IGF CultureWatch

In the New York Times Magazine, a young gay man writes about young gay men being far more relationship-oriented these days:

But young gay men today are coming of age in a different time from the baby-boom generation of gays and lesbians who fashioned modern gay culture in this country - or even from me, a gay man in his early 30s. While being a gay teenager today can still be difficult and potentially dangerous (particularly for those who live in noncosmopolitan areas or are considered effeminate), gay teenagers are coming out earlier and are increasingly able to experience their gay adolescence. That, in turn, has made them more likely to feel normal. Many young gay men don't see themselves as all that different from their heterosexual peers, and many profess to want what they've long seen espoused by mainstream American culture: a long-term relationship and the chance to start a family.

The article comes complete with photographs that look like 1950s advertisements. Changing times, indeed!

I don't mean to be flippant about the possibility of 14-year-old girls being forced into arranged marriages, but it increasingly seems that what's going on with the state seizure of all the children from a fundamentalist Mormon compound in Texas is producing scant evidence (to date) of actual abuse. Scott Henson, in the Dallas News, asks Where's the evidence of abuse?, while blogger Katie Granju queries where is the ACLU? (hat tip: instapundit). She writes:

I cannot express strongly enough how much I believe the state needs to take a strong, unequivocal stance in going after any of these individual adults in this group who have committed crimes against children in the name of religion. However, I am increasingly disturbed by the way the state of Texas is handling this matter. The wholesale rounding up and de facto incarceration of hundreds of women and children-none of whom have been individually accused of any crime-is very troublesome.

Also, David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy and Tim Lynch of the Cato Institute raise similar concerns about a disturbing overreaction by state authorities.

If the breakup of these families is based on the prejudice/contempt that both left-liberals and religious conservatives feel toward fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy, it raises issues of basic liberty in America that even those who oppose state-recognition of polygamy should take seriously.

More. Social conservative Rick Lowry may quote our own Jonathan Rauch, but his attempt to blame fundamentalist polygamy on "the liberal wave of nonjudgmentalism and of hostility to traditional marriage" is a stretch.

I did like the commenter to Lowry who suggests if polygamy is a risk factor for child abuse and so we take children away from polygamous homes, should we also not take children away if their single mom moves in with her boyfriend, as that's also known to greatly raise the risk of abuse?

GOP Congressman Cites Lawrence in Defending Polygamous Families . Said Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), as quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune:

"I don't think it's the place of society to prosecute people who choose to cohabitate responsibly and are responsible for their children as opposed to men who are licentious or women who are licentious who are producing children that don't have place or context or male authority in their lives."

As Jonathan Rauch has pointed out, the criminalization and prosecution of polygamous behavior, as opposed to the state's refusal to license polygamous marriage, is unsustainable. It's important to make and sustain this distinction.

Furthermore. The AP reports: Sweep of polygamists' kids raises legal questions. Do tell.

Out Magazine published a hatchet job on gay Republicans ("Washington's Gay War") by Charles Kaiser, who interviews Barney Frank and other gay Democrats (on how awful gay Republicans are) without speaking with a single gay Republican.

As Rick Sincere blogs, Kaiser's number one example of gay Republicans is closet-case conservative Terry Dolan, who's been dead for nearly a quarter-century. Sincere also notes:

If, like Kaiser and others cited in his article, you are still mystified as to why there might be gay Republicans in Washington or any other part of the country, take a look at the principles of the Contract with America and other published Republican documents. Read Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative . Listen to Ronald Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing."

As John Corvino writes, religious right universities are fearful of allowing their students to hear thoughtful arguments for gay equality. But it is also true that the liberal left's academic hothouses have worked diligently to snuff out any hint of an encounter with ideological diversity. So perhaps it's of little wonder that LGBT "progressives" like Kaiser no longer know how to confront opposing ideas through argument that is both reasoned and passionate. Instead, mockery of non-liberals, aimed at fellow true believers in big government social engineering through an increasingly regulatory, redistributionist state, holds sway.

Updated April 22.

(I'm bumping this up because it deserves more attention.) Can you imagine the uproar from LGBT activists and the banner headlines in LGBT media if Republicans did this: Clinton and Obama Appear at Religious College that Categorizes Homosexuality with Stealing, Adultery & Sexual Abuse. This self-describe "Compassion Forum" was held at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. Messiah is a Christian college that urges gay students to seek reparative therapy immediately. Neither candidate mentioned their support for gay nondiscrimination-except-as-regards-marriage.

Clinton and Obama's appearance at this venue was largely ignored by LGBT media and by LBGT activists, and this Friday's LGBT papers seem to have ignored it too. Yet John McCain's speech at Liberty University year's ago still is raised as a supposed indication that any gay person who supports him is a traitor to the cause.

