10,000 Words

Conservatives whine about the affinity of African-Americans to vote Democratic. "Why, why?", they ask. "Just because we fight affirmative action doesn't mean we don't care about African-Americans. Haven't we reached out to them on family values?"

Well, if you want to know how much Republicans care about the African-American vote, take a look:

Democrats at the All-American Presidential Forum. All present and accounted for.

Republicans at the All-American Presidential Forum. Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson -- MIA.

Need any further explanation?

Update: Buchanan on Strategy

Pat Buchanan offered an explanation of the Republican no-show on "Meet the Press" yesterday. In the stark terms of RealPolitik, Buchanan's explanation made sense.

In a nutshell, Buchanan said this:

Only a tiny minority of African-Americans vote for Republicans in the general election under any circumstances. An even tinier minority of African-Americans participate in the Republican primary process nationally. And practically no African-Americans participate in the Republican primary process in Iowa, New Hampshire or Michigan, the states in which the first Republican contests will be held.

The first three contests will determine the Republican nominee, for all practical purposes, because if any of the candidates wins all three, or two of the three, it will be impossible to stop him. As a result, any Republican candidate who is not entirely focused on those three contests is wasting time and resources at this point.

Because almost no African-American votes will count toward the primary results in the early contests, and Republican candidate appearing before an African-American audience at this point exposes himself to risk -- he might give an inch and piss off white primary voters -- with no prospect of gain.

After a Republican candidate has the nomination, he can seek African-American votes in the general election, as long as the candidate remains true to conservative principles and does not soften on affirmative action. The votes he may gain may be few, but it might be possible to leverage African-American cultural conservatism and growing affluence into votes from the African-American community.

Beyond Ridiculous

This week, yet another study was released showing that gay and lesbian parents do as good a job of parenting as straight couples.

A review of parenting studies by New York's Yeshiva University concludes that children do better with two parents than with one, but it does not matter whether the parents, in either case, were straight or gay/lesbian.

I've lost count of the number of studies, now, that have demonstrated this simple fact. The studies are consistent, across the board. So consistent and ubiquitous, in fact, that the Religious Right is reduced to spouting the discredited studies of Paul Cameron or resorting to outright lies about the mainstream studies to bolster their claim that, as Wisconsin Turtle Lover, a young and rather full-of-himself social conservative blogger in the area, likes to put it, "children need a mommy and a daddy".

Meanwhile, in Utah, a niece asked her uncle to take her four kids and care for them because she is dealing with drug-related criminal matters and, at least for now, can't. The uncle, Michael Valdez, is gay, and in a long term relationship with another man, Michael Oberg. Both have steady jobs, a home, and no criminal record - but they aren't allowed to take in the kids, under Utah law, which doesn't not allow foster children to be placed in homes where two people cohabit without benefit of clergy.

It is beyond ridiculous, and it is time to put an end to the nonsense.

The statistics on child neglect and child abuse in this nation are beyond the pale -- 2.5 million cases of child abuse, and about 7 million cases of neglect are reported every year, for example. But when a stable same-sex couple wants to foster parent, you can count on the Religious Right, the courts and government agencies in many of our states to yank the kids out of the home amidst much ballyhoo about "family values".

It is too much. Straight parents, in unconscionable numbers, beat, neglect and otherwise abuse their kids. So what gets attention from the "family values" crowd? Gay and lesbian parenting.

I'm coming to believe that further studies are a waste of time, to be blunt about it.

All the studies in the world will make no difference. The Religious Right doesn't give a tinker's about kids, no matter what they pretend. The Religious Right doesn't care if the number of studies piles up high enough to crush them all stone cold dead if they fall over. The Religious Right has it's eyes wide shut and simply is not going to change.

I'm not looking for a change from them. But I have an idea that might actually help children in this country. Let's figure out how much money we are wasting on trying to prove, yet again, that gay and lesbian parents are just as good as straight parents, and put 2 percent of the money wasted into studies of the kids raised by straight parents, and see if we can figure out why the statistics on abuse, abandonment and neglect are so damnably high.

That might actually do some good.

