Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago activist Ryan Sorba challenged NewsReal Blog’s managing editor David Swindle to a debate about homosexuality and conservatism. This is the first round of what will be three rounds of debate. Each participant will have 700 words in each round.

YES.

By David Swindle

If you masturbate then you can’t call yourself a conservative. If you eat pork or shellfish then there’s no room for you on the Right. If you’ve been divorced then you’re going to need to find another political movement. If you don’t identify as an evangelical Christian or a Jew then we don’t want you.

There really isn’t any debate that these four statements are absurd. Who would I ever find to engage in a debate titled “Should Masturbators Be a Part of the Conservative Movement?” It seems silly to think that what one does with their private parts in the privacy of their home with consenting adults should have any relevance when it comes to the political figures and ideas one supports.

But that’s exactly the “debate” that’s going on, thanks in large part to Ann Coulter answering “yes” to the question in the headline by speaking to gay conservative group GOProud. This prompted the ire of WorldNetDaily Publisher Joseph Farah who promptly disinvited Coulter from his event. Never mind that Coulter is a Christian who does not believe in gay marriage.

This controversy leads to this question: What does it mean to be a conservative? What exactly is a political conservative trying to conserve? Answer: a government based on the principles of two documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Conserving such a government today requires our engagement in two interrelated fights. The first is the defense of America at the military level from those wishing to slaughter us, most notably today Islamic radicals and rogue regimes like Iran. We can only pursue this first objective if we fight the second simultaneously: if we make sure that our government does not go bankrupt.

There is no reason that gays and lesbians cannot be a part of these fights too. It’s entirely in their self-interest to do so. Sharia’s mandates for gays are quite clear.

So where does this leave conservatives on the question of gay marriage? The same place where gays are. Contrary to popular belief there is no universal position on gay marriage held by all gay people – thus there is no “gay agenda.” There are gays who support gay marriage, civil unions, and the status quo of no government recognition whatsoever. Therefore, why should there be a “conservative” position on the issue? It makes about as much sense as conservatives dictating whether people should eat pork and shellfish. Culture and politics are not the same thing.

The only genuinely “conservative” response to the question of gay marriage is one rooted in the Declaration and the Constitution where we find this concept: the people are sovereign. The “conservative” position on gay marriage is the one supported by David Horowitz and Dick Cheney: the citizens of individual states should have the right to vote on the issue and make the laws they want. Thus, one can find conservatives with views on gay marriage that run across the board – and that’s what we have at NewsReal Blog.

Now, these positions stated, I turn explicitly to my debating partner Ryan Sorba who has made a name for himself on this anti-gay – or, as he would no doubt prefer, “anti-sodomy” — cultural campaign. Sir, can you look me in the eye and tell me in all seriousness that gays are a greater threat to our nation than Islamofascists, a nuclear Iran, our backbreaking national debt, and our Radical-In-Chief President who – as Stanley Kurtz demonstrates beyond dispute in his new book — is trying to transform America into a socialist state?

You find this crusade so pressing that you would discourage gays and their friends and family from joining us in waging these vital political fights? And you would give further ammunition to leftists to cast us as homophobic, hateful, and intolerant? Why?

How is it that fighting such admirable patriots as Tammy Bruce and GOProud’s Christopher Barron can strike you as a higher priority than than taking on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Barack Obama?

NO.

By Ryan Sorba

Gay Conservative: Acceptable or Oxymoron?

In an article entitled, “Should Gays Be a Part of the Conservative Movement?” NewsReal managing editor David Swindle answers with a very masculine, “Yes!” then he defends shellfish eaters and masturbating. What a mess.

Let’s cut to the chase. The reason we are having this three-part debate is because I condemned the Conservative Political Action Conference last year (re: David Keene and Lisa De Pasquale) for bringing a cardboard box pro-sodomy organization called GOProud to the event.

Then I got booed offstage by a bunch of Ron Paul hippies for being too conservative…which was nice because that was on my “bucket list.” In all seriousness though, with “conservatives” like them who needs Perez Hilton?

This year almost every legitimate conservative organization, from the Heritage Foundation to the Media Research Center, has pulled out of CPAC because David Keene can’t get it through his thick skull that the homosexual agenda is not something that conservatives support.

Because libertines are pressing this issue, the question must now be formally asked, “Is it possible to be ‘gay’ and conservative?” To answer this question I must turn to my betters. Ann Coulter puts it this way:

In the ’80s, Bill Buckley suggested that AIDS sufferers be required to get tattoos on their buttocks to protect other gays. As all hell broke loose over his proposal, [Joe] Sobran simply suggested that it might borrow from Dante: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

No. “Gays” can’t be conservative. What part of “party of no” don’t you understand?

Of course, having grown up behind the iron curtain that is the gay-stream media, liberaltarians believe that the term “homosexual” signifies a race of men rather than a sometime behavior.

In my forthcoming book, The “Born Gay” Hoax I attempt re-educate the sodomy zombies, like Greg Gutfeld! They don’t call his show RedEye for nothing you know.

