IGF CultureWatch

In Connecticut’s close U.S. Senate race between Republican former WWE CEO Linda McMahon and Democrat U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, AP reports that:

[Murphy accused McMahon] of not being a strong supporter of women’s rights, such as the right to have an abortion. McMahon reiterated Sunday that she does support abortion rights, but that she believed a proposed amendment to the federal health care reform overhaul that required all employers to cover the cost of contraception was overreaching.

McMahon also stated Sunday that she supports gay marriage, which is legal in Connecticut, and would vote to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union between a man and woman for federal purposes. It marked a change in position for McMahon, the Republicans’ 2010 Senate candidate, whose support for repealing DOMA had been questioned by gay rights activists in the past.

“I have changed my position on DOMA because with now gay marriage approved in the state of Connecticut, I don’t think it’s fair,” McMahon told reporters after the debate, adding how those married gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples for federal benefits. McMahon said her opinion on DOMA has been evolving.

Murphy seized on McMahon’s comments, saying he was only candidate who has consistently supported gay rights.

Either we want the Republicans to “evolve” on gay issues, or we don’t because it’s better for the Democrats if they stay benighted.

1) I can remember when the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT PAC, only endorsed congressional candidates and did so on a bipartisan basis. But since they’ve been making splashy, well-funded endorsements of the Democratic presidential nominee, they’ve lost virtually all clout among Repuboicans. How useful is it for a GOP congressional nominee to win the endorsement from a PAC so closely joined at the hip to the national Democratic party—it’s a negative to be avoided, branding any GOP candidate as a Republican in name only.

2) New York Congresswoman Nan Hayworth is one of the best GOP House members on gay issues, so of course LGBT Democrats are going all out to defeat her.

3) Sadly, but predictably, the Democrats’ racial demagoguery against voter ID laws is now being extended to claim that such reasonable measures to deter fraud are “voter suppression efforts” that negatively impact the transgendered (well, yes, if they’re not registered and/or entitled to vote!).

Some at the Washington Blade are upset that Ted Olson, one of the lead attorneys in the bipartisan-led legal fight to overturn California’s anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8, actually is a Republicans who is supporting Mitt Romney.

In this report, “Prop 8 attorney helping Romney campaign with debate prep,” and a related op-ed. “Two-Faced Ted Olson Should Be Shunned,” some LGBT Democrats accuse Olson of being a “hypocrite” for backing Romney despite his strong disagreement with the GOP nominee over gay marriage. But if Olson supported Obama, who he no doubt strongly disagrees with regarding the Democrat’s exponential expansion of the deficit-exploding redistributionist regulatory state, would he be no less of a hypocrite?

More to the point, the Democratic activists don’t get that having Ted Olson spend quality time upfront with Romney, who knows Olson is a leading pro-gay-marriage advocate, at least presents an opportunity to try to engage Romney on the matter at the highest level—not that it would change his stated position right now, but possibly it could have some impact down the road, should Romney win.But too often, progressives’ idea of engagement with the opposition is to chant “Bigot, bigot, go away.” Which has never changed anyone’s mind, and really is not meant to. It’s feel-good activism based on the premise that all we really need is the one true party.

Canada’s Conservative Party has evolved significantly on gay issues, reports the National Post:

A mere seven years ago, the Tories were famously the opponents of same sex marriage. Now, the Harper Conservatives freely push gay rights abroad and even host an annual gathering of gay Tories. …

“It’s no secret that the Conservative Party hasn’t always been the biggest champion of gay rights, but public pressure, and quite frankly, society evolving has changed their views,” said Jamie Ellerton, an openly gay former staffer [for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney].

“The Conservative Party, like the rest of society, has moved to be more supportive of gay rights in recent years, and I see that trend continuing,” he said.

On gay marriage, the Conservative Party has moved from outright opposition to something akin to no position (leaving it to the provinces)—not as advanced as Britain’s Tories, but far ahead of where they were, and where today’s Republican Party remains. But this is clearly what the future portends, even for U.S. conservatives, in time.

It’s worth noting, as well, that Canadian conservatives have not become more statist or otherwise like the redistributionist, regulatory left; in fact, as they’ve become more supportive of gay legal equality, they’ve also become more committed to reducing government and advancing economic freedom, positions the party (like U.S. Republicans) did not always adhere to.

