Odd Footnote in the Gay Rights Debate
This comes to mind because so much of the "liberal" trend of big-city alternative weeklies is that they're queer-friendly, in a time when (until recently) liberal people in the U.S. were far more likely to be queer-friendly than conservatives. (I think that's about to change, quicker than anyone realizes. Read more Andrew Sullivan for why.)

Years ago in any college bull session about sexual identity politics, I'd have strongly taken the position that we treat same-sex romance the same way we treat people with any other particular sexual taste: Anything from toe fetishists to gentlemen who prefer blondes. What consenting adults did privately was their own business and emphatically not mine. Keep it private and I'd be happy.

After all, I simply didn't need to know (neither good nor bad; just indifferent) who any of my friends were sleeping with, men or women, much less whatever it was they actually did with each other. (Obligatory complaint here about thin dorm walls and, uh, noisy people.)

There's a problem with this, one that people kept pointing out that I didn't fully appreciate until very recently: Married straight people talk about their spouses all the time. This is also true to some extent of single straight people and their steady significant others (if any).

As mentioned a couple other places, I recently discovered (very awkwardly) that one of my friends is a widower. It occurred to me after I found out that there was a sign: Other married guys I know tend to mention their wives a lot in casual conversation. They call their wives if they're working late, that sort of thing. My friend never made this kind of reference, even though as of last summer (we'd been out of touch for a few months) I'd known him as married. In hindsight the absence should have been conspicuous.

It's just one of those dopey epiphanies that a really sheltered person has sometimes. Not sure why it reminded me of the old bull sessions. In any case, I can know that So-and-So's wife is X (and meet Mrs. So-and-So) without knowing or caring about what they actually do with their (private) lives. It should work the same way for knowing that these two particular guys (or gals) have that long-term commitment going, right?

The other question used to be whether gay guys and gals actually make that sort of commitment. There's evidence, both statistical and anecdotal, that the typical guy doesn't (gal does though). But you can get into all sorts of trouble making one-size-fits-all social conventions out of a "typical" person's tendencies.

Still, I didn't honestly believe that men could fall in love with each other (or women with each other) until I knew a couple of guys who actually did seem to be in love.

Fun with links
My reading the story quoted below results from seeing the link from this really disturbing drug story, which in turn is courtesy of Andrew Sullivan.

Where are the conservative storytellers?
Read this feature article, ostensibly about the lesbian "prom king" (I vaguely remember hearing about her) but really deeper than that. I absolutely love reading stories like this. They draw me in. They're just interesting. Any voracious reader will know what I mean. I don't have the attention span (or the time, lately?) for novels, and I sort of feel inferior sometimes because of it, but magazine articles? If they're well written, (alas, Time and Newsweek and so on generally aren't), then I'm hooked.

Conservatives dominate the political talk radio market (political division); I suspect this is partly because NPR siphons off all the liberals. (Your tax dollars at work!)

Conservative/libertarian types seem to dominate the political weblogs. I suppose this is because the mainstream media trends left and so it's the voices of the Right that are more in search of an outlet.

The alternative big-city weeklies are overwhelmingly liberal. In some ways that's almost redundant but does it really have to be? I do know at least that papers like this are much more open (and so less insidious) about their bias than the folks at the LA Times or New York Times (Howell Raines era). Still, why wouldn't there be room for a voice of the right? Especially if it's the P.J. O'Rourke-type libertarian right, rather than somebody bitching about bare breasts or Ozzy.

#^@^* Prudes
Is it just me or has National Review On-Line been really painfully sanctimonioius about its moral high-horse lately?

Carping about Ozzy is one thing. I sort of agree that the Hollywood star thing can be taken too far but the refreshing thing about Ozzy is precisely that he doesn't think that being a celebrity makes him better than us. And acting as though he's Satan is, like so fifteen years ago.

Today takes the cake, though. We're all going to hell in a handbasket because a breastfeeding mother dares to show some tit.

Shit like this explains why there aren't any (sane) young Republicans. (Opines the registered Libertarian.)

@!%^ Corporate Welfare
Stuff like this (the bill, not the op-ed) is what makes Republican political leaders look just as bad as Democrats, also what cuts off good anti-goverment (or limited-government) arguments at the knees.

Grr.

Mrs. Doubtfire Repeats Claim of Jenin Massacre
Ah, Lileks!

Those Wacky Berkeleyites
Conservatives need not apply.

I'm actually ambivalent about stories like this getting a firestorm of publicity. After all, the guy who taught the section actually made it onto Hardball. This seems like much more of a reward than a punishment (unless you don't want fame and find Chris Matthews annoying, but then you'd just turn down the gig anyway). It leads to perverse incentives.

It's enough for me that that people realize two things:
1. American universities are full of left-wing radicals who doesn't even seem to be aware of just how out-of-touch they are.

2. Ditto American newsrooms. Well, national newsrooms. I think the NY Times is full of liberal idealists who sometimes don't even realize how inaccurate their labels are or just how old the phrase "far Right" gets when becomes so overused. I don't think your average smalltown newspaper has that same problem within its staff; instead, it just pulls stuff from the wire.