Then you will be pleased with the result regardless of how it is achieved. Gay Patriot seems very pleased with the recent California Supreme Court ruling overturning California law regarding what makes a marriage – and seems doubly pleased by this article noting that, ultimately, it has been Republicans who appointed the Justice who made it all possible. But there is this part of the article which is very disturbing for anyone who claims any sort of conservative world view, as Gay Patriot does – and so I hope I’ve misinterpreted Gay Patriot’s views, but here goes:

Schwarzenegger probably understood well the political culture of the judicial appointments when he vetoed gay-marriage bills in 2005 and 2007. “Schwarzenegger obviously sat down and thought it through,” says Darry Sragow, a Democratic political strategist. “[The vetoes] may have been a clever way to get around his party.”

Schwarzenegger has consistently stuck to one political line: He would never sign a gay-marriage bill that would overturn the voters’ will on Proposition 22, which defines marriage as a formal union between one man and one woman, and he would abide by the courts’ rulings if that ballot measure were found unconstitutional. State Democrats still attempted to force his hand, but Schwarzenegger refused to be outmaneuvered.

“I was certainly disappointed [in 2007],” says Assemblyman Mark Leno, who twice introduced the same-sex-marriage bill. “Here was a historic chance to embrace equality, and the governor failed us a second time.”

By 2007, though, it was becoming clear that gay-marriage lawsuits would almost certainly be headed for the California State Supreme Court. Schwarzenegger, who could not be reached for comment, may have waited for things to play out in the state’s highest court, as Darry Sragow suggests, knowing that at least a majority of the judges were social moderates with an old-fashioned Republican/libertarian streak — the kind of mindset that believes government should stay out of people’s pocketbooks and bedrooms.

According to Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg, this scenario isn’t all that hard to believe. “Schwarzenegger was always a closet (no pun intended) supporter of gay marriage,” writes Steinberg in an e-mail to the Weekly. “So he was probably happy to have an excuse to at least stay neutral, or, now, to actually oppose the November ballot measure.”

On the day of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Schwarzenegger released this statement: “I respect the court’s decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling.”

What respect I had for Schwarzenegger is completely gone, if this is the actual scenario (and it does ring true). If you think that gay marriage should be legal, you should just come right out and say that – to do a political dance about it with a mind towards allowing un-elected judges to get you off the political hook is cowardice…and, also, destructive of our form of government. And that is what is so disturbing about someone as smart as Gay Patriot being pleased here…I can understand a person being happy his side won, but it should be kept in mind that what the Courth hath given, the Court may taketh away…meaning that if one Justice is later replaced by someone of a different view, then a new case on this issue could result in an exactly opposite ruling. No, the only sure way to enshrine something in American law is to go through the proper, constitutional procedures for modifying the law…to have four judges decide for everyone else is to trust tyranny to give you what you can’t get from the people. I’d rather trust the people, thanks very much.

This now will go before the people, and the gay marriage advocates are quite certain of defeating the ballot initiative to overturn this judicial usurpation – and they may be right. California is a pretty liberal State…on the other hand, I also know plenty of otherwise liberal people who are opposed to gay marriage. Call it what you will, but there seems to be an inherent distrust amongst the people for the very concept of two people of the same sex getting married. If, as I expect, the ballot initiative wins, then where will the advocates of gay marriage in California be? Behind the 8 ball – having to not just argue their case, but also go through the very long and difficult process of first repealing this initiative before they can get anything else done. The ‘hip hip hooray’ of May is foolhardy – and I do believe that the underlying conservative impulse of the American majority – even in California – is going to smack this down quite hard.

In the end, one either believes in America and its way of life, or one doesn’t – if one believes, then one has to accept the whole kit and kaboodle, including especially those parts least liked. To me, gay marriage is an absurdity – a pure negation of what marriage is for (it isn’t for love, dear people; neither is it for tax breaks…love and tax breaks are benefits of marriage, not the reasons for having it). I’ll fight against it – but I’ll also lay down a marker: just as soon as gay marriage advocates start advocating a ban on no-fault divorce, then I’ll start considering a modification of my position towards theirs. My brief, you see, is to strengthen marriage and family…and if I can get a bit of that by graciously giving in to an odd request or two, I’ll do it. On the other hand, I know I’m quite safe here…because gay rights people, for the most part, are of the left and thus will never, ever contemplate any action which actually makes people live up to their promise.

Meanwhile, those advocates of gay marriage who care at all about America should be outraged by this judicial usurpation – they can, of course, in good conscience fight against the November initiative to overturn, but they should also be demanding that the Court reverse itself, and leave it to the people to decide when the current California laws regarding marriage should be modified, and how.

UPDATE: Apology is due – Gay Patriot let me know that his view is in opposition to the judicial usurpation:

Mark — you actually did misrepresent my view of the California decision. Both myself and my co-blogger (CA resident, Dan) oppose judicial fiat against the will of the people.

