Take Mitch McConnell with you

Please oh please let Mike Huckabee's follow through on the threat he made on a radio station Tuesday, where he criticized the GOP for not fighting hard enough against gay marriage, and potentially giving up on the issue.

If the the Republicans want to lose guys like me and a whole bunch of still God-fearing, Bible-believing people, go ahead and just abdicate on this issue and while you're at it, go ahead and say abortion doesn't matter either. At that point, you lose me. I'll become an independent. I'll start finding people that have guts to stand.

Does he mean it? If so, not only would the Republicans lose a major social conservative leader, but he could potentially siphon off a large portion of similar party members. Imagine that, we could potentially have Republican leaders who focus on economic issues and don't get bogged down holding back science and human rights.

Who knows, some of them might even try to cut spending, instead of merely cutting taxes. 

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Three cheers for Terry Gross

I'm usually not a fan of NPR's Terry Gross, I don't care for fawning interviews with left-wing blind sculptors, but I have to give her props for today's interview with Hillary Clinton where Gross would not let her swamp the interview with hollow chatter and platitudes.

Gross wanted to get the truth out of Clinton for why it took so long for her to publicly support gay marriage. Did she change her opinion recently, or keep her opinion to herself until it was politically feasible to come out as a gay marriage supporter.

I listened to Clinton's response twice and read through a transcript and I'm still not sure what she was saying. The jackals at one-eyed watchdog Media Matters tried to come to her rescue, but all they did was illustrate how muddled her respond was.

It's clear that shoveling horsecrap at a question until it goes away is just watch Hillary does.



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A real example of a religious freedom violation

Despite being a godless heathen, one of my friends is a pastor in the United Church of Christ. He passed along this link about his denomination's new lawsuit against the state of North Carolina.

Often when someone claims their religious freedoms are being violated I find it a bit of a stretch. This one is a home-run.

Under Amendment One, which passed in late 2012, it is a crime in the State of North Carolina for clergy to officiate a marriage ceremony without determining whether the couple involved has a valid marriage license. United Church of Christ ministers, interested in conducting a religious marriage ceremony for same-gender couples, could face up to 120 days of jail and/or probation and community service if found guilty, since North Carolina marriage laws define and regulate marriage as being between only a man and a woman. As lead plaintiff in this lawsuit against the State, the United Church of Christ asserts that these laws are unconstitutional and violate clergy's First Amendment rights.

Not only does the state not recognize gay marriages as a social contract, they also have made it a crime for a church to have a spiritual ceremony that doesn't claim to be legally binding? That's foul.

Good luck UCC, this is a clear case of a violation of religious freedom.

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No more blacklists

This weekend I saw Ender's Game in a theater. I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't heard so many shallow protesters rallying against it.

The skinny is the book is based on a novel written by Orson Scott Card, who is an opponent of gay marriage. While that element makes no appearance in his work, lefties have been leading unsuccessful boycotts of anything vaguely related to him for years.

Which makes simply watching this movie a political act.

While I've been a firm defender of gay marriage for more than a decade, I am opposed to blacklisting art because of the personal beliefs of the creator, such as the ban on Wagner's music in Israel.

Now personally I won't watch a Roman Polanski film or listen to a Chris Brown song. I thought the University of Southern Maine was correct to pull an art show painted by a cop killer. So what's the difference? For one, those are actual illegal actions committed by people, not ideas. At this time, about 40 percent of Americans are opposed to gay marriage and while I reject their reasoning, I find it absurd to treat each and every one of them as history's greatest monster.

Meanwhile, as much as I loathe Marxism, I've never boycotted a movie because an actor in it supports socialism. If I did, I'd have very few movies I could see.

These boycotts of Card's work are a disproportionate response to a common view that is on it's way out. It is troubling that there is more organized opposition to card's film than there is to the ongoing work of an escaped child rapist.

These protests both drew my attention towards the Ender's Game movie and made it into a sort of forbidden fruit. I doubt I would have bothered to see it otherwise.
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A law can be bad without being unconstitutional

I've been reading through the different Supreme Court rulings handed out this month and there's one ongoing discomfort I can't shake. As our judicial branch weighs the legality of various laws, the only attention seems to be on the merits of the laws, not the constitutionality of the laws.

