A Stitch in Haste

Where is the line between "economic theory" and "cultural stereotype"?

A professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas may be punished because he offended one of his students by saying in a lesson on economic planning that homosexuals tend to plan less for the future than other groups, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hans Hoppe, described as a conservative libertarian economist with 20 years experience at UNLV, says that during the lesson he gave several examples of groups that tend not to plan for the future, among them the very young, the very old, childless couples and homosexuals. He said discussion of homosexuals took up about 90 seconds of a 75-minute lecture.

Within days of the lecture a student had lodged an informal complaint about its content. The university is now threatening Hoppe with a letter of reprimand and wants him to give up his next pay increase.

Hoppe is fighting back, with the help of the ACLU. It is not his job, he said, to consider how a student might feel about economic theories.

"Our task is to teach what we consider to be right," he said. The offended student, he said, should have been told to "grow up."

Also, from the LV R-J article:

Reasons for the phenomenon include the fact that homosexuals tend not to have children, he said. They also tend to live riskier lifestyles than heterosexuals, Hoppe said.

Oh really?

The first thing that pops into my mind is "give up his next pay increase"? What's that about? The second thing that pops into my mind is "with 'libertarians' like this, who needs James Dobson?"

But seriously, I have no problem with pointing out the demographic, sociological and economic trends, whether flattering or embarrassing, of gays as a group -- assuming that any such data actually exist. I challenge Hoppe or any other academic to point to any reliable study on the subject of gay life-cycle economics. We don't even have reliable Census data on gays (and don't get me started on polling data) -- we're now going to start making sweeping pronouncements about comparative risk-aversion and financial planning in gay versus straight households?

"Academic freedom" does not include the freedom to lie or to "make stuff up." If you want to be politically (sociologically?) incorrect in the spirit of Charles Murray, then be my guest and more power to you. But you better damn well have some numbers to back it up. Otherwise you're just another bigot.

Hat tip to Tongue Tied. More thoughts at Beaverhausen and Positive Liberty.

UPDATE: Tom G. Palmer has an update and there's a link in the comments of his post to the disciplinary letter Hoppe received from the UNLV administration. I don't think Hoppe should be fired or even formally reprimanded -- just publicly humiliated.

Related Posts:
"Gays are So Rich... (How Rich are They? ...)"
A Million Gays for Bush?

So here’s how UNLV professor and lewrockwell.com pin-up boy Hans-Hermann Hoppe tries to crawl out of his self-dug homophobic hole (for background see this post):

In March of 2004, during a 75-minute lecture in my Money and Banking class on time preference, interest, and capital, I presented numerous examples designed to illustrate the concept of time preference (or in the terminology of the sociologist Edward Banfield of "present- and future-orientation"). As one brief example, I referred to homosexuals as a group which, because they typically do not have children, tend to have a higher degree of time preference and are more present-oriented. I also noted -- as have many other scholars -- that J.M Keynes, whose economic theories were the subject of some upcoming lectures, had been a homosexual and that this might be useful to know when considering his short-run economic policy recommendation and his famous dictum "in the long run we are all dead."
...
In my next lecture I explained that when I say that Italians eat more Spaghetti than Germans for instance this does not mean that every Italian eats more Spaghetti than every German. It means that on the average Italians eat more Spaghetti than Germans.

So let's review. According to Hoppe:

(1) “Academic freedom” includes the privilege of telling statistically unproven and unprovable stereotypes (not only about gays but about all childless adults).

(2) “Academic freedom” includes the privilege to be linguistically sloppy (“Well of course I meant ‘on average’ -- sheesh!”).

(3) “Academic freedom” includes the privilege of selectively omitting critical facts (i.e., nowhere in his non-apology does he mention the “gays engage in riskier lifestyles” remark that he also made at that lecture).

(4) "Academic freedom" includes the privilege to argue “My straw man can beat up your straw man...” (i.e., since Keynes was gay, all gays must be hedonists?).

