is separate from my lectures. I sometimes pull it up in class, for example, in my recent discussions on democracy I've played some of the videos from Iran's protests. (Seeing that violence, students are stunned by the disconnect between their liberty at home and the brutal authoritarianism abroad.) I will sometimes also point students to my blog to find my published essays or other important articles that relate to what we're doing.

But I don't indoctrinate. It's the leftist academics who are disgracefully guilty of hardline indoctrination. I discussed this in my essay at FrontPage Magazine, "Grading the One-Party Classroom."

This is what radical leftists do. And if you're not down with it, you'll be smeared as "unethical." You really shouldn't be inside a classroom!

Equal Footing? Same-Sex Marriage and the Civil Rights Legacy

I discussed California's same-sex marriage ruling in an earlier entry, "The Presidential Politics of Same-Sex Marriage."

The question of whether gays should be legally permitted to marry is far from resolved, and the California Supreme Court has done the country a service by placing a (really) hot-button social issue back on the political agenda.

I don't get too fired up about gay rights issues (gays should be able to serve openly in the armed services, for example). However, I do have a problem placing the quest for homosexual rights on an equal plane as the historic black American freedom struggle.

It turns out that California Chief Justice Ronald George is saying he was influenced in his legal thinking by Jim Crow segregation from the post-bellum South, via the Los Angeles Times:

In the days leading up to the California Supreme Court's historic same-sex marriage ruling Thursday, the decision "weighed most heavily" on Chief Justice Ronald M. George -- more so, he said, than any previous case in his nearly 17 years on the court.

The court was poised 4 to 3 not only to legalize same-sex marriage but also to extend to sexual orientation the same broad protections against bias previously saved for race, gender and religion. The decision went further than any other state high court's and would stun legal scholars, who have long characterized George and his court as cautious and middle of the road.

But as he read the legal arguments, the 68-year-old moderate Republican was drawn by memory to a long ago trip he made with his European immigrant parents through the American South. There, the signs warning "No Negro" or "No colored" left "quite an indelible impression on me," he recalled in a wide-ranging interview Friday.

"I think," he concluded, "there are times when doing the right thing means not playing it safe."

So, does "doing the right thing" mean that gay rights is the new social justice issue of the 2000s? Are gays that oppressed?

Here's this from the Weekly Standard in 2006:

THE MOVEMENT TO REDEFINE MARRIAGE to include same-sex unions has packaged its demands in the rhetoric and images of the civil rights movement. This strategy, though cynical, has enormous strategic utility. For what reasonable, fair-minded American could object to a movement that conjures up images of Martin Luther King Jr. and his fellows campaigners for racial justice facing down dogs and fire hoses? Who is prepared to risk being labeled a bigot for opposing same-sex marriage?

As an exercise in marketing and merchandising, this strategy is the most brilliant playing of the race card in recent memory. Not since the "poverty pimps" of 35 years ago, who leveraged the guilt and sense of fair play of the American public to hustle affirmative action set-asides, have we witnessed so brazen a misuse of African-American history for partisan purposes.

But the partisans of homosexual marriage have a problem. There is no evidence in the history and literature of the civil rights movement, or in its genesis in the struggle against slavery, to support the claim that the "gay rights" movement is in the tradition of the African-American struggle for civil rights. As the eminent historian Eugene D. Genovese observed more than 30 years ago, the black American experience as a function of slavery is unique and without analogue in the history of the United States. While other ethnic and social groups have experienced discrimination and hardship, none of their experiences compare with the physical and cultural brutality of slavery. It was in the crucible of the unique experience of slavery that the civil rights movement was born.

The extraordinary history of the United States as a slaveholding republic included the kidnapping and brutal transport of blacks from African shores, and the stripping of their language, identity, and culture in order to subjugate and exploit them. It also included the constitutional enshrining of these evils in the form of a Supreme Court decision--Dred Scott v. Sandford--denying to blacks any rights that whites must respect, and the establishment of Jim Crow and de jure racial discrimination after Dred Scott was overturned by a civil war and three historic constitutional amendments.

