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.

Follow up to my post about Kyle Wood.

Okay, so now the police say Wood has ‘recanted’. I still think there is more to the story, but my point still stands. The original post was about the lack of reporting, not the incident itself.

The Advocate and other gay news organizations have jumped on dozens of ‘hate crimes’ against gays (the non-conservative ones) that later were proved to be false. Not only was their reporting on it after the falsehood was discovered very low key…to the point of almost not existing, but when you read the comments on the posts, the gay ‘community’ rallies around these liars and either says the cops are homophobic bigots who are lying about the situation or, if they do admit it was fake, they stand by them and say that ‘well this PARTICULAR case may not have been true, but this stuff happens all the time and they are just trying to get hate crimes noticed so people will do something to stop them’. (No joke, that’s almost word for word some of the comments I’ve seen on stories about gay people faking hate crimes.)

The biggest issue here is not that someone lied (still want to know what happened, it was clear he was beaten and it was not a beating he could have administered himself, something happened here and someone is responsible for his assault) but that many of the ‘leading’ gay news organizations did not bother to report on it until after it came out that it was recanted and then they made a HUGE deal out of it…unlike similar stories of gay liberals faking hate crimes.

Then of course there is the absolutely CHARMING commentary on the story about the situation. Gay liberals using every slur in the book, ones that they would normally call a person ‘bigoted’ and ‘homophobic’ for using, but when they do it to a gay person it’s apparently okay.

My point stands. This was not reported quickly for political reasons in the first place, because it did not fit the narrative that these websites want to promote.

It had nothing to do with the ‘lack of evidence’ to support it, no matter how much liberals would want you to believe it.

Why do I say that? Because if this SAME situation had happened to a gay liberal, Dan Savage would have been reporting on it in a heartbeat, not sitting around telling people that it didn’t pass the ‘smell test’.

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.

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.

A call to my readers

If you are gay and conservative and you live in the Phoenix Metro Area (or Arizona in general, depending on how far you want to drive), then I and Lori Heine (a fellow gay conservative blogger from the area) are starting up a group to bring us all together.

I know that I, for one, can sometimes feel very alone as a gay conservative. I’m surrounded by people that don’t understand why I’m a conservative and it sometimes seems that I can’t hold a conversation with another gay person, without defending my views constantly. It makes a person feel isolated, even with people like Daniel Blatt at Gay Patriot (who has advertised our group on that blog as well) and groups like GOProud out there, making themselves visible.

Sometimes you just want to go grab a cup of coffee or spend an evening with people that understand you and that you can have a serious political discussion with and not want to scream.

 

So if you are from the area and are sick of being in the closet about being a conservative, then you need to comment here, shoot me a message on Twitter, email me at Sakasamanochou@gmail.com, or check out our facebook group and join us. We already have a few that are interested and we hope to find more in the future.

 

And if you are a gay conservative who is from some other area, there are more of us than you probably think and if you start looking you will find others around you and maybe you can start up a group of your own.

 

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?.

Complete Disregard for Cultural and Historical Sensitivity

When comparing your plight or the plight of your community to that of a historical time period, we have to remember to be sensitive to pain and suffering of others. It’s something that many writer’s struggle with when they are comparing a current event to a historical one to gain context. I often struggle with it on this blog. In fact, last month I wrote a blog which, during the writing, I struggled with whether or not using the holocaust would be cultural accurate and sensitive to holocaust victims and survivors. After long thought about what I was comparing I realized that the holocaust was not applicable because the situation I was describing was not nearly on the level of horrific that the holocaust was. I would be playing on the dramatic and painful recollection of something that didn’t even really apply to my point.

So I changed my focus and I applied the Japanese concentration camps to my blog instead.

For the gay community to choose to be marginalized and held apart from the rest of society would be like the Japanese walking themselves into the American concentration camps.

From all my study on the history of the Japanese internment camps, they were horribly unfair and against all the things that this country stood for, but their were no executions, no gas chambers and, all in all, were much more humane than Auschwitz and the other Nazi concentration camps.

That’s why, when I’m on The Advocate and I read comments like

Goproud sounds like a bunch of self haters and who have serious psychological issues, no right minded gay would vote to have Republican as their voice, totally like a Jewish Nazi syndrome.

.

I’ve always felt that being a Log Cabin Rebiblican or an GOPrude is akin to being Jewish and a member of the Gestapo, or black and being a member of the KKK.

.

GOP Proud? Are you kidding me? What’s next: Jewish Nazis? African American KKK? These self hating people are obviously suffering from arrested identity development. If they really think Bachmann is going to talk with them (let alone CHANGE her tune), they are, at best, incredibly naive, and at worst, f—ing BATSHIT CRAZY!

I find myself complete at a loss as to how to explain the extreme carelessness the people commenting have for the actually historical events that took place in the holocaust.

Jewish Nazi?

Hah!

Hardly.

First of all, I don’t see any gas chambers or concentration camps and I don’t hear anyone talking about setting any up. For all that Bachmann may not like us and may want to “fix” us, she isn’t advocating locking us all up and forcing reparative therapy on us is she?

If she is, someone please inform me. Because I must have missed that memo.

In fact if ANYONE in the Republican party  has been advocating this idea, please let me know immediately.

Secondly, we aren’t being tagged and identified as gay. If anything, the Religious Right is wishing we would take it all back inside the bedroom and pretend we don’t exist again. It’s like cocaine addictions in the 20s, all the rich people did it behind closed doors and no respectable people talked about it. You didn’t go to jail for it, you just kept it quiet.

They don’t want to lock us up, they just want to pretend we aren’t here. That’s not going to happen, so sad for them, but they still aren’t advocating pink triangles sewn on our clothing.