That is exactly backwards. For example, I oppose the Defense of Marriage Act, but I am still agnostic if the Supreme Court was justified in declaring it unconstitutional. Many of the arguments written by Justice Anthony Kennedy focus on human dignity, such as how DOMA stigmatizes gay couples and humiliates their children. His stance depends on a broad reading of the fifth amendment that the government can not deprive a person of liberty without due process of law.

So does that mean not allowing gay couples to marry deprives them of liberty? If so, wouldn't banning gambling be another example of depriving someone of liberty? Wouldn't banning large sodas sales? Yes, I would like that broad interpretation, but it seems grossly inconsistent.

I have failed to find the complete text written by Kennedy, or Antonin Scalia's dissent so I can't take a firm stance, but there is one thing Reason.com had that I do find intriguing:

As [libertarian political scientist Stephen] Macedo put it, “When conservatives like Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights.” 

The controversy over DOMA rests on a very similar philosophical split. According to Justice Kennedy, “though Congress has great authority to design laws to fit its own conception of sound national policy, it cannot deny the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” According to Justice Scalia, “even setting aside traditional moral disapproval of same-sex marriage (or indeed same-sex sex), there are many perfectly valid—indeed, downright boring—justifying rationales for this legislation.” 

A sea of individual rights or a sea of government powers? Kennedy chose the former, Scalia endorsed the latter.

I'm going to wait and see what the substance of the arguments turn out to be. While I'm glad DOMA is out and the federal government is respecting states rights in the form of gay marriage, I also know that that's not the point. The Supreme Court can only tell us if a law is forbidden, not if it is wise.

Update: They are contained in one document here, thanks Mario:

Also, I have been pondering, if one believes the fifth bans the federal ban on gay marriage, why doesn't it legalize gay marriage nationally?
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Liberal cannibalism

If you lock enough liberals in a room together they will start to eat each other.

Last week everyone on Facebook changed their profile to a red box with a pink equals sign to show their support for gay marriage. Everyone but some rather bitter far-left extremists and me - I reject lazy activism and want to be in my profile pictures.

It turns out the Human Rights Campaign gay rights advocacy group changed their color scheme for this issue and the pro-gay critics of the group are fuming that they are getting so much attention.

My amigo Abner calls this "political hipsterism," where someone feels the need to be a contrarian out of emotional needs to be different and feel superior, but I have a different explanation. Look at this Not Even Joking HuffPo piece from Derrick Clifton:

The HRC has appeared more concerned with praising corporations and financial institutions that continue to oppress the poor and play reverse Robin Hood to screw many folks (LGBT* included) out of homes and livelihoods. 

The HRC has yet to make a strong, substantive appeal on youth homelessness, which disproportionately impacts LGBT communities. 

The HRC has a long history of throwing trans* people under the bus. Many folks still remember them dropping the "T" while attempting to push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act through Congress in 2007... and it still failed to capture enough votes to pass in the Senate and become law. They've since reverted to supporting a trans-inclusive bill, yet many still feel the sting. 

The HRC has tokenized and otherwise has given lip service to issues pertaining to LGBT communities of color. Racial justice (or even an allusion to it) isn't even listed on their website's "issues" tab as part of a broader strategy. And dare we not address how that functions from within, given the racism many people experience in LGBT* spaces and forums. Yet the HRC has thrown almost the full weight of their strategy, fundraising moolah and public platform on the issue of marriage equality. And they've done it for a while now.

Let's take these points head on:

To justify his corporatism accusation Clifton links to a moronic anarchist blog that is upset that the Human Rights Campaign gave Goldman Sachs a “Workplace Equality Innovation Award” when they should be smashing the state, d00d. Good grief, I'm all for criticizing Goldman Sachs for its role in the financial crisis but these knuckleheads live in a Thomas Nash cartoon and swing wild. If a major company has pro-gay policies one would hope a gay rights organization would give them credit for it without worrying what mouth-breathing Marxists will say.

