Jacob Sullum recently wrote an excellent article for Reason Magazine attempting to bridge the gap between the anti-gay and pro-gay crusaders. His subheading is absolutely correct: Legal equality does not mean requiring universal acceptance of homosexuality.

If the “gay agenda” entails a demand to be treated equally under the law, how is it that any different than the agenda of African Americans of the 1950s and before, who were forced to use different schools, drinking fountains, and restaurants? Says Sullum:

If there is any room for common ground between these two seemingly irreconcilable perspectives, it lies in recognizing the crucial distinction between public and private discrimination.

Regarding the voters’ will on Proposition 8 in California, Sullum says “… as a matter of fundamental fairness … the package of legal arrangements known as civil marriage should be available to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation.” He then adds a libertarian caveat: “Ideally, the government would leave marriage to private institutions, which managed to maintain it for almost all of its history.”

Sullum’s rationale is objective. He explains how it was incorrect of a Florida judge to take away a gay couple’s two adopted children (ages four and eight) and then explores how a gay man who sued eHarmony for not including homosexual dating options is violating the principles of choice and diversity that he so seeks to force onto others.

As Matt Welch explains in the Reason blog, Bill Kristol, the modern spokesman for neo-conservatism, whose own father was the intellectual origination of neo-conservatism, is warning the Republican Party about the threat of limited government. Says Kristol:

[C]onservatives should think twice before charging into battle against Obama under the banner of "small-government conservatism." It's a banner many Republicans and conservatives have rediscovered since the election and have been waving around energetically. Jeb Bush, now considering a Senate run in 2010, even went so far as to tell Politico last month, "There should not be such a thing as a big-government Republican."

Kristol has had his wishes granted under the Bush Administration. Which of his policies has succeeded?

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has created a quiz to prove how dumbed down the U.S. population is with regard to basic civics knowledge. You can take the quiz by clicking here.

According to ISI, their survey results reveal that Americans are alarmingly uninformed about our Constitution, the basic functions of our government, the key texts of our national history, and economic principles.

• Less than half of Americans can name all three branches of the government.
• Only 21% know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
• Although Congress has voted twice in the last eight years to approve foreign wars, only 53% know that the power to declare war belongs to Congress. Almost 40% incorrectly believe it belongs to the president.
• Only 55% know that Congress shares authority over U.S. foreign policy with the president. Almost a quarter incorrectly believe Congress shares this power with the United Nations.
• Only 27% know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States.
• Less than one in five know that the phrase “a wall of separation” between church and state comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson. Almost half incorrectly believe it can be found in the Constitution.

Bill Hammond of The New York Daily News reports on how State Chair Joe Mondello has run the New York Republican Party into the ditch.

Mondello’s team forfeited majority control of the state Senate for the first time in 43 years. It also gave up another three of New York’s congressional seats, leaving them with just three of 29 in the House delegation. According to Hammond, Mondello has brought the same Midas touch to his 25 years as Nassau County GOP chairman. He says the once-dominant Nassau machine self-destructed on his watch, losing both the county executive’s office and the Legislature after generations of nce. For the first time in modern history, Democrats outnumber Republicans in Mondello’s home county.

Mondello blames the results on Obamamania and refuses to acknowledge any ideological drift in GOP candidates.

Some Republicans – like Suffolk Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick, former New York City Councilman Andrew Eristoff, and former Assembly Minority Leader John Faso – are forthrightly calling for a return to core principles of lean, efficient, honest government and lower taxes.

According to Hammond, “… that’s a platform guaranteed to appeal to New Yorkers of all parties, who are tired of laboring under bloat and corruption.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Alderman Charles Quincy Troupe.

St. Louis Alderman Charles Troupe has called for an armed citizenry to protect their own lives and property in response to the city’s ineffective, unresponsive police force. According to The Associated Press, “The community has to be ready to defend itself, because it’s clear the economy is going to get worse, and criminals are getting more bold,” Troupe, 72, said last Tuesday.  He is encouraging north-side citizens to purchase guns and learn how to use them.

Troupe, who is a former State Representative, said that when he and residents approached a district police commander last year, they were told “there was nothing he could do to protect us and the community … that he didn’t have the manpower.”

Troupe has also worked to repeal a red light camera ordinance in St. Louis.

Barrack Obama has created change.gov, ‘The Official Web Site of the U.S. Presidential Transition.’ The site lays out his agenda for what he is going to change in the country. The site has been reworked since it originally launched; all that remains is:

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.”

PoliticalLore.com has documented that the original wording on Change.gov says: “Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.”

