IGF CultureWatch

While there is no shortage of anger about the result of yesterday's vote in the New York State Senate on gay marriage, there is ample praise for the civil and respectful floor debate. I would agree, except for one thing.

What debate?

A debate requires at least two sides, some exchange and (in a perfect world) maybe even a bit of ground-shifting. But what happened yesterday shows that our opponents have nothing but politics and prejudice on their side, and don't even feel the need to defend them anymore.

Only a single senator, Ruben Diaz, Sr., stood up to champion a No vote. Everyone else on his side was silent in the chamber. Diaz's oratorical contribution did not bother to include any explanation of what might be wrong with equality. The first six minutes of his speech were an appeal to Republicans. He is a Democrat, and wanted to stir up resentment among his colleagues on the other side who don't get much gay support (e.g., in Diaz's pretty naked words, money). He then launched into a lengthy recitation of the obvious fact that there are religions that oppose homosexuality, and offered a complete roll call of the 31 states that voted gay marriage down. Finally, Diaz urged his fellow popularly elected senators not to "do away with the people's will."

Amidst all of this, there was no argument against same-sex marriage (procreation, preserving the state's economic resources, supporting heterosexual families), and it is telling that Diaz felt no need to do so. As Senator Tom Libous (another No vote) said afterward, "I just don't think the majority care too much about [gay marriage] at this time. . . " If you can rely on the majority not caring much about the rights of a minority, why go out of your way to stir the pot?

Yes, Republicans should feel grieved that gays support democrats (who support them), and yes, there is a long and storied history of religious persecution of gay people, and yes, a majority of Americans still continue to oppose gay marriage. The question before the house was "Why?" Why is it good or fair, or sound public policy to favor heterosexuals over homosexual couples?

Compare that to the speeches - pretty much all of them - in support of equal marriage rights. While some of them did invoke political tropes, they all actually engaged the issue before them: should gay people be treated differently under the law than straight people? If not, why not? They came at the question in different ways, but all of them actually addressed the public policy issue. I loved the speeches of Diane Savino and Ruth Hassell-Thompson, myself, but there are a lot of fine, substantive speeches to choose from.

The silence in the senate reaffirms how the tide is shifting. It used to be us who had to remain in the shadows. Now, we and our supporters can take pride in publicly articulating our arguments, while the other side - whether it's in the New York Senate or the precincts of Washington state - seem a little bit embarrassed at their lack of real, civic, credible arguments, and just want to be left alone.

Because existing law already incorporates anti-gay discrimination, our opponents have the considerable force of inertia on their side. But just because you have a majority doesn't mean you have an argument.

***

And I have to add this (kind of) snarky note: Washington's comprehensive domestic partnership law goes into effect today.

Equality lost in the New York Senate 38-24. It wasn't even close.

Again, I hope our folks back there know what they're doing. Perhaps the Senate would reject even domestic partnership rights. But we don't know because, here on the verge of 2010, they've never even tried.

And in the meantime, New York state's same-sex couples have pretty much nothing.

I feel a bit guilty about focusing on Adam Lambert and music and marriage and other local issues when there is a real threat to gay rights in Uganda. "Gay rights" sounds almost quaint in this context, given that the proposed law is the closest thing I've seen in my lifetime to the Nuremberg Laws.

American bloggers seem to have coalesced around calling it the "Kill Gays" bill, and I obviously agree that if it were enacted, it would ultimately lead to that. In its present version, the death penalty would apply to "aggravated homosexuality," which includes sex with a minor or a disability, or someone with AIDS.

This is bad enough. But by focusing on the limited circumstances in which the law would impose state-sanctioned death, I think we run the risk of missing the far broader and more dangerous part of the text: the part that establishes "The offence of homosexuality."

That was implicit in America's ancient sodomy laws, which were sometimes no more specific than prohibiting "the crime against nature." That could be any of a million things, but most people understood it to be homosexuality in some form. Those laws are now a thing of the past, both here and in other civilized nations.

Uganda is determined to uncivilize itself and head straight into a new Dark Age by formally and explicitly criminalizing an offense they call homosexuality. In fact, the bill, itself, says that current law is defective because it ". . .has no comprehensive provision catering for [sic] anti homosexuality."

The bill's single-minded focus on punishing homosexuality is breathtaking. The mere intention to commit homosexuality will expose the offender to life imprisonment. The law also prohibits and punishes speaking publicly in favor of gay rights in any form. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a progressive dream by comparison.

But even that is not enough for this thuggish piece of aggression. Anyone who even knows about someone who is gay has an obligation to turn them in - whether it's a family member, a dear friend or a stranger. Failure to do that is also a punishable offense.

All of this arises from the premise that homosexuality, by itself, is an "offence." Once that is established in the law, everything else flows from it. The power of the state to protect citizens from danger is called into play in all its majesty and force, up to and including making sure that citizens who are not themselves homosexual must report to the authorities any real or suspected violations. This is how genocides start.

Calling the bill "retrograde" seems wildly inadequate. The modern world has come so far on gay equality, and this detestable and gruesome scheme looks like a sick joke.

