IGF CultureWatch

The Cato Institute’s David Boaz analyzes recent polls to shed some light on whether Tea Party activists are truly libertarian-minded or (as liberals and their media never tire of claiming) in fact dangerous and reactionary social conservatives. He blogs:It’s disappointing to hear that New Mexico Tea Partiers booed Gary Johnson’s support for legalizing marijuana. And it’s true that a new poll shows Tea Partiers pretty strongly against marriage equality. But the poll does show them just a smidgen more supportive than either conservatives or Republicans. And other polls … have shown somewhat more support among self-identified Tea Party supporters, or a clear division between libertarian-minded and culturally conservative Tea Partiers. In general, Tea Party activists — organizers and people who attend events — seem somewhat more libertarian than people who simply tell pollsters they consider themselves to be members or supporters of the Tea Party movement.

Tea Party groups have declined invitations to criticize federal court rulings on gay marriage. They have studiously avoided taking positions on social issues, even when social conservatives stomp their feet and demand that the Tea Party start talking about abortion and gay marriage.

I have said before that “The tea party is not a libertarian movement, but (at this point at least) it is a libertarian force in American politics. It’s organizing Americans to come out in the streets, confront politicians, and vote on the issues of spending, deficits, debt, the size and scope of government, and the constitutional limits on government. That’s a good thing. And if many of the tea partiers do hold socially conservative views (not all of them do), then it’s a good thing for the American political system and for American freedom to keep them focused on shrinking the size and cost of the federal government.”

From National Journal:

For months, the family values wing of the Republican Party has been protesting the inclusion of GOProud, a right-wing gay group, at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). You won’t hear any protesting, however, from conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart.

“We’re going to have a big ol’ gay party,” he said on a radio show Wednesday. Breitbart says gays deserve a place within the Republican Party and he’s been “offended” by efforts to exclude them. Therefore, he’s throwing an 80’s-themed gay party to welcome them on board.

Say what you will about Breitbart or conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, who headlined a GOProud fundraiser in New York last fall—a transgression for which she was roundly denounced by social conservatives. Breitbart and Coulter are not supporters of gay legal equality (marriage, military, etc.) to be sure. But just the fact that they are willing to alienate themselves from the religious right by welcoming gay conservatives into the party’s tent is a sign that power is shifting away from the social conservative bloc.

On another political note: Jim Messina, a deputy White House chief of staff, will spearhead the Obama re-election campaign.

Will he accuse the GOP candidate of being gay, which is what Messina did when he worked for Sen. Max Baucus?

New Census Bureau data reveals child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, and that, as the New York Times reports, “Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.”

Another interesting finding: “Moreover, gay men who have children do so an average of three years earlier than heterosexual men, census data shows.”

Those gay people; they’re just such family values conservatives!

Navy Captain Owen P. Honors has lost his command of the USS Enterprise over raunchy comedy videos he made, which were shown on the ship’s closed circuit TV two years ago when he was serving as the Enterprise’s executive officer (XO). The media is making much of the gay content in the videos and charges that they were homophobic, sexist and profanity laden. But is Capt. Owen getting a raw deal?

Here’s one series of video excerpts posted by the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. One example of the “gay” content: XO Owen, wearing a funny shower cap, opens the shower to find two women (from shoulders up). The rule is three minutes max to shower. They say, “there are two of us; don’t we get six minutes.” It’s repeated by request later, but then toward the end of the excerpts Owen again opens the shower and finds two hunky men. They repeat the line.

But Owen has his defenders, including some openly gay former sailors who served on the Enterprise. From the Washington Times:

Interviews with sailors on the Enterprise at the time, including several who have since left the Navy and say they were openly gay when they served, suggest that the videos, far from offending, did, as intended, raise morale through their crude humor. Many of Capt. Honors’ former shipmates think the Navy has already gone too far in stripping him of his command. . . .

Capt. Honors “absolutely did not” create a hostile or homophobic atmosphere on board, added Eric M. Prenger, a gay sailor who also served on the Enterprise at the time. Mr. Prenger, an electronics technician, third class, said the crew looked forward to the videos, which were broadcast on the ship’s closed circuit TV system every Saturday night, preceding the showing of a movie.

“They were definitely a tension reliever,” said Mr. Prenger, who has also since left the service. “I remember laughing at them.”

Still, in a video not in this series (and not posted online), the word “faggot” was used. In this Washington Post op-ed, Bruce Fleming, a civilian English instructor at the United States Naval Academy, writes:

The worst offense to many viewers of the videos seems to be Honors’ use of a word usually meant as a gay slur. He’s not referring to someone believed to be gay, but to one of his “alter egos” [which he plays in the videos] and to the video’s audience, Surface Warfare Officers, who (the self-deprecating inside joke has it) are not as cool as pilots. …

Yes, the captain uses a slur, but not to make fun of gay people. Everything depends on context—in this case, the insular confines of a ship at sea.

Fleming stresses Owen’s non-hateful intention, in his view, although he makes clear that a line was crossed that made his firing inevitable.

