IGF CultureWatch

Newsweek has a nice cover story, The Conscience of a Conservative, about Ted Olson, labeled "the unlikeliest champion of gay marriage." That's because "he is one of the more prominent Republicans in Washington, and among the most formidable conservative lawyers in the country." He was, in fact, head of the Office of Legal Counsel under Ronald Reagan, and Solicitor General under George W. Bush. That overview is followed by Olson's essay, The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage, on "Why Same-Sex Marriage is an American value."

Yes, I anticipate the barrage of comments about why we should only support Democrats because Democrats are better. But what's interesting about Olson and his legal efforts on behalf of marriage equality is that it's happening despite the fact that the LGBT political establishment is pretty much run by Democrats as a fundraising operation for their party. Imagine what the political scene might look like with a little bit of outreach across the aisle.

More. Conservative commentator and Fox News contributor Margaret Hoover, on Why I'm Joining the Fight for Marriage Equality.

Over at Box Turtle Bulletin, Tim Kincaid has an interesting post ("A call for a nuanced view of religious leaders") about Joel Osteen, pastor of Houston's huge Lakewood Church, who gave an opening prayer at the inauguration of Annise Parker, the newly elected lesbian mayor of Houston. Osteen, a best-selling author whose uplifting Sunday service is broadcast nationwide, says he welcomes gays to his church but believes scripture elevates heterosexual marriage as best.

He's wrong, we may strongly believe, but Osteen, unlike Rick Warren, has never endorsed an anti-gay marriage initiative or signed an anti-gay declaration. So why was he lumped in with the worst of the religious right haters and condemned as an "anti-gay ridiculous person" and a "smiling bigot" recently by the popular leftist gay website Queerty?

As Kincaid writes of Osteen, "We can be, at times, too quick to denounce and drive away some who could in the future - or currently on some issues - be incredibly valuable allies if we only would let them." But it's so much more fun to shout "bigot bigot go away," isn't it. And, by the way, what exactly is the difference between Osteen's remarks and those of Barack Obama, who similarly cites scripture as the basis of his belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and gets standing ovations at HRC dinners?

I'll jump in with a few new year's legislative-front predictions for 2010, which I suspect won't be well received by those who view the world through the lens of LGBT political lobbies and media. In short, don't expect much from Washington in the year ahead.

Having given us a "hate crimes" bill, Democrats feel that, for the most part, they've taken care of things. With elections approaching in November and the number of expected lost seats for Democrats mounting, purple state/district Democrats-already severely burned by succumbing to "Chicago-style" pressure to vote for an increasingly unpopular (and, in fact, truly dreadful) "health care reform" bill-have used up just about all their wiggle room among centrist and center-right voters.

Those who think that they will cast their lots for an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that includes (as LGBT activists insist it MUST) job protections for transgendered workers (ill-defined, despite the bill's verbosity on the matter, and still subject to scary charges about men in dresses exercising free-choice regarding restrooms) are delusional. It won't happen.

As for reforming or repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, sorry, that's a no-go, too. And for the same reasons-Democrats have pushed those beyond their left-liberal base as far as they dare with health care and mega-government-expanding "stimulus," and they must at least appear to be moving back toward the center. Moreover, when it comes to equality for same-sex spouses, the Obama administration has not exactly shown courage, or willingness to spend political capital (indeed, quite the opposite). Which shouldn't surprise anyone who was paying attention during the campaign.

The one possibility for progress is that repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" might be pushed through as part of a defense spending bill later this year. Given that a majority of Americans now seem to favor this, and it might be done relatively quietly, it's within the realm of possibility. That would certainly be welcome, but even John McCain was suggesting he'd consider repeal. Given what the "LGBT community" spent in terms of labor and dollars on behalf of electing this administration and Congress, and the promises we were made, it's slim pickings-if it happens at all.

As for the November elections, pollsters expect significant losses in the House (20 to 40 Democratic seats are widely mentioned) and the shift of several Democratic Senate seats to the GOP, restoring its filibuster. That's going to make the one-party strategy, which was always a terrible "all eggs in one basket" bet, even worse-for us, at least, if not for the Democratic operatives running the Democratic fundraising fronts know as LGBT rights organizations.

Let's get this straight, errr correct. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a libertarian-leaning Reagan-appointee, orders health benefits for a lesbian spouse of a federal employee, and the Obama White House, through its highest ranking openly gay appointee (John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management), attempts to thwart the judge's order? Get ready for calls to protest. Oh, sorry, make that write more checks to Democrats.

More. The Obama Administration is opposing DOMA as "unfair" but defending it (separate and unequal treatment of gays) as "constitutional" at the same time. It appears that gay legal equality may be the sole area of U.S. law where Eric Holder's Justice Department is not leaning over backwards to take the liberal-left judicial line.

