IGF CultureWatch

I recently excerpted the HIV/AIDS-related items from the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2008 (online at www.glaa.org). The grim survey ranges from Russia (where Moscow officials undermine prevention efforts by accusing foreign HIV/AIDS organizations of encouraging pedophilia, prostitution and drug use) to Burma and Cambodia (where sex trafficking victims are at risk for HIV/AIDS as well as physical and mental abuse). In Africa, AIDS orphans from Kenya to Swaziland resort to prostitution for survival, while adults from Burundi to Malawi rape children out of a belief that sex with virgins will cleanse them of HIV. These heartbreaking practices occur even in South Africa despite its modern economy.

One program to combat the global AIDS pandemic is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It was reauthorized last year at $48 billion, which pays for a lot of effective prevention and treatment - at least to the extent that the funds are not being channeled to anti-science and anti-gay religious zealots.

James Kirchick of The New Republic wrote on March 10, "The problems with PEPFAR were inherent in the 2003 legislation establishing the program." For example, a third of PEPFAR prevention funds were reserved for pushing abstinence until marriage. Kirchick writes, "Many organizations combating HIV - whether groups that worked with prostitutes, gays, or intravenous drug users - have been either neglected or explicitly prohibited from receiving U.S. money, while evangelical Christian organizations have had little problem accessing funds. In this way, while PEPFAR distributed drugs to millions of people living with the disease, the program undermined the global fight against HIV transmission."

Charles Francis, a disillusioned former Bush appointee to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, seeks a course correction from the new president and Congress. He wrote to me last week about the need to reverse the Bush legacy that includes alliances with violent homophobes like Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa and born-again Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza. The latter's ruling party organized a March 6 demonstration in Bujumbura in which thousands of people demanded the criminalization of homosexuality.

"Today," Francis writes, "we see this wave growing dangerously across the continent, from Senegal, where AIDS activists are now imprisoned, to Nigeria, where lawmakers want to jail gay people merely for living together, to Uganda, where three Americans recently held a public seminar on the 'Homosexual Agenda.' It is time to put a 'hold' on PEPFAR until Congress can demand the transparency and the necessary reform for this program."

African despots regularly charge their foreign critics with neocolonialism, and accuse dissidents at home of collaborating with them. In truth, Western nations have been known to use their economic strength to recolonize by other means. But past abuses by others do not justify these rulers' present abuses, and there can hardly be a more incoherent basis for policymaking than using post-colonial guilt to justify subsidizing oppressive regimes. Instead, we should heed brave activists like Christian Rumu, vice chairman of the Burundian gay rights group ARDHO, who called the March 6 demonstration "pure propaganda crafted for the 2010 elections."

I know a nurse who was born in Burundi and who lectured there last year on HIV prevention. He also has family in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he nearly lost a nephew a few years ago when his family took the sick child to a traditional healer instead of a doctor. After tentatively diagnosing a form of meningitis over the phone, my friend angrily ordered his family to take the boy to a hospital immediately. He called ahead and discussed treatment with the doctor, as a result of which the boy soon returned to health.

Alas, many similar children have no relative with medical training to look out for them. American foreign aid can help remedy this, but not if it is funneled through religious fanatics who exploit underdeveloped populations' resistance to modern science for the purpose of spreading their own willful ignorance and prejudice.

We cannot prevent American fundamentalists from promoting their dogma overseas; and we have to deal with the reality that religious-affiliated groups provide a large portion of overall health services in many countries. But our government must stand squarely on the side of science; direct funds to underserved high-risk populations, especially men who have sex with men; and resist bankrolling ideologically-driven misinformation that makes things worse.

This is a good time to take stock of the threats faced by LGBT people around the world. That's because on Feb. 25, the State Department released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2008. The Council for Global Equality a day later released its extract of sexual orientation and gender identity references for 190 countries. That and a list of "Top Ten Opportunities for the U.S. to Respond" are at www.globalequality.org. The dishonor roll includes Egypt, the Gambia, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lithuania, Nigeria, and Uganda.

The Council notes that many of the worst anti-gay abuses were committed by American allies, "including those that receive sizeable U.S. development or security assistance." Egypt was the third largest recipient of aid from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2008, while Uganda is a leading recipient of PEPFAR funding for prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The Council believes that "the State Department must move beyond a reporting agenda to an affirmative 'protection agenda' that actively seeks to redress these serious and ongoing human rights violations."

