IGF CultureWatch

While it’s good that Pope Francis is willing “not to judge” celibate gay clergy who are devoted to serving the Church of Rome, I think some of the joyous responses are overblown. But I guess we will see if this is a small sign of a larger shift or just a small step back from Joseph Ratzinger’s view that homosexual orientation itself is an intrinsic moral evil that should disqualify even the celibate from serving as priests. You remember Ratzinger, the former Hitler Youth, Third Reich gunner and head of the inquisition, and, oh yes, Pope Benedict XVI. Compared to that, I guess Francis is a saint.

Still, I’d bet Austin Ruse isn’t happy.

In Chris Christie’s increasingly small-tent GOP, only neo-con hawks and religious conservatives are welcome. As for gays and now libertarians, who needs ’em.

I liked Rand Paul’s tweeted response, reported in the Washington Post: “Christie worries about the dangers of freedom. I worry about the danger of losing that freedom. Spying without warrants is unconstitutional.”

This certainly seemed like a worthwhile idea:

In response to the passage of anti-gay laws in Russia—and subsequent clashes between police and gay activists there—some Chicago gay bars are pulling Russian vodka and other spirits from their offerings in protest.

But there are those who make a strong argument otherwise:

Stoli sent out an open letter Thursday, declaring its support for gay rights, mentioning its history of activity within the gay community in America and other countries. But, Dan Savage posted, this isn’t enough. What are they doing about about the suffering of gays in Russia? Scheffler is one of Russia’s richest men!

There’s a big Western bias in this argument, assuming that Russia’s corporatism is like America’s or Europe’s corporatism. Because Scheffler’s rich, he must have some sort of government influence! There must be something he can do! … It doesn’t take that much research to see how difficult a position Scheffler is in. Russia wants [to renationalize] his company.

In any event, we can agree that Putin is a totalitarian brute at the head of an increasingly fascistic regime eager to terrorize and scapegoat gay people, not to mention allow Russian orphans to rot in monstrous state facilities rather than let any Americans, or same-sex couples anywhere, adopt them.

This, however, is inspiring. The Russian regime should face public opprobrium at every opportunity.

More. Aren’t we glad that Hillary and Obama “reset” this relationship.

Furthermore. Watching the American religious right embrace Putin and hold Russia up as a model is fascinating and appalling. More here.

Still more. The Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 are looking more and more like the German Summer Olympics of 1936.

In the Aug. 5 issue of The New Republic, Richard Posner, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, writes (by way of reviewing books on the legal fight for same-sex marriage) that it’s “The Culture, Not the Courts” that’s the prime driver of marriage equality (now posted online with a revised title). Here are a few excerpts:

If there was a backlash to Lawrence [finding sodomy laws unconstitutional] it was slight, because Lawrence wasn’t that big of a deal. For by 2003, there was virtually no enforcement of laws against homosexual sex….

All in all, the judicial role in the rise of homosexual marriage seems to have been quite modest. Probably the courts have done little either to accelerate the trend in acceptance of such marriage or, through backlash, to retard the trend. In retrospect, the growing acceptance of homosexual marriage seems a natural consequence of the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s rather than an effect, even to a small degree, of litigation.

The point being that courts recognize social change, but rarely lead the way.

Posner also ponders what’s next, noting:

…the Supreme Court is unlikely for some time to force homosexual marriage on states by declaring it a constitutional right. That would be one bombshell too many. The most the Court is likely to do (how likely I don’t know) is to force states that do not allow homosexual marriage nevertheless to recognize such marriages made in states that do allow it. Most states recognize marriages made in another state as valid under that state’s law even if not valid in the state asked to recognize those marriages (Maybe the other state authorizes first cousins, or thirteen-year-olds, to marry and the state asked to recognize the marriages does not allow its own citizens to make such marriages). The Supreme Court may decide not to allow the state to make an exception for homosexual marriages.

That would be an important, and welcome, step. Somewhat contrary to Posner’s thesis, such a ruling seems like it would move things forward to a considerable degree. But I accept his contention that the Court will never get too far ahead of where the people are.

More. At Reason‘s “Hit & Run” blog, Jesse Walker writes:

Contrary to the chatter you hear in some quarters, gay marriage was not invented by social engineers and imposed on an unwilling country. It was invented by gay people themselves, who started getting married without anyone’s permission; their unions gradually gained acceptance in American communities and in the marketplace before state or federal governments were willing to recognize them. It is a classic example of grassroots social evolution…

An historic day for Britain (although Scotland, with its own Parliament, is left behind, for now).

