IGF CultureWatch

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani says the GOP’s stance on gay marriage makes it look like it “doesn’t understand the modern world,” in an interview with CNN. You think?

Social Issues and the Santorum Surge, in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, presents James Taranto’s interview with conservative politico Jeffrey Bell. An excerpt:

Social conservatism, Mr. Bell argues…has a winning track record for the GOP. … The populist nature of social conservatism perplexes liberals, who think less-affluent Americans ought to side with the party of statist economics. … Yet Mr. Bell notes that social conservatism is largely a working-class phenomenon: “Middle America does have more children than elite America, and they vote socially conservative, even though they might not necessarily be behaving that way in their personal life. They may be overwhelmed by the sexual revolution and its cultural impacts.”

Santorum is “the most consistent and unapologetic social conservative in the race,” Bell notes.

I imagine Obama would beat Santorum in a matchup (at least that’s the conventional wisdom held by the elite, for now), but Santorum’s surge points out the extent to which we’ve failed to convince working-class America that gay equality is a positive development. Instead, gay rights has been perceptually lumped with both the over-expansion of state intrusiveness and the “sexual revolution”—phenomenon of the left that are viewed (and with some justification) as having destabilized traditional social bedrocks like marriage and community.

There’s a price to be paid by making gay rights part of the agenda of the left, and the Santorum surge may be part of that price.

More. Along the same lines, social conservative columnist Star Parker hails Santorum’s rise, linking it to “three recent left-wing victories”—the appellate ruling that California’s anti-gay-marriage Prop. 8 is unconstitutional; the orchestrated attacks on the Susan G. Komen foundation that led to the reversal of its decision to withdraw funding for Planned Parenthood over the latter’s abortion services; and the administration’s refusing to grant religiously affiliated organizations an exemption from Obamacare’s employer mandate requiring provision of free contraception, abortifacient drugs and sterilization.

The liberal-left supports all three actions; the social right opposes all three. Some of us hear the Sesame Street ditty, “which one of these things is not like the other.”

In a Washington Post op-ed (the print version was titled “The Myth of Gays vs. Blacks”), Maya Rupert, the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ federal policy director, argues that:

with depressing regularity, divisive and misleading rhetoric is dredged up whenever same-sex couples’ right to marry is put to a legislative or popular vote—often exacerbating the false myth of a rift between gays and blacks.

As the op-ed continues, it appears that black opposition to marriage equality isn’t exactly a myth, but it is the fault of insufficiently progressive government social policies and spending, in Rupert’s view. She admits, for instance, that:

The Post reported recently that 53 percent of black voters in the state opposed the marriage-equality bill introduced by [Maryland] Gov. Martin O’Malley (D). Another recent survey, by Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies Inc., concluded that support for marriage equality among black voters in Maryland has steadily declined over the past three months as the issue has gained prominence. The survey claimed that “opposition to same-sex marriage among African-American voters is what keeps the issue close in the state.”

But Rupert contends these numbers, like reports that 7 in 10 African Americans who went to the polls in California voted yes on the anti-gay-marriage Prop. 8 initiative, “mask a much more complex, and hopeful, reality.” Well, “hopeful” sounds nice, until you get to Rupert’s policy recommendations. She writes that:

marriage feels more fragile to many blacks because of a shrinking pool of available black men—due to disparate incarceration rates and the lack of meaningful and equal access to education and employment.

One could also say because of higher criminality rates among young black men.

Rupert continues that:

So while black couples are not legally precluded from marrying, social and legal inequalities make it just as inaccessible for many. Further, although the decline of marriage in the black community is rooted in racial and economic inequality, no state or federal policies have been introduced to address the problem. This political silence may well reflect much more about blacks’ historically lukewarm reaction to same-sex marriage than the oft-repeated, and offensive, assumption that black Americans are innately more homophobic than other groups.

So the answer is more welfare, economic redistribution and race-based preferences? That’s the liberal response to every social problem, I suppose.

As to Rupert’s contention about the “lack of meaningful and equal access to education,” black columnist Walter Williams wrote last week on this very topic, observing:

Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They are permitted to make education impossible for other students. Their misbehavior and violence require schools to divert resources away from education and spend them on security. … The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there’s a change in what’s acceptable and unacceptable behavior by young people. That change has to come from within the black community.

