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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What's with gays and smoking?

NPR just reported that one-third of American gays smoke tobacco, as compared to one-fifth of straight Americans.

Does that mean that tobacco taxes were really motivated by homophobia? After all, we're told that any policy that has more negative effects on black people is motivated by racism, such as drug laws.

But seriously now, the big question here is why do so many gays smoke. Gay writer Mark Joseph Stern contributes it to the increased stress many gays face, which manifests as many other forms of risky behavior. I think he's right, but there's another factor.

Putting on my Gary Becker hat, I think one additional reason gays smoke more is that there's less risk involved. Gays appear to have shorter lifespans today. It's not as drastic as it was during the AIDS crisis, but gays still face more health risks than straight people.

With less time left to live, the odds that smoking will harm you fall. While I don't think it's rational for anyone to smoke, it's less irrational for someone who knows they are in danger. While every gay person does not know their individual health risks, they are subject to influence from their peers.

I'm completely speculating here, but I wonder if a gay smoking culture developed during the AIDS crisis. That crisis went away with increased condom use, but smoking is notoriously hard to quit and I imagine many of the survivors stayed in the gay community and unintentionally kept the smoking culture going.
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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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Don't forget Target

Blogger Ryan Long penned a breakdown of recent gay rights-motivated boycotts to separate the reasonable (Salvation Army) from the unreasonable (Stoli Vodka). It's a good assessment, and with the ongoing flood of calls for boycotts, its important to set up a system like Long has.

...Boycotts are all the rage these days, it seems. It's weird how many of my fellow liberals and/or gays just expect me to hop on board these bandwagons, and seem surprised when I question them. Let me explain my very simple formula for whether we should boycott a business for being anti-gay. Does the company discriminate against LGBT employees or customers? Are company funds being used to promote anti-LGBT legislation? No? Then I don't feel the need to boycott.

I'm going to humbly add one example from 2011 Long forgot to include, which is understandable because there have been so many. The 2011 boycott and attempted extortion of Target for giving money to a pro-business political action committee that gave money to a pro-business politician who happened to oppose gay marriage.

Target has been a gay ally as an employer, and funds pro-gay events. The relationship to anti-LBGT legislation was strained and was never suggested to be intentional, and using Long's method I believe one should have opted not to boycott.

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A victory with unwanted allies

I've been mulling over the reversal from A&E television, where Duck Dynasty host Phil Robertson will be returning to the show after all. He was initially pulled because he said obnoxious things about gays in a magazine interview, but the network gave in to widespread criticism from right wingers who said they overreacted by suspending him indefinitely. A few of them also (wrongly) said his free speech was being suppressed.

It's the exact outcome I wanted, but it puts me on the opposite side as those with my social views. From my limited observations, I've seen my fellow gay rights supporters resenting Robertson supporters and gay right opponents backing him up. I don't like clanging swords and bashing shields with my allies, but they've left me no choice

While this is not an actual free speech issue, it was an attempt to file down the sharp edges of our discourse by yanking the platform out from the people we don't like instead of responding with our own words.

Maybe it's from being a young conservative libertarian who has always had liberal friends, but I'm used to tolerating views I don't like on economic issues. Tolerating bad opinions on social issues doesn't feel any different.

I'm reminded of what Bill Maher said in defense of TV chef Paula Deen last summer, that people shouldn't have to "go away" from the spotlight because they said something stupid. Deen is an older southern woman who admitted to using a racial slur decades ago and Robertson stars in a white trash minstrel show. Do we really have to pretend to be shocked by what they said?

I don't like the direction these platform-yankers are taking our public messages, where zero tolerance policies are implemented when someone says what they really mean or said decades ago. It threatens to turn our media banquet into a vegan pot luck, where no one gets offended by what's on their plate but there's no zest, flavor or excitement.

From a game theory perspective, giving in to critics used to be the safest strategy. It looked like a whinocracy was around the corner, but then this summer something strange happened. The protests against Chick-Fil-A spawned a counter movement, and Chick-Fil-A supporters waited in long lines to prove a point.

