The film "Milk" is another hot example of liberal agenda pushing and social engineering. I saw it the other night. It is an impressive film. Sean Penn as Harvey Milk was terrific and so was the rest of the cast. As drama, it was only OK. But as an example of liberal/gay agenda pushing to change societal attitudes, it is near perfect.

Anyone who knows a little bit about recent American history knows that Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office in San Francisco and was assassinated by a deranged colleague. Milk, the movie is about Milk's evolution from New York homosexual trolling the subways for one-night stands to a West Coast civil rights leader to martyred politician.

As it happens, the most powerful part of the film takes place before Penn is ever seen on screen. It comes right at the beginning of the movie through archival footage that shows gay men being rounded up out of bars and arrested for nothing more than the crime of being gay.

As the movie unwinds, Milk takes on not only benighted traditionalists like Anita Bryant but the squeamish San Francisco homosexual establishment whose leaders, fearing a backlash, don't want him to demand too much, too fast.

But the violence directed at gays at that time was reprehensible and Milk was an effective spokesman and activist against it.

Ultimately, he triumphs both politically and morally only to be cruelly murdered by the pathetic Dan White, both a Catholic and a conservative.

The film's release, after Election Day, annoyed many in the gay community because they were hoping the film might help defeat Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage law in California.

This is after all, the next great step in the minds of gay activists to full and complete societal acceptance of homosexuality.

In the film, Milk and other good liberals battled another proposition at the time, Prop. 6, whose goal was to ban gay teachers from classrooms. But liberals were joined by more than a few conservatives (Ronald Reagan to name one) who also spoke out against the attempted law. It was poorly written and even included a ban on straight teachers who supported gay rights.

But are Prop 6 and Prop 8 comparable? Gay activists and their liberal brethern would have you think they are. Moreover, they would have you think that if you don't support the rights of gays to be legally married to one another you are a bigot and a homophobe.

There is, they say, no justifiable reason to oppose gay marriage. If two people claim to love one another and want to get married why should society stand in their way? Well, David Blankenhorn, a self-described liberal Democrat, tried to answer that question not too long ago in the LA Times. You can read it here. But don't miss some of the comments. Especially, this one:

Shame on LA Times for printing this bigoted essay. Yes, if you're against gay marriage, you're a bigot plain and simple because your position claims that gays are not equal to heteros in the realm of relationships. Fortunately Prop 8 is not going to pass and all the bigots will see that the institution of family didn't collapse and that kids with gay parents grow up as healthy or healthier than their straight peers.
Submitted by: Tony in L.A.

Well, Tony was wrong. It did pass. But whether it did or not the fight will continue. How such issues are discussed matters. The terms of the debate matter. And so far, its liberals who setting those terms and turning them to their advantage. If you disagree with them, you're a monster. Welcome to the debate.

UPDATE: For a perfect example of all this, check out this e-mail: It comes from a regular reader of this blog and it ends:

Spencer, I'm really starting to wonder if you might actually be a gay
man dealing with decades of denial, and now lashing out to express some
deep self-loathing. Or you could just be an ignorant bigot.

It has become a standard tactic of liberal and homosexual zealots to accuse critics of the gay agenda of being secretly gay themselves. Such ad hominem accusations are made in an attempt to shut down debate and silence critics on the theory that they are so frightened of being thought of as gay they will shut up and keep their opinions to themselves. Such is demented thinking of some leftists and gay activists.