Majority of Americans Age 65+ Support Gay Marriage

Even as the Republican Party continues to court the dwindling number of Christofascists in the party base by way of a continual stream of anti-LGBT legislation, a new Gallup poll shows that for the first time a majority of Americans over age 65 support same sex marriage.  Not that this development will end the GOP's self-prostitution to the hate-filled and ignorance embracing "godly folks."  I remain stunned that the Republican Party refuses to expand its base either racially or in terms of its treatment of sexual minorities.   Sooner or later - hopefully, as soon as November 2016 - this misogyny will catch up with the GOP in a major way.  Gallup lays out the new poll findings which , in my view, ought to be a major wake up call to anti-gay Republicans.  Here are highlights:

Sixty-one percent of Americans say that marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by the law as valid, consistent with the 58% and 60% recorded in 2015. Last year's Supreme Court decision made same-sex marriage legal nationwide -- but the issue remains contentious at state and local levels, among religious groups and within the Republican Party.

With six months left until Election Day, the issue of gay marriage has been less prominent this year than in the past few presidential elections. The Supreme Court's ruling in 2015 makes the issue somewhat moot, and both Democratic candidates support it. Meanwhile, Republican front-runner Donald Trump has been fairly muted on the issue compared with some his GOP opponents, particularly those who backed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. While Trump says he opposes same-sex marriage, the issue does not appear on his campaign website. . . .

Four in 10 rank-and-file Republicans say same-sex marriage should be legally recognized. This is the highest support on record and is more than twice as high as the 16% found in 1996. The GOP remains the least supportive of gay marriage among the three main party groups, as strong majorities of independents (65%) and Democrats (79%) say such marriages should be recognized as valid under the law.

Support for gay marriage has consistently been highest among adults younger than 30 years, but support declines with each step up the age scale. At the same time, Americans in all four age groups have become more supportive since 1996.

This year marks the first time in Gallup's trend that the majority of adults aged 65 and older said gay marriage should be legal. Fifty-three percent of Americans aged 65 and older now support same-sex marriage. That is still well below the 83% support among 18- to 29-year-olds, the highest support among the age groups.

The percentage of Republicans saying gay marriage is a pivotal voting issue for them has fallen to 18% -- down from 27% as recently as last year. Among Democrats, the issue has become more important, climbing to 32% after registering 26% a year ago and just 10% in 2008.

Americans' heightened approval of gay marriage this year makes the issue a fairly straightforward one for the remaining Democratic presidential candidates. Not only do the vast majority of fellow Democrats agree with their stance, but they also have little to fear on the issue from the general electorate.

Despite their wailing and all the flying spittle, the Christofascists have lost this battle even as they fight a rear guard action against increasing LGBT acceptance by society.  I continue to believe that history will see the opponents of LGBT equality in a light similar to how segregationists are viewed by most of society - at least outside of GOP circles and the increasingly ugly GOP base.  

The Core Differences between Clinton and Sanders

I generally agree with Paul Krugman's views and in a column today in the New York Times he takes a look at the descent into insanity in the GOP fueled by unlimited money, but just as importantly, racism and other bigotry.  He also reviews the competing views of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on needed change and the route needed to get there.  I like many of Sanders' proposals but continue to worry that the socialist label that the GOP would wrap around him might not be fatal in the general election.  Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has all her much discussed baggage.  Here are column highlights:

Every time you think that our political discourse can’t get any worse, it does. The Republican primary fight has devolved into a race to the bottom, achieving something you might have thought impossible: making George W. Bush look like a beacon of tolerance and statesmanship. But where is all the nastiness coming from?

Well, there’s debate about that — and it’s a debate that is at the heart of the Democratic contest.

Like many people, I’ve described the competition between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as an argument between competing theories of change, which it is. But underlying that argument is a deeper dispute about what’s wrong with America, what brought us to the state we’re in.

To oversimplify a bit — but only, I think, a bit — the Sanders view is that money is the root of all evil. Or more specifically, the corrupting influence of big money, of the 1 percent and the corporate elite, is the overarching source of the political ugliness we see all around us.

The Clinton view, on the other hand, seems to be that money is the root of some evil, maybe a lot of evil, but it isn’t the whole story. Instead, racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice are powerful forces in their own right. This may not seem like a very big difference — both candidates oppose prejudice, both want to reduce economic inequality. But it matters for political strategy.

As you might guess, I’m on the many-evils side of this debate. Oligarchy is a very real issue, and I was writing about the damaging rise of the 1 percent back when many of today’s Sanders supporters were in elementary school. But it’s important to understand how America’s oligarchs got so powerful.

Crucially, the rise of the American hard right was the rise of a coalition, an alliance between an elite seeking low taxes and deregulation and a base of voters motivated by fears of social change and, above all, by hostility toward you-know-who.

Yes, there was a concerted, successful effort by billionaires to push America to the right. That’s not conspiracy theorizing; it’s just history, documented at length in Jane Mayer’s eye-opening new book “Dark Money.” But that effort wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far as it has without the political aftermath of the Civil Rights Act, and the resulting flip of Southern white voters to the G.O.P.

