A clause added to the Defense Authorization spending bill repealing Section 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in order to decriminalize homosexual relations has provoked considerable controversy.

It turned out that Section 125 stated that any servicemember who “engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same sex or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.” Offenders would face court-martial for any violations.

Legalizing homosexual relations thus seemed to imply that bestiality would have to be legalized as well, and organizations from the Family Research Council to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals exploded in indignation.

The Pentagon tried assuring Congress that bestiality would remain unlawful because it is impossible to conceive of a circumstance in which such an act “would not be conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline or service-discrediting.” Though they obviously overlooked the fact that plenty of people would be happy to argue that homosexual acts are bound to be just as prejudicial to good order and discipline, and discrediting to the service in the eyes of many Americans.

The Republican-controlled House has yet to endorse the Senate bill, and negotiators are discussing the differences in each house’s version of the Defense bill.

The Hill

Military.com

The New York Times explains how Andrew Cuomo’s political skills and the dollars of a handful of rich donors succeeded in securing enough Republican votes to win passage for Same Sex Marriage in the same State Senate which defeated it two years ago.

Professional politics and hedge fund money took control of the political process to decide on behalf of the 19 million citizens of the State of New York that the immemorial definition of marriage, predating not only New York State and the United States, but the state in general, needed to be modified to recognize the equality of homosexual relationships.

The homosexual political movement has come a long way.

Homosexual relations only became de facto legal in New York State in 1980, when the New York Court of Appeals, in New York v. Onofre, decided to apply a newly discovered Constitutional right of “privacy” found in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to protect the use of contraception to consensual homosexual relations.

The actual law identifying homosexual acts as a criminal misdemeanor, New York Penal Law § 130.38, was not repealed until June 22, 2000.

In the short time of one generation, homosexuality has been promoted in status from being regarded psychologically as a mental disorder and from being treated legally as a form of criminal activity to full legal equality in a several states, and enthusiastic recognition by the bien pensant community as a worthy cause.

As is customary in all such matters, well-behaved, respectable members of the elite community of fashion speak with a single voice, but nonetheless very substantial numbers of other Americans continue to resent the essentially tyrannical manner in which a small but influential elite successfully usurps control of the decision-making processes and imposes its own will on society in general.

The vote taken by the New York State Senate was, at least, superior to the mode of decision-making in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Gay Marriage became institutionalized via a preposterous and contrived decision of the State Supreme Judicial Tribunal in 2003. At least, in New York, there was a legislative vote, and New Yorkers insulted and offended by the elevation of perverse relationships to a level of equality with the traditionally most sacred human institution can look forward to voting those responsible out of office.

Most people today agree with John Stuart Mill that the state ought to assume a position of neutrality on matters of morals involving voluntary activities among consenting adults. Support for tolerance of homosexual activity does not, however, necessarily translate, outside the community of elite conformity, into complete recognition of homosexual equality, and for good reason.

Homosexuality is not equal. Homosexuality is not even, as the propaganda insists, an innate identity. Homosexuality, in reality, consists of behavior, voluntary actions, participation within, and entirely voluntary affiliation with, a particular subculture.

Some people clearly experience inclinations toward forms of sexual activity which others do not. Until quite recently, no one ever suggested that the experience of temptation constituted both a membership card in an independent, and fully legitimate, identity group and a license to gratify one’s urges, regardless of their character.

In no other category of unwholesome desire, does the argument that “the impulse is involuntary” bestow a new identity status and a permit to proceed, along with membership in a group protected and awarded its own identity housing, departments of study and academic major by an indulgent aristocracy smiling down in approval.

The dominant political class of a blue state has imposed its desires on the general population once again. They can bribe venal Republican senators, and they can bully cowardly senators. They can pull off a vote of this kind, and they can make their absurdities the laws of the land for a time, at least, but they still cannot make homosexuality equal.

They might as well get the New York State Senate to vote that color-blind people can see just as well as people with normal vision. They might as well vote that 2+2 in New York State will now equal 5. All integers are equal, after all.

However Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Tribunals rule and corrupt New York legislatures vote, homosexuality will still be a perversion. Homosexual activity will not result in reproduction, and homosexuality will be still unequal. Homosexuality will still fail the ethical test of Kant’s Categorical Imperative. Homosexuality will still be a tremendously dangerous disease vector. The homosexual subculture will still be characterized by promiscuity, fetishism, and self-degradation. Homosexual inclinations will still be characteristically associated with abnormality, effeminacy, and physical cowardice. People who choose to spend their time in the homosexual subculture will share a bizarre perspective, and consider routine what most Americans would find shocking and intolerably obscene, and characteristic homosexual manners, activity, and practices will still be regarded with deserved contempt by most people.

Inclinations toward homosexual monogamy and gay matrimonial aspirations are an extremely recent phenomenon, constituting a deliberate political stratagem aiming at capturing the ultimate symbol of homosexual equality of status and representing no kind of conversion or change of heart, but merely typically signifying only a prudent response adopted by many gays to the AIDS epidemic. The kind of leadership class which hastens to remodel the fundamental institution underlying human society to accommodate the single-generation-old whim of a very recently criminal subculture is too irresponsible to be permitted to retain its authority. Our rulers have no sense of history, no intellectual integrity, and no piety toward culture, tradition, and the past.

