Three events this week have proven the difficult times ahead for us Conservatives, and I have a few thoughts on them.

NYC’s Approval of the “Ground Zero Mosque”

The Cordoba Iniative, whose funding sources for the “mega-mosque” (come on, it’s only thirteen stories, right) remain unproven, has made it clear that they will use the phrase “Ground Zero” in their SEO seeding (Google Search) and screenshot). Previous articles on their news section keeps on mentioning the World Trade Center site as one of the primary reasons for building their site.

You can imagine how many people find this offensive, right? Except if you do find it offensive, you are hereby a bigot. This is Conservatism’s first defeat this week: that opposition to this mosque on any grounds has become successfully painted as unjustifiable, irrational anti-Islamic bigotry. There is a syntactical and semantic differnce between a “mosque close to the World Trade Center site” and “Ground Zero Mosque,” so much so that Cordoba itself has renamed the project “Park 51.”

I feel no sorrow for Imam Rauf renaming his project as such, considering that he reminds me of me before my conversion to Conservatism. It was a faux pas for Rauf, and it’s a tragedy that for years now a Greek Orthodox Church has been fighting red tape to get construct their place of worship. Apparently there’s a mosque the same distance from the World Trade Center site as Rauf’s mosque, and no one’s complained. There’s also a mosque at the Pentagon, and no one’s complained.

Neither mosque has been marketed as triumphantly and as proudly as Rauf’s. That’s why no one’s complained.

Proposition 8 in California ruled unconstitutional

There is not enough room on this blog nor in my headspace to discuss this at depth, at least not with the limited time I have these days. Long and short: I like the outcome in that extending marriage to gays as a convenient and legal means of recognizing a family (albeit different from what we’re used to) makes sense. I call upon all homosexual couples to live a moral life, and form exemplary families to prove the detractors wrong.

There will be dark days ahead for this ruling. The politics of this will be far-reaching, and I do personally worry that this is going to stoke Conservative anger towards gays. Not in the sense of the violence of the era of closeted group dates, but because it would be harder for remaining gay-related political issues to be advocated for that requires broad appeal.

From an outside-looking-in perspective, Proposition 8 was a huge mistake for California Conservatives in the first place. It’s like that state is so fucked up that the only thing their politicians could think of is to use wedge issues for political gain and it has backfired royally. The worst place to advocate a gay marriage ban is a gay-friendly state like California. Proposition 8 was a myopic attempt, and politically it was on the level of the Battle of Cannae from the perspective of the Romans.

I’ve only started reading the ruling. I am dismayed by some of the judge’s statements, but they are what they are and they will be tested in the higher courts.

After five long years, Harriet Miers has finally been confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan’s duplicity in her senate hearings, her lack of judicial experience and her views on abortion all disqualify her in my book. Elections have consequences, and this is one of them. The Republicans who voted for her (Collins, Gregg, Lugar, Grassley, Graham) have their reasons. She would’ve been confirmed anyway. Her confirmation is a bitter reminder of what happens when your party sucks so much monkey balls you get devastated into irrelevance after a contentuous election like 2008.

We are facing at least twenty years of a Justice Kagan, and I, for one, look forward to her judicial opinions. May they be grounded in firm legal reasoning, despite her obvious partisanship. I do hope she recuses herself from cases she’s argued in the past that then makes it to the Supreme Court. In that, maybe we will be blessed with two years of an impotent justice Kagan.

So, that’s it.

The past week has been a political bloodbath for Conservatism. I call upon fellow Conservatives to act strategically and react prudently to these developments. Let’s not panic, and let’s not act in anger. Sadly, for too many, I know this is a tall order.