IGF CultureWatch

Maggie Gallagher at the National Organization for Marriage-producers of the unintentionally hilarious "Gathering Storm" ad-has been mentioning "footnote 26" of the Iowa marriage decision quite a bit lately.

For example, she tells conservative blogger Rod Dreher that same-sex marriage requires "the rejection of the idea that children need a mom and dad as a cultural norm-or probably even as a respectable opinion. That's become very clear for people who have the eyes to see it. (See e.g. footnote 26 of the Iowa decision)."

Elsewhere she describes the footnote as "the most heartbreaking sentence" of the decision.

What is this ominous, heartbreaking footnote? The offending bit is here:

"The research appears to strongly support the conclusion that same-sex couples foster the same wholesome environment as opposite-sex couples and suggests that the traditional notion that children need a mother and a father to be raised into healthy, well adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else."

So too says the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychological Association-in fact, every major health and welfare organization that has examined the issue. The Iowa Supreme Court has mainstream professional opinion solidly on its side.

But to say that the opposing view is based on "stereotype" attacks our opponents' last remotely plausible-sounding secular argument. No wonder they're getting defensive.

The use of the word "stereotype" is a large part of what irks them. Those who rely more on stereotype than evidence are being unreasonable. And in the extreme, those who cling to unreasonable views are bigots. Elsewhere in the Dreher interview Gallagher states,

"Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree.'"

Indeed, Gallagher uses the term "bigot" and its cognates no fewer than five times in the short interview.

A bigot if you disagree? Neither the Iowa Supreme Court nor most marriage-equality advocates make any such sweeping statement. On the contrary, footnote 26 is attached to the following:

"On the other hand, we acknowledge the existence of reasoned opinions that dual-gender parenting is the optimal environment for children. These opinions, while thoughtful and sincere, were largely unsupported by reliable scientific studies."

"Reasoned opinions" which are "thoughtful and sincere." That's about as far from "you're a bigot if you disagree" as one can get.

Marriage-equality opponents are increasingly complaining that we're calling them bigots. This leads to a kind of double-counting of our arguments: For any argument X that we offer, opponents complain both that we're saying X and that we're saying that anyone who disagrees with X is a bigot.

Then, instead of responding to X-that is, debating the issue on the merits-they focus on the alleged bigotry charge and grumble about being called names.

I don't deny that some of us do call them names (sometimes deserved, sometimes not). Yet even those who call them "bigots"-such as Frank Rich in his New York Times op-ed "The Bigots' Last Hurrah"-often engage the substance as well. Increasingly, our opponents ignore the substance in favor of touting their alleged persecution.

Personally, I think the term "bigot" should be used sparingly. Many of those who oppose marriage equality are otherwise decent people who can and sometimes do respond to reasoned dialogue.

To call such persons bigots is not merely inaccurate; it's a conversation-stopper. It says, "your views are beyond the pale, and I won't dignify them with discussion."

But let's not pretend that any one side in this debate has a corner on conversation-stoppers. There are plenty of people on Gallagher's side who consider us "deviants" or "perverts," and those terms don't exactly welcome dialogue either. Neither does Gallagher's calling us "liars"-as in, "same-sex marriage is based on a lie about human nature."

There's a more general problem here, and it's hardly unique to the gay-rights debate. Suppose you've reflected on some controversial issue and adopted a particular position. Presumably, you've decided that it's the most reasonable position to hold. How, then, do you explain the fact that seemingly reasonable people deny it?

There are several possibilities, most of them not very flattering. Perhaps your opponents are inattentive, or not very bright, or have logical blind spots, or are swayed by superstition.

Or perhaps they're just being bigots. It happens.

(Interestingly, some philosophers have suggested on this basis that there's no such thing as a "reasonable disagreement," strictly speaking. If you accept P but think that denying P is "reasonable," then you should either switch to not-P or become agnostic about the issue.)

I don't pretend to understand why seemingly reasonable and decent people adopt what strikes me as an obviously wrongheaded position on marriage equality. I think the reasons are various and complex, though they typically involve a distortion of rationality caused by other commitments, such as religious bias.

But I also recognize that my opponents do, or should, wonder the same thing about me-and the ever-growing number of reasonable and decent Americans who support marriage equality.

Which leaves us with a few choices.

(1) We can call each other crazy and stupid, or bigots, or deviants. This is generally not helpful.

(2) We can pretend that we're above all that, but complain that the other side is doing it. This, I fear, is what Gallagher is doing, and it strikes me as equally unhelpful. It would be akin to my saying that Gallagher's position is that you should oppose same-sex marriage, and if you don't, you're a liar (or a heathen or a pervert or whatever).

(3) We can actually engage the substance of each other's positions.

