Here at 365 some of our readers have a little parlor game. If there is a comment that gives the slightest props to a Republican and/or conservative, a few will furiously start typing  “Jews for Hitler,” “self hating queen,” or some other accusatory phrase. Well ladies get those keyboard ready!

A few months back Ross Douthat replaced Bill Kristol as the conservative op-ed writer at the New York Times. A good thing really because Kristol can be a little fact deficient when opining. Anyway Douthat was recently on a panel called “Meet the Neo-Cons: They’re Young, They’re Bright, They Tilt to the Right” (he was joined by Reihan Salam) and the topic of gay marriage came up. Apparently Douthat turned incoherent. Strange but he kept going and  explained his tongue knots thus:

“I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.”

Calm down folks. Not finished yet. He hasn’t jumped on the marriage train because of his religion. Will you wait please!? However, he described the conservative opposition to same sex marriage as  “a losing argument,”  thinks gay marriage is going to happen, and said something that needs to be put on your wall today.

“The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren’t just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don’t find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,’ you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.’ Who wins that debate? You win that debate.”

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Tarrant County district court. Defendants include Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, who led the theologically conservative diocese to split from the national church over issues including gay clergy and women in the priesthood.

The Iker-led group voted last year to join a more conservative province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Episcopal Church maintains that its rules prohibit dioceses from breaking away and that church properties are held in trust for the denomination.

Iker told The Dallas Morning News by e-mail that the lawsuit was expected.

The folk over at Gay Patriot have very little in common with me. I’m left of center and they proudly are not. They’ve been nominated for blogging awards. My only claim to fame is when I post minus grammar mistakes. So when I went to the site yesterday, wasn’t looking for much; however, it’s always a good idea to read, and study, the opinions of your political enemies. And by the way: read and study does not include  using these terms: “self-loathing Nazi” or “liberal hater of America.”

The site earned my everlasting respect because of a post about The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola’s ode to family, crime, and the perversion of the American dream. GP is eating dinner, getting prepared to do a few errands. He figures he can watch an hour and then move on to the work that is waiting to be done. Yeah right. That’s like me turning down good cherry pie or a free drink.

“Never start to watch that movie unless you’re prepared to watch all three hours.  I should have known.”

Come on GP. What were you thinking? From the bit players to the major stars, there isn’t one  false note. And who doesn’t watch with fascination as the youngest son (played by a non-hammy Al Pacino) starts the film denying his family legacy but ends as its ruthless guardian.

Why am I yapping so? Well I always yammer about the film (my favorite character is consigliere Tom Hagen); however, it’s always good to be reminded that while we argue and fight over politics, there is much that binds us together. There is nothing wrong with vigorous, and respectful debate, but at the end of the day our connections are what really matter. Seems to me we can have our arguments over policy and share wonder over the things that are beyond the political.

Police arrested Robert Williams, 52, on the weekend after he allegedly got into a man’s car in Mount Airy Forest and “touched his genitals.”

The man in car was an undercover cop.

Williams has been placed on administrative leave while the case continues.

“We are shocked and dismayed by the news,” said Cincinnati Christian University President David Faust in a statement. “This is a personal tragedy for him and for his family, and we lift them up in our prayers.”

Openly gay students are not accepted by the university, and students who come out can be expelled.

Cincinnati Christian University was founded in 1924 and has about 540 undergraduate students.

The new Anglican Church in North America will include four Episcopal dioceses that recently split from the U.S. church, along with breakaway Anglican parishes from Canada.

The announcement Wednesday in Wheaton, Illinois, comes after decades of debate over what Episcopalians should believe about issues ranging from salvation to sexuality. Tensions erupted in 2003 when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop.

The world Anglican Communion is a fellowship of churches with roots in the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States. But the new North American church says it represents true Anglican beliefs.

Legislation to allow same-sex marriage was thwarted in the state Senate earlier this year by a GOP majority after passing the Assembly. Last Tuesday’s election, however, saw Democrats take a slim majority in Senate  – prompting hope the bill will be passed in 2009. Gov. David Paterson (D) has said he would sign the bill if it is passed.

With only a two seat majority in the Senate, however, any Democratic bid to revive a marriage equality bill could be opposed by socially conservative members of the party.

