Jim McGreevey got a $500,000.00 advance for his tell-all book.

McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey and closet "gay American", resigned his office after complaints by a member of his staff that he was being sexually harrassed by the governor.

Judging from the reaction of the Oprah audience to McGreevey's soul-baring book launch on the show, sales are going to be slow.

"Not impressed with him or his story," one woman who declined to give her name said after she left Harpo Studios, the Chicago home of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Another woman was put off by McGreevey - and the subject matter. "It's not my type of show," she said.

No kidding. What kind of idiot thought that the mere fact of being gay would excuse McGreevey in the minds of the American public, of deceiving two wives, engaging in rest stop glory hole sex, abuse the power of his office and sexual harrassment?

A New York publisher.

Hey, it worked in the "bubble", so it'll work across the country right?

Oprah Winfrey used to have a much better sense of what the average American woman would respond to--she might be spending too much time with John Travolta and George Clooney.

Well my mind is officially blown.

Six-term Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida resigned from the U.S. Congress on Friday following reports he sent sexually inappropriate e-mails to underage male congressional interns.

Foley, chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children, said he would resign after ABC News reported he sent messages to current and former congressional pages with references to sexual organs and acts.

"Today I have delivered a letter to the Speaker of the House informing him of my decision to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives, effective today," said Foley, who is single, in a statement.

"I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."

Well that's bull--Foley is only sorry he was caught. Strictly-speaking, Foley is a predatory homosexual--this has little or nothing to do with pedophilia. Gays are like the rest of society--a continuum of solid citizens to creepy dudes. To be perfectly honest, the thing that surprised me the most was that he was a Republican. I guess it a case of every Indians walks single file, at least the one I saw did...

There is some question whether this throws the election over to the Democrats--I honest have no idea what is going on in that district, but I doubt that Foley's behavior has all that much bearing on how people will vote now that he's resigned. The Torrecelli affair in New Jersey was a case in point--once Torrecelli was out of the picture, it became safe to vote Democrat again.

I am just astonished at what public figures think they can get away with. Clinton getting blowjobs in the Oval Office, McGreevey sexual harassing straight men in his administration. How do they figure this will stay under the carpet? Politicians are often incredible narcissists (more so in the Democrat party I think), but the political climate just doesn't allow for major character flaws--George Allen is getting raked over the coals for possibly using the 'N' word 35 years ago.

If you run for office, you have better be Caesar's wife.

Big tent indeed. Barney Frank gets it right, giving the smackdown on Bill Meher. Check it out HERE.

Perhaps few things are as weird as having the allegedly "gay friendly" left outing gay men for political leverage.

A leading evangelist and outspoken opponent of gay marriage has given up his post as president of the National Association of Evangelicals while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a man for sex.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member association Thursday after being accused of paying the man for monthly trysts over the past three years.

Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations but also temporarily relinquished leadership of New Life Church pending an investigation.

"I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity," he said in a statement. "I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date. In the interim, I will seek both spiritual advice and guidance."

Haggard told KUSA-TV late Wednesday: "I've never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife."

Carolyn Haggard, spokeswoman for the 14,000-member New Life Church and the pastor's niece, said a four-member church panel will investigate the allegations. The board has the authority to discipline Haggard, including removing him from ministry work.

I suppose this is like being black and Republican--lynching approved.

As near as I can figure, this is a lot like the pass racists get for calling black Republicans Uncle Tom's and the rest of that rot. For years now, the left gets a perverse joy from ruining the lives of gay men. The nadir was John Kerry and John Edwards outing of Dick Cheney's eldest daughter--not that the did terrible damage to openly, but unobtrusively gay Mary Cheney, but that the gay outing behavior had reached the highest levels of the Democrat party to become a campaign tactic in a presidential election.

These kind of frequent incidents, and more importantly the defense of the indefensible, convince me that the left consists of moral retards. Once again its a matter of that puerile conception of fairness that paradoxically embraces two standards--one for him or herself, and the other for everyone else.

