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GOP Jew Marries Gay Lover

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a highly sought Republican political mind, responsible for promoting many conservtive candidates over years in the United States and Israel, (including George Pataki and Al D’amato) has tied the knot [in a Massachusettes civil ceremony] with his homosexual partner.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.
“I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners,” he said.

Irony, thy name is elephant.

29 thoughts on “GOP Jew Marries Gay Lover

  1. It is becoming increasingly obvious. Conservatives stand for nothing but cynicism anymore. Not even the presumption of a moral bullwork against the phony panic button issues they use to manipulate the moral outrage of an impulsive, volatile electorate. Like Senator Mel Martinez’ (R-Fl) Schiavo memo declaring a “great political opportunity,” this is just another example of a pattern of recidivist shameless opportunism.
    “Both in lying and in telling the truth people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are. These guide them as they endeavor either to describe the world correctly or to describe it deceitfully. […] The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are” (Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit; Princeton University Press).

  2. …. and of course there’s NOTHING ironic when those who lecture us about how “gays are just like everyone else” assume Finkelstein’s sexual orientation somehow determines his opinion about our foreign policy, education policy, healthcare, big vs. small government, etc.
    No no no – NOTHING ironic about people who style themselves as freethinkers cramming Arthur Finkelstein into a box based on one (not very intellectual) aspect of his character.
    NOTHING at ALL ironic about people who champion “diversity of opinion” shaking their heads at someone who has actually displayed independent thinking…
    Bottom Line: there is room – and respect – in the Republican party for Arthur Finkelstein. Has anyone heard of an anti-abortion Democratic being given the same trust and clout?
    No no no – NOTHING ironic at all about that…
    Ben-David

  3. Going with benda here.
    This Finklestein article is plain gossip. If anyone brought up Beillin’s homosexuality and his recycled party, nobody would care. So who cares who this Finklestein is sleeping with?
    Not me.

  4. Ben-David: “Has anyone heard of an anti-abortion Democratic being given the same trust and clout?”
    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
    Further, there is no such thing as a “pro-abortion” position. The principle is whether or not that particular medical procedure remains a legal option for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. Absolutely no reasonable person subscribes to the opinion that abortions should be forced upon anyone. On the other hand, Movement conservatives demand that women with unwanted pregnancies be forced to carry them to term.

  5. Ben D, if you even bothered to tread the quote, you would answer your own question.he toted the party line while being a hypocrite.

  6. Ben-David: “Bottom Line: there is room – and respect – in the Republican party for Arthur Finkelstein.”
    Obviously Republicans stand for nothing but shameless opportunism, as Finkelstein enjoys the very rights that his bread and butter clients would deny others. Good enough to hire, not good enough to marry.

  7. “Obviously Republicans stand for nothing but shameless opportunism…”
    Karl Rove has more or less admitted that this is at least how he operates.

  8. josh: “So who cares who this Finklestein is sleeping with?”
    You’re right. It really is no one’s business but their own. As Finkelstein himself states, “visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners.” If you really agree with Finkelstein on these points, then you would be a liberal Democrat and in opposition to the legislative candidates who Mr. Finkelstein calls his clients.

  9. It’s not just whom he’s sleeping with but whom he’s permitted to marry. The Republican Party explicitly opposes gay marriage, insisting that marriage — and the state and federal benefits it grants — be permitted only between a man and a woman. For an architect of Republican policy to flout that policy in his personal life is typical hypocrisy — much like Republicans opposing abortion while paying for their wives/daughters/mistres ses to “take care of things” out of state.

