It was fascinating to hear you on the other side of the microphone (I think the last time I heard you in that position was Bloggingheads (either Glenn or Kat/Phoebe, maybe both?).
One minor observation: for better or worse, the term community has been appended to ascriptive identity groups well before the interwebz ("black community", "gay community", "Latino community"). As you mention, the concept has always been overly reductive.
One less minor observation: I certainly can't tell you what to do but I would be far less self-conscious about "audience capture". To some extent , ALL podcasts are subject to audience capture, whether the content is women's Olympic gymnastics, model trains or, 19th century Russian literature.
I would submit that "audience capture" has rapidly become an epithet from certain quarters on the Left used against classical liberal/heterodox podcasters/writers such as yourself. The critics hate the fact that you have had the audacity to wander off the Leftist ideological plantation, so they accuse you of being captured by MAGA-nauts.
Did you notice it seems that the term "audience capture" gets tossed around primarily when someone tacks a little bit to the "right" on the socio-political spectrum.
Please do what gives you the most satisfaction. If you want to cut back on culture war topics and become more "literary", that's your prerogative and smart listeners will continue to tune in.
Special Place can still be the repository of breezy culture war banter.
Personally, I'm a Philistine, but one of your strengths is making a topic interesting, even if I have little to no knowledge on the topic. (Case in point, until the revelations by her daughter, I had never heard of Alice Munro; but your commentary and the subsequent input from commenters had me riveted.)
I don’t think of “audience capture” as being about a right or leftward move (whatever those categories mean these days!). I associate it with someone who starts out with a nuanced, principled heterodox position and drifts into more and more reactionary and conspiratorial stances. For instance, the person who starts out voicing thoughtful concerns about sex and gender excesses in public policy, and then six months later, they are posting 32 part tweetstorms railing about how men who crochet or wear nail polish all want to traffic your kids. On the flip side, you might see a republican whistleblower exposing genuine corruption within a conservative administration. They become a liberal media darling, and before you know it, they are guesting on Rachel Maddow, spinning Russiagate conspiracy theories.
I don’t have to name names, but we can all probably think of few people we respected who have gone off the rails like this. It’s not about moving rightward or leftward, it’s about losing a rationality filter that allows us to discern what’s important and what’s nonsense.
Please name names- I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious about your examples. Off the top of my head, I suppose the Never Trumper Lincoln Project, which seemed to revel in "liberal" media attention?
I've heard this type of accusation against Dave Rubin - is he also in this category.
Russell Brand. He used to do squishy lib videos about meditation and yoga that would get views in the tens of thousands. Then he made one about COVID that got over a million. From there he went full on antivax/deep state conspiracy theorizing.
We should take Russell Brand about as seriously as we take Jenny McCarthy.
Yes, Weinstein really went off the rails with the COVID obsession; to listen to him talk, you would think the planet is littered with millions of vaccine casualties. But if you follow the podcast, he and Heather no longer let COVID dominate every show and they are still very likely to discuss "habitat changes for the Bolivian tree slug"
Brett still does a lot of conspiracy stuff. He did another COVID one just three weeks ago. He’s also said a lot of kooky stuff about the Trump assassination attempt.
I enjoyed getting to know you a little better through this interview. I’m grateful for the work you do creating an opportunity for free thinking and questioning and just generally more interesting conversations.
I just applied to join the Unspeakeasy community since listening to this podcast on my long walk. I love what you do. I don't always agree with you, but I love the conversation and I appreciate your intellectual integrity. Rocky the Dog and I would love to fly out to a dog-friendly Unspeakeasy, please and thank you.
It would be interesting to analyze subscriber responses to a poll and asking which episode was their favorite and which was least favorite. I’ve seen Russ Roberts do this and the results are quite informative. He spends some time talking about them, explaining his choices and commenting on the results. I just wonder what Speakeasy readers would report.
So thoughtful of you. But knowing this might guide these guests to become more desirable to your platform. If you have not listened to one of Russ’s review of the polls, it might be helpful. He has shifted his own interests over the years and uses the polls to explain his thinking. Of course some listeners wish he would go back to his former style. But his success depends on his instincts.