“Gay” activists admit in private publications that they’ve lied to the public about being “born gay.” Take Dr. Lillian Faderman for example, a winner of the Monette/Horwitz Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation. She writes the following in the Advocate, 9-5-95 pg. 43:

“We continue to demand Rights, ignoring the fact that human sexuality is fluid and flexible, acting as though we are all stuck in our category forever…The concept of gay and lesbian identity may be nothing but a social construct, but it has been crucial, enabling us to become a political movement and demand the rights that are due to us as a minority. What becomes of our political movement if we openly acknowledge that sexuality is flexible and fluid, that gay and lesbian does not signify ‘a people’ but rather a ‘sometime behavior’?”

Well, maybe Greg Gutfeld isn’t really brainwashed. Maybe he’s just trying to look sensitive for Gavin Newsome’s ex-wife.

Since sodomy “does not signify a ‘people but rather a ‘sometime behavior’” criticizing sodomites is no different from criticizing swingers or Al Gore, for that matter. Let’s be honest, they’ve gotten themselves into some creepy stuff!

Conservatives don’t support special rights for sodomites, swingers and sadomasochists because these behaviors are intrinsically immoral. As Russell Kirk so aptly put it, “The conservative believes in an enduring moral order.”

For the conservative there is an inner order and an outer order. In the inner order reason rules the passions by way of the virtues. Regarding sexuality, this order leads to reproduction and unity-of-spouses in the interest of the long process required to educate children. These principles constitute the essence of marriage.

When it comes to sodomy, the order is inverted. Passions rule reason by way of vice. Thus, there is no reproduction, few if any lasting relationships, and a whole hell of a lot of over-the-top appeals to emotion, that don’t really signify anything real.

Making an intrinsically immoral act into a fundamental right will pave the way for one group to infringe upon the legitimate rights of other groups who don’t want anything to do with immorality. This is not conservative.

This brings me to where I was so rudely cut-off by the Ron Paul Hippies during my CPAC speech. “Civil rights, when they conflict with natural rights…” are not rights at all, but tyrannies. Insofar as one group is given the civil-right to infringe upon another group’s natural-rights, there will be injustice

The so-called “right to sodomy” has already begun to infringe upon natural rights like freedom of speech, religion, and association, effecting corporations, fraternal organizations, and not-for-profits. Many can no longer dictate what their employees wear on the job (cross-dressers), which bathroom they use (transsexuals), or the types of people they have to hire, and invite into their everyday personal and financial lives.

Not to mention in 2011 tax payers will shovel out twenty billion five hundred million dollars on HIV/AIDS treatment for those who cannot afford insurance. Three out of four HIV/AIDS patients is a male who has chosen to participate in the promiscuous homosexual lifestyle. Only about two percent of the male population chooses to adopt this lifestyle.

David Swindle chants the libertine mantra: “The people are sovereign.” But neither state nor individual sovereignty is “absolute.” When one man’s “sovereignty” interferes with another man’s natural rights, as in the case of sodomy, sovereignty must take the back seat –lest it become just another euphemism for tyranny.

Ryan Sorba is currently serving at the Chairman of the Young Conservatives of California. Prior to YCC Ryan served as a Field Representative for the Leadership Institute as well as the Membership Program Officer at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He participated in the 2009 ACORN investigation along with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, which brought the organization down. Ryan is currently working to finish his forthing coming book, The “Born Gay” Hoax, which he hopes will serve as a great asset to conservatives in the culture war.

Next: Keep an eye out for part 2 of Ryan and David’s debate coming soon.

Or as we knew it.

Behind the scenes, using deceit at will, they have patiently and stealthily progressed toward their goal of reshaping society in a Marxist image – while the rest of us have been napping. So here are the top ten wake-up calls from Radical-in-Chief – or as you might consider them, the top ten facts we didn’t get from the mainstream media about Obama and his cadre.

Starting with: Why socialist revolutionaries abandoned terrorism. 10. The socialists have given up on terror – for now

Homegrown terrorism was once an attractive option for many socialists still among us, including the bumbling Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and their infamous member Bill Ayers, whose association with Obama (almost) got the Anointed One in trouble during the election. But let us take a moment to remember those socialists who are no longer among us. Exhibit A might be Diana Oughton, who was Bill Ayers’ girlfriend when she blew herself sky-high while attempting to create, reports Kurtz, “a nail-bomb designed to tear through the flesh of ‘pigs’ – soldiers and their dates at a dance.” That was his little sweetie, his main squeeze. Of course he bravely rebounded and hooked up with his current wife, another little sweetheart name of Bernardine Dohrn, and together they advocated bombings of police and military installations to demonstrate dramatic resistance to the “pigs.”

“Violent conflicts with the pigs would serve as the catalyst of revolution, bringing the true nature of American oppression home to the public. In the Weatherman view, the highest form of community organizing would use attacks on pigs to spark off a violent, neighborhood-based conflagration… for Ayers and the Weathermen, then, revolution and community organizing were two sides of the same coin. Community organizing would galvanize white working-class youth to follow America’s own rebellious internal colony of inner-city blacks into the revolutionary fray. The inspiration for it all would be the continuing revolt of that de facto external colony, Vietnam, against the American monster.”

However, this strategy was not particularly effective at garnering recruits, as they discovered in July 1969 when “a squadron of Weathermen,” Kurtz reports, marched onto Detroit’s working-class Metro Beach carrying a Viet Cong flag and passing out literature:

“SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) is recruiting an army right now, man, a people’s army, under black leadership, that’s gonna fight against the pigs and win!!!”

