Poll finds Kentuckians oppose domestic partner benefits

Bad news for our public universities. It didn't get much attention beyond his blog, but Mark Hebert of WHAS-11 has reported survey results from Survey USA that show that a large majority of Kentuckians oppose benefits for the partners of unmarried gay state workers.

Should unmarried state workers be offered health insurance for their gay live in partner?
23% Yes
73% No

Not that that is unexpected. But it didn't stop the braintrust over at Page One Kentucky from reporting that only 9 percent of Kentuckians opposed such benefits. Where did they get that idea? They looked at Herald-Leader/Action News 36 Election Poll, which reported that only 9 percent of Kentuckians listed domestic partner benefits as one of their top 2 issues. And here is what they concluded:

Less gay hating. 9% of Kentuckians want to ban domestic partner benefits. Only 9%. But 34% say health insurance for children is their top priority. Ruh ro, Mitch. You may be on the wrong end of another issue. Oh, and the state legislature is crappy as always.

Huh?

First of all, there is the not so implicit assumption that just because you don't think unmarried relationships should be encouraged by state institutions that therefore you hate the people involved them. As I keep pointing out (am I blue in the face yet?), just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean you hate them.

But more importantly, by what logical procedure do you conclude from the fact that only 9 percent of Kentuckians listed domestic partner benefits as one of their top issues that only 9 percent of the people oppose these benefits at all? Who would expect the issue to be one of the top two for most people anyway, no matter how many people oppose it?

But I guess I should be careful. I wouldn't want to be accused of hating people who misinterpret statistics, would I?

Tolerance Police put on temporary suspension in KY free-speech case

The forces of intolerance have lost an important battle. The people who want to impose their values on everyone else and suppress the expression of unpopular opinions got waxed in an important legal decision Friday.

That's right. For years we have been warned about the groups that want to take this country over and force everyone to bow to their political agenda. We have been told about these groups: the right wing extremists who want to establish a theocracy and stamp out all dissent from their ideology.

Now they have been swatted down by a federal court. The radical religious right won't easily recover from this one. The federal appeals court ruling...

...Wait. Time out. Let me read this again...

No. This can't be right. The ruling says that the people being intolerant and imposing their opinions on other people may be precisely the ones who are always lecturing the rest of us about being intolerant and imposing our opinions on other people! As it turns out, the ruling isn't a blow against the forces of the right, who we have been assured for years are the real danger to freedom of thought and expression, but political forces on the left, who are always spouting off about Tolerance and Diversity.

How can this be?

The 2-1 ruling by the U. S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling that struck down Timothy Morrison's petition for damages against Boyd County School district's "written policy prohibiting students from making stigmatizing or insulting comments regarding another student’s sexual orientation" during the 2004-2005 school year. The suit was originally brought against the school by Morrison, who argued that the policy would result in a "chill" on the free speech of students who thought that homosexuality was wrong, and asked for damages.

The ruling did not have directly to do with the issue of the "diversity training" itself. That issue had already been settled by the school district itself, when it tacitly admitted the inappropriateness of it's policy mandating students undergo pro-homosexuality training at the school. Students can not opt out of the mini-reeducation classes to correct the thought crime of having traditional views about sexuality.

But the Appeals Court ruled that the lower court was wrong in denying Morrison damages. This case was so blatant that even the ACLU has been on Morrison's side.

Go figure.

So for now, at least, students in Boyd County have some protection against the Tolerance Police, who are intent upon ensuring that unflattering thoughts about homosexuality do not get expressed, particularly in an educational context where students might infer from the fact that the First Amendment's freedom of expression protections are supposed to apply to everyone that they should therefore apply to people who disagree with the political and cultural agenda of gay rights groups.

At least there are a few judges who comprehend that "everyone" includes everybody.

But it won't stop the attempts by gay rights groups to get their political views mandated in schools. Next on the agenda: the bullying bill, which is being pushed by the same crowd. Watch for it next January in Kentucky's General Assembly session.

Beshear's Bad Company III: One we missed

Okay, it has been pointed out to me that there is a third member of the liberal media establishment who is going to need a safehouse. A third political journalist who just doesn't know when to keep his trap shut and who has broken the deafening silence on the fact that Steve Beshear's campaign has pronounced two Louisville men "man and ...," well, "man." Another newsman who, as a consequence of his indiscretion, will have to have his identity changed and have his family moved to a little town in Utah somewhere to avoid persecution by his journalistic colleagues who seem hell-bent on deep-sixing the Beshear gay marriage gaffe.

I wish him well--and his family too, and hope he enjoys the desert climate.

David Hawpe, editorials editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, informs me that if I am going to mention that he was the one who announced to the world that the Louisville Legal Aid Society was distributing "do-it-yourself" divorce kits (as I did on a post about the fact that an architect of these kits held a Beshear fundraiser) I ought to at least mention that he also did a column on the Beshear gay marriage flap on October 12.

Is he out of his mind? He wants me to publicize this audacious violation of the unwritten journalistic gag rule on this issue?

