IGF CultureWatch

In dropping out of the presidential race, Mitt Romney told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):

The development of a child is enhanced by having a mother and father. Such a family is the ideal for the future of the child and for the strength of a nation. I wonder how it is that unelected judges, like some in my state of Massachusetts, are so unaware of this reality, so oblivious to the millennia of recorded history. It is time for the people of America to fortify marriage through constitutional amendment, so that liberal judges cannot continue to attack it!

Romney, like many anti-gay social conservatives, conflates having a mother and father (a good thing, but having two parents of whatever sex to share the responsibility is what studies show is important); state courts deciding that state bans on same-sex marriage violate equality under state law for same-sex partners (personally, I think the legislative route is strategically more effective); and his support for amending the U.S. Constitution to permanently ban state legislatures and courts as well as the federal government from ever recognizing same-sex marriages. (Romney also declared that "tolerance of pornography" is linked to "out of weblock" births).

As I've pointed out before (but believe it's important enough to keep repeating), McCain's view has been different. And in his remarks before CPAC, he didn't grovel but admitted there were areas where he and hard-core social conservatives would disagree.

As Ken Duberstein, Ronald Reagan's chief of staff, tells The Politico:

People seem to be looking for candidates who can govern. We are through with simply appealing to the base. McCain is trying to reach out to independents, weak Republicans, weak Democrats and conservative Democrats to put together a new governing coalition that is less confrontational.

And that's good for us all.

Jamie Kirchick takes a look at the legacy of Matt Foreman, the departing head of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, and explains why "NGLTF is redundant at best and counterproductive at worst." Kirchick observes:

There is, of course, nothing inconsistent with being gay and liberal - the same can be said of being gay and conservative, but that's a point neither NGLTF nor its ideological allies would ever concede - yet the group's crucial error is the conflation of liberalism with the very notion of gay rights itself. ...

NGLTF peddles a pernicious discourse purporting that the gay people who oppose their agenda are rich white men suffering from false consciousness.

It's a chord that the gay left strikes endlessly whenever its approach is challenged (and often in comments by our critics), which serves to derail any debate about actual ideas and strategy.

(And for the record, IGF's contributing writers are predominantly academics, think-tankers and gay/small-publication columnists-not exactly swimming in wealth.)

For the most part, I agree with much of the political assessment in For gay GOPers - now what?, by former Log Cabiner Kevin Ivers, now among the bloggers at Citizen Crain. Except for the last paragraph, where he flirts a bit with the idea of some gay Republicans supporting Obama. I just don't get the swooning. Obama as Orator-in-Chief I could maybe go along with, but his voting record in the Illinois state legislature and during his brief tenure in the U.S. Senate fully justifies his support by Ted Kennedy and MoveOn.org. He wants to unite left and right, black and white, gay and straight, blue and red, in order to…pass the same old stale, left-liberal bigger-government, more power to Washington agenda.

I distrust charisma, especially when it's not accompanied by a record of leadership and competence. Count me out.

More. Bruce Bawer tells Why I Haven't Caught Obama Fever.

Also worth reading (though published last year), David Ehrenstein's Obama the Magic Negro. (Ehrenstein, a former writer for The Advocate, is black.)

Rick Rosendall strongly disagrees (in our comments), and makes his case for Obama here.

And a clear-eyed Obama analysis by Fred Siegel in City Journal: "[W]hile he has few concrete achievements to his name, he does have a voting record that hardly suggests an ability to rise above Left and Right." Hardly, indeed, but man can he make the crowds swoon.

Just to recapitulate (but it's timely to do so now), here are my thoughts on John McCain. And let me add that my opinions are mine; they do not represent the diverse views of IGF's many independent contributing authors, who speak for themselves:

(From A Few Political Thoughts): An upsurge for Giuliani...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.

And:

(From Lies of the Times): Out of the presidential contenders who were serving in Congress in 2004, the only one who did risk political capital by speaking out forcefully and eloquently against the federal marriage amendment was...John McCain (CNN.com's coverage is here; read it).

