Gay Rights: Why Is Princeton University’s President Shielding NOM’s Founder?
Princeton University President Shirley M. Tilghman refuses to address the fact that a professor under her tenure practices anti-gay hate and uses his position at Princeton University to falsely give credence to his work.
GAY RIGHTS NATIONAL EMERGENCY – AN OPEN LETTER TO PRINCETON PRESIDENT SHIRLEY M. TILGHMAN
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To:
Shirley M. Tilghman, President
Princeton University
President Tlighman:
This regards your unconscionable cowardice and/or lack of good character in so far refusing publicly to condemn the malicious nationwide political gay bashing of Princeton University Professor Robert George. I sent you an e-mail in this regard, which you ignored. Separately, I sent an e-mail to Princeton University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua; he also ignored my e-mail. I then called his office; he happened to pick up, acknowledged receipt of my e-mail and said that you would not be commenting.
As a regular contributor to The Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism, I know that one of the most urgently important lessons of the Holocaust is that a society must not wait until the lowest imaginable degradation of ignorance-fueled anti-minority prejudice is reached before taking a stand against such dangerous prejudices.
Though Princeton Professor Robert P. George is not qualified to speak scientifically about the psychology of sexual orientation, he presumes authority to speak on the topic as though he were an expert in it. Many of his published academic papers and articles are actually anti-gay hate literature that have only been published in academic journals and elsewhere because of the ongoing prevalence of ignorance-fueled anti-gay prejudice in the society.
It should nonetheless concern Princeton University when one of its supposed star scholars is publishing junk scholarship with the Princeton University brand name attached. Your institution’s integrity is on the line. By way of example I am going to cite footnote number 10 in Princeton University Professor Robert George’s notorious anti-gay hate essay “What is Marriage?†This scurrilous anti-gay hate literature was co-written by a Princeton Ph.D. candidate, meaning, at Princeton, Professor George is grooming a new generation to perpetuate a corrosive and harmful ignorance-fueled prejudice. Professor George in the aforementioned footnote wrote, “Throughout history, no society’s laws have explicitly forbidden gay marriage. They have not explicitly forbidden it because, until recently, it has not been thought possible.â€
The Roman emperors Nero and Elagabalus each were married to men in public ceremonies described by such scribes as Cicero. At a later date, the Theodosian Code (9.7.3) made illegal such same sex relations. Were it not for the Romans one might point at the tradition of berdaches in the cultures of various Native American tribes. If berdaches’ domestic relationships did not correspond precisely to contemporary American marital relationships, neither did Native Americans’ heterosexual marriage-like domestic arrangements.
The cultures of ancient Rome and of the Native Americans hardly exhaust historical examples of same sex relationships being endorsed by societies. While the evidence from ancient Egypt remains incomplete, surviving Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom accounts and other evidence suggest that homosexuality in those periods extended in significance beyond mere physical relations. And, I have not yet mentioned ritualized female pairings among the Nuer of Sudan or ritualized male pairings in the Azande culture.  I trust that you know at least something about historical same-sex relationships in China and Japan.
My main point in this to you is that Princeton University Professor Robert George ignored mountainous scholarship in the field of Cultural Anthropology to allege that ritualized same sex unions had throughout history not existed. He did so in the pages of an academic journal, using his Princeton University associations as credentials, and in order to perpetuate anti-scientific, anti-fact, anti-gay prejudices. Note, please, that Professor George has had professional associations with the anti-gay hate group Focus on the Family, one of whose officials, Tom Minnery was on the floor of the United States Senate during a hearing when under oath called out for falsifying evidence about gay human beings, with intent to see discrimination against them perpetuated in the United States.
While each and every aspect of the very serious injuries Princeton’s Professor Robert George causes to be inflicted on his victims nationwide and beyond is of extreme concern, perhaps no aspect is quite so shocking as Professor George’s complicity in perpetuating nationwide school environments hostile to young LGBT human beings. The website of Professor George’s American Principles Project includes articles that rail against the teaching of humane acceptance values in public schools, with the reason given being that teaching acceptance values are “subterfuges†to promote acceptance of gay human beings. Professor George is publishing this anti-gay hate literature in a social climate where some people of influence state that anti-gay bullying is a “healthy†form of peer pressure. Dr. Rich Swier, who promotes the idea that anti-gay bullying is a “healthy” form of peer pressure, enthusiastically cites Princeton Professor Robert George’s writings on his blog. Here in case you missed the story is a report about the recent anti-gay bullycide of Jamey Rodemeyer.
NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, an organization Professor George started and of which he is Chairman Emeritus, is currently engaging in anti-gay politicking in the very district where Jamey Rodemeyer fell victim to anti-gay bullying. Professor George’s vigorous and sustained activity in this field runs counter to the policies and recommendations issued by every major modern medical and psychological association including the AMA. If you are not familiar with what a student victim of this ignorance suffers, please read my article “Gay Florida Teen, Harassed by Teacher, Tortured by Students, Denied Justice.â€
We shall not remain silent while . . . even in the midst of an epidemic of bullycides among gay American teenagers . . .. Princeton University officials continue to enable the monster bigot Professor Robert George.
At this link is the online petition calling for you and other Princeton University Board of Trustee members to repudiate Professor Robert George’s ignorance-fueled anti-gay prejudices. Jamey Rodemeyer couldn’t sign the petition because he is dead. Who knows? Maybe one day he could have attended Princeton.
Shame on you, Princeton University President Tilghman. Shame.
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Editor’s note: President Tilghman and her office have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
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New York City-​based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-​interest by-​line has appeared on Advocate​.com, PoliticusUSA​.com, The New York Blade, Queerty​.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide†is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.
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U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL). largely seen as pushing Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s Republican-majority House of Representatives toward shutting down the federal government, is praising and promoting remarks made by a freshman GOP lawmaker that appear to suggest the use of violence. U.S. Rep. Eli Crane‘s comments, posted Friday (below), call for change “through force,” remarks echoing Congressman Gaetz’s recent comments which were denounced by an expert on authoritarianism as fascistic.
“The only way we’re going to see meaningful change in this town is through force,” wrote Congressman Crane, Republican of Arizona atop a three-minute video in which he frames what is now an almost guaranteed government shutdown as a “spending fight.” In his video he says, “the only way you’re gonna get any change in this town is through force.” Gaetz in August had said, “we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.”
Congressman Crane is a former Navy SEAL. He has promoted the false “Big Lie” conspiracy theory that there was massive fraud in the election President Joe Biden won, and called “on the state legislature to decertify the 2020 election.” He is one of six House Republicans who voted against McCarthy’s speakership all 15 times in January.
“Congressman Eli Crane is a fountainhead of political courage,” said Rep. Gaetz Friday afternoon. “He holds the line.”
Crane recently came under fire for calling Black people “colored,” during debate on his legislation that would force the U.S. Armed Forces to not use any diversity requirements in its hiring practices.
Just days before he won his House seat last year, The Washington Post reported Crane had urged an “audience to look up an antisemitic sermon at a recent campaign stop.”
“Crane said that he was motivated to run because of ‘radical ideologies that are destroying this country’ and that he was most concerned about ‘Cultural Marxism,’ which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as an antisemitic baseless claim gaining traction on the American right.”
“He encouraged the audience to watch a speech by a right-wing pastor who blamed cultural change on a group of German Jewish philosophers and condemned Barack Obama for having a ‘homosexual agenda.'”
“If we don’t wake up,” Crane said, according to the Post, “if we don’t study what they’re doing, and if we don’t put people in influential positions that understand what this war is all about, what they’re trying to do and have and have the courage to call it out, we’re going to lose this country.”
In August, while standing next to Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Congressman Gaetz said, “Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should.”
“But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”
At the time, Raw Story reported, “historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat called Gaetz comments alarming.”
READ MORE: Pete Buttigieg Just Testified Before Congress. It Did Not Go Well for Republicans.
“What he is saying is that they are not going to have change through elections or through legislation or through reform. They are going to have change through violence,” she warned.
“And that’s how fascists talk,” Ben-Ghiat added. “So, even if Trump is out of the picture, these are people who have adopted methods very familiar to me as a historian of fascism, that violence and corruption and lying that’s what the party is today.”
