IGF CultureWatch

Updated January 12

Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal, pens an excellent analysis of how liberty recedes when government expands:

The current economic strategy is right out of [Ayn Rand's classic novel] "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. ...

With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

As severely misguided as the last months of Hank Paulson's (er, George Bush's) government have been, things are going to get worse under an incoming administration that promises the biggest expansion of government control over the economy since FDR's New Deal worsened and prolonged the Great Depression.

When the Journal recently revisited Isaiah Berlin's classic "Four Essays on Liberty," reviewer Daniel Johnson quoted an interview in which Barack Obama criticized the U.S. Constitution as "a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the Federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the Federal government or state government must do on your behalf."

Comments Johnson:

If Mr. Obama were to read Berlin, he would learn why America's "charter of negative liberties" has preserved the freedom of individual citizens to pursue happiness in their own ways. On the other hand, what Berlin calls "the positive doctrine of liberation by reason," with its stated dictates, has proved to be incompatible with individual freedom.

Mainstream media is, with near uniformity, singing praises to the Democrats' proposed trillions of dollars of pork barrel "stimulus" spending to politically favored constituencies, and Obama's promise to create upwards of 600,000 new public sector jobs. But life under the new order will mean less freedom for us all, as redistribution and regulation under a exponentially expanding commissariat become the order of the day.

Rick Warren, Again

The plus side, we're told, is going to be an expansion of equality or gay people. That would be a great thing, but the evidence of that is scarce. Not to beat a dead horse, but as a signal of what's to come, smug evangelist superstar Rick Warren's choice by Obama to deliver his inauguration invocation is important, but not for the reasons some on this page think.

Warren, of course, famously compared same-sex marriage to bestiality, incest and pedophilia, and his public sermonizing on behalf of California's Proposition 8, which rolled back marriage equality, played an important role in its passage. He made a few vague statements in a subsequent interview that, while remaining adamantly against gay marriage, he supports "full equal rights for everybody in America," saying "I don't believe we should have unequal rights depending on particular lifestyles so I fully support equal rights." He explained that this covers insurance or hospital visitation.

Some have wildly over-interpreted Warren's remarks as signaling that he is ok with domestic partnerships, but Warren has never said any such thing. (In fact, he later clarified to Beliefnet that "I now see you asked about civil UNIONS - and I responded by talking about civil RIGHTS. Sorry. They are two different issues. No American should ever be discriminated against because of their beliefs. Period. But a civil union is not a civil right.")

Yet Warren is being marketed as a new and improved sort of evangelical, far superior to anti-gay fuddy duddys like James Dobson, in no small part because Warren embraces the idea of a global warming apocalypse and favors a major expansion of the welfare state. That's bought him the support of liberal Democrats looking to expand Obama's redistributionist coalition to include left evangelicals. But in terms of the future of freedom and of individual liberty in this republic, it's more grim news of what we can expect in the years ahead.

More. Max Blumenthal at The Daily Beast on Warren's duplicity regarding AIDS:

Team Obama likes to cite Warren's work on AIDS in Africa to combat criticism about the controversial pastor. But how does burning condoms in the name of Jesus save lives?

Separate but equal? Responding to the tsunami of criticism from his LGBT supporters (but probably not from me), Obama is letting openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson say a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial at one of his pre-Inaugural events. Don't know how much traction this lounge act will provide compared to Rick Warren's performance in the big room (that is, the Inaugural podium swearing in), but we'll see. As far as reaching out to the right in order to create dialogue, which some see as a justification for bestowing upon Warren the coveted invocation invite, it certainly would have been more effective - and more fun - to have both Warren and Robinson do the honors together.

Update. HBO, which exclusively televised the Lincoln Memorial pre-Inaugural concert, did not include Bishop Robinson's opening invocation. According to HBO, the decision was made by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Adieu to 2008, a wretched year for gays. Voters banned same-sex marriage in Florida, Arizona and - most painfully - California, one of the few states where gays could legally wed. Arkansas banned adoptions by gay couples.

In every state where the populace has been able to vote on the issue of marriage equality, they've rejected it.

But fear not; our LGBT national political organizations weren't lazy. They put endless effort into raising funds and donating labor to get out the vote for Obama. That this meant an historically high turnout by minority voters who overwhelmingly voted to strip gay people of legal equality is no matter - we have the chosen one!!! Clap your hands and dance for joy!!!

And for our electoral defeat in California, blame the Mormons, a politically correct protest target. (And for gosh sake, never mention the pro Prop 8 robocall quoting Obama stating his faith-based opposition to letting gays marry.)