Four conservative Democrats already are reportedly considering an alliance with the GOP to oppose the bill. One of the four, Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx) already has met with the Senate Republican leadership.

“I think there’s at least four or five Democrats who wouldn’t support it,” said the Rev. Duane Motley, founder of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which opposes gay marriage.

Motley said his group represents more than 2,000 evangelical churches and 500 other Christian organizations statewide.

At least one Republican favors gay marriage.

Even theleader of the Senate’s Democratic Caucus, who supports gay marriage, said the bill will likely be on the back burner in 2009. Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) said his first priority will be the state’s fiscal crisis, followed by job creation upstate.

Still, Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York’s largest gay rights advocacy group, said it is a question of when, not if, same-sex marriage becomes legal in New York.

In 2006, the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled that same-sex couples do not have a constitutional right to marry. It said that the issue, however, could be taken up by the legislature.

A bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry in New York passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly last year, but Republicans who then controlled the Senate refused to consider the legislation.

A Quinnipiac poll in June showed New Yorkers split over gay marriage, with 42 percent saying same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry, 31 percent saying they should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry, and 21 percent saying there should be no legal recognition of same-sex unions.

However, 53 percent of voters supported Paterson’s order to state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside New York, while 40 percent disapproved.

“New York is fairly liberal on this. If you didn’t have a fiscal crisis and you had a nice even-toned, even landscape for politics, maybe you could do it,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “You never know, but I can’t believe that the Senate leadership would want to get embroiled in this when they’ve got tough mainstream things to do. This is a social issue with a lot of emotion.”

New York is one of at least five states where same-sex marriage bill are expected to be introduced in the new legislative sessions.  The others are New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maryland.

In a recent column, he spoke of his “rising anger” with how gay advocates treat his ideological brethren. Of course, we know this is a bluff because Carpenter and other gay conservatives have nowhere else to go. They are dependent on the very liberalism they condescendingly deride and rejected by the very political party they claim to be a part of.

What is notable about Carpenter’s tirade, is how it is at odds with his often intelligent columns. He regularly offers sharp legal critiques and prescient political analysis. However, when discussing gay conservatism, Carpenter uncharacteristically becomes irrational, falling into an undeserved victimhood that is a hallmark of gay Republicans.

For example, Carpenter is upset because Jonathan Crutchley, the co-founder of the gay cruising site Man Hunt, was skewered after giving a contribution to John McCain. Carpenter surmises that there is a witch hunt because of Crutchley’s political affiliation. This is not true.   If he were just another gay business owner, no one would care whom he contributed to. However, it is preposterous for a man whose commodity is sodomy to give money to a candidate who wants to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would be in favor of outlawing gays from having consensual sexual relations. It is this type of cognitive dissonance that earns gay conservatives such deserved contempt.

Republicans in Congress have blocked gay rights progress for nearly three decades. It was President George W. Bush who stumped for a Federal Marriage Amendment. It was Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott who once compared gay people to kleptomaniacs and alcoholics. I could fill 10 columns with despicable acts and words lobbed at the GLBT community by members of the Republican Party. While the Democrats are not perfect (see Sam Nunn), anyone who compares the two parties is smoking something that has higher street, than political value.

The modern Republican Party was molded by President Nixon’s “southern strategy” and built by Ronald Reagan, a president who ignored the AIDS crisis. It has been home to horrendous bigots, such as Sen. Jesse Helms, Rep. Bob Dornan, commentator Pat Buchanan and Vice President Dan Quayle – who pushed the term “family values,” which notably did not include GLBT families.

In 1998, Republican Pat Robertson ran for president. Robertson lost, but he amassed a huge mailing list, which was transformed into the Christian Coalition. Under the leadership of Ralph Reed, this organization married the Republican Party and this list is today referred to as “The Base.”

As long as this crowd is on speed-dial to the White House, gay conservatives are a politically powerless sideshow. This group should be boisterously rooting for a collapse of the GOP, so the party can be rebuilt from scratch as an inclusive entity.

