The Hearing on the Hill.

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A hearing was held Thursday before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution. The topic: "What is Needed to Defend the Bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act of 1996?" (click to see the testimony transcripts). IGF contributing author and Univ. of Minnesota law professor Dale Carpenter explained why amending the Constitution to forbid states from granting legal recognition to same-sex relationships is not such a good idea. He testified:

The solemn task of amending the nation's fundamental law should be reserved for actual problems.

Never before in the history of the country have we amended the Constitution in response to a threatened (or actual) state court decision. Never before have we adopted a constitutional amendment to limit the states' ability to control their own family law. Never before have we dictated to states what their own state laws and state constitution mean. Never before have we amended the Constitution to restrict the ability of the democratic process to expand individual rights. This is no time to start"

Also testifying against the proposed amendment was Keith Bradkowski, whose partner of 11 years was a flight attendant on the first plane to be crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. His moving testimony put a human face on the issues.

Reports are that the hearing was surprisingly even-handed and not the homophobic circus many had feared. Quite possibly, it was held to placate the anti-gay right rather than to give the amendment a real push. The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. John Cormyn, is a Bush loyalist. Had he not called the hearing, it's very likely someone else, with more demagogic intentions, would have claimed jurisdiction and done so.

But gays on the left can't see the balancing act that the administration is engaged in, and simplistically tell their followers that Bush and the entire GOP are pushing a hardcore anti-gay agenda.

A related item: In this op-ed from Friday's Washington Post, former GOP Senator Alan Simpson takes aim at conservatives who support the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. He writes:

That people of goodwill would disagree was something our Founders fully understood when they created our federal system. They saw that contentious social issues would best be handled in the legislatures of the states, where debates could be held closest to home. That's why we should let the states decide how best to define and recognize any legally sanctioned unions -- marriage or otherwise.

As someone who is basically a conservative, I see not an argument about banning marriage or "defending" families but rather a power grab. Conservatives argue vehemently about federal usurpation of other issues best left to the states, such as abortion or gun control. Why would they elevate this one to the federal level?

A good question, indeed!

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I Have a Dream … of What?

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We are often told, especially by gay-left organizations and leaders, that we cannot go it alone. To achieve our political aims, we must form coalitions. What they do not tell us is that they seem willing to play down the most important objective of the movement - marriage - to avoid offending our coalition partners.

This latest bit of folly has come out of the recent 40th anniversary commemoration of the original 1963 black civil rights March on Washington. At that march, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the standard-bearer for the gay left, contributed money and personnel to the march. NGLTF's executive director, Matt Foreman, spoke to the rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

What did Foreman do with his unique opportunity to speak to our coalition allies? "On behalf of an incredibly diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community, " he opened, "I thank you for inviting us ... to walk with you on the road to jobs, peace and freedom." Foreman acknowledged "there are differences" between gay-rights and black civil-rights activists, but he did not say what they were. Instead, he passed over this unpleasantry by asserting that "what we agree on far outweighs our differences. "

As examples of agreement, Foreman cited support for "full equality" for "everyone, " opposition to "hate violence, " and support for "forceful and affirmative action" to end "racial oppression. " The first is so vague it says nothing. The second is an apparent reference to hate-crimes legislation, which will accomplish nothing of substance for gays. And the third is not a gay issue at all. So the areas of agreement among the civil rights groups offer gays little beyond warm words.

Foreman held up the example of the political right, who "know how to set aside their differences." They have mastered the art of using wedge issues, he said, to "fracture us. " He ended with a plea to "walk proudly together to defeat our common enemies. "

There was not one word in Foreman's platitudinous speech about gay marriage. Yet, after the elimination of sodomy laws, marriage is now the gay issue. He didn't need to harangue the crowd about it, but he needed at least to mention it.

It is obvious why Foreman left it out. Polls show that while Americans overall oppose same-sex marriage by perhaps 15-20 percentage points, black Americans oppose it by a margin of 65-28 percent.

Even among black leaders there is opposition and equivocation on gay marriage.

Even among black leaders there is opposition and equivocation on gay marriage. Martin Luther King III said recently that he wasn't sure how he felt about the issue because he works with gay leaders and "some of them have not formed an opinion on the issue of marriage." Oh yeah? Which ones?