Racial dog whistles, demagogy on abortion and so on would be rolled out during election years, then put back into storage while the Republican Party focused on its real business of enabling shadow banking and cutting top tax rates.

But in this age of Trump, not so much. The 1 percent has no problems with immigration that brings in cheap labor; it doesn’t want a confrontation over Planned Parenthood; but the base isn’t taking guidance the way it used to.

If the ugliness in American politics is all, or almost all, about the influence of big money, then working-class voters who support the right are victims of false consciousness. . . . .
On the other hand, if the divisions in American politics aren’t just about money, if they reflect deep-seated prejudices that progressives simply can’t appease, such visions of radical change are naïve. And I believe that they are.

[T]here’s still a lot of real prejudice out there, and probably enough so that political revolution from the left is off the table. Instead, it’s going to be a hard slog at best.

[O]ne reason the right has gone so berserk is that the Obama years have in fact been marked by significant if incomplete progressive victories, on health policy, taxes, financial reform and the environment. And isn’t there something noble, even inspiring, about fighting the good fight, year after year, and gradually making things better?

We Have Come a Long Way!!

This image from The Advocate sums up just how much things have changed.  I still get emotional when I think about this - especially when I remember all the years of self-hate and self-loathing I experience simply because of religious based lies and bigotry.

Big Business is Dragging the GOP into the Future on Gay Rights

I left the Republican Party for a number of reasons, the most important of which was the GOP's refusal to recognize the concept of separation of church and state.  Loosely related to this issue was the GOP's growing insistence to denigrate gays and make LGBT Americans forever legally inferior via so-called "marriage amendments."  Neither of these agendas fit with the Party's supposed allegiance to personal freedom and a smaller, less intrusive government.   As a column in Politico notes, the GOP has lost the battle against gay rights and big business has been a major factor in this defeat.  Moreover, some Republicans - namely, the non-Christofascists - are pleased with the outcome.  Here are some column highlights:

I'm not among those Republicans who have “evolved” on the issue of gay rights. I didn’t need to. I’ve always been attracted to the GOP message of more freedom and less government, but thought it hypocritical and counter to the core of our philosophy that Republicans would not apply those tenets to gay rights. But of course I was often the black sheep in campaign meetings during the 1990s and 2000s.

[T]he wedge issue [of gay rights] has now lost its edge, even, I would argue, in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. No Republican can win the nomination without the support of the business community. And Big Business is now at odds with the social conservative faction of the Republican Party over gay and transgender equality — and Big Business is winning.

Look at what’s happened in four states dominated by the GOP in the past year.

Weeks before the Super Bowl kickoff in 2014, the Arizona Legislature passed a bill allowing businesses to refuse service to gay customers. This “religious freedom” measure made it OK for business owners to kick customers out of their establishments if they opposed homosexuality on religious grounds. Scores of corporate titans in the travel and tourism industry, together with the NFL, opposed the bill. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed it.

In Indiana this March, lawmakers tried to pass similar legislation, followed by a hell-hath-no-fury response led by Eli Lilly, Salesforce and Angie’s List, which canceled a $40 million project planned for Indianapolis. Marriott’s CEO said the legislation was “pure idiocy from a business perspective.” Gov. Mike Pence modified the bill, but the damage was done. (The state has since hired a global PR firm to resuscitate its image following the brouhaha.)

In Arkansas, same story. Seeing the firestorm that occurred in Indiana, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson didn’t sign the original bill that hit his desk after calls for him to veto it came from his own son, and from Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, which said the bill ran counter to the company’s values. In the end, the governor signed a less toxic, less controversial bill.

And this week, Texas became the latest to join the fray.  The Lone Star State just wrapped its legislative session, which included two “religious freedom” constitutional amendments. Learning from what happened in the above states, industry groups and major businesses went out pre-emptively — let me say that again: pre-emptively — before such bills made it too far in the Legislature. The conservative state chamber of commerce, the Texas Association of Business, took the lead.

The amendments “would devastate economic development, tourism and the convention business,” said Bill Hammond, TAB’s CEO.

More than 250 Texas companies — American Airlines, Dell, Texas Instruments, Dow Chemical, the Dallas Mavericks — went on record with a general pledge in support of treating gay and transgender Texans fairly and equally under the law — and that welcoming and inclusive communities are essential to their bottom line.

Both amendments in the Texas Legislature died a quick death.

So: four states, same story and same result. If the “religious freedom” strategy can’t work in Texas — the bastion of conservatism and beacon for business — where can it work?

Elections are always about the future, never about the past. And so my advice to GOP candidates is to recognize that since our society has largely moved on, and business has moved on, so should the party of Abraham Lincoln, who fought a civil war over civil rights.

Discrimination is now simply bad for the bottom line and bad for any brand, whether a company’s or a state’s. When it comes to recruitment and retention, the millennial generation, which will be 75 percent of the workforce by 2030, doesn’t have much tolerance for anti-gay anything. In fact, it’s become somewhat of a litmus test. 73 percent of millennials support LGBT nondiscrimination, according to Public Religion Research Institute. Surely, they use it as one criterion when deciding where to work.

