Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Archie Bunker informed us decades ago that “England is a fag country.” Andrew Sullivan — an Englishman and proud homosexual — verifies this for us: The Conservative Party in Britain now has eleven openly gay members of parliament and nine more in a glass closet. Compare that with zero for the Republicans and three for [...]
The big news overnight is that President Obama has ordered hospitals to allow partners of gays and lesbians to visit and be allowed to make critical decisions. Michael Schear, WaPo: “Obama extends hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners of gays” President Obama mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of [...]
When I saw the NYT headline “Secretary of the Army Says He Will Not Pursue ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Discharges,” I was a bit shocked. While there’s always discretion in which policies one emphasizes, it’s unusual, indeed, for a senior official to blatantly announce that they’re going to ignore the law. It took me several [...]
George Takei and Brad Altman appear in perhaps the most memorable Census ad in history. I’m a bit bemused at the notion that people should fill out the Census based on their own perceptions of reality rather than reality itself. I get that some gays consider themselves married even though they live in states that [...]
Secretary of Defense Bob Gates today issued an order sharply limiting the enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Clinton-era regulation governing how the military deals with homosexual troops. Spencer Ackerman has details. In a major victory for opponents of the military’s ban on open homosexual service, Defense Secretary Robert Gates significantly revised how the [...]
In something of a reversal of recent statements, the senior leadership of the Army and Air Force warned Congress about moving too fast to end the ban on gays serving openly. Top Army and Air Force officers said Tuesday they would be reluctant to overturn a 17-year policy that prohibits gays from serving openly in [...]
Virginia’s new Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, reversed his predecessor’s order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It happened twelve days ago but no one apparently noticed until TPM’s Christina Bellantoni broke the story: Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made [...]
“Support for Gays in the Military Depends on the Question,” Kevin Hechtkopf informs us in the No Duh Headline of the Week. But the specifics are interesting: It seems people are much more sympathetic to “gays and lesbians” than to “homosexuals.” A new CBS News/ New York Times poll finds that the wording of the [...]
I’d bet more Americans could name the head coach of the Houston Texans than the mayor of Houston, Texas. And that’s saying something, because the Texans aren’t very good. Nonetheless, the results of the Houston mayoral race is the top story in the blogosphere this morning. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Houston became [...]
Laura Sjoberg informs us that she is working to form a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, and Allies Caucus of the International Studies Association (the premier organization of academic IR scholars) in order to: A. To promote fair and equal treatment of members of the Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered, Bisexual, and Queer and Allies (hereafter LGBTQA) [...]
A minor buzz was generated yesterday by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto message to the state assembly: It seems that, if one ignores the first two and last two paragraphs, there’s a hidden message spelled out by the first letter of the remaining sentences. If that’s too complicated, Kevin Drum has a version with the [...]
Republican Bob McDonnell enjoys a rather sizable lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds in his race for Virginia’s governorship. But the Washington Post, which went after George Allen with amazing fervor in his 2006 race against longshot Jim Webb, is doing what it can to fix that. First, it ran a series of articles about a [...]
Lane Hudson felt justified in interupting former President Bill Clinton’s remarks at Netroots Nation to scream questions about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and Defense of Marriage Act on the grounds that there was no Q&A session scheduled and he was therefore “being held as a captive audience.” Julian Sanchez, also in attendance and quite sympathetic [...]
Andrew Sullivan: The survival of my own marriage is entirely in the hands of the federal government. I have no right to stay in my own home with my own husband – just the government’s permission until they choose to revoke it. Gays do not have core constitutional rights in America. They have no right [...]
GQ has a rather weird piece about something that may or may not be a trend: High school kids using the Internet to extort sexual favors. This one has a twist, which I’ll lot Conor Friedersdorf summarize: Tony Stancl, an 18 year old high school senior who created a fake female identity on Facebook, flirted [...]
