IGF CultureWatch

While advocates for gay equality feel, with justification, that the Boy Scouts of America’s vote to end the ban on gay scouts up to age 18 while maintaining its prohibition on gay scoutmasters is an unacceptable halfway step, the socially conservative Washington Times reports that accepting openly gay scouts at all is a major defeat for Christian Right evangelicals:

Signs of waning evangelical power in the nation’s culture wars and in Republican policy—and some unexpected challenges for GOP candidates—loom as the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America gears up for a definitive vote this week on whether to welcome openly gay youths into the organization’s ranks.

If the BSA delegates gathering just outside Dallas vote to admit gays, it will reinforce the growing notion that evangelical Protestants and their conservative Catholic allies no longer can muster their troops as they once did, in such battles as state referendums over same-sex marriage and the 1996 enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Interestingly, the article also points out that the Mormon church, which sponsors more than a third of all scout troops in America, “has moved on to other battles in the cultural wars rather than take on the gay-rights activists.” This is similar to what we previously noted about the Mormons’ absence of late from the religious right’s political fight against marriage equality. It’s a good sign, as neutrality in practice is far better for us than engaged opposition, and if it lasts it will leave the evangelicals and the Catholic church down a major ally.

David Boaz takes note of:

Interesting evidence of movement among Republicans [on gay marriage]. A strong majority of voters in Virginia, a state that passed a gay marriage ban in 2006, and 40 percent of Republicans now say “it should be legal for gay couples to get married.” …

How has public opinion in Virginia changed since the 2006 amendment vote? Support for gay marriage (or opposition to a ban) has risen by 13 points. Independents are up only 3 points. Democrats are up by 7 points, perhaps because of the endorsement of President Obama. And Republican support is up 25 points.

And yet the party’s most likely future standard-bearers aren’t budging, perhaps because they are beholden to a dysfunctional primary and (especially) caucus system that gives disproportional voice and presidential-nominee veto power to an increasingly smaller and shiller faction of religious theocrats, those contemporary pharisees who thoroughly pervert the gospel message. It’s particularly disappointing to see Sen. Rand Paul moving to woo the them, as the Washington Post reports:

Earlier this spring, Sen. Rand Paul and his wife, Kelley, invited a crew from the Christian Broadcasting Network into their Kentucky home for what turned into two full days of reality TV. In a half-hour special, “At Home With Rand Paul,” the couple are seen bird-watching in the woods, going to McDonald’s and, especially, talking about religion—their belief in traditional marriage and the senator’s call for a “spiritual cleansing” in America. …

He said he’s not ready to “give up on” the traditional family unit. But he added that it is a mistake for conservatives to support a federal ban on same-sex marriage, saying, “We’re going to lose that battle because the country is going the other way right now.”

“If we’re to say each state can decide, I think a good 25 or 30 states still do believe in traditional marriage, and maybe we allow that debate to go on for another couple of decades and see if we can still win back the hearts and minds of people,” he said.

Paul has called on the GOP to “embrace liberty in both the economic and the personal sphere,” which seems inconsistent with his message to the Christian right, and counter-productive given where the electorate is going. As Nick Gillespie points out:

If Paul continues to send significantly different messages to different audiences, he will end up alienating all his possible supporters. … If he’s serious about scraping the moss off the Republican Party, he needs to boldly defend his most contrarian, libertarian positions rather than temper his comments based on his speaking venue.”

Practically speaking, N.J. Gov. Chris Christie would be the most (and maybe, really, the only) electable Republican in 2016, and he’d probably be more electable if he came out in favor of marriage equality for gay couples. But he’d have to survive the evangelical-dominated Iowa caucuses.

[Since comments on the Washington Post website (not here) regarding the Rand Paul article have veered into attacks on religion, I should note that I use “evangelical” above in the Christian-right political sense of advocating the use of the state to enforce an agenda of animus; not in the gospel sense of spreading the good news of God’s unbounded and transformative love.]

