IGF CultureWatch

GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is no supporter of gay equality, although he's not been an anti-gay demagogue, either. But a radio ad attacking McConnell, by AFSCME, the government-workers union, traffics in nasty homophobic innuendo in order to help elect his Democratic opponent.

Via the New York Times:

Several gay friends and wealthy gay donors to Senator Barack Obama have asked him over the years why, as a matter of logic and fairness, he opposes same-sex marriage even though he has condemned old miscegenation laws that would have barred his black father from marrying his white mother.

The difference, Mr. Obama has told them, is religion.

As a Christian - he is a member of the United Church of Christ - Mr. Obama believes that marriage is a sacred union, a blessing from God, and one that is intended for a man and a woman exclusively.

Comments "Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds: "My guess is that the reason he's not getting more flak on this is that lots of people who'd be upset by it just don't believe him. What will they say if it turns out he's telling the truth?"

More. Or just a socialist?

Furthermore. Apparently, only the anti-gay marriage side in California is willing to run an ad featuring a (supposed) gay couple at home with their child, in What Is Marriage For? Given his clear public statements that only man-woman marriage is a sacred union, how could Obama possibly disagree with this message?

In the wake of Michigan's passage of an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, John Corvino wrote:

It was a classic bait-and-switch. When gay-rights opponents sought to amend Michigan's constitution to prohibit, not only same-sex marriage, but also "similar union[s] for any purpose," they told us that the amendment was not about taking away employment benefits. They told us that in their speeches. They told us that in their campaign literature. They told us that in their commercials.

They lied.

The initiative passed, the constitution was amended, and before the ink was dry the opponents changed their tune and demanded that municipalities and state universities revoke health-insurance benefits for same-sex domestic partners.

A similar scenario is being played out, now, in Florida. The Sunshine State's Amendment 2 appears on the state ballot as follows:

"This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized." (emphasis added)

Supporters of Amendment 2 are claiming no existing rights will be taken away:

Amendment 2 does nothing new. It merely protects something longstanding, something precious, something beautiful - natural marriage between a man and a woman.

But, as we know from Michigan, that's not what they'll be saying the day after the amendment passes. And, while unlike California, the Florida amendment requires 60 percent of the vote to enshrine anti-gay animus in the state constitution, defeating it remains an uphill battle.

Where's Obama? The Washington Blade takes note of Obama's silence on California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, and as we've pointed out, observes that:

...black support for Prop 8 could be the key to its approval. A new poll conducted by SurveyUSA shows overwhelming black support for Prop 8. Likely black voters favor it, 58-38 percent. That's a daunting and disappointing margin, especially considering black turnout is expected to be at record-breaking levels thanks to Obama's historic candidacy.

Likewise, in Florida (which, unlike California, is very much a swing state up for grabs), the Obama campaign is making registration of Caribbean-Americans and Democratic-leaning Hispanics (of which there are a growing number) a key priority. These groups are heavily anti-gay, and anti-gay marriage. Let us applaud the self-sacrifice being made by LBGT organizations, whose donations to the Democrats' "get out the vote" efforts may elect Obama, even if it means passing anti-gay state consitutional amendments.

Bait and switch, anyone?

In the close Mississippi race for Trent Lott's Senate seat, Republican Roger Wicker ran this ad accusing Democrat Ronnie Musgrove of taking money from "the largest gay rights group in the country," as well as from pro-choice groups and other liberal lobbies. However, the Advocate looked into the matter and reports:

...the [Human Rights Campaign and other mentioned] political action committees have never sent money directly to Musgrove, according to the candidate's Federal Election Commission disclosure report. And...neither NARAL, HRC, nor Friends of Hillary have endorsed Musgrove, whom the blog Talking Points Memo describes as being a socially conservative, economically populist Democrat.

