Tuesday June 12, 2007

I'M ALL FOR WOMEN'S LIB, BUT THESE BRA-BURNING KOOKS, HALF OF THEM COULDN'T LAND A MAN ANYWAY ETC. Commenting on a gay marriage/free speech contretemps, Don Surber announces that he is a supporter of gay marriage, which surprised me till he dropped the other shoe:

I have to wonder why I am supporting gay marriage when one group of gays and one federal circuit court contend that “marriage” is a profanity that should not be uttered at work.

Here's a test, friends. You believe in religious freedom, don't you? Good. Now imagine yourself saying, "I have to wonder why I am supporting freedom of religion when some religious people are doing something I disagree with."

Can't see yourself doing that? Neither can I, much as I dislike obnoxious Jesus freaks, because I actually support the principle, and am not just declaring my support of it so I can use it as some sort of veiled threat against people who benefit from it. Yet Surber treats gay rights like car keys he's not sure he should give his kid if he's going to act like that.

In just about any Surber post on stories in which homosexuals are in conflict with anyone else, Surber sides against the homosexuals. (He actually writes things like "You know, I am all for gay rights. Let them marry. Let them serve on juries. Let them vote. All that. But...") He only comes to their defense when he's trying to work a contrarian schtick against Democrats -- as when Max Blumenthal pointed out the irony of anti-gay-marriage Republicans relying on gay men like Jeff Gannon and Matt Sanchez, and Surber spun it that Blumenthal was persecuting gay folk for being conservative. "I wish someone on the left had the guts to call Blumenthal the homophobe he is," sighed Surber.

If I knew someone who said he was my friend but never sided with me except to serve his own unrelated purposes, I'd have to say that fellow was full of shit.

So why does he even pretend? It could be that, like the sad case considered here last week, Surber just wants people to think him tolerant. But I think more highly of him than that. I suspect Surber's true intention, and that of other conservatives who occasionally and awkwardly express support for gay rights, is to modernize the image of the movement -- vote for us, we're no longer bigots!

Now, if all things were equal, I might endorse his strategy -- it's a step up from what we got from these people before, Lord knows. But for me, the overriding principle is that bullshit begets bullshit, and they could actually resist gay rights more successfully from "I'm all for gay rights but" position than from a "grrroot, I hate faggitts" position. In fact, that might even be the main idea.