Evan Gahr writes: TNR foreign affairs writer Lawrence "the girl" Kaplan has since landed a gig with Hudson as senior fellow. (Kaplan earned his nickname because he won't give out his number to just anyone. He'll call you instead. He needs to feel comfortable with you before he gives out his number. Sound familiar? What is he some kind of girl?)
Anyway, freedom of association is all well and good. But Kaplan, and by extension his boss Peter Beinart, has openly colluded with Hudson's rabidly anti-gay lawyer Bob Brame, who long served on the board of a Christian reconstructionist group that---I kid you not--is on record in support of capital punishment for homosexuals caught in the act.
They do, however, require two witnesses.
Gee, what civil libertarians. No stoning without due process.
Suppose there's a tie? Who breaks it? Do they have some kind of Sodomy Supreme Court? Just who are the witnesses? Who gets that job? Low man on the church totem pole? Brame's junior law firm associates?
According to ADL material, the group, American Vision is not too crazy about blacks or Jews either.
That could have meant double trouble for Bayard Rustin.
Anyway, Brame, who Hudson previously paid perhaps $100,000 to blame its anti-Semitic purge on improper use of a stuffed chimp, has worked with Kaplan to illegally--says Linda Chavez--prohibit Mr. Gahr from attending Hudson events that are otherwise open to the public.
To put it simply: Kaplan is helping Hudson break the law.
Attorneys say that Hudson has flouted both local and federal anti-discrimination statutes with its edict.
In a letter written under the direction of Bob "homo hunter" Brame Mr. Gahr was told in early 2004 that he was not welcome at Hudson events because he had manifested hostility towards the government-subsidized think tank by asking Hudson officials and persons remotely connected with Hudson about his illegal dismissal and Mona Charen's now fabled fear that he swings from the other side of the tree. Kaplan was among those to whom the Brame letter refers.
But this month Kaplan is really in bed with Bob Brame (pardon the inapt metaphor). Kaplan is one of the keynote speakers for a Hudson luncheon on the future of neo-conservatism. The other speakers are Bill Kristol and Irwin Stelzer, editor of the Neo-con reader. All three have ignored requests by Mr. Gahr that they allow him at the lunch. This makes Kaplan more than just the conduit of information to Brame he was last year; along with Stelzer and Kristol he is an active player in the illegal edict. Under the legal doctrine of silent acquiescence, TNR is liable for this prima facie violation of public acommodations laws culpable because Marty Peretz and Precious Peter refused to disassociate the magazine from Kaplan's antics.
The unwillingness of TNR to rebuke "the girl" for collusion with this bible-banging bigot against the Jew who took on the Christian Right raises a host of discomfiting questions for Leon's magazine.
Why should anybody take the magazine's stance in strong support of gay rights seriously if it refuses to condemn its own writer (and presumably salaried employee) for collaboration with the likes of Bob Brame?
So the magazine favors marriage for gays but doesn't mind if their lawyer wants to hunt them down on the wedding night?
Don't ask. Don't tell. TNR's lawyer will figure it out anyway?
Just like Beinart, Marty and Lawrence "the girl" Kaplan, at least one Hudson official refuses to disassociate himself from Brame's pro-homo hunting stance. The following exchange is real.
Evan Gahr: Hudson's lawyer was long tied to a group that favors capital punishment for homosexuals caught in the act. Do you favor capital punishment for gays caught en flagrante?
Michael Horowitz, Hudson senior fellow: I have no comment.
Neither does Jeff Rosen.
The TNR legal affairs write who agonizes over the proper balance between liberty and security in the post 9/11 world, doesn't seem to lose much sleep over "the Girl" and helping Hudson and its homo-hunting lawyer flout federal law regarding the lunches. Rosen ignored repeated emails and phone messages about this topic.
Rosen, by virtue of the doctrine of silent acquiescence, is an accessory to far more serious and unambiguous violation of civil rights than the stuff for which he upbraids John Ashcroft.
It is an open question debated by serious lawyers and scholars, left and right, whether Ashcroft illegally infringed on civil liberties. That the Hudson edict, however, violates public accommodation laws is not likely to be seriously questioned by anyone.
Is linking Kaplan and by extension Rosen and TNR to Bob Brame and the illegal
behavior unfair "guilt by association?"
No, it's very fair guilt by association.
Most journalists and organizations play the guilty by association game. TNR certainly does. When Cornel West merely spoke at a conference that also heard from Louis Farrakhan, TNR published an item, which read like it was written or edited by the Mega-Jew Marty Peretz himself, sharply criticizing him.
West has far less connection to Farrakhan than TNR now does to Hudson. Cornel West or anyone else in his employ at his black studies fiefdom is not known to have an official position with the Nation of Islam. If they did it most likely have been reported by now and almost instantly the subject of one of TNR's snotty "Notebook" items.