More. I agree with Kevin Ivers that because Giuliani "by any reasonable account was the biggest gay rights supporter to ever have a decent shot at the GOP nomination," he was the most ferociously opposed by gay Democratic activists (remember this?). Much better for the one true party that the GOP should nominate the most homophobic candidate, rather than the least, after all.

As for McCain, I do think it's significant that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and friends are in a rage over his ascendancy. The hard-edge of social conservatives on the cultural right (allied with, although distinct from, the religious right) may at long last be in retreat. McCain, despite his flaws, represents the more tolerant center-right of the party. If he could move the GOP overall in that direction, gay Americans (if not gay Democratic hacks) would benefit enormously.

Bruce Bawer's latest letter from Europe, First They Came for the Gays, is another powerful reminder on why the clash of civilizations matters to us, and on the dangers from the warped "Blame the West First" multiculturalism that's taken hold throughout the continent (and which is also being promoted by many, in the guise of "progressivism," on our shores).

There's much more from Bruce at BruceBawer.com

On Sunday night, my partner and I caught TCM's "Silent Sunday" showing of the 1928 film "West Point," starring the all-but-forgotten William Haines. But it's Haines' own story that should be turned into a movie. As Wikipedia recounts, by 1925 he was MGM's most important male star. But...

Haines lived openly as a homosexual. Starting in 1926, Haines lived with Jimmy Shields, whom he had met when Shields was his stand-in during the production of a film. Studio publicists were able to keep Haines' sexual orientation from the press....

In 1933...Louis B. Mayer, the studio head at MGM, delivered an ultimatum to Haines: choose between a sham marriage or … [end] his relationship with Shields. Haines chose Shields and they were ultimately together for 50 years. Mayer subsequently fired Haines and terminated his contract.

And there's much more:

Haines and Shields began a successful career as interior designers and antique dealers....Their lives were disrupted in 1936 when members of the Ku Klux Klan dragged the two men from their home and beat them, because a neighbor had accused the two of propositioning his son. Crawford, along with other stars such as Claudette Colbert, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Kay Francis and Charles Boyer urged the men to report this to the police. Marion Davies asked her lover William Randolph Hearst to use his influence to ensure the neighbors were prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but ultimately Haines and Shields chose not to report the incident.

The couple finally settled into the Hollywood community in Malibu, and their business prospered until their retirement in the early 1970s, except for a brief interruption when Haines served in World War II.

During his film career, Haines may have made it a point to interject gay asides into his material. In "West Point," for no reason in particular he refers to his (platonic) pal as his "boy-friend." One of his films bore the title "Brothers Under the Skin" (in which a shipping clerk and the vice president of the same company "have similar marital problems").

Oh, and as the Internet Movie Database notes, "He was an active supporter of the Republican Party and a close friend of Ronald Reagan."

This New York Times news story asserts that there is no difference between the positions on matters gay among Huckabee, Romney, Giuliani and McCain. (In fact, Huckabee and Romney court the religious right and support a federal amendment to ban same-sex marriage; Giuliani and McCain don't.) Yet...

[The Democratic candidates] all support same-sex civil unions and say they would fight to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. And each of them says he or she would champion a federal anti-discrimination law that would protect lesbians and gay men.... All of the [GOP] candidates hold opposite positions from the Democrats on those matters, and although gay rights have not dominated the Republican contest so far, if past elections are any guide, they will become an issue after the primaries, [unnamed liberal] political strategists say.

To further make his case, reporter Andrew Jacobs misleading reports flatly that Giuliani opposes civil unions (Giuliani has stated "I support civil unions" but briefly and unfortunately was critical, specifically, of New Hampshire's version). In October, liberal Times columnist Frank Rich wrote, "No matter how you slice it, the Giuliani positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control remain indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's."