But it is not. Its proponents have put it forward in all seriousness. Its vile assumptions and loathsome, inevitable consequences deserve to be condemned explicitly. Box Turtle Bulletin has done a thorough and excellent job of covering this story, and its archives are a primary source for anyone who is interested.

Should people be able to vote on the rights of minorities like this? I know I'd be mad -- and probably file a lawsuit -- if anyone tried something like it in my country.

I've been thinking about Adam Lambert from a different direction, which I hope provides context that has been missing from this discussion. In a nutshell, we need to consider that Lambert grew up in a generation that wasn't sufficiently schooled in the double standard he is now struggling with.

He was born in 1982. When he was 11, the nation was having its tortured conversation about gay equality with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, followed by the even worse spectacle of the Defense of Marriage Act. While each was a slap in the face to equal rights, the simple fact that kids - that everyone - could hear this very public political discussion reveals how little was left of the closet during Lambert's youth.

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 70s (and, it goes without saying, earlier) took the closet for granted - which is why so many of us fought so hard to dismantle it. As a boy growing up in California - and in the theater - Lambert may have simply accepted his sexual orientation, irrespective of public misunderstandings of homosexuality. I certainly don't know this, but Lambert's interview on the CBS Early Show gave me the impression that he truly doesn't see what the fuss is about.

That seems to be characteristic of younger people, and it's an important point of reference. They take it for granted that kissing is an acceptable (and sometimes thrilling) behavior, and don't have a different rule for gays. Those who are agitated by a same-sex kiss, from the Mormon authorities in Salt Lake City to the ABC censors, look as puritan and quaint to them as the folks who put Lucy and Ricky in two different beds.

Grabbing a dancer and shoving him into your crotch is a different matter. Lambert made a game attempt to argue it was spontaneous, and that might be true. Or it might not. But whether that instantaneous move was more like Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl or her crotch-grabbing move on the same show Lambert was on, the bottom line is that this kind of thing is a given in popular music and dancing today, across the board. Whether it's local officials trying to prevent kids at school dances from pretty explicit and unambiguous sexual gyrations, or graphic lyrics, or choreography that may be inspired by the Kama Sutra, we live in a world, and at a time, when popular music is a sexual playpen.

Whether that's good or bad, ABC censors and CBS interviewers and all the other fretters and worrywarts who are aflutter (if not a-Twitter) over Lambert give the appearance of inhabiting a nearly vanished world where gay people could be chastised for things straight people do all the time.

Lambert and his generation are reacting rationally to the hallucinations about homosexuality that older generations grew up with and still cling to. Their view is naturally egalitarian; gay people are part of the world. The closet is another risible relic to them, like commercials for cigarettes. They see the double standard for what it is: unnecessary.

I've had music on my mind the last few days, so it makes sense that's what jumped out at me when I heard this radio ad trying to stir up New Jersey voters about same-sex marriage. The agitated, worrisome musical theme kicks in about 20 seconds in, and its tone has pretty clear, recent echoes. It's the same kind of troubling, urgent and grim theme used in the Yes on 1 ads in Maine and the Reject Referendum 71 ads in Washington.

There's nothing new in this. Music is one of the key elements in any kind of advertising or propaganda. But it's still telling. The emotions our religious opponents have to appeal to - the emotions that help them win - are not the fair-minded and positive ones which are the only feelings we have available to work with. We have no agitation or worry or fear to exploit among heterosexuals. They only reasons they would have to vote for our equality involve justice and fairness and an honest understanding of the fact that we aren't so different from them. We can only appeal to what is best in heterosexuals.

The anxiety in the right's music is the anxiety of their movement, and, I am afraid, of their souls.

After a very lively discussion among the IGF commenters about Adam Lambert and politics vs. art, it struck me that we have forgotten about the reason we are having the discussion in the first place: political artists. They're the ones who run the two categories together, and have given some people the impression that art and politics are necessarily interrelated.

I was reminded of that when watching the American Music Awards last night. While Lambert's flamboyant and aggressive performance really did bring "Sexy Back" (with no apologies to Justin Timberlake or anyone else), it was just a performance -- one that involved Lambert kissing one of his male dancers, and making the censors scurry to avoid showing the nation another male dancer simulating oral sex on Lambert. This is the guy Aaron Hicklin thinks is worried about being perceived as too gay.

Lady Gaga gave one hell of a performance as well. But in contrast to Lambert, she is more than happy to take up the flag of gay rights as part of her persona. Most recently, she openly criticized prominent music industry figures whose homophobia and misogyny continue to be a point of pride, and she does it with style and sense.

There's a long line of artists who have been gratifyingly or gratingly political. But there is an equally long line of artists who had no taste for politics. In our highly politicized age, particularly for homosexuals who have to be political in order to obtain our fundamental rights, it may seem to a lot of people that gay artists have the onus of using their talent and fame for the greater purpose of equality.

But art is its own justification. Ironically, Lada Gaga's performance was the less political one. Playing a piano on fire is as pure and striking an image as Magritte's flaming horns - with the added attraction of breaking glass. Lambert's performance was more political, but only because being gay is political; nothing lesbians and gay men do in America can be simply personal, from getting married to joining the military to paying their taxes to burying their partner.

