Government

Different View on ‘Mayor Pete’

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Why Democratic Party thought leaders and the media elite are embracing him, and why they moved quickly to tamp down the left-progressives that didn’t find him sufficiently intersectional.

More.

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When Worlds Collide

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Point:


Counterpoint:

More. I’m not saying that none of the nominees have records that are suspect, although the Blade conflates cases they accepted as lawyers and positions they took as elected legislators with judicial opinions. But much of the criticism is just partisan bloviating. This is especially evident with two of the five judges about whom the Blade, following the lead of LGBT activist groups, is aghast:

[David James] Porter leads the Lawyers Chapter of the Pittsburgh Federalist Society, a conservative legal group that argues for strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. … Also of concern to LGBT groups is Porter’s opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

[Thomas Alvin] Farr has faced criticism from LGBT groups because of the larger progressive coalition’s concern over his defense of policies seen to target minority groups, such as a North Carolina gerrymandering law seen to block black voters from being heard in the political process.

I could make reasoned arguments against the ACA and race-specific congressional districts gerrymandered with surgical precision, and in favor of photo IDs at polls as a common-sense step to deter fraud, but that’s not the point. If you’re not lock, stock and barrel behind the progressive agenda, then you’re opposed by LGBT activists groups and thus you’re “anti-LGBT.”

Still more. A comment posted on the Blade site by mginsd says:

There are many gay members of the Federalist Society – I’m one of them – and not all gays are or were thrilled by the self-described “Wise Latina’s” record on and before her appointment to SCOTUS. Moreover, the stale, quarter-century old claims against Farr re: voter intimidation are just that; he was never found responsible for anything other than annoying a lawyer in a Democrat-led DOJ. And, as to his efforts “to undermine unionization efforts,” gee, guess what: employers need representation, too, and the sanctity of Big Labor is not a matter of gay rights, however expansively they are defined.

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Not the State’s Role

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More. “We did not intend, in any way, to diminish the significant contributions of Delaware’s LGBTQ community,” said the governor’s communications director, who noted that a gif was posted on Carney’s Facebook page on June 22. The post says, “Happy Pride Month!” with the hashtag #PrideMonth.

Said the activists, Not enough!

More. Maybe just a tactic to ensure this happened.

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The Pronoun Controversy and Compelled Speech

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Over at Reason, John Stossel writes:

“Shame on you! Shame on you!” chanted protestors after psychology professor Jordan Peterson said he’d refuse to obey a law that would require everyone to call people by the pronoun they prefer—pronouns like “ze” instead of “he” or “she.” …

The pronoun controversy seems silly. “If somebody wants to be called ze or zir, why not?” I ask him for my next online video.

“I don’t care what people want to be called,” he answered. “But that doesn’t mean I should be compelled by law to call them that. The government has absolutely no business whatsoever ever governing the content of your voluntary speech.”

What if I politely asked him to call me ze?

“We could have a conversation about that,” says Peterson, “just like I would if you asked me to use a nickname. But there’s a big difference between privately negotiated modes of address and legislatively demanded, compelled speech.”

That sounds like a reasonable, libertarian take on the issue, but for comments like that, Peterson is called “bigot,” “Hitler,” “transphobic piece of s—.”

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They’ll Keep a Little List

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So, according to the Task Force and its LGBT progressive allies, Trump is a fascist who wants to put LGBT people in camps, and we must demand that the federal government, as it has never done before (even under 8 years of Obama), now ask every resident about their sexual orientation.

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They Want the Feds to Make a List

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More. I realize the data is meant to be reported in the aggregate with safeguards to ensure the anonymity of respondents. But of course the census forms are reported with respondents’ names/addresses, and you might think people would now be aware how unsecure protected government data actually is.

There’s a reason the census doesn’t ask about religion, and why religious minorities are quite content that it doesn’t.

Also, it’s not my contention that the information would be misused, but then I’m not among the hoard accusing the Trump administration of being a neo-Nazi regime supplicant to Vlad Putin and deserving an “F” on LGBT issues. No, that would be the left making those accusations—the same folks upset that the administration won’t be collecting information on the sexual orientation and gender identity of all U.S. residents.

A final thought: given the extreme likelihood that a lot of people would not want to share their minority-status sexual orientation with the government, the numbers reported in aggregate for LGB Americans would likely be even less than the 3.5% that many surveys show (with the T number far lower). And that would be helpful to us because….

(Election exit polling, where people are not contacted at their homes and so are completely anonymous, show a higher LGB figure, usually around 5 percent.)