Reading coverage of responses from various faith groups, I hope that denominations that welcome marriage equality will thrive. I particularly liked this:

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “It’s wonderful to see same-sex marriage achieve legal recognition. Quakers see the light of God in everyone so we respect the inherent worth of each individual and each loving relationship.”

As for the Roman Catholic and many evangelical churches, it’s a different and predictable story. A bit more complicated with the Anglicans (Church of England and Church in Wales), which are now actually banned by law from performing gay weddings. Some Anglican churchmen were strongly against marriage equality, but others are opposed to the ban, which reminds us why state churches are a terrible idea.

As noted by the Drudge Report, Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel gave CNN her first interview since testifying in the George Zimmerman murder trial, telling Piers Morgan that during her final cell phone conversation with Martin he said he was afraid that the “creepy ass cracka” following him might be a gay rapist (I assume in more colorful language).

When asked if Martin “was freaked out” by this, Jeantel replied, “Definitely…for every boy, for every man, every — who’s not that kind of way, seeing a grown man following them, would they be creep out?”

But I don’t expect the media will show much interest in whether the fight with Zimmerman might have started as a gay panic attack. [Update: I was right; virtually no mention of this revelation beyond Drudge, even by CNN, which broadcast the Jeantel interview.]

[Added] A rare exception, William Saletan at Slate:

‘Martin, meanwhile, was profiling Zimmerman. On his phone, he told a friend he was being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.” The friend—who later testified that this phrase meant pervert—advised Martin, “You better run.” She reported, as Zimmerman did, that Martin challenged Zimmerman, demanding to know why he was being hassled. If Zimmerman’s phobic misreading of Martin was the first wrong turn that led to their fatal struggle, Martin’s phobic misreading of Zimmerman may have been the second.

People will never agree on whether Zimmerman’s use of deadly force was justified, but IF Martin threw the first punch, as Zimmerman claims, and IF Martin feared that it was a gay guy pursuing him (as his best friend says he told her, moments before they came to blows) and that added to his anger, then we have a more complicated and maybe revealing tragedy, but one that doesn’t serve the dominant narrative.

More. But of course: “A coalition of LGBT-rights organizations has called for justice for Trayvon Martin after a Florida jury on Saturday acquitted George Zimmerman of the teenager’s murder.” It’s a Who’s Who of Democratic party front groups.

Furthermore. Via Instapundit: “Black Man With Pistol Permit Shoots White Teen, Is Acquitted.” Instapundit comments, “Funny, didn’t get much coverage — not politically useful.”

And then there’s this.

Still more. An apparent conflict within the ACLU has resulted in what TalkLeft is calling “a 180 degree u-turn” after which the group is no longer calling on the Department of Justice to bring federal civil rights or hate crime charges against George Zimmerman. That could be viewed as a rebuke to ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, who is openly gay. Four days earlier, Romero had called on DOJ to investigate Zimmerman on federal charges, joining with several Democratic Party allied LGBT partisan groups. It’s also a small victory for those actually concerned about the threat of the federal government respecting our right to be found not guilty by a jury of our peers.

More on the ACLU switerchoo from Politico, reporting that former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser called the initial Romero letter a symptom of “the transformation of the ACLU from a civil liberties organization to a liberal bandwagon organization.” Gay groups such as GLAAD and PFLAG are by now so far down that path there may be no calling them back.

Still more. Via Cathy Young at Reason.com: Zimmerman Backlash Continues Thanks to Media Misinformation. Those who get their worldview from the partisan defamers who run mainstream media will find some inconvenient facts.

Recently, in a posting titled The Ugliness of Reverse Animus, I pointed to the case of a 68-year-old flowershop proprietress being sued by the Washington state attorney general because, on religious grounds, she declined to provide wedding flowers for a customer who was marrying his partner. I asked, “Must progressivism decree that the power of the state be so absolute that there be no exemption from its dictate for religious conviction, not to speak of individual liberty?”

Along similar lines, Bart Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch takes note in a column titled Can gay couples, too, live and let live? of a case in which a gay Colorado couple filed a discrimination complaint against the owners of a cakeshop who declined for religious reasons to make them a wedding cake. Hinkle writes:

But there is another, stronger sort of equality: the equality of authority – which suggests social interactions should be consensual because nobody has the right to impose his will on somebody else. This is the sort of equality most compatible with liberty (including the liberty to marry whom one wishes), and the sort of equality gay-rights advocates should embrace. …

Yet if we are to respect the best arguments for gay rights, then we also have to recognize that those arguments also apply to people like Robertson – and to the owners of Masterpiece Cakeshop, and to others like them. They should not have the power to impose their will on gay couples. But gay couples should not have the power to impose their own will on them, either. “Live and let live” cannot be a one-way street.

