He also needs someone to check his facts.
In a recent post he equated the Alamo with the Mexican/American war which happened a few years later.

Further anyone who thinks that Texas is the same as South Africa is not worth me wasting my valuable time on.

John Kusch is one of my favorite bloggers (my favorite now being Eric Scheie of Classical Values). John is absolutely right about homosexuality (i.e., androsexual men and gynosexual women) and homosexual rights (i.e., individual rights), and he always cuts to the essence of this crucial issue. And it was through his comments on this blog that I first discovered him. I'm so glad. I love the _style_ of the way he expresses his views even where I disagree with him. He stands up for his freedom and values without compromise. He's a hero to me.

What I dislike about John Kusch is this underlying belief that seems to girdall his writing and analysis - that as a homosexual living in the USA, he belongs to a population of the super-oppressed!!!!! And thus his criticism of everything good about USA the country and its society. I guess, he is so caughtup in his homosexuality, that he is unable too see or understand anything else. Single issue guy with a persecution complex, hoping to become a homosexual martyr.

Oh, I would agree somewhat.

You don't want to get into a "just shut up and appreciate your status" frame of mind. But at the same time, you do have to wonder sometimes if people appreciate just how well off they have it.

In a minimum of 3/4ths of the world, gay people would be publicly lynched just for being gay. Torturing them would be considered good sport and rather amusing to most people--and I do mean most atheist people, by the way. Not to mention countless hindus, buddhists, muslims, christians, etc.

With the possible exception of Holland and a couple of other nations in Europe, there is no country where gays are treated better, or with more respect, than right here in the good ol' US of A. Matthew Shepherd's killer rightly got the death penalty and his accomplice got life without parole--rightly. In 30 years we've gone from incarcerating gays to enshrining their rights into law in most of the country. Would simply appreciating all that be unhealthy, even if we aren't everywhere we should be?

ardentleftist:
"I guess, he is so caught up in his homosexuality, that he is unable to see or understand anything else. Single issue guy with a persecution complex, hoping to become a homosexual martyr."

If you think John Kusch is a one-note paranoiac, Astarte spare you from ever bumping into a fifty-year-old dyke separatist. And anyway, he's running a website, not applying to Cornell: it's not his responsibility to prove how well-rounded he is.

Dean:

Here I was expecting from you instead a post entirely about your favorite paper towels. And I was expecting from John, in reply, a screed about how you neglected to mention Brawny™ brand. ;)

(Tip of the hat to Casey on that one...)

If you don't read my website (and many of you, I'm sure, don't), then it's easy to think I'm a one-note wonder whose only concern is the oppression of homosexuals in the United States and abroad. It's my focus here because it's the issue that got me interested in Dean's site in the first place.

Our conflict is the classic "half empty/half full" call and response. Dean is interested in how good things are in America, how little racism there is, how gays have made huge leaps and bounds culturally and politically, and how the war in Iraq and the economy are both showing better performance than the liberal nay-sayers hoped. I, on the other hand, am interested in areas where America should do a better job of being America, how racism is still rampant in our country among all the races, how gays have a ways to go in our quest for a stable place in our nation's culture and public life, and how the war isn't the freedom-loving patriotic venture that we've been led to believe it is.

Dean's an annoying optimist. I'm an annoying pessimist.

And as I've written before, I'm not interested in hearing about how good gays have it in America, compared to the rest of the world. I don't need anyone -- particularly not a straight man -- telling me what I already know based on years of following the international gay press (something that most straight people do not do), watching documentaries, talking with foreign-born gay men and lesbians, and reading history. I know damn well how bad homosexuals have it around the world; and far from engendering gratitude in me for how good we have it here, it stokes the fire in my belly to make damn sure none of those atrocities ever happen again here.

I am not interested in defining America by what brutal dictatorship it *isn't*. Using our enemies as a basis for comparison and patting ourselves on the back accordingly is a tragically low bar to set.

Glad to see you take it in the spirit it was meant, John. ;-)

Oh, and Dean: I won't have you slandering me on the Internet. I am not an Objectivist :). I know I said I was, once, but if Andrew Sullivan can leave the Catholic Church . . .

Dr. Chris Matthew Sciabarra has recently put together a masterful series of essays on this very issue: "Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation"
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/essays/homosexuality.htm

Sheesh, Paul, I forgot all about that post! You, of course, just couldn't resist bringing it up. :)

John, I'll be glad to take you at your word, but I seem to recall remarks from you, here (it's been quite a while) about how lousy gays have it in this country.

You know, the country where Elton John doesn't even raise an eyebrow anymore, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a hit TV show?... :)

That reminds me: doesn't that show bother you? I mean, isn't that part of the stereotype? "All blacks have natural rythm, all lesbians hate men, all gays love show tunes and are always fashionable?"

I think that's just as bad as all soldiers are murderers, all gun owners are low-browed thugs, or all rednecks who are proud of the Confederate flag are inbred, toothless racists.

They're all stereotypes. Bad ones.

John Kusch has annoyed me too (on more than one occasion). So has Kim du Toit. And, of course, there is nothing more annoying than an annoyed gay gun nut.

Dean, maybe you could sell these guys a little of your common sense and good humor.

While we're at it, be sure to take a look at Eric Scheie's blog Classical Values, my favorite blog these days, even more than John's or Dean's (which is surely saying something!), and better than mine. I'm so glad to see him posting here. Also check out Jeff Soyer at Alphecca. Another gay gun nut.

I have to agree with John Kusch about the issue of "how good" gays have it in this country. It is good to remember how far we have come on some issues. It is better to remember that none of these improvements came without a fight and none of them will stick without vigilance, and that as a nation we're simply not there yet on a variety of issues. It was only 45 years ago that an interracial couple was arrested in Virginia based on their violating that states law banning interracial marriage. It took nine years for the Supreme Court to hand down the decision that Virginia couldn't get away with that.

This stuff is closer than we remember and takes longer to change than we realize. And the people who were waiting on the Supreme Court to verify that they had a right to have their marriages recognized, despite their disparate skin tones, even in backwards, racist states didn't even have to contend with a proposed constitutional amendment trying to make it categorically impossible to have a legal interracial marriage.

I love John Kusch.

And on the topic of "how good" anyone who expresses any homosexual affinity has it in the United States, I would point to Lawrence, Garner, et al. v. Texas as a reminder that just in the last five (5) months did consensual, private homosexual activity stop being illegal somewhere in the country. Let me phrase that differently: homosexuals can now express a most basic part of their humanity (their sexuality) legally. Imagine what it was like a mere six (6) months ago, when sex was illegal.

And tell me to feel better about the general social status of a class of citizens specifically targeted by the Defense of Marriage Act and the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, not to mention the continuing lack of a federal Employement Non-Discrimination Act. No, go on ...

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I go now.