The core problem with Carpenter’s arguments, is that he invokes a mythical conservatism that is fighting a liberal straw man. The small government party that wants to keep out of peoples’ bedrooms is dead. It has been replaced by a brand of Republicanism represented by Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Bush. Not only are these politicians anti-gay busybodies, but they aren’t even fiscally conservative. In 2009, America is projected to run a half-trillion dollar deficit, plummeting from the seven hundred billion surplus under Bill Clinton.

The issue I have with gay conservatives is that they consistently subjugate GLBT concerns. This is revealed when Carpenter says that “we disagree” with the movements “most visible activists…about how much weight should be given to purely gay issues in a time of economic and military turmoil.”

I wasn’t aware that Congress had to choose between the economy and protecting GLBT people from job discrimination. I had no idea that passing a hate crime law might hinder our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, Carpenter and other conservatives think they should get to the back of the line and wait for their rights to be doled out at a time of peace and prosperity (when Democrats are in the White House, I presume).

The truth is, I agree more with Dan Quayle than gay conservatives like Dale Carpenter.

Family Values actually do matter and I will not apologize for placing the protection of my family above tax cuts for the very wealthy. Carpenter does not like it when gay conservatives are called self-loathing, but what else can one call people who don’t prioritize legal protection for themselves and the ones they love?

If Carpenter and other gay conservatives leave the movement, nothing will really change. Gay progressives will still be doing the lion’s share of the work, while conservatives will enjoy the privileges of their newfound freedom, while complaining about those who are largely responsible for their liberty.

But the prime minister also said that his Conservative party has simultaneously shifted more to the center of the political spectrum and he warned that it must remain there if it wants to continue governing.

“I think the Canadian public has become more conservative,” Harper said in Fredericton, N.B., at the start of a weekend swing through Atlantic Canada.

“At the same time, I don’t want to say the Canadian public is overwhelmingly conservative or that it is necessarily as conservative as everybody in our party.

“And that means that our party has to make sure that it continues to govern in the interests of the broad majority of the population. That means not only that we want to pull Canadians towards conservatism but Conservatives also have to move towards Canadians if they want to continue governing.”

Harper’s comments appeared to be aimed at dispelling opposition accusations that he harbors a hidden, extreme right-wing agenda. And it was consistent with the message the Tories have been hammering home in television ads throughout the opening week of the campaign: Harper is a moderate, steady leader who’s in tune with mainstream Canadians.

Jack Layton, at least, was not buying it. At an enthusiastic rally in Toronto, the NDP leader painted Harper as a heartless puppet of big corporations who has no interest in the needs of ordinary working families.

Harper, who was first elected as a Reform MP in 1993, recalled that Canada was still debating the merits of balanced budgets and free trade when he entered politics.

But during the 1990s, he said, Liberal governments abandoned their anti-free trade rhetoric and traditional big-spending, high-taxing ways, adopting conservative principles of fiscal rectitude, deficit reduction, spending restraint and tax cuts.

“I think there’s been a tremendous change in that regard.”

Until now, at any rate.

Harper said the Liberals and other opposition parties have returned during the current election campaign to “a pre-free trade, Cold War kind of approach to the economy . . . where they want to spend money, they don’t care how they finance it, if they have to raise taxes, that’s fine.

“This is not where the Canadian public is in this day and age.”

Harper also said that the military has joined the CBC and medicare as a source of national pride. But he confined himself primarily to economic issues in making his argument that the country has shifted to the right.

He did not address the social side of the equation – issues such as capital punishment, abortion and same-sex marriage – where Conservatives have often found themselves out of step with mainstream views. Harper has resolutely tried to mute social conservatives within his party’s ranks.

Layton told about 400 party faithful in Toronto that an NDP government would focus on the needs of families “at the kitchen table” rather than Harper’s fixation on corporate executives at the boardroom table.

“Do you want a prime minister who’ll have us choke on dirty air because he can’t get the oil out of the tarsands fast enough?” Layton demanded.

“Do you want a prime minister who helps his CEO friends get richer while millions of Canadian children and their families live in poverty? Do you want a prime minister who broke his promise to end health care wait times while five million Canadians don’t have a doctor?”

The placard-waving crowd dutifully bellowed “No!” to each of Layton’s questions.