I can understand why those with poorly supported positions would want to avoid (3). That doesn't necessarily make them bigots, but it doesn't reflect very well on them, either.

So a contestant for what is in large measure a popularity contest says something unpopular and doesn't win. Why am I having a hard time getting worked up over this?

I'm talking about Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA, who when asked by Miss USA judge and gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton whether she supports same-sex marriage, cheerfully and politely said no (or something like it-her answer wasn't terribly clear). Specifically, she said,

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much."

Not the most articulate answer (what's "opposite marriage"?), nor the most original ("that's how I was raised"). But I give her credit for grace under pressure, and for owning up to her convictions knowing that they might cost her the crown.

That doesn't mean that her answer was in any way acceptable. Her answer was wrong-badly, painfully wrong.

But disagreeing with her answer doesn't prevent me from acknowledging and admiring her integrity. Generally speaking, I prefer people saying what they believe-even if I disagree sharply-rather than merely what they think others want to hear. It's a trait desirable in both friends and foes.

No one knows for sure whether she would have won with a different answer. But her 15 minutes of fame are stretching into 45 (at least) thanks to the predictable backlash.

Perez Hilton, demonstrating the gravitas, nobility, and calm judicial temperament that doubtless explains his selection as a pageant judge, promptly thereafter called her a "dumb bitch."

This in turn prompted right-wing cries of victimhood. Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage (which released the laughable "Gathering Storm" ad) described Hilton as "the new face for gay marriage in this country." Gary Schneeberger, vice president of Focus on the Family, wrote in the New York Times,

"What has happened to Miss Prejean over the past few days is nothing short of religious persecution. No, it is not violent persecution - but that does not minimize its existence or its danger."

Religious persecution? Because Perez Hilton is calling her nasty names? Oh, gag me with a tiara.

Perez Hilton is a gossip blogger known mainly for posting celebrity pictures and then adding juvenile scribbles to them. (His favorite embellishment seems to be ejaculate dripping from people's mouths.) It's not for nothing that his nom de plume resembles that of someone else who is famous just for being famous. Being obnoxious is what he does for a living.

So it's no surprise that the religious right latched on to him. They've got nothing plausible to say in response to the serious marriage-equality advocates, so they make Hilton the face for the movement and then complain about what a nasty movement it is. Their intellectual dishonesty in doing so eclipses whatever integrity I admired in Miss Prejean.

Why, for example, didn't they cite the letter to Prejean from Geoff Kors at Equality California, a letter which seeks "open, honest dialogue"? Let me guess: it's because gracious letters from true movement leaders don't support their victim narrative.

Even Gallagher concedes, "I don't believe the response-hatred, ridicule, name-calling-by Perez Hilton is supported by most gay people or by most gay marriage supporters."

But then she backtracks by adding, "But, sadly, it is increasingly the visceral and public response of the gay marriage movement to anyone who disagrees with its views."

Sorry, but Perez Hilton's blog is not the gay marriage movement. By Gallagher's own admission, it is not even representative of the gay marriage movement. It's a straw man, which is about the best that they can hope to knock down anymore.

Leave it to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to try to rain on our parade.

I'm talking about NOM's "Gathering Storm" ad, in which various characters warn that recent gay-rights victories are threatening their fundamental liberties: "There's a storm gathering. The clouds are dark, and the winds are strong. And I am afraid…"

The ad, in turn, prompted a number of YouTube responses, ranging from hilarious parodies ("There's a bullshit storm gathering"), to serious fact-checking, to exposure of the audition tapes.

The latter was embarrassing for NOM, since it highlighted that these frightened folks were actually actors reading lines. (Either that, or every single one of them is both a California doctor AND a Massachusetts parent-and what are the odds of that?)

Personally, I don't find it overly troubling that the characters are all actors. The ad contained a small-print caption stating as much, and besides, their forced emotion was about as realistic as the lightning in the background.

No, it's not the use of actors that's troubling. It's the fact that virtually everything they say is misleading or false.

The central claim of the ad is that same-sex marriage threatens heterosexuals' freedoms: "My freedom will be taken away….I will have no choice."

One would think that Iowa and Vermont had just declared same-sex marriage mandatory.

But of course, they did no such thing. They simply acknowledged that gay and lesbian couples are entitled to the same legal rights and responsibilities as their straight counterparts.

How does this threaten anyone's freedom? The ad mentions three cases-presumably the best examples they have-to illustrate the alleged danger:

(1) "I'm a California doctor who must choose between my faith and my job."

Not exactly. California doctors can practice whatever faith they like-as long as it doesn't interfere with patient care. The case in question involves a doctor who declined to perform artificial insemination for a lesbian couple, thus violating California anti-discrimination law.