It is these basic facts that embarrass efforts to exploit the rhetoric of civil rights to advance the goals of generally privileged groups, however much they wish to depict themselves as victims. Whatever wrongs individuals have suffered because some Americans fail in the basic moral obligation to love the sinner, even while hating the sin, there has never been an effort to create a subordinate class subject to exploitation based on "sexual orientation."

It is precisely the indiscriminate promotion of various social groups' desires and preferences as "rights" that has drained the moral authority from the civil rights industry. Let us consider the question of rights. What makes a gay activist's aspiration to overturn thousands of years of universally recognized morality and practice a "right"? Why should an institution designed for the reproduction of civil society and the rearing of children in a moral environment in which their interests are given pride of place be refashioned to accommodate relationships integrated around intrinsically non-marital sexual conduct?

One must, in the current discussion, address directly the assertion of discrimination. The claim that the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman constitutes discrimination is based on a false analogy with statutory prohibitions on interracial marriages in many states through much of the 20th century. This alleged analogy collapses when one considers that skin pigmentation is utterly irrelevant to the procreative and unitive functions of marriage. Racial differences do not interfere with the ability of sexually complementary spouses to become "one-flesh," as the Book of Genesis puts it, by sexual intercourse that fulfills the behavioral conditions of procreation. As the law of marital consummation makes clear, and always has made clear, it is this bodily union that serves as the foundation of the profound sharing of life at every level--biological, emotional, dispositional, rational, and spiritual--that marriage is. This explains not only why marriage can only be between a man and a woman, but also why marriages cannot be between more than two people--despite the desire of "polyamorists" to have their sexual preferences and practices legally recognized and blessed.

Moreover, the analogy of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage disregards the whole point of those prohibitions, which was to maintain and advance a system of racial subordination and exploitation. It was to maintain a caste system in which one race was relegated to conditions of social and economic inferiority. The definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman does not establish a sexual caste system or relegate one sex to conditions of social and economic inferiority. It does, to be sure, deny the recognition as lawful "marriages" to some forms of sexual combining--including polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, and same-sex relationships. But there is nothing invidious or discriminatory about laws that decline to treat all sexual wants or proclivities as equal.

People are equal in worth and dignity, but sexual choices and lifestyles are not. That is why the law's refusal to license polygamous, polyamorous, and homosexual unions is entirely right and proper. In recognizing, favoring, and promoting traditional, monogamous marriage, the law does not violate the "rights" of people whose "lifestyle preferences" are denied the stamp of legal approval. Rather, it furthers and fosters the common good of civil society, and makes proper provision for the physical and moral protection and nurturing of children.

Well-intentioned liberals shudder upon hearing the word "discrimination." Its simple enunciation instills guilt and dulls their critical faculties. But once malcontented members of any group--however privileged--can simply invoke the term and launch their own personalized civil rights industry, the word has been emptied of its normative and historical content.

I doubt that's a message the major gay rights organizations are ready to embrace.

See more on this, at Memeorandum.

Gay Marriage Disinformation and Intimidation

There's a little debate online this afternoon over Mike Huckabee's appearance on Jon Stewart's show. Apparenlty, Stewart's a big liberal PC master, and he peppered Huck with the standard leftists questions and false equivalencies.

Think Progress has the video, but note this transcripted portion and the response:

Huckabee tried to insist that “60 percent of the American population” opposes gay marriage. Stewart interrupted him, calling it a “travesty” that gay Americans have to plead for their civil rights:

HUCKABEE: If the American people are not convinced that we should overturn the definition of marriage, then I would say that those who support the idea of same-sex marriage have a lot of work to do to convince the rest of us. And as I said, 60 percent of the American population has made the decision–

STEWART: You know, you talk about the pro-life movement [abortion] being one of the great shames of our nation. I think if you want number two, I think it’s that: It’s a travesty that people have forced someone who is gay to have to make their case that they deserve the same basic rights as someone else.

Watch the whole interview ....

It is true that 30 states have banned gay marriage. However, Huckabee — like other conservatives who make similar claims — is wrong to suggest that American public opinion is on his side. A recent poll found that a full 75 percent of Americans favor either gay marriage or civil unions, with nearly 50 percent favoring gay marriage itself. More importantly, the next generation is much more open to gay rights: According to CNN exit polls, an overwhelming majority — 67 percent — of 18-29 year-olds voted against stripping gay couples of their right to marry in California.