He may be selling, but I’m not buying.

I see no reason to overturn my previous verdict:

"Academic freedom" does not include the freedom to lie or to "make stuff up." If you want to be politically (sociologically?) incorrect in the spirit of Charles Murray, then be my guest and more power to you. But you better damn well have some numbers to back it up. Otherwise you're just another bigot.

(Via GayandRight, who unfortunately falls for Hoppe’s con job.)

Good op-ed today by Frank Rich in the New York Times, regarding the history of gays and the Republican Party. Here's the part I found most interesting:

Today's judge-bashing firebrands often say that it isn't homosexuality per se that riles them, only the potential legalization of same-sex marriage by the courts. That's a sham. These people have been attacking gay people since well before Massachusetts judges took up the issue of marriage, Vermont legalized civil unions or Gavin Newsom was in grade school. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war, dating back to the late 1970's, when the Miss America runner-up Anita Bryant championed the overturning of an anti-discrimination law protecting gay men and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., and the Rev. Jerry Falwell's newly formed Moral Majority issued a "Declaration of War" against homosexuality. A quarter-century later these views remained so unreconstructed that Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson would go so far as to pin the 9/11 attacks in part on gay men and lesbians - a charge they later withdrew but that Mr. Robertson repositioned just two weeks ago. In response to a question from George Stephanopoulos, he said he now believes that activist judges are a more serious threat than Al Qaeda.

Exactly. Maybe you have to be over 30 to understand this, but the "too much too soon" crowd simply cannot seem to grasp the concept of "if not now, then when?" Somewhere, somewhen, there had to be a beginning. It happened to be Vermont and Massachusetts (or Hawaii, if you prefer) and it happened to be now. And whether the beginnings of same-sex partnership recognition had occurred today, ten years ago or ten years from now, there would still have been a "backlash." There has been a "backlash" forever, or at least since Anita Bryant. Waiting for no other reason than the fear of a "backlash" would have accomplished nothing. (And as for waiting for a Democratic president or Congress, we tried that once, and got federal DOMA and "Don't Ask Don't Tell" as a reward for our patience. Never again.)

Gay marriage existed in no "backlash state" before Vermont and Massachusetts. It would not have existed anytime soon had there not been Vermont and Massachusetts, with or without "backlash legislation." How is it a "loss" or a "mistake" to call their hands and "out them" with respect to their animosity toward gays?

Some argue that we have to win "hearts and minds" first. Well, you can't win hearts and minds arguing from a closet, or from a dinner table. You win them from news headlines and op-ed pages and Sunday talk shows (and now from blogs). Before there can be a debate, there has to be an issue that initiates the debate.

And as for "legislation rather than litigation" — that presupposes that we have a choice. If gays are left with no other option than to sue for their equal rights, then no one has a right to be surprised when that's exactly what they do. If anti-gay factions oppose gay rights lawsuits, then perhaps they shouldn't be paving a one-way street straight to the courthouse door. Stated differently, be careful what anti-gay laws you wish for — you might get them, complete with lawsuits challenging them.

No other disadvantaged group has ever been told to "just wait a few generations." Not women, not Jews, not blacks, not the handicapped. The moment they had the opportunity, they started fighting. And, for the most part, they all won.

Why should we be different?

Other thoughts on the Frank Rich piece from BlogActive.

UPDATE: WILLisms has a comprehensive post chock full of data, both relevant and irrelevant, about polling data regarding same-sex marriage. Read his post, then re-read my post, then draw your own conclusions (but be sure to see my comment at his post too).

A quick and dirty way to try to disarm a debate opponent is to turn his criticism of your position back on himself. If he calls you a racist, then find a way to label him a racist, etc.

