Did a Conservative Magazine Fire a Blogger for Writing About Gay Marriage?
D.G. Myers, a literary blogger for Commentary magazine, was fired by editor John Podhoretz under murky circumstances last week. Myers alleges that he was given the axe because of a post he wrote called "The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage". He says that his editors at the neocon magazine, specifically John Podhoretz, weren't too keen to the his new ideas in the wake of Tuesday's election.
Like any rational person did, Myers realized that the results of last week's election should push the republican party to make a bit of a policy shift. On Wednesday, Myers wrote a post called "GOP Can't Be The Party Of Old White Men."
He followed that entry up on Thursday with "The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage," in which he said that he thinks "gay marriage would strengthen the institution [of marriage]" and that marriage is a "choice." These are two ideas that directly conflict with the conservative platform and Commentary's previous pieces like James Q. Wilson's "Against Homosexual Marriage."
Podhoretz emailed him an hour after the post went up telling him that he was fired. Myers emails asking for an explanation went unanswered at first. Then Podhoretz posted a note on Commentary's wesbsite explaining that Myers' firing had more to do with editorial direction than a stance on gay marriage:
What I did not like, and what I could not accept, was that David had decided unilaterally to convert Literary Commentary into a sociopolitical blog without a moment's consultation. This I considered an uncollegial and insubordinate act,and I'm afraid it was not the first of these. I would not have allowed him to do so had he asked; I might have considered publishing the item on this blog, though to tell you the truth, I found his take goopy and overheated.
A late note to Myers: if you're going to work at a literary blog for a conservative magazine, you might want to just stick to books and not drift into liberal politics. Just a guess here, but we don't imagine they'd be a fan of that whole thing.
