The Other Bush Haters. Here's a rabidly anti-gay webpage that contains numerous items intended to document the charge that George W. Bush and the GOP are actively pushing the "gay agenda." It made me feel truly good about how things are going.
You Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time. More evidence that the anti-gay right has reason to be concerned about their loss of influence. Check out this editorial, "Gay Chicken Littles Wrong on Bush," by Chris Crain, editor of the Washington Blade and New York Blade News -- two of the nation's most important gay newspapers. Crain is a Democrat who conlcudes "George W. Bush is no Bill Clinton, but his record so far has been surprisingly neutral and even positive on the gay issues to come before his administration."
Crain makes a persuasive argument, but don't expect most lesbigay political groups to pay attention. Their fundraising is firmly based on scare tactics -- just like the religious right's. In fact, reading fundraising letters from the religious right and the gay left would convince you that American society truly IS on the verge of destruction -- it's just the face of the enemy being blamed that's different.
Another Gay Left Lament. Many of you caught C-SPAN/2's broadcast of the great gay debate between Andrew Sullivan and left-firebrand Richard Goldstein. I agree with the e-mailer who said his favorite moment was when Goldstein demeaned Sullivan as another Roy Cohn (the self-loathing aid to arch-homophobe Joseph McCarthey). Sullivan's immediate and passionate rejoinder, pointing out that he is an openly gay man who argues on behalf of gay marriage in front of religious conservatives, should have put Goldstein to shame (but of course, nothing could do that).
For those who want another example of the gay left's myopia --
although without the personal bile that Goldstein and his cohorts
specialize in -- here's an interesting piece from The Independent
(U.K.) by Britain's gay left leader, Peter Tatchell, titled
"Gay
Pride is Now Respectable, and the Worse for It." Tatchell
writes:
"We had a beautiful dream, but it's fading fast. In the 30 years since the first Gay Pride march, there has been a massive retreat from the ideals and vision of the early gay liberation pioneers. Most gay people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of mainstream society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo."
Yes, settling for equal rights is just such a bloody
shame.