A Question You Never Thought You"d Hear. "Is John Ashcroft becoming a liberal?" asked the Washington Post's "Political Notebook" column on June 21. The religious right, it seems, is furious at the attorney general for allowing his deputy, Larry Thompson, to address a gathering of gay Justice Department employees at an event sponsored by the group DOJ Pride. "After all the work we did to stand up to the liberal mudslinging during Ashcroft's confirmation fight, this is what we get?" asked Robert Knight of the anti-gay Culture and Family Institute. As I"ve said before, that's politics, baby. And it's becoming increasingly evident that the future belongs to "big tent" inclusiveness, and not to the exclusionary religious right.
So, just how loony can the anti-gay right get? A press release issued by the group Concerned Women for America (CWA) asks, "Why is Mr. Ashcroft, a committed Christian, using his official capacity to celebrate sin?" CWA's Sandy Rios fumes, "It won't matter if we dismantle terrorism if we implode from within. The presence of a top aide to the attorney general at an event celebrating "gay pride" is a clear endorsement of homosexuality."
This is about as over the top as anything I can recall -- they actually think speaking to a group of gay civil servants is as bad as terrorism!
In contrast, in the Post article the Log Cabin Republicans praised Ashcroft and Thompson for sending gay Justice Department employees the message that "the government is proud of their service" in the war on terrorism.
Remember all the predictions about the anti-gay crusade the Republicans would unleash if Bush won, and then if his attorney general pick was confirmed? As an e-mail I received commented, Ashcroft "catches flack from the right for sanctioning a Pride event, and meanwhile, no matter what he does, most of the gay groups demonize him." That about sums it up.
Patriotism Is Not a Gay Value? Now, for
fairness, let's turn to that other contingent of deep thinkers, the
gay left. Michael Bronski, in
a piece for the Boston Phoenix titled "Rally 'round the fag:
The sorry fate of queer politics since September 11" laments that a
surge of patriotism was expressed during this year's gay pride
celebrations. Writes Bronski:
"few could have predicted that the terrorist attacks' effects on the gay-and-lesbian-rights movement would be so, well, perverse". That was clear this month when Gay Pride celebrations across the country could have just as easily been called American Pride. Take Boston, historically a site of radical gay politics, where the theme of Pride this year was "Proud of Our Heroes." -- It is, indeed, a brave new world. And desperately patriotic flag-waving at Gay Pride events are -- telling us how far we still have to go."
Actually, it's telling us just how far the gay left has fallen into irrelevancy.
A Harbinger? When the Supreme Court voted last
week 6-3 to bar executions of the mentally retarded, it reversed
its own 1989 decision which found such executions constitutional.
Justice Sandra Day O"Connor, who had written the 1989 decision,
this time voted the other way, citing a change in national
sentiment against executing murderers who are retarded. The Supreme
Court is generally loath to directly reverse a prior decision, so
the fact that they did so now bodes well for their willingness to
reverse their 1986 decision upholding so-called sodomy laws, which
still make same-sex partners criminals in many states. Clearly,
national sentiment on this issue has also changed, and dramatically
so, over the past decade. Let's hope the High Court revisits one of
its worst decisions ever before another decade goes by.