Such is the approach of Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby (also by way of Town Hall) in his plea not to be labeled a bigot for his opposition to same-sex marriage:

Express the conviction that marriage should mean what it has always meant -- the union of male and female -- and you are likely to be told that you are peddling hate. Of all the motifs that get played and replayed in the marriage debate, this one is the worst. For two reasons: First, because it is untrue. Marriage was not created to hurt homosexuals or enshrine bigotry in law. It did not become a universal human institution as an expression of animus.

Classic bait-and-switch. Jacoby is confusing (deliberately in my view), the "institution of marriage" with opposition to same-sex marriage.

Marriage is a policy-neutral concept and of course cannot by itself be "bigoted." But arbitrarily denying competent, consenting adults access to that concept is not policy-neutral and can most certainly hurt homosexuals and enshrine bigotry.

(Oh, and as for "marriage should mean what it has always meant," Jacoby, much like the bigots he is so desperate not to be counted among, is playing fast and loose with history -- for thousands of years marriage "always meant" that a husband owned his wife as property, and until very, very recently had an unconditional legal right to rape her at will. So much for "marriage should mean what it has always meant.")

Of course "marriage was not created to hurt homosexuals" -- if it did then we would want no part of it! It is the opposition to same-sex marriage that "enshrines bigotry in law." And, given that every supposed "justification" for proscribing same-sex marriage has been debunked ten thousand times over (including of course on this blog ad nauseum), the simple, blatantly irrefutable truth at this point is that only one intellectually honest reason exists for opposing same-sex marriage: naked bigotry. And those who advocate bigotry are bigots -- deal with it.

The second reason that the "only-a-hater-could-oppose-gay-marriage" meme is so objectionable is its destructiveness. It breeds resentment between parties who should be seeking common ground. It causes pain to gays and lesbians by encouraging them to believe that they are hated by most of their fellow citizens. And it promotes the poisonous idea that those who defend the traditional definition of marriage are moral cripples.

Cripple is as cripple does. In any case, where exactly is this "common ground" that Jacoby laments gays are destroying? If anything, the "too much too soon" crowd is closer to correct on this point. Almost everywhere that gay marriage is being opposed and roadblocked, there is absolutely no discussion whatsoever of "common ground." Quite the contrary, the anti-gay factions are making it quite clear, at nearly every juncture, that in their minds not only is full and equal marriage off the table, but so is even the slightest hint at any legal acknowledgment of gay couples, in any context under any circumstances. It is increasingly becoming not about marriage at all, but rather about the last desperate attempts to tell gays that they are not welcome, not equal and not normal. It is the bigots' last best excuse to hurt gays for the sake of hurting them.

We have seen it in, among other places, Michigan, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska and now California, all of whose anti-gay factions are going leaps and bounds beyond "defending traditional marriage." Almost to a person they would rather flush their Bibles down the toilet than explore reaching any "common ground" on recognition of same-sex partnerships. If Jacoby refuses to see that, then he is neither blind nor innocent. Again, those who advocate bigotry are bigots -- deal with it.

If Jacoby is so interested in "making nice with the gays," then perhaps he should worry a little less about the supposed "pain" that we are allegedly causing ourselves by exposing bigots for who and what they are (how pathetic is that argument?) and focus instead on the limitless hypocrisy of those who are trying to deny gays even the simplest, most innocuous dignities in the name of "defending traditional marriage."

One parting shot:

In America today no one needs a marriage license to form a lifelong union with a partner of the same sex. Gays and lesbians already have that right. What they don't have is the official stamp of approval...

That, and none of the over 1,000 legal protections that are automatically conferred by the legal status of marriage. In this I agree with Jacoby wholeheartedly: marriage is not just a piece of paper.

If you lay down with dogs, then you wake up with fleas. Stated differently, the best way to prove yourself not to be a bigot is to fight the bigots and not their victims! Try, for example, openly supporting the Vermont paradigm: full and equal rights, but just not called "marriage." I guarantee you not a single gay -- including me -- will ever call you a bigot if you did. But if the shoe fits...

