Politics & Public Opinion

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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One-Party State Supporters

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Some on the LGBT progressive left are condemning the Human Rights Campaign for endorsing incumbent Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). Kirk is one of an admittedly too-small number of GOP congressmembers working to make their party more LGBT supportive.

HRC’s policy is to endorse incumbents who are mostly if not 100% onboard with its scorecard priorities—even if an opponent dots more “i’s” and crosses more “t’s.” Otherwise, elected officials would have less reason to be responsive when lobbied—and in the Democratic party, there’s often a primary challenger claiming to be even more progressive across the spectrum than a sitting congressmember.

But as I never tire of pointing out (as it makes progressives stomp their feet so), the worst nightmare of the LGBT left is a Republican party that ceases to be predominantly anti-gay, pulling gay voters away from the party. So when HRC occasionally does the right thing and endorses a pro-gay-equality Republican incumbent, it’s seen as a betrayal. Left foot first; always, left foot first.

I don’t think these progressives actually believe the GOP can be permanently prevented from keeping or taking legislative power so why bother working to reform them. It’s more like if the GOP is allowed to have power in Washington, then worse is better as regards mobilizing LGBT votes and dollars to put the one-true-party back in office.

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Illiberal Progressives Empower the Right

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This weekend, “anti-Donald Trump protesters blocked an Arizona highway and created a traffic nightmare in a bid to keep the GOP frontrunner and his supporters from attending a Saturday rally,” reported the New York Daily News. The incident follows the successful effort by protesters to force the cancellation of a Trump rally in Chicago, after which the candidate handily won the Illinois GOP primary.

You don’t have to look warmly on Donald Trump (I certainly don’t) to see that preventing him from speaking is all wrong, totally counterproductive, and completely in keeping with the contemporary worldview of progressive activists. Instead of countering Trump’s speech with their own message, they want to prevent him from speaking, and then celebrate their victory while Trump claims—as hard as it is to believe—the moral high ground.

In January, LGBT progressive activists created a disruption that succeeded in forcing the cancellation of a reception with an Israeli gay rights group at the LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference in Chicago. One can think Trump wrong on just about everything, and the Israeli gay rights speakers as courageous and virtuous, and still condemn progressive activists in both situations for their tactics of “de-platforming” (that is, forcibly silencing) those with views they disagree with. As I wrote at the time:

On college campuses progressivism now means shutting down or otherwise eliminating the expression of viewpoints that are not deemed sufficiently and correctly progressive. It’s a new streak of authoritarianism that reflects back to the pro-Soviet leftism of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Freedom of speech isn’t the only constitutional right progressives believe we would be better without (ok, they support freedom of speech they agree with; it’s just “hate speech” that shouldn’t be protected). You can’t pick up an LGBT paper or visit an LGBT website and not see articles and editorials informing you that religious liberty is nothing but code for the right to engage in anti-gay discrimination. Just like the right to freedom of speech is just code to engage in hate promotion. And then progressives wonder why, in rejecting their brand of authoritarianism of the left, a growing number seem inclined to embrace its opposite, authoritarianism of the right.

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Red State, Blue State

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“Despite skewing Democrat, LGBT people are flocking to red states,” reports the Daily Beast. The piece cites marriage equality nationwide and more accepting attitudes as a factor, but notes that this is reflective of wider national migratory patterns:

Specifically, it lines up with people—especially young people—choosing less to live in huge, expensive cities, which were traditionally friendlier toward LGBTQ individuals, and choosing instead to make lives for themselves in small and mid-tier cities in the middle and southern states. …

Smaller cities have shorter commutes, cheaper rent, and less competition for good-paying jobs. And a lot of smaller cities are investing in the kind of infrastructure (public transportation and amenities, walkability and density near city centers) that young people value.

Other reports on the migration pattern are more explicit in citing the economic vitality of Red states as compared to those long-governed by Democratic majorities. Stephen Moore writes at the Daily Signal:

They are leaving states with high minimum wages, pro-union work rules, high taxes on the rich, generous welfare benefits, expansive regulations to “help” workers, green energy policies, etc.

Similarly, blogger James Joyner notes in a Christian Science Monitor column:

Red states offer lower housing costs, lower taxes, and less regulation than blue states. That’s why so many blue-state voters are moving to the West or South. In the short term, the red states gain power. in the longer term, they change. … While the near-term political effect of this has been to increase the power of red states, the longer term impact has been to turn them into purple and even blue states

The concern is that the new migrants, attracted to superior economic conditions, bring along their left-liberal economic ideas and will proceed to vote for big-government Democrats in their new havens—after which they’ll wonder at the mystery of why the economies in those states will have begun to falter, too.

On a more optimistic note, many LGBT people may have felt it necessary to live in liberal states and cities but now have the freedom not to do so. A rising number of fiscally conservative gay voters would be a good thing.