More. From David Boaz: Virginia Republican Candidates Not Joining 21st Century: “[T]here’s a reason that a report by the Republican National Committee found that voters see the GOP as “scary,” “narrow minded,” and “out of touch” — and the Virginia Republican ticket is part of that reason.”

More on Paul. Campaigning, er, “speaking” in New Hampshire, Sen. Paul has not made noticeable mention of gay marriage or related issues. He’s hitting hard on the more libertarian-conservative issues, as in his remarks via C-SPAN at a recent New Hampshire Liberty Dinner were he castigated the enormity of misdirected government spending at a time when Obama is crying poverty over his still bloated budget (millions were just spent making the embassy in Vienna, Austria, a “green” showcase while Obama blames Republicans for not giving him enough money to provide security for the consulate in Benghazie).

If you take another look at Paul’s remarks to evangelical leaders, while he told them much of what they wanted to hear (he personally opposes same-sex marriage; his reported “spiritual cleansing” remark), when it comes to politics he didn’t put much on the table (he opposes the anti-gay federal marriage amendment, for instance.) But whether he can mitigate evangelical opposition with rhetoric while not alienating independents and social libertarians remains an open question.

Via Mother Jones: “It’s remarkable what has happened in the marriage fight since the Mormons decided to abandon it.” Moreover:

The pullback of the LDS church may also have the unexpected effect of allowing more Republican elected officials to back marriage equality without fear of suffering at the polls. (Mormons are among the country’s most reliable Republican voters.) Republicans in Rhode Island and Delaware were a key factor in marriage advocates’ success, says HRC’s Nix.

Another sign of the times.

This first-person column from Minnesota makes as good a case as any about the profound change in attitude toward gay people by a majority of heterosexuals over the past two decades.

With Rhode Island, Delaware, and very soon Minnesota joining the states that recognize gay marriage— all since the Supreme Court heard arguments to scrap enshrined federal discrimination under the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act—what’s amazing is how little controversy is being generated. And yet the GOP remains supplicant to an ever-smaller and increasingly disdained minority of bigots. That can’t last, and it won’t.

Until even just a few years ago, you could say these people were just ignorant, or were understandably cautious about major societal change. But that argument no longer holds water (sorry, Mona Charen). Gay marriage provides legal equality and promotes stability and mutual care, as gay families take their place in society. Nowhere does it have the fearsome repercussions that conservatives feared. Instead, it has undercut the radical sexual liberationists who did want the gay movement to be a front in the struggle against bourgeois normality.

That gay people for the most part remain, politically, chained at the hip to the left-liberal party of bigger government and regulatory strangulation is to a great extent the result of the conservative party’s intransigence. But just as few expected the Soviet Union to come tumbling down so quickly, I think the GOP could soon undergo a sea change that isn’t apparent right now but might be just around an historic corner.

Committed gay partners, including those legally married in U.S. states that recognize their unions or in foreign countries that do, are tragically denied permanent residency in the U.S., causing the couple to relocate outside the country or resulting in painful separations. The primary culprit is the Defense of Marriage Act, whose constitutionality is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. DOMA forbids the federal government from recognizing gay legal unions.

Congress is now formulating an immigration reform bill, and LGBT political groups are making a concerted effort to include within it the Uniting American Families Act, which would let permanent partners of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents obtain permanent resident status. President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have announced their support for including the measure in the broader bill. Republicans pushing for immigration reform, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), have said that gay inclusion would be a deal killer.

Responded Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin, quoted in the Washington Blade, “The LGBT community will not stand for Congress placing the blame of their own dysfunction on our shoulders.”

IGF’s own Jonathan Rauch penned an impassioned commentary at the liberal Daily Beast saying “Really? Republicans will deep-six the entire effort and demolish themselves with Latino voters, business interests, and young people to prevent gay people from having someone to take care of them?” Jonathan rightly explains that

From a conservative point of view—indeed, from a social conservative point of view—keeping same-sex life partners out of the country makes even less sense substantively than it does politically. It betrays rather than upholds conservative values.

