Tom Daley - Bisexuals Versus Gays

Personally, I was please when Tom Daley came out as apparently a bisexual.  His announcement that he was dating a guy but that he still liked girls wasn't so well received by some in the LGBT community who thought that Daley was copping out and avoiding using the gay word.  I think sexuality is fluid and differs from person to person.  True, there are gay men who will use the bisexual label until they can get comfortable with saying they are gay.  But that doesn't apply to all.  Thus, in answer to the question, are there really bisexuals, I would say yes since attraction is a complicated thing.  There are many straights - especially among the homophobes - who think gays are ready to jump in bed with any other male.  That is clearly not so - there are many men I find decidedly NOT attractive - and each of us has their own particular "type" that they find attractive.  And beyond the physical attributes one finds attractive, there is the essential element of personality and "chemistry."  A piece in the New York Times that I bookmarked some days ago looks at the issue Daley ignited:

“Of course I still fancy girls.”

Those six little words, tossed off like a request to please hold the mustard, were among the most deconstructed in Tom Daley’s YouTube video last month, in which the 19-year-old British Olympic diver announced that he was dating a man. 

Leaning against Union Jack pillows, he continued, “But, I mean, right now I’m dating a guy, and I couldn’t be happier.” Mr. Daley’s message was sweet and simple, and gay rights advocates seemed thrilled to welcome an out-and-proud athlete into their ranks. (The cattier comments came later, when the “guy” was reported by numerous tabloids and blogs to be the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who is two decades his senior.) 

But the cheers were premature, or at least qualified. Despite the trending Twitter hashtag #TomGayley, Mr. Daley never used the word “gay,” and there was the matter of his still fancying girls. While many commenters embraced the ambiguity (“I don’t care if Tom Daley’s gay or bi or whatever ... He’s still fit,” one tweeted), others raised eyebrows. 

Was it a disclaimer? A cop-out? A ploy to hold on to fans? Was he being greedy, as some joked? Or was he, as the video’s blushing tone suggested, simply caught up in the heady disorientation of first love, a place too intoxicating for labels? 

Whatever the answer, Mr. Daley’s disclosure reignited a fraught conversation within the L.G.B.T. community, having to do with its third letter. Bisexuality, like chronic fatigue syndrome, is often assumed to be imaginary by those on the outside. The stereotypes abound: bisexuals are promiscuous, lying or in denial. They are gay men who can’t yet admit that they are gay, or “lesbians until graduation,” sowing wild oats before they find husbands. 

“The reactions that you’re seeing are classic in terms of people not believing that bisexuality really exists, feeling that it’s a transitional stage or a form of being in the closet,” said Lisa Diamond, a professor at the University of Utah who studies sexual orientation. 

Population-based studies, Dr. Diamond said, indicate that bisexuality is in fact more common than exclusively same-sex attraction, and that female libido is particularly open-ended.

Male bisexuality, by contrast, is more vexed, and much of the skepticism comes from gay men. In the aftermath of Mr. Daley’s announcement, Ann Friedman wrote a post for New York Magazine’s The Cut blog predicting that male bisexuality would become more visible as gender mores evolved. “Traditional definitions of masculinity — which tend to go hand in hand with homophobia — are going through a real shake-up,” Ms. Friedman wrote. “More hetero men are tentatively admitting that they’re turned on by certain sex acts associated with gay men.” 

The gay conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan swiftly countered on his own blog, The Dish, saying, “I suspect, pace Friedman’s dreams, that there will always be far fewer men who transcend traditional sexual categories — because male sexuality is much cruder, simpler and more binary than female.” He called Mr. Daley’s claim about liking girls “a classic bridging mechanism to ease the transition to his real sexual identity. I know because I did it, too.”

