Author Archives: Stephen Henry Miller

Liberalism: What Went So Terribly Wrong

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Via Emmett Rensin at Vox.com, The smug style in American liberalism:

In 2016, the smug style has found expression in…a foundational set of assumptions above which a great number of liberals comport their understanding of the world. It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason.

It’s so true, but liberals (actually, illiberal progressives would be more accurate) can’t see it; their unquestioning sense of moral superiority and their “Just Do What We Say” assumption of a right to dictate to others is the ocean they swim in.

More. George Will on the four key tenets of progressivism: (1) history has a destination; (2) progressives uniquely discern it; (3) politics should be democratic but peripheral to governance, which is the responsibility of experts scientifically administering the regulatory state, and (4) enlightened progressives should enforce limits on speech in order to prevent thinking unhelpful to history’s progressive unfolding.

Furthermore. Via The Atlantic, on why a high school senior feels alienated from activist groups that share causes in which he believes:

“I genuinely cared about these causes—still do,” he wrote, referencing everything from anti-racism to LGBT rights to reproductive health. “I believed I was doing something noble. At the same time,” he added, “a large part of me was not quite in agreement with some of the views and concepts espoused by social-justice groups. Their pro-censorship tendencies, fixation with intersectionality, and constant uproar over seemingly trivial and innocuous matters like ‘cultural appropriation’ and ‘microaggressions’ went against my civil-libertarian sensibilities.” …

“When I go off to college next year, I honestly don’t know where I’m going to fit in… The only political/social group accepting of my views are normally libertarians,” he wrote. “For the most part, these campus activism groups have my sympathies. I just wish that they didn’t have such a hostile attitude towards free speech and didn’t dismiss opposing viewpoints based on the person’s identity.”

And as for the next generation of progressive leadership, Protesters shouted obscenities in an effort to silence the speakers, saying they espouse “hate speech”. And they are utterly mystified when their hypocrisy is pointed out.

Plus, comedian Steve Crowder’s social justice warrior takedown.

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The Best Man

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John Kasich is hitting the right notes in calling for both religious conservatives and progressive LGBT activists (and their followers) to stop behaving like authoritarians, so of course both religious conservatives and progressive LGBT activists (and their followers) mock and condemn him—his advice would disrupt their mutual grievance games for fun, profit and power over others.

Via a Washington Blade report with the misleading headline (because he’s not addressing discrimination against employees), Kasich: LGBT people who face discrimination should ‘get over it’, discussing Kasich’s position on small business owners who don’t want to provide services to same-sex weddings:

Urging people to “calm down,” the governor said the country needs to protect religious liberty, but also can’t allow discrimination, so must “strike a balance” on the issue. “What I like to say is, just relax, if you don’t like what somebody is doing, pray for them,” Kasich said. “And if you feel as though somebody is doing something wrong against you, can you just for a second get over it because this thing will settle down?”

Kasich lamented the issue has “become a wedge issue that can be exploited by people on both sides,” saying the country should be the United States and not the “Divided States.”

He’s right, of course. But good luck with that position in today’s polarized politics.

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Narrative Fail

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Good for Whole Foods: We’re suing the gay activist who claimed we sold him a cake with a slur written on it — and we have video.

Related: Useful advise for progressive LGBT activists — 5 Tips For A Successful Social Justice Warrior Cake Hoax.

On a tangential note that exposes another front of progressive LGBT hypocrisy, Whole Foods properly noted that “Out team members do not accept or design bakery orders that include language or images that are offensive.” To which David Boaz wisely replied, “I fully support Whole Foods’ right to refuse to bake cakes with messages that offend its moral values.”

More. Flashback: Anti-gay tipping hoax. And this fake anti-gay hate crime at the University of North Dakota. There was also this staged hate crime, and this one, among others. On some level these are just deeply disturbed people, but the media’s initial rush to embrace them is telling. And you can’t dismiss the culture of victimization that spurs them on.

More. And speaking of the culture of victimhood, there’s little daylight between outright hate-crime hoaxers seeking the exultation of victim status, and those who portray themselves as the victims when they bring down the power of the progressive state against those whose religious beliefs would preclude them from providing expressive services to same-sex weddings, if they had the liberty to follow their consciences.

Furthermore. North Carolina restroom hoax:

A transgender woman says she was “humiliated beyond belief” when security in Durham, North Carolina, escorted her out of a public women’s restroom, but the city says the incident never happened. …

“We thoroughly investigated the claim by speaking with bus operations and police department staff, since she claimed that police escorted her from the premises,” said Beverly B. Thompson, director of public affairs for the city of Durham, in a statement. “We also reviewed the security video, which clearly showed the person entering and exiting the restroom and walking away from the station with another person. We can’t find anything, including the interviews and the video, to support the person’s claim that such an incident occurred.”

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No One Is on the Moral High Ground Here

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The outing of the son of Mississippi’s GOP governor, after he signed a religious liberty bill, raises the usual issues. If the son of Gov. Phil Bryant wanted to make his sexual orientation public, he would have done so. His outing (assuming he is gay) is an attempt to embarrass the governor.