Added: Here's a quote from Chris Crain that makes my point:

It's true that McCain doesn't pander to the right with rhetoric about "traditional family values," even last week when he was trying to win over conservatives as the presumptive GOP nominee. Many moderates and libertarians still love McCain for calling out Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" back in 2000. But let's not forget how McCain sucked up to both of them in advance of this presidential run, even speaking at Falwell's Liberty University, which routinely expels gay students. (emphasis added)

The ramifications of the fact that so many LGBT activists and so much of LGBT media have been so thoroughly co-opted by a party that sees gay people as votes to collect and pockets to pick, giving back the absolute minimum in return, haunts our cause and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Semi-related, sort of. Are gay voters a cheap political date?

Furthermore. The latest anti-McCain attack ad?

Another progress marker, culture-wise. Azariah Southworth, host of the popular syndicated Christian youth show "The Remix," has publicly announced he is gay. He explained:

"This has been a long time coming. I'm in a place where I'm at peace with my faith, friends, family and more importantly myself. I know this will end my career in Christian television, but I must now live my life openly and honestly with everyone. This is my reason for doing this."

We know that gay and Christian (or otherwise religiously devout) often go hand in glove, but many religious conservatives don't. They see gay people as hedonistic self-gratifiers intent on rending the moral order. Many of these folks are too comfortable with their prejudices to ever change, which is why reaching out to devout young people the way Southworth has is so very important. Here's hoping his good news doesn't, in fact, end his Christain television career-or that he finds another way to remain both successful and an inspiration to others.

A fascinating bit of uncovered history regarding gay playwright (and bon vivant) Noel Coward's anti-Nazi spying during World War II has some relevance for today. Via the New York Times Sunday Book Review:

[Coward] had been a spy for England, trained (with his friend Ian Fleming) in covert action in the secret headquarters of Bletchley Park. ...

Coward's spycraft had a Scarlet Pimpernel side. The idea was to use his public personality-the merry playboy, the "don't ask/don't tell" gay celebrity-as a mask for his passionate antifascism. By 1936, Coward's unchic loathing of appeasement and Neville Chamberlain ("that bloody conceited old sod") was turning him into something of a Churchill bore. In 1938, when his old friend Ivor Novello shed "tears of relief" over Chamberlain's let's-pretend peace, Coward threw a punch that nearly decked him. "We have nothing to worry about," he wrote to another friend, "but the destruction of civilization.' ...

Guided by a fellow celebrity-spy, Cary Grant (!), he was to assess pro- and anti-British opinion. On the right, a minority of stars-Errol Flynn, for example-were suspected of being pro-Nazi. On the left, Stalinists were using fronts like the Yanks Are Not Coming Committee to rationalize Stalin's alliance with Hitler and the defeat of Britain, while the American Communist Party began a campaign denouncing Coward as an agent of British warmongers.

Quite inspiring, really. As for the left, when will they ever learn?

More. On the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, remembering their heroism, and why it's important we never forget. Also, this timely observation (hat tip: instapundit).

No, this isn't about Obama and his latest gaffe (defined as when a politician accidentally reveals what he truly believes). But somewhat relatedly, James Kirchick takes aim at liberal homophobia. He covers a lot of ground, but here's part of his take on the free pass given to Bill Clinton:

In 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states (and the federal government) not to recognize same-sex marriages of other states, and then touted his support of the measure on Christian radio stations. The Clinton Justice Department refused to offer an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case of Romer v. Evans, which challenged a Colorado constitutional amendment seeking to ban cities and towns from instituting antidiscrimination laws protecting gays. Clinton also signed a bill barring HIV-positive people from entering the country and one that discharged HIV-positive soldiers from the military. "It's really outrageous the pass that Clinton has gotten from gay and lesbian people considering the harm he did to the gay rights movement," [the Log Cabin Republican's Patrick] Sammon says.

Clinton did not stop harming gays once he left office. In 2004 he reportedly encouraged Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to not only support anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendments at the state level, but the Federal Marriage Amendment as well. The Clinton administration- looked upon by liberals, gay ones especially, as a golden era in American history-proved that leading Democrats can be pro-gay by convenience, not conviction, and that when homophobia works for political advantage liberals are no less hesitant to employ it than conservatives.

In addition to those cited by Kirchick, I can think of several other instances of gay-baiting by public figures on the left. I've also personally encountered morally superior "love me I'm a liberal" types who, affronted by the expression of political heresy, have no compunction about revealing what they really think by unleashing anti-gay-tinged tirades. And I know that a great many other gay non-liberals, and especially out Republicans, routinely experience the same.