Excellent idea. There have been too many episodes to include the entire catalog but maybe Meghan can choose 2-3 episodes each from different categories - maybe literature; culture war; politics; entertainment;
I’ve been trying to get my wife to sign up for the Unspeakeasy. She’s had a taste of Facebook cancellations and has seen how “nice” people she knows can turn on you when you voice an opinion they don’t like.
What a great episode. Appreciate your analysis of audience growth and I think you're right, although it's depressing as hell. I can think of two big outlets that are avoiding audience capture, Sam Harris' podcast and Quillette, which is a different outlet now from what it was in 2020, say, and Jon Kay talks about this sometimes too. Sam Harris' podcast still doing great; I'm not sure how Quillette's doing but I think they're backed up by independent capital and are not relying on subscriptions to survive. Their traffic can't be super high these days, especially for those brilliant long pieces, like Carole Hooven on chess etc.
In other news, I was fascinated to learn that Roxane Gay has 110K subscribers on Substack. More than 100K read that stuff? Humans are puzzling creatures.
I appreciated your honesty as the interviewee, Meghan, and sympathize with your desire to just go write novels in the woods. Interesting how the idea of community came full circle in this ep, from the new definition of literary community and its confines to your curated online community that does allow for differences of opinion within it.
"[A]nd wonder whether Meghan’s Reddit haters are correct that she’s really just a conservative cosplaying as an old-school liberal . . ."
I demonstrated convincingly in these comment pages that the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism and its director, who you interviewed,* support the work of the Princeton professor and notorious anti-gay (and anti-choice) far right Catholic activist Robert P. George. George is on the ironically named Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism's board of advisors. FAIR platformed him without reservation on the occasion of his receipt of a so-called religious freedom award. That is what is called guilt by association, and here the label fits perfectly.
In his acceptance speech, George gave a rousing defense of Supreme Court decisions that curtailed gay and lesbian Americans' civil rights in order that religious bigotry and intolerance could prevail. Professor George, FAIR and its director see nothing wrong with allowing the owner of an enterprise that is open to the general public to refuse to do business with gay couples because their marriage goes against the slanderous teachings of their church. George's Catholic faith teaches the faithful that gay sexuality is "intrinsically disordered."
You see, the Roman Catholic Church positively detests the circumstances under which we gay people orgasm. That's all it is. The Catholic Church decided centuries ago that it is the sole arbiter of what's right and wrong in the sex lives of every person on the planet. If my orgasm can't produce new life, and if I am married to a man instead of a woman, then I am not entitled to buy a wedding cake from a homophobic baker. Pay attention: this is the codification of Catholic teaching on sexuality as the enforceable law of the land. Professor George is raring to expand that rule to a wide variety of businesses that have always been considered secular. All the Church has to do is own them.
Will Catholic business owners start checking customers' divorce records next? That's unlikely, since the Church's animus is very selective when it comes to people's sexuality. They really have it in for gays.
By the way, the compelled speech theory on which the majority's opinion turned? The heinous hijacking of the baker's creative talent for morally unclean ends that occurs when a gay couple requests a wedding cake? Justice Sonja Sotomayor's defense of gay rights in her dissent dismissed it as the pretext it was.
FAIR's director's evasions and disingenuous stances in defense of Professor Robert P. Georges's religious intolerance when she responded to my criticism were a wonder to behold, to wit:
Nobody forced FAIR to appoint Professor George to FAIR's board of advisors. You know as well as I do that the issue isn't Professor George's right to express himself. The problem lies in the social consequences when the deeply held beliefs he expresses are implemented in the real world.
FAIR did not need to select someone whose religious beliefs result directly in religiously motivated discrimination against gay and lesbians.
If FAIR does not recognize that as an odious form of religious intolerance that has no more place in American society than do sincerely held racist beliefs rooted in church teachings, then FAIR's moral compass is broken.
