I'll start; who doesn't love a good debate? :)

Great questions btw, incurablygay.

Having lived 22 years of my life in America, it wasn't until very recently that I realised "conservative" didn't necessarily mean "anti-gay" (this is obviously a big issue for me so this is what I will address in terms of defining political parties). Of course, I knew the middle school Social Studies definition of "conservative" had to do more with limited government and being fiscally, err, conservative (to use the word in the definition) but in practice I never saw that from American conservative politicians. Sure, I know that fringe politicians (libertarians, et al) exist but in mainstream America, "conservative" has come to mean "anti-gay".

Anyway, it wasn't until I got to Britain that I realised there are some "conservative" governments over here who actually aren't particularly anti-gay, etc. Now, of course there are some, and religion usually plays a part in that *glances in the direction of the Vatican* but England, at least, has real conservatives.

I also find it interesting that the current "liberal" leadership in Australia, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't support partnership rights for gay people. Huh? Very confusing.

I am torn in understanding gay Republicans living in America today. I've defended Mary Cheney in the past on this forum for her right to be a gay Republican, because I realise it's not a one-issue thing, and you don't vote strictly because you're gay any more than you vote strictly because you have a trust fund (or whatever). All things play a part. But I do think that the current, in-power (or electable) Republicans in this country can do actual harm to gay people, and even if you're a Republican idealist who is Republican because you believe in being fiscally conservative, I'd imagine it's hard to reconcile voting for, say, a Mike Huckabee (assuming he becomes the Republican presidential candidate) or George W. Bush.

Which actually makes me wonder: do gay Republicans/conservatives on this forum like George W. Bush et al? *is curious*

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. -Henry James

I think i might have been drunk when i wrote this. Looking back at it now im glad someone replied. Especially someone whose a moderator..it just validates my whole attempt at a forum topic. I just felt ppl were having a debate on why conservatives are better than liberals or vice versa on my hilary clinton thread. On that thread i just wanted to know if people she was being unfairly targeted due to her gender. Because it definitely seems like she is. Instead people started talking about why liberal/conservative politics or who should win the democratic nomination. I don't even know who im going to vote for yet, but i'll decide that later.

I guess when you ask people to debate or ask questions their least likely to answer. :)

I didn't mean to say that being "conservative" is bad. In fact, a lot of their arguments for limited government do make sense, but its not for me. I'm a liberal because I don't understand why billions should be spent on war when we have greater priorities and because I believe in gay rights and I believe the government has a duty to ensure the safety of its citizens. I understand why some people may be against the concept of hate crimes but not why gay people should be excluded. I've heard some conservatives argue against the inclusion of gay people but not against the inclusion of race or religion. And it doesn't make sense. As someone who has experienced a "hate crime" and seen the effects of hate crime i don't understand how anyone can be against it.

 It's interesting that other conservative parties are less anti gay than here in the US. I assume that would be the case in Britain and Canada, where you actually have civil unions/marriages that don't discriminate based on which state your in. I think it's interesting you mention Australia because its the other way around, but I think in terms of gay rights they're similar to us. Although the new more liberal (called the labor party) was voted into government and they plan on providing a federal relationship recognition bill, which would give same sex couples the same legal and financial benefits as de facto hetero couples. Not as good as marriage, but better than nothing. The conservative party there, according to friends, has had a bit of a makeover and are now more "liberal" in terms of the environment and signing Kyoto as well as providing similar rights to gay people. I think now they both have the same stance on gay people, except where adoption is concerned. I think that's what we should be aiming for...a time where gay rights won't be an issue for an issue for the more "liberal" or "conservative party."

I even  think some Asian countries like Taiwan and Thailand have some sort of bill on gay rights currently being debated. Or it might have been a while ago.

I think out of the current group of Republicans Giulliani is the only one who supports some benefits for gay people, which is probably why he won't be the nominee.

Here's an interesting kind of old article comparing gay conservatives in the US and AUstralia.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-gay-conservative-and-other-queer-couplings/2006/03/09/1141701636790.html

Is it possible to be simultaneously homosexual and politically conservative? James Norman considers what it is to be gay in a straight, straight world.