Layton has made no secret of copying some campaign tactics and rhetorical flourishes employed by Barack Obama in the United States. Saturday’s rally borrowed again from the Democratic presidential nominee, with Layton standing in the center of the crowd as he spoke, surrounded on all sides by enthusiastic partisans waving NDP signs.

But Cameron Strang, the 32-year-old editor of edgy and hip Relevant Magazine, had second thoughts and pulled out of delivering the benediction on the convention’s first night, Monday. Citing fears that his bridge-building gesture would be wrongly construed as an endorsement, Strang said he instead hopes to take a lower-profile role, participating in a convention caucus meeting on religion later in the week.

“Through Relevant, I reach a demographic that has strong faith, morals and passion, but disagreements politically,” Strang wrote on his blog. “It wouldn’t be wise for me to be seen as picking a political side when I’ve consistently said both sides are right in some areas and wrong in some areas.”

Little known to outsiders, the Strang name carries weight with evangelicals, especially in the fast-growing charismatic and Pentecostal branches. Cameron’s father, Steven, who like his son is based in the Orlando, Fla., area, founded a magazine, Charisma, that spawned a publishing empire. The elder Strang has endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has aggressively courted the young evangelical vote, and the younger Strang has been part of it. He was on the guest list when religious leaders met with Obama in June in Chicago, consulted the campaign on Christian issues and interviewed Obama for his magazine, which claims a print circulation of 80,000 and 450,000 unique Web site visitors per month.

Yet Strang’s reticence to play such a high-profile role shows such relationships are a work in progress: While Democratic leaders are reaching out to more diverse religious groups, many younger evangelicals are striving for political independence and common ground without compromising on core issues like abortion.

The convention’s schedule is studded with faith-themed events, including the first interfaith gathering to open a Democratic convention. Those delivering invocations and benedictions during the four-night convention include a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Catholic nun, a rabbi from Judaism’s Reform tradition and Joel Hunter, a Republican and Florida megachurch pastor who has made the environment a signature issue.

In his blog post, Strang wrote that he initially accepted the benediction invitation, in part, so he could pray in a forum where faith isn’t typically emphasized. He also wanted to provide tangible evidence that “this generation of values voters doesn’t necessarily need to draw political battle lines the way previous generations have, and that we can work through areas of disagreement toward common goals.”

Those goals range from fighting poverty, torture and genocide to protecting the environment and reducing the number of abortions, he wrote. Strang calls himself a pro-life Republican.

Learning later that he was to speak on the main stage on opening night gave him “serious pause.” Strang said Obama representatives understood his decision, and he wants to keep his good relationship with them.

Asked whether he got any pressure to reduce his role, Strang said Thursday he got a few e-mails, but it was a personal decision.

Obama campaign and convention committee officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Democratic officials have emphasized their faith outreach work is meant to recognize the nation’s religious diversity and unite the religious and nonreligious around shared values.

Strang found a different young evangelical to take his place delivering the closing prayer on Monday night: Donald Miller, author of the popular spiritual memoir “Blue Like Jazz.”

Strang’s soul-searching prompted one other change: He switched his political affiliation to independent this week.

As for his presidential preference, Strang said he still hasn’t decided.

Mass Resistance filed paperwork this week with the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office that would allow it to begin collecting signatures on a petition to force a vote on the issue.

If it were successful in getting the measure on the ballot, it would not be before 2010.

Same-sex couples have been free to marry in Massachusetts since 2004, but only if they were residents of the state.

Then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) dusted off a 1913 law that said marriage licenses could not be issued to couples whose weddings would not be recognized in their home states, and threatened to charge local clerks if they issued marriage licenses to out-of-state, same-sex couples.

The old law was originally passed when interracial marriage was legal in Massachusetts but not in most other parts of the country.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state bans on interracial marriage, the Massachusetts law fell into disuse.

Last month, current Gov. Deval Patrick (D) signed legislation repealing the law.

Mass Resistance spokesperson Brian Camenker told the Assopicated Press on Friday that lawmakers and Patrick bowed to the will of the “gay lobby” by approving the repeal of the 1913 law.

The repeal effort is considered unlikely to succeed. Patrick has a high approval rating and polls indicated most Massachusetts voters are comfortable with same-sex marriage.

An attempt to put a measure on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage altogether in the state failed to win support in the legislature last year.