Yesterday, Freedom to Marry released an analysis of polling data written by Jan van Lohuizen and Joel Benenson, top campaign pollsters for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively, about the sea change in public opinion on the issue of marriage equality.

The results show a steady increase in popular support for same-sex couples’ freedom to marry between 1996 and 2008 followed by a dramatic surge over the past two years. Support for ending marriage discrimination grew among all groups analyzed, even older Americans and Republicans. Much of the recent spike is due to the fact that marriage equality now has “solid majority support” among the ever-important block of independent voters.

The final sentence of the report brought a smile to this 26-year-old happily married blogger’s face: “…support strongly correlates with age. As Americans currently under the age of 40 make up a greater percentage of the electorate, their views will come to dominate.” However, as Bush pollster van Lohuizen pointed out, “The remarkable surge over the last two years can’t be explained by generational change alone. It suggests that people across the political spectrum are rethinking their positions—and deciding in favor of the freedom to marry.”

The astonishingly rapid acceleration of popular support for marriage equality revealed in yesterday’s report further proves what many in the LGBT movement, including TWO’s Wayne Besen, have been saying for more than a year now: we have passed the cultural tipping point on LGBT rights. The upcoming battles will undoubtedly be severe, but with public opinion, demographics, and the arc of history now firmly on our side, we know that they are battles we will ultimately win.

Now if only reluctant politicians of all stripes would just hurry up and evolve already…

Look, it is a wingnut named Walter Williams, talky-talking at ClownHall, about how smart people like Barack Obama are bad and stupid people like Sarah Palin are good!

There are a lot of things, large and small, that irk me. One of them is our tendency to evaluate a presidential candidate based on his intelligence or academic credentials. When Obama threw his hat in the ring, people thought he was articulate and smart and hailed his intellectual credentials. Just recently, when Newt Gingrich announced his candidacy, people hailed his intellectual credentials and smartness as well.

By contrast, the intellectual elite and mainstream media people see Sarah Palin as stupid, a loose cannon and not to be trusted with our nuclear arsenal. There was another presidential candidate who was also held to be stupid and not to be trusted with our nuclear arsenal who ultimately became president — Ronald Reagan. I don’t put much stock into whether a political leader is smart or not because, as George Orwell explained, “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

All the evidence that I see is that academics and intellectuals have messed up the world. I challenge anyone to show me a major calamity that was engineered by a stupid, inarticulate person

George W. Bush. Iraq and the entire American response to 9/11. DONE!

Goodbye, dumb wingnut.

It is sad that he wrote so many more words after that, as he could have been working on his times tables.

[h/t Tintin @ Sadly, No!]

This is the most pointless survey, and accompanying article, I have ever seen, at least this week.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Protestant pastors overwhelmingly believe that Oprah Winfrey isn’t a Christian, but three-quarters of them say former president George W. Bush is.

Winfrey and Bush, along with Glenn Beck, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, comprised the list that LifeWay Research presented to Protestant pastors along with the question, “Which, if any, of the following people do you believe are Christians?”

The majority of Americans self-identify as Christian, and Protestant is the largest category of Christian denominations. With that in mind, LifeWay Research set out to examine the beliefs of pastors leading Protestant churches. The national telephone survey took place Oct. 7-14 and included 1,000 interviews.

Winfrey earned the lowest affirmative response, with only 19 percent of pastors saying they believe she is a Christian. The other television personality on the list, Beck, earned the second lowest affirmative response at 27 percent.

Ooh, but Barry O was in third place, just behind Dubya and Snow Snooki!

File this crap in your Useless Information databank — maybe it will come up in trivia one day!

How quickly some forget what the last president was like.  From Dubya’s new coloring book memoir:

By the time Dick came to the ranch to deliver his final report, I had decided to make another run at him. As he finished his briefing, I said, “Dick, you are the perfect running mate.”

While I had dropped hints before, he could tell I was serious this time. Finally, he said, “I need to talk to Lynne.” I took that as a promising sign. He told me that he had had three heart attacks and that he and Lynne were happy with their life in Dallas. Then he said, “Mary is gay.” I could tell what he meant by the way he said it. Dick clearly loved his daughter. I felt he was gauging my tolerance. “If you have a problem with this, I’m not your man,” he was essentially saying.