  10. EV: “For an architect of Republican policy to flout that policy in his personal life is typical hypocrisy — much like Republicans opposing abortion while paying for their wives/daughters/mistres ses to ‘take care of things’ out of state.”
    Much like the complaints of President Bush in particular, and echoed throughout conservative punditry in general, about “activist judges” like the one who married Finkelstein and his partner, yet without ever a word of outrage or complaint when judges act to reverse abortion law, or act to stop an electoral recount in Florida. No, with Republicans and other Movement conservatives it’s all about the opportunity to change America into something it was never meant to be….
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/
    Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the [Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration] gathering that [Supreme Court Justice] Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, “upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law.”
    Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his “bottom line” for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. “He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: ‘no man, no problem,’ ” Vieira said.
    The full Stalin quote, for those who don’t recognize it, is “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.” Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush’s judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

  11. Hard to pick a quote that isn’t larded through with self-corroborating “everyone knows” type statements, but this one will have to do:
    Obviously Republicans stand for nothing but shameless opportunism, as Finkelstein enjoys the very rights that his bread and butter clients would deny others. Good enough to hire, not good enough to marry.
    – – – – – – – – – –
    … and if he wasn’t “good enough to hire” you would be all over the Republicans for rejecting him – citing THAT as evidence of their prejudice against gays.
    Finkelstein is a big boy. He chose to work for the people he did – because he shared other opinions that he felt more important than the gay rights agenda, or simply to further his own career.
    He was outed in the mid 1990s – and people who worked with him probably knew sooner. None of these people rejected or denounced him – and there are plenty of consultants as talented as Finkelstein.
    From the NY Times:
    Over the past 20 years, Mr. Finkelstein had identified himself as a libertarian and an opponent of big government, distancing himself from social conservatives as they have gained political muscle and dominance in the party.
    Mr. Finkelstein has regularly described himself as a libertarian who supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights while opposing big government. In an interview with Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, after the American elections last year, he criticized the Republican Party as growing too close to evangelical Christians, warning it could cause long-term damage to the party.
    Details of Mr. Finkelstein’s relationship have appeared in regular news accounts over the years, as they did in the Boston Magazine article, which reported that Mr. Finkelstein lived with his partner and two children in Ipswich, Mass.
    – – – – – – – – – – –
    In other words, the Republican party is big and diverse enough to include both libertarians with Finkelstein’s agenda and religious conservatives with overlapping, but different agendas. None of them dismissed or denounced him, or refused to work with him. He hasn’t worn a sequined jockstrap at any Pride Parades – but he by no means lived a lie, he clearly made his views known. He was respected and people worked with him. Finkelstein himself was free to decide which causes he would work for.
    Sounds like good old “reality based” political activity to me.
    Sorry if the facts disrupt your cardboad cutout stereotypes of Republicans or religious people.
    And it’s always amusing to see the difficulty “freethinking liberals” have with gays, blacks, and others who actually think for themselves. The NERVE of that Finkelstein to wander away from the rhetorical box we’ve defined for him!
    Get a clue.
    Ben-David

  12. Ben-David,
    Nu? What is foundation of conservative principle after all? Is the emphasis on private enterprise or public interest? What happens when a laissez faire competition, free from the oppression of a regulated level playing field, conflicts with a tendency toward legislative interference into the most intimate moments and personal commitments in American’s lives? Surely conservatism cannot remain so inconsistent while it claims superiority over the “moral relativism” of liberal humanism, because that would appear… well, opportunistic. Please enlighten me. Show us all that you are something more than just a cheap bully. I’m rooting for you.

  13. Bob Dylan told us not to criticize what we can’t understand, but there goes Zionista again.
    “Nu? What is foundation of conservative principle after all?”
    It’s very complicated. Conservatism today comes in various forms, each not entirely compatible with the others. The very nature of “conserving” is complex: which era’s qualities are to be conserved? Pre-Enlightenment (traditional/ religious)? Classical liberal (Founding Fathers)? Pre-60’s? To ask for some single “foundation” of conservative principle is to misunderstand conservatism. (Liberalism today is equally various and complex.)
    “Is the emphasis on private enterprise or public interest? ”
    How about both? Conservatives tend to emphasize private enterprise in the economic sphere and public interest in the social sphere (although this varies for each conservative). No contradiction here.
    “What happens when a laissez faire competition, free from the oppression of a regulated level playing field, conflicts with a tendency toward legislative interference into the most intimate moments and personal commitments in American’s lives?”
    Hmmm. All depends on the reason for the legislative interference.
    “Surely conservatism cannot remain so inconsistent while it claims superiority over the “moral relativism” of liberal humanism, because that would appear… well, opportunistic.”
    It’s hardly “inconsistency” where different people in the same movement disagree (it would be nice if liberals/ leftists allowed the same degree of dissent in their own ranks) or where different policies are designed for different spheres. Your view of “consistency” is the foolish consistency that is the hobgoblin of…well, you know.
    “Show us all that you are something more than just a cheap bully.”
    Ben David is one of the most thoughtful posters here, with an excellent record of making real, content-based arguments rather than throwing around insults. Showing you up, as he did in his last post, doesn’t make him a bully. Why don’t you answer his arguments instead of calling him names?

