Why We Get Weak Leadership on Gay Issues from Dems

At the first LGBT fundraiser for Hillary, prominent gay activisty and recording mogul Hilary Rosen says:

"There's obviously some disappointment about marriage," Rosen said, referring to gay marriage, which Clinton does not support. "But they're all consistent on that issue, so that's kind of taken off the table here."

And with that, Hilary gives Hillary a gigantic pass one of the key civil rights issues of our time. Rosen might have asked Hillary where she stands on repealing DOMA, a necessary action to ensure that gay Americans in committed relationships get "equal benefits" which is what candidate Clinton says she believes. That can't happen with DOMA on the books.

Also, what about throwing your support behind the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would allow citizens and legal residents in same-sex relationships to sponsor their partners for immigration purposes?

These are two key legislative initiatives that Hillary, as Senator, could undertake now.

She won't. She doesn't have to. She can get tons of LGBT dollars for the asking, thanks to enablers like Rosen.

Ann Coulter and "Faggot"

You've probably heard that at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) Conference Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot.

Video here.

Pam at Pam's House Blend has an excellent commentary on the reaction to the comment from the left. Reacting to a blast fundraising email sent out by the Edwards campaign in response to Coulter's comments, Pam asks what the Edwards response does to condemn blatant homophobia, and answers:

Nothing. It doesn't even mention "gay," "lesbian," or "homophobia." It doesn't point out that Coulter's use of "faggot" as a slur on Edwards is also what spills from the lips of the kind of people who beat up a gay man for wearing pink pants, or murder a 72-year-old gay man by slamming him with a metal pipe.

She goes on to address the larger Democratic outlook:

If you're a homo, the message from Dems is that we're still invisible (see Dean's statement), the crazy granny in the attic, and only the granny's nearly feeble caretaker is allowed to say anything -- and even HRC never mentions gays or lesbians at all in its release (outside of its irrelevant boilerplate at the end). Even our advocacy organization couldn't find a paragraph to place Coulter's comments into context of the larger issue of homophobia. [Emphasis is Pam's]

And here's my perspective -- while in college, I was one of several faggots who attended the CPAC conference. Hey -- it's not impossible to be a "faggot" and conservative -- especially if you define conservative in the classical sense of limited government, which means government not concerned with the gender of the person I love.

President Reagan spoke at the main banquet that year. Reagan's conservatives were a more genteel brand than today's crass neanderthals. To be sure, Falwell and Robertson were around and powerful in those days and the party gave them their due. But there was a spark of libertarianism that counterbalanced to some extent those extreme voices. Social issues were never on the front burner then and the fundraising whipping boy was communism, not gays. I cannot imagine anyone uttering the word "faggot" from the podium at the CPAC conference I attended back in 1984.

Today, the spark of freedom in the conservative movement has been squashed. It's one reason I left the Republican Party (or to borrow from Reagan, the Republican Party left me).

The Log Cabiners should be denouncing Coulter's comments. Where are they?