The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission has
issued a statement that's simply Orwellian. According to their
release,
IGLHRC Opposes Bush's Warmongering:
US actions in the war on terrorism demonstrate a disregard for international law. ... Our position is guided by our sense of solidarity with and accountability to the activists we work with all over the world, and especially those in regions which are greatly impacted by US foreign policies. The US policies of military aggression have served to render those who deviate from sexual and gender norms and people living with HIV/AIDS especially vulnerable to state-sanctioned violence and discrimination.
Just try to parse the meaning here. Not only are they defending Saddam's rule in the name of human rights (quite an obscenity, really), but they"re claiming it's U.S. policy that's responsible for the oppression of gays and lesbians (and the transgendered too, I suppose) in Saddam's Iraq and other tyrannies. This is too loopy for words.
Lies Are Truth.
But the left doesn't have a monopoly on inflammatory positions.
The Liberty Legal Institute is one of the rightwing groups filing a
brief in support of the Texas sodomy law in the Lawrence
case now before the Supreme Court. According to a summary on the
group's website:
Homosexual advocacy groups are challenging the Texas sodomy law". If the Court rules the law is unconstitutional discrimination (as they argue), all marriage laws restricting marriage to being between a man and a woman only would also be unconstitutional." LLI is also filing a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States, representing dozens of Texas legislators who are calling for the Supreme Court to uphold the sodomy law as part of the state laws protecting marriage.
Liberty Legal isn't even bothering to argue that ending sodomy laws could be a "slippery slope" toward legalizing same-sex matrimony; they simply assert that if sodomy laws are found unconstitutional, then barring gay unions will ipso facto be unconstitutional, too. Would it were so! Surely this "legal institute" knows that's ridiculous, but in the game of firing up the donor base, truth is a mere abstraction.
Muzzling versus Debate.
The always inflammatory gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile writes in Deflating a Gasbag that advertisers should be threatened with boycotts if they don't stop sponsoring Rush Limbaugh's popular radio show, because of Limbaugh's criticism of anti-war protestors. Signorile doesn't even have a clue as to what a perfect little McCarthyite he's become, or how all this is reminiscent of the 1950s "Red Channels" boycotts of advertisers on radio shows which featured communists (real or not).
Signorile compares boycotting Limbaugh's sponsors to the effort against advertisers of "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger's radio and (now defunct) TV shows. But "Dr. Laura" was an easier target than Rush. Advertisers are more sensitive to accusations they're sponsoring anti-gay or racial/ethnic bigotry than they'll be to a charge of supporting criticism of leftwing anti-war demonstrators.
I didn't support the "Dr. Laura" boycott (though I recognize she is a bigot), and instead urged that the response to bad speech is public argument, not attempting to silence your opponent by threatening sponsors. Targeting Limbaugh's advertisers because of his expressed political views has even less merit. It's the tactic of those who don't believe they can win in the give and take of public discourse.
Tears for Leona?
Having just defended Rush Limbaugh's right to speech, I can just imagine what my critics will make of this item. But here goes: Leona Helmsley is a sad, sick woman. But I"m not cheered by the jury verdict forcing her to pay $11 million-plus for discriminating against a gay employee. Specifically, the jury found she had subjected Charles Bell to a "hostile work environment" when he was general manager of her Park Lane Hotel (for about 5 months). Yes, it's quite possible Helmsley was a boss from hell, used the word "fag," and ultimately fired Bell. Guess what, this is the woman who made her reputation firing staff for the pettiest of reasons, real and imagined.
You take a job with the 'Queen of Mean,' you should know what
you letting yourself in for. And Bell, now a restaurant manager,
isn't exactly a factory laborer or short-order chef suffering
privations because he was let go. Said Helmsley of her jurors,
"They"re crazy -- They don't like me, I guess," and it's hard to
disagree with that analysis.
--Stephen H. Miller