Although not quite as bad as the one I thought.
a) There is no such thing as the “homosexual lifestyle,” just as there is no such thing as the heterosexual lifestyle. A straight man can be faithfully married to one women for his entire life and never stray from his marriage vows, or he can run with loose women in and out of marriages his entire life, in many different cultures and religions and countries. Is there are a “hetereosexual lifestyle” here? None of these lives bear any resemblance to the other, and pretending that gay people are somehow linked through their orientation in some manner, some common thread, is focusing on their sexuality in a way in which conservatives usually accuse *gay people* of doing. If gays are not defined only by their being gay, why pretend they’re all alike?
b)a “gay-themed” event is not about sex. It’s about a minority community coming together for whatever the event might happen to be, which in this case is about as sexy as roller coasters and cotten candy. You seem to be making a common error that “gay people” think only about sex or make their events all about sex – again, revealing a link in your mind between homosexuality and sex (shown in, I assume, this comment, “prurient interests of the gay sexual lifestyle and culture”). You are also dangerously close to hinting that gay people can’t be trusted around children (” I AM against, however, having gay themed events where children are… “), which is, I think, unfortunate. Can gay people be teachers, Warner? Policeman? Parents?
Contrary to Matt Barber and the like, judging gay culture from a few pride parades is like judging “straight culture” from Mardi Gras or Spring Break.
Thanks for replying.

is “Gay Activist From Georgia Busted for Kiddie Porn”

the first two words are Gay Activist, no you did not say that republicans can not be gay, but you clearly are telling a particular message.

“Meth Dealer From Georgia Busted for Kiddie Porn”

And as for my assertion about 30% of the nation I was including blacks and latinos. Although to be fair I think the only thing the party has done to repulse African Americans is to oppose affirmative action, and I still think that was and is a good call. Latinos and immigration however is something that clearly Bush and Rove understood was important for the future of the party, but oddly enough democrats were their biggest supporters for immigration reform that included a path to legalization.

My point however was more along the lines of demonizing anyone is not a good way to start winning elections again. We’ve got to stop reaching for a knee jerk lever if we want to bring people back to the party. Why not write an essay about new fiscal ideas or posturing on a national level for 2010. This kind of garbage just serves to distract from a whole nation of real problems.

It is only by offering solutions that people will begin to trust the republican brand again.

I know you didn’t write anything about throwing blacks and latino’s out of the party. I am just saying that your post is needlessly aggressive against a swath of Americans. Similar in tone to a lot of the rhetoric surrounding affirmative action and immigration reform. The result of posturing like this is the creation of a block of people in the country that will not vote republican.

While we should not give up our values we should also try to have a pool larger than 70% of the country to get our votes out of.

I’m pretty sure they are just talking about being able to get on their spouses health care plans and visit each other in the hospital after horrific accidents where the partner is unable to provide consent.

Imagine if you will going to the hospital and not being able to say goodbye to your wife as she dies in the ICU after an accident. Instead you sit in the hospital lobby wondering how you are going to pay the $60,000 bill for treatment given that the partner policy on your company health care only covers homosexual couples, and does not recognize your heterosexual relationship of more than 20 years as being eligible for insurance coverage.

That’s what they are talking about in the “fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian Americans.” It’s only about sex if you make it about sex, yes they like doing it a different way than you and I, but they don’t appear to have any hot man on man action anywhere on the site.

How are they not making it about sex when the very purpose of their organization is all about sexual identity politics?

Neil: Are you from the moon? Gays and lesbians face discrimination based on who they are sexually attracted to; is it really your position that they can be discounted if they organize in response?

Presumably as well, your opposition extends to all “identity” politics. Don’t listen to Joel Osteen (or Martin Luther Kjng, for that matter)! He practices Christian Identity Politics. Or the NRA, for that matter. Gun identity politics, doncha know. (Sure, you claim to have an inalienable right to own a gun …. we all know that it’s simply a lifestyle choice, and plenty of folks get by without guns.)

to stay with the republican party as a moderate, and I think forums like RedState provide an important means as to affecting the party structure for victory.

But calling the gay voting democratic the pedophile voting demographic is like calling the black voting demographic the crime voting demographic. Just because there is a greater propensity towards an action doesn’t entail causality, and implying causality is ignorant.

using the standard of the kossacks. I found Foley to be a creep just like everybody else after the situation, but I didn’t connect it to Republicanism while the MSM and the people at kos made every point with the point he was a Republican. I personally found it incredibly distasteful.

I wouldn’t say WTH is doing that, but it does appear that the whole aspect of gay groups dealing with corporate theme parks for their AIDS awareness thing is a non sequitor if the point was really just that here’s an activist that was busted for child porn.

I’ll spare you the links & assume for the sake of argument that they do…

Yeah, the gay groups are a lot more accepting of public displays of debauchery & decadence than they should be.

My point remains that there are a lot of old pervs out at these parks whose taste runs to plaid skirts & patent leather shoes, and that creeps me out, too.

Mardi Gras? Are we now going to imply that straight people that go to that function have a propensity to sexual deviancy? Shall we attempt to outlaw Marti Gras?