AS CONSERVATIVE governments in Australia and the US continue to take a strong stance against gay marriage and civil unions between same-sex couples, a prickly question is raised: is there an inherent oxymoron in being gay and conservative in 2006?

As born out in Gay Republicans, screening today as part of the 16th Melbourne Queer Film Festival, many conservatives in both countries are insisting that, stripped back to their ideological origins, the American Republican Party and the Australian Liberal Party are parties of choice and liberty that should be leading the fight to allow same-sex couples to live without discrimination. The screening comes as the issue of legal recognition for same-sex relationships in Australia is reaching boiling point.

Throughout the 2004 US presidential election, homosexuality, with a particular emphasis on gay marriage, rose to the surface of political and cultural debate as perhaps the most rousing and divisive issue on the electoral slate. Many people, although generally those on the far edges of either the fundamentalist Christian or gay activist circles, proclaimed gay marriage was the issue that decided the election in George Bush's favour.

In the midst of the fiery American cultural battleground, a group with the innocuous name Log Cabin Republicans (inspired by first Republican president Abraham Lincoln - the "great emancipator" - who was born in a log cabin) found themselves occupying centre stage. For the brief but poignant moment when the mainstream spotlight was on them, Log Cabin was the most deeply divided it had been in its 30-year history.

For openly gay former Republican senator Steve May, who describes gay marriage as "the new abortion" in its ability to generate fear and division driving US voters to the polls, the day the Republican Party made its opposition to gay marriage an election issue it stopped being true to the party's roots. "When George Bush did this he chose who his friends were and who his enemies were. He didn't choose me as his friend," says May.

"Our party is supposed to be the party of freedom and democracy but people have turned it into the party of control and theocracy. The truth is that we are the spiritual descendants of the American Revolution. We are not just fighting for gay rights, we are fighting to make America stand up for what it really believes in."

Similarly, in Australia, just before the 2004 federal election, John Howard pushed the Marriage Amendment Bill through the Australian Parliament. It passed with the support of the ALP amid a fanfare of promises to "protect marriage".

However, then as now, there are many individuals on the conservative side of politics, religion and public life in Australia who find themselves alienated by federal policy regarding the status of sexual orientation before the law.

Professor Kerryn Phelps, former president of the AMA, who married her partner Jackie Stricker in New York in 1998, says she has been labelled everything from a radical conservative to a conservative radical. Phelps claims that the current anti-gay marriage push has been propagated by the extreme religious right wing in order to win votes.

"This so-called 'threat' was manufactured by the Government to appease the religious right. (George) Bush made gay marriage an election issue to create a common enemy, and Howard did the same," she says.

Phelps has also been an outspoken opponent of moves to restrict gay marriage in Australia and says she would "absolutely" see it as an oxymoron being lesbian and an active member of the Liberal or Republican Party in 2006.

"A gay Liberal or Republican has to live with an inherent hypocrisy," she says. "It would be almost impossible for a thinking person to reconcile belonging to a political party that had as a part of its policy platform a denial of your right to have your relationship recognised and respected and treated equally under the law."

Not so, says Richard Kings, openly gay member of the Victorian Liberal Party State Council and chairman of the Australian branch of the British Conservative Party.

"The Liberal Party has been very good to gays over the years," he says. "After all, it was the Liberal Party that decriminalised homosexuality in Australia. Choice has always been a big part of the Liberal philosophy. To not give people the choice to live their lives without the intrusion of government into their bedrooms is just against Liberal Party principals."

Kings lists the Marriage Amendment Act as "the first state-based discriminatory policy that has been put up by the conservatives".

"The state has imposed a discriminative legislation on a certain sector of the community. That's an affront to my conservatism and also the wider Liberal ideologies." By way of explanation, Kings points to an "extreme right-wing religious" division of the NSW Liberal Party, which has lead to the present impasse. "They are aided and abetted by the evangelicals, pathologically opposed to abortion, euthanasia and gays," says Kings.