As for transgenderism being thrown under the bus, good. I want gay rights organizations to stop mixing that issue in like gay rights and transgender acceptance are inseparable. I don't have time to do the issue justice here but transgenderism is a mental delusion, possibly a neurological disorder, and it shouldn't be treated as a normal human variation. It's the most popular in a growing list of mental problems that have activists support groups attempting to normalize them, ahead of Body Identity Integrity Disorder and people who hear nonexistent voices.

I'll tackle the youth homelessness and gay racial minorities questions together. The Human Rights Campaign is focused on gay marriage and it can't do everything at once. It makes perfect sense for the organization to try to accomplish a few goals instead of failing to do many.

I'm reminded of last month's stories about a Brown University workshop sponsored by an off-campus group titled Protect Me From What I Want that aimed to keep gays from being attracted to whites and other privileged groups. The event description included:

We are invested in generating a politics of sexuality that compels us to interrogate beauty as privilege and constructed by systems of white supremacy, ableism, capitalism, and heteronormativity...

There they go again, throwing anti-capitalist smoke signals around nonsensically, which is not much of a departure from Clifton's piece.

The anti-Human Rights Campaign stance reminds me of Arnold Kling's brilliant Three Axes political reduction: Progressives see every issue along the axis of the oppressed versus oppressors, so critics like Clifton will shoehorn this issue into that conflict because they don't know any other way to look at it. Privileged gays must be keeping transgendered folk down.

I've long said that the American left is a series of warring camps, each one fighting to say they have it worse. What we are witnessing is the unhinging of jaws as liberals attempt to eat each other.
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Principals over personal interest

Jonathan Chait penned a great piece on what he calls a moral failing of U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, for the reason he switched sides on gay marriage.

Clearly, Chait isn't upset that Portman now supports gay marriage. He's critical that Portman was unable to emphasize with gays until his own son came out as gay.

Here's the money quote at the end:

That Portman turns out to have a gay son is convenient for the gay-rights cause. But why should any of us come away from his conversion trusting that Portman is thinking on any issue about what’s good for all of us, rather than what’s good for himself and the people he knows?

Well said. I'm glad Portman came around, but I wish he had done so from an unbiased perspective.
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Greed can lead to tolerance

My Mom is a casual opponent of gay marriage. She doesn't wish violence on gay people or go on angry tirades about them, but she doesn't accept them as equals.

So imagine my surprise when she showed me a photo of one of the properties she owns and is trying to rent out. She placed a big rainbow flag over the front door.

"I'm hoping some gay guys will rent it and take care of the place," she told me.

I realize this is based on a stereotype which is often wrong. I realize she isn't doing this because her views have changed, But for what it's worth, I think it's wonderful that the quest for profits can motivate people to be kind to someone they otherwise wouldn't.
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Why I support states rights

With President Barack Obama planning to crack down on the recent state-level marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington, I find it's a good time to go over why I support state rights.

There's a knee-jerk reaction from the left to say that states rights are some kind of secret code word for racism, as if no one could ever support states rights for legitimate reasons. Here's what I mean when I say I support them.

States give us the opportunity to provide experiments. As potential laboratories of democracy, we can test a new policy or program on the state level and if it turns out poorly, it won't harm the rest of the nation.

It also allows progress to take place sooner in certain regions. Take gay marriage for example. Massachusetts legalized it in 2004. If we only had the option of legalizing it on the national level, we probably wouldn't have it yet and we would have to wait until an overwhelming majority of states both approves of it and is willing to push it forward.

However, what about states like Mississippi, which would probably block gay marriage on the state level until the other 49 legalize it? Because some states get it earlier, and some get it later, doesn't it average out?

No. National gay marriage would not kick in the moment a mere majority of states approve of it, it would take an overwhelming majority.

What's more, the gay couple in Mississippi has the option to move to Massachusetts instead of waiting for it to become legal in the south. Moving can be expensive and difficult, so not everyone will get to take advantage of it. Still, some people would. Without states rights, none of those couples would even have the option.

This possible exodus of residents who "vote with their feet" would exhibit pressure on Mississippi to catch up sooner.

What's interesting is that gay marriage is the only issue President Obama has stated he is in favor of on the state level and not through the federal government. However, this is transparently a cop-out and should not be mistaken for his real position. He just wanted to tell voters he supports gay marriage, but isn't willing to do anything about it. If he wanted to promote states rights for gay marriage, he would help the federal government recognize those marriages on the federal level and give those couples more legal rights.

