Manhattan Diary

Joe Biden: Booing of Iraq gay soldier was 'reprehensible'

Fear and loathing of a David Norris presidency

It's fashionable in right wing circles to moan about liberals promoting their political agendas (and candidates) in the media.

After all the media has a distinct liberal bias we're told - usually by the agents of Rupert Murdoch's unprecedented international media empire.

Take the conservative British broadsheet The Sunday Times for example. Yesterday evening John Burns, the Associate Editor of The Sunday Times, tweeted that he had six more letters from Irish presidential candidate David Norris pleading for clemency on behalf of his former partner Ezra Yitzhak to Israeli authorities (presumably).

Republican debate audience loudly boos gay soldier

I admit it, I thought I had seen everything when it came to the contempt the far right has for the citizens of this country who takes a different view (and that would be most of us, frankly).

Still, I was startled when the audience at a previous Republican presidential debate cheered Rick Perry's unbroken death penalty execution record.

Then later I was even more surprised when the crowd cheered the idea of allowing an uninsured young man to die. It gave me a real sense of what ancient Rome must have sounded like to anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves standing in the center of the Colosseum.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan's gay bashing letter to President Obama

Look at Canada.

On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act.

By 2011 the only major social change that has occurred is that gay people have almost total equality under Canadian law.

GOP class warfare: protect billionaires at all costs

If the GOP wants to talk about class war this week, then they should seek the opinion of the 99% of Americans they forgot to ask.

Let's start with you.

If you're like most other working Americans now you probably can't get a raise, or you can't get health insurance, or you can't get a pension, or you can't get a 401k, or you can't bargain collectively, or you can't get a mortgage, or you can't get social security,  or you can't get Medicare, or you can't get a student loan, or you can't a credit card, or you can't get a vacation - and you sure as hell can't get a financial bailout.

Pat Robertson: if your wife has Alzheimer's, divorce her

I've come to anticipate high handed judgements from American evangelical leaders, but even I was surprised by the sheer thoughtlessness of Pat Robertson's directive to the husband of an Alzheimer's patient this week.

The troubled husband wrote to Robertson for advice on the right thing to do?

Divorce your wife, Robertson replied, but make sure she has 'somebody' to look after her, and then move on with your new life partner.

Rick Perry's government job's 'miracle'

When is a miracle not a miracle? When it's a Texas job's miracle.

The truth is that Texas' job creation record is actually one point below the national average, up to 30 other states are doing much better.

But if you don't mind working for minimum wage then fully a sixth of the jobs created under Governor Rick Perry will be just the ticket. Texas is the minimum wage capital of the nation.

Bush was a tragedy, Perry's a farce

Massachusetts Catholic mother inundated with gays - Stacy Trasancos' missive on gay families

A Massachusetts stay-at-home mother of seven wrote a very plaintive missive on the internet this week.

In a blog post on her website she outlined how the disgusting spectacle of gay families enjoying a nice day out a local public pool has left her terrified to the point she is now afraid to leave her own home.

'I find myself unable to even leave the house anymore without worrying about what in tarnation we are going to encounter,' wrote Stacy Trasancos. 'We are responsible citizens. We live by the rules, we pay our taxes, we take care of our things. I'm supposed to be able to influence what goes on in my community, and as a voter I do exercise that right. But I'm outnumbered. I can't even go to normal places without having to sit silently and tolerate immorality. We all know what would happen if I asked two men or two women to stop displaying, right in front of me and my children, that they live in sodomy.'
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READ MORE:
New York Irish bar defies local opposition to host gay wedding celebrations


David Norris receives major boost in bid to re-enter race for Irish president

Matt Drudge's misleading news report

Yesterday the Drudge Report - the website which has been the clearing house for the right wing's fever dreams for over a decade - ran a story that informed millions of its daily readers that PBS had edited a glaring error out of President Obama's job speech on Thursday.

Obama, a headlined article on Drudge's website claimed, had called Abraham Lincoln the founder of the Republican party. But guess what, said the link on drudge's site, that claim wasn't in PBS's official transcript.

'So PBS has purposely altered a transcript containing a major gaffe by the President,' claimed the report.

Have our political divisions reached crisis point?

The other evening I visited an art gallery opening in Chelsea. There was the civilized clink of champagne glasses and women in high heels that probably cost more than some nations GDP's.

It was an upscale gathering, in other words, catered by a group of lively waiters who hissed at the monied hordes behind their backs.

What has happened to the Republican Party?

I admit it, there are some things about the modern Republican party (and its increasingly loony Tea Party wing) that still surprise me.

Why for example do conservatives loudly claim to revere the Constitution, yet spend so much time discussing how they'd like to dismantle every aspect of the federal government that is the very expression of the principles embodied in that document?

Fox News psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow may need to see a shrink

Dr. Keith Ablow

Fox News published one of the most over the top and poisonously transphobic articles I have ever read this week.

Commenting on the decision of Chaz (formerly Chastity) Bono's decision to compete on the forthcoming ABC series of Dancing With The Stars, the cable news station published a five alarm freak out article by a Dr. Keith Ablow that evidences infinitely more ignorance than insight.

Discrimination copper fastens hate

Last Friday night a slightly built 20-year old Salt Lake City resident named Dane Hall was leaving a gay themed nightclub in Utah when he was followed by four men. They began to shout gay slurs at him.

Moments later one of them attacked the young man from behind, punching him on the back of the head and knocking him to the ground.

Another assailants then grabbed his shirt and began punching him repeatedly in the face. When Hall fell to the ground the attacker placed his open mouth over the street curb and stomped on the back of his head, knocking out six of Hall's teeth in a move commonly referred to as 'curb checking.'