I only posted the article you referenced as a way to piss off the liberal gays who constantly trash Republicans and label them as “bigots” because they oppose marriage.

I am delighted that I’m an idiot vis a vis Gay Patriot’s position – I’ve long respected him as a fellow American, blogger, thinker and conservative. I offer my heartfelt and complete apology, and my promise in future to get off the lazy duff and actually ask for clarification before I jump to conclusions.

While waiting for the Mrs to finish a medical appointment this evening, I was forced – for the first time – to be in a room where the TV was tuned to Olberman without my having the ability to change the channel. He was raving on and on about something, and it occured to me it was about Hillary’s statement vis a vis long primary seasons and the assasination of Robert Kennedy. This is causing an MSM firestorm, it would seem:

Another example of the power of the Drudge Report today, as a NY Post story pointing out that Clinton brought up the assassination of Robert F Kennedy in 1968 during an editorial board meeting sent reporters traveling with Clinton into a frenzy.

Asked by South Dakota newspaper the Argus Leader why she didn’t buy the argument that the party was fracturing because of the prolonged contest, Clinton said “my husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June.”

“We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,” she continued. “You know i just dont understand it.”

After the Post story was circulated to the press corps via blackberry and Drudge, the reporters here at Clinton’s town hall meeting abandoned any pretense of listening to the event, flocking around the first Clinton flak they could find for a response to the quote.

After a brief off the record defense of Clinton’s comments, Campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee gave reporters what they were looking for. “She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer,” he said. “Any reading into it beyond that would be inaccurate.”…

…After the uproar, Clinton came to the TV cameras to make a brief statement on her remarks.

“Earlier today, I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968. And I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination, primary contests that go into June. That’s an historic fact. “

“The Kennedys have been much on my mind in the last days because of Senator Kennedy, and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. i certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.”

I’m sure she had no such intention – in fact, I wish she hadn’t apologised because there was (and is) nothing to this. Olberman was frothing at the mouth about a theory which seemed to go thusly: Hillary mentions RFK assasination; this is an invitation for some hate-crazed right wing lunatic to assasinate Obama. I’m no fan of Hillary, but this whole issue is a gigantic crock of feces unworthy of a serious mind…which, of course, means its going like wildfire in the MSM and on the left.

I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Hillary – and I mean it; she’s a leftist who’s policies would, if fully implemented, destroy the United States and, into the bargain, she has a great deal of trouble consistently telling the truth…but she’s getting a raw deal from her fellow Democrats and her once sycophantic MSM. I hate to see backstabbing, no matter who is doing it, or who it is being done to.

And some liberals still screech at us for accusing them of being socialists. See the video here.

Interesting that a lady who thinks that the crack epidemic was courtesy of the CIA can get elected and re-elected…and Democrats will allow her on camera!

Not that British politics means all too much for the United States, but here’s an example of how even the slickest leftism backed by the entire popular culture and its MSM can still be beaten by conservatism:

Conservative leader David Cameron hailed his party’s victory in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election as marking the “end of New Labour”.

But while describing Edward Timpson’s triumph – on an emphatic swing of 17.6 per cent – as “remarkable”, Mr Cameron added: “I know we still have a long way to go.”

Mr Timpson wiped out the 7,000 majority achieved by the late Gwyneth Dunwoody in the 2005 general election, to win by a margin of almost 8,000 votes over the former MP’s daughter Tamsin.

Labour’s Deputy Leader Harriet Harman conceded that voters were demanding action on the faltering economy and angry about soaring oil and food prices and the Government’s handling of the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

Maggie Thatcher’s campaign slogan from 1979 was “Labour Isn’t Working” – a double hit on rising British unemployment and the fact that the Labour party really had no clue on what to do about it. Naturally, a leftwing party never, ever has a clue on what to do about things because leftist thought is wrong from the start, and thus can’t get it right. “New Labour” coasted to victory on the back of a stunning rise in world prosperity starting in the 90’s (mostly, of course, the result of Thatcherism in the UK and Reaganism in the USA) which cloaked its manifest failure to get anything right. Blair proved a brilliant politician and showed he had rare courage in backing the liberation of Iraq, but in fiscal and social policy, he was a mess…and his successor is just more so, without the charm of Blair. Now that more stringent times are on offer, Labour is failing to figure out what needs to be done, just as the American left hasn’t a clue (though this is masked by the fact that they are the “out” party, and may get rewarded simply for being such in November…but if the left does win, it’ll all come crashing down as people get a good look at leftwing incompetance).

Keep this in mind, fellow conservatives – if we do enter the political wildnerness in November, it will have an end…we’d prefer to spare our nation a dose of leftism, but we’ll also stand prepared to endure, knowing that the left will mess it up, and the people will turn back to us, just as they are in the UK.

