Reprehensible clients? Please, Joe, I don't need this. There may well be reprehensible causes. There are probably even reprehensible laws. But can we please leave the clients, personally, out of it?
While I'm not thrilled about it, I do understand why the ACLU defends the right of Nazis and Klansters to march in the streets. Certainly either of those groups would make most people's list of things reprehensible. And yet we also understand that if those people are made to shut up, the rest of us are not far behind. But here comes Joe Farah to tell us that some clients are so reprehensible that the honorable thing to do is resign before touching them with a ten-foot pole; that or excuse oneself from the situation on "principled, moral grounds."
Perhaps Farah thinks that the law at issue in Romer (specifically, a constitutional amendment that prohibited laws protected homosexuals, and only homosexuals, from discrimination) was perfectly okay. But that wasn't what his rhetoric pointed to. It was the clients whom he should have refused to associate with. In other words, the dirty gays.
Farah says what groups like the FRC only think--any association or positive portrayal of homosexuals is a betrayal. Indeed, except for their conclusions, the FRC and Farah reacted remarkably similarly to news of Roberts' actions. Both panicked to start, and implied that support for homosexual activists would be a death knell for their support. The FRC just happened to decide Roberts didn't do enough to make him a gay-lover.
The distinction between the sensible right and the extreme right is that for the latter, even the barest hint of contact with the "enemy" is an anathema. When its walking parodies like Bill O'Reilly, we can just laugh. But this issue is no joke--it's a substantial portion of Americans united in a hateful ideology premised around the subordination of homosexuals and any who seek to affirm their dignity.
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I'm sorry, but how the HELLis Bill O'Reilly a parody of Republicans?
He's pro-gun control, pro-welfare state, pro-choice, anti-death penalty, and pro-environment (one of the few issues I can stand him on, except he thinks all the EPA's problems can be solved by throwing money around). His views on the Iraq War, drug laws, and gay marriage are almost the same as what Kerry, Edwards, and Dean gave out last election cycle. As for hating the ACLU, the Democrats do that in their time as well. They've been parodied by whoever's in power; that's what you get for being the government's opposition. Dems hate the free speech, right to self-defense, and right to information, not to mention coporate personhood. Reps hate the free speech, right to choice, and various law rights.
His reporting is conservative, but his viewpoints? You'd be hard-pressed to call them anything less than liberal. Please, if you're going to parody me, go grab Kim du Toit or somebody that actually shares one or two of my beliefs.
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