IGF CultureWatch

Conservative opposition to gay marriage is having unconservative effects, helping to push the boundaries of family law into new territory that challenges the primacy of marriage itself. By opposing gay marriage, conservatives are forcing gay families to seek refuge through untraditional means that could undermine marriage or destabilize family concepts in ways that gay marriage itself would not.

Here are four examples:

Second-parent adoptions. When married couples adopt, both become the legal parents of the child. Traditionally, however, only one member of an unmarried couple could adopt a child. Among other things, this rule has encouraged the couple to get married because it would provide the child with two parents.

Gay couples, who can't marry, must find other ways to protect their children. Starting in the early 1980s, the National Center for Lesbian Rights pioneered the concept of "second-parent" adoptions by which two unmarried people could both be a child's legal parents. Over time, the concept has been embraced by courts or by statute in about half the states.

Here's the kicker. Second-parent adoptions have also become available to unmarried heterosexual couples. Thus, a legal reform intended to compensate for the unavailability of same-sex marriage has been seized by those who can marry but choose not to. It reduces the incentive to marry and means more children will be raised out-of-wedlock.

Triple parenting. Another unconservative consequence of the ban on gay marriage is illustrated by a recent case in Pennsylvania. The case involved a lesbian couple who enlisted a male friend to act as a sperm donor, resulting in the births of two children to one of the women. When the lesbian couple split, the state courts decided that the women should share custody and that the sperm donor should be allowed monthly visits and be ordered to pay child support. Thus, the children would in effect have three parents shuttling them back and forth among three different homes.

Marriage exists in part to clarify legal responsibility for children. If gay couples could marry, as straight couples using sperm donors or surrogate mothers can, they would be more likely to seek exclusive parental rights at the outset (as married straight couples do) because they could adopt as a couple and because of the additional security marriage would give their relationship and their children. Sperm donors and surrogate mothers, for their part, would be more likely to surrender any parental rights since they would be reassured the child would live in a two-parent family fully protected in the law.

Triple-parenting arrangements don't lead to polygamy, as some conservatives claim. Lesbian mothers aren't usually keen on marrying sperm donors, after all. But these arrangements do undermine the traditional idea that, when it comes to children, two are parents and more is a crowd.

While gay marriage alone won't eliminate the many scenarios in which multiple adults vie for children, just as marriage hasn't eliminated them for straight couples, it would make them somewhat rarer. The absence of gay marriage is opening the door wider to the very trends conservatives believe are destabilizing to families.

Parental visitation. In Minnesota, the state supreme court recently upheld an order allowing a woman parent-like visitation with the two adopted children she raised with her lesbian partner of 22 years. Because the women weren't married, only one of them formally adopted the kids. When they split, the legal parent barred her ex from seeing them. If they'd been married, both parents would have been entitled to see the children.

The non-parent sued to get some access to the children based on a Minnesota statute allowing a person "reasonable" visitation if the person lived with the children at least two years. The court ordered that the non-parent be given the right to visit the children on a schedule exactly like what a divorced parent would get (weekends, alternate holidays, long summer vacations) - all without having to pay child support.

The Minnesota decision was correct under state law and was perfectly justified given that the lesbian couple could not marry and that both women raised the children. But it does set a precedent by which an unmarried heterosexual partner could likewise claim full parental visitation rights without accompanying support obligations. Another incentive to marry is eroded.

Adult-adult adoptions. Adoption means the two people - the parent and the child - are not strangers in the eyes of the law. It makes them kin.

Not all states set age restrictions on adoptions, so in theory an adult could adopt another adult as his "child." Barred from marriage, that is exactly what some gay couples have done. One partner adopts the other, giving the two adults some degree of the legal protection marriage would have given - like the rights to visit each other in the hospital, to inherit property without taxation, and so on. This is a perversion of traditional adoption law, to say the least, made attractive only because the partners can't marry.

Gay families are of course just one part of much larger developments changing family life in the U.S. Those living outside marriage - gay or straight - will understandably find creative ways to protect their loved ones. Left-leaning reformers would regard many or all of these innovations as good; in fact, they are championing them. Conservatives eye them suspiciously because they bring with them the potential to undermine marriage and traditional parental forms and presumptions. Gay marriage would relieve some of the pressure to concoct alternatives.

Think of it this way: Gay families are a rising river stretching across the country. Conservative opposition to gay marriage is a dam blocking the way. Impeded in its natural course, the river does not dry up; its flow is simply deflected into a hundred rivulets and low pastures.

Many conservatives may conclude in the end that the collateral damage being done to stability and tradition is worth it to keep gay couples from marrying. But before family policy is further inundated, they should at least weigh the unconservative consequences.

Marriage is a conservative social institution. The best argument for gay marriage is rooted in a conservative idea that marriage itself is good because it is stabilizing.

There are, however, academics and political activists who support gay marriage for radical reasons: they hope it will destabilize many of the traditional sexual, relational, and familial values associated with marriage. For example, the late Professor Ellen Willis of NYU argued that gay marriage might "introduce an implicit revolt against the institution [of marriage] into its very heart, further promoting the democratization and secularization of personal and sexual life."