Such thinking has irked bisexual advocates, who see bias within gay circles as evidence of “biphobia.” The claim has been lodged repeatedly at the sex columnist Dan Savage. In 2011, the blogger Chris O’Guinn accused Mr. Savage of saying “blatantly hurtful, cruel and insulting things about bisexuals,” including his remark in the documentary “Bi the Way” that “I meet somebody who’s 19 years old who tells me he’s bisexual, and I’m like: ‘Yeah, right, I doubt it. Come back when you’re 29 and we’ll see.’ ”  

[A] follow-up study at Northwestern concluded the opposite: male bisexuality is real. Why the change? Whereas the first study advertised for subjects in gay-oriented publications and included men who identified as gay, straight or bisexual, the second recruited from places catering specifically to bisexuals and selected only those who had seriously dated both men and women. 

Advocates, a touch exasperated, applauded the new results, though some pointed out that physical stimulation is only one ingredient of sexual orientation, which also stems from emotional intimacy.

In Mr. Daley’s case, the difference may be generational. People who have grown up in a more assimilated world may not see the value in labels like “gay” or “bisexual,” when the communities they describe are no longer as marginalized. 

“Among the younger generation, I’ve seen much more openness about bisexuality in both men and women, and often a rejection of all labels,” Dr. Diamond said. “They’re more open to the idea that, ‘Hey, sexuality is complicated, and as long as I know who I want to sleep with it doesn’t matter what I call myself.’ ”

In my own case, it was very hard to get to the point of looking in the mirror and admitting to myself that I was gay.  That said, I clearly knew that it was guys to whom I was really attracted.  Sexuality is complicated and we should not judge others. 

Liz Cheney Quits Wyoming Senate Race

Perhaps realizing that she was going to go down in a humiliating defeat, Liz Chaney - who I consider to be one nasty bitch - has abruptly pulled out of the Wyoming GOP senatorial primary race.  Chaney, who seems to be the female version of her evil father, cited undefined family health issues as a motivation.  Time will tell if this is truly the case or whether she finally figured out that she was viewed as a carpetbagger and was not wanted by Wyoming Republicans.  Here are excerpts from a New York Times story:

Liz Cheney announced early Monday morning that she is withdrawing from the Wyoming Republican Senate primary, bringing an abrupt end to her unsteady challenge to the incumbent, Michael B. Enzi.

“Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement. “My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority.”

Since Ms. Cheney, 47, the former vice president’s elder daughter, declared her candidacy in July against Mr. Enzi — a well-liked, three-term Senate veteran —she not only never found traction but also wound up causing deep rifts among longtime friends and even within her own family. 

Her task was always going to be difficult. Unlike some of the other sitting Republican senators who have been challenged in primaries in recent years, Mr. Enzi has a solidly conservative voting record and did not present the sort of vulnerabilities Ms. Cheney could exploit. But Ms. Cheney never was able to focus much on her opponent, spending much of her five-month candidacy fending off distractions to her campaign. 

Having relocated from suburban Washington to the Jackson Hole area in 2012, she faced relentless questions about her residency and why she would move to the state her father once represented in Congress and almost immediately begin running for office against an incumbent. Longtime friends of the Cheney family in Wyoming, including former Senator Alan K. Simpson, fretted publicly about such a divisive primary. His open expressions of concern prompted a private rebuke from Liz Cheney’s mother, Lynne, who told him to “shut up,” according to Mr. Simpson. 

The perception of Liz Cheney as a carpetbagger was compounded when it was revealed this summer in the Wyoming news media that she had sought a fishing license — a rite of passage in the state — by claiming on her application to be a 10-year resident.

Further, in an interview with The New York Times, Mary Cheney revealed that she had not spoken to her sister in months and that they would not be spending the holidays together. That prompted Dick and Lynne Cheney to issue a statement, which seemed to take Liz’s side in the dispute, affirming that their elder daughter was in fact opposed to same-sex marriage. 

Liz Cheney, thanks to some help from her father, had raised $1 million for her campaign in the first months of her candidacy, allowing her to air a pair of introductory television ads that emphasized her family’s deep roots in Wyoming. A “super PAC” supporting Ms. Cheney was also set up and began to raise money. 

