In the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News, a progressive outfit called Courage Campaign states:
This weekend in Rancho Mirage, Calif., the Koch brothers—key funders of California’s anti-environment Prop 23 as well as the Tea Party, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and countless other right-wing organizations—will meet behind closed doors with other conservative power brokers. There, these billionaires and their elected officials will strategize on how to impose their right-wing agenda on the rest of us.
Would that “right wing agenda” of the Cato Institute include its amicus brief in Lawrence that Justice Kennedy cited in his opinion overturning state sodomy laws (note: he didn’t cite the briefs from NGLTF or HRC), or the Cato Institute’s efforts backing the suit to overturn California’s anti-gay marriage Prop. 8?
Ah, well here’s some good news to be filed under Things Change: Gay Marine’s husband surprised at respect shown by Naval Academy.
5 Comments for “Blind Progressives”
posted by Tom on
Ah, well here’s some good news to be filed under Things Change: Gay Marine’s husband surprised at respect shown by Naval Academy.
You bet. The military, now that it is finally free to do so, will handle open service with aplomb. All the bullshit was just bullshit.
posted by Tom on
The Koch brothers have a strong libertarian streak, as I understand it,
To the extent that the so-called “Koch billionaires” (I have no idea who is and who isn’t invited to the table) can influence the Republican Party to move toward Sections 1.5 (“Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government’s treatment of individuals, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships.“) and 3.5 (“We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. Government should not deny or abridge any individual’s rights based on sex, wealth, race, color, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation. Parents, or other guardians, have the right to raise their children according to their own standards and beliefs.“) of the Libertarian Party platform, it seems to me that gays and lesbians will do nothing but benefit from their efforts.
Let’s hope that the Koch brothers and the other so-called “Koch billionaires” will use their campaign donations in support of Republican politicians who support those libertarian principles, and deny donations to those who don’t. If they do that, they will be doing gays and lesbians, as well as the country as a whole, a great service.
I’ve never understood why the Republican Party abandoned constitutional conservatism in the first place.
Barry Goldwater was ahead of his time — he did, after all, lose decisively in 1964 — but Ronald Reagan and the rest of the Republican Party should have listened to Goldwater when he objected to letting the likes of Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Reed and the rest of the crowd take over the party.
Reagan could have been a strong force in support of gays and lesbians if he had stayed true to the principles he followed as Governor of California. Instead, Reagan invited them in and turned a blind eye while they reorganized “the base” according to their own lights, and the end result was the “faggot, faggot” strategy deployed by Karl Rove and George Bush, a host of anti-marriage amendments that will now have to be slowly and painfully repealed, and the current difficulty that the Republican Party is now having trying to get off “faggot, faggot”.
The Cato Institute has been a strong voice in getting the Republican Party back on track with respect to “equal means equal”.
The Heritage Foundation, on the other hand …
posted by another steve on
It’s telling how a great many (though not all) leftwing “progressives” strike out against libertarians as well as conservatives, as if there were no difference. If they really wanted to accomplish things, they would work with libertarians such as the Cato Institute on those things that they agree government should not do: impose legal discrimination against gay people, wage the counter-productive war on drugs, violate civil liberties, etc.
But these progressives are so appalled that libertarians are against further growing the ever-expanding government debt and increasing the size and control of government that they view us as “the enemy” along with rightwing conservatives. Very sad.
posted by BobN on
What does “work with” mean? Does the Cato Institute “work with” gay-rights groups when it agrees with them? How so?
I don’t recall ever seeing a joint declaration or a joint study. Do you? Sure, there are cases when a gay-rights group (which you define to be left-wing) stakes out a position and Cato stakes out the same position separately. You can also look at that in reverse the order. Either way, the two organizations independently arrive at the same conclusion. A joint declaration would be sort of refreshing, but it’s no more incumbent on one side than the other… actually, given how long the left as been pro-gay-rights, Cato should join them.
What you really hope for is for the gay-rights group to support libertarian positions on other issues. Well, you can hope, but there’s nothing logical or fair about one side adopting the positions of the other just because they agree on a few things. This works both ways, of course, and it’s just as easy to ask why Cato doesn’t “work with” HRC.
posted by Houndentenor on
Why is it the gay community’s job to come crawling to the Cato Institute? I agree that many think of libertarians, economic conservatives and social conservatives as being one big group, but perhaps that’s because we so rarely hear any objection from libertarians and economic conservatives when the GOP uses homophobia as an election issue. Where were our “friends” on the right in 2004? I can’t think of a single public figure from the right who spoke out against Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Did I miss one? Where was Mary Matalin? Why did Laura Bush wait until after her husband left office to say anything? That’s the gay community’s fault? Please.