Actually, I think he was being just slightly facetious (as is his wont), but at the same time he's right. My bad. I just missed it. In fact, as we now go to press with this, I have viewed Monday night's gubernatorial debate, and seen with my own eyes as Pat Crowley of the Cincinnati Enquirer actually brought it up in a question to the candidates.

Go, Pat, Go!

I'm putting the state's liberal media down for 3 1/2 stories: one slightly misguided news article in the CJ, one passable television report by Mark Hebert, and one CJ editorial--all of which, by the way (with the possible exception of Hebert's report), treat as controversial, not the fact that Beshear categorized two gay men as "married", but that Fletcher released a press statement on it. The 1/2 is Pat Crowley's question during the debate.

So I'm thinking now with 3 1/2 stories on this issue, that probably counts as "covering the issue." But it is interesting how the Beshear gaffe has been covered. Namely, it hasn't been covered as a Beshear gaffe, but as a Fletcher gaffe!

In other words, three articles have covered the story, but, for the most part, the "story" was not that Beshear's campaign had deemed two men "married", but that Fletcher had pointed it out! And Hawpe's article was an assault on the Fletcher campaign for "gay-bashing"--but at least he mentioned it.

It just now occurs to me that I am sitting here, late at night, counting it as points in the liberal media's favor that they ran an editorial attacking the conservative candidate.

Is this what it has come to? (Ans: Yes.)

Beshear's Bad Company II: Did an architect of "do-it-yourself" divorce kits in Louisville host a Beshear fundraiser?

Pssst! Hey, I'm going to point something out, but only on one condition: that you don't tell anyone in the state media.

You see reporters and editors who cover state political issues have to be feeling pretty bad about the fact that, with two lonely exceptions, they didn't report the biggest gaffe of the gubernatorial campaign: that Steve Beshear's campaign designated a gay couple as "married" on an official campaign finance report in a state in which supporting gay marriage is about at politically disastrous as..., as..., well we can't think of anything as politically disastrous as that in Kentucky.

If we tell them about this one, it will only give them one more important fact about who Steve Beshear hangs with that they will refuse to report. And that will only make them feel worse when they wake up the day after the election and realize they were running interference for the Beshear campaign on social issues. And we don't want to rub salt in the wound.

Well, okay, we really do.

Anyway, did anyone notice that one of the hosts of a campaign fundraiser for Steve Beshear on October 2 was not only listed on the invitation as a member of a gay couple, but is the executive director of the Louisville Legal Aid Society? Here is Brett Hall's account from KentuckyPolitics.org:

Two gay men, Jeffrey Been and Eric Graninger hosted a fundraiser for Beshear on October 2nd in Louisville. Been is the Executive Director of the Louisville Legal Aid Society and Graninger is an attorney for the Presbyterian Church USA.

Isn't the Louisville Legal Aid Society the group that is handing out "do-it-yourself" divorce kits? Well, according to David Hawpe, Editorials Editor of the Courier-Journal it is. Last month, I opened the Courier only to find my name invoked in Hawpe's column, asking why I wasn't doing something about the Louisville Legal Aid Society's "do-it-yourself" divorce kits.

Now, low and behold, the head of the organization dispensing the kits to make it easier to end marriages in Louisville is apparently hosting Beshear fundraisers.

Oh, and another thing. Remember too that there is no connection between the support of gay marriage and a lower regard for marriage itself. So the fact that one of the members of the gay couple who hosted the fundraiser for Beshear also heads an organization that makes ending marriage easier is completely coincidental.

Just ask a state political journalist if you don't believe me.

Is the media freeze on Beshear's gay marriage gaffe beginning to thaw?

The Kentucky media, which has been using every excuse in the book not to cover the biggest gaffe in this year's governor's campaign may be slowly coming around. In addition to today's story in the Louisville Courier-Journal, WHAS-11 TV's Mark Hebert has now run a story on the issue quoting Gov. Ernie Fletcher on the Beshear campaign's inclusion of a gay couple in a campaign finance report labelled "married".

But there are still no stories on Beshear's gay-sponsored campaign fundraiser with people who were part of the left-wing coalition that fought the Marriage Amendment.

And no word yet from the Lexington Herald-Leader, which is still sitting on both stories.

The infection is still spreading...

No. It can't be. Not Al Cross. Not my favorite state political analyst!

Yet, I must face the ugly truth: he too, Al Cross, has succumbed to GCS--Gay Controversy Syndrome, the disease that continues to spread uncontrolled throughout the media community. He too is showing symptoms, albeit mild ones (even when Al succumbs to a dread political disease he sounds dispassionate and analytic. What a guy). I personally am hoping he comes through this and experiences a full recovery.

"I'm with Osi on this one," he says, in a comment on my previous post about the disease that is causing more and more state journalists to experience feelings of outrage and disgust over the common campaign practice of pointing out who is supporting the other guy. The catalyst for the outbreak was a press release by the Fletcher campaign that pointed out the support in the gay community for Steve Beshear.