  14. Bob Dylan told us not to criticize what we can’t understand, but there goes Zionista again.
    “Nu? What is foundation of conservative principle after all?”
    It’s very complicated. Conservatism today comes in various forms, each not entirely compatible with the others. The very nature of “conserving” is complex: which era’s qualities are to be conserved? Pre-Enlightenment (traditional/ religious)? Classical liberal (Founding Fathers)? Pre-60’s? To ask for some single “foundation” of conservative principle is to misunderstand conservatism. (Liberalism today is equally various and complex.)
    “Is the emphasis on private enterprise or public interest? ”
    How about both? Conservatives tend to emphasize private enterprise in the economic sphere and public interest in the social sphere (although this varies for each conservative). No contradiction here.
    “What happens when a laissez faire competition, free from the oppression of a regulated level playing field, conflicts with a tendency toward legislative interference into the most intimate moments and personal commitments in American’s lives?”
    Hmmm. All depends on the reason for the legislative interference.
    “Surely conservatism cannot remain so inconsistent while it claims superiority over the “moral relativism” of liberal humanism, because that would appear… well, opportunistic.”
    It’s hardly “inconsistency” where different people in the same movement disagree (it would be nice if liberals/ leftists allowed the same degree of dissent in their own ranks) or where different policies are designed for different spheres. Your view of “consistency” is the foolish consistency that is the hobgoblin of…well, you know.
    “Show us all that you are something more than just a cheap bully.”
    Ben David is one of the most thoughtful posters here, with an excellent record of making real, content-based arguments rather than throwing around insults. Showing you up, as he did in his last post, doesn’t make him a bully. Why don’t you answer his arguments instead of calling him names?

  15. J: “Showing you up, as he did in his last post, doesn’t make him a bully. Why don’t you answer his arguments instead of calling him names?”
    I asked him some questions. Can we at least let him answer before we pronounce me shown up? Meanwhile…
    (Cont’d): “Conservatives tend to emphasize private enterprise in the economic sphere and public interest in the social sphere (although this varies for each conservative). No contradiction here.”
    Unless we approach the subject of National Wildlife Refuges, forstarters. Stick around, relax. We’ll talk….