A poem by St. Francis of Assisi:

Most High, Omnipotent, Good Lord,

Thine be the praises, the glory, and the honor and every blessing.

To Thee alone, Most High, do they belong

and no man is worthy to mention Thee.

May Thou be praised, my Lord, with all Thy creatures,

especially mister brother sun,

of whom is the day, and Thou enlightens us through him.

And he is beautiful and radiant with a great splendor,

of Thee, Most High, does he convey the meaning

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for sister moon and the stars,

in heaven Thou has made them clear and precious and beautiful

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for brother wind,

and for the air and the cloudy and the clear weather and every weather, through which to all Thy creatures Thou gives sustenance

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for sister water,

who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste

May Thou be praised, my lord, for brother fire,

through whom Thou illumines the night,

and he is handsome and jocund and robust and strong

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for our sister, mother earth,

who sustains us and governs,

and produces various fruits with colored flowers and green plants

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for those who forgive for the sake of Thy love,

and endure infirmity and tribulation

Blessed those who endure them in peace,

because by Thee, Most High, will they be crowned

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for our sister, bodily death,

whom no man living can escape

Woe to those, who die in mortal sin:

blessed those whom she will find in Thy most holy desires,

because the second death will do them no evil

Praise and bless my Lord,

and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility!

Not a normal task for a GOP Presidential candidate, nor an easy task – but a task well worth doing, and long overdue:

John McCain plans to spend next week reaching out to African-Americans, displaced factory workers and people living in poverty – voters not usually associated with the Republican Party.

Starting Monday, the presumptive GOP nominee for president will stop in Alabama’s “Black Belt,” then move on to the struggling steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, and the Appalachian region of Kentucky. The Arizona senator is also trying to make it to New Orleans, which is still recovering from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

“I want to tell people living there that there must not be any forgotten parts of America, any forgotten Americans,” McCain told newspaper editors this week.

“A lot of moderate white voters want a president who can reach out to the disadvantaged,” said John Pitney, a former House GOP aide and government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. “So McCain has to show he’s making the effort.”

McCain “is sending the signal that he’s a different kind of Republican,” which he must do to attract independent voters unaligned with either party, Republican pollster Whit Ayres said.

“Independents voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in 2006,” Ayres said, when Republicans lost control of Congress. McCain can win, Ayres said, only if independents vote for him in 2008.

For far too long, the GOP has written off these areas of the country – and the worst part about this neglect isn’t in electoral politics, but in the fact that the cure for what ails them is to be found in conservative policy. These places are locked in poverty not because of some failure inherent to America, but because they are hamstrung by a corrupt Democratic machine which wants the poor kept down, and on the liberal plantation. The best way to utterly crush liberalism is to, step by step, take these poor voters away from them by providing them with real help – and real hope for genuine change.

Naturally, Democrats are mostly denigrating the effort – if we GOPers have been writing them off, Democrats have been taking them for granted, and they expect to be able to do so again in November…but even if McCain only switches one in a thousand of these voters, it is still a thing worth doing, because it will start a process rolling which can eventually lead to the end of liberalism in America. But I think he’ll do better than that: No, he won’t win 25% of the black vote, nor will he carry any of the Congressional districts Kerry won by 10 percentage points or more back in 2004 – but he’ll win some, and any poaching in Democratic territory makes the Democrats’ task harder – but more important than that is the political shift of a GOP aggresively courting America’s poor.

Bill Bradley over at Pajamas Media has the whole story of how Obama’s comments managed to make it on to Huffington Post, and then out to the rest of the world. It is a fascinating story of how the New Media works, and how the unwary can be tripped up by it, some times quite unintentionally. As it turns out, the story was brought up by an ardent Obama supporter whom, I’ll bet, didn’t find anything particularly wrong with what Obama said, but who did have some doubts about publishing it. At any rate, what comes through quite clearly is that Obama is mostly mad that it got out – and it seems that it got out mostly because Obama’s fellow elitists didn’t even realise what a boneheaded statement Obama had made.

The lesson here is in the absolute necessity of being honest at all times – had Obama not been trying to hide his contempt for the unwashed masses, then this story would have had far less impact. Of course, if Obama had been forthright about his genuine views on America and Americans, he wouldn’t have survived the Iowa caucuses. Honesty is the best policy – unless you’re a liberal, ’cause a liberal – as a liberal – can’t win a national election.

Not at all surprising:

As Chinese authorities have clamped down on unrest in Tibet and jailed dissidents in advance of the 2008 Olympics, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken a strong public stance, calling for restraint in Tibet and urging President Bush to boycott the Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing.

But her recent stern comments on China’s internal crackdown collide with former President Bill Clinton’s fundraising relationship with a Chinese Internet company accused of collaborating with the mainland government’s censorship of the Web. Last month, the firm, Alibaba Inc., carried a government-issued “most wanted” posting on its Yahoo China homepage, urging viewers to provide information on Tibetan activists suspected of stirring recent riots.