Unshockingly, this persuasive rhetoric failed to turn the working class beachgoers, some of whom were Vietnam vets, into card-carrying commies. Eventually, Ayers and his compadres wised up, and realized that attacking the people they were trying to recruit was just a tad counterproductive. So, they turned to other means…

Next: community organizing comes into its own…

Originally published on December 16, 2010.

Editor’s note: Earlier this month, NRB contributor Megan Fox wrote a fiery post attributing the pornification of our culture to Second Wave feminists.  Phyllis Chesler, a veritable Second Wave icon, countered with a passionate defense of the Second Wave’s successes, reminding us of the ideological diversity in her generation of feminism.  Far from being apologists for pornography and prostitution, Dr. Chesler and many of her feminist compatriots formed an “abolitionist” alliance with Christian and conservative activists to challenge those who defended “sex work” and pornography on First Amendment grounds.  The following piece begins to explore some of that common ground.

—–

Pornography has invaded the world’s imagination. It is everywhere: On the Internet, in films, in movies, in rap music videos. Five-year-old girls dress and are taught to behave like pornography stars in order to win beauty contests. Ten- to twelve-year-old girls both dress and behave like the pornographic images that surround them—and they provide sexual services to young boys. Opera—high culture—has also been increasingly “sexed up.” I have seen productions of “Carmen” and “Lulu” in which the lead diva was half-naked and in which she, too, sang the role as if she was a contemporary pornography star and prostitute.

No, I do not like any of this.

Yes, I take it all very seriously—as many Second Wave feminists and our Christian and conservative allies once did.

No, I do not think that hiding women beneath burqas is, therefore, any kind of solution. In fact, both pornography and prostitution are booming businesses in most Muslim countries.

Before we go any further, let’s play twenty questions. I really want your answers.

1. Is pornography “work” or is it a violent crime?

2. Is pornography “free speech” in action or is it a violent, often murderous crime?

3. Is pornography really a “victimless” crime?

4. Are pimps, johns, traffickers, and landlords being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining?

5. Are the people, mainly men, who buy and watch pornography being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining? Is anyone forcing them to consume pornography?

6. Are the seductive, taunting, smiling, naked girls and women who are being paid “good” money–victims? If so, why don’t they complain, leave, find some other job?

7. Isn’t working in pornography a job just like any other job–like any other acting job?

8. Aren’t pornography actors there of their own free will—for the easy money, the attention, the “stardom?”

9. Isn’t our right to see and read whatever interests us essential to our fundamental liberty?

10. Doesn’t the First Amendment guarantee us this right? If we criminalize one kind of “free speech,” where will it end? Who will decide what information or images we are allowed to see? Won’t state or religious censorship chill our rights, even our very thoughts?

11. On behalf of “free speech,” and privacy rights, didn’t Second Wave feminists avidly collaborate with pornographers to ensure that pornography remained a civil right?

12. Didn’t Second Wave feminists launch the battle against violence against women, which included sexual harassment, rape, incest, domestic battering—as well as the most serious battle against pornography and prostitution? Weren’t they vilified for collaborating with Christians and conservatives on the issue of pornography and prostitution?

Editor’s note: Earlier this month, NRB contributor Megan Fox wrote a fiery post attributing the pornification of our culture to Second Wave feminists.  Phyllis Chesler, a veritable Second Wave icon, countered with a passionate defense of the Second Wave’s successes, reminding us of the ideological diversity in her generation of feminism.  Far from being apologists for pornography and prostitution, Dr. Chesler and many of her feminist compatriots formed an “abolitionist” alliance with Christian and conservative activists to challenge those who defended “sex work” and pornography on First Amendment grounds.  The following piece begins to explore some of that common ground.

—–

Pornography has invaded the world’s imagination. It is everywhere: On the Internet, in films, in movies, in rap music videos. Five-year-old girls dress and are taught to behave like pornography stars in order to win beauty contests. Ten- to twelve-year-old girls both dress and behave like the pornographic images that surround them—and they provide sexual services to young boys. Opera—high culture—has also been increasingly “sexed up.” I have seen productions of “Carmen” and “Lulu” in which the lead diva was half-naked and in which she, too, sang the role as if she was a contemporary pornography star and prostitute.

No, I do not like any of this.

Yes, I take it all very seriously—as many Second Wave feminists and our Christian and conservative allies once did.

No, I do not think that hiding women beneath burqas is, therefore, any kind of solution. In fact, both pornography and prostitution are booming businesses in most Muslim countries.

Before we go any further, let’s play twenty questions. I really want your answers.

1. Is pornography “work” or is it a violent crime?

2. Is pornography “free speech” in action or is it a violent, often murderous crime?

3. Is pornography really a “victimless” crime?

4. Are pimps, johns, traffickers, and landlords being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining?

5. Are the people, mainly men, who buy and watch pornography being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining? Is anyone forcing them to consume pornography?

6. Are the seductive, taunting, smiling, naked girls and women who are being paid “good” money–victims? If so, why don’t they complain, leave, find some other job?

7. Isn’t working in pornography a job just like any other job–like any other acting job?

8. Aren’t pornography actors there of their own free will—for the easy money, the attention, the “stardom?”

9. Isn’t our right to see and read whatever interests us essential to our fundamental liberty?

10. Doesn’t the First Amendment guarantee us this right? If we criminalize one kind of “free speech,” where will it end? Who will decide what information or images we are allowed to see? Won’t state or religious censorship chill our rights, even our very thoughts?

