The White Peril 白禍

Gay News reports that Connecticut's civil unions bill has passed its three General Assembly committees and is ready to go to the State Senate:

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has endorsed the concept of civil unions, though she said last week she would like the bill amended to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Rell has not said failure to adopt such an amendment would provoke a veto.

If the bill becomes law, Connecticut would become the first state to allow same-sex civil unions without the threat of court action.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Christian Grantham and IGF have interesting comment threads going over GayPatriot's precipitous exit from blogging. Of course, some of the back-and-forth is little more than "You suck!"--"No, you suck!" stuff, but most of it is pretty thoughtful. Michael, who e-mailed GayPatriot himself about the whole thing, has a post of his own. I agree that the real story is not GP's identity. What most deserves attention is the vileness of Michael Rogers, which isn't new but has yet again manifested itself in a way that any honorable person should condemn. May I point out, briefly, though, that there really is a lesson or two to be learned in the other direction?

First, don't strike out at someone if you're not prepared to deal with his counterstrikes. You don't have to defend the behavior of a knife-brandishing rapist to point out that someone is stupid take him on with nothing but a squirt gun. As it happens, through dumb luck I clicked on GayPatriot when the original post with photographs and "terrorist" accusation was still up. I thought it was just his being overheated again and forgot about it; but I do not think like people who practice outing. It is not exactly unheard of for a miscreant to try to work vengeance through an enemy's employer, even if it's not Rogers's usual MO.

Second, when you routinely proceed from a Pharisaical stance of uncritical faith in your own rectitude, you are eventually going to get yourself into a pickle. Leftist gay activists do a lot that's destructive to our interests and those of society as a whole; there isn't a thing wrong with GP's wanting to rant about them and having a sense of mission about doing so. But that sort of operation requires a sense of proportion. It simply isn't true that gay activists cause every hangnail. (Not that they wouldn't if they could, especially if someone convinced them that hangnails were somehow transgressive.) He seems to have gone so far off the deep end in enthusiasm for sticking it to the gay left that he didn't realize, before pushing "Publish," that it might not be the wisest idea to post about the "terrorists" in our midst with a vague exhortation to strike back against them. I blame Michael Rogers for being outrageous, but I regret that GP gave him an opening.

Added on 30 March: Eric agrees that we should all post limeshurbert's newly laid-out adaptation of GP's original post. Fine by me:







One final thing: I find it thrilling to be able to look at comment threads and see so many gays debating outing under their own names, purely out of a desire to protect the privacy of others on principle. I can't imagine such a discussion here in Japan.

Whoa. Through Gay Orbit, I see GayPatriot is cutting himself off from the blog he started:

For personal and professional reasons that I am unable to fully discuss, I have to stop blogging as GayPatriot effective immediately.

I agreed with GP's conclusions about 99% of the time, but I thought his reasoning was frequently sloppy and cagily selective; the few times I linked him, it was mostly to take issue with his line of thought. At the same time, he really poured himself into the worthwhile task of making conservative and/or Bush-supporting gays visible in the blogosphere, and it worked. He can be proud of that. Like his other readers, I wish him the best and hope this move wasn't the result of some kind of threat. (BTW, GP West will apparently keep running the blog.)

I understand what the issue here is supposed to be, but I don't see the bind (which, pace Right Side of the Rainbow, would mostly be ethical and not exactly intellectual). The story was out a few weeks ago:

Rep. Brian Duprey (R-Hampden) has submitted a bill to the State Legislature to shield potentially homosexual fetuses from discrimination. LD 908, "An Act to Protect Homosexuals from Discrimination," attempts to protect homosexuals from death because they might carry the gene that could lead to homosexuality.

This bill as drafted would make it a crime to abort an unborn child if that child is determined to be carrying the "homosexual gene." Duprey said that no such genetic marker has yet been discovered. But considering rapid advancements in genetic mapping research, he wants legislation in place should such a breakthrough occur. "If the homosexual gene is ever determined to exist," he said, "I want to ensure that a woman could not abort an unborn child simply because that child is determined to be carrying this gene."

