Category Archives: Homosexuality

Update #II: Embrace Your Immigration Ad, Dr. Paul

Elections 2008, Ethics, Homosexuality, IMMIGRATION, Individual Rights, Journalism, Ron Paul

“You know Rep. Paul has scored a major moral coup when among those chastising him for his stand on illegal immigration is the author of a semi-pornographic tract, complete with a request for funds for the legal defense of an illegal alien. Yes, the prudish, proper Paul is being scolded by a “gentleman” who thinks nothing of exploiting his editorial position on a prominent forum to raise money for a Moroccan, homosexual, burlesque queen, whose résumé includes “exploits in the gay underground of the Arabic world.” …
As a man of the classical liberal, unquestionably American, Old Right, Rep. Paul is perfectly congruous in his defense of a sovereign America bounded by borders. It is his anarchist critics who belong to a different tradition—and who don’t make a lick of sense to sane Americans. …
… Positions that appeal to most normal Americans appall the libertarian foil-hat fringe.”
All that and more in my latest WorldNetDaily column, “Embrace Your Immigration Ad, Dr. Paul.”

Update # I: In reply to Barbara’s comments hereunder about the “hero” of the following “semi-pornographic tract,” linked in my column: Is this individual a worthy recipient of refugee status in the US? That’s the question. There are many foreign-born homosexuals and lesbians who do not enter the sex industry or the adult entertainment industry, but are productive individuals of high moral character. I would suggest they are better candidates for immigration than the subject of this disgusting tract, written by the shameless individual who has called Ron Paul’s illegal immigration ad “disgraceful.”
Note that the author of this “semi-pornographic tract” likens the suffering of the homosexual lad to the Resurrection. How obscene and tasteless.

Update # II (Jan. 15): On the Use of An Editorial Position to Solicit Funds For Unsavory Friends:

What would life be without the need to clarify what was crystal clear in the column, “Embrace Your Immigration Ad, Dr. Paul”?!
Was it not clear that it was not homosexuality per se that I was denouncing, but rather, 1) the quivering pornographic tone of a piece written, not for a gay porn magazine, but for a political, ostensibly respectable (but not really), website? 2) The dishonest depiction of a rather sluttish individual as a victim deserving of refugee status.

As I explained in Update # I:

There are many foreign homosexuals and lesbians (members of my family included), who live under precarious circumstances, yet have not entered the sex industry or the adult entertainment industry, but remain productive individuals of high moral character. I would suggest they are better candidates for immigration to the US than the subject of this disgusting tract.

And lastly, but easily the most unethical, the writer of the “semi-pornographic tract” exploited his editorial position—and by so doing flouted journalistic standards and ethics—to solicit funds from his readers for this individual, evidently a personal friend.
That’s deplorable.

I must conclude that my critics failed to diagnose all this as misconduct because they are themselves, very plainly, unethical.

King Cuts Coulter Down

Ann Coulter, Homosexuality, Media, The Zeitgeist

Florence King leaves most pipsqueak contemporary “writers” standing (they’re syndicated, however, she’s not). The famous misanthrope and recluse saw fit to emerge from hibernation to kick Ann coulter around in a column for National Review. Some other conservatives crawled from under dank rocks and attempted to respond to King’s studied contempt. Here’s a taste of why they failed so miserably:

Coulter’s sexual remarks are at once grim and flippant. Commenting on a psychologist’s plan to teach children about gay sex in a loving way, she said: ‘How can you teach children about anal sex in a loving way? Or any sodomy, for that matter?”
I am not saying that everyone has to be witty and original and overflowing with dazzling bons mots — after all, Coulter is a lawyer and I wouldn’t want to see her let down the side. I am just curious to know why she was content to call Katie Couric “the affable Eva Braun of morning TV.” Couldn’t she come up with something better? How about Simper Fidelis?…
At her best, Coulter writes well, but the chief source of her success is that she is a perfect match for the American ideal: smart as a whip but dumb as a post, educated but not learned, sexy but not sensuous, all at the same time. She would not hesitate to choose a sledgehammer over a stiletto because her instincts would pull her back from what the 18th century called ‘demolishing your enemies without raising your voice.’ She would know that if a writer uses a stiletto, a lot of people might not get the point, but they would definitely get the loftiness that accompanies irony and understatement. And so, knowing that being called an elitist spells ruin, she opted for a sledgehammer and raised the roof instead.
Her timing was perfect, putting her before the television cameras just in time to take advantage of the whoosh. That’s the sound cable news uses to signal each new 15-second segment in a roundup. They report the latest border debacle, then they go whoosh! and start talking about midwestern floods. When they finish the floods there’s another whoosh! and the subject changes to the stock market. Gone are the days when a break was signaled by a soft rattle of the host’s fake papers and a murmured ‘We’ll be back in a moment.’ Now, if a revered philosopher came on a show, the host would say, ‘Hold your thought, Plato,’ and cut to whoosh.
CNN has the loudest whoosh, a harsh wheezing sound so labored that at first I thought it was me. After all, I made my NR debut 16 years ago with a cover story called ‘I’d Rather Smoke Than Kiss.’ But no. The whoosh is television’s way of telling us that we are being swept up and borne aloft on gusty torrents of swirling excitement. To train us to gasp, they walk us through it by gasping for us.
The whoosh needs a blowhard and it has gotten Ann Coulter, a one-woman Hyde Park Corner who, love her or hate her, is saving television from itself by never uttering Guestisms — those gummy little nothings that guests keep saying over and over without thinking until everybody thinks they have said something thoughtful.”