11. On behalf of “free speech,” and privacy rights, didn’t Second Wave feminists avidly collaborate with pornographers to ensure that pornography remained a civil right?

12. Didn’t Second Wave feminists launch the battle against violence against women, which included sexual harassment, rape, incest, domestic battering—as well as the most serious battle against pornography and prostitution? Weren’t they vilified for collaborating with Christians and conservatives on the issue of pornography and prostitution?

People like Farah and Sprigg make a lot of noise, and everyone outside the audience of the mainstream conservative media hear this noise and make much of it.  Do they make too much? That is quite possible.  But besides Freiburger and a few like him, how many on the Right are stepping forward to set the record straight?

Sadly, I am aware of no conservative—social or otherwise—who tackled the Sprigg story, other than me. Perhaps some simply missed it, but I suspect many chose to ignore it in the hopes that it would just blow over. Bad move, guys. But Farah is another matter. Lori notes that Coulter slapped him down, but so did plenty of others, including NRB, Right Wing News, Red State, Big Government, and more. Besides, many on the Right have been sick of the Birther conspiracies Farah’s been peddling since well before the HomoCon scandal, so it’s not surprising that many wouldn’t bother wasting time with him in the first place.

Indeed, recall that anti-gay buffoon Ryan Sorba got soundly booed by the conservative audience of CPAC 2010, leading one lefty blogger to opine:

When conservatives are standing up for gays, and Democrats treat us like we are an embarrassment, there’s a problem.

Lori continues:

Not only the hard Left, but also much of the political middle believes that social conservatives are dangerous.  This is exactly why the Tea Party movement deemphasized social issues in the first place, and it is also why it has enjoyed so much success.

In his Tuesday post, Calvin Freiburger takes exception to my concerns about statist social conservatives.  If he is correct, far from being disappointed, I will be elated.  He says,

“To be sure, there are a select handful of individuals who come to mind – for instance, Joseph Farah and Peter Sprigg – but beyond that, I don’t know how any significant, respected portion of the social conservative movement fits the bill.”

People like Farah and Sprigg make a lot of noise, and everyone outside the audience of the mainstream conservative media hear this noise and make much of it.  Do they make too much? That is quite possible.  But besides Freiburger and a few like him, how many on the Right are stepping forward to set the record straight?

I am perfectly willing to consider the possibility that, like many former leftists, I am more afraid of the big-government social conservatives than I have any real reason to be.  If this is true, nobody will be gladder of it than me.  I made the journey from closeted libertarian on the Left to out-and-proud libertarian conservative with some trepidation.  I anticipated that as big a fight lay ahead in beating back the Granny Government types on the Right as would be necessary on the Left.  Was I wrong? Perhaps, but I still have some questions.

Many longtime conservatives have, like this young man, taken me to task for my supposedly outrageous ignorance in thinking the statist Right a threat.  But it does have an image problem.  It was not simply caused by the distortions of “the liberal media,” because it has done much (by omission, if not commission) to help it along.  It often acts as if it is, in fact, very much afraid of the very power-mad theocrats people like Freiburger claim are dwindling in number.  Of course the only way you can win national elections is to downplay them, but it would show more integrity if the movement simply cleaned house.

Where are those on the Right who are willing – publicly, emphatically and not just by vague implication – to repudiate the noisemakers and would-be tyrants? Is another housecleaning necessary? William F. Buckley bravely stood up against the kooks in the early Sixties, and the conservative movement was far the better for it.  Perhaps Mr. Freiburger should be editing the National Review.

Not only the hard Left, but also much of the political middle believes that social conservatives are dangerous.  This is exactly why the Tea Party movement deemphasized social issues in the first place, and it is also why it has enjoyed so much success.  If the big-government faction of the social Right is truly a paper tiger, is it not in the interest of conservatives to make sure this is more widely understood?

I retain a deep distrust of people who want to turn my own government against me.  If most conservatives favor civil unions, think small children should not be taught anything (pro or con) about homosexuality in the schools and believe in one standard of conduct for all in the military – gay and straight – then I am with them.  But most of them say little, if anything, about any of these issues save the second.  They may not be ready to join the control-freaks, but they certainly seem to be afraid of them.

When I watch FOX or read conservative magazines – which I do daily – I see an awful lot of what I can only describe as Right-Wing political correctness.  Most of which consists less of what is actually uttered than what is cautiously omitted.  The majority of Republican politicians and conservative pundits seem to play it both ways:  they may say little to scare people, but they hear others say scary things and offer no rebuttal.  The impression this gives is that social cons wishing to use oppressive government to further their ends still run the show behind the scenes.

One who did stand up to declare otherwise was Ann Coulter.  The venomous Farah attacked her after she spoke at Homocon.  She promptly put him in his place:

“I will say that [Farah] could give less than two sh-ts about the conservative movement — as demonstrated by his promotion of the birther nonsense (long ago disproved by my newspaper, human events, also sweetness & light, american spectator and national review etc, etc etc). He’s the only allegedly serious conservative pushing the birther thing. for ONE reason: to get hits on his website.”

Clashes like these do seem to signify that the goal posts have been moved.  Farah himself now grumbles that he is not a conservative.  The movement, he says, has left him and his ilk behind.