Jacoby should worry a little less about telling gays how best to let themselves be discriminated against and worry a little more about being on the right side of history, which -- bigot or not -- he currently isn't.

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars comes an op-ed from a former Bank of America chairman on the marriage of his gay son:

We have now had one year of legal same-sex marriage in our state. Despite predictions, we have not witnessed any threat to so-called "traditional marriage." There has not been an attack on family, and almost all would admit that very little has changed. In fact, however, something has changed. Many of our citizens have experienced the joy of marriage for the first time where the laws of our state have said, "You are equal." We have seen that joy in our son. To take that away would be an injustice. It would be devastating for our family and the real values we believe family should represent.

These kind words echo a point I've tried to make in response to the "too much too soon" crowd who insist that the "backlash" wasn't worth it and that gays should have instead tried to "win the hearts and minds" of straight America first.

Besides my continued belief that the "backlash" is overstated (or, to put it differently, the backlash "looks worse than it feels"), I think stories like this reinforce another part of my overall gay rights thesis: You can't have a meaningful, productive debate without something to debate about. This wonderful op-ed would never have been written, the 125 guests at this same-sex wedding would not have gathered, there would have been no observations of "gee, nothing really changed after all," had it not been for those first steps in Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

What exactly was the alternative? Waiting? For what? For even more towns, corporations and universities to "lead by example" through non-discrimination laws than the thousands that already had? For the Catholic Church to enter the Second Millennium, let alone the Third? For more woeful stories about denied deathbed visitations, or international couples cut off by bigoted immigration laws, or partners forbidden to adopt? For more Matthew Shepards? For a Democratic President and Congress?

No. That would all have accomplished nothing.

Anyone who didn't think the struggle for full gay equality would get very dirty and be chock full of defeats along the way, regardless of how long we waited for "the right time," or who thinks that if we had just won over a few more hearts and minds first and the bigots would have miraculously had one giant collective epiphany, are all terribly misguided.

Like any long, hard struggle, the sooner you start, the sooner you finish.

Noted legal theorist Larry Solum has an ongoing project called the "Legal Theory Lexicon" in which he drafts introductory discussions of various topics in legal theory and jurisprudence. The entries are specifically designed for incoming law students and are suitable for lay readers.

Solum recently posted an excellent new entry on the "Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty" (also available here), which is basically the conundrum of what should be the limits of unbridled democracy (i.e., mob rule) and what role should judicial review by (generally) unelected judges play in the government of a free society?

Those following the gay marriage debate and the various litigations regarding "backlash" legislation, amendments and voter initiatives should consider Solum's entry an absolute must-read. It will give you the weaponry you need to debunk the fiction that the most basic rights are, or should be, up for a majority vote.

Solum identifies the following reasons why it may be valid to limit the power of the majority:

--Insular Minorities: The one I tend to invoke the most when blogging on gay rights — one example here. The argument is that most political factions or constituencies grow and shrink, rise to power and fall from power, win politically and lose politically, at least some of the time over history. But when you have a permanent minority, with no hope of ever becoming a majority, then the "game" of politics is unfairly rigged against them and they are entitled, if not to "special rights," then at least to a check on the ability of the majority to permanently disempower or oppress them. Sound familiar?

--Competing Values: A free society may simply choose to value certain positives more than (limitless) "democracy." Such values might include "liberty" or "equality" or "privacy." As someone said recently about Nebraska's anti-gay amendment: "If 99% of Nebraskans voted to bring back slavery, it would still be wrong." Although this argument can be quite useful when arguing for gay rights, and can have some appeal to libertarians, it seems to me a philosophical framework better suited to liberal supporters of gay rights. But if the shoe fits, then kick somebody with it.