Only weeks away from the chosen one's inauguration, he's proved his mettle by putting repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" on indefinite hold and honoring an evangelical champion of rolling back of our right to equality. Not reason to celebrate, you claim? Party pooper!

As for 2009, we may see a (thankfully) toothless federal hate crimes bill, but the long awaited Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is sure to be impaled by activists' demands that it include cross dressing at work. Only in fantasyland are newly elected purple state Democrats in Congress going to go for that.

But hey, several LGBT Democratic activists have been or soon will be rewarded with mid-level administrative positions in one or another of Washington's rapidly expanding alphabet bureaucracies. Deliverance is nigh!

And a happy and joyous New Year to all!

Here's an interesting postmortem on the failed campaign to defeat California's Proposition 8, which rolled back marriage equality by placing a ban on same-sex marriage into the Golden State's constitution. What went wrong? A lot, apparently, including bland, focus-group-generated messaging.

Other insider critiques have noted a decentralized campaign structure that insisted on consensus among a group leadership, thus playing into the left's deference to anti-hierarchical organization but leaving no one with ultimate "buck stops here" responsibility - and an organization that was in no sense nimble, and unable to respond to rapidly changing developments on the ground.

More on what went wrong can be found here.

Still more. Over at Slate, Christopher Hitchens takes aim, suggesting that Jews also should be appalled by the selection, in Shame on You, Rick Warren.

Updates:

Sorry, Jon, but yes he is.

Time magazine spells out just how offensive Warren's comments were:

Warren told Beliefnet that he thinks allowing a gay couple to marry is similar to allowing "a brother and sister to be together and call that marriage." He then helpfully added that he's also "opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage." The reporter, who may have been a little surprised, asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?" "Oh, I do," Warren immediately answered. I wish the reporter had asked the next logical follow-up: If gays are like child-sex offenders, shouldn't we incarcerate them?

Writes Time's John Cloud:

Obama reminds me a little bit of Richard Russell Jr., the longtime Senator from Georgia who - as historian Robert Caro has noted - cultivated a reputation as a thoughtful, tolerant politician even as he defended inequality and segregation for decades. ... Obama also said today that he is a "fierce advocate for equality" for gays, which is - given his opposition to equal marriage rights - simply a lie. It recalls the time Russell said, "I'm as interested in the Negro people of my state as anyone in the Senate. I love them."

So why are so many thoughtful people so willing to give Obama a pass? And when is the veil going to fall from their eyes?

From libertarian-minded Reason magazine:

Oh LGBTers. Don't cry. I know President-elect Barack Obama's breaking your heart. It sucks, doesn't it, when you hitch your wagon to a political party, but the party is just not that into you? ... But you know who your real friends are, LGBTers. And we're going to help you get through this. Besides, who knows better than libertarians what it's like to be in a long-standing lopsided love affair with a mainstream political party?

And from columnist Richard Cohen:

Obama said, "we're not going to agree on every single issue." He went on to say, "We can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans." Sounds nice.

But what we do not "hold in common" is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.

Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue - the rights of gays to be treated equally - as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that's nothing to celebrate.

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Rick Warren is a new kind of evangelical leader - he supports bigger government with increased spending on social welfare programs. Of course, he also considers same-sex marriage an abomination, comparing the "redefiniton of a marrige" to let gays wed with legitimizing incest, child abuse and polygamy (here's a video of Warren urging support for California's Proposition 8).

That Obama selected him to deliver his inaugural innovation should be a warning of where the new administration might be heading - politically trying to bring evangelicals (especially younger evangelicals) into his expansive government, "share the wealth" fold. Is the new agenda fiscally profligate, redistributionist, and (moderately) socially conservative?

And are LGBT national "leaders," who turned their groups into fundraising funnels for the Democratic Party - and made getting out the vote for Obama their #1 priority (at the expense of fighting anti-gay state initiatives supported overwhelming by the huge minority turnout Obama triggered) - just beginning to sense this?

More. From Washington's The Politico:

Barack Obama's choice of a prominent evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November ...

[Warren] opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government's role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals' staunch support for economic conservatism. But it's his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday. ...

In selecting Warren, [Obama] is choosing to reach out to conservatives on a hot-button social issue, at the cost of antagonizing gay voters who overwhelmingly supported him.

And from MSNBC FirstRead:

As for the pure politics of this, when you look at the exit polls and see the large numbers of white evangelicals in swing states like North Carolina, Florida and Missouri, as well as emerging battlegrounds like Georgia and Texas, you'll understand what Obama's up to.

