We’re Eating From the Wrong Side of the Mushroom (AKA: Stop Blowing Things Out of Proportion)

I don’t usually play the “gay” card when it comes to my politics, mostly because it’s just not important.

Sure, I play it when I want to make a liberals head explode from having to deal with a Republican who isn’t a “straight, white male” but that’s pretty much it.

I have little to no use for minority or collective politics, that’s why I’m a conservative. I have absolute no need for advocacy groups for my sexuality or gender.

That’s not to say that I don’t like GOProud to a certain extent or that I’m not a member. I do credit them (though more because of Breitbart’s initial involvement with them, than the group itself) with helping me come out of my conservative closet, and I like Jimmy and Chris quite well. I don’t want people getting the idea that I dislike GOProud or what they do…I just don’t always think they are right all the time, just by virtue of being run by gay people. That would be a disservice to them and to my own conservative beliefs.

How exactly does this promote ‘equality’? A question for gay liberals and The Advocate.

Would you like to know which news story is conspicuously absent from The Advocate today?

No, it’s not the latest hatchet job attempt to make Romney into a vicious homophobe. They have a new article doing that every other day.

It’s not an outraged article about how offensive the Timberlake/Biel wedding video was to Transsexuals. That’s on the top of the main page.

And it’s certainly not an article about the ’25 gayest Halloween movies’.

No, the story that is 100% absent from a website that claims to be “The World’s Leading LGBT News Source” is a story of an assault on a gay man in Wisconsin, which has been reported on by the Daily Caller and The Examiner.

Why is this story not being reported on by The Advocate? I certainly can’t claim to know their reasoning, but I feel like it probably has to do with the fact that Kyle Wood, who is currently in the hospital following the assault in his own home yesterday morning, is a Republican who is a full-time volunteer for Chad Lee’s Republican campaign for the House.*

Wood told The Daily Caller that vandalism preceding the assault, along with his attacker’s statements during the incident, suggested his sexual orientation and his politics each played a role.

“I was getting ready for work and there was a knock at the door,” Wood emailed The Daily Caller late Wednesday. “I opened it, and a guy wrapped a ligature around my neck, slammed my head into the doorway, and smashed my face into a mirror, telling me ‘You should have kept your [f*******] mouth shut.’”

“He then kidney-punched me, while at the same time saying I was ‘warned,’ and continued to beat me,” he added.

Wood said his attacker’s reference to a warning likely pointed to graffiti he found painted on his car last week. The vandalism included the phrases “house trained republican faggot,” “traitor,” and “ur like a jew 4 hitler.”

Those slurs, he explained, were references to him being a gay Republican working to help Lee, a straight GOP candidate, defeat the openly gay Democrat Mark Pocan.

- The Daily Caller

I hate the term ‘hate crime’, but there is literally no other way to describe this vicious, malicious, hateful assault, which occurred for only one reason, Wood had the audacity to be gay and openly conservative. Which The Advocate, given their silence on the issue  despite their usual vocal quality when it comes to hate crimes against the LGBT community, seems to almost approve of.

Wood was unable to move the right side of his body immediately following Wednesday morning’s assault. He was transported by ambulance to Meriter Hospital in Madison. His eyes were swollen shut by the beating, and he suffered a concussion along with neck and head lacerations.

Wood told The Daily Caller, yesterday, “I will not be bullied, intimidated or threatened into abandoning my moral values.”

Anyone who knows me well, or reads this blog, knows that I am of the same mind  as Wood, but this entire story (and the gay communities silence on the issue) disgusts and terrifies me as a moral person and a gay conservative myself.

Where is this ‘equality’ that the liberal LGBT community keeps preaching?

The truth is, they don’t think we deserve it, so why should they bring attention to a story about a gay conservative who has been brutalized.

They think we deserve to be assaulted and put in our place.

Much the same way that liberal ‘feminists’ have a habit of ignoring (or joining in on) hateful, vile, and cruel words and actions against conservative women.

Hey Advocate, get off your ass and denounce the unknown attacker who performed this hate crime. Tell your reader’s this is unacceptable behavior. Tell them that no one, no matter what their political views, deserves to be treated this way.

If you don’t, the only thing that gay conservatives can take away is that you tacitly approve of our assault.

Ah well, I’m not holding out any hope that you will.

“It Gets Better” my ass.

 

 

Additionally, the former holder of the seat that Lee is running for (Tammy Baldwin, gay Democrat) and the challenger to Lee (Pocan, gay Democrat) have said not one word about the attack.

Wood said he is offended by the silence from the two usually vocal gay icons in the 2nd Congressional District. Pocan and Baldwin, he said, have historically sprung to the defense of victims of violence in the gay community.