It is shocking that FAIR does not even acknowledge the obvious injustice. Well, the FAIR is on the wrong side of history here just as others were on gays in the military and same-sex marriage.
Monica Harris to Ollie Parks:
Jan 13
Yes, you are correct. FAIR was not compelled to appoint Mr. George or any other individual to its Board of Advisors. But as a nonpartisan organization, we stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum, as long as they conduct themselves in a civil manner and in accordance with legally protected rights. Mr. George has done this. It would be inconsistent with the principles of a nonpartisan organization to exclude conservative members who exercise their legally protected rights.
Like FAIR, he respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law, and he does not endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution. He advocates for his legally-protected right to religious freedom, and FAIR supports him, just as we support members who advocate for their legally-protected right *not* to be forced to embrace any religious practice.
I should also note that Mr. George is not a fringe thinker; he is a highly respected legal scholar and political philosopher, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a professor at Harvard and Princeton University.
FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization. As I’m sure you know, our sole commitment is to ensuring that all Americans receive equal benefit of the law. We find common ground with Mr. George on this fundamental point.
Ollie Parks to FAIR director Monica Harris:
Jan 14
According to a 2009 profile of Robert P. George in The New York Times, he is "a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker." [6] If others on the Protestant Evangelical and Charismatic fringe that has flourished since Trump's election in 2016 are now challenging Professor George's influence, his Establishment CV ensures he will remain the nation's most presentable conservative Christian thinker.
One thing Professor George is not is a passive observer of the status quo. He is also a powerful, accomplished and highly respected activist cum culture warrior. As the profile opens, Professor George is the central figure of a gathering of influential figures on the Christian right:
"Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage." [7]
Later in the piece, readers learn that in 2009, before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Robert P. George was "in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. . ."[8]
It is therefore inaccurate to claim that the Professor "respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law . . ." That's because his activism aims to shape the law - including constitutional law - and society to fit his conservative religious beliefs. That is his right, of course, but in our society others - including dissenting justices of the Supreme Court - have the right to object to the social consequences of such advocacy. Professor George and his fellow activists on the Christian right have no compunction about running roughshod over the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by laws. That’s exactly what they did to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
Moreover, the professor is much too sophisticated to "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution." Why should he do so when he and his fellow right wing activists can elicit opinions from a right-leaning, political Supreme Court that [blesses] practices previously considered constitutionally impermissible? One need look no further than last term's 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which the Supreme Court gutted the accommodation clause of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act as it applies to gay people seeking marriage-related services. It would surprise no one if Professor George were pursuing Clarence Thomas’s open invitation to overturn the line of cases that include the one that established a constitutional right to gay marriage.
Before turning to 303 Creative in the next comment, it is necessary to probe the statement that “as a nonpartisan organization, we [at FAIR] stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum . . .”
Having so thoroughly engaged the Christian right in the person of Professor George, which respected religious thinker on FAIR’s board of advisors represents the segment of the political spectrum that isn’t actively waging culture war against gay and lesbian Americans and their legal rights?
As for the statement that “FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization," with the nation’s most influential conservative Christian figure acting as FAIR’s advisor on religious matters, it would be superfluous for FAIR to take a position on gay marriage. We already know where FAIR stands.
Meghan,
It was fascinating to hear you on the other side of the microphone (I think the last time I heard you in that position was Bloggingheads (either Glenn or Kat/Phoebe, maybe both?).
One minor observation: for better or worse, the term community has been appended to ascriptive identity groups well before the interwebz ("black community", "gay community", "Latino community"). As you mention, the concept has always been overly reductive.
One less minor observation: I certainly can't tell you what to do but I would be far less self-conscious about "audience capture". To some extent , ALL podcasts are subject to audience capture, whether the content is women's Olympic gymnastics, model trains or, 19th century Russian literature.
I would submit that "audience capture" has rapidly become an epithet from certain quarters on the Left used against classical liberal/heterodox podcasters/writers such as yourself. The critics hate the fact that you have had the audacity to wander off the Leftist ideological plantation, so they accuse you of being captured by MAGA-nauts.