God as Terrorist

"The term 'domestic terrorism' means activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life ... (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States." -- Section 2331, Title 18, United States Code


Oklahoma State Senator Ernie Chambers, who looks a bit like God, is suing God.

Chambers said that he filed the suit this week to prove a point about frivolous lawsuits. Chambers said senators periodically have offered bills prohibiting the filing of certain types of suits, and said his main objection is that the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all: "Thus anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody -- even God."

If nothing else, the lawsuit proves that Chambers is not without a dark sense of humor. Chambers appears to have taken the definition of "terrorism" from the United States Code (the definition of "domestic terrorism" is quoted above; the definition of "international terrorism" is functionally identical, except that it applies to acts outside the United states or acts affecting both the United States and one or more other countries) and made the Religious Right's claims about God the basis of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses God "of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff who Plaintiff has the duty to represent.", and acts upon his threats by causing "calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction.", including "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like".

What the lawsuit describes -- accurately, I think -- is the Religious Right's mindset.

If you listen to the clanging cymbals of the Religious Right -- Dobson, Robertson, the late Falwell and Kennedy, and so on -- God does fit the definition of a terrorist.

When the God they imagine isn't actually wreaking vengeance, He's threatening to do so, unless the United States and its citizens start acting like the Religious Right wants them to act. God's continual threats of mass destruction fits the definition of "domestic terrorism" with eerie precision.

But the God they imagine wreaks vengeance as often as not, often on a global scale.

The God they imagine decided to wreak vengeance on gays in the US, so He unleashed AIDS upon millions of straight women and children in Africa and Asia. The God they imagine decided to warn the US about doing the nasty outside of marriage, so He unleashed virulent fundamentalist Islamists who killed innocent people in New York, Bali, Madrid and London. The God they imagine decided to protest Southern Decadence, so He destroyed the homes and livelihoods of poor folk in New Orleans and wiped out whole cities in Mississippi.

Now, I ask you -- doesn't that fit the definition closely, as well? Ernie Chambers may have his tongue in his cheek, but he hit the nail on the head.

With a God that, who needs to worry about Satan?

Human beings tend to make Gods in our own image. We imagine Gods that reflect our hopes, our deepest yearnings, what we see as the best in ourselves.

So what does it tell you about the Religious Right when the God they imagine is a violent, vindictive, total shit?

I wonder if that isn't the message behind the message in Chamber's lawsuit.

Values

If you want to see pandering raised to an art form, take a look at the "Values Voter Presidential Debate" hosted by Phyllis Schlafly, Paul Weyrich, Don Wildmon, Mat Staver, Rick Scarborough, and Janet Folger last week.

The "Values Voter" movement pushes an off the wall amalgam born of fundamentalist paranoia (reverse the loss of religious liberty for churches, prohibit activist judges from ruling against acknowledgments of God), right-wing "get the government off our backs" nonsense (prohibiting schools from evaluating children's performance), tax cuts, xenophobia ("True Enforcement and Border Security", prohibiting the use of foreign law as authority by judges, whether or not incorporated into US law by treaty), and resentment against "activist judges".

Oh, and deep concern about "our national interest in the institutions of marriage and family", which consists of two, and only two, initiatives: passing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and passing the "Protect Marriage Act" ban same-sex marriage. The out-of-wedlock birth rate, declining marriage rates, rampant divorce and flagrant disregard for Jesus' observations about remarriage aren't an issue to "Values Voters", I guess. Just us fags, who threaten to bring civilization to its knees by getting married and staying married.

In any event, the problem for Republican presidential candidates is that these folks, who consist of about 20% of the electorate, get whipped up into a frenzy by their "bible-based" churches around election day and vote in high percentages. As a result, "Values Voters" control the Republican primary process. If the "Values Voters" settle on a "man of faith" as they did in 2000 when they coalesced around George Bush, other candidates can call it a day. Ask John McCain, if you don't believe me.

This year, the "Values Voters" have not, so far anyway, coalesced around a "man of faith". Not that there isn't an abundance of self-proclaimed "men of faith" running for President on the Republican ticket, ranging from born-again Mike Huckabee to wild-eyed Alan Keyes. And now that James Dobson has dumped on Fred Thompson, the great white hope of "Values Voters", it looks like the "Values Voters" are going to have to dig deeper.