More (on topic). Can you imagine the uproar from LGBT activists and the banner headlines in LGBT media if Republicans did this? Clinton and Obama Appear at Religious College that Categorizes Homosexuality with Stealing, Adultery & Sexual Abuse. At this self-describe "Compassion Forum" held at a Christian college that urges gay students to seek reparative therapy immediately, neither candidate mentioned their support for gay nondiscrimination-except-as-regards-marriage.

Off-topic: The left's latest harvest. Advocates of big-government social engineering told us that mandating production of a five-fold increase in biofuels, and paying government subsidies so that farmers would switch from traditional crops to grow a type of corn that people can not eat, would help alleviate the apocalypse of global warming (or so St. Al of Gore has revealed unto us). The result: worldwide starvation. Liberals-and big-government conservatives-defenders of the poor and powerless.

As long as I'm off topic, should I bring up how liberals spearheaded passage of a law-the Community Reinvestment Act-forcing lenders to extend credit to those with, shall we say, poor credit histories (effectively amounting to a soft quota for such loans) ? More progress thanks to government intervention over the "mindless" market! (Okay, not the whole cause, but a contributing factor-and along with their protests that banks were unfairly denying credit to the disadvantaged, more of one than liberals will admit.)

The Politico reports:

The results of a March 26, 2008, AOL Television popularity poll of television hosts reveal Americans may now embrace Ellen DeGeneres over Oprah by a wide margin. Forty-six percent of the 1.35 million people who participated in the poll said the daytime talk show host that "made their day" was Ellen, compared with only 19 percent who chose Oprah. Nearly half (47 percent) said they would rather dine with Ellen, compared with 14 percent who preferred Oprah.

To be sure, Oprah remains one of the most popular figures in America, but recent data suggest her popularity has eroded. One possible explanation for this decline is that her endorsement of Obama and her support for him may have done more to damage impressions of her than to strengthen support for Obama.

If this analysis is correct, daytime chat viewers don't much like overt political endorsements by show hosts, but are comfortable with Ellen ("Yep, I'm Gay") Degeneres, who doesn't browbeat her audience over the issue but did recently movingly address the murder of young Lawrence King.

As both Rosie O'Donnell (back when she was seen as the Queen of Nice) and Ellen have shown, gay women have broken through a media barrier. But no out and proud gay man has come anywhere close to such onscreen success as of yet.

The Washington Blade takes a look at what's happened (or, rather, not happened) to the LBGT movement's two prime legislative goals: a federal hate crimes bill covering sexual orientation, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), passed by the House last fall with enough GOP support to compensate for those defecting Democrats who voted to defeat the measure (because it only covered gays and lesbians and not the transgendered).

On the hate crimes bill:

Once congressional source familiar with the hate crimes bill said a number of GOP lawmakers believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not want to bring the hate crimes bill to a vote because doing so would help the re-election chances of moderate Republican senators who support the bill. Among them are Sens. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who face strong election challenges by Democrats in November.

And on ENDA:

[The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force] has called on Congress not to pass a gay-only version of the bill at any time, saying a trans-inclusive version would be the only outcome acceptable for the group and its members. . . .

Veteran lesbian activist Robin Tyler . . . said she is among a growing number of "progressive" activists who support passing the gay-only version of ENDA this year, with the aim of adding transgender protections when more support can be lined up.

"As for whether it comes up this year, what I'm hearing is just a bunch of excuses," Tyler said. "The Democrats have been tip-toeing over this for decades. Are they saying they can't find a few minutes to schedule a vote on this?"

I guess in the age of the audacity of hope, we should celebrate that the Task Force is making common cause with the religious right to defeat "special rights" that only pertain to homosexuals.

Note: I personally don't favor federalizing hate crimes. As for ENDA, while I have a deep-seated dislike for government intrusiveness into private sector hiring (and promoting, and contracting), the reason I remain neutral and not opposed is that I see it as mostly a symbolic step-certainly less onerous than bureaucrat-administered federal mandates that impose racial, ethnic and gender-based quotas (er, "hiring targets") that expose employers to lawsuits if not met. And I believe its passage could set the stage to actually help end federal discrimination against gays in the military, in immigration, and in recognition of state-sanctioned marriages.

More. The Blade story also reports on an internal memo from the Human Rights Campaign's director of field operations that stated it would be best if ENDA did not come up for a vote until 2009, since chances would be better for moving a trans-inclusive version through Congress next year. However, an HRC spokesman said the field director did not speak for HRC (that is, he was not speaking on the record to HRC's members, at any rate).