Opponents of gay marriage love to quote these pro-SSM radicals. In his new book, The Future of Marriage, David Blankenhorn writes that "people who have devoted much of their professional lives to attacking marriage as an institution almost always favor gay marriage." They support gay marriage, he observes, "precisely in the hope of dethroning once and for all the traditional 'conjugal institution.'"

Pro-SSM radicals are useful to opponents of gay marriage because what they say frightens people. Identifying some tangible harm from gay marriage has been the elusive Holy Grail of the anti-gay marriage movement. Now they can say, in effect, "See, even supporters of gay marriage admit they're destroying marriage with this reform. We've exposed their real agenda."

However, there are multiple problems with using pro-SSM radicals to show gay marriage will harm marriage.

First, pro-SSM radicals are surely a small minority of those supporting gay marriage, though they are over-represented in the op-eds of gay newspapers and in universities. I doubt most gay-marriage supporters have any desire to fight for access to a "dethroned" institution.

In fact, supporting gay marriage does not require one to be anti-marriage. One could both support gay marriage and believe that (1) marriage is not an outdated institution, (2) it is generally better for a committed couple to get married than to stay unmarried, (3) adultery should be discouraged, (4) it is better on average for children to be raised by two parents than by one, and within marriage than without, (5) divorce should be harder to obtain, and so on.

Second, a policy view is not necessarily bad because some of the people who support it also support bad things and see all these bad things as part of a grand project to do bad. Some opponents of gay marriage also oppose the use of contraceptives (even by married couples), would end all sex education in the schools, and would re-subordinate wives to their husbands. But it would be unfair to tar opponents of gay marriage with all of these causes, or to dismiss their arguments because opposing gay marriage might tend to advance them.

Third, regardless of what pro-SSM radicals hope gay marriage will do to undermine marriage, they may be mistaken. Gay marriage may end up disappointing them.

Conservative opponents of gay marriage ignore the large and complex debate on the left about whether gay marriage is really worthwhile and what effects it will likely have. While some marriage radicals support gay marriage because they think it will undermine marriage, others oppose it (or are uncomfortable with it) because they expect it will strengthen marriage and traditionalize gay life.

Paula Ettelbrick, in a very influential and widely quoted essay two decades ago, argued that marriage is "antithetical to my liberation as a lesbian," would lead to "increased sexual oppression" of unmarried gays, and would "mainstream" gay life and culture. "If the laws change tomorrow and lesbians and gay men were allowed to marry," she wondered, "where would we find the incentive to continue the progressive movement we have started that is pushing for societal and legal recognition of all kinds of family relationships?"

Since then, many other activists and intellectuals have written a stream of books, articles, and essays expressing similar assimilation anxiety and other concerns about gay marriage. Rutgers Professor Michael Warner has argued that gay marriage would "reinforce the material privileges and cultural normativity of marriage" and thus be "regressive."

Here's gay writer Michael Bronski: "The simple fact remains that the fight for marriage equality is at its essence not a progressive fight, but rather a deeply conservative one that seeks to maintain the social norm of the two-partnered relationship - with or without children - as more valuable than any other relational configuration."

These anti-SSM radicals, as we might loosely call them (some don't actually oppose gay marriage), are worried that gay marriage will enhance the primacy of marriage, cut off support for alternatives like domestic partnerships and civil unions, de-radicalize gay culture, gut the movement for sexual liberation, and reinforce recent conservative trends in family law.

If those things happened, conservatives would cheer. But these anti-SSM radicals aren't useful to anti-SSM conservatives, so what they say is ignored.

The point is not to argue that any of these radical writers are correct that gay marriage will have the effects on marriage they predict. Activists on both sides of the issue tend to exaggerate the likely effect of adding at most three percent to existing marriages in the country. Gay marriage may have a big (and conservatizing) effect on gay families, but it is unlikely to change marriage itself. Heterosexuals simply don't model their relationships on what homosexuals do.

The point is that both support for and opposition to gay marriage spring from a variety of complex ideas, experiences, emotions, and motives. The debate will not be resolved by dueling quotes from marriage radicals.

Opponents of gay marriage have tried a number of arguments, all of which have failed to end the progress toward the recognition of gay relationships. Now they're trying out a new one that ties gay marriage to a miasma of marital and familial decline.

Gay-marriage opponents first argued that same-sex couples could not be married because the definition of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. This worked as long as nobody thought very hard about the issue, but it fails as soon as you realize the whole argument is over what the definition should include.

Some gay-marriage opponents tried to frighten the public with negative stereotypes of gays. The problem is that too many Americans know actual gay people for this to have much effect anymore.

Next they warned that gay marriage would be the first step down a slippery slope toward things like polygamy. But this failed to catch on because there just aren't that many people clamoring for ten-person marriages. Two is hard enough.

They moved on to children after that, warning that gay couples couldn't do as good a job as a biological mother and father. This argument still has some life, but its power wanes when people realize that gay marriage won't take children away from biological parents who want to raise them. And marriage would help the more than one million children now being raised by gay people.