How can you argue for a respectful treatment of gays and then treat them in subhuman fashion simply because its suits your political agenda to do so. How can you state that you embrace the philosophy of Martin Luther King, and then argue for preferential treatment based on race? More to the point--how can you call a black man "slavish"? An Uncle Tom or worse--a House N_gger?

I doubt it wil have the desired effect--conservatives have become innured to Democrat dirty tricks. We figure if the lips are moving, lies are being spoken.

Has anyone seen Nancy Pelosi?

Not surprisingly to me at least, gay body-builder and meth dealer Michael Jones appears to have been lying about his sexual relationship with Colorado Springs paster Ted Haggard.

Also not surprisingly, the Rocky Mountain News is doing contortions to salvage Jone's credibility, eliciting as far as possible, claiming a lack of sleep as a mitigating factor.

Aurora polygraph examiner John Kresnik conducted the test for free. He is willing to do a second test, but he urged Jones to wait a couple of weeks until he can rest and the controversy dies down.

He said it's rare for a second test to differ from the first.

Kresnik acknowledged that conditions for the test were not ideal.

"I'd rather have done it when he was well-rested and well-fed," Kresnik said. But, he said that Jones was eager to take the test and was disappointed when his answers to two key questions showed deception. Jones took the test at Kresnik's office from about 5 a.m. to 6:30 a.m.

Kresnik first talked with Jones, then went over the questions he would ask. He then hooked Jones up to sensors to monitor his skin, breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. Kresnik said he has conducted thousands of similar tests in 25 years.

Nevertheless, buried at the bottom of the story is this evaluation by a former FBI polygrapher.

Another retired FBI agent, James Earle, of Colorado Springs, said in his experience, after conducting nearly 12,000 tests in the past 27 years, that results are usually quite accurate.

He said the examiner should have been able to tell that Jones was exhausted and adjust for that in the scoring.

"If they were really exhausted, it could be a factor. But, it's not going to invalidate the test," said Earle, who used to supervise polygraph tests for the FBI throughout the western U.S.

Earle has a doctorate and just finished a term as a vice president of the National Polygraph Association.

He also served as president of the Colorado chapter.

"Exhaustion will never affect breathing or the cardio response. It does seem to affect body temperature," Earle said.

While in the FBI, Earle conducted tests on a range of suspected criminals from informants to kidnappers, murderers and embezzlers.

He also had to take the tests himself every year.

He said the tests are much more advanced technologically than they used to be.

The sensors that attach to the body are much more sensitive.

Jones' revelations are generally considered to be politically motivated. I think its rather obvious that someone paid him, particularly since he's publicly admitted that he's a meth dealer with the likelyhood that he'll get prosecuted on that basis. Coloradans are facing a couple of competing voter initiatives referred to as Amendment 43 and Referendum I. The former basically defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The latter extends many if not all of the legal rights of marriage to homosexual unions without calling it marriage.

The irony here is that Ted Haggard has been generally considered a moderate on the issue of gay marriage.

It would be expedient to write Haggard off as just another religious hypocrite, but his public identity has been more nuanced than others'.

For example, he raised the ire of fellow evangelicals when he applauded a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law.

"I believe the church has to teach against immorality, but I don't believe it's the role of the state to spend money to find out what consenting adults do in their bedrooms and then haul them off to jail," he told The Denver Post last year.

When Muslims expressed outrage in 2003 over the comments of religious conservative Franklin Graham, who disparaged Islam, Haggard urged fellow evangelicals to temper their speech. And it was Haggard who offered an apology on behalf of evangelicals when Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Haggard was involved in writing Colorado's constitutional amendment on marriage, which would cement into the state constitution its definition as a union between one man and one woman. However, he resisted efforts that would have had the ballot measure ban domestic partnerships.

"We want to say marriage is something, and we also want to give the freedom for citizens or legislators if they want to give similar benefits to other people," he told The Post in January.