But with marijuana legalization, it looks like the president will be trampling on states rights. As Penn Gillette famously said, the same president who goes on talk shows to brag about his own drug use is now doing everything in his power to ruin the lives of other people who use the same drugs. Forget about states rights, what about human rights?
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Gay marriage in Maine

While I will be voting in Massachusetts to legalize medical marijuana and doctor assisted suicide on Tuesday, my former neighbors in Maine have a vote to legalize gay marriage.

I understand some people think of this as redefining marriage. I think that is correct to an extent and it's also why we need to pass this law. Everything I wrote about this issue back in 2009 is true today when it was last on the ballot.

I confess to suspecting a lot of things about homosexuality, but only knowing two of them for sure: Gays exist, and they are not going to go away. 

With those two points in mind, we need to make sure our laws coincide with reality. Right now in Maine there are thousands of romance stories between people of the same gender that will be here on Nov. 4 no matter what the outcome.

Our current views of marriage are outdated and passing Question 1 will give them a needed update.
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Which one is not in the spirit of free speech?

An interesting story concerning free speech from public figures came out this week that reminded me of my posts on platform yanking, the idea of combating speech one disagrees with by removing the speakers platform, instead of by using more speech.

This is not outright censorship and any systematic manner of blocking platform yanking would violate free speech rights. Instead, I argue platform yanking is not in the spirit of free speech, just as voting to switch to a dictatorship is not in the spirit of democracy.

Here's the basics of the story, see if you can see which person used his free speech to assault the idea of free speech:

1) Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo donated two tickets to the season opener to a raffle to raise money for gay marriage legalization and made his support public.

2) Democratic elected official Emmett C. Burns, Jr. didn't like what Ayanbadejo had to say and wrote a letter to the owner of the Ravens requesting he thwart Ayanbadejo from using his celebrity status to promote gay marriage legalization.

3)Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe didn't like what Burns had to say and wrote a critical letter that was printed online.

People, one of these things is not like the others.

I don't think I could craft a better example to defend my hard-sell idea of platform yanking. Look at the cast of characters: Ayanbadejo was just another guy standing up for what he believes in. Kluwe was too and it makes no difference that his letter was vulgar.

Burns, on the other hand, sweet lord. With free speech, if he thinks a player is saying something wrong he has every right to ask a third party to take away the target's ability to communicate his ideas. However, in doing so he reveals contempt for the free exchange of ideas. His request was not in the spirit of free speech, even if it's not a technical violation.

Such requests are no different than threatening a boycott on a talk show host's sponsors, as was the original example of platform yanking. To argue otherwise is like saying Ayanbadejo, Kluwe and Burns are all equal in free speech purity.
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A better mayoral letter to Chick-Fil-A

I've been surprised by the lack of nuance among my fellow gay marriage supporters. Many fellow supporters of gay rights have been applauding a notorious letter Boston Mayor Tom Menino send to Dan Cathy, president of the Chick-Fil-A fried chicken franchise, who recently revealed that he opposes gay marriage.

In his letter Menino wrote he had heard Cathy was looking to expand into Boston and added "There is no place for discrimination on Boston's Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it." He told the Boston Herald “If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult — unless they open up their policies.”

What Menino was threatening to do is illegal. Public officials do not have the ability to cast out businesses or residents merely because of political views they hold. This is hostility to the rule of law and while I can understand applauding the mayor for standing up for gay rights, I am sickened to see support for his thuggish boasts. This is the left-wing equivalent of the 2010 "Ground Zero Mosque" debacle.

 Menino has since taken back his threats, but he wouldn't have had to if he'd written a more thoughtful letter. This is what that letter should have said.

To Dan Cathy,

I recently became aware that you are a vocal critic of gay marriage, but also have an interest in opening a location in our fair city of Boston.

As you are probably aware, Boston is the capital of the first state to legalize gay marriage. I speak for the majority of our residents when I say we are proud of our support for equal marriages rights. I was so moved by the issue that I personally stood at City Hall Plaza to greet loving couples as they came here to be married on that historic day.