Now, in a new book entitled The Future of Marriage, family and marriage scholar David Blankenhorn tries a new argument. He argues that support for gay marriage is part of a destructive "cluster" of "mutually reinforcing" beliefs about family life. He cites international surveys of attitudes about families and marriage showing that the presence of gay marriage in a country correlates with a series of beliefs that he describes as, roughly speaking, anti-marriage.

For example, people in countries with gay marriage are more likely to agree with statements like, "One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together," or, "It is alright for a couple to live together without intending to get married."

Conversely, people in countries with no recognition of gay relationships are more likely to agree with statements like, "Married people are generally happier than unmarried people," or, "The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children."

In other words, Blankenhorn notes that there is a correlation between non-traditional beliefs about marriage and support for gay marriage. He claims this allows us to "infer" a "likely causal relation" between gay marriage and anti-marriage views.

What do we make of this latest anti-gay marriage argument? A correlation might indicate something important is going on. It's a clue that two seemingly unrelated phenomena may be related.

But by itself a correlation doesn't prove that one thing caused another. People who buy ashtrays are more likely to get lung cancer -- but this doesn't prove that buying ashtrays causes lung cancer. If we relied on correlation alone, we'd think all sorts of crazy things were causally related.

Consider what can be done with a correlation used to "infer" a "likely causal relation." People in countries without same-sex marriage are more likely to believe women should stay at home and not work, that men should be masters of their households, that there should be no separation of church and state, that people should not use contraception when they have sex, and that divorce should never be permitted. If these correlations exist, have I demonstrated the existence of a "cluster of beliefs" that reinforce one another, undermining the argument against gay marriage?

Or consider the more sympathetic correlations to gay marriage that Blankenhorn ignores. Countries with SSM are richer, healthier, more democratic, more educated, and more respectful of individual rights. Have I shown that the absence of gay marriage is likely causing harm in those benighted countries that refuse to recognize it?

Here's another correlation helpful to the case for gay marriage: countries with gay marriage are enjoying higher marriage rates since they recognized it. Have I shown that gay marriage likely caused this?

Even Blankenhorn's correlation is suspect. Non-traditional attitudes about marriage preceded the recognition of gay marriage in the countries that have it. How could gay marriage have caused a decline in traditional marital attitudes before it even existed?

Of course, Blankenhorn is still free to argue that non-traditional attitudes greased the way for gay marriage, but this doesn't show that it caused or even reinforced non-traditional attitudes. What Blankenhorn needs, even as a starting point, is some evidence that non-traditionalist views increased after gay marriage began. He doesn't have that. Even if he did, such a rise might well only be a continuation of pre-existing trends.

And even if he had the sequence right, Blankenhorn would still have the problem of trying to deal with the existence of multiple other factors that have plausibly fueled non-traditionalist attitudes. We can plausibly surmise that things like increased income, longer life spans, more education, and women's equality - rather than gay marriage - have led to non-traditionalist attitudes about marriage.

Intellectual guilt-by-association has an easy appeal that may make Blankenhorn's argument an anti-gay marriage mantra in the future. His superficially frightening correlations have to be carefully unpacked to show how misleading they are.

National gay groups are pushing Congress to pass a new and dramatically expanded federal hate crimes law. While the effort has strong emotional and symbolic appeal, it probably has little practical value and may forestall legislation that really can make a difference in the lives of gay Americans.

The current federal hate-crimes law was passed in 1968. It covers crimes motivated by bias against a person's race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. It allows federal prosecution only where the victim is engaged in a federally protected activity (like a civil-rights demonstration). A separate federal law requires the FBI to report the incidence of hate crimes, including anti-gay crimes.

The proposed law would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability to the already protected categories. But it would do more than simply add these new categories to a pre-existing law. It would also allow federal investigation and prosecution of hate crimes regardless of the victim's involvement in a federally protected activity. Thus while it adds more categories it also enlarges the scope of the existing federal hate crimes law.

Having myself been a victim of such an attack 17 years ago, I know anti-gay violence tends to be especially vicious. Hate crimes put a whole group of people under fear of attack.

Some opponents of hate-crimes laws have worried that they will be used to punish speech or thought because they focus on a person's motivation in committing a crime. This isn't a very strong objection. Law constantly inquires into motive and these laws have not been used to punish "hate speech." Law legitimately gives special protection to especially vulnerable victims.

But will a new federal law do anything to stop hate crimes? Supporters argue it will do two things. First, it allows federal prosecution of anti-gay crimes -- something that until now has been left to the states. Second, it gives resources to local authorities to investigate and prosecute anti-gay crimes on their own.

I am skeptical about the practical value of hate-crimes laws. All but seven states already have them, and 24 of these state laws include anti-gay crimes. Passage of a federal bill will improve by some degree the likelihood of punishing offenders for attacks that have already occurred, but that could be done without creating special categories of protection.

We now have almost 40 years of experience with these laws, yet there's no evidence they have actually reduced hate crimes. A new federal law will not likely deter future violence.