Duprey received the idea for this bill when listening to the Rush Limbaugh radio show. "I heard Rush saying that the day the 'gay gene' is determined to be real, that overnight gays would become pro-life," Duprey said.

Not this gay, buddy. If anyone finds a way to argue that it's okay for a woman to have an abortion because the child would interfere with her law-school plans but not okay because the child's going to be gay, I hope he's considerate enough to do it out of my earshot.

I suspect that if I went around talking to women who've had abortions, I would find a lot of their reasons frivolous. But I don't, because it's none of my business. I can't see abortion in the first trimester as murder, but I also can't imagine how anyone could have one without a serious crisis of conscience. It's not like going to the dermatologist to get a mole removed. If a woman decides to go through with it, for whatever reason, she has to deal with the consequences. That's what pro-choice means. You can approve or disapprove of a woman's choice, but she gets to make it.

I don't think the scenario depicted here is likely, though, in any case. What strikes me as far more probable is this: a set of genetic markers for a predisposition toward homosexuality is found. In 45% of known cases, the child grows into a homosexual adult; in the other 55%, the adult is heterosexual. Environmental factors must be involved, but no one has figured out exactly what they are or when sexuality gels. It's probably different for different people, anyway. (It's hard to get good stats on gays because psychologists tend not to know about those of us who don't have messed-up lives.) So parents have the children--whom they spend the next 18 years driving berserk with their frantic efforts to make sure they don't turn out queer.

I find it very cheering to read things like this:

The Montana Senate has passed a bill that could allow limited rights to same-sex couples. The measure would create a statewide registry where people could designate their next of kin.

Although the legislation does not specifically mention gay and lesbian couples it was assailed by opponents as being pro gay. The bill would allow people in relationships to name their partners as next of kin, regardless of sexuality. Single people could also take advantage of it by naming a relative, friend or caregiver.

The measure gives the next of kin the right to hospital visits, the right to make medical decisions and also allows them to receive the dead person's remains. It provides an easy mechanism so that a lawyer is not needed.

Supporters of the bill stressed the advantages it would provide the elderly, the ailing and the disabled.

"I think it's got a much broader impact than gay-rights legislation," Sen. Jon Ellingson (D-Missoula) told the Billings Gazette after the debate.

"This is a simple bill that allows folks, whether they're married or single, to manage their personal affairs."

See? Notice--no mention of whether anyone's getting it regularly, which is not the government's problem. Now if gay activists start bellowing that this bill is discriminatory because it doesn't exalt our relationships in every damned finicking little detail, I will throw myself off a bridge.

Okay, I won't. If I'd made a practice of keeping promises of that nature, I'd've been dead long ago. But I find it hard to be hopeful that our activists will ever learn to see our issues as woven into those of the broader society, even if other good-hearted people already can.

A gay crime of passion in my native Lehigh Valley! Gay guys in Bath? We really are everywhere. How exciting:

A 37 year old Pennsylvania man has been charged with setting fire to his ex-lover's home in an attempt to kill him.

Police in Bath, northeast of Allentown, say that Donald K. Albright went to the home of Wayne Keeler in the early hours of Sunday morning, chained the doors, sealed the windows and then doused the exterior with gasoline before lighting it.

Keeler managed to get out of the burning structure and was unharmed.

The house was badly burned on the outside and a car belonging to Keeler was destroyed.

...

After the relationship ended, Albright left numerous text and voicemail messages for Keeler which police describe as sounding suicidal and angry.

Albright also had been discussing the breakup in the chat room where he and Keeler met according to investigators. In one chat message recovered by police Albright said that Keeler loved his Volkswagen more than he loved him.

That last part is poignant, but if I were the jiltee, I'd take it as a signal that I need to spend a full weekend getting blotto and listening to the Go-go's immortal "Skidmarks on My Heart" on Repeat 1. In fact, I'd do the whole album. Then look for a new boyfriend. Maybe I'm just too tightly wound.

Added at 21:39: Our local paper has the story in slightly more detail. In all seriousness, I hope the poor guy wasn't closeted, because he obviously isn't anymore.