Ms. Cheney’s sudden withdrawal, first reported Sunday by CNN, was indeed dramatic — as much of the short-lived campaign had been. But not for reasons she or her parents would have liked. A campaign meant to carry on the Cheney banner of pugnacious conservatism, especially on national security, offered a vivid reminder about the limitations of transferring political power. 

Good riddance and, if the country is lucky, she will fade into the political wilderness.

Philomena: A Must See Movie Based on "The Lost Child Of Philomena Lee"

Actual photo of young inmates at a Magdalene facility

The horrors done by the Roman Catholic Church both in terms of the sexual abuse of children and youths by priest and the horrid mistreatment of young girls by various Catholic religious orders continues to unfold.  A movie called Philomena starring Dame Judi Dench and based on a true life story highlights the horrors and the indecency of what was done on a wide spread basis by clergy who can only be described as evil by any normal moral standard.  A trailer can be seen here.  The movie is nothing less than an indictment of the Catholic Church and it should be mandatory viewing for anyone who remains an active Catholic.  Sadly, many who perpetrated these horrors never were held accountable and of those living, many continue to live a comfortable life within Church facilities.  Here's a description of plot of the movie:

Philomena is the true story of one mother’s search for her lost son.

Falling pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena was sent to the convent of Roscrea to be looked after as a “fallen woman”. When her baby was only a toddler, he was taken away by the nuns for adoption in America. Philomena spent the next fifty years searching for him in vain.

Then she met Martin Sixsmith, a world-weary political journalist who happened to be intrigued by her story. Together they set off for America on a journey that would not only reveal the extraordinary story of Philomena’s son, but also create an unexpectedly close bond between them.

The film is a compelling narrative of human love and loss and ultimately celebrates life. It is both funny and sad and concerns two very different people, at different stages of their lives, who help each other and show that there is laughter even in the darkest places.

The book “The Lost Child Of Philomena Lee” was published in 2009. It acted as a catalyst for thousands of adopted Irish children and their ‘shamed’ mothers to come forward to tell their stories. Many are still searching for their lost families.

What the description omits is that many of these children were basically sold to Americans wealthy enough to pay large sums to the convents and abbeys that housed these girls and young women in brutal conditions, working the as veritable slaves.  Do a Google search of the term "Magdalene laundries" and read what comes up.  It will not be pretty.  Wikipedia notes as follows:

These institutions (also called laundries and asylums) were complexes in Europe, Australia and North America that enslaved women, institutionalizing them against their will, and stripping them of their rights and identities.

As I ask over and over again, how can moral and decent people continue to support and be a part of such a morally bankrupt - and hypocrisy filled - institution?  Is thinking for one's self and reaching one's own moral conclusions that frightening?  Were I still a Roman Catholic, I would feel literally dirty knowing what I know.  Thankfully, many Catholics are walking away from the Church towards a more moral life, especially in Ireland where the Church is in a free fall.

Here in America it is a tragedy that too many in the larger public see conservative Christians and institutions such as the Catholic Church as worthy of respect and even deference.  Simply put, they are not nice and decent people and they and the Church deserve absolutely no deference.  Criminal prosecution of the Church and clergy would be more in order.

The Descent of Evangelical Christians into Abject Ignorance

This blog has looked before at the correlation between the belief in Bible inerrancy and low levels of education with evangelicals routinely being revealed as the least educated overall and the most believing in the Bible as inerrant fact.   As the evangelical Christians - those I call the Christofascists - have taken over the Republican Party we now see only 43% of self-identifying Republicans believing in evolution.  The sane and educated people have simply left the GOP, a party that once valued science and knowledge.  But even among Evangelicals there is an exodus of the younger educated factions who go to college, receive an education and come to see the religious faith in which the have been raised/brainwashed as unacceptable.  A Piece in The Daily Beast authored by a professor at an evangelical college looks at the downward spiral among evangelicals.  Here are excerpts:

According to a December 2013 Pew poll, among white evangelical Protestants, a demographic that includes many Republican members of Congress and governors, almost 64 percent reject the idea that humans have evolved.