Negative national headlines on religious freedom continue to fuel a negative image of the entire party. Both in my private conversations with and in public (and private) polling, conservatives are moving ever closer to supporting full equity for LGBT Americans.

Shockingly, it’s still legal in the United States of America, even as we may be on the brink of having marriage equality in all 50 states, to fire and evict gay and transgender folks — and kick them out of a restaurant — simply for being who they are. This is patently wrong and needs to be fixed.

Democrats and Big Business are at work fixing it, together. That would have been an odd pairing years ago. The GOP position is untenable — and out of step with one of its key constituencies. It’s time to stand up to the social conservative wing and move into the future.

Is Pope Francis Backpedaling on Gays?

I for one have always questioned Pope Francis' intentions towards gays and allowing us a place in the Church other than as celibate individuals as unhappy with life as the bitter old queens at the Vatican.  The fall out of the synod on the family and now a meeting between Francis and leading American hate group leaders only underscores my hesitance to join the ranks of those in near orgasm over a few phrases that have been uttered by Francis.  The reality is that NOTHING has changed vis-a-vis the Church's official position on gays or to rescind the "inherently disordered" language in offical documents signed by Francis' predecessor, the Nazi Pope.  A column in The Daily Beast even suggests that Francis is now back peddling further on the issue of gays.  Here are highlights:

Pope Francis is not Jesus Christ. Or even Martin Luther.

He may well transform the Catholic Church, and has already gained unprecedented popularity as the reformer we’ve all been waiting for. But as events this week confirm, he is not omnipotent, and does not intend to change fundamental Catholic doctrine—if he even could.

The event in question is “The Complementarity of Man and Woman: An International Colloquium,” an interreligious symposium presented by some of the Vatican’s most conservative voices. To understand the significance of Pope Francis’s remarks at this bizarre event, it’s necessary to back up a bit.

You may have noticed that roughly 100 percent of higher animals reproduce sexually, requiring a male and female partner to do so. This is the core of “complementarity,” and it would not seem to require an international colloquium to explain.

Complementarity as conservative Catholics use the term, however, is more than biology. It stands for the proposition that the biological basis of procreation should also be the sole organizing principle of society. Only mating pairs constitute a family, and any configuration that is not a mating pair—divorced people, gay people, single people—are not to be legitimized. 

Sex is not for fun; sex is for procreation. Food is not for fun; food is for nourishment. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas, the most important Catholic Natural Law thinker, called any “misuse” of sensual pleasures luxuria—not just luxury in the contemporary sense, but decadent luxury, pleasure beyond purpose. Evil.

A great deal of that money goes to imposing its view of Natural Law on the rest of us, spending billions to restrict abortion and contraception, and fight any recognition of same-sex (“unnatural”) couples.

Now, wasn’t Pope Francis going to change all that?  No. Never.

[A]n evolution in tone is not a change in doctrine. Essentially, Pope Francis is urging Christians to “love the sinner, but hate the sin.”

Which brings us back to this week’s colloquium, presented by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—originally known (until 1908) as the “Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.” Yes, that Inquisition.

The CDF has, for five centuries, been a bastion of Catholic conservatism, and today is no exception. It was headed for 20 years by Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), who produced such gems as labeling gay people “intrinsically disordered.”
So, while the Colloquium is presented as a neutral, and interreligious, conference on the beauty of traditional marriage . . . its real-world impact would be to deny secular legal status to anyone who does not fit is conception of “complementarity.”

“Complementarity,” like “family values,” “religious liberty,” and “traditional marriage” is a term defined by what it opposes—non-procreative sex, same-sex unions, contraception, and usually (though not always) feminism.

Where is Pope Francis in all of this?

First, in his opening remarks yesterday, the pontiff towed a much more conservative line than his legion of new fans might expect. “The complementarity of man and woman,” he said:

is a root of marriage and family… We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment. This revolution in manners and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.”

[P]erhaps Pope Francis is not the pope of progressives’ fantasies after all.  Even if he is, though, the pope may be infallible, but he is not omnipotent. As this week’s gathering shows, there are powerful conservative forces within the Catholic Church and beyond it. And for every encomium to the harmonious, procreative union of male and female, there is a trampling of everyone else. 

More False Hopes For Change in the Catholic Church?

I recently noted that columnist/blogger Andrew Sullivan seemed to be reaching a point of realizing that the Roman Catholic Church is not only incapable of change, but seems headed on an anti-gay jihad as gay church employees are fired and married gays are denied the sacraments and told that they must divorce their legally wed spouses if they wish ti return to the fold.  Yet there remain those who continue to cling to the misbegotten hope that Pope Francis will usher in change and halt the Church's slide into irrelevance with more and more American Catholics even though officially NOTHING has changed to date doctrinally and Francis has yet to fire some of the reactionaries in the Church hierarchy.  A case in point is a column in the Washington Post which wants to believe that the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich as the new archbishop of Chicago is the harbinger of needed change.  Sadly, I think the column is little more than a lot of wishful thinking.  Here are excerpts:

Leaders can make decisions that signal big changes in the political, religious and ethical landscape. In naming Bishop Blase Cupich the new archbishop of Chicago, Pope Francis did just that.