Requiring Catholic social service programs to extend benefits to same-sex spouses has become the key rallying point against a same-sex marriage bill being debated by the Washington, D.C., city council. Some jurisdictions that have passed marriage-equality legislation, such as the state of New Hampshire, broadly exempt programs affiliated with religious organizations from recognizing same-sex spouses; the D.C. proposal would not.

The council also rejected an amendment that would have allowed individuals, based on their religious beliefs, to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings.

Much discussion takes the form of denouncing the Neanderthal right for its hidebound bigotry standing in the way of true progress and all things good. That may or may not be accurate, but it's certainly not good politics. Forcing religious affiliates to violate their dogmatic principles gives social conservatives a huge rallying cry, and to many independent non-bigots it appears to be using the state to force behavior that violates personal conscience, and a step too far.

A broad religious exemption might be an affront to "equality" (and there are counter-arguments of a libertarian nature that could be made here), but at the very least it would allow us to advance without courting such intense reaction. Take note that New Hampshire, with its broad religious exemption, is one of the very few jurisdictions in which marriage equality looks like it may have some staying power.

More. The efforts of gay marriage supporters in D.C. are directed at having the council pass the measure and then fighting attempts by opponents to hold a referendum. Right now, should marriage equality come before the voters, it would be expected to lose, as it has lost in every jurisdiction where voters have had their say. Time to re-evaluate the strategy, one might think.

Note: Due to a server issue over Thanksgiving weekend, some posted comments were inadvertently lost. Sorry about that.

Yet another fawning Washington Post puff piece on an Obama staffer looks at White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, who was formerly chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).The post relates this bit of history. In Baucus's 2002 senate race:

Messina masterminded a bruising attack ad against Republican state Sen. Mike Taylor, a former hairdresser. The ad featured video footage of Taylor, then decades younger and bearded, setting the hair and massaging the temples of a mustachioed man in a beauty salon chair-with a funky bomp-chic-a-bomp-bomp '70s beat in the background. The spot ends with a frozen frame of Taylor reaching down and out of sight toward the other man's lap. Disapprovingly, a voice-over declares, "Mike Taylor: Not the way we do business here in Montana." ...

Stephanie Schriock [Montana's junior senator Jon Tester's chief of staff] cited the ad as one example of how Baucus has long appreciated and been served by Messina's killer instinct. "Jim was willing to make the hard call to put an ad out there," she said.

Nowhere does reporter Jason Horowitz question the use of overt homophobic stereotypes (regardless of the fact that Taylor wasn't, in fact, gay) to aid the Democrat's cause. But then, neither the politically supplicant media nor LGBT Democratic activists seem to mind pandering and promoting the denigration of gay people when it serves the interests of their party. (Which is to say, if it were a Republican administration, the appointment of a White House deputy chief of staff with this history would have triggered loud protests; under Obama, it's just an amusing anecdote.)

The House-passed health care bill included one decent provision that would have extended the payroll tax exclusion on employer-provided health benefits that spouses receive to domestic partners. The New York Times described it here. But despite the Senate bill running to an amazing 2,074 pages in which all sorts of social engineering are hidden, with a less-strict abortion-funding ban than in the House bill, there is apparently no provision for remedying the tax inequality faced by gay spouses and partners.

So despite raising taxpayer costs by at least $1 trillion and imposing costs on businesses and individuals of another $1.5 trillion, in its 400,000 words Harry Reid couldn't find a sentence or two for equality under the law.

While it's hard not to be heart-broken over Maine voters rolling back marriage equality in one state where it was legislatively (not judicially) created, there are some key lessons that might be learned. Or not, more likely.

On marriage, the "M" word remains our biggest hurdle, no thanks to a "progressive" president who still reiterates his belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman, which anti-equality activists certainly make use of, and an LGBT movement that responds with "Thank you, sir, may I have another."

While all-but-marriage partnerships may just survive in Washington State, advocates face the hard truth that U.S. voters remain unwilling to grant us marriage equality in the vast majority of states.

Great Britain doesn't use the "M" word for all but marriage-they use "civil partnerships"-and many European nations that now have marriage equality first went through a period of all but marriage. We may have to as well (with the stipulation that the federal Defense of Marriage Act be amended to give equal rights to all but marriage partnerships recognized by the states-and even that remains a huge political hurdle, despite Democratic congressional majorities, which are sure to shrink in two years time-tick, tock, tick, tock).

Skipping "all but marriage" and demanding the "M" word may make for rousing protests, but at some point you have to admit that, when voters have the final say, it's a failed strategy, barring a sea change in popular opinion.