Third, I’m not informing on anyone or policing anyone nor am I helping a party that is trying to take over the country/world and murder millions of innocent people.

There is a massive difference between the Republican party and the Nazis and there is an ever more massive disconnect going on in the brains of the far left gays that think that the comparison is apt.

The fact that we are gay Republicans doesn’t mean we don’t want equal rights or that we are ashamed of being gay, we just don’t put the fight for equal rights or our sexuality in front of more pressing needs…like keeping our country running.

One would think that would be understandable.

But what do I know?

I’m just a Jewish Nazi anyway…

Are we arguing about our morality or our rights?

You have no idea how many blogs I’ve started writing and stopped, halfway through, about Michele Bachmann and her family’s gay reparative therapy clinics and the Iowa Marriage Vow debacle. There are at least 3 unfinished drafts here on wordpress and even more that I just deleted completely, because nothing I was going to say really meant anything in the long run.

I had several good points about the Iowa marriage vow, but many other bloggers have already made them. As for the ex-gay clinics…on a personal moral level, I can’t stand the Bachman’s, however this is a free country and they are free to run any business they like (Even if it does bother me that her husband actually doesn’t have a license to practice, but that’s apparently legal in that state…) and it’s not like they are holding people there against their will or performing electroshock therapy or lobotomies (as far as we know) so they aren’t exactly Mengele.

Now, while I wouldn’t vote for Bachmann on the basis of my own moral principles (and the fact that I just don’t think she has what it takes to be president), there is another level to all of this that I would like to consider.

When did the gay rights movement stop being a fight about equal rights and start being a fight about people’s morals?

My morals are my morals, Bachmann’s are hers. I don’t agree with her’s and she would not agree with mine. I don’t think that either of our morals should be forced onto the rest of society, I don’t think that everyone should be forced to believe that gay people are good and normal parts of society as much as any other person or forced to believe that gay marriage is okay…I just want equal rights and I want the federal government to stay out of my life as much as possible. Which is one of the many reasons why a federal amendment, for or against, gay marriage would be so wrong on so many levels.

And that is the discussion that the gay community needs to be having (that gay conservatives are having) with Republicans now. Not a discussion about morality, because that’s never going to change their mind. If the religious among them are ever going to change their mind about gay people or gay marriage, it’s going to be a long process of soul searching that they will do on their own…not through rhetoric or anger thrown at them by liberals and the gay community. (or the Human Rights Council, who is not Bipartisan by any definition of the word, no matter how much they would like to pretend. That might be a blog for another time.)

We can’t fight with our morality and then claim they have no right to use their own to justify their position. The only way to convince them to change their opinions is to remind them that this is about state’s rights, not morality. I know, I know. I’m repeating myself…I do that a lot on this blog. While I would never claim to be as skilled as Ayn Rand, her writing does teach you a thing or two about pounding a point through even the thickest of skulls if you repeat it enough.

Sometimes I question GOProud, like I initially did when I heard they were requesting to sit down with Bachmann and talk to her. My moral sensitivity just went “yuck!” but then I read this interview that Chris Barron (Chairman of GOProud) did with The Advocate (the whole interview is gold, read it please) and I just about stood up and cheered, because, once again, they proved that they are on the same page as me.

You all came out in opposition to “The Marriage Vow” but took a more issue-focused approach to it, I guess, saying it was an expansion of government power. Whereas the other groups are saying it’s basically an immoral thing to sign. Do you agree it’s an immoral thing to sign?

For years the gay community and gay leadership have told people that what they care about is equal rights and equal benefits for people. So now we have actually moved to a conversation where we don’t actually care about equal rights and equal benefits. What we care about is now the morality of the issue. We now have started parroting the talking points of the other side from six years ago. Instead of talking about the bottom line and the rights and benefits to gay people, now we are talking about the morality of it.

So you think it’s counterproductive to say it’s just wrong to sign “The Marriage Vow”?

I think that if you want to get into a conversation about whether or not something is immoral, then you better be prepared that the other side is going to use the exact same language. And I thought that was the same type of language we had been trying to avoid for years. We’ve been trying to focus on the rights and responsibilities and the benefits and making sure that everyone had the same opportunities, not to get into some pissing match with people about whose got better moral standing.

It’s just at the end of the day, supporting the federal marriage amendment is fundamentally against everything that conservatives have traditionally believed. It would lead to the largest single power grab by the federal government from the states in the history of this country. What do you think is the more compelling argument for conservatives? To have Joe Solmonese tell people that it’s immoral for them to oppose same-sex marriage or for them to hear from a conservative that supporting a federal marriage amendment would be a federal power grab from the states that defies the base of conservative principles.

How do you get anything done in terms of moving gay rights forward if you can’t say anything when it comes up because speaking out might motivate the other side?

You can. It just depends on who the messenger is.

But how do most gay people do it if they are the messenger all the time?

Well we talk about it all the time. And it’s an important dialogue that we’re participating in. It’s why it’s important for us to have the opportunity to sit down and talk to Michele Bachmann. This is part of that process. How effective do you think it would be if GOProud demanded a meeting with Nancy Pelosi, if we sent out emails blasting Nancy Pelosi for something? It’s not going to be very effective on moving Nancy Pelosi on an issue. At the end of the day, it’s about the message and the messenger.

So you are more effective on this because you are conservatives speaking to conservatives?

Absolutely. It’s common sense. Why should any Republican care one iota what HRC says? They’ve already endorsed Obama. They haven’t even given us a chance to have our field set.

Of course, judging by the reactions of the comments on the article, the usual readers of the Advocate are still ultra liberal, still unwilling to listen to reason and completely can’t see a rational argument when it smacks them in the face.

Barron, you and I can just keep taking lessons from Ayn Rand okay? Eventually they’ll understand.