Apparently, gay leaders on the left have given "our allies" a pass on this critical question. Is this the "wedge issue" that Foreman refuses to discuss with the progressive coalition because it might "fracture us"?

Even at a special mini-rally honoring Bayard Rustin, the now-deceased gay man who organized the 1963 march, gay equality seemed an afterthought. Rustin's role in the 1963 march was downplayed because of the homophobia of both black civil rights leaders and their racist opponents.

Frank Kameny, an early gay-rights pioneer who attended both the 1963 march and this year's commemoration, went to the mini-rally honoring Rustin. Kameny describes the people who marched to the event honoring Rustin as "a raggle-taggle gaggle of people advocating everything but gay issues - Cuba, [Howard] Dean, D.C. representation, Palestinians, Get Out of Iraq, and so on - but nothing gay."

NGLTF is right that we need political allies. Gays make up perhaps three to five percent of the population. But even if every last progressive in Congress voted our way, we'd still lose. For that reason, gay Republicans have been emphasizing the necessity of working for change within the Republican Party. A coalition of gays and fair-minded Republicans, if it ever materialized, could finally secure substantive equality.

But suppose a gay Republican stood before a Republican convention and gave the following speech:

"On behalf of an incredibly diverse gay community, I thank you for letting us walk with you on the road to low taxes, less regulation, and a strong defense. Sure, we disagree about some things. But we will set aside our differences with you because what we agree on far outweighs our differences. We all favor equality and oppose violence and think abortion is terrible. We will not let the left drive a wedge between you and us by discussing our differences or by trying to persuade you on them. It is critical right now that we think only of what we agree about and walk together proudly to defeat our common enemies. "

He would be hooted out of the gay movement for that speech, and rightly so. He would be called a traitor to the gay-rights cause. He would be excoriated for presuming to speak "on behalf of the gay community" in such an obsequious way. Yet with a few changes in wording (among other things, substitute "jobs, peace, and freedom" for "lower taxes, less regulation, and a strong defense"), that is the speech Foreman gave. Foreman's omissions and obfuscations are even less forgivable than that gay Republican's would be since Foreman was speaking to our putative friends.

Sometimes friendship means challenging your friends on the things that matter most. Instead, like Bayard Rustin four decades ago, what matters most is getting pushed into the closet.

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Liberty & Justice for All?

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The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution is scheduled to hold a hearing on Thursday, September 4. The topic: whether the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is sufficient to block gay marriages, or whether amending the Constitution is necessary.

Given the hysteria on the right over this issue, it's nice to see a few more conservatives coming out against the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. For example, writing in the Washington Times, Bruce Fein argues:

Conservatives should squelch a rash constitutional amendment...to prohibit states from recognizing homosexual marriages and thus place the issue off-limits for popular democratic discourse. The amendment would enervate self-government, confound the cultural sacralization of traditional marriage and child-rearing, and clutter the Constitution with a nonessential.

Readers of this blog will know that many "queer" lefties also lack enthusiasm for marriage equality, while their straight coalition allies have been largely silent. Richard Goldstein, who is certainly no friend of IGF, takes issue with his side's reluctance in a Village Voice piece titled "The Radical Case for Gay Marriage." He observes:

There's been no crush of Hollywood celebs at fundraisers for this cause. The radical cadres that march against globalization and war haven't agitated for marriage rights. "There is virtually no opposition from progressive groups," says Evan Wolfson of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry. "The problem is a failure to speak out and get involved." From a movement noted for its passion about social justice, this lack of ardor demands to be addressed.

But, of course, Goldstein is hoping gay marriage will radicalize the institution and pave the wave for legal recognition for all manner of unions -- which is what the rightwingers fear most. Once again, the gay left mirrors the religious right.

This New York Times article by Clifford Krauss on the ambivalence of some Canadian gays toward their recently achieved ability to wed has been generating comment. Krauss reports:

In Canada, conservative commentators worry aloud that gay marriage will undermine society, but many gays express the fear that it will undermine their notions of who they are. They say they want to maintain the unique aspects of their culture and their place at the edge of social change.

It is a debate that pits those who celebrate a separate and flamboyant way of life as part of a counterculture against those who long for acceptance into the mainstream. So heated is the conversation that some gay Canadians said in interviews that they would not bring up the topic at dinner parties.