The A&E reaction was the second act, and it's a good sign for people like me who choose to tolerate intolerant people. I just wish this was an issue I could be proud about, instead of the defense of an ignorance outdated message that dehumanizes innocent people.
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It's not a free speech issue. We get it.

During my workday today I heard three conservative talk radio show hosts defend Phil Robertson, the 60-plus conservative Christian who was fired from the show Duck Dynasty by A&E after he explained his opposition to the gay lifestyle in a magazine interview.

In all three cases, the radio hosts started off their defense of Robertson by saying this was not a free speech issue. That concept applies to the government punishing or restricting speech, and this was a case of a private company deciding it didn't want to be associated with Robertson and ending their agreement. After all, speech has consequences and A&E has that right. The hosts then proceeded to criticize A&E for the action they took.

You know, because criticism is a form of free speech.

The hosts in question were Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Pat and Stu, co-hosts of Glenn Beck. Beck himself had retired early for the day.

So imagine my surprise when I got home and every left winger online had written about how Robertson's defenders, and therefor all conservatives, are all claiming A&E violated his freedom of speech.

Truth be told, there were some real examples of folks who said that, including Sarah Palin and apparently, Glenn Beck. There were also some nobody-guests on Fox News at some point during the day and nobodies on Twitter and Facebook pages.

This post isn't about defending Robertson's anti-gay attitudes - a position I reject. It's not about the idea that people who say things we don't like need to go into exile immediately. It's about the categorical thinking involved today.

I'm glad to see people are standing up for the idea that private consequences are not a violation of free speech. They are absolutely correct when they say that and I wish more people understood it.

However, they paint with too wide a brush. There's no evidence to suggest that a majority of conservatives made that too-common error. Some people certainly did, but please don't tell me that an entire group did it. Even Rush Limbaugh dismissed the idea; that's not trivial.
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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 myth trumpeted by atheists

It's sad to see Richard Dawkins website is the source of a recurring myth.

In June 2012 a Salvation Army PR director Major Andrew Craibe was put on the hot seat by gay activists in a radio interview. The Salvation Army is a Christian charity and their handbook lists multiple sections of the Bible that make up parts of their beliefs. Contained one of those sections in the Bible, but not spelled out in the handbook, is a verse that say gays should be put to death.

During the interview, which can be heard here, Craibe was told about this and he responded "Well, that's a part of our belief system." The interviewer spelled it out for him several times and he agreed to it each time.

The headlines screamed that the Salvation Army believes gays should be put to death, because after all, a spokesperson from the group agreed to the statement, even if  was a far-flung one from Australia. That lead to the Australian branch to issue a statement several days later. It read in part:

Salvation Army members do not believe, and would never endorse, a view that homosexual activity should result in any form of physical punishment. The Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine does not state that practising homosexuals should be put to death and, in fact, urges all Salvationists to act with acceptance, love and respect to all people. The Salvation Army teaches that every person is of infinite value, and each life a gift from God to be cherished, nurtured and preserved.

So that should be the end of it, right? Of course not.

When Christmastime came around and the Salvation Army bell ringers started collecting money for charity, atheists in America started sharing the story again, saying not that the Salvation Army wants gays put to death and leave it at that. Myth-busting pages like Snopes and other myth-busting pages tell the whole story, but not everyone got the message.

Now we're getting close to Christmas 2013 and what do I see being shared from Richard Dawkins website? A 2013 piece entitled Salvation Army says “Gays Need to Be Put to Death” that leaves out some important details.

When I was an intern at a newspaper one of my editors told me we can we can never be unbiased, but we can always be fair. Presenting Craibe's interview with no mention of Australia or the response from the Salvation Army demolishing the statement is not fair. Putting quotation remarks around "gays need to be put to death" is lying.

Shame on Richard Dawkin's website staff for perpetuating misinformation.

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The NBA has to sign Jason Collins now

I was listening to an NPR panel discussion about NBA baller Jason Collins, the first openly gay American athlete in a sport people care about, and guest Kevin Blackistone made some great points about how this will impact Collins as a player.