GCS causes otherwise sensible members of the media to have a violent reaction to conservative candidates who point out left-wing special interest support of their liberal opponents. It attacks the center of the brain that controls the political reasoning process that would otherwise make the victim conscious of the fact that, if the tables were turned and a liberal candidate was pointing out right-wing special interest support of a conservative candidate, they would think nothing of it.

Al makes the case with his customary clarity and concision, a sign that, in his case, the disease is still largely in its incubation stage:

An entry in a finance report does not an issue position make. I believe most if not all reluctance to spend time on such a story relates to its relevance and importance, not any bias. Reporters aren't perfect, and no one can be purely objective, but ascribing political or ideological motives to news judgments is usually specious.

See what I mean? You can see the initial symptoms, but he's still incredibly lucid despite his affliction. You can't help but admire the guy.

Al argues that just because the names of gay couples appear on Beshear's campaign finance reports, that does not constitute an official issues position. Which is true as far as it goes. But no one said that it was an official position of the Beshear campaign. The fact is that is a common and acceptable practice for officials in one political campaign to point out individuals who are involved in casino interests, or who are prominent trial lawyers, or who are in the oil and gas industry who were contributing to their opponents campaign. And for them to draw conclusions about where they might be on these issues.

It is done all the time and no one bats an eyelash, but since it is an issue concerning gays, somehow it is considered out of political bounds. One of the symptoms of GCS is the tendency to see gays as a special protected political class, criticism of which elicits violent feelings of outrage and indignation.

He also argues that the reluctance by reporters to spend time on such a story is not an indication of bias--another sign of the progress of the disease. I was not commenting on the reluctance of reporters to to cover the issue; I was commenting on their enthusiasm in expressing their outrage over the Fletcher campaign bringing it up. Pat Crowley was not reluctant about anything. He said, "the Fletcher campaign is hitting a new low in gay bashing."

When, in 2001, now Sen. Perry Clark spoke at the invitation of a militia group, a common right-wing punching bag for the liberal media, he was pilloried in the press, despite the fact that he never himself expressed any official position on the positions espoused by the group. So what is the difference between that and Beshear attending fundraising events sponsored by gays, a prominent left wing presence in state politics? And what would the media have had to say if members of militia groups were holding fundraising events for a politician?

The only difference is that one of these cases makes a conservative look bad and the other makes a liberal look bad. That is the single and only difference.

I'm confident Al would have seen this had his case of GCS not gotten the foothold that it has.

If some of you other Al Cross fans would like, you can join me in a candlelight vigil outside the KET offices during the next taping of "Comment on Kentucky," where together we can sing songs of encouragement for Al to come back to his senses.

They're dropping like flies!

For Immediate Release
October 12, 2007

Kentucky Gay Controversy Syndrome Claims More Victims

A potentially serious political malady is claiming an increasing number of victims in the state press corps after the Fletcher Campaign released a press statement calling attention to public support being expressed by gays for Steve Beshear.

Called "Gay Controversy Syndrome" (GCS), the first symptoms were reported by Pat Crowley of the Cincinnati Enquirer, who began experiencing a politic form of nausea often felt by liberals when issues damaging to Democratic candidates are brought up by conservatives. WHAS-11 TV’s Mark Hebert reports experiencing similar symptoms after having received the Fletcher release.

Some observers have speculated that the severe reaction among reporters may be more than just GCS, and might involve a deep-seated psychological manifestation of an underlying guilt complex. “We have seen many cases of this in recent years,” says Martin Cothran, who has been observing the strange behavior in the state press corps with an increasing level of interest (not to mention amusement), “where certain members of the media know deep down that, if the situation were reversed, and a conservative candidate was getting the support of right wing political interests, that they would be jumping on the story with both feet. This guilt can manifest itself in the conscious mind as indignation, outrage, or revulsion, and often leads to poor political judgment and sometimes even fainting spells.”

The strange affliction is apparently affecting others outside the liberal media, however. Over at the normally conservative "Osi Speaks" blog, Osi Onyekwuluje (which we are assuming is his real name despite some pretty severe abecedary anomalies), has reported a similar reaction to the Fletcher statement:

“WHEN WILL THIS SORT OF BULL CRAP END AND THE ISSUES AIRED AND DISCUSSED?,” he said, stating it dramatically in capital letters on his blog. “STATING A NON-ISSUE AND PRETENDING IT IS AN ISSUE IS WHAT WE LEARNED IN LAW SCHOOL WAS A RED HERRING!”

“Overuse of capital letters could be another symptom of this disease,” said Cothran. “On the other hand,” he added, “it is entirely possible that it is just another thing Mr. Onyekwuluje learned in law school.”

###

Some in KY media indignant over attention to gays support of Beshear

Well someone go get the smelling salts. It looks like we're going to need to revive a few liberal reporters in the state's media who are shocked, so shocked that the Fletcher campaign would point out that Steve Beshear is receiving explicit, and apparently welcome support from gays.

In all his years covering politics, Pat Crowley, cheeks flushed, has just never seen anything this low. Why, how could they? How could anyone dare to ask the question why gays are supporting Beshear?