I agree with that point (though I’m not sure the Daily Beast site is the place to reach conservatives with conservative arguments). And yet…something isn’t quite right here. If the Supreme Court strikes down the DOMA section that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, then gay couples married in states or countries that recognized their unions would presumably have their relationships recognized by the federal government and its immigration enforcement authorities on a par with heterosexual marriages.

The Supreme Court’s decision will be handed down next month. So, why go to the mat demanding inclusion of “permanent partner” residency, which includes those couples not married in states that recognize same-sex marriages or in foreign nations that do— a more liberal and problematic standard than spousal residency?

There is a view among conservatives that Obama and the Democrats wouldn’t mind seeing the immigration bill “deep-sixed” because they see its passage or not as a win-win: If it becomes law, they’ll take credit; if it fails, they’ll blame Republicans and use the issue to galvanize Latino and other pro-reform voters in the party’s campaign to re-take the House in 2014.

I support legal equality for gay spouses in immigration and other areas. But I also expect the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriages will fall, and I know that getting any immigration bill through the GOP House is going to be problematic at best.

And, in the end, I don’t trust the Democratic coalition that’s insisting on a provision in the immigration bill that Republicans are just not going to accept, because I believe the party’s strategists would be just fine with a failed outcome.

More. For what it’s worth, the Washington Post editorializes:

With anti-reform forces preparing their assault, it’s critical that the pro-reform camp doesn’t provide them with ammunition. … Civil rights groups, in particular, will insist on amending the bill to provide visas for the foreign same-sex spouses of American citizens. … [Americans] overwhelmingly favor legalization and a path to citizenship. That, and Republican alarm at losing the Latino vote, have generated fresh momentum to fix the nation’s broken immigration system. Those who favor a fix should be wary of asking too much and, in the process, sapping that momentum.

Furthermore. The Washington Times reports:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced amendments Tuesday to grant gay couples the same immigration rights as other married couples, setting up a key hurdle for the immigration bill. …

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the committee chairman, introduced two different versions: One would apply to “permanent partners,” which critics said could invite widespread fraud. The other would only apply to same-sex couples who are legally married, which given the laws in various states would dramatically limit who could qualify.

Actually, if the Supreme Court does the right thing, I think it would be wrong to assume that federal rights such as spousal residency would disappear if a legally married same-sex couple moves to a state that doesn’t recognizes same-sex marriage.

Former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, an openly gay and “new generation” Republican, is a potential congressional candidate. As Roll Call reports:

National Republicans view DeMaio, who has yet to announce his candidacy, as a top potential recruit to take on [Rep. Scott Peters]. The freshman Democrat ousted GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray in November in one of the closest and most expensive races in the country. . . .

In a matchup with Peters, DeMaio led 49 percent to 39 percent. The poll was taken April 22-24 and had a 4.9-point margin of error.

DeMaio has solid favorable ratings. In the poll of likely voters in the district, 51 percent said they had a favorable impression of him while just 28 percent viewed him unfavorable.

Not surprisingly, as the New York Times reported last year about the mayoral race that Demaio would narrowly lose:

A victory for Carl DeMaio…would make San Diego the second-largest city in the country to elect an openly gay mayor, and by far the largest to elect a gay Republican. Yet, perhaps no group has opposed Mr. DeMaio as loudly as this city’s sizable gay and lesbian population. …

[P]arts of the crowd booed Mr. DeMaio at a mayoral debate at the gay and lesbian community center here. He was booed again as he walked hand in hand with his partner in this year’s gay pride parade. . . .

Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican who became the second openly gay Republican in the House when he came out in 1996, said he faced opposition similar to what Mr. DeMaio has encountered from gay voters.

Successful gay Republicans who could move the GOP forward on gay issues are LGBT Democratic activists’ worst nightmare. All the more reason why it would be grand to have an openly gay Republican congressman again. Here’s hoping.

Via Buzzfeed (and yes, I’m a bit late posting this):

GOProud, the bombastic group for gay conservatives and their allies, is going to be going through some major changes in the coming months, as the two co-founders, executive director Jimmy LaSalvia and senior strategist Chris Barron, plan to step back from their day-to-day roles with the group as a new executive director is selected. …

“As Chris says always, there was this little patch of ground that nobody else wanted — and that’s where GOProud is,” LaSalvia said. “We built a foundation on that patch of ground, and I’m really kind of excited to see where it goes from here.”