Constitutionally, the census is meant to count the population in order to apportion electoral districts. Arguably, the civil rights statutes pushed the census to include race, so as to ensure that districts aren’t racially biased. All else is extraneous.

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The Census Brouhaha

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Meghan Maury, of the Criminal and Economic Justice Project at The LGBTQ Task Force, emails:

The Trump Administration is trying to make us invisible by excluding LGBTQ people from the 2020 Census and the American Community Survey (ACS). This is yet another attack on LGBTQ people’s freedom, justice, and equity.

Please sign our petition to the Trump Administration to demand that they reverse their decision not to collect data about LGBTQ people and their families.

We cannot allow LGBTQ lives to be erased! If the government doesn’t know how many LGBTQ people live in our country, how can it do its job to ensure we’re getting fair and adequate access to the rights, protections, and services we need?

[Request for donation]

Gregory T. Angelo, head of the Log Cabin Republicans, emails:

How many more times can the Gay Left cry wolf?

The latest outrage du jour? Word that the 2020 Census will not include a question demanding survey respondents out themselves as gay or transgender.

Nevermind — the fact that outing is always wrong . . .

Nevermind — the fact that the Census has never included any LGBT questions in its history . . .

Nevermind — the fact that the Census recommendations were made by an Obama appointee . . .

In this era of hot takes and fake news, there’s nothing quite like a clickbait headline to set the wheels of The Liberal Outrage Machine™ whirring with breathless exasperations about anything and everything GOP.

It’s possible to have a good-faith debate about the size and scope of the federal Census, but half-truths and a lefty-media blame game in which everything Republicans do is bad and the Democrats are the sole arbiters of good is a disservice to journalism and a disservice to our republic.

[Request for donation]

Guy Benson tweets:


Walter Olson has more:

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Trump and LGBT Issues: Beyond the Fear-Mongering

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Walter Olson, a former Independent Gay Forum contributing author, shares his expectations about what’s ahead for LGBT issues in a Trump administration—and, tangentially, on the obtuseness of left-liberal LGBT political groups. [Update: a slightly revised and more accessible version was published Nov. 13 in the New York Post.] Excerpts:

• Freedom to marry is not going anywhere. The Supreme Court, even after two or three Trump appointments, is unlikely to reverse the outcomes of Windsor and Obergefell unless public opinion itself turns against those outcomes, which I do not believe it will.

• The plans of organized gay groups for sweeping new legislation are largely a dead letter. They will not admit that it was a mistake to have pulled support for the possibly enactable ENDA in favor of the overreaching Equality Act. (For reasons I have written about elsewhere, I myself favor neither of these bills.)

• Following the ACLU’s lead, organized LGBT groups will go on refusing to acknowledge any legitimate role whatsoever for religious or conscience exemptions in discrimination law and will decline to enter any negotiations to amend, refine, or otherwise improve measures like the so-called First Amendment Defense Act (FADA). That will in turn increase the danger that Congress will pass some version that is bad, unfair, or impractical.

• There will be at least one surprise that would ordinarily be seen as positive, such as the first appointment of a gay person to a Cabinet or Supreme Court post.

I agree.

More. Walter adds in the Post version:

I was not a Trump backer in last week’s election, but you don’t have to support him to see the pattern. Since he began testing the political waters in the 1980s he has repeatedly and visibly distanced himself from the rut much of the GOP was mired in on this set of issues.

In his acceptance speech in August, when GOP conventioneers heartily applauded his pledge to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression” of jihadist ideology, he departed from his script: “I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.”

By now it’s part of his brand, and no one cares more about protecting his brand than Donald Trump. I suspect to do that he’ll prove quite prepared to rein in the unwise impulses of some of his appointees.

And on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, CBS News reports:

Trump said after the Supreme Court ruling last year it’s the law of the land — and that he is “fine” with that being the case.

“It’s irrelevant because it was already settled. It’s law,” he said. “It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it’s done … these cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They’ve been settled. And– I th– I’m– I’m fine with that.”

This is only a surprise to those who got their news from the mainstream and LGBT media during the campaign, or read LGBT political groups’ dishonest fundraising appeals.

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Procedure Serves a Purpose

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Columnist Bart Hinkle writes that, rather than the Obama administration’s directive, with no review or public comment, that all public school restrooms and locker rooms must be open for use based on gender self-identification—resulting in several legal challenges—that “a normal rule-making procedure would have allowed for thoughtful consideration of such issues.”

As Hinkle notes, both left and right are quite willing to violate procedural rule-making norms meant to restrain the arbitrary use of federal power, if it serves their own agendas to do so. But each will strenuously condemn the other side for violating those same procedural norms on behalf of an agenda they oppose.

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