Did you notice it seems that the term "audience capture" gets tossed around primarily when someone tacks a little bit to the "right" on the socio-political spectrum.
Please do what gives you the most satisfaction. If you want to cut back on culture war topics and become more "literary", that's your prerogative and smart listeners will continue to tune in.
Special Place can still be the repository of breezy culture war banter.
Personally, I'm a Philistine, but one of your strengths is making a topic interesting, even if I have little to no knowledge on the topic. (Case in point, until the revelations by her daughter, I had never heard of Alice Munro; but your commentary and the subsequent input from commenters had me riveted.)
Enjoy time off and see you in September.
I don’t think of “audience capture” as being about a right or leftward move (whatever those categories mean these days!). I associate it with someone who starts out with a nuanced, principled heterodox position and drifts into more and more reactionary and conspiratorial stances. For instance, the person who starts out voicing thoughtful concerns about sex and gender excesses in public policy, and then six months later, they are posting 32 part tweetstorms railing about how men who crochet or wear nail polish all want to traffic your kids. On the flip side, you might see a republican whistleblower exposing genuine corruption within a conservative administration. They become a liberal media darling, and before you know it, they are guesting on Rachel Maddow, spinning Russiagate conspiracy theories.
I don’t have to name names, but we can all probably think of few people we respected who have gone off the rails like this. It’s not about moving rightward or leftward, it’s about losing a rationality filter that allows us to discern what’s important and what’s nonsense.
Please name names- I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious about your examples. Off the top of my head, I suppose the Never Trumper Lincoln Project, which seemed to revel in "liberal" media attention?
I've heard this type of accusation against Dave Rubin - is he also in this category.
Russell Brand. He used to do squishy lib videos about meditation and yoga that would get views in the tens of thousands. Then he made one about COVID that got over a million. From there he went full on antivax/deep state conspiracy theorizing.
Brett Weinstein followed a similar trajectory.
We should take Russell Brand about as seriously as we take Jenny McCarthy.
Yes, Weinstein really went off the rails with the COVID obsession; to listen to him talk, you would think the planet is littered with millions of vaccine casualties. But if you follow the podcast, he and Heather no longer let COVID dominate every show and they are still very likely to discuss "habitat changes for the Bolivian tree slug"
Brett still does a lot of conspiracy stuff. He did another COVID one just three weeks ago. He’s also said a lot of kooky stuff about the Trump assassination attempt.
I enjoyed getting to know you a little better through this interview. I’m grateful for the work you do creating an opportunity for free thinking and questioning and just generally more interesting conversations.
I’m on board for the Meghan Daum adventure. Take us places Meghan! Definitely not tied to cultural criticism.
I just applied to join the Unspeakeasy community since listening to this podcast on my long walk. I love what you do. I don't always agree with you, but I love the conversation and I appreciate your intellectual integrity. Rocky the Dog and I would love to fly out to a dog-friendly Unspeakeasy, please and thank you.
Love this, Stephanie! We'll get you into the community tomorrow. And a dog retreat sounds heavenly!
oooo... dog friendly conference. YES.
... except I have three cats...
Also, I have not noticed an echo chamber situation.
It would be interesting to analyze subscriber responses to a poll and asking which episode was their favorite and which was least favorite. I’ve seen Russ Roberts do this and the results are quite informative. He spends some time talking about them, explaining his choices and commenting on the results. I just wonder what Speakeasy readers would report.
Great idea! (Though I already feel bad for guests who get the "least favorite" votes.)
The EconTalk episode where Russ lists the top 10 of the year and also talks about how the podcast topics have changed over the years is the one on April 29, 2024. https://www.econtalk.org/the-top-econtalk-conversations-of-2023-with-russ-roberts/
That’s the one. And Russ focuses on favorites and does not cover least favorites as I incorrectly suggested.
Meghan is certainly free to keep survey results confidential.
So thoughtful of you. But knowing this might guide these guests to become more desirable to your platform. If you have not listened to one of Russ’s review of the polls, it might be helpful. He has shifted his own interests over the years and uses the polls to explain his thinking. Of course some listeners wish he would go back to his former style. But his success depends on his instincts.