Last month, you may recall, the incoming administration signaled that it won't seek repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" gay ban until some unspecified time when "consensus" emerges among military leaders.

Gays planning to attend the Obama inauguration are advised to take public transportation. Just remember to sit in the back of the bus.

Mixed media update. James Kirchick vs. Sean Penn, from Page Six of the New York Post. The hip Hollywood left continues its mendaciousness.
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Newsweek runs a cover story making the case for gay marriage ("Our Mutual Joy"). Nice, but it's taking the liberal mainstream U.S. media way too long to get here. Britain's The Economist ran a similar cover story titled "Let Them Wed" - in January 1996.

And American popular culture remains deeply schizophrenic about gays: On one hand, featuring more openly gay characters on prime time TV, for example, albeit in supporting roles. And on the other, there's David Letterman's smarmy sneering about two men kissing in the new Harvey Milk biopic, as reported by the Washington Post's Hank Stuever:

"I didn't want to screw it up," Franco told Letterman on "Late Show" last week.

"See, if it's me, I'm kind of hoping I do screw it up," Letterman shot back. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

"To screw it up?" Franco asked.

"I mean, do you really want to be good at kissing a guy?" Letterman said as his audience howled with delight.

Remember, Letterman's the "hip" one, while Leno is for oldsters. It's just one more example of what Stuever labels "post-homophobic homophobia, the kind seen most weeks in 'Saturday Night Live' sketches," and it remains ubiquitous among those who know better but can't resist demeaning us for the shear sport of it.

More. There's a connection between the revulsion toward male intimacy that Letterman and his ilk promote daily, and this:

A Brooklyn real estate agent who was beaten to a pulp while walking tipsily with his brother - by bat-wielding thugs who apparently mistook them for gay - was declared brain-dead Tuesday, police said....

The 31-year-old father of two was badly bludgeoned early Sunday in Bushwick by three black men who, according to witnesses, shouted anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs....

Jose and his 38-year-old brother, Romel, who was visiting from Ecuador, had been drinking at a church party and then a Mexican restaurant and were holding onto each other as they stumbled home along Bushwick Ave. at 3:30 a.m. Sunday.

Hat tip: Box Turtle Bulletin.

Furthermore. In light of the above, recent remarks by Christian rightist/one-time popular entertainer Pat Boone are even more offensive. He spews forth:

Have you not seen the awful similarity between what happened in Mumbai and what's happening right now in our cities? Oh, I know the homosexual "rights" demonstrations haven't reached the same level of violence, but I'm referring to the anger, the vehemence, the total disregard for law and order and the supposed rights of their fellow citizens. ....

There is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists.

At least Boone isn't likely to get a free ride from LGBT media and inside-the-beltway Democratic Party fundraising funnels. But as regards Letterman and friends, I think reader "avee" is correct when he comments:

As long as Letterman / SNL earn their liberal cred via GOP/Bush-hatred, "progressives" are quite willing to give them a pass on their "post-homophobic homophobia."

Sadly, I supsect the Lettermans held in high regard by the popular culture have a far greater impact on the young bashers who actually are beating, and sometimes killing, us than do elderly looney tunes such as Boone.

Update: Letterman recently joked about the arson that partially burned down Sarah Palin's church. That's sure to earn him "free to be a homophobic jerk" points from the left for many years to come.

The AP reports: "Top evangelical resigns after backing gay unions." Recent comments by Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, triggered an uproar that led to his stepping down. He's taken a number of trendy left-leaning views, such as buying into global warming alarmism full throttle. But it was his remarks in support of same-sex civil unions, and an acknowledgment he's "shifting" on gay marriage, that led to his being ousted.

In November, businessman Jared Polis (D-Colo.) became the first openly gay man elected to the House as a freshman. But his op-ed in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal is likely to give many of his party's "progressives" fits. Polis says a better way to help revive the U.S. auto industry is to rely on private funding by cutting capital gains taxes for car makers, and that "if it works in this particular case to incentivize additional risk-taking through a capital-gains tax exemption, it may indeed work in other cases or, I dare say, across the entire U.S. economy." He goes on to note that "Any pretension of a government bailout [of auto makers] being a good deal for taxpayers should be abandoned for the insincere (or perhaps ignorant) rhetoric that it is."

He's the anti-Barney Frank!

The Mormons play the victim card, accusing LGBT demonstrators of "violence" against Latter Day Saints. At issue, of course, are the ongoing protests, some in front of Mormon churches, following the LDS's massive fundraising effort on behalf of California's Prop 8, whose passage now bans same-sex marriage in the Golden State.

