IGF CultureWatch

Sorry, very busy and haven't blogged for several days. Which is a lame way to justify that I don't have much to say about New Hampshire. Okay, here are a few thoughts: An upsurge for Giuliani (who may yet come back), whatever his others failings, would have sent a message that the GOP nationally was prepared to embrace socially tolerant views. Huckabee and Romney at the forefront would send the opposite message, that hardline social conservatism is not going to give way in the Grand Old Party. John McCain comes out better than midway between the two-he opposed the federal anti-gay marriage amendment but supported a state amendment in Arizona (which, as it turned out, was the first in the nation to be defeated at the polls). In the past, he has called the leaders of the religious right on their intolerance, but this time round seems to have concluded that such honesty was a strategic mistake. Still, he's not really one of them, and they know it.

The other blog-worthy political story is the Ron Paul newsletter revelations by James Kirchick. I believe Paul's statement that he did not write the racist, anti-gay screeds that went out in newsletters bearing his name. And he still gets credit for answering "sure" when ABC's John Stossel asked if gays should be allowed to marry (each other, that is). But Paul did license his name to be used on these newsletters (presumably for a profit) and it just won't do to say that he was too busy to keep an eye on what was happening. These rants are old style, hard-right bigotry and not in the least "libertarian." [David Boaz shares his thoughts on the foul newsletters, here. And tangentially, Ilya Somin defends real-deal libertarianism after Michael Kinsley misses the point, here.]

Shifting gears, I'm beginning to like that disgraced Idaho Sen. Larry Craig keeps fighting his restroom sting arrest, arguing in a new court filing that the underlying act wasn't criminal because it didn't involve "multiple victims."

The brief also argues that [the arresting officer who entrapped Craig] himself could not have been offended by the alleged conduct because "he invited it." The alleged conduct, Craig's lawyers added, doesn't rise to the level of being "offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy."

Quite right. The state achieves no justifiable end in conducting this type of entrapment, which gives police an easy means to fulfill their arrest quotas by creating misery for the confused and closeted.

An interesting piece is posted at the Hoover Institution website about how California's Republican party has drifted off the centrist track but the state's GOP voters haven't. Morris P. Fiorina and Samuel J. Abrams write:

[There's been] a change in the image of the California Republican Party and a change in the kind of candidate it nominates. A generation ago, it was a pragmatic, broad-based party that emphasized issues such as taxes and spending of concern to the broad middle of the electorate (and even to many on either side). It was a conservative party when conservative was defined largely in economic terms-low taxes, efficient public services, and limited government. Today, it is an ideological, narrowly based party that defines its conservatism by social and cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage that are of only secondary concern to most Californians. Moreover, most Californians take more liberal views on such issues than do California Republican activists.

The middle of the road in California runs through the economically conservative but socially tolerant quadrant of the ideological space.

There's much food for thought here, as the GOP faces a crossroads after Rev. Huckabee's win in Iowa's benighted caucuses.

More. Blogger Rick Sincere notes the passing of former Wisconsin governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus (1926-2008), a Republican who in 1982 signed the nation's first statewide gay anti-discrimination law, saying on that occasion:

"It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love."

Rick comments that:

[Gov. Dreyfus] represented a Republican Party that held strong to its libertarian roots: the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, not the Republican Party of Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney (unless you mean the pre-2008 election cycle Mitt Romney). Dreyfus maintained his position about government intrusiveness through the rest of his life: He actively opposed the 2006 anti-gay-marriage amendment that was put on the ballot in Wisconsin. His side, unfortunately, did not prevail.

Let's hope that in the year ahead, the GOP finds its way back to the future.

I was pleased to read that Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is standing up for the U.S. Episcopal church, saying it has been unfairly singled out for criticism because it is honest about consecrating gay bishops:

Jefferts Schori told BBC Radio 4's PM program that the church, which is the Anglican body in the U.S., is far from the only Anglican province that has a bishop with a same-sex partner. In 2003, Episcopalians elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, causing an uproar that has pushed the Anglican family toward a split.

"He is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop; he's certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop," Jefferts Schori said in an interview broadcast Tuesday. "He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status."

The Anglican Communion's leadership has all but capitulated to its African churches of hate in the name of "unity" as an overriding and unquestionable value. The best thing Schori could do is support full independence for the U.S. church and break definitively with Britain once and for all. How about launching such as campaign around, say, July 4?