I smiled at him and said, “Dick, take your time. Please talk to Lynne. And I could not care less about Mary’s orientation.”

Awwww, that’s nice. Details, details:

Bush of course went on to select Cheney as his running mate, and then repeatedly used his opposition to gay rights to galvanize the Republican base.

But it’s totes okay for Mary Cheney to be a homo, as long as she doesn’t, like, want equal rights or anything.

[h/t Joe]

Weekly Column

Nearly a decade after religious extremists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, our nation’s anti-terrorism policy is in shambles. America is caught in a ruinous cycle, where we simultaneously fund the very enemies we fight, while embarking on morally bankrupt, logically incoherent, economically destructive, and politically suicidal campaigns in distant lands.

George W. Bush told us we invaded Iraq to bring democracy and freedom to the region, while Barack Obama has increased troops in Afghanistan to supposedly keep the volatile area stable.

Yet, this week the Obama administration announced that it is trying to sell the repressive regime of Saudi Arabia up to $60 billion in advanced weapons, including 84 new F-15 fighter jets. How exactly is selling out our values to prop up this fundamentalist dictatorship in the interest of our long-term stability? Could we try any harder to subvert our message of democracy, sabotage human rights in the region, and undermine reformers?

Ironically, only days before the announcement of this massive arms shipment to our “ally”, a high level Saudi diplomat told NBC News that he was seeking political asylum. Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, claimed he feared for his life after Saudi officials discovered he was gay and had a friendship with a Jewish woman.

Is such bigotry and persecution what our weapons are defending?

Asseri, who is now in hiding, posted a letter on a Saudi website, condemning his country’s “backwardness”, as well as its decision to allow “militant imams” who have “defaced the tolerance of Islam” to take control of Saudi society.

How easily we forget that eleven of the fourteen 9-11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian. At our own peril, we blithely ignore that Saudi Islamists radicalized nuclear-armed Pakistan. These Sunni extremists are still funneling money into Pakistan to build Wahabi madrassas that brainwash youth into becoming Jihadists. Saudi cash — earned by selling oil to liberal western democracies — is also responsible for the proliferation of mosques that preach hate throughout Europe.

If America really gave a damn about stopping terrorism and promoting human rights, it would invest massively in energy innovation, so we would not feel compelled to fund and arm a nation that treats women like pets, brutalizes reformers, and murders gay people.

Our current policy is insane. We turn a blind eye to international Saudi mischief, and then rely on our brave young soldiers to stop the fruits of their fanaticism in the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Occasionally, the violence spills over into an American or European city, and we all momentarily focus on the problem, before we get distracted and return to our gas guzzling SUVs and reality TV shows.

While the majority of Americans napped through our historic proposed weapons sale to an archaic country known as the financier of fundamentalism, most people were fixated on the “Ground Zero Mosque” spectacle, where an Imam of the moderate Sufi tradition wanted to create a community center dedicated to peaceful dialogue.  Could our nation’s attention span be any shorter or our priorities more misplaced?

America must wake up and wise up if it expects to contain religion-based terrorism.

The first thing we can do is stop making this a battle of Islam vs. Christianity. The entire fight should be recast, as extremism vs. modernity and our criticism must extend across the board to all religions. Peaceful versions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc., should be praised and rewarded, while intolerant, militant brands of faith condemned, with no exceptions.

To succeed, we must educate ourselves on the various sects. Failing to distinguish between a moderate Imam and Osama bin Laden is as foolish as a Muslim not knowing the difference between Rev. Pat Robertson and openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson.

What matters is not the broad label of the religion, but what each branch of faith is teaching its children. If hatred, backwardness, authoritarianism are the values taught, it will lead to divisiveness and bloodshed. When love, peace, respect, and modernization are imparted, societies will be uplifted.

Of course, the largest force in undermining national security is the GOP’s embrace of the Religious Right.  After all, how can America promote its values and ask Muslim nations to separate mosque and state, when prominent American preachers and public officials are pledging to undermine separation of church and state?

Can you imagine how comforted the Taliban and Iranian mullahs must have been when they watched Glenn Beck’s recent Washington, DC rally and the theocratic calls to return America – a supposedly secular nation — to God?