You know what, nobody is going to force anyone to get hitched. It's a matter of the legal option to wed, for those who wish to do so. Why is that so threatening to the "anti-assimilationists" of the left and the social conservatives of the right?

The Times article also presents this tempered critque of gays against gay marriage:

"It's the vestiges of a culture of victimization, of a culture that's tied to being in a ghetto," said Enrique Lopez, 38, an investment banker who has been in a steady relationship for two years but says he is not ready to marry. "The vast majority want to live innocuous, boring lives, and the option of marriage is part of that dream."

I'll give the last word to marriage activist Evan Wolfson, who wrote recently in the NY Daily News:

Threat to marriage? How does a loving couple taking on a commitment suddenly become a threat because the couple is gay?

Which is a viewpoint both the religious right and gay left might well ponder.

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Do as I Say (and Not as I Do).

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Reading his op-ed published in the Philadelphia Gay News and elsewhere, you'd think that National Gay & Lesbian Task Force head Matt Foreman was serious when he says:

First and foremost, everyone in the community, no matter where he or she is on marriage -- for, against, don't know or don't care -- must unite to fight the backlash. If we do not, we will lose. Period.

Second, because we cannot win this by ourselves, each of us must speak openly and directly to our families, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Which raises, again, Foreman's decision to remain utterly silent on the marriage question last month when he took the podium at the 40th anniversary civil rights rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial, presumably out of deference to anti-gay black church leaders whose support he covets for NGLTF's broader left-liberal, big-government, income-redistributing agenda. (For more, see Rick Rosendall's column, "A March in the Wrong Direction," on this site.)

Throwing Stones at Arnold.

The San Francisco Chronicle's
story about Arnold Schwarzenegger's 25-year old interview with the long-defunct "Oui" magazine shows gay activists of the left once again joined at the hip with their opposites in the religious right, who are also making hay over the interview. The Chronicle buries Schwarzenegger's full comments, which included a strong statement against stereotyping gays, while repeating the business over his long-ago sexcapades.

The paper quotes the big guy and provides responses as follows:

he referred to gay people as "fags," saying, "I have absolutely no hang-ups about the fag business; though it may bother some bodybuilders, it doesn't affect me at all." "

"I think he's got a problem, bordering on a fixation" about gays, said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

Michael Andraychak, president of Los Angeles' Stonewall Democratic Club, which opposes the recall, called on the actor to apologize, saying gays react to "fag" much as African Americans react to "the n-- word." "

Toni Broaddus, program director for Equality California, the statewide gay-rights group, said she was troubled by Schwarzenegger's description of group sex in the gym. "

Who knew that "queer" would become politically acceptable (at least among "progressives") but that "fags" would remain verboten? Or that gym sex would become a target of the lesbigay left?

What the young Schwarzenegger actually said, speaking in a language not his own, was this:

Asked whether he was "freaked out" by being in such close contact with guys at the gym, Schwarzenegger said, "Men shouldn't feel like fags just because they want to have nice-looking bodies...Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us. Well, I have absolutely no hang-ups about the fag business..."

We report, you decide.

More Recent Postings

08/24/03 - 08/30/03

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Let ‘Em Go.

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An openly gay bishop is "The Last Straw," causing true believers to leave the liberal, secularized Episcopal church in disgust, declares Rev. Peter Mullen, the Anglican chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, writing in the Aug. 26th Wall Street Journal (online to WSJ subscribers only). He sermonizes:

Homosexual bishops? How long before we see pedophile bishops, necrophile Deans of Cathedrals and cannibalistic Archdeacons?

Nice, huh. The sooner these bigots splinter off, the better.

Not the Marrying Kind.

Gay historian James T. Sears has a column in the Washington Blade asking why gays would want to get married. His viewpoint is sexual liberationist, which is somewhat different from the feminist, anti-patriarchy/anti-marriage camp (and a bit more fun to read). He writes:

In our post-Stonewall struggle, we (particularly many gay leaders) have entered a Faustian bargain trading equal rights with heterosexuals in lieu of sexual liberation for all".[D]id those of us in the Stonewall generation riot to appear in the New York Times "Weddings/Celebrations"?

