Florida's (Allegedly) Gay Gov

So Florida Governor Charlie Crist is going to run for Senate. That should be good news for the GOP since the seat he’s running for is being vacated by another Republican (the hapless Mel Martinez) and Crist is very popular in the Sunshine State. The announcement, expected Tuesday, has gotten plenty of coverage but almost all of it avoided the (pink) elephant in the room: Crist is gay gay gay.

The rumors and reports have been well documented for years but a new documentary out this month called “Outrage” outs closeted public officials who the filmmaker believes have had anti-gay voting records. In the film we hear from men who say they had sex with Crist and the others. In reviewing the movie newspapers across the country named names. Including Crist.

Now what? Will Crist’s very conservative Republican primary opponent try and make it an issue? Will Crist finally drop the beard and come out? Can a gay Republican win? What will be his position on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and same-sex marriage? What about DOMA?

This should be very interesting.

Catholic Hypocrisy

Next up the countdown to the Notre Dame nightmare (pro-choice Obama speaking at graduation this coming weekend) is on with tons of opinions but nary a mention of the essential hypocrisy that Get Real pointed out two weeks ago when I argued that critics are correct — and totally hypocritical (I’ll just quote myself here and save time):

The Catholic Church has a very strong position about the “culture of life” and has indicated in no uncertain terms that the Church and it’s ancillary parts (of which Notre Dame certainly seems to be) should not honor opponents of that position.

But the “culture of life” is not only a code phrase for abortion or embryonic stem cell research or even assisted suicide. The Catholic Church also opposes the death penalty. Indeed the Conference of Catholic Bishops has a whole campaign to battle capital punishment. So why is no one talking about the honorary degree Notre Dame is handing out to the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court?

Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard has repeatedly upheld the use of capital punishment in Indiana during his 29 years on the bench including a case in 2005 in which he wrote the majority opinion that a mentally ill man could be put to death despite a state law that prohibited executing the mentally “retarded.”

So where’s the outrage? Death-penalty-advocate Justice Shepard should no more be honored by a Catholic University than should abortion-rights-proponent Barack Obama. Hypocrisy should have no place in this debate. Principals are principals. No?

I ask again — why isn’t anyone writing about this? It’s always easier to set “for” and “against” guests up against one another and let them argue but shouldn’t this be part of that debate?

Douthat, Not It

Finally the latest attempt by the New York Times to find a rational, intelligent, thoughtful conservative to co-man its Op-Ed page with the stellar David Brooks is proving to be only slightly more successful than the last (Bill Kristol who has become as much of an embarrassment to conservatism as did George W. Bush). Wunderkind he’s-in-his-twenties-so-he-must-be-relevant Ross Douthat pens a column in Tuesday’s papers that is half true and logically hollow.

Douthat argues that same-sex marriage will eventually happen because partisans who fight for a freedom eventually win. He then shifts gears to say that, using this same paradigm, abortion opponents may also someday, eventually, be victorious.

The pro-life movement is arguably more comfortable with the language of rights and liberties than its opponents. Abortion foes are defending a right to life grounded in the Declaration of Independence, after all, whereas pro-choicers are defending more nebulous rights (privacy, autonomy, etc.) supposedly grounded in “penumbras” and “emanations” from the Constitution.

Huh? Aren’t pro-choicers defending the rights and liberties of pregnant women? Anyway that logical lapse isn’t the worst thing about his column….

This helps explain why Americans under 35, while more sympathetic to gay marriage than their parents, also tend to be slightly more anti-abortion. The Obama era may be pushing the country leftward on some fronts, but recent polling suggests that America’s slim pro-choice majority is even slimmer than usual these days.

Neat if it were true. But oops! It’s not. Douthat links to an article from 2003 noting how some young people were — at that time — less unequivocally pro-choice than their parents, speculating that having grown up in a world where abortion was available, these kids didn’t know what was at risk. And then he sites a recent Pew Poll that does show the “pro-choice majority” to be slimmer than in some previous polls.

But if Ross has learned nothing in his 29 years on Planet Earth he should have picked up this before the Times bestowed upon him a coveted columnist gig: One poll don’t prove nothin’.

As Get Real pointed out May 7, abortion rights are not less popular now than they have been at other times since Roe v. Wade (here I go quoting myself again):

In poll after poll the abortion issue has changed very little since Roe v. Wade made it legal. For instance when Gallup asked about abortion in 1975, the results were not much different from when the pollsters asked the same questions in 1980 (when Reagan was elected), 1990 (when Bush was President), 2000 (when Clinton was ending his term), and 2008.

                    Always Legal             Sometimes Legal          Never Legal

1975                     21                                 54                             22
1980                     25                                 53                             18
1990                     31                                 53                             12
2000                     28                                 51                             19
2008                     28                                 54                             17

Source: Gallup Poll

Damn those pesky facts!

Whether you agree with Times’ columnists or not you should at least expect a reasoning logical argument. This is just sloppy pablum. It cannot be that hard to find a conservative with a brain. Sometimes I wonder if the Times chooses these doofuses on purpose — to make their liberal writers shine in contrast.

So, Brooks! It’s up to you. School this kid.