New Film Will Out Gay Republicans

If a straight conservative outed a group of gay liberal politicians for any reason at all, the outrage would be palpable.  And rightly so.

Funny how a different standard applies when straight liberal filmmaker Kirby Dick announces his intention to out gay Republican politicos.  His new documentary film is called Outrage, and its tagline is “A searing exposé of the secret lives of closeted gay politicians.”

From indieWIRE :

The new film examines the double lives of a number of current political figures, mostly Republican men, who have masked their homosexuality through marriage to women and by actively working against the gay community. It explores the stories of politicians who, through their policies and voting records, actively bash gay people in order to prove they themselves are not gay. And it details a media establishment that keeps their secrets. The lives of former elected officals (and even some mainstream media figures) are also examined as the film explores the dual lives of public people who have chosen to live in the closet.

Translation: gay politicians who don’t toe the Democratic Party line are fair game to be pilloried as self-loathing hypocrites by an attention whoring documentarian.

You know, there’s a reason some conservatives toss around words like “gaystapo.”

Dick, a self-anointed hunter-in-chief of gay conservatives, believes that exposing supposed hypocrisy gives him absolute moral authority to force gay Republicans out of the closet.   But he just calls it good old-fashioned reporting:

“I think that if someone is in the closet and voting against gay rights then that’s hypocrisy and that’s cause for outing,” Dick told indieWIRE, addressing the issue of responsibility and when it’s appropriate to out people. “You can call it ‘outing,’ but honestly, it’s just reporting… It’s the same as someone who’s had an abortion and then votes against abortion, it’s hypocritical.”

The pretense is that outing is the great equalizer.  It is held up as a bold and noble act in defense of gays and lesbians.  In reality, it is petty, vindictive, and yes, often catty.  Dick’s film is just the latest flagrant attempt to silence and disenfranchise gay Americans who don’t kowtow to a liberal agenda.

The mere suggestion that gays are not an ideological monolith is a threat to the liberal narrative.  Liberal gay activists would have you believe that political and sexual identity are inextricably linked, that physical attraction somehow dictates whether one believes in gay marriage or hate speech legislation.  Outing is the go-to punishment for betrayal of that narrative.

Publicly exposing the sexual orientation of gay Republican congressmen is, of course, a poor strategy for achieving pretty much anything other than schadenfreude.  Most conservatives are indifferent to what goes on in the private bedrooms of public officials so long as all participants are consenting adults.

A representative from Magnolia Pictures, the distributor for Outrage, told indieWIRE the film “could be a ‘game changer’ for same sex civil rights.”  They would be hard pressed to come up with a more shallow, tone deaf analysis than that.  Smugly celebrating the discomfort of newly outed Republicans won’t help same sex marriage advocates make friends and influence people.  At worst, Kirby Dick’s misguided crusade may actually strengthen the resolve of the conservatives who believe that the liberal gay agenda threatens their way of life.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

Update: Good timing: GayPatriot annouces the upcoming launch of GOProud, a gay conservative organization.  Unlike the Log Cabin Republicans, you can expect this new 527 to adequately address issues like the outing of gay Republicans.  Also just popping up in my feed reader, Dan Blatt takes on Kirby Dick’s use of hypocrisy to justify the outing of gay Republicans.

Another update: Predictably, the bashing of GOProud has begun, with pages ripped right from the usual liberal playbook.  Here’s what’s bouncing around Twitter right now:

GOProud Slogan: We’re like the Log Cabin Republicans — but with 100% MORE self-loathing!

Fifty bucks says the terms self-loathing or self-hating appear more than once in Kirby Dick’s film.

April 10, 2009 · Filed Under Gay Issues, Liberal Absurdity

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Choice For Me, But Not For Thee

Health care provider conscience laws began to appear on the federal books shortly after the United States Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade in 1973.  These statutory provisions protect health care professionals from discrimination if they refuse to participate in abortion and sterilization services on the basis of religious or moral objections.

In 2008, the Bush administration issued a rule strengthening the requirements for compliance with the conscience protections set forth in the Public Health Service Act, the Church Amendments, and the Weldon Amendment.  Widely criticized as a nose-thumbing anti-abortion swan song for President Bush, the eleventh hour ruling was actually in the works for most of 2008.

Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services at the time, pushed for the regulation in response to a move by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG) to require pro-life physicians to provide abortion referrals as a condition of board certification.  Concerned that the ACOG and ABOG policies violated freedom of conscience and non-discrimination laws, HHS issued the final interpretive rule in December 2008.

The new administration moved swiftly to begin the rescission process when President Obama took office.  But, as Tabitha Hale points out, while the interpretation of conscience laws may change significantly under the Obama administration, it is highly unlikely that pro-life doctors will be forced to perform abortions any time soon.

And that just doesn’t sit well with Jacob Appel.  He’s a storytelling bioethicist with a fever, and the only cure is more abortionists.

You may remember Jacob Appel from his recent call for an abortion pride movement.  His latest lament is that the number of abortion providers has steadily decreased, and yet pro-life medical practitioners are still permitted to take up valuable slots in OB/GYN training programs.  He proposes that medical programs help abortion providers increase their ranks by using a pro-choice litmus test to screen OB/GYN residency applicants.

Using religious and moral objections to abortion to bar qualified doctors from receiving training in obstetrics and gynecology is a clear violation of conscience protection laws, but Appel has an answer for that.

In the case of abortion, the current shortage of providers justifies a limited waiver of conscience exemptions as applied to the training of new OBGYNs.  If we do not act, women may find themselves in a position similar to that of the criminal defendant who in theory has the legal right to counsel, but cannot find any lawyer willing to take her case.

Appel does not bother to address why a doctor who intends to specialize in geriatric gynecology, for example, would need to perform abortions.   He also neglects to consider that pro-life doctors are not the only ones who refuse to terminate pregnancies. Indeed, there are many pro-choice physicians who are just as unwilling to provide abortion services.

But the greatest flaw in Appel’s argument is his contention that he is a champion of patient choice and access.  Appel is only interested in ensuring choice and access for women seeking abortion doctors, not for women seeking doctors who respect their beliefs because they share them.

A woman should be able to choose a doctor whose moral compass points in the same direction as hers. Families should know that their doctor shares their values and will remain faithful to them, especially in a life or death situation.  Revoking conscience protections would revoke patient choice, a violation that would offend more pro-choice liberals if they were, at the very least, concerned with being consistent.

Most liberal feminists would balk at receiving gynecological care from a dedicated pro-lifer.  Shouldn’t pro-life women be able to choose a doctor who doesn’t engage in professional practices they find morally objectionable?

Appel’s essay is not a harmless, isolated intellectual exercise.  His views are shared by many of the liberal feminist chatterati, including some in the medical community.

Dr. Julie Cantor, for instance, feels conscientious objection in medicine has gone awry, and that we, as a society, are far too tolerant of individual conscience.  Like Appel, she believes that “physicians and other health care providers have an obligation to choose specialties that are not moral minefields for them. Qualms about abortion, sterilization, and birth control? Do not practice women’s health.”  She feigns passionate support for putting patients’ interests first, but not so shockingly, that support does not extend to choosing a doctor one doesn’t consider an agent of death.

A doctor’s conscientious refusal to perform an abortion does not strip a patient of her constitutionally protected right to seek an abortion, not even if she has to get an advance on her paycheck and shimmy across the frozen tundra on her pregnant belly to reach the closest abortion provider.  The government is not your mom, your BFF, and your knight in shining armor all rolled into one convenient, omnipresent package.

There is, without a doubt, a demand for abortion providers in America.  There is also a demand for doctors whose work is informed by a pro-life perspective on abortion, contraception, sterilization, and end-of-life decisions.  It is not the government’s role to decide that one of these categories of professionals should be phased out because it is less valuable than the other.

When did it become acceptable to ask the government to facilitate the subordination of a pro-life patient’s dignity to a pro-choice patient’s dignity?

April 7, 2009 · Filed Under Abortion, Health care, Liberal Absurdity, Women

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Help Wanted: Grammar Czar

A recent op-ed in the New York Times gently chided President Obama for his tendency to shun the objective pronoun case.

Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”

The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”

Proper pronoun selection is a reasonable expectation of a former Harvard Law Review editor with two Ivy League degrees under his belt. However, writers Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman suggest it is not our infallible leader, but the overly rigid rules of modern English that require correction.

So should the president go stand in a corner of the Oval Office (if he can find one) and contemplate the error of his ways? Not so fast.