I can appreciate the argument that a liberal society protects religious freedom, and that we should thus allow doctors in non-emergency cases to refer patients to their colleagues for procedures which violate their consciences.

But what are the limits of such exemptions? What if a doctor opposed divorce, and thus refused to perform insemination for a heterosexual woman in her second marriage? What if she opposed interfaith marriage, and refused to perform insemination for a Christian married to a Jew, or even for a Catholic married to a Methodist?

Or what if a doctor refused to perform insemination for anyone except Muslims, on the grounds that children ought only to be raised in Muslim households? These are questions our opponents never bother to consider when they play the religious-conscience card.

(2) "I'm part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we can't support same-sex marriage."

No, you're (an actor playing) part of a New Jersey church group that operates Ocean Grove Camp. Ocean Grove Camp received a property-tax exemption by promising to make its grounds open to the public; it also received substantial tax dollars to support the facility's maintenance. It then chose to exclude some of those taxpayers-in this case, a lesbian couple wishing to use the camp's allegedly "public" pavilion for their civil union ceremony. So naturally, New Jersey revoked the pavilion's (though not the whole camp's) property-tax exemption.

(3) "I am a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach my son that gay marriage is OK."

Massachusetts parents-like any other parents-can teach their children what they wish at home. What they cannot do is dictate public school curriculum so that it reflects only the families they like.

What these complaints make abundantly clear is that by "freedom," our opponents mean the freedom to live in a world where they never have to confront the fact that others choose to exercise their freedom differently.

In other words, they intend the very opposite of a free society.

According to the NOM ad, in seeking marriage equality, gay-rights advocates "want to change the way I live."

There is a tiny grain of truth in this latter claim. Marriage is a public institution. If you enter the public sphere, you may think or feel or say whatever you like about someone's marriage, but you nevertheless must respect its legal boundaries.

Even so, I think our opponents have incredible chutzpah to frame this issue as being about personal liberty. Freedom means freedom to differ, not to obliterate difference.

Or as Wanda Sykes aptly put it, capturing the irony of the freedom complaint:

"If you don't believe in same-sex marriage…then don't marry somebody of the same sex."

Readers of this column occasionally complain that I'm too nice to our enemies. They may have a point.

I'm an easygoing person by nature. It's not a deliberate strategy; it's just who I am. Usually the trait serves me well, though there are times I wish I had a reputation as more of an asshole. People generally steer clear of assholes, for fear of provoking them, and intimidation has its uses.

Even though my being "Mr. Nice Guy" wasn't chosen for strategic purposes, I try to work it to my advantage. It gives me influence with a certain group of people. And it's shaped my career as a gay-rights advocate, one who aims for thoughtful engagement with the other side.

Such engagement can be productive. For one thing, the more our opponents know us personally, the harder it is for them to demonize us. (Not impossible, obviously, but harder.) Part of my life's mission is to create cognitive dissonance for those who would label all gays as angry deviants.

But engagement is also important because, like it or not, our opponents still capture majorities in most states. I don't doubt that the tide is shifting strongly in our favor, but we've got a lot of work to do. One effective way to reach the movable middle is to take opponents' concerns seriously.

I say "one effective way," not "the only effective way." There's a place for militant activism. And I'm not just saying that because I like getting along with people-militant activists included. I really believe it.

There's a character type in the GLBT community that we might refer to as the Angry Queers. (It's a caricature, to be sure, but like any good caricature it captures something important.) They're angry, and they want everyone to know it.

They're angry at our opponents. They're angry at me for civilly engaging those opponents. They're angry at the schools who host our debates, for giving the opposition a platform, as well as for not providing (take your pick): (a) free parking; (b) accessible seating; (c) more Q&A time; (d) universal health care.

They're angry at the world generally, and they're going to let everyone know it.

There are times when I'm sincerely grateful for Angry Queers. They jolt us out of our complacency. They remind us that these issues can have life-or-death implications. Yes, they make us uncomfortable, but sometimes we should be uncomfortable.

So they have their role, and I have mine. Both have their uses.

It's tempting to cast the resulting alliance as a "Good Cop/Bad Cop" strategy. Tempting, but not so easy. For when it comes to moral issues, "Good Cop/Bad Cop" seems unstable-maybe even unsustainable.

In this debate, the Good Cop tells opponents, "You have reasonable concerns-just like the many other decent people who share your views. Let's hear those concerns so we can address them thoughtfully."

The Bad Cop tells opponents, "Your 'concerns' are prejudice, pure and simple. And the best way to stamp out prejudice is to make life as uncomfortable as possible for anyone who tries to express it. That's how society handles bigots: we don't accommodate them; we ostracize them."

