Frank Bruni: Hooray For Fox News

"This wasn’t a debate, at least not like most of those I’ve seen. This was an inquisition. On Thursday night in Cleveland, the Fox News moderators did what only Fox News moderators could have done, because the representatives of any other network would have been accused of pro-Democratic partisanship. They took each of the 10 Republicans onstage to task. They held each of them to account. They made each address the most prominent blemishes on his record, the most profound apprehensions that voters feel about him, the greatest vulnerability that he has. It was riveting. It was admirable. It compels me to write a cluster of words I never imagined writing: hooray for Fox News." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times. (Read the full piece.)

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"Now we stand nervously and hopefully on the brink of a milestone. Before the end of June, a month associated with wedding bells and wedding cake, the Supreme Court will issue a major decision about the right of two men or two women to exchange vows in a manner honored by the government. It may well extend same-sex marriage to all 50 states, making it the law of the land. Many Americans still oppose that. And some will argue, as they routinely do, that it has been forced on them much too quickly and that history can’t be rewritten in an instant. Too quickly? An instant?

"Nothing about this juncture feels quick if you soldiered through AIDS and the country’s awakening then to just how many gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans there are, just how profound our bonds can be, just how fiercely we’re willing to fight for them, just how ardently we ache to be included. Nothing about it feels quick if you consider that Evan Wolfson, a chief architect of the political quest for same-sex marriage, wrote a thesis on the topic at Harvard Law School in 1983, or if you remember how passionately the issue of same-sex marriage was debated in the 1990s, when the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was passed.

"Nothing about it feels quick if you’re among or you know gay and lesbian Americans who, in a swelling tide, summoned the grit and honed the words to tell family members, friends and co-workers the truth of our lives. Our candor came from more than personal need. It reflected our yearning for a world beyond silence and fear, and we knew that the only way to get there was through these small, aggregate acts of courage." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times. Hit the link, it's very worth a full read.

Quote Of The Day - Frank Bruni

"I know a hot trend when I see one and I hate to hop aboard too late. So here goes: I’m announcing my candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Sure, I have severely limited name recognition in the hinterlands and, come to think of it, in most urban, suburban and exurban areas as well. But that isn’t stopping Lindsey Graham. True, I have questionable hair (what’s left of it). But that’s not going to deter Donald Trump. My weight has been known to fluctuate, but that connects me to Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, whose Paleo regimen has worked slimming wonders. Forget his position on immigration and check out those new cheekbones! Memo to self: Out with the rigatoni, in with the rib-eye." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

Maggie Gallagher Vs Frank Bruni

"This week, Frank Bruni, fresh from asserting with approval that Mitchell Gold wants to make Christians take homosexuality off their sin list, decides to attack the Catholic Church for committing the primal sin of patriarchy. 'Catholicism Undervalues Women.' The pope is always a man! Listen, I get that growing up gay in the South was no picnic. I get that many people probably did and said mean things they should not have. But this is no longer about civility, or tolerance; it is about telling other people what their religion should be. If you do not believe in our God, Frank, of course you have a hard time understanding the holy war you are picking.

"Yes, you are a lovable human being, with rights, with feelings to be respected. We don’t have to agree to love or respect one another. So why pick on Catholics? Orthodox Jews, black Pentecostals, the LDS church, Southern Baptists, most versions of Islam, also have all-male clergies. What is it about Catholicism that inspires such rudeness in the New York Times? Oh, I know. Something to do with 2,000 years of hanging onto the teachings of Christ: We are born male and female. Our bodies have a meaning; they are not machines we occupy. Sexual desire was given to us for a purpose; we are to direct it, not let it rule us." - Maggie Gallagher, writing for the National Review.

National Review Attacks "Self-Deluded" Frank Bruni On Religious Liberty Column

"Frank Bruni writes that many Americans wrongly treat him as a threat to religious liberty because he is gay. The trouble is that he is a threat to religious liberty. It’s not because he’s gay. It’s because he is one of those contemporary liberals who has a conception of religious liberty that is illiberal and narrow, especially compared to the historic American practice. His op-ed makes the point abundantly clear, even as he insists that taking a broader view of religious freedom is a sign of 'extremism.' Bruni should just say that our country and its Constitution are too protective of religious freedom and need to be changed accordingly. I don’t think he would have a good case, but he would have a more candid, or at least less self-deluded, one." - Ramesh Ponnuru, in a National Review response to yesterday's New York Times op-ed by Bruni.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"Ive been called many unpleasant things in my life, and I’ve deserved no small number of them. But I chafe at this latest label: A threat to your religious liberty. I don’t mean me alone. I mean me and my evidently menacing kind: men who have romantic relationships with other men and maybe want to marry them, and women in analogous situations. According to many of the Americans who still cast judgment on us, our 'I do' somehow tramples you, not merely running counter to your creed but running roughshod over it. That’s absurd. And the deference that many politicians show to such thinking is an example not of religion getting the protection it must but of religious people getting a pass that isn’t warranted. It’s an illustration of religion’s favored status in a country that’s still working out this separation-of-church-and-state business and hasn’t yet gotten it quite right." - Frank Bruni, opening an op-ed in today's New York Times.