It’s at best a ham-fisted attempt to “educate” the benighted masses that gays are in all families. To the extent anyone pays attention, it will further polarize, with defenders of the Mississippi law seeing it as an exceedingly ugly tactic by opponents and thus feeling reinforced in their beliefs.

Personally, I believe it’s wrong for small business owners with religious convictions against same-sex marriage to be forced to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings (as they are in states and localities with LGBT anti-discrimination measures that apply to “public accommodations”). But the Mississippi law is in many respects “problematic” (as progressives like to label things they want to suppress) and quite probably unconstitutional. That’s because, among other reasons, it’s a mishmash of agenda items, including an unenforceable declaration that “marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman [and that] sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

The “religious liberty” battle now roiling through the states could have been avoided with a bit of common sense, such as an acceptance of religious exemptions in LGBT anti-discrimination matters. But progressive activists have made it clear they will tolerate no dissent on this.

I wish that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993 with support from many Democrats who would now be required to strenuously oppose it, applied to states and localities. The law holds that legislation burdening the exercise of religion on behalf of a compelling government interest must be the least restrictive way in which to further the government interest. But in 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court held that RFRA could only be applied to federal legislation.

If that were not the case, it would have been interesting to see how RFRA might have played out in religious liberty disputes based on state and local anti-discrimination laws. (Subsequently, attempts to pass statewide RFRAs based on the federal model have been treated by opponents as the second coming of Jim Crow.)

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More Evidence: All About the “T”

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The news media is all over that Bruce Springsteen cancels North Carolina concert over ‘bathroom law’ (via CNN.com):

Springsteen and his E Street Band were slated to perform at the Greensboro Coliseum this Sunday. The roughly 15,000 ticketholders will all be eligible for a refund. The newly enacted law requires individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate, and has drawn fierce criticism for excluding legal protections from gay and transgender people.

The North Carolina law, as the article notes in a secondary fashion, invalidates a comprehensive LGBT anti-discrimination measures passed in Charlotte and prohibits any future local measures in the state. But the reporting and commentary is fixated on the bathroom issue.

Part of this is because transgender bathroom and locker room use has—along with forcing small businesses with religious objections to provide expressive services to same-sex marriages—become the dominant LGBT issue of the day. Employment discrimination, what’s that?

Along those lines, the Washington Post recently informed us that queasiness over using restrooms with the opposite sex is simply a matter of socialization and enculturation:

A bathroom bill wouldn’t be raised in some parts of Europe where restrooms are unisex. But the public bathroom here has regularly been a location of consternation for the puritanical, puri-panic-al United States: an American conundrum resulting from American sensibilities and American history.

Which is why so many suspect that gender-neutral bathrooms is the actual aim of progressive activists, and are responding with such vehemence.

Is this rightwing manipulation? Sure. But leftwing overreach has opened the door that reactionary politicians are now walking through.

P.S., I’ve traveled throughout Europe and don’t recall shared “unisex” (the author means mixed sex) restrooms, even in Scandinavia. But hey, if it serves the narrative.

More. Gay Washington Post columnist recounts:

I was having dinner with some LGBT colleagues when I excused myself and headed to the facilities — one labeled for men, the other for women, facing each other across a small hallway. Between them stood an employee, who looked me up and down and opened the men’s room door for me.

How polite? Hardly. Instead of thanking him, I explained how presumptuous he had been in deciding my bathroom preference for me. I tried in vain to explain how “gender identity” (the way individuals perceive themselves) is different from “biological sex” (generally indicated by a person’s genitalia, or sex assigned at birth).

Yes, for many progressives the aim is gender-neutral restrooms.

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Culture Wars Redux

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Via the Washington Times:

Mississippi bakers, florists and photographers who want to avoid serving gay weddings for religious reasons can breathe easy — at least for now.

Calls for a boycott and repeal campaign followed after Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed a religious-freedom bill Tuesday that protects small-business owners from facing penalties for declining to participate in same-sex ceremonies.

Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay advocacy group, called the bill “horrific” and lambasted Mr. Bryant while vowing that “his state will suffer.”

Since Mississippi has no LGBT anti-discrimination law, the religious liberty law was unnecessary; no one is forcing small businesses with religious objections to provide services to same-sex weddings.

But in a saner, less mendacious world, tolerance for religious conservatives — particularly as regards expressive services for same-sex weddings — wouldn’t be viewed as “horrific.”

The irony is that where religious liberty is a legitimate issue — in states and localities where LGBT anti-discrimination laws are used to punish and destroy small businesses that offend progressive sensibilities — religious freedom protections won’t be passed.

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Restoring Campus Sanity

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Via Reason.com: Judge Sides with Gay Brandeis Student Guilty of ‘Serious Sexual Transgression’ for Kissing Sleeping Boyfriend:

The accused, “John Doe,” [had been found responsible by a Brandeis University investigation that denied him due process] for stolen kisses, suggestive touches, and a wandering eye—all within the context of an established sexual relationship. His former partner and accuser, J.C., did not file a complaint with the university until well after the incidents took place. In fact, J.C.’s participation in Brandeis’ “sexual assault training” program caused him to re-evaluate the relationship.