In a column entitled “Why would a black President want slavery?” libertarian author Gerry Reed examines how President-elect Obama and his chief advisor Rahm Emmanuel both support involuntary servitude in the form of mandatory community service for college students, parents, for grandparents, engineers, and scientists.

Similarly, Chris Brown documents how Obama’s proposed program, the Classroom Corps, uses the terms enlist and draft. Finally, libertarian J.D. Tuccille was one of the first to point out that Rahm Emanuel co-authored a book that calls for compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25.

Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person’s will to benefit another, under some form of coercion. The Thirteenth Amendment makes it illegal, except as punishment for a crime.

Will Obama get away with his plan to draft Americans into the ranks of community service? FDR got away with a military draft. From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, Americans were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means.

However, even since the end of the draft in 1973, the Selective Service System still exists, should our politicians decide a draft is necessary to fight their unconstitutional wars. The RLC’s Statement of Principles has explicitly opposed a draft and conscription.

On December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a landmark decision in which California state courts found that its medical marijuana law was not preempted by federal law.

According to The Las Angeles Times, Garden Grove, California police pulled over Felix Kha in June 2005 for a traffic violation and found him in possession of one-third of an ounce of marijuana.

Lawyers for Garden Grove argued that California law didn’t contain a specific provision for the return of medical marijuana, and contended that to return the drugs would have violated federal law.

However, the Supreme Court put Garden Grove’s case to rest by not hearing the case.

According to an attorney for Americans for Safe Access, “There will be hundreds, if not thousands of patients who will no longer be subject to the confiscation of their medicine.” The attorney said that California, one of 13 states that had declared medical marijuana to be legal, has as many as 300,000 valid medical marijuana patients.

“This should send a message to the federal government that it’s time to establish a compassionate policy more consistent with the 13 states that have adopted medical marijuana laws,” another advocate said.

California’s Sonoma County Republican Party, led by RLC activists Michael Erickson and Matthew Heath, voted to censure Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in response to his decision to terminate his own ‘No New Taxes’ Pledge. In 2003, Schwarzenegger ran on a platform of cutting taxes. Among his reversed positions:

• Schwarzenegger issued a statement on November 6 that he intended to increase the state sales tax by 1.5 percent — a whopping 20 percent increase in the state-mandated portion of the tax — and expand its applicability to previously immune transactions (ranging from automobile and appliance repairs to veterinarian services); and

• Of particular note for those living in California’s wine country, Schwarzenegger proposed an extravagant new excise tax on beer, wine, and spirits, adding an additional 25 cents a bottle to the existing 20 cents a gallon excise for wine.

In response, the Sonoma County GOP issued a press release expressing the members’ wishes for a censure of Governor Schwarzenegger. On the cutting edge of politics in California, the Sonoma County GOP inspired their allies in the Placer County GOP to follow suit with both a resolution and press release in opposition to the any sales tax increase.

In these releases, the county Republican Parties called attention to the fact that the California Republican Party had remained sadly and impotently silent.  As a result of the actions by RLC members, the California Republican Party went on the record as being opposed to the sales tax increase proposal. It should be noted at this time that, excepting a few, the Republican Caucuses in the State Senate and Assembly also remained firmly against the proposal, and it was defeated in the end.

“The primary reason we issued the release was … to prod the California Republican Party into action,” according to Sonoma GOP Chair Michael Erickson. In that purpose, we succeeded; and the example is set that when activists organize and clamor loudly enough, the leadership has the capacity to do what is right.

Concluded Erickson, “The best service that the RLC, or any other organization committed to freedom, may provide in these most trying days of billion dollar bailouts and neoconservative adventurism abroad is to recruit, to organize, and then to win. Period. Anything other than those tasks is an avoidance of vigilance and not worthy of free persons.”

Michael Erickson is an attorney, a former officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and a former Reserve Chaplain in the California Army National Guard.  He is a former Executive Committee member of the California Republican Party.

Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss is an unlikely hero for the Republican party, with a record which has just enough questionable votes on key issues to make religious conservatives nervous, but not enough strong positions on civil liberties issues to make libertarian Republicans entirely happy with him. He’s often dismissed unfairly as a moderate, despite a record of fiscal and social issue conservatism. All of that was forgotten, when a very close election in Georgia put Chambliss in a runoff for what could have been the 60th Senate seat which would have given Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, reducing Senate Republicans to near-irrelevance.