Hallelujah and glory be if this is true.  Far from hiding its light under a bushel-basket, still fearing what the supposedly unwashed rabble in the Bible Belt are going to say in protest, conservative leaders should stand up and loudly join Ann Coulter.  Recent indications are that the rabble are not so unwashed after all.  They deserve voices worthy of them, as do those who – like me – have come over to the Right hoping that a new day is dawning, indeed.

This weekend, NewsRealBlog’s Lori Heine objected to Ann Coulter’s recent column attempting to tie WikiLeaks enabler Bradley Manning to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Today, she responds to several critical commenters. I’m not terribly interested in revisiting DADT right now—my position is that I’ll defer to military experts on what changes should be made to the current policy, but I insist that the decision be based on military criteria alone, not political correctness or kowtowing to the whims of the radical gay Left.  Lori argues her position well, and successfully refutes several of her critics.

However, I must take issue with the way she conflates social conservatism with statism:

One form of fun of which big-government statists on the social Right never seem to tire is the purity game.  True believers must toe the line and never stray from it, even one jot or tittle.  “You are no conservative,” another commenter harrumphed at me.  Since this person evidently thinks only the big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right are the “real” conservatives, then according to his definition of course I am not.  Nor would I ever want to be.

What I am is a former Leftist progressive who has come to the conclusion that libertarian conservatism is – for a wide variety of reasons – the right direction for America to take.  The relentless and childish tug-of-war of the past few elections has convinced me that the Left and the statist Right are actually as alike as Tweedledee and Tweedledum and that they are, together, pulling the country apart.  Just as Leftists view any liberal who believes in small government and individual initiative a heretic, so do those on the Right who view anyone who does not share their fantasies about Granny Government and her all-powerful magic wand “not a real conservative.”

What I think of the “purity game” is no secret, either, but here I want to consider this talk of “big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right” who believe the government has an “all-powerful magic wand.”

Maybe I just missed them, but I’m struggling to recall a significant number of examples of this nefarious social-con variation. To be sure, there are a select handful of individuals who come to mind—for instance, Joseph Farah and Peter Sprigg—but beyond that, I don’t know how any significant, respected portion of the social conservative movement fits the bill.

Social conservatives, by and large, have four major concerns pertaining to public policy:

• The Right to Life—So-cons want to make abortion illegal because it’s not simply immoral, but unjust. As the deliberate killing of human beings, abortion is a clear violation of basic human rights. As such, protecting people from being aborted easily and clearly falls under the proper ends of government, not only from a conservative standpoint, but also from a libertarian one. The same goes for embryonic stem-cell research.
• Marriage—Even if one believes that either civil marriage should be extended to gay couples, or that government should get out of marriage entirely, the fact remains that there is nothing coercive about government only recognizing man-woman unions. Doing so does not deny gay Americans their rights to life, liberty, or property, their rights to form relationships, to live together, to have sex, to hold marriage ceremonies, to consider themselves married in the eyes of their friends or families, to share property, to visit one another in hospitals, to make medical decisions for one another, or to receive domestic partner benefits from employers who wish to offer them. And in cases where laws either don’t permit these things or make them needlessly onerous to achieve, simple legal reforms far short of redefining marriage can easily suffice. Indeed, no less a Religious-Right boogeyman than Dr. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, has long been on the record in support of such straightforward reforms.
• Religion—In controversies over religious displays, symbols, and practices in public places or on public property, such as those initiated and egged on by leftist groups such as Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union, so-cons are pushing back against statism and coercion, not trying to impose it. The vast majority of these scandals are secular leftist attempts to censor voluntary, private religious expression that in no way violates the First Amendment as the Founding Fathers understood it, against which so-cons are standing for liberty.
• Education—Admittedly, the number of so-cons who object to the teaching of evolution, and want to either complement or replace it with lessons on evolution or creationism, might be substantial. This is mistaken, in my view, but in their defense, their efforts aren’t being made in a vacuum—they’re reacting to left-wing and progressive attempts to indoctrinate children into believing, wrongly, that evolution somehow undermines religion. So-cons are also very concerned about the sexual values public schools are teaching America’s children, and rightly so—there’s a lot of pro-casual sex indoctrination going on that undermines’ the right of parents to impart their own values to their children, and to decide for themselves when their kids are ready for mature subject matter.

None of the above can be reasonably construed as comprising a “statist” agenda, nor does any of it rely upon unrealistic expectations of what government is capable of, or violate the boundaries of the Constitution. Granted, there are a handful of lesser issues that might not line up so well—federal faith-based initiatives come to mind—but they’re hardly what motivates the average social conservative to get out of bed in the morning.

And while some so-con figures and groups might take an overly broad view of government power, or blur the lines between federal and state, on some of the second- and third-tier issues, that’s a far cry from “statism.” When I hear rhetoric like “statist,” “control freak,” or “all-powerful,” I envision a far more comprehensive agenda, exercising far more control over how we run our daily lives—meddling in everything from the lightbulbs we use and the news we watch to the toys in our kids’ Happy Meals and your choice of health insurance.

If that doesn’t convince you, I urge you to check out a 2008 American Thinker piece by Randall Hoven, a self-described agnostic libertarian who looks at the political landscape and concludes that social conservatives are overwhelmingly allies to libertarians on true matters of liberty.

If I’ve somehow missed the secret statist agenda of the social conservative movement, then by all means, show me. But as it stands, I just don’t see it.