There were plenty of abuses outside the "top ten," according to the documents. In Russia: "On June 1, gay pride activist Alexey Davydov was assaulted while addressing reporters at the Moscow Gay Pride event." In the Netherlands: The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees "raised cases in which protection from return to unsafe countries appeared to have been violated..." In Cameroon (where homosexual activity can bring sentences of up to five years in prison): "homosexuals suffered from harassment and extortion by law enforcement officials." In the Bahamas: "In 2006 the Constitutional Review Commission found that sexual orientation did not deserve protection against discrimination."

One grim lesson the reports teach is that the sun never sets on anti-gay laws stemming from the British colonial era. Countries from Brunei to Zambia continue to criminalize acts "against the order of nature," despite England's having decriminalized homosexual acts in 1967. Human Rights Watch observed in December that, "the model British-era sodomy law made no distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex, or between sex among adults and sexual abuse of children. As a result, these surviving laws leave many rape victims and child victims of abuse without effective legal protection."

Gay rights groups were among the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that pressed efforts in many countries despite grave risks. They included the Blue Diamond Society in Nepal; Sangama in Bangalore, India; ACCEPT in Romania; Gemini in Bulgaria; and Rainbow Project in Namibia. NGO representatives were assaulted in Jamaica, Honduras, Croatia, Uganda, and India.

Prejudice and violence persist even in countries that have made great strides. For example, in South Africa, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2006, a Social Attitudes Survey by the Human Sciences Research Council found that homosexuality was widely considered "unAfrican" and gay sex was opposed by 80 percent of respondents. Also in South Africa, four men were charged with the rape and murder of lesbian activist and former soccer player Eudy Simelane east of Johannesburg. No arrests were made in the July 2007 murders of a lesbian couple in Soweto and a lesbian in KwaZulu-Natal.

There was some good news. Argentina's National Social Security Administration granted widowed same-sex partners inheritance rights to their partner's pension. Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals on Nov. 28 overturned an Istanbul court ruling which had cited Turkish "moral values and family structure" in shutting down Lambda Istanbul, the country's oldest LGBT organization. The Lithuanian government paid 40,000 euros to a transsexual woman after the European Court of Human Rights ruled her privacy rights had been violated.

The reports for Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands mention their gay-inclusive laws against hate speech. These laws are double-edged swords, because they tend to blur the distinction between mere disagreeable speech and incitement to violence. Denmark's prohibition of blasphemy could place gay rights advocates afoul of the law if they mount a public response to, say, Islamist homophobia. Indeed, one cannot write about European trends in Islamist anti-gay intolerance without being called Islamophobic by gay leftists. But there is no safety in silence.

The State Department reports for 2008, while gathered during the Bush Administration, have a preface by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. This underscores the continuity provided by the career foreign service officers who do most of the work. May their efforts continue and expand.

For months, Rick Garcia has been dealing with people who portray President-elect Barack Obama as "at best half-hearted" on GLBT issues. "These are generally gay Republicans and bitter Hillary supporters," he tells me. "And none of them know Obama or have worked with him. I've known him for years and have always counted on him as a strong supporter of our issues."

Garcia, Director of Public Policy for Equality Illinois, does call Obama's invitation to Rev. Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation a "stupid choice," and has publicly criticized Obama's opposition to civil marriage equality. He nonetheless praises Obama's legislative record in Springfield:

"One of the first things Illinois State Senator Obama did was to be a co-sponsor of a bill that amended the Illinois Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. And he worked closely with us to bring votes to the bill which passed January 12, 2005-after he was sworn in as a United States Senator so of course he did not personally vote for it but his replacement did and he spoke with other senators whose votes we needed.

"Many times he would stop me at the State House to get an update on where we were and what he could do to help. I always counted on him and he was always available to me and Equality Illinois lobbyists."

Garcia adds that the help did not end after Obama moved to Washington. "Illinois is poised to pass a civil union bill.... We approached Obama for help. [Obama adviser] Valerie Jarrett made calls to key legislators asking for their support of the bill."

In fact, Obama takes office with a stronger pro-gay record than any previous president. As a United States senator, he earned Human Rights Campaign scores of 89 for the 109th Congress (the same as Hillary Clinton) and 94 for the 110th (to Clinton's 95). On the other hand, Garcia cautions, "Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod still believe that being pro-gay is politically bad and anti-gay plays to the middle. These boys should give us pause and we have to keep an eye on them." Duly noted.

