Globally, gaily pushing the agenda

Sorry, but this "reporting" in Newsweek is biased, not to mention stupid. ("Gay Rights Gain Ground Around Globe"). Fine, Newsweek is eager to report that the moral avant garde is all the rage around the globe, but several comments early in the piece are laughable. Joseph Contreras writes:

"The growing maturity of the gay-rights movement in the West is having a marked effect on the developing world. In the United States, the Republican Party is in trouble in part because it has made a fetish of its opposition to gay marriage. . . . And now, the major developing powers of Asia, Latin America and Africa are following the liberal road—sometimes imitating Western models, sometimes not—but in all cases setting precedents that could spread to the remaining outposts of official homophobia."

I don't know the basis of the GOP reference--it isn't reflected in any electoral result (save the Arizona anomaly), besides, I'd assert that GOP hardballers like Karl Rove are much more interested in results than gay-baiting. And you have to appreciate use of the term "fetish" . . . you know, the GOP's opposition is sexual . . . get it? And of course, Contreras makes liberal use of the term "homophobia" to predictably argue the criticism-or-opposition-to-the-homosexual-agenda-is-a-psychological-disorder line.