"It is my belief that the gay marriage debate need not have happened. It was forced on the Liberal Party and forced through by deception and factional interests. This is not a debate between gays and anybody else - we just happen to be the convenient kicking board. To take away people's rights and replace them with restrictions is not right.

"Hence the blurring of the divide between church and state of the rise of the fundamentalist crowd - which has its roots in the Southern Baptist-type mentality - that have more in common with the Ku Klux Klan than they do with family values. Once you mix religion and politics you cause division and hatred in the community. It's not the true Liberal way."

But for John Heard (alias Dreadnought on his popular blog) the problem is not so much to do with religion outright as with religion not being given a fair hearing.

"There is a very long history of gay Catholics," he suggests. "We have a terribly passionate, emotionally charged, aesthetically rich faith. Gay people have always found themselves comfortable and happy within the Catholic Church. Either here in a gay bar in South Yarra, or in a church in Rome, there is no sense in which a particular class of humanity, purely because of their sexual orientation, is excused or isolated from teachings which are universal."

Heard is against gay marriage but is pro civil unions for same-sex couples. "I think gay marriage is an absolute non-starter as an issue. We have spent the last 40 years trying to get the state out of our bedrooms. Why are we now demanding recognition from John Howard? The notion of these extraordinary, creative, avant-guard gay people rushing to cover themselves in grey cardigans and join their straight cousins in the suburbs with some bureaucratic document just shits me."

But with the latest Newspoll figures indicating that most Australians support legally binding civil unions for same-sex couples, there is a strong sense that we may avoid some of the ugly scenes depicted in Gay Republicans. As the US presidential election drew nearer in 2004, there were scenes of gay activists addressing rallies across the country, with rabid fundamentalist Christians chanting of "Sodomites" in their direction.

Townsville Liberal MP Peter Lindsay says there is strong support in the upper echelons of the Liberal Party for same-sex civil union legislation to be passed. While suggesting the Liberal party will "never" support gay marriage, he told The Age: "Parliament is sympathetic to the concept of civil unions. You would be surprised if you knew the level of support in the ministry for civil unions. Indeed many of my colleagues in the Liberal Party are very sympathetic and understanding about the issue. It's just that they don't "come out" and say so, preferring to opt for safety and to keep their views to themselves."

Gay Republicans screens today at noon at ACMI. A panel discussion of the gay marriage issue will take place tomorrow at ACMI following the screening of the documentary Pursuit of Equality from at 2.15pm.

Looks like the Republicans have something to learn from our Antipodean allies.  

 http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22853850-5001021,00.html

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/02/2107227.htm

In Britain, "liberal" and "conservative" have really lost their original meanings (kind of like they have in the US over time) even though there is a Conservative Party (one of the two main parties) and a Liberal Democrat Party (not a main party but the next most popular one next to Labour and Conservative).

When the word Liberal is used in general, it usually means Classical Liberal, i.e., free speech, freedom of religion, free trade, free markets, etc. which would be great if we actually had a party that agreed with all that.

The term Liberal and the Liberal Democrat Party don't have much in common at all. The Lib Dems are politically correct chickenshits, like Conservative and Labour.

The Tories (Conservatives) in general support tradition - our state church, the Church of England, traditional families, the British Monarchy.

They used to be the more free market party back when Thatcher was in power but they're just as useless as the other parties now.

I find the terms "liberal" and "conservative" useless as they're not clearly-defined terms, they're always changing and they mean next to nothing, really. They're not specific enough.

I especially don't understand conservatives, who defend things just because it's traditional.
It's ridiculous to claim that you support something just because it's new but it is perhaps even stupider to support something just because it's old.

Industrialisation wasn't traditional, should we go back to the dark ages?
The British Empire outlawing slavery everywhere they could was not traditional (in the entire history of the world), should we bring that back too?


I just find them all preposterous. None of them actually have any clear principles to live by and apply to politics.

__________________

"The world will not greet you with open arms, but with a clenched fist."