Liberty ends when the aim is to force others to bend to your will and do your bidding or face persecution by the state, now aligned with your cause. That, sadly, has been the endgame of too many “liberation struggles.”

I’ve been reading a recently published book looking at opposition to same-sex marriage from “queer” political activists and academics, The Marrying Kind? Debating Same-Sex Marriage within the Lesbian and Gay Movement. The book is a collection of analytical pieces that let LGBT and “queer” opponents of “heteronormality” speak for themselves, which exposes the weakness inherent in much of their worldview.

It’s not that all of the criticism of marriage voiced here lacks merit; it’s just that the typical solution — more leftism; subsuming the LGBT/queer movements within what’s seen as a more important push for broader “social justice” and leftwing social transformation, is so utterly predicable. Dig through the buzzwords and what you end up with is an agenda for bigger government to direct economic redistribution to those deemed more deserving (or more politically useful).

But primarily the focus here is on “Queer scholars and activists [who] have leveled harsh critiques against the movement’s supposed tendency toward assimilationist goals and strategies, with the goal of legal same-sex marriage often singled out as a prime example of the broader tendency.”

Along those lines, I was happy to see IGF mentioned, if only within quotes from a critical academic. In the introduction, editors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor write that

One of the most vocal queer opponents of same-sex marriage, who represents what we term the “homonormative critique,” is Lisa Duggan. … [In an essay from 2002] Duggan argues that for LGBT organizations like IGF, “Marriage is a strategy for privatizing gay politics and culture for the new neoliberal world order.”

Forgotten these day, or simply denied, is how IGF and others often mislabeled “gay conservatives” were making the case for marriage equality over a decade ago, before the mainstream LGBT progressives came onboard. So it’s good to have “queer” radicals reminding us of that.

Another chapter contains interview excerpts representing various ethnic and class perspectives, in which “a thirty-one-year old Asian-American middle-class lesbian” is quoted saying:

They’re just, like, highly normative kinds of things that they want to do. … I understand that some lesbians want to go to some country club to play with their kids or have their membership, I don’t, it’s like they don’t get, they are not really interested in changing, in social change. I think they are really interested in kind of like, making us more like kind of heterosexual middle-class people, also white.”

You get the drift.

This book provides more evidence of the reality of LGBT academia that Bruce Bawer exposes in articles and in his most recent book, The Victims Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind, also highly recommended.

In fact, The Victims Revolution and The Marrying Kind? complement each other quite nicely.

San Diego’s Democratic mayor Bob Filner has apologized for his behavior and said he needs help, amid allegations that he sexually harassed women.

You might recall that last year LGBT activists fell over themselves to support Filner against an openly gay Republican, city councilman Carl DeMaio, in a race with no incumbent.

However, given the political culture these days, I don’t think harassment charges are likely to hurt Filner much.

More. Third accuser goes public against San Diego Mayor… But at least he’s still not a gay Republican, because that would be really, really bad.

The 68-year-old proprietress of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, is the target of a lawsuit by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson because she refused to provide wedding flowers for a customer who was marrying his partner. Washington state legalized same-sex marriage in December.

According to CNN’s Belief Blog, Barronelle Stutzman, an evangelical, “said she agonized over the decision but couldn’t support a wedding that her faith forbids. ‘I was not discriminating at all,’ she said. ‘I never told him he couldn’t get married. I gave him recommendations for other flower shops.’”

Not surprisingly, “Among conservative Christians, Stutzman has become a byword—part cautionary tale and part cause celebre.”

Must progressivism decree that the power of the state be so absolute that there be no exemption from its dictate for religious conviction, not to speak of individual liberty? Apparently so, given Obamacare’s model of requiring private business owners to pay for their employees contraception, including abortifacient drugs, despite their religious convictions. In both cases, the state is not stopping one party from harming another; its forcing what it sees as positive behavior upon those who have a different view.

The pagans persecuted the Christians, and then the Christians came to power and persecuted the pagans. Similarly, there’s more here of animus against those who deviate from the one-true correct political line than anything else. It’s not only mean and vulgar, it’s politically counterproductive. But I’m sure using the power of the state to crush those who don’t toe the line makes those who can now persecute feel smugly empowered.