Obama's invitation to Warren, however disagreeable, is in keeping with his oft-stated commitment to reach across social and political divides. Garcia says, "I have personally seen Obama address the issue of gay rights with individuals and groups that are not receptive to us. I've never had to do a 'Gay 101' with him."

Here I diverge from Rep. Barney Frank, who said of Obama, "I believe that he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences." Someone who overcame character assassination to win a landmark election can hardly be naïve enough to think he can take people on the right and "charm them into being nice," as Frank puts it. Look at it another way: Warren will be blessing the presidency of a pro-choice, pro-gay liberal. Indeed, he has taken heat from fellow evangelicals for precisely that reason. It's not so clear who is being played here.

Obama brings the prospect of nominating more moderate federal judges, repairing America's standing in the world, reversing the assaults on the Constitution, reforming health care policy, and responding to critics without saying "So what?" or imputing disloyalty. Let's also keep in mind that even a gay-friendly president cannot change things by himself. Each of us has a role to play, which should include encouraging the difficult conversations that we need instead of shutting them down.

Reality-based activism is about people with all their flaws and gifts, not saints and villains. There is nothing smart or empowering in rejecting a proven ally, or refusing to celebrate with him, because he is imperfect. Obama is a world-class talent, vastly better suited to the presidency than the smug, smirking scion of squandered privilege he replaces. Of course we must be vigilant and keep up the pressure, but that is done more effectively from the governing center than from an outpost of victimhood.

There will be plenty of battles ahead, as change does not come easily or all at once. Right now a political era is beginning, and with it will come new challenges and opportunities. This is a poor time to let one ceremonial sour note provoke us into sitting out the dance.

On Dec. 11, at a candid community discussion on the pursuit of D.C. marriage equality, a few participants noted that D.C. domestic partners already enjoy protections comparable to gay married couples in Massachusetts and Connecticut. That raises a question: What are the potential gains and risks of proceeding with a marriage bill early in 2009, as D.C. Councilmember David Catania has indicated he plans to do?

There are several factors to consider. First, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia, and past Democratic congresses have infringed on D.C. Home Rule over gay issues. The fact that Democrats increased their majorities in both houses and won the White House does not mean they will respect D.C.'s local autonomy or support marriage equality. The many conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008 certainly will not. Even activists who favor moving forward on marriage equality expect Congress to bar the District from implementing it.

Second, D.C. Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton wants the marriage bill postponed until she can press her legislative agenda for the District, including a full voting member of Congress as well as legislative and budgetary autonomy. Winning those first would put us in a stronger position to move ahead with marriage.

Third, the plan to block a ballot measure on the bill by making it an amendment to the D.C. Human Rights Act (whose protections are not subject to referendum or initiative) will be firmly challenged - including by Congress members - as an attempt to foil the popular will. While I agree that minority rights should not be subject to majority vote, politically this stratagem is too clever by half.

Fourth, nearly 60 percent of the D.C. population is African American, and polls show that a majority of black voters opposes marriage equality while a majority of white voters supports it. Those numbers can be improved, but it will require a concerted grassroots effort coupled with a well-funded media campaign.

Catania claims that those who say "not now" are really saying "not ever." It is absurd to suggest that Norton, a staunch ally of the LGBT community, wants to put off marriage equality forever just because she asks for a few months' delay. Treating those who don't support one's preferred timetable as opponents on the underlying issue is a poor way to cultivate allies, and fails to refute the reality-based activists who urge that we proceed in a smart and strategic way.

Jon Hoadley of Stonewall Democrats said at the town hall meeting that we should make it clear that we will not accept the D.C. marriage bill being traded away for the sake of passing other legislation. That is easier said than done when we lack the votes on the Hill for marriage but are better situated on hate crimes and employment discrimination. Denouncing congressional allies for such pragmatic trade-offs is likelier to grind the national LGBT legislative agenda to a halt than advance D.C. marriage equality.

Until marriage equality is achieved federally, marriages granted to same-sex couples by D.C. or the states will be unequal, and the difference between marriages and comprehensive domestic partnerships or civil unions will be largely symbolic. To be sure, marriage carries powerful symbolism, and nationwide demonstrations on Nov. 15 revealed new enthusiasm. Translating enthusiasm into victories, however, requires political savvy, outreach and organizing. With the holidays upon us and no campaign in place, the prospect of introducing a hot bill in a few weeks seems more a grandstanding gesture than part of a serious plan.