King’s complete column, “Watch Ann Go Whoosh!,” is here. And here is my “Coughing Up Some Coulter Fur Balls.”

“Brokeback” Bluster

Hollywood, Homosexuality, Media, The Zeitgeist

Letters received in response to “Brokeback Mountain Revisited” demonstrate that, to a difference in opinion, liberals mainly (only one conservative got nasty) respond with ad hominem. They can’t seem to argue, but boy, can they whine, vilify, and psychologize. I’d be ashamed to write the bunk they have written me, a complete stranger.

Contra conservatives, who demand that cultural products be primarily “moral,” I ask that they be good—there are objective standards by which popular culture or art can be judged. “Brokeback Mountain,” in my opining, didn’t meet these. So what’s the big deal?

A “homophone” would not have written this about another film—albeit a good one—involving sexuality and love:

‘The Crying Game’ is a truly unorthodox love story. Directed by an Irishman, and starring Stephen Rea, the superlative Jaye Davidson, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson (Queenie of “Black Adder”), and Adrian Dunbar—the 1992 British drama/thriller was everything Brokeback wasn’t. There was no accompanying advocacy, only an achingly bare and beautiful love story with a twist, against the backdrop of terrorism and intrigue.”

Here’s a note from Roger Lord, who says he is an academic. This is the face of academia (and it’s not unique: read more about the exploits of liberal academics here). The gist of his Rumpelstiltskin’s rage is that I’m a fraud and a homophobe because I disagree with him. And this simpleton teaches? Can you imagine what he inflicts on dissenting students?

Hello,
I’m a University Professor in Canada. I read your pretentious comment on Brokeback Mountain on-line and find it totally stupid and ridiculous. I think you’re way off track… as well as an obvious homophobe. [Is that why I wrote that the love scene in “Midnight Express” was “artful and achingly sad”? There you have it: he lobs insults irrespective of the evidence against his thesis]
So you happened to see Brokeback Mountain on an airplane screen during a flight!? And you find that you have the right to make a judgement!? You can’t be serious! It’s like judging the quality of a pizza by eating the advertising flyer that was put in a mail box. You’re obviously simply a fraud.
….I think that Brokeback Mountain is undeniably one the best and most important films in recent years… nothing short of a true masterpiece! Surely, one of the most moving and well paced films I have ever seen in which silence speaks louder than words… love speaks louder than words.
Brokeback Mountain might have simply been too subtle, too true, simply “too good” …. yes, the feelings expressed in BBM are probably much too sincere and too profound for you.
I won’t bother reading your column again…
—Roger Lord

**
James J. Barker also didn’t like my take, but for the opposite reason. He declares me “as perverted as the ‘Brokeback’ crowd,� bolstering his claim with passages from the Bible, after quoting these few lines from the column:

“…the artful and achingly sad … scene in ‘Midnight Express’â€? and “Once interesting and iconoclastic, all gays seem to crave now is the State’s pension and seal of approval.”

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22).
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13).
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:24-28).

**
Here’s another fit of pique. It starts by articulating perfectly reasonable differences, then descends into insults:

“I am a middle-aged, life-long heterosexual Englishwoman: “Brokeback Mountain” changed my life. I have never been a particular fan of the sort of exhibitionist gays who go on Gay Pride marches and thrust their sexuality down everyone’s throats, making claims for themselves as a group who should be specially privileged, but this movie had nothing to do with them. Some of the scenes had the most amazing beauty of composition and content; the story itself is an authentic tragedy. I find your views to be insensitive, ill-informed and altogether typical of those with a pre-detemined [sic] agenda. How sad to be cut of [sic] by closed-mindedness and the desire to make cheap, supposedly entertaining, points.”