Needless to say, these strategies are at cross purposes. One cannot simultaneous tell people that one wants to hear their concerns and also that they'd better shut up if they know what's good for them.

I don't pretend to have an easy answer to this dilemma. The debate is unlike, say, the health-care debate, where everyone agrees that healing the sick is a good thing, and the disagreement is over who pays for it and how.

The gay-rights debate is a debate about whether our deep romantic commitments are a good thing. It's about the nature of family, the authority of scripture, and other core moral issues. It cuts far deeper than "who pays for it and how?" (which, admittedly, has its own moral entanglements).

I agree with the Angry Queers that the other side is wrong-badly wrong, wrong in ways that profoundly harm innocent people. And I can understand their desire to marginalize anyone who doubts the moral value of our relationships. I get it. I get it strategically, and I get it personally.

But, for reasons both strategic and personal, I can't join their approach. So I keep doing my "Good Cop" thing, hoping for synergy in this unstable but necessary alliance.

March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility. I'm supposed to participate in a panel that day. I'm a bit apprehensive.

Like many gay people, I tend to tiptoe around transgender issues. This surprises some straight people I know. They say, "But as a GLBT person yourself…"

But I'm not a GLBT person. I'm a G person. (Nobody is a GLBT person. You get two letters at most, and that's only if one of them is T.)

One of my earliest experiences with the transgender community involved an angry trans woman standing up after one of my lectures in the mid-90's.

"You've talked for an hour about gay and lesbian issues," she griped, "but you've said nothing about ME. An hour-long lecture and not a word about me."

I remember at the time not knowing quite how to respond. I figured she was referring to transgender issues, because I was pretty sure she was trans. She was about 6'2", and to put it bluntly, she had man-hands.

But I didn't want to say, "Oh, you're transgender." Because if I said, "Oh, you're transgender," I might come across as saying, "Oh, you're transgender…

"…and not very convincing at it."

Isn't it rude to guess? To me, it's like trying to figure out if someone you know is pregnant, or just getting fat. Better to wait until she brings it up.

Of course, sometimes waiting is not an option, such as when a person's gender presentation is ambiguous and you need to refer to "him" or "her." You can only switch to the plural "they" for so long before it becomes obvious that you're avoiding gendered pronouns. I actually had this problem once with a student, whose name was as gender-ambiguous as [his? her? their?] clothing. Turns out she was a MTF who deliberately skated the line as "genderqueer"-something I discovered only when other students filled me in. But absent such informants, how does one politely ask?

Regarding my angry questioner, though, I had no such doubts-just doubts about how to respond to her "nothing about me" complaint.

At the time, I think I said something like "I don't know you, so how can I talk about you?" That was a reasonable answer then. But what about now?

The truth is I still hardly ever talk or write about transgender issues. That's partly because I'm no expert on them. There are only so many minutes in an hour (or lines in a column), and you can't cover everything.

But to be frank, it's also partly because I'm nervous about offending people whom society has already hurt enough. It's a touchy subject, and like many touchy subjects, it's often easier for those of us without a direct stake in it simply to avoid it.

And that's probably as good a reason for Transgender Day of Visibility as any. Our discomfort around the issue-I know I'm not alone in this-means that we've got some learning to do. Bravo to those trans people willing to come out and teach us.

Some gay people wonder why we get lumped with the transgender community at all. Sexual orientation is one thing, they say, and gender identity is another.

That's true as far as it goes, and perhaps it's better to talk about our overlapping communitieS than about a single GLBT community.

Still, the alliance makes sense insofar as both (overlapping) groups suffer from rigid social expectations about sex and gender. Compare "If you're born biologically male, you should grow up to be a man" with "If you're born biologically male, you should grow up to love a woman." The similarities between the two inferences seem to outweigh the differences.

Then there are those who question whether linking GLB to T might slow down GLB political progress, insofar as society has a harder time with trans issues than sexual- orientation issues.

Even if you find those who raise such questions insensitive, it's hard to argue that they're being irrational. In general, society does have a harder time with trans people than gay, lesbian, or bisexual people, which is one reason why the trans community needs and deserves our support.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of us who could benefit from frank and open dialogue about all of these issues. Transgender Day of Visibility is an important step in that direction, and gays-and everyone else-should support it.

Recent discussions of various civil-union proposals have revived some familiar questions, including "Why limit such recognition to couples, as opposed to larger groups?" and "Why limit it to romantic/sexual couples, as opposed to other interdependent relationships?"

Such questions come from various quarters, including both friends and foes of marriage equality. Although they're sometimes offered as "gotcha" challenges, they deserve serious reflection.

I was mulling them over recently when two events occurred that hinted at an answer.

The first was a phone call from my home-security monitoring company about a false alarm I triggered with smoke from a minor kitchen disaster.