With Catania bent on moving ahead in January, we are faced with recruiting key allies in the African American and faith communities within a few weeks. This work, which would provide political cover for wavering D.C. Council members, requires far more hands than the relative few who have reached across our city's social divides over the years. As it stands, Catania is putting the cart before the horse.

I will be faulted for broaching these concerns publicly, but keeping silent out of solidarity will not make the problems disappear. Those whose enthusiasm outstrips their judgment should stop using talk of a generational split to dismiss the concerns of more experienced activists. Reality has a way of coming back to bite you. Let's work methodically toward real, sustainable marriage equality, not chase a mirage.

If you freeze-frame the Milk movie trailer on YouTube, you can see the "1051" atop the streetcar used in a scene portraying an angry demonstration. The car from San Francisco's Municipal Railway ("Muni") is now a "moving museum" dedicated to Harvey Milk, with informational panels on Milk's career.

In a larger sense, we have much to learn from Milk and other gay rights pioneers -- not just how to fight for ourselves, but how to change the terms of the debate.

The film shows Milk (in an extraordinary portrayal by Sean Penn) quoting Glinda the Good Witch: "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Milk refused to accept the more closeted approach favored by David Goodstein of The Advocate. He understood that gaining power required public engagement. In contrast to this year's unsuccessful No on 8 campaign, Milk debated John Briggs, sponsor of 1978's Proposition 6, which would have banned gay people and their supporters from working in public schools. Briggs lost.

Grassroots methods were also used to good effect in 1971, when members of Washington, D.C.'s newly formed Gay Activists Alliance and others stormed the ballroom of the Shoreham Hotel and disrupted a convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which defined homosexuality as a pathology. Frank Kameny seized the microphone and told the assembled "experts" that it was not for them to describe homosexuality; it was for gay people to describe themselves. He declared homosexuality just as natural and healthy as heterosexuality. Two years later, as Kameny (now 83) enjoys putting it, the APA gave gay people "a mass cure."

Milk's coalition-building has modern echoes. At a Nov. 15 rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, where Milk stood thirty years before, former City Supervisor Rev. Amos Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church and president of the local branch of the NAACP, said, "We live in a nation in which we are in the Bill of Rights accorded freedom from religion and freedom of religion, and no religion tells the State what to do in America." He also invoked the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and said that LGBT people deserve its protection the same as African Americans.

Brown asked religious fundamentalists, "What makes you think that you can protect marriage? When you look at the record in these United States of America, the divorce rate is the highest not in California, not in Massachusetts, but the divorce rate is the highest in the Bible Belt. ... You can't blame gays and lesbians for not being able to keep your own stuff together!"

Brown's fiery remarks are consistent with the prophetic preaching tradition of the black church, a tradition that includes ruffling feathers. In the middle of a recent pro-gay sermon, Brown was interrupted by an outraged younger minister who charged the pulpit and seized a microphone before being led away. (Apparently the younger man was not as compelling as Kameny.) On Nov. 21, some black ministers boycotted the S.F. NAACP's annual fundraising dinner in reaction to Brown's opposition to Prop 8. One pastor said, "The people have spoken on this issue. It became law and everyone should abide by that." The civil rights movement would have died in the cradle had its leaders taken such an attitude.

Professionalizing the movement and hiring experts is fine and necessary to compete with well-funded adversaries, but we must keep in mind what pioneers like Milk and Kameny understood decades ago: that we are the authorities on ourselves. If we win establishment access but forget why we sought it, the greater movement is reduced to personal ambition.

It's not enough to find the right messaging to reach particular demographics. We must make personal connections to ensure that voters know individual LGBT people. After losing an expert-guided initiative battle that cost us $40 million, perhaps it's time to take fresh inspiration from our forebears in claiming our fundamental American right to the pursuit of happiness and rebuking fundamentalists who invoke sectarian dogma to deny us this right that they take for granted.

Naturally, what worked in one time and place may not work in another. A successful campaign requires more than stirring oratory. But the point of any fight is lost if we avoid getting to it. You are the world's leading expert on you. Help make history. Speak up.

He is the most gifted political figure in two generations. He ran a smart, disciplined, and innovative campaign that made the most of his charisma, toughness, and confidence. When hit with a possibly fatal compilation of inflammatory clips from his pastor, he rose to the occasion with a searching and luminous speech on race that dared to treat his audience like adults. He responded to the financial crisis with a calm deliberation that belied his adversaries' charges of unreadiness. As he redrew the political map on Nov. 4, he gave our nation a moment of redemption that prompted dancing in the streets of the world.

