Actually, to sum up what I said before, I think *BOTH* major parties have contributed greatly (and about equally) to the current disastrous state of civil liberties.

Forget about the bar crackdowns and gay issues for a minute -- look at the deafening silence coming from BOTH the GOP and the Dems in Congress regarding the absolutely DISGUSTING recent Supreme Court decision regarding Eminent Domain and the MAJOR damage it has caused to our Constitutional property rightrs as citizens under the Second Amendment. The GOP loves the Court ruling because its private developer political contributors and supporters want easy access to cheap land without the hassle and incovenience of holdouts who refuse to sell, notgiving a damn who currently lives there or owns a small business there. The Dems equally love the ruling because once the land is given over to big profit developers, the redevelopment generates MUCHO MUCHO tax dollars filling city treasuries that the local Dem-run city officials see as a Vegas jackpot to spend as candy and goodies in the form of targetted social programs for its city consituents... that is, those who haven't already been run out of the inner city!

In the end, the rights of the little homeowner and small businessman get trampled on by yet another political marriage made in hell between conservatives and liberals, with the end result leaving us all vulnerable to the violation of our Constitutional property rights. And without property rights, we're serfs to a government who can throw us off our land at any time.

Essentially, there's nothing to stop these takings now -- and if you don't believe me (to move this conversation back into a gay focus), just wait till some developers petition the greedy Fulton County commission or City of Atlanta councilmen and women to redevelop the area on Peachtree in Midtown, where there are currently some juicy properties that Bulldog, Backstreet, the Armory and quite a few relatively low taxbase businesses, restaurants and homeowners currently perch on. There won't be any court in the land to stop the property takings -- just ask the gay businesses on O Street, SE here in DC, where the Washington Nationals in cahoots with the Dem DC Mayor and City Council have all but grabbed the land to build the new baseball stadium. And good luck to them finding NEW sites for their businesses in high-rent DC! It's not a political party issue -- it's a greed issue that both parties share equal guilt in.