…Even as it has ceased to be a crime or necessarily a political career-breaker to be gay, unprincipled gay-baiting has mushroomed into a full-fledged political movement. It’s a virulent animosity toward gay people that really unites the leaders of the anti-”activist” judiciary crusade, not any intellectually coherent legal theory (they’re for judicial activism when it might benefit them in Florida). Their campaign menaces the country on a grander scale than Drury and Preminger ever could have imagined: it uses gay people as cannon fodder on the way to its greater goal of taking down a branch of government that is crucial to the constitutional checks and balances that “Advise and Consent” so powerfully extols.
Today’s judge-bashing firebrands often say that it isn’t homosexuality per se that riles them, only the potential legalization of same-sex marriage by the courts. That’s a sham. These people have been attacking gay people since well before Massachusetts judges took up the issue of marriage, Vermont legalized civil unions or Gavin Newsom was in grade school.
UPDATE:: In other news, the NYTimes is going to start charging $50 a year for access to comment articles just like this one. Starting in September, subscribers will have ‘early access’ to content and comment that was previously free.
This is most interesting because just a couple days ago the LA Times stopped charging for its premium content, having found that it severely impacted readership. This is, I think, a bold and yet foolish move on the part of the times. The success of about.com, about which they gloat so openly on their website, was due to its openness. Now the Times wants to restrict access to only those with the money to pay for added bits and pieces, a strategy which they hope will bring in more cash but could well just push people away from the site. Perhaps they know something that we don’t know, but a lot of UK newspapers have been scaling back their premium content sections, keeping only ‘digital editions’ and so forth as the Guardian does. By making themselves less open to the market, I think the NYTimes risks going the way of the Wall Street Journal, where no one pays attention to it because it simply isn’t a factor in everyday life. It’s not part of the equation.
Editor and Publisher
boingboing links
NYTimes Co Press Release
This offering marks an important step forward in the Company’s overall digital strategy. Since the Times Company launched its digital operations in the mid 90s, it has had three business objectives for them - profitability, scale and revenue diversification. In 2001 the Company’s digital properties achieved profitability and earlier this year, the acquisition of About, Inc. increased their scale. The launch of TimesSelect further diversifies their revenue base.
“Even as it has ceased to be a crime or necessarily a political career-breaker to be gay, unprincipled gay-baiting has mushroomed into a full-fledged political movement.”
You mean like making a big deal about the sexuality of White House reporters that one doesn’t agree with (posting their naked photos on the Internet)? Or silencing the Gay Patriot or any gay (or minority for that matter) who doesn’t follow the accepted dogma?
It seems to me that the ones making a big issue of sexual preferences, forcing their political views into unprecedented changes in the law are the liberals at this point in time.
I disagree with both of your examples there though: I think in the Jeff Gannon case was not that he was gay but that he way a hypocrite and that he had greater access than the rest of the White House press pool. His sexuality wasn’t what in question, it was the secrets and lies behind how he got in there. And what about the Log Cabin Republicans? They’re patriots in all definitions of the word, especially the ones where Ann Coulter likes to say that liberals aren’t patriotic. I don’t think anyone is trying to silence them, in fact I think people across ‘the community’ would like to embrace them as much as possible because they show the diversity that is possible when one isn’t prejudiced.
And I think a campaign for equal rights is not unprecedented because the civil rights movement showed what could be done when people stop creating boundaries between groups, we’re all the same, just a little different. Terri Shiavo’s case: that was trying to change the law by going over the head of the closest relation: her husband. Where’s the sanctity of marriage there?
Anyway, thanks for your comment, I appreciate the feedback.