Image via Shutterstock
COMMENTARY
‘See How Easy That Is to Say?’: GOP Mocked for ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ Claims as Democratic Senator Gets Indicted
The U.S. Dept. of Justice unsealed an indictment against U.S. Senator Bob Menendez late Friday morning, accusing the New Jersey Democratic lawmaker of bribery as prosecutors showed photos of gold bars and nearly half-a-million dollars in cash stuffed into a jacket that bears his name and the seal of the U.S. Senate.
Many on the left immediately demanded Senator Menendez resign, a demand he is refusing. He will step down as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which Senate Democrats require when a chair is criminally charged.
It took little time for liberals to mock Republicans who have been claiming President Joe Biden and Democrats in general, along with the “deep state,” have “weaponized” the Dept. of Justice against conservatives, especially after Donald Trump’s four indictments on a total of 91 criminal felonies.
“Let me get this straight,” wrote journalist and progressive SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah. “To the GOP, when DOJ indicts President Biden’s son and a senior Democratic US Senator that is great. But when DOJ indicts Donald Trump for attempting a coup and for 32 counts of Espionage that is DOJ’s ‘weaponization’ of criminal justice?!”
READ MORE: Pete Buttigieg Just Testified Before Congress. It Did Not Go Well for Republicans.
“This is the second time that Sen. Bob Menendez has been indicted for corruption. He needs to resign and allow Gov. Murphy to fill that vacancy with someone who does right by the people of New Jersey,” wrote former Human Rights Campaign press secretary Charlotte Clymer. “See how easy that is to say, GOP?”
Journalist, author, and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin posted video of the prosecutor announcing the indictment.
US Attorney Damian Williams shows photos of the Mercedes Benz, gold bars, and cash the government alleges Senator Robert Menendez received in bribes. pic.twitter.com/h4hYYwzKVQ
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) September 22, 2023
Boykin later sarcastically commented, “There goes Biden again weaponizing the Justice Department to prosecute political leaders in his own party.”
“President Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice has now indicted Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and *checks notes* Joe Biden’s son,” observed veteran intelligence officer, activist, and social media personality Travis Akers.
Attorney and former Republican George Conway quickly responded, saying, “senile sleepy Joe is playing 65-dimensional chess again.”
“Menendez should resign. Today,” demanded historian and author Kevin M. Kruse.
“One of the nice things about rule of law is that truly believing in it ensures that you don’t end up as a partisan hypocrite,” observed The Atlantic’s Brian Klaas, an associate professor in global politics at University College London. “If Menendez is guilty, he should go to prison as anyone else would. (And it would be prudent to resign swiftly).”
Meanwhile, some used Friday’s indictment of Sen. Menendez to focus on other political figures.
Foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf, warned, “The Memendez case should have Jared [Kushner] and Clarence [Thomas] ordering extra strength Tums today.”
Rachel Bitecofer, the political strategist and analyst also appeared to point the finger at Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni.
You know who else hid money from the IRS and ran his bribes through his wife?! pic.twitter.com/kWJuAPCtbJ
— Rachel Bitecofer 📈🔭🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@RachelBitecofer) September 22, 2023
News
‘Corruption of the Highest Order’: Experts ‘Sickened’ at ‘Definitely Bought’ Clarence Thomas and His ‘Pay to Play’ Lifestyle
Legal and political experts are expressing outrage and disgust after ProPublica’s latest investigation into the alleged unethical and unlawful actions of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, with some demanding his resignation and others calling it “corruption of the highest level,” “Pay. To. Play.,” and one simply saying, “This sickens me.”
“Is Clarence Thomas the most corrupt Supreme Court justice in our history? One of the most corrupt senior officials in our history? There is no doubt any more,” writes David Rothkopf, the foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator.
ProPublica is the nonprofit journalism organization that has exposed multiple instances of what experts have said is Justice Thomas’ corruption, abuse of ethics, contributions to the destruction of the high court’s reputation, and actual violations of federal law. Justice Thomas has either not commented or denied any wrongdoing.
“Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events,” is the headline on Friday’s installment from ProPublica, which reveals: “Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.”