Despite our differences in opinion, I want to assure you that as a public official I will do everything my office requires to clear the way to our open, tolerant city should you decide to come here. If you file the correct paperwork and meet all of our rules and regulations, I will not allow any arbitrary roadblocks to stand in your way. If you open a Boston location, our police officers will protect your business just like any other one. You will be treated with the dignity and respect all members of our community deserve by the city government.

However, as a private citizen I will oppose you in thought, word and action. I will not patronize your restaurant on any occasion, and I will urge any neighbor looking for a quick fried chicken meal to choose Kentucky Fried Chicken instead. If there are demonstrations outside the store, I may pick up a sign denouncing you and what you stand for. If anyone asks for my personal opinion, I will proudly say I hope no one buys a single nugget from you. That is my right as an American.

Rest assured, if you choose to come to Boston you will be greeted with tolerance. However, if it's acceptance you seek, you won't find it within city limits.

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Maybe it's good the rich have more political power

Whenever the mournful dirges start about the supposed death of American democracy and how the rich have too much power, I've never stopped and asked if that's always a bad thing.

This morning a book review from Tyler Cowen stirred an idea that will bring me blank stares and quiet frowns from my friends, but it's still important to ask. Do we really want the poor to have more political power?

The argument that the rich have too much influence over legislation is usually constrained to the realm economic issues, and it props up the myth that richer Americans on average pay a smaller percentage of their income in in federal income taxes as a result of their political influence. What about other issues?

Cowen references his mood affiliation fallacy concept, which means mistakenly rejecting an idea because it criticizes something you think deserves a better reputation. He wrote:

I would be falling prey to the fallacy of mood affiliation if I simply assumed the author wanted policy to be more responsive to the wishes of the poor and middle class. Still I can ask whether this would be a desirable end. Aren’t they less educated and less well-informed on average? Don’t they also care about politics less and derive less of their status from political processes and outcomes? Do I want them to have a greater say over social issues, including gay marriage? No.

We know that education correlates with both higher incomes and higher support for gay marriage, so that issue could regress under power redistribution. Cowen also listed contradictory wishes from the uneducated, such as wanting tariffs and cheaper goods. These are impossible and more power from uneducated voters would hurt the poor.

Matthew Yglesias made a similar point:

Needless to say, the disproportionate influence of the rich on the political system is also troubling from an accountability perspective. It suggests that elected officials will be more responsive to the objective needs of the prosperous at the expense of those whose objective needs are more pressing. But pining for a world in which policy outputs precisely reflect the views of the public is neither here nor there in terms of obtaining a better political system.

No one wants a system where the poor have no political power. However, believing that giving more political power to the poor will produce benefits universally is flawed and reads like a chapter out of The Myth of the Rational Voter. The average American leftist would have a tougher time passing the social issues he or she cares about if the poor had a larger platform and voted more


This should be uncomfortable idea for anyone who believes in representative government.
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What's next, Mr. President?

I've been mulling over President Barack Obama's recent announcement that he will not deport young illegal immigrants who meet certain positive qualifications. This is an important issue and I don't want to put this breezily.

I think he's both power-hungry and condescending to voters.

He's power hungry because he is willing to set horrible precedents to get what he wants. I want to end immigration restrictions and I think the country is better off keeping those young people here, but I can't support cheating to make that happen. It's no different then last year when he said the Justice Department wouldn't defend the awful Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Are we to believe that presidents deserve the ability to arbitrarily declare which laws they will and will not enforce? What happens if a future president instructs the EPA to stop enforcing certain environmental laws with no checks and balances? This is bad news, even if one is on the same side of this issue.

The is another cheap gimmick like last month's attempt to energize voters with a transparent election year conversation. In May he said he now supports gay marriage, but can't be bothered to do anything about it. Who didn't read that as an attempt to win votes and shift attention away from his broken promises to fix the economy? The O-man clearly doesn't think much of the intelligence of Americans.

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The stealth queer tax

In a popular post Wednesday, I wrote about President Barack Obama's new position in support of gay marriage and I touched upon his uncharacteristic state's rights position, where he said this is merely a personal position and he wants the issue to be decided in each state, not federally.