"While we have you on the phone," the operator suggested, "can we update your emergency numbers?"

"Sure," I said, remembering that some of my listed neighbors had eliminated their land lines.

After going through the numbers, she said, "So, you've given me your community patrol number, and numbers for Scott, Sarah, and Mike-all neighbors. But this Mark person-what's your relationship to him?"

"He's my partner."

"Um, roommate?"

"No," I replied, "partner."

"I don't have a box for 'partner,'" she retorted. "I have a box for 'roommate.'"

"Fine," I said, "roommate." Then I hastily hung up and returned to the kitchen, since I didn't want my "roommate" to come home to a burned dinner. (Later, I regretted not asking for, and insisting on, the box for "husband.")

The second event occurred not long afterward, when my high school called asking for a donation for their "Torch Fund" endowment.

Some background: I attended Chaminade, an all-boys Catholic prep school on Long Island. For years I notified them of my various milestones for their newsletter, and for years they declined to publish anything gay-related-publications, awards, whatever-despite their regular listings of the most insipid details of my classmates' lives.

So now, whenever they ask me for money, I politely tell them where they can stick their Torch. I did so again this time.

"I understand," the caller replied. "But while I have you on the phone, let me update your records…"

Here we go again, I thought.

Eventually she came to, "Any update in your marital status? Can we list a spouse?"

"Well, you CAN," I responded testily, "but I suspect you won't. My spouse's name is Mark."

"Why not?" she replied, seeming unfazed. "And his last name?"

I doubt his listing will stand long. But what interested me was this: here was someone representing my conservative high school, and she had a box-in her mind, anyway-for my same-sex spouse.

For all I know, she might be a paid solicitor with no other connection to the school. But she illustrates a significant cultural shift toward recognizing the reality of gay and lesbian lives.

The reality is this: like our straight counterparts, we tend to fall in love, pair off and settle down. It's not for everyone, but it's a significant enough pattern to merit acknowledgement.

And that's at least the germ of an answer to the questions raised above.

Why do we give special legal recognition to romantic pair-bonds? We do so because they're a significant-and very common-human category, for straights and gays alike. They benefit individuals and society in palpable ways-ways that, on average, "roommates" and most other groupings can't match.

To put it simply, we recognize them because it makes sense for the law to recognize common and valuable ways that people organize their lives.

Of course, there are other significant human relationships. Some of these, like blood ties, the law already acknowledges. Others (like polygamy) pose serious social costs.

Still others may deserve more legal recognition than they currently receive, or may be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. (I doubt that we need to change marriage or civil-union law to accommodate unrelated cohabitating spinsters, for example.)

But none of these other unrecognized relationships holds a candle to same-sex pair-bonds when it comes to widespread mismatch between the social reality and the legal recognition.

Which brings me back to Mark. Mark is not just some dude I share expenses with. He's the person I've committed my life to, for better or for worse, 'til death do us part. We exchanged such vows publicly, although the law still views us as strangers.

In short, he is-whether the law or our home-security company recognizes it-my spouse.

We fall in love, we pair off, we build lives together. The law may be a blunt instrument, but it need not be so blunt as to call that "roommates."

Sometimes we gay writers do such a good job cutting down one another that we scarcely need our enemies.

Consider a recent column in Bay Windows, a New England GLBT newspaper, where Jeff Epperly identifies me as a "gay conservative" who's a "a bit touched in the head when it comes to sexual issues."

Epperly's column analyzes "the tendency among right-wingers, gay or straight, that the louder they complain about that which offends their sexual sensibilities, the greater the chance that they are getting freaky with those same sexual acts in their personal life."

Apparently I'm one of those freaky right-wingers.

I don't know Epperly personally, although Bay Windows was one of the first papers to run my work, and Epperly was editor at the time. (I have great respect for the publication.) On what basis does he diagnose my supposed sexual neurosis?

Oddly, he bases it on a column in which I, too, discuss conservatives' obsession with sex.

In that column, I point out our opponents' tendency to reduce our sexual intimacy to its bare mechanics. Since they find those mechanics weird, they label our sex-and by extension, us-as disgusting, unnatural, perverse.

My response was to point out that when we reduce it to bare mechanics, it's not just gay sex that's weird, but ALL sex. (There's a reason people call it "doing the nasty.") But it's silly to think about sex merely in terms of mechanics.

I illustrated by way of an e-mail exchange with a closeted gay British 15-year-old, whose parents went off on a tirade about how disgusting it was for a man to stick his penis up another man's bum. (With stunning insensitivity, Epperly describes the youth as "equally obsessed with the alleged grossness of homosexual sex.")