I tend to find a lot of irony lying around and this is no exception. In pursuit of an "October surprise" to push Referendum I over the top, whoever engineered this fiasco at best accomplished nothing and at worst may actually contribute to defeating the proposal and eliminating a moderate voice in the primary political opposition to gay marriage.

Its been demonstrated historically that extreme measures to discredit or silence opponents often have the opposite effects. The worry about political assassination is that it creates martyrs which actually strengthen whatever political movement you are trying to squelch. Similarly, manufacturing scandals of the type we see here often plays into the hands of your opponents, breaking internal political logjams.

Would we really want to see Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi gone? These characters constitute internal obstacles to badly-needed reform and weaken the Democrat party, so wise conservatives will of course be publicly outraged by their existence, but tacitly pleased to have them in positions of power.

While there may have been some hand-wringing over the scandals that saw Tom Delay and Bob Ney resign, the fact is that without the scandals there would have been no way to remove these powerful figures from the party leadership structure, and for the future of the party, they needed to be removed.

Every herd need culling to keep it strong, and conversely, to keep a herd weak--leave be the lame and sick.

Neil Patrick Harris is gay.

What a shock.

He's also 33 years old.

Now that's shocking.

Went to the children's bookstore, bought 'And Tango Makes Three' for my 6yo niece. Nice illustrations of penguins in Central Park Zoo. 'Touching and delightful variation on a major theme' - Maurice Sendak. 'Will delight young readers and open their minds' - John Lithgow. Sit down with said niece and my little daughters. The boy penguins, Roy and Silo, 'didn't spend much time with the girl penguins...instead Roy and Silo wound their necks around each other.."They must be in love"' Non-bigot zoo-keeper slips them an egg, which they incubate, hatch and parent. 'Tango was the very first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies.' So turns out the book is straight propaganda for homosexual adoption with the elegant twist that you can't know that until you read it. (By the way the happy gay penguin marriage was broken by a female called Scrappy tho that's not mentioned in the book).

So this is an impressively multilayered lie aimed at children. There's no evidence that the animals were homosexual. Male penguins incubate eggs. One of the penguins mated with a female. The animals were in an utterly artificial setting. The book is packaged to deceive.

By the way, can I have the beautiful word 'gay' back? It's a family name in my family, short for Grace. Lying to children is neither gay nor gracious.

Agriculture, particularly as it concerns livestock, often acts as a social mirror in which we contemplate the implications of science for humanity. Dolly the cloned sheep was a logical effort to more efficiently reproduce desirably livestock traits. Its all about maximizing productivity whether its more corn per acre, more milk per day per cow, or meatier cattle.

In the vein, gay sheep are a problem.

Approximately one ram in 10 prefers to mount other rams rather than mate with ewes, reducing its value to a farmer. Initially, the publicly funded project aimed to improve the productivity of herds.

The scientists have been able to pinpoint the mechanisms influencing the desires of “male-oriented” rams by studying their brains. The animals’ skulls are cut open and electronic sensors are attached to their brains.

By varying the hormone levels, mainly by injecting hormones into the brain, they have had “considerable success” in altering the rams’ sexuality, with some previously gay animals becoming attracted to ewes.

Agriculture simply can't use gay rams.

The not-so-amusing aspect of this research is its implications for gay humans, and gays and lesbians have reacted with alarm.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.

I can see Navratilova's point--if your identity is totally wound up in your sexuality, then the prospect of changing or eliminating it is mortifying. Of course identity is an artificial construct. One's gayness may be biologically determined in the womb, but gay culture is definitely a choice (I say this because just last night I learned that a good friend of mine, whom I have known for 15 years, is now living in a gay relationship--I never saw it coming, and usually when my friends have come out, I've not been surprised).

Now the question of whether one is "born that way" is totally turned on its head. You may in fact be born that way, but you didn't have to be. If gayness isn't destiny, then what are the implications for the gay and lesbian communities?

Pretty grim I would say.

The vast majority of gay men and women have heterosexual parents, who I would venture to say, with the exception of Moby, want their children to be heterosexual. If a mother can choose whether the life within her should be brought to term or terminated, then surely she has the right to determine the sexual destiny of her children.

