IGF CultureWatch

Judge Richard Posner, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1981, wrote the unanimous decision on behalf of a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, striking down state bans on same-sex marriage in Wisconsin and Indiana. This line from Judge Posner is echoing all over the blogosphere:

“Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.”

Given that two other federal appeals courts have struck down bans in Virginia and in Utah and Oklahoma (both decisions stayed pending appeal), “The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the gay marriage issue during its coming term, which starts in October and ends in June 2015,” reports Reuters.

On the other side, this week Federal District Judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana upheld that state’s ban on same-sex marriage, giving an indication of the hoary old arguments that the anti-equality side will marshal before the highest court. To wit:

“This Court is persuaded that Louisiana has a legitimate interest … whether obsolete in the opinion of some, or not, in the opinion of others … in linking children to an intact family formed by their two biological parents.”

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Organizers of the NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade announced they will, for the first time, allow a gay-identified group to march under its own banner in 2015—OUT@NBCUniversal, an LGBT support group at the company that broadcasts the parade. Actual gay Irish groups can apply to March in 2016, but whether that means their applications will be accepted wasn’t entirely made clear.

Still, it’s crack in the wall, and one achieved in no small major by corporate sponsors exerting pressure on the parade organizers, who have close ties with the New York archdiocese. As the Washington Post reported:

Guinness’ parent company said, “We are pleased to see that the various parties are making progress on this issue.” It said it was open to talking with the organizers about supporting the 2015 parade.

NBC, whose local affiliate has been televising the parade since the 1990s, would not confirm reports that it had threatened to drop coverage over the issue of gay participation. But it said NBC executive Francis Comerford, a member of the parade committee, helped with the agreement to include OUT@NBCUniversal.

From Gay City News, on this week’s U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on same-sex marriage bans:

One suspects, however, that [Indiana Solicitor General Thomas M. Fisher and Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy C. Samuelson ] did not count on getting the sort of tough cross-examination they got from Richard Posner, the most senior member of the panel who was appointed to the court by Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Posner, a father of a school of legal analysis known as the law-and-economics movement and a devoted empiricist, actually mocked the arguments he was getting from the state attorneys, though observers following the trend of marriage equality decisions over the past year might have predicted this result in light of his record of relentlessly pursuing facts and logic in his decisions. Referring to data showing that about 250,000 children nationwide are living with gay adoptive parents—about 3,000 of them in Indiana, he noted—Posner pressed Fisher to explain why Indiana would deny those children the same rights and security of having married parents that are accorded to the adopted children of married couples. The Indiana solicitor general could give him no real answer.

The report concludes: “The Seventh Circuit seems clearly poised to join the Fourth and the 10th in ruling for marriage equality.”

More. Slate has audio excerpts.

Furthermore. Bart Hinkle writes, with a wink, For Straight Marriage, the End Is Near. Apparently, Phyllis Schlafly agrees.

James Kirchick writes for The Tablet about how Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in NYC, the prestigious LGBT synagogue, is now run by a virulently anti-Israel faction that has brought a large number of straight anti-Zionists (mainly left-feminists) into the congregation. This has occurred under the leadership of Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum who, along with her partner, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, make up a formidable leftwing power couple. As one departing member put it, Kleinbaum is “essentially delivering Hamas propaganda” from the pulpit. That’s deeply depressing but the answer is for those of good will to form their own gay congregation that does not preach the left’s dogma of Israel hatred. And the sooner the better.

Back in the ’80s, in the pre-Kleinbaum era, I attended a service at Beit Simchat Torah. It was deeply moving and spiritually uplifting. How sad that this is no longer true.

More. “Alvie” comments:

Bringing in a large number of straight anti-Zionists from NYC’s leftwing feminist community falls under the typical pattern of subverting institutions in order to take them over and redirect them to serve the “progressive” cause. The Presbyterian church is experiencing something very similar — a majority of Presbyterians are not anti-Israel, but its leadership council is now run by anti-Zionists who support a boycott of the Jewish state (but not of the anti-gay Islamic dictatorships that target Israel, natch).

Furthermore. Via Michael Gerson’s Aug. 28 column in the Washington Post:

In a recent essay, Matti Friedman, a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem between 2006 and 2011, recalls being forced to weave a different story: of Israeli oppression and Palestinian victimhood. He says his editors consistently spiked reporting inconsistent with this narrative, even when it included major news (such as details of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s peace offer). …

Friedman blames this “severe malfunction” of journalism on the resurgence of an old pattern. Historically, Jews have been a stateless entity on which people have projected their anger and resentments. With the advent of a Jewish state, those projections are focused on Israel, which gets disproportionate (and disproportionately hostile) attention as the embodiment of colonialism and nationalism — things that European and American liberals find offensive.