Note that Think Progress, to make its case, cites a bogus poll plus the views of young people, who are more liberal on the issue but don't vote in near the proportion to older and more conservative voters.

Just this week Newsweek published the results of its poll on gay marriage, and just 31 percent of those surveyed said they backed full-blown same-sex marriage rights. Huckabee's not only correct, but he's citing conservative estimates on support for traditional family structures.

But that doesn't matter to the radical leftists, who have launched a campaign of intimidation to overturn a decisive majority around the country in favor of retaining traditional heterosexual unions. As the New York Times reports today, in "Gay Marriage Ban Inspires New Wave of Activists," homosexual activists are launching anti-democratic campaigns seeking to browbeat and intimidate people over their agenda:

The ban [Prop 8], which passed with 52 percent of the vote, overturned a decision by the California Supreme Court in May legalizing same-sex marriage. The same court is currently considering a challenge to Proposition 8.

But many activists seem unwilling to wait for a legal solution and have planned a series of events to keep the issue in the public eye, including a nationwide candlelight vigil later this month, a Million Gay March in Washington next spring and continued protests at county clerks’ offices throughout California.

“We’re doing an end run around the mainstream organizations that run our causes,” said David Craig, a movie producer who is an organizer of Wednesday’s “call in gay” protest. “And the Internet has given us the tool to create these events.”

Recall that gay radicals frequently invoke the black civil rights movement in hopes of finding moral authority for their position. But blacks were disinfranchised prior to 1964 and 1965. They really were on the back of the bus.

Today, gay Americans enjoy full equal protection under the law (and recall that gay marriage is not considered as under the civil rights umbrella according to the federal Defense of Marriage Act). What they don't have - and they'll berate, lie, stomp, and whine until they get their way - is the right to impose their will on a majority of voters who have legitimately and peacefully sought to protect their interests through the ballot box.

Gay Marriage Activists Undermine Their Own Cause

There's a lot of interesting commentary tonight on the gay marriage debate.

Andrew Sullivan has new, windblown essay that is positively infuriating, frankly: "Modernity, Faith, And Marriage" (Pete Abel's got the link if you want it):

If conservatism is to recover as a force in the modern world, the theocons and Christianists have to understand that their concept of a unified polis with a telos guiding all of us to a theologically-understood social good is a non-starter. Modernity has smashed it into a million little pieces. Women will never return in their consciousness to the child-bearing subservience of the not-so-distant past. Gay people will never again internalize a sense of their own "objective disorder" to acquiesce to a civil regime where they are willingly second-class citizens. Straight men and women are never again going to avoid divorce to the degree our parents did. Nor are they going to have kids because contraception is illicit. The only way to force all these genies back into the bottle would require the kind of oppressive police state Rod would not want to live under.

"Rod" is Rod Dreher, to whom Sullivan is responding. I want to comment on Dreher's piece in a later post.

What I find interesting and problematic is Sullivan's declaration of the death of conservatism by nothing other than fiat: His argument is a sophisticated version of the temper tantrum-demonstrations we've seen following the passage of Proposition 8 on November 4th.

Sullivan's assumption, stated in his "never again" declamations, is that success of the gay marriage movement is inevitable. The position, of course, is not only intellectually dishonest, but is radical secular propaganda: This idea of a teleological endpoint, of course, is the universal good of God's grace over mankind. To argue that conservatives must abandon that is like saying that a heart must stop beating. Sullivan appeals to death, because he can't argue straight to existential values, for he reject morals if that suits his utility-maximizing purpose.

Sullivan also can't make up his mind, for example, where tonight he says:

I have nothing against the voluntary and peaceful activities of any religious group, and regard these organizations as some of the greatest strengths of America.

But recall what he said just the other day, of the Mormon Church, which provided financial backing for Proposition 8:

... when they use their money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then they have started a war.

Sullivan's a gasbag, frankly, and he's torn between sinister poles of outward belligerence and surreptitious persuasion.

I'll have more on this later, at least because of Sullivan's delusions of victory (recall that three states passed initiatives confirming marriage as between one man and one woman, so all this talk of inevitability is itself unhinged from fact).