Or not.

If gays thought marriage was an uphill battle, then this is nuclear war.

I personally consider sexuality to be a silly thing to base your identity on and so I simply ignore it as a consideration in my relationships. Other aspects of character are far more important to me in considering an association than which gender you prefer to interact with on a sexual basis.

Yet, I must admit that I would prefer that my children no be gay (and they are not...). I would prefer for my grandchildren not to be gay. I suppose I have a selfish reason for that--I want progeny. Generations of new little Stockingers passing on my families unique traits and value system.

I expect though that Martina Navratilova wants very much the same thing. The difference is that I earn the right through procreation and nuture. The gay and lesbian community inducts new members much like the Assemblies of God does.

I don't have a fully-realized point-of-view on this yet, but I think its something we're all going to thinking, talking and writing about for the foreseeable future.

Last night I was reading Michelle Malkin's blog to see what was going on at CPAC. She recounted Ann Coulter's remarks, including her obtuse reference to John Edwards as a "faggot".

I suspect that this is less offensive than indicative of an archaic sensibility. When I was an adolescent, we used the term to demean each other's manliness, but then again, we thought smoking was cool and sexual activity was a sign of adulthood.

As an adult, I learned that many of my friends had been in the closet, and since they seemed like nice enough fellows back then, I didn't see how their sexual preference should change anything. Apparently society in general was learning the same lesson--gay people are really just people. I suppose that the perjorative lost its power at that point--when being gay became socially acceptable, so did being a "faggot".

Coulter's remark, which echoes similar remarks she's made about Al Gore and Bill Clinton, indicates a personal hostility towards homosexuals. What is really strange is that she's under the impression that this feeling is generalized, otherwise she wouldn't have made it in a public forum. Michelle makes the point:

A smattering of laughter.

Not from this corner.

Crickets chirping.

This morning, Howard Dean, sensing opportunity, has demanded that Republican candidates denounce Coulter.

I personally think this presents an excellent opportunity for Republican presidential candidates to dispel the left-wing engineered meme that conservatives are inherently hostile to gays and lesbians. I would suggest something along these lines:

Ann Coulter is a private citizen, unconnected with my campaign, and she is entitled to express her opinions in a country that guarantees such rights, especially for what many people would call offensive speech. I do not share her views on the matter, and while I have differences on issues like gay marriage, I do support the principle that gays and lesbians are entitled to the full range of rights available to all American citizens.

Your mileage may vary.

Captain Ed:

...criticizing Coulter's use of the word "faggot" is not a suppression of free speech; it is an exercise of free speech. We're not advocating her arrest for using the word. We're just saying it was stupid, unnecessary, and hateful. This is no different than Melissa McEwan calling Christians "Christofascist Godbags" and Amanda Marcotte's incendiary hate speech about Catholics. We howled about that when John Edwards hired them; why do we defend Coulter's appearance at CPAC?

This is where you are going to see the real difference between the left and right. When Marcotte and McEwan stepped in it, the left does what it always does--defends the indefensible. I'll be looking hard for anyone to defend Coulter's remarks today--conservatives are adults after all.

Sister Toldja

Jules Crittenden

Moderate Voice

Flopping Aces

Right Wing News

UPDATE: Meanwhile Bill Maher publicly wishes that Dick Cheney had been killed in Afghanistan.

Ridley: They said “We wish he would die.” I mean, it was (?) hate language.

Barney Frank: They said the bomb was wasted. (laughter and applause)

Maher: That’s a funny joke. But, seriously, if this isn’t China, shouldn’t you be able to say that? Why did Arianna Huffington, my girlfriend, I love her, but why did she take that off right away?

After some discussion about why Huffington should or shouldn’t have taken these comments down, the following occurred:

Ridley: It’s one thing to say you hate Dick Cheney, which applies to his politics. It’s another thing to say, “I’m sorry he didn’t die in an explosion." And I think, you know…

Maher: But you should be able to say it. And by the way...