Chambliss ended up in a runoff largely because of Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley, who drew 3.41% of the vote, more than enough to push Chambliss from 49.75% to well over 50% and victory. Chambliss sought support from the Libertarian Party of Georgia in the runoff, but when it was not forthcoming he was able to get backing from libertarian Republican groups to win over libertarians and libertarian Republican voters. Although he did not get their endorsement in the original election, the combination of his fiscally conservative record and the importance of keeping total control of the House out of the hands of Democrats helped convince the Republican Liberty Caucus of Georgia to endorse Chambliss, and when he agreed to sign their Liberty Compact, the national RLC threw their support behind Chambliss as well.

That extra bit of support from the RLC won over many libertarians, and their votes along with some votes from independents who had previously voted for Chambliss’ oponnent Jim Martin, were enough to give Chambliss a comfortable 57% to 43% win in the runoff election on Tuesday, sending him back to Washington with a strong reminder that a lot of voters in Georgia and around the nation would like to see him focus more on fiscal conservatism and defending civil liberties in his next term.

The Chambliss victory prevents a Democratic super-majority in the Senate, but it still remains to be seen what the final breakdown of seats will be, as the disposition of the Minnesota seat held by Norm Coleman remains unresolved. Coleman’s apparent victory on election day is being whittled away by challenges and demands for precinct by precinct recounts from the campaign of comedian Al Franken who has brought in election strategist Mark Elias to mastermind what the Wall Street Journal has described as a blatant campaign to “steal the election if they can get away with it.” Coleman’s initial lead has been reduced to only about 200 votes through the machinations of Democratic operatives on election commissions and techniques like recounting so-called “undervotes” on the dubious theory that ballots with votes for Obama and no vote in the Senate race must have been meant to be Franken votes.

In the end the Minnesota Senate seat will probably be assigned by the courts – likely the Supreme Court itself – and their selection won’t be known until after the holidays. The comparison between these two elections, where third-party candidates made a clear majority impossible, shows the appeal of runoff systems. If the Minnesota vote had been followed by a runoff with the 15% of the vote which went to Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley up for grabs, the opportunities for fraud and manipulation would be reduced, the result would almost certainly not have been as close and they would not be struggling over which candidate who got less than 40% of the total votes to send to the Senate.

For now, battered and bruised Republicans can rest a little bit easier knowing that with the Chambliss victory they will have at least some voice in the Senate if they have the backbone and stamina to filibuster on important votes.

Some updates from RLC state affiliates:

CALIFORNIA

An affiliate of the state RLC, the Constitutional Republicans of Alameda County, scored a victory in late November when Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch discarded a lawsuit against them. The lawsuit attempted to void the memberships of seven RLC activists who were elected to the County Central Committee. In filing the suit, County GOP Chair Paul Cummings was attempting to replace the elected pro-liberty candidates with individuals of his choosing.

Commenting on the suit, Walter Stanley of the Constitutional Republicans said, “One can only wonder what the [November election] results would have been if the resources diverted by this lawsuit had instead been directed at supporting our candidates this November. We are sure the Democrats are … grateful [to Paul Cummings].”

For additional details on the suit, visit this press release (pdf).

MARYLAND

The Maryland RLC is holding an organizational meeting on Friday, December 19 at 6:30 pm at the GOP Maryland HQ in historic Annapolis.  State Delegate Joe Boteler, III of northeastern Baltimore County will be the guest speaker. For details, contact Matthew Gagnon or RSVP at the Facebook event invitation.

MISSOURI

The first meeting of the newly chartered Missouri RLC will occur on December 6 at 12noon in the upstairs meeting room (WiFi hotspot!) at the Midtown Carnegie Library, 397 East Central Street, in Springfield, Missouri. For additional details, contact Rob Hillman.

NORTH CAROLINA

The North Carolina RLC is planning to hold an organizational meeting in January. Contact Leonard Burton for details.

NEW YORK

On Tuesday, November 18, several members of New York’s Republican Liberty Caucus met with about 15 Town of New Paltz and Westchester County Libertarians  at the College Diner in New Paltz, New York.

Carl Svensson, New York RLC Chair, organized the meeting. The attendants ranged from college students at SUNY New Paltz who have organized a campus Libertarian Club to a retired math professor and a recent candidate for mayor of Peekskill, New York (who lost by only two percent).

The meeting focused on strategy rather than ideology and the attendees are thinking of ways to get involved in Republican politics and to potentially run for office in several cases. The dynamic and lovely Raquel Okyay was in attendance.

Carl Svensson is doing an excellent job, and we anticipate that the meetings will continue next month. I am on the state board of the RLC. As long as the ideological discussion can be minimized and the focus remain on action toward a few well defined goals, the group can potentially make a dent.