North . . Dogma

Yikes:

I’m a conservative/libertarian.  I’m on the right & make no bones about it.  Sometimes I’ll agree with issues that the left puts out but by and large I’m a righty.  But sometimes,
folks on the right can be downright embarrassing.  Here I am reading a primarily positive article on the GOP widening its tent by gaining more support/commitment from Log Cabin Republicans who
also are garnering influence within the party & this type of stuff – which happens far too often – rears its ugly head. 
Again:

"There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans who are conservative on taxes, foreign policy, government accountability, free trade and who also happen to be gay or lesbian,"
Guerriero said. "To ask all of those folks to give up their principled beliefs because the Republican Party as a whole isn’t where it should be would be a great disservice to them."

Conservative Republicans question, however, why people who disagree with them on such a basic issue want to be part of the same party.   "It’s like someone who lives in Iceland
and doesn’t like cold. You wonder why they do it," said Glenn Stanton, a senior analyst at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Folks like Glenn Stanton are keeping the GOP from being the definitive majority of the nation.

So, let me get this straight (pun intended): it’s okay to have a pro-choice mayor of NYC (Giuliani) be a leading voice of the party.  It’s okay to re-nominate a president in ‘92 who raised
federal income taxes.  It’s okay to back a sitting president that is spending like any quasi-socialist would be proud of.  It’s okay to have as the party’s 20th century icon someone who was
a divorcee, married to a fellow divorcee.  It’s okay to have a Republican administration that extends the federal guidelines on affirmative action.  And, to beat it all, it’s okay to have a
cabinet member in the administration who vetoed – vetoed! – a partial birth abortion bill.  But, it’s not okay for someone who is pro-taxcut, pro-small government, pro-monogamy, anti-affirmative
action, anti-PBB to be welcome in the Republican party because of what they do their own bedrooms?

Can someone re-read that paragraph again & please explain to me why being gay is the one thing that goes against the grain of the Republican party’s normal policies that should cause someone to question one’s affiliation?

Look, I’m a self-described social conservative—- in my own life.  I’m a guy married to a chick.  My 6 year old doesn’t have the right to unabridged free speech and she won’t have the
right to unabridged free assembly when she’s a teenager.  Just like Tony Soprano’s house, it’s 1954 in West Manor.  However, all that is different from federal legislation, federal guidelines or the tone of a national party that is (supposedly) trying to
become the prevailing party.  As soon as folks like Glenn Stanton have their hearts uncluttered and the remnants of the Helms/Thurmond wing of the GOP are eradicated, the Republican party will reap
the rewards of small-government moderates and libertarians of all stripes—- and their physical makeup (or make out habits) shouldn’t matter a bit.

Look, if you’re personally opposed to abortion, divorce, tax-cuts or homosexuality – fine.  But to wonder why someone who disagrees with you would want to join your ranks as a political force?  Sheesh…..wondering why someone wants to be in your political party.  Sometimes it makes me wanna scream.

And if you think you’ve seen sentiments like this here before, you’re probably right (again, pun intended). You’ll keep seeing it until the private remains private.

Update: Bryan has more.

I’ve been trying to stay away from the ‘anger’ side of things, but sometimes I read sites I like & then come across stuff  that can make me start to
question my outlook.  How can some folks be so narrow minded?  Should I get angry & go off on a rant?  Should I ignore?

Well, instead, I think I’ll publish something I’ve been sitting on for about a week.  I hadn’t gone through because there are probably many folks who follow my religion (Christian) who’d
adamantly disagree with me & get so turned off that they’d no longer read and folks who don’t care about my religion but are so ensconced in their own ideology that they’d consider me a bigot if I
didn’t adhere to their minimum criteria for ‘acceptance’ and I’m not good enough of a writer to please both sides.  However, I think I’ll post it in its entirety because I consider the debate of
opinion to be something that is to be applauded instead of hiding in my own hatred and denial.  Here goes (another long post warning):

Jeremy Shockey has now moved to the second slot on the sports pages (behind Kobe) but the front pages of the NYP and has caused a furor over his (very stupid) comments.

NEW YORK —Jeremy Shockey is quoted in a magazine as calling
Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells a "homo," but the outspoken New York
Giants tight end insists someone else made the remark.

In next week’s New York magazine, Shockey criticizes Parcells for comments he was told the coach made about him on TV and concludes by saying: "Let’s see how much Parcells wins this year. I’ll make him pay when we play
them. The homo".

He should know that if he wants to say something like that, instead of saying ‘homo’, he should do as Fortney Pete Stark did in the house chambers and called Parcells a ‘wimp, ‘fruitcake’ and ‘cocksucker’.  That way he wouldn’t
have to have responses like this:

Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said, "It’s a reflection that it’s still OK to use that language in sports. He’s done it before. In some ways, it’s no surprise to us."

because a search on their website for ‘stark’ showed up nary a word about the incident
and I recall when I broached the subject, it was noted that those
comments really weren’t all that bad.  And sometimes, the subject was changed when it was addressed elsewhere in the comments section of other sites.  As for the
Human Rights campaign, well:

And instead of condemning Stark, Human Rights Campaign (search)
seemed to agree.

A spokesman from the gay activists group, usually quick to condemn hints of slight or slur against the gay community, defended the hot-headed lawmaker, saying he probably used the word to mean McInnis was nutty.

"I think Congressman Stark’s use of the word, he probably regrets having used it. I think he meant nothing by it, but I think in the 2003 context, it’s probably a poor choice of words. But it’s also important to
note that Congressman Stark is one of the gay community’s staunchest allies," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign.

We’ll see how they react to this one.

To recap: 

"homo" = scandalous & front page worthy

"fruitcake" = crazy person

"wimp" = rhetoric

"cocksucker" = depends upon if you’re a Democrat or not

I really gotta catch up with this conservative media thing…

This is similar to something I posted on earlier & was going to follow up with, but since he does it for me, I’ll paste a little & link to this excellent entry, which was written by
Robert Prather:

 Frankly, I don’t understand why social conservatives are that upset about homosexuals in the Republican Party. People tend to congregate with people that share their views and it’s
understandable that, in their day-to-day lives, social conservatives wouldn’t be paling around with homosexuals: they find the behavior repugnant. Likewise, homosexuals would be put off by the
proselytizing of the social conservatives. Why does any of this need to cause a rift in a political party?...[]

[]...It’s very simple. In this country—which is a free country, lest we forget—we have freedom of association and that means not only that we can choose whom we will associate with but whom
we will not associate with. That’s why I supported the SCOTUS decision that allows the Boy Scouts to ban homosexuals. The Boy Scouts is a private organization and is entitled to set its own
membership rules. They can be as arbitrary and capricious as they wish.

When the whole brouhaha over the Scout decision was going on I asked a number of people on political discussion forums why homosexuals, or people who agree with them, didn’t just start an
organization similar to the Scouts that didn’t discriminate and never got a good answer. It seems that someone who’s industrious and devoted would do exactly that, rather than trying to alter the
nature of an existing organization and basically go where they are not wanted.

That is the price of living in a free country. People of similar values will congregate together, rather than having someone else’s values imposed on them, and they are entitled to do so as long
as their values don’t violate the rights of others.

Back to the Republican Party. If it is to be the party of individual liberty it will need to be able to see past lifestyle choices that people make and congregate—there’s that word again—around a set of values we have in common. Love of country, love of liberty, Constitutional government, strong national defense and the relentless pursuit of terrorists, for starters. There’s plenty
of common ground between social conservatives and homosexuals and it’s there for the taking. We only need to focus on commonalities and not differences to have a party that wins elections and
propagates freedom.

Emphasis mine.