Frank: Excuse me, Bill, but can I ask you a question? Do you decide what the topics are for this show?

Maher: Yeah, I decide the topics, they don’t go there.

Frank: But you exercise control over the show the way that she does over her blog.

Maher: But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow. (applause)

Scarborough: If someone on this panel said that they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say…

Frank: I think he did.

Scarborough: Okay. Did you say…

Maher: No, no. I quoted that.

Frank: You don’t believe that?

Maher: I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.

Matt Sanchez has a column up on Salon to reconcile the fact that he is hispanic, a Marine Corp reservist, a student at an Ivy League university and a former gay porn actor.

I kid you not.

Sanchez got some notoriety for complaining about the anti-military bias at Columbia university, which got some play among conservative forums, but as he says, was largely ignored by the left.

What was not ignored was a published picture of him with Ann Coulter.

Noted military historian and strategist - now Democrat Presidential candidate , Mike Gravel, on the key to an effective fighting force. Something I missed during my military years.

The practice of outing "conservative" gays always provokes a sick feeling deep in my gut--you know, the kind of feeling you get when something just feels unalterably wrong even though you might not be able to quite put your finger on what precisely is wrong about it.

I'm not talking about Larry Craig, who basically outed himself, but the kind of witch hunt we've been witnessing for years now where the most personal aspect of a person's life are made public to satisfy a political agenda.

I would have like to have written about it, but not being gay myself, I didn't think I could do the subject justice.

Fortunately the Gay Patriot has both the requisite sexuality and the eloquence to provide some real insight into the nature of this peculiar sin--and "sin" is the right word for this. This isn't merely a mistake, and error in judgment or carelessness. It is sadistic, cynical delight in the pain of others.

Even worse, that sadism is being harnessed to advance a political agenda. Comparisons to the Nazis are so overdone that they've become risible, but the fostering hatred and "exposing" enemies of the glorious revolution is pretty typical behavior of some thoroughly unpleasant regimes.

In yesterday’s Washington Post Marc Fisher wrote that such “work requires” the “outers” to “play God” (Via Michael Silence via Instapundit). As if they know better than the rest of us. An attitude not too different from that of religious zealots. Indeed, the very title of the column, focusing on the actions of blogger Michael Rogers, Who Among Us Would Cast the First Stone? This Guy suggests that Rogers has the same certainty of belief as do those judgmental voices on the religious right whom his allies on the left are ever eager to criticize.

Fisher is right to ask, “who elected him moral arbiter?” A question not too different than that many ask of social conservatives eager to label gay people sinners.

Like me, Fisher questions if these outings “liberate anyone” or if they “just add another bolt and chain to the closet door.”

I agree that these outings don’t accomplish much, but wonder at the religious zeal with which the outers attempt to make their case. For they seem to know how all gay people should vote on certain issues. Just as certain social conservatives seem to know how all people should express their sexuailty.

Both groups act as if they know better than the rest of us. And neither seems to understand the complicated lives, the perplexing passions and personal struggles of those whose political beliefs or sexual orientation makes them so uncomfortable.

I have one objection--GP is equivocating between conservatives who object to the gay lifestyle, and left-wing brownshirts who are engaged in an updated version of Krystalnacht.

I may discount the hypocrisy argument, but critics of the GOP seem to celebrate it. As Robbie, now of The Malcontent observed two years ago, “The hypocrisy argument is a tactic used by thought fascists who believe an immutable personal characteristic must dictate – without exception – the ideological and political state of a person’s mind.”

Certainly that is true of left-wing gays, but GP appears to be guilty of much the same frame of mind as it concerns religious conservatives.

Inside Higher Ed recalls the early work of Laud Humphreys on what was in the 1960s, euphemistically called the tearoom trade.

"Tearoom" is argot for public restroom and the unfortunate activities of Larry Craig have created a renewed interest in Humphrey's controversial 1970 study of the comings and goings in a St. Louis, MO public park restroom.

