The National Review has a use for gays and lesbians

They are allowed to decorate and design clothes for straight people, it turns out. Because Catherine Seipp allows for this, she declares herself above being called out for bigotry because she's against gay marriage.

I have no patience with people who accuse me of homophobia just because I'm against gay marriage. I used to write about fashion, many years ago. So, as I like to point out, I was surrounded by the boys in the band when you guys were still stealing your sisters' Barbies.

Of course, by that logic there is no such thing as sexism, either, since most men accused of it know and even like some women. And of course many racists have friends or co-workers or whatever of other races.

Roy Edroso singles this sentence out for its illogic

My position against gay marriage is essentially libertarian, although I've never managed to convince my libertarian friends of this.

but I have a special love for this part.

In any case, declining to legally recognize gay marriage may be right or it may be wrong, but it doesn't take rights away from anyone, despite rather hysterical current arguments to the contrary. You can't take away something that has never, in the history of the human race, existed in the first place.

A so-called libertarian should realize that a right is something you already have because it's what's right, thus the word "right". This is a favorite argument of conservatives, that people are running around making up new rights, but that is utter bullshit designed to relieve guilt over being bigoted. What us whiny liberals are doing is saying that X right has always been a right, and it's about time we stopped oppressing X group and taking away their rights. The debate is over whether something is or is not a right. But they don't like to argue that because they've lost so many times throughout history. In the current crop of conservatives who are wed to empty arguments had been writing in the 50's and 60's, we would have had a slew of articles about how black people have just made up a brand new right that never existed before to sit at the front of the bus, go to an intergrated school, etc. Making up arguments to debate against is so much easier than debating against the actual arguments, no?

Anyway, the article is about the new book by the "Queer Eye" team. Seipp likes the Fab Five and thinks the book is well-written and offers good advice, singling out Thom Filicia for praise. I'm sure the book is good, but I too love that show, mostly because it's a real joy to watch one daft straight guy after another learn that cooking, putting yourself together, decorating and all these other traditionally feminine skills take actual work. But this is not really just a simple book review. No, this is another example in a long, pathetic line of examples of what I like to call Conservative Poaching.

Conservative Poaching occurs whenever a person, idea, practice, whatever that has long been reviled by the Right reaches the tipping point of popularity/acceptability in the larger society where it becomes embarrassing to continue to revile him/her/it in public and the only people who continue to disparage him/her/it are generally regarded as raving wingnut lunatics. Instead of quieting accepting that once again, their side has been proven wrong and just going with the flow, prominent conservatives are compelled at this point to declare that the person, idea, practice, whatever belonged to their side all along.

Conservative Poaching does not exist in order to trick non-conservatives into thinking that conservatives are the cause of all that is good and holy. It exists only to make conservatives feel that way, that their side is always on the side of good and right. The most noxious example of Conservative Poaching is the way that wingnut pundits will often call on Martin Luther King Jr., who can't defend himself for obvious reasons, and say that if he were still alive he would vote for the Republicans. If you don't believe that this is a cherished myth for some on the Right, well just tune into Limbaugh whenever he's got cause to expound on his own racist reasoning and he'll eventually drag this myth out. Comparing Katherine Harris to Rosa Parks, as Sarah Vowell wrote about, is a similiar wretched example. Most recently, some conservatives got caught trying to claim Barack Obama for their side after his killer speech at the Democratic Convention.

Even though a TV show is a light and silly thing, this book review is another example of Conservative Poaching. I guess "Queer Eye" has reached that tipping point. And while I have trouble believing that the dog-humpers and box turtle lovers on Capitol Hill are ready to get a Fab Five makeover, the show is popular enough now that it's unseemly to attack those five gay guys who just want to help straight people. (All together now--"Aw.") Puppies, rainbows, and the Fab Five--since all these are good things and all conservatives want is goodness, they and the show must be part of the Right. And since the Fab Five are neat and clean and work so damn hard, that makes them conservatives.

It's an essentially conservative message of realism and responsibility: Just because something is difficult is no reason to argue that it's impossible.

Now I have no idea what the political implications of any makeover show hosts are, even for a show that I've seen alot of like "Queer Eye". And thus I'm going to refrain from claiming them for the cause of liberalism or even the press towards gay marriage. But I will say that it's quite a stretch to think it's even remotely acceptable to use the image of the Fab Five to argue against gay rights. Anyway, a couple of them made some sarcastic comments on a recent episode about how they'd like to get married. But I suppose it's all moot anyway. Once same sex marriage is finally legalized and common, conservatives will be claiming that it was their idea all along.