I’ll try to elucidate the problem with your argument with an analogy of my own.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4TFV93D-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=db2ee09bae0195cc1ecbd026da77245c

If you read that study, researchers found that people with a propensity towards religion also have a propensity towards a lower intelligence (lower IQ),

Now hopefully, you’re going to reply with “that’s BS” or something, probably because you disagree with IQ being correlated with intelligence, etc. However, others will probably disagree because they’re christian or whatever religion, and smarter than a whole host of atheists.

There in lies the problem. Just because there is a greater propensity towards a disposition doesn’t mean you should highlight it because you’re creating a false connection. Just like it would be ingenious for me to state that religious people are dumber than atheists, it is also wrong for WTH to imply that gays tend to be child molesters, whether or not he realizes the implication or not.

I know he’s a left-wing Democrat. What I want to know is if his problems with implying a correlation between gays and pedophiles extends to when Democrats do it for electoral purposes.

Such as in the 2006 election.

to whack Han. Von has a long history here.

Han’s position seems to be that being gay give you a bye on possessing kiddie porn, or, at least there is something nefarious about mentioning his politics. If he wants to defend that position, he’s welcome to it.

Isn’t just handy that you just happen to be free to defend the lefty, but were too busy to defend a righty?

I call it a choice. If it were truly important to you, you’d have made time.

Yeah, nobody here should take seriously a word you write on this site. Mockery should be the rule here.

Neil, there’s no reason to continue this debate, but you’re provoking head-scratching more than anything else.

Republicans will begin winning again when they start offering an agenda that’s bigger (in all senses of the word) than a crusade against “any …. kind of sex themed event held where kids will be exposed to it. Any sex themed event is unsuitable for a public event.”

That’s the reason why the diarist is writing about the Salles arrest: it supposedly proves that all “sex themed events” — heterosexual or homosexual — should be excluded from the public square. I have no idea what he means. I do know that very few people have, as their primary concern, the diarist’s concern. I do think that there are better arguments to be made by the Republicans (generally) and RedState (in particular).

Now, I haven’t been a member of a political party since a brief stint with the college libertarians back in the dark ages. (They were …. strange.) I don’t know anything about pogroms. I do believe, however, that the Republican party has a great deal to offer in, for instance, pointing out that:

A third or more of the stimulus package is not stimulus at all but simply government spending, which won’t do a whit to help folks out.

The most significant stimulus in the package is the tax-cut portion, and that an administration seriously interested in stimulating the economy would include more cuts.

Some of the best government stimulus spending there ever has been (or is) has been spending on defense matters …. and, hey, whaddaya know, there are a couple wars going on and a military that is seriously overstretched. Mayhaps we could kill two-three birds with one stone …..

that we should perhaps be trying to think of ways to solve problems rather than vilifying our voter pool into an increasingly smaller and homogeneous group of people make me a “moby”?

You may not like that I am capable of having a nuanced view re: homosexuality, but that doesn’t make me a troll. The basis of my argument still stands, this post is nothing but gay bating in the same way that a post title “Black Welfare Queen Arrested For Welfare Fraud” would be race bating.

By driving people out of our coalition we are reducing our effective voter pool. It blows my mind that people either don’t see this or are unwilling to talk about it, and instead concentrate their interests on quibbling with small points in my above posts rather than discussing this obvious greater truth.

I’ve only been a member of the site for a little over 18 months so I would have been unable to voice an opinion about Foley. Are you seriously suggesting that only members who have been around for more than 2 years should be allowed to discuss this topic?

That said I do not support the vilification of all republicans for one man’s action in the same way that I do not support the villification of all homosexuals for one man’s actions.

What I was reacting to were the lengthy arguings in previous threads about the propriety of the headline, in particular the identifying that of Mr. Salles as a gay activist. That is where I invoked the matter of Ted Haggard’s coverage.

Now if you wish to argue that it is inaccurate to identify Mr. Salles as a “gay activist” and object on that ground, you at least have a reasonable basis to object – though the author may not agree with that. And the resolution would be “agree to disagree” – but at least there should no attack on motives or name-calling.

However, what I was reading above was not objection to the accuracy of the characterization, but rather objection on the grounds that merely mentioning that fact was in and of itself was hurtful, contributing to discrimination and hate, arouse hatred towards gays from unknown readers of the headline – objections based on the response of possible readers rather than the accuracy of the fact.

And it is that effort to restrict speech on the grounds of how readers might respond I see as a slippery slope. And yes, I have been encountering people in the U.S. who would want to make writing this kind of headline into a hate crime. So I don’t see this as a straw man.

Returning to your first point, I think we’re in agreement that the content of many of the articles relating to Haggard did try to link his activities to the Christian right in general- and that was malicious journalism. Similarly, if Warner here had tried to link Halles activities to the gay rights movement in general beynd his sphere of influence, I would similarly object.

I don’t think Warner did that here; if you think differently, I respect that – but I really don’t have the time or interest to debate that point.

Again, I was reacting to the drama over the headline.