Mike Huckabee, who seems to be a decent man, if a "true believer" for the Christian right in the sense that Dennis Kuchinich is a "true believer" for the left-liberals, won the post-debate straw poll hands down (63%) followed by Ron Paul (12%) and Alan Keyes (7%). The rest of the field barely registered a blip with the "Values Voters" attending the debate.

Interestingly, Mitt Romney, the flip-flopping Mormon, got not a single -- not one -- vote in the straw poll. We might be in for some fun in early 2008, if Romney wins in the early caucuses and primaries, and the "Values Voters" have to start rationalizing Romney as a "man of faith", when a significant number of conservative Christians think Mormonism is an anathema. It will happen, of course, once the Religious Right's spin machine gets going. "Values Voters", who are just about the only folks in the country who still think that George Bush is a great man -- proving that they are loyal to a fault once they decide someone is a "man of faith", if not very smart, since Bush has done zip for them -- give new meaning to biblical phrase "Are we like sheep?"

I watched the "debate" on streaming video, and it was a hoot, particularly when it came to issues involving gays and lesbians -- the "What will you do to stop homosexuals from taking over the country?" variety.

The various Republican candidates toe the "Values Voters" hard line stance on gay and lesbian issues, for the most part -- here's a rundown:

THE SHOW

Rudy Giuliani

Once a supporter of gays and lesbians, Giuliani changed his tune when it became clear that he couldn't win unless he got straight with the Religious Right. Giuliani now emphasizes his opposition to same-sex marriage, though he also opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, putting him in the same camp as most of the Democratic presidential candidates. Giuliani came out against New Hampshire's civil union law. Giuliani has dodged DADT, saying "now isn't the time" to revisit the policy, given the war in Iraq. Giuliani dodged questions about his support for ENDA. Giuliani says he plans to appoint judges to the Supreme Court in the mold of Antonin Scalia, who wrote a distempered dissent in Lawrence.

John McCain

Although McCain never expressed strong views about gays and lesbians, either way, McCain sharply attacked the Religious Right as "agents of intolerance" in the 2000 primaries: "Political intolerance by any political party is neither a Judeo-Christian nor an American value. We are the party of Ronald Reagan, not Pat Robertson."

McCain is an opponent of a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, on federalist grounds, although he supported an amendment to the Arizona Constitution to ban gay marriage, which failed at the ballot box. McCain has declined to take sides in the debate over civil unions in New Hampshire. McCain voted against the inclusion of sexual orientation in hate-crime laws. McCain supports DADT and opposes ENDA.

Mitt Romney

Romney fashions himself as the best candidate to protect the "traditional family" from the onslaught of same-sex marriage. Romney is adamantly opposed to extending legal protection to gay and lesbian families: "Today same-sex couples are marrying under the law in Massachusetts. Some are actually having children born to them. We've been asked to change their birth certificates to remove the phrase 'Mother and Father,' and replace it with 'Parent A and Parent B.' It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and a father." With the conviction of the converted, Romney is a cheerleader for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In more recent years, Romney has come out strongly against ENDA and announced that he supports DADT.

But Romney has had a change of heart. As recently as 2002, Romney's gubernatorial campaign distributed a pink flier to celebrate Pride Weekend: "All citizens deserve equal rights regardless of their sexual preference," or so the the flier said at the time.

And now, most recently, he seems to be recanting a bit on his hard-line stance against gay and lesbian families, noting, in New Hampshire this summer: "There are other ways we raise kids, and that's fine -- single moms, grandparents raising kids, gay couples raising kids. That's the American way to have people have their freedom of choice." With Romney, its not so much WYSIWYG as "I tell you what you want to hear ..."

Fred Thompson

Thompson does not support amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Instead, he supports amending the Constitution to prevent state or federal judges from legalizing marriage without the consent of state legislatures, and to codify DOMA in the Constitution. Thompson opposes hate-crime laws, opposes ENDA, and supports DADT.