It is in America’s strategic interest to promote rhetoric and policies that are aligned with our professed secular values. As long as our resources are being used to support nations that export extremism, we can’t say that we are truly in a war against terrorism. It would be more accurate to say we are at war against ourselves.

New York times op-ed editor Tobin Harshaw had an extremely irritating piece in today’s New York Times, where Ken Mehlman was portrayed as a victim of harsh, unforgiving LGBT bloggers. According to the op-ed:

Until this week,Mehlman was mostly known for being the wonkish young man who managed George. W. Bush’s re-election campaign and then ran the Republican National Committee. Now, he’s mostly known for what he shared with The Atlantic’s Mark Aminder: “Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.”

Well, it’d be tough enough for most of us to have that conversation with Mom and Dad — imagine it with Karl Rove.

Maybe Harshaw hadn’t noticed, but Karl Rove is not Mehlman’s father. He was Mehlman’s boss — and one that made his political reputation through dirty tricks, particularly gay baiting opponents. In other words, Mehlman carefully and willfully chose his dubious career and association with this known, political gay bashing Republican hack. Mehlman was an adult at this time, so he knew exactly what he was doing when he teamed up with Rove. Together, these cynical men chose power, fame, and riches by exploiting the prejudices of social conservatives, at the expense of LGBT people, particualrly youth, some of whom surely blew out their brains after they were rejected by their churches and families.

Instead of focusing on the damage created by Mehalman and his power-hungry cohorts, Harshaw demonizes bloggers who want to hold the former RNC chairman accountable, as mean and unreasonable. After upholding apologists, such as Gay Patriot B. Daniel Blatt,  as voices of moderation, the author concludes that, “given the commentary of the last two days, that [forgiveness by liberals] doesn’t seem to likely.”

Harshaw is just flat out wrong.

As I wrote on this site and The Huffington Post, LGBT people will forgive Mehlman, if only for the sake of pragmatically bringing out other Closet Ken’s. We need conservatives on our side — such as Ted Olson and Laura Bush — to win this culture war. However, we will not be treated like tools by writers like Harshaw, who demand we have amnesia about Mehlman’s ignoble history. We will also not have our intelligence insulted by pundits who want to infantilize Mehlman, by pretending that he was not able to “figure things out” until his mid-40′s.

Mehlman did not just realize he was gay — in the same way he might suddenly discover he likes pistachio ice cream. It doesn’t work that way.

So, highly paid spin doctors or media outlets who sell their souls for access should stop dutifully regurgitating this lie. Unless there was something physically wrong with Mehlman’s equipment — and there has been no indication their was — he knew he was gay for decades. This is a very sophisticated, politically powerful individual. Unlike former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), Mehlman grew up in a time where there were gay role models, LGBT people were represented in the media and there were countless activist groups. An astute individual possessing his high level of intelligence, knew exactly who he was and what he was doing. Mehlman was aware of the gay rights movement. He had likely had sex or romantic relationships with men. He had certainly heard of Ellen, Rosie and Will and Grace.

Yet, while millions of gay people chose to live with integrity and self-respect, Mehlman chose to profit from the virulent vestiges of anti-gay animus that remain a force in the hinterlands. He teamed up with Rove to win infulence, power and riches at the expense of his own people.

What Mehlman did was detestable. His behavior was despicable. His decisions were damnable.

While countless people — including terrified teens — made the right choices, he made the wrong ones. As a result, anti-gay laws were written into state constitutions, helpless teenagers were thrown onto the mean streets, some LGBT people were cruelly written out of wills, partners from different countries could not be together, brave veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were drummed out of the military, and long-term partners had their hearts broken because they could not visit each other in the hospital because they were not married.

Yet Harshaw breezily dismisses this reprehensible record and paints those — such as Pam Spaulding and Joe Jervis — who have embraced an honest version of history, as the “bad guys.” This is incredibly insulting and outrageous.

As I stated in The Huffington Post, Mehlman has three steps to take before he is warmly welcomed:

1) Repent for past sins (Hasn’t happened yet)
2) Be honest with the LGBT community (Hasn’t happened yet)
3) Work tirelessly to undo the damage and propel the LGBT movement towards equality (There has been a pledge to help. Good.)