“You don’t need to be a history professor, or a psychiatrist, to understand what’s going on,” says Friedman. “The descendants of powerless people who were pushed out of Europe and the Islamic Middle East have become what their grandparents were — the pool into which the world spits. The Jews of Israel are the screen onto which it has become socially acceptable to project the things you hate about yourself and your own country.

Via Reason: Libertarians, Gay Marriage, and Freedom of Association. It’s subtitled, “How the same right allows for both same-sex marriage recognition and refusing to sell gay couples wedding cakes.”

Progressives and conservatives won’t get it.

You’d never guess it from the liberal media/blogosphere echo chamber, but social conservatives increasingly feel alienated from the GOP as the party distances itself from culture war issues (at least outside of Texas and the fervid mind of Michele Bachmann). As the Washington Post reports:

Many social conservatives say they feel politically isolated as the country seems to be hurtling to the left, with marijuana now legal in Colorado and gay marriage gaining ground across the nation. They feel out of place in a GOP increasingly dominated by tea party activists and libertarians who prefer to focus on taxes and the role of government and often disagree with social conservatives on drugs or gay rights. …
The disconnect between social conservatives and the GOP has become a “chasm,” said Gary Bauer, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 and is now head of the Campaign for Working Families. …“Values voters have been treated as the stepchildren of the family, while the party has wanted to get on with so-called more electorally popular ideas,” Bauer said.

Interestingly, the paper notes the antipathy social conservatives feel toward tea party activists (whose concerns focus on over-reaching government). If all you read are progressive diatribes, you would necessarily think “tea party” and “social conservatives” are one and the same.

More. Maryland’s gubernatorial race is a case in point:

Republican Maryland gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan on Friday said his position on marriage rights for same-sex couples has “evolved.”… Hogan said marriage rights for same-sex couples, extending in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants and other social issues “are really decided in Maryland.”

“They have no part in this campaign whatsoever,” he said. “We’ve been completely focused on the issues that all Marylanders are focused on right now, and that’s economic issues.”

Furthermore: Cuyahoga County Republicans welcome Gay Games to Cleveland. As I’ve previously noted, it was reported that the Texas GOP’s rearguard anti-gay antics were a factor in costing Dallas the 2016 GOP convention, which is going instead to gay-welcoming Cleveland.

Relatedly.Via David Lampo at the Daily Caller: Why Republicans Should Pray The Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage:

In short, all but the true believers realize the war has been lost. Unfortunately, those true believers are still the loudest voices in the Republican Party, the ones who write its platform and set its agenda. With them as the face of the party, 2016 presidential candidates who want to grow the party and expand its reach (think Rand Paul or Paul Ryan) will have a very difficult time doing so.

Yes indeed.

While world attention is focused on the Middle East, we shouldn’t forget that in Iran and elsewhere being gay is a capital offense. Via the Daily Beast:

The tragic hanging of two “sodomites” in Iran may seem, in theory, like an obvious cause for U.S. concern and U.S. action. … Yet in practice, those most attentive to LGBT concerns may be the least eager to pick this fight.”

There are some interesting political double shuffles going on as well. The article notes:

When Iran persecutes gay people, conservatives in the United States suddenly become enamored of gay rights—and bash the Obama administration for not doing enough to defend them.

But certain liberal bedrocks, fearing the appearance of hawkishness, have kept mum or worse. Some observations (from earlier this year) on the matter, from Legal Insurrection.

Israel, of course, remains the only Middle Eastern state where gays can live their lives freely.

More. And here at home: Sanitizing terror: Has the press distorted Islamic radical’s crusade against gay men? Clearly so.

Via Reason:

A Denver [gay bar catering to Bears] has been cited by the state’s Division of Civil Rights for discrimination because it refused to let a gay man dressed in drag enter. …

You know what gay people love? Having the government tell them how their various subcultures work and think on the basis of talking to a bunch of people at a bar and looking at pictures. … And to the extent that there are social rifts between various parts of the gay demographic, nobody should want the state government policing how they should be interacting with each other.

The report concludes:

This case is a good demonstration as to why it’s so important to hold a hard line on the right to freedom of association. The Wrangler should have the right to pursue whatever customer demographic it wants for its bar.

Agreed.

More. “Alvie” comments, perceptively:

The most sought-after clubs in NYC and other big cities have a guy outside who selects who gets past the rope and is allowed to enter, based on how they’re dressed and how they look. The only reason this jerk can sue the Wrangler is because he’s claiming sexual orientation/gender identity discrimination, which is a protected class under local statute. But as the story notes, he’s not actually transgendered—just a jerk who wants to sue and use the state to make others do his bidding.

Yes, these laws can be and are abused.