Religious leaders and Democrats joined a survivor of the Holocaust in condemning Republican Rep. Arlon Lindner for remarks he made last week questioning whether homosexuals were persecuted by the Nazis. ``I can testify to the fact that homosexuals were indeed persecuted based on their sexuality,'' said Hinda Kibort, 81, an Edina woman who was in German-run labor and concentration camps from 1941 to 1945. ``I was there.''
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Lindner said he doesn't doubt Kibort's own recollections of Nazi actions, but still questions why, he believes, there has been little attention to homosexual persecution until recent years. He said he expects to be in session on April 9, the date of the Washington trip, and won't be going along. ``They talk about my particular views and so forth,'' he said. ``But I guess I still feel like we've got a First Amendment that applies to everybody.'' Kibort described how homosexuals were forced to wear pink triangles, just as Jews were made to wear the star of David. ``His absolute lack of knowledge concerning Nazi barbarity in World War II is appalling,'' she said. Lindner has introduced a separate bill that would repeal the state human rights amendment that protects gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Minnesotans from discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas. It also would remove sexual orientation as a protected class in hate crimes laws.

Meanwhile, the substance of what Dean had to say today probably surprised those who've spent a lot of time lately watching and listening to him speak in Iowa and New Hampshire or before Democratic interest groups. You might have seen Dean at the recent NARAL event, where he brought the audience to its feet by delivering a full-throated defense of partial-birth abortion while other Democrats stepped politely around the subject. You might have caught his recent speech on union issues in Altoona, Iowa, delivered Oprah-style before members of the Iowa Federation of Labor, where he wowed the crowd with an unapologetic condemnation of free trade deals that lack tough labor and environmental standards. And you might have been present for Dean's knock-out performance at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting, where liberal delegates became all weepy and verklempt when the former Vermont governor belted out what has become his signature line: "I am Howard Dean. And I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." At the very least, you've probably heard that Howard Dean is one of the most antiwar candidates in the race.
All of this has placed Dean on the left edge of the Democratic presidential field. But often it's more reliable to listen to Dean's positions than the fiery rhetoric that surrounds them. Once you do that, as today's interview reminds us, it's easy to see understand how Dean was positioning himself as the Clinton-like moderate of the race before his antiwar speeches started to generate so much enthusiasm among activists in the early nominating states.
Did you know, for instance, that Dean favors a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, the early-'90s fixation of Ross Perot and the Contract with America? I didn't. In addition to flirting with raising the retirement age for Social Security, Dean also wants to do something along the lines of what Clinton proposed in the late '90s for the program: allowing the government to invest funds from Social Security in private equities.