What could Mehlman say to begin this process and satisfy critics? How about something like this:

“I was wrong and I am truly sorry for harming my own community — and by extension myself. The Republican Party had decided to exploit fears about marriage equality and the lives of LGBT people as a wedge issue to win elections. I could have spoken out against this strategy and demanded an end to the anti-gay rhetoric and actions of my Party. And, had they not heeded my advice, I should have resigned. Unfortunately, the desire to win at all costs — and enjoy the spoils of victory — seduced me into making poor, self-serving decisions. I acted in a way that was greedy and cowardly for personal gain. While I cannot take back the past, I can spend the rest of my life trying to make brave decisions to undo some of the damage that I am responsible for. Please find it in your heart to try to forgive me and offer me the opportunity to contribute to the LGBT movement and end discrimination for future generations.”

A little bit of contrition would go a long way. Mehlman will find that people will move on – but one can’t truly be forgiven and embraced, unless they first offer a sincere apology.

An article in today’s New York Times says that as more Republican gays come out, overt gay bashing is on the outs in the GOP.

The muted reaction reflects not only changing values in the country generally, but also, more notably, among many Republicans and conservatives.

The center of gravity of the conservative movement in this election season is with fiscal conservatives. The Tea Party is infusing the Republican Party with new energy, and Tea Party leaders and supporters say they do not want to talk about social issues: even if they do not personally support same-sex marriage or abortion, they think the Republican Party spent too much time talking about them and not enough time trying to rein in spending.

Truth Wins Out was one of the first organizations to recognize that a tipping point has occurred. As early as May I wrote:

The war over gay rights in America and other modern nations has been largely won. Too many people have come out of the closet and will never go back in for the clock to be turned back.

Most of these out individuals have loyal friends and family members who offer unequivocal love and unqualified support. We have reached a tipping point where LGBT people are even coming out in traditionally conservative bastions where the issue has long been seen as taboo.

This huge shift in society is why we are holding our noses and welcoming people like Ken Mehlman (after his redemption tour), in hopes that thousands of other Closet Kens will come out and end state sanctioned homophobia. This process is happening at an stunningly fast rate, as social conservatives are losing momentum.

“There are now more and more Republicans, and conservative Republicans, who have talked about this issue through the prism of being an equal rights issue, and being an issue that should not define the conservative movement and the party,” said Steve Schmidt, who was part of that inner circle as a spokesman and strategist for Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign.

This shift is occurring because cynical Republicans that rely on wedge issues to win elections are seeing that gay bashing is losing its power. It seems that border fences, tax giveaways to the rich and launching ill-advised wars in the Middle East pack more punch, these days.

Matthew Dowd, another top strategist for Mr. Bush who broke with him after the re-election campaign, said that same-sex marriage had ceased to be a big issue for many voters — including conservatives and religious ones — even in 2004. In polling and focus groups before that election, he said, Republicans and conservatives cited terrorism, taxes and the war in Iraq as the issues that would move them to the polls.

Of course, the Caveman Cabal will fight like crazy to make sure the GOP remains firmly entrenched in Medieval times.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Mr. Mehlman’s announcement helped explain “the scandalous failure” of the Republican establishment to fight same-sex marriage. “It is important for the conservative movement that the Republican Party remains committed to its longtime stance on core social issues,” he said.

Perkins can bleat and beat his chest all he wants, but the numbers are no longer on his side:

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in March 2004, a plurality of Americans under 45 — 35 percent — said there should be no legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships. Forty-five percent of Americans 45 and older said the same. By April 2010, just 24 percent of Americans ages 18 to 44 surveyed said that there should be no legal recognition, and 35 percent of Americans 45 and older said the same.

For the past decade, every time voters wiped away LGBT rights at the ballot box, Perkins and others of his ilk would bellow, “majority rules.” I’m curious if these neo-Puritans will still respect the will of the people when they are entrenched on the minority side of public opinion. My hunch is that they will suddenly lose respect for “the people”.