The Koch network is a right-wing group of political organizations founded by “the Koch Brothers,” Charles and his late brother David.
“One of the Koch network’s most powerful allies,” is how ProPublica’s latest, lengthy investigation describes Justice Thomas The report begins with his arrival in Palm Springs International Airport to attend a “long weekend” that for Koch network members and supporters would include “strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising.”
“The justice was brought in to speak, staffers said, in the hopes that such access would encourage donors to continue giving.”
“That puts Thomas in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term.”
That case, ProPublica reports, is one that could greatly benefit Koch and America’s ultra-wealthy.
“The Koch network is among the largest and most influential political organizations of the last half century, and it’s underwritten a far-reaching campaign to influence the course of American law. In a case the Supreme Court will hear this coming term, the justices could give the network a historic victory: limiting federal agencies’ power to issue regulations in areas ranging from the environment to labor rights to consumer protection. After shepherding the case to the court, Koch network staff attorneys are now asking the justices to overturn a decades-old precedent. (Thomas used to support the precedent but flipped his position in recent years.)”
As with most of ProPublica’s investigations, this report includes both allegations of illegal actions and unethical behaviors.
Experts are voicing concern.
“Clarence Thomas might not be the finest Justice money can buy, but he’s definitely bought,” charges Moe Davis, the well-known retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, educator, politician, and former administrative law judge.
READ MORE: ‘Grave Concerns’: House Democrats Urge Chief Justice to Formally Investigate Clarence Thomas
Former federal prosecutor and legal commentator Mimi Rocah, who is now the elected District Attorney for Westchester County, New York expressed disgust.
“As a public servant who sacrifices donor $ (I don’t take donations from elected officials, PBAs, or attorneys with cases before my office), b/c I believe the justice system should be free from even the appearance of political influence, this sickens me.”
“Thomas and his billionaire pals have trashed the court’s reputation,” observed author Mark Jacob, a former Chicago Tribune editor.
“Corruption of the highest order,” is how Heather Cox Richardson, the well-known historian, author and professor of history described Justice Thomas’ alleged actions. “Personally, I’d go right to resign. It’s long overdue. And I’d revisit the cases he’s decided—including Citizens United and Shelby v Holder, which together handed our democracy to the rich—while we’re at it.”
“Does Justice go better with Koch?” mocked Jane Mayer, the award-winning author and investigative reporter at The New Yorker. “Clarence Thomas will judge a momentous case this term affecting all federal regulations after secretly partying for years with involved polluters.”
Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild wrote: “Clarence Thomas hanging out with the Kochs and Harlan Crow at Bohemian Grove. No human sacrifice, no devil worship, just some old rich dudes scheming to take rights away from the rest of us. The conspiracy is in plain sight, and it doesn’t bother hiding.”
New York Times bestselling author, legal expert and senior editor at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick summed it up: “Pay. To. Play.”
‘Corruption of the Highest Order’: Experts ‘Sickened’ at ‘Definitely Bought’ Clarence Thomas and His ‘Pay to Play’ Lifestyle
‘Sexy’: Comer Obtains Unredacted Emails to VP Biden Revealing Women ‘Privately Mused’ They Found Him Attractive
‘Total Nonsense’: Joe Scarborough Pours Cold Water on Panic Over Kamala Harris in 2024
‘See How Easy That Is to Say?’: GOP Mocked for ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ Claims as Democratic Senator Gets Indicted
Gaetz Praises GOP Congressman Who Echoes His Call for Change ‘Through Force’
Gaetz Praises GOP Congressman Who Echoes His Call for Change ‘Through Force’
‘See How Easy That Is to Say?’: GOP Mocked for ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ Claims as Democratic Senator Gets Indicted
‘Corruption of the Highest Order’: Experts ‘Sickened’ at ‘Definitely Bought’ Clarence Thomas and His ‘Pay to Play’ Lifestyle
‘Total Nonsense’: Joe Scarborough Pours Cold Water on Panic Over Kamala Harris in 2024
‘Sexy’: Comer Obtains Unredacted Emails to VP Biden Revealing Women ‘Privately Mused’ They Found Him Attractive
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