Some Gays In Politics

Arthur Finkelstein, a senior campaign consultant for a long line of US Republican and Israeli Likud candidates, used Massachusetts' liberal laws to marry his male partner of 40 years - citing financial benefits as motivation.

Patrick Guerriero, President of the Log Cabin Republicans, co-signed a call for Social Security 'reform' with the President of USA Next, the far-right group whose earlier effort in this campaign was a homophobic slur against the American Association of Retired Persons, using a photo of a gay couple kissing just after marrying.

Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, the gay prostitute and US far-right propagandist foot-soldier posing as reporter, played blogger in a ridiculous conference about who is a journalist, after which a guy in the audience posed the hard question: whom in the White House did he sleep with to get his pass to press conferences? (The rumour is spokesman Scott McClellan - relatively small fish.)

Nichi Vendola, who was the united Left's candidate for President of Puglia province in Italy's regional elections last week, won with a hundred thousand more votes than the party lists of the Left (for the regional assembly) combined - even tough he was both gay and a communist.

Of course there is no general truth about gays emerging here, except if the triviality that members of persecuted minorities can have the same faults and virtues as the rest is news for someone.

However, these examples serve to highlight two separate truths in a sharpened way. One is that the most basic and essential feature of conservativism is: hypocrisy[*].

The other is that centre-left attempts to accomodate to perceived "centrist"/right-wing views, fearing that the Left would seem too extreme for a majority of voters is not realism, but defeatism and appeasement.

[*] I like to put it this way:
A conservative is one who sells the misdevelopments of yesterday as solutions for tomorrow.
What conservatives want to conserve is the illusion of a golden age, so that they can ignore all the problems hidden behind the facades.
The only thing conservative politicians want to conserve is their power - secured and expanded by all means.
The only moral conservative politicians follow: forgive the sins of fellow conservatives.