—Jan Thomas

**
Writes Lyle Palaski (and I’ve disposed of the worst personal insults):

Dear Ilana Mercer,

I read your “Return to Brokeback” article. What “you” returned to was spouting your own fears and prejudices. For people of any stripe, who cannot look at a great piece of art like Brokeback Mountain, and relate it to their own lives in some way is very sad.
…I know that writing to you is futile, but it’s more sad [sic] to me that there are people like you in the world, although it helps me understand why it’s in such a terirble [sic] mess as well…I suggest you look in that mirror and see what is reflecting back to you.

**
There were others, but this is quite enough of a sample of what passed for discourse these days.—ILANA

"Brokeback" Bluster

Hollywood, Homosexuality, Media, The Zeitgeist

Letters received in response to “Brokeback Mountain Revisited” demonstrate that, to a difference in opinion, liberals mainly (only one conservative got nasty) respond with ad hominem. They can’t seem to argue, but boy, can they whine, vilify, and psychologize. I’d be ashamed to write the bunk they have written me, a complete stranger.

Contra conservatives, who demand that cultural products be primarily “moral,” I ask that they be good—there are objective standards by which popular culture or art can be judged. “Brokeback Mountain,” in my opining, didn’t meet these. So what’s the big deal?

A “homophone” would not have written this about another film—albeit a good one—involving sexuality and love:

‘The Crying Game’ is a truly unorthodox love story. Directed by an Irishman, and starring Stephen Rea, the superlative Jaye Davidson, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson (Queenie of “Black Adder”), and Adrian Dunbar—the 1992 British drama/thriller was everything Brokeback wasn’t. There was no accompanying advocacy, only an achingly bare and beautiful love story with a twist, against the backdrop of terrorism and intrigue.”

Here’s a note from Roger Lord, who says he is an academic. This is the face of academia (and it’s not unique: read more about the exploits of liberal academics here). The gist of his Rumpelstiltskin’s rage is that I’m a fraud and a homophobe because I disagree with him. And this simpleton teaches? Can you imagine what he inflicts on dissenting students?

Hello,
I’m a University Professor in Canada. I read your pretentious comment on Brokeback Mountain on-line and find it totally stupid and ridiculous. I think you’re way off track… as well as an obvious homophobe. [Is that why I wrote that the love scene in “Midnight Express” was “artful and achingly sad”? There you have it: he lobs insults irrespective of the evidence against his thesis]
So you happened to see Brokeback Mountain on an airplane screen during a flight!? And you find that you have the right to make a judgement!? You can’t be serious! It’s like judging the quality of a pizza by eating the advertising flyer that was put in a mail box. You’re obviously simply a fraud.
….I think that Brokeback Mountain is undeniably one the best and most important films in recent years… nothing short of a true masterpiece! Surely, one of the most moving and well paced films I have ever seen in which silence speaks louder than words… love speaks louder than words.
Brokeback Mountain might have simply been too subtle, too true, simply “too good” …. yes, the feelings expressed in BBM are probably much too sincere and too profound for you.
I won’t bother reading your column again…
—Roger Lord

**
James J. Barker also didn’t like my take, but for the opposite reason. He declares me “as perverted as the ‘Brokeback’ crowd,� bolstering his claim with passages from the Bible, after quoting these few lines from the column:

“…the artful and achingly sad … scene in ‘Midnight Express’â€? and “Once interesting and iconoclastic, all gays seem to crave now is the State’s pension and seal of approval.”

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22).
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13).
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:24-28).

**
Here’s another fit of pique. It starts by articulating perfectly reasonable differences, then descends into insults:

“I am a middle-aged, life-long heterosexual Englishwoman: “Brokeback Mountain” changed my life. I have never been a particular fan of the sort of exhibitionist gays who go on Gay Pride marches and thrust their sexuality down everyone’s throats, making claims for themselves as a group who should be specially privileged, but this movie had nothing to do with them. Some of the scenes had the most amazing beauty of composition and content; the story itself is an authentic tragedy. I find your views to be insensitive, ill-informed and altogether typical of those with a pre-detemined [sic] agenda. How sad to be cut of [sic] by closed-mindedness and the desire to make cheap, supposedly entertaining, points.”

—Jan Thomas

**
Writes Lyle Palaski (and I’ve disposed of the worst personal insults):

Dear Ilana Mercer,

I read your “Return to Brokeback” article. What “you” returned to was spouting your own fears and prejudices. For people of any stripe, who cannot look at a great piece of art like Brokeback Mountain, and relate it to their own lives in some way is very sad.
…I know that writing to you is futile, but it’s more sad [sic] to me that there are people like you in the world, although it helps me understand why it’s in such a terirble [sic] mess as well…I suggest you look in that mirror and see what is reflecting back to you.

**
There were others, but this is quite enough of a sample of what passed for discourse these days.—ILANA