So Republican Wicker is pretty scummy. But as Radley Balko, at Reason magazine's Hit and Run, blogs, Musgrove is not someone to cheer, either:

Democrat Ronnie Musgrove promptly denounced the ad, though not because of the ridiculous gay stereotypes. Rather, he wants to assure the voters of Mississippi that he dislikes those gays as much as anyone. From his campaign's press release:

"In March 2000, Musgrove supported a ban on adoption by homosexuals or same-sex couples. The ban not only pertained to adoptions in Mississippi, but also ensured that Mississippi would not recognize adoptions by gay individuals or couples from other states if the parents moved to Mississippi."

Musgrove pledges to not only stop Mississippi from recognizing gay adoptions, but to see to it that if gay couples arrive in his state with their adopted kids, Mississippi won't recognize any parental relationship.

Despite the real progress that's been made in much of America, our advances are still subject to setbacks (after November, gay marriage may no longer be legal in California). Even worse, there are regions where, as far as the treatment of gay people is concerned, it's still 1950.

The Washington Post's "On Faith" forum looks at anti- and pro-gay rights boycotts. Note that the initial post claims a McDonald's caved-in to the religious right, but that a commenter who called the McCorp HQ got a very different response.

I think it all goes to show that, these days, boycotts are basically a fund-raising tactic by both sides, directed more at their members/donors than anyone else. They almost never (or, make that just "never") have any real economic impact. Sometimes a corporation will initially get scared and announce a retreat, only to then receive a barrage of complaints and boycott threats from the other side. By now, U.S. businesses have basically figured this out.

But the whole game does give the boycotters (on both sides) the emotional satisfaction of believing that they are following in the footsteps of Gandhi and King.

West Palm Beach Democratic Rep. Tim Mahoney's predecessor, GOP Rep. Mark Foley, resigned after (with assistance from the leftwing gay blogosphere), it came to light that he'd been sending sexually suggestive emails to teenage former House pages (over 16, the age of consent in D.C.). Now, Mahoney has agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to ABC News.

Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, his staffers said.

The affair between Mahoney and Allen began, according to the current and former staffers, in 2006 when Mahoney was campaigning for Congress against Foley, promising "a world that is safer, more moral." At the time, ABC reports, Mahoney's campaign ads featured a picture of him with his wife, Terry, with the line, "Restoring America's Values Begins at Home."

The staffers say Mahoney first met Allen at a campaign stop and later arranged for her to work as a volunteer on the campaign. Allen also appeared in a Mahoney campaign television commercial, criticizing his opponent.

The Foley scandal led to some of the most egregious outpouring of homophobia by Democrats in recent memory. You may recall, for instance, that there were campaign ads claiming GOP leaders allowed Foley to "molest boys," while some LGBT Democratic activists, it was reported, sent social conservatives copies of "The List" of gay staffers working for Republicans on the Hill, in an effort to get them fired as "pedophile protectors."

Thank goodness we had the Democratic Party to stand up for us…oh, never mind.

More. While ABC broke the story, most major media decides that a big, juicy sex scandal involving a congressman with a "D" after his name is not worth reporting.

Connecticut becomes the third state to provide marriage equality for same-sex couples. That's good, except we've learned that court mandated marriage equality can have stinging political repercussions. I hope that's not the case again, and it may be that Connecticut itself avoids a voter backlash and constitutional amendment. But with three statewide anti-gay marriage initiatives coming up, and Californians being bombarded by an anti-gay marriage ad featuring San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom declaring same-sex marriage is here to stay "whether you like it or not," the timing of the court decision is not good.

Connecticut had already advanced to civil unions via an act of the elected legislature; achieving marriage equality through the legislative process would have been better.

More. Dan Blatt over at Gay Patriot blogs that Prop 8 opponents need a better narrative than "don't believe their lies."

Bad news: Support for California's anti-gay marriage Prop 8 is picking up steam:

Likely California voters overall now favor passage of Proposition 8 by a five-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent. Ironically, a CBS 5 poll eleven days prior found a five-point margin in favor of the measure's opponents.

One reason is the success of this anti-gay marriage ad showing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaiming same-sex marriage is here to stay "whether you like it or not."