My colleague Jon Rauch reminds me that at the end of August an Iowa state judge ruled that the Hawkeye state's constitution required marriage equality for same-sex couples, a decision that was immediately stayed pending the resolution of an appeal to the Iowa supreme court.

So, why hasn't same-sex marriage become an issue in the red-hot caucus race? As Jon said to me, "you'd have thought Republicans would be jumping all over this."

Seems that the gay marriage card is no longer seen as red meat to incite GOP voters, at least in Iowa-certainly a good sign, especially if it holds up nationally.

More. Similarly, New Hampshire's new civil union law just took effect, a week before the first presidential primary. Again, marriage equality hasn't been much of an issue there for the GOP contenders, although last April Giuliani, no doubt expecting a backlash, felt compelled to say that the Granite state had gone too far. Given the lack of heat that marriage equality has generated (so far), that seems to be a capitulation to the right that wasn't necessary, and indeed counter-productive for Rudy as it undercut his attacks on Romeny as a flip-flopper. If the flipper fits…

Tangentially, "One of the benefits of marriage is divorce," which presents major hardships, financial and otherwise, for same-sex couples. That's due in no small part to the fact that the federal government and many states look at gays who were married or civil unionized elsewhere as legal strangers.

An email discussion list I'm on alerted me to this posting from Anthony Bradley's Christian-themed (but not religious right) blog. Are things really this bad for heterosexual men? Bradley paints a depressing picture. Here's an excerpt:

Families like the Keatons and the Cosbys (like the Cleavers and Nelsons of a previous generation) were presented as the pinnacle and fullest expression of life on earth. This is what you want fellas, a beautiful wife, a few kids, a nice house, a good job...then comes retirement, grandchildren and you die a fulfilled man. Ahh, what a life!

Guess what? Lots of guys are finding out the hard way that in the real world having the perfect "American family" image is the rare exception.

Here's the truth: lots of guys I know are in completely miserable marriages, many (I mean MANY) wives have committed adultery, kids have chronic illnesses, guys hate their jobs are stuck because of debt, divorced (even though they swore they were not going to do what their parents did by splitting up), many wives want to leave their husbands because they don't make enough money, lots of "great guys" never marry, many can't get over addictions because after praying for 12-15 years they've discovered that it "doesn't work," depression, dealing with their own sexual abuse at a late age, mulling over a very long list of regrets, wanting to pack it all up and go "into the wild," your daughter has a reputation for being a "slut," your son's already a pot head, etc.

And for guys that I talk to who aren't Christians or part of any religious tradition some of the issues are worse than these.

I know, this is not a cheery Yule Time/New Year's message. But it did strike me that gay people, as do other minorities, sometimes focus a bit too exclusively on our own travails and challenges (as if, say, straight people are the "haves" and we are the "have nots"). There's some truth to this perception, especially in terms of government discrimination and legal inequality. But we should always remember that what unites gay and straight men (as men), and gay and straight women, and all of us together, is the shared challenges of the human predicament.

Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister with close ties to anti-gay religious conservative activists, has surged into a virtual tie with front-runner Rudy Giuliani in the Republican presidential race, just two weeks before the first contest, according to a new Reuters/Zogby poll.

Last month, conservative columnist Johah Goldberg wrote in the Los Angeles Times that:

A devout social conservative on issues such as abortion, school prayer, homosexuality and evolution, Huckabee is a populist on economics, a fad-follower on the environment and an all-around do-gooder who believes that the biblical obligation to do "good works" extends to using government-and your tax dollars-to bring us closer to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

As others have already said, the rise of a socially intolerant, big-spending "populist" was always the fear that hovered over small-government, low-tax economic libertarians regarding the Republican party's strategy of aligning religious conservatives with free marketers. The hope was one day to see a socially tolerant (and gay inclusive) economic conservative (someone not too far from Giuliani, perhaps) emerge as the standard-bearer. The nightmare was/is Rev. Mike, the amiable enemy of liberty.

More. Be afraid: Huckabee and the Christian Reconstructionists.

And worse. He raised a son who is a dog torturer. But hey, he's got that old time religion, so let's make him president, say the Republicans of Iowa.