And he approvingly quotes from an early gay activist:

Harold Call, a prominent leader in the Mattachine Society, observed near the end of his life, "We are still operating under the anti-sexual taboo," he said. "The Puritan idea is Thou Shalt Not Feel Good. Unless you are miserable, overworked and under-f***ed you"re not really a productive member of the society."

But the vision of the endless orgasm will forever remain elusive (cf. Dr. Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents"). Overwhelming, gays and lesbians want the right to marry and lead bourgeois lives, even if they don't choose to exercise that right -- at least while they're young and randy. And society benefits from the stability that spousal relationships tend to provide (which is the seed of truth that gives force to the pro-family camp's otherwise noxious propaganda about sexual anarchy). Sorry, but it's time to grow up, Peter Pan.

I'm not criticizing those who reject coupling up for themselves; it's certainly not best for everyone. But I'm critical of those who think it's not best for anyone.

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Rally Speakers’ Shameful Silence on Marriage.

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IGF contributing author Richard J. Rosendall watched last weekend's rally at the Lincoln Memorial marking the 40th anniversary Dr. King's 1963 March on Washington for civil rights. He reports that neither of the gay activists who spoke -- Matt Foreman of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, and Mandy Carter of Southerners on New Ground -- mentioned the fight to gain equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians, or efforts to build a coalition to oppose the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. Their silence was presumably in deference to the rally organizers, who also chose to say nothing on the marriage rights question so as not to give offense to anti-gay black religious leaders.

Says Rick:

"Our relationships" was the closest Foreman came to mentioning marriage. It would have been comical if he had been explicit about how those awful Republicans are attacking gay marriage rights, as he stood a few feet from Walter Fauntroy, the favorite front man for the anti-gay Alliance for Marriage. How convenient for Foreman that it's all a simple partisan matter, and how pathetic that this would be seen by anyone as a serious voice of gay activism.

We'll be posting Rick's upcoming column on the rally shortly.

More Recent Postings

08/17/03 - 08/23/03

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A March in the Wrong Direction

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First published in an earlier version on August 22, 2003, in Letters from CAMP Rehoboth.

Forty years ago, when Bayard Rustin was organizing the 1963 March on Washington, his homosexuality was highly scandalous, so he took the title of "deputy director" to downplay his own importance. Yet Strom Thurmond still denounced him on the floor of the Senate as a communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual.

It was thus especially fitting when planners of the 40th Anniversary rally on August 23 in Washington reached out to the gay community. This year, The Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and PFLAG were listed as conveners. Gay speakers Matt Foreman of NGLTF and Mandy Carter of Southerners on New Ground paid tribute to Rustin. Martin Luther King III said, "Homophobia has no place in the Beloved Community." That was nice, but what other messages were gays asked to endorse? The calls for unity and talk of "the cause" concealed the fact that many decent people do not agree with all the organizers' proposals.

The rally saw much talk of the Beloved Community, but it became clear that only progressive Democrats are welcome as residents. For example, Damu Smith of Black Voices for Peace attacked Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and affirmative action foe Ward Connerly, describing President Bush as "their master." Even as speakers condemned Republican demonizing of people, they committed the same offense. This reminded me of gays who condemn Bush's opposition to gay marriage while conveniently forgetting President Clinton's ads on Christian radio stations touting his signature on the Defense of Marriage Act.

The march's demands included no gay issues other than bills on hate crimes and job discrimination. It is odd that a fundamental issue like marriage, which is on everyone's lips and in all the news, was too hot for a civil rights march, while the official demands included normalizing relations with Cuba, opposing ROTC programs, and denouncing U.S. imperialism. If the marchers had time to adopt a foreign policy, surely they had time to defend gay families. But wait: one of the organizers, Rev. Walter Fauntroy, is a prominent supporter of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment.

Several speakers attacked Bush's Middle East policies. Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society referred to "this modern-day Pharaoh on Pennsylvania Avenue." James Zogby of the Arab American Institute said, "We promised to liberate Iraq, but we brought them untold pain and chaos." He ignored the tyrant we defeated who gassed Kurds, tortured children, and filled mass graves.

Honoring Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. does not prevent us from thinking for ourselves. I shared King's opposition to the Vietnam War, and disagreed with Rustin's opposition to World War II. Sometimes defending freedom requires you to fight, as with terrorists and those who harbor them. Coretta Scott King, though a great friend of gay people, revealed hopeless naivete about the world when she said, "Non-violence must become the basis of America's foreign policy."