For many years, Ken Mehlman worked to prop up elected anti-gay bigots, including running the virulently anti-gay reelection campaign of George W. Bush in 2004.  Now that he’s finally coming out, Mike Rogers is giving Mehlman his ‘Roy Cohn Award’, his reporting from several years ago having been validated:

If I first started writing about Mehlman in 2004, why is Ken getting his Roy Cohn Award now? Because I am able to report – here for the first time — that Ken Mehlman, the former Chairman of the Republican National Committee is set to come out of the closet in a column by Atlantic writer Marc Ambinder Friday morning or early next week. This will be on the heels of him being included in fundraising letter supporting marriage equality.

[...]

The three people most responsible for the anti-gay actions of the Bush reelection campaign are Mehlman, Karl Rove and Bush. In addition to his role at the RNC, Mehlman served in the first Bush Administration as White House Political Director. In 2004 he was the general chairman of the Bush reelection campaign.

[...]

If this move doesn’t call for a Roy Cohn Award, I don’t know what does. Ken Mehlman is horridly homophobic and no matter how orchestrated his coming out is, our community should hold him accountable for his past.

If it seems like Mike is being harsh, it’s because he is, and I understand where he’s coming from.  Mike goes on to explain how Mehlman could actually redeem himself:

I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for being the architect of the 2004 Bush reelection campaign. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for his role in developing strategy that resulted in George W. Bush threatening to veto ENDA or any bill containing hate crimes laws. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for the pressing of two Federal Marriage Amendments as political tools. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for developing the 72-hour strategy, using homophobic churches to become political arms of the GOP before Election Day.

And those state marriage amendments. I want to hear him apologize for every one of those, too.

I agree. Ken Mehlman cynically used his position of influence to rake in mountains of cash for himself, and he willingly did it on the backs of his gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. If Mehlman is still a Republican, I’m sure the GOProud people will embrace him with open arms, because they don’t really care if a person is anti-gay or gay-supportive. They’re pretty much in it for tax cuts and self-shaming purposes. Mehlman will fit right in, in that case. But if he suddenly wants to become a spokesman for The Gays and The Equality, he’s got a lot of explaining and apologizing to do.

Apparently, Ken Mehlman is my new neighbor. For those who don’t remember, he was the Bush administration’s campaign stooge who resigned as chairman of the Republican National Committee not long after he was accused of being a two-faced closet case.

Mehlman presided over a nasty presidential campaign where marriage equality was written out of the constitutions of several states and divisively used as a wedge issue to help propel Bush to a second disastrous term.

Now that Mehlman has profiteered from the pain of LGBT people and attacks on liberalism, he has conveniently moved to our little gay/liberal enclave to take advantage of the gains made by the very people bashed by his beloved Republican Party. (To his credit, he did try to make the GOP more racially and ethnically diverse, so he wins points on that front)

Mehlman just paid $3.775 million for a 2,200-square-foot 2BR/3BA loft the Chelsea Mercantile, where neighbors include Marc Jacobs and Lance Bass. He should love it! I hear the place has the most fabulous walk-in closets. However, the GOP spin doctor paid $100k above the asking price. So much for fiscal conservatism!

In any case, we don’t want to be be accused of intolerance. So, now that I have given him shit — in the most loving, neighborly way possible — I will officially welcome Kenny to the hood. Plus, in Chelsea we like to pride ourselves on diversity — and having an admitted, practicing Republican operative is true to our values of inclusion.

WELCOME KENNY!

At The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal calls the Obama administration on the carpet for affirming Rick Warren and allies’ efforts to deny access to condoms and prevent Africa’s heterosexual and LGBT people from protecting themselves against HIV/AIDS.

Blumenthal notes that Warren has never been required to prove the efficacy of his anti-condom program. Instead, independent investigation into Warren’ involvement in Africa revealed alliances with Christian Right clergy who sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education.

These clergy sabotaged Uganda’s once highly successful initiative to combat HIV/AIDS. Comprehensive sex education — consisting of lessons in abstinence, monogamy, and condom use — slashed HIV infection rates during the 1990s and up until 2003, when Christian Rightists in the Bush State Department and Congress began to sabotage the initiative. By 2005, Blumenthal notes, federal aid was being redirected to deny access to condoms and to discourage their use. Progress against HIV infection rates then halted. (Read More)