That’s probably right. But most gay people quite rightly have a lower tolerance of the word gay (or the f-slur) being used as any kind of deprecation.

Still, judging from the posted video excerpts, those charging that the videos promoted “sexual harassment and sexual assault” or that Capt. Owners “should be prosecuted” seem way over the top. Personally, I’ve been more offended—much more offended—by some of the homophobic “humor” on Saturday Night Live.

More. Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute blogs:

there was a morale problem on the ship for a while, in part due to the fresh water restrictions that the shower scenes in the videos tried to make light of. By many accounts, XO Honors was instrumental in turning this state of affairs around. The Enterprise, a bear of a ship to operate, the oldest nuclear-powered vessel in the fleet, with eight (8!) reactors, earned unit citations under Honors’s leadership.

All that said, I stand by my original assessment. In striving to improve the crew’s morale, Captain Honors crossed the fine line between clever and stupid. He demonstrated poor judgment in producing videos in an official capacity that could easily be taken out of context, as they have been.

B. Daniel Blatt of Gay Patriot has an op-ed on AOLNews.com looking at the path ahead for implementing “don’t ask” repeal and other gay equality measures. He writes about the military:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that implementation would proceed in stages, “sequenced in order to protect small unit cohesion” . . . It remains to be seen how exactly the military will determine that “specific methodology. . . .The Palm Center’s Aaron Belkin, however, believes repeal “really isn’t rocket science” given that “the troops already know how to interact with gays because they do so every day.” . . .The Palm Center holds that it can be done in “a matter of weeks,” while the defense secretary thinks a year may be needed to educate troops, with the specific methodology yet to be determined.

We’ll see how drawn out the battle over implementation becomes.

From the socially conservative World Net Daily:

Two of the nation’s premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited. . . .

FRC and CWA join the American Principles Project, American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage in withdrawing from CPAC. In November, APP organized a boycott of CPAC over the participation of GOProud. . . .

The American Conservative Union, longtime organizers of CPAC, disclosed just before Christmas that GOProud would be considered a “participating organization,” the second highest level of participation. As a “participating organization,” GOProud has a voice in planning the conference.

This is a great sign that the gay haters (who hate to be identified as haters) are splitting off, just as during the late 50s/early 60s the avowed racists and anti-Semites left or were driven from what was becoming the new mainstream (Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley) conservative movement.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

More. Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg opines: “I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too. . . . And given that open homosexuality is simply a fact of life, the rise of the HoBos—the homosexual bourgeoisie—strikes me as good news.”

Not quite a Christmas miracle, put this is a possible herald of change.

Televangelist Pat Robertson has been no friend of liberty, as witnessed by his long history of anti-gay and otherwise defamatory and discrimination-defending remarks. But as the Washington Post reported, he appears on the right side of one hot-button issue: pot criminalization. “We’re locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana, and the next thing you know they’ve got 10 years,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club.” “I’m not exactly for the use of drugs—don’t get me wrong—but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot and that kind of thing, I mean, it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people.”

Vice President Joe Biden was quick to disagree, responding “I think it would be a mistake to legalize.” Hey, if Robertson is for decriminalizing pot, then liberals must be in favor of it, right? As the Daily Caller comments:

The more glaring concern for Biden and Obama is that come 2012, there could be several Republicans running for president who are more progressive on pot. Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, and Gary Johnson have all expressed support for drastically reforming marijuana laws. (Johnson and Paul are in favor of legalization, Palin said she supports a person’s right to use it in their home.) You also have establishment Republicans and Tea Party groups citing the 10th Amendment argument for repealing health care—the same argument most libertarians cite when calling for the repeal of the Controlled Substances Act and allowing states to legislate their own drug laws.

The Democrats were once the party of slavery; then they became the party of civil rights. The Republicans were once the party of abolition and civil rights, then they became, well, you know. So, what if spurred on by the libertarian-receptive Tea Party movement the GOP would change again, while the Democrats remain committed to ever-more intrusive and expanding state power and government control. I’m not predicting, but rigidly thinking that the parties are frozen and unyielding is not a constructive approach to creating change.

More. Then again, Biden said this about gay marriage, which no leading GOP figure (to date) would. The difference might be that decriminalizing pot has a certain redneck appeal and they’re seen as part of the GOP base, whereas gay marriage is still viewed as lefty and urban (and hence hopelessly Democratic).

Also, at what point will Obama and Biden stop struggling over and “evolving” on gay marriage and openly support marriage equality?

Conservative “don’t ask” supporter Bill Kristol writing in the Weekly Standard:

President Obama said last week, speaking “to all Americans”: “Your country needs you, your country wants you, and we will be honored to welcome you into the ranks of the finest military the world has ever known.” Our fine servicemen and women won’t quit, they won’t whine, they won’t fret, and they won’t cause a scene. Conservatives owe it to them to conduct ourselves with the same composure and dignity.