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CPAC 2016: Progress on the Right

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Via the Washington Times:

The traditionalist and libertarian wings of the conservative movement have long disagreed on the issue of gay marriage, but an ideologically diverse panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday was able to find common cause amid the fault lines. …

Townhall.com’s Guy Benson and the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro, both of whom support same-sex marriage, broke with liberals on whether dissenters should be forced to accommodate same-sex weddings such as by baking cakes, taking pictures or performing ceremonies.

At Townhall.com, Matt Vespa writes: CPAC’s Marriage Equality Panel, Something That Could Never Happen At A Progressive Conference:

Benson aptly noted that a panel such as this could never have been conducted at a left wing conference without boos, hissing, and other disruptive shenanigans.

And video here.

This “common ground” won’t please LGBT progressives, and many on the right support efforts by Ted Cruz and, to a slightly lesser extent, Marco Rubio, to roll back marriage equality. But the tenor and tone at CPAC is still progress, as is the fact that CPAC accepted the Log Cabin Republicans among the many official co-sponsors with a booth, which in years past was denied to both Log Cabin and the now-defunct GoProud at the behest of anti-gay conservatives at the Heritage Foundation and like-minded groups.

More. John Kasich tells businesses why they shouldn’t discriminate against gay people. It sidesteps the constitutional, and moral, issue of forcing independent business providers to engage in expressive behavior regarding same-sex weddings that violates their religious convictions, which may put me and fellow libertarians to the right of Kasich. Not that Kasich’s position will appease frothing-at-the-mouth Dan Savage.

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This Should Not Happen in America

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Via the Washington Times, New York farm owners give up legal fight after being fined $13,000 for refusing to host gay wedding:

The owners of a New York farm fined $13,000 for declining to host a same-sex wedding on their property have chosen not to appeal a court ruling against them, bringing an end to the high-profile legal battle after more than three years.

The [state Division of Human Rights] fined the Giffords $10,000 for violating the state Human Rights Law and ordered them to pay $1,500 each to Melisa and Jennifer McCarthy for “the emotional injuries they suffered as a result of the discrimination.”…

The Giffords argued that they would host wedding receptions, parties or other events for same-sex couples, but the court said that their “purported willingness to offer some services to the McCarthys does not cure their refusal to provide a service that was offered to the general public.”

LGBT progressives cheer and pat themselves on the back, while they sneer at those who cling to their guns and their religion—and then wonder how it could possibly be that Donald Trump seems poised to become the next president.

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Courting Backlash

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From Peggy Noonan’s column in the Wall Street Journal:

There is something increasingly unappeasable in the left. … We can’t just have court-ordered legalized abortion across the land, we have to have it up to the point of birth, and taxpayers have to pay for it. It’s not enough to win same-sex marriage, you’ve got to personally approve of it and if you publicly resist you’ll be ruined. It’s not enough that we have publicly funded contraceptives, the nuns have to provide them. …

If progressives were wise they would step back, accept their victories, take a breath and turn to the idea of solidifying gains…. Don’t make them bake the cake. Don’t make them accept the progressive replacement for Scalia. Leave the nuns alone.

Progressives have no idea how fragile it all is. That’s why they feel free to be unappeasable. … They think America has endless give. But America is composed of humans, and they do not have endless give.

Isn’t that what we’re seeing this year in the political realm? That they don’t have endless give? And we’ll be seeing more of it.

It’s a good summation of the present predicament.

Obviously, economic malaise—a decade of slow or no real economic growth—is a driving factor in the angry dissatisfaction among working and middle class voters, fueling the hysteria over immigrants taking American jobs that Trump and others have so effectively exploited. But the cultural factors Noonan points to are real and shouldn’t be dismissed.

More. Also in the WSJ, Gerald F. Seib writes: “Some of these [Trump] voters appear new to the GOP, but many have been bouncing around in the party, lured in over the years by their differences with Democrats on cultural issues. … The voters Mr. Trump has pulled together in winning New Hampshire and South Carolina and coming in second in Iowa is a coalition of the economically and culturally alienated….”

Along similar lines, Brendan O’Neill writes in the U.K.’s The Spectator: “America’s new elites, fancying themselves superior to the rural, the old, the religiously inclined and the rest, have increasingly turned politics into something that is done to people, for their own good, rather than by people according to their moral outlook. And then they wonder why people go looking for something else, something less sneering.”

Rich Tafel tells Harvard Divinity School: “The biggest issues for evangelical voters are economic. … Beyond economic issues, they have a deep-seated fear they are losing their religious liberty and country. … Add to that secular activists who are using their power to force issues on evangelicals, and it makes that narrative very real. Religious liberty is the phrase you are going to hear more of. There will be strong pushback on some social issues, like gay marriage, because of the overreach of the secular left.”