Cupich, now the bishop of Spokane, Wash., has been described in media accounts as a “moderate” within the Catholic Church. Temperamentally, this is exactly what he is, an advocate of dialogue and civility. He’s also wise about rejecting labels.

He has been a courageous voice inside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops against a culture-war approach to evangelization and politics that pushes so many away from the Gospel.

He has also been as tough as any prelate in his candor about the church’s profound failures during the sex abuse crisis. “Catholics have been hurt by the moral failings of some priests,” Cupich wrote in 2010, “but they have been hurt and angered even more by bishops who failed to put children first.” He knows the church will never get beyond this scandal until it’s obvious to the faithful that the hierarchy understands how deeply Catholicism was marred by institutional sin, not only by individual crimes.

His appointment will have an impact beyond the Catholic Church because it tells us a great deal about the role Pope Francis wants the church to play in American life. Cupich played this down, too. “I think he sent a pastor, not a message,” he told reporters.

But in his case, the pastor is the message. Because of appointments made by Pope John Paul II and, to a lesser degree, Pope Benedict XVI, the bishops’ conference has moved to the right over the past quarter-century. Many conservative bishops have expressed uneasiness or even skepticism about Francis’s leadership — notably his rejection of the idea that issues such as abortion and homosexuality take precedence over economic justice and care for the marginalized. Francis has also caused discomfort by insisting on a church that accompanies people on their journeys rather than expending most of its energy condemning and judging them.

Of the four most politically potent posts in the American hierarchy — the archbishops of Boston, New York, Chicago and Washington — Chicago was the first to come open since Francis’s election. In naming Cupich, the pope sent the strongest possible hint that he wants the American church to move in his direction.

There is more to the column and I truly would like to believe that the author is correct, but I will not be holding my breath.  The only thing that will bring real change to Catholicism is the massive exit of Catholics who are fed up with the Church's hypocrisy and the sexual obsession of neurotic old men in dresses.

Times Dispatch Slams Dissenting 4th Circuit Judge

Things are indeed changing in Virginia when the Richmond Times Dispatch - in many ways the most reactionary conservative newspaper in the Commonwealth - slams 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Paul Niemeyer for refusing to find Virginia's gay marriage bans to be unconstitutional.  Thankfully, the two other judges of the panel disagreed with Niemeyer who seemingly wants to be remembered among the ranks of the bigots of the Virginia Supreme Court who twice upheld Virgina's ban on interracial marriage until the U.S. Supreme Court ended the bigots' intransigence with its ruling in Loving v. Virginia.  Here are highlights from the Times Dispatch's take down of Niemeyer:

Yesterday’s welcome decision by the 4th Circuit striking down Virginia’s ban on gay marriage was surprising only for its lack of unanimity. Gay marriage has been marching to victory after victory in the courts, as each of the fallacious arguments against it has come up short.
Dissenting Judge Paul Niemeyer resorted to one of those fallacies in his dissent, contending that gay marriage does not simply recognize the participation of gay and lesbian couples in the fundamental right to marry, but rather creates a “newly proposed relationship” just for them. Virginia put forward a similar argument in defense of its law against interracial marriage. But the Supreme Court rejected that reasoning in the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, when it held that blacks and whites could not be kept from exercising their existing right to marry based on the race of their chosen spouse.

Opponents of gay marriage also advance several other reasons for banning it, from concerns about procreation to a reverence for tradition. The arguments fail on their own merits – or, rather, their lack of merit. But even if they did not, they cannot trump the Constitution. (As a Cato Institute amicus brief argued, if tradition could supersede the Constitution the U.S. would still have segregated schools.) The 14th Amendment insists that government shall not deny “to any person” the “equal protection of the laws.” Yesterday’s ruling is a splendid triumph for that essential principle.

Openly Gay Anton Hysen Signs with Myrtle Beach Mutiny Soccer Team

It what is a surprising and likely interesting move, openly gay European soccer player has signed with Mutiny, a pro-soccer team based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Admittedly, Myrtle Beach is not representative of the rest of the state , but it is still surprising that a team in what is generally viewed as one of the most reactionary states in America would sign an openly gay player like Anton Hysen (pictured above).  Out Sports has details.

Openly gay European soccer player Anton Hysén has signed with the Myrtle Beach Mutiny of the National Premier Soccer League. Myrtle Beach, in case you didn't know, is in South Carolina and the team, according to gay4soccer, "are in the fourth division of the American soccer pyramid, on par with the USL Premier Development League, and eligible for US Open Cup competition."

So an openly gay professional soccer player will be playing in South Carolina. Their division features teams across the Southeast. Not only is it supposed to be "impossible" for a professional male athlete to be openly gay, but it's "100% definitely impossible" to do it in South Carolina, Tennessee, George and the like. Yet Myrtle Beach is doing it. Not so impossible, I guess.