It's not lost yet, but this is bad news, especially since the parallel Obama surge isn't counteracting Prop 8's growing support. It's quite possible Obama will be the next president, but that all three anti-gay marriage state initiatives (California, Florida and Arizona) will pass. Given that most of the national LGBT activist groups have made the election of Obama their number 1 priority, with the lion's share of their efforts aimed at getting out the vote, for Obama, and raising money, for Obama, a loss in California (especially, since it will roll back marriage equality) will be telling.

But then again, the beltway LGBTers chose to focus their efforts on electing Kerry/Edwards four years ago (even though Kerry/Edwards supported state amendments to ban gay marriage), and they seem to have learned nothing. Okay, that's probably unfair. Since their goal is maximizing their own power and influence in a hoped-for Democratic administration, from their viewpoint their priorities make perfect sense, for them.

More. Reader Casey submitted this telling comment:

"[A]s somebody who has been working against Prop. 8 since months before the ruling went down, raising money, recruiting volunteers, educating voters and praying desperate prayers, I don't want to hear [another commenter's] nonsense about "we only have two viable choices." I've spent years listening to gays talk about how gay issues are the most important thing to vote on, that my status as a Republican is an abomination because the Democrats are so much better on gay issues... and yet, here we are, in the fight of our political lives to defend our right to marry in the largest state of the nation-the ULTIMATE gay issue-and those same gays are MIA, too busy giving their time, energy and money to Obama to do what needs to be done in CA.

"Being behind in the polls wasn't inevitable-we were ahead for a long time-but now the fact that their side has out fund-raised us by $10 million, the fact that they can call on thousands of committed people to go door to door when we can barely get bodies to our phone banks, and yes, the fact that they just want it more than we do is proving out, and now they're ahead, with another ad coming down the pipe that's going to hit us in the throat. Yeah, I said it-they want it more-and if that doesn't change, tangibly, now, we're going to lose this thing.

"Gays have a third choice in 2008; say to hell with the presidential election-Obama is no savior for the gays, and McCain no threat-and get 100% behind the No on 8 campaign. But no-our national organizations had to pretend the presidential election mattered for us this year, and for that, we might just all pay dearly, for a long time to come."

Furthermore. Reader Jake responds to those who charge that criticizing the decision to focus national LGBT resources and labor on electing Obama reflects a pre-emptive blaming of President Obama for Prop 8's passage:

I'm thinking that there will be far more anti-gay blacks and Hispanics coming to the polls this year to advance the "change we've been waiting for" because of the get out the vote efforts of Obama/Biden and the California, Arizona and Florida's Democratic party. I'm kind of surprised that you don't think that's possible.

The Gay Patriot blog poses an interesting question-whether the media's failure to consider Rep. Barney's Frank conflict of interest (his then partner, when Frank was serving on the House Banking Committee and defending Fannie Mae from calls for more regulation, was a Fannie Mae exec) shows that the media don't consider gay relationships subject to the same scrutiny (and thus the same respect) and heterosexual relationships.

An exception: Fox News, which reported: "Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions."

Many liberals, I'm sure, will find the Fox News account "homophobic," but isn't not reporting on Frank's conflict of interest a sign that gay relationships aren't seen as "real"?

More. Another factor: the media's lock-step narrative blaming the crisis on Republican deregulation and Wall Street greed, right out of the Obama playbook, while giving a pass to Democratic malfeasance (e.g., Frank and friends' success at protecting the big-government fiefdoms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Republican efforts to rein them in, while threatening lenders that failed to extend increasing amounts of credit to low-income families).

The SNL skit that NBC pulled from its own site (while it lasts).

Still more. And now Frank is playing the race card. Lovely.

Jonathan Rowe over at Positive Liberty has an interesting post on social conservatives who would rather scapegoat gay people than deal with the far greater impact of heterosexual misbehavior, which leads to real social ills including young unwed mothers unable to emotionally and financially care for their children (who, in turn, grow up with the dysfunctions of being abandoned by their fathers). Case in point: William F. Buckley's disinheriting his illegitimate grandson by declaring in his will, "I intentionally make no provision herein for said Jonathan, who for all purposes...shall be deemed to have predeceased me." Ouch.

In comparison, the Palins look like models of tolerance.