Here's why. Bias crimes are especially irrational, welling up from deep hatreds, resentments, and fears that law can hardly touch. They're often committed by young males in their teens and early 20s who don't know the nuances in criminal law and whose animalistic behavior is probably not very responsive to nice legal incentives. Neither the prospect of federal (as opposed to state) prosecution nor the threat of additional time in prison (beyond what the offender would get anyway) will deter bias attacks.

Supporters also argue that local authorities need federal help to prosecute hate crimes, citing the Matthew Shepard case as an example of the high cost involved. But that crime was prosecuted without federal help and supporters cite no hate crimes that have gone unpunished because of expense.

Besides, lack of resources is a common complaint of police and prosecutors. They'd always love more money, but there is no evidence that this is a problem unique to hate crimes. Perhaps the federal government should help, but why give special assistance to the prosecution of one class of crimes that seems no more costly than another?

Further, the investigation and prosecution of violent crime, with a few exceptions, has traditionally been the job of the states. There is no evidence that local and state authorities are systematically ignoring hate crimes under existing laws.

Sure, some law enforcement authorities in isolated jurisdictions have occasionally seemed insufficiently concerned about anti-gay crimes. But where is the evidence of widespread, systematic underenforcement to justify a federal law covering every jurisdiction in all 50 states? We should have such evidence before the federal government intrudes on yet another area of traditional state authority.

Aside from these dubious instrumental rationales for hate-crimes laws, the purpose of them seems entirely symbolic. Like much other legislation, they are primarily mechanisms for groups to raise morale and achieve recognition. That's not unimportant.

But while law can properly send messages about tolerance and inclusion in a variety of ways, purely symbolic criminal laws are a bad idea. They allow authorities to posture morally at the cost of threatening people with loss of liberty and increasing opportunities for prosecutorial abuse. This was one of many problems with sodomy laws.

No doubt national gay-rights groups, especially the Human Rights Campaign, are looking for a victory early in the new Congress to show long-suffering donors and skeptical bloggers they can be effective. Winning on hate crimes may also reassure members of Congress that they can vote for a pro-gay bill without serious repercussions. Other important issues, like employment protection and DADT, are on the horizon. An "anti-crime" measure is the easiest first step and may actually get President Bush's signature, leading to more progress later.

But passing this seemingly symbolic bill may have the opposite effect. It may give the new Congress a "pass" -- allowing Democrats to say they have done something "pro-gay" and freeing them to avoid the harder and far more consequential questions of military service and protecting gay families in the law. These are issues, unlike hate crimes, about which Congress really can do something of practical value.

Two news items in a single week in March together shed some interesting light on the current state of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

First, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, was asked by newspaper reporters to explain why he supports DADT. According to the Chicago Tribune, Pace defended the policy thus:

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace said. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

"As an individual," he continued, "I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Pace said, apparently referring to the military's own constitutionally questionable ban on sodomy.

The comments generated lots of criticism, including from conservative Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a former Secretary of the Navy, who said, "I respectfully but strongly disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral." Pace himself later clarified that he was expressing only his "personal" views.

A significant and growing minority of Americans disagrees with Pace that homosexual acts are immoral.

Even if one thought homosexual acts were immoral, however, it doesn't necessarily follow that gays should be disqualified from service. Lots of people do immoral things -- lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, commit crimes, take the Lord's name in vain, are gluttonous and lustful, worship idols -- but are not automatically disqualified from service on that account. In fact, whatever they think of the morality of homosexual sex, most Americans tell pollsters that they think gays should be able to serve.

Further, Pace's view that allowing gays to serve openly would send a grand cultural message that we condone immorality is very questionable and oddly reductionist. We don't send a message that lying is acceptable by allowing liars to serve.

And the predominant message of allowing gays to serve openly would not seem to be that we condone immorality but that we believe it is good and moral to serve in the military, especially in its hour of need. Why does Pace think that everything a gay person does is mainly about sex rather than, say, honorably serving one's country, as thousands have done in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

All that aside, Pace did us a service by frankly expressing his own moral perspective in defense of the policy. A great many people, in and out of the military, share his idealistic moral view and would have answered in just the way he did. Though Pace and others would no doubt advance other reasons for excluding gays from service, it's revealing that the moral objections came first. They seem to have been the main reason for the policy from the start.

To see why Pace's honesty is so valuable, consider a second DADT news item the very same week. Discharges for homosexuality dropped again in 2006, down to 612 from 1,227 in 2001. Since the advent of the post 9/11 phase of the war on terror, when the country most needs the skills and bodies of its citizens on the front lines, expulsions for homosexuality have dropped by 50 percent.

The common and practical concerns about service by gay personnel expressed when President Clinton proposed lifting the ban in 1993 -- that there would be problems of unit cohesion and morale, damage to enlistment and retention rates, invasion of soldiers' privacy -- have been subordinated to the intense need for the service of these people we've trained and invested in.

When unit cohesion and morale are most important, in time of war, homosexuality is comparatively unimportant. Similarly, the experience of other nations' militaries is that a few open homosexuals are not disruptive and that their service is more valuable than whatever small amount of unease it might cause a few straight soldiers.

Putting these two events together -- the morality concerns expressed by Gen. Pace and the practical decline in DADT enforcement -- yields an insight about how the respective views on the policy have flipped since 1993.