Alibaba, which took over Yahoo’s China operation in 2005 as part of a billion-dollar deal with the U.S.-based search engine, arranged for the former president to speak to a conference of Internet executives in Hangzhou in September 2005. Instead of taking his standard speaking fees, which have ranged from $100,000 to $400,000, Clinton accepted an unspecified private donation from Alibaba to his international charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation.

The former president’s charity has raised more than $500 million over the last decade and has been lauded for its roles in disaster response, AIDS prevention and Third World medical and poverty relief. But his reliance on influential foreign donors and his foundation’s refusal to release its list of donors have led to repeated questions about the sources and transparency of his fundraising…

Sorry, but there’s only one thing to say about this – the shady donations are merely a calculation by foreign interests that they may be buying influence in a future Clinton Administration. This is just the corrupt nature of the Clinton, Inc. beast – or do you think this is all new stuff? Questionable fundraising and Clinton go together like Mafia and Don. While Democrats spend their time wondering if Cheney – who has divested himself entirely from Halliburton – is working for Halliburton’s benefit, no Democrat seems to want to know if various Chinese and other foreign elements own the Clintons body and soul.

This nauseating greed for money and power on display in the actions of the Clintons, coupled with the way Democrats refuse to condemn it, illustrates the depths to which the Democratic party has fallen. As my Dad points out, the corrupt city bosses of Democratic history at least did some things for their cities – and most of them died broke; these days, senior Democrats are determined to live very well, indeed, and don’t question to closely about who is writing the checks, or what they might demand later on.

Damage control:

Barack Obama said Saturday that if he has offended people with comments he made almost a week ago where he labeled small town Pennsylvanians “bitter” and that they “cling to guns and religion” then he regrets it.

“Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that,” Obama said in an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal, according to a transcript provided by his campaign.

Hey, Senator – if you’re sorry you said it, then apologise for saying it. Saying your sorry if someone was offended is a cowardly dodge – makes it seem like you’re saying, “shoot, I wish those bitter, gun-toting, small town Christian racists would lighten up a bit”.

The really useful thing about this incident is how neatly it sums up the way liberal Democrats really view most of America…New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco – wonderful places to be full of the right sorts of people. Rest of America? A bunch of people who are a varied combination of dumb and wicked.

Over the past month or so I’ve had plenty of people send me commentary on Obama Sr’s communism and the clear indications that Obama Jr is also at least somewhat communist in viewpoint – but, of course, the communist viewpoint long ago absorbed the liberal viewpoint, and Obama isn’t the only senior Democrat with communist connections (Hillary has hers, too). These days, in a lot of ways, there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Lenin and any so-called liberal Democrat – of course, the liberal Democrats will vehemently deny this, but that is more a function of their ignorance of just what Lenin was advocating pre-Revolution. And there lies the real problem – Obama isn’t a communist and, in fact, is likely so ignorant of history that he’s unaware that what he considers his liberalism is actually just a species of junior-league Leninism.

One of the hallmarks of Lenin and his ideology was his monunmental contempt for everyone other than himself and his prized henchmen (and even there contempt sometimes oozed out). Lenin was convinced of his superiority and absolutely convinced that he know what was best, and was also bound and determined that no pettifogging concerns for liberty and the sanctity of life would stand in the way of his program. This Leninst contempt is very well mirrored in the contempt modern American liberals hold for the vast majority of the United States – including those poorer Americans they claim to speak for. Obama, self-styled liberal and unwitting intelletual descendent of Lenin, also has this contempt for those he proposes to lead to a better life. Its natural, its easy – and all that happened here is that it came out in unmistakable terms.

And herein is also the fundamental battle of our times – between those who propose to save humanity from itself, and those who value individual humans as they are. Liberals love humanity, but have nothing good to say about the particular, individual humans, especially when those humans perversely prefer to be governed by people other than liberals. Conservatives, on the other hand, humbly admit to not knowing everything and are thus wary of any utopian programs for reform preferring, instead, to just fix what is immediately broken and allow the larger issues to work themelves over time.

For the immediate future, this gaffe will probably work to Hillary’s advantage – lot of small town people in Pennsylvania, ya know? Longer term, this gaffe could absolutely kill Obama’s chances, should he end up gaining the nomination (which, in my view, he’s still the inside favorite to do) – put out in ads and flyers around the nation, it could provide just that erg of support the GOP would need to capture such States as Pennsylvania and Michigan in the fall, thus killing any chance for a Democratic win. Only time will tell on all this, of course, but Obama’s statement here is akin to Kerry’s “global test” in 2004 as far as its potential to utterly destroy the candidate.

Details over at our McCain blog…

UPDATE: Obama stands by his insulting comments.