Conservative “don’t ask” opponent Max Boot writing in Commentary:

Perhaps the most lasting impact of this policy change will be the return of ROTC to Ivy League campuses. Already Harvard and Yale are talking about reinstating their ROTC programs. This, too, will not make much of a change in either the Ivy League or the military, but it is a small, welcome step toward bridging the chasm that separates the armed forces from society’s elites.

Next up: the same lack of leadership on gay marriage? At least until the formidable team of Sen. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Collins (R-Maine) indicate to the Democratic leadership that it’s ok to support us.

David Brock, the head of the left-progressive and George Soros funded Media Matters group, which basically attacks Fox News 24/7—often disingenuously (e.g., for reporting that there actually are two sides to the global warming debate)—has announced the formation of a tangent effort called Equality Matters. The new group will be led by Richard Socarides, who served as Bill Clinton’s special assistant on gay issues. From Brock’s announcement:

Despite huge progress in gay rights in recent years, exemplified by the historic vote this weekend finally striking down the ban on gay men and women from serving in the military, we are now living through a period of ferocious fundamentalism in the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Traditional conservatives and the Tea Party movement are united only in their contempt for equal rights for all Americans and a desire to return America to a 19th century idyll. Equality Matters will not allow these latter-day ‘clerics’ to gain serious recognition by the media nor influence the policies that affect the lives of every American. . . .

The purpose here is to demonize fiscally conservative Tea Party supporters as the equivalent of the Klan. The aim is to keep gay votes firmly tied to the party of gargantuan government spending and politically controlled redistribution (the Soros/Media Matters agenda). The result will be to dissuade limited government conservatives and Republicans who are rightly revulsed by Brock from positively viewing the fight for gay equality.

It’s a shame that someone as intelligent albeit partisan as Richard Socarides will be leading such a counter-productive effort.

More. “Another Steve” responds to comments defending Brock with the following:

the Tea Party agenda is to reduce government spending and support limited government. No Tea Party groups are promoting social issues–it’s not what they are about. Yes, individual Tea Party people might be socially conservative (not all; there are many, many liberterians, like me, who attend Tea Party events), but it is not what the movement is about.

So if you attack “the Tea Party movement,” as Brock does, you are attacking limited goverment conservatives, like me. You are saying that I am a bigot and racist because I oppose what’s happened to the size and cost of government. It’s the worst sort of smear.

Yes, it is. And it’s by an organization that purports to fight misinformation and stereotypes.

From the Washington Post: “A Senate vote Saturday cleared the way for final passage of a bill to end the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy…. Fifty-seven members of the Senate Democratic caucus and six Republicans—Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and George Voinovich (Ohio) —voted yes” on the procedural vote (that is, the vote to have a vote).

In the final 65-to-31 vote taken Saturday afternoon, two additional GOP senators supported repeal: Richard Burr (N.C.) and John Ensign (Nev.).

If the military report had been requested earlier and finished before the final month of the 111th Congress, and if the Democratic leadership had made it a priority, the repeal could have happened sooner. GOP senators Collins, Snowe and Brown, in particular, didn’t just become socially moderate.

But with the incoming GOP-controlled House, the path is blocked in terms of further legislative advances. It will be up to the courts to modify the Defense of Marriage Act’s ban on federal recognition of state-authorized same-sex unions. And the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which during the two years of a Democrat-controlled Congress never made it out of committee, is dead. (In 2007, during the 110th Congress, the House had passed a version of ENDA covering sexual orientation but not gender identity.)

More. The change won’t take effect right away. After being signed into law, the president and his top military advisers must certify that lifting the ban won’t hurt troops’ fighting ability. After that occurs, there’s a 60-day waiting period.

Furthermore. It’s worth noting that the Dream Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for children brought into this country at a young age by their parents, was set up to fail, just as “don’t ask” repeal was set up to fail until this week. The Senate Democratic leadership allowed no committee hearings on the controversial measure, and then in the final weeks of the congress brought it to the floor with truncated debate and no process for voting on amendments. It failed to achieve cloture, letting Democrats continue to paint the GOP as the “enemies” of Hispanics.

So, after two years of inaction and shenanigans over “don’t ask” repeal, tying it to a complicated Defense Authorization measure and allowing no debate or amendments, why did Harry Reid at long last move forward a separate measure that, surprise, garnered eight Republican votes? I think many (not all) activists and many (not all) left-progressive bloggers finally demanded an end to the gaming and threatened to blame Democrats as well as Republicans for failure (see, for example, Richard Grenell at the Huffington Post, as previously referenced). The threat to withhold dollars and support pushed the Democrats to give in and allow “don’t ask” repeal to be legitimately presented and passed. Unfortunately, Hispanic activists let the party have its way in order to keep the Hispanic vote tied to the Democratic party through 2012.

Still more. From Slate:

While undoubtedly a step forward, repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t suddenly establish a legal principle that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and also doesn’t allow transgendered individuals to serve in the military. [emphasis in original]

In retrospect, it’s surprising that LGBT activists didn’t sabotage DADT repeal by demanding transgender inclusion.