Replying to my recent post criticizing the (counterproductive, imho) attack on King & Spalding (“A Victory We Could Do Without”), my friend and fellow IGF blogger David Link says, “I’m just not buying it.” His thinking is exemplary—but exemplary, unfortunately, of the kind of thinking that plays into the other side’s hands.
David’s suggestion that I’m saying anything like “Never play hardball” is a straw man. What I did say is that, when we do play hardball, “we had better be accomplishing something worth the PR cost” of bolstering the other side’s “gay bullies” narrative. If David can tell me what the K&S stunt accomplished, other than moving Paul Clement to a smaller law firm and drawing a condemnation of our side’s “bullying tactics” from the pro-gay Washington Post (this is not helpful!), I’ll reconsider my position.
Of course the other side plays hardball whether we do or not. Of course the other side will call us bullies no matter what we do. That’s the point: they are baiting us. I’ve said it once, twice, a thousand times, and it’s still true: the point isn’t to win over Maggie G. or to expect reciprocity from the Family Research Council, it’s to retain our superior moral credibility—which is our most precious strategic asset—with moderates, who will decide the outcome.
David is right about one thing: there’s no military command structure in the gay-rights movement. We can’t count on everybody, or anybody, to show restraint. But we can hope for subtle, supple leadership, which HRC and others certainly didn’t show in this case. I fear, though, that if I can’t talk even someone of David’s sensitivity out of a damn-the-torpedoes, tit-for-tat approach, we don’t have much chance of evading the trap Maggie et al. are setting for us.
8 Comments for “Hard Thinking on ‘Hardball’”
posted by Houndentenor on
I do wish that some of the hotheads (which I guess sometimes would include me) would stop posting things online that are just going to be used by the homophobes as evidence of what mean, horrible people the gays are. None of us, of course, are responsible for what anyone else has said, especially not internet trolls, but I do wish people would use just a little more restraint.
The truth is that we often don’t do a very good job in presenting our case. Prop 8 is a classic example, but it’s typical rather than exceptional. We just don’t do enough to combat the lies an distortions but mostly we don’t make it clear that gay people are everyone’s neighbors and coworkers an fellow citizens. Harvey Milk complained that we ran campaigns trying to avoid talking about being gay or showing gay people and nothing much has changed in the decades since.
I also don’t think anyone should be silenced. The opinion polls are moving quickly and decisively in our favor. I wish I could say that we have had some brilliant strategy that has swayed public opinion, but I think the reality is that people who were on the fence on gay issues are repulsed by the likes of Maggie Gallagher and her ilk. We should get a camera in her face more often. Everything she says seems to repulse more and more Americans.
posted by Thom Watson on
Personally, I think we accomplished several things worth the alleged “PR cost,” including but not limited to: 1) A lousy, over-general, heavy-handed government contract at a very large law firm that prohibited all employees, not just those working on this specific case, from advocating for any appeal of DOMA, was negated; 2) We’ve demonstrated that there are real consequences when a corporation openly claims to be supportive of the LGBT community in recruiting and hiring and even highlights its high HRC rating on its website, but does not walk the talk; and 3) the initial negative New York Times, LA Times and Washington Post editorials, have engendered additional discussion of not only the specific issues in the King and Spalding decision, but more general issues about LGBT equality and the legal profession, by way of op-eds that addressed the bullying charges as well as follow-up stories that have pointed out the sea change in the legal landscape from firms refusing to represent gay clients at all only a few decades ago to now refusing cases that discriminate against us, and pointing out the legal parallels from other civil rights struggles.
posted by Jorge on
I fear, though, that if I can’t talk even someone of David’s sensitivity out of a damn-the-torpedoes, tit-for-tat approach, we don’t have much chance of evading the trap Maggie et al. are setting for us.
The trap hasn’t been sprung on us in a while (I know I’m asking for it with this statement). Moderates don’t think of gays as hypocrites in as strong terms as they think about blacks. A lot of what you are calling for is more likely to happen as a reaction to that kind of alienation. We’ve been burned by backlashes in the past and some of us remember that keenly.
Of course, this is just the kind of trap that gets sprung as a delayed reaction. Once you walk down the path of evil, you tend to pay for it at the point where it’s too late to turn back.
posted by Amicus on
2-cents?