--Dualism: This justification for counter-majoritarianism holds that, since politicians don't always vote based on what their constituents want (in fact, voters may not even know what they want regarding a novel question), the courts may in fact be protecting the will of the majority by striking down laws if judges believe politicians have "strayed" from voting based on popular opinion. This tranche clearly doesn't apply to voter initiatives (although it can apply if, as in the case of gay rights, popular opinion is changing significantly). In any case, dualism is not as important for gay rights as the first two justifications.

The sophomoric bromide that "it should be left to the voters" does not deserve the respect that people are giving it. Certain questions, indeed the most important questions, often should not be left to the voters. That's why we have a Constitution, including a Bill of Rights and a powerful Fourteenth Amendment.

Those working to "win hearts and minds" in the struggle for same-sex marriage, and for gay rights generally, need to equip themselves with the intellectual tools to succeed in that endeavor. Saying "Pretty please?" over and over will get us absolutely nowhere. A solid understanding of the Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty and how to disarm the "we're a democracy" crowd is absolutely essential to the debate.

Please read Solum's entire entry — and use it.

POST SCRIPT: If you want to try out your newfound skills in arguing the Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty, then review this excellent Jon Rowe post asking, as does Andrew Sullivan, whether gays as a political group are more analogous to blacks or Jews. Can you tell which of the three counter-majoritarian arguments Rowe is invoking?

If it's "only about marriage," then why aren't the anti-gay forces in California celebrating?

[T]he California Supreme Court let stand a new law granting registered domestic partners many of the same rights and protections of heterosexual marriage.

Without comment, the unanimous justices upheld appellate and trial court rulings that the sweeping measure does not conflict with a voter-approved initiative defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
...
Groups opposing the law said Wednesday they hope to qualify a ballot measure asking voters to overturn the justices, and perhaps to bar gay and lesbians from ever getting married in California.

"Certainly, this reflects the importance of the people of California rising up to insure that their vote in 2000 is counted and not overlooked by the courts," said Robert Tyler, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which asked the justices to overturn the law.

So the anti-gay factions got exactly what they claim to want: no gay marriage in California. Equal rights (for the most part), equal treatment, equal dignity. Just no marriage.

And still they're upset.

Go figure.

Of course, the reason they're upset is because it's not about marriage at all. It's about naked bigotry.

With each new referendum by them, or court challenge by us, the untenable nature of their position becomes more obvious, their propaganda less defensible and their lies more blatant.

And with each new Massachusetts same-sex marriage, Vermont civil union or Connecticut ceremony, the sky will continue not falling and the politics of "no big deal" will gain momentum.

Are we moving from the end of the begiining to the beginning of the end?

If not now, then soon.

POST SCRIPT: Law passed via elected legislators. People unhappy with the law sue to have it overturned by a court. What's the term conservatives use for that again?

The United Church of Christ, mentioned previously in this post and this one, has "overwhelmingly" (their term, not mine) passed a resolution endorsing the concept of same-sex marriage:

The marriage equality resolution (1) affirms equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender and declares that the government should not interfere with couples regardless of gender who choose to marry and share fully in the rights, responsibilities and commitment of legally recognized marriage; (2) affirms equal access to the basic rights, institutional protections and quality of life conferred by the recognition of marriage, (3) calls for an end to rhetoric that fuels hostility, misunderstanding, fear and hatred expressed toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, (4) asks officers of the church to communicate the resolution to local, state and national legislators, urging them to support equal marriage rights, (5) calls upon all settings of the church to engage in serious, respectful and prayerful discussion of the covenantal relationship of marriage and equal marriage rights, (6) calls upon congregations, after prayerful, biblical, theological, and historical study, to consider adopting Wedding Policies that do not discriminate against couples based on gender, and (7) urges congregations and individuals of the UCC to prayerfully consider and support local, state and national legislation to grant equal marriage rights to couples regardless of gender, and to work again legislation, including constitutional amendments, which denies rights to couples based on gender.

The first response of the Catholic Church and the evangelical Christian right will of course be to ignore, then downplay the resolution as the "attention-grabbing" ploy of a "fringe" denomination desperate for membership, or that the resolution is meaningless since it wasn't approved by individual churches.