Back then, advocates of gay military service were scolded that the military is an intensely practical venture whose mission is to deter and fight wars -- not a forum for advancing social causes (e.g., the egalitarian claims of homosexuals).

Now advocates of gay military service argue with considerable and growing empirical support that the military is an intensely practical venture whose mission to deter and fight wars is aided by allowing gays to serve without fear of reprisal and expulsion -- not a forum for advancing social causes (e.g., the idea that homosexuality is immoral).

Under DADT, some 10,000 military personnel -- including many with critical skills in which there's a shortage, like Arab linguists -- have been expelled from service solely because it's learned they're gay.

It is now opponents of gay military service who are left to advance a form of idealism that is disconnected from, and unsupported by, considerations of actual military need. Unpersuasive in abstraction, opponents of DADT have increasingly shifted to the practical; shorn of a practical foundation, supporters of DADT must increasingly shift to the abstract.

I have a confession to make: I compulsively watch Ann Coulter whenever I happen to catch her on TV. She's like watching a movie in which you know there will be a disaster but you aren't sure how and when it will come about. You stick around for the climax.

Coulter climaxed in early March at an annual convention of conservative activists, where she said: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I [pause for audience reaction] -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

She later defended her use of what she conceded was a "sophomoric" word by saying it was a "school-yard taunt" meant not to imply that Edwards was homosexual but that he was "lame" and a "wuss." It was also a reference to a recent incident in which TV star Isaiah Washington referred to a co-star as a "faggot." When the incident became public, Washington went into counseling. Coulter cracked that she would never insult gays by comparing them to Edwards.

Was Coulter's use of the word objectionable? Of course it was. The word is a school-yard taunt, as Coulter said. It's been hurled at many gay (and straight) youths as they grow up, to great and painful effect. But how exactly does this fact cleanse her use of it? It works as a taunt precisely because of its association with homosexuality, and because of the implication that male homosexuals are, as Coulter might have it, lame wusses.

Coulter may not be personally anti-gay in the sense of being uncomfortable around gay people. But it's possible to use stereotypes and hate for personal or political gain without actually being personally hateful, and she's to be condemned for that. I don't expect much better from Coulter, whom a straight right-wing friend described to me as having intellectual Tourette's.

Much more interesting was the reaction. From the videotape, the audience appears to have reacted with a mix of surprise, bewilderment, disapproval, murmuring, laughter, and finally applause. You can see from Coulter's face that she herself was a bit taken aback by the fact that the reaction was not universal mirth.

All three of the major Republican presidential candidates somewhat perfunctorily denounced Coulter. Mitt Romney has noticeably adopted President Bush's mantra about homosexuals, affirming blandly that all persons are entitled to be treated with "dignity and respect." Reaction from the conservative blogosphere was, in varying degrees and with varying qualifications, censorious.

Still, why did anyone laugh at or applaud the remark? It wasn't even mildly humorous, either as a reference to the Washington incident, as an anti-gay joke, or as a slap at Edwards.

When I was in college and law school, young conservatives like me adopted a highly adversarial and theatrical persona when it came to politics. This persona was formed and honed in debating societies. We would say the most outlandish things, defend the most extreme propositions, to amuse each other and to annoy and shock liberals on campus. It was and is, especially on campuses dominated by liberal faculties and students -- which is to say most colleges and law schools -- the transgressive and nonconformist thing to do.

It was entertaining and fun, and we understood that we didn't really believe most of the things we were saying in quite the way we said them. The world was, in our rhetoric, one of absolute certainties, black and white, right and wrong, patriot and traitor, admitting no doubt. Anyone who did not hold forth in this stylized fashion was a "squish." It was the conservative version of political theater, fueled by the kind of self confidence you get after a couple of gin-and-tonics.

Back in college, a conservative friend once saw a book about the Inquisition on my desk, then looked at me and quipped, "Pro or con?"

We would debate topics like, "Resolved: The Government Should Surrender in the War on Poverty," and "Resolved: The Public Schools Should Be Padlocked, Not Reformed."

It didn't do any real harm and actually goaded complacent campuses into political discussion. But most of us grew up, got jobs, lived in the real world where much is squishy, and dropped the bravado if not the conservative politics.

Most of us weren't at the forefront of gay rights, but I never heard anyone call another person "faggot." A surprisingly large number of us turned out to be gay.

A big part of the audience that laughed at and applauded Coulter also comes from that milieu. There were a lot of young male conservatives present who are still in college or are fresh from it. They were laughing and clapping, not necessarily because they hate gays or like cheap name-calling (though I'm sure some of them do), but because they revel in this form of rebellion. They can't admit to consuming pornography, or to smoking dope, or to looking at other guys in the gym, but they can applaud things that rightly appall responsible people. There's no excuse for it in this instance, but at least most of them will grow out of it.

Coulter, an aging conservative frat boy, a right-wing minstrel, keeps it up because it gets her money and attention. The less we give her of both the better off we'll all be.