“I find their lack of response maybe not unexpected but lacking decorum,” he said.  “I don’t look for a response from either of them, but from a political standpoint that’s what this race will come down to: do you want to elect someone who is going represent the entire 2nd District or do you want to elect someone who will pick and choose who they want to represent?  That’s what their lack of a statement is telling me, that I’m no longer a person to be represented.”

- WatchDog.org

____________________________

*This is only days after the son of  Senator Neal Kedzie (also Wisconsin, what the hell is wrong with liberals in that state?) was hospitalized after a beating that occurred when he tried to stop a man from stealing his Romney yard sign.

It’s a nice sentiment and I believe it. So why do liberals want my sexual orientation to determine my politics?

Or my friends,
my politics,
my religion,
etc.

I’ve seen this picture numerous times, or ones similar to it.

Usually posted by people or organizations that I’ve had intense disagreements with over the fact that they seem to believe that I can’t be a conservative if I’m gay…or that I can’t be gay if I’m a conservative. I’ve heard it both ways.

I’ve even, recently, dealt with someone who told me outright that being gay was a political position and that I crazy if I thought that being gay only dealt with your sexuality. (This was a liberal who said this, I haven’t had this reaction from any of the conservatives I’ve talked too. Including the ones I met at Right Online this year).

So please, explain to me how my sexual orientation doesn’t choose all of the things mentioned in that drawing…but it does choose my politics, because I’m failing to see how these things are different.

My Right Online Experience.

After a  lot of difficulty and maneuvering I got a ticket for the full event at Right Online, which was sold out this year.

So Friday morning, my family* packed up and headed to Las Vegas.

The conference was held at The Venetian, which is apparently the only non-union business on the La Vegas Strip. Which made it ideal for a meeting of conservatives.

Anyway, I got to the Venetian in time to get registered and get my copy of Culture of Corruption signed by Michelle Malkin.

The Andrew Breitbart Tribute Reception was extremely moving with dozens of stories about Breitbart’s life and how he had affected the lives of those he worked with over the years. In fact, stories about Breitbart were brought up in almost every speech.

It made me incredibly sad to see how many people he had affected in his 43 short years and the fact that I never had to chance to meet him.

I can’t even begin to describe the awesomeness of the speeches at this event or how much they affected me. So I’ll simply include the videos and encourage you to listen to them.

I hope to also implement some of the ideas I got in the breakout sessions, where I heard a lot about making a blog successful and building an audience. Including the possibility of doing a roundtable podcast with other conservative voices and covering more of my city and state local politics.

To the speeches.

Andrew Marcus, Breitbart Tribute

Former Governor Sarah Palin

Michelle Malkin on June 15th

Michelle Malkin on June 16th

Roger Hedgecock

Hugh Hewitt

Congressman Joe Heck

S.E. Cupp

Lars Larson

Jonah Goldberg

Rusty Humphries

Dana Loesch

Who I got to take a photo with.

Ann McElhinney

 

*They wanted to go on vacation and Las Vegas seemed like a good choice.

I usually smile and laugh and tell people that politics don’t make me angry.

But that’s just not accurate today.

I’m mad as hell and, as Michelle Malkin said at Right Online this year, why the hell shouldn’t I be!

Fast and Furious, Executive privilege, unconstitutional executive orders about immigration, unconstitutional healthcare reforms, spitting and shredding the constitution, lying at every turn, campaigning instead of governing, cheap shots, dirty campaigns, refusing to listen to Congress, saying the Supreme Court’s decisions don’t matter, leaks of top secret documents, money given to the Muslim Brotherhood, support to the Sharia based government in Libya, promises made to a corrupt new President in Russia where soldiers are burning our flag, destroying our foreign policies and turning our country against our allies.

This is not something that we can not afford to allow to continue.

Every time I hear someone say they aren’t going to vote for Romney, for whatever reason they have, I want to punch something.

What are you thinking?

Do you want Obama to WIN?

Get your head screwed on straight and stop screwing over our country.

There is NO REASON good enough in this race to justify NOT voting for Romney this November. Even if you have issues with him, read that paragraph I wrote starting with ‘Fast and Furious’ again. Can anything you fear with Romney be worse than this?

I have very good reasons to vote FOR Romney. I’ve been supporting him for months.

So even if you can’t find a good reason to vote FOR Romney, right now all you have to do is look at Washington’s current leader and his cronies to find a reason

I don’t care what personal reasons you had for casting a ballot for someone else in the primaries, now that Romney is the nominee we can’t afford to vote for anyone else. If Giuliani and Bachmann announced a write in campaign (and I love Giuliani and Bachmann) I would still be voting for Romney, because he’s the one who can beat Obama.

And Obama cannot win.

I love this country more than I love my own life, but that’s why I can’t sit here and watch Obama tear this country down and destroy her foundations for another 4 years, so that he can rebuild her in his own image.