Here's the press release from the team:

March 5, 2014, Myrtle Beach, S.C. - The Myrtle Beach Mutiny of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) announced Thursday that they have signed international professional soccer player Anton Hysen for the 2014 season. 

Hysén is an English born, Swedish soccer player who has formerly played for Swedish football club Utsiktens BK as well as the Swedish national U-17 team. 

"I am excited to be joining the Mutiny this season," said Hysén. "This is a great opportunity for me on a personal and professional level. I hope I can help take the team to the top of the NPSL."

"The Mutiny are very excited to have Anton joining us this year," said Pat Piscitelli, sporting director for the Mutiny. "A player of his caliber, with his international experience, will bring a positive change to the Mutiny. The Myrtle Beach area is in for a real treat with this team and will have the opportunity to see professional soccer played at a very high level."

For everything gay and soccer, head over to gay4soccer.com. They do a great job of covering Robbie Rogers and other gay soccer issues and players like Hysen.

Joel Osteen’s Big Gay Problem

Illinois has approved gay marriage and it appears that Hawaii may not be far behind as well.  A Virginia has a newly elected governor who unabashedly campaigned supporting gay marriage.  The world is indeed changing.  With 15 states and the District of Columbia granting full gay marriage and numerous lawsuits challenging gay marriage bans across the country, the struggle against gay marriage may well be the Christofascists' Waterloo.  Hence their increasing efforts to export homophobia overseas in order to find new funding sources.  But not all of the self-enriching televangelists see their future in Russia or backward regions of Africa.  Salon looks at Joel Orteen's struggle to find a way forward without alienating aging Kool-Aid drinkers or killing the Christian brand in America.  Here are some article excerpts:

Joel Osteen has a problem, one that all Evangelicals in the U.S. are facing. The anti-gay position of mainstream Christianity has fallen out of favor with the public. Every reputable poll currently shows uncontested majority support for gay marriage. And the cultural shift happened more quickly than the churches can follow.

The Huffington Post’s Josh Zepps recently asked Osteen about this passage from his new book, “Break Out: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barrier and Live an Extraordinary Life”: “It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.”

Zepps wanted to know if this included gay folks. “Absolutely,” Osteen offered without missing a beat. Evangelicals are notoriously tricky on the subject. It’s common theology to claim that God accepts absolutely everyone because being gay is viewed as an affliction, not an identity. What makes Osteen’s statement so unusual is his claim that God “approves” of gay folks.

The Texas megachurch pastor has always been relatively soft on the issue compared to his colleagues, notably the Evangelical behemoth Southern Baptist Convention. In the past, Osteen at the very least claimed homosexuality was unacceptable.

Some Evangelical church leaders are already going the full distance and embracing change. The controversial minister Rob Bell, also a multiple New York Times bestselling author, announced full support for marriage equality earlier this year. But he didn’t end with the endorsement. He pointedly criticized  the Evangelical church for its role in anti-gay discourse: “I think we are witnessing the death of a particular subculture that doesn’t work. I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoized, Evangelical subculture that was told, ‘We’re gonna change the thing,’ and they haven’t … And we have supported policies and ways of viewing the world that are actually destructive. And we’ve done it in the name of God and we need to repent.”

The anti-gay position is becoming increasingly problematic in churches given support for LGBT equality among young people, even including white Evangelicals. Ministers are being forced to either embrace a dying ideology or risk ejection from their churches. The “because God says so” answers derived from the Bible’s handful of homophobic passages are headed the way of biblical slavery defenses, and young Evangelicals aren’t buying. (It’s also of note that the nation’s largest Evangelical denomination, the previously mentioned SBC, was originally formed to protect the rights of slaveholders. They’re sorry now.

Complicating matters further is Catholicism’s recent tonal shift on LGBT issues, which could create a ripple effect throughout the Christian world.

It won’t be surprising when Joel Osteen, along with the rest of the Evangelical community, announces an Obama-style evolution on the issue. While some denominations will hold onto existing prejudice until the bitter end, most are likely headed the way of the Evangelical Lutherans. Until then, many Evangelicals across the nation will be forced into an uncomfortable gray area as church leaders furiously argue over an issue the rest of the country already decided.

Putting all one's future in aging anti-gay whites is not a good plan for the future.  At some point the need to change will be the difference between death of denominations and a chance to live on at least for a while in an ever more secular, gay accepting world.

Republicans: Blinded by Self-Righteousness

Once again, one has to wonder when the swamp fever (i.e., the Christofascists and Tea Party) that has overwhelmed will be broken.  A new Pew Research Center poll released yesterday found that nearly 6 in 10 Republicans believe that the GOP need to reconsider some positions, while just over a third - again, the Christofascists and Tea Party lunatics - want the party to merely to make a stronger case for its current positions: anti-gay, anti-women, anti-immigrant, etc.  Candidly, until sane Republicans (or at least what ones are left) are willing to stand up to the Christofascists and Tea Party, or better yet, kicking them to the curb, I do not see meaningful change happening.  A column in the New York Times looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

Two-thirds of Republicans recognize that the party needs to change in order to do better in future

But that’s where things get tricky. Fifty-four percent believe that party leaders need to move in a more conservative direction, while only 40 percent believe that they need to move in a more moderate direction.  There’s the deflator. I knew this was too good to be true. 