In the process, Barack Obama showed the LGBT movement how to win. More on that shortly.

The other big news of the election - the revocation of marriage equality by California voters - has provoked plenty of drama, from massive marches to racial scapegoating. Some are claiming that the Nov. 15 protests across the country are the true start of the marriage equality movement, but that is false. The flashpoint of Proposition 8, like Stonewall before it, galvanized large numbers of people, but in both cases the movement's pioneers began laying the groundwork more than a decade before.

The racist recriminations directed by some against African Americans for the Prop 8 vote were an awful counterpoint to Obama's transformative victory. Some even blamed Obama for the result because of the increased turnout he generated, but Nate Silver of www.fivethirtyeight.com points out that new California voters actually opposed the initiative by 62 to 38 percent.

Furthermore, singling out African Americans out of all electoral subgroups for casting blame, aside from being monumentally counterproductive, ignores the fact that Prop 8's opponents included the California NAACP, the National Black Justice Coalition, the National Black Police Association, the National Congress of Black Women, and many black pastors. That we lost (although the pro-gay numbers improved from 2000) calls not for bitterness but for reassessment and recommitment.

Kathryn Kolbert, President of People for the American Way Foundation, wrote on Nov. 7 about the far right's wedge politics: "The Religious Right has invested in systematic outreach to the most conservative elements of the Black Church, creating and promoting national spokespeople like Bishop Harry Jackson, and spreading the big lie that gays are out to destroy religious freedom and prevent pastors from preaching about homosexuality from the pulpit."

Not only must LGBT advocates improve our own outreach efforts, we need to avoid playing into right-wing hands as we do when we denigrate religion and talk about taking away churches' tax exemptions. We are too often reactive, while our adversaries are strategic. We need to catch up.

In the aftermath of Prop 8, some in our community have resorted to bad old habits: ranking oppressions; referring to "the LGBT Community" as if it were monolithic and distinct from the black gay community; calling the marriage fight a "white thing"; and making disparaging generalizations about one another instead of working to build trust.

Obama's landmark campaign offers gay activists many lessons: Believe in yourself. Tell your story. Frame the issues rather than letting your adversaries frame them. Wrap yourself in faith, flag, and family - the other side deserves no monopoly. Listen to people who disagree with you; you may find common ground and supporters in unexpected places. Do your homework. Organize in a way that motivates and empowers your volunteers. Speak to your listeners' better angels instead of rebuking or pandering to them. Talk to voters like adults. Don't flee from challenges, rise to them.

One who rose to the occasion on Nov. 15 was comedian and actress Wanda Sykes, who publicly came out at a Las Vegas rally, saying that the Prop 8 supporters "have galvanized a community. We are so together now and we all want the same thing and we are not gonna settle for less. Instead of having gay marriage in California, no, we're gonna get it across the country. When my wife and I leave California, I want to have my marriage also recognized in Nevada, in Arizona, all the way to New York. ... I am proud to be a woman, I'm proud to be a black woman and I'm proud to be gay."

The source of progress is risking the next step, whatever that is for each of us. Yes we can.

All the talk of mavericks during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate started me humming the theme from The Magnificent Seven. There they are, a ragtag bunch of rugged loners in a wild country. Will they learn to work together in time to save the beleaguered townsfolk from the marauding villains? Hey, wait a minute - they ARE the marauding villains.

Maybe I just have movies on my mind, since Washington's gay film fest starts next week; but the McCain campaign increasingly feels like a movie in which the director is desperately trying to make us suspend our disbelief and buy the Republican nominee as the guy to fix the wreckage wrought by the Republican incumbent over the past several years.

Barney Frank is having none of it. The congressman from Massachusetts pounds a simple point he has made for years regarding the gay dimension in politics: that the far better record of Democrats on gay rights points to a partisan conclusion.

Defending their endorsement of John McCain, Log Cabin Republicans tout his opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment; but he also endorses anti-gay state initiatives that Barack Obama opposes. They point to Democratic politicians' opposition to marriage equality (displayed by Joe Biden last week) to discredit gay Democrats, but Obama supports civil unions legislation while McCain does not. Sarah Palin's talk of tolerance mirrors the ex-gay movement's love-the-sinner rhetoric, and her suggestion that private contracts are sufficient for gay couples is contradicted by the experience of family law attorneys working to protect LGBT families, who have found that wills and powers of attorney are a poor substitute for marriage.

