Let The Liberal Orgy Begin!

This story appeared on CNN last week, and though I can’t determine if it is inaccurate, I believe it is highly disingenuous because it implies that, with the congressional takeover by the Democrats, we will now witness all manner of hedonistic excesses in the name of advancing gays and lesbians, including every possible ethnic or sexual minority in hate crimes legislation, and providing birth control and abortion on demand from now into remote posterity.

To say that anyone who believes that also believes in Santa and his elves and the Easter bunny is being kind.

I have no issue whatsoever with Nancy Keenan of NARAL and Cecile Johnson of Planned Parenthood making their respective cases (actually, the issue I have with Keenan is her support for Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut senate race, but that’s another story), but I’m wondering why CNN didn’t bother to point out that the reason why the Democrats won, in addition to the mind-numbing cronyism, corruption and incompetence of the Repugs and their congressional leadership, was because they did a better job of winning over centrist, conservative-leaning-on-some-issues Democratic voters focused on the Iraq war and other “kitchen table” issues such as the economy who really aren’t going to support the groups mentioned in this CNN story (which, curiously, doesn’t have a byline).

Further down in the story, I believe these passages do a better job of reflecting the reality:

(Joe) Solmonese (of the Human Rights Campaign) indicated that leading gay-rights groups will be patient with the new Democratic leadership, not pushing to have their issues be at the very top of the 2007 agenda.

"What we've got is a new and respectful Congress that's open to our community, to learning the specifics of our issues," he said. "To stress right now -- 'This is what we want and this is when we want it' -- would be premature."

Also…

"Everyone remembers the fight President Clinton had when he made (gays in the military) his first major political issue in 1993," said Aaron Belkin, director of a University of California, Santa Barbara think tank that studies (this issue).

"While opinion on letting gays serve has moved leaps and bounds since then, the new Democratic Congress is not likely to come out strongly on this one from the get-go," Belkin said.

And of course, these stories would not be complete without representation from Wingnuttia…

Some conservatives have expressed hope that -- on abortion issues, at least -- Democratic stances in Congress might be moderated by the election of several anti-abortion candidates. But other leaders on the right, such as Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, doubt these Democratic newcomers will sway policy.

"Instead, anticipate the fiercest assault of our time against abstinence, marriage, life, good judges, and religious freedom," Perkins wrote this week in the National Review. "Pro-life Democrats are likely to be marginalized in positions where they have little influence."

If Perkins had just said that he doesn’t believe these Democrats would sway policy and leave it at that, I might actually agree with him. But of course, he has to throw out some red meat to “the base” or else he isn’t doing his job.

And it continually amazes me that our “liberal media” reports on Perkins without acknowledging his racist past, as noted here by Bill Berkowitz, including this excerpt:

One of the most disturbing features not listed on Perkins' resume was his involvement in securing the mailing list of Ku Klux Klansman David Duke for a Louisiana Senate campaign he managed in 1996. Four years ago, reporter Max Blumenthal revealed in an April 26, 2005 article for The Nation,

"Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) … the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South."

Blumenthal wrote that in 1996, while Perkins was running the campaign of longtime conservative Woodie Jenkins, the right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana, he "paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list."

As Blumenthal also explained, Perkins’ purchase of Duke’s mailing list ended up derailing Perkins’ own Senate race six years later in 2002.

So with the advent of a new Democratic congress, according to Perkins and CNN, we can look forward to universal tolerance and justice and all manner of sexual indulgence for one and all.

I should be so lucky.