The two began dating in the fall of 2011. They broke up in the summer of 2013.

Comments Robby Soave: “In a world where affirmative consent is a prerequisite for each and every conceivable sexual act, people who awaken their partners by kissing them are committing assault.”

As I wrote about this case back in August 2014, On Campus, Absence of Due Process Extended to Gays, “Maybe these incidents should be left to the judicial system when there is evidence of an actual crime.”

More. From the Washington Examiner:

From the very beginning, the deck was stacked against Doe, as his accuser — a former boyfriend with whom he had a 21-month committed relationship prior to the accusation — submitted two sentences as to the accusation and was not required to provide a full account of the alleged sexual assault. As [Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, a George W. Bush appointee] wrote in his decision, even if the accuser had provided such a statement, the accused was not entitled to see it.

“Indeed, the accused was required to provide his or her own detailed response without an opportunity to see or know the details of the accusation,” Saylor wrote. “There was likewise no requirement that copies of any ‘substantiating materials’ submitted by the accuser, or the names of any witnesses, be provided to the accused at any time.”

Saylor noted that school disciplinary hearings like the one Doe faced are not criminal proceedings, yet administrators essentially conducted the hearing like a criminal trial.

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All They Can See is the “T”

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Fortune notes that businesses responded with far more vigor to, and threatened boycotts over, Georgia’s narrowly scoped religious liberty bill than to North Carolina’s sweeping invalidation of current and future LGBT anti-discrimination provisions.

The reason: fear of being seen as supporting men in women’s bathrooms. The campaign against transgender rights is so effective it’s cutting gay rights off at the knees.

As I wrote in February, “It’s also likely that drawing a line in the sand around locker room use in public (including schools) and private facilities is going to sink future LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment.”

More. But wait, we were assured this would never happen….College Decides To Make ALL Bathrooms Gender-Neutral:

Instead of being classified as “men’s,” “women’s,” or single-occupancy restrooms, all facilities at the Cooper Union will carry descriptive signs describing exactly what lies within. Former men’s rooms, for instance, are now described as “urinals and stalls,” while former women’s rooms now carry the label “stalls only.” Regardless of their type, all bathrooms will be open to whomever wants to use them.

We were told bathrooms going gender-neutral was just rightwing scare-mongering aimed at the rubes.

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Reaction: Lessons from North Carolina and Georgia

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North Carolina’s legislature voted, with GOP unanimity, to void all local LGBT anti-discrimination measures within the state. As NPR.org reports:

One word dominated the debate over the bill and the Charlotte ordinance before it: “bathroom.” Charlotte already protected residents from discrimination based on race, age, religion and gender. On Feb. 22, the city council voted to expand those protections to apply to sexual orientation and gender identity, too.

The most controversial element of Charlotte’s expanded ordinance was the fact that it would allow trans people to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

One-party state supporters will point to this, and a less onerous religious-liberty exemption bill for faith-based groups in Georgia, as indicating why LGBT voters and their allies should only support Republicans. I disagree, as noted in my last post. If there had been at least one, or preferably a few, LGBT-supportive Republicans in the GOP caucus, the outcome might have been different. At least the Republicans couldn’t have so easily painted the issue as a purely partisan one.

The GOP is going to have power—nationally, statewide and locally—from time to time, so the view that it should simply be opposed and not reformed doesn’t move me. And reform means supporting those Republicans who are with us.

One the broader issue, again we see the effective use of fear over transgender people and bathrooms. The left has never understood why the apparent threat to unisex bathrooms, locker rooms and showers has such power, and that’s why we keep losing. The battles for lesbian and gay rights took a few decades of education and engagement; this has not happened around transgender issues, and I include in this failure the farce of sensationalism around Caitlan Jenner. And so transgender rights become the battering ram to obliterate gay rights.

Finally, I think the North Carolina and Georgia bills are radically different. I support faith-based exemptions for religious groups (I’d even go further and support a right of religious dissent for private businesses that don’t want to provide expressive services for same-sex weddings). If LGBT activists weren’t going to the mat to oppose religious exemptions, such a compromise might be able to deter a nuclear option such as the one unleashed in North Carolina.

More. Gov. Nathan Deal vetos the Georgia law, which focused exclusively on religious freedom and was very different from what North Carolina passed, but was treated by the liberal media and LGBT activists as if it were the exact same thing.

I have no issues with the Georgia law per se, although the governor was also correct in noting that the bill’s supporters failed to provide examples in Georgia of the kind of discrimination against faith-based organizations and “certain providers of services” that the bill seeks to protect against (which, unstated, is due to the fact that Georgia lacks an LGBT anti-discrimination law).

Furthermore. As the Washington Post reports, it’s big business lobbying against religious conservatives on these measures. Progressives typically condemn business lobbying as the root of all evil but welcome it in this particular case.

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