Controversial because of Humphreys' methods, which included flagrant misrepresentation and collaboration with law enforcement. Humphrey's represented himself as a "watchqueen" or voyeur and surreptitiously recorded the license plates of the visitors, having police later match those with names and addresses. He then visited those homes under the guise of survey taken to obtain personal information.

I know you aren't shocked--liberal-left gay activists routinely invade their targets privacy for reasons much less noble than Humphreys'. Before Craig got busted in the Minneapolis airport, lefty gays had already outed him the year before.

Humphreys, who was at the time an in-the-closet-homosexual, was a flash-in-the-pan--his subsequent career saw few publications, and a paper purporting to link closet homosexuality with efforts to perfectly model social orthodoxy in all other aspects of their lives. A lot of people already take that as a given, but Humphreys never published the paper which his peers judged posthumously to be "a mess" and "unpublishable".

Nevertheless, The Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places revealed that gay men in the mid-sixties, avoided social marginalization by keeping their unapproved sexuality a closely held secret.

I found the aspect of the study rather interesting because it is by no means limited to homosexuality, but represents a survival behavior engaged in by all sorts of people hoping to avoid social consequences for their behaviors. Mafia dons live in the suburbs, hopelessly narcissistic Hollywood stars attend charity events (or go to rehab), inmates find Jesus. Hiding our worst selves from others starts with lying to your parents about what you were doing last night.

The obvious question? Is this bad?

It seems to me that there are lots of reason to hide behavior from others:

Avoiding consequences. We undertake certain behaviors with the certain knowledge that if we get caught, it will be bad. We do them anyways and take measures to hide our crimes. Sometimes they aren't crimes at all, but simply ideas and views that we simply know will be misconstrued. A Mormon friend of mine, during a business dinner, avoided the obvious explanation why he wasn't drinking the wine. To my utter amazement, he professed that he was was a recovering alcoholic. I asked him about it later and he confessed that no one questions why a recovering alcoholic isn't drinking, but if you don't drink for religious reasons, explanations are demanded, misunderstanding are inevitable and it all becomes a great big hassle. He wasn't ashamed of his religious affiliation, but he nevertheless wanted to avoid the consequences of admitting it under the circumstances.

Shame. We engage in certain behaviors that aren't illegal, but will result in our being shamed. The left in particular are highly adept at shaming people into, if not political compliance, at least silence. The left variously discourages shame (George Michael's "tearoom" antics) and encourages them (Larry Craig's "tearoom" antics. Its clear that in this case, the shaming is a social tool. There is little rhyme or reason to what society declares shameful and what it doesn't. Everyone farts, but we still feel shame when we do it in front of others.

This isn't 1965, and being gay isn't the shame that it was then, so why are there still gay men in the closet?

I think the answer is simple enough--being gay, or differing from "the norm" in any way is an isolating experience. Isolation is painful and people avoid pain if they can help it. I suspect that a lot of gay men don't particularly relish the idea of being ghettoized by their homosexuality--they value the relationships that would otherwise be strained by such revelations.

Here is where it gets interesting. Political power comes from homogeneity, from building constituencies with common interests and objectives. Groups must "concentrate" their membership, differentiate them from the masses. In effect, gay and lesbian politics benefits, and may even encourage gay alienation. If gays are "normal", then there is no GLBT alliance.

The reality for the Democrats is that once you form a constituency, it must be kept intact, made permanent--persistent alienation from the mainstream. Blacks are at the bottom of the socio-economic stack in spite of block-voting for Democrats since before I was born--why should anyone actually try to "solve the problem", when the persistence of the problem is so politically lucrative?

Feminists on the other hand, successfully achieved their political goals and then simply vanished as a political force. Young women take equality and opportunity for granted without having to endure alienation from the mainstream. The lack of a female "ghetto" means that Democrats can no longer depend on block voting by so-called feminists.

The ghetto is essential.