For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either “I” or “me” as the object of a verb or preposition, especially after “and.” Literature is full of examples. Here’s Shakespeare, in “The Merchant of Venice”: “All debts are cleared between you and I.” And here’s Lord Byron, complaining to his half-sister about the English town of Southwell, “which, between you and I, I wish was swallowed up by an earthquake, provided my eloquent mother was not in it.”

It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that language mavens began kvetching about “I” and “me.”

Most of us have inexplicable gaps in our education that lead to embarrassing linguistic mistakes. I had almost completed high school before someone told me the “l” in “wolf” isn’t silent. I never made that mistake again.

Now, however, we live in a time when failure is becoming obsolete. Corporations are too big to fail, high school students are graded on a curve, and irresponsible borrowers receive taxpayer-funded subsidies. Why shouldn’t we relax the rules of grammar to accommodate a public official’s ignorance?

For eight years, ridiculing George W. Bush’s semantic errors and grammatical gaffes was a national pastime. Examples of “Bushisms” were painstakingly chronicled in dozens of books and calendars. His most glaring verbal missteps were emblazoned on all manner of merchandise, from tote bags to thongs, and every instance of linguistic incompetence was presented as irrefutable proof of Bush’s general incompetence as President and Commander-in-Chief.

When President Obama screws up, we review Shakespeare for precedent. Apparently he’s too big to fail.

February 26, 2009 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Liberal Absurdity, Media Bias

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Alan Wolfe: Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From Awesomeville

In his latest book, The Future of Liberalism, Alan Wolfe describes seven dispositions that characterize liberals:

  1. a sympathy for equality
  2. an inclination to deliberate
  3. a commitment to tolerance
  4. an appreciation of openness
  5. a disposition to grow
  6. a preference for realism
  7. a taste for governance

I hear liberals also absorb fluid like a ShamWow and have a pill that can make a man larger. Call now, operators are standing by!

Like Alan Wolfe’s liberals, I also embrace “a preference for realism,” so unless he’s describing classical liberalism, his assessment is nothing more than comic fodder.

February 19, 2009 · Filed Under Distractions, Liberal Absurdity

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President Bush Signs Law Protecting Retirement Savings for Same-Sex Partners

While gay rights activists were engaged in fits of apoplexy over Barack Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation, outgoing President George W. Bush quietly took a small step toward ensuring equality for same-sex partnerships by signing The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA).

American employers will soon be required to allow the partners of gay and lesbian employees to inherit 401(k) retirement savings accounts without incurring tax penalties. The newly signed legislation will allow any designated beneficiary to roll retirement savings over into an IRA, a benefit employers may limit to spousal survivors under current law.

As you might imagine, commenters in the progressive/gay blogosphere had a little trouble giving “Bushitler” credit for taking this small but meaningful step. The upstanding folks at Minnesota Independent reveled in Bush’s perceived betrayal of his base and engaged in a little Christianist bashing (just for good measure.) The gang at Think Progress is pretty sure this law only got the thumbs up because BushCo failed to read the legislation attentively, possibly due to a drug-induced stupor. To be fair, a few commenters at The Huffington Post offered Bush their gratitude; others celebrated what was termed a fundie smackdown, but explained that the legislation was only approved by Bush so he could throw one last bone to his log cabin cronies.

Perhaps it’s best that the mainstream media ignored the passage of this law. There’s always something to be said for avoiding a large scale outbreak of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

January 3, 2009 · Filed Under Gay Issues, George W. Bush, Liberal Absurdity

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Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Looks like Santa’s dreaming of a green Christmas this year, or so one “author” would have your kids believe. Apparently he’s at his workshop with the elves raiding his stash of last year’s hoarded wrapping paper in preparation for regifting the old toys he’ll be refurbishing just for you.

“They arrived back at the North Pole and Santa had a grand idea,” the book reads. “He leaned in toward Swift [the head elf] and told him his new plan. ‘We will collect all of the old toys, Swift, and make them new again. We will reuse last year’s wrapping paper. And we will harness the great North Pole wind to help power up the toy shop.’”

Hey Santa: thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stick with the slightly more traditional lump of coal in my stocking. Or will that be replaced with vials of ethanol?

I hope the new and improved eco-Santa won’t be too upset with 4-year-old cancer patient Hannah Garman for asking for a ton of Christmas cards this year. Using all that paper to fulfill a dying child’s wish might not fit into his green agenda.

December 23, 2008 · Filed Under Environment, Liberal Absurdity

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