The poll specifically asked Republicans whether the party’s position was too conservative, not conservative enough or about right on five issues: gay marriage, immigration, abortion, government spending and gun policy. 

In all cases except one a plurality thought that the party’s position was about right. The lone exception was government spending, on which a plurality thought that the party was not conservative enough. In fact, “not conservative enough” beat “too conservative” on every issue but gay marriage.

presidential elections, but they’re torn over what that change should be. 

Tea Party supporters were significantly more likely than Republicans who don’t support the Tea Party to say that the party was not conservative enough on these issues. 

[T]he problem the Republicans still have but many don’t seem to recognize is that the extreme arm of the party has an outsize role in selecting a nominee, and they don’t like anyone who smells of moderation.  . . . . .  most don’t have a favorable opinion of Chris Christie. In fact, among Tea Party supporters Christie had the highest unfavorable rating of the seven Republican leaders mentioned in the poll. 

This is the perpetual Republican Party conundrum: moderate, or go harder right. And many still seem to believe that going harder right is the best way to go. They have learned nothing. They can see no other way. They are so convinced that their way is the right way, but it’s just misunderstood, not clearly explained, not persuasively advocated. 

That’s what can happen in political echo chambers — faltering positions are reinforced rather than rightfully abandoned. Voices for moderation are maligned as agents of moral erosion. Giving a little feels like giving up.

In this world few leaders, particularly ones that could win a national election — which would require the winning of moderates and possibly the sloughing off of some conservative Democrats — would ever be sufficiently conservative to pass the purity test. 

So long as these voices — those of the most conservative Republicans — warp nominees who emerge from primaries on the right, they are doomed to an uphill climb toward the White House. 

It is  sad that a once rational party has been hijacked by crazy people who relish ignorance, racism, homophobia and bigotry in general as all the while they pat themselves on the back for their godliness.  The hypocrisy is stunning.

Boy Scouts Vote to Allow Gay Scouts, But Continue Anti-Gay Bigotry Against Gay Leaders

While it's better than nothing, the Boy Scouts of America adopted a half measure yesterday and will now allow openly gay boys and youth to be members of the Boy Scouts.  Unfortunately, once they reach the age of majority they apparently turn into predators and/or bad role models and can no longer remain or move on to leadership positions.  Naturally, a few selective passages of the Bible are cited as justification for this continued discrimination.  A friend on Facebook noted the hypocrisy of the BSA leadership: 

Leviticus 19:19: "Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."    Looked at my old scouting uniform. The composition? 65% polyester, 35% cotton.

The Virginian Pilot reports on the policy change which was hysterically opposed by the usual anti-gay hate groups that uses anti-gay propaganda as one of their largest fundraising tools now that abortion isn't the cash cow for them that it used to be.  Here are some story highlights:

After lengthy and wrenching debate, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have voted to open their ranks to openly gay boys for the first time, but heated reactions from the left and right made clear that the BSA's controversies are far from over.

The Scouts' longstanding ban on gay adults remains in force, and many liberal Scout leaders - as well as gay-rights groups - plan to continue pressing for an end to that exclusion even though the BSA's top officials aren't ready for that step.

Meanwhile, many conservatives within the Scouts are distraught at the outcome of the vote and some are threatening to defect. A meeting is planned for next month to discuss formation of a new organization for boys.

The vote was conducted by secret ballot Thursday during the National Council's annual meeting at conference center not far from Boy Scout headquarters in suburban Dallas. Of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the council who cast ballots, 61 percent supported the proposal drafted by the governing Executive Committee. The policy change takes effect Jan. 1.

"We are deeply saddened," said Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee. "Homosexual behavior is incompatible with the principles enshrined in the Scout oath and Scout law."

The Assemblies of God said the policy change "will lead to a mass exodus from the Boy Scout program." It also warned that the change would make the BSA vulnerable to lawsuits seeking to end the ban on gay adults.

Pascal Tessier, an openly gay 16-year-old Boy Scout from Maryland, had mixed emotions after the vote.  "I was thinking that today could be my last day as a Boy Scout," he said. "Obviously, for gay Scouts like me, this vote is life-changing."

Tessier is on track to receive his Eagle Scout award - he only needs to complete his final project - but said he is troubled that on his 18th birthday he could transform from someone holding Scouting's highest rank to someone unfit to be a part of the organization.  "That one couple hours (between 17 and 18) will make me not a good person," he said.

While the Southern Baptists were clearly upset by the vote to accept openly gay youth, the Utah-based Mormon church - which has more Scouting troops than any other religious denomination - reacted positively.  "We trust that BSA will implement and administer the approved policy in an appropriate and effective manner," an LDS statement said.  Utah's largest Boy Scout councils supported the change.

