What's going on?

I thought we as a society were making improvements in our attitude toward gays. Of course, Ann Coulter's comment can be dismissed as a a poorly conceived joke from a nut. Indeed, no one except the most extreme take her very seriously (at least I can sleep at night by believing that). Then out of nowhere came General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recently said in an interview that homosexuality is immoral, and that it why he opposes allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. He even compared homosexuality to adultery (still scratching my head on that logic).

General Pace doesn't like gays. Fine, he's allowed his opinion; he's probably a conservative evangelical Christian like everyone I grew up with. Sen. Brownback also supports this view (which is why I hope to God he doesn't get the nomination and force me to throw my vote away on a third party candidate again). What worries me is that this is a prime example of the theocratic politics and policy that makes more sense in Iran than the United States.

In reaction to Pace's comments, neither Hills or Obama will directly answer the question of whether homosexuality is immoral. I am inclined to agree with the analysis of Towleroad, that they are dodging the issue to deprive conservatives (hopefully they mean theocrats, not us fiscal folk) of ammunition. I am therefore annoyed that I can't point this out to other GLBT individuals as evidence that the Democrats are not necessarily our friends--no Republican candidate would shoot his campaign in the foot by saying that homosexuality is not immoral.

So what we have is a world in which Theocrats dominate one party strongly enough to pull strings in the opposing party. I'm beginning to think that the 2006 elections won't be enough. Most commentators suggest that 2006 was mostly a message about Iraq and not the fact that the Republican Party has lost its way on MANY issues. It may take a Democratic president to send that message home. I just hope and pray it isn't Hills.

Aside: Since Ann Coulter's nonsense, the HRC has launched a campaign to have her column pulled from newspapers. In a "I disagree with what she says but will defend to the death her right to say it" style letter to the HRC, liberal cartoonist Ted Rall invoked first amendment concerns about the HRC's campaign. The thing is, there is NO first amendment issue here. Constitutional Law may not have been my favorite or best class, but I do know this--The bill of rights ONLY applies to state action.

Since the Bill of Rights also guarantees the freedom of the press from government ownership or control, newspapers choosing to drop Ann Coulter is not a state action. We have no freedom of speech violations here. What we have instead are consumers (The HRC) of a product (newspapers) expressing displeasure at a defect (Ann Coulter's column) and telling manufacturers (publishers) to either fix the problem or lose customers. This is the market, baby. To paraphrase Dame Margaret Thatcher, the laws of supply and demand will trump the laws of government every time.