THE MINORS

Ron Paul

Paul is basically Libertarian and believes that government should stay out of the lives of citizens. Paul is against a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, is against federal laws that could protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, including hate-crime laws and ENDA. Paul supports DADT.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee says he will lead a effort to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, opposes hate-crimes bills and ENDA, and supports DADT. As governor, he led the Arkansas fight to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual union, and supported a ban on gay couples becoming foster parents.

Tom Tancredo

Tancredo supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, opposes ENDA and hate-crimes laws for sexual orientation, supports DADT, and voted to prevent the District of Columbia from offering domestic partnership benefits to homosexual employees.

Duncan Hunter

Hunter boasts of having led the opposition to gays serving openly in the military, and, along with Keyes, advocates the idea that homosexuality itself -- as opposed to homosexual acts -- is immoral. Paul is against hate-crime laws for sexual orientation and in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Needless to say, he supports DADT and opposes ENDA.

Sam Brownback

Brownback fashions himself as the Senate's most outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage. He has spent hours on the floor of the Senate with charts showing the declining rate of heterosexual marriage in Scandinavian countries, where gay unions have been sanctioned for years, arguing that any redefinition of marriage in the United States could have devastating consequences on heterosexual monogamy.

Brownback has made opposition to gays and lesbians a central issue of his campaign. When General Peter Pace called homosexuality "immoral," Brownback was one of the few Republicans to offer his public support. Brownback is against ENDA and hate-crime legislation and supports DADT.

Alan Keyes

Keyes announced his candidacy a week or two ago, and it is taking on the flavor of a "moral crusade", just as his 2004 Illinois Senatorial campaign did. As usual with Keyes, gays and lesbians are in his cross-hairs. He supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, opposes hate crimes legislation and ENDa, and supports DADT. If past is prologue, Keyes can be counted on to raise the level of "Values Voter" hysteria in the campaign to new levels.

Georginator Redux

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced he will again veto legislation that would allow same-sex couples to marry in California, and vowed that he will continue to veto any future legislation passed while he remains governor.

Schwarzenegger said that the only thing that would change his mind is if voters overturned Proposition 22.

Proposition 22 was passed by the electorate in 2000, but California courts have ruled that Proposition 22 only applies to marriages performed out of state. Schwarzenegger takes a different, wider stance: "It would be wrong for the people to vote for something and for me to then overturn it."

The Pink Parable

The Cambridge, Nova Scotia, Chronicle Herald reported a quiet story about human decency this week.

A high school freshman arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday wearing a pink shirt and he was set upon by a group of six to ten older students who mocked him, deriding him as gay and threatening to beat him up. As we all know, this kind of bullying is common in middle and high schools.

What wasn't common is this: The next day, seniors David Shepherd and Travis Price (shown in the photo, complete with bad hats) decided to do something about it. The two students bought 75 pink tank tops and material to make pink armbands, and then, using the Internet, encouraged students at the school to wear them. The two told the Chronicle Herald that about half the school's students showed up for school wearing pink.

It was hard to miss the mass of students in pink milling about in the school's lobby when school started, particularly for the group that had harassed the freshman.

As Price noted: "The bullies got angry. One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We’re glad we got the response we wanted."

Shepard told the newspaper that one of the bullies angrily asked him whether he knew pink on a male was a symbol of homosexuality. He told the bully that didn't matter to him and shouldn't to anyone: "Something like the color of your shirt or pants, that’s ridiculous. Our intention was to stand up for this kid so he doesn’t get picked on." Price said that the bullies "keep giving us dirty looks, but we know we have the support of the whole student body. Kids don’t need this in their lives, worrying about what to wear to school. That should be the last thing on their minds."

Price told the Chronicle Herald that growing up, he was often picked on for wearing store-brand clothes instead of designer duds. Shepard said that bullying is common in schools, and "It's my last year. I've stood around too long and I wanted to do something."

Two decent kids who had finally had it with the "faggot, queer" bullying in their high school. That's good news.

But there's more to it than that ... it was the hundreds of other high school students sending the same message that put the bullies at bay, and will keep them at bay.

What is remarkable is that when something like this happens, it makes news. Everyone asks what it is that makes kids like these – kids who stand up and say "Hey, this isn't right.", on a moment's notice.

But that's the wrong question.

