Month: February 2004

I ought not to be posting this–I am dead serious about going on hiatus. But everyone in my state and especially at my school is talking about this gay marriage debate today, and I see a huge story being missed.

Of all the anti-gay marriage lobbyists who have come to Massachusetts, the Family Research Council (FRC), and its President, Tony Perkins, may be the most quoted–I’ve seen him in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the NY Times, the Grauniad, MSNBCm all over the place. In these articles, the FRC is almost always described simply as “a conservative group” or “a conservative organization” or “the conservative Family Research Council.”

If journalists would do some background research on the FRC, they would see that this description is an insult to both gay people and conservatives.

Not all conservatives oppose gay marriage. Not all people who oppose gay marriage are homophobic. Not all homophobic people are bigots. The Family Research Council are bigots–and I do not use emotionally loaded terms like “bigot” lightly. Here are some quotations from FRC publications:

–“…one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.” “Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex With Boys,” FRC publication, July 1999.

–“”There is a strong undercurrent of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture. Homosexual activists want to promote the flouting of traditional sexual prohibitions at the earliest possible age….they want to encourage a promiscuous society – and the best place to start is with a young and credulous captive audience in the public schools.” – Robert Knight, Family Research Council

–“homosexuals are included in a list of sinners, who, if unrepentant, will not inherit the kingdom of God.” – Family Research Council press release about Matt Shepard’s funeral, on the day of the funeral, October 16, 1998

–After Matthew Shepard’s death, Frank Rich wrote an article saying that anti-gay groups like the FRC–I think he singled them out because they had a press conference about converting away from homosexuality around the time Shepard was found–saying they bore some responsibilty for what happened. “[FRC Spokesperson Heather] Farish vehemently rejects such allegations. ‘Don’t blame AA because a drunk was beat up,’ she said.” (Dallas Morning News article, “Why now? Other gays have been victims of brutal attacks, but the slaying of a Wyoming student has caused a national outcry,” by Brooks Egerton, October 17, 1998.)

–If you think the above quotations take their words out of context, you can read this 32 page “study” of “Homosexual Behavior and Pedophilia” by Robert Knight and Frank York. Learn all about homosexual activists’ “long term goal” of “gaining access to children”, despite the fact that they “publicly disassociate themselves from pedophiles as part of a public relations strategy”; learn how the American Psychiatric Association is in on it, etc.
(Knight is now with Concerned Women for America, but was with the FRC when this came out and they are still quite happy to quote him on their website. They also say he is one of the draftsmen of DOMA–I just hope to God that’s not true.)

–In case you think that was the “bad old days” but now they’ve changed–the FRC still offers talking points (their phrase, not mine) on the connection between homosexuality and pedophelia on their website.

–As I noted in this post, the Family Research Council helped convince President Bush to launch “Marriage Protection Week” last October. It just so happened to begin on the five year anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death.

–Tony Perkins, the current President of the FRC, seems more telegenic and politically savvy than his predecessors but I don’t see any evidence that he’s less homophobic. In this newsletter he states, “Nor is it “loving” to suppress evidence that homosexual behavior is a “death-style” that is sending young people to an early grave.”

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Here is the latest on the Plame game. Courtesy of the Washington Post:

A federal grand jury has questioned one current and one former aide to President Bush, and investigators have interviewed six others in an effort to discover who revealed the name of an undercover CIA officer to a newspaper columnist, sources involved in the case said yesterday.

. . . .
Several sources involved in the leak case said the questioning suggests prosecutors are preparing to seek testimony from Novak and perhaps other journalists. “There’s a very good likelihood they’re going to litigate against journalists,” one source said.

It is a real investigation, and it is continuing. Moreover, the fact that a grand jury has been impaneled indicates that the decision to prosecute will mostly be in the hands of our fellow citizens — not the Justice Department or the prosecutors assigned to the case. (Of course, the Grand Jury will only see and hear the evidence that the prosecutors can muster.)*

I’ll admit to mixed feelings at this point. On one hand, nothing annoys me more than self-identified superpatriots — except for, I suppose, self-identified superpatriots who expose CIA agents for political gain. On the other hand, however, the suggestion that the prosecution may start “litigat[ing] against journalists” sends shivers down my spin. Though I occasionally find Bob Novak a bit creepy (it’s the eyebrows), I hardly want him subpoenaed and possibly thrown in jail for protecting a source.

Indeed, protecting confidential journalistic sources isn’t just yippity-do-dah liberal crap; it’s vital to the newsgathering process. Sure, it gets abused. Everything that happens in secret eventually does. (Lesson applicable to the Guantanamo detainees, I note.) Without confidential sources, however, more than a few important stories would never have seen the light of day.

So: continue the investigation. (And when do we get to the Vice President’s office?) But don’t subpoena Bob. The exposure of a semi-retired CIA agent (who, it turns out, is a bit of a publicity hound once freed from the shackles of secrecy) isn’t worth it. If we went subpoena-happy every time confidential information got leaked (and that’s the rule you’d be endorsing by subpoenaing Novak, if consisistency matters to you), Washington journalists would spend all their time in court.

The ends, I’m told, don’t always justify the means.

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Mickey Kaus passes along the rumor that, if nominated, Kerry may pick Evan Bayh as his running mate. Why? Because Bayh may win Indiana for Kerry:

kf hears semi-reliably that Kerry’s polling shows that Edwards on the ticket doesn’t win any states for Kerry, even in the South–while Evan Bayh does win Indiana (which is hard to believe, Indiana being a pretty Republican state). … Might as well go after him, John!

Actually, Indiana is probably more in play this election cycle than it ever has been. Once a reliably Republican state (outside of the college towns of Lafayette/West Lafayette and Bloomington, and the Chicago suburbs of Gary and Hammond), it has been trending steadily Democratic of late.* It’s current Democratic governor, Joe Kernan, is popular — and a solid favorite over his high-profile GOP opponent, former Bush Budget Director Mitch Daniels.** Indianapolis, once a Republican stronghold, easily re-elected its Democratic mayor and has elected a majority-Democratic City Council for the first time in living memory. (A slight exaggeration, but not by much.) Democrats even expect to pick up a seat or two in the Indiana legislature.

Losing Indiana won’t cost Bush the election in and of itself. But, if once-solid Indiana’s looks to be in play, what does it say about perennially-on-the-fence Ohio? Or Illinois, for that matter?

p.s. Is it too late to call off my bet with Harley? I took Bush for a fifth of Beefeater Gin, him ABB for a fifth of Vodka (brand escapes me).

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