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Pam Geller quotes Muslim woman (throwing a backpack onto the DC Red Line train and exiting): “Praise Allah. I’m going to kill the world.”
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Jeff Dunetz: Obama’s Israel Policy: “F*** The Jews, They Will Vote For Us Anyway!”
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Mark Steyn (reporting on last night’s NH debate): “John King makes Tim Pawlenty look like Lady Gaga.”
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Barack Obama: “I wish I could tell you there was a quick fix to our economic problems. But the truth is, we didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight. It’s going to take time.”

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Iowahawk: “The world is not a high school regional moderated debate & clarinet competition. It’s a high school parking lot gang fight.”

Bryan Preston reports on the lengths that the Episcopal Church has been willing to go to punish parishes attempting to break away as the result of the ordination of an avowedly practicing homosexual as bishop.

I’m not at all religious and this story makes my blood boil. It must be seriously annoying to actual believing Christians.

The town of Falls Church, VA, gets its name from the beautiful historic church at its heart. The Falls Church was built in the time of George Washington, who was himself a vestryman at the church, and the original chapel still stands amid a far larger and more modern campus, and today boasts about 2,500 members. According to a historical marker nearby, the Falls Church was a recruiting station for the fledgling army that Washington led. But today the Falls Church is the target of a scorched earth campaign that the Episcopal Church USA, now called The Episcopal Church (TEC) is waging against several of its own congregations.

The Falls Church’s differences with TEC began over doctrinal issues in the 1970s, but came to a head in 2003 with the Episcopal Church’s ordination of the first non-celibate gay bishop. Many Episcopal churches, including the Falls Church and seven others in northern Virginia, elected to separate from TEC and created a parallel church network aligned with the Anglican Communion. But TEC claimed ownership of the Falls Church’s sprawling campus, and a lawsuit soon followed to wrest the property away from the congregation. Claiming alienation of property, the Episcopal Church went to courtroom war against its breakaway flocks.

The TEC’s lawsuit against the eight churches hinges on property ownership: Who owns the buildings and lands where the congregations meet? What would seem to be a straightforward issue, isn’t, thanks in part to how Episcopal churches are governed. Episcopal churches exist somewhere between Catholic parishes, the properties of which rest solely in the hands of bishops, and most Protestant churches, which own their own properties independent of their denomination or larger structural organization. Unlike Catholic churches, Episcopal churches exercise some independence from the larger church and have the power to vote on whether to sever ties with TEC. These churches did just that. But unlike other Protestant churches, Episcopal churches exercise somewhat less independence from their larger church. But the deeds to the properties in question are in the names of the local trustees, not the TEC itself.

These churches also predate the founding of the Episcopal diocese in Virginia itself. In fact, they are among its founding churches. Falls Church itself dates back to 1734. The diocese that is suing it is three decades its junior.

Nevertheless, the Episcopal Church has continued to wage a very expensive war in court. Jim Oakes, chairman of the Anglican Division of Virginia, estimates that the case has cost the local churches and TEC between $5 million and $8 million on both sides, or between $10 million to $16 million total. For churches that exist to provide ministry to families and towns, those millions could have surely been put to much better use than hiring lawyers and engaging in legal proceedings that have now lasted five years.

As the years have worn on, the churches have offered to settle out of court at each stage, only to be rejected by the Episcopal Church, and then have prevailed over TEC in court. That changed when the case made it all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, which handed the case back down to the circuit level after finding that the law at the heart of the case – called the division statute – did not apply in this case.

That trial is now set for the end of April, and is expected to take about six weeks. One Falls Church congregant I spoke with worries not just about the eventual ownership of the properties, but about the eventual intentions of the Episcopal Church itself. When I asked what was the worst case scenario, he pointed me to the outcome of a similar case in Binghamton, New York. The Episcopal Church’s victory over a breakaway church there led to this:

The Church of the Good Shepherd, which has stood at #79 Conklin Avenue since 1879, has been willingly turned over to a Muslim entity by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, rather than have it remain in the hands of traditional Anglicans who practice the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

The death knell for the structure as a Christian house of worship was delivered on February 9, 2010, when it was sold to Imam Muhammad Affify, doing business as the Islamic Awareness Center, for a mere $50,000, a fraction of the church’s assessed $386,400 value.

Now, two months later, the classic red Anglican doors have been repainted green, the simple cross on top of the steeply peaked bell tower has been lopped off, and a windowpane cross in the side door has been disfigured leaving only narrow vertical glass with the cross beam being painted over to hide it. The Muslims consider the cross a pagan symbol.

Meanwhile the Rev. Matt Kennedy, his wife and partner in ministry Anne, their young family and congregation were sent packing in the bitter cold and deep snow in January 2008 when the New York Supreme Court ordered them to relinquish the 130-year-old church building which stands overlooking the meandering Susquehanna River.

Good Shepherd had offered to purchase the property before any legal proceedings began, but TEC refused, just as it has refused to settle with the majority of the Virginia churches. After winning the Binghamton suit, TEC sold the historic church to the Islamic group for about a third of what the congregation had offered. ...

[An Episcopalian source describing a similar case in Leesburg, VA, notes:]

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is on record saying she would sooner see fleeing parishes sold for saloons than see them affiliate with African and Southern Cone dioceses that uphold “the faith once delivered for all to the saints.”