Furthermore. From Tom Nichols at The Daily Beast, How the P.C. Police Propelled Donald Trump:

Gay marriage is a good example. Liberals wanted gay marriage to win in the Supreme Court, and it did. Leftists wanted more: to silence their opponents even after those opponents completely lost on the issue. Ugly language that good liberals would normally deplore emerged not in the wake of defeat, but of victory: actor and gay activist George Takei, for example, actually called Justice Clarence Thomas a “clown in blackface” and said Thomas had “abdicated” his status as an African American. That’s heavy stuff, and it would likely scan better written in Chinese on a paper dunce cap. …

I will vote for a third candidate out of protest—even if it means accepting what I consider the ghastly prospect of a Clinton 45 administration. But I understand the fear of being silenced that’s prompting otherwise decent people to make common cause with racists and modern Know-Nothings, and I blame the American left for creating that fear. …

American liberals, complacently turning away from the excesses of the left and eviscerating their own moderate wing, have damaged the two-party system to the point that an unhinged billionaire demagogue is raking in support from people who are now more afraid of leftists controlling the Justice Department than they are of Putin or ISIS.

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Kasich: For the Future

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In a better world, Ohio Gov. John Kasich would be the GOP front-runner. For a Republican, he’s a sign of where the party should be heading: Via NBCNews.com:

Kasich spoke to large crowds of college students, and found himself pressed on gay marriage by a student during a town hall at Michigan State University. The student identified himself as a “staunch Democrat—always have been, always will be” before Kasich jokingly told him, “well that’s a good open mind. You don’t know that.” The student identified himself as gay and told Kasich he “faces discrimination daily and weekly,” and wanted to know the candidate’s views on same-sex marriage and LGBT protections under the law.

“If I see discrimination in anything, like I said earlier, I’m willing to do what I can,” Kasich said. “Whether it’s executive order or legislation. That’s fine with me. As for marriage equality—let me be clear I’m for traditional marriage but I’ve been to my first gay wedding. … And I had a great time. …

The student pressed back, “I don’t think that’s enough for you to say you’ve been to a gay wedding.”

“Well, we’re not changing any laws,” Kasich told him. “We’re not changing. We’re not going to allow discrimination on this.”

Compared with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the tone and substance is markedly more inclusive and in favor of maintaining equal treatment under the law.

But this isn’t a better world; not yet. And Cruz may be surging. Update: Or not, that poll now seems like an outlier and the Trump phenomenon shows little sign of abetting.

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The Dichotomy

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Milo Yiannopoulos, a young gay conservative Brit and anti-political-correctness provocateur, and the student protesters at Rutgers. NJ.com reports:

“In my view, anybody who asks for a trigger warning or a safe space, should be immediately expelled” [Yiannopoulos said].

The audience loudly applauded his statement.

He said such reactivity merely demonstrates that those students “are incapable of exposing themselves to new ideas.”

“They are demonstrating that they are incapable of engaging in a humble pursuit of knowledge,” he said.

At which point, a woman yells from off camera, “This man represents hatred!” They also started chanting “Black lives matter.”

The video then pans to one side of the auditorium where two students appear to smear fake blood on their faces.

The evocative display was met with loud applause.

Members of the audience in support of Yiannopoulos booed and started chanting, “Trump, Trump, Trump!”

The protesters also splattered their fake blood, Breitbart reports:

the progressives stormed out of the auditorium, leaving a trail of red paint for the janitors to clean up.

Walls, seats, and doors were also vandalised by the protesters. Peaceful attendees who had come to hear a speech instead found themselves splashed with the fake blood. At least one attendee was allegedly assaulted by a protester, who covered him in red paint.

The rise of authoritarian-progressive political correctness, which seeks to stop the expression of ideas its adherents dislike, is met with support for Donald Trump. It’s action/reaction, and represents the sad state of left-dominated academia. It does not bode well for the country.

More. And in Britain, Peter Tatchell: snubbed by students for free speech stance:

The emails from the officer of the National Union of Students were unequivocal. Fran Cowling, the union’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) representative, said that she would not share a stage with a man whom she regarded as having been racist and “transphobic”.

That the man in question is Peter Tatchell – one of the country’s best-known gay rights campaigners, who next year celebrates his 50th year as an activist – is perhaps a mark of how fractured the debate on free speech and sexual politics has become.

In the emails, sent to the organisers of a talk at Canterbury Christ Church University on Monday on the topic of “re-radicalising queers”, Cowling refuses an invitation to speak unless Tatchell, who has also been invited, does not attend. In the emails she cites Tatchell’s signing of an open letter in the Observer last year in support of free speech and against the growing trend of universities to “no-platform” people, such as Germaine Greer, for holding views with which they disagree.

Cowling claims the letter supports the incitement of violence against transgender people. She also made an allegation against him of racism or of using racist language. Tatchell told the Observer that the incident was yet another example of “a witch-hunting, accusatory atmosphere” symptomatic of a decline in “open debate on some university campuses”.

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