Quote Of The Day - Frank Bruni

"Jeb and Hillary. Hillary and Jeb. It’s getting to the point where a mention of one yields a reference to the other, where they’re semantically inseparable, presidentially conjoined. Should we just go the extra step, save ourselves some syllables and keystrokes? The 2016 matchup as envisioned by many: Jebary. Or, more economically still, Heb. The fascination with this pair as possible rivals for the White House makes perfect sense, because it defies belief. We’re talking about tomorrow while trafficking in yesterday. We’re saying we need to turn the page by going back to a previous chapter. We’re a country of self-invention (that’s the myth, at least) in thrall to legacies and in the grip of dynasties, riveted by the mightiest surname in modern Democratic politics and its Republican analogue, imagining not just a clash of the titans but a scrum of the successors." - Frank Bruni, opening a New York Times column which ponders whether the two political dynasties are "our destiny."

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"One of the impediments to consensus is manifest on a plane: There’s little sense of a common good, no rules that everybody follows so that nobody gets a raw deal. Instead there’s an ethic of every passenger for himself or herself. The existence of, and market for, the Knee Defender, that device that prohibits the person in front of you from reclining, says it all. On second thought, no, this does: Immediately following news coverage of a flight that had to be diverted when two passengers scuffled over a Knee Defender’s use, sales of the device reportedly increased. Courtesy is dead. The plane is its graveyard. There’s a scrum at the gate and then another scrum in the aisle that defy any of the airline’s attempts at an orderly boarding process. There’s no restraint in the person who keeps smacking the back of your chair; no apology from the parent whose child keeps kicking it; no awareness that certain foods, unwrapped in a tight space, turn one traveler’s lunch into every traveler’s olfactory reality." - Frank Bruni, writing from the New York Times.

Quote Of The Day - Dan Savage

"Let's take [Ross] Douthat at his word and just accept that it didn't occur to him the event was a fundraiser even after the MC began soliciting donations from the stage during the event. Let's focus on this this instead: Douthat isn't apologizing for crawling into bed with the ADF, an organization that wants to send Douthat's colleagues Frank Bruni (gay), Josh Barro (gay), Charles Blow (bi), and Jennifer Boylan (a trans woman married to another woman) to prison. He's not apologizing for speaking before the ADF. He's only apologizing for appearing at a fundraiser for the ADF. (Accidentally!)

"So... it's fine for writers at the NYT to speak before hate groups—rabidly anti-gay orgs like the ADF, anti-Semitic groups, the reconstituted KKK, White Citizen Councils—so long as the event isn't a fundraiser? So... it would've been fine for Douthat to have a 'conversation' with the organization that wants to send Frank Bruni and Josh Barro to prison but a line was crossed when Douthat helped raise money for the organization that wants to send Frank Bruni and Josh Barro to prison. And let's end with followup question for Ross Douthat: We know that your pals at the ADF want to send Josh and Frank to prison—along with all the other gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and trans folks who work at the New York Times—but do you? Do you believe that gay sex should be criminalized? And if you don't, Ross, what are you doing in bed with people who do?" - Dan Savage, writing for The Stranger.

NOTE: Savage is referring to Alliance Defending Freedom's opposition to the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence V Texas, which struck down sodomy laws nationwide. Here's what the ADF wrote in March of that year.

Plaintiff’s arguments have serious problems, explained Jordan Lorence, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a national legal organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona. "They are asking the court to convert itself into a national legislature and to determine state policy regarding marriage, family, and sexual conduct outside of marriage. They are asking the court to judge a case that has no court record on which to rule. The plaintiffs are asking the court to suddenly declare as unconstitutional certain laws which have existed in unbroken succession since before the founding of the country." The ultimate goal of this case is not simply to end sodomy laws, Lorence explained. "Advocates of homosexual behavior would like to use a win in this case to advance their ambitious agenda. They want a court win to change the definition of marriage, because the real goal is to legalize same-sex ‘marriage.’ They want a win that will lift restrictions on homosexual conduct in the military, to legalize adoption by same sex couples, and to restrict free speech rights of individuals who have faith-based objections to endorsing, funding, or supporting homosexual behavior," Lorence said.