Hypocrisy - and of course hatred of others which is apparently based on some sick need to feel superior over others - remains the main attribute of today's modern day "godly Christians" who remain in anti-gay denominations.  My activist friend Wayne Besen summed it up well:

Today’s Boy Scout’s decision was insulting and pandered to ignorance and bigotry at the expense of  gay people and their families. Allowing gay scouts but not adult scout leaders was a compromise – only in the sense that BSA compromised its integrity and decency. Let’s be clear — this was not a step forward, but a step backward, because it reinforced the most vile stereotypes and misconceptions deliberately peddled by anti-gay activists.

Today’s decision was degrading, dehumanizing, and disgraceful. It stigmatized LGBT people and their families and sends the dangerous message that they are inferior and a threat to society.

The new policy continues to tarnish the organization’s image . . . . Homosexuality is not a moral issue, but a natural expression of who some people are. However, bigotry is a moral issue – one which places the BSA on the wrong side of history.

The Republican Party Needs a Reality Check

In a surprising column in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson - who is typically an apologist for the Republicans - argues that the GOP needs  a transformation and that the party needs to come out of embracing the past and move towards the future.  Obviously, it is not the message that the Christofascists in the GOP base want to hear as they endeavor feverishly to move the country back into the 1950's if not the Medieval period.  No doubt Gerson - like Jon Huntsman - will be viewed as a heretic or a RINO, but sometimes the truth isn't what one wants to hear.  The GOP needs to stop living in a fantasy world that doesn't exist and start to embrace objective reality. Here are some column highlights:

It is the nature of resilient institutions to take stock of new realities and adjust accordingly. In a new cover essay for Commentary magazine, Peter Wehner and I detail the examples of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Clinton broke a long Democratic presidential losing streak by emphasizing middle-class values, advocating the end of “welfare as we know it” and standing up to extreme elements within his coalition (thereby creating the “Sister Souljah moment”). In Britain, Blair went after the “moral chaos” that led to youth crime, abandoned his party’s official commitment to public ownership of the means of production and launched New Labor.

The Republican Party now needs similar transformation. Out of the past six presidential elections, four have gone to the Democratic nominee, at an average yield of 327 electoral votes to 211 for the Republican. During the preceding two decades, from 1968 to 1988, Republicans won five out of six elections, averaging 417 electoral votes to Democrats’ 113. 

This stunning reversal of electoral fortunes has taken place for a variety of reasons: changing demographics; the end of a GOP foreign policy advantage during the Cold War; a serious gap in candidate quality; the declining relevance of economic policies that seem better suited to the 1980s; and an occasionally deserved reputation for being judgmental and censorious.

Mitt Romney, lost by 5 million votes to a beatable incumbent presiding over an anemic economy. The explanation is not purely technical or personality oriented. At the national level, Republicans have a winning message for a nation that no longer exists.  In retrospect, last year’s Republican primary process was entirely disconnected from the actual needs of the party.

A Republican recovery in presidential politics will depend on two factors. First, candidates will need to do more than rebrand existing policy approaches or translate them into Spanish. Some serious rethinking is necessary, particularly on economic matters. In our Commentary essay, we raise ideas such as ending corporate welfare, breaking up the mega-banks, improving the treatment of families in the tax code, and encouraging economic mobility through education reform and improved job training. Whatever form Republican proposals eventually take, they must move beyond Reagan-era nostalgia. 

Second, Republican primary voters, party activists and party leaders have a choice to make, ruthlessly clarified by recent events. They can take the path of Democrats in 1988, doubling down on a faltering ideology. Or they can follow the model of Democrats in 1992 and their own party in 2000, giving their nominee the leeway needed to oppose outworn or extreme ideas and to produce an agenda relevant to our time. 

As I have noted over and over again, I do not anticipate any meaningful change in the GOP until the Christofascists are driven from having any serious role in the GOP nominating process.  They are fanatics who by definition want to move the country backwards and who ignore a changing reality.

High School Senior Comes Out as Gay to His Entire Class, Gets Standing Ovation

I will concede that there are many times that I get very depressed at the current state of LGBT rights.  Yes, huge advances have been made in some ways, but here in Virginia progress seems to have passed us by and LGBT individuals remain third or fourth class citizens.  Indeed, over the last 10 years in Virginia, the only advance has been that we can no longer be charged with a felony for consensual sex in the privacy of our own homes thanks to the 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.   But then I see something like the brave coming out of New Jersey high school senior Jacob Rudolph (see the video above) and I realize that things have indeed changed for the better.  Rudolph exhibits a courage and bravery that I could never have exhibited decades ago when I was his age.  Here's a portion of the high schooler's statement as he received his school's best actor award:

Sure I've been in a few plays and musicals, but more importantly, I've been acting every single day of my life. You see, I've been acting as someone I'm not. Most of you see me every day. You see me acting the part of 'straight' Jacob, when I am in fact LGBT. Unlike millions of other LGBT teens who have had to act every day to avoid verbal harassment and physical violence, I'm not going to do it anymore. It's time to end the hate in our society and accept the people for who they are regardless of their sex, race, orientation, or whatever else may be holding back love and friendship. So take me leave me or move me out of the way. Because I am what I am, and that's how I'm going to act from now on."

His remarks about living his life as an actor hit home with me.  I did it for 37 years and know how soul killing it is.  Kudos to Jacob Rudolph.