According to a new report by CBS's 60 Minutes, the military's enforcement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (or, as I prefer, "Lie and Hide") has plummeted:

Discharges of gay soldiers have dropped dramatically since the Afghan and Iraq wars began, from 1,200 a year in 2001 to barely 600 now. With the military struggling to recruit and retain soldiers, gay soldiers claim that commanders are reluctant to discharge critical personnel in the middle of a war.

So much for the argument that gays must be drummed out to preserve the "unit cohesion" of our combat forces.

Addendum. Commenter John S. shares:

"Don't ask, don't tell" equals "Lie and Hide"... I like it. It is very obviously true, and the more airtime this particular turn of phrase receives, the more it will chip away at the "Don't ask, don't tell" mentality. Can I have your permission to use "Lie and Hide" with everybody I know?

But of course, and thanks.

Not that I think he's going to be president, but Ron Paul is attracting the support of a cadre of some pretty charged-up Republicans who may have an impact on their party's future.

Paul's position on same-sex marriage is muddy, perhaps intentionally. But when, in an interview, ABC's John Stossel asked Paul "Should gays be allowed to marry?" his (initial) answer was "Sure." That later gets qualified, but in and of itself it sets him apart not just from the fundies but also from mainstream Republicans-and Democrats-running for the highest office.

When pushed, alas, Paul says that government shouldn't be in the marriage licensing business, but it's not like hetero couples are going to give up all the government-provided rights and benefits they receive by getting hitched.

Paul also reveals a deeper antipathy when he says of gay couples, "just so they don't expect to impose their relationship on somebody else." That sounds more like the Texas congressman who, while opposing a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, did vote for the Defense of Marriage Act which, in part, bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages (even when recognized under state law) for purposes such as filing joint federal taxes, Social Security inheritance and spousal immigration. And Paul voted in 1999 to bar the District of Columbia from [using federal funds for adoptions by unmarried parnters]. ( Some key Paul positions are summarized here.)

Even so, that initial "Sure" was nice to see.

Update. Paul's gay supporters say the 1999 amendment he voted for, regarding adoptions in the District of Columbia, involved federal funding for adoptions by unmarried couples, and it was the federal funding that Paul opposed. However, it appears that the amendment did not seek to limit the total amount of federal funds to D.C., but to prohibit the use of federal funds by the D.C. government for any operations that would facilitate adoption by unmarried partners. (H.R. 2587; H.AMDT. 356: An amendment to prohibit any funding for the joint adoption of a child between individuals who are not related by blood or marriage.)

More. Back in 1998, our own contributing author David Boaz advocated Privatize Marriage: A simple solution to the gay-marriage debate. But I have to agree with our frequent commenter Avee, who shares:

I, too, would prefer government to stop licensing marriage. But it's not politically likely that, anytime soon, Washington is going to revoke all the hundreds of special rights that government grants to married couples, in the tax code and otherwise. That being said, does Paul support stopping the government from discriminating against same-sex couples by giving them all the rights it gives to opposite-sex couples whose marriages it recognizes (for as long as it continues to recognize opposite-sex marriages)? It would appear Paul does NOT support this.

It seems that politicians who are the most anti-gay (e.g., Huckabee calls homosexuality "sinful") are often also the most anti-immigrant (e.g., Huckabee wants to seal border.)

Could be that people who don't like people who are different, don't like people who are different?

More. Reason mag's Hit & Run blog on Republicans "chasing a rabbit down a hole" for dubious short-term gains and likely long-term disaster.

Still more. David Lampo, a spokesman for Log Cabin Republicans of Viriginia, writes in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

What are the lessons the Republicans should learn from the 2007 elections? Certainly not the one that the Family Foundation is pushing in its e-mail blasts to its supporters that claim the losses were attributable to candidates who were not socially conservative enough…

For Republicans to succeed, we must get back to focusing on real Republican ideals and values-such as limited government, individual responsibility, and fiscal discipline-and move away from campaigns that do nothing more than attack gays and immigrants…

…if the Republican Party wishes to reverse its recent electoral misfortune, it will need to adopt a message and run campaigns that invite people into the party rather than exclude them from it.

I'm not a supporter of hate crimes bills, as previously noted (for example, here and here). But if I were, I wouldn't be a happy camper about this latest legislative fiasco.