In the meanwhile, readers should read this essay from Lucy Caldwell at the Harvard Crimson (alternative link here):

The push for same-sex marriage is a rally for additional rights. While this characterization of the movement strikes most gay rights activists as harsh, it is a useful distinction to be made when devising ways to advance the cause effectively. Yet gay rights advocates have not taken the appropriate cues from their defeats earlier this month, as reflected in their continued ignorance of their opponents’ thoughts and motives. They seem unable to face that democracy has spoken, and it has said “no” on same-sex marriage.

One major problem with the gay rights movement is that it simultaneously champions democratic government and rejects it. The movement views marriage as a civic institution rather than a religious one (this is one distinction between marriages and civil unions), but only so long as government functions from a pro-gay marriage position. Once the cogs of government have turned to an anti-gay marriage slant, gay rights activists cease to be tolerant of the democratic process. Cue the banners decrying opponents as hateful and intolerant. Is this unfortunate divide what activists seek? Certainly that sort of culture of separatist intolerance is what arises when advocates take this approach.

And it is this very same-marriage authoritarianism that dooms the movement for the near future (who knows what happens in the long term?).

Sullivan's already noted this, but he's now changing his tune, blowing off the movement's violence and intimidation as aberrations, as part of his cognitive dissonance.

I can't say I'm as optimistic as Ms. Caldwell, especially with an activist judiciary caving to the radical secular humanist agenda. But given the outrageous behavior of the gay marriage H8ers so far, there's certainly a strong possibility of a crushing implosion on the activist left.

Vladimir Luxuria, Italian Transgender Communist, Arrested in Sochi for Flaunting 'Gay is OK' Banner

Like Marx said, destroy the family, bring down bourgeois capitalism.

According to Wikipedia:

Luxuria was a Communist Refoundation Party member of the Italian parliament, belonging to Romano Prodi's L'Unione coalition. She was the first openly transgender member of Parliament in Europe, and the world's second openly transgender MP after New Zealander Georgina Beyer. She lost her seat in the election of April, 2008.

Although Luxuria lives exclusively as a female, she has not undergone sex change surgery remaining physically and legally male. She has stated on occasion that she perceives herself as neither male nor female.

That gives you a little background on this disgusting trans-derp. They're always so flame-boyantly in-your-face about everthing, sheesh. Yet another depraved Communist homosexual.

See the Wall Street Journal, "Italian Gay-Rights Group Says Activist Was Detained, Released in Sochi: Former Parliament Member Vladimir Luxuria Was Protesting Russia Law Banning Gay 'Propaganda'":

An Italian gay-rights association said Sunday that Vladimir Luxuria, a former Italian member of parliament who is a transgendered gay-rights activist, was detained but later released by police in Sochi after unfurling a banner that said "gay is okay."

Flavio Romani of Arcigay-Associazione LGBT said that in a phone conversation on Sunday, Luxuria told him she was being held at a detention center in or near Sochi. Romani later said that Luxuria had been freed with no charges. Sochi police couldn't be reached for comment. Luxuria didn't respond to requests for comment.

Luxuria, who is transgendered, stood outside the main spectator entrance to the Olympics this weekend clad in a skirt with gay-pride rainbow colors waiving a rainbow umbrella and fan. Russians who were on their way to Saturday's U.S.-Russia hockey game stopped to take pictures with her. A few Olympic volunteers huddled nearby watching the scene, but didn't ask Luxuria to leave.

"I have come here with a rainbow flag because a man named Vladimir Putin is homophobic," she said.

When approached by The Wall Street Journal outside the Olympic Park on Saturday, Luxuria said she felt she might be arrested under a controversial law signed last year banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations." The law mandates fines for speaking in defense of gay rights or saying gay relationships are equal to heterosexual ones in front of minors. Critics say the bill is written so broadly that it could be used to crack down on nearly any public expressions of support for gay rights.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in January that gays should feel welcome at the Olympics so long as they "leave the children in peace."

More from the New York Times, "Transgender Former Member of Italian Parliament Detained in Sochi."

And from the excitable hate-addled extremist John Aravosis, at AmericaFlog, "Russians 'brutally' arrest former Italian member of parliament at Sochi Olympics."

Yes, "brutally." But don't those brutes like it that way?

The Inevitability of Gay Marriage?