Saloons rather than traditional churches? That is why the word “jihad” is in the title of this article. The Episcopal Church’s actions in Binghamton and elsewhere defy reason, unless they were intended to send a very strong and unmistakable message to traditional congregants who might be thinking of breaking away: Defy us, and we will not only hound and possibly crush your congregation through expensive lawsuits, we will see that your cherished houses of worship are desecrated. And we will go to any lengths to send this message, even if we must turn your houses of worship into saloons, or mosques. Even if George Washington himself once worshiped there.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

One of the few things Bill Clinton did that I thought reflected favorably on his leadership was the attempted “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” compromise on the issue of persons inclined toward homosexual activity serving in the military.

Clinton’s DADT policy was intelligent and philosophically libertarian. I’m not sure that it was actually necessary, as I do not believe that there exists a significant number of persons of the homosexual-activities-inclined persuasion both eager to enlist in the military and emotionally stable and responsible enough to serve, but in so far as real persons meeting that description may actually exist, President Clinton’s DADT policy satisfied both their military ambitions and the needs of the armed forces for good order and discipline.

The attempt underway by the democrat party leadership of the 111th Congress, a Congress currently enjoying a 13% favorable public approval rating, to ram through a repeal of DADT in a lame duck session has more of the character of a legislative coup d’etat than conventional legislation.

The radical ideologues that found themselves suddenly empowered by a congressional majority resulting from the electorate’s choice of the only alternative in the American two-party system to the incumbent party in response to economic disaster refuse to recognize their repudiation at polls nationally in November and are proceeding to attempt to force through yet more unpopular and extremist legislation in the same high-handed fashion used to enact Obamacare.

The leftwing-controlled House has passed legislation repealing DADT and Harry Reid has expressed the intention of holding in the Senate the same kind of all-night sessions used to enact socialized health care to clear the way, in time of war, to use the American military for an unpopular form of ideological-motivated coercive social engineering.

People who have imperfect vision are not accepted for military aviation. The US military rejects people for being too short, too tall, too fat, and too thin, and even for having flat feet. I don’t know the current policy, but some years ago, persons with too many visible tattoos were not permitted to join the service. Open expression of any form of bizarre behavior, open sexuality, interest in sexual fetishism, confused gender identity, and perversion ought to remain valid grounds for exclusion or separation from the service.

The repeal of DADT will make homosexuals a privileged and protected class within the American Armed Forces. Activists and sexual predators oriented toward young persons of service age will flock to the military to plant their subcultural flag. A cloak of federal protection will descend over flamboyant displays of homosexual identity and desire and the symbolic language of sexual fetishism will take its place beside the traditional emblems of military ranks and organized units. Just as a number of Roman Catholic seminaries, in the period of vocational decline following Vatican 2, were transformed into organs of the Hominterm, there will undoubtedly before long be significant non-combat military units completely taken over by, and operated for the benefit of, perverse sexual activity to the most profound detriment of their legitimate purpose.

The kinds of American families which today send their children to serve in the American Armed Forces will think twice, after incidents featuring the abuse of authority to extort sexual access become commonplace.

The presence in the military of larger numbers of a non-combat-oriented minority privileged by a system of political protection will inevitably lead to more military personnel resembling PFC Bradley Manning working in clerical positions of trust and responsibility, and over time advancing in rank. The homosexual subculture is characteristically leftist and radically hostile to conventional society, the United States, and US Foreign Policy. Members in good standing of that subculture are highly likely, statistically speaking, to oppose the operations the US military is engaged in, and to have sympathies for, and ties, to leftwing activist groups. It is no accident that many of the most prominent British traitors of the WWII and Cold War period, the Cambridge spies, Burgess, Blunt, and Maclean, were all homosexuals.

Republican in Name Only Senators Murkowski, Collins, Snowe, and Brown have pledged to vote to break the filibuster. Let’s hope that responsible conservative Republican leadership is up to the job of stopping this outrageous assault on the American military by an insolent and irresponsible gang of politicians whose opinions and loyalties are representative of only a minority of Americans

Spiegel identifies the USA as the most serious victim of the leaked revelations.

The leaks demonstrate that political correctness overcame common sense and allowed a sexually perverted individual to obtain a position of responsibility which he could betray to serve his own personal grievances and agenda. Homosexuals are commonly unethical, emotionally unstable, and hostile to their own country and conventional society. Bradley Manning should never have been in the US Army in the first place, and still less should he ever have been give access to national and international secret communications.

Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information — data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America’s partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public — as have America’s true views of them.

Hat tip to David French, at NR Online, Jordan Lorence, and Alternative Right via Bird Dog.

If you are the US Army, you pick a gay, self-medicating, emotionally-unstable computer hacker, who harbors extreme liberal opinions, and who has “the personality of a bull in a china shop.”

Despite being apparently completely recognizable to acquaintances and associates as gay, and despite displaying a fairy wand on his desk, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy did not cause Pfc. Bradley Manning to be separated from the service. Manning had a drag queen boyfriend, hung out in politically-motivated circles of computer hackers, and had been reprimanded for assaulting an officer, but none of that kept him from having a Top Secret clearance providing access to what the New York Times describes as “some of the most secret information on the planet.”