Just as all wars are not the same, non-violent resistance is not universally effective. It worked for Gandhi and King because the people of Britain and America truly believed that their nations stood for something better than the brutal suppression their news organizations reported. Had television cameras not been present at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, the Bloody Sunday attacks by police against peaceful marchers would not have been seen by millions of Americans, and we would not have gotten the Voting Rights Act that year.

It does not honor King and Rustin to misapply their lessons or to use their memories as a political truncheon with which to beat up the current President for taking our national security problems seriously.

So while I appreciate the gay outreach, the protest still left me feeling like an outsider. And that was fine. The Mall sees many rallies, but moments of transcendence are few.

My own commemoration was late at night, when the crowds were gone and I could stand on the very spot at the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King stood forty years ago and hear his majestic, ministerial cadences in my mind's ear: "It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Those words still challenge even civil rights workers.

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Why Marriage Is Priority One

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Originally published August 22, 2003, in The Washington Blade.

Whoa! Slow down there, homosexuals!

Yeah, we're enjoying a great gay run. For the first time ever, it's now legal everywhere in America for us to have sex with each other, and our relationships even got some validation from the U.S Supreme Court. Canada is poised to open up marriage to same-sex couples, and the stuffy Episcopal Church just confirmed its first openly gay bishop.

Even got pop culture is going gay: "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is the surprise summer TV hit. ABC's "20/20" has declared "it's in to be out" and the cultural arbiters at VH1 last week debuted "Totally Gay!" celebrating all things homosexual.

But let's get real. Gay marriage? In this country? Now? You better think twice about that.

America isn't ready for it. The polls show a backlash from the big pink wave that splashed over the country this summer. In fact, if you don't watch it, conservatives may succeed in amending the Constitution to ban gay marriages once and for all. Remember that's what happened in Hawaii and Alaska a few years ago.

You're better off winning victories incrementally. Focus on employment discrimination and hate crimes. The polling numbers are better and the visceral hostility from the public is not nearly so great.

That's the advice gay rights activists are getting these days from many gay-friendly public officials, and from gay contributors and activists as well.

Well, it's hogwash. And any leader of any gay rights organization who is not prepared to throw the bulk of their efforts right now into the fight for marriage is squandering resources and doesn't deserve the position. That's right; if they're not ready to make their top priority the freedom to marry, then they ought to resign today.

Impractical? How do you figure?

Consider for a moment how many gay Americans you know who have actually suffered from discrimination in the workplace? How many gay couples do you know who have been turned down from buying a house or renting an apartment because of their sexual orientation? How many were ever denied a room at a hotel or a seat in a restaurant because of homophobia?

How many people do you know who've been the victim of a hate crime where the perpetrator has gone unpunished?

Those people are out there, of course, and their stories are tragic.

Now multiply that number by 10 - or even 100, depending upon how broad your social circle is, and you've probably still not counted the number of gay people you know who've been discriminated against by this country's heterosexual-only marriage laws.

Between 90 and 95 percent of Americans get married at some point during their lives. If you carve out the homosexuals who can't get married (acknowledging that some of them were in heterosexual marriages before coming out of the closet) and that means that something approaching 100 percent of the people in this country who can legally say, "I do," in fact do.

The point is that no form of discrimination is more pervasive, or strikes more at the heart of being gay, than denying us the freedom to marry.

Still seem impractical? Consider this.

We are owed no right to work or buy homes free of anti-gay prejudice, and if we are bashed by homophobes, we have no inalienable right to demand that our perpetrators be given extra jail time because their crime was motivated by anti-gay animus.

These "civil rights" laws are add-ons; protections that make sense as good social policy and will no doubt dramatically impact people's lives.

But as social policy, they are often opposed on grounds that have nothing to do with homophobia. Employment and housing protections come at the cost of lawsuits, some of which will be frivolous. Hate crime laws do, at some level, punish thoughts, and pile on to an already Draconian criminal justice system.

None of these arguments wins the day, but they're reasonable and fair-minded; the same can't be said for those who oppose the freedom to marry. This isn't about protecting us from discrimination that might happen in the private sector. This is discrimination, perpetrated by our own government.