Frank wrote in 2004, "Only if an attempt to make gay bashing a national political platform clearly fails will Republicans who dissent from that view begin to get the political strength to free their party from its shackles." The Palin choice suggests that the GOP's shift in emphasis this year does not reflect an ideological change.

On Real Time with Bill Maher in 2006, Frank noted conservative dissent against the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling overturning sodomy laws: "The Republicans do think it should be a crime, and I think there's a right to privacy, but the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. And people who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door and do it themselves."

Long one of the smartest and wittiest people in Congress, Frank is now one of the most powerful. As Financial Services Committee chair, he has been instrumental in addressing the financial crisis. On Sep. 29, after a vote on the $700 billion financial recovery bill fell a dozen votes short and Republicans blamed partisan remarks by Speaker Pelosi, Frank was withering: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country.... Give me those twelve people's names, and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them, and tell them what wonderful people they are, and maybe they'll now think about the country."

Frank is one of the sharpest debaters the House has ever had, and his toughness is essential. A favorite Republican tactic during the current Congress is introducing motions to recommit in order to derail bills that are about to pass. Responding to one such motion in April 2007, Frank said, "Members on the other side had every opportunity at the committee and in this open rule fully to debate this and to offer amendments. They chose not to. They chose instead to legislate by ambush."

Frank was addressing a similar motion in November 2007 during debate on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act when he grew emotional while describing the impact of homophobia on 15-year-olds and concluded, "Please don't turn your back on them." The House erupted in cheers.

Frank has no shortage of detractors (a right-of-center gay Washingtonian recently created a Facebook group called "Capital Punishment for Barney Frank"), but that is a sign of his success. As I watched him respond to Bill O'Reilly's charges of cowardice and unmanliness last week by rebuking the Fox News demagogue for his ranting and bullying, I thought how lucky we are that Frank, as The Almanac of American Politics wrote in 2006, "is one of the intellectual and political leaders of the Democratic Party in the House - political theorist and pit bull all at the same time." He's one of us, he's right where he should be, and he's at the top of his game.

I'm sick of the phony reasons some gay people give for opposing Barack Obama. I am not talking about my friends in Log Cabin Republicans, who prefer John McCain for broader ideological reasons. I am talking about angry Hillary Clinton supporters.

For example, Sirius OutQ talk-radio host Larry Flick, still upset that Clinton had not won the Democratic nomination, slammed Obama on Aug. 28 for opposing same-sex marriage. Yet Clinton holds the same position on marriage - except that she would only repeal Article 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, whereas Obama favors total repeal.

Flick challenged Sirius Left host Mark Thompson, an African American minister and activist with whom I've worked for years, on his support for Obama. Flick expressed outrage that Obama accepted help from "blatant, aggressive homophobes" Donnie McClurkin and Illinois state Sen. James Meeks. Yet Clinton enjoyed support from homophobic Bishop Eddie Long of Lithonia, Ga., and from former D.C. City Council member Vincent Orange, who as a mayoral candidate in 2006 called his opponents morally unfit for supporting marriage equality.

Flick said Obama "has not voted in favor of these issues on gay rights in any fashion." In fact, the Human Rights Campaign's Congressional Scorecard for the 109th Congress shows that Clinton and Obama had identical LGBT voting records and earned an HRC score of 89. This included, among other things, voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment. I have not yet seen the scorecard for the 110th, but the Congressional Record shows that in 2007, Clinton and Obama were co-introducers of the transgender-inclusive Hate Crimes Prevention Act - later incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act - and voted "aye" in a key cloture vote.

Flick acknowledged that he would probably vote for Obama given the alternatives, but "I won't allow any of his people to come on my show." He even claimed that Democratic Party leaders decided a year ago to back Obama for the nomination because they never thought Hillary could win. This conspiracy mongering ignores the fact that the Clintons were a dominant force in the party while Obama was given little chance. During the primaries, Clinton landed her share of blows, as shown by McCain's use of them in his commercials. Clinton and Obama have reconciled, and she has hit the campaign trail for him. As Thompson suggested, her supporters should consider the larger stakes and not let the election be reduced to a clash of personalities.