Now I hesitate to say this for fear it might send these people into another fainting spell, but could the support of gays say anything about where Beshear might stand on issues of concern to Kentuckians, like gay marriage and domestic partner benefits at taxpayer funded universities?

And the problem of tender constitutions is apparently not just a problem among some in the media corps. Over at the Democratic Party they're in high dudgeon over the fact that Brett Hall published a photo of a Beshear campaign fundraising invitation to the home of openly gay Jefferson County Judge-Executive Ken Herndon which includes the names of several gay "couples".

How could Hall do such a thing? What kind of thing? Why, make public where Beshear is getting his support, that's what kind of thing. I mean reporting on where Beshear's support is coming from is the job of the...

...Media.

Now wait. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that if the Democrats just quietly whispered into media ears that Fletcher was receiving support from some right wing group, the media would be blaring it from the housetops without the least trouble to their collective conscience (this is assuming, of course, that they have one), and would be doing everything short of patting the Democrats on the back for doing Kentuckians a public service by pointing it out.

Shame on you for thinking such a thing. Shame, shame, shame.

These are left-wing groups we're talking about here, and don't forget it. And don't forget either that there are no such thing as left-wing groups like those made up of the people that no one is supposed to notice who are supporting Beshear. There just aren't. And we can prove it. Have you seen any references to them in the media? Huh?

And when people bring them up like this and point out that they support one of the candidates who is portraying himself as conservative to Kentucky voters, it makes the media look bad, 'cuz that's something that in any other circumstance they would be covering as a legitimate issue.

So listen, before more reporters start losing their composure, let's just all forget that this happened.

Now They've Done It: Inviting a promoter of terrorism to speak at Columbia U. is one thing, but a homophobe?

Well, it appears that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has really done it now. Before his recent and controversial appearance at Columbia University, Ahmadinejad was known to support global terrorism, and was thought to be developing nuclear weapons for the possible use against the West. He also leads a famously repressive government.

These things are bad, of course. But they are just run of the mill bad guy qualities. Contributing to people who want to bring about mass killings and creating weapons of mass destruction are, let's admit it, just a little ho-hum anymore. After all, there's so many people doing it these days.

But the real perfidiousness of this man--the revelation that has sent shock waves across the politically correct world--was the shocking news that came in his Columbia speech: he is a homophobe.

That's right: a homophobe. And worse than that. He is a homophobe who doesn't believe homosexuals exist in Iran at all, which makes him, not just a homophobe, but a homo...something that means you don't believe in it at all.

Oh, the horror of it!

Of course, Ahmadinejad may believe homosexuals don't exist in Iran because he's killed them all. But that's nothing compared to the fact that he is a homophobe.

For Columbia University to invite the leader of a terrorist nation who wants to create nuclear weapons is one thing, but inviting someone who harbors homophobic thoughts to speak is quite another.

Does Columbia University really expect the American public to believe that they can't find a respectable terrorist who supports the gay rights agenda to speak at their school? Academic freedom is all fine and dandy when it comes to mass killing, but Columbia University clearly needs some remedial awareness training in the dangers of thought crime.

Sheez.

Does James Ramsey think most Kentuckians are bigots?

My comments on James Ramsey's State of the University address yesterday appeared in today's Louisville Courier-Journal. Ramsey, of course, invoked the "D" word: "Diversity". As I mentioned, Ramsey's definition of diversity is completely different from a good many, if not most of the people who fund his university.

"While we celebrated many successes, we were reminded that not everyone in our state holds dear to the same values and commitments to diversity that we cherish at the University of Louisville," he said, adding that the university must deal with "prejudices both real and perceived."

In other words, anyone who disagrees with the idea that taxpayers should subsidize live-in sexual relationships of university faculty and staff is a bigot.

Check.

And "not everyone in our state"? This is the state, after all, that cast more "yes" votes on the marriage amendment than "yes" and "no" votes on any other constitutional amendment in Kentucky history.

Are most Kentuckians bigots? Well, Ramsey didn't say this in his speech. Or did he?

Do-it-yourself journalism kits for CJ editorialists: A response to David Hawpe

I never thought I'd see the day.

“Where is The Family Foundation of Kentucky when we need it?" asks David Hawpe in his editorial in last Wednesday's Louisville Courier-Journal. "Where are the outraged position papers from Family Foundation senior policy analyst Martin Cothran, denouncing this assault on traditional family values?”

It’s nice to feel wanted—particularly by Hawpe, who so seldom calls upon me to do anything except go away. But now, it seems, Hawpe is forsaking the billy club for the olive branch.

Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

Hawpe asks why The Family Foundation, instead of opposing taxpayer funding of live-in sexual partners of university staff, isn’t doing something about easy divorces in Louisville, provided by the helpful people at Legal Aid Society, who are offering “do-it-yourself” divorce kits. Well, I have thought about this suggestion by my new friend, David Hawpe, and I think I have struck upon an idea.

How about if we get some influential voice in Louisville to speak out against what the Legal Aid Society is doing? Someone who cares about the good of society, and who is willing to call a spade a spade. Someone who has the public’s ear, and who isn't shy about telling other people what he thinks.

