HomoQuotable - James Kirchick

"Gay men want Schock to be gay because, well, they want him. More importantly, they also want him to be gay because it would fit into a convenient narrative about gay conservatives: that they are all morally compromised, self-hating, untrustworthy sellouts. What really angers the gay mob is that Schock is conservative. By trivializing a serious story of corruption with unfounded allegations of homosexuality, they demonstrate their inability to judge the real issues because they’re transfixed on minor ones. While Schock’s gay inquisitors have a theory that his downfall is a direct result of his being gay, the actual reason is likely much simpler: Like many politicians, Schock soon started to believe that he was above the people who elected him, and that the rules didn’t apply." - Homocon James Kirchick, writing for the Daily Beast. (Tipped by JMG reader SpiderPig)

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Kirchick slams the SPLC for putting the Family Research Council on its hate groups list. Kirchick signs a homocon group statement denouncing Mozilla for "punishing" former CEO Brandon Eich. Kirchick gets kicked off a Russian network show after denouncing Russia's "gay propaganda" ban.

Homocons Co-Sign Statement Denouncing "Punishment" Of Mozilla's Former CEO

A coalition of well-known homocons and others today released a public statement on the resignation of former Mozilla CEO Brandon Eich. The statement is titled, "Freedom To Marry, Freedom To Dissent: Why We Must Have Both." An excerpt:

Is opposition to same-sex marriage by itself, expressed in a political campaign, beyond the pale of tolerable discourse in a free society? We cannot wish away the objections of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith traditions, or browbeat them into submission. Even in our constitutional system, persuasion is a minority’s first and best strategy. It has served us well and we should not be done with it.

Much of the rhetoric that emerged in the wake of the Eich incident showed a worrisome turn toward intolerance and puritanism among some supporters of gay equality—not in terms of formal legal sanction, to be sure, but in terms of abandonment of the core liberal values of debate and diversity.

Sustaining a liberal society demands a culture that welcomes robust debate, vigorous political advocacy, and a decent respect for differing opinions. People must be allowed to be wrong in order to continually test what is right. We should criticize opposing views, not punish or suppress them.

The freedom—not just legal but social—to express even very unpopular views is the engine that propelled the gay-rights movement from its birth against almost hopeless odds two generations ago. A culture of free speech created the social space for us to criticize and demolish the arguments against gay marriage and LGBT equality. For us and our advocates to turn against that culture now would be a betrayal of the movement’s deepest and most humane values.

The statement does not address the fact that all LGBT groups remained completely silent as the controversy unfolded and came to its conclusion. Nor does it note that the campaign against Eich was spawned by Mozilla staffers and developers themselves. Instead, the "blame" for Eich's resignation is laid squarely at the feet of phantom gay activists.

Homocon signers: Ken Mehlman, Peter Thiel, Rich Tafel, William Saletan, Jamie Kirchick, Jonathan Rauch, and former GOP Rep. Jim Kolbe. Among the others: Andrew Sullivan, John Corvino, David Blankenhorn, and Box Turtle Bulletin bloggers Jim Burroway, Timothy Kincaid, and Rob Tisinai.

Homocon Reporter Jamie Kirchick Kicked Off Russian Network After Denouncing "Homosexual Propaganda" Ban

I've been rather harsh about Kirchick over the years, but this is damn fantastic. Via the Washington Free Beacon:

Reporter James Kirchick was kicked off the air of Russian TV Wednesday after he refused to talk about Bradley Manning and instead spoke about the Russian government’s anti-gay laws. “Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network, I’m going to wear my gay pride suspenders and speak out against the horrific, anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law,” Kirchick said.

RT is funded by the Russian government, which recently passed a sweeping law that bans the public discussion of gay rights and relationships in the presence of children. As Kirchick continued to speak about the laws and the government’s funding of the network, one RT host insisted to Kirchick, “You have to come over here and see for yourself.” “You have 24 hours a day to lie about America, I am going to tell the truth with my two minutes,” Kirkchick went on to say after RT hosts tried to cut him off. 

The Beacon notes that Kirchick vanished from the network's split-screen moments after the below clip ends.

RELATED: According to Wikipedia, the RT network is the second-most watched foreign news channel in the United States after the BBC.

HomoConQuotable - James Kirchick

"In recent years, liberal organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have termed the Family Research Council a 'hate group,' a designation long reserved for the likes of the Nation of Islam, the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations. However passionately one may disagree with the agenda of an organization which, like the Family Research Council, uses pseudoscience to accuse gays of being prone to pedophilia, it is wrong to lump it together with explicitly racist movements espousing violent agendas. [snip] Opposition to gay marriage need not necessarily be a sign of one’s 'hateful' intentions. What is to be said of President Obama, who announced his support for gay marriage only three months ago?" - Homocon James Kirchick, writing for the New York Daily News.

HomoConQuotable - James Kirchick

"Those who fault [Pastor Terry] Jones for the behavior of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan must answer: Where does the blame-shifting end? Is Salman Rushdie, whose Satantic Verses earned him a fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini, to blame for the murder of his Japanese translator? Should the Danish cartoonist who drew images of Mohammed foot the bill for repairs to his nation's embassy in Damascus, which was burned by a mob in 2006? Why don't we just veil our women and execute our gays while we're at it, since that's what the radicals want? [snip]

"It is one thing to say that Jones' Koran-burning was a stupid and offensive thing to do. He is not Rushdie, after all, whose 'provocation' was the exercising of the creative spirit. It is another thing entirely, however, to move to the accusation that Jones is culpable for the murderous acts of people half way around the world. People who riot and murder at the burning of a book do not need a pretext to act like savages. That's exactly what they already are." - Homocon journalist James Kirchick, writing for the New York Daily News.

Dems Gay-Bait Sen. Mitch McConnell

In an uncharacteristic turn, this time it's the Democrats that are gay-baiting a candidate, accusing famously anti-gay Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of being a closet case via this Village People ad.

Conservative queer James Kirchick writes in the National Review:

With prominent exceptions (the inquisition over Mark Foley and the anti-gay witch hunt that followed, Bill Clinton's touting his support for the Defense of Marriage Act on Christian radio stations), gay-baiting has been a Republican, rather than a Democratic, tactic. It is to John McCain's enormous credit -- not that you would ever hear it from his newfound critics in the media, who turned on him once he went from being a thorn in the side of Republicans to the one man standing in the way of Barack Obama's becoming president -- that anti-gay rhetoric has not played a role in this election. Too bad Democrats are picking up the slack.

Michelangelo Signorile doesn't mind the attack:

Yes, the people pushing it are no doubt trying to appeal to homophobia in many voters. But they are also appealing to my -- and presumably many Kentucky voters' -- desire not to have a hypocrite and liar in office. And that's not a bad thing. Sorry, but I have little sympathy for the antigay McConnell, and certainly people should know if indeed he is some tormented closet case.

Since McConnnell is a senator who has voted antigay over and over again, it's certainly relevant to ask the question if things just don't add up, and there's nothing wrong with implying someone is gay or asking the question, is there? And if McConnell is not, and there is some other truth to his discharge, why not just state it?