As others have noted, the ad makes no mention of, say, the actual violence that gay people encounter at the hands of those stoked full of hate by supposed Christians who've turned the gospel message of love inside out.

Relatedly, "Prop 8 The Musical" is making the rounds. I appreciate the passion, but doubt that careening so close to blasphemy is going to sway those indoctrinated to view gay people as unworthy of legal equality. But I'm told that God loves a good joke, and this one is pretty funny.

More. I don't think arguing in favor of lowering the bar for cohabitation rights is particularly helfpul. On the other hand, a federal civil unions law, as Chris Crain discusses, could act as an important step toward eventual marriage equality.

After November's sweeping electoral defeats for gay legal equality-especially the roll back of marriage equality in California-caution is in the air. Reports the New York Times, N.Y. Democrats May Skip Gay Marriage Vote:

After a pledge from New York Democratic leaders that their party would legalize same-sex marriage if they won control of the State Senate this year, money from gay rights supporters poured in from across the country, helping cinch a Democratic victory.

But now, party leaders have sent strong signals that they may not take up the issue during the 2009 legislative session. Some of them suggest it may be wise to wait until 2011 before considering it, in hopes that Democrats can pick up more Senate seats and Gov. David A. Paterson, a strong backer of gay rights, would then be safely into a second term.

In other words, although Democrats finally now control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature, gay marriage is too contentious to bring up, probably until after the next election cycle. But what if the Republicans retake the governorship or the state senate in 2010?

That's also the problem with recent signals from the incoming Obama administration that it won't raise repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy anytime soon. And if they wait more than a year, don't count on any action too close to the next congessional elections in 2010. But what if Republicans then retake the Senate (and even the House) in Washington?

Caution is understandable, and the Democratic politicians now advocating going slow until there is more popular support for our cause may have a point. That is, if in the meantime a real, concerted effort is made to build a consensus for, say, advancing marriage equality for gay people.

That challenge also is behind the debate over whether the Washington, D.C. city council should pass a same-sex marriage bill. Although the city's electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic, there are "issues." As the Washington Blade reports, Black activists urge caution on D.C. marriage bill:

With blacks making up nearly 57 percent of the population in D.C., black gay activists said gay marriage supporters must redouble their efforts to reach out to blacks and other minorities in the District.

"I don't know if we can obtain the allies to help us defeat a referendum in the District," said Carlene Cheatam, one of the founding members of the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Men & Women. "I'm not worried about our elected city government," Cheatam said. "They are all supportive because they equate marriage rights with civil rights. It's the general population that I'm concerned about."

Cheatam and other black leaders say coalitions and alliances would have to be built between gays and black community institutions, including historic black churches, "to educate the community on why the right to marry is a civil right." (More on outreach to black voters is offered in this New York Times op-ed by Charles M. Bow.)

The danger is that November's electoral disaster will be used to bury efforts to advance gay equality, and that delaying efforts until after the next election cycle means that, once again, our issues can be used to solicit gay dollars for Democrats and their LGBT fundraising fronts in 2010 with the promise that sometime afterward our rights will be addressed by our elected representatives. We've heard that song before, too.

"What's next for the GLBT community," asks Washington, D.C.'s MetroWeekly, which approached "the leaders of a number of national GLBT and HIV/AIDS organizations" for their thoughts on the new administration and "what the community can achieve." Some of those interviewed are "GLBT" Obamists upholding the party line, but outgoing Log Cabin Republican chief Patrick Sammon offers some clear-headed observations.

On expectations for the Obama administration, Sammon remarks:

My concern is that the Democrats are going to treat the gays likes a constituency, that we're going to get one bone thrown our way, one little reward, and then they expect us to be quiet. I hope that reward isn't hate crimes. While that's good legislation, I don't think anyone believes that passing the hate-crimes bill as it's currently written is going to have this transformative effect on the lives of gay and lesbian people.

And on the success of the anti-gay marriage initiatives, especially the roll back in California, Sammon risks accusations of "racial scape-goating" when he notes:

It doesn't mean we're pointing fingers at anyone, but you have to acknowledge the numbers. The fact is Sen. Obama's presence on the ballot increased turnout - four years ago, African Americans were 6 percent of the electorate in California, this year they were 10 percent and they voted in huge margins [for Proposition 8]. So let's figure out as a community how we can do better to engage people of color and really have a comprehensive strategy to gain allies for equality among African Americans.

Or "the community" could just go on doing what it's been doing (or, more to the point, not doing) and expect that whatever Obama deems to provide is what we deserve.