After my rant, I can now answer the questions. ;)

Round 1: Is the personal political?- Why have you chosen to identify yourself as either(or are you an independent)? What issues stand out for you that you'd be least likely to compromise on? What elements of the "other" are distasteful to you?

Neither Conservative nor Liberal (not that they mean much anyway).
My country, the two main parties and the most popular third party support the NHS (National Health Service) that we have now and support the welfare state in general. As far as I know all three support social restrictions as well as economic restrictions, such as hate crime laws, the continuation of drugs being prohibited, etc.

They're all awful and I would never be able to bring myself to vote for any of them.

Round 2: What does it mean to be "liberal" or "conservative" in your country? What is the political party system like? Is it really clearcut or is there some overlap between parties? Would you switch parties if your main concerns were met by a candidate on an opposing party (are you a party or person voter?)

(See my rant above.)

Round 3: Is your country's political system the best? Why/why not? What do you detest about politics in other countries and what do you admire? What do you like about your own system? (Come on people be nice. After all we are all inhabitants of planet Earth.)

It's absolutely not the best and I'm not sure it ever has been except when England was the freest country on Earth during the Industrial Revolution. But that isn't saying much either.
My country has a monarchy, a state church, and just all 'round statist policies. Sigh.

I like the American way of doing things better - trying to get a bill through in Britain takes bloody ages.
Britain needs to start afresh and get a Constitution like the USA's and stick by it, so the government's only job will be to protect individuals from force and retaliate on their behalf and to settle disputes according to objective law.

__________________

"The world will not greet you with open arms, but with a clenched fist."

so basically our crime rate would go *down* if *law abiding* citizens were to have gun and drugs were all legalised?

and yes, giving law abiding citizens which does mean rational, well intended people, firearms which have no other use than to harm living things whilst theyre taking brain dysfunctioning drugs, which clearly would never cause dependance and never ruin your life, would be the *ideal* way to cut down on crime and generally make this a safer country to live in.

monarchy - yea we shouldnt have one, i agree (sincerely)

rapists and murderers get let out in no time? and this is based on.....?

and your surprised that someone who *murders* a burglar gets more time than someone who actually commits burglary? - is it these murderers that are getting let out in no time? - and what were people thinking trying to value the sanctity of human life over theft - cos human life, that can be replaced but those shiny things that were so inhumanely taken from us, that can never ever be reclaimed - cos once you commit a crime, thats it, there is obviously no way in hell a burglar could ever change their lifestyle - so we should just ... kill them?

"you can't insult a religion or anyone or anything nowadays" - and we should do *everything* in our power to regain these rights where it becomes commonplace to insult anyone we please - cos that would be the ideal environment for people to live in

"our massive welfare state is attracting those from other countries who come here not to work but to get a meal ticket" - ok, for that i will apologise to u on my parents behalf, who always worked when they arrived here, they never have been and still aren't on any welfare support, but clearly that doesnt exist in your version, i can see where such notions may stem from, and your not the first I've heard that from, I've heard it plenty and all i can say is - sorry

regardless of what we may like or dislike about britain - i dont think we will have anything in common (apart from that monarchy thing)

~love is giving someone the power to destroy you, but trusting them not to~

ok, i can see your points of view on some of the topics, i may not agree, but I can see where your coming from...

although, the sole purpose of bleach isnt to commit suicide, it has other uses, as do plates, glass and kitchen knives, other than to harm people what other use do guns have?

the majority of heroin users don't thrive in society, and those that fill the prisons should be the drug *dealers* those who do use the substance should be put in rehab (is that not how it works?)

the answer to burglary shouldnt be to use deadly force, cos there all forms of burglars out there, those that are too stupid to know otherwise to those that are truly calculating criminals, killing them isnt the answer, to use better security to increase the punishment *by* law, and taking burglary cases more seriously would be the way forward....