The connection between acceptance of evolution and political affiliation has grown stronger over the past three years, exacerbating the polarization now plaguing Congress. Among Democrats, acceptance of evolution increased by 3 percent, to 67 percent, while among Republicans it decreased from 54 percent to 43 percent.

The trajectory is not encouraging, especially as it runs in parallel with a steady increase in the evidence for evolution—evidence now piled so high that not even one evolutionary biologist at any of America’s research universities rejects the theory. Evolution is as widely accepted in biology departments as gravity is in physics departments.

So how is it that 64 percent of America’s “white evangelical evangelical Protestants,” an unusually powerful and wealthy demographic, remains so strongly opposed to evolution?

I am a white evangelical Protestant, or at least I was until persuaded to leave a couple of years ago. Raised in a parsonage, I grew up in that tradition and, after earning a Ph.D. in physics, I taught science, including evolution, at an evangelical college, one of approximately 160 similar—and accredited—institutions in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). Most evangelical colleges teach evolution, albeit quietly, carefully, and often tentatively, although there are exceptions. 

In an ideal world these efforts should slowly trickle onto Main Street, where they would inform ordinary evangelicals, including those who run for Congress. In time, Darwin’s dangerous idea should become widely accepted, just as Christians gradually gave credence to Galileo’s dangerous idea about the motion of the earth.  But that is not what is happening.

For a quarter century I taught scientific theories of origins—evolution and the Big Bang Theory—under a cloud of suspicion that waxed and waned but never totally disappeared. With few exceptions, my mostly evangelical students accepted these ideas. I took informal polls indicating that most of the 50 percent of my students who rejected evolution at the beginning of my course accepted it by the end. My colleagues at other evangelical colleges report similar experiences. We were hopeful that these evangelical students would become leaders of their faith communities and gradually persuade their fellow evangelicals that evolution was not a lie from hell—which was what many of them had been taught in Sunday school. But instead scientifically informed young evangelicals became so alienated from their home churches that they walked away, taking their enlightenment with them.

An alarming study by the Barna group looked at the mass exodus of 20-somethings from evangelicalism and discovered that one of the major sources of discontent was the perception that “Christianity was antagonistic to science.” Anti-evolution, and general suspicion of science, has become such a significant part of the evangelical identity that many people feel compelled to choose one or the other. Many of my most talented former students no longer attend any church, and some have completely abandoned their faith traditions.

[S]ome professors, alarmed by the persistent gap between the evangelical community and the findings of science—the gap that drives their students out of their churches—have naively presumed to educate their larger faith communities by writing books and articles in support of scientific theories of origins such as evolution and the Big Bang. Their quiet whispers thus become loud proclamations. Influential leaders read their books and are horrified to discover that a faculty member at “their” college is spreading “lies from the pit of hell” and destroying the faith of the students. Campaigns of various sorts are mounted and pressure exerted on the college leadership to remove that dangerous professor.

Productive scholarship that would be highly valued at other institutions became instead a major liability. Administrators complained that I was too controversial and creating public relations problems . . . 

I spent countless hours in the office of a succession of college presidents, explaining why Christians needed to make peace with evolution, no matter how painful. I was forced to communicate and even meet with hostile external constituents to defend well-established science against people who knew nothing about it beyond the challenges it posed to their interpretation of the Bible. One such watchdog group, the Reformed Nazarenes, rejoiced when I finally left the college.


My story is far from unique. Indeed, it’s almost typical. Understandably, only a handful of evangelical scholars have published books and articles in defense of evolution, but many of them have been forced to resign as a result.

It is no surprise that American Christofascists are focusing so much effort on Africa.  To thrive, their poisonous religious beliefs require (i) an ignorant, uneducated audience, or (ii) simple minded individuals who due to their own psychological issues are terrified to think or question hogwash that has been spoon fed to them.   It is frightening that such mental midgets now hold so much sway over the GOP which seems engaged in a race towards utter ignorance.