  16. Zionista:
    What happens when a laissez faire competition, free from the oppression of a regulated level playing field, conflicts with a tendency toward legislative interference into the most intimate moments and personal commitments in American’s lives? Surely conservatism cannot remain so inconsistent while it claims superiority over the “moral relativism” of liberal humanism
    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    … we can make the same argumnent, find the same inconsistency, on the Dem side:
    Affirmative action and other liberal policies are invasive goverment interventions supported by liberals that redistribute wealth and opportunity based on moral arguments. But isn’t such intervention inconsistent with “keep your laws off my body” and other slogans of (selectively!) laissez-faire morality?
    (parenthetically: I don’t know many Republicans who support total removal of the laws that make our economy a “level playing ground”. In fact, some are working to undo the monopolistic mess in our broadcast media that resulted from Clinton-era “deregulation”. So the “inconsistency” is somewhat forced.)
    Laws express moral values. This is true even in secular systems like America’s. It is second nature to us Jews that this is so. The assertion that the Republicans are trying to insert their values into the law” misunderstands law itself – and the above example shows that Dems and liberals have no problem imposing their moral vision through the law.
    Laws are shaped through the rough-and-tumble exchange of political views, and by compromise and horse trading. Again, a Jewish analogy would be to the thrust-and-parry of Talmudic discussion, which clarifies both practical and moral aspects of many cases and situations. The law is the final result of that give and take, that messy, back-scratching (and sometimes back-stabbing) clash of conflicting ideas and interests.
    People join a political party because they agree with most (but usually not all) of that party’s publicly stated positions. For example, both libertarians and churchgoers lean Republican because the core “conservative” messages – “spare me your experiments in social engineering, limit government power” – resonates with them. For some it is more about “let me keep my money and compete on merit”. For others it is “stop messing with traditional values”.
    The lifeblood of a political party is its ability to sustain lively INTERNAL debate – while presenting a cogent platform to the larger public. This involves horse-trading and compromise. Nobody gets exactly the platform THEY envisaged.
    Since the last elections many thoughtful Dem voices have pointed out that the Republicans have managed to do that – while the Dems have not. We saw some promising Dem candidates get disqualified early on because they did not toe the official line on abortion rights and other “moral” issues.
    The primary charge here is hypocrisy – either of the Republicans for working with a homosexual, or of the homosexual for working with Republicans.
    Both these assertions are predicated on stereotypes – about Republicans and about homosexuals – that no person who is truly “tolerant” should be comfortable with.
    Dems and liberals talk on about how they are championing tolerance and diversity – but the Finkelstein issue shows that Republicans are actually “walking the talk” of tolerance: actually treating homosexuals with respect, listening to their opinions – even as they disagree with them on some issues.
    The liberal charge of Republican hypocrisy over Finkelstein is based on a monolithic concept of “consistency” that has no relation to real (democratic) political discourse. And many thoughtful Dems are questioning this very mindset – the assumption that ideological purity requires zero tolerance for dissenting views – and fingering it as a major problem for the liberal camp.
    And what of Finkelstein’s “hypocrisy”? The liberal assertion that Finkelstein MUST think in a certain way because he is gay – and therefore is a “traitor to his race” – is just as prejudiced as the assertion that Negros, as a group, have some trait or value.
    This is a textbook example of the habits of thought that have driven voters rightward:
    – the dissentless groupthink of the liberal campl.
    – the inherent contradiction between gender/class/race victimology politics and true “freedom” “equality” and “tolerance of diversity”.
    Arthur Finkelstein acted freely in a free society – to further ideals he believed in, and to further his career as he saw fit. He embraced and dealt with the horse-trading reality of modern politics. So did the Republicans with whom he worked. He was never dissed, ostracized, or shouted down.
    So?

  17. Ben-David,
    Arthur Finkelstein acted with a freedom that Movement conservatives largely seek to destroy. Your assertion that recognizing and confronting the hypocrisy under these circumstances somehow reveals an intolerance is rather convoluted, since the very right Mr. Finkelstein and his partner exercise is endorsed by liberals for anyone in a similar situation. Your statements leave the impression that you would limit this right only to Finkelstein and his partner. Meanwhile, in the name of “traditional values” Republicans and other conservatives have authored state referenda which would not recognize the Finkelstein marriage.
    Ben-David: “Affirmative action and other liberal policies are invasive goverment interventions supported by liberals that redistribute wealth and opportunity based on moral arguments. But isn’t such intervention inconsistent with ‘keep your laws off my body’ and other slogans of (selectively!) laissez-faire morality?”
    While I admire your turn of the phrase “laissez-faire morality,” it is nevetheless something of a political non-sequitor. Again, the legal option to abort a pregnancy in no way forces anyone who believes that life begins at conception to opt for the procedure. On the other hand, reductions of regulations limiting the role of private enterprise in the public sphere have a much wider impact beyond the benefit to those taking advantage of the opportunity. For example, allowing the extraction of resources from public lands, without any implementation of conservation standards, agrivates the public problem of depleted resources for the sake of short term private gain. I admit that my participation in affirmative action debates is limited, and on that issue I am open to your point.
    Getting back to the larger issues surrounding “traditional values,” I challenge the conservative notion that tradtional values are under any actual assault simply because there are options whereby individuals may guide their own lives by standards not limited by any bibilical or otherwise theological standard. Further, the legitimacy of standards outside of bibilical or otherwise theological standards in no way prohibits you from guiding your life likewise. In fact, liberal values allow room for an actual level playing field in a marketplace of ideas.
    Perhaps Movement conservatism once stood for something other than my-way-or-the-highway and every-man-for-himself, but that’s not been the record of those conservatives who now have the power to implement policy.
    Finally, I appreciate your articulation of a better argument than “Get a clue.” I know that kind of cheap stunt excites the likes of J, but it is hardly a substitute for substance.