NOT incidentally, quoted in that post is the ADF's archenemy, then Houston City Councilwoman Annise Parker.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"Repeatedly over the last year and a half, I’ve written about teachers in Catholic schools and leaders in Catholic parishes who were dismissed from their posts because they were in same-sex relationships and — in many cases — had decided to marry. Every time, more than a few readers weighed in to tell me that these people had it coming. If you join a club, they argued, you play by its rules or you suffer the consequences. Oh really? The rules of this particular club prohibit divorce, yet the pews of many of the Catholic churches I’ve visited are populous with worshipers on their second and even third marriages. They walk merrily to the altar to receive communion, not a peep of protest from a soul around them. They participate fully in the rituals of the church, their membership in the club uncontested. The rules prohibit artificial birth control, and yet most of the Catholic families I know have no more than three children, which is either a miracle of naturally capped fecundity or a sign that someone’s been at the pharmacy." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"A kiss is nothing. On the sidewalks, in the park, I see one every few minutes, a real kiss, lip to lip. It barely registers. It’s as unremarkable as a car horn in traffic, as an umbrella in rain. And yet a kiss is everything. A kiss can stop the world. The football player Michael Sam recently demonstrated as much. [snip] I still sometimes feel panic when my partner, meeting me in a restaurant, gives me a perfunctory kiss on the lips. And yet I feel robbed — wronged — if I sense that an awareness of other people’s gazes and a fear of their judgment are preventing him from doing that. We shouldn’t be bound that way, and on the day of the pro football draft, in front of the cameras, Sam rightly declared that he wasn’t. He did so with a gesture at once humdrum and heroic, a gesture that connects everyone who has been in love and affirms what every love shares: physical tenderness, eye-to-eye togetherness. It was something to behold. It was something to hold on to." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

Read the full essay.

Frank Bruni On The Mozilla Flap

"A leading supporter of gay marriage, [Andrew] Sullivan warned other supporters not to practice 'a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else.' I can’t get quite as worked up as he did. For one thing, prominent gay rights groups weren’t part of the Mozilla fray. For another, Mozilla isn’t the first company to make leadership decisions (or reconsiderations) with an eye toward the boss’s cultural mind-meld with the people below him or her. And if you believe that to deny a class of people the right to marry is to deem them less worthy, it’s indeed difficult to chalk up opposition to marriage equality as just another difference of opinion. But it’s vital to remember how very recently so many of equality’s promoters, like Obama and Clinton, have come around and how relatively new this conversation remains. [snip] Sullivan is right to raise concerns about the public flogging of someone like Eich. Such vilification won’t accelerate the timetable of victory, which is certain. And it doesn’t reflect well on the victors." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"A news flash for every straight man out there: You’ve been naked in front of a gay man. In fact you’ve been naked, over the course of your life, in front of many gay men, at least if you have more than a few years on you. And here you are — uninjured, uncorrupted, intact. The earth still spins. The sun rises and sets. Maybe it was in gym class, long ago. Maybe at the health club more recently. Or maybe when you played sports at the high school level, the college level, later on. Whether we gay guys are one in 10 or one in 25, it’s a matter of chance: At some point, one of us was within eyeshot when you stripped down. And you know what? He probably wasn’t checking you out. He certainly wasn’t beaming special gay-conversion gamma rays at you. That’s why you weren’t aware of his presence and didn’t immediately go out and buy a more expensive moisturizer and a disc of Judy Garland’s greatest hits. His purpose mirrored yours. He was changing clothes and showering. It’s a locker room, for heaven’s sake. Not last call at the Rawhide." - Frank Bruni, in a New York Times column responding to the coming out of NFL prospect Michael Sam.

Frank Bruni Found Courtney Love's iPhone

Lots more at New York Magazine.

Frank Bruni On Liz Cheney

"If Liz Cheney, whose bid for the Senate has always had a stench of extreme opportunism, wants to discuss traditions and values, I’m all for it. Let’s start here: Isn’t there a tradition of close-knit family members’ taking care not to wound one another? Is there not value in that? [snip] But she plunged forward anyway, disregarding the inevitable discord. As Jonathan Martin reported in The Times, Liz and Mary aren’t speaking to each other now, and there’s a long shadow over the Cheneys’ holiday get-togethers. Is any political office worth that? Would victory redeem the public message that Liz just sent to her niece and nephew? I’m imagining her awkwardness the next time that she goes to hug or kiss them (and I’m assuming that she’s a hugger or kisser, which may be a leap). If there’s not a knot in her stomach, then there’s nothing at all in her heart." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"It's about time. The leader of the Roman Catholic Church has surveyed the haughty scolds in its ranks, noted their fixation on matters of sexual morality above all others and said enough is enough. I’m not being cheeky with this one-word response. Hallelujah. [snip] He didn’t right past wrongs. Let’s be clear about that. Didn’t call for substantive change to church teachings and traditions that indeed demand re-examination, including the belief that homosexual acts themselves are sinful. Didn’t challenge the all-male, celibate priesthood. Didn’t speak as progressively — and fairly — about women’s roles in the church as he should. But he also didn’t present himself as someone with all the answers. No, he stepped forward — shuffled forward, really — as someone willing to guide fellow questioners. In doing so he recognized that authority can come from a mix of sincerity and humility as much as from any blazing, blinding conviction, and that stature is a respect you earn, not a pedestal you grab. That’s a useful lesson in this grabby age of ours." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