There are approximately 1.3 million UCC laypersons. The UCC traces its history back to 1620, with the Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Puritans. One might say that the UCC came over on the Mayflower.

In a nation of well over 200 million "Christians," 1.3 million may not seem like a lot, but the UCC is certainly no "fringe" sect.

It's so refreshing to see Christians actually behaving like, um, Christians. To the UCC Synod and laity and all the other denominations, churches, clergy and laypersons who take their Christian principles more seriously than their politics, I say thank you.

Finally, a quick note to the "too much too soon" crowd who lament the recent anti-gay "backlash" (i.e., certain states going from not having gay marriage to, um, not having gay marriage): Would the UCC resolution have even been introduced, let alone "overwhelmingly" adopted, had it not been for Vermont and Massachusetts?

As I blogged previously:

Some argue that we have to win "hearts and minds" first. Well, you can't win hearts and minds arguing from a closet, or from a dinner table. You win them from news headlines and op-ed pages and Sunday talk shows (and now from blogs). Before there can be a debate, there has to be an issue that initiates the debate.

I think the debate just entered Round Two.

UPDATE: Add the Quakers to the list of Christians behaving Christly. I have a sudden craving for oatmeal cookies. (Hat tip to Ace Pryhill.)

Anti-gay governor of Massachusetts and likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney apparently can't find money in the budget to print a handful of gay-neutral birth certificates:

Governor Mitt Romney's administration is advising hospitals to cross out the word father on birth certificates for the children of same-sex couples and instead write the phrase "second parent," angering gay and lesbian advocates and city and town clerks who warn that the altered documents could be legally questionable.
...
[C]ity and town clerks, who register and store birth records, argue that the cross-outs on the birth certificates could make them open to challenges by passport agents, foreign governments, and other officials. They have repeatedly asked Romney to create a new birth certificate for the children of same-sex parents that would include gender-neutral nomenclature.

But Romney has resisted, arguing that the Legislature must first pass a law authorizing such a change.

First of all, the idea that every update of every state form must first be authorized by the state legislature is the worst kind of political evasion. Perhaps Romney actually wants those Massachusetts "activist judges" to get involved again so he has another sound bite for his presidential run.

Anyway, as any minimally competent attorney can tell you, just "crossing stuff out" on simple private contracts, let alone official government documents, is an express lane to future litigation. Romney and his advisers undoubtedly know this.

A private attorney who suggested to just "cross stuff out" on important documents would be liable for malpractice. And a person who knowingly alters birth certifcates can be guilty of a crime.

But for a bigot governor and presidential hopeful, it's "politics."

Remind me again how it's not about naked bigotry, but "just about marriage"?

More thoughts from PurpleScarf.

FUN FACT: The Boston Globe also reports that there were 61 births to married same-sex couples in 2004 in Massachusetts. So far this year there are already 75. The future is already here!

When you read about Maine's anti-gay ballot initiative that will be voted upon this November, keep these simple facts in mind:

Maine does not have same-sex marriage. Maine does not have civil unions. Maine does not have domestic partnerships. Maine has no plan to offer same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships anytime soon. Maine has had an anti-gay DOMA since 1997. There are not now nor have there recently been any major court cases in Maine.

The law is a simple, one might say token, anti-discrimination measure:

As passed by the Legislature earlier this year, the law would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation.

Nothing about marriage or quasi-marriage at all. Not one word.

And still the bigots are fighting it tooth and nail.

When they say it's "just about marriage," they lie.

Remind me again how it's not about naked bigotry, and how it's all about a "backlash" for demanding "too much too soon"?

Exactly how much less and how much later would make these people happy?

I'm almost afraid to answer that question.

Of all the various manifestations of anti-gay bigotry extant in the U.S. today, none confuses me more than hostility from black clerics professing to care about "pro-family" black empowerment.