  18. “Finally, I appreciate your articulation of a better argument than “Get a clue.” I know that kind of cheap stunt excites the likes of J, but it is hardly a substitute for substance.”
    Meeeeow!

  19. Zionista –
    Is it hypocritical for a guy who worked to elect people who were anti-gay-rights to now indulge in the fruits of gay-rights legislation?
    Maybe.
    Or maybe when Finkelstein started his political activity – almost 30 years ago – he astutely estimated that the time was not ripe to press this issue, and so he promoted other things that were important to him.
    Maybe – since he and his partner have children – he was more concerned about shaking up the educational system, or other “family” and “quality of life issues”.
    Maybe he agreed with those gay intellectuals who actually oppose the normalization of homosexuality (a memorable NY Times article summed things up nicely in its title:
    “Now that Canadian Gays Can Say ‘I Do’, Many Ask: Do I?”).
    Maybe now he IS backtracking hypocritically, or has simple mellowed or changed his mind.
    I am not responsible to think for Arthur Finkelstein. And neither is anyone else. That’s the point.
    Arthur Finkelstein is entitled to lead a multivalent political life. He is not obligated to act as a single-issue stick figure of Gay Victimhood.
    Most of the liberals commenting on the Finkelstein nuptials were bothered more by the ideological ‘betrayal’ than by any personal hypocrisy. Most talked about Those Awful People that he associated with. The NY Times had a great quote from a close friend of Finkelstein’s that cut directly to the personal contradiction – but it was the LAST sentence in the piece, after all the huffing about fundamentalists.
    Bottom Line: both Finkelstein and the fundamentalists determined and pursued their own political interests – freely, in a mature way. Where they found common cause, they freely chose to work together – and did so in mutual respect. Nobody was ostracised or denounced.
    This is what real “tolerance” and “diversity” look like in the real world. The old saying is true: politics often makes strange bedfellows. There are a lot of stranger things in politics than Finkelstein’s conservativism – unless your ideological tunnel vision prevents you from seeing him as a 3 dimensional person.
    The charge of hypocrisy is a veiled denunciation of someone who strayed from the politically correct role assigned to him. The inability to accept Finkelstein as Finkelstein – to see beyond the gay label – is an example of the monolithic class-based thinking that many Democrates feel is crippling their party. It is impossible to conceive of a gay person who agrees with conservative ideas, so Bill Clinton expresses the liberal view that Finkelstein “must be a self-loathing homosexual”.
    Finkelstein is still a strong voice among conservatives, and an entire wing of the Republican party agrees with his statements about the need to limit religious influence in the party. Many prominent liberals openly wish for such a robust internal debate within the Democratic party.
    Zionista – you took another swing at the issue of morality in secular law. But there is no getting around the truth: when liberals legislate their values, it is just as intrusive and invasive as any other moral/political agenda.
    Abortion rights activity has already gone way beyond passively ensuring a woman’s right to abort. For example, there have been efforts to remove the requirement of parental notification before aborting the fetus of a minor – undercutting both moral and material aspects of parental authority.
    There is the push to support late-term abortion, which is not supported by most Americans. This is a classic example of rigid liberal doctrine at its worst. The prohibition of late-term abortion leaves the woman ample time to exercise her “choice” while recognizing the (social, moral) truth that at some point the pregnancy stops being “fetal tissue” and starts becoming “a baby”.
    Yet the abortion-rights absolutists cannot bring themselves to hear the other side, cannot engage in the give and take and political compromise that allow the law to approximate the moral will of the majority.
    Arthur Finkelstein and the Republicans – both libertarians and fundamentalists – are able to hear and compromise. That is why the platform they present appeals to so many Americans who are neither libertarians nor fundamentalists.
    The liberals are also pushing for socialized medicine – which would produce a situation in which the majority of Americans wind up paying for abortions in circumstances they may not support. Wouldn’t that be an imposition?
    Again – the law is an expression of moral values, even in secular America. There is no bright line dividing permitted moral impositions like affirmative action from other moral legislation relating to marriage and other behaviors.
    You may perceive the liberal agenda as less onerous because you agree with it – but the electoral results of the past 20 years indicate the most Americans view affirmative action and other morally-motivated liberal interventions as burdensome and contrary to their own values.
    I confess to being delighted with your use of the term “movement conservative”. I associate the term “movement” with the Black Panthers and that whole funky range of liberal “movements”. To use this term in reference today’s conservatives – who are much more truly diverse and innovative than their Democrat/liberal counterparts – reveals just how stuck much liberal thought is in the 60s.