I've thought since about the summer of 2005 that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney - smart, articulate, telegenic -- had the best chance to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008. While his Mormon faith will turn off some Christian conservatives, he's the only social conservative with a decent chance to win. And while Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) will be a real challenge, McCain has a way of getting testy and saying things that get him into trouble. Before Romney is crowned, however, he needs to answer more questions about his position on gay civil rights.

As someone who knows grassroots Republican politics from some experience, I've been amused at the media's coverage of the race for the party's 2008 presidential nomination. The idea, for example, that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has any chance of getting the nomination is laughable. Yes, he was mayor when 9/11 happened and didn't start screaming hysterically (though what his credentials are for "leadership" beyond this have always eluded me). Yes, he's the Republican lots of Democrats could vote for. Yes, the mainstream media seem to like him.

Believe it or not, CBS News is not going to pick the GOP nominee. The nominee will be chosen by a disciplined and hard-working core of religious conservatives for whom two issues matter more than anything else. Those issues are abortion and gay rights. Giuliani is for both; the party's primary electorate is vehemently against both. End of candidacy.

Just a decade ago, Mitt Romney also favored abortion and gay rights. He was one of those Republicans that Log Cabin used to tout as a model. In a 1994 Senate race debate, Romney even argued he'd be a better advocate for gays than would Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). As governor of Massachusetts, Romney hired openly gay people to serve in his administration and on state commissions. He supported the state's law protecting gays from discrimination.

Then came the Massachusetts high court decision in 2003 ordering the state to recognize gay marriages. It would have been one thing for Romney to oppose such an important decision being made by judges. But Romney went much further.

Already thinking about running for president and thus about the Republican electorate he'd have to face, he came out swinging in full traditional-values mode. He not only supported a state constitutional amendment reversing the decision but favored a ban on civil unions. Unlike McCain, Romney supports a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It's not clear that he supports any kind of legal protection or standing for gay families. It's his signature issue with religious conservatives.

At the same time, Romney's reversed himself on civil rights laws for gays. He now opposes laws that forbid employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

How does he square the old Romney - left-of-Kennedy gay-equality champion - with the new Romney - traditional-values guru?

In a recent interview with National Journal, Romney was asked to explain his shift on gay issues. His answers deserve a close look, both for what they say about him and for areas that need to be further explored.

Here is his current view on laws forbidding anti-gay employment discrimination:

I do not support creating a special law or a special status. I've learned through my experience over the last decade that when you single out a particular population group for special status, it opens the door to a whole series of lawsuits, many of them frivolous and very burdensome to our employment community, and so I do not favor a specific law of that nature. What I do favor is people doing what I did [as Massachusetts governor], or what I tried to do, and not discriminate against people who are gay.

So he opposes discrimination but not a law forbidding it. There is nothing necessarily inconsistent in this. There are many people who believe homosexuality is unrelated to job performance but who question the wisdom of antidiscrimination laws. They do so on the grounds that such laws invite not just meritorious claims but also false and strategic ones. That's costly to business and thus to the economy, and thus to all of us.

Now, there are two fair lines of questioning in response to Romney's stated position.

First, is it sincere? Or is it cover for bigotry or for a politics-driven conclusion? I don't get the sense that he's a committed bigot, but it might be unprincipled opportunism on his part. He might be opposing gay civil rights laws because he knows this is what the Republican primary electorate will demand. That's not exactly bigotry, but it's soft-on-bigotry. It would not augur well for a President Romney.

So, let's hear an answer: Does he oppose laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, disability, age, etc.? These laws can also be abused and thus be costly to us all. If he doesn't oppose them, and I'd guess he doesn't, he should explain why he draws the line at protecting gays from discrimination.

Second, if he's sincere about his reason for opposing laws that protect gays from discrimination, what is his evidence for the harm they cause? He was governor of a state that has long had such a law. What is the "experience" that led to his change of heart? Where available, anti-gay discrimination claims are such a small part of discrimination claims overall that it's hard to believe they've been very burdensome in relation to the rest. Perhaps Massachusetts has attracted unusually litigious homosexual employees. I don't know.

What about it, Governor?

Democrats are now in charge of Congress, having gotten there in part with the support of millions of dollars from national gay organizations and individuals and about 75 percent of gay voters. Gays are, indeed, perennially the third most loyal voting bloc for Democrats (behind blacks and Jews). Now, it's fair to ask, what are gay Americans going to get in return? How are we to gauge the progress made in the next two years? Below is a scorecard.

One way to evaluate congressional Democrats is to ask whether they'll be better on gay issues than Republicans were during their twelve years in power. Republicans weren't as bad as some gay activists predicted they would be. In fact, during the 12 years of Republican rule, Congress passed only one major piece of anti-gay legislation-the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Of course, DOMA also had the support of many Democrats and was signed by President Clinton.

In fact, there were mildly positive developments during the Republican reign. AIDS funding remained largely intact. President Bush formally kept in place Clinton's executive order barring discrimination in federal employment; there was no attempt to repeal the order by legislation. The first hearings were held on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

But it must be admitted that Republican congressional leaders tried to do more harm than they actually did, as by pushing for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Republican congressional leaders also set a tone of hostility toward gay Americans, exemplified by the comments of former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) warning that decriminalizing gay sex would lead to "man on dog."