They’ve done so with support from a number of straight conservatives, including board chair Lisa De Pasquale; Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist; former CPAC organizer David Keene; Republican strategist Liz Mair; and, early on, the late Andrew Breitbart, who hosted a party on GOProud’s behalf at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in 2011. …

We’ve always wanted GOProud to be not just gay conservatives; we wanted it to be people who were conservative and supported gay people,” [LaSalvia] said. “That’s been the real flexing of the muscle. Tony Perkins could care less about just gay conservatives. It’s very easy to marginalize us. It’s a lot harder — when it’s all of these grassroots and grasstop straight conservatives … That’s a different fight.”

Reaching out to and organizing gay-supportive conservatives is transformative work, often greeted with disdain from LGBT progressives.

More. Paul Ryan responds to the shifting political winds. He and the rest of the new generation of GOP leadership aren’t there yet, but they’re heading in the right direction. The Log Cabin Republicans’ new ad campaign spells out why.

Writing at the American Conservative, Rod Dreher posits that public acceptance of gay marriage represents not just a social revolution but “a cosmological one,” meaning, as he sees it, “the gay-rights cause has succeeded precisely because the Christian cosmology has dissipated in the mind of the West.” He intones:

Christianity, as articulated by Paul, worked a cultural revolution, restraining and channeling male eros, elevating the status of both women and of the human body, and infusing marriage—and marital sexuality—with love. …

Rather, in the modern era, we have inverted the role of culture. Instead of teaching us what we must deprive ourselves of to be civilized, we have a society that tells us we find meaning and purpose in releasing ourselves from the old prohibitions. …

Gay marriage signifies the final triumph of the Sexual Revolution and the dethroning of Christianity because it denies the core concept of Christian anthropology. …

Still, if the faith does not recover, the historical autopsy will conclude that gay marriage was not a cause but a symptom, the sign that revealed the patient’s terminal condition.

It’s sad that Dreher doesn’t seem to know any of the hundreds of thousands of deeply believing Christians (or, for that matter, Jews or those of other faiths) who are gay and favor the right to wed not because they seek unrestrained sexual excess (that would be the queer radicals who reject marriage), but precisely because their spiritual belief leads them to favor marital sexuality infused with love.

Among the strongest communities of faith I’ve experienced have been gay religious congregations, and some of the weakest, most hypocritical and shallow expressions of spiritual understanding have been among those safely conventional religious followers who mistake the status quo for God’s eternal plan.

More. It’s good to see at least some Mormons discussing gay marriage, and some defending the idea that promoting marital fidelity among gay people is a far better idea that trying to force gay celibacy.

The Washington Post‘s Fred Hiatt writes that the gulf between blue America and red America has been deepening since Obama became president, and neither side is shamed by its hypocrisy. For instance:

One result is that purported adherence to states’ rights has become more situational than ever. Red-staters want to ignore Roe v. Wade while insisting that the most permissive state’s concealed-carry law be accepted across the country. Advocates of gay marriage find themselves simultaneously against the federal Defense of Marriage Act because it doesn’t recognize Massachusetts’s primacy in allowing same-sex marriage and against California’s ban on same-sex marriage because it violates the U.S. Constitution. …

Unfortunately, across a range of issues state diversity won’t work very well. A ban on assault weapons in Maryland is of limited use if you can buy a gun in Virginia. A married gay couple with children could risk custody if they move from Massachusetts to Mississippi. But with Americans living in two separate worlds, that may be the reality we face for some time to come.

Mix and match: At its best, federalism allows us to see what works (less onerous business regulation, less confiscatory taxation, school choice, public employee benefits on par with private-sector workers, marriage equality) and what doesn’t. But overcoming the backward-focused paradigm of a left/right divide that separates social and economic freedom into opposing camps remains the ongoing challenge of our time.

More. An optimistic note on gays and guns, from Instapundit Glenn Reynolds.