_____

Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College.  He also writes for the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.

Frank Barone, the gruff but warm-hearted patriarch on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, once noted that military service “puts fuzz on the kiwis.”  Being a veteran, he’d probably understand that a large part of the reason our armed forces turns boys and girls into men and women is that it brings them together to serve with people whose company they would not keep in civilian life.  Only kids think they should be able to limit their contact to those at whose table they would sit in the high school cafeteria.  When they get into the military, and somebody upsets them, any demand that they get their way and the irritant be conveniently removed might be answered with more wise advice by Frank Barone:  “Get off the pity-pot, Nancy!”

My recent post, “Ann Coulter Takes Aim at Butt-Less Chaps,” made clear I was not attacking Coulter, but only taking issue with her latest column.  Somebody, under the delusion that I view homosexuality as the shameful thing he believes it to be, accused me of having “a secret crush” on Coulter.  However, since I am openly gay, if I had a crush on her, I would feel no need to keep it a secret.

In the post, I called those who would beat up or kill gays in uniform – the very people the brass opposed to repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” claim they are afraid of – bullies and thugs.  A commenter twisted this around to insinuate I meant every person who favors continuation of DADT.

Of course the effort to repeal DADT was called – what else – “social engineering.”  This might be an effective epithet, if not for the fact that DADT itself was social engineering in the first place.  Statist on the  Right are not particularly effective in opposing the Leftist PC rhetoric against which they tilt, precisely because they are so slavishly devoted to a variant of PC all its own.  Though the policy’s clear purpose is to order society according to its own preferences (which is exactly what social engineering does), it is not the same thing, they protest, because…well…well, because they say it isn’t.

There are, of course, different types of conservative.  Some – like me – are libertarians, who believe any state powerful enough to work in favor of the political Right is also powerful enough, within the space of a single election cycle, to be turned against it.  Most of the rest are social conservatives, though even these vary between those who believe in using big government to achieve their ends and those whose principles oppose this.

One form of fun of which big-government statists on the social Right never seem to tire is the purity game.  True believers must toe the line and never stray from it, even one jot or tittle.  “You are no conservative,” another commenter harrumphed at me.  Since this person evidently thinks only the big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right are the “real” conservatives, then according to his definition of course I am not.  Nor would I ever want to be.

What I am is a former Leftist progressive who has come to the conclusion that libertarian conservatism is – for a wide variety of reasons – the right direction for America to take.  The relentless and childish tug-of-war of the past few elections has convinced me that the Left and the statist Right are actually as alike as Tweedledee and Tweedledum and that they are, together, pulling the country apart.  Just as Leftists view any liberal who believes in small government and individual initiative a heretic, so do those on the Right who view anyone who does not share their fantasies about Granny Government and her all-powerful magic wand “not a real conservative.”

Every one of these spit-wads, I proudly wear as a badge of honor.  I know some people whose badges of honor have been far more dearly won.

Saturday night I had dinner with two very good friends, both gay, and both decorated combat veterans of Vietnam.  They risked their lives in battle, only to be spat upon and called baby-killers upon their return.  Now the keyboard warriors of cyberspace – most of them anonymous – who fancy their patriotism infinitely superior to that of those who spat on returning Vietnam vets – are attacking them as somehow unfit to have served.

I’m not sure why these people had such a snit.  It may simply be easier for them to ridicule somebody else’s kiwis than to look at the lack of fuzz on their own.

Who’s up for a friendly, Inter-Faith exchange on spirituality on this Sunday morning?

From Walter’s post last night defending his arguments from his great post challenging Bill Maher’s “Religulous”:

Here I respectfully part with Jefferson. If the “magic” of the Bible is removed, it is a story of no significance. If Jesus is not who he says he was, if he is not Emmanuel – God incarnate, if he did not conquer death and rise on the third day, then there is no reason to elevate his philosophy above my own.

I find this delousing of the miraculous from religion – particularly from Christianity – truly perplexing. Why would you lend credence to the teachings of a madman or a liar? Why would you sift through a book of metaphors in search of an unknowable “higher truth?” Why would God, if he wanted to deliver a message to creation, provide a rhetorical Rubik’s cube instead of plainly stated truth? Decoupling the miraculous from religion leaves us with inconsequential nonsense.

I’ll answer this step-by-step from my position as an Inter-Faith, mystical agnostic and former Evangelical:

1. “If the “magic” of the Bible is removed, it is a story of no significance.”

Not reading the Bible as a book of journalism describing actual events does not remove it of its significance. It is still a book about humanity reaching out  to the transcendent. And it still can act as a guide for our own pursuit of a more divine life. That’s significant.

2. “If Jesus is not who he says he was, if he is not Emmanuel – God incarnate, if he did not conquer death and rise on the third day, then there is no reason to elevate his philosophy above my own.”

If the Founding Fathers were not supernatural is there no reason to elevate their political philosophy above your own? One needn’t be God Incarnate to have good ideas — or to be divinely inspired.

The reason to embrace Jesus’ philosophy above one’s own is because it works better than yours and mine. Emulate Jesus and life is better. You’ll be less like man and more like God and the world will be better.

3. “Why would you lend credence to the teachings of a madman or a liar?”

Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis’ Liar/Lunatic/Lord theorem leaves out another relevant L — Legend. In Chapter 5 of Bart Ehrman’s great book Jesus, Interrupted he makes this argument.

Ever notice that in the four gospels Jesus identifies himself as God only in the book of John? Isn’t that odd? You’d think a detail like that would make it into every account of Jesus’ life. In the other three gospels he never claims to be God or is identified as divine. He’s referred to as a “son of God” but this is a title that is meant for those who are close to God, not necessarily a biological son. In the Old Testament prophets were also given this title.

What’s most likely is that the historical Jesus never claimed to be God and that this tradition is something that developed later. (The gospel of John was the last of the four to be written and thus reflects later Christian traditions.)

4. “Why would you sift through a book of metaphors in search of an unknowable “higher truth?””

Where’d that word “unknowable” come from? If the exploration of holy texts did not lead to grasping aspects of the “higher truth” then you’re right that it would be a waste of time. But that’s not exactly the case. Reading through holy texts does give us a greater understanding of the Divine. Perhaps the “unknowable” refers to how we won’t actually grasp everything until after we’re dead.

5. “Why would God, if he wanted to deliver a message to creation, provide a rhetorical Rubik’s cube instead of plainly stated truth?”

But He didn’t give “plainly stated truth.” We’ve got four gospel narratives that are regarded by the church as canonical (and others that are not.) These narratives each have different ideas about who Jesus was — as already stated only one of them regarded him as divine. They’re written in another language. We do not have the original copies of them and the copies that we do have are filled with variants. (See Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus for the challenge of trying to reconstruct what was originally said in the gospels when we have manuscripts that contradict each other.)

And the Bible is not like a collection of straightforward commands for how to live. (It’s not the Koran!) If it was simple, “plainly stated truths” then there would not be such diversity within Christianity. You wouldn’t find so many denominations with often vastly different interpretations.

6. “Decoupling the miraculous from religion leaves us with inconsequential nonsense.”

Only for those uncomfortable with mystery.

One other point from earlier in Walter’s piece:

If you believe mankind to be the product of an ongoing, emergent, evolutionary process, then you will tend to believe that human consciousness can be applied to drive evolution in a favorable direction. This belief tends to metastase into an elevation of some men above others. Whether the basis for distinction is national identity, race, creed, intellect or some other factor is irrelevant. The end result is the same – a loss of freedom, and often life.

Conversely, if you believe mankind to exist in a state of sin – moral retardation, then you will abandon the futile task of perfecting man and work toward maintaining a society which minimizes the potential for abuse by defusing power and maximizing individual liberty. This was the position of the American Founding Fathers, who wrote and spoke extensively regarding the fallibility of man (even those with crowns) and the necessity to bind them with the chains of the Constitution.

These premises are not mutually exclusive — and the first is not necessarily an accurate summary of all who embrace evolution (though it certainly is for some.) For example, I do certainly believe that humans are part of the evolutionary process and that we’re likely to evolve into a more advanced species (if we don’t eradicate ourselves first.) However, I don’t think that it’s necessary for humans to consciously try and drive evolution in one direction or another.

Further, as I’ve written about before, Walter and I can share the view that man is fallen, evil, sinful, flawed. We can just arrive at it from different paths. And then we’ll end up sharing the same understanding of economics, foreign policy, the role of government, the value of the founders, etc. that flows from that premise.

Editor’s note: This post responds to Megan Fox’s “Open Letter to Second Wave Feminsts: You Failed.”

Words fail me. Well—not really.

Megan Fox should think twice before dishonoring an entire movement because she disagrees with its position on reproductive rights and its analysis of marriage. My Second Wave generation of feminists bravely exposed the pre-existing epidemic of rape, woman-battering, and incest within families and we exposed the sexual harassment and sexual abuse of women at work and on the streets. We lobbied, demonstrated, counseled the victims of violence, and passed legislation to prosecute these formerly “secret” crimes—as crimes.

Where were the pro-family and pro-life forces? They certainly were not the ones who exposed abuse within the family nor did they work on the violence against women issues. They did not counsel girls who had been raped by their fathers, older brothers, male cousins—a far more common phenomenon than by strangers.

In addition, Second Wave feminists were the ones who first challenged the pornography industry and that of prostitution. We led the way. Many of us were “abolitionists” where prostitution and trafficking were concerned. We took these billion dollar industries on and despite great effort, even genius, we failed. Fox is right: Some feminists believed that pornography was a personal matter or a First Amendment right—but so did everybody else except for a handful of dedicated Christians with whom we worked.

My generation of feminists discovered that women were faking orgasms; that many men did not know how to please women—and that included their wives, mistresses, and paid sexual companions. We were interested in fairness in the bedroom as well as fairness in the marketplace. More important: We also pioneered the work against drug companies and the medication of both menstruating and menopausal women, which medication caused women to die from cancer. We did not embrace birth control; there was a very important argument that the late, great Barbara Seaman and the National Women’s Health Network (I am a co-founder) made against birth control.

Where were the pro-lifers and pro-family forces on this burning issue?

Women have always been unpaid, underpaid, and overworked; they have also been kept out of higher paid, male-only professions. Women have always feared growing old because that often meant extreme poverty and sometimes homelessness. That is still true, alas—but not for all those women who, courtesy of Second Wave feminist lawsuits and consciousness-raising became physicians, scientists, business executives, professional athletes, academics, lawyers, judges, social workers, etc.