Williams notes, further:

I graduated from Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954. Franklin’s students were from the poorest North Philadelphia neighborhoods—such as the Richard Allen housing project, where I lived—but there were no policemen patrolling the hallways. … Students didn’t use foul language to teachers, much less assault them.

How might one explain the greater civility of Philadelphia and other big-city, predominantly black schools during earlier periods compared with today? Would anyone argue that during the ’40s and ’50s…there was less racial discrimination and poverty and there were greater opportunities for blacks and that’s why academic performance was higher and there was greater civility?….If white and black liberals and civil rights leaders want to make such arguments, they’d best wait until those of us who lived during the ’40s and ’50s have departed the scene.

Someone might tell that to Maya Rupert.

African-American opposition isn’t the sole roadblock to same-sex marriage, of course—witness this week’s depressing veto of a marriage equality bill by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (and he’s considered somewhat of a fiscal conservative, social moderate by GOP standards).

But blacks, unlike white evangelicals, are part of the rainbow coalition of the left that supports the Democratic Party and pushes for progressive policies. While elected black officials are willing to support gay equality as part of that coalition, black voters clearly aren’t onboard. And more government spending or preferential treatment isn’t going to change things.

More. I expected some of our loyal left-liberal readers would take aim, but the reflexive characterization of myself and this post as “racist” is still disappointing. I can’t respond better than “Another Steve,” who replied in the comments:

Criticize the prevalence of homophobia in the black community – RACIST. Point out that government isn’t the solution to what ails the black community (and actually, it was the cause of a great many of the social pathologies that liberals would have government now rectify through more govenrment) – RACIST. Ah, well, Much more fun to…feel all smug and superior to those RACISTS than actually worry about the problems at hand — that a majority of the black electorate joins with the religious right in blocking marriage equality.

Younger attendees at the recently concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) overwhelmingly thought the event’s organizers were wrong to bar GOProud, the conservative gay group that participated last year—triggering a boycott (since lifted after GOProud’s exclusion) by the Heritage Foundation and other anti-gay social-right groups, reports Stephen Richer at Forbes.com.

And so the fight continues among those of us who see the leftwing bureaucratic-welfare state as an economic dead end and the rightwing reactionary traditional-values-and-moralism state as a sociocultural dead end. Both represent an ongoing threat to a dynamic, innovative society founded on individual liberty and voluntary (rather than coercive) community.

Roger Simon explains why a Santorum nomination would be a GOP disaster — the Republican social right may be fine with overt homophobia, but the country isn’t any longer:

[M]ost people these days have homosexuals among their friends, family, or work colleagues and don’t appreciate even the whiff of bigotry. It’s become a big no-no. Santorum does not have a good track record in that regard. He is the only politician I know of who merits his own Wikipedia entry on the subject: “Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality.” Some of the quotations at that site from the former senator are not pretty. …
In most areas — economics, foreign policy, health care, etc. — I agree more or less with Rick Santorum. … I am certain, however, a Santorum nomination will be fraught with allegations of homophobia that may very well be fatal to his chances and to the Republican Party. Romney and Gingrich, for various reasons, some of them obvious, will not be able to say much about this during the nominating process. But you can sure as Hell bet the Democrats will if Santorum succeeds.

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has an interesting analysis of the California appellate ruling striking down Prop. 8’s ban on same-sex marriage in that state.

The appellate ruling is stayed pending appeal to either a larger 9th Circuit panel or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. In all likelihood, either the Supreme Court won’t hear the anti-gay appeal (which would restore marriage equality in the Golden State), or would hear it and uphold the 9th Circuit ruling in California (given that the appellate ruling is expressively tailored to track Justice Kennedy’s ruling in Romer), but not extend marriage equality throughout the nation. Or the High Court could rule against marriage equality and restore California’s ban.

The fact that the ruling is highly unlikely to result in a Supreme Court declaration of marriage equality throughout the nation is not a bad thing, given that an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment is still a possibility. I’d rather see the Supreme Court first strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, which would result in federal recognition of same-sex marriages in states where such marriages are legal. Then, in just a few more years, the nation will be ready for a ruling striking down anti-gay marriage laws and state amendments, and the backlash will be manageable.

