After Lott? The San Francisco Chronicle's Marc
Sandalow has
a good piece on Sen. Trent Lott, addressing the homophobia of
some GOP (and Democratic) social conservatives -- including a few
in the running to take Lott's spot as Senate Majority Leader. He
writes:
Open insults against African American are, in most quarters, seen as a political liability. Yet Don Nickles, R-Okla., one of the senators most likely to replace Lott as majority leader should he step down, didn't hide his contempt when he led the fight against the confirmation of gay San Francisco philanthropist James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg.
"It's immoral behavior . . . and shouldn't be treated as acceptable behavior," Nickles said on national television. "One might have that lifestyle, but if one promotes it as acceptable behavior . . . then I don't think they should be representing our country."
Over in the House, Sandalow doesn't mention Rep. Tom DeLay
(R-Tex), but he could have. In a July 18, 1993 story (not available
online), the Washington Post reported DeLay's remarks to a
convention of college Republicans:
"They are scared to death when we talk about values and morality and good, strong family values," said DeLay, a House minority deputy whip. He called homosexuality a "perversion" and said "it's pervasive to this administration."
"And I make the point that it's not just homosexuals in the military. They are putting homosexual activists in very key positions, very sensitive positions in this administration," DeLay said. --
DeLay further stirred the crowd of young conservatives by adding, "Just two weeks ago, the homosexual employees of the Department of Transportation had a party celebrating Gay Pride Week, paid for by the taxpayers."
On a happier note, Yahoo news has a story that Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn) may throw in his hat for Sen. Majority Leader. As IGF contributor Hastings Wyman reported, last year Sen. Frist attended a pro-gay Republican Unity Coalition function, at which he joked that "Trent Lott wouldn't be here." As one colleague remarked to me, "Maybe we'll get somebody civilized toward gays out of this dustup." Wouldn't that be a nice Christmas present!
Jail "em! FrontpageMagazine.com, the website run by the conservative activist and author David Horowitz, has a column urging the Supreme Court to uphold state sodomy laws. In "Sodomy, 'Privacy,' and Federalism," Henry Mark Holzer of Brooklyn Law School argues that sodomy laws are constitutional because the 'right to privacy' under Roe v. Wade doesn't exist. This is interesting, I think, because if repeal advocates try again to argue in front of the Court that sodomy laws are unconstitutional in light of Roe v. Wade, they are going to lose the Justices on the center-right who may not want to overturn Roe, but find its rationale deeply suspect. As I noted in a Dec. 13 posting, a constitutional argument that does not rely on the elusive "privacy right," but instead on constitutional equal protection/equal liberty gurantees, can be made -- as Roger Pilon of the libertarian Cato Institute urged in the Wall Street Journal. It's good advice, and one that liberal-left attorneys had best heed.
Also of interest on the FrontpageMagazine.com site are reader comments linked to the pro-sodomy-law column, which are far more openly homophobic than the column itself. Along with arguing that these laws are necessary because homosexuals can't keep their hands off little boys, one reader believes that sodomy laws protect women, because "As a woman you really don't know how to combat this problem. Marriage or a monogamous relationship does not protect her from a immoral husband or boyfriend, who thinks nothing of living a double life."
So without sodomy laws husbands will go out, have homosexual
sex, and then infect their spouses with AIDS! Leaving aside the
pathological homophobia expressed here, it's remarkable just how
weak a drive heterosexuality is viewed as being if it can so easily
be trumped by the allure of no-longer-illegal homosexual
lovemaking!
--Stephen H. Miller