But that doesn't have anything to do with us; it is purely a function of the fact that those who refuse to see us as ordinary citizens insist on having us fight against the status quo in the political process. We engage that battle simply by refusing to deny who we are.

That is a battle Lambert has engaged. But beyond that, it's his call, as it is Lady Gaga's or Kanye West's or that of any other artist. Politics is one available tool to create art. Beauty is another, and the list is unlimited. Only an individual artist can determine which tools work best for him or her.

I confess I am not going to be reading the Manhattan Declaration. I was a Catholic for too many years, and from Timothy Kincaid's description, it looks like there's nothing new in the rhetoric or the justifications. Been there, had my intelligence insulted by that.

But you don't have to read it to see the point. This is the formalization of a new Axis of Homophobia, which begins in the Vatican, runs through Nigeria to pick up the homophobic wing of the Anglican church, and then crosses the Atlantic to plant its flag in the American South.

The only usual suspect missing from the Axis is the Taliban, but they're involved in an actual war, and don't have time for manifestos. The document might seem to exclude them, since it is "A Call of Christian Conscience," but the Taliban do seem to be a good fit. Their conscience is as homophobic as any of these Christians. Maybe next year.

The anti-gay forces are now circling the wagons. As the rest of the civilized world moves past its fevered imaginings about homosexuals, the most intense religious objectors are huddling together for heat. The Catholics, in particular, are feeling particularly vulnerable as the Vatican watches half of its Americans (and God knows how many Europeans and Latin Americans) supporting civil equality for same-sex couples. What's a celibate bunch of fey men to do?

All I can say is I hope they enjoy one another's company. They're certainly not doing much to win over anyone else's.

I have to side with Adam Lambert over Out editor Aaron Hicklin in their recent dust-up. Hicklin is critical of Lambert for conditions Lambert imposed on a cover shoot and interview, and he argues that Lambert is trying to avoid being perceived as "too gay."

No one could fairly argue that Lambert is in the closet, or anywhere close to one. Hicklin's real beef, I think, comes from an assumption that lesbians and gay men - particularly those who are out -- have an obligation not only to be public about their sexual orientation, but also to be politically active. Lambert's failure to fully embrace Out magazine seems, in Hicklin's view, to show that Lambert is backing away from this obligation to the gay community at large.

As someone who's been politically active in gay rights for over a quarter of a century, I sympathize with Hicklin. I, too, wish all homosexuals would spend a lot of their time and resources fighting in the political arena for our equality. It is not fair to us that heterosexuals have made our sexual orientation (not theirs) a political matter, and because we are such a small minority, this places an enormous burden on all of us.

But ever since the time of Harvey Milk, those of us who are active in politics have now and then needed to urge our fellow homosexuals, "Out of the bars and into the streets." Politics does not come naturally to everyone, or even to most people.

I would love for Lambert to use his celebrity to help us cross the finish line to full equality. But the thing is, he earned that celebrity with amazing talent and work, and can use it as he sees fit. He shows considerable and admirable awareness of his own talents and limitations when he says, "I'm not a politician. I'm an entertainer." We can all tote up a personal list of entertainers and others our community has thrust into the political arena to be our champions, only to regret our pushiness. Better for those who are politically inclined -- Dustin Lance Black, Rachel Maddow, Melissa Etheridge -- to take up the cause willingly and competently.

None of this is to say that Lambert will not be helping us simply by being out. Ellen DeGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris aren't expressly political, but like Lambert, just being out is a political act for us, and that's a lot more than any of them, as entertainers, would have bargained for.

Also, remember it took a long time for Elton John to come out, get his balance in the very bizarre world of politics, and develop into a kind of elder statesman. Maybe that's in Lambert's future. He's only in his mid-twenties.

But in the end, that is his choice, not ours.

Did the voters make opposite-sex marriage illegal in Texas? That's what Barbara Ann Radnofsky claims, and there's reason to take her argument seriously.

She's running for Attorney General in that state, and when you read the amendment passed in 2005, her analysis is pretty cogent. The voters in Texas, swept up in Karl Rove's anti-gay marriage fever, amended their constitution to say that marriage is between one man and one woman. They then added this belt to the constitutional suspenders: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Heterosexual marriage is not just "similar" to itself, it is (by definition) "identical" to itself. It's not only hard to argue with that proposition, as a logical matter it's pretty close to impossible. Therefore, a plain reading of this language would mean that Texas is prohibited from recognizing heterosexual marriage.

But Kelly Shackleford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano says this argument is "silly." And I have to agree with her. Only conservative legal thinkers follow the plain language of a statute, and who could accuse Texas voters of being conservative? Them's fighting words. Everyone knows that in Texas, they favor the liberal, Let's Look At What The Voters Really Meant kind of statutory analysis. Words and their plain meanings are for sissies.

OK, I kid Texas (as Bill Maher says). But I still have to side with Shackleford over Radnovsky. It truly is "silly" to think that Texas heterosexuals would discriminate against themselves. Of course they meant only to discriminate against the homosexual minority. Who could seriously think they had anything else in mind? Any other conclusion would be a slander on the good name of Texas Prejudice.