Frank Bruni On Hand-Holding

"After all the education that we Americans have had and all the relished progress we’ve made, being gay does mean feeling constrained in situations where most people aren’t, scared in circumstances that wouldn’t frighten others in the least, self-conscious when you shouldn’t have to be. Like when you’re holding someone’s hand. It’s the sweetest, most innocent and most natural of gestures: to interlock your fingers with those of a person for whom you’re feeling a sudden rush of affection. A person you maybe love. And yet when my partner takes my hand in public in New York City, I look at the sidewalk ahead. I note how many pedestrians are coming our way, and how quickly, and whether they’re male or female, young or old, observant or distracted. And I sometimes take my hand back, wishing I were braver, wishing our world didn’t ask me to be." - Frank Bruni, in a New York Times essay which refers to yesterday's gay-bashing in Chelsea.

Gilbert Baker: Don't Wave The Rainbow Flag To Cover Up Russian Atrocities

Via press release from Queer Nation:

Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Rainbow Flag and a member of Queer Nation made the following statement to New York Times columnist Frank Bruni: “Olympic flag waving gave a stamp of approval to Nazi atrocities in 1936. Please don't use the Rainbow Flag to cover up Russian atrocities in 2014. The Rainbow Flag is the international symbol of LGBT freedom — it is not an endorsement of repression.”

In an August 5 opinion piece opposing a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, New York Times columnist, Frank Bruni, imagined U.S. Olympic athletes waving Rainbow Flags “no bigger than a handkerchief” during the event’s opening ceremony in Russia as a gesture in opposition to Russia’s recently enacted anti-gay law that makes any pro-gay statement or demonstration in public and on the Internet a crime.

The Olympic Games were held in Nazi Germany in 1936 and other nations, especially the United States, hotly debated whether they should participate. There were also debates in Great Britain, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. Ultimately, more nations participated in the 1936 Olympics, than in any prior games. The Nazis went on to kill six million Jews in the Holocaust, an estimated 100,000 LGBT people, the Roma people, and political dissidents.

Baker first raised the Rainbow Flag, with its iconic eight colors, at San Francisco Pride in 1978. Its positive visual and visceral message of hope, love, and liberation, was meant to transcend all languages and national boundaries. The flag has since become the internationally recognized symbol of the LGBT community’s struggle for freedom.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"Imagine this: it’s the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. A huge television event, watched the world over. The American Olympians join the proud march of nations. They’re our emissaries, our exemplars. And as the television cameras zoom in on Team U.S.A., one of its members quietly pulls out a rainbow flag, no bigger than a handkerchief, and holds it up. Not ostentatiously high, but just high enough that it can’t be mistaken.

"Another American follows suit. Then another, and another. Within minutes the flags are everywhere in the American delegation, subtly recurring bursts of color and of honor, a gay-rights motif with a message: we’re here in Russia to compete, but we’re not here in Russia to assent. We have gay sisters. Gay brothers. Gay neighbors and friends and fans and probably teammates, and we reject the laws of a land that deems it O.K. to arrest them for speaking their truth or us for speaking up for them." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

Read the full essay.

HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"For the four and a half years that we’ve been together, we’ve been apart, me in Manhattan, Tom in Brooklyn, at least most of the workweek, and during chunks of the weekend, too. We tell our friends that it’s a borough standoff, a game of Big Apple chicken, but that’s just a line and a lie, a deflection of the questions you field when you challenge the mythology of romance.

"Moving in with each other: that’s supposed to be the ultimate prize, the real consummation. You co-sign a lease, put both names on the mailbox, settle on a toothpaste and the angels weep.

"But why not seize the intimacy without forfeiting the privacy? Establish a different rhythm? One night with him, one night with a pint of Chubby Hubby and 'Monday Night Football' or a marathon of 'Scandal,' my wit on ice, my stomach muscles on hiatus, my body sprawling ever less becomingly across the couch. Isn’t that the definition of having it all?" - Frank Bruni, on being part of a "LAT" couple that is "living apart together."

Read the full New York Times essay.