Bland menace?

Maybe you read it in Frank Rich's column....maybe you heard it on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me....or maybe you even went to the source itself, MegaShift Ministries chair and conservative columnist Jim Rutz of WorldNetDaily.

Put down that tofu dog and soy formula, says Rutz, because "Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products."

What's amazing to me is seeing the right wing suddenly embrace SCIENCE when doing so helps make an anti-gay point. When it comes to evolution or the basics of reproduction (ie how emergency contraception works) they are not interested in scientific thought. But hey, if throwing around a supposedly scientific argument can link "liberal food" with gayness, then they are all for science.

Scientific American responded with a rebuttal, Eating Soy Will Not Make you Gay (We Swear). Personally, I like the Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me panel's take on this issue, in which they point out that a man feeding his boyfriend tofu in bed, naked, does in fact make him gay.

Don't let NeoCons have it both ways

Conservatives' split between their private judgements and public policies isn't compassionate, it is merely hypocritical. I am glad that our Vice President loves his daughter. I am glad that President Bush believes, "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her." But how can these leaders reconcile those warm familial feelings with their policies that deny same-sex couples the right to form legal families?

We've heard line of reasoning before from the GHW Bush administration. Remember when Dan Quayle said during the 1992 election season that if his own daughter needed an abortion, he'd support her decision. He later made it clear that while we would support his daughter's choice, Quayle still remained politicially opposed to abortion rights.

That's the public policy we get: Conservatives live with the privilege to extend exceptions to their family members when needed, but the rest of us are stuck with their restrictive interference in our lives. Since when did nepotism become a prerequisite for liberty?