Sunday Male Beauty

Planned Creationist "Noah's Ark" Park On Verge of Financial Collapse

I used to do a lot of municipal bond work in my legal practice, so I cannot help but wonder what possessed the local municipality (other than the fact that it is in Arkansas) to issue bonds for such a lunatic project in the first place, but in any event a "Noah's Ark" theme park appears near collapse as 50% of the needed bond issue goes unsold.  The park is yet another creationist effort to pass off Bible myths as fact and it is encouraging to see that institutional investors recognize a bad investment.  Perhaps some of the Christofascist groups will buy up the remaining binds and lose their shirts in the process.  Kentucky.com looks at the impending debacle.  Here are highlights:

A Northern Kentucky theme park to be built around a full-scale replica of Noah's Ark might sink unless investors buy about $29 million in unrated municipal bonds by Feb. 6.

In December, the city of Williamstown issued taxable debt for affiliates of the Christian non-profit Answers in Genesis, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Even though $26.5 million of securities have been sold, the project needs to sell at least $55 million to avoid triggering a redemption of all the bonds, Ken Ham, the non-profit's president, wrote in an email message Thursday to supporters.  Without the money, construction funding will fall short, he said.

Proceeds are intended to help build a 510-foot, or 300 cubit, wooden ship, the centerpiece of a planned biblical theme park called Ark Encounter.

The project has drawn comparisons to tourist attractions in Alabama and Nebraska that have defaulted, and it comes with the added risk of legal challenges because its religious theme might violate the U.S. Constitution. 

The Washington-based group Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it is monitoring the project.

Industrial-development bonds are considered the riskiest municipal debt because they account for the largest proportion of defaults in the $3.7 trillion municipal market. Williamstown issued the bonds without a rating, making the prospect of repayment even less clear.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/03/3016554/noahs-ark-park-in-nky-risks-collapsing.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/03/3016554/noahs-ark-park-in-nky-risks-collapsing.html#storylink=cpy

Ark Encounter has had no institutional investors buy its bonds, Ham said.

The documents cite at least 39 risks to buyers, including that Answers in Genesis has no obligation to back the debt. Bondholders' sole revenue would come from money spent by visitors.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/03/3016554/noahs-ark-park-in-nky-risks-collapsing.html#storylink=cpy

Dan Blank and Zach Logan at the underwriter, Ross Sinclaire & Associates, didn't immediately respond to voice mails seeking comment. Joe Boone, vice president of advancement at Answers in Genesis, didn't return calls to his office and mobile phone. 

If they were smart, the underwriters and bond lawyers got their fees paid up front! 

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/03/3016554/noahs-ark-park-in-nky-risks-collapsing.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/03/3016554/noahs-ark-park-in-nky-risks-collapsing.html#storylink=cpy

Leading Republicans' States Among Worst Hit by Cuts to Jobless Benefits

The idiocy of the Republican Party base continues to be dumbfounding.   By using religion as a poly and playing upon the inherent racism of the typical aging white evangelical voter, the Congressional Republicans continue to convince the cretins within the party base to ultimately vote against their own best interest.  These fools cannot see beyond the bait of dog whistle racism and claims of religiosity to realize they are being played for idiots.  And they are idiots unfortunately.  A piece in The Guardian looks at the manner in which the cuts to unemployment benefits will hit Republican controlled states.  As I have said before, one truly needs to have a lobotomy to be a Republican nowadays.  Here are story excerpts:

Senior Republican senators including Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul represent some of the states most affected by the controversial cancellation of long-term unemployment benefits, according to a Guardian analysis of data released this week.

Around 1.3 million people lost unemployment insurance benefits last week, after a bipartisan budget deal on federal spending failed to include a reauthorisation of the program. A further 72,000 job-seekers are expected lose their benefits from Saturday, a rolling tally that will continue through the year.

Figures released this week by the Department of Labor, and analysed by House Democrats, provided the first state-by-state breakdown of the first tranche of American job-seekers whose benefits were cut off. The knock-on impact has been estimated to be costing the US economy up to a billion dollars a week.

in addition to the 34 Democratic senators feeling the most pain as a result of of the benefits cuts, there are 16 Republicans.