This is incredibly suspicious and points towards the "election year conversion" being motivated by politics. In effect, he's saying he won't actually do anything for gay marriage, but he'll give it a thumbs up from the tarmac.

That view was echoed yesterday during several interviews I conducted with women in gay marriages.

I avoid blogging about an issue I've written about in the newsroom in a nod towards impartiality, but I had already posted my blog entry when I was assigned the story. I spoke to a lawyer who was instrumental in legalizing gay marriage in Massachusetts. She said she welcomes the presidents support, but added it doesn't change any laws. After that, I found a woman who married her partner in 2004 and she taught me something important.

No states have gay marriage so far. Not really.

The couple is legally married in Massachusetts, but they have to file their federal taxes separately and pay more because federally, their marriage isn't legal. The couple is covered under a private health insurance plan through work, but because of the federal denial of gay marriage, they have to pay a special tax on the insurance that no straight couple has to pay.

Yet, they had to pay the same fee for their marriage license. Clearly, they are still not treated the same under the law.

I support state's rights, and my position on them is not "constantly evolving." What we are seeing here is really a lack of state's rights.

We will eventually get gay marriage in every state. By deciding it state by state, we already have it in some places, and the holdout states like Mississippi will have to come around eventually. Deciding it federally is an all-or-nothing position and we wouldn't have any gay marriages so far if we depended on it.

That being said, the federal government is assaulting states' abilities to govern themselves with the awful Defense of Marriage Act. In another weird position, the president has said his administration will not work to overturn DOMA, but will not defend it in court. This is not a legitimate way to treat any legislation, good or bad. If the president really believes states should decide for themselves, he should enable them to by working to overturn DOMA. This would actually defend marriages like those of the gay people I spoke to.


What this situation amounts to is a stealth queer tax, and unlike most things, taxing being gay won't make it smaller.
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The president ruined my favorite talking point

The good news is President Obama announced today he has reversed one of his views and now supports gay marriage.

The bad news is I just lost my favorite talking point.

People fall into three major camps on this one: People who believe this is an honest change in position, people who think he's been a closeted supporter the whole time and is just now coming out and those who think this is a cheap political stunt and his opinion hasn't changed.

I'm not sure which one is correct, but I'm leaning towards "cheap political stunt." This is an election year, and while the president has a lead in polls over Mitt Romney, his failure to live up to his 2008 campaign promises has left a lot of supporters unhappy and this change in position could get them excited again.

That is, until they read the fine print. President Obama has uncharacteristically taken a "states rights" position and wants state to decide for themselves instead of using federal involvement. This is incredibly suspicious and points towards the "election year conversion" being motivated by politics. In effect, he's saying he won't actually do anything for gay marriage, but he'll give it a thumbs up from the tarmac.

In the past few years his position on gay marriage has been weird. After saying he believes marriage is between a man and a woman because of his religious upbringing, he tried to make the case for civil unions in hopes that would satisfy pro-gay voters. He's been walking around with a straight face ever since claiming his position is constantly evolving. I don't think he's capable of making a statement on this issue that doesn't try to appeal to both sides.

It's possible that he really did change his mind and saw this as a good time to share it. Even if he is timing this for political reasons, that doesn't prove he's being insincere about supporting gays. Regardless, I'm glad to see he's now publicly supporting a position I've held for years.

As for people who think the president has always supported gay marriage in secret and is just now coming clean, why would you ever support him?

They are saying President Obama felt deep in his heart that two adults in love shouldn't be kept apart over  words written in ancient texts, but was willing to turn his back on those people for political gain. They think he was willing to play a bigot to win votes, even while inside his heart he knew it was wrong. That is to say, they think Barack Obama is our generation's George Wallace.

I've been critical of the president before, but that is a bigger insult to his character than I have ever made.
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Why I tolerate homophobes

Nick, the Narrator in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, opened the book with this unforgettable remark:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had."

Just as Nick couldn't let go of that advice, I too have kept it in mind over the years, especially when I encounter people who are intolerant of gays.

I grew up in the 1990's when it was still acceptable to say "fag" in casual conversation. It wasn't out of malice; it's something we said without a second though. There wasn't something evil or sinister about my generation, or those that came before us. It's just how things were when we grew up.