It used to be that we didn't talk religion or politics with acquaintances--sort of like not admitting you like to have sex with men--all to smooth over the social interaction and stress our commonality instead of our differences. Of course there is no political profit in that.

Now, an incredibly private matter becomes a kind of "Star of David"--the first thing you know about someone.

"Hi, I'm gay."

Larry Craig simply didn't want a Star of David on his lapel; didn't want to live in the ghetto. You can call him a "hypocrite" as much as you like, but for the one finger pointing at him, there are four pointing back at you.

Everyone has a secret life.

Washington state representative Richard Curtis has resigned after details of a gay sex encounter became public.

Curtis is a Republican.

The details don't matter of course, but like Larry Craig, Curtis is married and holds a conservative point of view. He has voted against the gay/lesbian agenda on numerous occasions, which of course drives liberals nuts because its "hypocrisy".

Judging from liberal arguments like this, one can be forgiven for thinking that liberals are not the sharpest pencils in the box.

Do you remember "Junk Food Junkie" from the 1970s?

You know I love that organic cooking I always ask for more And they call me Mr. Natural On down to the health food store I only eat good sea salt White sugar don't touch my lips And my friends is always Begging me to take them On macrobiotic trips Yes, they are

Oh, but at night I stake out my strongbox
That I keep under lock and key
And I take it off to my closet
Where nobody else can see
I open that door so slowly
Take a peek up north and south
Then I pull out a Hostess Twinkie
And I pop it in my mouth

Yeah, in the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
Just as healthy as I can be
But at night I'm a junk food junkie
Good lord have pity on me

Well, at lunchtime
You can always find me
At the Whole Earth Vitamin Bar
Just sucking on my plain white yogurt
From my hand thrown pottery jar
And sippin' a little hand pressed cider
With a carrot stick for dessert
And wiping my face
In a natural way
On the sleeve of my peasant shirt
Oh yeah

Ah, but when that clock strikes midnight
And I'm all by myself
I work that combination
On my secret hideaway shelf
And I pull out some Fritos corn chips
Dr. Pepper and an Ole Moon Pie
Then I sit back in glorious expectation
Of a genuine junk food high

Oh yeah, in the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
Just as healthy as I can be
But at night I'm a junk food junkie
Good lord have pity on me

My friends down at the commune
They think I'm pretty neat
Oh, I don't know nothing about arts and crafts
But I give 'em all something to eat
I'm a friend to old Euell Gibbons
And I only eat homegrown spice
I got a John Keats autographed Grecian urn
Filled up with my brown rice
Yes, I do

Oh, but folks lately I have been spotted
With a Big Mac on my breath
Stumbling into a Colonel Sanders
With a face as white as death
I'm afraid someday they'll find me
Just stretched out on my bed
With a handful of Pringles Potato Chips
And a Ding Dong by my head

In the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
Just as healthy as I can be
But at night I'm a junk food junkie
Good lord have pity on me

Is "Mr. Natural" a hypocrite? or is he just someone able to recognize the objective truth but unable to conform his eating habits to it? No doubt liberals would feel better about Mr. Natural is he would simply validate their Big Mac binges, but the facts don't change--a diet of twinkies, hohos and hot dogs is a recipe for coronary heart disease and a foreshortened life.

What about smokers? Credit card bingers? Child molesters? Lazy people? Our sins don't automatically impel us to recommend them as lifestyle choices for others...

OK, point made--hopefully, but is this anyway to discuss the issue of gay marriage?

I'd like to able to refute the argument for gay marriage except for one problem--I haven't heard one. Instead we get accusations of hypocrisy or assertions about how unfair it is that marriage is limited to heterosexuals (by and large...)

Like a lot of other reasonable people, I agree that it is in fact "unfair" that gays in committed relationships run across all sorts of legal obstacles in matters of financial and health matters trusteeship that married people don't--after all, the concept of non-heterosexual couples is a very new one. Those things can be fixed and have been in a lot of places like Canada, Denmark, etc... where gay couples have been accorded legal status short of the institution of marriage.