  20. Ben-David: “But there is no getting around the truth: when liberals legislate their values, it is just as intrusive and invasive as any other moral/political agenda.”
    Yes, liberal values have a basis in morality. Keynahora, we have a breakthrough. Now let’s see conservative “traditional values” compete on a level intelectual playing field, without the nasty rhetoric and demonizing strawmen of “Massachusetts Liberals,” “trial lawyers,” “homosexual agendas,” “the culture of life” (and the implications toward its “opposition”). Fat chance.
    Your argument remains long on rhetoric and short on specifics, and perpetuating the myth that anything liberal, anything promoting a humanistic perspective, anything at odds with Christian notions of morality are somehow marginal and isolated in the seventh decade of the twentieth century like an ancient bug in an amber rock. As far as your certainty of the electorate’s ultimate rejection of the “liberal agenda,” all anyone can say is, we’ll see.

  21. Z:
    Yes, liberal values have a basis in morality. Keynahora, we have a breakthrough.
    – – – – – – – – – – –
    So do conservative values have a moral basis. The political debate is engaged when people have conflicting values – or perhaps you agree with the petulant Dems who think all their oponents are morons? You don’t seem this childish or foolish…
    If by your Kaynahora, you mean to imply that I had to “admit” this – please reread my posts. YOU were the one who started off trying to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable moral legislation. My point has been that all laws express morality, and all political actors – left and right – seek to express a moral view through the law. I never claimed left-wing policies were immoral.
    I’m sure you feel embattled given the shrinking popularity of your ideas – but I did not attack you in the way you describe. I know it is natural to assume the Victimology pose, but I never dissed liberal ideas in this way.
    In the next sentence you mention straw men – is this one of them?
    Further:
    Z: Now let’s see conservative “traditional values” compete on a level intelectual playing field
    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    They already have – and have consistently won growing support over the last 20 years of American elections. Again: will you dismiss all those who voted against your pet projects as morons?
    Further:
    Z: …a level intelectual playing field, without the nasty rhetoric and demonizing strawmen of “Massachusetts Liberals,” “trial lawyers,” “homosexual agendas,” “the culture of life” (and the implications toward its “opposition”).
    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    I have had the dubious pleasure of wearing a kipah in some of the more liberal reaches of America and Europe. I assure you that there is plenty of scaldingly, scatologically “nasty rhetoric” issuing from the left – culminating recently in a “Kill Bush” T-shirt! Now THAT’s a “level intellectual playing field” – pitched at a pretty low level.
    You yourself have been schlepping a “straw-man” Christian conservative through this thread, doggedly ignoring the fact that religious people worked side by side with a gay man, showing him great respect.
    Finally:
    Z: As far as your certainty of the electorate’s ultimate rejection of the “liberal agenda,” all anyone can say is, we’ll see.
    – – – – – – – – – – –
    … why wait? to those already looking around – or glancing up from their navels – the electorate’s opinion is clear. Has been for 20 years.