Flick repeatedly said to Thompson, "You're not a gay man, you don't understand." Thompson was admirably restrained. He stated that blacks and gays share a "mutual struggle," and that comparing oppressions was a mistake. He noted that he himself has differences with Obama, "but we would be better off holding a President Obama accountable than a President McCain." Thompson also sang the praises of Clinton, describing the exhilarating moment during the roll call when she moved to nominate Obama by acclamation. He said it was time to move forward together: "Today is bigger than him."

We should heed Thompson's advice. McCain's eagerness to distract voters from the issues is evident in his vice-presidential choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who opposes Clinton on nearly every issue. Former Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, in response to journalistic scrutiny of Palin, stated, "The Republican Party will not stand by while Sarah Palin is subjected to sexist attacks."

Oh, really? Ten years ago, McCain joked, "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." How does a man who could say such a thing about a political opponent's teenage daughter dare have his surrogates cry sexism over press examination of his running mate's qualifications - or declare family matters off-limits, even as he parades the family in question before the cameras? How is an out-of-wedlock pregnancy nobody's business, while it's okay to accuse gay people of undermining families? How in the world does this show McCain putting his country ahead of his political ambition?

Our intelligence is repeatedly insulted as GOP wordmeisters put just about anything on the telerompter that will get a roar from the crowd. Given the recent tone of McCain's campaign, his promise to bring the country together is as credible as President Bush's old line, "I'm a uniter, not a divider."

As Obama said on Sept. 6, "They must think you're stupid." Prove them wrong.

Boston's Saint Anthony Shrine is not your typical Catholic experience. Scott Pomfret, a gay porn writer and SEC attorney who is a lay lector there, writes of when a blue-haired lady approached a Franciscan friar before Mass and pointed to the announcement for the Gay and Lesbian Spirituality Group in the weekly bulletin. She asked angrily, "What's next? You going to have a support group for prostitutes?" The friar replied, "Why? Did you want to join?"

Since My Last Confession is Pomfret's witty and probing account of his struggle with his faith in the context of the same-sex marriage fight in Massachusetts. He attempts to confront Cardinal Seán O'Malley over anti-gay dogma that includes a declaration that Rome's opposition to adoptions by gay couples cannot be disputed.

Along the way he encounters the organization Roman Catholic Womanpriests; O'Malley's motto, "Quodcumque Dixerit Facite" (Do Whatever He Tells You); the macabre reverence within the Church for relics of the saints; and a politically correct Dignity service in an Episcopal church basement. "Before approaching the sacred sawhorse for our consecrated pitas," Pomfret writes of the service, "the Marist reminded us that there was a gluten-free 'host alternative' as well as consecrated grape juice for those with 'special needs.'"

Pomfret provides sidebars explaining everything from Catholic vocabulary to clerical garb to excommunication to Butler's Lives of the Saints. He also lists clues as to whether Cardinal O'Malley is or is not gay (he calls it a draw), and gives a short history refuting the claim by the Massachusetts Catholic Conference that marriage has remained unchanged for millennia as a union between one man and one woman.

Mentioning that he and his partner commit what the 1878 Baltimore Catechism calls one of "the Four Sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance," Pomfret notes that putting consensual sodomy on a par with willful murder is "a tad extreme." He points out that the Vatican's chief exorcist in 2002 called the Harry Potter books "satanic," and observes dryly, "Nice to know the Vatican was holding high-level consultations about protecting children from fictional characters while subjecting the same children to predatory priests." Irreverence here is not just a way of dealing with pain, but a tool for eliciting the truth.

The book is filled with vivid observations, as when describing a spirituality group member whose "legs trailed away from his upper body like a nasturtium spilling over an iron railing." Pomfret can be unexpectedly moving: "An old woman in the second row skipped a whole decade of her rosary, raised her face to the altar, and revealed that she had once been very beautiful."

The testimony by some Jesuit priests against the proposed Massachusetts marriage amendment prompts Pomfret to recall a story about Jesuit missionaries: "So much did the Mohawk warriors admire the priests' bravery that they cut out the Jesuits' hearts and ate them so as to inherit the Jesuits' courage." Much of the book deals with his search for dissenters of similar courage.

He learns to get past his anger and value earlier contributors to the struggle, like the founders of Dignity/Boston in the 1970s. Epiphanies emerge in simple events around him, including a moment during an infant niece's baptism that reminds him why he's Catholic. In another incident, his atheist boyfriend drafts marketing materials for the boyfriend's brother and his wife, a devout couple seeking spare eggs from other couples' in vitro fertilizations, and coins the tag line, "Give us your leftover miracles." This act of grace by a nonbeliever paradoxically buttresses Pomfret's own faith.

