But won't Sen. Doctorbill Frist's chilly heart be warmed to learn that gay people just wanna be Beltway insiders—just like regular folks?

A footnote to Howie's rant (below) regarding the HRC's endorsement of Sen. Joe "Some of My Best Friends Are Gay" Lieberman:

I'm so far out of the alphabet-soup loop that in reading this apparently well-deserved ringing denunciation of HRC, I had to follow one of the links to find out what the heck HRC is. Or, at any rate, what it was before it turned into what it has become.

I just want to suggest another way of looking at the evolution of HRC. You could take it as a heart-warming tale of the mainstreaming of gay folks, who turn out to be just like "normal" people—just lookin' to carve out a little p'litical turf o' our own to call home (and shoot any goddamn trespassers).

Surely this will warm the heart of patriots like Sen. Doctorbill Frist, who I hear went on the TV this weekend to announce that the two absolutely most critical issues facing the U.S. today are:

(1) flag desecration, and

(2) the attack on the institution of marriage from same-sexers who (shudder!) wanna get married

Just think, once the senator comes to realize that gay people are just like normal people, wanting nothing more than to be cozy Beltway "insiders," he'll be free to take a few minutes to pause and ponder whether there aren't any other problems confronting the country at this particular moment which might be worthy of his attention.

If he really can't think of anything, not anything at all of possible current concern to Americans, perhaps he can use the rest of his allotted pausing-and-pondering time to contemplate some of the more extreme damage done to the institution of marriage by straight people. By, for example, and just to pick a random example, God-fearin' and God-spewin' wife-beaters and kiddie-bashers (who are not to be confused—oh, exceptin' sometimes—with God-fearin' and God-spewin' kiddie-molesters.)


THURSDAY UPDATE: I'm AFRAID DOCTORBILL HAS MORE ON HIS MIND THAN BURNING FLAGS AND GAY WEDDINGS TODAY. THE FEC JUST FOUND HIM GUILTY

Poor DoctorBill-- well actually he has somehow managed to make himself a billionaire while serving in the Senate-- just when he was getting ready to mount a full frontal attack on America's 2 biggest problems: gays marrying each other and someone burning American flags, the damned Federal Election Commission finds him guilty of one of the cases pending against him. This case, brought against Frist by the nonpartisan Citizens For Responsibility in Washington (CREW)-- the same folks who filed against the DLC's William Jefferson-- alleged (and have now been backed up by the FEC) that "Frist 2000, Inc. failed to disclose a $1.44 million loan taken out jointly by Frist 2000, Inc. and by Frist's 1994 campaign committee, Bill Frist for Senate, Inc. The result of the discrepancy was to make it appear that Frist 2000, Inc. had significantly more money that it actually had." Frist was fined $11,000.