The Democrats will be an improvement on this. The tone will be much better. We will hear pleasing and soothing words from congressional leaders for a change. The federal marriage amendment won't even get a vote for the next two years.

Is this enough? For some people it will be. Moreover, all manner of excuses will be made for any lack of action: why pass legislation the President will veto, other matters require more immediate attention, the Democrats can't afford to be seen as beholden to "special interests," it's more important to concentrate on electing a Democrat to the White House in 2008, and so on.

For those who expect more in exchange for gays' loyalty to the Democrats, here is a point system for grading them.

(1) Federal recognition of gay relationships (up to 50 points): Congress could vote to repeal DOMA (35 points). It could vote to give spousal benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of federal employees (15 points). At a minimum, Democratic leaders could hold hearings on these matters that will get the ball rolling toward eventual federal recognition of gay relationships (3 points).

(2) Gays in the military (up to 30 points): With strong Republican support, a Democratic Congress and Democratic president gave us "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in 1993. The new Democratic Congress could make amends by voting to repeal the law, leaving to the president the power to decide whether to allow gays to serve (20 points). Or it could vote simply to ban discrimination against gays in the military (30 points). At a minimum, Democratic congressional leaders could hold hearings on anti-gay discrimination in the military (3 points).

(3) ENDA (up to 15 points): Seventeen states and the District of Columbia already prohibit employment discrimination against gays. A federal bill making this national policy has been pending in Congress in one form or another for more than three decades. The latest version being pressed by national gay groups would also ban discrimination against transgendered people, which complicates its chances of passage even with Democrats in control.

Congress could pass the legislation (with or without protection for transgenders) (15 points), though it might pass a weak bill with lots of broad exemptions for small businesses, religiously affiliated institutions, and the like (deduct one point for every 10 percent of gay employees not covered). At a minimum, congressional leaders could schedule another round of hearings (1 point).

(4) Hate crimes legislation (up to 5 points): There's no evidence hate crimes laws actually deter hate crimes. There's little evidence the states aren't already prosecuting anti-gay crimes. But a federal law would have some symbolic value. Congress could pass such a law (5 points). Yet a federal hate crimes law might be unconstitutional. Alternatively, Congress could pass a bill assisting local law enforcement with the investigation and prosecution of such crimes (up to 4 points). Hearings on this are of little value (1 point).

Cut this column out of this paper (print it out if you're reading online). Stow for two years. Come November 2008, before you vote, pull it out of your desk and total the Democrats' score. Here's how to evaluate the total:

• 75-100 points: Never vote for another Republican.
• 50-74 points: Democrats are worth our first-born children.
• 30-49 points: Democrats are willing to fight for gay equality, at some political risk.
• 10-29 points: Democrats will do the minimum necessary to mollify gays.
• 0-9 points: Democrats know they can take gays for granted.

It's an inexact science, but a fun one! It may not be enough fun, however, to ease the pain of what I predict will be a very low score.

Bit by bit, support for the military's ban on openly gay service members is crumbling. In a recent and important op-ed in the New York Times, retired army general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997, John Shalikashvili, concludes that the anti-gay "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy should be phased out.

Shalikashvili's stand is especially significant because the Joint Chiefs, who comprise the nation's top officers in each branch and advise the president on military matters, were the most influential opponents of President Clinton's proposal to lift the ban on gays in the military back in 1993. In fact, their opposition to lifting the ban was the decisive factor in creating DADT as a "compromise" that would supposedly allow gay Americans to serve as long as they hid their sexual orientation.

In fact, DADT changed nothing in practice since it was always the case that service members whose homosexual orientation was unknown could serve. In some ways, DADT appears to have made things worse, perhaps by heightening awareness in the military about the presence of thousands of gays in the ranks. Discharges for homosexuality have risen almost every year since the policy became effective.

The basic reason Shalikashvili gives for his conversion is that the experience of the last 14 years has shown that allowing gays to serve openly would not undermine morale, harm recruitment, or hurt unit cohesion -- long the main claims of those who have opposed allowing gay Americans to serve.

He cites four factors as support for his new view. First, we can look to the experience of more than two dozen other countries (including the world's most effective militaries, person-for-person, Britain and Israel) that allow gays to serve openly. These military forces have not suffered the problems predicted by opponents of allowing gays to serve openly.

Second, attitudes in the military have softened considerably since 1993, when many service members strongly opposed letting gays serve. A recent Zogby poll of more than 500 military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq showed that three quarters were comfortable interacting with gay people. Only a small percentage indicated they would have a serious problem serving with gays.

Third, Shalikashvili has interviewed gay service members and learned that gays are already serving openly and honorably in many units. His interviews included "gay soldiers and marines, including some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew." Back in 1993, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) luridly took reporters on a tour of the cramped quarters in a submarine to demonstrate the inappropriateness of allowing gays to serve. Shalikashvili's interviews showed him "just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers."

Fourth, the country can no longer afford the luxury of discharging perfectly capable military personnel. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the larger war on terror, require an all-hands-on-deck approach to military recruitment and retention. "Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job," concludes Shalikashvili.