Blackistone tells us that Collins has been an unremarkable player for 12 years. He has a career average of scoring three points per game and in the current season scored one point per game. He's currently a free agent and up until his announcement yesterday there was a chance he would not be signed next season. Blackistone continued:

Jason Collins may have guaranteed himself a roster spot next year because this is a story that the NBA will want to own, and if he is not on a roster next year and he continues to seek employment in the NBA, and he has said that's what he wants to do, then there may be some feeling from people who are supporting him today... that the league has colluded to keep him out and that in fact the league is not as open as it seemed like it is today or yesterday when he made his announcement.

To be clear, I am not saying that Collins came out to save his career. I also do not want to diminish this inevitable step towards a better world. Still, Collins has put the NBA in a situation where he has to be signed on for another season because refusing to do so would be a PR disaster.
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Short and sweet

My go-to line to sum up the libertarian position has been "If two dudes want to get married I don't see why anyone has the right to stop them, and if they want to buy a wedding cake with trans fats in it I say let them."

This Glenn Reynolds piece says it better:

 Personally, I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons.

In the ideal world Reynolds and I believe in, "When Americans aren't sure what to do about something, they give the tie to freedom."
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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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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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Video games need to be more female friendly

I've been playing the new Spelunky game on Xbox that was released this morning and as much fun as I'm having wandering through the levels, my favorite moment so far has been the options menu.

Spelunky pays homage to Indiana Jones-style pulp stories and one essential part of the game is the blonde-haired red dress-wearing damsels in distress that give you a kiss after a successful rescue. I was happy to see that the four playable characters includes a woman, but I thought the helpless damsel would rub lady gamers the wrong way and push them away.

That is, until I saw the options menus.

After the sound level adjustments there is an option for "Damsel Style." The helpless blonde can be replaced with a beefy blond guy wearing a red bow tie and speedo.If neither of those are your thing, the damsel can take the form of a pug. The choice of damsel is independent from the choice of playable character, so if you want to play as a dude who kisses other dudes, you can. Spelunky doesn't care.

Well played, Spelunky designers, well played.

This isn't the norm, of course. Female gamers are often forced to play as a male protagonist, and that knocks down the immersion factor a few notches. There are some wonderful exceptions, of course, like modern role-playing games that let you build your character from scratch.

I don't think Gears of War 3 gets enough credit for its presentation of racial and gender diversity. There are important characters from every major nationality in the plot and there are multiple playable female characters - with no ridiculous bikini armor. Both genders have the same amount of protection.

I usually play as the blond-haired Damon Baird in Gears multiplayer because I want a character that somewhat resembles me. In far too many cases, female players are hopelessly out of luck and can't even select a character of the same gender, let alone race or hair color. Maybe this is too nuanced to be listed as a male privilege, but it is inherently unfair.

I understand that story-focused games often don't have the luxury of making the protagonist moldable. Grand Theft Auto IV was a masterpiece of storytelling and the protagonist had to be a man from Eastern Europe. That's the way the plot was written.

Some games aren't as story focused and there's no reason the game designers can't provide a female option the way Spelunky did. We shouldn't expect anything less.

I realize I'm not usually on the same side of feminists on a lot of contemporary issues, but when it comes to the culture of video games, there's a lot of room for improvement. This includes both the way women are portrayed in games, such as the bikini babe warrior archetype that is so absurd it's an insult to players' intelligence, to the terrible way some cretins treat female players online.I'm glad to see Spelunky is taking a step in the right direction.
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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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Suicide shouldn't change everything

It's been strange to see the pendulum swing so far in my lifetime in regards to bullying.

I was targeted by bullies as a kid and every time it caught the attention of the school, I received equal punishment for being "involved" with a fight. The circumstances didn't matter, even if I tried to walk away. This was injustice and the school officials clearly didn't care.

Now there's a trend of rushing vague anti-bullying bills into legislation and the rhetoric has gone off the deep end. I think it's great the bullying issue is getting attention, but they are going about it all wrong.

Rutger's University student Dharun Ravi faces 10 years in prison and deportation for taking several seconds of hidden video camera footage of his roommate kissing another man and sharing it on iChat. He turned it off, but then unsuccessfully tried to set it up again another night.