What we really need to know is what makes bullies, and what makes normal, decent people go silent when the bullies roam at large. We have all seen it, and we all know it. The bullies reign until someone or something sparks a rebellion, and then their day is done.

The real lesson in the parable of pink is that it isn't up to the police or the politicians to stop the bullying in our society.

It's up to ordinary people, people like Price and Shepard, people like you and me.

True enough, but human beings tend to stand silent in the face of bulling until someone or something sparks a rebellion.

And that is the point of the parable. It doesn't take much to spark the rebellion, but it does take someone or something.

In an odd coincidence, GLSEN issued a report on Gay-Straight Alliances in US high schools the same day that Price and Shepard sparked the rebellion in their high school.

The report, based on comparative studies of US high schools with Gay-Straight Alliances and those without, showed that Gay-Straight Alliances help make schools safer for all students and likely play an integral role in mitigating the negative impact of bullying and harassment on gay and lesbian students.

The report showed:

(1) Students in schools with Gay-Straight Alliances are less likely to hear homophobic remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" in school on a daily basis than students without Gay-Straight Alliances (57% compared to 75%).

(2) Gay and lesbian students in schools with Gay-Straight Alliances are less likely to miss school because they feel unsafe compared to other students: a quarter (26%) of students in schools with Gay-Straight Alliances missed school in the past month because they felt unsafe compared to a third (32%) of students at schools without Gay-Straight Alliances.

(3) Students in schools with Gay-Straight Alliances are more likely to report that school faculty, staff and administrators are supportive of gay and lesbian students (52% compared to 32%).

Why?

Apparently because Gay-Straight Alliances play a role that is similar to that played by Price and Shepard, if less dramatically. By establishing and joining Gay-Straight Alliances, students and faculty show a desire to make their schools safer for gay and lesbian students, and say "Hey, this isn't right.".

The Religious Right hates Gay-Straight Alliances, and fights them tooth and nail. And for good reason. Gay-Straight Alliances make it harder for the Religious Right to bully the next generation.

Cauli-fornia

I'm curious about the utter lack of suspense about concerning the fate of the same-sex marriage bill -- which passed the legislature again this year, and sits on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk -- in Cauli-fornia.

Just about everybody seems to assume -- actually, seems to take it as a given -- that Governor Schwarzenegger will do a remake of his 2005 pre-election performance -- Georginator II -- and veto the bill.

I suppose that's right. But I wonder.

What makes me wonder is a speech that Schwarzenegger gave to a state Republican Party convention in Indian Wells the other day.

In marked contrast to past performances before the party faithful, where Schwarzenegger bobbed and weaved, Schwarzenegger lectured the mostly social conservative delegates about the California Republican Party's increasing irrelevance.

Schwarzenegger has a point. California is a solidly Democratic state. It votes Democratic in Presidential elections. Democrats control both houses of the legislature, both Senate seats, most statewide offices and a majority of the congressional delegation.

Schwarzenegger pointedly remarked that Democratic Party dominance is not written in stone, but a result of Republican insularity. According to Schwarzenegger, Democratic control of the state could be turned around if the Republican party would reach out to independent voters and to disaffected members of both parties.

During his remarks, Schwarzenegger declared himself a "proud member" of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, who "righted the greatest moral injustice" in the nation's history, of Teddy Roosevelt, the "enthusiastic reformer" and early environmentalist, and of Ronald Reagan, the "pragmatic conservative" who captured the political center.

He went on to say: "The goal of any political party is to win elections, to become a majority and to advance its ideals. How do we succeed at that? By including, not excluding. By being open to new ideas, not rejecting them out of hand. By expanding into the center, not falling back upon ourselves into a smaller and smaller corner."

Schwarzenegger, it seems to me, is right about the Republican party in California. Dominated by social conservatives who oppose gay rights, abortion rights and immigration - illegal immigration, but also, in many cases, even legal immigration - the Republican party has turned off voters who might be otherwise open to it. According to recent polls, the party has lost 370,000 voters in the past two years and today represents just 34% percent of California electorate.

As Schwarzenegger put it, the Republican Party in California is "dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats."