Epperly quotes from my response to the young man:

"In the abstract, of course it's weird (and from some perspectives, gross) to think of a man sticking his penis up another man's bum. But isn't all sex weird in the abstract? Sticking a penis in a vagina, which bleeds once a month? Sucking on a penis, something both straight women and gay men do? Pressing your mouth-which you use for eating-against another person's mouth, and touching tongues, and exchanging saliva (i.e. kissing)? Weird! Gross! (In the abstract, anyway.)"

Perhaps if I had stopped there, Epperly might have been justified in his conclusion: "I know this is simply a gay conservative's variation on the 'we're just like you' argument to heterosexuals, but somehow I think that 'our sex is as gross as yours' is not the most effective argument in the world. But it says a lot about the person delivering it."

But of course, I didn't stop there. Immediately thereafter-in a section that Epperly, tellingly, doesn't quote-I wrote:

"Sex makes no sense in the abstract. But then you have urges, and you eventually act on them, and what once seemed weird and gross becomes…wow.

"Our opponents recognize this in their own lives, but they can't envision it elsewhere. It's a profound failure of moral imagination-which is essential for empathy, which is at the foundation of the Golden Rule."

The Golden Rule is something Epperly might brush up on. Or the Principle of Charity.

The point of that column was that our opponents are using a double standard. For their sex, they see the deeper emotional picture. For our sex, they see only the mechanics. No wonder they find it weird.

Epperly seems so keen to peg me a "gay conservative" that he completely misses-or deliberately distorts-that point.

(Though perhaps I shouldn't write "keen to peg me," since that wording might just fuel his hypothesis about my sex obsession.)

I always find it funny when people label me a gay conservative. It's true that I write for the moderate-to-conservative Independent Gay Forum. And in some ways, given my work as "The Gay Moralist," the label is apt. But in many of the standard ways it's not.

I haven't voted Republican in two decades, except in a primary where the Democrat ran uncontested. I'm an avowed atheist. While I support marriage equality, I don't believe that marriage is for everyone, and in my column I've defended sexual pleasure for its own sake. I've also publicly supported affirmative action.

Of course, even if I were a hardcore gay conservative, I'd deserve a fair reading-just like anyone else.

As a columnist, I'm used to the occasional reader setting me up as a straw-man and then psychoanalyzing me on the basis of that straw-man. It comes with the territory.

But from a fellow writer-particularly one who shares my disdain for sexual small-mindedness and the distortions it engenders-I hope for better.

Recently I wrote about a proposed compromise by David Blankenhorn, who opposes gay marriage, and Jonathan Rauch, who supports it.

On the Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal, the federal government would recognize individual states' same-sex marriages or civil unions (under the name "civil unions") and grant them benefits, but only in states that provided religious-conscience exemptions, allowing religious organizations to deny married-student housing to gay spouses at a religious college, for example, or to refuse to rent out church property for gay-related family events.

The Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal has prompted much discussion, including a counter-proposal from Ryan Anderson and Sherif Girgis at the conservative website thepublicdiscourse.com.

Anderson and Girgis-who unlike Rauch and Blankenhorn, come from the same side of the debate-reject the original proposal as granting "too much to revisionists and too little to traditionalists." As they see it, traditionalists don't merely seek to secure their own personal religious liberty, but to promote what they see as "a healthy culture of marriage understood as a public good."

They believe that the Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal undermines that public good, because

"it treats same-sex unions (in fact, if not in name) as if they were marriages by making their legal recognition depend on the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual. It thus enshrines a substantive, controversial principle that traditionalists could not endorse: namely, that there is no moral difference between the sexual communion of husband and wife and homosexual activity-or, therefore, between the relationships built on them."

Anderson and Girgis instead propose the following: "revisionists would agree to oppose the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus ensuring that federal law retains the traditional definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife …In return, traditionalists would agree to support federal civil unions offering most or all marital benefits." But these unions "would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual," provided that they are "otherwise ineligible to marry each other."

In other words, there would be federal civil unions for gays-but also for other domestic pairs: elderly widowed sisters, for example, or bachelor roommates.

At first glance, their claim that Rauch and Blankenhorn base their proposal on "the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual" seems strange. After all, Rauch and Blankenhorn never mention sex, and the state neither knows nor cares (nor checks) whether people are having sex once they're married or "civilly united."

On the other hand, people generally assume (with good reason) that marriages and civil unions are sexual, or more broadly romantic. Romantic pair-bonding seems to be a fundamental human desire-for straights and gays-and part of what marriage does is to acknowledge pair-bonds. It does so not because the government is sentimental about such things, but because it recognizes the important role such bonds have in the lives of individuals and the community.

Anderson and Girgis are correct that there are other important bonds in society, and we may well want to extend more legal recognition to them. There is no reason that two cohabitating spinsters shouldn't be granted mutual hospital visitation rights if they want them.