Well, the same-sex marriage debate's been heating up around the country. Chris Christie vetoed a gay marriage bill in New Jersey, Christine Gregoire signed same-sex marriage legislation in Washington, and the Maryland House of Delegates passed a gay marriage bill just yesterday.

I've been meaning to post on this. Last weekend, at the Los Angeles Times, Harvard Professor Michael Klarman argued that gay marriage is inevitable in the United States. Klarman makes two points: (1) that as more and more people come to know someone who is gay they are reluctant to deprive them of "rights" such as same-sex marriage and (2) that younger Americans are more tolerant of gay marriage and thus the younger demographic cohort will compose a larger, decisive share of the electorate as older, more conservative voters pass from the political scene.

The generational argument is one that's been made often in the last few years, with some proponents of gay marriage even counseling moderation in political fights since time is on the side of same-sex activists. And that may be true. My position is that gay marriage is not in fact a civil right but that if states wish to enact it then a federalist solution should be considered. (And I thought the David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch compromise offered in 2009 was excellent, "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage.")

But one of the things that bothers me even about promoting state-level votes to allow gay marriage is that the radical left gay rights lobby has worked aggressively and viciously to demonize and discredit the democratic process when it comes to same-sex rights. A small but extremely vocal minority has essentially flipped James Madison's fear of tyranny of the majority on its head: now an in-your-face totalitarian gay militia will attack, stalk, berate, threaten, and destroy opponents of same-sex marriage. In California, supporters of Proposition 8 were targeted for harassment and the progressives attacked the First Amendment rights of the Mormon Church, which had spent heavily in favor of the initiative. And when the case went to federal court, the trial became farce as the radical progressives turned the proceedings into a sham show trial. (See Michelle's report, "The anti-Prop. 8 mob strikes again.")

It's obvious that progressives are scared to death of legitimate debate on gay marriage. And after the normal moral arguments and bogus comparisons to the black civil rights struggle fail to sway voters, the left turns into a lynch mob to literally destroy the opposition. Here's the letter to the editor from reader Pat Murphy at the Los Angeles Times, in response to Professor Klarman's case for the inevitability of gay marriage:

Michael Klarman wants everyone to think there's widespread support for gay marriage. Then why have voters rejected it in every state where it has been on the ballot, including recently in Maine and twice in California?

"In the few states in which it is allowed, it was the result of backroom maneuvering — such as in Massachusetts, where the legislature won't allow its residents to vote on the issue, or California, where judicial fiat has now overturned two elections.

"Because the public won't cooperate, Klarman cites polls that suit his opinion that gay marriage is inevitable. This reflects a mind-set that shows contempt for the democratic process.

Exactly.

And in response Klarman fails back on the same tired comparisons between same-sex marriage and interracial marriage that even the majority of black voters have rejected. (See the New York Times report from earlier this week, for example, "Gay Marriage a Tough Sell with Blacks in Maryland.")

The gay marriage agenda is totalitarian. The left simply cannot tolerate differences of opinion on this issue, because time and again they've been on the losing side of the argument. The funny thing about is that in then end, the browbeating and bullying will carry the day. We may indeed see the gay marriage ayatollahs prevail since people of decency and morals don't like to be falsely attacked as "bigots" all day long, and many will simply decide that given the threats to their safety, it's just not worth it after a while. And make note of how it's not just the radical fringe who resorts to thuggery. Top Democrat Party appendages have propelled the progressive attack strategy to the front of the gay marriage push. The left's merciless attacks on Rick Santorum are are recent example. Here's this from the White House-aligned Think Progress last week, "Protesters Shout Down Santorum as He Speaks Against Marriage Equality in Washington State":

So, while it's not a pretty picture, that's likely where things stand. Unfortunately, I don't see as many conservatives really buckling down in defense of traditional marriage as is needed to carry the day. I see a lot of folks on the right just throwing up their hands in defeat, perhaps because of a libertarian bent or of a misplaced need to appear tolerant.

Gay marriage is not conservative. Folks who call themselves conservative should be manning the barricades against the left's freakish mob now raping the democracy like one more crime in the #OWS agenda. There's more on that at Soros-backed Think Progress, "Catching Up On the Current State Marriage Equality Efforts" (via Memeorandum).