The shame of it all, Schwarzenegger noted, is that many independent voters agree with the party's core principles ("limited government that is not wasteful ... taxes should be as low as possible, because the more you give government the more it will spend ... individual freedom and the responsibility that goes with that freedom ... the importance of public safety ... that economic prosperity comes from the energy of the marketplace, not from the heavy hand of the state ...") but are turned off by the Republican party's focus on positions that are demanded by a minority, but a loud and influential minority, of the party's members -- the social conservatives.

Needless to say, Schwarzenegger's remarks drew heavy fire from social conservatives.

California state Senator Tom McClintock put it this way: "We can win some short-term victories by compromising our philosophy for political expediency. I've actually watched some people do that. But a party that does that soon discovers it has ceased to be a party. First, it loses its soul. And then it loses its supporters."

And that -- the contrast between the two men -- is the dilemma facing California Republicans today.

As Schwarzenegger pointed out, social conservatives have driven the California Republican party into a corner, and not just with independent voters. Most self-identified Republicans in California don't buy social conservative orthodoxy -- a majority of California Republicans think that global warming is an important issue, a majority of California Republicans favor legal recognition of same-sex relationships, a majority of California Republicans believe that abortion laws should remain intact, and a majority of California Republicans believe that any plan to deal with illegal immigrants should include a path to citizenship. All of these views are anathema to social conservatives.

But while that may be true, McClintock is also right -- the Republican party cannot win without the "base", the 20% of the electorate who think that "family values" demand that our county must weaken the Bill of Rights in the name of freedom, severely punish criminals, exercise our biases against racial, ethnic and linguistic minorities, remain unflaggingly hostile toward gays and lesbians, and eliminate all vestiges of the social safety net.

I'll be curious to see how this plays out in California over time, as in the rest of the nation. The Republican party is imploding under the "breastplate of righteousness" it has donned at the behest of social conservatives, but because social conservatives dominate the Republican party and aren't going to give up control, I don't see an easy path out of the dilemma.

And I wonder if Schwarzenegger was sending a signal to social conservatives. I'm not hopeful that Schwarzenegger is going to sign the same-sex marriage bill -- I'd say that odds are 5:1 against it, at best -- but I'm no longer certain that it is a given, as most people seem to assume.

We'll see, I guess.

The Grand Old Perversion

Life used to be simpler, in a simpler time.

Back then, Democrat politicians got themselves into scandals over booze and floozies - Wilbur Mills' infamous tidal pool escapades with Fanny Fox, for example - and Republicans got themselves into scandals over petty greed - Sherman Adams' vicuña overcoat comes to mind.

Life isn't so simple any more, ever since the "family values" crowd took over the Republican party and turned it into the Grand Old Perversion. Democrat politicians are holding up their end of the stick by getting into messes over floozies - Bill Clinton's efforts in this regard were positively heroic - but Republicans are invading the Democrats' sex scandal turf, after a fashion.

Republican politicians aren't competing with Democrats, exactly. You won't catch any of them, it seems, with the "she sure looks at lot better at closing time" crowd. Instead, Republican "family values" politicians seem to be specializing in rather, uh, twisted sex scandals.

Louisiana Republican Senator Dan Vitter, for example, hired hookers to make him wear diapers. Actually, it gets worse, but I'm not going there.

No diapers for Republican Congressman Mark Foley, of Florida, who specialized in really creepy e-mail exchanges with teenage House pages.

And now, of course, Republican scandals have moved on to "bathroom boys" like Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

All of these guys made a political career out of "family values". What's with that?

Vitter, Foley and Craig are just the tip of the iceberg. Drill down into the "family values" crowd - both church and state side - and the picture gets worse rather than better.

Hasn't anyone in the "family values" crowd heard about good, old-fashioned, hop-in-bed-and-screw-like-rabbits sex, straight or gay?

I don't have any theories about why so many of the "family values" crowd are into twisted sex. Maybe men who feel the need to moralize like church ladies start out twisted, or maybe after too many hours of listening to the likes of James Dobson and Julaine Appling, whatever part of their brains wants screw-yourself-silly sex with a real partner under normal circumstances just snaps like a poplar in a storm. I don't know. All I know is that its gotten so I'm starting to wonder what twist is coming next.