Excellent idea. There have been too many episodes to include the entire catalog but maybe Meghan can choose 2-3 episodes each from different categories - maybe literature; culture war; politics; entertainment;
I’ve been trying to get my wife to sign up for the Unspeakeasy. She’s had a taste of Facebook cancellations and has seen how “nice” people she knows can turn on you when you voice an opinion they don’t like.
This was great.
Very enjoyable. I will be following "Where We Go Next" for a while, to see if I want to add it to my permanent podcast list.
What a great episode. Appreciate your analysis of audience growth and I think you're right, although it's depressing as hell. I can think of two big outlets that are avoiding audience capture, Sam Harris' podcast and Quillette, which is a different outlet now from what it was in 2020, say, and Jon Kay talks about this sometimes too. Sam Harris' podcast still doing great; I'm not sure how Quillette's doing but I think they're backed up by independent capital and are not relying on subscriptions to survive. Their traffic can't be super high these days, especially for those brilliant long pieces, like Carole Hooven on chess etc.
In other news, I was fascinated to learn that Roxane Gay has 110K subscribers on Substack. More than 100K read that stuff? Humans are puzzling creatures.
I appreciated your honesty as the interviewee, Meghan, and sympathize with your desire to just go write novels in the woods. Interesting how the idea of community came full circle in this ep, from the new definition of literary community and its confines to your curated online community that does allow for differences of opinion within it.
I loved listening to this and learning BTS about Meghan. I also appreciated the introduction to Michael Callahan. Thanks very much for this episode!
FWIW - Meghan, I'm a new to you fan in the last year and I believe I brought on two others - so you are continuing to grow your audience. :D
"[A]nd wonder whether Meghan’s Reddit haters are correct that she’s really just a conservative cosplaying as an old-school liberal . . ."
I demonstrated convincingly in these comment pages that the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism and its director, who you interviewed,* support the work of the Princeton professor and notorious anti-gay (and anti-choice) far right Catholic activist Robert P. George. George is on the ironically named Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism's board of advisors. FAIR platformed him without reservation on the occasion of his receipt of a so-called religious freedom award. That is what is called guilt by association, and here the label fits perfectly.
In his acceptance speech, George gave a rousing defense of Supreme Court decisions that curtailed gay and lesbian Americans' civil rights in order that religious bigotry and intolerance could prevail. Professor George, FAIR and its director see nothing wrong with allowing the owner of an enterprise that is open to the general public to refuse to do business with gay couples because their marriage goes against the slanderous teachings of their church. George's Catholic faith teaches the faithful that gay sexuality is "intrinsically disordered."
You see, the Roman Catholic Church positively detests the circumstances under which we gay people orgasm. That's all it is. The Catholic Church decided centuries ago that it is the sole arbiter of what's right and wrong in the sex lives of every person on the planet. If my orgasm can't produce new life, and if I am married to a man instead of a woman, then I am not entitled to buy a wedding cake from a homophobic baker. Pay attention: this is the codification of Catholic teaching on sexuality as the enforceable law of the land. Professor George is raring to expand that rule to a wide variety of businesses that have always been considered secular. All the Church has to do is own them.
Will Catholic business owners start checking customers' divorce records next? That's unlikely, since the Church's animus is very selective when it comes to people's sexuality. They really have it in for gays.
By the way, the compelled speech theory on which the majority's opinion turned? The heinous hijacking of the baker's creative talent for morally unclean ends that occurs when a gay couple requests a wedding cake? Justice Sonja Sotomayor's defense of gay rights in her dissent dismissed it as the pretext it was.
FAIR's director's evasions and disingenuous stances in defense of Professor Robert P. Georges's religious intolerance when she responded to my criticism were a wonder to behold, to wit:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ollie Parks to Monica Harris:
Jan 13·edited Jan 13
Nobody forced FAIR to appoint Professor George to FAIR's board of advisors. You know as well as I do that the issue isn't Professor George's right to express himself. The problem lies in the social consequences when the deeply held beliefs he expresses are implemented in the real world.