Someone who...oh, wait. What am I thinking? This is a perfect description of my new pal, David Hawpe.

Just think, instead of mentioning efforts to make divorce easier to obtain in a tongue-in-cheek columns to make fun of groups he doesn't like, he could actually make a positive difference. I'll suggest this to him next time we go out on the town.

One of the distinguishing features of the brand of liberalism exemplified by journalists of the type that inhabit editorial offices of big city papers like the Courier-Journal is that the best way to help the poor is by ensuring that they are provided with easy access to all the vices available to the rich.

This is why, for example, so many so many of them support public funding of abortions. Without this assistance, poor women wouldn't have the same access to abortion mills that women from the class of society occupied by people who run large newspapers have. Now poor women can be exploited by the abortion industry just like more wealthy women!

Likewise, the poor don't have the same access to pricey lawyers some of the rest of us have, and this is unfair. The solution? Give the poor the same legal access to divorce as those who can afford it themselves. The prospect of women in poor families being abandoned by their husbands just as easily as middle and upper class women may not sound like much in the way of progress to you and me, but you ought to see the high-fiving it elicits down at the Legal Aid Society of Louisville!

I hate to say this about David (we're on a first name basis now), but (and since we're amigos, I know I can say this without offending him) he seems to share this attitude with the rest of his editorial friends.

The next time we get together for a vegetarian meal at his favorite non-smoking establishment, I'll gently break it to him that, by this reasoning, crack is a good thing, since, before it became widely and cheaply available, cocaine was only available to the rich.

But I know he'll receive this well. We're that close.

The Family Foundation, of course, has paid quite a bit of attention to issues involving marriage. It has been involved for several years in the Commonwealth Marriage Initiative Task Force that is trying to come up with ways to strengthen marriage in Kentucky.

It's not something The Family Foundation has talked much about publicly, but now that Hawpe...er, David and I are on such good terms, I don't see why he shouldn't know about it.

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the folks at the Courier-Journal don't know this. But I've got a way to help solve this problem of journalists who criticize groups for not being involved in issues that they should be involved with, when, in fact, they are: For David's next birthday, I'm going to buy him and his editorialist friends a "do-it-yourself" journalism kit.

Just to show how much I care.

Lexington Forum to host discussion of domestic partner benefits

I will be in a panel discussion at the Lexington Forum Thursday morning at 8:00 to discuss the issue of domestic partner benefits at state colleges and universities. Here is the announcement from the Lexington Forum:

A discussion on Domestic Partner Benefits. Speakers include: Senator Ernesto Scorsone (D-Fayette); Representative Mike Harmon (R-Boyle); Martin Cothran of the Family Foundation; and UK Political Science Professor Ernie Yanarella. (The meeting also is open to the general public. There is a $10 breakfast fee for non-members, payable at the door)

The meeting will be held at the Lafayette Club on the top floor of the Chase Bank Building in downtown Lexington

All bark and no bite

Attorney General Greg Stumbo is threatening to sue the Governor for having too many Republicans on the Boards of Trustees for UK and U of L. Does the Governor really need to worry? Stumbo threatened to sue the universities themselves for domestic partner programs that violated the Constitution too, but he never did. UK's program still does not meet all the criteria the AG laid down in his ruling on the issue, and U of L hasn't changed its plan at all.

Is Stumbo all bark and no bite?

Fear and Loathing in the Homosexual Culture

Are people "homophobic" simply because they believe homosexual behavior is wrong?

Timothy Kinkaid at Box Turtle Bulletin, a pro-gay site, has a post on the "Family Impact Summit," to be held in Florida next month. Many of the sessions, as it turns out, have to do with issues relating to the cultural implications of homosexuality. Kinkaid calls the speakers at the summit (which includes figures such as James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Don Wildmon) a "Who's Who of Homophobia," which gives me the excuse I have been looking for to talk about the pejorative use of this term.

First of all, what does the term mean? Here is the Wikipedia definition:

Homophobia (from Greek ὁμο homo(sexual), "same, equal" + φοβία (phobia), "fear", literally "fear of the equal") is the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. Several dictionaries also associate irrationality with this type of fear. It can also mean hatred, hostility, disapproval of, or prejudice towards homosexual people, sexual behavior, or cultures, and is generally used to insinuate bigotry.

So, briefly, our definition is this: A bigoted or irrational fear or hostility toward homosexuals or their behavior.

Ironically, the term originally had a clinical psychological use and was applied, not to non-homosexuals, but to homosexuals themselves who had a fear of their own homosexuality. It is now used as a political devil-term for people who refuse to lay down and play dead when gay rights groups try to assert their political will on those with whom they disagree.

Before all the national psychological professional associations were politically intimidated into accepting homosexuality as normal, "homophobia" was seen as a psychological condition of homosexuals themselves. Now it used by homosexuals to designate a political pathology of they see in non-homosexuals who refuse to bow to those same political pressures.

The term, in short, is a political term masquerading as a psychological or moral term. Politics always trumps science for gay rights groups.