Here's the latest example:

There is a general feeling in this community that they have been let down in Washington. A good portion of the million and a half blacks that [sic] voted Republican in 2004 did so because of the prospect of leadership on the marriage amendment.

Oh really?

This is the same gobbledygook that some gay Republicans spew out, without a shred of reliable, hard data to support it, when they chant "a million gays for Bush." Isn't it possible, just possible, that people whom one would not have expected to vote for George W. Bush did so because of his stance on the War on Terror, or to "stay until victory" in Iraq, or because John Kerrey just plain sucked?

News flash: Many, perhaps most, people who voted for Bush in 2004 did so despite, not because of, his half-hearted support of the FMA.

More:

We are talking here about moral ABCs such as discouraging pre-marital sex and cohabitation, emphasizing the importance of marriage fidelity and the role of the community in providing support, such as male mentoring for our many fatherless children.
...
Why, I sometimes hear, is a community with such clear and immediate problems with education, employment and crime so obsessed with this issue? Are there that many black gay couples wanting wedding vows that black pastors should be taking valuable time from their daily responsibilities to become political activists for a federal marriage amendment?

The germane point that these black pastors understand is that the black community is the most exposed to and most likely to be injured by the problems of the nation as a whole. When America gets a cold, the black community gets pneumonia.

I'm pretty sure this one will win the "non sequitur of the year" award. Another news flash: black gays don't make fatherless black babies; black straights make fatherless black babies. In fact, one could posit that black gays, like gays generally, might have quite a bit of free time on their hands to engage in the very mentoring of fatherless black children that black pastors are lamenting is in too short supply.

Black gays do not have a tendency to be drug dealers, so don't blame them for rampant drug use in black communities. Black gays are presumably no more likely than black straights to commit violent crime, so don't blame them for crime crises in black neighborhoods. Black gays are presumably not discriminating against straight blacks in employment or housing, so don't blame them for any lack of opportunity in black communities. Black gays are not in positions of power in politics generally and especially not in the educational bureaucracy, so don't blame them for failing schools in black communities. Black gays are not responsible for heterosexual AIDS transmission in black communities, so don't blame them for what heterosexual needle-sharers are causing.

Black gays are not breaking up black families. As with every other subsegment of the gay community, often they're not considered part of the family to begin with.

Don't blame black gays for your problems. And while you're at it, don't blame white gays either. To the extent you're being oppressed, we're not the ones doing it. We've got enough on our plate right now.

As black leaders celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (or, as the case may be, lament the expiration of some of its provisions in 2007), how sad, how very sad, that many black leaders take the apparent stance of "we got ours, to heck with them," or worse "if they have the gays to hate, then maybe they'll leave us alone."

Black civil rights activists knew throughout their struggle that they were on the right side of history. How depressing that some are now on the wrong side of history, and for all the wrong reasons.

So says a Washington University at St. Louis physicist.

Perhaps the saddest part of the piece is not the almost limitless recitation of biblical, historical, epidemiological and anatomical errors it contains -- we're used to that.

No, what struck me most about the piece is that the word "love" appears nowhere in it. Lots of sex, but no love.

That's also nothing new. The bigots always -- always -- focus on sex, sex, sex. Never on love.

Remind me again who the perverts are?

Hat tip to Good As You.

The State of Washington has, after many years of narrow failure, narrowly passed a law adding sexual orientation to its list of prohibited forms of discrimination. Governor Christine Gregoire signed the legislation into law yesterday.

The bill makes no mention whatsoever about same-sex marriage, but only the standard and innocuous guarantee of fairness in things like employment, housing, credit and so on.

Nevertheless, the state's anti-gay bigots are planning — what else? — a voter initiative to rescind the measure.

So let's review:

--When they say its "only about marriage," they lie.

--When they say its about "activist judges," they lie.

--When they say it's about the "democratic process," they lie.

