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Around the blogosphere: those uppity gay people and our complicit empire

The power of the blogosphere is the power to connect you to that which you might not necessarily [choose] to encounter.

Over the past week:

Curvature on New Hampshire's new law on gay civil unions.

Waldo Lydecker's Journal brings us a link to the Denver Post story on how Immigration and Naturalization openly discriminates against separated same-sex partners. If you read it, be sure not to miss the enlightened comments that follow. Waldo also has several stories about immigrants who came to America to fulfill their religious duty, which is apparently killing gay men.

Phucking Phabulous Phlamer not only brings us coverage of a major California Supreme Court ruling on the property rights of domestic partners, but also a searing piece on the murder and/or imprisonment of gays under the government we're propping up in Iraq:

(Baghdad) The Iraq government is considering the release of some 5,000 prisoners but a spokesperson said it would not include terrorists or homosexuals.

The Iraqi government has about 20,000 people in custody, while the U.S. military holds about 25,000.

Homosexuality itself is not illegal in Iraq, but police regularly arrest gays on other charges often trumped up.

The amnesty bill drafted by the Shiite-dominated government falls far short of Sunni demands. About the only thing on which the two sides agree is that imprisoned gays not be freed.


Here's my favorite quote:

In 2006 the Iraq government strongly criticized a U.N. report on human rights that put its civilian death toll in 2006 at 34,452, saying it is "superficial" because it included people such as homosexuals.


From a Libertarian perspective I see two trends emerging in all this:

1. The road to equal protection under the law for gay American citizens travels straight through property rights, which means the Libertarian movement.

2. The road to an American empire, which we have been pursuing in earnest for the past twenty years not only subverts the values we claim to hold dear, it gives license to those we support for political expedience to make victims out of those we will neither protect nor name.

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