They include high-profile figures such as Rubio, who represents Florida, where 73,000 job-seekers have lost, on average, $231 a week.

Four in every 1,000 people lost benefits in Kentucky, which has an 8.2% unemployment rate and is represented by McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Paul, who like Rubio is considered a potential presidential candidate for 2016.

The data is particularly embarrassing for Paul, who in recent weeks has been one of the most visible defenders of the decision to cut the extended jobless benefit programme.

For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have authorised the extended insurance for job-seekers during times of exceptionally high unemployment.

On Saturday, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to urge Congress to reinstate jobless benefits – specifically drawing attention to Republicans with high unemployment rates in their states.
"Republicans in Congress went home for the holidays and let that lifeline expire," the president said. "And for many of their constituents who are unemployed through no fault of their own, that decision will leave them with no income at all."

A Senate vote on a bipartisan bill to reintroduce the benefits is expected early next week, possibly as soon as Monday. The bill has been authored by Democrat Jack Reed and Republican Dean Heller, who represent the two states – Rhode Island and Nevada respectively – with the highest overall unemployment rates, both at 9%. Their bill reintroduces the benefits for three months, allowing Congress time to find a more permanent fix.

The battle over unemployment benefits is expected to dominate Capitol Hill when both houses return next week. On Tuesday, Obama will host several long-term job-seekers who lost their benefits in the East Room of the White House.

 The sad truth is that most Congressional Republicans do not give a rat's ass about the average American.  Oh, they give lip service that they care, but actions speak louder than words.

Putin Eases Protest Ban in Sochi for the Olympics

In my view, it is a case of too little too late and it certainly will not change my mind about not watching any of the 2014 Winter Games or avoiding the products of its advertisers who are putting making a buck ahead of human rights, but Hitler-like Vladimir Putin has eased the bans on protests at the Sochi Olympics.  The change is more form that substance since any protests must (i) first be approved by the Russians and (ii) must be staged at a location 9 miles from the Olympic venues.  Meanwhile, the Russian anti-gay laws continue to create an environment that encourages hate and violence against gay Russian.   The only ones benefiting are Putin and the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church - long a supporter of despots and violence against non-believers - who are prostituting themselves to one another.   The New York Times has coverage.  Here are highlights:

President Vladimir V. Putin on Saturday eased a sweeping ban on public protests in Sochi, Russia, starting on Tuesday and continuing through the Olympic Games next month and the Paralympic Games in March. However, any demonstrations will require approval in advance from the authorities.

The ban, which Mr. Putin ordered in August, had prompted criticism from rights groups and concern from the International Olympic Committee. The new order, posted on the Kremlin’s website, seemed to be an effort to burnish Russia’s reputation before the Olympics. It followed the release of some of the nation’s most prominent prisoners, including the tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, two performers from the punk band Pussy Riot and 30 Greenpeace activists. 

The announcement completed plans that had been in the works to allow approved protests at a park in the Khosta district, about halfway between central Sochi and the Adler district, where the main Olympic Village is.

The protest zone, about nine miles from the nearest Olympic site, is similar to three created by the Chinese government during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. In China, however, the authorities refused to grant permission for any rallies and harassed or arrested those who applied. 

Tanya Lokshina, Russia director at Human Rights Watch, said the easing of the ban was part of Russia’s “efforts to convince critics that it’s a democracy where freedom of expression is respected within reasonable limits.”  “I suggest they shouldn’t let themselves be convinced that easily,” Ms. Lokshina said.

Beginning on Tuesday, the authorities will ban unregistered vehicles in Sochi and increase security in public places. Russia’s equivalent of the National Security Agency is reported to have created a system to intercept any phone calls or emails to or from people in the area. Visitors to the Games, which begin Feb. 7, will have specially encoded passes in addition to tickets for events. Anyone seeking to hold a demonstration will have to get approval from the mayor’s office and the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor to the K.G.B. 