Since his departure from the Washington Times, Stacy McCain has become perhaps the most skilled attention whore in all the blogosphere. Yeah, I just wrote that. And put it on the Internet. In seeking to explain why Ken Layne and Andrew Sullivan seem to loathe Sarah Palin and, in particular, make sport of her Down [...]
Federal workers will now get benefits for their “partner” whether they are married or not, Scott Butterworth reports for WaPo’s 44 blog. President Obama will announce tomorrow that he is extending federal benefits to include unmarried domestic partners of federal workers, including same-sex partners, White House officials said tonight. Obama will sign an executive order [...]
Since well before I thought the matter one for serious consideration, Andrew Sullivan has been making insightful, compelling arguments in favor of same-sex marriage. This, alas, is not one of them. A reader makes an excellent point: One thing that struck me about the DOJ’s argument that DOMA does not violate the equal protection clause [...]
Gays looking to get the Supreme Court’s help in being allowed to openly serve in the military have been rebuffed. The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration. The court said it will [...]
New Hampshire has become the 6th state where gays can marry and the 2nd to make this change through the legislative process. Traditionally conservative New Hampshire today became the sixth state in the nation — and the fifth state in New England — where same-sex couples will be allowed to marry. “Today we’re standing up [...]
The YahooNews headline “Openly gay teen voted prom queen at LA high school” did its intended task of enticing me to click to read the AP story: An openly gay teen was voted prom queen at Los Angeles’ Fairfax High School in a campaign that began as a stunt but ended up spurring discussion on [...]
In a 6-1 decision, the California Supreme Court “upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage” but it “also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before the law took effect will stay wed,” Lisa Leff reports for AP. The 6-1 decision written by Chief Justice Ron George rejected an argument by [...]
Andrew Sullivan gives Quote For the Day honors to gay Army 1st Lieutenant Dan Choi for this excerpt from his Open Letter to President Obama and Every Member of Congress: I have learned many lessons in the ten years since I first raised my right hand at the United States Military Academy at West Point [...]
UCSB political scientist Aaron Belkins‘ HuffPo piece “Obama To Fire His First Gay Arabic Linguist” has drawn quite a bit of blogospheric attention. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, received notice today that the military is about [...]
This profile of Andrew Sullivan in Intelligent Life by his friend Johann Hari is quite good. This ‘graph is especially noteworthy: Sullivan is often accused of flip-flopping according to political expediency, but it’s revealing that almost all the later tensions in his thought are prefigured in his writings about Oakeshott from his early 20s, recently [...]
Several bloggers are pointing to MSNBC’s David Shuster’s quip that “[I]f you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.” This is amusing on a number of levels. First, it’s a very good line. Second, the Left is applauding Left-leaning MSNBC for going after Right-leaning FOX for [...]
“Has the Right surrendered in the culture war?” asks Washington Examiner political editor Chris Stirewalt. The piece is illustrated with the photo and caption at right and begins: As some 240 million American Christians observe the most sacred week of their religious calendar, the nation reached a pivot point on faith and values. Demonstrating the [...]
“South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker tell The Telegraph that they got a signed picture of Saddam Hussein from some Iraq Marines. During his captivity, US marines forced Saddam, who was executed in 2006, to repeatedly watch the move South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as gay, as well as [...]
Vermont, the only state with a Socialist in Congress, today became the first state to legalize same-sex marriages through legislative action. Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature’s vote. The Legislature voted Tuesday to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto of a bill [...]
Matt Yglesias, responding to my statement yesterday that “We’ll always have a strong ‘conservative’ movement. It’s just that Ronald Reagan and Alex P. Keaton wouldn’t quite recognize it,” one-ups me and posits that “American politics in the future will mostly be dominated by a center-right political coalition just as it always has.” While he’s riding [...]
Paul Waldman fleshes out a theme that many observers have made in passing: The young voters who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency could create a “permanent” realignment in American politics. In 1984, 59 percent of the nation’s Alex P. Keatons voted for Reagan, an extraordinary percentage for a Republican (and just over his [...]