But the question remains whether we want to extend "most or all" federal marital benefits to any cohabitating couple otherwise ineligible to marry, as Anderson and Girgis propose.

And this question prompts additional ones: why limit such recognition to couples? Mutually interdependent relationships don't only come in twos. Oddly, Anderson and Girgis seem to have more in common with radicals who seek to move "beyond marriage" than they do with anyone in the mainstream marriage debate.

Also, why limit such recognition to couples "otherwise ineligible to marry"? Can't an unrelated man and woman have an interdependent relationship that's not sexual/romantic?

Anderson and Girgis write that, "Our proposal would still meet the needs of same-sex partners-based not on sex (which is irrelevant to their relationship's social value), but on shared domestic responsibilities, which really can ground mutual obligations."

And there's the crux: Anderson and Girgis assume that sex has social value only when open to procreation. But that's just false, and most Americans know it. We acknowledge sexual/romantic relationships not merely because they might result in children, but also because of their special depth. Sex doesn't merely make babies; it creates intimacy-for gays and straights alike.

The problem is that Anderson and Girgis divide couplings into two crude categories: (1) married (or marriageable) heterosexuals, and (2) everyone else: committed gay couples, elderly sisters, cohabiting fly-fishing buddies, what have you. They then implausibly suggest that those in column two are all of equal social value.

As David Link writes at the Independent Gay Forum, "The authors of this proposal are quite honest that they find it impossible to view same-sex couples in the category of marriage. But if these are the two categories offered: aging sisters or married couples, I'm betting more Americans who don't already have an opinion, would view same-sex couples as more like the married couples than the sisters. With apologies to the traditionalists, the days when a majority of Americans simply closed their eyes to the loving-and sexual-relationships of same-sex couples are coming to an end."

As they should.

There is something very satisfying about ideological purity and the righteous indignation that often accompanies it. It can be fun to paint one's opponents as crazy and stupid (and sometimes they make it all too easy to do so).

Less fun, yet potentially more productive, are attempts at common ground. As much as I enjoy a good zinger, I'm a conciliator by nature. And so I was intrigued by a recent proposal by Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn seeking compromise on same-sex marriage.

Rauch is one of gay marriage's sharpest defenders; Blankenhorn, one of its ablest critics. The two have clashed on multiple occasions. If I had to recommend only two books on this subject, one from each side, they would be Rauch's and Blankenhorn's.

In last Sunday's New York Times, the pair co-authored a surprising proposal. The crux is this:

"Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will."

Currently, various states offer some sort of legal recognition to same-sex couples. The idea would be to provide federal recognition to these arrangements while allaying opponents' fears that doing so would erode their religious liberty.

So under the proposal, no church would have to rent out its parish hall for a lesbian wedding; no religious college would have to provide married student housing to a gay couple, and so on. Any state that insisted on such requirements would be ineligible for federal civil union recognition.

Let's be clear on what the proposal would NOT do. It would not create legal statuses for same-sex couples in states that did not already have them.

It would not prevent gay-rights advocates from continuing to press for full marriage rights, or gay-rights opponents from continuing to make the case against them.

Nor would it "downgrade" Massachusetts and Connecticut same-sex marriages to civil unions. States would continue to recognize same-sex relationships in whatever ways they choose-as long as they don't require religious organizations to do so. But the federal government, which currently recognizes NONE of these statuses, would recognize them all under the common name "civil unions."

What the proposal would do is allow the federal government to say, "If your state recognizes you as a couple, so do we." It thus takes federalism seriously, with the federal government deferring to the states on the issue of who's legally united-as it usually does.

The proposal has already generated a good bit of discussion in the blogosphere. Some of it simply misunderstands the proposal; much of it-not surprisingly-is critical.

Certainly, the proposal deserves a rigorous discussion from all sides. In order for that discussion to be more productive, I'd like humbly to suggest some guidelines:

Rule #1: Do not criticize the proposal by saying, "The other side is not going to like it because…" Let the other side speak for the other side.

Rule #2: Do not respond to an admirable attempt at peaceful negotiation by immediately ratcheting up the rhetoric. For example, at the National Review Online Maggie Gallagher writes, "From where I stand, it looks like the progressive/democrat position states: If you believe marriage means a husband and wife, you are not just wrong, you are downright wicked and deserve to have your home address put up on the internet so strangers can harass you."

Oy. That violates Rule #1 and Rule #2-in one sentence!

Nobody doubts that there has been excessive rhetoric on both sides. There are advocates who claim that anyone who opposes marriage equality is a hateful bigot; there are opponents who hold that gays by their very existence offend God.

