Fit to Print. The New York Times has finally decided to run gay union announcements in what will now be known as its "Weddings/Celebrations" section. Just why it took the flagship of American liberalism so long to do so is an interesting question. As a story in the Boston Globe points out, in the New England region alone the count of daily and weekly papers that publish same-sex union announcements includes the Sun-Journal of Lewiston, Maine, New Hampshire's Foster's Sunday Citizen, the Somerville Journal, and the Melrose Free Press. But the Boston Globe itself, which is owned by the New York Times Company, has yet to join their ranks. Looks like small town editors may know something about community that the liberal elites are just realizing.
Biting the Hand that Feeds "Em. AIDS
service/advocacy organizations that receive federal funding are
bristling at a Department of Health and Human Services
investigation into whether these groups used government money to
finance the shout-down of HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson at the
international AIDS conference in Barcelona last month.
According to the Washington Post:
"Thompson was heckled on the third day of the weeklong conference when he delivered a speech on the U.S. government's overseas AIDS activities. Protesters blew whistles, chanted 'Shame, Shame,' rhythmically jabbed their fingers and eventually surrounded Thompson on the stage. He read his address to the end but his remarks were entirely inaudible. Handouts in both English and Spanish criticized the government for not spending enough on care and treatment of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in poor countries. At the bottom of the flier was a list of 12 organizations."
True, the investigation was triggered by complaints from a group
of conservative members of Congress who are not exactly gay
friendly. Still, if you"re accepting government funds, do you
really want to put on protests that such as this:
"The heckling of Thompson was especially dramatic because it occurred in a movie-theater-sized space and went on for half an hour. (The Spanish health minister was heckled into inaudibility at the conference's opening ceremony, but that protest took place in a cavernous sports arena and lasted only 10 minutes.)"
This is all too typical of the contemporary left's mode of "discourse" -- throw a tantrum and refuse to let your opponents speak at a public conference, even if they"ve helped pay for your air fare, and then become indignant at the thought that your use of the taxpayers' funds is being looked into. I guess this is what the left means by "entitlement."
Beyond the Troglodytes. I wouldn't bother
alerting you to yet another analysis of gay "progressive" Richard
Goldstein's attacks on gay nonlefties if I didn't think it made
some interesting, and fresh, points. Here's Julian Sanchez's review
of Goldstein's screed, posted on the website of
Laissez Faire Books, which is itself a libertarian resource
well worth becoming familiar with. In particular, Sanchez
notes:
"The vagaries of America's winner-take-all first-past-the-post electoral system, and the two-party hegemony it has entrenched, have forced a distasteful coalition. Adherents of a philosophy of limited government, open markets, and equality under law were shoehorned into "the right," where they formed an uneasy realpolitik alliance with (among others) loathesome, hate-filled little troglodytes who prattle about a "gay agenda" and live in terror of the day when America recognizes that 'equal protection of the laws' is utterly inconsistent with state bans on 'sodomy' and a 'straights-only' marriage policy."
However, as things have (thankfully) begun to change, the gay
left is utterly unable to adapt:
"The Republican Party has frequently been hostile to gay rights. Therefore, when a Republican candidate emerges who might begin to reverse that trend, the correct response [by the left] is not to support him, proving that Republicans have much to gain politically from sloughing off the bigots and reaching out to the gay community, but instead to rebuff him."
Moreover:
"As we've seen with attacks on black conservatives, dissenting views must be explained away as signs of inauthentic identity, even as affronts to the relevant identity. For Goldstein, politics and sexual identity have so blurred together that this comes very easily. If being a progressive is just one necessary aspect of that identity, after all, then an attack on progressivism is an attack on the identity."
Turns out, in fearing change, Goldstein's really the one who's
the "conservative."
--Stephen H. Miller