What Ravi did is a major invasion of privacy and certainly deserves punishment. But 10 years? This inflated punishment is because his roommate, Tyler Clementi, found out about the video, started the process of changing rooms, then unexpectedly killed himself. Gay advocates are treating this as if Ravi murdered Clementi. The lynch mob wants his blood.

The same mob mentality happened a few years ago when a woman posed as a teen boy online and mockingly flirt with her daughter's classmate Megan Meier. She killed herself after the fake teen boy broke things off, and the woman, Lori Drew, was tried for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for violating the terms of service of the social media website she talked to Meier on. This is a computer hacking law, something completely unrelated, and she was later acquitted.

I understand peoples contempt for Ravi and Drew. They are jerks. However, being a jerk isn't against the law, and these prosecutions are abusing the rule of law. They can not try the bullies for murder, so they are trumping up inappropriate charges like the CFAA to try to stick them with something.

This is an abuse of the court system, and we wouldn't care one bit about Ravi or Drew if no suicides had followed. The choice to commit suicide Clementi and Meier made was not rational or sane. These were clearly people with major mental issues that were not created by Ravi or Drew and these consequences could not reasonably be predicted from their actions.

The reaction to these cases may end up encouraging more suicides. Treating people who commit suicide with care and affection they would otherwise not receive gives people a marginal incentive to kill themselves. If a bullying victim knows that their suicide will get the tormentors a harsh term in prison, that may be enough to push someone over the edge.

Bullying is a real problem, but witch hunts are not the solution.
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Looks like I have to defend these people again

Another year, another well-intentioned assault on free speech in a public school to punish a student who doesn't accept homosexuality.

Brandon Wegner writes for a student newspaper in the Shawano School District is Wisconsin. He and another student wrote competing editorial on gay adoption, as can be viewed here. Wegner wrote in opposition and his argument wasn't very good, as can be expected when any high school student writes about political opinions.

But despite writing like a normal high school student trying to defend a bogus position, what happened next was absurd.

Brandon was hauled before the superintendent on charges that he had violated the school’s bullying policy. Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. When Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he “had got to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”

People, I don't like having to defend anti-gay high school students, like I did in November 2010. I don't like his position at all, and his use of the Bible to justify a generic anti-gay position is lackluster. That still doesn't justify the school district's stupid position that expressing ones views in a calm, disconnected manner is only allowed when it comes down on one side of this rapidly-decaying issue.

I was one of those kids. I grew up a christian who knew that part of the Bible rejected homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, calling it an abomination. I remember choosing that side of the issue because of the Bible. I also remember when I got to high school I realized I was on the same side of the issue as the Ku Klux Klan and there must be something wrong here and switched sides.

My school never had frank and open discussions where students got to share their opinions and feelings about gays without fear of being punishment. Don't get me wrong, we had an accepting school staff. There were several openly gay teachers who had upside-down Apple computer logo stickers on their classroom doors because they couldn't find rainbow stickers anywhere else.

I don't think younger people today realize how much has changed for gay acceptance in their lifetime. It was socially acceptable to say "fag" right up until the end of the 1990's. I would have benefited from an open discussion because my views were weak and unchallenged. I would have come around a lot sooner, and unfortunately, students like Brandon Wegner are being robbed of that chance to learn.

Eventually, my generation came around. It was through the free exchange of ideas that my generation came to accept gays, not authoritarian commands.

Adamantium Clause: A friend wrote that the logical conclusion of Wegner's piece is that gays should be exterminated, because of the Bible verse he referenced over and over that said gays should be executed for displeasing God. I maintain that Wegner is a poor writer and that interpretation was never his intention, and it is not the primary interpretation of the piece. He was simply quoting that verse to prove that God loves everyone but the gays.

Superintendent Todd Carlson's written statement suggests his problem with the piece was he found it offensive, not that it was a call for violence:

The Shawano School District would like to apologize for a recent article printed in the Hawks Post newspaper. Proper judgment that reflects school district policies needs to be exercised with articles printed in our school newspaper. Offensive articles cultivating a negative environment of disrespect are not appropriate or condoned by the Shawano School District. We sincerely apologize to anyone we may have offended and are taking steps to prevent items of this nature from happening in the future.

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