1. In rejecting to defend section three, the Obama administration is no longer morally complicit in this odious law.
2. With Kling & Spaulding’s thoughtful reconsideration, the “case for ‘DOMA'” is relegated to where it belongs, to the hands of a small group of people, without the imprimatur that defenders want from hiring a firm like K&S, namely that there is some weighty case to be made and defended by a Respected,-Serious-And-Gay-Hiring-Friendly-Law-Firm that gays don’t deserve marriage, i.e. Serious People can give the gays “love” but deny them marriage (either outright or even as a matter of mercy).
I would judge that, when the cards fall, what defenders lost in ending up with a frenzied former solicitor rather than a law firm is probably more than we lost in pushing K&S to run a business, tather than a pet crusade of an intransigent few on religious right (perhaps K&S can read poll progressions too and don’t want to have their long term business reputation sinking as did tobacco lawyers/firms).
Perhaps the best way to illustrate that pressure is not to focus on what the HRC did or said or “the process”. Instead, go look at the briefs that have been filed to support DOMA in the past and then ask whether you as a partner in a firm would want to be a party to that. Seriously. The stuff that you have to say to defend DOMA section 3 is pretty ugly, no? Or, if not, it is so damn simple that this whole brouhaha is laughable, because it amounts to this, more or less: “The State loves nongays for reasons known only to individual legislators who voted years ago that must include things that gays cannot be or achieve and nothing you hear in court about gays, good or bad, matters. We rest, your honor.”
posted by BobN on
“Hard thinking” based on rumor, spinning, and fear-mongering?
Is hard thinking even possible without finding out the facts?
posted by Tom Jefferson on
1. The law firm wanted to get praise for being gay-friendly but did not want to get or hear any criticism for defending DOMA, even going as far as banning anyone in its law firm from opposing the law….and the gays are the bullies here? Wow.
2. Yes, in America the legal profession generally holds onto the notion that every Tom, Dick and Jane [guilty or innocent] is entitled to decent legal representation — at least in a criminal matter. I am not sure that this principle should apply to a civil dispute, with one of the best law firms in the nation and when this firm wants to ban dissent within its company and scream fowl whenever anyone outside the company disagrees with them.
3. I am not sure that the “average” heterosexual American who opposes legal recognition of gay marriage is going to be terribly swayed one way or the other because of this issue. If the shoe had been on the other foot and anti-gay, social conservatives had gotten a big law firm to give up opposing DOMA and what-not, I doubt people who complain that ‘the gays’ are being bullies would sing the same tune.
posted by Wilberforce on
‘If David can tell me what the K&S stunt accomplished, other than moving Paul Clement to a smaller law firm… I’ll reconsider my position.’
Moving Clement to a smaller firm is a bigger deal than you realize. It says clearly that DOMA cannot be defended by a mainstream firm. And the other firings, by SC and the NRA, say the same thing. These are far right groups, which also show that Clement and Co. are outside of the mainstream.
I do see your point that this move looks bad. And it isn’t the fairest thing we’ve ever done.
But Boehner is using half a million public dollars to influence the judicial process against us. And they wrote that notorious gag rule into the contract.
Why aren’t you also concerned about those sleazoid tactics?
posted by Hunter on
If you go back and read the comments to the WaPo editorial, the editors got pretty thoroughly slammed for that piece. It’s one thing to note the Post’s comments, but to do so without also noting the readers’ reactions is not going to give a full picture. NYT doesn’t seem to have had a response — at least, none that they’ve published.
As for falling into the “trap” that Maggie is setting for us — the only way we’re going to avoid being portrayed as bullies and thugs by Gallagher, Perkins, Barber, the whole rotten crew, is to roll over and play dead — or probably better, in their eyes, really die. The only appropriate response is “Prove it!” repeated as loudly and often as necessary.
As for what we gained — DOMA is back on everyone’s radar, and most people seem to be coming around to the idea that it’s pretty reprehensible. It’s events like this that keep that trend moving in the direction we want, because there’s one very solid reality at work here: if we don’t make noise, people don’t notice us. Add one more bit of reality: people admire winners. We won.