For instance, students had to mandatorily attend issues workshops run by activist groups, such as BiLeGaTA (standing for “Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender Asexual”) which proceeded to explain that:

1. Gender is a social construct.

2. There are at least five genders* (what the other three are is not explained), not two, and that’s a conservative estimate.

3. The proper pronoun to use to describe transgendered people is not “he” or “she” but rather “ze.” The possessive form of this word is “hir.” The word to use in formal address (as in “Sir” or “Madame”) is “Ziram.”

And…

4. Anyone who disagrees with any of this, or even questions it, is automatically “heteronormative” or worse, “heterosexist.”

*Curiously enough, BiLeGaTA roughly agrees with the inhabitants of mid- last century Alexandria:

[T]here are more than five sexes and only demotic Greek seems to distinguish among them. The sexual provender that lies to hand is staggering in its variety and its profusion. You would never mistake it for a happy place.

—Lawrence Durrell on Alexandria in Justine (1957).

Unfortunately, Durrell, too, neglected to explain which exactly all those other sexes/genders were.

If anyone wonders why many Americans are not eager to follow the political examples set by European countries in all things, I would recommend this story as a good example of policies not worth following.

Telegraph:

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

The 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Wokington, Cumbria for years, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act.

Mr McAlpine, who was taken to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked in a cell for seven hours on April 20, said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life.

John L. Goldwater (1916-1999), an orphan and distant relative of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, was a strong admirer of small town America and an arch champion of family values, who played a key role in establishing the Comics Code Authority in 1954.

Goldwater invented Archie, his teenage associates, and their paradigmatically American hometown Riverdale in 1941, modeling the new series on the popular “Andy Hardy” films. He deliberately created Archie as a rival to Superman.

Goldwater “thought of Superman as an abnormal individual and concluded that the antithesis, a normal person, could be just as popular.”

Superman performed extraordinary feats, averting cataclysmic perils to humanity and thwarting the plans of evil geniuses, while Archie just blundered along happily through high school, facing no problem larger than choosing between the romantic possibilities presented by the blond and wholesome Betty and the wealthy brunette Veronica. Goldwater believed that Archie was successful precisely because he was “basically a square, but in my opinion the squares are the backbone of America… [and] strong families.”

I expect a loud spinning sound can be heard in the vicinity of the late John L. Goldwater’s grave. His grandson made a announcement this week that the old man would probably not very much have liked.

Free Press:

Archie Comics announced Wednesday that it’s introducing the strip’s first openly gay character. His name is Kevin Keller, and rumor has it that he’s a strapping, blond hottie who draws the immediate attention of Veronica and who wrestles with how to gently rebuff her flirtations.

Co-CEO Jon Goldwater says the move is “just about keeping the world of Archie Comics current and inclusive,” adding that the new character makes sense because “Riverdale has always been a safe world for everyone.”

Kevin is slated to make his first appearance in September.

Fan reaction has been mixed.

At Animation Magazine, Ralph comments:

The majority of the Archie comic audience are kids and sexual orientation has no place in this comic. Archie has been a pillar of honest, genuine content for many successful years so why change that?

The San Francisco Examiner brings up the often-voiced suspicion that the Archie series already had a gay character, the rebellious and misogynistic Jughead.

Archie comics is debuting its first gay character, although that should be ‘out’ gay character, since obviously Jughead, that woman hating anti-social with the dry sass, has always been the main gay of Riverdale High.

The late John L. Goldwater ruled that Stan Lee Spiderman strips written in response Federal Department of HEW requests featuring anti-drug use advocacy were a comics code violation.

The White House hires Barney’s gay creative director, Simon Doonan, famous for risque Yuletide displays depicting Margaret Thatcher as a dominatrix and Madonna (not the holy one), to decorate its Christmas trees, and he sends out plain balls to be decorated with decoupage at such worthy cause locations as a gay community center.

The result, as Big Goverrnment reports, inevitably places on the national Xmas tree open expressions of exactly what Barack Obama’s administration represents, statements identifying its deepest values.

Mao Tse Tung

Drag Queen Hedda Lettuce

Obama on Mount Rushmore

Heaven knows, Andrew Sullivan is a prolific and occasionally intelligent blogger. Andrew combines a rather wide ranging curiosity with a penchant for enthusiastic argument. But… Andrew has turned into a textbook case demonstrating how sexual deviants, though often extraordinarily talented, are too frequently irrational, irresponsible, and abusive of positions of authority and trust.

A number of prominent bloggers marveled back in 2005 and 2006 as Andrew Sullivan magically transformed himself from a fervent supporter of the invasion of Iraq into a constant complainer about detainee treatment and enhanced interrogations. Frankly, it was impossible to fail to notice that Andrew Sullivan’s emotionalism on the subject of harsh treatment of jihadist detainees had the intensely subjective character of a hysterical sissy mentally projecting a grotesquely exaggerated version of detainee sufferings upon himself and then protesting accordingly. I believe it was Micky Kaus, around that time, who dubbed him “Excitable Andrew.”

Unfortunately, the psychosexual perversity just keeps happening.

Beyond the big salty tears that pour down Andrew’s hirsute cheeks over the sufferings of those poor little Jihadi terrorists, his next major insanity focuses on Sarah Palin, and Andrew’s behavior in relation to Palin is not a pretty sight.