Will America Go the Way of the Roman Republic?

History can teach us many lessons.  Of course, to truly learn from history, one has to look at accurate history, not some re-written version that leaves out inconvenient facts and is more focused on reinforcing predetermined agendas.  Stated another way, one cannot rely on a Fox News or David Barton version of historical fact without courting long term disaster.  Yet the far right, focused on short term agendas and ideological purity doesn't grasp this reality.  A piece in Politico looks at the parallel's between the behavior of today's GOP and forces in the last days of the Roman Republic which ultimately caused the governance of ancient Rome to cease to work.  The result?  Civil wars and ultimately the beginning of the imperial period and the end of democracy.  And, as is occurring now, it was the self-styled conservatives who pushed the republican form of government to break down and opened the door to dictatorship.  Here are some article highlights:

What does decline sound like? I imagine equal parts self-pity and self-flagellation, moral outrage and exhaustion. Once we could have heard it from the original Capitol Hill, the seat of the failing Roman Republic. As Caesar told Rome’s Senate, “Certainly there was greater merit and wisdom in those who raised so mighty an empire from humble means, than in us, who can scarcely preserve what they so honorably acquired.” His enemy Cato responded, “There were other things that made them great, which we lack: industriousness at home; fair government abroad; minds impartial in council.” They lived in an era of decline, and they both knew it.

Do we? That exchange resonates as we look again over last year’s bruising budget battles—which, thankfully, appear to have reached their wearying apotheosis. In unsteady times, we’re compelled to look back: Tea Partiers imagine themselves as revolutionary Americans; revolutionary Americans (churning out pamphlets under names like “Publius,” “Brutus,” and “Cato”) imagined themselves as republican Romans; and those Romans measured themselves against the generations that bequeathed them an empire. We live in a nation modeled on Rome, founded by men who modeled themselves on Romans—and having traced Rome’s history in outline, from backwater republic to imperial power, it’s natural to wonder if the next step is ours as well.

It’s a fair worry. Across time and place, the breakdowns of republican governments share eerie similarities, as political conflicts spill beyond the bounds of the norms designed to hold them in check. Rome’s example warns us that a cycle of crisis politics, once entered into, grows increasingly difficult to escape. There is reason to believe that we’ve entered into just such a cycle.

Brinksmanship, “nuclear options” and shutdowns are not unique to American politics. The Roman Republic’s final years were increasingly prone to political conflicts so intractable that they left the government paralyzed. In 60 bce, Cato, the leader of Rome’s traditionalist optimas faction, ground the Senate to a halt for months through unprecedented use of the filibuster.

Three years later, the optimates went on legislative strike again, in renewed protest against Caesar’s political faction. Rome’s hardline senators shut down the chamber, dressed in black mourning clothes, and, in the words of the ancient historian Cassius Dio, “spent the rest of the year as if they were in bondage and possessed no authority to choose officials or carry on any other public business.” Most significantly, they refused to schedule elections. The Republic faced the prospect of a new year with no elected government at all, until the senators backed down and allowed a vote on the calendar’s final day. By this point, stalemated government and manipulation of elections had become routine: Over the Republic’s last decade, elections were postponed in five consecutive years. And in the midst of the squabbling, the Forum heard louder and louder cries for a strongman to save Rome from the muck of self-government.

 

[O]ne truth that does seem to translate is this: In republican government, norms matter profoundly.   Political elites aren’t simply bound by written rules; they’re bound as well by unwritten rules that are developed and refined in practice.

The Roman Republic was nearly five centuries old when it collapsed. In that time, it had developed norms against permanent filibuster campaigns, boycotts of government, bypassing the Senate to enact policy and postponement of elections. All of the steps I’ve described were legal. They were also disastrous. Collectively, layered one on the other, they normalized a state of crisis politics.

Obviously, I hope that America escapes the fate of the Roman Republic.  But to do so, the far right and today's GOP need to stop acting in the same manner as their predecessors in ancient Rome did.  Given the insanity and extremism of the GOP base, it is worrisome as to whether the GOP can return to long established norms of governance.