"without being crucified by the media?" - i thought you were all for free speech...

in the case of rapists - yea i think if the woman did everything in her power to disable the guy she should not be punished, and if the *only* way she can stop him is by killing him - then again she shouldnt be punished - but then that opens up a whole can of worms as to proving intent, and how we can stop that being used wrongly - but then again i dont think once/if these rapists get caught they should be killed, maybe castrated

do u not believe its ok to let a hundred criminals walk if it ensues the prevention of at least one innocent being wrongly convicted?

anyway thats just the argument of this ridiculous pacifist

"Immigrants who work are a valuable asset to the people in our country and anyway, they have every right to want to live in a freer country and work for a living." - im glad you think so - and its why i'm so ready to defend this government cos it gave me everything that the country i shouldve been born would never offer - for example equal rights - it may not be perfect - but i think it looks out for people, in as much as it can - and thats a damn site better than most of the other countries out there!

~love is giving someone the power to destroy you, but trusting them not to~

Lemme give a little background. I was born and raised in HK, spent 5 years in the states (2 states) for HS and univ, well travelled. currently in england, now sure where i am going to be next. 

Round 1: Is the personal political?- Why have you chosen to identify yourself as either(or are you an independent)? What issues stand out for you that you'd be least likely to compromise on? What elements of the "other" are distasteful to you?
My dad is a conservative, i heard "nixon/reagan/bush is great", "capitalism rules" when i was growing up, but after nights and nights for heated debate with my dear friend in college, she had converted me into a liberal, and now, i am pretty much all for lefty socialism. one of my mottoes is "dun hate because of ignorance", so i learn both sides well before i start hating something, i understand the range of political idealogy before i stand firm on my now-socialism stance. I suppose the "other" does not bother me much.

Round 2: What does it mean to be "liberal" or "conservative" in your country? What is the political party system like? Is it really clearcut or is there some overlap between parties? Would you switch parties if your main concerns were met by a candidate on an opposing party (are you a party or person voter?)
There is no clear line between "liberal" or "conservative" in my country--Hong kong. I would say, Hong Kong is a very capitalist-run enterprise, so there is not much liberal in there. political system is pro-beijing or pursuit-of-more-autonomy. I dun think politics of hong kong is much relevance with this topic.

Round 3: Is your country's political system the best? Why/why not? What do you detest about politics in other countries and what do you admire? What do you like about your own system? (Come on people be nice. After all we are all inhabitants of planet Earth.)
Political system in hong kong certainly not the best, or i should say, what i want to see wont happen in hk, not because of the political system per se, but the fellow citizens are just not keen on reforms and all those sorts of activities. cough, speaking politically, still not. bills involve public spending must come out from the government (exe branch), and it takes the government forever to take a small step forward, the government is not keen on reforms either, last but not least, hong kong gov (exe branch) is heavily influenced by chinese government (if not "controlled"), even when there is some outcry and serious issues to be addressed, the exe would have to get some kinda nod from beijing.
Since Hong Kong would probably never be a socialist state that i prefer in my life time, i do look forward to move elsewhere. From my traveling, I think i'd like Canada (just hope harper doesnt mess it up), New Zealand or Singapore.
Their features are quite prominant, heavily regulated, quite socialist, peaceful, etc

Photography, Bicycle, Motorcycle, Tennis, Badminton, Motorcycle, Bowling, Traveling, Engineering, Law
http://www.flickr.com/photos/opel/

One interesting aspect in European politics and the liberal-conservative debate is the role of European Union. We choose (depending on the size of a country) an amount of representatives to the European Parlament and the funny part of that is that in EU Parlament the groups don't necessarily correspond to the same liberal-conservative axis that they do in the member countries. For example, MEP's of the Finnish Center Party join the liberal group in EU, whereas in Finland they are considered to be quite conservative. The Coalition Party on the other hand (in english they also use the name Conservative Party) is part of the conservative group, eventhough their MEP's were have been quite active in gay and transgered people's rights in EU.

 Overall the Finnish system is quite different compared with U.S for instance. We have 12 parties at the moment, 4 of which form the government. A lot to choose from :) And even the "right-wing" parties think we should have free education and free health care eventhough they are promoting tax-cuts.