The Washington Blade looks at Barney Frank’s denigrating the Log Cabin Republicans as “Uncle Toms.” Frank is right that on gay issues alone, the Democrats are better—not as ideal as he pretends, but certainly better.

However, LCR head R. Clarke Cooper is also right when he responds, “Frank calls us ‘Uncle Toms’ and pretends that Log Cabin hasn’t been on the front lines of the fight for equality. The truth is, by speaking conservative to conservatives about gay rights, Log Cabin Republicans are doing some of the hardest work in the movement, work that liberals like Barney are unwilling to do and couldn’t do if they tried.”

More to the point, Frank’s nasty little slur is all too typical of the smug mean-spiritedness of so many self-styled big government “progressives.”

In contrast, Ellen DeGeneres has a cordial conversation with Clint Eastwood, who talks about libertarian values—fiscal responsibility and government staying out of your life. That’s the ideal that neither party embraces, but in this election Eastwood (via his convention endorsement of Romney) believes Republicans are better enough in comparison with Obama’s out-of-control on spending, exponentially expanding regulatory state.

More. From Box Turtle Bulletin: “Barney Frank is the worst kind of politician, a partisan hack. … [N]ow that his career is ending, it seems that he has taken on a new role: throwing a wrench into any possible bipartisan movement that can be achieved on gay rights.

George Will reflects on the case of a New Mexico commercial photographer being sued for refusing, on religious grounds, to accept a gig photographing a same-sex commitment ceremony. Says Will of Vanessa Willock, the lesbian brining the suit:

Willock could then have said regarding Elane Photography what many same-sex couples have long hoped a tolerant society would say regarding them — “live and let live.” Willock could have hired a photographer with no objections to such events. Instead, Willock and her partner set out to break the Huguenins to the state’s saddle.

Concludes Will, “Perhaps advocates of gay rights should begin to restrain the bullies in their ranks.”

Those of an activist-statist bent, who see government power and coercion as the road to the great new dawn, will not be appeased. Like the mayors who threatened Chick-fil-A with persecutory implementation of zoning laws over its chief executive’s opposition to same-sex marriage, cases like this are a detriment to our advance toward equality under the law.

At overlawyered.com, Walter Olson notes that conservatives who denounced the Boston and Chicago mayors (and a Chicago alderman) for menacing Chick-Fil-A over its president’s anti-gay-marriage views (and related donations to anti-gay groups) were silent when Emmitt Burns, a Delegate to the Maryland General Assembly (D-Baltimore) and an opponent of same-sex marriage, similarly abused his government office by firing off a letter to the owner of the Baltimore Ravens on legislative stationery demanding that he silence linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo from speaking out in favor of marriage equality. That is to say, no conservatives organized a “Ravens Appreciation Day” to defend free-speech rights against what, in the case of Chick-fil-A, social right pundit Mike Huckabee termed intolerant bigotry.

updated from bottom

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto offered this observation on night one:

As for the social issues, the Democrats seem to sense—and ample polling data confirm—that public opinion is moving in their direction on same-sex marriage and other gay-rights questions but not on abortion. That makes sense in light of expanding knowledge. As gays have become more visible, nongays have increasingly come to see them as decent and unthreatening. As unborn children have become more visible through technologies like ultrasound, people have increasingly come to see abortion as troubling if not barbaric.

But in Charlotte, gay legal equality (in which the Democrats are far superior to the Republicans, yes, yes, yes) is joined at the hip not just to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, but to perpetuating the government worker unions’ stranglehold over American taxpayers, demagoging entitlement reform, and all the other planks of the progressive left’s agenda.

More. Washington Examiner columnist Timothy Carney writes:

The Democratic platform turns abortion into an entitlement by demanding a right to an abortion “regardless of ability to pay.” And it seems to reject any restrictions on abortion—such as parental notification rules or limitations on aborting a viable baby nine months into a pregnancy—with the line, “We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right” to an abortion.

Furthermore. Obama’s acceptance speech:

“We don’t think government can solve all our problems. But we don’t think that government is the source of all our problems – any more than are welfare recipients, or corporations, or unions, or immigrants, or gays, or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles.”

A good sentiment, but Obama has done plenty of scapegoating himself (those greedy “millionaires and billionaires” for starters).

Still more. David Boaz blogs that when Obama says don’t blame government, or immigrants, or gays for our problems, that’s a category error. Government isn’t a group of people, it’s an institution of force.