Added. Jon Rauch shares his views in New York’s Daily News, Gay marriage ruling in California is politically shrewd. He explains “Why the 9th Circuit’s decision was so modest — and so clever.”

More. From Politico: “The White House brushed aside questions Tuesday about Obama’s view on the Prop. 8 decision, while also refusing to shed light on the state of Obama’s thinking on the broader issue.”

The president isn’t likely to spend any political capital going out a limb. Why should he, when the left-liberal gay establishment has already pledged its undying fealty (cough, HRC, cough). But it’s worth noting that this profile in noncourage comes after Obama took unpopular positions in favor of killing the jobs producing Keystone pipeline, which would have helped provide energy independence but was hated by Robert Redford and the left-environmentalist crowd, and after his administration interpreted Obamacare as requiring Catholic-affiliated institutions to buy and provide their employees with abortion-inducing drugs, an assault on Constitutional rights that delighted NARAL and the feminist left. But on marriage equality, Obama is still “evolving.”

Oh, those evil corporations. When they’re not oppressing the 99%, they’re … advancing legal equality for gay people. Oh, nevermind.

At the New York Times, columnist Frank Bruni writes that several large corporations, including Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon, have expressed public support for state initiatives to legalize same-sex marriage. Bruni observes:

“More so than politicians, corporations play the long game, trying to engender loyalty for decades to come, and they’re famously fixated on consumers in their 20s and 30s. They see support for same-sex marriage as a winner, something that will help with employee recruitment as well.”

Along the same lines, JCPenney has hired Ellen DeGeneres as its advertising spokesperson, hoping to project a more hip image to consumers. That’s social change!

More. On his Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly defends JCPenney’s hiring of DeGeneres.

Alas, David and I are never going to agree on the matter of forcing Catholic insitutions to provide contraceptive services to their employees, but I will respond to David, below, that I don’t consider Notre Dame University or Holy Cross Hospital (for instance) to be secular businesses – they are Church affiliated and view themselves as fulfilling a religious mission in the world (same for various Catholic charities).

Defending “contraception” is pretty easy – even if the issue is a government dictate that Catholic institutions buy condoms and IUDs for their employees. David avoids the uglier issue of abortion-inducing drugs. I would, too, if I were defending his position.

What next, forcing Jewish hospitals to serve their employees ham? Because we think ham is good for you and the kosher prohibition strikes us as superstition (and after all, we’re liberals and we know best)?

As for David’s contention “Insurance is a product, and people buy it.” Many employers self-insure – creating a set of benefits for their workforce with an insurance provider. Only very small businesses these days tend to buy insurance off the shelf for their workers. And it’s the employer who almost always still pays most (and sometimes all) of the premium.

I must respectfully disagree with David, below. In my view of things, using the blunt power of the state to force Catholic universities and hospitals to buy and provide their employees with free contraceptives, including morning-after abortion-inducing drugs, makes a mockery of religious liberty. And that’s regardless of the fact that most Catholics use and approval of birth control (many of whom may find contraceptives acceptable but don’t extend that view to the morning-after pill).

These institutions are Catholic, not secular, by their charters and in their running. And the church, rightly or wrongly, considers contraception and abortion to be sins. If the state can forced religious institutions to violate the tenets of their faith, then what can’t it do?

The road to the total state may be pleasing to those of the leftist persuasion (at least as long as they’re in charge), but it’s the antithesis of what America should stand for. A religious exemption is not too much to expect of a government that respects religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

A Washington Examiner column notes the following tidbit about one of Mitt Romeny’s biggest donors:

Hedge fund millionaire Paul Singer also gave Romney’s super-PAC $1 million in November. . . . But Singer’s biggest cause in 2011 was not partisan — he spent $1 million lobbying to legalize gay marriage in New York state. That puts Singer not only far to the left of the GOP base and Romney, but also to the left of President Obama, who publicly opposes gay marriage. Singer’s son married a man in Massachusetts. . . .Singer’s million-dollar check doesn’t suggest Mitt is pro-gay-marriage. . . . But it’s revealing that these are Romney’s biggest donors. At the very least, it highlights the difference between the GOP’s electoral base and its money base.

I guess it does.

Also worth noting briefly, this interesting profile in the Washington Blade of formerly closeted former GOP congressman Bob Bauman, whose view today is conservative-libertarian and a pox on both parties.