Where were the pro-family, pro-lifers when it came to women’s economic dignity? And to fairness, justice for the working woman?

Editor’s note: Second Wave feminist Phyllis Chesler responds to this post here.

Dear Second Wave Feminists,

A long, long time ago, when you were young and full of your own greatness, you made a choice. You chose a plan of action to lead future generations of women, your daughters, down the road of abortion, birth control, and away from traditional family structures. What you failed to anticipate was that every action has a reaction.

Man up. It’s reaction time.

Phyllis Chesler wrote a terrific article regarding the conservative media and its reputation among establishment feminists as anti-woman. It was met with one particularly vocal poster who was very upset about NewsReal Blog‘s snarky female writers and my recent article that took a swipe at Gloria Steinem’s stupid remarks about self-aborting bears.

[T]here are all kinds of feminist [sic] and second wave feminists who have remained true, like Phyllis who are gold and do (or have done) great things to make you freer than you would have been without us.

When you attack feminists, as this site does all the time, you should in respect, attack a position or policy with out [sic] name calling because you do not know what that particular feminist has done in their life. They may be new in their understanding or they may have a view that is different than your own but to say someone is “off their meds” stops the conversation for me.

I do not know Chesler (although I hope to soon) or the details of her history with the Second Wave movement but I like her writing. It seems to me she’s had the same treatment from “feminists” for championing the cause of Muslim women that I’ve had for daring to champion the cause of unborn women. I have a very high respect for anyone connected to the Second Wave movement who bucked the accepted philosophy. (See also Camille Paglia.)

That said, I refuse to credit Second Wave feminism with anything but the destruction of women. From taking them out of the home and jailing them in new prisons (with cubicles) away from their children who are now suffering, to the generations of young women throwing their sexuality away on anything that moves (and who can’t figure out why no one respects them). Do not tell me I should thank you for it.

I don’t want to see those drooling male sexist porn images—and advice to “use our looks to get ahead”. That is the sexist crap I am tired of seeing.

The charge about racy photos is uproarious, since Second Wave feminists paved the way for those photos to be culturally acceptable. Free love, birth control and orgasms for everyone! Nudity is freeing! Burn a bra! Burn a tradition. Blame yourself for the porn. And I do know, by the way, exactly what Gloria Steinem has done with her life. She contributed to the deaths of millions of unborn women via abortions. She contributed to the millions of children relegated to farms they call “daycare” instead of the safe cocoons provided by their mothers. And let us not forget Steinem’s contribution to the rape of the innocence of millions of teenage girls who have thrown away their honor for an empty promise of liberation that only led to heartbreak, abortions and STDs. Thanks a heap!

This post was published on November 26, here.

Let’s dispense from the beginning with the idea that more “sternly-worded letters,” sanctions, condemnations, or talks (serious this time!) are the answer to North Korea’s dual declarations of war.  They have never worked, because when dealing with evil, you must speak to it in the language it understands.  Evil only understands violence.

And yes, it’s time for violence.

It gives me no pleasure to say so, but the pattern of history has borne out this truth:  there will never be peace so long as only one side is willing to abide by the rules for peace.

The pictures coming from Yeonpeyong, South Korea, are chillingly reminiscent of Pearl Harbor.  But did we get the “a date which will live in infamy” speech, which Pres. Roosevelt delivered only 1 day after the December 7, 1941 attack?

Nope.

Here’s what we got from the Eunuch in Chief:  “…too soon to discuss ways the U.S. military might deter the reclusive communist state from another strike.”

And from his lapdog Stephen Bosworth:  “I would not at all accept that our policy toward North Korea is a failure,” Bosworth said after flying to Seoul to meet South Korean officials. “They are a difficult interlocutor,” he said of the North, “but we’re not throwing our policy away.”

While the North’s uranium program is disappointing and provocative, he told reporters, it isn’t surprising. “This is not a crisis.”

The best lines are from PJ Crowley:  “…the Obama administration would take its time to assess the available information. He said the revelation of the new uranium enrichment facility would violate Pyongyang’s obligation to stop pursuing nuclear weapons but also may be what he called a ‘publicity stunt.’”

But my personal favorite came from State Department spokesman Mark Toner, who called North Korea’s actions “very, very bad.”

I guess their answer is to send NoKo to bed without any supper.  I did not know this level of denial existed outside of Egypt.

But Obama has a point; I mean, if the sinking of a South Korean navy ship and the killing of 46 South Koreans in March wasn’t enough for us to consider violence against the violent, 200 artillery shells and a lousy 2 deaths certainly won’t qualify.

When I wrote DA PLANE! DA PLANE!  When Did We Become Fantasy Island? last week, I was the only one who believed and warned that the LA missile was from North Korea.  I don’t deny that China aided and abetted, perhaps even supplied weaponry or the submarine.  That’s because China has long told us they would reign in NoKo, but the actions of both countries for over a decade now clearly indicate they were mere words.

I have said it over and over again in past articles:  when the sh*t hits the fan, China WILL back, support, and use North Korean aggression to achieve their goals as outlined in their manifesto.  Goals which have never, ever changed.

But don’t just believe me.  Let’s look at the clues of just the past 8 months that lead any reasonable, NON-psychotic person to that very conclusion.  (Hippies, avert your eyes…logic and truth are NOT your friends.)