Reminding himself that his ministry "is not about me," he finds wisdom among his fellow worshippers. A lesbian named Angela says of her parish in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, "It was the first place I could ever go into and worship with all my parts." A gay father of three explains why he is still Catholic: "It's a Rosa Parks thing. I'm just not moving. It's my Church, too, as much as theirs." Pomfret discovers a network of believers challenging the larger Church to replace its framework of static orthodoxy with one of living and discovering.

Pomfret realizes that Rome is too preoccupied with control issues to consider the value of dissent and doubt in the journey toward wisdom; yet many of its gay communicants abide. "Brokenness," Pomfret affirms, "is an opportunity for the Spirit to enter."

Summer for many of us is a time to find respite, perhaps by heading to the beach to stick our toes in the sand and watch the waves roll in. The problems still facing us in the United States-new ballot initiatives to fight, constitutional liberties under assault, anti-immigrant demagoguery that hampers asylum efforts-can wait a few weeks. Vacation can also give us a fresh perspective. A quick survey of what is happening around the world reminds us that the struggle to which we will return is global.

On July 19, Russian gay activists led by Nikolai Alexeyev were planning to picket the Iranian embassy in Moscow on the third anniversary of the hanging of two gay youth in Iran, as they had done the previous two years. But on July 14, Moscow authorities banned the demonstration. Moscow's gay rights marches in recent years have been met with violence by skinhead gangs under the placid gaze of police.

On May 29, a Turkish court ordered the GLBT group Lambda Istanbul shut down, claiming that it violated penal code and constitutional provisions on morals and the family. On June 4, three gay activists from Sexual Minorities Uganda were arrested in Kampala for staging a peaceful protest at an AIDS conference. On July 5 in Hungary, hundreds of right-wing counter-demonstrators attacked the Budapest gay pride parade, throwing rocks, eggs, feces and Molotov cocktails at marchers and the police.

Even where our rights are significantly more advanced, the struggle continues. On July 10, British human rights activist Peter Tatchell reported that a London tribunal had ruled that an Islington registrar was within her rights in refusing to perform same-sex civil partnerships as being against her religion. This contrasts with the action of some county clerks in California, who avoided performing gay wedding ceremonies by declaring they would no longer perform any weddings.

After a lengthy activist campaign, Tehran-born Seyed Madhi Kazemi, whom British authorities sought to deport to Iran despite his lover Parham having been put to death there, recently won "leave to remain." Yet gay asylum seekers from Syria and Azerbaijan still face deportation from Scotland and Wales. The group GayAsylumUK continues petitioning Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "stop deporting gays and lesbians to countries where they may be imprisoned, tortured or executed because of their sexuality." Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has been heavily criticized for saying there is no danger in Iran for gay people who are "discreet."

On July 1, after extensive lobbying by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, the Swedish Migration Board decided that people who live openly regarding their gayness in Iran should receive asylum. On the other hand, a woman told a Toronto forum in June that many Latin American lesbian and transgender women have been denied asylum in Canada despite having been tortured and raped in their home countries.

International solidarity efforts are hampered by the gay movement's wide variations in its stages of development from region to region. Perhaps our most powerful organizing tool is the Internet, whose power is understood by repressive regimes. A bill pending in the Iranian parliament would impose the death penalty on bloggers who "promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy." One thing we can do is press Western corporations to stop aiding and abetting such repression.

The greatest work of changing minds and hearts is close to home, where family bonds often remain strong despite intolerance and threats of violence. Religious fundamentalisms are a significant factor, such as in Nigeria where Christian prelates justify anti-gay rhetoric by citing fear of losing adherents to Islam. Harsh anti-gay laws dating from the colonial era are another factor, spreading poison long after the countries that imposed them have reformed their own laws.

The rejection of such malign influences suggests a way of turning the tables on arguments from tradition. Gay people in former colonies can point out that, far from homosexuality being a European vice, homophobia is the malign import. European Parliament member and former Polish foreign minister and Solidarity leader Bronislaw Geremek took a similar tack when he declared, "Homophobia is not part of Polish tradition." Geremek died on July 13, but his words still echo. Thus, ironically, an enlightened nationalism may help us as we slowly build our global network of support and hope, link by link.