FLASHBACK: That Time Ted Cruz Passed On Defending Sodomy Laws At SCOTUS

Bloomberg gives us some interesting history:

[Ted] Cruz is making the gay marriage debate the cornerstone of a bid to rally conservatives to his 2016 presidential bid, but same-sex issues haven't always been the top priority for a lawmaker who built his profile as a limited-government, Tea Party-aligned conservative. As Texas solicitor general when the Lawrence v. Texas case came before the Supreme Court, Cruz was "very much in the middle of all this drama," said Mitchell Katine, who was local counsel to the two gay men at the center of the case, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner. The two had been dragged out of their bedroom by police and charged with "deviate sex."

Yet "Cruz remained absolutely silent," Katine said. The case remained assigned instead to a Harris County district attorney. Through a spokesman, Cruz said he didn't step in because the case was criminal in nature and his office primarily handled civil cases. Yet six of the nine cases Cruz argued before the nation's highest court were criminal in nature. Cruz also was just beginning a new job, and his advisers say he wasn't in a position to take over. Cruz started the solicitor general's job Feb. 10, 2003 and the Texas brief was filed on Feb. 17. Yet Dellinger notes that the court argument wasn't until March 26, which gave "plenty of time to prepare." "One would expect the state solicitor to argue a case of this magnitude," said Dellinger.

The above-linked article goes on to recount the times that Cruz has courted major homocon donors including billionaire PayPal founder and GOProud supporter Peter Thiel, who contributed nearly a million dollars to Cruz campaigns. This history is rather interesting in light of the still-raging controversy about those gay hoteliers.

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.

Out Issues Power 50 Ranking

Out Magazine today published its eighth annual ranking of the 50 most powerful LGBT people in the United States.  Here's a bit of the list.

1. Ellen DeGeneres
2. Tim Cook
3. Rachel Maddow
4. Sen. Tammy Baldwin
5. Glenn Greenwald
6. Ryan Murphy
7. Neil Patrick Harris
8. Andy Cohen
9. Michael Sam
10. Robin Roberts

Homocon billionaire Peter Thiel is #13. Former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman is #18. Andrew Sullivan is #26. New to the list is DOMA attorney Roberta Kaplan at #47. Curiously missing from this year's ranking is closeted homocon blogger Matt Drudge, who ranked at #21 last year and at #16 in 2012. Since there's no obvious reason for Drudge to completely fall off the list in one year, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody got a cease-and-desist letter.

Forbes: 7 Billionaires Are Openly LGBT

Forbes reports that seven of the world's billionaires are openly LGBT.

With a combined net worth of nearly $16 billion, the select group of LGBT ten-figure fortunes includes media mogul David Geffen, PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and Hyatt hotel beneficiary Jennifer Pritzker, one of the Pritzker family’s 11 billionaires. In August 2013, Jennifer became the first and only transgender billionaire in the world when she announced she would be identifying herself as a woman for all business and personal undertakings. A retired army lieutenant colonel, she is CEO of private wealth management firm Tawani Enterprises in Chicago and has a personal net worth of $1.8 billion. “This change will reflect the beliefs of her true identity that she has held privately and will now share publicly,” a statement in Crain’s Chicago Business explained. Among the openly-gay hyper-wealthy are Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the duo behind fashion power house Dolce & Gabbana. The retail-rich pair are joined by Michael Kors, who became a billionaire this year. Some of these businessmen and women have used their fortunes to advocate for gay rights. Jon Stryker, heir to the Stryker Corp. medical equipment family fortune, is one of the world’s most prolific donors to LGBT charities.

The seven listed above represent 0.4% of Forbes' list of 1645 billionaires worldwide.

Billionaire Homocon Peter Thiel: The Major Money Man Behind Sen. Ted Cruz

Homocon billionaire Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and who hosted Ann Coulter in his Manhattan apartment for a GOProud fundraiser, is one of the largest financial backers of Sen. Ted Cruz.  Tech site Valleywag goes off:

It's an odd marriage of interests, the sort Cruz otherwise opposes as a matter of principle: Peter Thiel is a pot-smoking gay man, which makes him the kind of person Cruz supporters would like to launch into some sort of Martian exile. But Thiel is also, crucially, a massively rich bussinessman, which is enough for Cruz to shelve his Tea Party druthers and accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Silicon Valley luminary. Adjacent bigots have yelled at Cruz for pocketing Thiel's cash, but he has every reason to ignore them: last year, Thiel gave $2 million to Club for Growth, a SuperPAC that in turn poured over $600,000 into Cruz's (successful) senatorial run. Club for Growth is still a vocal supporter of Cruz as he's flailed and railed against Obamacare. Is it lunacy to be the most loyal supporter of a man who thinks you don't deserve equal protection under the law? No crazier than paying kids to drop out of school, cure death, or create a floating libertarian ocean utopia.

RELATED: Thiel has authored an anti-diversity book which claims that America's downfall began when women got the vote. His "seasteading" project intends to create floating city-states that are exempt from international law, taxes, banking regulations, and employment protections.