Homosexuals and the network of groups they have populated our culture with assert that homosexuality cannot be considered wrong because it has no moral implications whatsoever. But in order say this they have to maintain that sexual behavior per se is without moral implications--hardly a self-evident truth.

What has happened is this: homosexuals want to politically intimidate people into believing that, while homosexual behavior is not wrong, the belief that homosexual behavior is wrong is itself wrong. In short, homosexual behavior is not wrong, but opposing it is. It is curious that people who are so adamant about the fact that their behavior has no moral implications should be so adamant about the moral implications of the behavior of those with whom they disagree--simply because they disagree. Homosexuality is morally acceptable, but disagreeing with it is not.

Before politics took over, homosexuality was seen as a psychological malady; now homosexual groups are demanding that the rest of us see opposition to homosexuality as itself a psychological condition--and one that needs to be suppressed. They have created a new morality, whose creed is that no one shall disagree with their political agenda, and this new morality, more strident and intolerant even than the old one, is to be to be legislated in place of the old one. And all the while they declare that legislating morality is wrong. Out with the old tyrants, and in with the new.

No one is to be allowed to say that homosexuality is wrong, and no one is allowed to say that opposing homosexuality is right. Homosexual behavior was once illegal; now it is beginning to become more and more apparent that gay rights groups would like to see opposition to homosexuality as itself illegal.

In one Kentucky school district, students are now required to undergo sensitivity training to rid them of their belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. In fact the policy is so Draconian that even the ACLU is now defending a group of parents in a case to overturn the policy. And many colleges now impose speech codes that restrict any public expression of disagreement with homosexuals.

And incidentally, why are gays so intent upon demanding that other people approve of what they do? If I weren't so hostile to the influence of Freud over every aspect of our thought and culture, I would introduce the theory that the whole gay indignation industry, which demands that the rest of the culture cede to its political and psychological claims, was based on a deep-seated psychological insecurity of a group of people who think that other people's approval will somehow make them feel better. But as someone who disagrees with Freud, and thinks that you can't psychoanalyze whole groups of people anyway, I cannot say this.

But do we need to appeal to Freud? What if we were to drop the psychobabble and simply and unapologetically took up the traditional language of morality? What could we say then? What we could say is this: That here we have a bunch of individual people who are morally (rather than psychologically) insecure about what they are doing. And, like so many people who feel guilty about their actions, they think they will feel better about it if they can get other people to approve of what they do. This is why, for example, people with vices often try to recruit others to join in their pursuit of them: it assuages their guilt.

If gays really thought that what they were doing were morally acceptable, they wouldn't so badly need the rest of us to affirm them--and they wouldn't need to politically intimidate the people who, trying to abide by their own moral principles, refuse to give them that affirmation.

To be normal, or not to be normal: that is the question

Comments like these bring to mind once again the bizarre spectacle of a group of people who spend the majority of their public remarks opposing everyone else's concept of normality while at the same time expressing their concern that they be considered normal by everyone else.

Go figure.

Gay rights group compares Frankfort demonstrators to Ku Klux Klan

Herald-Leader? Courier-Journal? Are you there? Are your hypocrisy meters turned on? Once again gay rights advocates, who make a big show of opposing hate, are spewing hateful rhetoric.

Here is the Kentucky Equality Federation on today's rally at the Capitol against taxpayer-funded health benefits for live-in sexual partners of state university staff:

The Family Foundation of Kentucky, our 'KKK members with church clothes on' are holding signs deliberately bringing religion into government even though it is prohibited by the Commonwealth's Constitution.

Is there a better example of hate than comparing someone to the Ku Klux Klan? What exactly did the demonstrators--who are supposed to be so hateful, according the "Equality Federation"--say that even compares to it?

Of course the state media will completely ignore this most recent example of hate speech by gay rights groups. They get a free pass on this behavior by a media that thinks they can do no wrong.

Then there is this little gem from the "Ditch Mitch" blog:

What makes the rally so disgusting is that their protest runs much deeper than even homophobia – it’s simply a pro-hate rally.

Now the Ditch Mitch people know hate when they see it. What constitutes hate for these people? Hate, they argue, is when anyone would not be willing to force taxpayers to pay for anyone and everyone's health care:

Right here in America, nearly 18,000 people die every year simply because of a lack of healthcare coverage. With nearly 1 in 6 people in the country living without access to healthcare, we should all be rallying in favor of anything that helps cover more Americans. Anything less is simply unconscionable.

In other words, anyone who opposes universal health coverage is guilty of hate.

Well, if anyone ever wondered why civil discourse has gone down the tubes, they need look no further than groups like the Kentucky Equality Federation and "Ditch Mitch," which can't acknowledge that anyone who disagrees with them is anything but evil.

It must be hard to live in a world where you think that anyone who disagrees with you hates you too. Maybe we shouldn't be indignant about them after all. Maybe pity is more appropriate.

Postmodern Sex and Orifice Confusion

Okay, I'm thinking about how nice it must have been in better times to open up the newspaper and read about the latest good deeds of the local women's charitable society and all the nice things it was doing for foreign orphans or something. But thanks to things like the debate over the Holsinger nomination, we find ourselves opening up the pages of the local gazette and being treated to the latest apologetic for the legitimacy of trying to use the digestive system as if it were the reproductive system by those who seem to hold the dictates of biology is extremely low esteem.