In the political contests, it's not all gloom. Bob McDonnell, the new GOP governor of Virginia, may be a Christian conservative, but he barely mentioned social issues in his campaign (while his Democratic opponent, Creigh Deeds, lambasted McDonnell for being against women's equality in a 20-year old master's thesis, which was also anti-gay, but that point was not used by Deeds.) Both Deeds and McDonnell had voted in the Virginia legislature for a successful state amendment banning same-sex marriage, although Deeds receive all the organizational LGBT endorsements. But McDonnell, while avoiding social issues (other than declaring his present support for women in the workplace) ran a low tax, contained-government campaign. And that's why he won, with some Republican and libertarian gay support.

I haven't followed the New Jersey race in which Republican moderate Chris Christie ousted Demcrat John Corzine, a close Obama ally, but it doesn't seem like gay issues were much discussed there, either.

In New York's 23rd congressional district, liberal, pro-gay-marriage Republican Dede Scozzafava was challenged on the right by Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. She withdrew and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens after tanking in pre-election polls. Owens, a gay-marriage opponent like the president he supports, won. If Scozzafava hadn't been so far to the left on economic issues (her support for bigger government spending and union "card check" fueled her rightwing opposition), it would have been a clearer test of the GOP's willingness to support gay-marriage advocates in its big tent. But we'll have to wait to see those contests.

More on Marriage. Columnist Steve Chapman seems of a similar mind when he writes, in Gay Marriage Lost, But It's Not Losing:

it's not the idea of treating gay couples equally that bothers most Americans. It's the name of the legal arrangement. Call same-sex marriage by another term...and they're fine with it....

...you don't get across a broad river in a single leap. You get there by building a bridge that allows you to travel across one step at a time. As a destination, civil unions leave a lot to be desired. But as an avenue, they're hard to beat.

As President Obama signs the new federal hate crimes statute-the only major piece of LGBT-related legislation that's likely to pass, in my view-Camille Paglia bucks the LGBT lockstep mindset, again (you have to scroll down through the jump in her latest omnibus Salon posting):

Hate crimes legislation, in my view, simply cushions people in their own subgroups and gives them a damaging sense of false entitlement. . . .

I say the law should be blind to race, gender and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power. There should be no specially protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose physical frailty demands society's care.

Rick Sincere, another independent voice, offers his own critique. As does Rob Power at Outright Libertarians.

Maybe Maine or Washington State will break the trend and affirm by popular vote the legal equality of same-sex marriages. Maybe. We'll know in a week. But if I can jump the gun, a victory in both states looks dubious.

Not unrelatedly: A new Gallup poll should be a wake-up call to the LGBT mainstream activist groups. Should, but likely won't. The key finding:

Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009 ... Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group....

Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008.

Last November, Obama's victory and the Democrats' sweeping gains in Congress seemed to assure the leading LGBT groups (nationally, as well as their state counterparts) that they were on the politically correct track by linking LGBT rights at the hip with a broader leftwing "progressive" big government, pro-union, Democratic Party agenda (let's leave aside, as they did, last November's simultaneous voter rollback of marriage equality in California, Arizona and Florida - their focus was on bringing out the vote for Obama, which they did, even if that meant increasing the numbers of anti-gay minority voters. But those are lessons that everyone has chosen to ignore, so let's go on).

At a time when the need to forge dialogue and, eventually perhaps, alliances with libertarian conservatives who make up a sizeable part of the "tea party" resistance has never been greater, the LGBT movement groups are still devoting themselves to being loyal foot soldiers (and fundraisers) of the left, placing all their bets on the benevolence of the president they worked so tirelessly to elect and his Democratic majorities in Congress. In one year's time, those majorities are going to be a lot smaller. The clock is ticking.

More from Gallup:

The propensity to want the government to "promote traditional values" - as opposed to "not favor any particular set of values" - rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.

The fact that LGBT political groups abandoned lobbying for gay equality regardless of other issues and turned themselves into adjacents of the Democratic Party plays a big role, I'd argue, in why there are virtually no politicians willing to embrace a limited government, pro-growth agenda that includes ending federal government discrimination against gays in marriage and the military. [Added: A rare exception is former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, now preparing a long-shot 2012 Republican presidential run.]

The original Human Rights Campaign was willing to work with and occasionally endorse Republicans; today's HRC is nothing but a Democratic Party fundraising front (yes, I've said it before, but non-leftist gay people keep giving them money as if they were a gay rights organization, so I'm going to keep saying it).

The recent Equality March in Washington featured speakers from the leftwing Service Employees International Union. I'm just surprised ACORN wasn't invited to speak.

More. How partisan has HRC become? In the special congressional election in New York's 23rd district, a pro-gay marriage liberal Republican who supports most of HRC's "progressive" agenda is up against a liberal, pro-Obama Democrat who opposes gay marriage, and a limited government but anti-gay-equality conservative. HRC's position: no endorsement (in fact, no mention of the race on their website).