FAIR did not need to select someone whose religious beliefs result directly in religiously motivated discrimination against gay and lesbians.
If FAIR does not recognize that as an odious form of religious intolerance that has no more place in American society than do sincerely held racist beliefs rooted in church teachings, then FAIR's moral compass is broken.
It is shocking that FAIR does not even acknowledge the obvious injustice. Well, the FAIR is on the wrong side of history here just as others were on gays in the military and same-sex marriage.
Monica Harris to Ollie Parks:
Jan 13
Yes, you are correct. FAIR was not compelled to appoint Mr. George or any other individual to its Board of Advisors. But as a nonpartisan organization, we stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum, as long as they conduct themselves in a civil manner and in accordance with legally protected rights. Mr. George has done this. It would be inconsistent with the principles of a nonpartisan organization to exclude conservative members who exercise their legally protected rights.
Like FAIR, he respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law, and he does not endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution. He advocates for his legally-protected right to religious freedom, and FAIR supports him, just as we support members who advocate for their legally-protected right *not* to be forced to embrace any religious practice.
I should also note that Mr. George is not a fringe thinker; he is a highly respected legal scholar and political philosopher, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a professor at Harvard and Princeton University.
FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization. As I’m sure you know, our sole commitment is to ensuring that all Americans receive equal benefit of the law. We find common ground with Mr. George on this fundamental point.
Ollie Parks to FAIR director Monica Harris:
Jan 14
According to a 2009 profile of Robert P. George in The New York Times, he is "a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker." [6] If others on the Protestant Evangelical and Charismatic fringe that has flourished since Trump's election in 2016 are now challenging Professor George's influence, his Establishment CV ensures he will remain the nation's most presentable conservative Christian thinker.
One thing Professor George is not is a passive observer of the status quo. He is also a powerful, accomplished and highly respected activist cum culture warrior. As the profile opens, Professor George is the central figure of a gathering of influential figures on the Christian right:
"Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage." [7]
Later in the piece, readers learn that in 2009, before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Robert P. George was "in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. . ."[8]
It is therefore inaccurate to claim that the Professor "respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law . . ." That's because his activism aims to shape the law - including constitutional law - and society to fit his conservative religious beliefs. That is his right, of course, but in our society others - including dissenting justices of the Supreme Court - have the right to object to the social consequences of such advocacy. Professor George and his fellow activists on the Christian right have no compunction about running roughshod over the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by laws. That’s exactly what they did to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
Moreover, the professor is much too sophisticated to "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution." Why should he do so when he and his fellow right wing activists can elicit opinions from a right-leaning, political Supreme Court that [blesses] practices previously considered constitutionally impermissible? One need look no further than last term's 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which the Supreme Court gutted the accommodation clause of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act as it applies to gay people seeking marriage-related services. It would surprise no one if Professor George were pursuing Clarence Thomas’s open invitation to overturn the line of cases that include the one that established a constitutional right to gay marriage.
Before turning to 303 Creative in the next comment, it is necessary to probe the statement that “as a nonpartisan organization, we [at FAIR] stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum . . .”
Having so thoroughly engaged the Christian right in the person of Professor George, which respected religious thinker on FAIR’s board of advisors represents the segment of the political spectrum that isn’t actively waging culture war against gay and lesbian Americans and their legal rights?
As for the statement that “FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization," with the nation’s most influential conservative Christian figure acting as FAIR’s advisor on religious matters, it would be superfluous for FAIR to take a position on gay marriage. We already know where FAIR stands.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I heard not a peep from anyone in this Substack in response to my comment. So, yes, Meghan might just be a conservative. Where is your moral compass?
* Daum, Meghan and Monica Harris. "Has Gay Rights Shamed Itself?" The Unspeakable Podcast. 1 July 2024. https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/podcast/episode/2028875c/has-gay-pride-shamed-itself-fair-director-monica-harris-on-how-a-mighty-movement-lost-the-plot