Gee. I actually got through that whole paragraph without saying what I really would rather not talk about but can't seem to avoid because certain people want to talk very publicly about what they keep insisting, in the same breath, everyone ought to stay out of because it is their own private business.

"O shame, where is they blush?"

But there it is: prominently displayed on the editorial page of the Louisville Courier-Journal. We're arguing about anal sex. Ugh. It's enough of an indignity to have to talk about it in the first place, but do we really have to endure pious sermons on why it's a sin to consider such peculiar activity abnormal?

Here is Michael Cornwall, waxing eloquent (but not particularly logical) on why homosexuals should not be distinguished by their homosexuality despite the fact that that is, literally, their only distinguishing feature:

Gays and lesbians cannot be reduced to STDs and abnormal sex. Gays and lesbians enjoy an ample culture, in spite of the roadblocks placed in their way, complete with fulfilling, loving relationships.

In other words, we have a whole group of people who define and distinguish themselves by a particular act who are now complaining that everyone defines and distinguishes them by this act. Well, if their actions are not peculiar, their arguments certainly are. "'Normal' sexual expression cannot be characterized by intake and expulsion orifices," Corwall, who is apparently confused as to which orifice is which, assures us.

Then there is this logical specimen from Todd M. Read of Jeffersonville, Indiana:

According to his logic [the logic that says that certain orifices have certain purposes], the duality of the female vagina as an entrance and an exit should confuse the human race so as there would be no reproduction. I mean, if we are all "normal," wouldn't this conflict of interests end civilization as we know it?

I don't know who Todd M. Read is, but let's just hope, for the sake of the people of Jeffersonville, Indiana, that he's not an OB/GYN (or for that matter, a plumber). One supposes that in medical school, unlike certain lodgements in Jeffersonville, Indiana, there is little confusion as to which orifice is to be used for what purpose.

And speaking of plumbers, would anyone hire a piping professional (they're not calling them that now, but I give it five years) who didn't think it out of the ordinary to hook up the sewage pipes to the water pipes? Didn't think so.

And it only adds to the indignity of having to listen to all this that these people who are arguing for the normality of the multipurpose use of orifices (and that's the last time I'm ever going to use that word--I promise) don't even believe in normality in the first place. In the postmodern world, nothing has any purpose except that to which it happens to be put. You can't really apply that idea to anything practical of course: a 11/16" socket only fits an 11/16" nut (which is one reason you find so few postmodern mechanics). But, for some reason, there are people who think all this makes perfect sense when it comes to sex.

You just can't argue that something is abnormal with people who don't believe in normality at all, any more than you can argue with someone that a stick is crooked when they don't believe in such a thing a straight stick.

But I believe in such a thing as a straight stick, even though there are some people who apparently think that is controversial.

Holsinger's testimony proof he's perfect for Washington

Kentuckian James Holsinger is looking more and more qualified for life in Washington should he be approved by a Senate Committee that is now conducting a show trial on his nomination as U. S. Surgeon General. He announced, as everyone expected, that he disavowed the now controversial report he wrote as a member of a United Methodist task force in 1991 that found certain homosexual sexual practices were unhealthy.

This shows that he is willing to bow to political pressure to secure his position. This is an essential skill one must master in the nation's capitol in order to survive politically.

Furthermore, after bowing to political pressure, Holsinger announced that, if approved as U. S. Surgeon General, he would never bow to political pressure. This is also a promising sign. This shows his willingness to engage in hypocrisy with a straight face. Even some seasoned political operators have not completely mastered this skill. To be able to look straight into a camera and claim that you are not going to do what you are, in fact, even at that very moment, doing will come in handy in Washington.

Surely Ted Kennedy, of all people, should appreciate this quality in Holsinger.

The other members too should see in Holsinger a characteristic they all ought to admire, since they possess it to such a large degree themselves. After all, none of the medicine has changed since the report was written, but the politics certainly has. And these senators, who at the time would undoubtedly themselves have agreed with the report's findings (remember, this was 1991, when almost everyone agreed with what Holsinger wrote in his report), are indignant that anyone would have believed then what they themselves surely believed at the time.

But for some reason, many of the members of the committee, who want to ensure that the U. S. Surgeon General's office remains above politics by forcing nominees to bow to politics, remain unimpressed.

Here is a committee of politicians who want to sacrifice science to politics while it is saying that it doesn't want science sacrificed to politics, and it has a nominee in front of it who is willing to sacrifice science to politics and bold enough to tell the committee that he would never do such a thing, and they're going to let the opportunity go by?

If they do that, someone is just going to have to start questioning their integrity.

Higher Indoctrination at Kentucky's Universities: Part II: Reinterpreting the Birds and the Bees

Last time in our continuing series about the fun ways in which our state's institutions of higher education spend the tax money of conservative Kentuckians to fund left-wing ideology, we featured a course offering from the "Women's Studies" department at Lee Todd's University of Kentucky. But just so we aren't accused of special favoritism toward UK, let's take a look at the "Women and Gender Studies" department over at James Ramsey's University of Louisville.