Meanwhile, in Jacobs' reportage all the Dems are equally wonderful and splendiferous (even if they all oppose same-sex marriage). There is no attempt to hold the Democrats' rhetoric up to comparison with their records (no pro-gay congressional battles have been led by any of the big three: none, zero, nada) or their likelihood to spend political capital on gay issues in the future (and I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in).

Out of the presidential contenders who were serving in Congress in 2004, the only one who did risk political capital by speaking out forcefully and eloquently against the federal marriage amendment was...John McCain (CNN.com's coverage is here; read it).

Just shoddy journalism, or an effort to help ensure that lesbigay voters keep mindlessly giving their votes and dollars to the one true party? You decide.

David Frum, a prominent neocon who, while not a religious rightist, has supported socially conservative positions such as banning same-sex marriage, seems to be moderating. He opines in the New York Times:

Social traditionalists too need to adapt to new realities. Opposition to same-sex marriage is dwindling. The pro-life cause, though gaining strength, remains a minority point of view. If social conservatives can avoid seeming judgmental or punitive, their core message will become more relevant than ever to an America where marriage is equaling college as a tollgate to the middle class.

By "core message," I believe Frum means that marriage is fundamental but under threat. If that concern can be separated from paranoia over gays wanting to get hitched, social conservatism could play a more constructive role (encouraging marriage, for example) and we'd all be better off.

Speaking of which, IGF's own Dale Carpenter and Jonathan Rauch will join David Frum and other conservatives at an upcoming symposium titled Is Gay Marriage Conservative? The Feb. 15 event, sponsored by the Southern Texas Law Review, seeks "to foster civil debate among conservatives and within conservative thought about gay marriage" and will focus on "the underlying policy question of whether gay marriage is a good idea from a conservative perspective."

It's the kind of open exchange of ideas between independent gay intellectuals and prominent conservatives that IGF loves to see, and that the "progressive" LGBT echo chamber organizations have long shunned.

I agree that this approach would be a far more effective long-term strategy:

Prior to the New Hampshire primary, the Boston-based gay newspaper Bay Windows-which circulates across New England-was approached by representatives of several Democratic candidates seeking an endorsement, editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar said.

Instead, Ryan-Vollmar wrote a biting column asserting that none of the front-runners-Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards-had shown enough courage on gay issues to deserve the customarily generous financial support of gay donors.

"They've merely settled on what the Democrats have staked out as a safe, consensus position, just far enough ahead of where the party was in 2004 to give a sense of progress but not so far as to threaten Middle America," Ryan-Vollmar wrote. "That's not leadership, it's poll-tested and party-approved pandering, pure and simple."

Rather than donating to any presidential candidate, gays and lesbians should give money to state and local candidates who support marriage rights, she wrote.

But it won't happen because too many LGBT inside-the-beltway lobbyists see themselves as Democrats targeting the lesbigay community on behalf of their party, with the hope of one day achieving their personal goal of a nice apparatchik position in a Democratic administration.

Jonathan Kay writes on the National Post website:

Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger's masterpiece, has been Youtubed, South Parked, Family Guyed and Saturday Night Lived so many times, that it is sometimes difficult to recall what an astonishingly good film it was. Had Brokeback been the only film Ledger had ever made, we would still properly be mourning the loss of one of the world's great actors.

And Alex Altman reflects at Time magazine online:

Though the late actor had taken on other roles since, it was his Oscar-nominated performance as Ennis Del Mar, a sheep rancher who discovers his homosexuality in Brokeback Mountain, that mourners referred to again and again. His death was particularly poignant to gay New Yorkers. "He is a gay icon," says John Lopez, 22, who works in a gourmet food store that Ledger frequented. "To support us, he broke a lot of taboos." From overseas, the film's director Ang Lee said in a statement, "He brought to the role of Ennis more than any of us could have imagined - a thirst for life, for love, and for truth, and a vulnerability that made everyone who knew him love him. His death is heartbreaking."

Of course, couldn't you just predict this.

Addedndum. A look back at Hollywood hypocrisy and more from our Brokeback archive.