Once the government got into the business of issuing civil marriage certificates, and doling out (at last count) some 1,049 benefits and rights as a result of that piece of paper, there is no justification for slamming the door on committed same-sex couples.

As a result, the polls and politicians won't decide marriage, at least not initially. The courts will, and soon - not only in Canada but very soon in Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Should we forget about ENDA and hate crime laws? Of course not.

Introduce them both, hold hearings even, and watch them sit there, like the hapless "Bill" on the "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoon. That's been their sad fate for a decade now, no matter which party has controlled the Congress or the White House.

In fact, the best chance these two bills have for passage is a bruising fight over marriage. "Compassionate conservatives" and "moderate Democrats, " looking for some way out of the emotional tussle on gay marriage, are far more likely to vote for these baby-step measures.

But the real battle will be over marriage, and whether to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban them. It's a political fight we should win, if our organizations can work together, and our people will mobilize.

Early signs of that happening are mixed. Various gay groups are meeting in semi-secret "summits" to plan strategy, and hopefully from that will adopt highly visible and courageous campaigns to rally the people to accept civil marriage for gays.

Cutesy focus group strategies won't work here. Neither will the type of in-fighting and turf battles that all too often plague our movement.

We need rallies; we need marches; we need TV advertisements; we need speeches; we need pressure on "gay-friendly" politicians.

This is the big one: The fight we can and should win, and the one that really matters.

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Bob Barr’s on Our Side (Gasp).

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There's an important op-ed in Thursday's Washington Post by former Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia -- the author of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. It's titled Leave Marriage To the States. In the battle against efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny same-sex couples any and all the civil benefits of marriage, Bob Barr has turned out to be an unexpected ally.

Barr, in fact, was something of a conservative libertarian suspicious of federal overreaching. He writes in his op-ed:

Make no mistake, I do not support same-sex marriages. But I also am a firm believer that the Constitution is no place for forcing social policies on states, especially in this case, where states must have the latitude to do as their citizens see fit.

However Barr's Defense of Marriage Act -- barring (as it were) the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages even if legally valid at the state level (as none were, or are, to date) -- was rightly seen among gays as an unfair denial of federal benefits such as a deceased spouse's Social Security, or tax-free inheritance of a spouse's estate. The overall effect was to treat our relationships as permanently "second class."

But the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) is far worse, wiping out even state-level civil benefits for gay couples. You take your allies where you find them, and Barr's public opposition to the FMA should be welcomed and used.

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Suddenly They’re Balanced?

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Monday morning NPR reported (in roughly these words): "After the Lawrence decision, gay marriage has become a hot issue. Jerry Falwell has started a website to gather 1 million signatures against gay marriage. His site is www.onemanonewoman.org."

What's the point of making taxpayers pay for a left-wing radio network if it's going to shill for Jerry Falwell? Maybe it's budget time on Capitol Hill, and they have to show some balance.

Winning the Culture Wars.

From theagitator.com:

More Evidence that Conservatives have Well and Truly Lost the Culture War.

So I was channel-surfing last night and ran across the TBS Superstation Family Movie Night.

The movie? Victor/Victoria. I rest my case.

In response to this, someone else commented that they had recently seen the gay-themed movie "The Object of My Affection" run on another "family" channel. That, as they say, is progress.

Jesus Would Weep.

Sometimes it's revealing to see just how extreme anti-gay bigots in respectable places can be. A case in point is a sermon by the Rev. Steven R. Randall at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Catonsville, MD. As reprinted in the conservative Washington Times, the good reverend compares his fellow Episcopalians who support gay inclusion with the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center and took thousands of lives. From the pulpit, he intoned:

Like many of you, I feel like our church has been hijacked by misguided and in some cases evil terrorists. And like those planes of [September 11], our church is being used to destroy not only those inside in the name of some false god, but to destroy the lives of others, outside the church"

We've all seen the headlines of papers everywhere stating that the Episcopal Church voted to ordain an openly homosexual man... After that, the Episcopal Church actively supports the blessings of same-sex "marriages" as if they were holy and good and something from God. "

The current Episcopal Church will carry more people to hell than it will save. Our church is like a flying coffin.

Clearly, there is a Church of Love and a Church of Hate. It's pretty clear which church anti-gay Episcopalians like this jackbooted cleric belong to.

Recent Postings

08/10/03 - 08/16/03

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