I swear by all that I consider holy that I will leave this country if Obama is re-elected. This is more than “going Galt” like I’ve seen some people threaten. This isn’t even a temporary idea, I will leave this country, I will get citizenship and I will throw my knowledge into fighting for that country.

Because, if Obama wins the election in November, then this country may no longer be worth fighting for. The things I love about this country will slowly, but surely, be chipped away and I can’t be here for that. It would break my heart and it might just kill me.

Don’t let Obama destroy this country. Don’t let petty, foolish, personal issues send your vote elsewhere. We can’t afford that.

Dan Savage’s hypocrisy

(This is the first,  in what may be 2 or 3 posts on this issue. This is a general response, next I will respond to the rest of his speech, and perhaps another post to deal with some of the responses that liberals have had to the completely justified outrage that conservatives are feeling about this.)

I spent most of the day, yesterday, trying to figure out how to start this post.

I’m usually quite witty (if I do say so myself), but I’m honestly just very angry about this. Wit has deserted me in favor of mental equivalent of “HULK SMASH!”

Now let me preface this with something that I don’t talk about often.

I am not a Christian. Let’s get that out of the way so that I won’t be categorized as a “religious bigot”, “butthurt Christian”, “conservative fundie”, or any of the other terribly tolerant language that the liberal blogs have been categorizing anyone who takes issue with Savage’s language as.

Yes, that’s right, I’m personally pro-life and extremely conservative in most other ways…but I don’t believe that Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, ate the last supper with the 12 apostles, or died on a cross and rose again 3 days later.

I do believe that the Bible has some good stories and some good lessons to teach, just as I believe about many religions. I believe that it shows a unique look at a society (or a religious history, for the Jewish people, if you are looking at the Old Testament) and it must be read in the context of its time, as a form of history. (Something even my mother who, unlike my father, can be a bit of a Biblical literalist, freely admitted in a conversation with me last night).

The Bible, similar to most other philosophies and religions, has some bad parts as well. The large portion of the Old Testament is history and some truly awful shit has gone down in every society/religion at some point.

Now, having said that.

What Dan Savage said in his rant (yes, that’s what I categorize it as. Lot’s of anger, no real substance) just made him a bully and destroyed his credibility as a promoter of “anti-bullying” views.

Yes, calling a holy book, or part of it’s contents, “bullshit” is sometimes accurate (I often say similar words about things that about the Q’ran) however, saying the things he said in a pre-planned speech, to a group of high school students, was bullying. This wasn’t said in the heat of the moment, when he was angry at someone coming after him personally, this was pre-meditated and there is no way he did not know that many students and teachers in that crowd would be Christians. That would be a statistical improbability.

Then, of course, he took it a step further and called those who did the mature and walked out (rather than I would have done, even as a non-Christian, which would have been stand up and take him to task…or possibly pop him in the mouth…depending on my mood) “pansy assed”. Which, unless I’m wrong, is a pejorative used to refer to effeminate gay men.

Oh the irony inherent in a man who hates the bullying of gay people, using a gay slur to insult others.

Maybe he should have just called them faggots and gotten it over with.

I have an intense problem with hypocrisy. It is the one thing that will automatically make me lose all respect for you.

I may not like the views of certain groups (PETA, liberals in general, the Taliban, etc) but if you can remain consistent in your views and actions, I can at least respect that you know your own mind…even if I can’t stand the way your mind works.

It is the hypocrisy of Dan Savage’s views that kills me.

You cannot truly know yourself or your beliefs if you believe that bullying of one group is wrong, but bullying of some other group is fine…because you don’t like them.

You can’t be believed or respected if you say “It Gets Better” from one side of your mouth, while the other side says that you wish an entire political group was “just fucking dead”.*

You can’t demand respect for gay people, while using gay slurs to categorize those that you don”t like.

You can’t demand change and respect from people, when your actions against those who disagree with you is to make up vile uses for their name.

Not only has he shown his hypocrisy, but Savage has once again shown his sheer lack of intelligence (Yes, I think you are unintelligent if you can’t hold consistent beliefs, it isn’t hard to do) and his immaturity.

Is this really the person the gay community wants to represent the great future that is in store for young GLBT people?

How can life “get better” if the role model for a better life is so filled with anger, so bitter and hurtful to others?

You can’t fight fire with fire Mr. Savage. Perhaps it was your intent to live up to your name, but you are doing a great disservice to those you claim to be trying to help.

As Perez Hilton said** “Can’t we just be good and kind to each other? Isn’t faith in love and honesty and kindness all any of us really need?”

That is what will get our world where it needs to be, not divisive language and anger towards anyone who doesn’t fall in line with your ideal.

 

*As a gay conservative/Republican I would like to know what that means for me. Should I just die to make Savage happy? Or does life get better for me too, since I’m gay?

**Yes, I was shocked that he was one of the people to speak out about this.

We have it in us to be the better men.