It’s not easy to understand exactly why, but it is clear that an attractive, charismatic woman with conservative views has an enormous emotional impact on Andrew Sullivan. He has been blogging about crazed theories of his own about her family and publishing an endless series of attacks and accusations directed at Sarah Palin ever since she first appeared on the national political stage last year. The appearance of Sarah Palin’s book recently drove Andrew right around the bend. He published a lengthy list of alleged inaccuracies, and had to take a day off from blogging in order to obsess over how much he hates Sarah Palin.

It is more than a little unseemly for a major magazine like the Atlantic to offer a platform for Andrew Sullivan to use to throw the homosexual tantrums in which he lashes out so viciously and unrelentingly at Sarah Palin. The reader becomes uncomfortable, reluctantly recognizing in Sullivan’s rants the bitter jealousy of the pansy for the beauty and sexual attractiveness of the real woman, the obsessive hatred of the inverted and the sexually diseased for someone so conspicuously normal and healthy.

When you come right down to it, we Americans do not need the political advice of a non-citizen British subject, endless lectures on morality from a sexual pervert, or disquisitions of the proper limits of violence from a sissy. We also do not need Sullivan’s exhibitions of sexual hostility toward Sarah Palin.

He was recently arrested for drug law violations in Massachusetts. He is HIV positive, and consequently ineligible for naturalization. He has apparently admitted that accusations of attempts on his part to expose US residents to potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease are true.

Robert Stacy McCain is perfectly correct in his suggestion that the US should DEPORT ANDREW SULLIVAN! Do it.

In this interview with the London Times, he has unkind things to say about nearly everyone from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama, whom he predicts will be deposed by military coup(!). (I almost hope so, Gore, I thought, reading that one.)

Americans in general come in for the roughest treatment. Alas! we are all just a bunch of ignorant, uneducated yahoos, and unlike certain authors, we are generally not rich, famous, and descended from a prominent political family able to take credit apparently both for founding the airline industry and bringing Oklahoma into the Union.

Interestingly, Gore Vidal is lucid enough to recognize that homosexuality is a matter of acts, not of identity. He might have said more of interest on that subject so near to his own heart, but after remarking “Don’t make the error that schoolteacher idiots make by thinking that gay men’s relationships are like heterosexual ones. They’re not.” He refused to elucidate on how he thinks they are different.

The Telegraph reports that the British Legion was obliged to cancel plans for an annual Veterans Day Parade when the Doncaster Town Council claimed it lacked “the amenities.” Imagine their surprise when Doncaster hosted its first Gay Pride Parade last Sunday.

Residents of the Aegean island of Lesbos are suing a gay organization in Greek court over use of the name “Lesbian.”

AP:

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

“My sister can’t say she is a Lesbian,” said Dimitris Lambrou. “Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,” he said.

Bar owner Matthew Rogers of Pt. Richmond, Calif., sent this note to the company: “I run a bar in Pt. Richmond. … After seeing your ad campaign where you show a western map of the United States in which California is part of Mexico again, I’ve decided to do the following: 1) Never carry Absolut. Ever; 2) Lower the price of Ketel One vodka to $2 a shot indefinitely to build loyalty; 3) Print a copy of your ad and put it above the Ketel One drink special; 4) Tell all my friends and family what Absolut thinks of the United States of America and our right to enforce border laws. I am on the frontline of illegal immigration and its effects. Where are you? Oh, yes, Sweden. Good riddance.”

Absolut’s initial response to complaints was to hang up on consumers who phoned and to delete their e-mail without bothering to read it. But the controversy spread like a California wildfire stoked by Internet Santa Ana winds. In the first of two statements, Absolut Vice President of Corporate Communications Paula Eriksson attempted to douse the flames by touting the company’s embrace-diversity ethos. “As a global company,” she pedantically intoned, “we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market. Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the U.S. — that ad might have been very different.”

That arrogant, p.c. sanctimony had the effect of pouring gas on the flames. So over the weekend, Eriksson issued a new statement announcing withdrawal of the ad. It was comically titled “We apologize” — and disingenuously argued that “In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues. …This is a genuine and sincere apology.” ...

Fresh off its Aztlan debacle, the company announced its newest campaign this week featuring an ad titled “Ruler,” described as “a humorous look at gay men and their fascination with perfect, eight-inch ‘member’ measurements.”

Absolut Press Release:

The brand’s two new, daring print ad executions include: “Ruler,” a humorous look at gay men and their fascination with perfect, eight-inch “member” measurements, while “Stadium” engages on the issue of gay marriage when one half of a gay couple “pops” the question during a sports outing. Created by SPI Marketing/Moon City in New York, these new lifestyle-driven ads build on a heritage of advertisements that prominently featured gay artists since 1984.

“As a long-time supporter of the gay and lesbian community, we acknowledge that you can’t simply speak to gay men and lesbians as consumers, but instead need to make real connections to their lives which we believe we are achieving with our new creative executions,” said Jeffrey Moran, ABSOLUT® spokesperson. “As a company, we respect gay men and lesbians not simply in advertising messages, but behind the scenes as well. We’re not gay-washing here.”

The preferred brand of vodka for gay and lesbian consumers, ABSOLUT® was one of the first major brands to place an ad in a gay magazine 27 years ago and is a long-time supporter of events and causes important to the gay and lesbian community.