The time has come for Congress to look seriously at lifting the ban. Other former military leaders and supporters of DADT have urged likewise. A study earlier this year showed that DADT has not only cost the country the service of thousands of personnel, but has also wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in lost training and expenses for investigations of soldiers' private lives. Polls show that a majority of Americans favor lifting the ban.

I'm guessing the new Democratic Congress will be reluctant to revisit the issue just now, however. Other issues -- like what to do about the mess in Iraq -- are far more pressing. The Democrats' Achilles' heel is the perception that they are hostile to the military and weak on defense, a perception that voting to lift the ban might unfairly reinforce. At least that is what they will fear.

Of course, in the unlikely event President Bush were to announce that he favors a reconsideration of DADT, that would give Congress the political cover it needs to move forward. Bush could paint such a move as an effort to strengthen the nation's defenses in time of war.

The change could proceed incrementally, perhaps beginning by allowing gays to serve openly in administrative and other positions where heterosexuals' privacy concerns are least implicated. Or the ban could be suspended for the duration of the Iraq war and then reviewed in, say, five years. Or Congress could simply repeal DADT as federal law, allowing the president to decide what policy to have, as presidents could do before 1993. This would enhance executive power, and when has the president not favored that?

Shalikashvili also wants to proceed slowly with the change, not take it up as the first issue in the new Congress. "By taking a measured, prudent approach to change," he writes, "political and military leaders can focus on solving the nation's most pressing problems while remaining genuinely open to the eventual and inevitable lifting of the ban. When that day comes, gay men and lesbians will no longer have to conceal who they are, and the military will no longer need to sacrifice those whose service it cannot afford to lose."

The new Conservative government in Canada has lost its promised attempt to repeal same-sex marriage in that country. The vote in Canada's parliament was even more favorable to gay marriage than it was in 2005, with more Conservatives voting for it than last time. According to a story in the Toronto Sun, this appears to end the matter in Canada:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he heard the message and will respect it. "We made a promise to have a free vote on this issue, we kept that promise, and obviously the vote was decisive and obviously we'll accept the democratic result of the people's representatives," Harper said. "I don't see reopening this question in the future."

The question put to MPs was whether they wanted to see legislation drafted to reinstate the traditional definition of marriage, while respecting the existing marriages of gays and lesbians. That Conservative motion failed 175-123....

Ultimately, more MPs supported same-sex marriage than in the last vote on the issue in June 2005. During that charged vote last year, only three Tories voted in favour of expanding the definition of marriage. Today, the number who approved the status quo was 13, including high-profile politicians such as Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon and International Development Minister Josee Verner....

The action in Canada follows what has become a familiar pattern. Same-sex marriage emerges (sometimes through judicial action, sometimes not), which is followed by strong political resistance that weakens over time as people in the jurisdiction grow accustomed to the idea and see no ill effects from recognizing gay families in marriage.

The House of Commons has been dealing with the issue of same-sex marriage in earnest since 2002, when the Commons voted overwhelmingly to support the traditional definition of marriage. In 2003, however, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that barring same-sex couples from marriage was unconstitutional.

Gays and lesbians began marrying in the province, and soon other jurisdictions faced similar rulings and began issuing licences. About 12,000 gay Canadians, as well as foreign visitors, have been married in the last three years.

A similar pattern emerged in Massachusetts after the Goodridge decision in 2003. There was a swift and strong political resistance to the decision, manifested in an initial vote to repeal gay marriage by constitutional amendment in the state legislature.

The next year, after an election in which opponents of gay marriage lost seats in the state legislature, there was much less support for repeal and the effort was overwhelmingly rebuffed. The Republican leader in the state senate stated that after a year of allowing gay marriage in the state he had not detected any changes-except that more people could now get married.

Seeing they no longer had the votes in the state legislature to enact a state constitutional ban, opponents of gay marriage then tried the tactic of forcing a popular vote on the issue, which would require the support of only a minority of the state legislature. That may still happen, but it probably won't succeed if it does. Almost three years into the recognition of gay marriage, with no evidence of ill effects, polls in the state show majorities now supporting gay marriage.

Vermont followed a similar pattern, too. In 2000, when the state supreme court ordered the state legislature to give gay couples equal benefits, there was strong legislative and popular resistance to the idea. In that fall's election several supporters of civil unions were defeated in a campaign marked by the slogan, "Take Back Vermont." But the furor subsided, played no significant role in subsequent elections, and is now over.

In states where the recognition of gay relationships emerged legislatively-like California and Connecticut-popular resistance seems to have been even lower. An effort to place the issue on the ballot in California has so far failed. There has been little or no organized resistance in Connecticut.

More tests of this pattern are coming soon. The New Jersey legislature has just voted, under pressure from the state supreme court, to extend civil unions to gay couples. It will be interesting to see whether New York and Washington state, whose legislatures will likely be dealing with the issue in the coming months, meet much resistance, and if so, whether that resistance also subsides after the state gains actual experience with recognizing gay families in law.

If the pattern of fierce-resistance-followed-by-acceptance continues, a future history of the struggle for gay marriage might appropriately be titled, "Much Ado About Nothing."