I’ve followed the discussion about the Bill Moyers “scandal” (see, for example, today’s (WSJ piece “Bill Moyers’s Name Is Linked to J. Edgar Hoover’s Abuse of Office”) out of the corner of my eye for the last couple of days and am having trouble seeing what the big deal is. Basically, as I understand it: [...]
While the global financial crisis has spawned many predictions of political change, here’s one I’m betting no one saw coming: The World’s First Openly Gay Prime Minister. Not, I hasten to add, that there’s anything wrong with that.
Andrew Sullivan is bemused to find himself on Forbes‘ list of “The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media” since he considers himself a conservative. He posts a reader email that muses on this fact: Did you notice how many people on the list were seemingly chosen not for their writing or their politics, [...]
A gay museum executive is being touted as the next Secretary of the Navy, Washington Times reports. Some top retired military leaders and some Democrats in Congress are backing William White, chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, to be the next secretary of the Navy – a move that would put the first [...]
President-Elect Barack Obama has made the most controversial move thus far in his transition, naming far right televangelist Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. While this initially struck me as a brilliant move on his part, winning points with Evangelical Christians with little downside, the announcement has sparked outrage in the gay [...]
Steve Clemons was married on August 18th and “divorced” on November 5th, thanks to the same California voters who overwhelmingly gave their 55 Electoral votes to Barack Obama narrowly passing Proposition 8 and overturning same-sex marriage in that state. He wonders, [H]ow could people who helped deliver this man to the White House also spit [...]
The dating site eHarmony is now opening a separate but equal site for gays. The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches. EHarmony was started by psychologist Neil Clark Warren, who is [...]
Steve Benen reports feeling schadenfreude at the news that James Dobson’s Focus of the Family has announced that it is cutting 202 jobs, the deepest cuts in the organizations 32-year history, fresh off of having spent $539,000 to help pass an anti-gay marriage referendum in Colorado. He cites Jim Newell‘s snark: Sure, you have no [...]
Matt Yglesias offers these Pew poll results as a rejoinder to those of us who think a win for Obama isn’t a mandate for his policies. Says Matt, “The voters felt they had a choice between a liberal and a conservative, and felt they preferred the liberal and his policy agenda.” Well . . . [...]
President Bush had a minor language gaffe during a light and amiable luncheon with the other G-8 leaders: The life-of-the-party president, mingling before the meal, chatted animatedly about his parents’ health, his birthday and the corruption charges facing one of his best buddies in Europe, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. “Amigo! Amigo!” Mr. Bush [...]
Dahlia Lithwick takes to the pages of FireDogLake to explain why, in her view, liberals are much less excited about the Supreme Court than conservatives: My own impression, having covered the past two presidential elections is that most liberals simply don’t vote with the composition of the Supreme Court in mind at all, or that [...]
John McCain has reshuffled his top campaign staff for the second time is a less than a year, elevating Karl Rove protégé Steve Schmidt to the top post. Responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, Mr. McCain put a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 campaign in charge of day-to-day operations and stepped away [...]
Tyson Homosexual ran 100 meters in a wind-aided 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials today, in what would have been world record time. I mean, Tyson Gay. Leftie People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch blog reports that, In addition to blocking traffic from websites they don’t like, it looks like the web-geniuses [...]
A group “dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” reports that Darren Manzella has been discharged under said policy. Decorated Army Sergeant Darren Manzella has been discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law banning lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans from military service, effective June 10. [...]
In reference to James’ post below, it’s worth pointing out that a biological cause for homosexuality does not, in any sense of the word, make for a birth defect, and we should be careful how we define the phrase. Calling homosexuality a “birth defect” (as some will no doubt begin to do so), implies that [...]
Some people are right-brained. Others are left-brained. Apparently, some are gay-brained. What makes people gay? Biologists may never get a complete answer to that question, but researchers in Sweden have found one more sign that the answer lies in the structure of the brain. Scientists at the Karolinska Institute studied brain scans of 90 gay [...]