Original story.
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Dominique Poirier also notified us of Absolut’s apology.

Some topics are best left both out of sight and out of mind. The American Civil Liberties Union’s war on the Boy Scouts is not one of them.

The ACLU, in a rational world, might well have been expected to champion the First Amendment rights of an organization like the Boy Scouts. After all, the First Amendment to the Constitution (so dear to the ACLU) protects both speech and the right to associate.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 upheld the right of the Boy Scouts to select members and leaders without regard to state laws that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

That ruling hasn’t stopped the ACLU. It has simply shifted tactics away from the courts and focused its energies on local and often mean-spirited campaigns to deny the Scouts places to meet and the ability to raise funds.

Sadly, the campaign appears to be working. Earlier this year, the Philadelphia City Council caved to pressure from the ACLU and gay and lesbian groups to end a 75-year-old, $1-a-year lease on the Boy Scouts headquarters. The lease was originally granted to run “in perpetuity.”

But now, the Scouts will have to pay almost $200,000 a year in rent. Not only that, but the city’s Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout Council, after years of resistance, gave in to pressure and essentially agreed to the demands of gay and lesbian groups. And more bad news: The left-leaning Pew Charitable Trusts and the United Way in Philadelphia have stopped funding the Boy Scouts.

The youth of Philadelphia need the Boy Scouts as much as ever, but the City Council is too cowardly to stand up to the unreasonable and vindictive demands of special interest groups.

These campaigns against the Scouts can no longer be disguised as efforts to end discrimination. They have only one purpose: to punish an organization that has performed countless good turns for a century.

At this point, it is unclear what can be done to convince the American public that actions like those taken by the Philadelphia City Council pose a risk to the nation and to the common good. Today, the Boy Scouts may be the target, but tomorrow the same shabby tactics could be aimed at the Rotary Club or any other private civic group.

After all, what this country really needs is an active self-affirming homosexual presence in an organization for boys.

So I was down in DC this past weekend and happened to run into a well-connected media person, who told me flatly, unequivocally that “everyone knows” The LA Times was sitting on a story, all wrapped up and ready to go about what is a potentially devastating sexual scandal involving a leading Presidential candidate. “Everyone knows” meaning everyone in the DC mainstream media political reporting world. “Sitting on it” because the paper couldn’t decide the complex ethics of whether and when to run it. The way I heard it they’d had it for a while but don’t know what to do. The person who told me )not an LAT person) knows I write and didn’t say “don’t write about this”.

Mickey Kaus follows:

Rosenbaum’s Political Physics: Do you ever sense there is some large mass of dark matter, an unseen Scandal Star, the gravitational pull of which is warping the coverage of what seems, on the surface, a pretty dull presidential race? I do. So does Ron Rosenbaum. I thought the Dark Star was the Edwards affair allegation. But Rosenbaum says “everyone in the elite Mainstream media” knows about another juicy scandal that the LAT is supposedly sitting on. I guess this is proof that I’m not in the elite, because I don’t know what he’s talking about. ... My vestigial Limbaugh gland tells me it must involve a Democrat, or else the Times would have found a reason to print it. ... P.S.: If it’s just Richardson, that will be very disappointing.

Luke Ford has a guess. And Atlas Shrugged is thinking along the same lines (with picture). And Big Head says it’s quite true.

Observer profile of Huma Abedin

August Vogue picture

The Daily – Nirali:

I’m not sure Hillary could walk out the door without Huma.”—Mandy Grunwald, Clinton advisor.

“Huma does make the trains run on time.”—Bob Barnett, the Clinton’s longtime personal lawyer.

“I don’t know if it’s a chicken-or-the-egg thing—Hillary affecting Huma or the other way around—but together they work.”—Mary Steenburgen, longtime Hillary friend and actress.

Can’t one just imagine all the things that could come out in a Giuliani vs. Hillary election campaign?

I was tempted to apply that observation to the behavior of Republicans in the case of Senator Larry Craig, but listening to the 8:23 Minneapolis police tape (NY Times transcript) it isn’t even obvious to me that Senator Craig was genuinely wounded.

In the first place, it is perfectly clear that no sex, not even any explicit sexual proposition, ever actually occurred. It is also clear that the covert signals Senator Craig supposedly made were in dispute between himself and Sergeant Karsnia, the arresting officer, and that Karsnia’s version features at least one very major implausibility. Karsnia claims that, as a signal, Craig reached below the divider between his bathroom stall and the stall to his right, with his left hand palm down, and rubbed the bottom of the divider. How could anyone possibly physically do that in the cramped confines of a typical public bathroom stall?

It is also quite apparent, listening to the tape, that Karsnia is artfully and intensely manipulating Craig. He is continuing to sell Craig on the plea deal, and he is also doing his level best to persuade Craig to assent to his own preferred version of the facts. The tape does not contain the whole of their conversation, and the portion released was clearly made in order to support the guilty plea which had been previously negotiated.

Common sense tells us that Karsnia must have threatened Craig with far more serious charges, charges involving the possibility of felony convictions, life-time sex offender status, public scandal and personal ruin, then offered a deal. In Karsnia’s deal, Craig would plead guilty only to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. It would be like a speeding ticket. Craig would simply plead guilty to disorderly conduct, pay $575 in fine and court fees, and walk away a free man. He would even be able to catch his original flight. And, best of all, there would be no publicity, no scandal, no ruinous sexual charges.

