Over at Right-Thinking From the Left Coast, regarding Bernard Kerik, Lee writes:

Cower in terror, you Islamist queers. Bernie’s about to stick a boot up your ass.

Odd bit of language, don’t you think, using queer there?

I consulted Dictionary.com. There’s a link - you can click it.

I think it is absolutely atrocious of Lee to equate the war on terrorism with homosexuality. I’m sure that some of his supporters will try to say, “Oh, he meant definition #3 - ‘Questionable Character.’” Well, I do agree that many if not all terrorists are ‘questionable characters’, it’s hard in this day and age not to equate the word ‘queer’ with its homosexual definitions.

Like, that popular tv show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. And look at that site define the show: “…an elite team of gay men…”

Like the word queer, not many people today associate the word gay with ‘bright and lively’, do they?

The strongest evidence, of course, that Lee meant ‘queer’ in the homosexual is his reference to Kerik’s boot assuming the symbolic being of a penis being inserted into another man’s anus. And if you say “would you be getting on his case if he hadn’t used the word ‘queer’?” The answer is: no, I wouldn’t be getting on his case at all.

One of the benefits of a free-society, and an open marketplace of ideas, is that you can see how the other side thinks. I don’t think Lee is going to start self-censoring himself to avoid pissing off me (I’m just a flea to his big dog, hardly worth the effort of a swat) — and I certainly hope the day never comes where either he or I have to censor ourselves to appease the almighty FCC or some other group — I hope he continues to write & show everyone how he really feels. I realize a large portion of the citizenry agree with him. But many disagree with him, and part of writing for the public involves taking the lumps for what you’ve written.

Well, Lee - here are your lumps:

It is digusting to see yet another American so happy to jump on the bandwagon of bashing the homosexual community in any way that they can. Well, it’s true as far as I can see, and as I wrote in the comments of your thread, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised - you won the election, after all - no reason to hide the contempt you feel for Americans who don’t fit your mold.”

Thanks to Rick for this:

“A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt….

“If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”

–Thomas Jefferson (1798 after passage of the Alien and Sedition Act)

“In a time of ignorance, no one doubts even while doing the
greatest evils; in an enlightened age, one trembles even while
doing the greatest goods.”
– Montesquieu, “The Spirit of the Laws”

Via Andrew Sullivan comes this:

Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways, they were the two states competing in the last election. In the world’s imagination, you couldn’t have two starker opposites. One is the homeplace of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes, and social permissiveness. The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional, and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for Kerry over Bush 62 to 37 percent; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61 to 38 percent.

The complicated truth is that America truly is a divided and conflicted country. But it’s a grotesque exaggeration to say that the split is geographical, or correlated with blue and red states. Many of America’s biggest “sinners” are those most intent on upholding virtue. In fact, it may be partly because they know sin so close-up that they want to prevent its occurrence among others. And some of those states which have the most liberal legal climate - the Northeast and parts of the upper MidWest - are also, in practice, among the most socially conservative. To ascribe all this to “hypocrisy” seems to me too crude an explanation. America is simply a far more complicated and diverse place than crude red and blue divisions can explain.

Chepooka’s reaction is of course the cry we liberals should be sounding every moment of every day: How can we live together and reconcile all of this? Well, I think somebody is going to have to find a way to communicate that while liberals mostly talk about personal liberty, they are certainly NOT the “anti-God” party, the “pro-abortion” party, the “Robin Hood” party … because damn if we’re not completely misunderstood.

Fact is, we share the goals of the “moral right” and are pretty damn good at achieving those goals. We just don’t know how to communicate this because we’re spending too much time being pissed off about the hypocricy.

Over at Unspun, Rick speaks on a related topic - the quieting of disent of Christians, by Christians. This relates to the refusal by several tv conglomerates to carry a pro-gay, pro-Christian tv commercial that you may have noticed I talked about earlier.

What does all of this have to do with all of that? The Right is trying to convince America that it is the party of religious values. To do that, it must convince America that leftists are anti-god, anti-moral, and that they are pro-god, pro-moral values. This commericial threatens that message by presenting a pro-god, pro-leftist agenda message.

Rick writes of The United Church of Christ, “a group of Christians with about 1.4 million members in the United States … I know that they’ve been around awhile. In 1700, they were the first mainline church to take a stand against slavery.”

As in the past, they’re once again proving that liberalism goes with Christianity like chocoloate syrup on bowl of stawberry ice cream.

There is war going on in this country for the freedom of our thought, and the freedom of our expression. Jeff Jarvis isn’t far off the mark when he says that the Blogosphere will soon be targeted. Most of us on the left see this war, many on the right who should be our allies on this, don’t — not yet, anyway. But with the Republican’s failure to pass the FMA, and the minority of Republican Representatives opposing the rule changes to favor DeLay, there is hope that they will soon see this for what it is, and fight with us on the side of freedom.

As for myself, I’m an athiest. But that’s what is great about the left — we welcome all kinds. If politics were tv shows, the Republicans would be 90210 - all white and rich. The Democrats would be Deep Space Nine — blacks, whites, asians, religious, non-religious, shape shifters, and Ferengi.

Thanks to Chepooka, Rick at UnSpun, and Andrew Sullivan.

What number are you?

Edit: Rick reminded me that my trackbacks aren’t enabled. Apologies, and here’s pingin’ to you, buddy!

I work a lot. And I don’t have many friends - my two closest both live in DC, so we don’t see each other much. Anyway, point being, I don’t socialize quite as much as I should. Usually when I get out of work, all I want to do is go home, maybe watch some tv, do some blogging, go to sleep.

Wednesday night, one of my former profs is having her annual winter party for current and former students. It gets out around nine, and I think I’ll take a swing past Padonia Station afterwards. Not for long - get a beer, see if I know anyone - and then head for home.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a bar, and it’ll be a good step towards at least making the motions of having a social life, yes?

A while ago, I wrote about my excitement at purchasing “Star Trek: The Original Series The Complete First Season.” Well, Season Two finally arrived after quite a bit of wrangling with Amazon.

I started on the set tonight. “Obsession.” Big gaseous could kills security guards. Y’know, those red shirts need a raise.