Professor Charles Xavier: We have it in us to be the better man

Erik Lehnsherr: We already are. We are the next stage of human evolution, you said it yourself.

Oh I can already hear your grumblings. “Great, she’s doing another X-men/Gay rights comparison. Isn’t she ever going to get tired of comparing these two things?”

Short answer: No.

However, this post isn’t about gay rights so much as it is about how the gay community in general (the gay liberal community specifically) is missing their chance to be the better men in this scenario.

Erik Lensherr was wrong, being a mutant didn’t make him any better than non-mutants. Just as we, the gay community, are not better, more tolerant, or more deserving of respect, simply by virtue of being gay. Put away that victim card, stop playing it. If someone criticizes your belief, your behavior, your politics, or your attitude, the response of “but I’m gay!” or “You’re only saying this because your self-loathing/homophobic” is irrelevant and smacks of asking for special privileges to act however you want because you were bullied as a child, maybe your parents tried to “pray away the gay”, or you aren’t able to marry who you want.

Let me tell you right now, I don’t really fucking care about your sob story. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has one.  It’s not an excuse to treat others like shit.

In fact it should be the reason that you treat others better than you were treated. I know the glbt and liberal community have (in general) no great love for the Bible or Christianity, but maybe a refresher course on The Golden Rule is in order.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Matthew 7:12

It doesn’t say “Do into others as you think they will do unto you” or “Do unto others as others have done unto you”. And maybe you aren’t a Christian, that’s fine, neither am I, but at the very least this one verse is one that should be followed.

And when I say that we are losing the opportunity to be the better men, it is because the gay community insists on returning hate to those that disagree with them and, on occasion, hate them. I don’t deny that there are those out there who actively hate gay people, but having a difference of opinion doesn’t equal hate and it doesn’t deserve hate in return. In fact, true hate does not deserve hate in return. In light of tomorrow’s holiday, I will quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”

Why do I choose today to say these things? Because in the last couple of days, a fellow gay conservative blogger, The Gay Republican (aka Ethan Sabo), has come under extreme and hateful fire from the left. I don’t always agree with all of his ideas, nor do I always support all the same things that he supports. We have a difference on opinion on several social topics such as abortion and even our ideas on gay marriage differ in some ways. His support of Santorum I do not understand, as Santorum is one of the least Conservative candidates on display currently. I’m also not a fan of Ron Paul, for several reasons.

However those differences in opinion are things that we occasionally discuss. We both have good, strong reasons for believing what we do and the odds of us changing each other’s opinions is slight at best. We do not insult each other, we rationally discuss our differences, and agree to disagree on those occasions that we differ in opinion.

Now I understand that there are rational gay liberals, I know a few personally, who would not stoop to the insults, vulgarity, and hatefulness that Ethan has received. However that doesn’t change what has happened to him, what happens to me in comments and emails as a result of this blog, or what happens to other gay conservatives who dare to stand up and make their beliefs known.

In Japan they have a saying, “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” It means that if you are part of a group and you insist on having different beliefs, political views, or attitudes than the rest of the group and you make them obvious, the rest of the group, the majority, will pound at you until you get back in line with the rest of the group…or just sit down and shut up.

Sorry, I insist on being the nail that sticks up and the squeaky wheel in the machine of the gay political movement. Someone has to be and I’m proud to be that person, along with Ethan Sabo, Mel Maguire, and all the other gay conservatives out there who daily stand up for their beliefs, no matter how unpopular they are and no matter how hurt they may feel by the hateful words that get thrown at them for those beliefs.

In closing, here are some of the videos that have sparked this backlash at The Gay Republican.

One of the amazing things I would like to comment on, is that gay conservatives can receive such levels of abuse from comments and then, when we defend ourselves like Ethan does in this next video. WE are accused of being the hateful ones.

And finally, a response to the hate, made by Mel Maguire from Gay Conservative.

Outing people = rude. But…how do you know if they are out or not? (via…me. @Queer Landia)

I think by now we have all heard of the “whoopsie!” moment that GOProud had with Governor Rick Perry’s campaign pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio. They outed him, accidentally. They didn’t know he wasn’t out. As Chris Barron, from GOProud, said on his twitter account on December 8th:

I don’t believe in outing – but if you live your life like an openly gay man how the hell am I supposed to assume you are closeted

GOProud issued a press release on December 9th which said that they were lead to believe that Fabrizio was out of the closet.

“From the time this organization was founded we have been clear in our opposition to outing. We would never intentionally out anyone. However, in the case of Tony Fabrizio, top pollster and chief strategist for the Presidential campaign of Texas Governor Rick Perry, we did not believe there was any question about his sexual orientation – nor did the reporters who called us to ask about his involvement in Perry’s anti-gay campaign strategy. Questions about an individual’s sexual orientation should obviously be answered by that individual.

via Outing people = rude. But…how do you know if they are out or not?.