With Larry Flint investigating twenty more Republican Congress-critters, I have a sneaking suspicion I'll find out.

Yuk.

Creationism Redux

Fred Thompson may not be right-thinking enough to support the FMA, but he is not dumb. He knows how to kow-tow.

According to Thompson in a weekend Iowa campaign appearance: ""No states have affirmatively approved gay marriage. There's been no state legislature in the nation that has done that and not likely too ... If some state wants to come along through their legislature and do something different let them answer to their own people and I got a feeling they won't be in the legislature that much longer."

The "no legislature in the nation has approved same-sex marriage" is an article of faith among social conservatives, even though it has no more basis in fact than either of the contradictory seven-day creation accounts in Genesis. Truth be known, same-sex marriage has been approved by both houses of the California legislature twice now, in two different legislative sessions. It was vetoed the first time around by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it looks like it will be vetoed again. But facts are facts -- California will almost certainly approve same-sex marriage in the legislative session immediately following the year in which a Democratic Governor is elected. New York and New Jersey are also likely to do so within a couple of years.

The facts regardless, Republican candidates who hope to win the "base" must repeat the "no legislature" fiction, just as they must raise their hands when asked if they believe the Biblical creation accounts. Doing so is an obligatory act of obedience and faith.

Off camera, Thompson's staff was quick to clarify that Thompson meant to say that no state has passed a law approving same-sex marriage, not a state legislature, but he achieved his purpose -- in today's politics, particularly among the faithful, sound bytes count, and nuance merely obfuscates.

Dead on Arrival?

Fred Thompson's much-hyped campaign is barely out of the closet, and it looks like the campaign might already be dead in the water.

Thompson is pushing an alternative constitutional amendment to the FMA. The Thompson amendment wouldn't ban states from legalizing marriage for gays and lesbians (unlike the FMA) but would prevent states from having to recognize marriages among gays and lesbians from other states, like Massachusetts. In short, Thompson would enshrine DOMA in the Constitution, making certain that DOMA will not be ruled unconstitutional. Thompson's stance on the amendment is consistent with his state's rights views on other issues, and it is likely that he means it.

Needless to day, the "base" doesn't think that Thompson's idea is, well, heavenly. The "base" insists on banning any state from recognize same-sex marriage, ever, period, and won't settle for anything less.

The Associated Press reports that the Arlington Group -- political leaders of the Religious Right that drives the "base" -- met privately Wednesday and Thursday in Washington to discuss presidential politics and other issues. Although the Arlington Group is secretive, and does not reveal its internal discussions, a number of the participants talked to the AP about Thompson.

Rick Scarborough, a Southern Baptist preacher and president of Texas-based Vision America, said that while he is encouraged by Thompson's voting record, "The problem I'm having is that I don't see any blood trail. When you really take a stand on issues dear to the heart of social conservatives, you're going to shed some blood in the process. And so far, Fred Thompson's political career has been wrinkle-free."

Mathew Staver of the Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based conservative legal group, described Thompson as waffling back and forth about the FMA: "At one time, he said he was against it. Then he said in June he was for it. So if now he's saying he's against it, to me that's a double-minded person. And that would be a real concern for religious conservatives."

And so on.

No Republican candidate for President can make it through the primary process without significant support from the "base", as John McCain learned in the 2000 primaries. Thompson billed himself as the "conservative alternative", but on the only issue that the "base" has any political traction at all, he's turning his back on the Religious Right.

I'm not sure how it will play out. The Religious Right leadership cannot abide Giuliani, and positively hates the idea of a Democratic (read Hillary) win in the 2008 election.

So Thompson's poll ratings -- he currently ranks high in polls, both among Republicans and in the general population -- might lead the "base" to swallow the bitter pill that they'll have to support a candidate who isn't interested in abolishing same-sex marriage nationwide.

Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, said that while he likes Huckabee, Thompson's better name recognition and fund raising potential is a strong draw for evangelicals: "This is a dilemma a lot of people have. They want to support the candidate that most reflects their values. But at the same time, you have to balance that against finding someone who can actually win."

Is Thompson dead in the water? Probably, but maybe not.

Vacation's Over

I took a few weeks off. Break's over, and I'll be catching up, with a wide stance.