For reasons not one really seems willing to discuss, this isn't adequate for American gays and lesbians, which seem intent on a rather nefarious scheme probably best understood by reciting a line from "The Incredibles"

"When everyone is super, no one will be super..."

Similarly, when everyone is "married", no one is really married.

Of course, we are talking about the legal recognition of a social institution that will exist with or without the state's sufferance. The real question is how the state should position itself relative to the various kinds of relationships people enter into. The role of traditional marriage has historically been the foundation of the state. As someone who has been married a long time, its been rather surprising to discover that when I actually got married, I had little idea of how profound the experience was going to be, how comprehensive it was, and perhaps most important, how it would bind me to the community, the past and the future.

At the beginning, my marriage was admittedly, little different from that of a committed gay or lesbian couple, but the arrival of children--our children-- transformed it into something I could never have foreseen and which still surprises me. My children are starting to get married, which is interesting in itself because of the nature of the family connections we are developing with other families. In the next few years, my wife and I will share with other couples, the arrival of grandchildren and will be connected by that relationship in ways none of us anticipated or have any control over. I mentioned the other day that Utah is considering a school voucher referendum proposal, which by all rights I shouldn't give a damn about since my children are all out the public school system. Yet I do care, because having children and prospectively grandchildren, I maintain an interest in what befalls the future generations.

Is that unusual? Is it unique to fathers and mothers? Perhaps not in the absolute sense, but I have every reason to believe its the reality in the general sense. Recently I had a story related to me of some Americans travelling in Europe and discussing the demographic crisis of Europe and Europe's Islamification with a man they met on the train (The people involved are known to me, so its not apocryphal). The older German man dismissed the possibility, but when confronted by the hard cold facts, responded with a hard cold fact of his own--"...so what? I'll be dead by then..."

The man was married, but had no children--nothing to connect him to the future of his community and consequently had little concern for anything outside the sphere of his personal interest--chilling evidence of the attitudes produced by this new kind of "marriage" and a matter of serious contemplation when it comes to public policy.

Shouldn't society foster those institutions which promote its own welfare? Present and future?

Obfuscating the meaning and value of marriage is clearly problematic for society. We need citizens who are embued with wider societal concerns by a genetic, familial and generational connection to its future. Richard Curtis seems to have understood that, or at very least understood that his constituents understood that.

Its not me saying it....

When he flashed his engagement ring on the sofa with Richard and Judy, pop star Pete Burns told of his happiness at the prospect of becoming the latest celebrity to marry his male partner.

But now, just ten months after the big day, the singer has split from Michael Simpson, saying civil partnerships do not work and that he was happier being married to a woman.

Burns, 49, who was wed to stylist Lynne Corlett for 28 years, said gay relationships were a "commercial break" compared with the "full movie" of marriage.

He also claimed there were too much "promiscuity" in the gay community for civil partnerships to thrive.

A bit of a slap in the face for the liberal-left argument that gay marriage would address the problem of a culture of promiscuity that made the AIDS crisis so destructive in the gay community.

Burns said: "I view marriage as a sacred institution. I think two men naturally are predators. Gay relationships are a commercial break, not a whole movie.

"The relationships I'm aware of, apart from one ... it's as though there's some kind of emotional inadequacy or narcissism, where they feel emotionally inadequate and need more validation, from either a father figure or a mirror image of themselves. "I'm not condemning it, I think it needs researching and help."

On the occasions when I've addressed the issue, I've pointed out that if gay marriages were indeed a viable option, they would have long been a part of the human experience. In millennia of recorded history, there simply have been no examples of sustained gay marriage culture--homosexuality is about sexual attraction and consequently inevitably about promiscuity. In the traditional marriage on the other hand, sex is a minor, and frankly sometimes non-existent aspect of a much broader relationship that encompasses both man and wife, children and the extended family and community.

The problem with legalizing gay marriage has never been with the gay relationship, but with how the law has to change the definition of marriage to encompass the gay variant. Those changes are subtle, but its the subtle things that produce successful or failed cultures.