Right-wing News

December 1, 2004

Censorship

Alabama state Rep. Gerald Allen (R-Cottondale) has authored a bill that would prohibit the use of public funds for the "purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen argues that any novels featuring gay characters or textbooks suggesting homosexuality is genetic would need to be removed from the shelves and destroyed. If the legislation were to pass, prohibited works could include Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited." Read

A state legislator is trying to cut the funding of South Carolina Educational Television's budget after it aired a documentary on gays in the South. "I thought it was just social, leftist propaganda that they had no business airing," said state Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston. "They were actively promoting homosexuality as an OK thing to do."Read

CBS and NBC refuse to air an ad from the United Church of Christ which explains that the church "welcomes all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation." CBS explains its decision: "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks." Read

Immigration

Columnist Michelle Malkin issues a polemic against the "open border lobby" or OBL [Same initials as Osama bin Laden. Get it?]: "Political correctness is the handmaiden of terrorism. By smearing the overwhelming majority of Americans who support real borders as racists and xenophobes, the OBL obscures its deadly agenda: sabotaging our existing immigration laws and blocking any new efforts to punish those who abuse the system." Malkin is particularly critical of the National Council of La Raza. Read

Judiciary

The American Center for Law and Justice says it is "mobilizing and working to ensure that the Senate takes the necessary action that will put the judicial filibuster off limits." Read

The National Review's Jonathan Adler on the medical marijuana case pending before the Supreme Court: "Despite its apparent importance to drug warriors, Ashcroft v. Raich is not about medical marijuana or drug prohibition. Nor is it about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of allowing chronically ill individuals to smoke weed for medicinal purposes. Rather, it concerns the limits of federal power under the Constitution. Federalism does not play favorites. It limits the scope of federal power to pursue liberal and conservative ends alike. If a majority of the Court remembers this lesson, Angel Raich will get to keep her medicine. More important, the nation will keep the constitutional limits on federal power." Read

Civil Liberties

Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, defends the interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay. The International Committee of the Red Cross charges that such practices amount to torture. Read