We can see just how well the Minneapolis Police Department kept its side of that plea bargain. So why should we believe one of its members’ allegations of about intrinsically ambiguous signals?

Just how plausible is it that a married 62-year-old Senator is in the habit of passing the time between changing planes by finding himself some sort of awkward and unseemly sexual encounter featuring heaven-only-knows whatever precise activity which may be conducted beneath the divider between two lavatory stalls?

As Eric at Classical Values observes, that this is the second major national sex scandal involving a Congressional Republican with no actual sex.

The problem is not one of Republicans not knowing how to tend their wounded. The problem is that Republicans don’t know how to handle scandals, either defensively or offensively.

The Administration’s opponents leak the highest level National Security secrets to the Press, and only one single Intelligence Community official is ever accused, no trial ever takes place. There are no convictions and no punishments. On the other hand, the mere identification of Ambassador Wilson’s wife’s role in assisting his trying to impeach British Intelligence reports of Saddam’s efforts to secure uranium (for a second time) from Niger, in democrat hands, shook the Bush Administration right down to its timid and quivering foundations.

Barney Frank survived a gay prostitution ring being run from his Washington apartment by a gay prostitute he himself had previously hired. But, in the case of a Republican, it only takes a mere accusation for the Party leadership to run for cover, our own editorialists to demand summary execution, and the accused to slink away, his career permanently destroyed.

Bill Clinton sexually exploited a 22-year-old White house intern, and the democrats persuaded a substantial portion of the public that it was downright evil of Republicans to pry into the President’s private sex life.

Republicans need to develop the capacity both to take the heat of the unfair accusations of their adversaries without flinching and to fight back.

Larry Craig has one of the best voting records in the Congress. I don’t personally care if he has a habit of enjoying relations with Idaho sheep by the light of the full moon, and I’m skeptical that he is guilty of anything in Minneapolis. I hope that he will tough it out, and not resign.

Look at the police report. Did he directly ask a cop for sex? No. Did he expose himself lewdly (as opposed to exposing himself to use the facilities)? No. Did he do anything that was unambiguously sexual? No.

All he did was tap his foot, reach down (possibly to pick up a piece of TP), wiggle his fingers, and put his bag in front of him when he sat down. Oh, and he waited in front of an occupied stall. Even if he did everything the cop said he did, where was the lewd conduct? No actual sex happened. No actual sex was discussed. And if it wasn’t for the sheer embarrassment of the situation, you’d be writing about the overzealous cop who arrested a sitting US Senator for no apparent reason. ...

The issue here is, why is the Minneapolis Airport PD arresting people for such flimsy reasons? Why do judges and prosecutors still accept these cases? Why, in 2007, 43 years after LBJ’s chief of staff, Walter Jenkins, got busted in the men’s room YMCA in DC, have we apparently moved no further in our analysis of these situations?

Where does anyone put his or her suitcase in a public lavatory stall if not in front of the door?

Unless the divider between the stalls featured a hole, I don’t see how any meaningfully lewd act was even possible.

And, like those gay leftwing guys, I too thought the days when cops were busting queers for soliciting sex in public lavatories were ancient history.

CBS 5 is shocked.

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley’s Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, “One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,” Hammond said after reviewing the documents.

The Edge has a more complete article, noting that the story is old, going back to 2005, but was resurrected by Huffington Post blogger Larry Arnstein.

Air Force Report

The joke’s on them. They already developed it, and tested it on the San Francisco Bay area.

The Holsinger nomination will ignite a firestorm of controversy because Dr. Holsinger wrote a politically incorrect paper for the United Methodist Church in 1991 at a time when that denomination was considering changing its position on homosexuality.

Holsinger’s paper on the Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality identifies anatomical inconsistencies and epidemiological hazards attendant upon common male homosexual activities, concluding that the inevitably greater likelihood of injury and disease provides a “speaks for itself” argument against the proposed change.

This nominee’s decade-and-a-half old heresy will not go unavenged by the forces of political correctness.

Representatives of the life style which Dr. Holsinger criticized in 1991 are well entrenched in prominent positions in government and the punditocracy, and will certainly not be inclined to forgive his observations.

Today’s initial ABC News story, just for instance, manifests such a tone of high-pitched indignation, and undertakes so detailed a point by point effort at refutation that its author’s personal interests and affiliations seem only too clear.

Aspects of the fight on this one will have amusing elements of comedy, but I don’t see how Bush can possibly believe this nominee is going to be confirmed. It seems remarkable that the president is willing to take the heat over a foredoomed gesture like this one, but isn’t willing to stick his neck out (at least, perhaps until the last possible moment) to right an injustice as eggregious as the conviction of Lewis Libby.

Windy City Times, 5/23:

Two female 16-year-old Crystal Lake South High School students face hate-crime charges after allegedly plastering their high school’s halls and distributing anti-gay fliers directed towards a fellow student in the school’s parking lot.

The actions against their former male friend landed the two girls in juvenile court on May 15, after being arrested by Crystal Lake police on May 11. Both, unnamed due to their ages, also face charges of obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct, and one teen faces an additional charge of resisting a police officer.

McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi told Windy City Times that despite arguments being made by many locals about the right to free speech, what the two girls did is clearly a hate crime.

“They had the intent to alarm and disturb another, and they were successful in that,” Bianchi said. “In alarming and disturbing, they also committed a hate crime. Their words … were directed against a specific individual of a certain sexual orientation.”

Bianchi would not comment on the exact wording of the flier because it is evidence. However, other sources quote those who have viewed the flier as containing a picture of the male student kissing another male, with the wording “God hates fags.”

A status hearing for both girls will take place on May 22.

Following the May 22 hearing, one girl is being held without bond.

A 16-year-old Crystal Lake girl facing a felony hate crime charge alleging she and a friend distributed anti-homosexual fliers at her high school must remain locked up until her case goes to trial, a McHenry County judge ruled Tuesday.

Citing concerns over the girl’s home environment and her already lengthy juvenile record, Judge Michael Chmiel denied the girl’s request for home detention. Instead Chmiel ordered her held in the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center while the case is pending.

The girl’s record, Chmiel said, features 13 contacts with police, including an arrest for marijuana possession in August. McHenry County court records show that within the past year the girl also has been charged for driving without a license, consumption of alcohol by a minor, possession of tobacco by a minor, trespassing and three curfew violations.

The incident occurred at Crystal Lake High School in Woodstock, Illinois.

The democrat-controlled Congress is currently moving to making “hate crimes” a federal offense.

New York Times:

The director Robinson Devor apparently would like viewers who watch his heavily reconstructed documentary, “Zoo,” to see it as a story of ineluctable desire and human dignity. Shot on Super 16-millimeter film, with many scenes steeped in a blue that would have made Yves Klein envious, “Zoo” is, to a large extent, about the rhetorical uses of beauty and metaphor and of certain filmmaking techniques like slow-motion photography. It is, rather more coyly, also about a man who died from a perforated colon after he arranged to have sex with a stallion.

That gate was erected many years ago in honor of the memory of Noah Porter (1811-1892), Professor of Moral Philosophy and 7th President of Yale College (1871-1886), a learned and distinguished man of high character, who is unlikely personally to have entertained a very positive opinion of sexual inversion and sodomy.

In the fashion of college life, some wag came along on Saturday night, and modified the offending flag’s lettering, causing it to make reference to a different member of the Seven Deadly Sins.

The Yale Daily News today is reporting indignantly about the “desecration” of that rubbishy flag, when it ought to be condemning the actual desecration of President Porter’s gate by its impertinent appropriation for use in the glorification of so unworthy and incongruous a cause.

Left-thinking reporter Cullen Macbeth is quick to condemn the untoward application of humor to any of the forces of political correctness’ sacred cows.

Other recent incidents include jokes published in a few campus periodicals that made fun of various minority groups, including Asian-Americans. Although such actions have been intended as humorous, they are still hurtful to many members of those groups.

And in a further note of inadvertent humor, the Yale Administation’s enforcer-in-chief of PC clocks in:

Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg said she has not seen the defaced flag but is open to working with LGBT Co-op members if they approach her to talk about the issue. Taking down another group’s sign and altering it without informing anyone is a “cowardly” thing to do, she said.

“If somebody has some problem with what the gay pride people are doing, they have to come forward and talk about it openly and above-board,” Trachtenberg said. “Why they don’t want to identify themselves is beyond me.

Oh, come on, Betty, you’d rusticate or expel any undergraduate you caught making a gesture of dissent to one of your left-wing causes in a New York minute. And defying you, since you have the power and are by no means reluctant to use it, makes even so small a gesture as this a courageous thing to do.

Cars are no more straight or gay than cellphones, office chairs or weed whackers. But in recent years that truism has not stopped a perception among some motorists that certain cars can, in the right context, be statements about a driver’s sexual orientation.

Ramone Johnson is a gay journalist and former Saturn engineer who compiles an annual “Top 10 Gay Cars” list for About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Company. Mr. Johnson said that “traditionally we are used to being defined by others.” Driving a stylish car can be a way of “taking control back” and saying “this is who I am,” he said.

Mr. Johnson maintains that “soft lines” and a “vibrant personality” — say like those on a Volkswagen New Beetle — are typical attributes of a gay man’s car, and fashion-forward red gauges and other styling cues, for example, make the Pontiac G6 more of a gay car than its sibling, the Grand Am, because the features express a taste for freedom and fun.

Neither automobile manufacturers nor dealers compile statistics on the sexual orientation of buyers.

Frank Markus, who is gay and the technical director for Motor Trend magazine, said auto companies tend to associate gay consumers with higher disposable incomes since fewer have children (one reason many are free to opt for less practical cars, like two-seaters or convertibles, as well). Tellingly, when the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, pressured the Ford Motor Company to pull advertising from gay publications like The Advocate in 2005, the ads were for Land Rover and Jaguar, two high-end brands owned by Ford.

Subaru has been the most prominent company to embrace the gay market. As long ago as 2000, the automaker created advertising campaigns around Martina Navratilova, the gay tennis star, and also used a sales slogan that was a subtle gay-rights message: “It’s not a choice. It’s the way we’re built.” Little wonder that many lesbians refer to their Outbacks as “Lesbarus.”

Read the whole thing.