  22. Ben-David,
    Funny how the urgency for social security privatisation never came up in the campaign. Buyers’ remorse? Feel free to keep on confusing trends with triumph, but just don’t let the plummeting approval ratings of Congressional Republicans and the Bush adminsitration get to you.
    I won’t be checking back in for a bit, but it’s been a pleasure, honestly. Gut Shabbes to you and yours….

  23. One last thing.
    Ben-David: “… why wait? to those already looking around – or glancing up from their navels – the electorate’s opinion is clear. Has been for 20 years.”
    Sure. Scaring their base constituency to the polls with tales of the homosexual agenda’s assault on traditional values….
    (Cont’d): “You yourself have been schlepping a ‘straw-man’ Christian conservative through this thread, doggedly ignoring the fact that religious people worked side by side with a gay man, showing him great respect.”
    A respect so great that they would deny him everything he and his partner and other couples in a similar situation would commit to each other, or as Finkelstein explains it, “visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners.”
    It isn’t any liberal elite denying them this. And neither does it diminish the viability or sanctity of any straight couples’ marriage. Have you helped someone or hurt someone today?
    Latcho Drom….

  24. A Field Guide to Loony Left-Liberalism
    by B. David
    Specimen A:
    “the electorate’s opinion is clear. Has been for 20 years.”
    “Sure. Scaring their base constituency to the polls with tales of the homosexual agenda’s assault on traditional values…”
    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
    For those not familiar with the liberal dialect, I’ll translate:
    “Yes I DO think all those who disagree with me are morons. They couldn’t POSSIBLY have reached a conclusion contrary to mine based on the facts – they must have been cowed into it (after all, that’s what WE try to do to ’em…)
    They couldn’t POSSIBLY have taken in the bars, baths, sequined jockstraps, studded leather harnesses, Fire Island orgies, Calvin Klein ad campaigns inspired by gay porn, the miniscule rate of gay marriage in places where it is sanctioned – and actually drawn their own conclusion about homosexuality’s relation to traditional values. How could they when we’re the only “reality based” ones?
    Specimen B:
    “It isn’t any liberal elite denying them this.”
    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    Ooooo – observe this specimen carefully, class. I’ts an almost perfectly formed Victimology Inversion. Careful – they have no rational basis, so they are very fragile. Incredible piece of rhetoric though…
    Note how the liberal – who is trying to extend the rights of marriage in a way contradictory to all of Western history – has flipped the language, so that it is Those Nasty Republicans who are “denying” a right that never existed, to people no healthy society ever thought normal.
    This is consistent with observed behavior of most Liberal clans: they deny reality whenever it conflicts with gender/class/race based Victimology politics. This irrational behavior is responsible for the destruction of their natural environment – the Western world – and for their own dwindling numbers…

  25. To whomever Ben-David is preachin’,
    Speaking of victimology politics, the ironies virtually leap right off the monitor. Check it out….
    “I think there’s a realization that this particular effort has to be countered and they’re in full-scale attack mode. I think that people know that we’ve got a serious problem here” (anonymous GOP congressional aide, bellyaching about Democratic opposition to attempts at rewriting rules to favor Bush administration judicial nominees.)
    ”I consider Tom DeLay to be one of the most important Members of Congress. He is committed to biblical morality and is a strong ally in the battle to save our nation from the failed ideas of liberals, judicial tyrants, and moral anarchists” (Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Rev. Louis P. Sheldon).
    “Note how the liberal – who is trying to extend the rights of marriage in a way contradictory to all of Western history – has flipped the language, so that it is Those Nasty Republicans who are ‘denying’ a right that never existed, to people no healthy society ever thought normal” (Ben-David, defending against the assault on Christendom by the liberal elite’s homosexual agenda).
    With these Christian conservative crybabies, every disagreement amounts to an “attack.”

  26. J: “Bob Dylan told us not to criticize what we can’t understand, but there goes Zionista again.”
    Dylan also said, “you just want to be on the side that’s winning.”

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