But thankfully, there are also those like Blankenhorn and Rauch who are interested in moving us past such conversation-stoppers. Let's take the cue.

Rule #3: If you don't like the proposal, suggest a better idea.

Note: "Give us full marriage equality!" is not what I mean by a better idea. Sure, that's what would happen in my ideal world. Rauch's too. And no one is saying that we should stop making the case for it.

But in the meantime, there's a proposal on the table that would provide federal rights and benefits to those in state-issued same-sex unions. Moreover, it's a proposal that one major same-sex marriage opponent has endorsed.

I don't doubt that the proposal prompts some legitimate concerns on both sides. But if we can discuss those concerns with the same spirit of cooperation that Blankenhorn and Rauch have demonstrated, we might actually make some progress.

I've been a member of the American Philosophical Association (APA) for about fifteen years. I go to the annual meetings, I get the publications, and I peruse the frightfully scarce listings in "Jobs for Philosophers."

Last week a colleague sent me a petition addressed to the APA. The petition notes that many universities "require faculty, students, and staff to follow certain 'ethical' standards which prohibit engaging in homosexual acts," and that some of these advertise in "Jobs for Philosophers."

It goes on to point out that the APA's anti-discrimination policy "rejects as unethical all forms of discrimination based on race, color, religion, political convictions, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification or age, whether in graduate admissions, appointments, retention, promotion and tenure, manuscript evaluation, salary determination, [etc.]."

Philosophers hate contradictions, and the petitioners detect one here. Arguing that these anti-gay ethical codes run afoul of the APA anti-discrimination policy, they conclude:

"We, the undersigned, request that the American Philosophical Association either (1) enforce its policy and prohibit institutions that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation from advertising in 'Jobs for Philosophers' or (2) clearly mark institutions with these policies as institutions that violate our anti-discrimination policy."

One would think that as a longtime openly gay philosopher, I would jump at the chance to sign this petition. But I paused.

Part of my hesitation may strike non-philosophers as nitpicky. It seems to me that there's no contradiction in prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation while allowing it on the basis of sexual conduct. The schools mentioned don't exclude gay people; they exclude people who engage in homosexual acts. It's a fine line, perhaps, but philosophers like fine lines.

Generally speaking, these prohibitions are part of a more general effort to preserve the schools' robust religious character. Schools that prohibit gay sex generally prohibit pre-marital and extramarital sex as well; some even prohibit the drinking of alcohol. (Philosophy without beer? Count me out.)

At the same time, the APA policy recognizes the special commitments of religious institutions and allows them to discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation as long as-and this is key-"the criteria for such religious affiliations do not discriminate against persons according to the other attributes listed."

I admire the petitioners for recognizing the serious injustices that daily confront gays and lesbians and for seeking to remedy those injustices.

I also agree that, while there's a difference between orientation and conduct, the two cannot be teased apart as easily as some religious conservatives would like. Who we are is intimately connected with what we do-especially when it comes to deep personal relationships. Those who profess to "love the sinner but hate the sin" often distort that deep connection.

So let's grant that these schools, even if they don't contradict the letter of the APA's policy, violate its spirit. The APA is (or should be) saying "If you're against gays, we're against you." Why not?

Some might worry that the petitioners' stance violates freedom of association. If you want to organize a school committed to conservative Christian principles-including opposition to homosexuality-a free society ought to allow you to do so.

But no one is suggesting that such schools should be abolished. Rather, they're suggesting that APA-a private voluntary organization-ought to be allowed to dissociate itself from such schools.

Freedom of association cuts both ways, and if individuals are free to form schools that exclude gays, other individuals should be free to form professional organizations that exclude the excluders from advertising in their publications.

Indeed, the petition even concedes that the schools might be allowed to continue their advertising, provided that they are identified as violating the APA's policy. Given the schools' presumed pride in their ethical commitments, they should have little objection to asterisks announcing what they're doing.

That concession strikes me as a reasonable compromise: you can advertise here, as long as we can alert people to your policies and express our moral objection to them.

But when are asterisks insufficient? Suppose a school had "ethical" standards prohibiting interracial dating (as Bob Jones University did until 2000). If such a school should be completely excluded from our organization, why not schools that prohibit homosexual conduct?

On the merits, I think the cases are similar. But pragmatically speaking, our culture is at very different places on those two issues. Excluding schools that in 2009 prohibit homosexual conduct is not like excluding schools that in 2009 prohibit interracial dating; it's like excluding schools that in 1950 prohibit interracial dating.

Such absolute bans have a cost, since they remove the offending schools from the kind of critical environments that might hasten a change in their policies.

In the end, I will likely sign the petition. But I will do so hoping for the "asterisk" option. It's not because the APA needs those schools. It's because those schools, more than most, need us.