Published with permission from Nicholas Benton, owner/editor of the Falls Church News Press.

Sanford, Ensign & 'Defense of Marriage'

by Nicholas Benton

The utter hypocrisy of right-wing Republicans who've done everything in their power to disenfranchise and deny marital and other rights to lesbians and gays jumped out of the headlines again yesterday when South Carolina's Republican Gov. Mark Sanford was caught having an extra-marital affair, and was forced to confess.

Sanford's revelations followed by exactly a week a near-identical confession from another right wing Republican, U.S. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada

Oisted with the permission of Nicholas Benton, owner/editor of the Falls Church News Press.

Why Rick Warren Really Matters

by Nicholas Benton

It is misguided to view the persisting flap over the inclusion of the Rev. Rick Warren in the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama as primarily a gay rights concern.

In fact, it is a matter that cuts to the quick of the 233-year cultural struggle since 1776 from which Obama emerged as America's president-elect this November, and that's why it really does matter so much.

That said, one should ask whether, in the name of embracing differences, it would be appropriate to open the inaugural ceremony with an invocation by an outspoken racist.

Prejudice is prejudice, and bigotry is bigotry, especially when directed against an entire class of persons with perceived undesirable attributes, be they skin color, nationality, religious preference or sexual orientation.

The same simple reality fundamentally applies to the subjugation or determination of the inferiority of women by men.

Rick Warren is the very embodiment of all the above, and not as some unenlightened plumber, but as a high-profile quasi-celebrity figure, who because he speaks from behind a minister's collar using religious terminology, thinks he can get away with spouting barely-disguised hate with no consequence.