They say that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on a group of newly minted gay conservatives. "Marchers support man beaten outside gay bar"
Members of Seattle's gay and lesbian community are angry and demand that the men who beat up Micah Painter in a hate crime face justice.It's outrageous that anybody should be assaulted the way that Micah Painter was, whether as an anti-gay hate crime or for any other reason.That's the message that was delivered yesterday to about 150 demonstrators who gathered at Westlake Center in support of the 23-year-old who was attacked recently outside a gay bar.
"We are pissed!" rally organizer Michael McAfoose told the crowd. "Folks, I'm so outraged," he said. "We are going to watch this case and make sure that it is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We've got to be vigilant."
Now that more members of Seattle's gay community are speaking of the need for law enforcement to be tough on crime (and presumably also for the need of ordinary citizens to own and carry weapons to defend themselves), I hope we'll see more "tough on crime" gays coming over to the Republican Party.
(And by the way, ending the Democrats' near-monopoly on the gay vote with a larger contingent of gay Republicans is also the surest way to counter the regrettable strength of the Republicans' homophobic factions).
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 12, 2004 12:47 PMYou're awfully optimistic. It sure looks like the only crimes the gay community wants the police to be tougher on are "hate" crimes. As opposed to all those "love crimes" you hear about so often.
Posted by: Timothy on July 12, 2004 03:50 PMBy far most 'anti-gay' violence is violence from other gays. Gay activists want the cops to stay out of their business in those cases.
The hyper-promiscuity of gay men has spread AIDS and killed more Americans than terrorism, and probably a thousand times as many as have been killed by anti-gay hate crimes. Now it looks like they are giving us the gift of drug-resistant syphilis too.
Libertarians are not helping gays by encouraging acceptance of destructive behaviors any more than we help people by tolerating drug use or reducing sentences for violent crimes.
I don't hate anyone; I'm just tired of being abused. If you think the Republican Party should trade gays for conservatives, you are sadly mistaken. Libertarians need to realize that conservatives are tolerant and the Left is not.
This sounds like a good new opportunity for the Pink Pistols whose motto is "armed gays don't get bashed"
Posted by: Mike Silverman on July 13, 2004 09:29 AMI don't think you can be gay and conservative, though, without respecting the value and integrity of traditions and institutions, like traditional marriage for example.
Posted by: Matt J Kurlander on July 13, 2004 11:09 AMTry being a gay, conservative atheist like me if you think it's hard just being gay and conservative!
Posted by: Alan on July 18, 2005 08:16 PM