Until middle school I was opposed to gays in purely hypothetical terms, since I hadn't met anyone who was openly gay. It was a combination of watching The Kids in the Hall episodes over and over and realizing I was on the same side of an issue as the Ku Klux Klan that caused me to abandon my position and accept gays.

Opposing gays was the default position when I was growing up. That's not the case any more and the younger generations have done a great job of being open and accepting. However, if they had been born in the 1970's or 1980's, a lot of those individuals would have been on the other side.

Some young people today still grow up in communities that treat gays cruelly. However, I feel the proper way to deal with these unfortunate people is with understanding, not hate. The way some social conservatives talks about gays is truly awful and I would never defend their statements.

But at the same time, I am not as willing to condemn the person along with the statements. A lot of those people didn't have the same advantages when they grew up, and their contempt for gays is a product of their upbringing and lack of exposure to critical thinking.

For example, the working title for the Beastie Boy's amazing album License to Ill was "Don't Be A Faggot." That was 1986, and the group has rewritten a lot of their own lyrics since then as they started to "get it."

Just like the Beastie Boys, I was born at a time where I got to be on both sides of the gay rights cause. I had an unthinking aversion to gays as a child and was the token straight guy at my first college's gay-straight alliance. We are all products of our environments.

Earlier tonight I was listening to a pop-rock YouTube play list and came across this song high school student Jarrod Matthew sang to what appears to be a far-away romance. He changed some of the lyrics to be about Sunny, his beloved. It is absolutely sweet, endearing and heartwarming.



When I realized that Sunny was a boy, it didn't change a thing about how this video made me feel. It was no less tender or romantic.

Yet, I know there are people* out there who would have shut it off the second they realized what was happening. I don't want to sound condescending, but how can you feel anything but pity for people who can't take joy in witnessing beautiful acts like this because they were brought up intolerant?

As Nick's father said, whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.

*Granted, few of them would want to listen to a Hellogoodbye cover song.
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I'm glad this gay rights video went viral

About a year ago I criticized a video praising a teacher who punished a student for calmly expressing his rejection of gay rights during a class discussion. The video went viral as a celebration of gay rights, but I found it was unworthy as it championed an attack on free speech, no matter how well-intended.

Yesterday a friend posted a video titled "Zach Wahls Speaks About Family" where an accomplished college student from Iowa talks about his success after being raised by two women before the state legislature on a gay marriage vote.

I'm happy to say that the video has since gone viral, despite being available online since February.



Wahls defended the structure of his family and argued something I've only heard one place before, that gay marriage already exists, the legislation is just to get the government to admit it's there.

He said:

My family really isn’t so different from yours. After all, your family doesn’t derive its sense of worth from being told by the state: “You’re married. Congratulations.” No.

The sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other. To work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That’s what makes a family.

So what you’re voting here isn’t to change us. It’s not to change our families, it’s to change how the law views us; how the law treats us.

Two years ago I wrote on this blog:

With those two points in mind, we need to make sure our laws coincide with reality. Right now in Maine there are thousands of romance stories between people of the same gender that will be here on Nov. 4 no matter what the outcome.

In social circles, gay marriage already exists in Maine - it just hasn't been legally certified... The only difference is Augusta currently doesn't admit these romances exist, and the legal rights and responsibilities that come with marriage are not automatically included.

Congratulations to Mr. Wahls. His important message deserves to be heard by as many people as possible, and I'm glad to see that it's spreading. This is exactly the sort of message that should spread.
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A Target for extortion

The Target stores versus gay rights groups issue has been stirred up again recently when Target filed a lawsuit against Canvass for a Cause to allegedly stop the group from harassing customers on store property.

I try to give me friends on the left the benefit of the doubt when I can, and that's why this issue has me so flabbergasted. What happened is the Target corporation, which has it's headquarters in Minneapolis, gave $150,000 to MN Forward, a political action committee that funnels campaign money to politicians with a pro-business agenda.

One of those candidates was Tom Emmer, a Republican candidate for governor who supports positions that favor large businesses. He also is against gay marriage, and that's why all the ignorance spilled out last July.