--And, most importantly, when they insist that it isn't really about naked bigotry, they lie.

More thoughts at Good As You, Coffeehouse Soapbox.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

The anti-gay bigots, in their rabid frenzy after the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts mandated same-sex marriage in that state, liked to proclaim that "everywhere that the issue has been raised, opponents of gay marriage have prevailed."

Not anymore:

Backers of a proposal to change the [Florida] constitution to ban gay marriage fell short Wednesday as the deadline passed for garnering enough support to get the amendment on this year's ballot.
...
Organizers mounted a last-day push to get petitions turned in, but fell short turning in only about 455,000 signatures of the 611,009 needed, said John Stemberger the leader of the petition effort.

The bigots have also failed in Maryland, where, even faced with a ruling by one of those "activist judges," the state legislature failed to approve putting an anti-gay voter initiative on the ballot.

The "backlash" in 2004 and 2005 was a simple case of selection bias. The bigots chose their states very carefully, and, until now, only attempted to pass these state constitutional amendments where they were certain such measures would pass.

But now that's over, or nearly over. To use a somewhat indelicate expression, the bigots shot their wad.

Suddenly, 18 states (or 20 if you include Virginia and Colorado) seem like much smaller numbers.

In any event, perhaps it's now time for our "backlash." From now until whenever the day comes when the last impediment to gay marriage is repealed, it's our turn to remind the politicians and voters who endorsed bigotry of their shameful deeds. We can do this by not living in these states, by not doing business in these states, by not going to college in these states, and by whatever other methods of shunning we deem appropriate.

Someday, sooner than one might think, the next generation growing up in these backlash states will apologize for their parents' shameful votes. Someday, sooner than one might think, these hateful acts will be undone.

I hope the bigots enjoyed their victories over the past two years. Because they're pretty much over now. They are on the wrong side of history. And history will be as unkind to them as they are now being to us.

More thoughts at Good As You.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

Care to guess who said this?

In a heterogeneous society, practice tends to be normative. That is why homosexual activists greatly exaggerate the prevalence of homosexuality -- asserting, on the basis of a misreading of Kinsey's famous studies, that 10 percent of the population is homosexual, whereas the true figure is probably at most 2 percent. The more homosexuals there are, the stronger their claim to be normal, a claim that would fail in a society that had a strict moral code condemning homosexuality.

Hint: Not a libertarian. Never was, never will be. Despite the insistence by some libertarians to the contrary.

(No, not Ron Paul -- though I could easily see him saying it.)

Before I disclose the author, a rebuttal:

First, sweeping generalizations such as this, even when spoken out of intellectual sloppiness and not malevolence, are bigotry.

Second, many if not most gay "activists" -- and certainly this gay activist -- argue not from a position of "normalcy" per se, but from a position of rights. The Ninth Amendment does not guarantee unenumerated rights "for the normal," but for everyone. The Fourteenth Amendment does not guarantee equal protection "for the normal," but for all people, period. The point is not that "we want you to consider us normal," but rather that "your connotations of normalcy ought to be irrelevant in a just society."

Moreover, rights accrue to individuals, not groups. There is not, or ought not be, some vague "critical mass" at which point a group suddenly achieves rights (i.e., by becoming "normal"). Moreover, even as a pragmatic question, the thesis is belied by the record. To a bigot, or the politician who panders to him, would it really have made a difference over the past few years whether gays were irrefutably 2% or 10% of the population? Is there any substantial difference between a democracy that is "two wolves and a sheep" and one that is "twenty wolves and a sheep"?

Third, we were "a society that had a strict moral code condemning homosexuality" for most of our history. That did not make our society "moral" -- any more than saying, circa 1860, that "society had a strict moral code endorsing slavery for most of our history" made that aspect of society "moral," then or now. Simply put: Moral codes can be decidedly immoral. That's precisely the problem with "normalcy-based" statecraft.

Answer here.