Lest we worry that only UK students have access to indoctrination in special interest politics (and that would, of course, be inequitable, which is bad), we can comfort ourselves in knowing the following course is available to U of L students:

3516 201-01 Women in Amer Culture H CD2 (Hum), SAT 10:00-1:00, Heinecken, LF 130
3816 201-02 Women in Amer Culture H CD2 (Hum), TTh 2:30-3:45, Heinecken, DA 202
This class will introduce students to some of the major concepts and theoretical frameworks of feminism. We will investigate gender, race, class, and sexual systems through examinations of everyday culture. The course readings briefly outline the history and guiding concepts of contemporary feminism (s) and move into an investigation of the social realities currently affecting women in US culture. We will investigate the concepts of discrimination, oppression versus privilege, and domination and subordination. The readings stress the systemic nature of oppression, emphasizing the ways that race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and gender intersect in our lives. We will also examine some consequences of inequalities including the wage gap, violence against women, racism and sexism in education, and the representation of women in the media. The course will further examine some of the proactive ways in which women have resisted and responded to these systems.

This class, of course, is the opposite of the other course U of L offers from a conservative perspective called,... oh, wait. I forgot. There isn't one.

What was I thinking?

Of course we could ask where this group of radical feminists, with a comfy perch at the university and a virtual ideological monopoly, gets off talking about being oppressed. They get a whole department to themselves, after all.

But if there isn't a course from the opposing perspective, wouldn't that mean that there was no diversity in the course offerings at U of L, and isn't diversity what U of L is all about? In fact, I could have sworn that U of L President James Ramsey used the word 'diversity' at least 672 times in his testimony before the House Health and Welfare Committee last March when he falsely claimed to legislators that U of L was not subsidizing its domestic partner benefit plan when it turned out that that's exactly what it was doing all along.

And didn't he say, somewhere in the midst of all those false statements, that U of L needed to be a diverse place in order to attract good talent? And surely we could trust him, since it would defy statistical probability for there to be that many false statements from one university president during the short time he was at the committee table.

It's all so confusing. But hold on. There may be cause for hope in this class, called, "Sociology of Gender":

11538 313-01 Sociology of Gender (Ssci), TTh 9:30-10:45, Marshall, HM 106, Soc 327-01
11540 313-02 Sociology of Gender (Ssci), Th 11:00-12:15, Marshall, HM 106, Soc 327-02
How were women imagined in Renaissance England? What criteria did people use to distinguish between “women” and “men”? In what ways were ideas about gender and sexuality related to other cultural discourses at this time? This class will explore these kinds of questions by analyzing the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We will focus our attention primarily on literary texts by and about women, but we will also survey a range of other materials such as anatomy books, religious treatises, legal documents, and popular pamphlets. In addition to formal essays and/or exams, students may be expected to post informal analytical response papers to an electronic course listserv on a weekly basis. Active class participation is a must.

Now most people do not know that, in Elizabethan England (that is the period of history when England was ruled by Elizabeth I, who, some speculate, was a woman), people apparently did not know how to tell the difference between boys and girls. But the crack historical detectives in U of L's "Women's Studies" departments are not letting their own belief that gender is socially constructed get in the way of helping the Elizabethans out.

Although some would argue that modern feminist ideologues, who think that boys are boys because their parents made them play with trucks, and girls are girls because their parents made them play with dolls, are probably not the best bunch of people to be offering advice to anyone on how to distinguish between the genders.

But this looks promising. They have apparently discovered anatomy books. Maybe there's hope yet.

Gay rights group lauds Jody Richard's adjournment of special session

The "Kentucky Equality Federation," a gay rights group based in Kentucky, is praising Speaker of the Kentucky House Jody Richards for adjourning the House on the first day of the special session called by Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Obviously, the group supports the action because it would halt consideration of legislation to halt domestic partner benefit plans at state universities. The group also criticized Fletcher for including the issue of domestic partner benefits in the session call.

Kentucky Equality Federation praises the wisdom of House Speaker Richards and the entire House of Representatives for immediately adjourning the special session called by Governor Fletcher. The House of Representatives voted to end a special legislative session called by Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher an hour after it started.

"The House of Representatives did what was right for Kentucky families and taxpayers," stated Kentucky Equality Federation President Jordan Palmer. "Governor Fletcher apparently has no core beliefs of his own, his decisions seem to be nothing more than a calculation of how he can stay in office."

Governor Fletcher added a ban on domestic-partner benefits at universities and public agencies to the agenda of the special session that could have cost taxpayers $60,000.00 per day to hold.

Kentucky Equality Federation supported Governor Fletcher's original statement that universities should determine their own policies. But the Governor changed his mind in the middle of an election year and added it to a 'laundry list' as a reason to call the General Assembly into session.

Several Kentucky universities and public agencies offer affordable health insurance to both heterosexual and homosexual couples.