The Situation December 17, 2009

GOProud

Apparently gay conservatives were not getting enough grief as Log Cabin Republicans – some felt the incongruity between their political beliefs and sexual orientation were insufficient, fled the Log Cabin and formed GOProud. To cement their position as self-hating gays they’re sponsoring next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) February 18th through the 20th in Washington D.C. In case you’ve forgotten, in 2007 CPAC brought us the likes of Mitt Romney, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter under the same tent. Coulter, you may remember, inferred John Edwards was a “faggot” in her 2007 speech at CPAC. Other sponsors of the HateFest 2010 include Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund and Maggie Gallagher’s National Organization for Marriage.

A Matter of Principle

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the Dallas Principles (TheDallasPrinciples.org), a list of well-meaning demands assembled by activists and philanthropists that some feel are the new light shining the way to LGBT equality. It was just a matter of time before the haters-in-the-name-of-the-Lord realized they could do the same thing. If it weren’t such an accurate representation of their toxic mindset it would be an amusing read. The preamble declares that Christians “combated the evil of slavery,” though some may argue that God approved of slavery (he did attempt to regulate it) and many claimed the right to own slaves was God-given; the declaration also calls Christian women “the vanguard of the suffrage movement,” while even today we still have some in Christian circles that believe women should not have jobs or opinions that were not given to them by their husbands. The zinger is thrown in when they enumerate their moral concerns, such as the need to protect the unborn, the severely disabled and the elderly: “The institution of marriage…is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies.” My ego swells to think that these folks think I’m fashionable, but their words are the anti-Viagra, equating respect for marriage equality with being forced to participate in abortions, assisted suicides and euthanasia.

History has shown us that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that’s where the Manhattan Declaration gets one thing right. While some believe their posturing to be an attempt to garner support through fearmongering, the Manhattan Declaration is not strictly a declaration or a list of demands – it insists on civil disobedience by deliberately disregarding laws it finds distasteful. In comparison, the Dallas Principles offer nothing new in the way of our pursuit toward equality and are unrealistic in their expectations, i.e., demanding full equality now measuring progress toward equality as a percentage on their web site (we can be equal or not – there is no legitimate measure of “partial” equality); their calls to action consist of abiding by their principles and spreading their words.

Many of those who subscribe to the Manhattan Declaration feel their positions have not had significant attention in the media. Chief among the whiners are Bill O’Reilly, of the “fair and balanced” network (how a network that carries Glen Beck can claim to be balanced escapes me), decrying the “secularism of America” while interviewing Ann Coulter, who felt our society is in a cultural crisis that compares to the Holocaust and slavery. Thankfully there is a balanced perspective being offered through the Affirmation Declaration, which “strongly disagree[s] with the contention that same-sex attractions and the oft-resulting romantic activities are immoral” and dissects the Manhattan Declaration point by point. To learn more visit AffirmationDeclaration.org

All Voices Matter

The blogosphere has been flooded by believers who feel that the Dallas Principles will somehow transform Dallas into the new center of the gay universe and displace organizations such as Human Rights Campaign and others that have been dubbed “Gay Inc.”, but that won’t serve the community’s needs. We should welcome their unified voice to the conversation, but we have to recognize that we must all be heard, collectively and individually, to really make a difference. In addition to supporting the rights organization(s) of your choosing, I encourage you all to reach out to local, state and federal elected officials and make your individual voices heard.

The Situation will be back in two weeks for the year in review.

Rick Murray

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