More still. From Matt Welch at reason.com:

The Democrats are selling themselves in 2012 as the party that simply cares more. They feel your pain…. Simply by virtue of being more empathetic, they will produce better policies and outcomes, particularly those that affect the identity groups within the Democratic coalition: women, Hispanics, blacks, the gay and lesbian community….

Because Democrats care more about education, education outcomes will be better; [but] there was precious little discussion of policy toward those ends….

Democrats might yet win by exploiting the Caring Gap. Certainly having the Republican Party to compete against helps. But for those of us voters who want government to be neither mom nor dad, and who like to keep our religious experiences separate from the exertion of public policy, a depressing reality has been reinforced this week: The two major parties are incapable of treating you like an adult. Meanwhile, they are demanding–and sometimes receiving–a devotion that borders on the unhealthy.

Via BuzzFeed: The 5 Republicans Who Mentioned (Gay) Marriage on Stage in Tampa. Romney and Ryan spoke in code about honoring and defending marriage, while Huckabee, Santorum and McDonnell were only slightly more forthright. All, however, avoided the words “same-sex” or “gay,” or explicit appeals to pass the anti-gay federal marriage amendment. It’s what some call “dog whistle politics,” in which independents might hear nonthreatening words about respecting marriage while social conservative activists decode a harsher message.

All in all, outside of the platform, (red meat for the hardcore base, the right’s “wingnuts”), social issues were decidedly low key at the GOP convention.

Another BuzzFeed post sent reporters to the convention floor, where they observed two interesting findings:

I only saw one person wearing something for “traditional” marriage, and it was this pin. (#34).

and

This PRO-LIFE pin was the most popular pin. It was everywhere. (#31)

It’s a continuing shift, and it will take one or two more cycles (at least), but the energy in the conservative movement is moving away from anti-gay militancy. And that includes major donors, including the biggest players.

More. Openly gay former GOP congressman Jim Kolbe does the best a gay Republican can in giving a qualified endorsement to Romney. If Log Cabin Republicans don’t go at least this far, they will be frozen out of the GOP discussion with no access to White House insiders, as they were after their refusal to endorse the reelection of George W. Bush. If they do give a qualified endorsement, the LGBT left will go ballistic. But since Log Cabin’s mission is to work to influence the GOP, better to have the gay left upset, I would think. (GOProud, the more ideologically conservative gay group, already endorsed Romney.)

The New York Times considers the future of Ron Paul-inspired pro-liberty Republicans:

The purity of the movement’s principles has long left it in self-imposed isolation. The minimalist role it envisions for government repels a vast majority of Democrats; its noninterventionist foreign policy and live-and-let-live social views repel most Republicans. . . .

Simple generational change could give the movement a boost in elections to come. Younger voters of all stripes display increasing tolerance on social issues like same-sex marriage; the fiscal conservatives among them will fit into the libertarian camp far more easily than older, conservative Christian Republicans. In New Hampshire [where Paul placed second to Romney], for instance, Mr. Paul drew half his votes from people under 45. Three-fourths of Mr. Romney’s votes came from people 45 and older.

No one is saying it won’t be a challenge, but the fight must be engaged. Simply working to elect big-government Democrats whose agenda is pro-gay but promises a menu of ever-increasing bureaucratic statism means that gay legal equality gets forever tagged as part of anti-liberty leftism.

Paul wasn’t right on everything, but he opposed the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, calling it a “very bad idea,” and voted to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” citing his conversations with gay veterans. More on Ron Paul and marriage equality, here and here.

More. From the Washington Times, “Paul forecasts a libertarian storm brewing.” Ron Paul bids farewell to his supporters, telling them that the cause of liberty is bigger than any convention or election:

“We will get into the ‘[Republican] tent, believe me,” he said. “Because we will become the tent, eventually.”

But Paul-style libertarians (unlike many tea party activists) are at ideological odds with big government social conservatives, and many say they will not vote for Romney (or Obama). The only way they can “become the tent” is if the theocratic right diminishes.

Furthermore. Michael Barone observes: “conservative stands on cultural issues have repelled affluent suburbanites, particularly unmarried women…. (Republicans) need to add votes from other groups to win. White noncollege voters and white evangelical Christians were only 42% and 37%, respectively, of the winning Republican coalition in the 2010 congressional elections.”