Will Washington Post Cut it Own Throat and Charge Internet Readers?

One of the phenomenons that has been interesting to watch is the reaction of old fashioned newspapers to the rise of the Internet and the exploding accessibility to news through alternate outlets.  Yes, most newspapers have a web version, but historically their main revenue has come from advertising sales in print editions.   Indeed, the two main local papers in Hampton Roads continue to operate their papers as a frame work for selling advertising and actual news content has become filler between the advertising pages.  Worse yet, as the ad revenues have dropped, writers and columnists have been eliminated and the quality of what news and opinion pieces continue to exist has plummeted thereby accelerating the death spiral.  Some newspapers have reacted by charging web readers - a move that I believe in the longer term will simply drive web readers away and ultimately lead to even fewer subscribers and readers.   

Two cases in point: the New York Times and the local Daily Press.  The latter requires that either one be a 7 day a week print edition subscriber or a paid online subscriber in order to access news articles online.  What's been my reaction?  I simply no longer even bother with the Daily Press and all links to that publication have disappeared from this blog.  That's right, they are 100% gone - as are blog readers who might have followed the link for the full article.  That translates to fewer over all visitors and fewer page view - which leads to advertisers being even less willing to purchase ad space in either version of the newspaper.  

The New York Times hasn't been quite as stupid as the folks at the Daily Press and one can still get 10 free articles per month (20 if one has two computers with different IPS addresses).  So what happens on this blog?  After the free articles for any given month have been used up, all links to New York Times stories disappear from this blog until the following month.  Meanwhile, there is reduce link trough traffic, fewer pages views, and advertisers are less willing to pay for advertising space.  As with the Daily Press, it is a case of being penny wise and pound foolish. 

Now the Washington Post seems poised to cut its own throat and implement some sort of pay for web access scheme.  My prediction?  People will not be willing to pay for it.  A piece on Andrew Sullivan's blog looks at the thoughts of other critics of what I suspect will be a failed strategy:

Rod Dreher, for one, isn't buying the WaPo's subscription strategy:

[I] visit its site multiple times per day, and often come away with articles to link to and comment on. Would I pay for it? No, I wouldn’t. If I lived in Washington, or wrote mostly about politics on this blog, I would. But I live in Louisiana, and besides, I already pay a lot of money to subscribe to a quality national newspaper, The New York Times. I keep going back and forth about whether to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal’s digital edition, because I love the Weekend Review section so much. The problem is that subscribing to the Times costs over $400 a year. Do I have an extra $300 lying around to subscribe to the Journal too? I do not. It has to be one or the other. I need to rethink which one it’s going to be. One reason I’ve stuck with the Times is that it’s much easier to use their links in this blog.

TNC, unlike Dreher,"read[s] the Post online enough to say that I would pay for this". But:

The problem with the Post is that the paper has been so decimated that you wonder whether they still have a product they can sell. I wonder if the Post basically got it backwards--they tried to save by cutting, but in cutting damaged the product (and the brand), and now the Post is trying to get people pay a much less substantial product. It seems it would have been smarter to charge when you had something you knew you could charge for.

In the case of the Daily Press, it truly is no longer worth paying for.  Indeed, the Press' headquarters building is now for sale  as a cost cutting measure.  Charging for online reading is only going to hasten the Press' death.  I hope the Post doesn't follow the Daily Press' model of slow suicide.

Gay Friendly Attorney Elected President of the Virginia State Bar

While miracles will not happen over night, for the first time to my knowledge the Virginia State Bar - hardly a bastion of modernity - will soon be headed by a gay friendly attorney.   Virginia Beach attorney Kevin Martingayle was voted the next president-elect of the Virginia State Bar.  The election was the first contested election in 11 years and pitted Martingayle against northern Virginia attorney Raymond Benzinger who was feared to have an advantage given Northern Virginia's larger population base.  Yours truly wrote e-mails and contacted attorneys across the state and encouraged them to support Kevin.  Kevin is not only gay friendly but has a somewhat high profile sister-in-law: Doria Biddle of the Frank DeCaro show who DeCaro describes as the "Kevin Bacon of lesbian Los Angeles."  I am most pleased about Kevin's win.

But back to Kevin Martingayle.  The Virginian Pilot has an article that looks at his election.  Here are highlights:

Virginia Beach attorney Kevin Martingayle has been voted the next president-elect of the Virginia State Bar in the first contested election in 11 years.

Martingayle, who will become the first Bar president from Virginia Beach, defeated Northern Virginia attorney Raymond Benzinger in voting among Bar members. The Bar governs 29,000 licensed attorneys.

A Richmond native, Martingayle received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991. He is a founding partner in the Beach law firm Bischoff Martingayle. Martingayle will serve as president-elect for one year beginning at the Bar's annual meeting in June, and he will then become Bar president the following year

One thing that I hope to work with Kevin on achieving is an expansion of the Virginia State Bar's diversity program.  Currently, the Bar's idea of diversity is including more women, blacks and non-whites.  LGBT attorneys and the lack of legal  protections for LGBT Virginians are invisible at present.