I was on with Bill O’Reilly defending students at my alma matter George Washington University who are protesting the school’s Catholic center leader for saying that being gay is “unnatural and immoral” and counseling gay students to repress their desires and feel ashamed of themselves.
I argue the larger issue is the need for the Catholic Church to get with the times — and address the fact that a strong majority of lay Catholics are more pro-gay than the Church and this is causing many to flee from the faith, especially young people.
Here’s our exchange:
O’Reilly seemed a bit confused, claiming he supports the rights of the students to protest while at the same time calling them fascist. Later in the show, Bill criticized progressives for “incivility” in calling Margaret Thatcher a fascist. Anyway…
Here’s Mediaite’s coverage of our exchange.
I don’t know how to introduce this clip without giving more airtime than due to the story anti-choice advocates are trying to manufacture. Jezebel has a great piece summarizing the faux-brouhaha, appropriately entitled “Planned Parenthood Does Not Endorse Infanticide and We Can’t Believe That Even Needs to Be Clarified”. So check that out. And then watch this.
Note, I do wish that I had used different phrasing right at the end but… there you have it.
Video courtesy of Fox News.
There was already plenty of evidence that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is a really bad idea. Now, we have more:
The oil is the same heavy crude from tar sands that oil companies behind the Keystone XL pipeline want to extract. In fact, the only difference between the Pegasus pipeline that leaked and the proposed Keystone XL? The proposed Keystone XL is longer — over 300 miles longer than the pipeline that leaked in Arkansas on Friday. That means the Keystone XL pipeline is even more likely to leak. Not exactly a comforting prospect.
Read the rest of my column, in which I run through all the other reasons that KXL is an awful idea.
In my first profile story for New York Magazine, I spent 47 minutes with notorious super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff — watching him play a punishing game of racquetball. Here’s an excerpt:
I start to feel bad, not just that Abramoff is losing but that I’m going to write about him losing. And that’s how it happens: I find myself cheering for Jack Abramoff, disgraced super-lobbyist, right-wing backer of African warlords, manipulator of Native American communities. At one point, he was one of the most influential power brokers in America, and here he has me rooting him on as if he were the underdog.
You can read the full essay here. Or in New York Magazine on newsstands this week!
So far, anyway….. Discussing dodgeball with Megyn Kelly and Tony Sayegh:
In case you missed it, a re-cap:
1. I wrote that conservatives embracing marriage equality as part of their ongoing, regressive “marriage promotion” agenda does more harm to gay folks — and all of us — than good.
2. Conservative commentator SE Cupp responded by defending the cause of gay marriage and arguing that marriage is a superior family arrangement.
3. And now, I respond to her response. Read it here.
An excerpt:
I’m not accusing Cupp of being disingenuous. I believe her desire to promote equality and fairness for gay people is authentic and deep, as it is for many conservatives and libertarians. What I am expressing is a fear that many conservatives are trying to use the wave of popular support for gay marriage as a way to reinforce regressive values about families and sexuality that implicitly still allows gay people (and others) to be ranked second-class or worse. We should not allow the cause of gay marriage to be used to suggest that certain kinds of families are better than others. All families must be treated fairly and equally.
A straight conservative defends gay marriage while a gay liberal critiques it, all in a civil manner. The sky must be falling!
In my latest column for the Fox News website, reacting to the first day of oral arguments in the Supreme Court marriage equality cases — and all the politics and passion surrounding the issue — I asked whether it really matters what the Supreme Court decides. My answer:
[T]he details sort of don’t matter — what is really on trial this week is the future of equal treatment for gay Americans. And the fact is, the tide is flowing forcefully in the direction of fairness and equality. The Supreme Court will either ride the wave or try to block it or dodge it, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. The tide has irrevocably turned.
I argue what might matter more than the Court’s ruling is the fact that conservative Chief Justice John Roberts gave his family tickets to watch oral arguments to his lesbian cousin. Read the whole essay here.
On MSNBC’s The Cycle and in her Daily News column today, conservative pundit S.E. Cupp responded to my essay for Salon about the dangers of conservative embracing gay marriage as part of a larger “marriage promotion” effort.
On Tuesday, MSNBC host S.E. Cupp castigated liberal columnist Sally Kohn after she wrote a piece saying that society should not only accept gay marriage, but move beyond the promotion of marriage as a relevant institution altogether. “The judgmental moral hierarchy of conservative marriage supremacy should be looked at by all of us with a queer eye,” Kohn wrote. After summarizing and dissecting Kohn’s argument, Cupp declared that Kohn’s countercultural call to action was both excessive and flawed.
You can read the rest of Mediaite’s coverage here.
And here’s the video clip:
Also, an exchange with S.E. — whom I very much like and respect — on Twitter last night:
@sallykohn Thanks, you too!
— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) March 26, 2013
As the Supreme Court considers two landmark marriage equality cases this week, I look at the growing bandwagon of Republicans supporting same-sex marriage — and how the reasons why might ultimately be more harm than help to the gay community:
In the interest of expediency and bringing as many unlikely conservative allies on board, the gay rights movement may give cover to or even amplify a set of narrow values that rank married families as better than un-married families, two parents as better than one parent — norms that continue to divide up America into good people and deserving families versus everyone else. And even if we temporarily succeed in getting gay folks added to the “good” category, is it worth it? Plus do we really think that’s the way we or anyone else will be treated equally?
The piece looks back at the history of the marriage fight within the gay movement and left to right. Check it out and tell me what you think!
I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I’m happy to see the Republican Party and especially its conservative wing self destruct. On the other hand, I think we need (at least) two functioning and representative political parties for the good of our democracy. Herein lies the rub.
From my latest column for Fox News:
The Republican establishment also seems to be missing the biggest problem, that voters are increasingly rejecting Republican orthodoxy that the party nonetheless continues to push. Witness the House Republican budget, a plan that voters solidly opposed in the 2012 election and in exit poll after exit poll, including rejecting the man who proposed it, Paul Ryan. A party that would double down on such an unpopular agenda isn’t just lacking good data systems but fundamentally tone deaf.
You can read my full reflection here.
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