Gay activists said they couldn't understand why Target, a company that voluntarily gives marriage benefits to same-sex partners of employees and sponsors gay pride events and gay workplace advancement groups, would turn around and give money to thwarting gay marriage. They seemed absolutely baffled, and that's why the protest signs and the boycott threats came so fast and furiously.

It seemed to never occur to anyone that the Target corporation had no interest in gay marriage, and instead, instead gave money to a group it believed would aid their bottom line and unfortunately, that usually overlaps with anti-gay sentiments. If the politicians who support gay marriage didn't have such a bitter anti-corporate agenda then no doubt Target would have given them money as well.

But gay rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign pretended not to notice and as the AP reported, tried to use the protests and boycotts to extort money from Target, promising to call them off if Target gave them $150,000 to match what they gave MN Forward. Target wasn't the only corporation they were trying to hit up either:

The group is also demanding donation from electronics retailer Best Buy Co., which gave $100,000 to the same group backing Emmer.

So the only way to satisfy the protesters would be to pay them off or pony up an equal amount of money for pro-gay candidates - candidates that companies feels specifically work against their business interests.

Target CEO Gregg Steinhafe even released a statement identifying Target's voluntary support for gay rights and that it gave to MN Forward to support the bottom line. It should never have needed to explain this - it was transparently obvious from the get-go. I suspect that progressives aren't as dense as they're letting on and are just pretending to not understand this simple concept.

The left seems to be saying that we should all be single-issue voters on gay rights issues, and there is no justification for supporting any candidate who works against it. They are usually better at remembering that a corporation's goal is to make money and increase profits - they usually complain about that idea, but in this case they seem to have forgotten and instead believe the Target corporation is willing to sink valuable money on a social issue that will not benefit the bottom line.

The protesters have treated this issue superficially. They've never even scratched the surface or made any effort to understand this issue. Shame on gay rights groups for their political opportunism here and attempts to extort money.

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The superficial nature of video game protests

When Microsoft put the download-only Shadow Complex on sale this week for a mere $10, it renewed my amusement in a politically-motivated boycott of the game.

The reason for the boycott is a little drawn out. Shadow Complex takes place in the same world as Orson Scott Card's Empire novel. Besides being a sci-fi author, Card is also a vocal opponent of gay marriage. While Card was not directly involved in the development of the game and his unwelcome message is not included in the game, he did receive royalties from Epic Games.

While the Shadow Complex boycott failed to make a significant impact, it's mean-spiritedness and feigned outrage is reminiscent of the campaigns to scare away the advertisers of radio hosts Glenn Beck and Don Imus. The difference is the Shadow Complex protesters sound like they would indeed like to play the game, while the anti-radio protesters don't actually listen to those programs.

Other superficial video game protests included a push to not release Devil May Cry 4 on the Xbox 360 and a general whine-in that Left 4 Dead 2 came out too quickly after the first title.

When did gay marriage become the litmus test for human decency? Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong supporter of gay marriage and it will be a victory when it becomes the norm. That being said, it is not equal to the American civil rights struggle that peaked in the 1960's.

Some on the left try to compare the quest for the rights of blacks to the modern gay rights movement. You can't compare an era of reckless racial violence and oppression to a period with rude talk from religious figures. Indeed, it seems some on the left have a nostalgia for the civil rights struggle - when good and evil was easy to see - and wish they'd had the chance to participate in that noble effort.

While Card is on the wrong side of the gay marriage debate, his view is actually pretty common and his involvement in Shadow Complex is minimal. In addition, Card's view on gay marriage is completely separate from the Shadow Complex experience - one has to read up online to know anything on the subject.

Compare that to some of the direct progressive political messages in video games. The Mirror's Edge intro cutscene includes a left-wing fable about the evil police state beating up peaceful protesters. Every Mass Effect subplot involving a corporation reveals they have zero ethical standards and break the law whenever it can result in higher profits. Even the Fallout universe has an intact Republican party to draft evil presidents from.

While these sort of views may make me groan, I have learned that video games are just one more place I have to tolerate different ideas. Perhaps the people who really want to play Shadow Complex, but won't allow themselves to, haven't learned this lesson yet.

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