The Ugliness of Government Endorsed Bigotry

I have no use for homophobes and, as regular readers know, even less use for the "godly Christian" crowd that keeps homophobia alive and well so that they can feel superior about themselves and/or avoid challenges to their childish, ignorance based religious beliefs.  Such people are a cancer on society and are literally dragging America down through their hatred of others and open embrace of ignorance and rejection of modernity and scientific knowledge.  In their all too typical arrogant way, they blame others for America's decline when what they really need to do is take a long look at themselves in the mirror.  Yet sadly, for too long America's laws gave special preference and deference to the religious based bigotry of these people - Virginia still does - and far too many lives have been damaged or destroyed so that the "godly folk" can give themselves a self-congratulatory pat on the back.  These are in truth loathsome people.  Thankfully, the younger generations seem to recognize this as they walk away form toxic forms of Christianity in near droves.  An op-ed in the New York Times looks at but one of the thousands and thousands of lives harmed by such government sanctioned homophobia.  Here are excerpts:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — WE don’t get any say about the kind of world we’re born into — about whether it’s prepared for the likes of us, whether it will open its arms. Hal Faulkner certainly didn’t get the world he deserved. It was needlessly cruel to him, senselessly judgmental. For the most part, he made peace with that. 

But over the last few months, with cancer spreading fast through his body and time running out, his thoughts turned to one aspect of that landscape that he could perhaps revisit, one wrinkle he might be able to revise, a wrong he had a chance of righting before his death. 

Back in 1956, when he was 22, he was discharged from the Marines after more than three years of proud service. There were no real blots on his record. No complaints of incompetence or laziness or insubordination. There was only this: A man with whom Hal had spent some off-duty time informed Hal’s commanding officer that Hal was gay. The commanding officer suspected that this was true and, on that basis, determined that Hal had to go. The discharge was classified as “other than honorable.”

Before federal law was changed in 2011, more than 110,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual people were discharged from the United States military over time because of their sexual orientation. And until the 1990s, when the policy tweak known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” vaguely softened the prohibition against gays in the armed services, it was common for such discharges to be dishonorable ones that barred gay veterans from receiving any benefits and sometimes disqualified them from civilian jobs they later sought. 

But now that the military accepts gays, there is also a process that permits those who were dishonorably discharged to appeal for reclassifications of those dismissals as honorable. A military spokesman said last week that he didn’t know how many veterans had sought to take advantage of it, or with what success. But Hal caught wind of it, and knew that he had to try. 

But the bigotry that ended his military career followed him beyond that point, and so did the fear of it. He lost another treasured job, he said, because of his sexual orientation. And from the 1950s through at least the 1970s, he felt that financial security and success hinged on a certain degree of secrecy. Had he been more open about being gay, he said: “I wouldn’t be here today. I’d probably be on the street.”

The case came to her only two months ago, when doctors were saying that Hal might have only weeks left. She was racing the clock. She pressed the military for an expedited decision. It arrived in a letter in mid-December, and she traveled all the way to Fort Lauderdale for a gathering on Friday afternoon at which the letter was presented to Hal. 

JOHN GILLESPIE, a member of OutServe-SLDN’s board of directors, traveled here, too, from Mississippi, and he arranged for two local Marines, in uniform, to be on hand to congratulate Hal, who’d been told what the letter said and would now get a special moment to savor it. 

“He lived his entire adult life with this shame and this stain on his honor,” John said to me, explaining why he insisted on creating that moment. “The world has changed so much that with the stroke of a pen, that stain and that shame are gone.”

Damaged lives so that the likes of Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Linda Harvey and other hate merchants and "godly folk" can feel better about themselves and avoid using God given intelligence and harm others instead.  I really, really have no use for the "conservative Christians."  As noted, I see them as a cancer.  Am I being harsh?  I don't think so.  Gays cannot change how they were born.  The godly folk can stop embracing hate and ignorance.